America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History (42 page)

⁵⁸
Minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the Byelorussian Central Council in Berlin, December 12,1944. The minutes note that Dr. Stankievich, the editor of the newspaper Ranitsa, was invited to the meeting along with Colonel Kushel and several others. Ostrowsky discussed the position of the BCC with regard to General Vlasov’s army. Ostrowsky spoke of the continued need to prevent the Byelorussian forces from being absorbed into Vlasov’s divisions. Copy in For the National Independence of Byelorussia (London, 1954; Library of Congress)

⁵⁹
According to one version, as the Allies were approaching, General Kushel went to see General Maltsov of General Vlasov’s army. Maltsov and Kushel decided to defect to the U.S. Army. Between them and the U.S. troops was a German SS division stationed in Eisensteinstadt. According to a knowledgeable source, Maltsov and Kushel sent emissaries to the American commander and at his direction fought through the German SS division until they reached Zwissel, where they joined the U.S. troops and were interned as prisoners of war.

Chapter Four

⁶⁰
On Bradley’s telephone call to Patton, see
Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story
(Henry Holt, 1951).

⁶¹
Patton’s comments on the Soviets are quoted in Cookridge, op. cit., p. 127.

⁶²
The most detailed account of Operation Keelhaul is in Nicholas Bethell,
The Last Secret
(Basic Books, 1974).

⁶³
The flight from Berlin to the western regions of Germany is described in Ostrowsky’s biography, p. 63.

⁶⁴
General Anders was trying to keep the members of his “Polish Army” intact in the camps until a more permanent home could be found.
New York Times
, May 20, 1946.

⁶⁵
From an OSI informant.

⁶⁶
Among Stankievich’s many employers was the Language Institute of the World Church Service at Ulmmanube where he was employed from March 10,1949 to May 1, 1950. It should also be noted that the World Church Service was frequently listed as sponsor of Byelorussian Nazis into the United States under the Displaced Persons Act.

⁶⁷
According to Ostrowsky’s biography, p. 70, the members of the BCC remained in hiding in the British, American, and French zones of western Germany “because the majority of them were afraid that they might be called to account before the Allies for collaboration with the Germans during the War.” Ostrowsky recognized that it was necessary to suspend the activities of the BCC and create another front group for the U.S. zone, the Byelorussian National Committee, formed at the Regensburg DP camp (where most of the Belarus SS legion was then located).

⁶⁸
The history of the various postwar conventions, the attempts to escape repatriation as war criminals, and the subsequent reorganization in the United States is more fully described in FBI File NY97-1251. According to the FBI, Ostrowsky’s BCR organization in the DP camps had about 4,000 members, about half of whom later emigrated to America. This, of course, does not include those members of the Belarus who sided with Abramtchik‘s faction, such as Kushel and Stankievich. As of 1954,according to the FBI, this faction had more than a thousand members living in the United States.

⁶⁹
Abramtchik’s Gestapo background in Paris is also noted in a document contained in the Stankievich “blue file,” USAIRR, Ft. Meade, Maryland.

⁷⁰
Paragraph 189 of the 1948 CIC Consolidated Guidance Manual noted that the Abramtchik faction apparently had connections to the NTS and also received funds from the Vatican.

⁷¹
The most complete account available of Gehlen’s activities is in Cookridge. Gehlen’s own memoirs are less candid.

⁷²
For background on the OSS, see Kermit Roosevelt,
The War Report of the OSS
(Walker, 1976).

⁷³
The dismembering of OSS was accomplished in a letter from President Truman to Secretary of State Byrnes, September 20, 1945.
Public Papers of the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, April 12 to December 31, 1945
(Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 331.

⁷⁴
For the breakup of the OSS see
Final Report, US. Senate Select Committee to Study Intelligence Operations
(Government Printing Office, 1976), Book IV, pp. 5-6.

Chapter Five

⁷⁵
Quoted in Andrew Tully,
CIA, The Inside Story
(William Morrow, 1962) p. 16.

⁷⁶
The organization of the CIG is outlined in Select Committee Report, op. cit., pp. 6-12.

⁷⁷
Immediately after the war there was a great deal of controversy about the possibility of Nazis residing in the DP camps. See
New York Times
, March 2, 1946, p. 1 (“U.S. Must Turn Over Members of Axis Army”); March 10, 1946, p. 5 (“Weeding Out Nazis in POW Camps”); May 12, 1946, p. 18 (“Army Screening to Seek Imposters”); March 24, 1946, p. 16 (“Nazis Living in Camps”); March 30, 1949, p. 17 (“Nazi Camp Guard Posing as Displaced Person”); April 1, 1949 (“Former Camp Guard Held at Ellis Island”).

⁷⁸
The existence of the Belarus SS and other collaborationist units did not go entirely unnoticed in the DP camps. See
New York Times
, March 24, 1946, p. 16.

⁷⁹
Kushel’s transformation of the White Russian “Boy Scouts” into the military formation of the BVA is discussed in paragraph 204 of Chapter V, p. 50, 1948 CIC Consolidated Guidance report.

⁸⁰
Friedrich Buchardt’s unpublished manuscript is entitled “Die Behandlung Des Russischen Problems Wahrend Der Zeit Des Nationalsozialistischen Regimes in Deutschland.” (
The Treatment of the Russian Problem During the Period of the Nazi Regime in Germany
). Top Secret, ACSI-Sensitive Document File, Suitland, Maryland.

⁸¹
For a discussion of how the ex-Nazis assisted Soviet intelligence agents in the Byelorussian DP camps after the war, see Stankievich’s “blue file,” USAIRR, Ft. Meade, Maryland.

⁸²
Text of the Byelorussian charges is in UN Record of Debates, October 31, 1947.

⁸³
The first request for the apprehension of Bandera was by letter from General Sidlov, Chief Soviet MVD, Brandenberg, Germany, dated June 29, 1946, to the Assistant Chief of Staff, United States Forces, European Theatre. A reply was sent by the Army in July 1946 entitled “Bandera, Stephen Andrew, war criminal.” Apparently unsatisfied with the reply, Sidlov wrote another letter to General Sibert in August 1946. Sibert, of course, was Gehlen’s supervisor, and Gehlen was Bandera’s employer. Copies of the Army’s subsequent false denial of any knowledge of Bandera’s whereabouts can be found in the Stankievich “blue file.” The Soviet Union continued its denunciations of the United States for failure to cooperate with the return of their nationals from European refugee camps. See
New York Times
, January 5, 1953, p. 3.

⁸⁴
After his confession, the military forwarded the following secret report up the CIC chain of command referencing the UN charges:

Stanislaw Stankevich is probably identical with Stanislas Stankevich who resides in Osterhoffen, D.P. Camp. Allegedly he was the former commander of the White Ruthenian S.S. in Minsk. Later he published a White Ruthenian language paper in Germany during the Nazi regime. Currently he is the leader in the US zone of the BNC White Ruthenian National Center, an illegal organization which apparently serves as a steering committee for the rightist elements of the White Ruthenian immigration…. Many of its members were officials of the Nazi puppet government in Minsk during 1941-43 and continued as a government-in-exile in Berlin in 1944.

The document goes on to indicate that the Army had knowledge of the whereabouts of many other Byelorussian and Ukrainian Nazis who were at that time denounced in the United Nations as war criminals. (Copy in Stankievich’s “blue file,” Ft. Meade, Maryland.)

In 1951 a letter was sent by the Army in response to the January 1948 UN General Assembly charges that the U.S. was harboring persons listed as war criminals. Included on the list was Stankievich, “allegedly in charge of massacres in the Borrissov region and later editor of the fascist newspaper Ranitsa.” The Army, of course, already possessed extensive information on Stankievich, but told Washington that:

A check of files on informants of CIC revealed one Stankiewicz, first name unknown, Deputy President of White Russian Committee, and an anti-communist group existing in the US and French zones of Germany, location unknown.

2. The G-2 record section further contains information quoting to one Stankiewycz, Dr. Stanislav as follows:

Member of the organization “Byelorussian National Center,” a speaker at an Edinburgh Conference of the International Conference of Refugees held under the auspices of the Scottish League for European Freedom,” an anti-communist organization. This was a front group established by Kim Philby of the British Secret Intelligence Service, later known as the Antibolshevic Block of Nations, and later still as the World Anti-Communist League. It is the organization where the eastern European Nazi groups joined forces with their Arab Nazi brethren.

3. All other indicated files checked on 21 November 1951 disclosed no derogatory information.

Prior to submission of the sanitized report, the Army had received corroborating information from other intelligence agencies that the “Stankiewycz” who attended the Edinburgh Conference was the same person who was charged with having committed atrocities in Borissow during the German occupation, and later became editor of Ranitsa.

⁸⁵
For organization of the CIA see Select Committee Report, op. cit., pp. 12-20.

⁸⁶
Leonard Mosley,
Dulles
(Dial Press, 1978), p. 114.

⁸⁷
The CIA and the Italian election is discussed in Powers, op. cit., pp. 29-30.

⁸⁸
The Clay “war scare” cable is discussed in Select Committee Report. op. cit., p. 29.

⁸⁹
Founding of OPC is discussed in ibid., pp. 29-36.

⁹⁰
Corson, op. cit., p. 307.

⁹¹
Top Secret State Department Decimal Files, 194849. National Archives.

⁹²
Powers, op. cit., pp. 55, 73. But until his death Wisner’s name rarely appeared in print. For example,
The Nation
devoted its whole issue of June 24, 1961 to Fred J. Cook‘s 44-page article on the CIA and its operations without mentioning Wisner or the OPC.

⁹³
Stewart Alsop,
The Center
(Harper & Row, 1968), pp. 215-16.

⁹⁴
William Colby,
Honorable Men
(Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 73.

⁹⁵
Quoted in Mosley, op. cit., p. 243.

⁹⁶
General Clay was apparently aware of the connection between the Byelorussians and the Nazi government. FBI File NY97-1251 has a copy of a letter from the Byelorussians to Clay in 1948 which describes the political institutions established in Byelorussia “although under the difficult circumstances of the German occupation.”

⁹⁷
Paragraph 175, Chapter 5, p. 45 of the 1948 CIC names several other Byelorussians who had been denounced as war criminals and whose extradition was sought by the Soviets.

Chapter Six

⁹⁸
The 1948 CIC Consolidated Guidance report, paragraph 167, reported that on the previous December 10, leading White Russian personalities including “Radislau Ostrowsky (former president of the Nazi puppet state), and several other senators who had remained in comparative obscurity after the war, met in a small village near Aalan to rebuild an organization dedicated to the unity of all White Russian people in exile.”