CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

The 1950s

Generally

E - L

Felix, Christopher [James McCarger]. "The 'Modern Spy' Extends His Arena." New York Times Magazine, 8 Jun. 1953, 24 ff. [Petersen]

Fischer, Benjamin B. "Markus Wolf and the CIA Mole." Center for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 10 (Winter 2000): 8-9.

Fischer tells the story of the work of the CIA's penetration agent in East German intelligence (then called the Institute for Economic Research) from 1950 to 1953. When Gotthold Krauss finally defected to the West, he brought with him "a treasure trove of counterintelligence information."

Fry, Michael Graham. "The Uses of Intelligence: The United Nations Confronts the United States in the Lebanon Crisis, 1958." Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 1 (Jan. 1995): 59-91.

Fry argues that UN Secretary General Hammarskjold achieved considerable success in 1958. This success was in no small part due to the "reach and accuracy" of the intelligence gathered through the United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon (UNOGIL), in competition with the CIA.

Garthoff, Raymond L. "Intelligence Aspects of Early Cold War Summitry (1959-60)." Intelligence and National Security 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 1-22.

From abstract: "The author recounts, on the basis of personal expeience as the responsible CIA officer and using previously classified documentation, intelligence aspects of summit level visits of Vice President Richard Nixon to the Soviet Union and Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev to the United States in 1959, and the planned but aborted visit of President Dwight Eisenhower to the Soviet Union in 1960."

Goldstein, Warren. William Sloane Coffin Jr.: A Holy Impatience. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Rossinow, H-1960s, H-Net Reviews, Jul. 2006 [http://www.h-net.org], notes that Coffin "was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its early years during the Korean War.... The particular uses that the ... CIA made of him reflected both his language abilities and his remarkable social skills.... Coffin ... developed extensive contacts with 'White Russian' communities in France and elsewhere, exiles from the Soviet regime, and as a CIA employee he trained anti-Soviet agents who were parachuted into the Soviet Union (it failed badly; the men were caught)."

Greenberg, Harold M. "Research Note: The Doolittle Commission of 1954." Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 4 (Dec. 2005): 687-694.

This is an effort to resurrect the Doolittle Commission's review of covert action from the dustbin of history, to which it has been consigned by many historians. The main point is that "the secrecy of its progress and the narrow dissemination of its report cast doubt that the Doolittle Commission was calculated simply to outmaneuver Congress."

Hansen, Peer Henrik. "'Upstairs and Downstairs' -- The Forgotten CIA Operations in Copenhagen." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 19, no. 4 (Winter 2006-2007): 685-701.

Outlines the activities of "The Firm," an anticommunist group formed by former Resistance fighters in Denmark in the aftermath of World War II. From 1952 to 1959, the group maintained an "eavesdropping operation" in the apartment of the depauty chairman of the Danish Communist Party. The take was shared with the CIA.

Holober, Frank. Raiders of the China Coast: CIA Covert Operations during the Korean War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.

Clark comment: The author, who served with Western Enterprises Incorporated (WEI) on Quemoy in 1951-1952, details the activities of CIA-sponsored anti-Communist guerrillas along China's southeastern coast in the early 1950s. Except for an annoying tendency to use made up conversations from the past to advance some of his story, Holober provides a good read. This reader even guffawed several times. Ever the instructor, Holober provides little snippets of Chinese along the way. Nevertheless, you need to be interested in learning about this little-known covert action to get full enjoyment from this book.

Sulc, CIRA Newsletter 23.2, comments that Raiders of the China Coast "should be greeted with great interest by historians.... Holober has done a very good job" in his writing about "the forgotten war within the 'forgotten war.'" Similarly, Copper, IJI&C 13.3, says that "Holober is to be credited for telling a story that needed to be told."

For Jonkers, AFIO WIN 35-99, 3 Sep. 1999, this book "can be read as a rousing story or as history, celebrating an exceptional cast of American characters involved in these clandestine operations.... Highly recommended."

Hunt, Linda. "Cold Warrior." Back Channels 1, no. 3 (Spring 1992): 10-11.

This article profiles Charles Cabell, DDCI 1953-1962, and his connections with the plot to assassinate Castro and the Bay of Pigs. The author also discusses Garrison's effort to connect Cabell to the JFK assassination.

Laird, Thomas. Into Tibet: The CIA's First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa. New York: Grove, 2002.

According to Rupert, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2002, the author "tells a gripping tale" of CIA officer Douglas MacKiernan's operation in Sinkiang and his death at the hands of Tibetan border guards.

Hayford, Library Journal, 15 May 2002, says that the author "presents his story as a spy novel, complete with reconstructed dialog, bureaucratic infighting, cinematic pacing, and crackling action. Much of the information is reconstructed from interviews and archival research and is hard to authenticate; still, the overall story of this incredible expedition and its political consequences rings true."

For Haas, AFIO WIN 6-03, 11 Feb. 2003, the author's long-term residence in Nepal provides "a significant qualification for his wide-ranging and startling look into the activities of the agent behind the unnamed First Star on the CIA's Wall of Honor." This "[p]rodigiously researched" work provides "a thoroughly fascinating and informative read."

West, IJI&C 16.4, finds that the author's "tenuous evidence" fails "to show that Mackiernan had anything to do with tracking the Soviet bomb." Laird also suggests, "without much evidence, that the CIA had deployed Mackiernan to sabotage the Soviet uranium mines." To Goodman, I&NS 18.4, Laird has reconstructed his story in a "comprehensive and illustrative manner." It is "a very good read."

Lanfranco, Edward. "Wreakage of CIA Plane Found in China." UPI, 29 Jul. 2002. [http:// www.upi.com]

"Members of a U.S. Army search team believe they have located the debris of a C-47 plane shot down 50 years ago on a nighttime mission to pick up an agent from behind enemy lines in the Korean War, but the graves of the two pilots [Robert C. Snoddy and Norman A. Schwartz] killed in the crash have not been found."

Lansdale, Edward Geary. In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. [Reprint] New York: Fordham University Press, 1991.

According to Surveillant 2.1, Lansdale "recounts his missions with CIA in the Philippines and, later, in Vietnam during the 1950s and 1960s." For biographies of Lansdale, see Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988); and Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005).

Leary, William M. "Aircraft and Anti-Communists: CAT in Action, 1949-52." China Quarterly 52 (Oct.-Dec. 1972): 654-669.

Leary, William M. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia. Birmingham, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 2003.

According to Motley, IJI&C 1.1, Perilous Missions is an "important and penetrating account that unites CAT's airline history, intelligence activities, and the Cold War." CAT operated 1946-1959 when it became Air America. Tovar, IJI&C 8.3, calls it "a serious study of the operations of CIA proprietary airlines" (fn. 5).

For Goulden, Washington Times, 8 Jun. 2003, Leary's is a "sound work, based on CAT's corporate archives." It serves as "a palliative for the wild yarns circulated about CAT and its successor organization, Air America, over the years."

Bath, NIPQ 20.2, gives this work a "highly recommended" rating. The new edition has "a helpful new preface that summarizes CIA's proprietary air operations subsequent to the transformation of CAT into Air America.... Perilous Missions remains the best study of CAT and CIA's early involvement in the air over Asia."

Lucas, Scott, and Alistair Morey. "The Hidden 'Alliance': The CIA and MI6 Before and After Suez." Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 95-120.

Abstract: "[T]he CIA maintained co-operation with [MI6] during and after Suez... [T]his 'special relationship' ... was based not on emotional or cultural ties but on the CIA's pragmatic if wayward assessment that MI5 was vital to the achievement of US objectives in the Middle East."

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