Douglas - The CIA Covenant-Nazis in Washington - preterhuman.net

united Germany, commenced a long public campaign designed to frighten the British public and theirleaders into adopting a bellicose re-armament program based on a fictional German military threat.Gehlen and his organization were considered vital to US interests. As long as the General wasable to feed the re-armament frenzy in Washington with supportive, inflammatory secret reports, then hissuccess was assured.The only drawback to this deadly farce was that the General did not have knowledge of currentSoviet situations in the military or political fields. He could only bluff his way for a short time. To enhancehis military staffs, Gehlen developed the use of former SS Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Gestapo people,brought to him by Krichbaum, his chief recruiter.At the same time, a joint British-American project called “Operation Applepie” was launched withthe sole purpose of locating and employing as many of the former Gestapo and SD types now beingemployed by Gehlen. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. During the course of this hunt, theprize was considered to be former SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller, then in Switzerland. Contact withthe former Gestapo Chief was through Krichbaum, acting on Müller’s specific instructions.In the resulting bidding war, the Americans easily defeated the British, and the British public wasspared the possible discovery of Müller appearing, under a new name, on their New Year’s Honors Listinstead of being made a Brigadier General of Reserve in the United States Army under a new name.The recently uncovered files on “Applepie” are of such interest that they will be the subject of afurther in-depth publication. Other document series of equal importance will include the so-calledRobinson papers and a series of reports on the British use of certain former Gestapo and SD personnel inDamascus, Syria by John Marriott of the Security Intelligence Middle East (SIME). Robinson (orRobinsohn as he was known to the Gestapo officials) was a high-level Soviet agent captured in France as aresult of the Rote Kapelle investigations. Robinson’s files came into Müller’s possession and reveal anextensive Soviet spy ring in Great Britain. Such highly interesting and valuable historical records shouldalso encompass the more significant intercepts made of Soviet messages by the Gestapo from Ottawa,Canada to Moscow throughout the war. These parallel the so-called Venona intercepts which have beenfully translated and are extraordinarily lengthy.In 1948, control of the Gehlen organization was assumed by the new CIA and put under thedirection of Colonel James Critchfield, formerly an armored unit commander and now a CIA section chief.At this point, Gehlen had a number of powerful sponsors in the US military and intelligencecommunities. These included General Walter Bedell Smith, former Chief of Staff to General Eisenhowerand later head of the CIA; General William Donovan, former head of the OSS; Allen Welch Dulles, formerSwiss station chief of the OSS and later head of the CIA; Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, first head ofthe CIA; General Edwin Sibert of US Army military intelligence and Generals Chamberlain and Clay.American military intelligence officers were well aware that the Soviet Army threat was hollow and thatthe Soviets’ act of dismantling the eastern German railroad system was strong proof that an attack was notin the offing, but they were strongly discouraged by their superiors from expressing their views.In 1954, General Arthur Trudeau, chief of US military intelligence, received a copy of a lengthyreport prepared by retired Lt. Colonel Hermann Baun of Gehlen’s staff. Baun, who had originally beenassigned to the German High Command (OKW) as an Abwehr specialist on Russia, eventually ended upworking for Gehlen’s Foreign Armies East which was under the control of the Army High Command(OKH). Baun was an extremely competent, professional General Staff officer who, by 1953, had taken adim view, indeed, of the creatures foisted on him by Gehlen. Baun detested Gehlen who had forced himout of his post-war intelligence position with the West. Baun’s annoyance was revealed in a lengthycomplaint of Gehlen’s Nazi staff members which set forth, in detail, their names and backgrounds.General Trudeau was so annoyed with this report that in October of 1954, he took West GermanChancellor Konrad Adenauer aside as Adenauer was making an official visit to Washington, Trudeaupassed much of this information to the horrified Adenauer, who had spent time in a concentration campduring the war. Adenauer, in turn, raised this issue with American authorities and the matter was leaked tothe press. Allen Dulles, a strong Gehlen backer and now head of the CIA, used his own connections andthose of his brother, John, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, to effectively silence Trudeau by transferringhim to the remote Far East.Trudeau’s warning to Adenauer did not have a lasting effect and on April 1, 1956, former GeneralReinhard Gehlen was appointed as head of the new West German Federal Intelligence Service, theBundesnachrichtendiesnt or BND. In this case, as in so many other similar ones, virtue is certainly not itsown reward.Who, then, were the Gehlen organization people Colonel Baun took exception to working with?