ALLEN DULLES HUNTED SPIES IN WORLD WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000100100016-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 12, 2000
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: June 26, 1954
• Content Type: NSPR

UTLQA^V4cQP 1fLease 266Af0i956IA-RDP70-00058ROO0106100016-2
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Allen Dulles Hunted Spies in World War
From a report by Jack Wilson ire - "I - won't claim that I've
the Des Moines Register r never made a mistake in judg-
If Senator Joseph McCarthy ing people. Nobody can be 100
formally takes on the Centtal per cent right, but if you're
Intelligence Agency and Allen right 80 per cent of the time
W. Dulles, its boss, in 'a public 'you're doing pretty well. You
Red hunt, the results are pretty have to take risks in this busi-
certain to be highly interest- ness, and your judgments of
ing. people are the biggest. risks
Dulles said he had invited you take."
McCarthy to name some CIA As he talked, Dulles was sit-
Reds as long ago as last Oc- ti ag, in his office, behind a
tober, but nothing came of it. fi at, bare ' desk backed by an
Among observers around J.merican flag and the official
Washington who know both C'[A banner. A table behind the
parties, the betting is inclined 41 sk held three telephones, in-
to favor Dulles in event of a . ciuding the white one that
showdown. Dulles was hunting
spies, and spying himself, when
McCarthy was a schoolboy, and
means a direct line to the
V 'hits House.
Aside from the white tele-
he's not a man to get flustered phone and the flag, there was
at the drop of a subpoena. nothing in the room to indicate
Originally, he intended to be ti) ,t Dules wasn't what he
a diplomat, like his brother
John Foster, whose office in
the State Department is not
looked like, a sedate Latin
teacher prepared to chide you
mildly for getting careless with
far up the street. Allen was your ablatives.
in the State Department's for- * *
eign service in Geneva during Almost nobody, outside of a
World War I, and Geneva being few members of congress and
the stamping grounds for most a very few very high govern-
of the spies in Central Europe ' ment officials, knows the ex-
Aside frorp his World War I
experience, Dulles `-ad been do-
ing business with a lot of firms
that had connections in Ger-
many, and he knew his ground.
He had plenty of opportun-
ity to test his ability to judge.
the men he had to deal with,
and he turned out right a
significant number of times.
He was right,' for instance,
when he decided that a '(per-.
man, whom he later ideitlfled;.
only as "George Wood," -IN"
really delivering stralglt! In-
formation. ,7-
"Wood" walked into Dulles'_
office In Berne with a hand-
ful of highly informative let-
that had come to hCIn a3
ters
assistant to. Joachim von UI(u
bentrop, 'Germany's foreign
minister.
There was, of course, the'
possibility that the ieii: ~rh
might be an attempt to plant
false Information with tie
Americans.
The B r i t i s^h intelligence
people, to whom "Wood" - ,Xad
first taken them, had decided
that was what they were, size
had laughed "Wood" out of their office.
Dulles studied the letter and.
the man, and decided both
were genuine. "Wood" turned
out to be- the best single
source of, inside information
the OSS ever had in Germany.
One of Dulles'. big projects
which flopped through no fault
of his, was the attempt by high
German officers to assassinate
Adolf Hitler late in the war.
Through one source and an-
other D u l l e s became ac-
quainted with Hans Gisevius,
business himself. Guesses as to the number of
He had no training in espion- CIA o p era t i v e s snooping
age-and for that matter, he around the world for informa-
hasn't had any since. _. tion run from 3,000 to 10,000.
operates its own school for E9timates of the annual cost of
sleuths, and Dulles is proud of ! Dulles' devious activities vary
its work. from $10 million to nearly $1
"I'd like to take time off and billi-n.
go through the coarse myself," * *
he said,a few days ago, "but I The. amount never shows in
don't suppose I'll ever be able the Budget or' the appropria-
to. I learned by the case . tion bills presented to Con-
method: Each case was a new 'gress: It is hidden, here and
problem, and we figured it out there, among appropriations
as we went along. I'd watch for other activities.
others work, and try to profit For a long time the CIA
from their mistakes. group was simply a collection
? " 11 of anonymous buildings stuck
There are, of course, a good off in an odd corner of the low-
work, but but the technical most phases to Important this rent district. When Dulles be-
single, element Is being able to came director, he ordered a
judge the people you're dealing sign with the name of the
with. You never know, when agency for the front gate.
someone approaches you with During World War II the
information or a plan, whether group of buildings was head-
it's a trap. quarters for Gen. William
* * Donovan's Office of Strategic
"You simply have to be able Services (OSS). When OSS
to judge character and decide was set up, Dulles was going
for yourself whether a man is about his business as a, lawyer
good or bad, whether you can in the firm of Sullivan and
trust him or not. . Cromwell, New York. -
Donova7a,..,likewise a New
York Lawyer, promptly drafted
him into OSS and sent him off
to Switerland to run the spy
,.machine there.
10
-2
 CPYRdff roved For Release 2000/08/03 : CIA-RDP70-00058R000100100016-2
Spy' Catcher Dulles
the German vicecounsel in
Zurich.
It turned out that Gisevius'
job was to get Dulles' help
with a plot headed by anti-
Hitler army officers to plant a
bomb under the Fuehrer's chair
and seize control of Germany.
Dulles' part was to get the
United States to agree to ne-
gotiate with the new govern-
ment.
Washington, in spite of
Dulles' sales campaign, showed
little interest in the plot, tak-
ing the position that he was
being put upon by a passel of
crackpots. The German officers
went ahead anyway, and actu-
ally smuggled a live bomb into
one of Hitler's conferences.
* a
The scheme failed because
the briefcase containing the
bomb got shoved out of posi-
tion, and the explosion merely
wounded Hitler, although some
of his top aides were killed.
* *
Gisevius managed to hide in
Berlin for several weeks until
Dulles could smuggle forged
credentials to him to help him
over the border into Switzer-
land.
Dulles' biggest coup prob-
ably was the dickering that
led to the surrender of 600,000
German soldiers in northern
Italy. Through the Swiss,
Dulles learned that Gen. Carl
Wolff, chief of the Nazi Ges-
tapo in Italy, and Field Mar-
shal. Albert Kesselring, who
commanded the German army
in Italy, wanted to negotiate
with him and surrender in spite
of Hitler's orders. That was
early in 1945, five months be-
fore the end of the war.
*
Two roadblocks developed.
One was that Kesselring was
ordered back to Germany and
replaced by a more determined
general before the talks
reached the final stage. The
other was that Russia learned
about the dealings and Josef
Stalin protested. bitterly to
President Roosevelt and to
Prime Minister Winston
Churchill that the Americans
were seeking peace without
consulting Russia.
Stalin was assured that all'
the talks thus far had been
simply attempts to arrange a
meeting, and that Russia would
certainly be invited to sit in on
the conversations if she wanted:
to.
Nevertheless, it was late in'
April before the talks were
continued, and May 2 wherf the
German armies in Italy laid
down their arms.
Dulles went back into his
law practice after the war, fol-
lowing a hitch as head of the ,
OSS mission in Germany. One
result of that assignment was
that he brought back a strong
argument in favor of building
up a de-militarized but pros-
perous Germany, in contrast to
the goat-pasture proposal ad-
vocated by Secretary of the
Treasury Henry Morgenthau.
Approved For Release 2000/08/03 : CIA-RDP70-00058R000100100016-2