Research Symposium

BIO

Sophomore from Tallahassee, Fl with an interest in pursuing a career with the Intelligence Community.

The Enemy of My Enemy Is My friend

Abstract

Following WWII, the United States and Western Germany, under the impetus of Captain John R. Boker and former Wehrmacht Major General Reinhard Gehlen, initiated an extensive espionage operation throughout the Eastern Bloc. “Operation Rusty” played a fundamental role in early Cold War intelligence acquisition. It was the primary source of American information on the Soviet Union. However, when the Soviet Union successfully infiltrated Operation Rusty by turning a select number of its agents, it likely fed false information to the Americans and Germans. This project seeks to answer three major questions: 1. What connection is there between Gehlen’s appointment as the Chief of the German Wehrmacht Fremde Heere Ost intelligence section and a marked increase in mass murder under the Holocaust? 2. How did successful Soviet corruption of Rusty agents impact the machinations of the operation? 3. How did this corrupted information impact American Cold War domestic and foreign policy?

Keywords: Spy, Russia, Germany, WWll, CIA