Cleveland C. Cram; Wrote CIA Analysis

Cleveland C. Cram, 81, a retired CIA official who made an influential and highly critical study of James J. Angleton, the controversial spymaster who headed the agency’s counterintelligence branch for 20 years during the Cold War, died of congestive heart failure Friday at his home in Washington.

Cram, holder of master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Harvard University, joined the CIA in 1950 and specialized in counterintelligence. After a distinguished career with several overseas postings, he retired in 1975.

The next year, he returned to the agency to do a special project: analyze and report on the work of Angleton, who had been forced to retire in 1974. Officials at the agency wanted the study to pierce the controversies that had surrounded the counterintelligence chief for years. The basic question was whether he had done the agency more harm than good.

For the sake of security, Cram had to conduct the project in a vault-like room that contained an even more secure inner vault. The study took six years and produced 11 volumes called “History of the Counterintelligence Staff, 1954-1974.”

Although the contents are still classified, the study’s general conclusions can be gleaned from an essay Cram wrote in 1993 titled “Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence Literature.” The essay has been published by the CIA on its Web site.

Angleton emerges as a brilliant operative whose methods were so chaotic and secretive that they almost defied rational analysis. His obsessions were that Soviet moles had penetrated the CIA and that Moscow was manipulating the United States through disinformation and propaganda. In pursuit of these perceived threats, Cram found, Angleton caused suspicion to be cast on several valuable agents whose careers were ruined. He also denounced intelligence officers of friendly governments, including a former head of MI-5, Britain’s internal security service.

When his work was finished, Cram remained a consultant to the CIA for several years.

His wife of 56 years, Mary Margaret, died in 1998. Survivors include a daughter, Mary Victoria Cram of Potomac, Md., and one granddaughter.