The CIA Covenant
Nazis in Washington
by Gregory Douglas
Monday, 21 November 1949
Next Sunday, the President will be traveling down to Key West, Florida for a vacation and I will
go down the next day, spending the night in Miami and then driving south out into the ocean along an
elevated highway. I have a week to prepare my presentations and am compiling a paper on the activities of
Messers Dulles and Wisner.
Truman will be there for three weeks and I expect to have the good part of one day talking to him.
At least it will give me a chance to see the tropical world I was once promised by Kronthal.
I had a visitor after Mass who delivered some material and whom I invited to stay for a little
luncheon.
General conversations:
He told me about a colonel who sued Truman to get a promotion. Am told the officer ran an
American prison camp in England during the war where soldiers were badly tortured and beaten by the
guards. This at the orders of the camp commandant. Some soldier who saw all this reported it to the press
and a great deal of trouble was caused. There were court-martial's of a number of men but the Army saw to
it that nothing happened to the professional officers.
Finally, Truman had to intervene to get some rudimentary justice performed. The officer was a
lieutenant colonel and last year, he was to be promoted to a full colonel but Truman saw his name and
denied the promotion.
This was tried again and again; Truman used his pen on the name. Then the officer had the lack of
character or shame to sue the President, demanding to be promoted. This was quickly sat on.
Interesting to compare this with our own army. Firstly, it was forbidden to beat soldiers and
torture had been banned by the Old Fritz (Frederick the Great, 1740-1786, King of Prussia, ed.) nearly two
hundred years before. In the second place, an officer who ordered or knowingly permitted such things to
go on in the barracks would be sent to prison himself, or during the war, demoted to private and sent to the
front in a penal battalion.
The concept of a disgraced and court-martial-ed officer suing the Commander in Chief of the
Army to force him to promote the officer is simply not to be believed.
The officer in question was Lt. Colonel James A. Kilian who had been commanding officer of the
U.S. 10th Replacement Depot, located at Lichfield, Staffordshire in England. This was a camp that
processed replacement American troops and also housed a number of military prisoners. During its
existence, over 6,000 prisoners had been processed.
Lt. Colonel Kilian instituted a brutal policy of physical harassment of these prisoners that
eventually became a matter of public notice. Men were beaten, often in the same areas they had been
previously wounded and a number were severely injured. When this was reported by a military witness, the
Army attempted to punish the witness but eventually an investigation was launched. The investigation
disclosed an ongoing, officially sanctioned pattern of sadistic brutality, but in the end, the officers
convicted received small fines and no imprisonment while soldiers who filed complaints were severely
treated while waiting to testify.
Kilian, who was an aggressive and very angry man (he once threatened to assault one of the
court-martial officers in open court), was convicted of the charges of permitting his guards to assault
prisoners and to initiate punishments specifically prohibited by U.S. Army regulations. He was fined $500
and officially reprimanded.
Before this happened, the obviously rigged court hearings were the subject of a very angry letter
from President Truman which resulted in the removal of one of the judges who was a long-time personal
friend of Kilian as well as a cessation of the harassment of the putative witnesses in the case.
In April of 1947, Kilian sought a promotion to Colonel and Truman promptly removed his name
from the promotion list. True to form, Kilian immediately attempted to sue Truman to force him to grant
the promotion. The case was dismissed in Federal Court by a judge who ruled that Kilian had no
jurisdiction over the Commander in Chief.
Following his defeat in court, Kilian tried to submit his name again two weeks later, but again
Truman struck his name from the list.
The revelations to the American public of this case forced Congress to drastically modify and
improve the conditions under which soldiers could be court-martialed and almost all of the over 100,000
soldiers who had been subjected to court-martial during the war had their sentences significantly modified.
A furious Kilian finally resigned from the Army in 1951 and died in 1958.
Wednesday, 23 November 1949
Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving Day here, an American Harvest Festival. No one in this house is
American with the exception of Heini but as a concession to the national customs, we will be having an
entirely American dinner. I have spoken with the cook on Monday about this and we will have the turkey,
the bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams (a purely American potato also called a sweet potato), soup, fresh
rolls, a pie made with pumpkin and nutmeg and other things. Am told it is a very traditional and good feast
so one has hopes my informants are correct.
Thursday, 24 November 1949
Today we had the Thanksgiving dinner that seemed to be entirely worthwhile. There were two
turkeys, one for the staff and one for me and my immediate circle which consisted of Irmgard, Heini and
the First and Second Murderers. I have been reading Macbeth. Arno made remarks about the turkey,
indicating that he preferred it to chicken and the pie was a great success.
It was raining today and warm during the day.
After the dinner, I put on my raincoat, took an umbrella and Maxl for a walk up and down the
streets around here for my exercise and the welfare of the carpets.
A very pleasant experience with what I have learned are called the Cave Dwellers!
I will put some of this down because I am in a particularly good mood and everyone else has gone
to their beds, or someone else’s, and I am not tired enough to go to sleep.
Tomorrow, I will have to start preparations for my trip to Florida but tonight I can enjoy myself
with thoughts about the future.
During my walk today, I went past an old but obviously very expensive house and as I was
passing, I heard the sound of a piano so I stopped for a moment and listened. It was a very proficient
rendering of a Bach piece that I have played myself so I looked up at the house and saw that a window on
the first floor was open. Although it was raining, it was still a warmish day and it was very humid. A few
moments later, a well-dressed, elderly woman emerged from the front door, umbrella in hand, and came
down the front walk and through the gate.
Since Maxl and I were standing in front of the fence and she emerged no more than three feet
away, I raised my hat to her. I said that I hoped she would not take offense at my standing in front of her
house but that I had heard someone playing most proficiently on the piano and that as an amateur pianist, I
was very much impressed. To this the woman replied, in excellent humor, that she had no objections to my
listening and that it was her niece who was practicing for a recital.
There were formal pleasantries exchanged (reading Emily Post has been of great help here in
Washington, at least with civilized people) and I gave her my nice engraved card with my nice new name
on it.
Her car came out from the rear of the house with not only a chauffeur but also a footman, both in
livery! Before she got into the car, this grande dame said to me that she and her niece were at home on
Wednesdays and they would be most happy if I would call. She had all of the panache of the wife of an
Ambassador and when I made some reference to this, she said that she was a Cave Dweller and had
nothing whatsoever to do with the Transients.
On that note, she entered her car and drove off.
Although Maxl has no ear for music, I certainly do and I stood there for another ten minutes.
When I got back home, somewhat wetter than I had wanted, I had someone dry Maxl off before letting him
go upstairs.
I also had the occasion to speak with one of my American friends and asked him about the Cave
Dwelling lady and was promptly told that this is the terminology for the old Washington society whose
roots go back to the eighteenth century and who take a dim view of diplomats and politicians.
When I gave him the address, he told me he would check on it for me. An hour later he called
back with the news that this house, or mansion, was the property of a very prominent, and wealthy, old
family.
I shall first digest my meal and then plan to make my call on Wednesday. No doubt the niece will
be fat and ugly but she plays like an angel.
Sunday, 27 November 1949
To an early Mass and trying to put together some material for my meeting with the P. (resident,
ed.) in Florida. Robert came by just before lunch, hoping no doubt to get a free meal. He is very upset
about the visit of some retired Japanese general to Maryland. One of his brothers died in Japanese captivity
during the war and Robert now claims that this Lieutenant General (Dr. Shiro, ed.) Ishii was in charge of a
bacteriological warfare complex in China who experimented on living people, mostly Allied prisoners of
war. Killing them rather badly of course. Also this gang spread anthrax, the plague and other charming
things all over China and up into Russia. Poor Russians. Schreiber’s people give them plague on one side
and General Ishii gives it to them on the other.
But, according to Robert who ought to know, General MacArthur not only protected Ishii and his
medical assassins but actually set them up in a secret compound in Japan to continue their happy work!
And now some of the more important killers have been invited to the United States as honored
guests to lecture on their activities to American Army personnel out at Ft. Detrick in Maryland where,
Robert tells me, we are planning to do the same thing to the Russians that Schreiber (Dr. Walter Paul, ed.)
and Ishii did during the war.
I enjoy the irony of the situation. That is the irony inherent in Robert coming to me for assistance!
And I am a wanted war criminal who ran the dreaded Gestapo! I suppose if the government will make love to
Ishii and his men, they must have no problem with me at all. And, Robert tells me, not only does
MacArthur know but the President has been informed as well!
This is a Pandora’s Box which should be kept tightly shut in my opinion because Washington is
still full of Soviet friends in spite of all our labors in the vineyards of the Lord and if Josef gets wind of this
nasty business, no doubt people will be dropping like flies in Cleveland and certainly here.
I must make an effort to buy some property, hopefully with a house on it, in some nice remote
place like Colorado, where I can escape if such a filthy business gets started.
The account of General Ishii is certainly not a great secret but there are some aspects of it that
are not so commonly known to the public and for obvious reasons. The Japanese Political Police, the
dreaded Kempeitai, set up a biological and chemical warfare center in Manchuria during the 1930's. Initial
experiments on living prisoners were conducted using Chinese, but during the war, Unit 731, as the huge
complex was called, received over 3,000 American, British, Dutch, Russian, Korean and Chinese prisoners
for vivisection, injection with deadly diseases, artificial freezing experiments and other pleasantries.
In addition to such activities, Lt. General Dr. Shiro Ishii also used Japanese Army special units to
spray dysentery, bubonic plague, typhoid and cholera germs over the population of China’s Zhejiang
Province to test various diseases and determine the most effective means of liquidating large numbers of
their enemies.
A translation of a Japanese official report exists in which Army Headquarters in Tokyo was
considering putting pathogens onto air-borne balloons and letting the prevailing air currents deliver the
deadly contents to the United States Pacific Northwest.
This activity was by no means limited to China and the Kempeitai had other facilities throughout
their Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere including Malaya, other Chinese sites, the prison complex
at Singapore and Hiroshima on the main island of Japan.
Not only did MacArthur protect Ishii and his staff but also all of his files dealing with his
experiments were taken over by the United States Army and Ishii was put to work along with members of
his staff on the identical projects at a secret site in Japan. This site was later developed into a major
Japanese pharmaceutical firm in which MacArthur and some of his closest collaborators initially had a
financial interest and were considered to be participating partners.
There are several reports on this business, one prepared by G2 in Tokyo in 1948 and another
follow-up prepared during the Korean War in 1951. At that time there was a very high level argument as
to whether or not the atomic bomb should be used on the North Koreans and Chinese invaders of South
Korea. Some counsel held out for using Ishii’s version of an Asiatic Final Solution but fortunately, Truman
vetoed both projects.
Monday, 28 November 1949
A number of matters. I spoke with Hoover again about the British and have absolutely stressed my
belief that not only were they spying on us, especially on our atomic programs here, but also giving vital
secrets to the Soviets! Hoover hates the British as much as he does the Russians so it has not been difficult
to gain his interest.
Truman, is neutral about the British and even cooperative with them and I will have to do
what I can to wreck this situation. I suggested to H. that perhaps he had better set up a section to keep an
eye on the British.
We will start with the telephones and observation of those who use their embassy here and their
consulates in Chicago and New York. He agrees to start this program “very soon” and I gave him some
information on a few British agents here. He told me Stephenson was a Canadian murderer who killed
Americans who got in the British way during the war and who had agents spying all over Washington.
They and the Russians!
I am keeping Harold P. (hilby, ed.) in the background until I can have my own people get enough
background material on the new spy chief to make an impression on Hoover. I dug out the papers covering
Philby’s defection, or rather cooperation with us in 1939 and will have photocopies made to add to my
reports to Hoover.
Spending tonight on a report for Truman in Florida and have decided to downplay the menace of
the communist intellectual and stress actual spies in place, especially in the Atomic program. Using
material from Pash and some from Hoover. I will talk about the atomic program and the Russians, and then
move right into the British situation without letting any light get in between.
Also some piano practice and preparations for my Wednesday visit to my neighbor and the
unknown niece. I keep imagining what she looks like. Hopefully attractive (I cannot abide ugly women,
especially fat and ugly women). It would be pleasant to at least become acquainted with a really attractive
younger woman who is a good pianist and likes Bach!
It never fails that she will have huge buttocks, bad skin and teeth and a shrill voice. Or legs like
my Bechstein (a German piano, ed.). Well, the aunt has enough money to make her interesting but she is
far too old.
One of the guards who is from Utah and is a Mormon (but not a very good one Heini tells me
because he smokes and drinks coffee) told a joke which is worth putting down. The head of the Mormon
Church was called Brigham Young. He was a raging polygamist but liked younger women, as I do. He
used to say (and I had to write this down to get the English correct), “I don’t care how you bring them but
bring them young.” Or a contraction to say “Bring’em young.” An American joke. It’s true that we always
learn the nasty parts of a foreign language first.
Learning French, one does not first say, “Please tell me how to get to the nearest cathedral so that
I may pray,” but instead, “where is the local whorehouse so I can screw to clear my sinuses,” or even
better, “what price do you charge for your services, Madame, and do you have a health certificate?”
Always avoid a prostitute who has a pack of dogs following her down the street while she is on combat
patrol. They have a better sense of smell than we do and God knows what goes on internally.
Imagine having three beautiful young wives? It would kill me but would be an interesting way to
commit suicide as well as being very expensive. One wife is quite enough but I never can keep my eyes off
a woman with pretty legs. Heini knows this little failing of mine and comforted me with a story about his
father’s dog. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with chasing pretty women, Boss. But my dad (Vati) has a
dog that chases cars too.” Yes, and of course what happens when the dog catches the car? Does he mount
the exhaust pipe and burn his vital parts? Heini is an excellent fellow but is sometimes too sharp. Although
I am no virgin in that area either.
Tuesday, 29 November 1949
Notes for conversations with Truman.
My area of expertise is Soviet Russian foreign intelligence but I wish to expand to cover other
hostile areas. While communism was very popular here during the Roosevelt era, most people, even so called
professionals, do not realize that the actual spy apparatus was very limited. The Soviets always have
a large pool of sympathetic loyalists on which to draw, but only for random information. This information
is fed to the actual rings whose leader then passes it to Moscow, either through his Russian control or
directly. All of this is sent out by radio to Moscow.
I could write papers on this by the hour and America and her politicians, and most especially the
general public, are now well aware of Soviet spies. But they tend to lump Soviet sympathizers and
intellectual communists in the same bag. To pursue all of these people would be impossible, even with
American manpower and wealth. Better to concentrate on either penetrating the Soviet rings and feed them
misleading information or to destroy them. Arrests and publicity on one hand and the knife or the heart
attack on the other. (Memo: Stop throwing them out of the window! Much too obvious. One, perhaps, but
not so many.)
Then, having done this, the next step would be to so sensitize the public to Soviet spies that all
communist sympathizers would be too terrified to cooperate with Moscow at any time!
Senator McCarthy and his kind are perfect for this agitation. The Senator is a boor of the worst
kind but so blindly ambitious that he will jump onto this train with glee.
Will point out to T. that M. is a Republican and that T. can deny any participation in this business.
Of course T. is not too popular with his own party because they still yearn for the liberal years of Roosevelt
but if the Democrats are able to distance themselves from a Republican Congressional razzia (European
term for police raid, ed.) against Rooseveltian Reds, they will do so at once.
Having dealt with the so-called Red Menace of Col. Hoover, I will turn to a much more serious
matter...that of British spying on the United States. I will outline to T. that the British hate us (I will use
this word for solidarity) because we beat them in two wars (1776 and 1812) and bankrupted them in 1940
by taking all of their cash in return for old weapons, they have no problem in spying on us.
They do not view us, as so many Americans think today, as their saviors but rather as their
destroyers and they all do hate us for destroying their thoroughly rotten Empire.
I will point out, very clearly and with supportive documents (Memo: Have these ready if and
when required!) that the British intelligence and governmental agencies are filled with either actual
communist agents or worse, radical Moscow sympathizers.
It is also filled with fairies but we won’t go into that unless T. shows some interest. T. is certainly
not a fairy and probably hates them.
I will point out that England has no more navy or army to speak of and a squad of Soviet Boy
Scouts (which do not exist) could invade England and conquer it within a week.
Therefore.... certain higher-level British government people have arrived at a secret convention
with Stalin. Do not attack our weak, undefended people, and we will assist you by the sharing of certain
very important intelligence material we are able to steal from our erstwhile allies (but actual enemies.)
And this especially means atomic secrets!!!
1. In sum, the British spy on us with greater impunity than the Soviets could.
2. They have stolen and are stealing American atomic secrets.
3. These secrets go to London where the British would like to build at least one atomic
bomb just to show the world that they are really still important.
4. The same secrets are eagerly given to Stalin to curry favor with him as well as to fulfill
the ideological requirements of so many of the Soviet lovers now in power in the British bureaucracy.
THIS MUST BE STOPPED!
By cutting off the British from their spying, we equally cut off the Russians who are now under
the spotlight and have to be very careful.
Note here: I understand that Stalin did not set off an atomic bomb but instead exploded several
standard bombs from an aircraft. These bombs were full of radioactive material that spread into the upper
air so that the Americans could detect them. Source has been correct so far. Mention this to T.? Not a good
idea at all.
Solution: Countermeasures at once against the British. Hoover will be in full cooperation on this.
He has specifically said so to me recently and very firmly. I believe him on this. We put devices into their
Embassy and consulates, listen to their telephones and follow anyone leaving the Embassy and photograph
anyone going in and then investigate them later.
We set up a disinformation section to allow them to have faulty and misleading material. Also....
we could give them the sort of information which could literally blow up in their faces but I doubt if their
scientists are that stupid. It will be vital in all of this to totally discredit not only the British but most
especially all of their intelligence apparatus!!!
We don’t want them to work their way into our skin the way they did here during the war. Note
here...IMPORTANT...Almost all of the top CIA people are rabid Anglophiles. Angleton’s mentor during
the war was Philby and both the Dulles brothers sniff at the bottoms of all Englishmen. Be sure to work
these facts into your presentation and impress on T. that this Anglophilia blinds them to the truth. Again,
EXERCISE GREAT CAUTION HERE...UNTIL T. IS CONVERTED! If he shows any real resistance,
inject just enough to make him think and then...CHANGE THE DIRECTION!!!
I will be visiting with my interesting neighbors tomorrow and then on Thursday, will take the train
down to Miami and from there drive down to the Keys to have my meeting with the President. I will be
using my new name on the tickets and will be checked into the Naval Base at Key West under this name to
keep the CIA people from knowing about this. Now I have three sets of papers; one German, one Swiss
and now, one as an American citizen. On the one hand, I am a Bavarian Catholic and on the other, a Jew!
Such an irony! Dulles, who knew my other persona, made several rude remarks about my adopting the
guise of what he supposed to be my archenemy. Hitler’s perhaps, but not mine. They could make me an
Eskimo for all I care and Dulles is one of the most pompous, self-important asses I have ever met and I
have known many.
These well-born idiots think they and they alone are capable of directing the foreign policy of the
country, but in truth I doubt if any of them, Angleton included, could run a church outing for deaf and
dumb children. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!
Well, first the recital with the probably ugly pianist and then the business with Truman. We shall
see what is business and which is pleasure.
The names used by Heinrich Müller after the war are of great interest to a significant number of
people...and agencies. At the beginning of the Twenty First Century there are virtually no major players
still alive who knew Müller, as Müller, while he worked for the CIA and the U.S. Army in the late 1940's
and early 1950's.
With the assumed names not a matter of official knowledge, there is a very real fear that
something unpalatable and true will emerge about the former Chief of the Gestapo before Washington can,
as is their standard custom, destroy any pertinent, damaging records.
It is a matter of record that Müller used the name of “Schwartzter” when he escaped from
encircled Berlin in April of 1945 but there the investigative trail ends.
Shortly after the third volume in the Douglas biography of Heinrich Müller was released, a very
reputable American reporter with a background in U.S. intelligence matters was contacted by a source
that he had every reason to trust. This source, who had retired from the CIA, told the reporter that he had
personally known Heinrich Müller after the war, living under the name of Lothar Metzel and that this
Metzel had lived on Connecticut Avenue in Washington. This specific information checked out; the name of
Lothar Metzel was immediately located in old Washington telephone directories.
However, a thorough, professional investigation disclosed that the Metzel who lived at that
address was a Viennese Jew who had fled the Germans and came to the United States in 1939. This Metzel
was a minor playwright who worked for the Office of War Information (OWI) during the war, preparing
anti-Nazi radio scripts. Further, after the war and the formation of the CIA in 1948, this Metzel joined that
organization and rose to a position of some importance.
Photographs of the playwright Metzel bore absolutely no resemblance to the former SS General
and it is impossible to believe that anyone who personally knew the CIA official could think that he even
remotely looked like Heinrich Müller.
This is not quite the end of the story, however, because a search by the media of old OSS files
disclosed another Lothar Metzel, also from Austria but of German origin, who worked for the OSS in
Switzerland during the war. The second Metzel, while on an intelligence mission into Germany, was
captured by Müller’s Gestapo and shot in August of 1944.
Before this OSS file suddenly disappeared from sight and into a burn bag, the investigating media
located a picture of the second Metzel who looked neither like the playwright nor the head of the Gestapo.
The final addition to this entertaining scenario was supplied by a retired U.S. Navy officer who
had been involved with various high-level intelligence activities in the 1960s and identified for members of
the media, a picture of Heinrich Müller as a man “whose face he had positively seen before.” The name in
his old telephone book was Lothar Metzel. This Metzel looked exactly like Heinrich Müller.
While in Washington, Müller lived in a large town house in Georgetown and not an old-fashioned
red brick apartment house on Connecticut Avenue. Since both of the Metzels were Jewish in origin, this
might well explain Müller’s remark about having a false Jewish persona.
It is fortunate that the media thoroughly checked out the facts in this bizarre matter or someone
might very well have published a story about Müller’s survival which could be very easily refuted and this
refutation then used to discredit anything published about him.
The anti-communism of Senator Joseph McCarthy, R. Wisconsin, has been the subject of many
books and scholarly studies since the end of the 1950's. Most of these works are written by those who
espouse the liberal idea that McCarthy was a vicious, fascistic opportunist whose incitement of the public
against American communists ruined many lives and destroyed the reputations of a legion of intelligent,
anti-racist and progressive Americans, and absolutely none of whom were communists and certainly none
of whom ever spied on the United States for Russia.
The same writers have written similar works about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which
the radical Spanish left is depicted as progressive and the equally radical right is depicted as a brutal
fascist movement entirely under the control of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
It takes many decades for anything even approaching objective truth to emerge concerning any
matter that involves religious cults, be they secular or sacred and only after the bitter fanatics are long in
their graves can objectivity begin to poke its way up through the heavily asphalted parking lots that
represent generations of ideological propaganda.
These misleading and very often entirely false representations by fanatic partisan writers have
been long accepted by the public because of the lack of alternative published views. Alternative views,
regardless of accuracy, are severely discouraged in nearly all countries because often highly profitable
structures are constructed on the weak foundations of mythic history.
Müller became acquainted with McCarthy through the good offices of one Father Edmund A.
Walsh of Georgetown University in Washington. The most bitter and enduring enemy of Stalin’s
Cominform was the Catholic Church. During the post-war period, the Church was under the control of
Pius XII, who as Papal Nuncio to Germany in the period between the Second and Third Reichs, had the
opportunity of witnessing firsthand the brutal and murderous effects of the various Soviet-directed revolts
inside Germany.
Müller’s papers and notes indicate that he often met with Father Walsh and passed a
considerable amount of valuable information to him which was eventually given to McCarthy to aid him in
his very public crusade against the radical left in America. The one issue so often cited with great glee by
McCarthy’s detractors was his allegation made in a February 9, 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia
that there were a large number of clearly identified communists in the Department of State. His legion of
livid critics state that this statement was entirely false and had no foundation in any kind of truth.
In point of actual fact, at that time there were, and had been for some time previous, at least 80
known and clearly identified communists in the Department of State. No one, McCarthy included, ever
pointed out that these communists were former members of the communist-dominated Office of Special
Services or O.S.S. Truman had disbanded this organization as early as 1945 because of its composition, and
its communist members were sent to the Department of State to await a graceful, and permanent, exit from
governmental service. Many other members quickly joined the new CIA when it was formed.
It was the specific policy of Franklin Roosevelt to insist to General Donovan, head of the O.S.S,
that as many active communists as possible be recruited and utilized by that organization. Throughout its
spotted history, the O.S.S agents cooperated with and certainly coordinated with the wishes of Soviet
intelligence, the N.K.V.D, in matters of interest and concern to Moscow.
The communist Tito was supported over his rivals (who were later murdered) in the Yugoslavian
theater and the O.S.S supported the communists both in Greece and Italy, both areas that were of intense
interest to the expansionist Soviet dictator.
In comparing Muller's period notes with the utterances of the Senator from Wisconsin, one can
see that McCarthy was not a good learner and while he was almost always correct, he had a severe
problem with remembering, and accurately reporting, the specific facts given to him.
The comments by Muller about the espionage activities of British intelligence against the United
States will be fully explored in their proper chronological place as will Muller's assistance to the anti-Communists
in the American government and media.
Thursday, 1 December 1949
Notes made on the train.
Well, I must say there are times when one is pleasantly, even happily, surprised by the turn of
events. Last evening started out with dull formality and ended up as a genuine pleasure for me.
First, we met the aunt in the drawing room. Old furniture and dim portraits of ancestors. Mine
could never afford paintings. Some in solemn black, others in uniform and a number of uninteresting
women in period costume.
The niece was upstairs dressing and I gathered from the aunt that she was not pleased to be
entertaining the neighbor. We were sitting on very uncomfortable but expensive old chairs when the aunt
smiled over my head and stood up. “Here, my dear is your fan club.”
She is not ugly at all. Rather on the short side with a long, solemn face, dark brown eyes and a
very firm chin and mouth. Very decently dressed and carries herself very well. Figure? Small and certainly
not fat. Couldn’t see her legs but the rest of her seemed in good proportion. Hair was pulled back into a
knot at the back of her head, neatly framing her face.
I bowed, kissed her hand (a disgusting Viennese custom) and managed to introduce myself by the
proper name. Remarks were made and I said some sarcastic things about a popular pianist that got a quick
smile. We had about twenty minutes of social conversation and she said, “I suppose you would like to hear
me play something’”
“The Bach you were assaulting the other day would be excellent.”
Up went the eyebrows. “Assaulting?”
“Oh yes, a firm, very determined effort. And I might say, successful.” An excellent evening, short
though it was and with the aunt ever present.
Analysis: A young woman of character and appearance who is a very strong, almost masculine
performer. She certainly understands Bach as well as Schubert, which she plays with both strength and
feeling. She attended Julliard School, loves the piano but will not make a career of it, (which she certainly
could) because in her family, women do not go into the professions.
She has an excellent sense of humor, very dry and sometimes sharp.
I wanted to show her how to make a transition in a Bach piece and while she very politely gave
me the keyboard, I could see that, at first, she was not happy. I think I made my point and she asked me to
keep on playing for her and warned me she would be equally pedantic. “Actually you are rather good,” she
said and from her omnipresent aunt’s expression, I assume that this was very rare praise.
She would do very well on the concert stage but at this point, all is too soon for anything but the
enjoyment of the moment.
When I come back from Florida, I have invited them to my house for a little dinner and some
music afterwards. This may go nowhere, as so many new things do, but I did enjoy the evening and
apparently everyone else did too. They think I am Swiss but that my German is “ever so much better than
the Swiss dialect.” A bit of Munich Bavarian mixed up with military and police, all overlaid with Berliner
Prussian does not sound Swiss but most Americans cannot speak their own language, let alone someone
else’s.
This trip is interesting as we penetrate deeper into the southern United States. Really appalling
poverty seen from the train windows and many shabby old houses, millions of very poor and equally
shabby blacks, not too many automobiles. One reads about the high civilization of the pre-Civil War south
but if all of that was true, the country has lost everything.
I recall (Frank G. ed.) Wisner calling (Ralph, ed.) Bunche a “saddle-colored coon” which had to
be explained to me. We had such in the Ruhr after the French had quartered their own dark ones on us. I
don’t ride but I know what color a saddle is and the image is entertaining.
Miami, I am told, is being filled up with illegal refugee Jews being smuggled in from the
Dominican Republic and Cuba but no one seems to care very much about it. Africa above and Palestine
below.
I read somewhere that there was a terrible hurricane twenty years or so ago and there was a
railroad which actually ran down to Key West. There was so much damage that the tracks were ripped up
and the causeways were turned into a highway. That should be an interesting scenic trip.
I am going to take up advance photography and I brought my Leica along but taking pictures from
a train window is only fit for trippers. Pictures of yourself and your friends in front of the Eiffel Tower
during the war. I do not wish to be photographed these days but one can never be too insistent, merely
careful to avoid the possibility.
The food is acceptable on these trains but was better on the one to Colorado. After lunch, two
games of twenty-one and a little chess for relaxation and then some Pascal until dinner.
Hopefully, Truman tomorrow and then back to Washington for much better food and even better
music. A full report later.
Tuesday, 6 December 1949
I will write this in sections. First, general impressions of the trip.
Florida is a different sort of climate. I have been to Greece and Spain but the tropics are an
entirely new world. The ocean and the beaches are magnificent and I took advantage of the time in Miami
to put on a suit and get into the ocean. Salt water is sticky but the temperature is warm and a landlocked
Bavarian like myself is used to still, cold lakes at best.
Nice young ladies sunning themselves on the beach and some pleasant flirtations but then down to
see Truman.
The drive down to Key West was spectacular, driving along over the waters of the Caribbean on
the old railroad bridges. Key West is a naval base with neat white barracks.
The President has what he calls a “working holiday” and said that he could never have afforded a
place like that even as a senator. Take what you can from every situation.
I was introduced as a Swiss expert from the CIA and no one paid any attention to me. I bought a
very nice white suit in Miami and an expensive Panama hat that one can roll up and pass through a ring. It
would have cost me a month’s salary in the old days.
I met Truman twice privately and once with a group of his friends. He wore a terrible shirt with
short sleeves that looks like a modern painting but is called “Hawaiian” and would frighten a horse.
Ate meals in a naval dining room. The food was good and the fresh fish excellent, especially one
called pompano. Aside from intelligence matters and some self-advertising, I went out on a navy boat to
take a trip to see an old brick fort out in the Caribbean where important political prisoners were once kept.
Some fishing and a good deal of beer drinking. The navy people let me steer the boat from up on the
bridge.
Nice young men, polite officers and steering a boat is not that easy. With a car, one merely moves
the wheel and with a plane, the same, but the boat will tend to stray from its course and one has to be
constantly observant and watch the compass. As there are no points of reference in the ocean, the compass
is very important to watch.
I went around without a shirt most of the time and have acquired a very nice tan that should
impress my neighbor. Unfortunately, I am getting very thin on the top of my head so it got rather burned
and now is scabby looking but it is passing quickly.
Now, on to business.
T. was very friendly from the beginning and I find him pleasant to work with. We spoke generally
at first and then he asked me for my comments on various personalities of the Reich, especially Hitler. He
asked me repeatedly if Hitler died in Berlin. He said when he was at Potsdam in 1945, the Russians told
him, and Stalin too, that they did not believe the British story at all. I told him what I knew and then we
went on to discuss more important matters.
T. is concerned about the Russians. The Army and the CIA (whom he calls the “Criminal Idiots
Association”) are telling him daily that Stalin is going to attack us and that we must attack him first. T. has
no intentions of doing this. I told him that in my professional opinion, there would be no military attack. I
had actual figures with me showing the reduction in Soviet forces in Germany and their destruction of the
railroad system there to rebuild their own.
Neither the Army (using faked material from Gehlen) nor the CIA (using faked material from
their own strange sources) have told him any of this but I know he believes me and not them. I did warn
him that Stalin would use infiltration and not tanks.
We talked about the CIA’s bribery in the Italian elections and Pash’s murder attempt on Togliatti.
He approved the bribery but deplored the assassination attempt and said he wanted nothing to do with such
vicious behavior. He complained bitterly that the CIA, whom he put together to keep him privately
informed on foreign intelligence, was obviously pursuing its own course and repeatedly lies to him.
I gave him quite an earful of my inside observations. We discussed how they had put devices on
his own phones and told him that they had tried to do this to me but my people were much better than
theirs and the attempt failed. I also said that we were listening to them! This he thought was very funny but
wanted me to keep him fully informed.
Conversation then turned to Hoover and the FBI. Since Hoover is an ally, I spoke well of him and
his men, calling them real professionals as opposed to the rank and somewhat crazy amateurs of the CIA.
He agreed but does not like Hoover who he said had “the dirt” on “everyone on the hill and used it when
he had to.” I must keep in mind that Truman is basically honest and finds such treachery repulsive.
I then talked about the atom bomb programs and Truman told me some stories.
We had no such bombs at the end of the war. And we did not have enough enriched uranium to
build them. This ore is mined in the Belgian Congo and the Belgians control it. The Russians, who have no
such resource, tried to threaten the Belgians and then attempted to persuade them to nationalize the mines
and give them the ore.
Our good friends the British then got all of the supplies from the Belgians (probably with charity
money they got from us) and had over three thousand tons of the ore. Naturally, they would not give this to
us, but Truman to his credit, forced them to do so under threat of excluding them from any kind of aid
program and forcing them to repay their enormous wartime loans to us. They caved in, first trying to sell us
their ore at a huge profit and finally, when Truman got really forceful, giving the ore to the U.S.
They are now working on a bomb-making program here. By simulating an atomic explosion to
warn the U.S. that he had a bomb, Stalin started a genuine atomic race with us. He is normally quite clever
but in this case, he overplayed his hand.
From this thesis, I was able to discuss Soviet espionage with Truman. I said that the actual Soviet
spy networks in this country were nowhere near as large as the public thought. A dozen or so handlers and
perhaps thirty or forty actual paid spies.
There were, I said, hundreds of communist sympathizers who supplied the American spies with
information but these were not real spies but sources. Hoover, to his credit, kept his eye on this bunch in
spite of strict direct orders from Roosevelt to stop watching his Soviet friends. The FBI knows almost
everything about the Soviet agents and is picking them off one by one.
Truman says he knows this but the problem is also political. As we all know, Roosevelt permitted
hundreds of communist activists into his regime and Truman has to be very careful about attacking them.
The New Deal is still a potent political force and Truman doesn’t want to be seen pursuing them. This is all
understandable and to me, acceptable, because he wants to root them out entirely. It is merely a question of
how to do it without him getting the blame.
It was then that I brought up McCarthy. Truman hates the man. He calls him a fairy and a drunk.
Just like Churchill, I told him, and just as dangerous. I told T. that I had a connection with M. through
Georgetown and I suggested, very carefully at first, that I could supply M. with inside facts that he could
use in public to enhance his career and create an atmosphere of conspiracy and fear. Before T. could
object, and I could see it in his face, I pointed out that McCarthy was a Republican (I have joined the
Democrat Party) and that as an opponent of Truman, the President could put a very large distance between
them. He tentatively agreed but said he did not want to start a Spanish Inquisition here.
I agreed but said that if the public believed that there were spies everywhere, there would be
arrests made and the actual informants and suppliers of secret information would have to go underground
and be very careful indeed! This Truman quickly agreed was a good idea.
It was at this point that I brought up the British. I said that even if Stalin lost his eyes in this
country, the British were here to help him out. I pointed out that England has, in essence, lost the war. She
has no empire, no navy, no merchant shipping and no gold reserves. She hates us for having demoted her
to a third rate bankrupt country. Also, I said that I had a great deal of factual information that their
intelligence agencies were riddled with homosexual Marxists and that any information their agents could
extract from us especially in the atomic area, would go to Whitehall first and to Moscow second.
I had prepared a number of easily assimilated files for him to read through. These were
constructed so that he didn’t have to take them with him and risk some snoop finding them in his quarters.
It took him nearly an hour to read through them and at the end, he seemed to be very receptive to
my suggestions that the British agents in this country should be watched carefully, prevented as much as
possible from any critical access to atomic secrets, and when possible, fed with disinformation.
He asked me to prepare a paper for him on how this could be accomplished and I am very pleased
to have been able to pull up a file with the exact program set forth, clearly and very accurate in all respects.
Truman said, when he had finished reading it, “Well, we are certainly getting our money’s worth
with you, General. I am impressed with this.”
At the second meeting, we talked about less important matters.
He asked me about the Jews in Germany. I told him my views and he said that he was being
pressed by the Zionists to give huge sums of money to the state of Israel. He said he had let them talk him
into recognizing the government of that country in 1948 but he was now having some regrets about having
done this. T. states that this has permanently destabilized the Middle East and that the reign of terror
instituted by the Zionists in their desire to eject all the Arabs from their homes was repulsive to him.
He stated that on many occasions, he had personally blocked the clandestine shipment of arms
from this country to Israel, something I learned about from Hoover.
However, T. stated that the Jews were very influential in this country. They have money, have a
big hand in the banks, the newspapers and certainly in the motion picture industry, and he does not want to
antagonize them. He said that his lack of immediate support of their new country by giving huge sums of
cash to them resulted in very serious political problems in the last election. They went to Dewey and got
him to promise this golden shower if he was elected. But Truman went to the people and beat Dewey so
now the Zionists are back again with their hands out.
T. had a business partner once who he holds in high regard and this man was material in
persuading T. to recognize the new state. The President is certainly not an anti-Semite but will not be
extorted.
Several of his associates have pointed out that most of the traitors and Soviet spies were Jewish
but he wants absolutely nothing to do with this business and very sternly warned me not to go down this
path at all. I have no intentions of doing so and reassured him about this.
At this point in time, I have the President’s attention and at least a tentative approval of my ideas.
I have permission from him to expand my staff and more of my people will be brought over here to assist
me.
We both agree that the CIA is not to know of any of this and I am to report directly to him. Also,
he expressed gratitude to me for warning him about the spying on him and would like my man to keep
checking his office for any telephone problems. I said if we caught anyone trying this again, I would have
the man buried in the woods somewhere and Truman laughed and did not object.
Let us see to our shovels!
Note: On Wednesday, I will be having my musical neighbor and the aunt over for a small dinner
and perhaps I can show off my own keyboard accomplishments. I have given some thought about my
neighbor and in fact I find that when I start thinking about a woman more than once, I am interested.
We will see where this goes.
NEXT
Thursday, 8 December 1949[74S]
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