CIA's Operation Easter Bunny in the early Cold War ©

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit; KgU) began in Berlin in 1948 and was at first a U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) operation. It was then subsidized and guided by the CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) as Project DTLINEN, approved on May 24, 1949. responsible for nom-attributable Soviet Zone operations. DTLINEN was initially conceived to expose to the residents of both East and West Germany the conditions existent in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps in the Soviet Zone. A secondary purpose was to provide a source of helpful information concerning the psychological situation within East Germany.

Cryptonyms included CAJERSEY for the KgU, EARTHENWARE, DTLINEN, and GRAVEYARD for the CIA projects.DTLINEN was divided into an overt and covert operation in Berlin; the former carried out all attributable-type activities, while the latter was responsible for nom-attributable Soviet Zone operations. 

The KgU covert section (for which support the majority of the CIA subsidy was used) had a staff of 15, five in the central office in Berlin and two in each of the five field divisions. To these field divisions (one for each of the East German States), a total of 125 East German co-workers regularly reported giving positive intelligence and receiving administrative harassment and propaganda material for infiltration and distribution. 

At one point in the 1950s, funding for the overt side of KgU came from Radio Free Europe as a grant for the working arrangement between the KgUin in Goettingen, West Germany, and RFE for collecting information from refugee camps used in programming. The Ford Foundation acted as a financial conduit for the CIA and provided grants to the NCFE. For example, in 1951, the Ford Foundation granted NCFE $150,000. NCFE then made three grants of $50,000 to RFE, which then paid KgU $7,500 monthly for “humanitarian and welfare purposes” – the overt side of the KgU. 

During an average month in 1954, in addition to twenty administrative harassment operations, the KgU distributed 700,000 propaganda items in the Soviet Zone, mainly by balloon launchings. The KgU, under CIA guidance, distributed Russian-language propaganda material aimed at inducing defection among Soviet military personnel. KgU distribution costs due to this activity were reimbursed by the CIA project CATIDAL. 

In January 1955, for example, the Frankfurt Chief of Mission reported to CIA headquarters, “Over the past 12 months, the KgU carried out 157 major administrative harassment operations, including: 

·      False instructions and invitations (70)

·      Countermanding of East German governmental and party instructions (16)

·      False information (41)

·      Warnings to governmental and party functionaries (6)

·      True anti-communist information under false letterheads (16)

·      Demands for payment of notional accounts (6)

·      Falsified orders for materials (8)

·      Forged postage stamps and documents (4)”

Time, The New Yorker, The New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other leading American and European newspapers and periodicals carried positive articles on the KgU. 

Here are extracts from a declassified CIA document: 

 

Memorandum                                                                                                  March 1951

Subject: DTLINEN OPERATION EASTER BUNNY

As the opening gun for a series of operations that will aim at the disruption of the HBREBEL (Russian Occupation Zone) administrative system, an operation was mounted in BGQUEEN (East Berlin) and HBREBEL directed against the H.O. (Handels- Organization). Purportedly originating with the H.O., leaflets advertised a substantial lowering of prices starting March 22 as an Easter present to the HBBEBEL population. 

This operation was carried out in two phases:180 envelopes purporting to come from the District Head Administration of' the H.O. were mailed to all leading H.O. stores, each containing several hundred leaflets and "special instructions" demanding that these leaflets be brought to the attention of the customers immediately. It further stated that it was highly desirable that all employees of all branch stores be instructed to discuss with the population these notable price reductions, which proved that the DDR is doing everything to raise the standard of living and to show the tremendous advantages vis-a-vis the imperialistic countries of the West. These leaflets were mailed from the state capitols and distributed in HBREBEL and BGQUEEN in a blow-like operation. 

It can be stated that this was one of the most successful DTLINEN operations ever undertaken. We give credit to the successful reorganization of DTLINEN's Department II B, which is in charge of all operations mounted in HBREBEL or BGQUEEN. A verbal report from BGHABIT (U.S. Army CIC)  in WSCORMY IBerlin)  states that several of their sources reported the success of this operation.

The KgU activites ceaaed in 1959.

 

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Ukrainian Anti-Soviet Resistance in the Early Cold War ©

 

Excerpts from a declassified April 1953 CIA Internal Report entitled “Ukrainian Resistance”:

 

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was created in 1942-1943 for the purpose of fighting the Nazis and for the protection of the Ukrainian population. It is the military force of the underground government of the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (UHVR). The UPA represents the only important resistance group operating at present in the Ukrainian SSR.

 

The numerical strength of the Ukrainian Underground Resistance Movement today is considerably reduced from what it was at the close of World War II, when it numbered in the tens of thousands and even, according to some figures, 100,000 active armed members.

A fair estimate of the number of illegal-living armed partisans within the Western Oblasts of the Ukraine is 1,000 men and it is certain that many more live legally and maintain some sort of contact with the illegal-living underground units.

 

It is anticipated that by Fall, 1953, CIA will have been able to establish basis of its future relation with the Ukrainian underground.

 

Ukrainian Resistance Forces Killed in Action:

 

The following is a compilation of known insurgents killed in Ukraine between 1944 and 1950. These figures are not complete, but will give some indication of the amount of underground activity which took place during this period:

 

Area                                        1944    1945    1946    1947    1948    1949    1950

 

Kozlovski Raion                      26         7          3         13          4                 

Mikulinetski                            28       34         8         11          8                 

Veliko-Borkovski Raion          22       37        21         8           8                 

Veliko-Glubochetsk Raion      43       40        37        14         16                 

Zalozhtsevski Raion               40       72        34         9         23

Zborovski Raion                     34      105      13          7          5             

Bukachevski Raion                                                                                 5         3

Burshtyanksi Rion                                                                                  2         1                              

Peremyshlyani Raion                                                                              8         2

Bogatinski Raion                                                                                  10         6

Vilaivski Raion                                                                                       8         1

 

“Armed clashes with Soviet Security Forces took place in the following areas. In each case an average of five UPA partisans were involved: Drohobych Raion, Pidbuzh Raion, Samborski Raion, Turka Raion, Strilkiv Raion, Rozhnitiv Raion, Wygoda Raion.”

When Henry Kissinger supported Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty ©

 
 Henry Kissinger died on November 29, 2023; he was 100-years-old.

A major turning point in RFE/RL’s history occurred in 1967 when Ramparts magazine publicly revealed the RFE-CIA relationship, which would subsequently lead to a congressional decision that the CIA would no longer finance RFE and RL:
 
Within the United States there are many elements, including large ethnic groups with close ties to many of the countries to which the Radios broadcast, for whom cessation of broadcasting would seem a serious and incomprehensible decision, especially in light of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The attitudes of the ethnic groups would probably add significantly to the likelihood of adverse publicity attendant on termination, and would lend themselves to domestic political exploitation. Strongly negative Congressional reactions were encountered when the Director of Central Intelligence discussed the possibility of termination with key members of Congress in late 1967. A number of Congressmen are likely to show particular concern for the fate of RFE and RL because of their traditional responsiveness to the interests of domestic European ethnic groups, and because of their considerable knowledge of and belief in the work of the Radios.
 
On March 20, 1970, there was a meeting in the White House, with President Nixon, Richard Helms, the director of the CIA, and Henry Kissinger, the president’s national security advisor. The future of Radio Free Europe was one of the topics discussed. After the meeting, Helms wrote: “With respect to black operations, the President enjoined me to hit the Soviets, and hit them hard, any place we can in the world. He said to ‘just go ahead,’ to keep Henry Kissinger informed, and to be as imaginative as we could. He was as emphatic on this as I have ever heard him on anything. He indicated that he had had a change of mind and thought that Radio Free Europe should be continued.
 
In response to this meeting, the CIA wrote a paper entitled Tensions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: Challenge and Opportunity. The paper, which was describe as “excellent” by Henry Kissinger in a note to President Nixon, supported the continuation of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which “represent a 20-year investment of over $400, 000,000.”

President Nixon appointed a commission in August 1972 to study international radio broadcasting to review alternative arrangements for funding RFE and RL. In his letter to Dr. Milton Eisenhower confirming his appointment as Chairman, Nixon wrote:

As you are undoubtedly aware, the operations of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have been thoroughly debated by Congress during the past year. Throughout this period of intense review, the radios have continued to receive overwhelming sup- port from the majorities of both houses of Congress, the news media, and many of our leading citizens from all walks of life.... [I] believe the Commission should undertake a critical examination of the operation and funding question and recommend methods for future maintenance and support of the radios, which will not impair their professional independence and, consequently their effectiveness. 
 

CIA ended financial support to RFE and RL on June 30, 1971, and all supervision and other involvement on March 30, 1972. The US State Department took over funding of the radios until 1975, when the Board for International Broadcasting was created. Final physical and administrative consolidation of the two radio stations in Munich took place in 1975–76, as RFE/RL, which moved to Prague, Czech Republic in 1995 and continues to broadcast from there.

Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State wrote a letter to David M. Abshire, Chairman, Board for International Broadcasting, on August 28, 1976.  In part, it read:
 
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcasts can admirably serve “to facilitate the freeer and wider dissemination of information of all kinds. The comprehensive coverage, quality reporting, and objective news analysis of the broadcasts are a uniquely meaningful and often vital source of information and encourage the “constructive dialogue with the peoples of Eastern Europe and the USSR” …  The Radios are independent, highly professional operations which make a vital contribution to the free flow of information between peoples.
 

New Book of Interest: The Umbrella Murder: The Hunt for the Cold War's Most Notorious Killer

 

An interesting new book is about to hit the market—pre-order only now. It is due out in July 2024.

From Ebury Publishing: 

"In 1978 the Bulgarian author and dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by a poisoned umbrella on Waterloo Bridge in London. His murder is the most iconic killing in almost five decades of the Cold War, and no one has ever been prosecuted for it. 

"The Umbrella Murder reveals the real architect and hit man behind this spectacular killing: a spy code-named Piccadilly who worked for the Bulgarian secret service and the KGB, who has been hiding for more than forty years. 

"Written as a modern-day thriller, and drawing on an incredible thirty-year cache of original documents and recordings and never-before-seen archive material -- some not even seen by police or secret services -- this is a jaw- dropping and page-turning search for justice in the murky underworld of intelligence and across the shifting sands of spycraft. 

"Ulrik Skotte is a Danish journalist who has been chasing the truth about the umbrella murder and the mysterious agent Piccadilly for more than 25 years. He eventually managed to track down Piccadilly and met him face to face in an apartment in Austria in 2021. A month later, Piccadilly was found dead in the same apartment." 

If the Cold War turned Hot ©

There was genuine fear in Washington (and London) that the early Cold War with the Soviet Union might evolve into a Hot War. America’s CIA was charged with intelligence gathering to learn when the Soviet Union was about to attack the West. 

 

There was a significant problem: CIA needed intelligence agents behind the Iron Curtain in a position to fulfill the CIA's tasks. But thousands of men had escaped from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania at the end of World War Two to Sweden, for example, who would be willing to become intelligence agents for CIA and the British Intelligence Service (SIS). Other agents were recruited in Belgium and West Germany.

 

CIA recruited, trained, and dispatched at least 85 agents into the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Belorussia, and the Soviet Union. Most were killed on or shortly after landing, captured, put on trial, and sentenced to death or long prison terms.

 

Respective CIA units used the form below in support of the project approval requests.

 

FORM NO. 1

 

Project Cryptonym _______________                                              Base _____________

Roof Project ______________                                                          Date _____________

Case Officer  ___________________

 

IN NARRATIVE FORM, ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS USING SEPARATE SHEETS  OF PAPER, TYPE THE NUMBERED QUESTION, AND THEN ANSWER. 

 

l. What wartime role is recommended for the project or operations? Include specific location

2. What actions must be taken to make the project or operation utilizable in time of war?

3. If it is recommended that the project should be suspended in time of war, what action is necessary for such suspension?

4. Add any comments that will contribute to the Headquarters' assessment analysis for a realistic conclusion as to whether the project or operation is one of which a military support requirement may be accepted. 

 

On the assumption that the target country will be involved in the event of a general war, check (either "x" or "✓") in the "Yes," "No," or "Probably" column. Since the answers wanted are the best judgment of the responsible case officer, positive and realistic "yes" and "no" answers are preferred. If a remark is deemed necessary, enter "Remark" and attach a separate sheet appropriately keyed to the item. Whenever the item is not applicable, enter "NA" in the "No" column.

NOTE: The phrase "In Wartime" is an inherent part of each of the following questions, 5 through 34

 

                                                                                                                        In Wartime

                                                                                                                       Yes  No  Probably

5. Will the project or operation be affected?                                     

6. Is the project specifically devised to support military operations?                                                                        

7. Does the project or operation have a potential value for support of

a. Conventional Military forces?

b. Unconventional military forces?

8. Is the project or operation (partly) (wholly) /delete one/ convertible to

support military operations?

9. Should the project or operation be (partly) (wholly) /deleted or

converted to support military operations?

10. Should the project or operation be continued with its present

objectives?

11. Will the present objectives of the project or operation Support

military operations?

12. Should the project or operation be suspended?

13. Should the project be terminated?

14. Should part of the current operations be terminated?

15. Are there any caches in place for use?

16.If the answer to 15 is "yes." have the cache records been sent to:

a. Washington?

b. London?

17. If the answer to 15 is "no," are caches required to make the

project or operation?

18. If the current operations are serviced by W/T, will such

service be available?

19. If the answer to question 18 is "no," will W/T service be available?

20. Have the personnel been instructed as to their role?

(NB: in the event some have and some have not, insert "See

Form 2" and answer for each agent.)

21. Have drop zones and landing strips been selected for use?

22. Is there a safe house that can be used by project personnel?

23. Has the cipher system been issued to project agents for use?

24. Have one-time pads been issued to project agents for use?

25. Are dead drops available for use? 

26. Are couriers  arranged for use?

27. Have agents been trained in fingerprint identification for the

establishment of bona fides?

28. Have recontact arrangements been made in event contact is lost?

29. Could the project personnel be directed by one-vay broadcasts?

30. Have the project personnel been instructed as to one-way

broadcast arrangements?

31. Could the agent personnel remain in place?

32. Would it be desirable and feasible to move the agent personnel

to another location in the target country?

33. Is it operationally feasible to brief the personnel on emergency

communications and/or recontact arrangements for action?

34. Have the records required by the memo with the subject of "

Operational Information for Vital Documents Repository", the

attachment to EG,w-29088 7been sent to Headquarters for use?

NB: If the answer to 34 is "yes," list the transmitting dispatches.)

 

 

 

 

Memorial to Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunca

On 17 December 2023, a statute was inaugurated in Cotroceni, Romania, to the memory of two Radio Free Europe legends, Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunca, who worked in Paris for the Romanian BD.

On November 21, 1977, Monica Lovinescu was beaten at her home in Paris. She spent four days in a hospital.The two men were never found.

President of Romania Traian Basescu said before the Parliament of Romania on December 18, 2006: "To the despair of the communist regime, Radio Free Europe was indeed what it set out to be—the speaking newspaper for Romanians everywhere. I do homage to the memory of Ghita Ionescu, Mihai Cismarescu, Noel Bernard, and Vlad Georgescu, men who fought with altruism and passion for the knowledge and utterance of the truth. I extol Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunca, who, while physically in exile, continued to live daily for the Romanian people, keeping awake, through their unforgettable Free Europe broadcasts, the moral conscience of Romanians."

Virgil Ierunca died on September 28, 2006. Monica Lovinescu died on April 20, 2008.  

RFE/RL published a commentary on its internet page in April 2008: "Why does Monica Lovinescu matter?"

https://www.rferl.org/a/1109625.html

May 1952 Princeton Meeting and the Future of Political Warfare @

 

An extraordinary weekend meeting took place May 10-11, 1952, at Princeton University, New Jersey. Radio Free Europe president C.D. Jackson moderated a high-level meeting of persons from CIA, State Department, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, the National Committee for a Free Europe, and others. Jackson had apparently called for the meeting out of frustration with the Truman administration for failing to give RFE a guidance policy for its broadcasts. C.D. Jackson begin the meeting with:

 

You Washington men are in Princeton; we New Yorkers are in Princeton; the occasionally mysterious CIA people are here; the also occasionally mysterious State Department people are here; Admiral Miller, who is President of NCFE, and Bob Lang, head of Radio Free Europe, are just back from Europe. But everyone is off home field. And the reason for that was that I desperately hope that although all of us are here representing some kind of organization, at the same time I hope that the atmosphere will be such that people can say things to each other, and about someone else, and even their own organizations, with complete frankness and without any defense mechanisms being set up or hurty feelings quivering on the table. This is, I hope, a group of individual professionals of good will, interested and concerned with this problem.

 

Each participant had been given a packet of four discussion documents to be reviewed before the meeting:

 

1.     Memorandum from NCFE's Lewis Galantiere

2.     1952 William (Bill) Griffith: RFE Memorandum on Czechoslovakia

3.     Copy of magazine Economist editorial, April 26, 1952, ‘Containment Plus’

4.     Copy of April 16, 1952, newspaper column by Joseph and Stewart Alsop.

 

C.D. Jackson explained the problem to be discussed:

 

I don’t know how many times in the last 18 months, but certainly close to ten times, our guys have gone to Washington and in their very friendly and helpful talks with, say, the Central European Desk in the State Department, have said, ‘Look, tell us what you want us to do’. And those guys quite honestly said, ‘We can’t tell you what to do. Go ahead and do you want you want to do. We will tell you if you are getting into trouble.’

 

This is a U.S.A. long-term “think session”, and if it is long-term, and a political warfare will can be developed, the how-to and the coordinating, and all the other implementery things can follow reasonably smoothly. So I pitch it to you: do all of you really want to do it?  And if you do, it can be done.

 

We created one or more salient – into the hearts and minds of our friends behind the Iron Curtain, into the fears and mistrust of Communist officials behind the Curtain, and possibly created a frown on Uncle Joe’s brow. Well, then these salients have been created, and we look around for who was to close up on the flanks – the U.S. or the West – there was no one there.

 

It comes to this – that arising not merely of the operation of RFE, but out of our posture with respect to German, Eastern Europe, and Russia itself, it is felt that a gap exists in the understanding of the nature of the American objectives and that this gap contributes to apathy and weakens the dynamism of any effort to see that part of the world move without war toward a shape, which is in the American interest.

           

Adolphe Berle, director of NCFE’s Mid-European Study Center reiterated RFE’s frustration and need for specific, concrete policy guidance:

 

Something must happen – either we tell them to go home, or start composing music, or drop out of the picture, or we suggest a goal for the U.S. or West. Without that, I don’t see how the boys in Munich can make noises and increasingly make trouble there without getting themselves hated for their pains. We can no longer take ad hoc action.  All this has to go somewhere, and we must have a hypothesis. It must be flexible, but we must be able at least to have some picture of the eventual result we expect to do. That is not a “statement of objectives.”  Enough ideas have been stated, be we ought to have a blue-print, flexible, of what we expect to do.

 

Allen Dulles , CIA Deputy Director, Plans, commented, “As I said before, you have got to have a few martyrs. Some people have to get killed. I don’t want a bloody battle but I would like to see things started.  I think we have got to take a few risks. We have got to move on with caution and foresight.” 

C. D. Jackson,  concluded, “I hope that you will agree that in pulling it off, political warfare, or whatever you want to call it – which deals with the minds of men everywhere (the only thing we can get at in many places) – may be the way in which we can pull the neatest trick of this century.”