Page 81 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 81 of 237

Washington, stunned by the news, described John as one of the "two or three best-informed persons in West
Germany" on intelligence operations. But the tail end of a New York Times dispatch from Berlin gave the most
tantalizing reason for John's action:

"Dr. John's organization also was believed to have been in serious competition and difficulties with a more
extensive German organization headed by Reinhard Gehlen, a former high-ranking Wehrmacht intelligence
officer." [19]

On July 20, 1955, again on the anniversary of the bomb plot, West Germany announced that it was taking over the
Gehlen organization, henceforth to be known as the Bundesnachrichtendienst, * or Federal Intelligence Agency
(FIA).

With John's defection and the official recognition of the FIA by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Gehlen was the
unchallenged spymaster of West Germany. * The Gehlen Apparat was now part of the Bonn Government
(although it nowhere appears in any official government table of organization). The relationship between the CIA
and the FIA remained intimate. That is why the 1963 trial meant, not only trouble for Gehlen, but trouble for the
CIA.

During the trial the three defendants admitted that they supplied the Soviet Union with the names of West German
agents of the FIA (ninety-five in all ) as well as other secret information that was smuggled out in canned baby
food, trick suitcases and on special writing paper. Felfe and Clemens testified they were paid about $40,000 each
during the ten-year period.

At the time of his arrest, Felfe was the director of the East Division of the Gehlen agency, in charge of spying in
Eastern Europe.

In asking for long prison terms for the trio, the West German prosecutor said it was "without doubt the worst
espionage case ever experienced in the Federal Republic." Felfe and Clemens, he said, had done "serious damage
to the Federal Republic and to American organizations."

He did not have to spell out the initials CIA to make his meaning clear.

***

The extraordinary growth of the clandestine activities of the United States in all parts of the world has been
pointed up in this brief review of the important operations of the Invisible Government in Germany, as well as in
Bogota, Korea, Communist China, Formosa, Iran, Egypt, Costa Rica and the Soviet Union. Other operations, even
more fascinating and sometimes disturbing, have been conducted in Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam and
Guatemala.

_______________

* As constituted in 1964 the NSC was composed of the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of Defense and the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning.

* The 1949 Act also allowed the CIA director to bring in 100 aliens a year secretly and outside of normal
immigration laws.