The Tail Wagging the Dog ©

 The Tail Wagging the Dog

 

The success of the Crusade for Freedom upset the foreign policy bureaucracy in

Washington, which saw the Crusade as a threat to the funding of the official government

international broadcasting service, the Voice of America. An extraordinary meeting of CIA and

the U.S. State Department leadership took place in the private residence of State Department

official Edward W. Barrett, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, on the evening of

November 21, 1951. Representing the CIA were Messrs. Dulles, Wisner, Lloyd (deputy chief,

Psychological Staff Division), and Braden (chief, International Branch, Psychological Division,

OPC). 

 

During the meeting, Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, asked questions about the

future of the Crusade for Freedom. Edward Barrett gave the State Department position; saying

that the present type of campaign was harming the total United States effort and making people ask the question whether the Voice of America is really needed. He did not say that to his surprise no serious questions came up in the last Congress concerning the apparent duplication between Radio Free Europe and VOA. 

 

Mr. Barrett suggested that instead of the present type of Crusade for Freedom, a low-pressure program should be conducted. He said that something along the line of the tuberculosis seal campaign in magazines, with coupons, and so on, ought to be tried out.48

 

The assembled group agreed on Barrett’s proposal. On January 17, 1952, there was another

top-level meeting with the CIA, the State Department, NCFE’s C. D. Jackson, and Abbot

Washburn executive vice chairman of the Crusade for Freedom, to discuss of the Crusade’s

future.

 

Mr. Barrett reminded the group that NCFE had started as an organization to look after and make

use of the various Eastern European refugee groups. He recalled that giving these groups a radio

voice was something of a later development. He also recalled that the Crusade was established

primarily as a cover for the governmental support of the enterprise. Mr. Barrett raised the question of whether or not the Crusade had grown to such proportions that it was now a case of the tail wagging the dog. He also raised the question of whether the two or three million dollars that might be raised in the Crusade might be endangering the $85,000,000 involved in the appropriations for the USIE [United States Information and Educational Exchange] operations. 

 

He thought it was important to get back to the idea of just enough of a Crusade to give the minimum necessary cover to NCFE.

 

The Crusade for Freedom continued until 1960, when its functions were taken over by the

Radio Free Europe Fund. Eastern European Fund and Radio Free Europe Fund

George Kennan’s 1948 vision of “liberation committees” reached fruition when, in March

1951, the Eastern European Fund (EEF) was established by the Ford Foundation, with Kennan

selected as the first president and Frank Altschul, director of the NCFE, on the board of

directors. The purpose of this organization was to “increase the usefulness to free society of

exiles from Soviet Power by improving their morale, their mutual welfare, the suitability of their

occupation, and their facilities for association and mutual aid, and by helping them to contribute

to the general fund of knowledge in this country about Russia and the Union of the Soviet

Socialist Republics.”

 

One of the major achievements of the EEF was in 1951 with the creation of the Russian-

language Chekhov Publishing House, which published over sixty books in the first year,

including novels, short stories, plays and poetry, memoirs, and studies in history and criticism.

Publishing continued until 1956. By then over 150 books had been published.

The Eastern European Fund’s name was later changed to Radio Free Europe Fund. In 1960

it took over the functions of Crusade for Freedom. The combined organization accepted private

contributions and also engaged in public fundraising in the United States. 

 

By 1975, the Radio Free Europe Fund had raised a total of fifty million dollars, only a fraction of the true operating costs borne by the CIA in over twenty years of secret funding. 

 

When the Boston Symphony Orchestra Won a Cold-War Cultural Battle ©

When the Boston Symphony Orchestra Won a Cold-War Cultural Battle

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), one of America’s prestigious orchestras, was scheduled, for the first time in its history outside the United States, to tour Europe April-May 1952, including performing at the Paris cultural festival “Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century.” 

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor was Charles Munch born in France (September 26, 1891 – November 6, 1968). Concerts were scheduled for Paris, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Strasbourg, Metz, Lyon, Bordeaux, and London.  

 

The National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) board of directors held a meeting on October 2, 1951. The directors were told that the costs of the BSO tour were expensive and full financial support was not readily forthcoming for the planned budget of $200,000. The NCFE directors were told that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (a CIA covert project) pledged $30,000 of support, $40,000 was expected from the European Tour, and $100,000 would come from the United States tour before traveling to Europe. Thus, $30,000 was lacking.

 

C. D. Jackson, Fortune magazine publisher and NCFE president, was also on the board of directors of the BSO. He told the other NCFE directors that he “was very enthusiastic” about the participation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Paris festival and “felt that the NCFE through Radio Free Europe could make a major contribution to its success,” if “NCFE would give the necessary pledge of approximately $30,000, for which in turn, Radio Free Europe would receive the rights for broadcasting the entire festival program and the recording rights of the orchestra’s European concert tour.”

 

The NCFE board of directors unanimously endorsed the support of the BSO project but would not approve the financial support without more information about the exact amount required, and if NCFE had the funds to do so.

 

At a special meeting held on January 16, 1952, the NCFE board of directors passed a resolution “that the sum of $30,000 is appropriated as a donation to the American Committee of Cultural Freedom, Inc, in return for which NCFE is secured the rights to broadcast and record the ‘Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century Exposition’ program in Europe, including all the performances of the BSO during its tour of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, Inc.

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra left its mark in Paris when it performed in May 1952, under Charles Munch and associate conductor Pierre Monteux, also born in France (April 4, 1875 – July 1, 1964. Life magazine, for example, wrote in its May 19, 1952, issue,

 

Since 1493 Europeans have had few kind words for American ventures into the arts, and since 1945 few kind words on any score. Last week, however, they had a great many. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, in Paris for an arts festival, gave two performances, which left listeners dazed with awe. Critics unanimously used the word “extraordinary,” and phrases like, “Is there another orchestra which could interpret modern music with such brilliance?” “Performance unparalleled in finesse and dynamism.”

 

Time magazine wrote on May 19, 1952,

 

In their first appearance at Paris' international Festival of the Arts ... they left the audience (including President Auriol) shouting itself hoarse. In courtly appreciation, the orchestra and Conductor Munch broke a long-standing symphonic rule and played an encore. Two nights later came the success of Monteux, Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring.

 

Paris' critics came out gasping superlatives. Said Le Figaro: "An extraordinary ensemble, playing with an assurance and ardor that bordered on fanaticism." L'Aurore's critic said, "Never before have we heard anything comparable to the sumptuous sonority of the strings and mordant quality of the trumpets." Said one Boston musician: "We did our best because we realized what it meant to Munch and Monteux to play in Paris."

 

John Roderick of the Associated Press (AP) wrote in his article on June 1, 1952, “America has Achieved Cultural Maturity...By the time the 110-piece orchestra had finished playing Ravel’s ‘Daphnis and Chloe, the diamond-studded audience was on its feet, shouting, yelling and applauding as never before.” The Los Angeles Times proclaimed “Free World Shows Europe She Has Come of Age, Culturally Speaking.”

 

(In 1956, the Boston Symphony Orchestra was the first American orchestra to perform in the Soviet Union.)

 

For more information on the Congress of Cultural Freedom, see

 

Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cutural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press, 1999.

 

Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. London, England: Harvard University Press, 2008.

 

John Steinbeck and Radio Free Europe ©

 

 

The September 2016 National Steinbeck Center newsletter contained a short article about famed writer John Steinbeck and Radio Free Europe.

 

Below we will look at the time that literary giant John Ernst Steinbeck (1902 - 1968), who won both the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize for his works, visited Radio Free Europe in the first week of July 1954. Steinbeck had received a request from RFE in June to visit the radio station. He and his wife then visited Munich for a week, during which time Steinbeck read this stirring, personal letter to RFE's listeners:

 

To my friends,

 

There was a time when I could visit you and you were free to visit me. My books were in your stores and you were free to write to me on any subject. Now your borders are closed with barbed wire and guarded by armed men and fierce dogs, not to keep me out but to keep you in. And now your minds are also imprisoned. You are told that I am a bad writer but you are not permitted to judge for yourselves. You are told we are bad people but you are forbidden to see and to compare. You are treated like untrustworthy animals, subjected to conditioning as cold and ruthless as though you were rats in a laboratory. You cannot travel, you cannot read freely and you cannot work at the profession of your choice. Your writers are the conditioned servants of a regime. All of this is designed to destroy your ability to think.

 

I beg you to keep alive the integrity of the individual in his ability to judge and compare and create. May your writers write secretly and hold their writing for the time when this grey anesthetic has passed as pass it must. The free world outside your prison still lives. You will join it again and it will welcome you. Everything around you is cynically designed to destroy you as individuals. You must remember and teach your children that they are precious, not as dull cogs in the wheel of party existence, but as units complete and shining in themselves.

 

Steinbeck had hoped to read his message on the air to RFE’s listeners in their own languages. He diligently practiced from phonetically written texts of his message and tapes prepared for him by RFE's broadcasters. Steinbeck eventually gave up on Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish, and decided to concentrate on Czech. His wife Elaine finally convinced him to read his statement in English, telling him "Your English is so beautiful."  

 

Newspapers in the USA covered his visit to RFE. The Pittsburgh Press article published on September 4, 1954, began with: “Novelist Predicts Collapse of Soviet: Radio Free Europe airs Steinbeck.” He was quoted as saying; The Soviet Union is the most reactionary country in the world. Hindering creative work, the Soviet will eventually destroy their own system…By destroying criticism the Communists have made any culture impossible.”

 

In November 1958, John Steinbeck send a letter concerning the Nobel Prize award to Boris Pasternak to Radio Free Europe in which he wrote:

 

The Award of the Nobel Prize to Paskernak and the Soviet outcry against it makes me sad but not for Pasternak. He has fulfilled his obligation as a writer, has seen his world, described and made his comment…[M]y sadness is for the poor official writers sitting in judgment on a book on a book they are not allowed to read. They are the ground vultures of art who having helped to clip their own wings are righteously outraged at Flight and contemptuous of Eagles.

 

 

For more information about the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California, visit http://www.steinbeck.org

 

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit; KgU) ©

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (KgU)

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 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.

The 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. 

The 1954 objectives were: “Harras and weaken the Soviet administration of East Germany ( including East Berlin) and itsGerman collaborators, to help retard East German economic

development, to help promote and sustain popular anti-Communist resistance within East Germany, and too help exposeconditions within the Soviet Zone to the Western world. This project supports an effective CIA-guide d administrativeharassment and propaganda organization engaged in helping further rthese objectives 1n East Germany.”

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, distributedRussian-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. 

The KgU activites ceaaed in 1959.

#

The Urgent Whisper: Broadcasting with "Barbara" ©

 Greenwood Project

 

UMPIRE as a Special Procedures Group (SPG) project was CIA's first psychological warfare project that provided for the production and dissemination of covert propaganda against the Soviet Union and East European countries behind the Iron Curtain using radio broadcasts and printed material. The project designation was later changed on 1 December 1948 to EDUCATOR and then to QKDEMON. The Special Procedures Group became the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) in August 1948, which then took over the SPG projects, including UMPIRE. The Greenwood Project was a sub-project of UMPIRE

The first OPC radio broadcasting site was at Lampertheim, Germany – located midway between Heidelberg and Darmstadt. Elements of the U.S. Army Security Agency (ASA) constructed the site under the cover of a "Communications Ionosphere Research Unit." The military unit cover designation was: "7989 Special Technical Unit, Weinheim Sub-post, Heidelberg, Germany."   

By November 1948, construction at the transmitting site in Lampertheim was completed on two-class "E" rhombic transmitting antennas bearing 70 and 112 degrees. "The antennas were complete with transmission lines and dissipation lines. Also completed was the erection of masts for class "E" rhombic transmitting antennas bearing 130 degrees and two folded dipoles bearing 70 and 120 degrees. No additional work was done to these antennas due to lack of material for the rhombic and lack of frequency information for folded di-poles."  

The offices for the broadcasting site headquarters were set up at No. 4 Bobostrasse, Weinheim, by converting the living space into offices. A file room included three-combination, cabinet-type safes for classified documents. The Quartermaster, Heidelberg Military Post, provided the office furniture, including desks, chairs, tables, etc.  

ASA built and then loaned to OPC 15 radio towers, 63 and 90 feet tall, to the project. They were loaned to OPC with the understanding that they would be returned to ASA or replaced when new ones from the U.S. arrived. Reportedly, "Tower directional pattern permits broadcasting to all major satellite areas." Electricity was provided by a 50 KW generator and two transformers connected to a 20,000-voltage line 4 kilometers away.  6

By December 1948, the main building of the transmitting site consisted of:

 

·      transmitting studio. which took up one entire end of the building

·      sleeping rooms 12 sq. m., 

·      one large shower room, 

·      dining room and 

·      kitchen

 

The blueprints of the main building were entitled "Lampertheim Project. Five guards were protecting the installation, including the buildings, towers, and antennas.  Project UMPIRE was discontinued on 1 December 1948 and succeeded by projects EDICT and EDUCATOR."  

On 20 December 1948, OPC Washington sent a message to OPC Karlsruhe: "Recommend return to towers to ASA as soon as possible with thanks and appropriate explanation. Retain other Greenwood property for future use."   

On 23 February 1949, OPC Karlsruhe advised Policy Coordination that Lt. Colonel Walker, ASA, said, "He was willing to forget whole dismantling project if we agree to replace masts and wire borrowed from his unit as soon as placatable." 9. On 14 March 1949, OPC headquarters informed Karlsruhe OPC and Heidelberg OPC branches: "Unless dismantling not already underway, leave entire installation in place. We will supply ASA with replacements for all equipment. If dismantling in progress, use your best judgment as to whether it can be halted diplomatically." Dismantling did not begin. 

The Karlsruhe OPC office sent a message on 17 March 1949 to OPC headquarters: "Lt. Colonel Walker agreeable to allow site to remain intact as his outfit was not looking forward to dismantling. Would appreciate some indication of shipping date of replacement as he is planning new construction for coming summer and replacement items scheduled for this new site." On 31 March 1949, Karlsruhe OPC sent this message to Washington: "Wire borrowed from ASA did not comprise complete rhombic antenna kits. ASA willing to accept three antenna kits minus transmission line, dissipation line, and pole line kits and consider the matter closed. No other items required."  

In an internal memorandum to ADPC Frank Wisner dated 4 February 1949, an OPC officer wrote about the negative developments of the project:

 

The ill-coordinated and frequently ill-advised series of moves resulted in the premature establishment of OPC's activities in Germany and a consequent series of operational misfires.

 

It is true that the unfortunate series of circumstances surrounding the Greenwood Project caused a certain amount of hard feeling in the theater, but this was primarily at the level of the functional commands which did a lot of work on this project without being fog, aware of the reasons for having started it in the first place or for later abandoning it. Inasmuch as General Walsh supported the concept of the old UMPIRE operation and was, to a large extent, for the rush orders, which went out for Greenwood.  

 

U.S. Air Force General Robert LeGrow Walsh was director of intelligence of the European Command, Office of Military Government at Berlin, Germany. 

 

Mobile Transmitting Equipment

 

On 9 June 1949, OPC headquarters sent a message to Heidelberg OPC on the subject of Mobile radio operation -- EDUCATOR Project, which was an answer to a message from Heidelberg OPC, 29 April 1949 (copy not available): 

 

1.     The essential reason for the delay in answering your dispatch of 29 April enclosing the plan for mobile radio operation is due to the fact that we have given a considerable amount of study and discussion to the proposal. It is a well-thought-out paper. 

2.     There are a number of considerations that enter the picture and a number of questions we should like to put to you with reference to it, but we think this is not the time for it since the entire policy of black radio is still under review here. We know that the technique is being used by the opposition forces, but the advisability of our engaging in the work is still faced with some doubt.

3.     The plea, which you propose, will be brought out again for consideration when a determination of policy is made here. In the meantime, thanks for submitting it. You will be advised at once when policy is laid down. 

 

A 29 December 1949 CIA memorandum makes mention of mobile broadcasting equipment in storage:

 

1.     The Chief of Communications has requested that he be advised as to the foreseeable requirements, which would necessitate the use of the mobile broadcasting equipment procured and built under the Project UMPIRE, 

2.     The equipment has been on a 10-day call since it was built, and the maintenance under such condition is such that two men are required hall time, and considerable warehouse spew/ is allocated for it. 

3.     The cost of maintenance and the use of the space is justified if there will be an urgent need for the equipment at some future time, but (redacted) informs me that UMPIRE is dead, and if the equipment is needed by him in the future, it will be known at least one month in advance. 

4.     Therefore, if there is no immediate existing need for the equipment, it is suggested that the Chief of Communications be notified and be allowed to have the equipment mothballed and stored for future use.  

 

The mobile broadcasting equipment, referred to in this exchange, probably was the mobile unit "Barbara" used to broadcast Radio Free Europe's first program on 4 July 1950 to Czechoslovakia. "Barbara" was not one vehicle but a set of seven vehicles: studio van, the transmitter van, generators, a fuel supply truck, jeep and trailer, camping and housekeeping equipment, and a flatbed truck for the antenna towers. 

Beginning 4 July 1950, the first programs to Czechoslovakia only consisted of music and spot announcements advising the listener that complete programming of news and commentary would start on 14 July 1950.  On that date, "Barbara" also sent its first broadcast to Romania. In August 1950, shortwave broadcasts began to Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria. It is doubtful that anyone heard the first programs due to the relatively low power of the mobile transmitter. Thus the idea was borne for a powerful medium-wave transmitter south of Munich for Czechoslovakia, a new transmitting site at Bibis, Germany, and a vast transmitting site in Gloria, Portugal, outside Lisbon. 

Time magazine reported on 17 July 1950, under the rubric "Urgent Whisper": 

 

This week Czech and Rumanian radio listeners could hear music, plays, and satires forbidden by their Communist masters—as well as the voices of men long exiled. These forbidden broadcasts came from a Radio Free Europe transmitter deep in Western Germany. 

 

RFE's lone 71⁄2-kilowatt transmitter is only a whisper compared to the worldwide-station network of Voice of America. But RFE, a branch of the National Committee for a Free Europe founded last year by a group of private U.S. citizens, expects to make up in pungency for its lack of volume. Explains Banker Frank Altschul, chairman of RFE: "Unhampered by diplomatic restrictions, we can slant our programs in a more definitely anti-Soviet way than the Voice." 

 

Welcomed by the State Department as a freewheeling, free-speaking ally in the propaganda war, RFE plans to boost its power with five transmitters now on order. It intends, eventually, to speak strongly to every Communist satellite from the Baltic to the Black Sea. 

 

The New York Times reported, "New'  Voice' Talks to Europe Like Member of the Family." Some grass-root newspapers in the United States printed this editorial about Radio Free Europe, and it's secret-location transmitter: 

 

Many wise statesmen have been appealing insistently to the free world to exert greater effort to the grimy "struggle for men's mind." They have pounded repeatedly on the idea that it isn't enough to combat Russian Communism with economic and military measures: that freedom must be shown to be a great cause, is really a way of life eminently superior to the slavery imposed by Moscow. 

 

The first Imaginative stride in this direction has now been taken. From a secret radio transmitter in Europe, a new series of programs is being beamed to the countries behind the Iron Curtain. [...] Radio Free Europe, as the new transmitter is called, is the product of the National Committee for Free Europe, which was organized about a year ago by outstanding American citizens. 

 

We must make plain to decent people everywhere that the language of Communism is the language of falsehood, that Russia's words can never be believed because words to the Soviet Union are simply weapons in the psychological theater of war.

 

Initially, the first Radio Free Europe broadcasts were prepared in RFE's New York studios and air transported to Germany, but this was time-consuming. Soon, the entire broadcast operation would be moved to Munich, Germany. The administrative and editorial offices were located at Sieberstrasse 4, in Munich, where there were two studios, two newsrooms, a tape library, a recorded music library, a control room installed in the kitchen, offices for the staff, and the workers found space in the passageways of the building. 

On Labor Day, 4 September 1950, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then President of Columbia University, passionately called for an American Crusade for Freedom in a nation-wide radio broadcast from Denver, Colorado, covered by the four major radio networks (ABC, CBS, NBS, and Mutual): 

 

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. [...] We need powerful radio stations abroad, operated without government restrictions, to tell in 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 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 masses of Europe.   

 

Jonas Kukauskas-Kukis aka “Jack“ – Lithuanian Cold War Hero or Villain?

Jonas Kukauskas-Kukis aka “Jack“ – Lithuanian Cold War Hero or  Villain? 

 

In February 1938 Kukauskas at that time a student in Vilnius, then under Polish suzerainty, attempted to cross the Polish border into Lithuania to deliver information to the Lithuanian Intelligence Service. He was apprehended by the Polish counter-intelligence, interrogated, and brought to trial. He was released because his act was determined to have been that of an irresponsible boy, rather than sponsored by an intelligence service.

 

In 1944 he crossed Poland and arrived in Berlin. He later studied and the university in Frankfurt. In October 1946, he was recruited by the Operations Chief of Vlik for a mission organized by French intelligence. At Pfullingen, Germany, he was trained in communications until May 1947. 

In May 1948,  he was taken to Paris where he was given intelligence training, including jump techniques by the French. There had, been no contact with French representatives except their instructors, administrative matters being handled by Dr. Backis, the Lithuanian representative in Paris. In April 1950 when the French dispatch failed to materialize, Kukauskas was dismissed by the French case officer and were escorted by a French representative to Strasbourg. He was met by a representative of VLIK who sent him on to Munich. Jonas Kukauskas-Kukis' "Jack", was recruited by OSO sometime in Spring 1950.

 

Kukauskas was recruited by OSO sometime in Spring 1950. 

 

He was dispatched on 18-19 April 1951 into Kaunas area of Lithuania with Butenas for the purpose of

 

a. Establishment of contact with the underground resistance forces in Lithuania.

b. Reorganization of the underground resistance forces along more effective lines.

c. Establishment of reliable w/t and s/w communication between Lithuania and the American Zone of Germany.

d. Procurement of positive and operational intelligence.

 

Kukauskas was in the forest bunker with Butenas on May 21, 1951, and surrendered to the Lithuanian security forces. He then agreed to cooperate with them in a radio game with CIA. Kukuskas continued to send messages as part of the “radio game” that had been initiated in 1949 (Volna—Wave) and 1950 (Lyes – Forest).  Reportedly his KGB operational pseudonym was “Balandis.”

Kukauskas made contact with resistance leader Luksa (and CIA agent) and got him to agree to a meeting in Pabartupis village forest near Kaunas. The meeting never took place as Luksa was killed or committed suicide during an ambush by Lithuanian security forces. 

 

Jack sent his first message on 15 June 1951 and continued sending sporadically until 29 November 1951. He reported again for the first time since his silence in April 1952 with the excuse that his silence was due to a faulty generator. The last message received from jack to date as on 27 December 1952. One CIA report stated, " It is not definitely established that Jack is under control but his long silence during the winter and the content of his messages seem to indicate that control is likely." 

 

CIA reviewed the failed Lithuanian operations and stopped them in 1952, when it was estimated that only 700 partisans wee in Lithuania. In 1956, Adolfas Ramanauskas (Vanagas), the last partisan leader, was arrested and hanged in Kaunas.