Ghelen - Walker

[John Dolva]

Paul, or anyone, has anyone noted a connection between Ghelen and Walker?

[John Dolva]

. Hope noone thinks I have an answer.

Anyway part of Wiliams post in Coup d'etat may be a piece of this:

''From Russia (with love) Oswald wrote three times to the International Rescue Committee seeking assistance in returning home from the Soviet Union. Founded by Leo Cherne, the IRC was also closely affiliated with the CIA's"Operation Wringer," originally established by German Nazi Gen. Reinhard Gehlen to interview and interrogate refugees from Communist countries. Cherne was also affiliated with some anti-Castro Cuban organizations involved in the assassination. Tom Doley was affiliated with Cherene and the IRC in Vietnam and Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford appointed Leo Cherne to the PresidentsForeign Intelligence Advisory Board. There's more to the IRC than meets the eye, but I haven't had the time to find out what it is.''

[John Dolva]

It's going to be a long haul to get anywhere in this tho I have reasons for thinking it a possible useful exploration.

The main I have is a copy of 'The General was a spy'' (Hohnr and Zolling (trans.) and a number of related videos (too many to bother with for now) and related publications (ditto). However "the Gen..." is useful in following Ghelesn's rather tortuous path to surrender to the right person. Unfortunately it covers a number of pages. Too may to scan and too detailed to transcribe, but POI's are there.

Further, in the process there may be pieces in the following that may turn out to be relevant.

Further, there is a tenuous possibility that one can get to Ewald Peters through Ghelen. I've only got suggestive leads.

Nazi Espionage in Latin America

by Thomas D Schoonover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

When Heinz Lüning posed as a Jewish refugee to spy for Hitler’s Abwehr espionage agency, he thought he had discovered the perfect solution to his most pressing problem: how to avoid being drafted into Hitler’s army. Lüning was unsympathetic to Fascist ideology, but the Nazis’ tight control over exit visas gave him no chance to escape Germany. He could enter Hitler’s army either as a soldier . . . or a spy. In 1941, he entered the Abwehr academy for spy training and was given the code name “Lumann.” Soon after, Lüning began the service in Cuba that led to his ultimate fate of being the only German spy executed in Latin America during World War II.

Lüning was not the only spy operating in Cuba at the time. Various Allied spies labored in Havana; the FBI controlled eighteen Special Intelligence Service operatives, and the British counterintelligence section subchief Graham Greene supervised Secret Intelligence Service agents; and Ernest Hemingway’s private agents supplied inflated and inaccurate information about submarines and spies to the U.S. ambassador, Spruille Braden. Lüning stumbled into this milieu of heightened suspicion and intrigue. Poorly trained and awkward at his work, he gathered little information worth reporting, was unable to build a working radio and improperly mixed the formulas for his secret inks. Lüning eventually was discovered by British postal censors and unwittingly provided the inspiration for Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana.

In chronicling Lüning’s unlikely trajectory from a troubled life in Germany to a Caribbean firing squad, Thomas D. Schoonover makes brilliant use of untapped documentary sources to reveal the workings of the famed Abwehr and the technical and social aspects of Lüning’s spycraft. Using archival sources from three continents, Schoonover offers a narrative rich in atmospheric details to reveal the political upheavals of the time, not only tracking Lüning’s activities but also explaining the broader trends in the region and in local counterespionage. Schoonover argues that ambitious Cuban and U.S. officials turned Lüning’s capture into a grand victory. For at least five months after Lüning’s arrest, U.S. and Cuban leaders—J. Edgar Hoover, Fulgencio Batista, Nelson Rockefeller, General Manuel Benítez, Ambassador Spruille Braden, and others—treated Lüning as a dangerous, key figure for a Nazi espionage network in the Gulf-Caribbean. They reworked his image from low-level bumbler to master spy, using his capture for their own political gain.

In the sixty years since Lüning’s execution, very little has been written about Nazi espionage in Latin America, partly due to the reticence of the U.S. government. Revealing these new historical sources for the first time, Schoonover tells a gripping story of Lüning’s life and capture, suggesting that Lüning was everyone’s man in Havana but his own.

Synopsis:

When Heinz Lüning posed as a Jewish refugee to spy for Hitlers Abwehr espionage agency, he thought he had discovered the perfect solution to his most pressing problem: how to avoid being drafted into Hitlers army. Lüning was unsympathetic to Fascist ideology, but the Nazis tight control over exit visas gave him no chance to escape Germany. He could enter Hitlers army either as a soldier . . . or a spy. In 1941, he entered the Abwehr academy for spy training and was given the code name “Lumann.” Soon after, Lüning began the service in Cuba that led to his ultimate fate of being the only German spy executed in Latin America during World War II.

Lüning was not the only spy operating in Cuba at the time. Various Allied spies labored in Havana; the FBI controlled eighteen Special Intelligence Service operatives, and the British counterintelligence section subchief Graham Greene supervised Secret Intelligence Service agents; and Ernest Hemingways private agents supplied inflated and inaccurate information about submarines and spies to the U.S. ambassador, Spruille Braden. Lüning stumbled into this milieu of heightened suspicion and intrigue. Poorly trained and awkward at his work, he gathered little information worth reporting, was unable to build a working radio and improperly mixed the formulas for his secret inks. Lüning eventually was discovered by British postal censors and unwittingly provided the inspiration for Graham Greenes Our Man in Havana.

In chronicling Lünings unlikely trajectory from a troubled life in Germany to a Caribbean firing squad, Thomas D. Schoonover makes brilliant use of untapped documentary sources to reveal the workings of the famed Abwehr and the technical and social aspects of Lünings spycraft. Using archival sources from three continents, Schoonover offers a narrative rich in atmospheric details to reveal the political upheavals of the time, not only tracking Lünings activities but also explaining the broader trends in the region and in local counterespionage. Schoonover argues that ambitious Cuban and U.S. officials turned Lünings capture into a grand victory. For at least five months after Lünings arrest, U.S. and Cuban leadersJ. Edgar Hoover, Fulgencio Batista, Nelson Rockefeller, General Manuel Benítez, Ambassador Spruille Braden, and otherstreated Lüning as a dangerous, key figure for a Nazi espionage network in the Gulf-Caribbean. They reworked his image from low-level bumbler to master spy, using his capture for their own political gain.

In the sixty years since Lünings execution, very little has been written about Nazi espionage in Latin America, partly due to the reticence of the U.S. government. Revealing these new historical sources for the first time, Schoonover tells a gripping story of Lünings life and capture, suggesting that Lüning was everyones man in Havana but his own.

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About the Author

Thomas D. Schoonover is professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is the author of eight books, including Uncle Sams War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization, The Banana Men, and Germany in Central America.

[John Dolva]

Just having a look at ''USS The Secret History of Americas First Central Intelligence Agency by Richard Harris Smith. It looks (on 2 pages (219-20)) at Ghelen from a more US perspective than ''the general was a spy'' (first published in german) and it bears out the much longer narrative in t.g.w.a.s. while highlighting Dulles and R. Helms and gives an interesting insight into the period between WWII and the Cold War. I suspect that a further exploration can reveal this as a genesis of forces. Persons went underground with some significant ones emerging again in the early 60's.