PRESENTLY IN GESTAPO HANDS. DON'T WORRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200230019-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: March 1, 1979
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

ARTICLE APPLA. ' i WASHINGTONIAN 6 e 1 Y , 1. 2- Prnrtn.Jy `1 ~Ce; d
.,r Approved For ,v gel9995/01/13: CIA-RDP88-01350R00020 Dig -
.By Joseph E. Persico
hey are scattered around town counsel to the CIO, had convinced Gerr-
reme Court eral William Donovan of the OSS that
y
~
.;~
Su
a former Su
t
da
,~
~ .~ ~~
p ,
p
y-
o
justice, a Voice of America re- among European trade unionists there
artners was a rich vein of espionage agents wait
er-
a tabor law
thee
y
p
,
Iona ago in an adventure never fully re- ing to be tapped. Wild Bill asked
vealed until now. They-along with Goldberg to head OSS labor intelligerice,
other Washingtonians-helped carry off and Gary Van Arkel was among the labor
01 44
one of the most stunning intelligence exerts raided from the NLRB. Van
expel wound up in Bern, Switzerland.
14 Ark
triumphs of World War II; the penetra- ;~ My
lion of Nazi Germany by American se- working for Allen Dulles. His mission: to
cret agents at the time it was needed infiltrate American spies into Germany.
most. During our interview Van Ark-el re-
the war appeared called one of the more curious messages
By the fall of 1944
,
over. France had been liberated. Allied of his--or anyone's---espionage career:
armies had breached the German border. _~ "Presently in Gestapo hands. Don't
The outcome was in no doubt. Surely the tY i w'orry." The incorriRibie optimist was
Germans were too intelligent to bring Fred Mayer. now a recently retired Voice
down on their own heads the destruction ..........~ of America engineer who fives in Avon
Bend, West Virginia, an hour`s drive
they had inflicted on the rest of Europe.
But Adolf Hitler was all too willing. from Washington. Van Ark-el had first
Along the entire western front that fall met Mayer in Bari., Italy. months before.
and winter, Allied armies felt the unspent while the latter was preparing for his
sting of the Wehrmacht. US comman- Fred Mayer, now a retired Voice of ? mission behind enemy lines. He and
ders now demanded from inside Ger- America engineer, posed as a Nazi two other agents were to infiltrate the
many the same kind of intelligence that officer. Redoubt, a near impenetrable Alpine
had paved the way for the conquest of fortress where, it was rumored, the
occupied Europe. The Office of Strategic locating and interviewing the actual par- Nazis intended to make a last stand.
Services was ordered to penetrate the ticipants, here and in Europe. For many The Mayer family had been refugees
Third Reich. of my key witnesses, I never had to travel from Nazism, living in New York at the
Until then, theonlylandsinfiltratedby outside the Capital Beltway. time young Fred enlisted in the US
American secret agents were subjugated Army. He caught the attention of OSS
but friendly ones, where they were wet- Gerhard P. Van Arkel is a lean, goateed because of his knowledge of languages.
corned by resistance fighters. Spies Georgetowner in his early seventies. a his full quota of chutzpah. and his hunger
penetrating Germany would have to man who speaks with quiet authority for action that bordered on the rash.
parachute into a hostile world. No safe while his eyes suggest some secret inner Mayer was ordered to OSS headquarters
houses, no friends. No established com- amusement. Van Arkel and his wife, in Bari. Almost immediately. he offered
munications. Gestapo everywhere. Ruth, parallel another OSS couple, Paul to lead a team that would parachute into.
This penetration of the Reich was first and Julia Child, the French chef, down to and liberate, a concentration camp. The
revealed, sketchily but tantalizingly, in a Ruth Van Arkel's hnd officer who heard this proposal said.
document declassified by the CIA early gourmet cuisine. herb-growing *'Why don't you just jump out of the
in 1976. I set out to get the full story by y Van Arkel was a lawyer with the Na- window now? It would be cheaper and
''
- - -- - tional Labor Relations Board when Pearl more practical.
This article is derived from the author's Piercing Harbor jolted America into war. Another The mission that Mayer finally did
the Reich; the Pertetrotiw ~~yy+, ~y(~a ~j ,p~~Q1/ dtCJt6 Fje6~Rr $i9~r350 00022 38i01t~-F~ss audacious. He
American Secret Af;ents 1,00,1 r ar Rel
just published by the Viking Press. named Arthur Goldberg, who was then
and the two other agents parachuted-
i~ii~Tlstiuv
 Approved For Release 2005/01/13 : CIA-RDP88-0135OR000200230019-9
during the dead of winter--onto a
10.01)0-foot lacier in the Austrian Alps
and made their way to a hideout near
Innsbruck. .1 layer was soon radioing
back intelligence on German military
traffic entering the Brenner Pass, infor-
mation that sent US 15th Air Force
bombers roaring in for impressive kills.
Fred Mayer became more daring. He
acquired the uniform of a mountain in-
fantr lieutenant and moved into the
it.chrnreht officers' club in Innsbruck.
There. a drunken army engineer revealed
to him the construction details and loca-
tion of the Fiihrer's bunker in Berlin.
which Mayer's radioman immediately
transmitted back to OSS in Bari. .
slaver's luck ran out when a black-
marketeer betrayed him to the Gestapo.
He was hung upside down for six hours.
-and bul 1-whipped. He had water poured
into his nose and ears until he. fainted.
But he refused to talk and even suggested
to his captors that they consider surren-
dering Innsbruck. then in the path of the
advancing US 103rd Division. It was at
this point that Mayer convinced the Ger-
mans to send a message to Van Arkel in
Bern. to alert OSS of his fate. Van Arkel
seized the German courier and threatened
that if any further harm came to Fred
siver. the man would pay personally.
Gary Van Arkel also recalled for me
the day an anti-Nazi journalist casually
handed him a Zu-rich address. saying.
"This might be worth a visit." Van
Arkel gambled on the 75-mile journey
and found himself climbing the steps to
the top floor of a drab tenement. There,
he met an emigre Austrian Socialist who
told %'an Arkel something that made the
American's pulse race: The man had a
colleague who was the track inspector for
the rail lines that supplied German forces
in Italy.
Gary Van Arkel in
Bern for OSS
anonymity. the living with one eye al-
ways looking over his shoulder
"nerve-wracking, exhausting. and, ul-
timately. dehumanizing."
There was another OSS mission that I
was curious about, but neither Van Arkel
nor Mayer could help me. it was called
"Dupont" and was hatched in Bari while
both men were there, but neither knew
anything about it--good espionage oper-
ations are compartmentalized. As it
turned out, I stumbled across the full
story right here in Washington. Dupont,
too, was a parachute mission. in which
Jack Taylor, an OSS lieutenant who
spoke not a word of German, had
dropped, along with three German army
deserters. near the intelligence-rich in-
dustrial hub of Wiener Neustadt. But
1942, before going to Taylor had died several years ago. and
Van Arkel worked out a scheme
through which the Zurich Socialist jour-
neyed to the Austro-Swiss border town of
Buchs and checked into a nearby ski re-
sort. The track inspector took another
room there. They dined in their separate
rooms. but served by the sane waiter-
who passed intelligence from one to the
other.
Information on troop, ammunition,
and arms movements continued to flow,.
uninterrupted, from the track inspector to
the agent, then to Van Arkel. then to
American bombers, until the end of the
war. For this intelligence trove, Van
Arkel was never able to press on the man
in the Zurich tenement anything more
than a little cash, some coffee. or some
American ? cigarettes.
Gary Van Arkel has little patience with
today's romanticized visions of espion-
age. He found the constant deception, the
because the other three agents were iden-
tified only by anglicized code names and
were therefore untraceable, I had had to
abandon the search for survivors of
Dupont. .._ -
. Then one day I was at the office of the
accommodating press officer of the Aus-
trian Embassy, Franz Cyrus. who had
agreed to arrange letters of introduction
for me to use while researching in his
country. Cyrus casually suggested that,
before leaving. I ought to look up "Ernst
Ebbing." `
"Who is Ernst Ebbing?"
"One of those wild fellows who
worked for your OSS. He parachuted
near Wiener Neustadt with an American
and some other agents." Dupont!
..Where can I find Ebbing?" I asked-
Cyrus laughed. The desperation in my
voice must have been palpable. "His of-
fice is about three minutes from you." he
said. I was then working in the Old Exec-
utive Office Building` serving aas~,hief
Approved For Release 2005/01/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350R00020b230019-9
 speechwriter for V i c
Rockefeller.
Ernst Ebbinx is not his ".rue name.. Like
~--,eral others ~I interviewed, he would
not talk until assured anonymity. \Vhy
the secrecy after all these years'' My sub-
jects- reasons were varied-Ebbing, ever
reticent. never revealed his.
I met with him a few times. collecting
at first only a few bare bones. He had
come to America after the war and, be-
cause of his sure command of English.
had succeeded as a journalist and writer.
He became an American citizen. eventu-
ally settling in Washington. Finally, one
day as we talked at his home on MacAr-
-'fftur Boulevard. the story of Dupont un-
folded.
They had parachuted at night in the fall
of 194-4. bailing out at 400 feet and land-
ing on the rim of the Neusiedlersee, a:
large lake near Wiener Neustadt. As they
gathered up their parachutes. the Dupont
'team watched in horror as the chute
carrying their radio sank into the black-
ness of the lake.
Their leader. Taylor, was a taut and
taciturn man. His frustration mounted as
they unearthed invaluable intelligence
that they could not communicate-the
site of a huge. unscathed munitions com-
plex: the plan for the Southeast Wall, an
important German defense line. Tension
crackled back and forth among the men
as they shifted from one insecure hideout
to another, night after night. Then one of
the team members looked up an old girl
friend. Her father informed the Gestapo.
The Dupont mission was undone. -?
Ernst Ebbing was sentenced to be be-
headed as a treasonous deserter, as was
his Viennese father. a Luftwaffe captain
who had aided Dupont. Lieutenant
Taylor also drew a death sentence and
was shipped to the Mauthausen extermi-
nation camp. There. Taylor was assigned
to a bricklaying crew that built ere-
matoria for disposal of gas-chamber-vic-
tims' bodies. Taylor survived because a
friendly trusty burned his execution or-
der. Ebbing beat the headsman by eseap-
in._* from a prison camp in the chaos of the
war's final days.
Today, Ernest Ebbing is a handsome.
'athletically trim man, quiet in aspect and
strong in his opinions. His youthful ap-
pearance belies his 54 years. I asked him
if he recalled his feelings as he stood
poised in the doorway of that aircraft,
about to drop as a spy into Nazi Ger-
many. His expression assumed the
fatalism he must have felt that long-ago
night. -1 looked down and thought, this
is the God-damned end.."
l l~r i `tic i' iP rr~ rl tt ~13
and found many of these answers too
anon\, Wash instonians.
Peter Karlo,, today is a consultant to
businesses on international affairs. Be-
tween his globe-trotting, he lives off
River Road in Bethesda, But back when
World War ii broke out. young Karlow,
then fresh out of college. was pulled into
the orbit of an obscure new government
body. the Office of the Coordinator of
Information, which was the seed of the
OSS.
One of Karlow's duties was to scan
the manifests of neutral ships entering the
port of New York. looking for promising
intelligence sources among the
passengers. Karlow would then contact
the best prospects and, in the course of
casual conversation, pump them for the 1
locations of key utilities, military in- 1
stallations, and rail and port facilities in
the German cities they had inhabited.
. But Karlow wanted more. He and his
colleagues would literally take the shirts
off the refugees' backs-buying them,
along with their suits, shoes, hats, coats,
luggage, razors, virtually any personal
articles they were willing to sell.
They always had faintly plausible ex-
planations for their odd interest. The
steel in a razor might reveal something of
German metallurgical processes, they
said. The quality of a fabric might hold
clues to the state of the German econ-
only. A pen? Just an interesting souvenir.
In reality, these items-and others ob-
tained from prisoners of war and inhabi-
tants of conquered territories-went into
an OSS clothing depot. And it was from
this rummage heap that agents were out-
fitted for missions into the Reich, right
down to German-made shoelaces.
I asked Karlow how these recent arriv-
als reacted to his questions and.acquisi-
tiveness. "After what they had experi-
enced in Europe, most of them were
afraid not to cooperate. They still didn't
know what to expect of life in America.
Besides, most of them had lived extraor-
dinary adventures. They were bursting to
talk about it and wanted to help."
Henry Sutton, who for a time was a CIA
colleague of Karlow, was one of the most
celebrated privates in the OSS. I found
Sutton on Idaho Avenue where he lived
until his recent death. He was an enor-
mous man aid spoke in a piercing Vien-
nese accent-he was born Heinrich
Sofner. His apartment groaned under
heaps of books on international affairs,
leaving only narrow corridors for
passage.
During the 1930s, Sutton had been an
agents I ike Ernst Ebbing and Fred official of a white-collar workers' union
Mayer expected to pass inside Germany. in Austria and a target of Nazi p rsedu-
pFWpd28(ppgl?_rgorking in what for-
merly had been a house of fashion on
Grosvenor Street in London. There.
Henry Sutton quite literally invented
people, the personae that US agents
bound for Germany were to assume.
One way that Sutton prepared himself
was by scouring German newspapers
smuggled out through neutral countries.
Local papers, particularly, contained
seemingly innocent items of enormous
value to agents about to infiltrate-notice
of a change in the rationing documents
required, for example. One paper re-
ported the arrest of a woman for selling
black-market cigarettes to a French con-
script worker, and from this account Sut-
ton learned the name and location of an
actual labor camp, which he was able to
weave into the cover story of a spy who
was to pose as a conscript worker... .- _
. Another Sutton client was an Amen--
can scheduled to go into the Reich as a
Frenchman. The man presented Sutton
an unusual challenge. His French was
good, but his accent was hardly likely to
be encountered anywhere between Nor-
mandy and the Pyrenees. Sutton and
another colleague studied a map. Their
Frenchman, they decided, came from
Martinique. What German was likely to
know what a'Martinique accent sounded
like?
Sutton spent hours drilling agents in
the details of their new identity. "The
first thing I pounded into their. heads," he
told me, "was `What is the color of the
buses in your hometown? What is the
name of the cemetery where your parents
are buried?' " He had learned that these
were among the first questions the Ges-
tapo put to suspected spies. _.... ,. , , ~
Former Justice Goldberg, who today
practices law from offices on Seven-
teenth Street, was virtually the first to
persuade General Donovan that the OSS
could crack the Nazi heartland. British
Intelligence had never been optimistic
about the possibilities, and therefore
tended to discourage American 'efforts.
But all told, the OSS succeeded in plac-
ing more than 200 secret agents into vir-
tually every significant sector of Ger-
many. Did their efforts shorten the war
by an hour or a day? We have no way to
measure their contribution to the myriad
ingredients of victory. But this much is
certain: The successful penetration of the
Reich represented the peak of OSS
proficiency during World War II.
America, essentially without an intelli-
gence service when the conflict began. I
had a spy apparatus to rival any nation's-
by the time the war ended. Indeed,
an impressive number of the OSS Wash-
ingtonians who went on to build the CIA
convincing cover. t %%anleu U) iiow ^U\% UJGI+KU dilu LdiCi ICCCUItCU uiw the U33. 1
'"