Cold War Spying: 1947

1947: The first issue of the anti-Communist periodical Plain Talk is published under the editorial direction of Isaac Don Levine. It is financed by San Francisco businessman Alfred Kohlberg. A weekly called Counterattack follows shortly, published by the American Business Consultants — a group founded by a trio of ex-FBI agents, dedicated to uncovering Reds who have infiltrated company unions.

March 7, 1947:  President Truman addresses a Joint Session of Congress, warning  that the world will face disaster unless the United States fights communism abroad.  He calls for $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey to help them beat back the encroachment of Communism and resist “attempted subjugation.” The Truman Doctrine (as it comes to be known) is resoundingly passed. Truman’s decision to fight communism overseas is the first clear direction that American Spies receive from the White House.

Spring 1947: Athens (Greece) becomes one of the biggest American intelligence posts in the world.

April 9, 1947: Demonstrations take place in Bogata (Columbia) at the Conference of American States. Among the activists is a young Cuban radical named Fidel Castro.

April 18, 1947: Financier Bernard Baruch addresses the South Carolina legislature. He warns: “Let us not be deceived — today we are in the midst of a Cold War.”

May 1, 1947: Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter is sworn in as Director of the Central Intelligence Service, replacing General Vandenberg. He is the third man to hold the post in 15 months.

May 13, 1947:  The Senate approves the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.  The Act requires that labor leaders take an oath stating that they are not Communists.

June 5, 1947: Recently appointed Secretary of State George Marshall gives a speech at Harvard advocating major economic aid for struggling European countries to keep communism from gaining a foothold. The $12 billion Marshall Plan dovetails with the Truman Doctrine, implementing the policy of containment advocated by George Kennan.  As LaFeber says, they are Two Halves of the Same Walnut. For his vision, Marshall is named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.

June 20, 1947: The Senate votes to override the veto of the Taft-Hartley Act registered by President Truman on that same day.

June 27, 1947: A congressional committee holds secret hearings that lead to the formal creation of the CIA at summer’s end. Allen Dulles — not Hillenkoetter — is selected to conduct a secret intelligence seminar for a few select members of Congress. Dulles, the OSS Chief in Switzerland, had a carefully cultivated reputation as an American master spy. He was regarded by the Republican leadership as the director of central intelligence in exile. A duplicitous man, Dulles wasn’t above misleading Congress or his colleagues or even his commander in chief.

July 26, 1947: President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, giving birth to the Central Intelligence Agency on September 18. The agency faces fierce and relentless opponents within the Pentagon and the State Department (the agencies whose reports it was supposed to coordinate). It has no formal charter or congressionally appropriated funds for 2 more years. Also, its secrecy conflicts with the openness of American democracy.

The CIA’s stated mission is to provide the president with secret information essential to the national security of the United States.

The National Security Act says nothing about secret operations overseas. It instructs the CIA to correlate, evaluate, and disseminate intelligence — and to perform “other functions and duties relating to intelligence affecting the national security.” Hundreds of major covert actions will take advantage of this loophole.

September 26, 1947: The new National Security Council (also created by the National Security Act) holds its first meeting. The NSC, at this time, is comprised of President Truman, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the military chiefs. It seldom convenes and — when it does– President Truman is rarely in attendance. Interestingly, the conduct of covert action requires the direct or implied authority of this group.

September 27, 1947: George Kennan sends (the first) Secretary of Defense James Forrestal a detailed paper calling for the establishment of a “guerilla warfare corps.” Forrestal agrees. Together Kennan and Forrestal set the American clandestine service in motion.

 October 1947: The Comintern, now called the Cominform, is revived.

October 20, 1947: The House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC) holds Hollywood hearings under the stewardship of J. Parnell Thomas. Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor, Ronald Reagan, and Robert Montgomery testify as cooperative witnesses, along with studio executive heads Jack Warner, Walt Disney, and Dore Shary. Ginger Rogers’ mother is another cooperative witness.

October 21-23, 1947: The Hollywood Ten — Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Larson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbull — testify before HUAC.  They repeatedly cite the Fifth Amendment in answer to the question, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”

October 24, 1947: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Groucho Marx, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Ronald Reagan, John Huston, Danny Kaye, and dozens of other Hollywood actors, directors, and screenwriters band together under the name Committee for the First Amendment in protest of HUAC’s handling of the Hollywood Ten. Several of the stars charter a plane they call the Star of the Red Sea. The plane touches down in St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, and, finally, Washington DC, giving a press conference at each stop.

November 24, 1947: All of the Hollywood Ten are indicted for contempt of Congress, and they’re fired from their jobs the next day.

December 14, 1947: The National Security Council issues its first top secret orders to the CIA. The agency is to execute “covert psychological operations designed to counter Soviet and Soviet-inspired activities.” Specifically, the CIA sets out to beat the Reds in the Italian elections set for April 1948. Congress never gives a go-ahead. The mission is illegal from the start. The agency is going beyond their charter.

Millions of dollars are delivered to Italian politicians and the priests of Catholic Action, a political arm of the Vatican. Suitcases of cash change hands in the four-star Hassler Hotel. Italy’s Christian Democrats win by a comfortable margin and form a government that excludes communists. A long romance between the party and the agency begins.

The CIA’s practice of purchasing elections and politicians with bags of cash is repeated in Italy — and many other nations — for the next 25 years.

December 27, 1947: The Civil Service Loyalty Review Board begins testing the loyalty of federal employees.

Be sure to check out our other posts on Cold War Spying Year By Year:

1945

1946

1948

Cold War Spying:1946

January 10, 1946: The first meeting of the United Nations convenes in London.

January 24, 1946: By now, having dismantled the OSS, Truman sees that he has created a snafu and he decides to set it straight. He appoints Rear Admiral Sidney Souers to command a short-lived organization called the Central Intelligence Group. Souers commands nearly two thousand intelligence officers and support staff who control files on some 400,000 individuals. Souers is given no direction from the White House, and almost no one else in government recognizes the new group’s legitimacy.

Souers lasts less than 100 days as director. He leaves behind a top secret memo that pleads:

There is an urgent need to develop the highest possible quality of intelligence on the USSR in the shortest possible time.

February 1946: Earl Browder, acting head of the Communist Party in the US (CPUSA) since 1930, is expelled from the party for deviationism — that is, for being too much of a moderate in supporting the policies of FDR.

February 22, 1946:  George F. Kennan of the State Department, known as “Mr. X” for reasons of security, sends his famous  “long telegram,” a 19 page 8,000 word essay that explains the Soviet need for expansion. According to Kennan, the Soviets have a “traditional and instinctive issue of insecurity.” Kennan advocates a policy of containment, and warns that the notion of “peaceful coexistence” with the USSR is a pipe dream. For more on containment read Cold War Containment: First Iran.

March 1946: Future Director of Central Intelligence, General Walter Bedell Smith, arrives in Moscow as the newly appointed American ambassador. He will be schooled by George Kennan, the charge d’affaires at the American Embassy. Kennan gains fame as the greatest Kreminologist in the American government.

March 5, 1946: As a guest of President Harry Truman, Winston Churchill delivers his famous speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, and Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent . . .”

March 21, 1946: The Strategic Air Command (SAC), the Tactical Air Command (TAC), and the Air Defense Command (ADC) are established by General Carl Spaatz.

June 10, 1946: General Hoyt Vandenberg becomes the second Director of Central Intelligence. He lacks 3 essential tools: money, power, and  people.

In the judgment of Lawrence Houston, general counsel for Central Intelligence from 1946 to 1972, the Central Intelligence Group stood outside the law. The president couldn’t legally create a federal agency out of thin air. Without the consent of Congress, Central Intelligence couldn’t legally spend money. No money. No power.

Vandenberg creates a new Office of Special Operations to conduct spying and subversion overseas. He wrangles $15 million under the table from a handful of congressmen to carry out the missions. He wants to know everything about the Soviet forces in Eastern and Central Europe.

Richard Helms is in charge of espionage in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. He has 228 overseas personnel. Helms later determines that at least half the information on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the CIA’s files is pure falsehood. His stations in Berlin and Vienna are factories of fake intelligence.

July 17, 1946: Two of Vandenberg’s aides meet with Truman’s White House counsel, Clark Clifford. They argue that “the original concept of the Central Intelligence Group should be altered to make it an ‘operating agency.’” It becomes one.

On that same day, Vandenberg personally asks Secretary of War Robert Patterson and Secretary of State James Byrnes to slip him an additional $10 million in secret funds to finance the work of “intelligence agents all over the world.” They did. His intent is to prepare the first covert operation of the cold war in R0mania.

Vandenberg’s Office of Special Operations sets out to create an underground resistance force in Romania. Lieutenant Ira C. Hamilton and Major Thomas R. Hall are ordered to organize Romania’s National Peasant Party into a resistance force.

October 5, 1946: Working with the new Central Intelligence station in occupied Vienna, the Americans smuggle the former foreign minister of Romania and 5 other members of the would-be liberation army into Austria. In just a few weeks, Soviet intelligence and the Roumanian secret police sniff out the spies.

Communist security forces crush the mainstream Roumanian resistance. By winter’s end, a brutal dictatorship takes control of Romania, its rise to power hastened by the failure of American covert action.

Head on over to:

 Cold War Spying Year by Year: 1945.

Cold War Spying Year by Year: 1947

Spying is all over the news these days, a Cold War legacy if ever there was one. Don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to put all the happenings in perspective.

We all want to do what’s right — for ourselves and for others. So there’s a conflict. We want to guard our privacy. At the same time, we want to make sure that we’re safe and secure. I think it was Samuel Huntington who, in his seminal work on Political Order in Changing Societies, noted that people will often choose safety and stability over personal freedom.

Anyway, given today’s circumstances, I started poking around to find out more about the history of the CIA and the NSA. I wanted to know more about the foundational underpinnings and the historical context of what’s going on today. So I decided to put together a Cold War Spying Timeline (year by year) for Cold War Studies. This post is the first installment, covering 1945. Not too much about spying here, but a lot about the Russian – American relationship  and about the break-down of America’s World War II intelligence gathering organizations. And that’s where the need for surveillance organizations started.

Cold War Spying: 1945

February 3-11, 1945: The Yalta Conference — attended by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill — is held in Crimea at Stalin’s insistence. FDR basically signs over control of Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria to Stalin. In return, Stalin agrees to enter the war against Japan once the fighting in Europe has ended. 

April 12, 1945: President Roosevelt dies. The incipient Cold War will now be handled by his successor, Harry Truman. Just before his death, FDR wrote to Churchill: “We can’t do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta.” 

April 25, 1945: The founding conference of the United Nations begins in San Framcisco. Attendees include all 26 states that banded together in 1942 against the Axis, including the USSR. 

June 26, 1945: The UN Charter is signed on the final day of the founding conference. 

July 16, 1945: The first A-bomb is tested at Alamogordo in the New Mexican desert under the code name Trinity. 

July 17-August 2, 1945: With Truman taking the place of FDR, the Big Three convene at Potsdam.  Midway through the conference, Churchill is voted out of office. He is replaced on July 25 by new Prime Minister Clement Attlee. 

September 20, 1945: Six weeks after dropping America’s atomic bomb on Japan, the president of the United States ordered the OSS to disband in 10 days. America’s World War II spy service under the direction of General William J. Donovan was abolished. 

September 26, 1945: Donovan’s deputy, Brigadier General John Magruder, meets with Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy at the Pentagon. McCloy issues an order that says “the continuing operations of OSS must be performed in order to preserve them.” That piece of paper keeps the hope for a Central Intelligence Agency alive. The spies will stay on duty as the Strategic Services Unit, the SSU. Also, a secret commission is established to plot the course for American intelligence. 

October 1945: Richard Helms, the favorite lieutenant of Allen Dulles, the ranking OSS officer in Germany, begins trying to spy on the Soviets. He tries to recruit German police and politicians to establish spy networks in the east. 

October 24, 1945: The United Nations Charter is ratified by 51 founding nations at the San Francisco Conference. Its first secretary-general is a US State Department official named Alger Hiss, who had also attended the Big Three Yalta Conference. 

November 16, 1945: General Dwight D. Eisenhower testifies before the House Military Affairs Committee that “Nothing guides Russian policy so much as a desire for friendship with the United States.” 

November 1945: Peter Sichel, an SSU officer in Berlin says “we were beginning to see the total takeover by the Russians of the East German system.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal begin to fear that the Soviets will move to seize all of Europe and then push on to the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, Northern China, and Korea. 

November 1945: The future leaders of American intelligence split into two camps. With support from Richard Helms, one camp believes in the slow and patient gathering of secret intelligence through espionage. The other camp — supported by Frank Wisner, the (former) OSS station chief in Bucharest, Romania — believes in covert action. 

December 1945: The Joint Chiefs of Staff fight for an intelligence service firmly under their control. The army and navy each demand their own intelligence service. J. Edgar Hoover wants the FBI to conduct worldwide espionage. The State Department wants to be dominant. 

End of 1945: Most OSS veterans have gone back to their old lives. Their number falls by nearly 10,000 in the last three months of ‘45. down to 1,967 by the end of the year. The London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, and Stockholm stations lose almost all of their officers. Fifteen out of twenty-three Asian outposts close. The remaining intelligence analysts are dispatched to form a new research bureau at the State Department.

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Hope you enjoy this series and that you’ll check in every Thursday for our year by year account of surveillance organizations, espionage, and, yes, spying. Click here to read all about Cold War Spying Year By Year: 1946.

This is a guest post by Lee McCaslin, Author of Secrets of the Cold War: US Army Europe’s Intelligence and Counterintelligence Activities Against the Soviets During the Cold War. Names, units, and locations have been changed to protect classified information.

GENERAL

I knew spies were causing grave harm to USAREUR (US Army in Europe) and its ability to fight a successful war, if attacked. By conducting espionage against us, the East Bloc knew our order of battle and some of our defense and counter – attack plans. This is a known fact because our security experts were sent to testify at NATO espionage trials. The following narrative represents a real example of the espionage threats we faced (actual details are not revealed to protect classified information). Any real-world similarity to names cited is coincidental. The espionage techniques are true.

FOR MONEY

Ted was having money problems. His wife, Sandra was making more and more demands on him. They were living beyond their means. He was a Warrant Officer – that rank between Enlisted soldier and Commissioned Officer – and although it produced a good salary, he didn’t make that much money. But she demanded the best travel and they were already in Europe after all – they took many trips to Paris, bought new clothes and had a Porsche. If he didn’t comply with her demands, she would hold back sex. He couldn’t do without that.

“Let’s go to Majorca and have a beach holiday,” Sandra said excitedly to Ted one day. “Everyone is doing it. Think of all the quaint seafood places where we could eat right on the beach and enjoy some nice cold white wine and watch the sun go down… and the swimming!”

Ted thought for a few moments and then said, “That would be nice. What an experience!” Ted was tempted. “Get out of this cold climate and go to the warm beach.”

“And think of those warm nights with me,” Sandra teased as she drew close and kissed him. One thing led to another.

Ted looked longingly at Sandra and paused. “Well, it sounds all too good but let’s think on it a while. Maybe somehow I can come up with the money for the plane ride. Then there’s the cost of the hotel, food, and whatever other necessities.”

Ted worked as an Intel Supervisor in the G-2 at one of USAREUR’s Infantry Divisions. Everyone liked Ted. There was a low level FIS (Foreign Intelligence Service) agent already in his unit whose only job was to spot people with access to classified material with vulnerabilities.

This agent reported Ted to his Communist FIS case handler with rumors of Ted’s probable money problems. The handler would present himself to Ted not as an East Bloc agent but rather as an agent of a friendly country who just wanted to confirm the US actions (False Flag approach).

The case handler then approached Ted with a monetary offer he couldn’t refuse. Ted, with thoughts of Majorca in his mind, jumped at the offer and was soon spending an inordinate amount of time at the copying machine reproducing classified documents for the FIS.

“Sandra, I’m home,” Ted said, mimicking Ricky Ricardo. “I think I’ve worked out the money for Majorca. Don’t ask me how.” He slipped off his jacket. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

“Not a word,” Sandra said. “When do we leave?”

Ted had no conscience; he sold out his country for a beach trip and made a lot of money before he was caught and went to Leavenworth.

Sandra no longer lived the high life.

The low-level FIS observer remained in the unit…

I’ve just finished reading the Daniel Silva thriller Moscow Rules (Gabriel Allon). It stars Gabriel Allon as an Israeli spy and assassin enmeshed in the intrigue of post Cold War Russia with its corruption, drug culture, and illicit arms traffickers.

What I didn’t know until the book ended was that the term “Moscow Rules” relates to a real set of Cold War operating principles that remain in effect today even though the Cold War is supposedly a thing of the past.

I’ve found a written version of the 40 rules on the It’s Tactical website. I can’t vouch for their accuracy.  You can read them below and judge for yourself.

1. Assume nothing.

2. Technology will always let you down.

3. Murphy is right.

4. Never go against your gut.

5. Always listen to your gut; it is your operational antennae.

6. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.

7. Don’t look back; you are never completely alone. Use your gut.

8. Go with the flow; use the terrain.

9. Take the natural break of traffic.

10. Maintain a natural pace.

11. Establish a distinctive and dynamic profile and pattern.

12. Stay consistent over time.

13. Vary your pattern and stay within your profile.

14. Be non threatening: keep them relaxed; mesmerize!

15. Lull them into a sense of complacency.

16. Know the opposition and their terrain intimately.

17. Build in opportunity but use it sparingly.

18. Don’t harass the opposition.

19. Make sure they can anticipate your destination.

20. Pick the time and place for action.

21. Any operation can be aborted; if it feels wrong, then it is wrong.

22. Keep your options open.

23. If your gut says to act, overwhelm their senses.

24. Use misdirection, illusion, and deception.

25. Hide small operative motions in larger non threatening motions.

26. Float like a butterfly; sting like bee.

27. When free, In Obscura, immediately change direction and leave the area.

28. Break your trail and blend into the local scene.

29. Execute a surveillance detection run designed to draw them out over time.

30. Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is an enemy action.

31. Avoid static lookouts; stay away from chokepoints where they can reacquire you.

32. Select a meeting site so you can overlook the scene.

33. Keep any asset separated from you by time and distance until it is time.

34. If the asset has surveillance, then the operation has gone bad.

35. Only approach the site when you are sure it is clean.

36. After the meeting or act is done, “close the loop” at a logical cover destination.

37. Be aware of surveillance’s time tolerance so they aren’t forced to raise an alert.

38. If an alert is issued, they must pay a price and so must you.

39. Let them believe they lost you; act innocent.

40. There is no limit to a human being’s ability to rationalize the truth.

The most insightful – though not complete – exploration of Moscow Rules and their exercise is reportedly found inside John LeCarre’s Smiley’s People: A George Smiley Novel. Spend some time exploring the book and see if you find a number of them in action. If so, be sure to let me know!