The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 13

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0:00 Hello, Bridget and SR. How are you today? I'm doing awesome. Watching the Senate hearing on the subpoena. The more I watch, the better I got, Colonel. It was like, what the hell is the matter with you people? Yeah, I don't watch that garbage. It's a charade. For that exact reason, I just get mad at them.

0:36 Just saying. Kabuki fans. We have so many sayings now. Okay. I know. We've spent way too much time together. We have our own language. Absolutely. All right. Chapter 11. Strange love. SR's favorite. This one starts in 1951. World Series. Was an epic sports event.

1:07 The Subway Series not only featured two exciting New York teams, the Yankees and the Giants, but it marked the climax of what became known as the season of change. Joe DiMaggio, the legendary Yankee Clipper, would bow out of baseball after the series. And the two young future Hall of Famers, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, would make their World Series debut.

1:36 Year-old Mays, who idolized DiMaggio, finally had a chance to exchange a few words with him during pictures. He said it was a dream come true. Game six, which was played on October 10th in front of nearly 62,000 people at Yankee Stadium, would assume a mythic proportion to baseball fans.

2:05 The Yankees withstood a thrilling ninth inning comeback charged by the Giants winning the game four to three and taking the series. As DiMaggio trotted off the field to the roar of the crowd, he had already faded into history. At 36, his body was failing him and he didn't want to let his fans down. He quit because he wasn't Joe anymore, his brother said. Among those sitting in the stands on that day were two well-dressed,

2:35 German gentleman in their 40s, accompanied by a younger man, their CIA handler. Like DiMaggio, the older German, Reinhard Galen, was a legendary figure, but his achievements were of a completely different order. Galen did not look like an imposing figure. His skin was so petal that it seemed translucent to his CIA companion.

3:04 Only his striking blue eyes gave any indication of the intensity of his career. During the war, Galen had served as Hitler's intelligence chief on the Eastern Front. His Foreign Army East apparatus relentlessly probed for weaknesses in the Soviet defense as the Nazi juggernaut made its eastward thrust.

3:35 is German for forward armies east, also pinpointed the location of Jews, communists, and other enemies of the Reich in the bloodlands overrun by Hitler's forces. So they could be rounded up and executed in death squads. Most of the intelligence gathered by Galen's men were extracted from the enormous population of Soviet prisoners of war, which eventually totaled over 4 million.

4:05 That fell under Nazi control. Galen's reputation as an intelligence wizard soon won him Hitler's admiration and his major general rank, derived from his organization's widespread use of torture.

4:25 Though many of the Yankee Stadium crowd that day would have been deeply displeased to learn his identity, the German spymaster wearing his dark glasses sat undisturbed in the stands. The game itself was of little interest to him. His companion, Heinz Gehr, G-E-R-R-E, was a rabid baseball fan. Gehr, who had served as Galen's indispensable deputy ever since their days together on the Eastern Front,

4:56 became so enamored with America's favorite pastime after the war that he could spout players' statistics like the most obsessed baseball card fan collector. During the war, he had studied the Soviet enemies with equal intensity, learning the Russian language and immersing himself in the country's politics and culture. Now his compulsion had turned to all things American.

5:26 Ayer was a tall man with a pilling smile. He had a knack for ingratiating himself with his U.S. colleagues. Though the socially awkward Galen lacked his deputy's outwardness with Americans, he knew it was an essential skill.

5:46 In the final days of the war, Galen astutely concluded that the U.S.-Soviet alliance would inevitably break apart, providing an opportunity for at least some elements of the Nazi hierarchy to survive. He knew that his own fate depended on his ability to convince the new American masters of his strategic value that would emerge into the Cold War. Galen did this by trekking into the Bavarian mountains.

6:13 as U.S. forces approached in varying cases of microfilm containing Nazi intelligence on the Soviets. The German spymaster then leveraged his experience and background connections on the Eastern Front, convincing his U.S. military officials of his indispensability as an authority on the Soviets.

6:34 Galen's canny maneuvers won him and his top staff a flight out of war-ravaged Germany on a DC-3 military transport to the United States, where they moved into comfortable quarters at Fort Hunt in Virginia. Here, Galen was introduced to his American intelligence counterparts, including Alan Dulles, who after listening to the German spymaster's pitch,

6:58 decided that the US government should bring the former Nazi intelligence operation under its control. Galen and his top deputies were put on a troop ship back to Germany. Galen's spy team was installed by US military authorities in a compound near Munich that had once served as the headquarters of Hitler's confidant, Martin Bormann. Galen's dream of reconstituting Hitler's military intelligence structure within the US

7:29 intelligence structure was realized. With the generous support of the American government, the Galen organization, as it became known, thrived outside of Munich, becoming West Germany's principal intelligence agency, which as we know became the BND. In 1948, after a heated internal debate, the CIA decided to take over supervision of the Galen organization from the U.S. Army.

7:58 which had growing concerns about the type of agents Galen was recruiting and the quality of their intelligence work. Galen had promised army officials that he would not hire former SS or Gestapo officials. But as his organization grew, it absorbed the most notorious figures of the Nazi regime, to include Dr. Franz Six, a former professor at Berlin University. Six left the classroom to become the intellectual architect.

8:28 of the final solution, as well as training some of its most enthusiastic enforcers, personally leading a SS death squad on the Eastern Front. After the war, Six was hired by the Galen Organization, but was later arrested by U.S. Army counterintelligence agents. Convicted of war crime, Six served four years in prison. However, within weeks of his release, he was right back in the Galen Organization.

8:58 Many of the CIAs vehemently opposed any association with this organization, including Admiral Roscoe Hillenkotter, the agency's first director, who in 1947 strongly urged President Truman to liquidate the Galen organization. The following year, the CIA station chief in Germany expressed his own disgust with the prospect of working with the Galen organization.

9:27 calling it an old boys network of ex-Nazi officers who are in a position to provide safe haven for a good many undesirable elements from the standpoint of a future democratic Germany. But Galen had his own connections and survived. Galen's backing primarily came from the Dulles faction within the national security establishment. Once again, this faction would prevail. In October 48,

9:56 James Critchfield, the news chief of CIA Munich Station, was given the task of evaluating Galen's operation and recommending for or against it. The 31-year-old Critchfield was a Dulles man. He had identified as a talented prospect by Eleanor Dulles while serving in the Army Intelligence in Vienna.

10:26 was basically on the out with them and kind of like just caught up in everything. She was an active player between her two brothers and ended up as chief of the Research Intelligence Division within the State Department, which was the conduit of the CIA into the State Department. She was not an innocent bystander.

10:56 He was later recruited into the CIA by her brothers. In his final report, Critchfield firmly concluded that the CIA should fold the Galen's group under its wing. It was the beginning of the relationship. The CIA officially assumed responsibility for the German spy organization in 1949 when Jim Critchfield, taking over as Galen's supervisor, Critchfield moved his base of operations to Pollock.

11:26 P-U-L-L-A-C-K, which was the official site of the Galen organization, still on the outskirts of Munich. He set up his office in Bormann's former bedroom. Galen had turned Pollock into its own separate world with over 200 of his top staff and their wives and children living in the compound.

11:53 Before Critchfield moved in, the German spymaster himself had lived with his wife and four children in Bormann's two-story house, known ironically as the White House. Its decor still retained all of the Nazi paraphernalia. The only change was U.S. soldiers removing the swastika out of the German eagle over the front door. As Critchfield's, that'd be a little too much.

12:24 As Critchfield CIA deputies and their families moved into the Galen compound, an intimate social fusion began to develop. The Germans and the Americans worked and partied together. Their children attended the same one-room school, and their families went on ski trips together. By 1953, the CIA and the Galen organization were so intertwined in Germany that Washington officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Roger Keyes,

12:54 had concerns. Just a few weeks before Galen and his top men, who included high-ranking officers of the former German general staff and even SS, had been dedicated warriors of the Third Reich, and yet Critchfield convinced himself, except for some borderline cases, Galen's key people were basically given a clean slate.

13:21 Critchfield was the son of a small-town North Dakota doctor and schoolteacher graduating from North Dakota State University. Critchfield had served in North Africa and Europe, rising through the ranks to become one of the Army's youngest colonels, and winning the Bronze Star twice in a Silver Star.

13:40 Crossing the Rhine in the final days of the war as a commander of a mobile task force, the young colonel was one of the first American officers to witness firsthand the results of Hitler's final solution. In late April, his unit came across an annex of Dachau. The camp was nearly empty, but there were evidence all around of the horror. The young colonel and his soldiers were in shocked silence as two skeletal

14:07 Camp survivors chased after an escaping SS guard, wrestling him to the ground and choking him to death. Despite his war experiences, Critchfield prided himself on keeping an open mind about the former Nazi commanders. Galen, this is a quote, Galen and his senior staff and their wives, many of whom also had worked at the camp, the compound, all impressed us as being unusually intelligent and well educated.

14:37 In personal characteristics, apparent values and thoughts about the future of Germany and Europe, these Nazi officers did not seem to me significantly different than the U.S. Army, unquote. Galen was a difficult personality, according to Critchfield. Galen once subjected his CIA supervisor to a three-hour shouting match against the U.S. interference in his spy organization affairs.

15:13 Despite Galen's occasional hysterics, Critchfield expressed admiration for him and his business-like style. He almost certainly would have been convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg. But Critchfield graciously overlooked Galen's past. He went on to say he had a high standard of morality. This is like Stockholm behavior.

15:45 He went on to say that he had Christian beliefs that were evident and reinforced by his wife and family. Obviously, Critchfield was an easy mark for Galen. Reinhard Galen was a man with rat-like cunning. Instead of a hangman's noose at Nuremberg, he was able to persuade the Americans to give him a leading role in the shadow war against the Soviet Union. His overriding goal was to rebuild the Nazi power network and return.

16:18 to a dominant role in the European stage. He had a cringing respect for power and money, but was deeply resentful about being forced to answer to them. He often treated his handlers, including Critchfield, as enemies, keeping them dark about his operations and even putting them under surveillance.

16:43 Later in his life, Critchfield admitted to the Washington Post reporter, quote, there's no doubt that the CIA got carried away with recruiting some pretty bad people, unquote. In a secret 1954 memo later declassified, the agency acknowledged that at least 13% of the Galen organization were hardcore Nazis. I think that statistic is actually much higher. Critchfield insisted that Galen was not one of the bad people.

17:15 He would go on to say, I've lived with this for 50 years to the post. Almost everything negative that has been written about Galen, in which he has been described as an ardent ex-Nazi, one of Hitler's war criminals, this is far from the fact, he said. Happily deluded, Critchfield worked hard to develop a rapport with the German spymaster throughout his six-year partnership.

17:43 It was Critchfield who arranged for the trip to America for Galen and Heinz Herr in the fall of 1951, highlighted by the final game of the World Series. Galen's CIA caretaker saw the American Odyssey, which was scheduled to include a high-level meeting in Washington, as well as a train trip across the entire United States, which, of course, Galen used to spy on America.

18:13 As Critchfield put the itinerary together, the CIA hierarchy realized that the German trip was fraught with peril. Galen remained a controversial figure within national security circles, where some were still pushing to fire him. An October 1950 CIA report on Galen, remarking on his tendency to throw fits and make demands, was basically dismissed.

18:45 A fury of inner office CIA memorandums on the eve of Galen's U.S. trip had quotes like this. His trip can obviously produce a variety of political embarrassments. Galen will be somewhat difficult to control on this trip. In the end, the trip was a triumph for Galen and his supporters in the CIA. After Galen and her arrived in New York on September 23, 1951, Critchfield escorted them.

19:16 to their railway tour of America. On their way to the West Coast, they stopped over in Chicago, visited a speakeasy. Much to the surprise of all of us, said Critchfield, we were greeted by a famous member of the mafia. Not surprising based on what we know. The three men shed their business suits and eased into the lazy pace of tourists.

19:49 Critchfield later said Galen was a photographer and Herr, like the general staff officer that he was, equipped himself with maps and sought out the highest observation point on every stop. Returning to D.C. on October 8th, they checked into a suite at the Envoy. Dulles arranged for Galen and Herr to meet the CIA director, Beadle Smith. Dulles hosted a private.

20:17 private dinner party at the Metropolitan Club for the Germans and several CIA officers with whom they felt comfortable, one of which was Richard Helms. In 1951, the trip to America sealed the relationship between utility, which was Galen's code name, and the CIA. But CIA officials inevitably expressed their doubts and moved on.

20:48 In 1954, an unsigned CIA memo to the chief of the agency's Eastern European division acknowledged that a number of individuals employed by Galen appeared, from a qualitative standpoint, particularly heinous. The author of the memo, attached by a biographical summary on several of Galen's most repellent recruits, included in the list was Conad Fiebig.

21:18 who was later charged with murdering 11,000 Jews in Belarus during the war. Nonetheless, the memo concluded, we feel that it's a bit late in the game to do anything more than remind utility, Galen, that he might be smart politically to drop some of those people. But the CIA's intimate relationship with Galen came with a price in the global arena.

21:44 Soviet propagandists made much of the arrangement, and even British intelligence allies vented their outrage. In an August 1955 memo to Dulles, Chief of CIA Eastern Europe Division reported on a diplomatic luncheon in Bonn, including British officials freely airing their disgust with their American friends, which is hilarious because they were in on all of this. Alan Dulles was unruffled by the controversy.

22:17 He dismissed concerns about Galen's wartime record. I don't know if he's a rascal, Dulles remarked, but there are few archbishops in the spy business. Beside, one needn't ask him to one's club. But in fact, Dulles and Helms did invite Galen to their clubs, including the Metropolitan and the Chevy Chase Club. Whenever the Galen spymaster, the German spymaster,

22:49 visited Washington. Dulles had no reservations about working with people like that, so why shouldn't he also drink and dine with them? Dulles even brought along Clover on occasions to occupy Galen's talkative wife. Dulles went to generous lengths to maintain the relationship with Galen, sending him gifts and warm greetings on Christmas and his birthday, and even on the anniversary

23:18 of their alliance. One of Galen's favorite gifts from Dulles was a small wooden statue of a cloak and dagger, you know, dagger as in Gladio, that the German spy master described as sinister looking, but nonetheless kept it on his desk for the rest of his life. Galen, in turn, cabled his own messages to the U.S. spy chief.

23:45 and once sent him a gold medallion of St. George slaying a dragon. That was the Galen organization's emblem. Dulles knew that Galen was a devoted family man. The German intelligence chief closely managed the affairs of his extended family, installing many of them in what he referred to as the firm, as his organization was known by its own employees, the Galen organization.

24:15 In 1954, when Dulles heard that Galen was seeking to get his oldest daughter, Katharina, into a good U.S. college, the CIA director immediately began making inquiries at Radcliffe, where his own daughter had gone. Made it clear that it was not inclined to give the daughter of a Nazi commander special treatment, but Katharina Galen.

24:43 did win admission to Hunter College in New York City. She later followed family tradition and went to work for her father, acting as a junior spy on several occasions, including carrying confidential packages across the border. Katharina had the foresight at one point to hide her diplomatic pouch underneath dirty female undergarments. In 1955,

25:14 As the CIA prepared to transfer the Galen organization to the West German government, the agency generously continued to back Galen, giving him enough money to buy a lakeside estate near their compound, where he enjoyed sailing his boat on the weekends. Critchfield claimed that Galen bought the manor with a modest interest-free loan from the CIA, which Galen himself insisted he repay.

25:44 paid in full, but reports in the Soviet bloc press characterized the estate as a gift from Dulles to be worth as much as 250,000 Deutschmarks. Galen was deeply grateful to Dulles, whom he codenamed the Gentleman. In all the years of my collaboration with the CIA, Galen said, I had no personal disputes with Dulles.

26:12 He pleased me by his air of wisdom, born of years of experience. He was both fatherly and boisterous, and he became a close personal friend of mine. That was in his memoirs. Galen felt free to air his complaints about the U.S. government policy whenever he suspected the America's Cold War vigilance was softening. The Galen organization saw the Cold War as the final battle of the Reichs against the Soviet Union.

26:44 In August of 55, after Eisenhower's tentative peace efforts at the Geneva summit, a CIA memo reported that utility Galen was blunt in his criticism of the U.S. position at Geneva. He expressed the opinion that in the realm of international politics, one should never tell a Russian that one would not shoot him and should under no circumstances be as convincing in his position as President Eisenhower was at Geneva.

27:15 Western leaders negotiated with Moscow at their own peril, Galen said. Quote, one will see the cloven hoof of the devil. I guess he didn't have any mirrors. Galen set up his mantra throughout his intelligence career. Thomas Hughes, who served as the director of foreign intelligence in the Kennedy State Department, recalled an evening early in the Kennedy.

27:49 presidency when Dulles gave Galen a platform for his militarism. Alan Dulles had a soft spot in his heart for the good Germans, Hughes said. One of my first social events in the Kennedy administration's intelligence community was a dinner given by Alan Dulles at the Chevy Chase Club in honor of Reinhard Galen, who was visiting from his Munich headquarters. Galen

28:16 led the discussion advising us on how to deal with the bear, his favorite term for the Soviet Union. J. Edgar Hoover was sitting next to me and kept murmuring, the bear, the bear, that's it, the bear. Galen liked to say that his view of the Soviet adversary came from his hard-won experience on the Eastern Front, but it was also calculated to please American hardliners, particularly his masters, the Dulles brothers.

28:45 Some critics in Western security circles attacked the bias of the Galen organization's intelligence reports, which exaggerated Soviet's military strength and nuclear capability. Because we have to make sure we have a boogeyman. They accused him of cooking the intelligence to serve the Dulles agenda. The covert Cold War in the West was to an unsettling.

29:15 extent, a joint operation between the Dulles regime and the Galen organization. The German spy master's pathological fear and hatred of Russia drove everything, and it meshed nicely with the Dulles brothers' agenda. In fact, the Dulles policy of massive nuclear retaliation bore a disturbing resemblance to the Nazis' extermination philosophy.

29:44 A link that would be darkly satirized in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove with its fervor saluting doomsday scientist. No other cultural artifact of the period captures so perfectly the absurd morbidity of the Cold War. We live in an age in which war is the paramount activity of man, Galen announced in his memoirs.

30:13 with the total annihilation of the enemy as his primary aim. No better depiction of fascism. In the months leading up to the CIA's transfer of the Galen organization into the West Germany's government, there was a flurry of debate about Galen in Washington as well as Bonn, which grew so heated that it spilled out into the press. At the same time, the Federal Republic of Germany, under the leadership of

30:46 Konrad Adenauer was also involved in delicate negotiations with the U.S. over West Germany's proposed entry into NATO. In October 1954, during a visit by Adenauer to Washington, General Arthur Trudeau, Chief of the U.S. Army Intelligence, met privately with the Chancellor to discuss the Galen problem, telling the German leader that he did not trust Galen.

31:17 Trudeau advised Adenauer to clean house before they were admitted to NATO. All hell broke loose in Washington when Dulles learned of Trudeau's position and that he had dared voice it. Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff continued to back their man, it became very clear who was running the intelligence show under Eisenhower. Trudeau found himself transferred out of military intelligence to a remote

31:48 post in the Far East. And a few years later, he quietly retired. During the turbulent transition period, Reinhard Galen was confronted with a strong domestic challenger for his spy throne. In fact, Otto John, head of the BFV, West Germany's internal security organization, basically like our FBI, was the only serious rival Galen would face.

32:15 British intelligence saw Otto John as a far superior alternative to Galen. As a survivor of the Valkyrie plot against Hitler, Otto John lacked Galen's unsavory baggage. After the coup failed, John narrowly escaped for his life with his life to London, where he worked with British MI6 for the remainder of the war. A self-described liberal, Otto John

32:47 Worried about the re-Nazification of Germany, as he witnessed the growing power of the Galen and many other Third Reich officials finding positions in Bonn. High among these officials was Chancellor Adenauer's right-hand man, Hans Goebke, G-L-O-B-K-E, who had drafted the notorious Nuremberg Laws.

33:11 the racial identification system that served as the basis for the extermination camps. The CIA comparative analysis of Galen and Otto John unsurprisingly found John is the moral of the two, which meant definitely he's not going to get picked. In May of 1954, John flew to the U.S. to meet with Eisenhower officials and discuss his democratic vision for post-World War II.

33:40 post-war Germany. Dulles invited him to lunch at his Georgetown house, and afterwards they walked and chatted in the garden. Dulles was eager to hear John's thoughts on rearmament of West Germany, a hotly debated issue at the time, which Dulles strongly supported. John assured the CIA director that he too favored rearmament, but only if it was done in a grassroots democratic way by forming local defense units instead of from the top down, which would further empower

34:10 the militaristic types from Germany's past. Dulles was not pleased with that at all. My whole impression, he later wrote, of John was that he was not serious. Dulles was predeposed against John to begin with. Galen had filled the CIA director's ears with venomous reports about his German intelligence rival, calling him unsteady and rootless, professionally inexperienced.

34:42 and prone to alcoholism. When Galen clearly found most disturbing about John, however, was his heroic past as an anti-Nazi resistor. His moral statute, particularly among the British allies, made him a threat to Galen. John's meeting with Dulles probably sealed his fate. After he returned home, the BFV chief became the target of a covert campaign engineered by Reinhard Galen.

35:11 Soon, Otto John's life would be upset. In July, while on a trip to West Berlin to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the failed coup against Hitler, John disappeared. The news that West Germany's security chief had vanished sent shockwaves around the world, but it got even stranger. He later surfaced in East Germany, denouncing Adenauer's rearmament policy and his administrative...

35:42 for ex-Nazis. Galen gloated over his political enemy's exit from Bonn and called him a traitor. Then came the final twist in a bizarre spy drama. In December 1955, at the Bonnstag, West Germany's parliament, launched an inquiry into the affair. He suddenly reappeared in West Germany, claiming that he had been drugged.

36:10 and bundled off to East Germany against his will. West German authorities did not buy the story and he was arrested and convicted of working on behalf of East Germany's communist government, serving four years in prison. But for the rest of his life, John insisted that he had been a victim of political treachery and basically accused Reinhard Galen of doing it.

36:38 And that kind of goes along with the line of, you know, people saying, well, how did the communists go along with it? It's one big club, people. The elimination of Otto John paved the way for Galen to consolidate his power. In February of 1956, the West German government formally moved to create a foreign intelligence service, the BND. And soon after, with Dulles' strong endorsement, Galen was its first chief.

37:08 Galen's triumph complete. Through ruthless determination, he had transformed his Nazi intelligence apparatus of the Galen organization into the BND, giving him official power and legitimacy. In March of 56, Galen's staff prepared to lower the stars and stripes which had flown over his compound ever since Hitler's defeat and replace it with the black.

37:34 red gold tricolors of the Federal Republic of Germany. But as Jim Critchfield and his wife packed their family belongings to prepare for his transfer to the Middle East, there was one more urgent piece of business for the departing CIA station chief to handle. On March 13th, after returning from a week of secret government meetings in Bonn, Galen requested that Critchfield come along to his office to discuss a matter of importance and sensitivity.

38:04 Galen quickly dispensed with pleasantries and presented an urgent report on the state of European security. France and Italy, he said, seemed to be moving towards reestablishment of a popular front government. Likewise, political trends in West Germany could lead to the fall of Adenauer's conservative government and its replacement by a coalition, including Social Democratic Party, the anti-Adenauer.

38:34 elements of the right. Though not communistic, such a government would be much softer and possibly neutral, which we all know that's not allowed. Galen predicted and he himself would not survive this atmosphere. After painting this ominous

38:55 portrait, Galen got to the heart of the matter. He was prepared to take drastic action to prevent such a political scenario from unfolding, going as far as overthrowing the democracy in West Germany if necessary. Critchfield immediately reported his startling conversation with Galen to Dulles. In the event of a shift in bond, Critchfield informed the CIA director, utility would feel morally justified in taking all possible actions.

39:25 including the establishment of an illegal apparatus in the Federal Republic to oppose elements in Germany supporting a pro-Soviet policy. Galen, Critchfield added, would like to discuss a plan for that eventuality with you.

39:42 It is unlikely that Dulles was shocked by Galen's proposal to reinstitute fascism in Germany since the CIA officials had long been discussing such authoritarian contingency plans with a Galen organization. In 1952, West German police discovered that the CIA was supporting 2,000-member fascist youth group of ex-Nazi officers who had their own alarming plans to terminate democracy. That would be their Gladio.

40:13 Police investigators revealed that the CIA had backed this group and they had compiled a blacklist of people to liquidate as unreliable in case of a conflict with the Soviet Union. Gosh, just like the list they did in Guatemala. Almost like that's a pattern. Included in the list was not just West German communists that they had labeled communist.

40:42 but leaders of the Social Democratic Party serving in their parliament, as well as other government officials. There were cries of outrage in the German parliament over the revelations, but the State Department worked strenuously behind the scenes to suppress the story, and no one in the U.S. was ever the wiser.

41:04 These authoritarian plans were part of a sweeping covert strategy developed in the early days of the Cold War by U.S. intelligence officials, including Dulles, to counter any possible Soviet invasion in Western Europe by creating, wait for it, stay behind networks, which we know had nothing to do with the Soviet Union. Codenamed Operation Gladio, these secret CIA-funded networks

41:34 attracted fascists and criminal elements, some of which later played subversive roles in West Germany to include bombing and killing U.S. service members. They were also present in France and Italy, disrupting democratic rule in the countries by staging terrorist attacks and plotting coups and assassinations. I hate to tell the author, but they were in every single country because it was required to be in NATO.

42:03 In the end, Galen didn't feel the need to overthrow democracy and Bonn, but his organization did undertake a variety of secret activities over the years that seriously undermined democratic institutions in Germany, just like here. Backed by U.S. intelligence, just like here, Hitler's former spymaster implemented wide-ranging surveillance of West German officials and citizens, including opening their mail and tapping their phones.

42:32 just like here. Galen defended the snooping as an internal security measure aimed at ferreting out Soviet and East Germany spies. See how convenient that is? But his net grew wider and wider until it was cast across an increasingly broad spectrum of population, including opposition leaders, labor unions, journalists, and school teachers, just like here.

42:58 Galen even used his spy apparatus to investigate survivors of the Valkyrie plot against Hitler, including Dulles' wartime comrade Hans Josephus, all of whom he suspected as quote-unquote Soviet agents with no proof. One of Galen's more ethical deputies complained, quote, Galen is becoming a mega maniac.

43:31 He actually wants to play Gestapo for the Americans. Galen was acting not just on behalf of his U.S. patrons, but his clients in Bonn. Even some CIA officials worried that Galen was being improperly used by Hans Globke to gather intelligence on political opponents and fortify the Adenauer administration's power, because of course he was, just like they do here.

44:02 Galen warned the CIA dispatch from Bonn has let himself be used most indiscriminately by Globe Key to further the latter's quest for power. He doesn't need anybody else. This is built in. This is what they do. On one occasion in 1950s, Globe Key paid a visit to Galen's headquarters, pouring over dossiers of various German politician figures and taking the opportunity to remove his own.

44:33 file. Ironically, while justifying his political snooping as necessary countermeasures against enemy infiltration, Galen's own organization became notorious for being infiltrated. The Heinz-Felfi affair was the most notorious Soviet mole during the Galen's career and indeed one of the biggest scandals in the Cold War espionage history. Felfi, F-E-L-F-E,

45:03 A former Nazi bully boy who had led rampaging gangs on Kristallnacht in 1938 was recruited into the Galen organization in 1951. Not long after, the adaptable Felphy became a Soviet double agent, fed a steady stream of insider tips to his Russian handlers. He began to impress Galen as a master spy, and he rose quickly.

45:33 Finally, bedazzled Galen named him head of all anti-Soviet counterintelligence operations, a position that put the double agent in ongoing contact with the CIA and other Western spy agencies. His reign as the top level Soviet mole in the Galen organization stretched over a decade. Now, I want to just point out here, the CIA is relying on Galen for Soviet intel.

46:04 The double agent is feeding Galen, who feeds Alan Dulles, Soviet intel. Just let that sink in. By the time he was finally caught, he had wreaked damage on the West German apparatus, resulting in the arrest of dozens of senior Galen agents behind the Iron Curtain, as well as breaking of numerous codes and secret channels of communication.

46:37 A significant swath of German and American intelligence field work was gone, resulting in people being killed. After the Felphy scandal exploded in the press in 1963, 1963, 10 years later, Galen tried to minimize the importance of the breach. But though he would hold on to power by the skin of his teeth for the next several years, the spymaster never fully recovered. Attenauer never forgave Galen.

47:12 Galen, who craved the approval of the Germany's father figure, the falling out with the chancellor was a grievous blow. The spymaster was already in Adenauer's doghouse for another scandal that had broken the previous year when Galen was accused of leaking classified information about West Germany's nuclear armament plans to the magazine Der Spiegel. The leak, which was calculated to damage Adenauer's defense minister,

47:41 Yet another rival of Galen's made the chancellor so furious that he had considered ordering Galen's arrest, finally deciding against it because it would be a political embarrassment. But Adenauer was still in a foul mood when this event happened in June of 1963, when Alan Dulles dropped by the chancellor's office in Bonn for a visit. By then, Dulles himself had been forced out of office by President Kennedy.

48:11 But the former CIA director still traveled the world because he was still controlling the levers of power and intelligence. That day in Bonn, Adenauer asked Dulles point blank what he thought of Galen. According to the CIA memo, Dulles replied, as usual, that he had known Galen long and regarded him as an honest fellow. Adenauer was not satisfied by the answer. The aging leader who felt Dulles

48:42 had imposed Galen upon him was in no mood to be manipulated. The chancellor responded surprisingly by asking Dulles if anybody involved in his business could actually be honest. Dulles asked if Adenauer did not regard him as an honest fellow, which was never actually really answered. The following month, Adenauer was still fuming about Galen.

49:08 One afternoon in July, he ordered the U.S. ambassador to be dragged out of Bond's luncheon so that the chancellor could give him an earful about Galen. In his opinion, Galen is and always was stupid, which the filthy fiasco underlined it. There was only one reason, said the chancellor, that he had put up with the spymaster for all these years, and that was because of Alan Dulles.

49:36 After Dulles left the CIA, the relationship between the agency and Galen was never congenial. The Germans stopped visiting America and the old tensions began to resurface. In 1966, Galen was even airing his suspicion that the CIA had put his family residence under surveillance. But by that time, he retired. All this unpleasantness

50:01 had been forgotten and the agency threw itself into planning an elaborate farewell for their comrade. In September 1968, an illustrious crowd of CIA and U.S. military officials, which should scare the hell out of you, gathered for a Washington banquet to honor Reinhard Galen, the Nazi. In the months leading up to it, the CIA mulled over the proper medal to give to him.

50:29 the agency's Intelligence Medal of Merit or the National Security Medal. Dulles was among those who attended the gala. He later sent a warm note to his colleague, Dick Helms, who by then was running the CIA, thanking Helms for including him in the Galen event. Reinhard Galen lived out the rest of his life at his lakeside retreat, surrounded by his family, that Alan Dulles.

50:58 Paid for. So that's the end of that chapter. We're going to stop there. It's Wednesday. So I have to leave early. Any comments? Bridget? SR? SR, go ahead. Thank you, Carl. And thank you, everybody, for attending here on Spaces and on Rumble. The Felphy scandal is something that's really.

51:41 You look at Galen and how Galen and everybody else treated this in Angleton and the whole nine yards. You wonder why they didn't see this coming. I mean, they had their hands into everything and they couldn't understand that they had a double agent. So what's most interesting about this to me, if you go back and you look at the timeline, this is a timeline that.

52:13 Gladio stay-behind units were being constantly inserted into the Soviet Union and annihilated. They were going into Albania. They were going into Romania, Bulgaria. And Wisner just continued to send people after people after people in. And every single one of them, just about without exception, was murdered.

52:43 and it never dawned on them that they had a mole. And I don't know, I'm not a professional intelligence person, but after you lose the first 20, somebody may have been scratching their head and saying, somebody knows that we're coming. But nope, they just kept doing it. And in Wisner's book, The Determined Spy, he goes in depth as to how many people.

53:14 Like it didn't even bother him. How many people they threw at the Eastern European countries to create these stay-behind capabilities and documents the fact that they were all murdered? To me, Colonel, it raises the question as to whether or not there was more than one mole. Maybe, but if your mole is... And no one knew exactly what was going on.

53:45 And kept pushing forward with it. But if your mole is the top Soviet interface, there doesn't have to be more than one. Because that guy knew everything that they were going to do. If they had an operation running at the Soviet Union, that guy was in on it. I mean, he was the planner. He's the guy that controlled them, inserting them into these Eastern European countries that were still in the Soviet Union. Exactly.

54:14 Yeah, so you don't have to have more than one if your guy's the top guy. And to your point, the more you have, the more risk of discovery there is. So you don't tend to put too many double agents in spy organizations because then they become more obvious. You just work to get your guy at the top or you recruit the top guy.

54:47 and then you have access to everything because he's in all the planning meetings. At least that's what I've observed. They don't go for the low guys. Bridget, did you have anything you wanted to add? I don't know if we lost Bridget or not. Oh, well. She's back, Colonel. Huh? I can see her as co-host. She's back. I don't know if her speaker's working, though. Yeah. The mic is gone, she said.

55:29 Let me take her down and bring her back up. See if that does it. Can you talk now, Bridget? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, I can hear you now. Great. Okay. I'm just, you know, when you think they've pretty well, I don't know, it shouldn't surprise me, but the depth and depravity, anybody who doesn't think this is evil versus good, dark versus light, boy, this.

56:10 Seems to me like a really good eye opener to give someone to just show them how long this has been going on, you know? Yes. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, for some reason, my rumble thing is, I mean, it's working, but it's not allowing me to.

56:46 operate within it but whatever okay um did anybody else have anything that they wanted to um chime in about no i don't see any requests so um i'm going to um uh go ahead and log off um and um we will be back let's see we've got alpha warrior tonight at um uh uh

57:22 9.30, and tomorrow we will be back at 4 o'clock. Let me look and see if I have anything else tomorrow. Nope, that's it. And on Friday, Warhamster's show at noon. Excuse me. And then we'll be back at 4 o'clock. And you're changing your schedule with Warhamster to be Friday routinely, correct? Correct. Okay.

57:54 Just in case anybody here didn't catch that yesterday. Excuse me. Yeah. So that's it. You guys have a nice evening. See you tonight at 930. Take care.

Entities here

CIA41 Allen Dulles32 Reinhard Gehlen25 James Critchfield22 United States20 Gehlen Organization19 Konrad Adenauer11 Otto John11 Soviet Union10 West Germany8 Washington, D.C.7 Adolf Hitler6 Heinz Felfe6 World War II6 Heinz Gehre5 Cold War5 Munich4 Richard Helms3 Operation Gladio3 Hans Globke3 Martin Bormann3 U.S. Intelligence Board3 Arthur Trudeau3 1951 World Series3 Franz Alfred Six2 Dachau2 BND2 Dwight D. Eisenhower2 NATO2 Katharina Gehlen2 Yankee Stadium2 Pulach2 U.S. State Department2 Bonn2 Nuremberg trials2 Thomas Hughes2 Eleanor Dulles2 Metropolitan Club2 Chevy Chase2 Inter-Services Intelligence1

Claims made here

Reinhard Gehlen spied_on Soviet Union documented ▶ 3:04

“Only his striking blue eyes gave any indication of the intensity of his career. During the war, Galen had served as Hitler's intelligence chief on the Eastern Front. His Foreign Army East apparatus re…”

Reinhard Gehlen headed Gehlen Organization documented ▶ 6:58

“decided that the US government should bring the former Nazi intelligence operation under its control. Galen and his top deputies were put on a troop ship back to Germany. Galen's spy team was installe…”

CIA supervised Gehlen Organization documented ▶ 7:29

“intelligence structure was realized. With the generous support of the American government, the Galen organization, as it became known, thrived outside of Munich, becoming West Germany's principal inte…”

CIA funded Gehlen Organization documented ▶ 7:29

Reinhard Gehlen recruited Franz Alfred Six documented ▶ 8:28

“of the final solution, as well as training some of its most enthusiastic enforcers, personally leading a SS death squad on the Eastern Front. After the war, Six was hired by the Galen Organization, bu…”

James Critchfield recruited Reinhard Gehlen documented ▶ 10:56

“He was later recruited into the CIA by her brothers. In his final report, Critchfield firmly concluded that the CIA should fold the Galen's group under its wing. It was the beginning of the relationsh…”

James Critchfield supervised Reinhard Gehlen documented ▶ 10:56

Reinhard Gehlen spied_on United States host_asserted ▶ 17:43

“It was Critchfield who arranged for the trip to America for Galen and Heinz Herr in the fall of 1951, highlighted by the final game of the World Series. Galen's CIA caretaker saw the American Odyssey,…”

Allen Dulles funded Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 22:49

“visited Washington. Dulles had no reservations about working with people like that, so why shouldn't he also drink and dine with them? Dulles even brought along Clover on occasions to occupy Galen's t…”

Reinhard Gehlen installed Katharina Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 23:45

“and once sent him a gold medallion of St. George slaying a dragon. That was the Galen organization's emblem. Dulles knew that Galen was a devoted family man. The German intelligence chief closely mana…”

Katharina Gehlen member_of Gehlen Organization host_asserted ▶ 24:43

“did win admission to Hunter College in New York City. She later followed family tradition and went to work for her father, acting as a junior spy on several occasions, including carrying confidential …”

CIA provided_bridge_financing_for Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 25:14

“As the CIA prepared to transfer the Galen organization to the West German government, the agency generously continued to back Galen, giving him enough money to buy a lakeside estate near their compoun…”

Otto John member_of Inter-Services Intelligence documented ▶ 32:15

“British intelligence saw Otto John as a far superior alternative to Galen. As a survivor of the Valkyrie plot against Hitler, Otto John lacked Galen's unsavory baggage. After the coup failed, John nar…”

Reinhard Gehlen covered_up Otto John host_asserted ▶ 34:42

“and prone to alcoholism. When Galen clearly found most disturbing about John, however, was his heroic past as an anti-Nazi resistor. His moral statute, particularly among the British allies, made him …”

Reinhard Gehlen founded BND documented ▶ 36:38

“And that kind of goes along with the line of, you know, people saying, well, how did the communists go along with it? It's one big club, people. The elimination of Otto John paved the way for Galen to…”

Reinhard Gehlen front_for BND documented ▶ 37:08

“Galen's triumph complete. Through ruthless determination, he had transformed his Nazi intelligence apparatus of the Galen organization into the BND, giving him official power and legitimacy. In March …”

Reinhard Gehlen proposed Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 38:55

“portrait, Galen got to the heart of the matter. He was prepared to take drastic action to prevent such a political scenario from unfolding, going as far as overthrowing the democracy in West Germany i…”

CIA funded Operation Gladio documented ▶ 41:04

“These authoritarian plans were part of a sweeping covert strategy developed in the early days of the Cold War by U.S. intelligence officials, including Dulles, to counter any possible Soviet invasion …”

Heinz Felfe spied_on Reinhard Gehlen documented ▶ 45:03

“A former Nazi bully boy who had led rampaging gangs on Kristallnacht in 1938 was recruited into the Galen organization in 1951. Not long after, the adaptable Felphy became a Soviet double agent, fed a…”

Reinhard Gehlen recruited Heinz Felfe documented ▶ 45:03

Reinhard Gehlen appointed Heinz Felfe documented ▶ 45:33

“Finally, bedazzled Galen named him head of all anti-Soviet counterintelligence operations, a position that put the double agent in ongoing contact with the CIA and other Western spy agencies. His reig…”

Konrad Adenauer removed_from_power Reinhard Gehlen documented ▶ 49:36

“After Dulles left the CIA, the relationship between the agency and Galen was never congenial. The Germans stopped visiting America and the old tensions began to resurface. In 1966, Galen was even airi…”

CIA funded Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 50:29

“the agency's Intelligence Medal of Merit or the National Security Medal. Dulles was among those who attended the gala. He later sent a warm note to his colleague, Dick Helms, who by then was running t…”