Berlin Part II - Spying on the Soviets as a Second Lieutenant

First Military Assignment. I was initially assigned as the Air Force Operations Officer in a joint refugee interrogation and processing center. At the time, it was called Joint Overt Interrogation Center, Berlin. Later, it was called Joint Refugee Operations Center. People exiting East Germany were processed through a system, which allowed allied intelligence to question them. The Army, Navy, and CIA were all represented in the center, and I thus gained an early introduction to inter-service rivalries and squabbles.

USMLM. Hardly three months after beginning this assignment, I attended a party at my boss's home. A strange little fellow, Major Matt Warren, was present and dominated the conversation with tales of his experiences in East Germany. Most of what he said sounded so impossible that I ignored the man. In fact, under my breath I repeatedly said, “That is bullshit.” However, a few days later I received a telephone call from this same major, requesting me to meet him in the officer's club that evening after work. I was a second lieutenant; he was a major. I complied with his request. As I entered the club, he confronted me with belligerent questions voiced in the Russian language. "What are you doing here," he demanded. I replied using the Russian double negative, I said that I was not doing nothing. The answer seemed to please him. Immediately, he told me that I was going to work for him in the United States Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) to the Commander of Soviet Forces in Germany. He noted that my new assignment had already been cleared with the headquarters in Frankfurt. I was completely shocked but also pleased.

The commander of my regular unit was not pleased. If I recall correctly, I was the only company grade officer in his outfit; he was angry and got my orders canceled. Nonetheless, I was sent to USMLM on temporary duty, which kept getting extended. Eventually, I received permanent change of duty orders.

When I reported in to the chief of the mission, an army full colonel named Ernst von Pawel, it came as a complete shock to him. I was left standing outside his office as the executive officer went in to inform him that I was there. The next sounds I heard from the office were: "a *&%$#@#* Second Lieutenant!" His outburst left me shaken. For a moment I remembered my mother’s oft-voiced sentiment that the only people who stayed in the military were lower class. But he had a point; I was untrained and a complete neophyte. Comparable army officers had been trained for four years for this assignment and all were at least captains.

The mission’s offices were located on Föhrenweg in West Berlin. This building was once the secret headquarters of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, wartime Chief of Staff of Hitler’s military supreme command.  The lower two floors were bomb proof with steel reinforced concrete floors two or three feet thick and walls of similar material. The ground floor contained mess facilities and there was an L shaped underground escape tunnel with special air funnels. But officially, our headquarters were in the Potsdam House located on a 4.5 acre estate located on the Lehnitzsee in the village of Neufahrland, near Potsdam. The estate was built in 1903 by a Prussian Army officer of the von Duehringshofen family, which was ennobled in 1649 for military feats during the Thirty Years War. The family coat of arms can still be seen on the side of the main building. In 1947, with the signing of the Huebner-Malinin agreement, which established the USMLM and the Soviet Mission in Frankfurt, the estate became US property. Article 13 of the agreement guarantees the  Mission House “...full rights of extraterritoriality.” The USMLM Mission House was the only official American presence in East Germany until 1974, when diplomatic relations were established between the two countries. Potsdam House

From late 1961 to approximately April of 1963, I traveled two, three, and even four days a week in what was at that time called the Soviet Zone of Germany. The little major who had hired me, seemed determined that there should be a huge gap in the performance of the unit after he departed and therefore fired every officer on the team, except me, prior to his departure. Thus as a second lieutenant, I effectively ran the operation with the assistance of a couple of non-commissioned officers until a new chief of the air team was assigned.

With some vividness, I recall the first trip I took into East Germany. My heart pounded as we crossed the Glienicke Brücke from West Berlin, through the Russian checkpoint, and into Potsdam. Adrenalin surged through my body and provided me with an exhilaration I was to experience many times in the future. After an hour or so drive, we were at Wittstock Airfield. The Ground Control Intercept (GCI) radar on the field was rotating, and Soviet MiG-19 aircraft were taking off and landing. At the time, I thought this was the most exciting thing I had ever done. However, much more excitement lay ahead.

USMLM Credentials

Each trip was an adventure full of thrills, daring, and often complete fool heartiness. During 1962, I was captured and detained by the Russians six times for alleged violations of one sort or the other. My driver was Sergeant Melvin E. Ratz. He and I were approximately the same age and shared similar dispositions. The Russians were enemies, and we were going to cause them all the difficulty we could. Our boss was Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Gordon, one of the finest men I have ever known. He, however, had suffered a heart attack and needed to be careful; thus he did not spend as much time in East Germany. It was simply too exciting and dangerous for a weak heart. That left Mel and me the responsibility of wreaking as much havoc as possible in the East. My experience and my training had taught me that the Soviets were my enemy. I believed they were and was consumed by the desire to inflict as much damage as I could upon them by learning their secrets.

Mission Restriction Signs

The civilian economy was in wreckage. Fresh fruits were unheard of, so we would carry a supply of bananas and oranges with us to the countryside as if to emphasize the inability of communism to look after its citizens. Children from many walks of life would gather about as we passed out American made bubble gum. Each trip we exhausted a supply of American cigarettes by handing them to people we met in the East. This, too, was waging the Cold War.

USMLM Patch

 Every Soviet and East German military installation was ringed with mission restriction signs in four languages, which forbade members of the three military missions from getting closer. All the more sensitive military facilities were located in permanent restricted areas where we were forever forbidden to go. Official policy decreed that we would not violate these signs nor enter into the permanently restricted areas. Unofficially, however, it was understood that we had to violate these restrictions in order to collect quality intelligence. Lt. Col. Gordon understood this and thus gave us the green light to do what was necessary to get the job done.