Page 80 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 80 of 237

The CIA poured millions into the Gehlen apparatus, but the 1963 case raised grave questions about the
effectiveness and worth of the whole operation. It also raised moral and political questions in West Germany,
where some newspapers were asking why ex-Nazis were running the Bundesrepublik's intelligence service in the
first place.

Gehlen, a member of the German General Staff under Hitler, was placed in charge of wartime intelligence for
Foreign Armies East. This meant that he ran Germany's espionage against the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
He is said to have surrendered his organization and files to the United States Army Counter Intelligence Corps
when the Nazi empire collapsed in 1945.

With his knowledge of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, it was not long before Gehlen was back in business,
this time for the United States. When the CIA was casting about for a network in West Germany, it decided to
look into the possibility of using Gehlen's talents. And while they were making up their mind about the ex-
general, Henry Pleasants, the CIA station chief in Bonn for many years, moved in and lived with Gehlen for
several months.

Pleasants, once the chief music critic of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and a contributor to the music pages of
the New York Times, was a highly literate and respected musicologist. His wife Virginia was one of the world's
leading harpsichordists. He also probably had the distinction of being the only top U.S. spy to become the center
of a literary storm. He had continued to write books after joining the CIA, and in 1955 his Agony of Modern
Music (Simon & Schuster, New York) caused considerable controversy for its attacks on all contemporary music
except jazz. *

Gehlen had named his price and his terms, but it took some months before the CIA said yes. After that Gehlen
consolidated an intelligence network that operated in utter secrecy -- as far as the West German public was
concerned -- from a heavily guarded villa in Pullach, outside of Munich. Officially, the Gehlen network was not
part of the Bonn Government.

The mystery general reportedly lived in a two-story lakeside villa at Starnberg, Bavaria (fifteen miles southwest
of Munich); a sign on the fence surrounding the house said: Warnung vor dem Hunde (Beware the Dog). No
outsider has ever seen Gehlen. No picture of Gehlen has been taken since 1944 -- and that one shows him
bemedaled in his Wehrmacht uniform.

The evidence indicates that Gehlen staffed his organization with many former SS and Wehrmacht
intelligence officers. During the war Felfe ran the Swiss department of the Reich security service, and
Clemens and Tiebel were his assistants.

Felfe, while awaiting possible war crimes prosecution, suddenly was given a clean bill of health by a British Zone
court and was hired by the Gehlen organization in 1951. He testified he had been approached by a former SS
colonel who asked if he was interested in returning to his "old trade."

That trade was also being plied by Dr. Otto John, head of West Germany's Office for the Protection of the
Constitution. Dr. John disappeared into East Berlin on July 20, 1954. Since John was the head of West Germany's
official counter-intelligence organization, it was as astounding as if J. Edgar Hoover had suddenly turned up in
Minsk. Otto John chose the tenth anniversary of the unsuccessful bomb plot against Hitler to do his vanishing act.
He had been active in the plot himself and managed to escape afterwards; his brother Hans was executed. On the
day of his disappearance he had attended memorial services at the site of the executions.