Operation Stella Polaris

[John Dolva]

.

Edited October 5, 2005 by John Dolva

[Jim Root]

James

Do you have any context for the pictures (time, place, etc). Seems that Tikander's (almost) uncle may have been a major player in the Finnish Workinmens Association. His father was a leader in one of the first organization of Finns in Northern Minnesota. The organization that he headed had the building where the Workingmens Association began. The history is a little sketchy at present. I hope to have more soon.

What did Tikander do after 1947? Miller is also interesting for many reasons.

Jim Root

[James Richards]

Jim,

I believe the picture I posted came from 1945. It was a combination of ex 99th Battalion leaders and the 474th Infantry Regiment Commanders.

I don't have any details on what Tikander did after 1947.

Here's an image forum members might find interesting. It is the RYPE group which came out of the 99th. The guy 3rd from the right seated is none other than William Colby.

The mixing of people like Walker, Colby and later Harrod Miller is a curious thing.

James

[Jim Root]

Brought back to add some new tidbits to this thread.

Operation Stella Polaris was named after the cruise ship Stella Polaris which moved the Finnish crpto team at the end of WWII. The movement of this team of Finns was financed by the Japanese Government. Infomation about this movement was intercepted and translated by American intelligence (John B. Hurt connection, Raliegh Call???). The Finns had been successful in breaking Soviet Codes and would be usefull to American cryptologist who were beginning a program to intercept and understand the Soviet Codes (Venona). In charge of that program were Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner (these same two men would later be asked to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald's personal effects for potential intelligence connections). A plan was put into effect to capture this team of Finns with the apparent approval of Calvin Bryce Hoover (who lived in Raleigh/Durmham, North Carolina at the time of the assassination of JFK)and his associate Winston Scott (Mexico City at the time of Oswald's visit). This same ship, Stella Polaris, was also used to move Soviet POW's from Norway back to the Soviet Union at the end of the War. In charge of that POW movement and scheduling the movements of the Stella Polaris was none other than Edwin Walker.

Was Lee Harvey Oswald used in connection with the interception of Soviet Codes? Why are so many people that can be tied to LHO also tied to the "Top Secrete" program to intecept and break Soviet Codes as well as being linked to the assassination or the coverup thereof?

Jim Root

[James Richards]

Jim,

I'm glad you brought this topic back.

A little while ago, John Simkin started a thread on Guillermo Hernandez Cartaya. It contained the following information -

One of the six founding directors and stockholders of World Finance, along with Hernandez-Cartaya, was Washington lawyer Walter Sterling Surrey, described by journalist John Cummings as "a charter member of the old boy network of U.S. intelligence." Surrey had served in the OSS (the CIA's predecessor) in World War II, and after the war went to work for the State Department as head of the Division of Economic Security Controls. He resigned his position with World Finance in 1976 and has denied any knowledge of intelligence or illegal activities at the company.

Interesting to note here is that Walter Surrey was also Wilho Tikander's right hand man.

FWIW.

James

[Jim Root]

James

A little background on on Calvin Bryce Hoover mayh suggest that he and Surrey may have remained associated.

Calvin Bryce Hoover, who, by his own account, began intelligence work for the U.S. government in 1933: "From 1920 through 1958, he studied, taught and undertook research in the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. His long history of service to government began in 1933 when he became economic advisor to the Department of Agriculture. During World War II, he was responsible as an O.S.S. official for Northern Europe and Poland and the penetration of Germany from those areas. After the war, as chairman of the German Standard of Living Board and advisor to General Lucius Clay, he prepared the Hoover Report, which established Germany's postwar level of production. He was an active participant in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. In 1947 he was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

His books include Economic Life of Soviet Russia; Germany Enters The Third Reich; Dictators and Democracies; International Trade and Domestic Employment; Economic Resources and Policies of the South; and The Economy, Liberty, and the State. His autobiography, Memoirs of Capitalism, Communism and Nazism, was published in 1965. He contributed numerous articles to newspapers, magazines and professional journals.

Hoover served as President of the American Economic Association (the first Southerner to attain that distinction), the Comparative Economics Association, and the Southern Economic Association; and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society. He was widely accepted as the founder of the field of Comparative Economic Systems."

(taken from http://www.econ.duke.edu/History/Hoover/hoover.html]

Calvin B. Hoover wass to be in charge of the Intelligence Group on the Control Council and was also to be a special advisor to General Draper. In a letter to the Editor of the New York Times on October 9, 1944, Hoover wrote as follows:

The publication of Secretary Morgenthau's plan for dealing with Germany has disturbed me deeply. . . such a Carthaginian peace would leave a legacy of hate to poison international relations for generations to come. . . the void in the economy of Europe which would exist through the destruction of all German industry is something which is difficult to contemplate." This statement aligns Hoover to the McCloy-Stimson Plan, perhaps leading to his appointment.

A 1944 CED Report, International Trade and Domestic Employment, by Duke University Professor Calvin B. Hoover, helped push the United States into the International Monetary Fund, which was laid out at the Bretton Woods Conference in June, 1944, by chief negotiators Harry Dexter White(of the CFR) and John Maynard Keynes (of the Fabian Society); and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank); which both became part of the United Nations. It also helped motivate Establishment backing for what later emerged as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.

McCloy would lead the World Bank.

Also: "Consultant Calvin Hoover's memoirs shed some light on this controversy. He describes the Board of National Estimates as follows (Hoover, p. 270):

It was the responsibility of our board to produce intelligence estimates which could be used as the background by the appropriate agencies of our government for decisions on long-term international policies and on current action required, particularly those within the competency of the National Security Council. National intelligence estimates had to be provided covering a very large number of countries and particular situations, all involving in some fashion the threat of Soviet aggression. For example, how explosive was the political, social, and economic situation in Iran? When Mossadegh came to power, to what extent was he under the domination of the local Communist party and was the Communist party effectively controlled by Moscow? If the oil resources of Iran were nationalized, would they be made available to the Soviet government and could they effectively be utilized? How serious would be the loss of these resources to the West?'

Hoover's reference to Mossadegh raises a question about the role of "estimates" in at least one actual CIA operation: the 1953 coup in Iran that put the Shah back onto the throne for the next 25 years.

Economist Calvin Hoover was one of Averell Harriman's top advisers on the Marshall Plan.

Hoover remained at Duke University until his retirement in 1966.

Interesting man.

Jim Root

[James Richards]

Jim,

Yes indeed, Hoover is a very interesting man.

He did a fascinating 4 year study with economist B.U. Ratchford regarding monetary issues of the South and how their best and brightest were lured to the North and East. There were also curious references to big money and its influence on government policy.

FWIW.

James

[Jim Root]

James

Another name to add to this thread is Reino Hayhanen.

Hayhanen was the key to the capture and conviction of the Russian spy Rudolf Abel (later exchanged for Francis Gary Powers). Seems that Hayhanen spent a great deal of time in Finland during and after WWII. He would later be infiltrated into the US by taking on the identity of a Carilien Finn, Eugene Nicolai Maki. The real Eugene Nicolai Maki had returned to the Soviet Union via the organization that Tikander's family was involved with.

Is it possible that Hayhanen had been "turned" much earlier than 1957?

I refuse to believe that Oswald's use of Helsinki, Finland to enter the Soviet Union was a random act.

Jim Root

[James Richards]

Interesting, Jim.

Hayhanen I believe was also responsible for the arrest of a U.S. embassy worker in Moscow named Roy Rhodes. I think there might be more to that than meets the eye as well.

James

[Jim Root]

Interesting, Jim.

Hayhanen I believe was also responsible for the arrest of a U.S. embassy worker in Moscow named Roy Rhodes. I think there might be more to that than meets the eye as well.

James

James

As a young child, Roy Adair Rhodes was my next door neighbor. My mother used to babysit his daughter.

While Rhodes was a key whitness in he trial of Rudolf Able it was Hayhanen who started the ball rolling toward the exposure of Able and his network. Hayhanen's entrance into the US as a Karelian Finn (especially one who had returned to the Soviet Union via an organization the Tikander was involved with) is what I find interesting herel

During WWII Hayhanen was involved in Soviet Intelligence, working in Finland, and was considered an expert on Finnish matters by the KGB during and after the war. This information seems to provide Tikander with an opportunity to have known at least about him or who he was. Then we find Hayhanen/Maki living in Finland for several years, to establish his new identity, before comming to the United States as an American born Karelian Finn ( Once again the real Maki's family having returned to the Soviet Union with the help of an organization that Tikander's family was involved with.

From what I am currently speculating, after my recent trip to Tikanders stomping grounds in St. Louis County, MN, Tikander returned home after the war, runniig for Congress in 1948 in Minnesota. Tikandr then disappears from the radar (as well as the community, family and friends, that he had returned to). While it may be a coincidence this disappearance seems to coincide with Hayhanen's entry into Finland as Maki.

One more sidebar. I started another thread on Marina Oswald's benifactor in Dallas, GEORGE ALEXANDROVITCH BOUHE.

A few, perhaps, unimportant, points:

1. Bouhe worked, as a young Russian, with the Hoover Relief program and befriend several administrators from that program.

2. When Bouhe "escaped" the Soviet Union he did so via Finland

3. On October 7th 1962, apparently with Bouhe present, Lee Harvey Oswald announced that he had been fired from his job (which he had not been) and that he was moving to Dallas.

4. Upon his move to Dallas, Oswald was in constant contact with Bouhe for at least the first few weeks.

According to the Warren Report Bouhe did not like Oswald and tried to get Marina to leave him but the fact remains that when Oswald went to Dallas there were numerous phone calls between Oswald and Bouhe. These calls, according to Bough, amounted to nothing but taunts by Oswald about how well he was doing without him. Bough is also the man who intoduced Oswald to de Mohrenschildts, who would remain in contact with Oswald for the remainder of time until the Kennedy assassination.

Jim Root

[Guest David Guyatt]

Jim and James,

Forgive me for jumping in where Angels fear to tread. I’m not a JFK researcher in the slightest, but a couple of things in this thread made my ears xxxxx up.

It’s probably nothing, however.

But I wonder if the operation name “Stella Polaris” may have had more to it than just the name of the cruise ship? One of the highest chivalric awards given by the Swedish crown is the Order of the Pole Star (i.e., Stella Polaris) and because of Sweden’s laundering of Nazi gold during the war (and the connections you have spoken of already), I wonder if there might to a relationship here worth pursuing. My experience is that such chivalric orders very often conceal intelligence activity because that activity benefits from security having a double level of protection, so to speak.

James Murphy of X2 is not, I take it, Joe Murphy, former USSS head of Europe?

On Swedish gold I have a copy of an interesting little bullion certificate issued on a Swedish bank that hasn’t existed for well over a hundred years (if it existed at all), but which is non-the-less said to have been nested inside the Swedish central bank, for purposes of denial. The purported holder (a “painted face”) was Todor Zhivkon (sic), better known as Todor Zhivkov, the former Communist leader of Bulgaria, who btw, was a friend of the suicided British media baron, Robert Maxwell. Officially, the bullion certificate is claimed to be a fake. But you have to ask yourself if even Homer Simpson would manufacture a chocolate certificate, let alone a bullion certificate, on a non-existent bank?

From hereon in things begin to get a little quirky, but I hope you won’t be put off by it (most people are however, which is why I add this caution).

E Howard Hunt, who James referenced earlier, was peculiar as an author who wrote several novels under the pen name of David St. John – where one wonders if the “St. John” pen name may well have been a moniker (not just for the names his two sons “David” and “St. John”), but also for the British chivalric Order of St. John…

The peculiarity I mentioned is that a number of these novels were on the curious subject of Satanism and the occult, witchcraft etc. The titles are “Diabolus”, “Coven” and “Sorcerers”. I have often wondered about this strange departure (or would “irruption” be a better word?) into an otherwise alien world (one imagines) for a former spook who wrote a total of 47 novels in all.

Anyway. If you look deeply into the name “Stella Polaris” you will begin hitting some strange occult highways and byways. There is a reason for this. If you Google the name “The Polaires”, circa WWII you will meet with some success. “Polaires + Nazis” is a useful search term.

This will, via a labyrinthine process take you to the wholly mythical “Priory of Sion” and if you are able or inclined to read my essay “The Spoils of War” – freely available on the internet – you’ll see that this leads (in part) to Annemasse on the French-Swiss border. Home of Gladio. In moments of speculative repose, I ponder how this Europe-wide beast may have been funded…

Finally, the London Bullion Market Association has a house journal (they used to send me a copy but suddenly stopped doing so, no explanation offered). It is called “Alchemist”. Their logo is half of a golden sun (to the left) conjunct-ed with half a silver moon (to the right). The design of this logo is not by chance, nor is it a reference to the alchemists of the middle ages turning lead into gold (a feat that is said to have been achieved and which, apparently can be achieved technologically these days, if the whispers are true). The logo is a conjunction of the Sun and the Moon as represented by the metallic correspondences of those two heavenly bodies, namely gold and silver. In other words, occult lore to the front.

My apologies for being so lengthy in this post. It is not an easy subject to condense.

David

[James Richards]

David,

Thanks for that background, very interesting.

And, Jim, here is a rare photo of Reino Hayhanen.

James

[Antti Hynonen]

James,

You are unbelievable with the photos.

Jim, I'll jump in here and give a little more background on what the Finnish Wikipedia had on Häyhänen and Mäki. (The info below is from Wikipedia)

Like you said, Mäki was a Finnish-American who (for some reason) moved to the USSR, only to disappear in Stalin's Soviet Union. The Soviets kept Eugen Mäki's Finnish ID card and issued it to Häyhänen at the Soviet occupied -Finnish Porkkala peninsula base in 1949. (Häyhänen was soviet born, but Ingrian = this is a group of peoples with genetic and cultural ties to Finnish people and many of them speak Finnish, although they are Russian/Soviet citizens. Ingrians are chiefly in the current day St. Petersburg area and south of St. Petersburg).

During the end of the 1940's and early 1950's Häyhänen's new ID was established and strengthened in Finland by manipulating the Finnish system and using the given ID card. Häyhänen (now Mäki) even married in Finland apparently somewhere in the 1949-1952 period, and appeared to live a normal life here as a re-setlled Finnish American. In 1951 using Mäki's (Finnish -American) ID he went to the US Embassy in Helsinki and obtained a US passport. In 1952 he moved to the US and worked as a KGB spy with Rudolf Abel.

According to the Finnish Wikipedia, Häyhänen was not suspected of spying for the USSR while in Finland, or at least there was no official evidence of such. Apparently Häyhänen's main goal while in Finland those years (1949-1952) was to obtain a new identity enabling his move to the USA. Further it states that in 1957 Häyhänen (Mäki) defected to the USA and gave information which led to the arrest and conviction of KGB colonel Rudolf Abel. Rudolf Abel was exchanged for Gary Powers in 1962.

Edited July 23, 2007 by Antti Hynonen

[Antti Hynonen]

http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/abel/abel.htm

The Fed's wrote a nice piece on the entire Hayhanen/Abel episode (link above).

[Jim Root]

Antti

Great to hear from you again.

Excuse my ignorance here but are the Ingrians and Karelian Finns in any way related? In the past few weeks I have received a great deal of information on Swedish Finns and Finn Swedish connections as well as Karelian Finns (both Red and White). Still trying to understand all the connections but seems to be as interesting as trying to understand what is the ethniticiy of an American!

The period of time from 1939 until 1945 is of great interest to me in regards to Hayhanen. Where he was and what he was doing. As I understand it it was during this time that he began to be regarded as an expert in Finnish affairs for the Soviets. His reapperance in Finland in 1949 coincides with the disapperance of Tikander from history (something that I am still attempting to unravel). Neither Hayhanen or Tikander appear in the Social Security Death Index (not that this is complete) suggesting that they were both working for the US Government for the rest of their lives.

As I understand it Hayhanen officially died as the result of a drunk driving accident soon after the Abel trial was completed and that Soviet Intelligence took credit for his death.

Hayhanen is also creditied with providing information about Soviet codes after his defection. Although these codes seem to have been for used by lower level opperatives the Venona connection is none the less made.

Antti, what is your take on the Karlian Finns?

Jim Root