CIA's Use of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in its Quest for strategic Information about the USSR in the early Cold War, Part One ©

" I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma ..."

Winston Churchill 

Beginning with this posting, I will be looking at CIA’s use of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) by infiltrating agents into the USSR in its quest for strategic information in the early Cold War.

REDSOX was CIA’s cryptonym for Operations involving the illegal return of defectors and emigres to the USSR as agents to infiltrate the USSR. Most REDSOX agent candidates were recruited from the estimated two million World War II displaced persons (DPs) of Slavic origin located in Europe. CIA‘s Soviet Russia (SR) Division infiltrated at least fifty REDSOX agents into the Soviet Union -- another estimate is that 85 agents were infiltrated via parachutes, land, or sea. 

CIA’s Combined Soviet Operations Branch (CSOB) in Munich, Germany was responsible for the dispatching of agents into the USSR.  The majority of these operations were directed against Western Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Baltic countries and were "essentially one-way operations with few adequate provisions for exfiltration", i.e., they did not come back. According to one CIA report, “One chronic drawback during this period was that the Soviet authorities shrewdly revealed the capture and compromise of many of our agents in the newspapers.” 

In 1952, the CIA created the Domestic Operations Branch (DOB), cryptonym AEACRE, to support operations of the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). The purpose of the Basic Plan of AEACRE was, 

To provide for the establishment of a Domestic Operations Base in or near Washington for the interrogation, assessment, training, briefing, and preparation for dispatch of agents for infiltration into the USSR. An increasing number of problems relative to operational security is hampering REDSOX training activities in Germany, Japan, and Turkey. Since the pool of possible agent recruits is diminishing in Europe, as a result of immigration, a large part of the recruiting will now have to be done in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1953, responsibility for the recruiting and training agents was transferred to the Domestic Operations Branch (DOB) in the United States. One reason being that processing of Soviet defectors showed that seven out of ten defectors were discovered to be Soviet agents sent to the West.

From 1953 to 1955, only a few REDSOX operations were launched, and only three agents were dispatched in 1953 and none in 1954. In 1955, the planning and execution of REDSOX operations were renewed as exclusive DOB projects. The following are summaries of some of the projects:

1.     Project AESCOUTER: This operation was a joint Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS)/CIA maritime penetration of the Northwestern USSR to gather photographic intelligence on a high-priority Soviet airfield. The training of two Norwegian citizens recruited by the NIS and one NIS case officer was completed successfully. In/exfiltration will be by maritime means with an alternate overland exfiltration possibility. The operation will be mounted in the late summer of 1956, as soon as darkness conditions permit. 

 

2.     Project AECANARY: This was a double-agent operation for the buildup and the acquisition of Counter-Espionage information and incidental Foreign Intelligence information. DOB assessed, trained, and dispatched the agent as a typical REDSOX border crossing agent. This agent's preparation presented many unique handling, training, and security problems. He was dispatched across the Turkish/USSR border in the summer of 1955 

 

3.     Project AENICKLE: It was an attempt to use a recent young Soviet Army defector to recruit a Soviet citizen in place. The Soviet to be recruited as an engineer in a Moscow jet-aircraft engine plant and a friend of the agent's father. The agent, AENICKLE, was declared a bona fide defector by Defector Refugee Center in Frankfurt on 8 September. He was favorably reassessed and re-polygraphed by field case officers before his move to the U.S. As was standard DOB practice, he was reinterrogated and assessed on his arrival at DOB. The interrogation revealed hitherto undiscovered discrepancies in this agent's story. The Office of Security, the Counter Intelligence Staff, and the FBI were advised. 

 

4.     Project AEDRLFTER: This is an approved project developed by DOB to provide balloon equipment and facilities in Iran to infiltrate agents into the Soviet Union. The project was implemented in Iran by one SR staff officer with the knowledge and consent of the Shah of Iran. 

 

5.     Project AEPISTOL: This joint Iranian Intelligence Service/CIA low-level border crossing project was developed with AEACRE funds and supported from Headquarters by DOB case officers. It aimed to gather operational intelligence and establish a covert apparatus in the Soviet Turkmen area East of the Caspian Sea. Two agents have already been recruited, trained, and dispatched. They were successfully exfiltrated debriefed in the field. 

 

6.     Project Turkish REDSOX: At the request of the Turkish Intelligence Service and the (redacted), DOB supported five REDSOX operations mounted or run by the Turkish Intelligence Service. Support consisted mainly of documentation, legends, operational and area briefing, clothing, and limited finances. DOB case officers worked on this project both at Headquarters and on TDY in the field. The operations were instrumental in producing vitally necessary recent documents from the Georgian SSR and some operational and positive intelligence. One two-man team was successfully exfiltrated. 

 

7.     Project AERODYNAMIC: AERODYNAMIC was an active SR project for the past seven years and has supported the dispatch of all REDSOX agents into Soviet Ukraine. It provided financial support for the mechanism by which pouched material was brought out by underground couriers and provided the intelligence community with information of Ukrainian underground activities; the structure, aims, and personalities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA); and the underground government, the Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR). DOB took the initiative to renew the REDSOX portions of this project. 

 

8.     Project AEPRIMER: This project is an outgrowth of the combined AEQUOR Foreign Intelligence (FI) and Political and Psychological (PP) program directed at the Byelorussian SSR. The earlier version of AEPRIMER, AEQUOR/FI, was responsible for the dispatch of five action agents into Byelorussia and established a working relationship with the leading Byelorussian emigre organization for the continuation of covert activities.

 

9.     Project ALOPECIA: This cryptonym has been given to a single contact in Brazil operating among the Ukrainian emigres. It was anticipated that his activities would be expanded to include all of South America, making him the focal point for the spotting and preliminary assessment of any action-type candidates used in Ukrainian REDSOX operations. 

 

10. Project AECUPBOARD: This is a pilot project for which approval was recently requested. It was an attempt to set up an overt package mail channel with persons in the Soviet Union. By tapping correspondence with persons who were active in the old Ukrainian underground movement, it is hoped that material, funds, and instructions could eventually be sent to persons in Ukrainian SSR. 

 

Details of some of these projects will follow in subsequent posts.

The Case of Premsyl Barak, Code Name "Albort" ©

The 1980s witnessed a new generation of intelligence agents at RFE/RL. On September 18, 1988, RFE’s Czechoslovak Service freelancer Premsyl Barak ( Code Name “Albort”) confessed to RFE/RL that he had been spying for the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) and that he was under threat from the CIS for refusing to continue doing so. For four years (1984–88), while employed as a freelancer, he reported on all RFE/RL's Czechoslovak Service activities and other émigrés living in Germany. He met at least twenty-three times with his handler, a diplomat out of Bonn's West German Czechoslovak Embassy. He received about DM 25,000 for his information.

In his later sworn testimony to German police, Barak said that he volunteered to work for the StB shortly after the return of former employee Pavel Minarik in 1976. Barak was looking for adventure and was intrigued by the Minarik story about how he had spied at RFE from 1968 to 1976. Barak stated that he was trained in "spycraft " from 1978 to 1982, with interruptions while traveling abroad as a musician for Czechoslovak musical groups. At one point, to establish his credentials in the West, under the StB supervision, he brought out supposed samizdat documents. He handed them over to an émigré writer living in West Germany, who wrote an article from the material he received.

 

The purpose of Barak's preparations and training in Czechoslovakia and traveling to meet with émigrés in the West was to get him ready to join RFE/RL in Munich. From here, he would supply the StB with internal documents, information about personnel, and various émigré groups:

Besides the previously mentioned documents, which I passed on to my contact officer, I also passed him personal notes and information about people who worked in the Czech. Dept. or belonged to Czech. émigré groups outside RFE. Besides the previously mentioned documents, which I passed on to my contact officer, I also passed him personal notes and information about people who worked in the Czech. It was part of my tasking to collect all data, personal and professional, about these people. Additionally, I received specific concrete tasking from either "Vladimir" or "Ludek” to gather additional information about particular people in whom they were interested.

On Friday, June 9, 1989, Barak's trial ended when he was found guilty and placed on probation for two years. The reason for the light sentence was that there was no evidence of any specific damage because of his activities, he had voluntarily gone to the police, and he fully cooperated with the authorities.

 

Barak was not encouraged to work full-time for RFE/RL but only work as a freelancer, and therefore he would not be under any supervisory control. As a freelancer, he would be free to come and go as he wanted, including Sundays—when he was most active. Barak admitted stealing RFE/RL stationery and envelopes, and he assisted in the distribution of anonymous letters against the former Czechoslovak Service director and other employees of that service in 1988.

For more information, see Chapter 8 in: 

September 4, 1950, Eisenhower’s Nationwide Radio Appeal for the First Crusade for Freedom ©

U.S. Army General and future U.S. President 
Dwight D. Eisenhower passionately called for an American Crusade for Freedom, in a nationwide radio broadcast, covered by the four major radio networks, from Denver, Colorado, on September 4, 1950: 

I speak tonight about the Crusade For Freedom. 

This Crusade is a campaign sponsored by private American citizens to fight the big lie with the big truth. It is a program that has been hailed by President Truman, and others, as an essential step in getting the case for freedom heard by the world's multitudes. 

Powerful Communist radio stations incessantly tell the world that we Americans are physically soft and morally corrupt; that we are disunited and confused; that we are selfish and cowardly; that we have nothing to offer the world but imperialism and exploitation. 

To combat these evil broadcasts the government has established a radio program called the Voice of America, which has brilliantly served the cause of freedom, but the Communist stations overpower it and outflank it with daily coverage that neglects no wavelength or dialect, no prejudice or local aspiration. Weaving a fantastic pattern of lies and twisted fact, they confound the listener into believing that we are warmongers, that America invaded North Korea, that Russia invented the airplane, that the Soviets, unaided won World War II; and that the secret police and slave camps of Communism offer humanity brighter hope than do self-government and free enterprise. 

We need powerful radio stations abroad, operated without government restrictions, to tell in a vivid and convincing form about the decency and essential fairness of democracy These stations must tell of our aspirations for peace, our hatred of war, our support of the United Nations and our constant readiness to cooperate with any and all who have these same desires 

One such private station Radio Free Europe —is now in operation in Western Germany. It daily brings a message of hope and encouragement to a small part of the European masses. 

Freedom Scroll 

In this broadcast, Eisenhower called on all Americans to sign the “Freedom Scroll,” with a “Declaration of Freedom,” which read: 

I believe in the sacredness and dignity of the individual.

I believe that all men derive the right to freedom equally from God.

I pledge to resist aggression and tyranny wherever they appear on earth.

I am proud to enlist in the Crusade for Freedom.

I am proud to help make the freedom Bell possible, to be a signer of this Declaration of Freedom, to have my name included as a permanent part of the Freedom Shrine in Berlin, and to join with the millions of men and women throughout the world who hold the cause of freedom sacred. 

Ike's September 4, 1950, address is an archetypal example of Cold War discourse inasmuch as it features: 

·      stark polarizations (truth vs. lies, peace vs. war, democracy vs. communism, liberty vs. slavery, death vs. life); 

·      fear appeals (secret police, slave camps, blackout, executed, blank page in history, cold-blooded betrayal); 

·      biblical allusions (birthright, venom, hissing, faith, God, devilish, bondage, sacrifice, doctrine); 

·      images of death (dying, poison, mastery of life and soul, lose American birthright, mortal fear); 

·      use of ultimate terms (freedom, God, democracy, progress, liberty, truth); 

·      savagery of the enemy (hissing, hating tirade, godless depravity, aggression and tyranny, predatory military force, ruthless men); 

·      righteousness of America (freedom, readiness to cooperate, opportunity, human happiness, hope, encouragement, peaceful intent, decent motives, decency and essential fairness); 

·      fragility of liberty (take up arms in defense of liberty, defense of freedom, destroy free government, destroy our system, destroy human liberty, overpower it and outflank it, defense of our way of life, guard it with vigilance and defend it with fortitude and faith).

Source: Martin J. Medhurst, “Eisenhower and the Crusade for Freedom: the rhetorical Origins of a Cold War Campaign,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1997.

For more information about the Crusade for Freedom, Freedom Scrolls, and Eisenhower's support, see:

Operation STONE (Akce Kámen): The Tragic Theater of Communism ©

On August 31, 1951, Radio Free Europe's Czechoslovak broadcast service, the "Voice of Free Czechoslovakia," aired a radio drama in the hard-hitting series entitled "All This We Know." This program series identified secret police officers, agents, agent-provocateurs, blackmailers, informers, and “quislings" in countries behind the Iron Curtain. This particular program identified a "Dr. Evzen" and went into details of a Czechoslovak intelligence service (StB -- Státní bezpečnost) scheme known as Operation STONE (Akce Kámen). It used agent provocateurs to arrest, try, imprison, or execute potential escapees from Czechoslovakia and steal anything of "wealth" from the victims. STONE referred to the border markers used to identify the German-Czech border.

The criminal scheme involved a false German-Czechoslovak border, according to an official U.S. State Department protest note on June 15, 1948, to Czechoslovakia:  

 

For approximately four weeks, representatives of the Czechoslovak State Security Police (S.N.B.), dressed in full uniform with insignia of officers of the United States Army, have been conducting an office in a house on Czechoslovak territory in the western outskirts of the village of Vseruby. In the conduct of their business, these representatives are seated behind a desk on which there is conspicuously displayed a bottle of American whiskey, packages of American cigarettes, and a small American flag. On the wall behind their desk is a large American flag and pictures of Presidents Truman and Roosevelt. 

 

These S.N.B. representatives, dressed in uniforms of the United States Army, are assisted by other S.N.B. representatives who are dressed in uniforms of the German border police. According to factual evidence in possession of the Government of the United States, the purpose of this office, as well as of the fraudulent misuse of the uniform of the Army of the United States and of the German border police, as well as the display of the American flag and pictures of the former and present presidents of the United States, is to supplement other measures taken by the Czechoslovak Government to prevent illegal departures from Czechoslovakia.  

            

The Czechoslovak government not only denied the allegations but also "hinted that the Americans were somewhat paranoid." Moreover, “Most minute investigation in Vseruby has failed to find the smallest trace or suspicion of misuse of American insignia or portraits of US statesmen. We maintain that the protest is based on a report of an unreliable informer.“  

 

Researchers into Communist Czechoslovakia crimes have proved that the Americans were not paranoid, and scores of Czechoslovak citizens were victimized.  

 

One variation of how the scheme worked in general: previously identified wealthy persons were approached by agent provocateurs and told they were about to be arrested by the secret police. To avoid this, they should leave Czechoslovakia immediately and take only cash and jewelry. They were driven at night to a "border" with border markings. Believing they were at the German border, the victims would then cross on foot, when they would be met by StB agents acting as smugglers or bribed German border police. From there, the victims would be brought to the house described in the 1948 U.S. protest note. They believed they were then in the care of the American military. 

 

For more information, see Chapter 2 in:

 

 

In English, Dr. Igor Lukes, "KAMEN: A Cold War Dangle Operation with an American Dimension, 1948-1952," Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 1. 

 

In the Czech language, military historian Dr. Prokop Tomek wrote a detailed article about KAMEN– Adventurer in the Service of Communists (Amon Tomašoff – dobrodruh ve službách komunistů) in SECURITAS IMPERII 12, Sbornik k promlematice, pp. 5 -28,  

 

The most detailed study of the subject can be found in  two books in Czech by Václava Jandečková Václava Jandečková: Kámen: Svědectví hlavního aktéra akce "Falešné hranice" u Všerub na Domažlicku,  Nakladatelství Českého lesa 2014 and Falešné hranice: Akce „Kámen“. Oběti a strůjci nejutajovanějších zločinů StB 1948–1951, 2018. In additions she wrote a detailed article in E English:: “OPERATION “Kámen” – VŠERUBY 1948. New revelations in the case of the fake Czech border to Germany”, Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (JIPPS) VOL.7, NR.1/2013, 49-68. The photograph above taken from her book Kámen.

Finding Francesco Gullino, aka Agent “Piccadilly”-- Updated ©

Francesco Gullino, the prime suspect in the murder of Georgi Markov -- the so-called "Umbrella Murder" -- was found dead in his apartment in Wells, Austria, on August 15, 2021. He had been living in abject poverty. 

In my book Cold War Radio, I go into some detail about how Radio Free Europe (RFE) found Gullino in 1995 in Budapest, Hungary. RFE contacted him for an interview. He asked for time to think about it and then left Hungary without doing the interview.

 

Afterward, there was no trace of him until 2002, when reportedly he was detained on the German or Austrian border with the Czech Republic on suspicion that a painting in his possession was stolen; it was not. He was not charged and again seemed to have disappeared.

 

During the research for the 2013 documentary Silenced: The Writer Georgi Markov and the Umbrella Murder, Gullino was located in Wels, Austria, where he worked as an art dealer. He was registered with the Danish Embassy in Budapest, had a new or renewed Danish passport, and received a monthly Danish social security payment. He agreed to be interviewed for the film. 

 

The world premiere of the film was in Sofia, Bulgaria, in March 2013. Below are excerpts from Gullino's interview with film director Klaus Dexel. He not only denied involvement in the Markov murder, but also he resurrected the 1980s Communist propaganda that Markov’s death was part of the West’s Cold War conspiracy against Bulgaria.

 

Q. Were you the murderer of Georgi Markov, or not?

 

A. I have nothing to do with this story. I am sorry. I wish I could give you a straight answer. But, think for a moment. If I were the murderer, do you think I should just say it?  The real truth, you don’t throw it away because it is so important. But for your broadcasting, you can just say what want, just like all the others. … But in general, why should one say the truth?  What for? You live so well with lies. Isn’t it? Or say nothing.

 

While Gullino’s English is not perfect, it is very good. Later in the taped interview, Gullino then gave his views on the Cold War and the murder of Georgi Markov: 

 

Cold War. The situation. The period. They were just accusing each other for the most horrible things. Weren’t they? Weren’t the British, the Americans, the West, the Germans, whatever, finding any occasion they could to say something bad about the East. And in the East, they did the same thing about the West. That was part of the attitude they had for the period of the Cold War.

 

It was normal for the day. What kind of British newspaper would say that life was better in Bulgaria, or in Russia, or whatever. They would say there were bad people; it was cold, nothing to eat, or whatever. And there is no freedom; there is no standard of living… On the other hand, in the eastern countries, they would have said that in England, everything is decadent, and impoverished. They were accusing one another for many years of … well, you know very well, yes, if this Mister died on his very own? But on the other hand, … the country of Bulgaria was never very famous for nothing, really nothing important in the Cold War contest, you see? Like Pope, Hungary, Czech, or Poland.  They were always talking so much about Poland. And why not also give a bit to the Bulgarians? Just a bit.

 

But, the very fact that nothing happened to me proves that nobody was really serious about me. But of course in the story, especially in those days, was an interesting story. When it happened 30 or 40 years ago. I think even a Japanese newspaper reported it. So it was quite a big story because … it was so exciting. You understand? As I told you before, the dark evening, the foggy evening, the London Bridge, the umbrella, so British the umbrella. Did they say I had a bough on the head with thorns? Conan Doyle could have made it.

 

The film was next shown at the Documentary Film Festival in Munich in May 2013. The German network ZDF and the French network ARTE aired the film in September 2013. The film touched the nerves of former Bulgarian intelligence agents and collaborators, who, in newspaper articles and in television interviews, charged that Markov died from a cat scratch that was falsely diagnosed by the British doctors.

In August 2021, the Austrian news agency APA reported that "An Italian with a Danish passport Francesco Gulino, known as "Agent Piccadilly," was found dead in his home in the Austrian city of Wales. A doctor confirmed the death of the 75-year-old former secret agent. Police said that there was no evidence of a violent death."

 

For more information

 

Details on Gullino’s alleged espionage activities for Bulgaria are documented in Hristo Hristov's book, The Double Life of Agent Piccadilly that is available to download as an e-book at www.hristo-hristov.com

 

Also, Chapter 3, “Piccadilly vs. the Tramp: the Murder of Georgi Markov” in Richard H. Cummings, Cold War Radio: the dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950 – 1989, which was reviewed in The History Herald, 6 October 2012.

 

2012 Photograph of Francisco Gullino and interview extracts courtesy of film director Klaus Dexel.

"The Winds of Freedom" -- The First Lofting of Leaflet Balloons Over the Iron Curtain, August 13, 1951 ©

In August 1951, the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) abolished its Research and Publications Service and created the Free Europe Press (FEP). This was used to print various publications in the USA and Europe and print leaflets and launch balloons to carry them to the countries Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. Permanent launching sites were constructed and set up in Fronau, Freying, and Hohenhard, West Germany. The Free Europe Press (FEP) printed millions of propaganda leaflets to be launched. The leaflets contained slogans such as "A new hope is stirring" and "Friends of Freedom in other lands have found a new way to reach you." The strong messages of the leaflets included,

·      A new wind is blowing    

·      They know that you also want freedom     

·      Millions of free men and women have joined together and are sending you this message of friendship over the winds of freedom.    

·      We are in touch with you daily by radio.    

·      There is no dungeon deep enough to hide the truth, no wall high enough to keep out the message of freedom.    

·      Tyranny cannot control the winds, and cannot enslave your hearts. Freedom will rise again.

The schedule and frequencies of Radio Free Europe's broadcasts to Czechoslovakia were on the reverse side of the leaflets. Organizational signatures on the reverse side included the Crusade for Freedom, the International Federation of Free Journalists, and the Confederation International des Anciens Prisonniers de Guerre (over 1,200.000 war veterans and prisoners of war from Belgium, France, Holland, and Italy).

On August 12, 1951, at 6:30 p.m., a convoy of eleven trucks, two buses, six automobiles, a radio truck, and a few taxis began the trip from Radio Free Europe headquarters in Munich to the Iron Curtain, about 170 miles northeast of Munich. One participant said, "The convoy stretches out over a half-mile. It looks like an army division on the move." The convoy arrived at a field near Tirschenreuth, West Germany, at approximately 1 a.m, on August 13 and set up the base of operations just 3 miles from the Czechoslovak border: The balloon crews began to work almost immediately in five trucks:

The plastic balloon crews work inside the truck--five men to a truck. Two men prepare the ‘pillows' and insert the message sheets; one man operates the hydrogen tanks; another nozzles in the gas; the last man 'weighs' each balloon by attaching a small metal ring with scotch tape. 

When the right amount of gas has been inserted, the balloon hangs almost stationary in the air. Finally, the opening at the corner of the balloon is heat-sealed with an electric gadget like a curling iron. The actual launching consists of tearing off the iron ring and shoving the balloon out the back end of the truck. The 'pillows' take off gracefully and slowly, their silver sides catching the moonlight.

The first balloons, about 4 feet in diameter, with the Czech word  “Svoboda”
(Freedom) written on the side in red letters, were launched at the rate of one per minute. On August 14, 1951, the General Mills public relations department posted the following information on bulletin boards at the corporate headquarters in 
Minneapolis:  

Tens of thousands of General Mills-made freedom balloons are now landing in Czechoslovakia...carrying messages of hope to people behind the Iron Curtain. Called pillow balloons because of their 54" square size, they were developed at company Research laboratories in 1949. The balloons are made of polyethylene, a substance commonly used in food saver bags

The second type of balloon was made of rubber and called "Gummies" (the German word for rubber) by the balloon crews. The "Gummies" were round, colored either red or black, and took off faster and soon raced ahead of the "pillow balloons." Three prominent American personalities eagerly participated in the balloon launchings: 

·      Famed American newspaper syndicated columnist Drew Pearson, a major proponent of the balloon launching program in his widely-read US newspaper column: "The Washington Merry-Go-Round;"

·      C.D. Jackson, President of Free Europe Committee and former Time magazine vice president;

·      Republican Party leader Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, was the National Chairman of the 1951 Crusade for Freedom campaign.

 

The lofting of balloons continued until approximately 6:30 a.m., when breakfast was served. The crews returned to work at 7 a.m. and continued launching until noon. By then, over 3,000 balloons carrying 4,000,000 leaflets were launched. It was 7 p.m. before the convoy returned to Munich, so the crews and guests could rest and sleep. 

According to Time magazine, the three launched the balloons "looking like three Statues of Liberty, held high above their heads big rubber balloons. At the signal they solemnly let go." 

The photo shows Stassen talking to reporters with Drew Pearson in the background, wearing a hat, and standing underneath a "Gummi" balloon with leaflets. After the launch, Harold Stassen said, "We tore a big hole in the Iron Curtain. If the free world can send enough messages by radio and balloon, Soviet Russia will have to give up its present world policy, and the prospects for avoiding World War III will be considerably brighter." C.D. Jackson reportedly said, 'Tonight we caught the Kremlin with its Iron Curtain down."

From October 1951 to November 1956, the skies of
Central Europe were filled with more than 500,000 balloons carrying over 300,000,000 leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter that were sent from West Germany over the Iron Curtain to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. 

Cold War Pigeon Power: "Leaping Lena" ©

A true story of when in the 1954-55 Radio Free Europe and Crusade for Freedom used a "Freedom Pigeon" to fight Communism.

As the story goes, a German racing pigeon was to fly from Munich in a race back to her home base of Klautzenbach, near Nuremberg. She got lost and landed in Pilzen, Czechoslovakia. A pigeon fancier found her, attached a message for Radio Free Europe to her leg, and let her go. She flew back to Klautzenbach. Her owner found the note and notified RFE; the pigeon and message were given to RFE. "Leaping Lena" became her nickname. The message she carried was

 

We plead with you not to slow down in the fight against Communism because Communism must be destroyed. We beg for a speedy liberation from the power of the Kremlin and the establishment of a United States of Europe. We listen to your broadcasts. They present an entirely true picture of life behind the Iron Curtain. We would like you to tell us how we can combat "Bolshevism" and the tyrannical dictatorship existing here. We are taking every opportunity to work against the regime and do everything in our power to sabotage it.

    

                  Unbowed Pilsen

 

"Leaping Lena" arrived in the United States on August 1, 1954, when four World War II hero pigeons from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and 15 news photographers greeted her as a V.I.P. (Very Important Pigeon). Fort Monmouth was the site of the U.S. Army Signal Corps Pigeon Breeding and Training Center. The American Racing Pigeon Union and the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers sponsored her arrival.

 

One thousand American pigeons released in her honor carried a copy of the message to President Dwight Eisenhower and Henry Ford II, president of the Crusade for Freedom. 

 

Newspaper headlines included "Star Crusader for Radio Arrives in Nation" and "Lena, Pigeon Who Crashed Curtain, Gets Big Ovation." One photograph carried the caption: "The bird won honorary pigeonship in the United States after flying an anti-Communist message over the iron curtain." Another read, "Pigeon of Pilsen on Mission in the US." One New YorkTimes headline was "Coos and Kudos to Greet 'Anti-Red" Pigeon Who Flew Message Through Iron Curtain." One newspaper reporter not so kindly described her as "a rather drab looking expanse of feathers resembling any plump pigeon in any park."

 

After three weeks of quarantine at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Clifton, New Jersey, "Leaping Lena" reportedly then went on a press tour, helping to raise funds for Radio Free Europe in the 1954-1955 Crusade campaign. She was the "model for an insignia to be used in the fund drive to support Radio Free Europe broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain" and presumably retired in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

 

One of the four World War II hero pigeons was her mate, but, unfortunately, "Leaping Lena's" fate in the United States is not known. Possibly, she was given to a zoo, according to a history of the U.S. Army Signal Corps:

 

The advent of the electronics age brought about the demise of one of the Signal Corps' oldest forms of communications, pigeons. The Army's birds, like horses and mules before them, had fallen victim to progress. Consequently, the Signal Corps closed the Pigeon Breeding and Training Branch (formerly Center) at Fort Monmouth on May 1, 1957. The Corps sold its birds to the public except for the remaining war heroes, such as G.I. Joe, which it was presented to zoos around the country.

 

For more information 

 

Rebecca Robbins Raines. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army
Signal Corps. http://www.history.army.mil/books/30-17/Front.htm#toc

Photograph of Lena is courtesy of RFE/RL, Inc.