Vic Socotra

20 June 2008

SNAFU

Comment le Pédé Va T’il?, Part Three

At the end of 1952 in Washington, there was hope and despair and confusion. Fleet sailors knew the feeling, and they had a word for it: SNAFU. “Situation normal all f***ked up.”

The new role of Washington fit the Republic like a ready-made suit in the wrong size. The Department of Defense was still chafing under it new name. The brand new Air Force questioned the relevance of ground and naval forces, though troops were still slugging it out with the Communists along a crooked line north of Seoul in Korea.

There was hope that President-elect Eisenhower could bring an Armistice, and the end of the tumultuous Truman years would bring some stability. German and Japanese technology was being harnessed in the new struggle with Soviet Russia, as were the engineers who had made it possible. There was ambiguity in the new landscape, since the struggle had been the biggest single event in the history of recorded human affairs.

There was a new intelligence organization in town as well, the Central Intelligence Agency, formed out of the Central Intelligence Group of activities that had found new missions after the conclusion of major ground operations in Europe.

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was seeking to establish itself in the new order. It had been established in 1882 to "seek out and report" on the advancements of the world’s naval establishments. ONI was- and is- the oldest continuously operating intelligence service in the United States.

It was something more. Along with the Army and FBI, it had been a charter member of what would become the Intelligence Community. That role had begun with the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 in the harbor of Spanish-controlled Havana, Cuba. With time and event, the office became responsible for the "protection of Navy Personnel, censorship and the ferreting out of spies and saboteurs."

In 1929, the Chief of Naval Operations made these functions the permanent duties of ONI. During the years immediately before World War II, Naval Intelligence became responsible for the translation, evaluation and dissemination of intercepted Japanese communications, and its budget and staff grew significantly.

After the great demobilization began in 1945, the largest fleet in history was being dismantled, and the sailors that manned it were being sent home. Naval Intelligence did not whither with it. Fleet Admiral Nimitz ensured ONI's continued strength against the rising threat from the former ally.

That former ally had been penetrating Washington in every department and every agency it could since the 1930s. The great national debate about the Reds was continuing. Alger Hiss was in jail for perjury, and the belief on the guilt or innocence of the former State Department Golden Boy was becoming the litmus test of the political left and right.

The analysts at Arlington Hall Station thought they knew the truth on the matter, though they would keep their secrets of intercepted Soviet diplomatic cables for nearly another half century. With their release much was made clear, at least as to the extent of the penetration.

The British were hopelessly compromised. Kim Philby had become the senior British Secret Service officer (MI6) in 1949, working as liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the newly created CIA. He occasionally visited Arlington Hall for discussions about the decryption of the Soviet cables. Soviet spy Guy Burgess was Second Secretary at the British Embassy, and as the evidence mounted, he fled for Russia with fellow-agent Donald Maclean.

It was not just the Brits. The new German intelligence service, financed by the CIA, was organized around the former Wehrmacht intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlan, who reported on the Russian agents in the former OSS. His ranks were riddled with Russians.

Philipe Thyraud de Vosjoli, head of French Intelligence in the United States, had suspicions about the penetration of his own service, though the full realization of how badly he was compromised would not cause him to defect to America for another decade.

Counterintelligence was the key to the threat, but it is easy to understand that it came from every direction. The Navy itself had an uneasy relationship with the Mob, and the partnership with the Luciano crime organization on the New York docks was still a matter of extraordinary sensitivity, and Governor Dewey of New York was right in the middle of it.

There were many secrets to hold. The car that took my associate to the Pentagon from the Naval Observatory pulled up in front of the South Entrance to the Pentagon on the Virginia side of the river. He got out of the sedan and walked the short distance to the bank of double-doors that led to the stately hub-and-spoke arrangement of the corridors.

The office of the Director of Naval Intelligence was on the fifth deck of the massive building, up where the corridors and staircases don’t match the ones on the floors below. Architect George E. Bergstrom had been directed to add a fourth floor to his original plan, and then a fifth while construction of the colossal structure was underway.

He did the best he could.

No place in the building is more than five minutes walk away from any other, or that is what they tell you. Every time I get off on the fifth floor, though, I get disoriented from the fact that the passages don’t match the ones below.

When my associate arrived at the DNI's office on that December Day he was in plain clothes, just as a counterintelligence spook should be. It was about being inconspicuous, though that is just what he was in the sea of uniformed. The shadows were already creeping up the vast concrete flanks of the building. He buzzed on the door, was admitted, and the secretary told him to go right into the inner office, located at the corner of the “C” Ring.

There were people waiting for him, and a haze of blue cigarette smoke.

The Director of Naval Intelligence, RADM Carl Espe, was one of them. Others in dress blues were seated in chairs around the desk. The Keeper of Secrets immediately went into the problem at hand.

“Sit down,” he said, pointing to the only chair remaining at the table in front of his desk. “We have a problem in France, and the French National Police are upset. Whenever our SIXTH Fleet ships pull into French ports, the local economy is flooded with counterfeit U.S. dollars.”

My associate must have looked skeptical, since counterfeiting was a problem for the Treasury boys. The Admiral stopped, and stated the problem again slowly.

“No military organization in Europe will give the French Sûreté any help. The Treasury has no agents in Europe. In fact, there is no US currency anywhere on the continent, since military and U.S. Government personnel stationed in Europe are paid in MPC- military payment certificates- except for the Navy. Our people are still paid in dollars, and though they know they are supposed to exchange them for MPC, the fact of the matter is that they know they can get a much better exchange rate on the Black Market. That is why this is a Navy problem.”

My associate had dealt with the same sort of problems in occupied Japan, though not to such an extent. The DNI told him that his solid work in Yokosuka had been noted, and that he seemed to be just the man to help out the Sûreté with this delicate mutual problem.

Of course he volunteered, and told the Admiral he was ready to go immediately. He was young, and unattached, and this had the smell of action.

One of the horse-holders in blue at the table said that was impossible. “Admiral,” said the officer, “This mission cannot be done on military orders, since he will be dealing with a civilian French organization. It will take at least two business days to get the paperwork done and get a passport.”

Admiral Espe growled. "It has to be done now. Let's get on with the problem and stop talking about it.” He looked across at my associate. “While you are gone, I will take care of your apartment. You don’t have a thing to worry about."

With that the group was dismissed. A Navy Captain with the four golden stripes of rank on his sleeve walked along with the In the outer office was another group of people with a difference set of secrets. Then, down the staircase and out the long spoke-like corridor to the open air under the darkening December sky. The Agent and sedan were waiting in a long line of official vehicle waiting to take the Generals and Admirals to their residences.

The Captain told the Agent to “Take him and get him into uniform - he has to be in uniform for this project. There is a small stores shop at the Navy Annex,” he said, gesturing at the boxy building on the bluff above the Pentagon. “Then get to BUPERS and start processing him to get a passport."

It was done and in the first week in December,1952, my associate departed from the MATS (Military Airport Transport Service) Terminal, Washington National Airport, outbound for the long flight to Paris Orly Airport, with a brief stop for refueling at the Naval Air Station at Keflavik in Iceland.

Sûreté would be waiting when he got there. Goodness knows who else knew he was on the way. It was hard to keep some secrets in Washington.

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