THE SPIES WHO CAME FROM NEXT DOOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

6
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5
APTICIEAPPE*F.# NEW YORK TIMES
ON PACA ffir j1 September 1985
From
The Spies Who Came
Next Door
Johannes Wolf, the Communist world's 1
By JAMF..4 M. MAtl01AM serving spymejter. The son of Friedrich Wolf, a
playwright, Markus Wolf was born near Stuttgart
BOMB in I.M. ten years later, escaping the Nazis' perse-
is one of the quiet, persistent anxieties of the cution of the Jews, the family fled to Switzerland
North Atlantic Treaty Organization that its and then to the Soviet Union. A brilliant student,
most important European member is also the "Mischa" wolf attended a Konsintern school and
most penetrated by spies from the Warsaw at the war's and was placed by the Soviet authod-
Pact. Lying on Europe's ideological fault. line, the ties in a Berlin radio station, where he vigilantly
Federal Republic of Germany faces not only, the watched its political line. Be also covered the war
massed divisions of the Soviet Union and its allies; crimes trial of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. After
in the midst of its open, pluralist society lurk the. the German Democratic Republic was founded In
agents of a formidable espionage establishment 1949, he briefly served as a.diplomat but soon took
run by Germans who happen to be Communists.. over the Institute for Economic Research, the kw
In the last two weeks, a major spy scandal has nel of what became the HVA. His brother, Konrad
abruptly shattered the somnolent end-oMummer Wolf, was a film director, president of the East
atmosphere in Bonn, pushing theme quiet'anxieties German Academy of Arts and a member of the
to the forefront of NATO concerns. It started in a Communist Party Central Committee. Their fa.
low key with the disappearance of two secretaries tber was Ambassador to Poland.
and a West German army messenger,.and then Like the fictional Karla in the JA Carr* spy
became dramatic and serious with the reported novels, General Wolf to regarded by West German
defection to East Berlin of Hans Joachim Tiedge, intelligence operatives as a mesmerizing adver-
a senior counterintelligence, officer in charge of sary. "He's very intelligent and is
catching East German spies. doing good work," said Richard
Last week, a highly placed secretary in the Meier. a former head of West Ger-
President's office in Bonn was arrested. Two East man counterintelligence, who only
German couples in Switzerland and Britain were twitted "Mischa" for getting himself
also picked up. A second counterintelligence offi- photographed by Swedish intelll-,
cer, Reinhard Leibetanz, was questioned about a gexuce while on a visit to Stockholm:'
decade-old friendship with a vanished East Ger- Beyond their fascination with Gen.
man agent. All were suspected of having links to eral Wolfs private life, his love for
the Hauptverwaltung Aufklilrung or HVA, the hunting and reputed weakness for
East German intelligence agency. beautiful women, however, west
The Tiedge affair was not the first spy scandal German intelligence officers are con-
'to shake Bonn. In 1954, the first head of West Ger- cerned with the efficient methods of
many's counterintelligence agency, Otto John, his spies.
turned no in East Berlin; he returned home two Recruitment of west Germans
years later claiming he had been kidnapped and ranges from assigning "Romans" to
was sentenced to four years in prison. In 1961, court middle-aged Bonn secretaries
Heinz Felfe, director of the Federal Intelligence who have access to important infor-
Service's anti-Soviet counterespionage section. oration, to placing seemingly harm.
,was unmasked as a Soviet agent. And in 1974, less want ads in west Berlin papers,
Chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign after gradually luring university students
Gunter Guillaume, a close aide,.was revealed to into furnishing ever more compro-
be a Communist "mole." Over the years, mgny mising information. For converts to
Boon office secretaries have been discovered to be spying, financial gain can be a moti-
spies, often lured into their dangerous avocation vation, but one West German intelli.
by East German lover-agants. gene officer said that "an ambition
Last week, Intelligence experts and politicians to be someone else," to have a secret
were weigmag the damage of the Tiedge defection life that enlivens a drab existence, is
and comparing it to previone losses. Some feared often uppermost.
that the betrayal may have crippled West Germa- The East Germans have no trouble
ny's cahnteriotslligeooe effort for years, since Mr. keeping West Germany infiltrated.
ledge, a 19-year veteran of the service, had vast, Last year, 40,000 East Germans were
detailed knowledge and was responsible for moos- permitted to emigrate to West Ger-
toring 80 psruoeat of Warsaw Pact espionage many, and H.V.A. operatives were
operations In West Germany. certainly in their midst. General
These are carried out by several thousand East Wolf's agency also confiscates the
Gervan agents, who blend easily into the western identity papers of West Germans who
par >t what was once a united Germany. They are move to East Germany and dis-
commanded by an intriguing figure, Gen.. Markus patches agents bearing them to West-
ern countries and then into the Federal Republic.
The two secretaries who vanished from Bonn last
month had been operating for two decades under
false identities.
t/
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5
The Guillaume affair badly saoned German.
German relatiaoe, but that weei