Ralph Sigler Cover Up

[Huskerz85]

Stumbled upon this link that reveals some pretty damning information about what *really* was going on with Ralph Sigler (that makes no mention of the Russians, KGB or anything of the sort:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal...5/185/1377158/

Here's the pertinent snippet:


"In 1974, Mr. Sigler was approaching thirty years of active duty with the Army (having enlisted in 1947) and was contemplating retirement. He began to assemble his papers, effects, and memorabilia with the apparent intention of writing a book, after he retired, on his intelligence career. The Army evidently learned of his intentions *189 and in March 1976 ordered Mr. Sigler to San Francisco, California for a debriefing session where he was given a polygraph test. Subsequently, the Army ordered Mr. Sigler to report to Fort Meade, Maryland, the headquarters of the United States Army Intelligence Agency. Mr. Sigler arrived in the Fort Meade area on April 4, 1976.

For the next nine days, Army intelligence officers confined Mr. Sigler to two motel rooms in the Fort Meade area and "subjected Sigler to severe emotional distress by the use of extensive questioning, threats and intimidations." Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint, Civil Action No. N-78-1237 at 17. Apparently this interrogation focused on Mr. Sigler's intention to write his memoirs and the nature and location of the materials he had collected to assist him in writing his book.

During this time, defendant Army Intelligence Officer Louis Martel pressured Mr. Sigler into acknowledging the existence and location of the memoirs material at the Sigler residence in El Paso, Texas. Defendant Martel then coerced Mr. Sigler into calling his wife, Ilse M. Sigler, at their home and instructing her to make certain of the memoirs material available to defendant Army Intelligence Officer John Schaffstall. On April 8, 1976, defendant Schaffstall appeared at the Sigler residence, was granted entrance by Mrs. Sigler, and procured the material in question. Defendant Schaffstall returned to Fort Meade the following day with the material. The interrogation of Mr. Sigler by the defendant counterintelligence agents continued and was of an "extreme and outrageous" nature. Amended Complaint, supra at 21. Certain papers and effects belonging to Mr. Sigler were allegedly taken from him during the interrogation.

On April 13, 1976, Mr. Sigler was found dead in a motel room in the Fort Meade area. Official investigations by the Army and the Maryland State Police concluded that Mr. Sigler had committed suicide by wrapping the ends of a stripped electrical lamp cord around his upper arms, plugging the cord into a wall socket, and flipping on the wall switch, which resulted in his death by electrocution. The plaintiffs contend that the defendants were responsible for Mr. Sigler's death by "either 1) causing a current of electricity to pass through his body or 2) placing him in an extreme position of danger by virtue of the continuous emotional strain to which he had been subjected and then failing to protect him" from electrocuting himself. Amended Complaint, supra at 17-18.
The plaintiffs have asserted two categories of claims in this matter. The first category represents claims on behalf of Mr. Sigler's estate for alleged injuries to Mr. Sigler and includes claims for (1) intentional infliction of emotional distress; (2) false imprisonment; (3) conversion; (4) gross negligence; (5) wrongful death; (6) violations of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution; (7) assault and battery; and (8) replevin. The second category of claims represents alleged injuries to Mrs. Sigler and her daughter individually, and includes claims for (1) conversion; (2) replevin; and (3) violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The two cases consolidated here seek combined damages of over $100 million against the defendants, in addition to injunctive relief against the Secretary of the Army in the form of an order requiring him to return to the plaintiffs the materials taken from the Sigler residence and from the Fort Meade motel room.

The Court will consider separately the motions to dismiss as they apply to the two categories of claims."


So lets break this down:

• Ralph Sigler, 30-year Army intel vet, was planning to write a memoir. That alone makes him a threat to secrecy.

• The Army catches wind of his plan and yanks him into what’s essentially a black-bag-style operation: they confine him to motel rooms, grill him with “extensive questioning, threats, and intimidation,” and pressure him into releasing sensitive materials from his home.

• Nine days of this.

• Then—he turns up dead, in a motel room, by electrocution via a lamp cord wrapped around his own arms, plugged into a socket.

The case paints a picture of a man psychologically broken down by his own government, trying to protect secrets or maybe trying to reveal them. Unsolved Mysteries didn’t touch this angle probably because once you start digging, you hit national security bedrock fast.

No mention of the KGB, sure—but the silence itself could be telling. We’re dealing with a guy who may have been involved in deep intelligence work across multiple theaters of the Cold War—and whose “memoirs” were apparently explosive enough to send Army intel into panic mode.

So what's more likely here: the KGB snatching him up, giving him their own 'hostile interrogation' and then dumping him back in a hotel room? Or someone who was broken down--mentally and physically--by gov't spooks who were trying to cover themselves??

[TheCars1986]

Wrote about Sigler here. He failed a total of nine polygraphs. A KGB agent was making payments to Sigler's mother, who lived in Czechoslovakia (Sigler was a native Czechoslovakian). There is no way that someone murdered him and then was able to double lock the door on the way out. Sigler killed himself because he knew he got caught.

[MegtheEgg86]

A few years ago I got a used copy of the Widows book mentioned in the segment and came away from it convinced Sigler committed suicide. This surprised me, given the Trentos' interviews on the segment, which I always thought seemed sympathetic to the murder/assassination theory.

It's worth reading if you can find it, especially for the background on Sigler's career. He enlisted and worked in a different MOS for several years before he became a warrant officer and transferred to intel. The specific reason he was recruited was because he was Czech.

I got the impression that Sigler and his family's quality of life changed markedly after he made his career switch. I think like several compromised operatives, he was eventually seduced by the money and benefits espionage often promises, and it ultimately bit him in the rear. Not a terribly uncommon story, unfortunately. But I think it was as simple as that.