This post takes up #2 on the list of WPR records: the CIA file for WIROGUE-1. Who was WIROGUE-1? If you answered Jyn Erso, you’re on the wrong blog!

Background

WIROGUE-1 should be familiar to constant readers of this blog. I wrote an earlier post on WIROGUE and the big gaps in his CIA files which is available here.

That was a long post, since I was also explaining what whole page redactions were and why they were interesting. For those who want a short version, or are too lazy to click on the link, here is a brief introduction.

WIROGUE-1 was a CIA agent who attracted the interest of the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. His true name was David Tzitzichvili, and he was from Georgia (the one next to Russia, not the one next to Alabama). When the CIA dealt with him, however, he was stateless, meaning he had no valid citizenship in any country. This was not uncommon in the aftermath of WWII.

Tzitzichvili grew up in France, and during WWII he spent time in Germany, where he was involved in many scams and cons, and was almost shot by the Germans.

After the war, he continued his scams and cons in France, and eventually robbed a bank. He did time in prison and was released in the mid-50s. At this point, CIA was looking for devious people to do devious things, and came across Tzitzichvili.

They considered sending him to Russia to do devious things there, but eventually sent him to the Congo in the very early 1960s, doing things like teaching the Congolese air force how to fly. This was a good trick, since he didn’t know how to fly himself, and had to read the manual and do his own practicing just a few days before he taught his students.

While in the Congo, WIROGUE crossed paths with another CIA agent, QJWIN, whom the Church Committee suspected was part of the CIA plot to kill Patrice Lumumba. In the end, the Committee lost interest in WIROGUE and neither his name nor his cryptonym appear in any of their reports.

After the Church Committee, researchers for HSCA became interested in WIROGUE, and read most of his 201 file. This is why the file is now in the ARC. In the end, however, WIROGUE did not appear in the HSCA report either.

WIROGUE’s ultimate fate is unclear. The last entry in his CIA file is dated 1963.

WIROGUE’s 201

CIA’s 201 file for WIROGUE is in five volumes. He also has a small file from the Office of Personnel, since he did get paid for his time in the Congo.

When the 201 file was released in 2017, at least three volumes were massively redacted, with hundreds of pages held back in full. When it was re-posted at NARA in 2018 and 2022, almost nothing new was released. In 2023, however, large sections of the redacted pages were finally released, and my 2023 post mentions some of what I found then.

In 2025, the files were released in full. For those who are interested in looking at the old redactions and the new releases, here is a table of the 2023 and 2025 versions of the 201 files:

The records marked with asterisks had extensive WPRs even after the 2023 releases. Vol 1 was in fact #2 on the top ten list of WPR records. What was in these long withheld pages? Was there mention of Kennedy, Oswald, or Ruby?

If that’s what you hoped for, disappointment awaits. There was nothing of the sort. Instead, there is much administrative detail, as the CIA slowly realizes they have found a square peg for their round holes.

Perhaps the most interesting of these details is a 23 page long psychiatric evaluation of “Dave”, as his CIA case officer(s) eventually came to call him. This is a very, VERY interesting document, featuring a remarkable writer (Joseph McGovern, Chief of the Psychiatric Support Branch) sketching a vivid picture of Dave and his circumstances. This kind of document has kept me fascinated by the JFK assassination records for almost eight years now. A must read.

Other redactions, especially in vol 2, removed the names and details of all of Dave’s family. He may have been stateless, but he had family, almost all of them listed here. This is the sort of detail that has bothered me more than once. Such details necessarily arise when one is looking at personnel type files.

Here we learn the names not only of Dave’s dead parents, but also his siblings and children. We learn the name of the woman he wanted $5000 paid to if he was killed on a mission. Why should the JFK act expose the names of these people and the details of their lives? IRS assessors are not subject to this kind of exposure, why should CIA agents and assets be subject to it?

Anyway, like the LIFEAT file discussed in the first note in this series, there is certainly historical value in these documents, but not one paragraph is relevant to the JFK assassination.

My two cents

There are interesting things in many of these now released-in-full documents. Remember, however, that these are part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection. Remember also how many claims have been made about what might, what should, what MUST be in the blank spaces in the records. All these claims are worth a close look, now that we can compare them to reality.