Early Cold War intelligence paper mills: the case of the Association of Hungarian Veterans

ABSTRACT

During the early Cold War, it was difficult for American intelligence to penetrate the Iron Curtain but a potential solution soon arose: émigré intelligence groups such as the Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közössége (MHBK) or ‘Association of Hungarian Veterans’. This group, however, turned out to be an intelligence ‘paper mill’. Attempts at trans-Atlantic cooperation with the MHBK and similar groups failed as they lost most of their good sources and were penetrated by communist security services. By the mid-1950s, US intelligence cut these groups off, took over their good sources, and established a source registry to prevent recurrence of the problem.

KEYWORDS:

• Espionage
• Hungary
• United States
• émigrés
• intelligence
• Cold War
• Central Intelligence Agency
• communism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Benjamin Tromly, ‘The Making of a Myth: The National Labor Alliance, Russian Émigrés, and Cold War Intelligence Activities’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 1 (2016): 80–111; Simo Mikkonen, ‘Exploiting the Exiles: Soviet Émigrés in U.S. Cold War Strategy’, Journal of Cold War Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 98–127; Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War behind the Iron Curtain (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000); Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 29–50; Ronald D. Landa, ‘Almost Successful Recipe: The United States and East European Unrest prior to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution’ (unpublished history written for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, n.d.); and National Security Archive, ‘Eisenhower Concluded Neither U.S. Military Operations Nor Popular Uprisings Were Feasible in Soviet-Controlled Eastern Europe, Despite “Rollback” Rhetoric’, 28 February 2017, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB581-Eisenhower-views-on-fighting-communism-in-Eastern-Europe-in-1950s/ accessed 7 April 2023.

² Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: New Press, 2000); Wilford, Mighty Wurlitzer; Hugh Wilford, ‘Calling the Tune? The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War, 1945–1960’ and Karen Paget, ‘From Stockholm to Leiden: The CIA’s Role in the Formation of the International Student Conference’, in The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–60, ed. Hans Krabbendam and Giles Scott-Smith (Abingdon: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003), 41–52 and 134–67.

³ For exceptions, see Igor Lukes, ‘Rudolf Slansky: His Trials and Trial’, Cold War International History Project Working Paper #50, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, 2011, 35–63; Igor Lukes, ‘The Rudolf Slansky Affair: New Evidence’, Slavic Review 58, no. 1 (1999): 160–87; and Mark Stout, ‘Émigré Intelligence Reporting: Sifting Fact from Fiction’, in Handbook of Intelligence Studies, ed. Loch Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2007), 253–68. Portions of the present paper draw on Stout, ‘Émigré Intelligence Reporting’.

⁴ CIA records cited are from the CIA Freedom of Information Act Reading Room (hereafter ‘CIA FOIA RR’) at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/ accessed 7 April 2023, unless otherwise specified. The CIA FOIA RR now includes the entire contents of the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST) which was previously only available at National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, MD. Unless otherwise noted, all material from NARA regarding the MHBK is from RG 65, Entry A1-136X, Box 1, File 97–2994. The Rakoczi Foundation papers at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa contain significant materials on the MHBK. They are found at MG 28 V162 and will be referred to as ‘LACRF’. Also useful has been material in Budapest from the Historical Archives of State Security (Állambiztonsági Szolgalatok Törtenetni Leveltár), hereafter ‘ABTL’.

⁵ Military National Security Service, ‘Historical Background’, http://knbsz.gov.hu/en/history.htm accessed 30 January 2018.

⁶ Mihály Soós, ‘Z, egy megfigyelés története’, Betekintő no. 3 (2010). Online journal of the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security, http://www.betekinto.hu/2010_3_soos accessed 7 April 2023.

⁷ ‘Curriculum Vitae András Zákó’, 1948, MG 28 V162, volume 18, folder 16, LACRF.

⁸ Lajos Hajma, ‘A katonai felderités és hírszerzés története’, 93, 97, Miklós Zrínyi National Defense University, https://zmne.hu/tanszekek/Hadtorenelem/tematika/spy/hirszerezes.doc accessed 2 February 2017.

⁹ ‘NEY, Dr. Karl’, 6-7-0-804, 15 October 1952, CIA FOIA RR.

¹⁰ ‘A Kopjás Mozgalom Felajanlása A Nyugati Emigracioban Lévo Magyar Katonai Vezetés Számara’, June 1947, M28 V162, volume 18, folder 6, LACRF.

¹¹ ‘Kopjas Mozgalom a haboru vegeig’, MG 28 V162, volume 12, folder 2, LACRF.

¹² ‘A Kopjás Mozgalom’.

¹³ Ildikó Zsitnyányi, ‘Egy Titkos “Háború Természete”: A Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Köszössége Tagjaival Szemben: Lefoytatott Internálási és Büntetőeljárási Gyakorlat 1948–1950’, 2, Orszagos Szchenyi Konyvtar, http://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00018/00022/pdf/ accessed 30 January 2018.

¹⁴ Malcolm J. Proudfoot, European Refugees, 1939–1952: A Study in Forced Population Movement (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1956), 243–5.

¹⁵ ‘A Kopjás Mozgalom’.

¹⁶ Zákó Papers, dosszie 0–133-359, 35–38, ABTL.

¹⁷ Antal Radnóczy, ‘The Hungarian Veterans’ Association’, by Magda Sasvári, trans. World Federation of Hungarian Veterans MHBK, https://web.archive.org/web/20080414195601/http://members.shaw.ca/czink/mhbk/mhbk.htm, accessed 19 February 2017; CIA Information Report, ‘Magyar Harcosok Bajtarsi Közösége (League of Hungarian Veterans)’, 11 October 1950, NARA.

¹⁸ Borbándi Gyula, ‘A Kopjás Mozgalom’: A Magyar Emigráció Életrajza 1945–1985 [The history of Hungarian emigration 1945–1985] (Bern: Európai Protestáns Magyar Szabadegyetem, 1985), 12.

¹⁹ For a discussion of the career of Ferenc Kisbarnaki Farkas, see Tamás Kovács, ‘Detours in the Life of a General: Ferenc Kisbarnaki Farkas, Order of Vitéz’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 28, no. 1 (2015): 239–58.

²⁰ Borbándi, A Magyar emigráció életrajza, 12.

²¹ Ibid., 35–41.

²² Ibid., 42–3.

²³ Ibid., 48.

²⁴ ‘Addendum #1, 12 April 1948, “Tibor Eckhardt and Count Jozsef Palffy’s Conditions”’, MG 28 V162, volume 18, folder 6, LACRF.

²⁵ Richard Helms, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Random House, 2003), 96.

²⁶ Katalin Kádár Lynn, ‘At War While at Peace: United States Cold War Policy and the National Committee for a Free Europe, Inc’, in The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare: Cold War Organizations Sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe/Free Europe Committee, ed. Katalin Kádár Lynn (Saint Helena: Helena History Press, 2013), 35–6.

²⁷ Katalin Kádár Lynn, Tibor Eckhardt, His American Years 1941–1972 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2007), 219.

²⁸ Zákó Papers; Dosszie: 0–133-359, ‘Szervezeti Felépítése Beosztottai Ügynökség’, AVK. A 861/2 VKF −2, 4, ABTL. For the history of the Pond, see Mark Stout and Katalin Kádár Lynn, ‘“Every Hungarian of Any Value to Intelligence”: Tibor Eckhardt, John Grombach, and the Pond’, Intelligence and National Security 31, no. 5 (2016): 699–714; and See also Mark Stout, ‘The Pond: Running Agents for State, War, and the CIA’, Studies in Intelligence 48, no. 3 (2004): 69–82.

²⁹ ‘Korponay Submission to the Court & Related Correspondence. Személyi Adatok – Personal documents’, April 11, 2012, 1948, MG 28 V162, volume 12, folder 12, LACRF.

³⁰ One such was László Agh, the US president of the MHBK from 1949. Agh was not involved in the MHBK’s intelligence operations. See Norman J. W. Goda, ‘Nazi Collaborators in the United States: What the FBI Knew’, in U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, ed. Richard Breitman, et al., (Washington: National Archives Trust Fund Board for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, 2004), 231–7.

³¹ On Lebed, see Richard Breitnman and Norman J.W. Goda, Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War (Washington: National Archives and Records Administration, 2010), 85–91. On the NTS, see Tromly, ‘The Making of a Myth’. and David C. S. Albanese, ‘“It Takes a Russian to Beat a Russian”: The National Union of Labor Solidarists, Nationalism; and Human Intelligence Operations in the Cold War’, Intelligence and National Security 32, no. 6 (2017): 782–96.

³² Breitman and Goda, Hitler’s Shadow, 80–1.

³³ Chief of Station Karlsruhe, to Chief, FBM, MGM-A-793, 20 October 1948, CIA FOIA RR.

³⁴ FBM to OPC, October 22, 1948, CIA FOIA RR.

³⁵ Kevin C. Ruffner, ‘Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists’, 1998, 34, CIA FOIA RR.

³⁶ Kevin Wright, Looking Down the Corridors: Allied Aerial Espionage Over East Germany and Berlin, 1945–1990 (Stroud: The History Press, 2015).

³⁷ Stephen Budiansky, Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War against the Soviet Union (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016), 109–13.

³⁸ Christian Schlaepfer, ‘Signals Intelligence and British Counter-subversion in the Early Cold War’, Intelligence and National Security 29, no. 1 (2014): 82–98; and Budiansky, Code Warriors, 113–19.

³⁹ For a discussion of the difficulties of US intelligence personnel operating out of Prague see Igor Lukes, On the Edge of the Cold War: American Diplomats and Spies in Postwar Prague (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). For a description of the obstacles to work imposed by state security on a US military attaché in the USSR in 1956–1958, see Thomas W. Wolfe, ‘Obstacle Course for Attaches’, Studies in Intelligence 4, no. 3 (1960): 71–7.

⁴⁰ CIA, ‘Paper Mills and Fabrication’, IA-6, February 1952, CIA FOIA RR. Lukes, ‘Rudolf Slansky’.

⁴¹ See, e.g. The Secret War Report of the OSS, ed. Anthony Cave Brown (New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1976).

⁴² Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe (New York: Doubleday, 2012), chap. 4.

⁴³ See, e.g. the WiN deception that the Polish service ran against the British and Americans. John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 74–5.

⁴⁴ Applebaum, Iron Curtain, 77–8.

⁴⁵ Ferenc Kubinyi, ‘Recsk – Gulag the Hungarian Way’, New Hungarian Quarterly 30, no. 115 (1989): 107.

⁴⁶ Christopher Felix (pseud. James McCargar), A Short Course in the Secret War. 4th ed. (Lanham: Madison Book, 2001), 203–9.

⁴⁷ The Soviets implemented a programme of kidnappings targeting former residents of Soviet satellite countries, a special objective being eliminating Austrian informants employed by the CIC. U.S Army Intelligence Center, History of the Counter Intelligence Corps, Volume XXV, Fort Holabird, MD, March 1959, 40, RG 319, Entry UD 1080, Box 7, NARA.

⁴⁸ Steven Béla Vardy, The Hungarian Americans (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985), 116.

⁴⁹ For examples, see David Alvarez and Eduard Mark, Spying through a Glass Darkly: American Espionage against the Soviet Union, 1945–1946 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016), 206–11.

⁵⁰ While this paper’s focus is on the MHBK, US intelligence subsidised another Hungarian intelligence organisation. Originally calling itself the Magyar Közösség (Hungarian Community), it operated during the war as an anti-Nazi network and was composed primarily of members of Hungarian civilian government. The group survived the war and returned to intelligence work. Within a few years it was heavily infiltrated. Re-established in the United States, the network was run by deposed Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy as part of the Hungarian National Council and funded through the FEC. This group was probably even more compromised than the MHBK as a May 1951 report by Tibor Eckhardt and entitled ‘Memorandum Concerning an Insecure Hungarian Network’ indicates, Fond 470, Collection Emigráció, Box 18 (temporary numbering), 11–18, Országos Széchenyi Keziratár (Hungarian National Library Archival Collection), Budapest.

⁵¹ ‘A Kopjás Mozgalom Zákó Vezerörnaggyal Való Talalkozásig’, MG 28 V162, volume 12, folder 12, LACRF.

⁵² HQ US Forces in Austria (Rear), G-2 to G-2, General Staff, US Army, Washington, DC, ‘Collegial Society of Hungarian War Veterans’, 11 October 1950, RG 65, Entry A1-136X, Box 1, File 97–2994, NARA.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Rakoczi Foundation, ‘Szemelyi Resz’, 28 October 1947, MG 28 V162, volume 18, folder 14, LACRF.

⁵⁵ HQ US Forces in Austria (Rear), G-2 ‘Collegial Society of Hungarian War Veterans’; and Heinz Hohne and Hermann Zolling, The General Was a Spy (New York: Bantam 1972), 170.

⁵⁶ HQ US Forces in Austria (Rear), G-2 ‘Collegial Society of Hungarian War Veterans’.

⁵⁷ FBI New York Field Office, ‘Collegial Society of Hungary Veterans’, 22 June 1950, NARA.

⁵⁸ CIA Information Report, ‘Magyar Harcosok Bajtarsi Közösége (League of Hungarian Veterans)’, 11 October 1950, NARA; HQ US Forces in Austria (Rear), G-2, ‘Collegial Society of Hungarian War Veterans’.

⁵⁹ ‘Pages “A” to “E” (Part of an 18 page report, most probably written by M. Korponay in the early 1950-ies)’, MG 28, V162, volume 8, file 21, LACRF.

⁶⁰ Untitled map, n.d., MG 28, V162, volume 19, folder 5, LACRF.

⁶¹ 3.19. V 90034/ dosszie 1–4 ‘Dósa Attila és Tarsai’, ABTL; István Ferhérváry, The Long Road to Revolution: The Hungarian Gulag 1945–1956 (Santa Fe: Pro Libertate Publishing, 1989); and Imre Okváth, ed., Katonai Perek a Kommunista Diktatúra Időszakában 1945–1958 (Budapest: Történeti Hivatal, 2001).

⁶² Minutes of the ÁVO interrogation of Frigyes Hefty, Hungarian Air Force Lieutenant one of Lontay’s agents, 8 February 1949, dosszie 319 V-90034/2, ABTL.

⁶³ 3.19 V 90034/4 Dósa Attila és Tarsai, ABTL.

⁶⁴ Felix, Short Course in the Secret War, 175; and Alvarez and Mark, Spying 203, 212–13.

⁶⁵ The name of James McCargar, who served at the US Embassy and engineered the escape of 75 Hungarians in 1947 is misspelled as MacCragen in ÁVO reports of February 1948. 3.2.4 K1423 Dessewffy Gyula file, ABTL. For misattribution of agents to the CIC see references to Attila Kovács and General Vilmos Nagybaczoni Nagy in ‘Szovjet ab szervektol atvet anyagok’ [Materials received from the Soviet Constitutional Court], dosszie A 872–1, ABTL, 370.

⁶⁶ Zsitnyányi, ‘Egy Titkos “Háború Természete”’, 2.

⁶⁷ Ibd., 3.

⁶⁸ Krisztián Ungváry, ‘Démy-Gerő Sándor élettörtenétte’, Betekintő 13, no. 1. (2019): 5–23.

⁶⁹ Soós, ‘Z, egy megfigyelés története’, 3: 20.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 18, 21.

⁷¹ Dosszie ‘MHBK’, 1530 0–15-101/2, 231, ABTL.

⁷² Dosszie, ‘MHBK’, 1530 0–15-101/2., 275, ABTL.

⁷³ Fehérváry, Long Road to Revolution, 80; ‘Section D./ A Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közösége Központjában’, 1950, 31, Rakoczi Foundation MG 28 V162 Volume 12, folder 12. Jpg 3327, LACRF.

⁷⁴ Counter Intelligence Corps, 430^th Detachment, ‘Circumstance surrounding the Attempted Abduction of ZAKO, Andreas and Death of KOVACZ [sic], Attila’, 25 May 1950, CIA FOIA RR.

⁷⁵ Zsitnyányi,‘Háború Természete’, 9–12.

⁷⁶ Fehérváry, Long Road to Revolution, 107.

⁷⁷ Zsitnyányi, ‘Háború Természete’, 5.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 2.

⁷⁹ Helms, Look over My Shoulder, 97.

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ CIA, ‘Paper Mills and Fabrication’.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Helms, Look over My Shoulder, 98.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 97.

⁸⁵ Ibid, 97–8; [Jessel] to Chief, Inspection and Security Staff, 5 February 1952, CIA FOIA RR.

⁸⁶ CIA, ‘Magyar Harcosok Bajtarsi Kozosege (League of Hungarian Veterans)’.

⁸⁷ CIA, ‘Paper Mills and Fabrication’.

⁸⁸ CIA ‘Magyar Harcosok Bajtarsi Kozosege (League of Hungarian Veterans)’.

⁸⁹ [Jessel] to Chief, Inspection and Security Staff.

⁹⁰ Chief, FDM to Chief of Base, Salzburg, MAS-W-138, 28 May 1951, CIA FOIA RR; CIA, ‘Paper Mills and Fabrication’.

⁹¹ CIA Cable WASH 029 July 1864, 1951, CIA FOIA RR.

⁹² Chief, FDM to Chief of Base, Salzburg, MAS-W-138.

⁹³ Helms, Look over My Shoulder, 97; CIA, ‘Paper Mills and Fabrication’.

⁹⁴ Chief of Station, Vienna, to Chief, Foreign Division M, MASA-857, 8 October 1951, CIA FOIA RR.

⁹⁵ Chief EE/Hungary to Chief, Political and Psychological Warfare, 15 December 1952, CIA FOIA RR.

⁹⁶ ‘Director’s Log’, November 9, 1951; CIA, Routing and record sheet, 19 November 1951, CIA FOIA RR.

⁹⁷ Chief of Station, Vienna, to Chief, Foreign Division M, MASA-857; ‘No. 3 Hungary’, 5 January 1953; ‘No. 68 Hungary’, February 11, 1953; ‘No. 171 Hungary’, April 24, 1953; ‘No. 277 Hungary-Poland-Military’, 6 July 1953, all CIA FOIA RR.

⁹⁸ Chief, WE to [Redacted], ‘Operation VENUS’, OBBW-246, 7 April 1953, CIA FOIA RR.

⁹⁹ [Jessel] to Chief, Inspection and Security Staff.

¹⁰⁰ O. W.G. Wyman to Director, Office of Special Investigations, Department of the Air Force, 26 February 1951; [Jessel] to Chief, Inspection and Security Staff, 5 February 1952, CIA FOIA RR.

¹⁰¹ Helms, Look over My Shoulder, 98–9.

¹⁰² [Jessel], ‘For File’, 10 September 1951, CIA FOIA RR.

¹⁰³ ‘Informational Memo No. 11’, 3 December 1951; Informational Memorandum No. 10, 18 December 1951, both CIA FOIA RR.; [Jessel] to Chief, Inspection and Security Staff.

¹⁰⁴ CIA, ‘Paper Mills and Fabrication’.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid.

¹¹⁰ Helms, Look over My Shoulder, 97.

¹¹¹ Telephone interview of Peter M. F. Sichel by Mark Stout, 14 February 2005.

¹¹² Intelligence Advisory Committee, IAC-D-54/3, 30 April 1957; ‘Approved at IAC on 14 May 1957: Intelligence Advisory Committee’, IAC-M-289, 14 May 1957, both CIA FOIA RR.

¹¹³ Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ‘Human Intelligence’, Intelligence Community Directive 304, 9 July 2009, https://fas.org/irp/dni/icd/icd-304.pdf accessed 7 April 2023.

¹¹⁴ See the CIA’s file on Ferenc Kozma declassified pursuant to the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act available at the CIA’s FOIA Reading Room.

¹¹⁵ ‘Informational and Cooperative Memo for Jeff’ [Tibor Eckhardt], 18 October 1951; Jeff [Eckhardt] to Dale [John Grombach] 26 October 1951; ‘Peyre’ to Jeff and Dale [Eckhardt and Grombach, ‘Some Notes about “Z”’, 12 November 1952; Memorandum J-2, 8 January 1952; Letter from ‘Andrew Z’, 22 January 1952 all from RG 263, Entry P12, Box 10, Folder 4, NARA. Chief, EE to Chief of Base, Salzburg, EASW-269, 16 April 1953, CIA FOIARR. The ‘GROUNDHOG’ referred to in this message was CIA’s cryptonym for the Pond.

¹¹⁶ Soós, ‘Z, egy megyfigyelés története’, 1.

¹¹⁷ FBIS-76-L, ‘Other Hungarian-Language Radios’, 30 October 1956, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, contributed by A. Ross Johnson, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114733 accessed 7 April 2023.

¹¹⁸ ‘A “Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közösegge”’, 13 June 1957, 10. Archives ‘Emigrans ellen szervezetek anyagarol’, MHBK III., 4.1 A-1145, ABTL.

¹¹⁹ ‘Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közösege’, report on MHBK activities in Hungary during and after the Hungarian Revolution, n.d., dosszie 4.1. A 1145, ABTL, 10; An ABTL report at that same citation, dated 19 October 1962 lists MHBK agents in Hungary jailed in 1956–1957, 20.

¹²⁰ Ibid., 2.

¹²¹ Ibid.

¹²² FBI New York Field Office, ‘Josef Patakfalvi-Pinke’, 15 January 1959, NARA.

¹²³ Krisztián Ungváry, Battle for Budapest: 100 Days in World War II (London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2011), 74.

¹²⁴ Dosszie, Dósa Attila 3.19. V90034/1/a (microfilm), 214, ABTL.

¹²⁵ Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 486–7.