.f, September 15, 1975 I 301 OPERATION OHIO: MASS MURDFR BY U.S. INTELIjIGENçE AGENclEs. I I A Special I * Ë ' PEACE E FREEDOM VIOLENT ACTION \{IN Report'Detailing Ambrican Sponsored Political Assasination and' Toirture in Post-\[ar Germany, Demoistrating that' thç' Þhoenix Program w¿s Standard Opqrattng Pfocedure. l'* 4 .!t ð t. 1_-' I I I ¡; r , , t ' On November 23, 1973 I published an a¡ticle entitled "Anti-semitism and the State ofISrael" (Chrísttanity and Cvßis) in which I speciûcally rejected eforts of some Jews and Christians to tag as "antisemitic" the proper political and ethic¿l criticism of the state of Israel which must be made. This article was widely circulated and was sent to Daniel Berrigan. Therefore Daniel Ber,rigan's efforts to c-haractetize my criticism of his speech on Israel inhis Time interview WllN, 71241751 , as an example of someone who calls anti-semite all critics of Is¡ael is false and irresponsible slander. As for Daniel Berrigan's grossly ignorant and insrlting references to my book, Faíth and Fmtricide: Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (Seabury Press) the most cha¡itable thing one can conclude is that he had not ¡ead this book at the time of the interviéw. Once he has read the book, Catholics do it to their saints, and radicals do it to people's a¡mies: we edit out any recognition of huinan we¿kness or failing in those whose courage we admire. Clai¡e Culhane's letter [WIN, 7/241751 and the Danny Schechter article in the same issue a¡e two more depressing examples of the myth making process as it is applied to the Vietnamese-and of the fury the mythmakers will let loose on those who don't quite see halos and heroes they're srlpposed to. Claire Culhane writes from Canada that the Vietnamese are "returning to the peaceful way of life from whch they were so brutally uprooted." They 'lhave displayed the ability tcj sun¡ive with an incredible courage, consumate skill and unbelieveable sense of humanity" the ráolence which the US hurled at them. "They arereturning to their quiêt paths" I .." dared to suggest rather tentatively in WIN [5/l/75] that the present Vietnamese governments may prove as capable of abusing their immense powers as have all other governments, left or right, known to history, she responds that I am but "a part of the unparâlleled savagery and brutality which is no longer conveniently relegated to Indochina. . ." Danny Schechter writes at some length in the issue's lead article, about the "sound political strategy," the "brilliant military I assume that he will publicly correct these . struggle," the "unity," the "toughness," etc. rcm¿uks. Othe¡wise we cân only conclude etc. of the Vietnamese struggle. He too is that Daniel Berrigan is bent on digging ' deeply annoyed with anyone wþo suggests the grave ofhis own credibility as a critical that, in Vietnam as elsewhere in the human community, violent means will once again -ROSEMARY RUETHER Washington, DC produce a violencebased order. He responds to those who hold this view with incredible This is a letter of apology for remarks I (inc¡edible because the publishers is WIN) made in the course of aTime intewiew contempt "Pacifiîts moaned about Vietpublished in WIN. The remarks were namese ¡eliance on armed struggle while gratuitous and ill tempered and I regret others lamented the coming of 'benevolent them, and am so informing Ms. Ruether. totalitarianism' and'liberation without I am happy to k¡ow of the article she libe¡ty."' He continues, "The lack of wrote on "AntiSemitism and the State of humility and. (the) undercurrent of sectarian Is¡ael" I have no recollection of the self-righteousness is unmistakable." All this article, probably because I was teaching said, of course, in the most non-secta¡ian in Canada at the time and missed or it and modest fashion. missed me. These two writers, like most othe¡s I've I have reservations about her book met who share their views, use the word Faíth and Fratricíde, @ecause thinker. t ,4 i! but I think these a¡e better taken up in personal correspondence. In any cæe the iszues she raises require both courage and scholarship, and we are in her debt. Thanks also to Pat Farren, whose let- ter [WIN, 8171751, raised the issue of this Ietter in a friendly spirit, DAN BERRIGAN New Yorþ NY "Vietnamese" in an extraordinary way. It doesn't mean, one discovers, ¿ll Vietnamese. It means the good Vietnamese: that is, those who joined in the PRG/DRV politicalmilitary struggle. Excommunicated from national.identity are all those who supported the Saigon govemment or wo¡ked for the. US; we know without even having met any of these persons that they are all assassins and torturers inte¡osted only in wealth and corruptions. They ue not part ofthe Vietnamese people. "The Vietnamese people are. tough, "Danny Schechter write$ as a result of which "today they afe in the Presidential Palace-to stay." Danny Schechter sounds a bit like the left's version of John Wayne, another enthusiast for toughness; one finds it in the Green Berets, another in the Viet- tough, who hated all the ideologies and 'slogans, who wouldn't take up weapons for either side, or who were conscripted by one side or the other but wouldn't kill And let's ¡ot hear it for those pious weaklings who tried to make of their lives a bridge between the combatants, who hoped to inspire understanding and compromise-a "third way" solution. And God forbid we should hear a 'wo¡d of those who died on PRG mines or who were torn apart by PRG ¡ockets. After all, these tragedies weren't intended; and anyway, there we¡e a thousand innocent ones killed by Saigon and the US for eveiy noncombatapt killed by the liberato¡s. So we needn't mention the few exceptions or ciiti¿ize their killers. Meanwhile, as Vietnam's "liberation" is celebrated, there a¡e bonûres of books in Saigon. The newspapers and publishing houses are closed. Compulsory."reeducæ tion" is underway. The weaponiy ôf war is paraded through the streets" Guns are still in charge. There is much to admire as well. The govemment appears to be working to get the peasants back to their lands and villages. At least in some provinces, the PRG is encouraging the various Buddhist projects of reconstruction and social sewice. Many leaders are speaking ofreconciliation and forgiveness There is a decency and sanity about many of the political lea{.ers of Vietnam that is ¿ll but unknown in the US. But we neither help ourselves nor the Viet- killers or despises them. And it means searching for ways to encourage the reverence for life-the search for nonviolent alternatives that, I had thought, was what .. ourselves talking to each other in slurs. We listep to each other in a state of paranoiaPèrhaps it isn't too late for this to changç. d¡ perhaps our experi;nce of the war has oncc and for all destroyed our ability to even imagine' exc€pt in the most WIN was always about. Perhaps, namese. So let's hear it for touihness. But let's not hear it fOr those who refused to be ternatives, seems to have arrived at a þoint when the time is about ripe to discard its zubhead: "peace and freedom through nort violent action." In its lette¡ column we find Vay of killing, whethe¡ one admires the for many of us, the hope that nonviolent alternatives could be found was one of the main casualties of the war. This was certainly often the case with those who actually went to Vietnam and wçre shown, '. by friends in the PRG and DRV, what it was like under the bombs, and yet who ex. porloncod tho dignity and forglvenes$'õf' tholr Vietnamoge hosts. How could ono not sympâthize with, indeod support the armod fesirtancê? It ls ¡ pity so fcw of us had an equlvalont, sxperlence of the p¡ciûstc of Vietnam, Thdf,ì1 wo¡€n't able to organize toursi lndecd fow of thek numbcr spoke any language but Vlctnamese, They were dependent on a smsll number of rëpresontativss end fiicnds. And they were always vulnêrable to par slonate criticism for preforring any pcâce to the continuation of the war. For making response to suffering the babe of their various peace efforts, they could be dis missed simply as doers of charity. And so they were dismissed. Again, very understandably, However understand¿ble, it seems tragic that what most people seem to have learned from this war is that violence is, after all, the only way. The Pentagon is letting far more serious about nuclear weapons. And the onetime peace movement is peopled in very large measure by individuals who have come to recognize "the necessity" of arlned 'struggle. Even WIN, for a number of iears an oasis of imagination about nonviolent al- - t' polite ciroumstances, a nonviolent way. FOREST Nyack, NY -JIM I am writlng to correct sonlo mistaken improssions croatÊd by Jane Alport'r lot'. tef ln your Augut 7 issuo. Ho¡ lettEr ¡sld thet the NEtional Lawyero Gulld prlloner ncwslette!. lhc Mldillght Spscføl had madc dEath tltrcats tgslnst her, Erst, thc Speclal in its Mateh/April 19?5 edltorlal stated thst M*Alput was cooDcratinc with the authontigs and wariled thJwomen ln prison at Muney' .- iÃi-tt.t i:t¡tt.'s a traiior in their midst"' Whether ot not such is a death threat i¡ certainlY oPen to question' Second, while the Specøl was started as a project of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild in response to the Attica and Tombs rebellions, active participation of Guild members in the Specíal collective ended long ago. Because of.this and because of the editorial cor¡ ment on Ms. Alpert, the NYC chaPter directed the Specíal to remove its name from their masthead. Sept. 18, 1975 lVol. Xl, No. 30 4. Operation Ohio: Mass Murdor by US lntelllgence Agencies Moils Cakars &, Borton Osborn 20. Changes .' Cover: Jack Gaughan AFF Maris Cakars Fage r . Susan Cakars . Mary Mayo. Susan Pines Fred Rosen . Murray Rosenblith LETTERS Contlnued on Page 22 å namese by seeing only that side of their reality. Pacifists especially have been thorns in the side of every government, al- ways trying to remind whoever will listen that there is something so important and sacred about life, something so fragile, that no ideology can rightly justify the taking of life. It can and must be said with respect. It certainly doesn't mean equating all governments and all social systems. It doesn't mean not respecting and admiring anyone who resists suffering and injustice, whatever the means. Nor does it indulge preaching from the secure sanctuary of America's much vaunted free press. It simply means being very stubborn about life and stubborn about getting in the With this issue WIN returns to ¡ts regu,lar weekly publishing schedule. Our August break provided a welcome oppbrtun¡ty to meet readers, catch up on some of the things that simply never get done when cleadlines are crowd¡ng in on us, and step back and get a b¡t of a perspective on what it is that we are doing. This first issue of the new season represents a departure from our usual format. A great deal of work went into it as well as some expense. We hope that our readers find it all ìvorth ¡t and thát the publicizing of. some of the act¡v¡t¡es of "our" ¡ntell¡gence agents helps to cramp their style. We look forward to the day when there no longer will be government Sanctioned murders to expose. ln the meanwhile the drive to raise $50,000 and thereby assure WIN's cont¡nuod ex¡stence cont¡nues. During the summer months, while both our readers and we ìvere preoccupied, the submar¡ne moved forward at someth¡ng tess than full speed. Our hope is that, w¡th the resumption ôf weekly pub. lishing (and weekly expenses), it will move ahead a few knots faster. -WlN UNINDICTED CO.CONSPIRATORS Jan Barry' llance Bêlvllle.Tom Bruckor Jerry Coftln. Lynnê Coffln.'Ann Davldon Diana oavl€s' Ruth Dear . Ralph Dlcia Brlan Doherty " willlam Douthard. Karon qulÞli Seth Foldy. Jlm Forðst . Lêah Fr¡tz. Larry êå¡¡ Joan L¡bby Hawk. Nell Haworth . Ed Hsdemann Grace Hedèmann. Hêndr¡k Hertzberg. Xarl¡ .táy Marty Jezer. BeckV Johnson. Nancy Johnson Paul Johnson .Allison K¡rpel .Cralg Karpel . John Kyper. Elllot Llnz€r . Jackson Mac Low Davld McReynolds' Davld Morrls. Jlm P€ck Tacl Rlcharda. lgal Roodenko. Nancy Roien Ed Sanders. Wendy Sçhwartz. MaÍtha Thomases Art Waskoriv- Átlen Young. Beverly, Woodward ì' al_' Box 547 / Rifton / New York 12471 $30,372.SS Telephone: 91 4-339-4585 0 $5,000 $10,00Q $15,000 $25,000 $35,000 $40,000 $45,000 $5o,ooo WIN ls publl3hod w..kly .xcrpt lor th. llrrt two wackr ln Jrnuary, th! lrat waak ln Mrrch' tha llrrt waak ln Juna, tha lrtt two waak¡ ln Augu¡t, rnd tho llr¡t ti^ro w.Òk¡ ln s.pt.mb.r by th. WIN Publl¡hlng Emplr. wlth th. ¡upport ol tho Wlr Rarl¡têrr Laâ9u0, Sub¡crlptlon¡ rra Sll,00 p.r y.rr. Sscond clltr po¡trgo Þrld rt Now York, NY 10001. lndlvldurl wrlt.r3 årr re3ponslbl€ for oplnlonS exprasi€d ând rccuracy of facts glven. Sorry-månuscrlpts cannot bc lè turn6d unl€ss accompanled,by a self-åddrossed stamped €nvelope. 2 WtN wrN 3 .î. While there is yet no proof that the Central lnielligence Agency (ClA) has succeeded in assassinating any heads of state, WIN Magazine has learned through an extensive six-month investigätion that the CIA's companion organizations, the Army Coqnterlntelligence Corps (ClC), Naval lntelligence anil Air Force lntelligence, have financed, supervised and tolerated the murders of numerous innócent men and women. By '1954, only seven years after its inception, the CIA was controlling the group that had com mi tted the assassi nations,,an d probabl y stil I continues to finance it. The CIC operation that we have investigated-in depth, code named "Ohio," took place in Germany and Austria during the late 1940's¿nd.throughout the 1950's. OPERATIONOHIO A SPECIAL \TIN REPORT DETAILING AMERICA}I SPONSORED POLTTICAL ASSASSINATION ANID TORTURE IN POST.\ryAR GERMANY, DEMONSTRATING THAT THE PHOEND( PROGRAM \ryAS STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE. At least threé of the American intelitgence agènts who "graduated" from this program went on to work with the notorious "Phoenix" program in which over 40,000 Vietnamese lost their lives. Among these Americans was Richard Helms, later Director of the CIA and now ambassador to lran. tà , Although the exact number of victims of this operation is still unknown, a number of people familiar with it feel that possibly over 100 men and , women were killed. Nearly all the victims were antiCommunists killed in a misguided attempt to stop Communism. We can now demonstrate that the CIA and Army Counter-lntelligenöe Corps used the same murderous techniques in Germany as they did later in the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and with.comparable "success." Operation Ohio is proof that for the last 25 years or more, a major function of the intelligence services has been somethipg other than the ,gathering of information. Thé picture that emerges is neither that of the James Bond adventurer nor that of the cool analyst of information. From the beginning a major task of the intelligence community has been 'dirty tricks," including murder. There is,now horrifying documentation that throughout the period following World War ll the American f ntelligence services committed acts of murder with the same readiness that they engaged in regular peace-time in- either the United States Congress or the American public. Finally, we have uncovered inst¿nces ol kidnapping assault and battery and obstructíng iustice committed by CIA agents. Althoúgh the statute,of limit¿-' tions has now run out on these 'Crimes, it is important that we know the nature of the intalligence heritage , so that, hopefully, some years from now we rvill.not,¿ look back at the events of 1975 and feel false relief i. that they are no longer taking place. , WE DIDN'T MAKE THIS UP The evidence of direct American involvement in murder and other illegal.activities comes from over a dozen people with either first or second hand knowledge of them. We interviewed most of our source's iri'Europe and some in this country. One of our informants is a "soldier of fortune" who served in the French Foréign Legion, the Spaniçh Foreign Legion (during the Civil lV¿r-on Frañbb's Side) and the ill-fated Vlasov Army formed under the Nazis to fight against the So¡iet Union. After the Second World War he served ?s a guard in the Schleisheim camp for displaced persôns ðr "DP's." Now retired, he has been a paid informer for both German and US intelligence services. One source, a woman, did secretarial work for the US at the Mittenwald DP camp located in the Bavarian Alpsand the scene óf a number of the murders uncovered by the WIN investigation. Most of our informants, hoth Europeans and Americans, have insisted on anonymity. They have had direct experience with the long arm of the ClA. Those who have.agreed to our use of their names help and their names appear in the text. Finally, a number of groups and individuals concerned with uncovering American intelligence ac- 'tivities have been most generous and helpful. They include the Committee for a Fifth Estate, the Center for National Security Studies, Ed Sanders, Victor Marchetti, Tim Butz, Gary Thomas and many others. ¡ have also been of great telligence gathering. to date. Ostensibly established for the purpose of helping to achieve military objectives, these services appear to have taken on a political role unknown to BY Maris Cakar:s and Barton Osborn Maris Cakors lived in Germany os a Displaced Person duri7g his eørly ¡teors. Associoted with WtN since its founding in 1966, he now works on it full time, His FBI fìle reveals that the "subject" hos "been arrested on numerous occasions for disorderly conduct in connectÍon with anti-war demonstrotions or reloted ac- tÍvities." Th. Phocnlx, ¡ymbol of ths CIA l!¡l!¡lnrtlon progrrm ln South.!3t A¡lr. Cou 4Wf rtr3y of Countarl9ylLNS. Barton Osborn worked with the Phoenix Progrom in Vietnam, ond was a consultant to the AIA's Agent Motìvation Operotions. He is responsible for the publìc exposure of the Phoenix Program, ond is o co-founder of the Hfth Estate, lnc. whlch octs as a n i nde p e n de n t o n d pu b I ica I Iy-su ppo rte d re sea rc h group on the government Íntelligence communìty. .¡ .4 a !]tI THE FIRST INKLING: DACHAU ln addition to the illegality of the activities that we have uncovered, the role of Army, Air Force'and Navy lntelligence in these abtivities raises very serious questions that have received little or no public attention t " li Best known for the concentratíon camp located near Dachau.is a picturesque Bavarian city, 1,200 years it, old and only six miles from Munich. The concentration camp still exists although there are no occupants' other than the guards and ticket take'ts at the museum , ¡ located in thd former main administration building. Among the things prohibited by the regulations posted at the entrance'are the "distribution of leaflets or any form of printed matter" and straying "from pathways provided." Over 200,000 died at Dachau. We met our first source at the stately former residence of Bavarian royalty, high on a hill overloole ing the valley in which the concentration camp was located. The palace is now a public restaurant and its .toilets included a plumbing fixture common to most German drinking places: a sink-like thing with handles, at just tþe right height for regurgitation. We suffered a definite urge to make use of the unique German plumbing after our interview with this source, a former CIA employee who lived at the . ¡V wtN s Copfdght t975 W Maris Cåkeh & Bart Osbom. 'a Mittenwald 'ldisplaced persons" camp at which a number of the murders occurred. He told us that in the Mittenwald camp American lntelligence used techniques borrowed from the Nazis by burning murdered bodies in large bread baking ovens. To compound the horror these were the very same ovens used to bake the bread for the hungry residents of the camp. Our informant was a Russian.born anti'Comgrurlfst who decided to leave the USSR hastily after an un' ". successful attempt to turn the political tide in the ; 1920's by means of a bomb directed at high Communist officials passing through a Leningrad intersection. Because of his own activist background in the East European political tapestry he apparently saw nothing unusual in the burn solution to political n. BERLIN problems. The CIC sponsored organization which burned ' bodies in bread ovens was the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). This organization has had a long history of committing murders, beginning with the German occupation of Ukrainia during World War ll, according to our source, when the OUN played a significant role in the exterfnination qf Jews and other "undesirables." lts murdërous role con' tinued after the war under American sponsorship. And our informant was convinced that the American sponsorship continues to the present. Specifically it waslthe SB (Stuzhba Bezpeky), the secret political pol.ice of the OUN that carried out the killines. Patterned after the notorious Nazi SD (Sicherhe'ítsdienif), our informant, referred to it as the OUN's "combat organiza.tion" and seemed pleased to report that, as far as he knew, it had been ) EAST I GEMIANY WEST GERMANY ¡ Frankfurt Wiesbaden f I \ ''' \ ------ V¡enna Dachau .. ßü a uaria WHO WAS MURDEßED1AND WHY AASTNIA ,1 Munich a I phased out after 1 959 with the assassination of the OUN's leader, Stepan Bandera. Our informant felt sure that a key link between the OUN and American intelligence was a Father Ott, a Jesuit and agent of the Vatican intelligence service. Ott's familiarity with the Ukrainian situation resulted from the Vatican's concern with the division of Ukrainian Catholics between those loyal to the Pope and those of the Eastern persuasion. Ott had been in the service of German military intelligence, had been captured by the Soviets, and had spent ten years in their concentration camps Our informant thought that Ott is currently the head of Vatican intelligence. He stated unequivocally that Ott had received training from a "friendly" intelligence agency, probably the ClA. The primary reason for the OUN murders was coldbloodedly ideological. "l have no doubt that these people killed their rivals," admitted John Armstrong, ä political science professor at the University of Wisconsin who has done numerous classified studies of Soviet refugees for the Air Force. ln our interview with him, Professor Armstrong added that "the bu rg Mittenwald ¡ motivation was strictly to eliminate the political oP position." The "opposition" consisted of the anti-Communist members of several more moderate groups, one which was also known as OUN and another called the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council. Both were led by former allies of Stepan Bandera, the head of the murderous OUN. ' WIN Magazlne/S€ptember lS, 1975 wtN 7 I More cynical members of the intelligence community suggested to WIN that at times the. passion for ideology may have become confused with the need for US cash and that one way that the Bandera OUN attempted to corner the market on American financial support was to decimate the ranks of its rivals. c There can be no doubt that desperation to gain dollars, a crucial element in the survival of groups far from their natural bases of support at home, did lead to excesses. ". . .the passion for ideology may haue become ,confused with the need for US cash and that one way that the Bandera OUN attempted to corner the market on can frnancíal support ùtas to decímate the ranhs of íts riuøIs. {..i, , One Russian emigre group, TSOPE (Central Association of Post-War Emigres), is reported to have gone so far as to set off a bomb in the courtyard of its own headquarters near the present Olympic grounds in Munich. The idea behind this bizarre incident, which took place in the late 1950's, was to make it look as if the deed had been done by Soviet agents, thus making the TSOPE look more important in the eyes of the ClA. The OUN, while projecting a fiercely indepe¡dent image, was even more desperate for outside support, and naturally turned to the Americans-despite tþe fact that duiing World War ll, and even before, tftey had worked for the Germans both in Europe and in the United States. One way that OUN found to impress American intelligence was to play up their contacts on the other side of the "lron Curtain." Without a doubt there was an ahti-Communist armed force calling itself the Ukrainian lnsurgent Army (UPA) operating in the Soviet Ukraine and there can be no question that the OUN maintaind somp contact with ít. lts activities ceased by 1950 with the death of its leader, Taras Chuprynka. But the OUN exaggerated the importance of the UPA and its own role in that movement. One person close to the situation described for us an instance when OUN leaders reported to the US Army Counter-lntelligence Corps that the UPA had set up a new powerful radio transmitter inside U krain ia and'was broadcasti n g val uabl e i n tel{ i ger{ce information to OUN monitors. The CIC was invited to OUN headquarters to see for itself. CIC agents went, lístened and were impressed. What they did not know, and may not know to this day, is that the transmitter was located not in the Ukraine but in the apartment next door and the in' formation was faked. Faked photos ofguerrillas in the forests of Ukrainia-photos actually taken in the forests of Bavaria-also served to impress the gullible Americans and keep the dollars flowing into the OUN. Another motive for murder was a desire by former Nazi collaborators to disguise their pasts. Many of them had participated in the mass murders of Jews, Poles, Russians and even other Ukrainians. Were ttreir true identities to have become known thev wou ld have been convicted of war crimes and exeóuted. Those with hands a little less bloody still faced the prospect of forced repatriation to Ukrainia under the terms of añ agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union which called for all citizens of the USSR at tle time of the outbreak of war in 1941 to be repatriated. Those Ukrainians who could prove that they were from the Follsh controlled section of Ukrainia were exempt. Since all OUN membCrs had at very least engaged in anti-soviet activities, they sought to avoid the cãnsequences by means of false documents "proving" that they were from the Polish Ukraine. This I WtN was easy to do because during their retreat from their homelañd they brought out every sort of official form, æal, etc. New "offcial" documents were readily obtained. Un-fortu natel y docu ments were not €nou glr since among the two to three million Ukrainian refugees in Germãny and Austria were many who oould rcveal the true ¡deht¡ties of the OUN criminals. These were some of the reasons the OUN debided on a course of assassination. ln the words of one of our informants, "Some. undesirable Ukrainians re coived thrcatcning lettcrs wlth death seríte.nces from thê SB. Only a fcw of the liquid4ted Ukrainians werê inow¡. Miríy murdcrs and liquiäations remain ln the . dark." Our research indicates that at least dozensaand poss¡bly over 1O0-people were assassinated and inany rirore were teirorized into silenc¡ and si¡,bmis' slon. The full extent of this relgn of terror is probablyknown only by laroslav Steßko, the present head of the OUN, ind'Mykola Matwiyeko, head of OUN's security þolice-the notorious SB-at the time of the murden. Steßko now lives in London and Munich and uses the name¡ Wasili Dankiw and Sernon Karbowitsch as welt as hls own. Matwiyeko, on the other hahd, has not been heard from since departing for a secret mis' slon to Ukrainia in 1951. The misslon was sponsored by one of the Allies' intelligence services and rumor hàs it that ln fact the purpose of the mission was to got Ma'twiyeko out oflthe way because he knew too much. After Matwiyeko, the SB's new chief was lvan Kashuba, believed to be still living in Augsburg, , .Germany, under an assumod namb. A German him .' police rdport that we have obtained describes '¡A common bandiL Always carries a pistol." as Other SB inembers and officers known to have been lnvolved ln the assassinations include Wasyl Mudryk, lwas Kaminsky (while Chief öf Police of Trembovl in Ukrainia during the war Kaminsky was responsible for the murder of many Jews; he now lives somewhere in the US), and Roman Petrehkq al' so known as Eugen Tatura, now believed living near Buffalo, NY. It was Petrenko who, direcæd by the leadership of the OUN, ffrst established contact with the Army Counter-intelligence Corps (ClC) in 1 946. lnstru' mental in the contact was also Rev. lvan Grinyokh who had served as the chaplain of the Nazi'OUN "Nochtlgnlle" battalion during World War ll, and had been awarded the German lron Cross. Grinyokh also had worked for the Gestapo and had used the names Orlov and Herasimowskyi. Earlier he had been an advisor to Nicholas Lebed, the first chief of the SB. During the post'war years, when the OUN was under American control, he continued to serve as an officer of the SB. Latei he was to split with the OUN and form his own ñrral organization (the Ukrainiañ Supreme Liberation Cbuncil mentioned earlier), also tunded bY the US. Among those killed by the OUN were B. Bulavsky,, l. Chaikovsky, Ï. Charnetska, D. Chizhevsky, Danke, Yuriy Gorodyn'Lisowsky, Y. Moroz, Nikolai Mushak, A. Pechary, Professor Petrow, Fyedor Rikadtshuk, Y. Stelmastschuk and Tamara - TshernetskaYa-ZarinnY k. REIGN OF TERROR Ì Not every murder was commitûed because of oolitics ór American money or to avoid capture. in some cases the reason was as petty as the f4ilure .^ to pay "protection" money or was simply the relult '. ; of oersonal squabbles. Ïhe Sg was effectively camps 80 approximatoly law enforcombnt in the where Ukrainians.were the only, or the most numer' ous, national group. There was no cheok on its ex' ãesies other tñan tiv the OUN'r American sponsors. Until the äarly 1'950's the German police were be" ing re-established and wêre not an effective force. Much of the police function-particularly matters relating to the displaced persons-lay in the hands of the Allied military. Harold Zink, one of the archjtects of the American occupation policy, pointed out in a report prepared in the late ;1940's with government support that in the DP camps "the publiõ-safety angle conlinued to be f direct rgsponsi' bility of military government after UNRRA Ithe Unit'ed Nations Rélief and Rehabilitation Administra' tionl asbumed the task of administering the camps." Slnce well over 500/o of Ukrainian refugees settled in the American zone-chiefly Bavaria-this re' sponsibility fell on the American Military Police, the Counter-lntelligence Corps and the Criminal lnvesti' gation Division*of tne Army. Although, on.the.whole, ihe military was reasonably effective in maintaining order in a diffcult situation, there is no record ariy branch of the military taking any measures'to put ah end to the OUN murders. lndeed, one of our informants who was a wítness to these events insisted that American soldiersprobably intelligence officers under the cover of ordinary soldiers-held the keys to the Mittenwald'" bread/body ovens. The OUN snuff squad had to apply to the Americans each time it wanted to make use of the ovens. Thus the responsibility for the assassinations must rest ultimately with American intelligence,-first the Army Counter-lntelligence Corps, then Naval and Air Force lntelligence and finally, by 1954,the the of ' . Chizhevsky and Professor Petrow were among those incinerated in the bread ovens at the Mitten' wald displaced person camp. The others were probably simply buried. I clA. ' . WHY THE US PAID THE BILL lf America's primary fgreign policy objective at that, time had not been the rolling bacftof Communist gains in Europe, these assassinations would not have ' "* occurred, A top secret National Security Council document, NSC-68, which has recently been de-classified, reveals the real policy of the Truman administration, a policy steadfastly adhered to by his successor, Eisenhower. Dated April '14,'1950, the document recommended "lntensification of affirmative and timely measures and operations by covert means in the fields of economic warfare and poliíical and psychological warfare with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected strateg¡c satellite countries." Prgpared by a top'level inter'departmental group headed by then chief of the State Department Plan' ning Staff Paul' Nitze, NSC'68 makes it clear that the defénsive posture publicly taken by the US during wtN 9 "Despite the abundant euidence of OUN war crimes and mass muiders, US support for it continued, and almost certainly contínues to this the post war period was strlctly a publlc relations sham. Whon lt camo to "fomontlng unrest and revolt," the OUN wæ ready. Not only did it offer an ox. perienced organlzation, but it also clalmed to reprÈ sent an armed force, tho UPA, already operating within the borders of the USSR. ln addition, and this was a key olement of its arrangoment with the ClC, it offered to eliminate Communist agênts in the l{est. the OUN's initlal attempt 4t implement .ing Actually thls aspoct of the agreemont was a dlsasder. ln the hope that the CIC could be tricked into doinc tho aø tualClrty work, they ldentlfled thelr polltlcaiop. ponents as Sovlet agents. But thls tætlc backffred when the ClC, to lts credlt, checkcd tho backcrounds of thosc who had boen flnjered. Out of one llit of "agents'f supplled by thc O:UN on July 22,1946 only 10/o of ths cases {"'r Thls blunder may have been the reason why the OUN grew estrangod from tho CIC and obtålned !h.qsupport of Air Force and Naval lntelligence. The OUN's new sponsors apparently cared littlã about the mlsadvontures with ClC. Under the new arrangoment the OUN would do its own killing. Once the new program was put into operation it didn't matter to its overseers that the overwhelming majority of those killed were not in fact Soviet agents. The important thing was that there was a project, reports could be filed; it looked good at headquarters. Similarly it didn't matter when, rhore tian a decade later, a víllage in Vietnam had to be destroyed "in order to save it." There is no proof that, when contact was first established between the OUN and American intelligence shortly after the end of World War ll, the Americans knew the true nalure of the OUN. But there càn be no doubt that wittrin a short tilnè the brutaf facts of the OUN's past became known, as many Jews famillãr with the details of Hitler's attempt to exterminate their people joined the,ClA and other American intell igence agencies. A study of "soviet opposition to Stalín" was commissioned by the Air Force and published ín "1952, lts author was George Fischer, the son of Gandhi's biographer, Louis Fischer. The study describes the OUN as "the anti-Communist, antiRussian, and, it must be added, also anti-democratic Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists." lt goes on to describe the OUN's ideology as fitting ín ¡'perfect10 wlN . qr ly.ryitþ the Rosenberg Conception I Ro¡enbergwas From 1954 until July of this yea'i'bargeaht was president of this succession of committees. Prior to Hitler's Minlster fsr Eastern Territories] ; its fãnatlc racism also bore an sbvious affnlty wltñ Hltlsr's and Himmler's Untemensch theory, and was not wlthout significance in the over-all development of German Ostpolltlh." . The purpose of the Fischer study was to examlne options and make recommendations on how best to pitch Amerlcan anti.Communist propaganda so as to encourage opposition to the Soviet regime. Thls was no more academic exorciso but an action report which, if only because thoy pald for it, muit havo been read by tho managers of the OUN. Dosplte the abundant evldonce of OUN war ølmes and mass murders, US support for lt contlnucd, and almost certalnly conllnue¡ to thls day. HOW THE AMERICANS WERE ORGANIZED turned out tó wárrañt further lnvostlgatlon. day." l;_ not yst bsen ablo to uncover the ohannels through whlch the OUN recolved the funds wittingly contributed by Amorlcan taxpayðrs. Hoiv. ever the broad outllnes of the structure of tho Amerlcan intelligence community in Europe during the post war years have emerged Some Americans who had detailed knowledge of tþe OUN atrocities worked in Munich for three CIA fronts: the American Committee for Liberation of the Peoplei of Russia, Radio Liberty, and the ln. stitute for the study of the ussR. The American Committee which was the "sponsor" of both Radio Liberty and the lnstitute, ¡ubsequently changed its name to the Amer¡pan Committee for Liber¿tion from Bolsfievism and iater iimply to American Committee for Liberation. The current name for the same group is Radio Liberty Committee, lnc., and, although it wæ supposed to be formally divorced from the CIA in 1973, eight out of ten members of the current committee were trustees of the American C,ommittee during the darkest days of the Cold War in the 1950's We have . un. These eíght stalwarts are Mrs. Oscar Ahfgren (former head of the General Fedçration of Womenls Clubs), J. Peter Grace, Jr. (of the W&R Grace Co.), H.J. Heinz, )r. (57 varieties), lsaac Don Levine (Russian born journalist now living in Wddorf, Md.), Dr. John W. Studebaker (former US Commissioner of ECucation), Reginald T. Townsend (Princeton graduate and author of God Pocked [VIy Chrlstmas Basket), and Howland Hill Sargeant. ' ,. this assignment he was an Assistant Secretary of State in charge of East European Affairs. His connection with the CfA during that period has not been established. ln coming to the American Committee he succeeded former Ambassador to Mbscow, Ad' miral Alan F. Kirk. Finally having reached retirement age, Sargeant is being replaced by Sig Mickelson, formerly of CBS News. A certifiable ClA.agent on the staff of the American Committee and someone who was familiar with the details of the assassinations was lsaac Patch, Director of Emigre Relations. Patch.eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and left the Agency. There is no record of his ever having taken steps to put a stop to the slaughter.'His two sons cuirently live on a commune in New England. Another CIA agent on the'€ommittee's staff, its Legal Counsel, was a man called Muller who personally was responsible for-and guilty of-kidnapping and assault and battery. More on him later. Yet another ' of Williams,,piiector co-conspirator was Spencer Emigre Press Relations. Radio Li berty (ori ginal ly cal led Rad io,Liberation before political developments dict¿ted a toning down of its militant posture) first went on the air on March 1, 1953. Under the cover of broadcasters, ' journalists and concerned citizens, the CIA agents employed by it actually waged war against Communism on many fronts. One of its tasks, obviously, was the broadcast of propaganda. This often included proposi n g admittedly "impractical " actions that Sov¡et citizens might take to oppose their government.' Equally important was the gathering of intelligence information about the USSR from letters which Radio Liberty uryed its listeners to send to the station describing local conditions. These letters were written as if to relatives or friends and mailed to addresses broadcast by the station. This operation was euphemistically dubbed "audience research." At the same tíme efforts were made to bag information from US travelers to the USSR. "sparks lnto the USSR", booklet published by Radio Liberty during the 1950's, urges tourists to contact the station and states that "whatever information they can glean will be of great ínterest to the Radio Libertv siaff." This effôrt to turn US civilians into iunior ipies raises serious questions of ethics since travelers who unwittingly provided information to the CIA in this way could well have been ieopardizing " their right to retùrn to the USSR or possibly be running the risk of prosecution for espionage during a future trip. .rln addition Radio Liberty-American Committee, tWo CIA fronts, did a brisk business in attêmpting to influence domestic American opinion with an endless stream of press releases, backgrounf briefingsand studies directed at gett¡ng the American mass media to parrot its line of slavery, starvation and incipient revolt in the Soviet Union. Among those wþo worked these v¿rious Radio Liberty raikets, and were informed about the OUN assassinations, wqre Robert F. Kelly (eolicy Adviser), Jim Condon (Security Officer), Max Rallis (then, as now, Director of Audience Research), Gaither Stew' art (Radio Liberty Book Program, a proiect for smuggling printed matter into the USSR), Mike Terpak (Assistant to the Policy Advisor in thê New York office, now head of the Ukrainian desk at Voice of America), Robert Dreher (Director of Pr,ogramming later with the Phoenix Program in Vietnam), Gene King (Dreher's successorat Radio Liberty in 195.6), and Eric M. Kuniholm (Director of Political Affairs, based in New York). The American Committee's other branch, the lnstitute for the Study of the USSR, posed as the academic/research arm of the operation. fhe CIA also used this as its cover. Among ¡ts agents were Leon J. Barat (a Russian born US Army Lieutenan.t and Deputy Adviser to the lnstitute), Dr. Oliver f . Fredricksen (Advisor to the lnstitute), and Hank Schott (Coordinator). Other American officials who knew what the OUN was doing with American funds included Richard l!l. Christiansen (ClA), Nick Alexander (ClA), Ralph M. _ Jones (ClA under cover of the US Consulate in Munich), Ernst Langdorf (Radio Free Europe), Dr. Von Berg (Radio Free Europe)and Navy Lt. Cornmander Richley. According to one former CIA agent with whom we spoke, the CIA man who worked closest w¡th the Ukrainian groups during these operations was John LaPerque. Our informant described him as "the most knowledgeable person in the US today about Ukrainiañ operations. . .and generally as crazy as hell." At the head of all of the fronts, agents, operations, plots and crimes was Richard Helms, Director of the East Europe Division from 1951 to 1955. An agent since the inception of the CIA in 1947, Helms was succeeded by Hugh Cunningham who served until 1957. wtN.ll "like an octôpus." Since the aúets of the CIA are close to limitless compared to those of conventional organizations, since the CIA itself car'ed little about Although .ìo one has been able to chart,the vastof the empire under the control of the Director of the East Euiope Division, it is known that the two radio stations alone, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, received over $30 million annually from the ClA. Radio Liberty maintåined publicly however, that it was "dependent upon private contributionsindividual and corporate*as well as upon foundation donors and it has received the contributions with no strings attached." lt is un known what portion of this budget was acûrally spent on broadcasting and how ness much was devoted to clandestine activit¡es. At the center of the frantic anti-Communist activity of his division, Helms wás known as the coniumate bureaucrat, playing, like Richard Nixon, close attention to the details of the many operations under his direction. Later this rheticulousness was to be rewarded with his elevation, first¡;to the.post of Chief of the Clandestine Services and, then, to Director of the CIA in 1966. ln his current post as Ambassador to lran he supervises the vast American intelligence gathering apparatus in that country. W¡th the exception of Helms, none of the other men that we have named were directly responsible for the atrocities of the OUN. Control for that ,i1,pu, *, ,¡, operation was located elsewhere i.n the highly compartmentalized CIA structure. Nevertheless all of them were fully aware of what was taking place and did nothing to stop it. lndeed, because the assassina' tions suited their view of what American policy ought to be, in varíous ways they encouraged-pos' sibly even aided and abetted-them instead of re' port¡ng them to the appropriate authorities. Their failure to act raises a question as to whether or not they are guilty of obstruction of justice or malfeasance in office. An ironic aspect of the relãtionship between the CIA and tlre OUN is that the public posture that was taken was ohe of antagonism between the OUN and the American Committee, with the OUN accusing the Committee of favoring continued Russian domination of neighboring nationalities after liberation from Bolshevism. The CIA even went so far as to set up two new Ukrainian groups, the Ukrainian Liberation Movement and the Union of Ukrainian Federalist Democrats, to "compete" with the OUN and publicly to cooperate with the Committee. ln faqt, the CIA was supporting both sides in this political competition. Of course, when it came to political competition .the OUN knew how to react. ln early 1952 an OUN mem ber u nsu ccessfu I y atte mpted to assassi nate General Diomid Gulai, the head of the Ukrainian Liberation MovemenL This was too much. The CIA tightened control and OUN assassinations were on thìir way out although support of the OUN was to continue. At first it may appear self-defeating of the CIA to support rival organizations, but actually such practices were (and are) not uncommon for an organization which one of our sources described as being I the specifics of political differences between its clients, and since it could never be certain which group or personality might suddenly prove itself use ful, it simply backed everyonè. i THE CONTEXT. ' ln order to understand the US responsibility in these Cold War atrocities it is helpful to examine the ': structure and program of, first, Military lntelligence and, second, the CIA in Germany and Austria during the post war period. ' At the close of World War ll the first unit of US intelligence to arrive in these areas was the Army Countér-lntelligence Corps (ClC). lts job was to establish absolute authority for security in occupied Europe. Army Regulation 38G100 statedl "The mission of the Counter-lntelligence Corps is to contribute to the operations of the Army Establishment through thè detection of treason, sedition, subversive activity, and disaffection, and the detection, prevention or neutralization of espionage and sabotage witþin or directed against the Army.Establishment and the areas of its jurisdiction." ln the early stages of occupation (1945 and 1946) this broad directive was taken to mean the simultaneous establishment of informant nets within the German and Austrian civilian community and the labyrinth of displaced person camps in order to finger those opposed to American policy, while at the same time conducting a campaign to enforce authority over the German and Austrian population. At f¡rst the CIC's target was deNazification, but almost immediately the emphasis switched to the battle against Communism. A recently declassified official history of the CIC paints this pictu re of those early days: "These first CIC agents and those who followed them were to learn in the months ahead that the devastation of a world war and the ensuing . occupation did not destroy the espionage nets. New ones sprang up overnight as occupation forces of four ndtions (US, Britain, France, and USSR) and displaced persons from many more swarmed into Austria." Although this report concentrates on Austria, the situation was much the same in Germany. lt points out that: "Post-war Austria was a hodgepodge of nationalities. Displaced persons by the thousands swelled Austria's population of 7,000,000 making,it a simple matter for an agent of a foreign power to slip quietly across a border and lose himself among the multitudes. The terrain, dotted with mountains and lakes, offered cover when the crowds did not. " Divergent poli tical phi I osoph ies and organ izations further complicated the picture. Remnants of the Nazi Party still held key positions in government and business when CIC moved into Austria, and CIC's first major task was the de-Nazification of the .. Rlchard Helms, former director of the ClA, being sworn ln before the senate wåtêrgate comm¡tteo in 1973. WIN 13 .r. country. Soon it became evident that Communist activities were an even greater menace to freedom and to rhe securiry or,{mericun';;;;;:; Å"r"rili.. Even among rhe disptaced prr.or,r, pãitì.tj1"äi u,,, ews, the .were J re o rþn ized' effãrt;'rãä;;fr Tr.ri can authority.,' By 1948 the CIC came to. believe thar rwo every 't000 persons in Ausrria ,"uru-uii.rtiü ogt of ãiindirectty tin ked wi rh soui.t-"iignrå-iilrffi agencies. So rhe job of us ¡ntãiiisencä-iriüiJp, u" -tñå"Ën"ting came the same as ir larer_was ¡" üiétnãm, J;å' out of Communist suspects "The CIC,s offrcíal hís_ tory asserts that ,Al_ though ít was not stated iry officíal dírectiues the ClC quíckly realtzed ihat tþe primary míssion of de-Nazifrcq,tion soon would be replaced by the louiet problem., Th¿ fact is that the word had q come down from the policy makers in Wash_ ington that the Cold War was 14 wtN on." mechanism Ay wnicn the CIC controlled . tllp legal m ex was rh e ríi, piirå¿-Þãri.i'rîri ¡9 ol wntcn. gave Army Ç!C full license not only for ¡u