The Organization of
Intelligence
Introduction
Criticism of American intelligence
agencies is not hard to find. Abuses of
civil rights, violations of American and International law and failures to
predict important events are all charges which have been documented in the
popular media. Yet, no one has provided
any comprehensive understanding of how the United States intelligence system
came to this state of affairs.
While examining current problems of
the United States intelligence services, only one researcher has hinted that
historical roots for the problem may exist.
Regarding some of the now public abuses, Wise (1975) concluded that,
"the pattern was established under OSS [Office of Strategic Services] of
an intelligence agency that both collected information and engaged in covert
operations." Nevertheless, the
Charter of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) strictly prohibits domestic
operations, yet mechanisms have been developed to circumvent such restrictions
(Ransome, 1975). Congressional
oversight committees seem to have been manipulated by successive heads of the
CIA. These deceptions have not only
misled Congress but have distorted the functioning of the CIA itself to the
degree that its intelligence evaluations have become protective of covert
operations rather than providing objective information for the President (Halprin,
1975). Self-serving intelligence
evaluations and covert operations have hidden violations of international law
(Falk, 1975), domestic law (Ross, 1975), and stated foreign policy of the
United States (Morris, 1975). Despite
awareness of this process and its historical roots, there is no clear picture
of how this pattern came to exist. It
is the purpose of this study to examine these historical roots, and their
implications for the current conduct of intelligence.
Methodology and
Research Procedures
Since most original sources remain
classified or were for financial reasons not available to this researcher,
published accounts of historians and participants in intelligence activities
during the World War II period (1930-1948) were examined, even though the
results may be more a reflection of the material selected rather than an accurate
reflection of history. Nevertheless,
these data were available and were categorized by the country upon which it
contained information. The four
divisions were: Great Britain and its area of control, Germany and its area of
control, Russia and its area of control, and the United States and its area of
control. Sources used in each of the
categories are appended to this paper.
A modified ethnographic technique
was used. Printed material was treated
as data protocols. Referential
notational summaries were made on note cards by page and line number. The data then were organized within two
categories and hypothesis inductively derived.
Decision makers in the intelligence services and their background
(education, profession, acquisition of positions, etc.) constituted one
category. The other broad category was
the routine and special operations conducted by the services. Divisions within this category were:
initiation of the action, perceived purpose, type of action taken, perceived
effect, actual effect, and explanatory information given to personnel.
Results
Decision Makers
Great Britain. In Britain's 500 years of experience with
intelligence operations, two factors had become dominant: it was a game
reserved for the elite and no activity was to be ruled out if it was necessary
to preserve the Empire. World War II
was not a break in this pattern.
"The men who had been charged with this seemingly impossible
task [Plan Jael] were, of course of several minds; but they appeared united by
a single factor--class. Deception, like
intelligence, was the pursuit of gentlemen.
Colonel Bevan, the chief of the LCS [London Controlling Section], was a
son-in-law of the Earl of Lucan and a grandson of the founder of Barclay's
Bank. Bevan's deputy and the author of
Plan Jael, Colonel Sir Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate, was the son of Wingate
Pasha of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and a cousin of both Lawrence of Arabia and
Wingate of Burma. The other members of
the LCS and of the secret agencies associated with it included financiers,
politicians, diplomats, scientists, writers, artists--men in London,
Washington, the Mediterranean, India and Southeast Asia with connections and a
talent for special means. Above them
all was Churchill himself. As Wingate
would later write: 'It was Churchill who had all the ideas. It was his drive, his brilliant imagination,
and his technical knowledge that initiated all these ideas and plans.'"
(Brown, 1975, p. 8)
In
short, the men chosen for these key positions not only were from the upper
class but frequently had been associated previously.
Churchill's views regarding
intelligence operations grew out of his personal experience during World War I
and the Gallipoli disaster (a 1915 amphibious landing that failed). His views, which determined in part the type
of men he chose for staff positions, were:
"Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre. The greater the general, the more he
contributes in manoeuvre, the less he demands in slaughter....Nearly all the
battles which are regarded as the masterpieces of the military art...have been
battles of manoeuvre in which very often the enemy has found himself defeated
by some novel expedient or devise, some queer, swift, unexpected thrust or
stratagem. In such battles the losses
of the victors have been small. There
is required for composition of a great commander not only massive common sense
and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain,
an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as
beaten....There are many kinds of manoeuvre in war, some only of which take
place upon the battlefield. There are
manoeuvres far to the flank or rear.
There are manoeuvres in time, in diplomacy, in mechanics, in psychology;
all of which are removed from the battlefield, but react often decisively upon
it, and the object of all is to find easier ways, other than sheer slaughter,
of achieving the main purpose."
(Brown, 1975, p. 5)
Another
of his stated views had a profound influence upon British strategy. "In war-time, truth is so precious that
she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." (Brown, 1975, p. 10).
Germany. Decision makers in Nazi Germany's
intelligence system were from one of two backgrounds. When Adolf Hitler came to power he gave the highest offices of
government to cohorts who had fought beside him in the streets. Replacements for the top elements of the
military command were not available from the same source. Hitler found that he had to have the
allegiance of the military. He tricked
the officer corps into giving him an oath of personal allegiance which he could
expect to be honored:
"For the General Staff, absolute and unquestioning obedience
was a rite carried to lengths that were incomprehensible elsewhere in the
world. It was the secret of German
military power. As Major Milton
Shulman, an intelligence officer with the Canadian army would put the
situation:
'Orders of a superior were to be obeyed without question, and any
break from tradition was seriously frowned upon. Not only was their military life strictly supervised, but their
personal life was also subject to an unrelenting social code...these automatic
and impersonal creatures of the officers corps were so obsessed with the
omnipotence of authority that they were hypnotized by its very presence. To live was to obey. There was no other end in life.'"
(Brown, 1975, p. 149)
Typical
of these officers was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, the German
military intelligence organization. In
staffing Abwehr positions, "Canaris favored executives in his own
mold--quiet, orderly, orthodox Wilhelminians of good birth and private
incomes." (Brown, 1975, p. 143)
Hitler's personal associates were of
a different background. Reinhard
Heydrich had a good education and a career in the German Navy until he was
asked to resign after a love affair with the daughter of a superior
officer. After a lengthy period of
unemployment, he joined the Nazi Party to have an income. Heydrich rose quickly in the Party and,
after designing the security system, he became head of the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).
(Delarue, 1964, p. 115-120)
Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the
Schutzstaffel (SS) was not well educated.
He made unsuccessful attempts at chicken farming and selling medicinal
herbs. Himmler was a scrupulously
honest romantic, refusing to profit from the power he held. Financial problems plagued him throughout
his career due partly to maintaining two homes, one for himself and one for his
wife and daughter whom he was separated from but refused to divorce. Himmler's relationship to Hitler was that of
a disciple. Hitler's racial views
coincided with those Himmler held as a result of his experience with animal
husbandry:
"Anyone who sees in National Socialism merely a political
movement has understood nothing. It is
more than a religion, it is the will of a new human creation. Without biological bases and without
biological goals, politics today are completely blind." (Delarue, 1964, p. 91)
Himmler
had the right combination of aspiration and reserve to make a good
second-in-command. (Delarue, 1964, p.
88-92)
Heinrich Meuller was of peasant
ancestry, of little intelligence, but stubborn and self-opinionated. He worked hard in school with the goal of becoming
a bureaucrat. Until 1933 he worked
against the Nazis as a member to the Munich State Police. Thereafter he worked very hard for the Nazis
trying to overcome his record of opposition.
For six years he struggled to become a member of the Nazi Party, but was
denied membership because his superiors thought it would make him work harder
as head of the Gestapo. Mueller was
anti-intellectual, remarking at one point, "that the intellectuals should
be sent down a coal mine and blown up."
(Delarue, 1964, p. 173) These
particular pressures and attitudes made him an excellent choice for
"spying on his own colleagues and helping in the liquidation of those who
had offended." (Delarue, 1964. p.
173)
Lower echelon positions were filled
with people chosen for their expertise in specific fields or skills. An example was Alfred Naujocks, a welder who
joined the Nazi Party in 1930 at the age of fifteen and was given a position in
the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) as a "fanatic and specialist in
violence". (Brissaud, 1974, p. 31)
Russia. Joseph Stalin controlled Russia during the
1930-1948 period. His criteria for
choosing intelligence chiefs (all functions were under one office except
military intelligence) were loyalty to the Party and proven ability to do what
they were told. Mehjhinsky was the
first chief until his heart attack death in 1934. Genrikh Yagoda succeeded him.
Yagoda "had won favor by zealously directing the slaughter of the
peasants, terrorizing the intelligentsia, and suppressing political minorities." (Barron, 1974, p. 459) He was tried and executed for murder and
being a foreign spy, both charges being a convenient expedient.
Nikolia Yeshov replaced and followed
the path of the latter. "Stalin
fired him in December 1938 and thereby removed one of the witnesses who knew
most about the worst of the purges."
(Barron, 1974, p. 460). Yeshov
was also executed.
United States. President Roosevelt, perceiving a need for a
unified national intelligence service, nominated General William J. Donovan to
organize it:
"Donovan, an Irish-American born in Buffalo in 1883, had
returned from the First World War as the most decorated man in American
military history. Between the wars he
became deeply involved in international politics as a lawyer, and was a
confidant of both Churchill and Roosevelt.
Ordered in 1941 to set up a central agency for gathering and evaluating
secret intelligence, he began to recruit his men from the world of what he
described as 'a blend of Wall Street orthodoxy and sophisticated American
nationalism.' Colonel David Bruce was a
characteristic choice. Married to the
daughter of Andrew Mellon, he was a lawyer, a politician and a diplomat before
he became OSS chief in Europe. After
the war, he would become the American ambassador to Britain, France, Germany
and China. A second--and
important--Donovan recruit was Allen Welsh Dulles, a prominent lawyer who would
serve as OSS chief in Berne. Later he
would become chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, the postwar successor to
the OSS." (Brown, 1975, p. 63)
Donovan
was also acquainted with Sir William Stephenson, head of the British Security
Coordination (BSC). "At our first
meeting in 1916, we discovered a shared background." (Stevenson, 1976, p. 5) "Stephenson's wartime career
complemented that of the American lawyer with whom he was to establish a close
working relation and a warm friendship."
(Hymoff, 1972, p. 29)
After the top positions were filled,
special requirements for specific positions took greater precedence as the
lower organizational positions were filled.
"The Foreign Information Service was created in August 1944,
directed by prominent playwright and White House speechwriter Robert
Sherwood." (Hymoff, 1972, p. 46)
"Meantime, the COI [Coordinator of Information] pattern of
growth exceeded all bounds. Donovan
managed to recruit Dr. James Phinney Baxter, president of Williams College, to
head up R&A [Research and Analysis], the heart of COI. Among other prominent academics who accepted
the call to the nation's first intelligence agency was Professor William L.
Langer, distinguished Harvard historian who would later become chief of R&A
and direct its huge staff through the end of the war. Others who left their campuses were Dr. Edward Mason, economist;
Dean Calvin Hooper of Duke University; Dr. Edward Meade of Princeton's
Institute for Advanced Studies; Dr. Henry Field, curator of physical
anthropology at Chicago's Field Museum; Carl Kaysen, John Sawyer, Fred Burkhard,
John K. Fairbank, Ralph Bunch, Franklin Ford, Henry L. Roberts, and Charles
Kindleberger. Also among the early
recruits to COI and later to OSS were Lyman B. Kirkpatric, Jr., Sherman Kent,
Ray Cline, Allen Dulles, and Richard Helms, all of whom would remain in the
intelligence community." (Hymoff,
1972, p. 46-47)
Field personnel were recruited at
various times and locations, such as military installations, prisons, or
civilian occupations. An account of one
typical recruitment reflects most of the basic elements involved:
"One day the commanding officer of the school summoned Pvt.
Edward Hymoff...to his office and introduced me [Hymoff] to a major, who was
thin and as nervous as I was. I didn't
know it at the time, but he was probably nervous because he was trying to meet
his quota of recruits for OSS and if he didn't, well, perhaps he'd be
fired. Of course, I had never heard of
OSS in June 1943, so I stood there at attention and wondered why the CO of the
Demolition Section of the Combat Engineers School had summoned me. I had a reputation for infractions against
established order--hijinks, more than serious delinquency--and I wondered what
I had done to warrant a summons to the major's inner sanctum....My attitude
toward the military even then could be measured as something between scorn and
respect for the majority of my superiors; for I had quickly learned after
entering the service that not only is there a better way to do things,
including the ones I was ordered to do, but that there always was a better way
and why didn't these clowns who gave the orders know it?
"Why do you
want to volunteer for dangerous and hazardous duty" [asked the major].
Never slow to
respond, I replied that I'd go anywhere to get out of Camp Claiborne and its
mud and heat and rain and damned mosquitos.
I didn't tell him that the newly formed Engineer Depot Company...was a
collection of castoffs, including the officers." (Hymoff, 1972, p. 4-5)
Summary. Britain's government and empire were in the
hands of the decedents of their upper-class founders. The criteria for managing affairs grew from the past experiences
of the leadership in acting to preserve the Empire in previous crises. Germany's government consisted of a mixture
of traditional, wealthy elite and those who had achieved power through
violence. The differences in background
were a source of conflict, not only in the decision making process, but also in
differing activities with regard to what was perceived to be in Germany's long
term interest. Russia was controlled by
individuals who had achieved power through violence and eliminated opposition
groups. As with the Nazis, positions
were assigned on the basis of party loyalty as measured by the head of the
party. Unlike Germany, keeping such
positions was conditional on not learning enough to become a threat to
Stalin. The United States staffed its
positions with representatives of the upper-class, who had ties to the British
elite in several cases. In all nations
the more distant a position was from the decision making, the more it depended
upon possessing specific skills.
Operations.
Britain
and the United States. Great Britain and the United States had an
unprecedented relationship in all areas of intelligence operations:
"Following negotiations in London in the winter of 1942-1943
between OSS and the British security services, a Counter-Intelligence
Division...was established within SI [Secret Intelligence] on 1 March
1943. Included in the agreements made
with the British in London were arrangements for the transfer to America of
duplicates of the large body of counterespionage records which the British had
accumulated. The United States thus
gained in a very short time the fruits of years of counterespionage
activity." (Brown, 1976, p. 49)
The agreement included training Americans in British
techniques.
"Ah, those first OSS arrivals in London! How well I remember them, arriving like jeunes
filles en fleur straight from a finishing school, all fresh and innocent,
to start work in our frowsty old intelligence brothel....All too soon they were
ravished and corrupted, becoming indistinguishable from seasoned pros who had
been in the game for a quarter of a century or more." (Brown, 1976, p. 8)
This event marked the official, but
not the first dependence of the United States on British intelligence. In fact, Britain had been conducting
operations in the Western Hemisphere from headquarters in New York since before
1930. They had been operating with a
free hand in the United States, since they provided a service to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and other offices not available from any United States
organization:
"With headquarters at Rockefeller Center, thousands of our
agents [British] and experts passed under the Statue of Atlas on Fifth Avenue,
yet their identities and activities remained effectively masked. But as an increasing number of Americans
also passed Atlas and entered the crammed BSC offices, the probability of
exposure increased substantially. To
our astonishment, the secret endured....Then in the 1960's, the outer wrapping
of protection, designed back in 1940, was suddenly stripped away." (Stevenson, 1976, p. xxii).
"BSC
became dignified as British Security Coordination only when it was obliged
later [1940] to register with the U.S. State Department." (Stevenson, 1976, p. 109)
Included in British activity on
American territory were police functions not sanctioned by law or agreement,
such as arresting alleged British deserters and placing them on British
ships. At times this situation led to
strong action upon the part of American authorities to avoid letting the
British deal with situations that came to their attention first:
"It gave the FBI shudders and had to be kept from the
President...a British seaman was selling information on convoys. Little Bill [William Donovan] tracked down
the traitor after seeing decoded recoveries from a Nazi transmitter in New
York....Bill went out that afternoon and was back in his office by
nightfall. The FBI man on the case said
to him: 'Someone ought to give the treacherous son of a bitch the chop.'
Bill glanced down
at his right hand. He lifted it and
chopped at an angle against the hardwood surface of his desk.
'I already have,'
he said.
The FBI thought he
was joking, until the man was found dead in the basement of an apartment
building.
The Under Secretary
of State, Sumner Welles, later wrote that the zeal of British Intelligence
sometimes seemed excessive; and [Sir William] Stephenson tried to save the U.S.
authorities any embarrassment from such incidents." (Stevenson, 1976, p. 138-139)
Such incidents were not restricted
to American soil. In many cases British
field agents worked against American agents.
After it became clear that the Germans would lose the war, British
agents in the Middle East cooperated with Nazi agents working against Americans
and Russians. Britain wanted to retain
its influence in the area after the war ended.
Churchill's philosophy was the
epitome of British tradition and was transmitted to Americans trained by the
British. Day to day operations of the
OSS dealt with the problems any bureaucracy would face, but with the added
restriction of secrecy. Massive amounts
of paperwork and specialized research had to be dealt with. Procedures for determining who should have
what information and how they should get it were reviewed almost daily. Conflicts arose with existent agencies in
Washington who saw the OSS taking work and power away from their offices. The State Department and Military Branches
were the most difficult.
Some apparent intelligence coups on
the part of the British also played a great part in determining the direction
of intelligence activities. Shortly
before Germany attacked Poland, Polish intelligence authorities decided it was
in their interest to work with Britain against Germany.
"It was a week before Germany attacked Poland, and Dinniston's
prize was the greatest gift any nation could give another. The Polish Secret Service had helped capture
it [Enigma] and work out some of the Nazi methods of using it." (Stevenson, 1976, p. 53)
Enigma was a mechanical coding
device used by the Nazis throughout the war because they believed that its
coding functions could not be broken by any technology in existence. In fact, the British, with the help of Polish
and French intelligence, did break the code early in the war. During most of the war, German strategy,
battle orders, and Hitler's personal communications were known within a matter
of hours. This allowed the British and
American intelligence services to divert a great deal of manpower, which
normally would have been used to obtain such information, into offensive covert
operations and deceptions.
Another important development was
that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German Military Intelligence, was a
member of the Schwarze Kapelle, a group which actively attempted to overthrow
Hitler. He, too, provided the British
with information at key points in the war.
He tried to negotiate an end to the war, stipulating only that Germany
would not be invaded if Hitler was removed from Power:
"If Canaris was not actually working for the British, it is
clear that he was working against Hitler.
And ironically, just as Ultra [Enigma decoding] proved to be Menzies's
trump card, so it was Canaris's undoing.
Political considerations aside, it was unnecessary for the Allies to
treat [negotiate] with Canaris and the other conspirators of the Schwarze
Kapelle, offering certain concessions in return for useful intelligence. In almost every case, the Schwarze Kapelle
could not provide any information that was not already known through Ultra.
'Canaris was never
a British agent in the accepted sense of that term. The fact that I [Sir Stewart Menzies] had contact with him is
liable to misinterpretation, but the fact is that all sophisticated
intelligence services maintain contact with their enemies. Canaris never betrayed his country's secrets
to me or to anyone else on the British side, although his men did. On the other hand, he did give me
assistance. For example, I wanted to
get the wife of a colleague of mine out of occupied Europe; I made the fact
known to Canaris through channels, and in due course she came out.
'Canaris was a
German patriot, a religious man, a monarchist, a conservative and a
traditionalist. He was a man in a
powerful position who wanted to do something about the situation--to save
Germany and Europe from ruins. He
thought I might be able to help, and he did contact me and ask me to meet him
on neutral territory with a view to putting an end to the war....The result was
that I never saw Canaris. But I did
like and admire him. He was damned
brave and damned unlucky.'"
(Brown, 1976, p. 816)
Manpower released by such fortuitous
opportunities were diverted to deception operations aimed at giving the Germans
false concepts of Allied military strategy and troop movements and to staff
guerrilla operations behind German lines.
Teams usually consisted of three persons: one American, one British, and
one national from the country where the operation would take place. Each team would parachute into German
occupied territory and organize local groups into coordinated fighting
forces. Activities of all such groups
were controlled by Britain to support Allied operations. Part of the overall strategy was to keep the
Germans confused about when and where the Allied invasion of Europe would
occur. Periodically, selected
resistance groups would be ordered to revolt to confuse the Germans about the
time and location of Allied activity.
(Brown, 1975, p. 568) Such
groups were almost always destroyed by the Germans. (Brown, 1975, p. 553)
This outcome would be known to the British before orders were
issued. (Brown, 1975, p. 552; p.
691) Since no formal policy was ever
established for determining what groups would be sacrificed, the choice
reflected the biases of the British Staff.
(Brown, 1975, p. 565-582).
Anti-monarchists, communists, or historically anti-British groups were
selected for these operations. (Brown,
1975, p. 565-582) In addition,
individual agents were given false information and missions and dropped into
areas where it was known that they would be captured and the false information
extracted. (Brown, 1975, p. 552-553)
Germany. From the time Hitler came to power,
Germany's intelligence apparatus conducted operations against all the countries
it later occupied and also against Britain and the United States. Most of this work was done under Hitler's
expressed orders, but sometimes against them.
Before war was actually declared, the services of Britain and Germany
were actively engaged in hostilities.
Just before Hitler ordered his armies to march, British networks were
eliminated, leaving them temporarily blinded.
German agents were filtered into England, but, with one or possibly two
exceptions, all were captured. Some
were persuaded to work for the British.
These turned agents were used to mislead the Germans during the Normandy
Invasion.
Germany did achieve several major
successes. Unknown to the Allies,
German scientists were able to break the security devices used to protect the
Roosevelt-Churchill transatlantic telephone link. Operations in the United States were very successful. Plans for the Norden Bombsight were stolen
before security measures were taken to protect them. Information was obtained from Vice President Henry A. Wallace in
a continuous flow until January 1944.
(Farago, 1971, p. 436-443) John
L. Lewis, noted labor leader, was listed in Abwehr files as an agent:
"In 1939, Lewis helped materially and perhaps decisively to
obtain seized Mexican oil for Germany.
In 1939, Lewis
aided a clandestine effort to ensnare Roosevelt into the promotion of peace in
Europe strictly on Hitler's terms.
In 1940, Lewis
worked vigorously for what Herbert von Stempel, one of Germany's diplomatic
agents in Washington, called the Nezis [sic] "biggest single scheme
involving the United States"--an elaborate and costly conspiracy to
prevent the reelection of President Roosevelt for a third term." (Farago, 1971, p. 445)
Further,
several major corporations were persuaded to sell supplies to the Nazis through
dummy companies in South America and neutral European countries. (Farago, 1971, p. 444-475; Stevenson, 1976,
p. 307-326).
Most successful of all operations
was against Russia. Marshall Mikhail
Tukhachevsky was a roadblock in Joseph Stalin's desire to gain complete control
of Russia. He was the only man the
Russian Army would follow to oppose Stalin and his status as a hero of the
Revolution and military genius made him untouchable. Stalin devised a plan to use an exiled Czarist officer, Nicolai
Skoblin, to produce false information proving that Tukhachevsky was an enemy of
Russia so he could be removed from the Red Army. Skoblin, also a German agent, planned to lead an emigre army into
Russia to overthrow Stalin, and saw this as an opportunity to do more damage
than just removing one officer.
Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA, was impressed with Skoblin's plan,
adding some embellishments of his own.
Heydrich's master forgers produced a file implicating Tukhachevsky and
others in a plot with Germany to replace Stalin himself. This fake file was sold to Russian agents
through another German agent to make it look more authentic. Stalin accepted it as genuine. He did not stop at removing Tukhachevsky:
"The purge did more harm to the high command of the Red Army
than any war could have done, and by moderate estimates affected thirty per
cent of the army as a whole. The higher
echelons came off proportionally much the worst. According to various authorities some of the effects were:
The arrest of 60-70 per cent of the officers. The disappearance of eleven adjutant
commissars for war, and 71 out of 80 members of the High Council for War. The elimination of 90 per cent of the
generals and 80 per cent of the colonels; in all 30-35,000, including half the
specialist officer corps.
The first victims of the next phase were Marshals Blucher and
Yegorov, also Chief of the Air Force, Alksnis, and Komandarm Belov. Then followed the naval Commander-in-chief,
Orlov; members of the aviation inspectorate; of the Ossoviakhim, armored
divisions, airborn forces and artillery.
Also among those who vanished were 13 out of 15 army commanders, 57 out
of 85 corps commanders; 110 out of 195 divisional commanders and 220 out of 406
brigade commanders. Only two out of the
five Marshals of the Soviet Union remained: Voroshilov and Budenny." (Alexandrov, 1963, p. 177-178)
Without
loosing a single German soldier, Hitler insured that the Russian Army would be
without effective leadership when the invasion began.
Russia. Routine operations of both Russian and
German intelligence were all part of a unified control system designed to
support the policies of the political party in control.
Due to the Communist perception of
the world as being a capitalist camp to be overcome, all operations were aimed
at just that. Operations of other
nations were joined when it was perceived to be in the interest of Communist
Russia, while long term intelligence operations were being conducted against
all nations. An example was Great
Britain. While cooperating in
operations against Germany, Russian agent Kim Philby was also acting against
Britain. Philby managed his activities
so well that at the time of his discovery he was next in line to head British
counterintelligence. (Stevenson, 1976,
p. xxiii).
Operations were, under similar
conditions as an Ally, being conducted against the United States to obtain
information on everything from weapons technology to how simulated fur was attached
to Arctic weather coats.
Summary. Britain exerted a great influence upon the
direction of United States policy and operations through a variety of
means. Some American officials were
aware of a few of these means and were motivated through friendship with
British officials and/or expediency to hide these from superiors. Most, if not all, American domestic and foreign activity were
controlled by the British to the extent they reflected their own
interests. Where direct control was
not possible, British agents actively worked against American agents. Several unusual opportunities occurred which
did lead to a heavy joint investment of manpower in covert operations.
Germany began intelligence
preparations for war well in advance of the actual start of hostilities. This allowed them to achieve several major
successes, primarily in the United States.
Some secret information was collected before security measures were even
instituted. Economic activity also
played an important part in operations to acquire war materials.
Russia engaged in operations against
all nations, including allies. This was
done in pursuit of long term communist goals.
Technology played a decisive role in
wartime operations. All parties
intercepted radio communications, tapped telephones, and used electronic
devices in coding, decoding, and code breaking. Forgery and propaganda were also refined.
Conclusions and
Discussion
Intelligence activities for four
nations were examined for the years 1930 through 1948. Categories examined were characteristics of
staff decision makers and how they were chosen. Also examined were routine and special operations during a period
of world wide conflict.
In all
four nations the decision makers were selected from the elite, who had reached
that status through achievement or ascription.
While staffing these positions, official and unofficial activities
reflected the values of the respective elite groups.
As exemplified by the capture of the
Enigma coding machine and the Tukhachevsky affair, successful operations
appeared to occur when the interests of competing groups coincided.
In the case of Britain and the
United States, due to information on enemy activity being obtained by
technological means, most manpower was invested in covert operations against
the Germans rather than in intelligence gathering. At the end of the war, leaders of the CIA came from this
background. Additionally the role of
upper-class values in determining operational policies led to unpopular political
groups being sacrificed in deception operations where such sacrifices were
deemed necessary in German occupied territory.
The United States became dependent
upon the British for useful intelligence to formulate policy and strategy. This dependency allowed British agents to
engage in extra-legal activity in America under the protection of some
officials. By controlling the
intelligence given to the United States, British officials were seemingly
successful in guiding American policy to coincide with their own of maintaining
the Empire. One mechanism, novel to
American negotiators at the time, used by the British was the staff of advisers
and consultants which produced feasibility studies at Anglo-American strategy
conferences. These tactics simply
overwhelmed American negotiating teams, which usually consisted of a small
number of high ranking officers. The
American military later adopted the same technique.
American and British personnel
frequently became involved in commercial or diplomatic operations in the areas
where they operated during the war.
Clearly the classified knowledge they possessed would be of great value,
in a variety of ways, in operating against competitors lacking such knowledge. Intelligence was collected regarding German
industrial techniques, formulas, and processes as part of monitoring the flow
of war material and from captured documents.
At the end of hostilities this information was transferred to American
corporations, in violation of patent laws and agreements.
Descriptions of intelligence
activities seemed to agree on what appeared to be the major details. Some variations and discrepancies did
exist. Such variations occurred most
frequently in books written by individuals associated with specific operations
or who directly participated in them.
These variations usually reflected more positively upon the author or
nation of the author than did other accounts.
Great Britain, which has laws
prohibiting any publications regarding national secrets without official
approval, had the greatest discrepancies.
Perhaps those authors who participated directly or on a policy level in
the operations described had more accurate knowledge of what transpired or that
reporting of these incidents were biased by a sense of loyalty or continuing
official deceptions. It appears that
deceptions have continued, both as official and individual policy. Churchill's statement, "In war-time,
truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of
lies" (Brown, 1975, p. 10) indicates the possible source of such a
policy. This is also reflected in a
response made by Colonel John Bevan, head of LCS, when asked to describe his
actions during the war:
"I do not think I
should say what I did. I do not think
Governments should admit to such matters, even if they were done in
wartime." (Brown, 1975, p. 270)
Due to
Britain's great influence in the formation of American intelligence, this
attitude may also have been transmitted, appearing in the Cold War attitude of
CIA personnel as expressed by E. Howard Hunt, "No one is entitled to the
truth." (Hunt, 1977, p. 10)
The Schwarze Kapelle was the only
resistance movement in Europe not actively supported by the Allies, yet it was
the one with the greatest chance of removing Hitler. If it had succeeded, a negotiated end to the war could have
occurred and the Normandy invasion may not have been necessary.
Implications and
Speculation
It is obvious the data sources for
this study have some unique sociology of knowledge implications. Of course, the research required
triangulation of available accounts to develop an analysis that seemed
reasonably objective. Nevertheless, the
accounts do seem to represent attempts by some of the various authors to construct
a social reality that reflects favorably upon their nation and its role in
intelligence operations during World War II.
Let us look at this a bit more closely.
Great Britain seemingly has released
information only when political considerations outweighed its view that power
was best maintained by being mysterious and protecting methods of
operations. When Britain was seeking
admission to the European Common Market, France was blocking it because of
residual hostility about the sacrifice of resistance groups in deception
operations. To neutralize this, Britain
released information which appeared to exonerate its operations of such
activity, even though it probably had sacrificed resistance groups.
America appears to have been more
open, in part because of less restrictive laws regarding secret
operations. Nevertheless, released
information seems chosen to reflect positively upon the United States.
Accounts appeared to be more
objective in books written by historians, such as Anthony Cave Brown, who used
his reputation to gain interviews and information others could not. Ladislas Farago based his book upon microfilm
copies of Abwehr files which he discovered.
This source had information from the German perspective which varied
sharply from events described by both Britain and the United States. Accounts of those who were involved in or
had knowledge of intelligence operations during World War II also facilitated
an analysis of realities that were being constructed by the various nations.
Indications that even competing
intelligence services have regular channels of communication imply these
services may be more closely tied to each other by shared experiences and
values than they are to the governments for whom they function.
Close ties also seem to exist with
commercial enterprises, since most American and British staff personnel came
from and returned to such endeavors. In
the recent review of CIA goals, one of the decisions was to cooperate more
closely with multinational corporations.
The scope of propaganda operations
is another interesting area. At one
point in World War II, a British intelligence official, portrayed in America as
a psychic, was making dire predictions for Hitler and Germany which were based
in part on actual intelligence reports.
The realities constructed by individual
services are probably based on several factors. Each agency would need to justify its continued existence by
providing information that threats exist which only it can handle. Evidence must be provided that it is
succeeding in dealing with these threats, therefore, information is produced on
"enemy" activity. By proving
that "enemy" activity is constantly expanding, budget increases could
be justified on an agency and national level.
Information collected about the "enemy" could portray their negative
nature to allow individual justification for members of the service to engage
in behavior that would be inappropriate under other conditions. Acceptance and use of intelligence
evaluations by national decision makers might be based upon the degree to which
it supported the goals and purposes as determined by the value system of the
elite.
Those in such positions of authority
appear to share a common value system.
Once in a position of access to this special "intelligence"
and the accorded status, they perceive themselves to be more important than
others by virtue of their special role.
They come to see themselves, and the agency which separates them from
other men, as the guardians of order itself, an order which only those who
"really know" have the capability and right to determine. Therefore any threat to them or the special
agency which produces and protects the sacred "intelligence" becomes
a threat to order itself. Although the
intelligence agencies of different nations may appear to be in competition, any
threat to the existence of one becomes a threat to the existence of all. The elimination of the "enemy' would
remove the major justification for the existence of each intelligence agency. To justify the special status of the members
of each agency, each agency would have a vested interest in ensuring that the
"enemy" is not destroyed, but expanding. To protect the special status of the members of each agency,
"outsiders" must never be entrusted with the "truth."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexandra,
V. The Tukhachevsky Affair. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall,
Inc., 1963.
Barron, J. KGB. New York, New York: Mantam Books, 1974.
Brissaud, A. The
Nazi Secret Service. New York, New
York: W. W. Norton &
Company Inc., 1974.
Brown, A. Bodyguard
of Lies. New York, New York: Bantam
Books, 1975.
Brown, A. The
Secret War Report of the OSS. New
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Medallion Books, 1976.
Delarue, J. The
Gestapo: A History of Horror. New
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Falk,
R. CIA Covert Action and International
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Farago, L. The
Game of the Foxes. New York, New
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Halprin,
M. Decision-Making for covert
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Hunt, E. Loose
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Hymoff, E. The
OSS in World War II. New York, New
York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
Morris,
R. The Aftermath of CIA
Intervention. Society, 1975, 12(3,
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80.
Ransome,
H. Secret Intelligence Agencies and
Congress. Society, 1975, 12(3,
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Ross, T. Spying
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APPENDIX 1: SOURCES
Sources are listed alphabetically by
author, followed by letters to indicate the area for which it served as data
protocol.
B
- Great Britain
G - Germany
R - Russia
U - United States
Alexander,
V. The Tukhachevsky Affair. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall,
Inc., 1963. (GR)
Brissaud,
A. The Nazi Secret Service. New York, New York: W. W. Norton &
Company Inc., 1974. (G)
Brown, A. Bodyguard
of Lies. New York, New York: Bantam
Books, 1975. (BGRU)
Brown, A. The
Secret War Report of the OSS. New
York, New York: Berkley
Medallion Books, 1976. (BGRU)
Delarue, J. The
Gestapo: A History of Horror. New
York, New York: Dell Publishing
Co., Inc., 1964. (G)
Farago,
L. The Game of the Foxes. New York, New York: Bantam Books, 1971.
(BGU)
Gehlin, R. The
Service. New York, New York: World
Publishing Co., 1972. (G)
Gisevius,
H. To the Bitter End. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
1947.
(G)
Schellenberg, W.
The Labyrinth. New York,
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
(G)
Steiner, J. Power
Politics and Social Change in Nazi Germany. Atlantic Heights, New
Jersey: Humanities Press, 1976. (G)
Stevenson,
W. A Man Called Intrepid. New York, New York: Ballantine Books, 1976.
(BGRU)
