Page  [unnumbered] CIC Records: A Valuable Tool for Researchers The records of the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) are invaluable for students of intelligence and military history. This little-known but important organization played a significant role during World War II and the first decade of the Cold War. While the historical community has pressed for the declassification of records from the World War II-era Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the post-war CIA, CIC's records, in fact, promise to shed even greater light on American intelligence activities than has been previously recognized. Historical Background Formed in 1942, the Counter Intelligence Corps's mandate was to "contribute to the operations of the Army Establishment through the detection of treason, sedition, subversive activity, or disaffection, and the detection, prevention, or neutralization of espionage and sabotage within or directed against the Army Establishment and the areas of its jurisdiction. " CIC drew its antecedents from the World War I Corps of Intelligence Police, although it did not become a significant intelligence organization until World War II. It gained in status until 1961, when it merged into the newly formed Intelligence Corps. While CIC concentrated on counterintelligence during World War II, it expanded into the positive collection of intelligence behind the Iron Curtain in the years after 1945. CIC took its missions seriously and, by 1943, it counted over 50,000 informants within the ranks of the US Army. These informants, usually at the ratio of one per 30 soldiers, provided some 150,000 monthly reports on the subversive activities of their fellow soldiers. It did not take long for this security program to become politically controversial, and the Army forced CIC to curtail its domestic activities. The new organization really made its mark during the war on foreign shores. After some difficulties, the CIC deployed detachments at the division, corps, army, and theater levels to support tactical operations. These detachments rolled up Nazi stay-behind agents and investigated suspect civilians and enemy personnel throughout all theaters of the war. CIC field elements operated independently of other Army intelligence formations, including signals and engineer intelligence units, the Military Intelligence Service detachments (responsible for censorship, prisoner of war interrogation,

Page  [unnumbered] topographic and photographic intelligence, and order-of-battle collection), as well as various technical intelligence collection units, such as the ALSOS mission looking for Nazi atomic research facilities, the "S Force" in Italy, and the "T Force" in France and Germany. By 1945, some 5,000 officers and enlisted men worked for CIC worldwide. Lower-ranking enlisted personnel who served as "special agents" with the numerous CIC detachments carried out most of the work. After the war, these CIC veterans scattered to all walks of society upon their discharge from the Army. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, (then a young German 6migre), for example, was a special agent with the 84th CIC Detachment of the 84th Infantry Division. Many CIC veterans continued to serve in intelligence roles as civilian employees of the Department of the Army or later transferred to the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency after 1947. New Missions CIC's overseas mission did not end with the conclusion of hostilities. It served as the Army's chief agency in occupied Austria, Germany, and Italy, rounding up individuals subject to "automatic arrest" because of their Nazi affiliations or activities. At the same time, CIC was on the lookout for a resurgent underground Nazi movement as well as efforts to circumvent Allied occupation directives. CIC spent a considerable amount of time handling problems associated with thousands of displaced persons in Western Europe as well as ensuing black market activities. By 1946, the 970th CIC Detachment (later designated as the 7970th CIC Detachment in 1948 and then as the 66th CIC Detachment in 1949) in Germany and the 430th CIC Detachment in Austria handled the bulk of the early post-war CIC operations. In Japan, the 441st CIC Detachment performed many of the same roles as its counterparts in Europe. The considerable challenges in both areas were compounded by the Army's reduction of its intelligence facilities and manpower in the wake of demobilization. Most of CIC's experienced officers and enlisted men quit the service, leaving mainly new and inexperienced CIC special agents in their place. The Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, the training post for most CIC personnel, closed at the end of the war, and the Army did not establish the CIC Center at Fort Holabird in Baltimore, Maryland until 1950. The Army's intelligence mission was in a state of flux between 1945 and the Korean War. CIC units in Germany and Austria took it upon

Page  [unnumbered] themselves to face the Soviet threat as the Nazi menace receded. Consequently, CIC became the leading intelligence organization in the American occupation zones. During this early period, CIC in Europe had greater resources than those allotted to OSS and its successor organizations, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU) and the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). Even into the 1950s, CIA and CIC were still trying to reconcile their intelligence missions overseas in order to avoid duplication and to coordinate the recruitment of assets. The tension lingered until American forces withdrew from Austria in 1955, and West Germany entered NATO in 1956. The North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 meant that CIC was not only involved in a Cold War in Europe but faced a real military conflict in Asia. The drawdown of American forces in Japan meant that the first CIC unit deployed to Korea that summer had to be pieced together from the 441st CIC Detachment in Japan. The 442d CIC Detachment operated in Korea for much of the war, but it was absorbed by the 8240th Army Unit, which primarily conducted paramilitary operations behind the lines. Other CIC detachments served in Korea at the division and corps levels. The CIC underwent a major expansion during the Korean War. The 1950s proved to be CIC's heyday; it enjoyed ample resources and attracted the best and brightest soldiers brought in by a draft-era Army. The expansion of military intelligence units throughout the world and their collection activities in the 1950s also resulted in growing numbers of CIC records--a legacy of great importance to historians. Published Sources of Information The Counter Intelligence Corps left a remarkable paper trail. Several works provide the framework to understanding CIC's history, organization, and personalities. Most important, the US Army Intelligence Center published a 30-volume work, The History of the Counter Intelligence Corps, in 1959. Originally a classified publication, it provides a detailed history of the CIC from World War I through the Korean War. The product of several authors and years of research through scattered intelligence records, the official CIC history is the most authoritative account of the CIC's wartime and peacetime activities. A declassified version of the official history is available to researchers at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at College Park, Maryland. Coupled with the official CIC history, the US Forces European Theater (USFET) immediately after the war conducted a survey of Army operations

Page  [unnumbered] in Europe. Several of the USFET General Board's reports discuss the organization and operations of the CIC and other intelligence units in northwestern Europe in 1944-45. These reports are located at the National Archives and at the Pentagon Library. In 1998, the US Army Center of Military History published John Patrick Finnegan and Romana Danysh's Military Intelligence in the Army Lineage Series. In addition to the lineage and honors statements of the current Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve military intelligence units, the book contains an excellent history of Army intelligence efforts and organizations from the Army's first days until the late 1990s. The book also contains an extensive bibliography of open source literature dealing with intelligence matters. Published works that deal specifically with the CIC are rare. Ian Sayer's and Douglas Botling's 1989 book, America's Secret Army: The Untold Story of the Counter Intelligence Corps, is an exception. Drawn primarily from the 1959 official CIC history, the authors added some material to the basic story (primarily on postwar CIC operations in Europe) as well as photographs. Otherwise, researchers faces a dearth of new literature on the overall history of the CIC. This may change if a CIC veterans organization completes its project to document the CIC's history. Perhaps the most interesting of the books on the CIC are those written by the veterans themselves. Ib Melchoir's Case by Case: A U.S. Army Counterintelligence Agent in World War II (Novato: Presidio Press, 1993) recounts the author's immigration to the United States from Denmark, his recruitment into the OSS and transfer to CIC, and his service with the 212th CIC Detachment in Europe. Melchoir describes in vivid detail his wartime activities and the people he encountered along the way. The nuances of World War II counter- intelligence are readily apparent in these memoirs. Even more perplexing than the challenges faced by CIC in World War II, the 430th CIC Detachment in Austria encountered a hidden threat-- the Soviet Union. Just how the Army struggled to keep Austria safe from the Communists is recounted by James V. Milano and Patrick Brogan in Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line: America's Undeclared War against the Soviets (Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1995). Although Colonel (then Major) Milano was not a member of the 430th CIC Detachment and had not served in CIC during the war, he was responsible for the unit's activities from 1945 until 1950. As the chief of the Operations Branch of the G-2, or Intelligence Section, of the headquarters of the United States Forces in

Page  [unnumbered] Austria, Milano worked closely with the officers and special agents of the 430th CIC Detachment. The Ratline and Klaus Barbie Milano coordinated many CIC operations, but he is best known for operating the infamous "rat line." Based on the wartime evacuation of downed Allied airmen in occupied Europe, the rat line smuggled informants and defectors from the Soviet zone in Austria to safety. The CIC expanded this escape route to take these same people from Austria to Italian ports, sending them to safety in South America with false identities paid for by the Army. Utilizing the services of a wily priest in Rome, Father Krunoslav Dragonovic, the CIC in Austria effectively subsidized the Croatian cleric's own clandestine rat line to transport Ustasha war criminals from Europe to Latin America. Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line fleshes out many of the vignettes in CIC's official history. Writing decades after the events he recounts, Milano shows that real people were forced to make real life decisions in a time of crisis. Some decisions were right, and some proved to be wrong. Milano is quick to note that the rat line in Austria had a specific objective that became subverted after his return to the United States in 1950. More importantly, Milano, after many years of silence, is a key eyewitness to these Cold War intelligence activities. The arrest and deportation of former German SS officer Klaus Barbie from Bolivia to France in 1983 raised questions as to how the "Butcher of Lyon" escaped justice for so many years. Media speculation turned to the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps, which facilitated Barbie's escape from the American zone of Germany through Austria to Italy and then to South America in 1951. The news of Barbie's arrest and his image on American television led to his recognition by one of his former CIC handlers. Erhard Dabringhaus contacted NBC News and reported that he had worked with Barbie while serving as a CIC officer in Germany in 1948. The news rocked the world, resulting in a major Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation in which the United States government apologized to the French government for its role in sheltering the German war criminal. Dabringhaus later wrote about his role in the affair in Klaus Barbie: The Shocking Story of How the U.S. Used This Nazi War Criminal as an Intelligence Agent (Washington: Acropolis Books, 1984). Like Milano, Dabringhaus recalled his CIC role years afterwards, colored by the knowledge that his actions had affected history for better or worse.

Page  [unnumbered] U.S. Government Investigations The 1983 DOJ investigation, formally known as Klaus Barbie and the United States Government: A Report to the Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, is the first examination of the role that the Counter Intelligence Corps played in postwar Europe. While Allan A. Ryan, director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the author of the report, focused primarily on the Army's relationship with Barbie, he also uncovered the extent of the CIC's rat line and its dealings with Father Dragonovic. The Barbie Report and the declassified documents in the Appendix provide a valuable account of CIC's activities in Germany and Austria. A subsequent OSI report in 1988, Robert Jan Verbelen and the United States Government: A Report to the Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, further amplified CIC's use of Nazi war criminals and collaborators as informants in the years after World War II. The Verbelen Report covered in detail the 430th CIC Detachment's mission and organizational structure in Austria and how it recruited informants during the early Cold War. Like the Barbie Report, the Verbelen Report identifies numerous CIC officers and special agents involved in the case. The OSI reports, together with the official CIC history and the open source literature, provide the historical framework in which the Counter Intelligence Corps operated in the first decade after World War II. CIC Records From its formation in 1942 until its consolidation in 1961, the Counter Intelligence Corps produced untold numbers of pages of reports and other correspondence. Today, this documentary record is scattered throughout classified and declassified holdings in numerous agencies of the Federal Government. Two of the agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Investigative Records Repository (IRR) of the US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), hold the bulk of the surviving CIC records. Researchers, however, should be aware that many CIC records remain in the possession of other US government agencies, primarily those in the Intelligence Community. Likewise, researchers should consider that other repositories of unofficial records, such as the U.S. Army Military History Institute, may contain information about the Counter Intelligence Corps. National Archives and Records Administration NARA's holdings at Archives II in College Park, Maryland are a gold mine for information related to the Counter Intelligence Corps. A partial listing

Page  [unnumbered] below will provide researchers with clues as to where to search for CIC records or information about CIC generated by other agencies. It should be understood that searching for CIC records is a hit-or-miss process. RG 59 General Records of the Department of State RG 65 Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation RG 92 Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General RG 107 Records of the Office of the Secretary of War RG 111 Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer RG 153 Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army) RG 159 Records of the Office of the Inspector General (Army) RG 160 Records of the Army Service Forces RG 165 Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs RG 226 Records of the Office of Strategic Services RG 238 National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records RG 242 National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized RG 260 Records of U.S. Occupation Headquarters, World War II RG 263 Records of the Central Intelligence Agency RG 278 Records of the Displaced Persons Commission RG 319 Records of the Army Staff RG 331 Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II RG 332 Records of U.S. Theaters of War, World War II RG 335 Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Army RG 337 Records of the Headquarters Army Ground Forces RG 338 Records of U.S. Army Commands, 1942 -RG 373 Records of the Defense Intelligence Agency RG 389 Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal, 1941 -RG 407 Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917 -RG 466 Records of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany As can be seen, no single repository for CIC records exists at the National Archives. Instead, CIC material can be found in numerous record groups without any sense of order. Record Group 319, the Records of the Army Staff, contains the best single collection of CIC records. The Records of the U.S. Army Intelligence Command 1917-73, in RG 319, include a large collection of Counter Intelligence Corps material, including the 1959 official history and information on various CIC detachments.

Page  [unnumbered] In addition to CIC unit histories and annual reports, RG 319 also has historical material compiled by an individual researcher and former member of CIC, Thomas M. Johnson. RG 319 contains both classified and declassified material. Under Executive Order 12958, the Army and the National Archives have been processing CIC records for declassification. NARA has some 60 million pages of Army material that need to be reviewed under the 25-year declassification order. Consequently, it is impossible to tell when all of the CIC material will be available to researchers. In addition to the CIC records at NARA, Record Group 319 also has some 8,000 personal dossiers and 1,000 organizational dossiers from the Investigative Records Repository. Some of this material is already declassified while other dossiers are currently being reviewed. Many of these dossiers were opened by CIC. Investigative Records Repository The Investigative Records Repository (IRR) at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, is the controlling agency for all intelligence records compiled by the US Army in support of intelligence and counterintelligence activities. The IRR falls under the direct command of the 310th Military Intelligence Battalion of the 902d Military Intelligence Group at Fort Meade which, in turn, reports to the US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. INSCOM, formed in 1977 by the merger of the US Army Intelligence Agency and the US Army Security Agency, is the Army's chief intelligence organization. The IRR provides daily support to Army intelligence units throughout the world and other intelligence agencies as needed. It is neither an archive nor a research facility, nor does it have the personnel or expertise to handle research requests from the public (with the exception of Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act requests). While the IRR has several sources for its records (including ongoing Army security investigations), the Army's CIC records are found primarily in three file series and in the Central Registry. The file series (Foreign Personnel and Organization files, Intelligence/Counterintelligence files, and Counterintelligence/Security Investigations) contain the bulk of the CIC investigative records. The Central Registry, established by the 970th CIC Detachment in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1946, contains an index to CIC records on persons and incidents in Europe as well as a few Far Eastern countries and the United States. Returned to the United States in 1968, the Central Registry has about 4.7 million personal index cards as well as 100,000 topics and subjects in the Impersonal Index, and more than one million files on individuals, groups, or organizations. The vast majority of

Page  [unnumbered] the CIC records were microfilmed in the 1950s and 1960s on some 10,000 reels of microfilm, which were returned to the United States with the Central Registry. The microfilm is organized into eight different series. Under the auspices of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act (NWCDA), the IRR is electronically scanning all of the microfilm (which is deteriorating with the passage of time) to expedite the tracing of individuals and to identify records for review and declassification. The IRR transfers to NARA its declassified files, including many personal and impersonal dossiers. The Army expects to finish the scanning of its microfilm records by the end of this year so as to meet the deadlines for review and declassification specified under the Act. While the NWCDA review will not declassify all CIC records at the IRR, the Army is taking a serious look at all its historical holdings from the CIC period for the first time in decades. Kevin C. Ruffner, CIA History Staff Return to TOC