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ABSTRACT
In 1949, Washington and London launched the inaugural Cold War covert action in the Soviet bloc against Albania. Regarded internally as a ‘test case’, the CIA and MI6 used food and material aid in Operation BGFiend/Valuable to subvert Enver Hoxha’s regime, supplementing print and radio propaganda. The US, in particular, attempted to weaponise covert aid, inverting the defensive qualities of its overt counterpart. Although Western officials believed in aid’s potential at the outset, tactical and geopolitical challenges damaged its reputation as an effective subversive weapon. This had a long-term impact as aid was discarded in later covert action operations.
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Notes
1 Chief, EE-1 ‘Project BGFIEND Report’, 29 November 1951, Box 46, Volume 2, Folder 1, CIA Subject Files – Second Release, RG263, Entry ZZ-19, US National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MA, United States (hereafter B46, V2, F1, NARA).
2 Peter Ustinov (dir.), Romanoff and Juliet (1961).
3 I am indebted to David Ekbladh’s comments about Ustinov’s satirical take on foreign aid in The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010), 142.
4 Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 25.
5 See, for example, Josep Borrell, ‘Putin Is Using Food As A Weapon – But His Cynical Attempts To Drum Up Forced Allies Will Fail’, The Guardian, 3 August 2023: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/03/russia-food-vladimir-putin-black-sea-grain-initiative-eu-aid
6 For a useful overview of the scholarship on aid, see Lancaster, Foreign Aid, 2-4.
7 For example, Rory Cormac, How To Stage A Coup and Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft (Atlantic: London, 2022); Roy Godson, Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: US Covert Action and Counterintelligence (New Brunswick: Routledge, 2001); John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through Iranscam (New York: Elephant/Ivan R. Dee, 1986); Gregory Treverton, Covert Action: The CIA and the Limits of American Intervention in the Postwar World (London: Basic Books, 1988).
8 Examples of useful recent works on Albanian Cold War and post-Cold War history that tend to neglect or only briefly mention foreign aid and/or covert action are Fred, C. Abrahams, Modern Albania: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe (New York and London: New York University Press, 2015); Blendi Fevziu, Enver Hoxha: The Iron Fist of Albania (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2016); Elidor Mëhilli, From Stalin to Mao: Albania and the Socialist World (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2017); Miranda Vickers, The Albanians: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001).
9 For book-length accounts of the CIA-MI6 covert action in Albania, see Nicholas Bethell, The Great Betrayal: The Untold Story of Kim Philby’s Biggest Coup (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984); Irakli Koçollari, Operacione Sekrete: Shqipëria nën Luftën e Ftohtë [Secret Operations: Albania under the Cold War], Volumes 1 and 2 (Tirana: Albas, 2022); and Albert Lulushi, Operation Valuable Fiend: The CIA’s First Paramilitary Strike against the Iron Curtain (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2014). For chapter/article-length discussions see Sarah-Jane Corke, US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53 (London: Routledge, 2007); Rory Cormac, Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2001); Michael W. Dravis,
‘Storming Fortress Albania: American Covert Operations in Microcosm, 1949−54’, Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 4 (1992): 425–42; and Stephen Long, ‘CIA-MI6 Psychological Warfare and the Subversion of Communist Albania in the Early Cold War’, Intelligence and National Security 35 No.6 (2020): 787-807.
10 Marc Trachtenberg, ‘The Marshall Plan as Tragedy’, Journal of Cold War Studies 7 no.1 (2005), 136.
11 For example, see Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), 1-6.
12 Christopher B. Barrett and Daniel G. Maxwell, Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 1-2; 4.
13 D. John Shaw, World Food Security: A History Since 1945 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 3.
14 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217 A, ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, 10 December, 1948: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
15 Bryan L. McDonald, Food Power: The Rise and Fall of the Postwar American Food System (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 2-3.
16 Lancaster, Foreign Aid, 32; Andrew S. Natsios, ‘Foreign Aid in an Era of Great Power Competition’, PRISM 8 no. 4 (2020), 104.
17 Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachmann (eds.), Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2009), 3-4.
18 Julia Irwin, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3.
19 Lancaster, Foreign Aid, 1.
20 Irwin, Making the World Safe, 207.
21 Diane B. Kunz, ‘The Marshall Plan Reconsidered: A Complex of Motives’, Foreign Affairs 76 No. 3 (1997), 165.
22 Richard Ball and Christopher Johnson, ‘Political, Economic, and Humanitarian Motivations for PL 480 Food Aid: Evidence from Africa’. Economic Development and Cultural Change 44 No. 3 (1996), 516.
23 Polly Diven, ‘A Coincidence of Interests: The Hyperpluralism of U.S. Food Aid Policy’, Foreign Policy Analysis 2 (2006), 361-62. For the original document, see Public Law 480 ‘Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954 and Amendments’, U.S. House of Representatives: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-68/pdf/STATUTE-68-Pg454-2.pdf
24 Ball and Johnson, ‘Political, Economic, and Humanitarian Motivations’, 516, 529.
25 Barrett and Maxwell, Food Aid after Fifty Years, 35.
26 Vernon Ruttan (ed.), Why Food Aid? (Baltimore.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 12. Also see Barrett and Maxwell, Food Aid after Fifty Years, 26-7.
27 For example, Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). Some scholars have also noted the centrality of covert economic and military aid, such as in western efforts to woo Yugoslavia after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948. For example, see Robert L. Beisner, Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 168-71.
28 Irwin, Making the World Safe, 207-208.
29 For a useful overview of the scholarly field categorised into theoretical groups, see Lancaster, Foreign Aid, 2-4.
30 Jacqueline McGlade, ‘More a Plowshare than a Sword: The Legacy of US Cold War Agricultural Diplomacy’, Agricultural History 83 no. 1 (2009), 81.
31 Nick Cullather, The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2010), 2-3.
32 Ekbladh, The Great American Mission, 4.
33 Robert F. Fleck and Christopher Kilby, ‘Changing Aid Regimes? U.S. Foreign Aid from the Cold War to the War on Terror’, Journal of Development Economics 91 No. 2 (2010), 187; Lancaster, Foreign Aid, 10-11.
34 Greg Castillo, ‘Domesticating the Cold War: Household Consumption as Propaganda in Marshall Plan Germany’, Journal of Contemporary History 40 no. 2 (2005), 262.
35 Peter Kornbluh, ‘Secret Programs Hurt Foreign Aid Efforts’, New York Times (16 December 2014).
36 Cullather, The Hungry World, 7.
37 Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War, 1945-1961 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998), xiii.
38 Ekbladh, The Great American Mission, 78-9.
39 ‘Project BGFIEND Review for DCI’, 8 November 1951, B46, V2, F1, NARA.
40 ‘Project BGFIEND Review for DCI’, 8 November 1951, B46, V2, F1, NARA.
41 Untitled memorandum, 6 December 1949, FO1093/453, The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom (hereafter TNA); ‘OPC Plans and Operations in Albania’, 17 May 1950, B49, V15, F1, NARA.
42 Long, ‘CIA-MI6 Psychological Warfare’, 787-807.
43 For example, Bethell’s The Great Betrayal and Lulushi’s Operation Valuable Fiend overwhelmingly focus on the agent infiltration operations.
44 Owen Pearson, Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy: From Isolation to the Kosovo War, 1946-1998 (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 645.
45 Elidor Mëhilli, From Stalin to Mao: Albania and the Socialist World (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2017), 106. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer who emphasised this point.
46 Vickers, The Albanians, 166-167.
47 Ibid., 176-177.
48 Paul Collinson and Helen MacBeth, Food in Zones of Conflict: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2014), 10.
49 McDonald, Food Power, 2.
50 Ibid., 4.
51 Lancaster, Foreign Aid, 14.
52 Memorandum from Chief, EE-I to Chief, EE, ‘Propaganda Warfare Phase – BGFIEND’, 29 August 1951, B49, V18, F1, NARA.
53 ‘EE-I Daily Progress Report’, 21 September 1951, B49, V18, F1, NARA.
54 Long, ‘CIA-MI6 Psychological Warfare’, 794.
55 Memorandum to Chief, OPC, Washington DC, ‘Monthly Survey Report – BGFiend – 15 November/15 December 1951’, 17 December 1951, B50, V19, NARA.
56 Memorandum from Chief, Operations Section to Chief, EE-I, ‘EE-I Daily Progress Report’, 19 December 1951; Memo for Chief EE-I, ‘EE-I Daily Progress Report’, 21 December 1951, B50, V19, NARA.
57 These statistics have been calculated from multiple operational files in the CIA BGFIEND records at NARA. The collection is available at RG 263, Entry ZZ-19, CIA BGFIEND, boxes 45-53 (many of which have now been digitised and are available on the CIA’s CREST database).
58 Memorandum to Chief, OPC, Washington DC, ‘Monthly Survey Report – BGFiend – 15 November/15 December 1951’, 17 December 1951, B50, V19, NARA.
59 Memorandum to Chief, SE, ‘Conclusions Based upon Joint Review of SE/1 PP Objectives and Projects, 8 September 1954’, 28 September 1954, B53, V28, F1, NARA.
60 Memorandum to Chief, OPC, Washington DC, ‘Statement by Kadri Petriti on BGBEGOOD Drop’, 10 April 1952, B50, V21, NARA.
61 For examples of Hoxha’s charges of western/NCFA food poisoning, see memorandum from Kilbourne Johnston, Assistant Director for Policy Coordination, to Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, ‘Resumption of Air Operations for Propaganda Purposes in the Balkans’, 18 April 1952; memorandum to Chief, OPC, ‘Murat [Hoxha] Attack BGBEGOOD – SHAM/BGFIEND’, 28 April 1952, B50, V21, NARA. For examples of broader communist accusations of US germ warfare in Korea, see CIA Special Estimate SE-24, ‘Communist Charges of US Use of Biological Warfare’, 25 March 1952, Special Estimate Reports: 21-35 (January 24, 1952-January 2, 1953), PSF Box 21, President’s Secretary’s Files, Harry, S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri (hereafter HSTL); memorandum to Chief, OPC, ‘Germ Warfare Bulletin’, 1 April 1952, B50, V21, NARA; ‘Opening of Second Congress of Albanian Workers’ Party’, Pravda, 1 April 1952, FO 371/101579, TNA.
62 Memorandum to Chief, OPC, ‘Murat [Hoxha] Attack BGBEGOOD – SHAM/BGFIEND’, 28 April 1952, B50, V21, NARA; for British Foreign Office analysis of Hoxha’s speech see FO 371/101579 and FO 371/125006, TNA.
63 Information Research Department Memorandum, ‘The Germ Warfare Campaign’, September 1952, RC FO 371/125006, TNA; CIA Special Estimate SE-24, ‘Communist Charges of US Use of Biological Warfare’, Special Estimate Reports: 21-35 (January 24, 1952-January 2, 1953), PSF Box 21, President’s Secretary’s Files, HSTL.
64 Memorandum to Chief SE Division, ‘Monthly Report of Activities of SE/PC-1’, 5 May 1952, B50, V21, NARA.
65 Memorandum for the Record: ‘Conversation between Acting Deputy for Policy Coordination, SE and [names redacted, SIS/British official] on 29 May 1952’, 3 June 1952, B51, V22, F1, NARA.
66 Memorandum to Chief, OPC, Washington DC, ‘Statement by Kadri Petriti on BGBEGOOD Drop’, 10 April 1952; ‘Monthly Survey Report – BGFiend/BGFlume – 15 March – 15 April 1952’, 30 April 1952, B50, V21, NARA.
67 Memorandum to Chief, OPC, Washington DC, ‘Statement by Kadri Petriti on BGBEGOOD Drop’, 10 April 1952; memorandum to Chief, OPC, Washington DC, ‘Report on Reaction to BGBegood’, 1 May 1952, B50, V21, NARA.
68 D F Murray, handwritten note regarding Pravda, ‘Opening of Second Congress of Albanian Workers’ Party, 23 April 1952, FO 371/101579, TNA.
69 Memorandum for Acting Assistant Director for Policy Coordination, ‘British Attitude toward Propaganda Supply Drops over Albania’, 7 July 1952, B51, V22, F1, NARA.
70 Memorandum for Deputy for Policy Coordination, SE ‘Daily Progress Report for Friday 6 June 1952’ B51, V22, F1, NARA; Memorandum for Acting Assistant Director for Policy Coordination, ‘British Attitude toward Propaganda Supply Drops over Albania’, 7 July 1952, B51, V22, F1, NARA.
71 Memorandum from Acting Chief, SE, to Deputy Director (Plans), ‘Resumption of Article Air Drops for Propaganda Purposes in the Balkans’, 21 April 1953, B51, V24, F2, NARA.
72 Memorandum for the Record ‘Resumption of Food and Article Drops over the Balkan Satellites’, 26 August 1953, B52, V25, F2, NARA.
73 Memorandum by Chief, SE, to Chief, Political and Psychological Warfare, ‘Daily Log’, 11 September 1953, B52, V26, F1, NARA.
74 ‘FIEND/VALUABLE Conference: Record of Agreed Action’, undated, B52, V26, F1, NARA.
75 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 December 1955, B53, V29, F2, NARA.
76 For example, see ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-30 September 1954, B53, V28, F1, NARA; ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 October 1954, B53, V28, F2, NARA; ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 December 1954, B53, Volume 28, F2, NARA.
77 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-30 November 1954, B53, V28, F2, NARA.
78 Statement by the President, released at 11am on 4 March 1955, OF 229 Albania, Box 737, White House Central Files Official File 1953-1961, Dwight, D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas (hereafter DDEL).
79 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 March 1955, B53, V29, F2, NARA.
80 OCB Status Report Item 17, ‘Proposal to Offer Surplus U.S. Agricultural Commodities to the Albanian People’, 1 February 1955, OCB 091.Albania [February 1955-January 1957], Box 23, OCB Central File Series, White House Office, National Security Council Staff - Papers, 1948-61, DDEL.
81 Merchant (EUR) to Acting Secretary of State, ‘Food Relief for Albania’, 1 March 1955, Central File: Decimal File 867.49, Internal Economic, Industrial And Social Affairs., Albania, Calamities. Disasters., February 21, 1955 - March 24, 1955. Records of the Department of State relating to Internal Affairs: Albania 1945-49, NARA.
82 Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr to Eisenhower, ‘Food Relief for Albania’, 26 February 1955, Albania, Box 1, International Series, Eisenhower, Dwight D, - Papers as President of the United States 1953-1961 (Ann Whitman File), DDEL.
83 OCB Memorandum for the Operations Coordinating Board, ‘Proposal to Offer Surplus U.S. Agricultural Commodities to the Albanian People’, 8 February 1955, OCB 091.Albania [February 1955-January 1957], Box 23, OCB Central File Series, White House Office, National Security Council Staff - Papers, 1948-61, DDEL.
84 Diary Entry by President’s Press Secretary James C. Hagerty, 4 March 1955, Office of the Historian, US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Eastern Europe, Volume XXV, Document 8: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v25
85 Nick Ceh, (ed.), US Diplomatic Records on Relations with Yugoslavia During the Early Cold War, 1948-1957 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), xviii.
86 Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr to Eisenhower, ‘Food Relief for Albania’, 26 February 1955, Albania, Box 1, International Series, Eisenhower, Dwight D, - Papers as President of the United States 1953-1961 (Ann Whitman File), DDEL. For an interesting analysis of western humanitarian aid interactions with Romania in the 1970s, see Luminita Gatejel, ‘Bargaining for Humanitarian Aid Across the Iron Curtain: Western Relief Workers in Romania in the Late 1970s’, Cold War History 22 No. 1 (2022): 41-57.
87 For example, see Michael Hogan, ‘Eisenhower and Open Skies: A Case Study in Psychological Warfare’ in Martin J. Medhurst (ed.), Eisenhower’s War of Words: Rhetoric and Leadership (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994): 137-55; and Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006).
88 Diary Entry by President’s Press Secretary James C. Hagerty, 4 March 1955, FRUS 1955-1957 XXV, Document 8.
89 Statement by James C. Hagerty, Press Secretary to the President, 8 March 1955, OF 229 Albania, Box 737, White House Central Files Official File 1953-1961, DDEL.
90 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-29 February 1956, B53, V30, NARA.
91 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 May 1955, B53, V29, F2, NARA.
92 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 May 1955, B53, V29, F2, NARA.
93 ‘Leaflet Drop Schedule to Albania’, undated, B47, V8, NARA.
94 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-31 March 1955, B53, V29, F2, NARA.
95 ‘Project Status Report: OBTEST’, 1-31 March 1955, B53, V29, F2, NARA,
96 Long, ‘CIA-MI6 Psychological Warfare’, 793-4.
97 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE’, 1-30 April 1955, B53, V29, F1, NARA; Memorandum to Chief, SE, ‘Albania/OBTUSE/OBTEST: Review of Albanian KUCAGE Activities During 1955 and General Plans for 1956’, 19 April 1956, B47, V9, NARA.
98 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE, 1-30 June 1956’, B53, V30, NARA. Elidor Mëhilli asserts that Tirana ended rationing in 1957. See Mëhilli, From Stalin to Mao, 96.
99 OCB Memorandum of Meeting ‘OCB Working Group on NSC 174 Held on March 16, 1955’, 22 March 1955, OCB 091.4 Eastern Europe (File No. 3) (5) [December 1954-May 1955], Box 67, OCB Central File Series, White House Office, National Security Council Staff - Papers, 1948-61, DDEL.
100 ‘Project Status Report: OBTUSE, 1-31 May 1955’, B53, V29, F2, NARA.
101 OCB Memorandum of Meeting ‘OCB Working Group on NSC 174 Held on March 16, 1955’, 22 March 1955, OCB 091.4 Eastern Europe (File No. 3) (5) [December 1954-May 1955], Box 67, OCB Central File Series, White House Office, National Security Council Staff - Papers, 1948-61, DDEL.
102 Francis T. Williamson, Counselor of US Embassy Rome to Department of State, 13 September 1955, Central File: Decimal File 767.00, Records of the Department of State relating to Internal Affairs: Albania 1945-49, NARA.
103 McDonald, Food Power, 192.
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Stephen Long
Stephen Long is Assistant Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) in Suzhou, China. His research focuses on Anglo-American foreign policy and intelligence activities against the Soviet bloc in the early Cold War.