For congressional testimony and lobbying activities by ACEN leaders, see Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, A Study of Anatomy of Communist Takeovers Prepared by the Assembly of Captive European Nations (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966); Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, International Communism (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956); Select Committee to Investigate the Incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR, U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953); see also National Committee for a Free Europe, President’s Report, 1953, p. 18ff., and 1954, p. 18ff. For discussions of the role of Eastern European exile associations in lobbying Congress, see “[Representative] Kersten’s Investigatory House Committee Meets in Munich,” ABN Correspondence (May-September 1954), p. 1; “Lithuanian American Council,” Lituanus (July 1955), p. 23, about lobbying against the genocide treaty and in favor of creation of congressional investigating committees; and V. S. Vardys, “Congressional Investigations of Communists Abroad,” Lituanus (February 1956), concerning the Katyn investigation, the Kersten Amendment, creation of Escapee Program, role in congressional elections; and Mathias, op. cit., p. 975ff.
A particularly valuable source is a 600-page U.S. Department of State dossier on the ACEN released under the FOIA. It includes correspondence between State and the ACEN, plus a number of reports and other material concerning ACEN lobbying on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch that are unavailable elsewhere. For an example of ACEN lobbying, see ACEN correspondence with Senator John F. Kennedy, March 3, 1958 (thanking him for receiving ACEN delegation); ACEN solicitation of Kennedy endorsement and support, March 17, 1958; Kennedy telegram of support, April 24, 1958; ACEN letter to Kennedy, July 1, 1960; reply, July 13, 1960; in John F. Kennedy Pre-Presidential Collection, Legislative Files, Box 687, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
4.
On “thousands of Waffen SS veterans and other Nazi collaborators,” see Ryan, Quiet Neighbors, pp. 26–27. On political role of these people within the broader Eastern European immigration, please see the detailed discussion that follows in the text and source notes.
5.
1985 GAO Report; see also Ralph Blumenthal, “2 War Criminals Had Official Help in Getting to U.S., Study Finds,” New York Times, June 29, 1985; Thomas O’Toole, “The Secret Under the Little Cemetery,” Washington Post, May 23, 1982; Charles Allen, Nazi War Criminals in America: Facts … Action (Albany, N.Y.: Charles Allen Productions, Inc., 1981).
On CIA desire for thousands of informants and covert operations, see “Explanatory Background Information for the Guidance of Consular Officers in Implementing Section 2, Subsection (d) of the Displaced Persons Act,” February 24, 1950 (confidential), AG 383.7 1948–1949-1950, RG 407, NA, Washington, D.C. These State Department records are contained in the files of the Army Adjutant General’s Office.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ibid.
The Council for a Free Czechoslovakia boasts of receiving such “in blank” visas in its publication In Search of Haven (Washington, D.C: Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, 1950). On political use of these visas, see also Kurt Glaser, “Psychological Warfare’s Policy Feedback,” Ukrainian Quarterly (Spring 1953), p. 175. Glaser contends that the visas were extended too freely to the more liberal groupings among Eastern European émigrés such as the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, resulting in a supposedly “soft” line on the USSR among U.S. intelligence analysts in 1953. For data on CIA funding of exile groups mentioned in text, see source note 2, above.
8.
NSC 5706, loc. cit., p. 2 (paragraph 5), 6 (paragraph 16, 17), 9 (paragraph 26), 13ff., and 23 (CIA coordination of defector cases).
9.
For funding data, see NSC 5706, loc. cit.; “Operations Coordinating Board Report on U.S. Policy on Defectors, Escapees and Refugees from Communist Areas,” of July 9, 1958, January 21 and July 15, 1959, and September 14, 1960, National Security Council Policy Papers file, RG 273, NA, Washington, D.C; U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, op. cit.; and Comptroller General of the United States, U.S. Government Monies Provided to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, loc. cit.
In a nutshell, the NSC’s committee responsible for authorization and coordination of CIA clandestine operations (named the Operations Coordinating Board during the Eisenhower administration) was given responsibility for oversight and coordination of both clandestine and “overt” refugee aid funds channeled through the CIA, International Cooperation Administration, Department of Agriculture’s surplus food programs, and others. These funds were then extended to private refugee relief agencies favored by the government for their ability to “contribut[e] to the achievement of U.S. national security objectives both toward Communist-dominated areas and the Free World” (NSC 5706, p. 2). Many aspects of this large program remain secret to this day. Even so, the available records clearly establish that, first, intelligence-gathering and national security objectives were the government’s central rationale for funding relief programs serving Soviet bloc refugees and, secondly, that refugee programs were an integral part of the U.S. government’s broader covert action strategy during the 1950s.
10.
NSC 5706, pp. 2, 13.
11.
On Vanagis’ postwar role in Displaced Persons camps, see Daugavas Vanagi Biletens (November 1955), available in the New York Public Library. On Latvian militia participation in pogroms and mass murders, see Hilberg, op. cit., pp. 204–205 and 254, and Gilbert, Holocaust, pp. 155–57 and 388. On their flight to Germany at war’s end, Dallin, German Rule, p. 621n. For the Vanagis’ own version of their role in the SS and in Nazi collaboration in Latvia, see Daugavas Vanagi Biletens (November 1951, January 1953, February 1953, March 1953, and April 1953).
12.
Daugavas Vanagi Biletens (November 1955). See also L. R. Wynar, Encyclopedie Directory of Ethnic Organizations in the United States (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries, Inc., 1975).
13.
On IRC, see U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, op. cit, pp. 285–86 and 293. See also NCFE, President’s Report, 1953, p. 22, and 1954, p. 18ff. For documentation concerning use of RFE for funding of exile leaders, see the correspondence released through Department of State FDIA Case No. 8404249, loc. cit.
14.
On Hazners, see U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations, op. cit. p. 25, and CBS television, 60 Minutes transcript for May 17, 1982, pp. 8–9, which includes reporting of Hazners’s wartime role and on Hazners’s successful defense against an effort by the U.S. Justice Department to deport him. Hazners reproduces his Iron Cross award, signed by Adolf Hitler, in his autobiography: Vilis Arveds Hazners, Varmacibas Torni (Lincoln, Neb.: Vaidava, 1977).
15.
For Hazners’s role in the Committee for a Free Latvia, see Wynar, op. cit., and Daugavas Vanagi Biletens, loc. cit. On ACEN/CIA link, see Chapter Fourteen, source note 3, above.
16.
Daugavas Vanagi Biletens, loc. cit.
17.
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations, op. cit. pp. 34–35, and U.S. Department of Justice press statement of August 16, 1984. On Maikovskis’s ACEN role, see Assembly of Captive European Nations, op. cit., p. 186. See also “Soviets Demand U.S. Extradite L. I. Man,” New York Times, June 12, 1965; “Latvia Opens Trial of 61 on Charges of War Killings,” New York Times, October 12, 1965, p. 5; “Riga Court Dooms 5 for Nazi Crimes,” New York Times, October 31, 1965, p. 22; and Ralph Blumenthal, “U.S. Opens New Drive on Former Nazis,” New York Times, December 30, 1973, p. 1. Maikovskis’s attorney, Ivars Berzins, declined comment on this issue in a telephone interview, November 25, 1985.
18.
Berzins’s CROWCASS entry is found at CROWCASS, Wanted List No. 14, loc. cit., p. 14. See also Alfreds Berzins, INSCOM Dossier No. XE 257645 D 25A 2664 (secret); and Berzins’s “Declaration of Intention” in INS File A7
–845-451 concerning his arrival in the United States and subsequent application for citizenship.
19.
Alfreds Berzins, INSCOM dossier no. XE 257645 D 25A 2664. Berzins’s publications in the United States include Alfreds Berzins, I Saw Vishinsky Bolshevize Latvia (Washington, D.C.: Latvian Legation, 1948); Alfreds Berzins, The Two Faces of Co-Existence (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1967); Latvia (Washington, D.C.: American Latvian Association in the U.S., Inc., 1968); The Unpunished Crime (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, n.d.), with an introduction by Senator Thomas Dodd that features a brief—and erroneous—account of Berzins’s wartime activities. On positions in Latvian organizations, see Daugavas Vanagi Biletens and ACEN, op. cit., pp. 153, 183, 187, and 189. See also Assembly of Captive European Nations, FBI file No. 105–32982 (obtained in sanitized form via the FOIA).
It is worth noting that the “Latvian Legation” in Washington, D.C., that financed many of Berzins’s early postwar activities was actually a U.S. sponsored “government-in-exile” for Latvia created when the State Department refused to recognize the USSR’s forcible annexation of Latvia (and Lithuania and Estonia) during the Hitler-Stalin pact period immediately prior to World War II. All Latvian financial assets in the United States were frozen, then turned over to an émigré “government,” led primarily by former Latvian Ambassador to the U.S. Alfred Bilmanis. A full accounting of this money has never been made public, but it is clear that the émigrés spent substantial sums on publishing and diplomatic receptions throughout the 1940s and 1950s. An émigré Latvian “legation” continues to operate in Washington.
20.
Daugavas Vanagi Biletens (February 1951). Hazners was editor of the Biletens at this point; the president of the organization at the time was V. Janums, who is also accused of war crimes by the present Soviet Latvian government.
21.
U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, op. cit., pp. 100–02. For more on lobbying by religious groups in favor of admission to the United States of Baltic SS legions, see “Church Unit Denies War Is Inevitable,” New York Times, January 18, 1951.
22.
U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, op. cit. See also “Freedom Forecast for Baltic States,” New York Times, June 17, 1951, p. 38; “Dr. Edward M. O’Connor, 77, Former NSC Staffer, Dies,” Washington Post, November 27, 1985; and particularly “R.M.,” “Edward O’Connor Remembered in Cleveland Ceremonies,” America (January 27, 1986), p. 3.
23.
Joseph Boley, “United Lithuanian Relief Fund of America,” Lituanus (October 1956), p. 20ff. See also “Lithuanian Aid Sought, Relief Fund Plans to Bring 5,000 More D.P.’s Here,” New York Times, January 17, 1951. For documentation on funding of BALF by the government and the Catholic Church, see U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, op. cit., p. 293.
24.
On Lithuanians facing deportation for participation in Nazi crimes, see U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations, op. cit., and U.S. Department of Justice press statements of July 8, 1983, March 27, June 1, and November 9, 1984, and April 29, 1985, concerning cases against ten Lithuanian veterans of the SS and members of collaborationist militia forces.
25.
“Priest in Brooklyn as Soviet Tries Him on Wartime Charge,” New York Times, March 9, 1964; “Soviet Lithuania Orders 7 Jailed as Nazi Aides,” New York Times, March 16, 1964; and Ralph Blumenthal, “U.S. Opens New Drive on Former Nazis,” loc. cit. For the Soviet Lithuanian government’s account of Jankus’s wartime activities, see Who Is Hiding on Grand Street? (Vilnius: Mintis Publishing House, 1964).
26.
Comptroller General of the United States, Widespread Conspiracy to Obstruct Probes of Alleged Nazi War Criminals Not Supported by Available Evidence—Controversy May Continue (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1978), GAO Report No. GGD-78–73, pp. 34–39. On Belorussian (White Russian) émigrés discussed in footnote above, see William Doherty, “Author: Documents Prove U.S. Recruited Russian Nazis,” Boston Globe, February 19, 1985, p. 5; and John Loftus, “Covert Violations of Congressional Restrictions,” paper (with archival facsimiles) prepared for media release, February 18, 1985.
27.
Paddock, op. cit., pp. 121–23 and 129ff. Also Prouty interview, April 12, 1984.
28.
Paddock, op. cit., pp. 121–23 and 149, and Simpson, Inside the Green Berets, loc. cit., pp. 24–25. See also “AG 342.18 GPA Subject: Enlistment in the Regular Army of 2500 Aliens,” June 1, 1951 (secret), RG 407, NA, Washington, D.C.
29.
“File No. ID 907, Analysis of Available DP Manpower,” February 25, 1948 (top secret), P&O 091.714 TS (Section 1, Case 1), RG 319, NA, Washington, D.C.
30.
Ibid.
31.
For assignments to atomic, chemical, and biological warfare missions, see “(M) 342.18 (10 Apr 52) Priorities and Special Qualifications for Enlistment of Aliens Under Public Law 597” (secret—security information), AG 342.18, 1948–1949-1950, RG 407, NA, Washington, D.C. For arrival and disposition of Lodge Act recruits, see series of surveys of various dates from 1951 to 1954 headed “AGTP-P 342.18 Screening of Lodge Bill Personnel for Special Forces Activities” (confidential), AG 342.18, 1948–1949-1950, RG 407, NA, Washington, D.C. For a popular presentation of one group of recruits, see William Ulman, “1,000 Red Army Vets Train GI’s,” Nation’s Business (June 1955), p. 46ff.
32.
On Bank’s role in special warfare, see Paddock, op. cit, pp. 119–59 passim. On Bank’s role in Barbie affair, see Ryan, Barbie Exhibits, Tab. 36.
33.
Simpson, Inside the Green Berets, loc. cit., p. 39.
34.
On Witsell ruling, see “AGSE 342.18 Subject: Enlistment in the Regular Army of Aliens,” November 7, 1952, Special Regulations (restricted—security information), Tab B, p. 7, AG342.18, 1948–1949-1950, RG 407, NA, Washington, D.C. For enlistment figures, see Paddock, op. cit., p. 149.
35.
Richard Harwood, “Green Berets Dislike ‘Image,’” Washington Post, August 17, 1969.
36.
“AGPT-P 342.18, “Screening of Lodge Bill Personnel for Special Forces Activities: Special Orders Number 68,” March 23, 1954, with enclosures (confidential), AG342.18 1948–1949-1950, RG 407, NA, Washington, D.C.
37.
See Paddock, op. cit., pp. 150 (for stress on insurgency) and 73 (on American way of life). On slogan, see The Green Beret, vol. II, no. 9 (September 1967), p. 15.
38.
Ryan, Quiet Neighbors, pp. 26–27.
Chapter Fifteen
1.
Collins, op. cit., p. 256ff.; NCFE, President’s Report, for 1953, p. 18£f., and 1954, p. 18ff. On CIA funding for Crusade for Freedom (CFF), see Mickelson, op. cit., pp. 41 and 58.
2.
Isaacson and Thomas, op. cit., pp. 496–97. For a more complete picture of liberation thinking during the early 1950s, including acknowledgment of the pivotal role of Vlasov Army veterans and other World War II collaborators, see Burnham, op. cit. p. 196ff., and James Burnham, The Coming Defeat of Communism (New York: John Day Co., c. 1950), p. 211ff. Burnham was a consultant to Wisner’s OPC during this period and offers perhaps the most detailed exposition of liberation theory available in nonclassified literature. On this latter point, see George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), pp. 96–97 and 372.
3.
Telephone interview with Walter Pforzheimer, November 20, 1983.
4.
Mickelson, op. cit., p. 52.
5.
James T. Howard, “200 Exiles Hammer by Radio at the Iron Curtain,” Washington Post, September 17, 1950.
6.
Department of State, Office of Intelligence and Research, NTS—The Russian Solidarist Movement, External Research Paper, series 3, no. 76, December 10, 1951, and Dvinov, Politics of the Russian Emigration, pp. 113–194, both of which clearly establish the anti-Semitic r
oots of the NTS. The NTS’s own NTS: Introduction to a Russian Freedom Party (Frankfurt am Main: Possev-Verlag, 1979) and Let Your Conscience Decide, JPRS No. 4425 (Washington, D.C.: Joint Publication Research Service, 1961) provide the organization’s own bowdlerized version of its history.
The NTS today calls itself Narodno-Trudovoy Soyuz Rossiyskikh Solidaristov (NTS), a name that avoids the unpopular National Socialist connotations of the former Natsiona’no-Trudovoi Soyuz title. Despite the name change, the leadership of the organization remains in essentially the same hands that have guided the group for decades.
7.
State Department, NTS—The Russian Solidarist Movement, loc. cit, pp. 2–3.
8.
Dallin, German Rule, p. 526; Buchardt, op. cit.; Dvinov, Politics of Russian Emigration, p. 113ff.
9.
CIC Special Agent William Russell, “Summary Report of Investigation: Constantin Boldyreff,” December 27, 1948 (confidential); and CIC Special Agent Seymour Milbert, “Memorandum for the Officer in Charge,” August 19, 1945 (confidential), both located in Boldyreff, Constantin, INSCOM Dossier No. D-3675 20B85. Additional material has been obtained from the Department of State via the FOIA.
10.
Boldyreff, INSCOM Dossier No. D-3675 20B85.
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