F-2011-02360 INITIAL REQUEST

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05761500
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: November 29, 2022
• Case Number: F-2020-01448
• Publication Date: September 29, 2011

Approved for Release: 2022/11/22 C05761500
THE
3
4 TIMES SQUARE
NEW YORK, NY 10036-7441
Susan Viscuso
Information and Privacy Office
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
FAX: [phone]
Reference: F-2011-02179 September 28, 2011
Dear Ms. Viscuso:
Thank you for your letter dated 13 September 2011, in response to my request dated
September 6,2011, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, for all documents
related in whole or in part to direct or indirect contacts between the Central
Intelligence Agency and the West German rock and roll band The Scorpions,
between 1985 and 1992.
In your response, you maintain that my request, insofar as you can discern, "has nothing
to do with the primary mission- of CIA, which is "concerned with foreign intelligence." I
apologize if my request was confusing. Let me explain what I am looking for in greater
detail:
In the context of its foreign intelligence mission, the CIA has at various times in its
history had contacts in the world of popular culture, both in an intelligence-gathering
capacity, and in an effort to promote certain messages or ideas that would advance U.S.
interests abroad. The agency's history of this kind of activity is well documented. I would
direct you, for instance, to Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the cultural Cold War, by
Frances Stonor Saunders (Granta Books, 2000), or The Mighty Worlitzer: How the CIA
Played America, by Hugh Wilford (Harvard University Press, 2009), the latter of which
is reviewed, favorably, on your agency's website. For evidence of the agency
collaborating with pop culture producers in Hollywood, I might also direct you to the
Studies In Intelligence article, "A Classic Case of Deception," by Antonio Mendez,
which you will also find published on CIA's website.
I hope that in light of the references above, you will agree that a request about contacts
between the CIA and a West German rock band that was performing behind the Iron
Curtain during the Cold War is not, on its face, so obviously unrelated to the mission of
the agency.
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Approved for Release: 2022/11/22 C05761500
As to the specifics of my inquiry about The Scorpions, I have been informed by a reliable
source that a member or members of the band, or of their management Learn, were in
contact with the Agency during the 1980s, and that CIA played a role in the success of a
Scorpions song called "Winds of Change," which was widely credited with having
galvanized the youth movement in Central and Eastern Europe during the period that
culminated with the fall of the Berlin Wall. If this is true, it would represent a fascinating
success story for the agency that has not yet been told. In light of the decades that have
passed since the events in question, I would like to relate the story in The New Yorker,
If you could please run a search based on my original September 6 request, I would be
grateful. I hope I have demonstrated the relevance of the request in this letter, and I
would he obliged if you could let me know whether there are any responsive records, and
if so, whether they can be released.
Many thanks, and if you have any questions, please feel free to give me a call at the
number below.
Patrick Redden Keefe
Conributor, The New Yorker Magazine
(b)(6)
(b)(6)
Approved for Release: 2022/11/22 C05761500