Here's a recent book on Operation Rollback, the events your correspondent is referring to:
Operation Rollback - Peter Grose
In Stock:Ships within 24 hours Same Day Delivery In Manhattan Format: Hardcover, 256pp. ISBN: 0395516064 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: May 2000 sales rank: 134,631
Description from The Reader's Catalog An intelligent and suspenseful tell-all about America's clandestine activities behind the Iron Curtain in the waning days of World War II. Grose's account makes plain the why and how of the cold war that followed. Includes an eight-page black-and-white photo insert and one map.
From the Publisher After the collapse of Nazi power in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union started secretly mobilizing forces against each other, building intricate networks of spies and digging in for the postwar era." "America's secret action plan was known as Rollback, an audacious strategy of espionage, subversion, and sabotage to foment insurrection in the Soviet satellite countries. The architect of the plan, an enigmatic American diplomat first known to the world under the pseudonym "X," publicly advocated an effort to "contain" communism. But following his legendary Long Telegram, Mr. X - George Kennan - devised a program of active confrontation with the Soviets through covert action. Within the secret councils of the Truman administration, hidden from the public as well as from most of the government, Kennan and his colleagues set in motion a series of daring and dramatic, though ultimately failed, secret missions behind the Iron Curtain.
From the Critics
From Arch Puddington - Weekly Standard In Operation Rollback, a history of this unusually aggressive anti-Soviet campaign, Peter Grose has written one of the more intelligent accounts of America's early Cold War policies, A former correspondent and a biographer of Allen Dulles, Grose refrains from over-dramatizing an interesting, but certainly not pivotal, chapter in the East-West conflict. His fair-mindedness stands in sharp contrast to the demonization of America's Cold war planners found in earlier Cold War studies.
From Chace - The New York Times Grose, the biographer of Allen Dulles, the director of central intelligence under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, tells the riveting story of brave, patriotic and staunchly anti-Communist Americans and refugees in their struggle against the Soviet leviathan. He is fair-minded and sympathetic to the intentions of these courageous men and women.
From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly As WWII came to a close, the Soviet Union and the United States--uneasy allies in the agonizing struggle to defeat Hitler--began maneuvering their intelligence agencies against one another into what would eventually become the dangerously polarized Cold War. Grose (Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles, 1994) is a former New York Times foreign correspondent, the former executive editor of Foreign Affairs and now a Kennedy School of Government fellow at Harvard. He tells a fascinating and well-documented tale of intrigue and double-dealing during this heady period of covert policy making and secret actions. He reveals that it was none other than legendary Sovietologist George Kennan who helped orchestrate American strategy, advocating containment of the Soviet Union with one hand, and secretly working against his own official policy with the other--culminating in a secret plot to throw the Communists out of Eastern Europe. Kennan's plan, Operation Rollback, aimed to subvert the Soviet empire by stirring up resistance in its satellite countries. Grose, using newly declassified material from both the U.S. and former U.S.S.R., takes us through the intricate machinations of Rollback and its architects, presenting a hitherto untold tale of a project that was kept secret even from the CIA, and includes enough revelations throughout to sustain the tension. He writes, for example, that Rollback's planners circumvented Congress entirely and funded the operation with unaudited U.S. Treasury and Marshall Plan dollars, and that Soviet authorities were tipped off about the operation by such spies as the British Kim Philby. Students of American politics will be surprised to learn that a prominent figure from 1960s' antiwar activism, William Sloan Coffin, trained undercover saboteurs for Rollback missions. Thorough, thought-provoking and entertaining, this is a work that casts considerable light on a topic that has long lingered in the shadows. Photos not seen by PW. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Ken Smith (solol at gte.net), scientist from Goleta, CA, July 26, 2000, A History of early American Covert Operations In January 1946, George F. Kennon, a career diplomat trained in Soviet Affairs, became the ambassador to the U.S.S.R. when Averell Harriman returned to the United States. Kennon wrote many dispatches about the turmoil within the Soviet Union, but they were largely ignored. When asked to write an 'Interpretive Analysis' of Soviet statements regarding international institutions, Kennon let loose with both barrels. This paper became the basis for future American policies towards the Soviet Union. This is a fine account of the people and early (if inept) efforts by the U.S. to subvert the Soviet control of Eastern Europe just after WWII. The book traces the political background and the maneuvering of the World Powers and is instructive as to the current environments in Albania, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and the emerging Balkan States. The early efforts of the OPC (Office of Policy Coordination), that were mostly thwarted by the infamous spy Kim Philby (British Liaison Officer), are covered in some depth. The OPC was later absorbed by the CIA. Also discussed are the secret ways the OPC was financed and its existence kept hidden from the American public. I had never heard of the OPC, but these guys were responsible for covert operations. They tried to stir up trouble within the Soviet sphere of influence, including the Soviet Union itself. They trained operators recruited from Eastern European Refugees, arranged and carried out parachute drops of agents behind the Iron Curtain, smuggled weapons, and dispersed money to agents and sympathizers. They also carried out propaganda campaigns and started Radio Free Europe. It is interesting that the Soviets had so penetrated the political parties and intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Great Britain long before World War II started. What is also fascinating is that we knew about much of their spying efforts and for a long time chose to ignore them. There were a lot of sympathizers in the U.S. that were rooting for the socialist experiment. This is a fine book for students of Political Science, Post WWII History, and fans of the history of covert operations. I have read many novels and seen many movies about secret operations, but they pale compared to the real stuff!
There are more references in NC's Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (South End Press, 1985). On the general theme of counterrevolution in Europe after WWII, there are many more references. See the essay "Democracy in the Industrial Societies" in Deterring Democracy - Noam Chomsky (Verso, early '90's).
MP
>I'm not familiar enough with all of Chomsky's work to know, but the
>following claims are being made by a real drooling dolt on another
>list. What is he talking about, anyone know?
>
><paste>
>Chomsky claims the following: that in the first battle
>of the postwar struggle with the Soviet Empire, "the
>United States was picking up where
>the Nazis had left off."
>
>He further claims that during the Cold War, American
>operations behind the Iron Curtain included "a 'secret army'
>under US-Nazi auspices that sought to provide agents and military
>supplies to armies that had been established by Hitler and which
>were still operating inside the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
>through the early 1950s."
>
>Do you believe those to be accurate statements?
>
></paste>
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