First CIA Foreign Intelligence Operation into Latvia in the early Cold War, Part One ©

 CIA Cold War cryptonyms associated with Latvia included JBCLOUD, HBHATCH, AEFLAG (1955-1962), AEMARSH (1953-1959), AECOB, and ZRLYNCH

Project AECOB was approved in 1950 for foreign intelligence (FI) operations into and within Soviet Latvia (JBCLOUD). It involved infiltration and exfiltration of "black agents" and the recruitment of legally resident agents in the USSR, especially Latvia. The budget for Fiscal Year 1952 was c. $135,00, which is equivalent to c. $1,350,000 today.

The original purpose was to contact the resistance in the Latvian SSR by utilizing a contact group in Sweden of the Latvian resistance.

The objectives of Project AECOB included:  

• Organize, develop, and execute covert operations for the infiltration into and, as appropriate, exfiltration out of the Latvian SSR of non-American agent personnel for the purpose of establishing support points in the Latvian SSR and obtaining operational and/or strategic intelligence.
• Establish in the Latvian SSR covert resident agent personnel who can assist agents being infiltrated into other strategic areas of the USSR and who will assist in the attainment of long-range intelligence objectives.
• Establish effective clandestine contacts with, and provide assistance and guidance to whatever resistance nuclei exist in the Latvian SSR. 
• Organize and develop specially trained unconventional warfare teams to be infiltrated into the Latvian SSR and work with resistance and guerrilla forces upon the outbreak of open hostilities with the Soviet Union

The tasks of the project included

1. Recruitment, training, and dispatch of Latvian agents in the Latvian SSR. 
2. Development of s/w, wit, and courier communications with the Latvian SSR. 
3. Stockpiling of materiel necessary for the support of resistance and guerrilla groups in the Latvian SSR. 
4. Training of sabotage and unconventional warfare teams. 

The first dispatch of agents took place on August 26, 1952. They were Alfreds, RIEKSTINS, Edvins OZOLINS, and Nikolays BALODIS. They were recruited through the "Latvian Contacts Group," an emigre Latvian group, and little if any CIA control was had over them. Prior to their departure in 1952, control of this operation was taken from this group and direct CIA control was instituted. The three agents considered themselves "free and independent fighters for the liberation of their homeland. Under no conditions have they ever or do they desire to be considered as in the employ of any particular government. Their motivation, therefore, is extremely nationalistic and ideological."

 

Before the dispatch of the three agents, a final evaluation report of the three was made. Here are some of the main points of the evaluation reports:

Alfreds Riekstins, CAMUSO 1, "Imant", pseudonym Igor A. Feldman

·      To be able to assess this evaluation properly one must bear in mind the precise nature of the job the agent is expected to carry out. Riekstinss principal task will be to serve as the link, the authenticator to whatever partisan units are encountered in Kurzene. 

·      His attitude towards the assignment is excellent. He has been trying to get back to Latvia since 1946. He is especially pleased to be working with Partisans. He considers them brothers-in-arms who have not deserted the true course. 

·       Personal courage, and dedication to his mission indicate that his moral resistance would be excellent. However, his excessive self-confidence and his impetuosity might be a disadvantage to him if he were hard-pressed. 

·      He has good possibilities for successfully completing his particular mission. However, he must be strongly controlled and not allowed much initiative and responsibility. 

Edvins Ozolins, CAMUSO 2, "Herbert", pseudonym Herberts Okolo

·      Assessment of the agent in terms of his specific tasks is doubly important in the case of Ozolins,  who has neither demonstrated communications attitude nor aggressiveness in physical training. However, because he is better than average in tradecraft knows the drop zone area very well, and will serve as a contact man for work in Riga, his native city, we feel he occupies an important place on the team.

·      Subject has been quite disappointing in Communications. He had considerable difficulty in mastering Morse Code because he simply does not have the ear for it. However, he shows good aptitude for cryptography and radio theory. 

·      As regards tradecraft subject is in much the same position as Riekstins except that he has a better potentiality to apply clandestine principles to the actual situation.

·    He also is a Latvian nationalist and is dissatisfied with his life as an emigre. He has no mercenary motives. He has no family in the emigration to provide for and considers his mission the most positive and useful thing that he can do. He has often stated that he would accept any mission that the ease officers consider him best fitted for.  

Nikolays Balodis, CAMUSO 3, "Boris", pseudonym Boris Lovetsky

·      His experiences and training as regards Sovietization are the same as Rietkins and Ozolis, except that he is in a better position to understand the Russians than the other two in as much as he is half Russian, speaks the language, and comes from Latgalia almost on the Russian border. 

·      He has consistently done better than his fellows in all phases of training. He appears to be a slow-witted peasant-type person but the opposite is true. He has a sharp and shrewd practical intellect, imagination, and confidence in his ability to do a job. 

·       He has already demonstrated his willingness to fight against Communism by jumping behind Russian lines for the Germans. He hates the Communists because they nationalized his mill and he was turned from a substantial citizen to a pauper. However, he makes a sharp distinction between a Russian and a Communist since he is half Russian. He has no grudge against the Russian people. He, then, seems to have two motives, the one more altruistic, to free Latvia, and the second personal: to regain his property. However, he is definitely not an agent for purely mercenary reasons. 

·      Because of Subject's physical courage, his history as a German agent, his demonstrated leadership abilities, and his excellent motivation, the undersigned considers him an excellent risk under conditions calling for moral resistance. 

·      The undersigned does not believe that the subject would allow his two weaknesses, whisky and women, to interfere with the security of the operation.

The conclusion of the evaluation reports was: "The AECOB team appears to be one of the better-balanced teams on hand. Any one of the Individuals on the team would be found lacking in one of a number of attributes if he were being considered as a singleton but together they make a rather effective group. The factors of leadership, area knowledge, technical ability, and personal traits are well mixed."  

 

The three agents were told that they were to consider themselves as "spearheads, establishing support points and operating possibilities for others who would follow." They were happy because of this statement, as they suspected and feared that they would be used as" intelligence agents," a term they abhorred. Because of these suspicions and fears, it was continually reiterated, that "they were operational personnel who were undertaking a mission for the liberation of their homeland and to aid the U.S. government in its fight against Communism."