Chapter 1 The CIA and the Nazis
One of the most important of all the CIA operations began before the agency was even born. Many Nazi leaders realized they were going to lose World War Two and started negations with the USA behind Hitler’s back about a possible future war against the Soviet Union . In 1943, future CIA director Allon Dulles moved to Bern , Switzerland to begin back-channel talks with these Nazis.
Officially, Dules was an agent of the OSS , the Overseas Secret Service, the CIA’s predecessor. But he wasn’t above pursuing his own agenda with the Nazis. Indeed, as a proeminent Wall Street lawyer, Dulles had a number of clients, like Standard Oil, who continued doing business with the Nazis DURING THE WAR. Some Jewish officers of the American army were in shock to discover, when they liberated the Nazis’ extermination camps, that the SS were using technology sent by the American firm IBM.
So it is not surprising that when Hitler’s intelligence chief for the Eastern Front, General Reinhard Gehlen , surrendered to the US, he expected a warm reception, especially since he had buried his extensive files in a secret spot and planned to use them as a negotiation chip.
General Gehlen was whisked to Fort Hunt,Viginia, where he soon succeeded in convincing his captors that the Soviet Union was about to attack the West. The US Army and Gehlen arrived at a “gentleman’s agreement.”
According to the secret treaty, his spy organization, which came to be called the Gehlin Org. would work for and be funded by, the US until a new German government came to power. In the meantime, should Gehlen find a conflict between the interests of Germany and the US he was free to consider German interest first.
Ghelen even made sure he got approval for this arrangement from Hilter’s appointed successor, Admiral Doenitz, who was in a cushy prisoner-of-war camp for Nazi VIPs in Wiesbaden , Germany .
For almost ten years, the Gehlen Org was virtually the CIA’s only source of intelligence on Eastern Europe . Then in 1955, it evolved into the BND (the German equivalent of the CIA) which, of course, continued to cooperate with the CIA.