RUDE PRAVO REPORTS ON 'STRANGE' CIA CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400300012-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: August 7, 1966
• Content Type: TRANS

FOREIGN UDDOCUM NTB DIViW UD1
CPApprroved For Release 199-9109/17:CIA-R 01 RO
P'ague RUDE PRAVO 7 August 1966--A
(H3chman Washington dispatch: -"The Strange Affair of the 'Woodsmen'--High-Ranking CIA
Official the Victim of a Conspiracy of his Collaborators!),
(Text) Washington has taken only modest note of a quite obscure affair concerning a
high-ranking CIA official whose apartment was invaded by two "colleagues" who there
seized highly secret material and caused great difficulties to the official in his
job. Obviously this would not have made the-papers stall had thpre not been the
detail that at the same time jewels worth 19,000 dollars were lost from the apartment
and that thespouse affected did not hesitate to report this to-the police.
;Last year, Hans ToftVreported to tax authorities an annual salary of 25,000 dollars, and
(from this it is safe to conclude that a very highly placed official of the espionage service
is concerned. In addition, it is reported that Mr. Tofte*allegedly.raised objections when
President Johnson recently made a change in CIA chiefs and selected professional inteiligene
man Riphard Helms. This was the first time,.by the way, that the direction of this
omnipotent agency with its 3 billion in annual expenditures had been'entrusted'to a
,member of the CIA apparatus.
,It seems that Mr. Tofte wanted to sell part of the house in which he lived on 35th street
in Washington, and that a certain Mr. Slocum and his wife came to inspect it. The
prospective buyers were so active as to inspect not only the lower part of the house
but also the second floor, which was not for sale. They found there carefully Stored
official CIA papers which Mr. Tofte reportedly worked on at home. The next day, two CIA,
_agents penetrated the house and took the papers.. Since, strangely enough, they did not
'
consider it necessary to inform Mr. Tofte about
this, and since at the, same time the
19,000-dollars-worth of jewels were lost, Mrs. Tofte reported the event to the police..
The practice of working on supersecret CIA papers at home is strictly forbidden, it is'
true. Despite this, it is reportedly a very current practice with. leading agency officials.
This is asserted by Mr. Tofte, whom they have suspended from duty in the meantime, CIA
d
it
th
a
m
s
at it seized tj}e papers, but reportedly knows nothing about the theft of the
jewels. It is highly unusual for the most secret institution in the United States--
which CIA undoubtedly is--to do its washing publicly and to do so in a case, moreover,
which.implieates such a high-ranking figure of the agency.
Two explanations offer themselves. The first is that personal disputes on a high level
have broken out among the "woodsmen," as the CIA staff are called because of the location
in the woods of their headquarters in Virginia, and that the finding, of the secret papers
in his home will serve as a pretext for his "defenestration " The second and highly
intri,ruing possibility's. that Mr. Tofte, who has had 25 years of activity in erioan
espionage service, al-so-eoopeerrat_`d with some other foreign agency, and that he thus secured
for himself earningsn addition to si saCrry oiT~5,000 ann au ily
which is almost as bi
,
g
a salary as that of 'a 'cabinet officer. Mr. Tofte was an officer of OSS--Office of Strategic ~?;
S
ervices--in Europe during world war II and directed CIA activities in Korea during the war.
i
f 1
0 1
52
o
95
9
,I The latter version is near the truth. T'ofte Is. contacts should. lead to some'West
European agency, since even'a tiny indication in another direction necessarily would
evoke a rapid alarm involving the popular "red
intrigues
"
The situatio
o
ld b
,
.
.
n?W
u
e +?: .
particularly piquant if it emerged that Mr. Tofte,' who. is of Danish originworked on ' '
' '
.
CIA materials at home let us say for?West Germany. But it is'gertain,that,'the matter will
not be aired
to
such an
_e
t
t
._
_
.
x
en
.
Approved For Release 1999/09/17 CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400300012-8'