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Atomic Heritage Foundation Message Board
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csamson
Registered: 08/31/05
Posts: 1
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Reply with quote | #1 |
My father, Donald R. Samson, was a member of the CIC '44 to '45. He was sent to MIT for education (Electrical Engineering), before being sent to Oak Ridge. He was assigned a variety of jobs and became a supervisor at the Y-12 facility. His memory is unfortunately fading and so I'm looking for help on how to research the CIC, their role at Oak Ridge, and if possible find out info about him and the men he served with. I know that he served with a Gene Fischer, Clint Sturdevant, and a former college football player named Escueras (probably not the correct spellings). |
| | mcoveyou
Registered: 08/10/04
Posts: 17
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Reply with quote | #2 |
There was at least one member of the counter intelligence service on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge at the 2005 Manhattan Project Family Reunion, held in Oak Ridge this past June. I don't think I have any contact information for the person I met; there may have been other counter intelligence officers in attendance as well. I will look through my notes to see if I have anything further.
Mike Coveyou
(Son of two Manhattan Project Oak Ridge veterans)
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| | Madcat
Registered: 06/27/06
Posts: 2
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Reply with quote | #3 |
I just found this site. I am looking for Information about the Counter Intelligence Corps. My Dad, Edward Hwass, was a member from '41 '44. He vetted people in Chicago for the Manhattan Project and then was sent to Belgium. He left the service as a staff Sgt. with two bronze stars. He passed away June 16, 2003. I have noticed that documents are finally being declassified and at least the Corps is being acknowledged as having existed prior to the Korean war. The CIA archives contain some information about the removal the German scientists by the CIC but it is cryptic. If anyone can help I can be reached as follows:
Chip Hwass
Madcat_59@hotmail.com |
| | Madcat
Registered: 06/27/06
Posts: 2
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Reply with quote | #4 |
Subject: CIC/CIA
http://www.cia.gov/search?NS-search-page=results
CIC Records: A Valuable Tool for
Researchers
The records of the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) are invaluable
for students of intelligence and military history. This little-known but
important organization played a significant role during World War II and the
first decade of the Cold War. While the historical community has pressed for
the declassification of records from the World War II-era Office of
Strategic Services (OSS) and the post-war CIA, CIC's records, in fact,
promise to shed even greater light on American intelligence activities than
has been previously recognized.
Historical Background
Formed in 1942, the Counter Intelligence Corps's mandate was to "contribute
to the operations of the Army Establishment through the detection of
treason, sedition, subversive activity, or disaffection, and the detection,
prevention, or neutralization of espionage and sabotage within or directed
against the Army Establishment and the areas of its jurisdiction." CIC drew
its antecedents from the World War I Corps of Intelligence Police, although
it did not become a significant intelligence organization until World War
II. It gained in status until 1961, when it merged into the newly formed
Intelligence Corps. While CIC concentrated on counterintelligence during
World War II, it expanded into the positive collection of intelligence
behind the Iron Curtain in the years after 1945.
CIC took its missions seriously and, by 1943, it counted over 50,000
informants within the ranks of the US Army. These informants, usually at the
ratio of one per 30 soldiers, provided some 150,000 monthly reports on the
subversive activities of their fellow soldiers. It did not take long for
this security program to become politically controversial, and the Army
forced CIC to curtail its domestic activities.
The new organization really made its mark during the war on foreign shores.
After some difficulties, the CIC deployed detachments at the division,
corps, army, and theater levels to support tactical operations. These
detachments rolled up Nazi stay-behind agents and investigated suspect
civilians and enemy personnel throughout all theaters of the war. CIC field
elements operated independently of other Army intelligence formations,
including signals and engineer intelligence units, the Military Intelligence
Service detachments (responsible for censorship, prisoner of war
interrogation, topographic and photographic intelligence, and
order-of-battle collection), as well as various technical intelligence
collection units, such as the ALSOS mission looking for Nazi atomic research
facilities, the "S Force" in Italy, and the "T Force" in France and Germany.
By 1945, some 5,000 officers and enlisted men worked for CIC worldwide.
Lower-ranking enlisted personnel who served as "special agents" with the
numerous CIC detachments carried out most of the work. After the war, these
CIC veterans scattered to all walks of society upon their discharge from the
Army. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, (then a young German
émigré), for example, was a special agent with the 84th CIC Detachment of
the 84th Infantry Division. Many CIC veterans continued to serve in
intelligence roles as civilian employees of the Department of the Army or
later transferred to the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency after
1947.
New Missions
CIC's overseas mission did not end with the conclusion of hostilities. It
served as the Army's chief agency in occupied Austria, Germany, and Italy,
rounding up individuals subject to "automatic arrest" because of their Nazi
affiliations or activities. At the same time, CIC was on the lookout for a
resurgent underground Nazi movement as well as efforts to circumvent Allied
occupation directives. CIC spent a considerable amount of time handling
problems associated with thousands of displaced persons in Western Europe as
well as ensuing black market activities. By 1946, the 970th CIC Detachment
(later designated as the 7970th CIC Detachment in 1948 and then as the 66th
CIC Detachment in 1949) in Germany and the 430th CIC Detachment in Austria
handled the bulk of the early post-war CIC operations.
In Japan, the 441st CIC Detachment performed many of the same roles as its
counterparts in Europe. The considerable challenges in both areas were
compounded by the Army's reduction of its intelligence facilities and
manpower in the wake of demobilization. Most of CIC's experienced officers
and enlisted men quit the service, leaving mainly new and inexperienced CIC
special agents in their place. The Military Intelligence Training Center at
Camp Ritchie, Maryland, the training post for most CIC personnel, closed at
the end of the war, and the Army did not establish the CIC Center at Fort
Holabird in Baltimore, Maryland until 1950.
The Army's intelligence mission was in a state of flux between 1945 and the
Korean War. CIC units in Germany and Austria took it upon themselves to face
the Soviet threat as the Nazi menace receded. Consequently, CIC became the
leading intelligence organization in the American occupation zones. During
this early period, CIC in Europe had greater resources than those allotted
to OSS and its successor organizations, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU)
and the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). Even into the 1950s, CIA and CIC
were still trying to reconcile their intelligence missions overseas in order
to avoid duplication and to coordinate the recruitment of assets. The
tension lingered until American forces withdrew from Austria in 1955, and
West Germany entered NATO in 1956.
The North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 meant that CIC was not
only involved in a Cold War in Europe but faced a real military conflict in
Asia. The drawdown of American forces in Japan meant that the first CIC unit
deployed to Korea that summer had to be pieced together from the 441st CIC
Detachment in Japan. The 442d CIC Detachment operated in Korea for much of
the war, but it was absorbed by the 8240th Army Unit, which primarily
conducted paramilitary operations behind the lines. Other CIC detachments
served in Korea at the division and corps levels.
The CIC underwent a major expansion during the Korean War. The 1950s proved
to be CIC's heyday; it enjoyed ample resources and attracted the best and
brightest soldiers brought in by a draft-era Army. The expansion of military
intelligence units throughout the world and their collection activities in
the 1950s also resulted in growing numbers of CIC records--a legacy of great
importance to historians.
Published Sources of Information
The Counter Intelligence Corps left a remarkable paper trail. Several works
provide the framework to understanding CIC's history, organization, and
personalities. Most important, the US Army Intelligence Center published a
30-volume work, The History of the Counter Intelligence Corps, in 1959.
Originally a classified publication, it provides a detailed history of the
CIC from World War I through the Korean War. The product of several authors
and years of research through scattered intelligence records, the official
CIC history is the most authoritative account of the CIC's wartime and
peacetime activities. A declassified version of the official history is
available to researchers at the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) at College Park, Maryland.
Coupled with the official CIC history, the US Forces European Theater
(USFET) immediately after the war conducted a survey of Army operations in
Europe. Several of the USFET General Board's reports discuss the
organization and operations of the CIC and other intelligence units in
northwestern Europe in 1944-45. These reports are located at the National
Archives and at the Pentagon Library.
In 1998, the US Army Center of Military History published John Patrick
Finnegan and Romana Danysh's Military Intelligence in the Army Lineage
Series. In addition to the lineage and honors statements of the current
Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve military intelligence
units, the book contains an excellent history of Army intelligence efforts
and organizations from the Army's first days until the late 1990s. The book
also contains an extensive bibliography of open source literature dealing
with intelligence matters.
Published works that deal specifically with the CIC are rare. Ian Sayer's
and Douglas Botling's 1989 book, America's Secret Army: The Untold Story of
the Counter Intelligence Corps, is an exception. Drawn primarily from the
1959 official CIC history, the authors added some material to the basic
story (primarily on postwar CIC operations in Europe) as well as
photographs. Otherwise, researchers faces a dearth of new literature on the
overall history of the CIC. This may change if a CIC veterans organization
completes its project to document the CIC's history.
Perhaps the most interesting of the books on the CIC are those written by
the veterans themselves. Ib Melchoir's Case by Case: A U.S. Army
Counterintelligence Agent in World War II (Novato: Presidio Press, 1993)
recounts the author's immigration to the United States from Denmark, his
recruitment into the OSS and transfer to CIC, and his service with the 212th
CIC Detachment in Europe. Melchoir describes in vivid detail his wartime
activities and the people he encountered along the way. The nuances of World
War II counter-
intelligence are readily apparent in these memoirs.
Even more perplexing than the challenges faced by CIC in World War II, the
430th CIC Detachment in Austria encountered a hidden threat--the Soviet
Union. Just how the Army struggled to keep Austria safe from the Communists
is recounted by James V. Milano and Patrick Brogan in Soldiers, Spies, and
the Rat Line: America's Undeclared War against the Soviets (Washington, DC:
Brassey's, 1995). Although Colonel (then Major) Milano was not a member of
the 430th CIC Detachment and had not served in CIC during the war, he was
responsible for the unit's activities from 1945 until 1950. As the chief of
the Operations Branch of the G-2, or Intelligence Section, of the
headquarters of the United States Forces in Austria, Milano worked closely
with the officers and special agents of the 430th CIC Detachment.
The Ratline and Klaus Barbie
Milano coordinated many CIC operations, but he is best known for operating
the infamous "rat line." Based on the wartime evacuation of downed Allied
airmen in occupied Europe, the rat line smuggled informants and defectors
from the Soviet zone in Austria to safety. The CIC expanded this escape
route to take these same people from Austria to Italian ports, sending them
to safety in South America with false identities paid for by the Army.
Utilizing the services of a wily priest in Rome, Father Krunoslav
Dragonovic, the CIC in Austria effectively subsidized the Croatian cleric's
own clandestine rat line to transport Ustasha war criminals from Europe to
Latin America.
Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line fleshes out many of the vignettes in CIC's
official history. Writing decades after the events he recounts, Milano shows
that real people were forced to make real life decisions in a time of
crisis. Some decisions were right, and some proved to be wrong. Milano is
quick to note that the rat line in Austria had a specific objective that
became subverted after his return to the United States in 1950. More
importantly, Milano, after many years of silence, is a key eyewitness to
these Cold War intelligence activities.
The arrest and deportation of former German SS officer Klaus Barbie from
Bolivia to France in 1983 raised questions as to how the "Butcher of Lyon"
escaped justice for so many years. Media speculation turned to the Army's
Counter Intelligence Corps, which facilitated Barbie's escape from the
American zone of Germany through Austria to Italy and then to South America
in 1951. The news of Barbie's arrest and his image on American television
led to his recognition by one of his former CIC handlers.
Erhard Dabringhaus contacted NBC News and reported that he had worked with
Barbie while serving as a CIC officer in Germany in 1948. The news rocked
the world, resulting in a major Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation in
which the United States government apologized to the French government for
its role in sheltering the German war criminal. Dabringhaus later wrote
about his role in the affair in Klaus Barbie: The Shocking Story of How the
U.S. Used This Nazi War Criminal as an Intelligence Agent (Washington:
Acropolis Books, 1984). Like Milano, Dabringhaus recalled his CIC role years
afterwards, colored by the knowledge that his actions had affected history
for better or worse.
U.S. Government Investigations
The 1983 DOJ investigation, formally known as Klaus Barbie and the United
States Government: A Report to the Assistant Attorney General, Criminal
Division, is the first examination of the role that the Counter Intelligence
Corps played in postwar Europe. While Allan A. Ryan, director of the Justice
Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the author of the
report, focused primarily on the Army's relationship with Barbie, he also
uncovered the extent of the CIC's rat line and its dealings with Father
Dragonovic. The Barbie Report and the declassified documents in the Appendix
provide a valuable account of CIC's activities in Germany and Austria.
A subsequent OSI report in 1988, Robert Jan Verbelen and the United States
Government: A Report to the Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division,
U.S. Department of Justice, further amplified CIC's use of Nazi war
criminals and collaborators as informants in the years after World War II.
The Verbelen Report covered in detail the 430th CIC Detachment's mission and
organizational structure in Austria and how it recruited informants during
the early Cold War. Like the Barbie Report, the Verbelen Report identifies
numerous CIC officers and special agents involved in the case. The OSI
reports, together with the official CIC history and the open source
literature, provide the historical framework in which the Counter
Intelligence Corps operated in the first decade after World War II.
CIC Records
From its formation in 1942 until its consolidation in 1961, the Counter
Intelligence Corps produced untold numbers of pages of reports and other
correspondence. Today, this documentary record is scattered throughout
classified and declassified holdings in numerous agencies of the Federal
Government. Two of the agencies, the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) and the Investigative Records Repository (IRR) of the
US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), hold the bulk of the
surviving CIC records. Researchers, however, should be aware that many CIC
records remain in the possession of other US government agencies, primarily
those in the Intelligence Community. Likewise, researchers should consider
that other repositories of unofficial records, such as the U.S. Army
Military History Institute, may contain information about the Counter
Intelligence Corps.
National Archives and Records
Administration
NARA's holdings at Archives II in College Park, Maryland are a gold mine for
information related to the Counter Intelligence Corps. A partial listing
below will provide researchers with clues as to where to search for CIC
records or information about CIC generated by other agencies. It should be
understood that searching for CIC records is a hit-or-miss process.
RG 59 General Records of the Department of State
RG 65 Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
RG 92 Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General
RG 107 Records of the Office of the Secretary of War
RG 111 Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer
RG 153 Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army)
RG 159 Records of the Office of the Inspector General (Army)
RG 160 Records of the Army Service Forces
RG 165 Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs
RG 226 Records of the Office of Strategic Services
RG 238 National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records
RG 242 National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized
RG 260 Records of U.S. Occupation Headquarters, World War II
RG 263 Records of the Central Intelligence Agency
RG 278 Records of the Displaced Persons Commission
RG 319 Records of the Army Staff
RG 331 Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War
II
RG 332 Records of U.S. Theaters of War, World War II
RG 335 Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Army
RG 337 Records of the Headquarters Army Ground Forces
RG 338 Records of U.S. Army Commands, 1942-
RG 373 Records of the Defense Intelligence Agency
RG 389 Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal, 1941-
RG 407 Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917-
RG 466 Records of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany
As can be seen, no single repository for CIC records exists at the National
Archives. Instead, CIC material can be found in numerous record groups
without any sense of order. Record Group 319, the Records of the Army Staff,
contains the best single collection of CIC records. The Records of the U.S.
Army Intelligence Command 1917-73, in RG 319, include a large collection of
Counter Intelligence Corps material, including the 1959 official history and
information on various CIC detachments. In addition to CIC unit histories
and annual reports, RG 319 also has historical material compiled by an
individual researcher and former member of CIC, Thomas M. Johnson.
RG 319 contains both classified and declassified material. Under Executive
Order 12958, the Army and the National Archives have been processing CIC
records for declassification. NARA has some 60 million pages of Army
material that need to be reviewed under the 25-year declassification order.
Consequently, it is impossible to tell when all of the CIC material will be
available to researchers.
In addition to the CIC records at NARA, Record Group 319 also has some 8,000
personal dossiers and 1,000 organizational dossiers from the Investigative
Records Repository. Some of this material is already declassified while
other dossiers are currently being reviewed. Many of these dossiers were
opened by CIC.
Investigative Records Repository
The Investigative Records Repository (IRR) at Fort George G. Meade,
Maryland, is the controlling agency for all intelligence records compiled by
the US Army in support of intelligence and counterintelligence activities.
The IRR falls under the direct command of the 310th Military Intelligence
Battalion of the 902d Military Intelligence Group at Fort Meade which, in
turn, reports to the US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort
Belvoir, Virginia. INSCOM, formed in 1977 by the merger of the US Army
Intelligence Agency and the US Army Security Agency, is the Army's chief
intelligence organization. The IRR provides daily support to Army
intelligence units throughout the world and other intelligence agencies as
needed. It is neither an archive nor a research facility, nor does it have
the personnel or expertise to handle research requests from the public (with
the exception of Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act requests).
While the IRR has several sources for its records (including ongoing Army
security investigations), the Army's CIC records are found primarily in
three file series and in the Central Registry. The file series (Foreign
Personnel and Organization files, Intelligence/Counterintelligence files,
and Counterintelligence/Security Investigations) contain the bulk of the CIC
investigative records. The Central Registry, established by the 970th CIC
Detachment in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1946, contains an index to CIC records
on persons and incidents in Europe as well as a few Far Eastern countries
and the United States. Returned to the United States in 1968, the Central
Registry has about 4.7 million personal index cards as well as 100,000
topics and subjects in the Impersonal Index, and more than one million files
on individuals, groups, or organizations. The vast majority of the CIC
records were microfilmed in the 1950s and 1960s on some 10,000 reels of
microfilm, which were returned to the United States with the Central
Registry. The microfilm is organized into eight different series.
Under the auspices of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act (NWCDA), the IRR is
electronically scanning all of the microfilm (which is deteriorating with
the passage of time) to expedite the tracing of individuals and to identify
records for review and declassification. The IRR transfers to NARA its
declassified files, including many personal and impersonal dossiers. The
Army expects to finish the scanning of its microfilm records by the end of
this year so as to meet the deadlines for review and declassification
specified under the Act. While the NWCDA review will not declassify all CIC
records at the IRR, the Army is taking a serious look at all its historical
holdings from the CIC period for the first time in decades.
Kevin C. Ruffner,
CIA History Staff
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