U.S. intelligence agencies have a predilection for spying without any scruples; and they may have also killed private citizens. It should be no surprise that they are capable of liquidating their own. Hence, the rumor of John A. Paisley’s murder by the agency is no shocker.

Paisley went missing from his boat on the 23rd of September 1978. His badly decomposed body was found in an inlet on Chesapeake Bay on the 1st of October. The best report of the controversy is by Tad Szluc in early January of 1979.









Was the Body Paisley’s?

Apparently, the corpse was at least four inches shorter than Paisley and some 30 pounds lighter (though this is likely due to decomposition). This has led to the theory Paisley was a Soviet mole who staged his own death to be spirited out of the country. Thus, while interesting, the body angle is actually irrelevant.

Operatives could easily have removed Paisley without a ripple and staged a tragic boating accident. The only reason for having a body discovered would be to send out a warning (to whom we can only speculate). Using a replacement body adds a level of mystery to divert people. Therefore, there could be a shred of truth to the body switch, but not the escaped Soviet mole angle.

If taken to Russia, he would likely be dead now. Furthermore, the search for Paisley would have been wider than Chesapeake. There would also have been documents released by now, not to mention CIA and FBI staffers willing to come forward to discuss their hunt for Paisley in the USSR. There is nothing… not a blip.