HARVARD and CABEZONE, two early Cold War CIA Projects affecting Soviet and East European Defectors ©

In January 1950, the National Security Council (NSC) issued Intelligence Directive No. 13, entitled  "Exploitation of Soviet and Satellite Defectors Outside the United States." This directive specifically defined defectors as,  

·      Individuals who escape from the control of the USSR or countries in the Soviet orbit, or who, being outside such jurisdiction or authority, are unwilling to return to it, and who are of particular interest to the U.S. Government because:

 

o   They are able to add valuable new or confirmatory information to existing U.S. knowledge of the Soviet world, and

o   Their defection can be exploited in the psychological field. 

 

NSC authorized and directed that "The Central Intelligence Agency shall be responsible for the covert exploitation of defectors, and shall … coordinate all matters concerned with the handling and disposition of declared defectors from the Soviet Union and the satellite states in order to assure the effective exploitation of all defectors for operational, intelligence, or psychological purposes by the U.S. Government."  

 

NSC Directive No. 13 included these points:

 

Subject to the overall direction of the Chief of Mission, CIA representatives in the field shall have operating responsibility outside the U.S. occupied areas for: 

 

a.   Providing secure facilities and preliminary assessment of a defector’s bona fides and his intelligence or other potential value to the U.S. Government.

b.   Assuring that the other IAC (International Advisory Committee) agencies have adequate opportunity to exploit a defector for intelligence or operational purposes, including immediate access to the defector in the field.

c.    Arranging secure movement of defectors as required.

Project HARVARD was activated initially in 1948 to provide safe-house and Operational aid facilities for all CIA activities in Germany. HARVARD was expanded in 1952 when the CIA set up the "Defector Reception Center" (DRC) near Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern. The objectives of the Project were changed when HARVARD was assigned 

           responsibility for the rehabilitation and resettlement of defectors, agents, and agent-trainees as their usefulness to the CIA is exhausted. In this latter capacity, HARVARD strives, insofar as possible, to resettle some of these individuals with an eye to their future usefulness for defector inducement and Psychological warfare purposes. In effect, HARVARD handles the resettlement aspects of the Defector Program, to which, under NSCID No. 13, the CIA is firmly committed. 

CIA had another defector project at the Frankfurt, cryptonym CABEZONE, which was financially separately supported by HARVARD. Actual debriefing and interrogation of defectors and potential defectors, including the use of the lie detector, was the responsibility of the CABEZONE officers. Afterward, if approved by CABEZONE, the defectors would be turned over to HARVARD for relocation and resettlement. The number of resettlements from 1953 through 1961:

1953                95

1954                182

1955                61

1956                114

1957                194

1958                90

1959                93 

1960                56

1961                74

For example, during the fiscal year 1953, HARVARD successfully resettled 95 defectors, of which 55 were resettled between 1 January and 1 July 1953. HARVARD provided for,  

·      immediate housing and subsistence on the local economy, 

·      arranges for documentation and legal status in Germany, 

·      takes care of personal needs, welfare, and morale problems,

·      arranges for physical examinations and medical and dental care when indicated, 

·      arranges for language instruction and apprenticeship training, 

·      handles official formalities involving births, weddings, name changes, European travel, etc., and 

·      arranges for transportation to resettlement destination

CIA's Cold War Project AEROOT Accomplishments, 1955-1958 ©

Below is a list of achievements of the CIA Project AEROOT involving early Cold War operations into Estonia as listed in the 2 April 1957, Memorandum for the Chief of Foreign Intelligence: 

Subject: Request for renewal of Project AEROOT

This is a continuing project on Foreign Intelligence (FI) operations involving Estonia and Estonian nationals of the USSR. The original AEROOT Project was approved on 13 May 1953 under Basic Plan AEBASIN and has been continued by means of renewals and extensions to 31 October 1956

Summary of AEROOT accomplishments in the period 5 April 1955 to 1 November 1956: 

a. Recruited and trained two REDSOX agents. *

b. Recruited three REDSKIN agents. **

c. Recruited two Soviet Estonian residents as informers. 

d. Detected and followed up with three Russian Intelligence Service (RIS) agents from Estonian SSR in cooperation with Swedish and British intelligence services. 

e. Interrogated and caused confessions of two RIS agents from Estonian SSR. 

f. Spotted one principal agent (P/A) candidate for work in cooperation with Finnish IS. 

g. Recruited one agent for a repatriation mission to Estonian SSR. 

h. Recruited a merchant seaman qualified to visit Soviet ports. 

i. Recruited two mail drops for S/W correspondence with Estonian SSR. 

j. Detected RIS control of a Swedish IS agent in Estonian SSR, with whom we also were in unilateral communication. 
k. Established, with the aid of a liaison, that all Swedish and British IS agent assets in Estonian SSR were under RIS control. 

1. Provided two PM agent candidates for Hot War covert operations training. 

m. Thirteen reports were disseminated, of which three were judged to be of considerable value and ten of value, probably true. 

n. Expanded our network of emigre informants in several countries dealing with matters of interest to Clandestine Services. 

From 1 November 1956 to 31 March 1958, project AEROOT's accomplishments included: 

a. Recruited, trained, and dispatched a contract agent under deep cover in Finland. His mission was to exploit REDSKIN leads obtained from his Finnish contact and resident Estonian nationals in Finland.

b. Spotted a recruit for development as a resident foreign intelligence (FI) agent for the exploitation of REDSKIN channels in Finland. 

* Operations involving the illegal return of defectors and emigres to USSR as agents

** Operations involving legal methods of placing, recruiting, and communicating with agents within the USSR.

Who Killed the Wanderer?: The Unsolved Murder of Georgi Markov ©

  

“In her wildest dreams Agatha Christie couldn't have conjured a more bizarre murder and a more bizarre murder weapon than the one that killed a Bulgaria writer named Georgi Markov who, while living in exile in London, wrote commentaries for Radio Free Europe.”

 

(Ed Bradley, 60 Minutes, CBS Television News Program, October 20, 1991)

 

On September 7, 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré, who lived and worked in London, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge. His life and death show evidence of how far a regime will go to silence its opposition. 

 

Time magazine, in February 2010, ranked the murder of Georgi Markov at number 5 of the “top 10 assassination plots”, just below the murder of Leon Trotsky in 1940 and the attempt on Adolph Hitler in World War Two.

 

On June 15, 1969, Georgi Markov's play "The Man Who Was Me" was previewed before a general audience and party officials in Sofia, Bulgaria. While the audience enthusiastically responded to the play, the party members did not. The play was stopped. A close friend warned him to leave Bulgaria. As part of his preparations to leave, he burned his diaries of fifteen years. Using a passport and visa issued three months earlier, Georgi Markov defected to the West, crossing into Yugoslavia. He saw Bulgaria for the last time.

 

He settled in England and became a broadcast journalist for Radio Free Europe, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), and Deutsche Welle, the German international broadcast service.  

 

Markov's large audience in Bulgaria listened to his prime-time Sunday-night broadcasts over Radio Free Europe. He dared to tell his audience that Bulgarian President and Communist Party chief Todor Zhivkov wore no clothes.

 

In June 1977, Communist Party Chairman Zhivkov chaired a Politburo meeting and stated he wanted the activities of Markov stopped. The Interior Minister reacted and requested KGB assistance in the killing of Markov. Though he wanted Markov killed, he wanted no trace to Bulgaria. The Chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, agreed to the assassination as long as there would be no trace back to the Soviets.  Thus, the Bulgarians and Soviets were operating under a double case of “plausible denial. “

 

Former KGB general Oleg Kalugin has publicly admitted his role and the role of the KGB in supplying the Bulgarian intelligence service with both the weapon and the poison. Purportedly, the highly secret KGB laboratory known as the "Chamber" developed both the weapon, concealed in a US-manufactured umbrella, and biotoxin ricin impregnated in a wax-coated pellet the size of a pinhead.

 

Markov received various warnings and anonymous threats to stop broadcasting his inside knowledge of Zhivkov and the obsequious circles of Bulgarian intellectuals and government officials. Markov persisted until his death and peeled away the artichoke leaves of lies and corruption in Bulgaria.

 

A grotesque black comedy followed with three attempts to kill Markov in 1978.  The first attempt was in Munich in the spring, when Markov visited friends and colleagues at Radio Free Europe. An agent failed in an attempt to put a toxin in Markov's drink at a dinner party held in his honor. The second failed attempt was on the Italian island Sardinia while Markov enjoyed a summer vacation with his wife Annabel and daughter Sasha. The final and successful attempt was in London on President Zhivkov‘s birthday, September 7, 1978.

 

On that day, Markov worked a double shift at the BBC. After finishing the early morning shift, reportedly, he went home for rest and lunch. Afterward, he drove to a parking lot on the south side of Waterloo Bridge to take a bus to his office at the BBC. As he neared the waiting bus queue, he experienced a sudden stinging pain in the back of his right thigh. He turned and saw a man bending to pick up a dropped umbrella. The man, facing away from Markov, apologized in a foreign accent, hailed a taxi, and departed. He has never been identified.

 

Though in pain, Markov continued on his way to the BBC building. He then noticed a small blood spot on his pants, told colleagues what happened, and showed one friend a pimple-like red swelling on his thigh. Afterward, at home, Markov developed a high fever. His wife called a colleague at BBC, who took Markov to St. James hospital, where he was treated for an undetermined form of blood poisoning. He did not respond to doctors’ efforts, went into shock, and after days of delirium, pain, and suffering, Georgi Markov died in London at age 49 on September 11, 1978. 

 

British authorities later ruled that Markov had been “unlawfully killed” and died of "septicemia, a form of blood poisoning caused by bacterial toxins, possibly a result of kidney failure."

 

An investigative reporter in Bulgaria, Hristo Hristov, published two books in English based on his years of research into Bulgarian intelligence files. His books include a copy of the passport and photographs of an Italian art dealer and small time-criminal, code name “Piccadilly,” seemingly used by Bulgarian intelligence service in the murder. 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. He lived in abject poverty. A doctor confirmed the death of the 75-year-old former secret agent. Police said that there was no evidence of violent death.

 

A copy of an umbrella that was adapted into a “pistol” and believed by many to have been used to deliver the ricin that killed Markov is on display at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. Former KGB General Oleg Kalugin, however, stated to a Bulgarian newspaper interview in 1998: “The umbrella was only a cover. Georgi Markov was killed with a small special instrument. A weapon like a pen manufactured in the Soviet laboratories.”

 

The minute pellet that contained the poison is on display today in the Crime Museum at New Scotland Yard in London. It has been estimated that one ounce of ricin could kill as many as 90,000 persons. British scientists later estimated that only about 450 micrograms were used to kill Markov.

 

One Bulgarian general committed suicide rather than face trial for destroying thousands of pages of information about Georgi Markov. Another general was found guilty, spent a few months in jail, and reportedly now lives quietly in a villa in Bulgaria. The case has been investigated by generations of Scotland Yard policemen and remains open in England.  In Bulgaria, the case should have been closed in 2008 due to a thirty-year statute of limitations, but authorities decided to keep it open another five years.

 

In 2006, WNET of the television public broadcast service (PBS) network in New York aired a program on Georgi Markov’s death called Secrets of the Dead: Case File Umbrella Assassin. The producers have made their findings available on the Internet, including a re-enactment of the murder, a photograph of the pellet, video clips, and an interactive “Teacher’s Toolbox” for educators and students to “examine the evidence.” 

 

Also included in the program was an interview with American Dr. Christopher Green, who had assisted in the forensic investigation in 1978.  Dr. Green said:

 

We had pretty much all of the story from a forensic point of view. We had the body, the thing in the body that he was hit with -- the pellet -- and the stuff from the pellet. We knew that the material used to kill him, ricin, had been under development by a foreign service linked to the incident. We also knew that he had been a target of assassination attempts in the past. The story of him being a target was very well known. Therefore, we had information on the means, motive, and opportunity.

 

And yet, with all the public information and years of official investigation, no one has been charged with the crime. The dots have not been completely connected. The final piece of the puzzle to complete the picture remains to be found. Georgi Markov’s death proved how far a totalitarian regime would go to protect itself from the truth. The murder of Georgi Markov seems destined to be another footnote in the history of the Cold War. Georgi Markov deserves a better fate.

 

Georgi Markov was buried in Saint Candida and Holy Cross Churchyard cemetery in Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset, England. The epitaph on his gravestone is reads in Bulgarian on one side and English on the other side:

 

In Memory of Georgi Ivanov Markov

Novelist & Playwright

Most dearly beloved

By his wife Annabel

His Daughter Sasha

His Family & his Friends

Born Sofia 1. 3. 39

Died London 11 .9. 78

In the Cause of Freedom

Further Information:

 

To listen to Georgi Markov speak over the BBC in 1976 about his favorite music, visit http://mycentury.tv/bulgaria/181-georgi-markov-qmy-kind-of-musicq.html

 

Chapter 3 in my book Cold War Radio: the Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950 – 1989 (McFarland & Co, 2009).

 

Markov’s Radio Free Europe programs posthumously were collected and translated into English as The Truth That Killed (London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1983).

 

For information from former Soviet KGB officers about the Markov murder, see Oleg Kalugin, Spymaster; My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (New York: Basic Books, 2009). And, Oleg Gordievsky and Christopher Andrew, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: Harper Collins, 1990).

 

The interactive television program Secrets of the Dead: Case File Umbrella Assassin on the murder of Georgi Markov, including the interview with Dr. Christopher Green, can be viewed at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_umbrella/index.html

 

For full details of “Piccadilly”, including photographs, see Hristo Hristov’s books, The Double Life of Agent Piccadilly and Kill the Wanderer at http://hristo-hristov.com/

 

Radio Free Europe's "Voice of Free Albania" ©

 

It is not generally known that Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast to Albania, as the "Voice of Free Albania," from June 1, 1951, to September 30, 1953. If at all mentioned in the histories of RFE, Albanian broadcasts are usually mentioned in the footnotes. Below is a short look into RFE and Albania in the 1950s.

At the regular monthly meeting of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) board of directors on July 20, 1950, it was resolved to increase the 1950-1951 budget of the National Councils Division by $60,000 for "support of the National Committee for Free Albania."

 

In announcing the inaugural broadcast on June 1, 1953, RFE's press release said, "It will warn Albanians of new 'security' measures planned by the Kremlin's MVD police and further advise: 'Be cautious, my friends, be patient.'"

 

By 1953, Radio Free Europe had 20 short-wave transmitters and one medium-wave transmitter. Three transmitters were used to broadcast to Romania (3 hours per day), Bulgaria (3 hours), and Albania (1 1/2 hours).

 

Albania was included in Crusade for Freedom campaigns for Radio Free Europe. For example, the 1952 Crusade opened on November 11, 1952, with a national goal of $4,000,000 and signatures of millions of Americans on "Freedom-Grams" in the shape of a normal telegram that would be sent over the Iron Curtain. On the backside of the "Freedom-Gram," this message was translated into Albanian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian:

 

Do you listen to Radio Free Europe?  I hope you do, for I am one of the millions of American citizens who have voluntarily contributed to building these stations, which bring Truth to you who are deprived of it.

 

In America, millions voluntarily pray for an understanding between our peoples. Please add your prayers to ours. Surely our common faith in God is the place where hope for freedom begins.

 

I am a (occupation)

Name

Address

 

Note to Contributors: Replies to this Freedom-Gram may be

received in a foreign language. If you should be unable to

translate them, free translations may be obtained by forwarding the 

letters to Crusade for Freedom c/o your local Postmaster

 

Eventually, six million Americans signed the "Freedom-Grams," which were then sent to West Germany for inclusion in the balloons provided by the Free European Press.

RFE's Albanian language broadcasts ceased on September 30, 1953, primarily because it was not cost-effective broadcasting to a country that reportedly only had an estimated nine-thousand radio in a population of one-and-a-half million. 

Book of Interest: A Frontline of Espionage. Studies in Hungarian Cold War Intelligence in Austria

The book featured below makes a valuable contribution to Cold War histography and is highly recommended:

Magdolna Barath, Dieter Bacher (eds.) A Frontline of Espionage. Studies in Hungarian Cold War Intelligence in Austria, Budapest – Pecs 2021.

“After World War II it was widely known in Europe that the redefined and democratic Austria became a crossroad of the intelligence services of the previously allied forces, now gradually confronting each other, a meeting point for intelligence and counterintelligence networks and a continuous source of recruitment of new agents. The vast number of Hungarian refugees and their political composition provided excellent opportunities to build intelligence network on both sides. In this volume Austrian, Danish and Hungarian outstanding researchers of Cold War espionage present their findings on the activity of the Hungarian communist state security intelligence officers in Austria, Germany and Denmark, the actions of Soviet counterintelligence against Hungarians in Austria, and many more topical issues. On the whole the volume gives an insight into a world, which still has numerous blurred details.”

 

From the introduction:

 

The contributions to the present volume focus on the many diverse aspects of Hungarian Intelligence in Austria, which shows how diverse how this research field really is, for this reason, we have divided the studies into three major categories

 

·      The first major category centers on the structural and organizational issues of the secret services and their agent network, as this forms the basis for all further research, and relevant resources are usually available in abundance.

 

·      The second major category pertains to certain intelligence operations and their goals…these studies give insight into the planning, preparation, and implementation of intelligence practices and also enable us to draw general conclusions on intelligence strategies.

 

·      The third and last category attempts to reconstruct the structures and activities of certain bodies of intelligence. During the early phase of the Cold War, “human intelligence” (HUMINT) or information collected by agents was one of the most important sources of information, and the present volume contains a variety of contributions on this operative method.

Table of Contents:

 

 

 

The Golden Years of Intelligence Entrepreneurship in Austria and Germany, Part Two: Ladislas Faragó and András Zákó ©

 

"A Penchant for Cloak-and-Daggerism" 

 

Cloak-and-Dagger: Marked by melodramatic intrigue and often by espionage

 

American Heritage Dictionary

 

 

Hungarian-born Ladislas Faragó (1906 – 1980) was a journalist, historian, and the author of popular history books, including Burn After Reading, The Game of Foxes, and Spymaster. During World War II, he was associated with the U.S. Navy in psychological warfare and authored reports on German and Japanese psychological warfare. 

 

Below we will briefly look at his relationship with Radio Free Europe in the early Cold War.

 

Radio Free Europe’s Desk X

 

In his book, War of Wits: The Anatomy of Espionage and Intelligence, Ladislas Faragó wrote: "After the war, I had a share in an adventure in propaganda known as Radio Free Europe; there I headed a clandestine 'Desk X,' combatting Communism behind the Iron Curtain."

 

Faragó was employed as a consultant to Radio Free Europe's Hungarian Desk from October 1, 1950, to January 31, 1952. He used John L. Carver, as RFE did not want his connection known to the outside world. He worked out of two hotel rooms, not at the RFE office, thus the name “Desk X.”  He was let go, or perhaps he was allowed to get out of his contract because RFE in New York could not control "his penchant for cloak- and-daggerism," and "his activities were not in FE/RFE's interests." He had been paid 700 dollars a month for his consultancy.

 

Faragó’s “penchant for cloak-and-daggerism” presumably became known to RFE from the CIA is illustrated by his relationship with András Zákó, former head of Hungarian military intelligence who was then living in Salzburg, Austria.

 

In April 1951, two CIA officers using the cover of the U.S. Air Force representatives, traveled to Munich, met Faragó in the Excelsior hotel, and later wrote a report of their conversation. Faragó told them he was  “in charge of the Hungarian Desk of Radio Free Europe.” He explained the operation of RFE to them that “an amazing response has come out of Hungary.” Faragó told them of one RFE program, "Post Office Box 6220," that resulted in approximately 700 letters from Hungary to RFE per month. Another RFE program, "Doctor's Program" (actually "Radio Doctor"), gave medical advice to Hungarians and listeners in RFE’s other broadcast countries. A third program was the "Historian Program," which was popular among Hungarian amateur historians.

 

Faragó was then asked for details of his contact with Zákó in Austria. He told them that Nicholas Lazar of the Hungarian National Council (supported by the National Committee for Free Europe) had contacted him in New York. Farago then wrote a letter to Zákó and told him that RFE was interested in his organization MHBK.  Zákó replied and invited Farago to meet him the next time that Farago was in Europe.

 

Faragó then contacted U.S. Air Force Vandenberg in Washington about Zákó’s proposal. He was then put in touch with U.S. Air Force General John B. Ackerman, then Chief Collection Division, Directorate of Intelligence. In February 1951, General Ackerman then met Farago, who told him that Zákó authorized him to offer services from an underground organization having “high subversive potential and trained in intelligence collection. Ackerman told Faragó that the U.S. was, “generally in favor of genuine underground movements, whose probity could be demonstrated, and he would “undertake to investigate what could be done.”

 

Encouraged by the positive response from the U.S. Air Force, Faragó traveled to Munich and Invited Zákó to meet him there. They met for two days, during which time Zákó offered RFE “400 couriers, who would travel to Hungary at various times getting information.” According to Faragó, Zákó also offered to “kidnap any individual suggested by RFE," including the daughter of a Hungarian secret police officer, and deliver her to Salzburg.

 

Faragó went on to explain that he wanted to take over Zákó’s resources in Hungary to run an intelligence organization, which "should be capable of getting up-to-the-minute news of events within Hungary, of doing small acts of sabotage and of creating unrest within Hungary including even the kidnapping of prominent individuals."

 

He told the Air Force representatives that "RFE and the Air Force should cooperate in running this outfit," adding, "It was quite possible that technical parts of airplanes and engines could be brought out of Hungary by this network." 

 

Faragó's activities and statements were not known or sanctioned by Radio Free Europe, but the Air Force representatives believed that they were, and their report of their meeting with Farago ended with,

 

From this discussion, a jurisdictional intelligence flap is about to happen. It might be well for USFA to determine the conditions of RFE's charter in Europe and determine the extent to which they are authorized to dip into the intelligence-gathering business. They seem to have unlimited funds but a limited number of capable personnel, and many of the mistakes made by USFA and CIC throughout the past years are about to be repeated. It looks as if the business will soon become good for the intelligence factories of Austria.

 

As for Genera Zákó, the author of a detailed CIA February 1952 declassified internal staff study, “Paper Mills and Fabrication,” concluded:

 

Zákó’s intelligence chief stated recently that the MHBK now had no regular channels of communications or organized sources of information in Hungary…Zákó admitted that there were at most nine persons in Hungary on whom he could reasonably depend… MHBK reports as based entirely on refugee debriefings’ or clever rewriting of overt publications garnished with out-and-out fabrication. 

For more information about MHBK and Zákó , see the recent article: 

 

Katalin Kádár Lynn & Mark Stout (2024) Early Cold War intelligence paper mills: the case of the Association of Hungarian Veterans, Cold War History, 24:1, 23-44, DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2023.2191948

ABSTRACT

During the early Cold War, it was difficult for American intelligence to penetrate the Iron Curtain but a potential solution soon arose: émigré intelligence groups such as the Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közössége (MHBK) or ‘Association of Hungarian Veterans’. This group, however, turned out to be an intelligence ‘paper mill’. Attempts at trans-Atlantic cooperation with the MHBK and similar groups failed as they lost most of their good sources and were penetrated by communist security services. By the mid-1950s, US intelligence cut these groups off, took over their good sources, and established a source registry to prevent recurrence of the problem.

 

 

 

The Golden Years of Intelligence Entrepreneurship in Austria and Germany: 1947-1952, Part One, András Zákó ©

Background 

Paper mills have been defined as “intelligence sources whose chief aim is the maximum dissemination of their product Their purpose is usually to promote special emigre-political causes while incidentally financing emigre-political organizations.” Fabricators were defined as “individuals or groups who, without genuine agent resources, invent their information or inflate it on the basis of overt news for personal gain or a political purpose.”

 

Richard Helms, one-time Director of Central Intelligence, has written in his memoirs: “The proliferation of reports ostensibly from widely different sources but presenting roughly similar fabricated data made false confirmations a constant threat. At one point it was estimated that some 50 percent of the information on file in the West on the USSR and Eastern Europe had come from such sources.” In addition, it was estimated that one-third of the CIA's intelligence officers in Austria were committed during June 1951 to the detection and neutralization of fabricators and paper mills. 

 

András Zákó was born on March 23, 1898, in Brasso, Hungary. He was one of the leaders of the “KOPJAS” military organization created at the end of World War II as a special Hungarian combat intelligence group, whose mission was to “infiltrate the Russian front to gather information and to commit acts of sabotage against the advancing Soviet army.” As the story goes, in 1945 he went to Germany with the retreating German army and was apprehended by the US Army and extradited to Hungary as a war criminal. He escaped and went to Austria, where he first worked as an agricultural worker under an assumed name in the British Zone. In 1947 he moved to Innsbruck, in the French Zone, and was used by French Intelligence to come up with information about Hungary. He approached both the American Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) and the CIA's Office of Special Operations (OSO) to provide the same intelligence as he said he preferred to work for the Americans. 

 

András Zákó’s group Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közssége (MHBK) in Austria in 1949 was a World War II veterans association (World Federation of Hungarian Veterans). There were eventually networks in 22 countries; the MHBK had five branches in Austria alone. MHBK was known in the USA as “Comradeship of Hungarian Veterans” or “Collegial Society of Hungarian Veterans” (CHV).

 

All Western intelligence agencies were under extreme pressure to develop and prepare up-to-date information on the Soviet Union and East European countries believed to be preparing for war. András Zákó was one of the major intelligence entrepreneurs.  Under the guise of current intelligence information, MHBK prepared reports in multiple versions and sold them to the various Western military and intelligence agencies, including the CIA. 

 

The next post will examine the rise and fall of András Zákó and the MHBK in peddling intelligence information to Western intelligence agencies in Austria and Germany. Besides looking at the role of András Zákó, other leading personalities of MHBKwill be identified.