Berlin Part V: JFK and LDS Church

President Kennedy visit. On June 26th 1963, President John F. Kennedy came to West Berlin. I stood near the Outpost Theater on Clayallee and anxiously awaited his visit to the American forces. It was a short visit but one I shall always remember. He had already given his famous speech to the West Berliners in Berlin Charlottenburg in which he said, inter alia, “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'"

President Kennedy in Berlin

On November 22, 1963, during the time I was a case officer, Faith and I were attending a small party at the home of my boss, Major Ray King. We were all shaken, to our very foundations, when we learned of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, which took place that day in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST. I personally had favored Nixon over Kennedy, but still, he was a very likeable character as president, and I had admired his fortitude in dealing with the Soviets over their missiles in Cuba. The Berliners mourned the passing of the American president as though he were one of their own.

Es gibt Nachrichten, die die Welt erschüttern. Die uns aufwühlen, die uns erschrecken, die uns erzittern, die uns ausrufen lassen, „Mein Gott, wie konnte das geschehen!“ . . . Heute empfinden wir nur Schmerz. Heute ist es uns ein Herzensbedürfnis, der Familie des toten Präsidenten und dem ganzen amerikanischen Volk unser tiefempfundenes Mitleid auszusprechen. These few words from one of the Berlin newspapers on November 24, 1963 are representative of the feelings expressed at Kennedy’s death.

Church. During the first part of our stay in Berlin, we attended church services with the German Branch in Dahlem. I served again as young men's president, and that gave me many opportunities to work with the German members. At that time the Berlin mission consisted only of the branches located in Berlin. It had been organized from the North German or Hamburg Mission. Before the wall was built, we were able to meet some of the stalwart members of the church in East Germany.

One family, that of Walter Krause, impressed me immensely with its dedication to the church. They used to bring their son out to live in the mission home so he would experience the freedom of the West and the spirituality of the church. We once invited the Krause family home to have ice cream with us. I asked him why he didn't just do what others had done and remain in the West. He responded that his calling was in the East where the church needed him. I thought of him often after the wall went up, and he was cut off.

Branch President. President Percy Fetzer, who was the mission president, called me to organize the first serviceman's branch in Berlin. I was displeased to think that we would no longer meet with the Germans, but I accepted the calling nonetheless. I was certain that without us the German branch would founder, and I didn’t know where we would get the American membership to have our own branch. Nevertheless, we flourished to the point that years later the serviceman's branch became a full-fledged ward.

The German branch went through a terrible period with terrible leadership provided by a missionary who should never have been on a mission in the first place. I regret this outburst of a judgment I am not entitled to make. But this man had gotten married after receiving his call. For some reason that I shall never comprehend, they sent him and his new wife on a mission anyway. As branch president, he had one counselor who was a thief and a cheat, who embezzled and robbed several members of the branch. He never obeyed the Word of Wisdom. His behavior wreaked general confusion among the members of the church. The missionary branch president and his wife had a child who later died. I presided at the funeral and spoke. It was a very sad affair. I understand that this same man later went off the deep end, left his wife and went into a rather strange relationship with the church. It is pretty difficult to fool the Lord.

The German branch eventually worked out its problems when the second counselor took over. Brother Dlugus became bishop when a Berlin Stake was organized. Once again, I was positive that this was a mistake. Where would the Stake get sufficient priesthood holders to run it? But both the ward and the stake have done well. This was another lesson for me. Do not second-guess the Lord on how he runs his church.

Berlin Part IV: Turbulence on the Ground

Bumping into an "Old Friend" Approximately six weeks after being detained at Rechlin-Lärz, we were on our way north to the city of Stralsund, where we had reservations in a local hotel. Inadvertently, we ran smack into an East German military exercise. The Germans, ever efficient, quickly captured us. For three hours I sat waiting for the Soviet commandant to arrive, while the East Germans kept an AK-47 automatic rifle held about six inches from my head. When the Soviet commandant arrived, it was the same guy who had presided during my previous detention. I complained about the way the Germans had held guns at our heads, and he quickly told them to disperse. When he first saw me, however, his face lit up, he smiled, and exclaimed in Russian, "Stariy Droog (Old Friend) what are you doing here?" Then in perfect German, which he had refused to speak during our last encounter, he asked, "Lieutenant, why are you always going to our airfields?" There was in fact an airfield in the area, Demmin-Tutow, but it was not on our target list. I explained that we were on our way to Stralsund, that this was the only way to go to avoid his mission restriction signs, and pointed out that according to the Hubner-Malinen Agreement that established the missions, I had every right to be where I was. He took note of what I said, dismissed the Germans again, and escorted us to our destination in Stralsund.

At this point in my life, I had no particular interest in making the Air Force my career. However, I loved what I was doing. Every trip into the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR) resulted in the collection of a significant batch of intelligence. Often I would have more than ten rolls of Kodak black and white tri-x or plus-x film to be developed. Of course, it was also a great adventure. I was young and loved to match wits with the East German and Soviet security services. Ratz and I were brash and sometimes even brazen as we set out to fight our part of the war against the godless communists. At times, they won and I was captured and detained. But by and large, we won many times over and I was confident that they were no match.

There were many “incidents” during this period of  time. For example, a British Mission driver, Corporal Douglas Day, RAF was shot by East German border guards on the outskirts of Berlin. He lived, but lost his spleen and some toes.

General Clark and Marshall Koniev. Chief among the USMLM incidents, that I remember, was the shooting at Major William Schneider in March 1962, as he was observing and photographing a Soviet train containing SA-2 missile systems. His car was demolished, and there was a huge outcry from both sides. Somehow this all got caught up in the anti-US sentiment being promoted by East German authorities. Soon, the East German goons were tailing all our vehicles in contravention of the basic agreement that established the missions. At the end of the day the commander of the U.S. Army Europe, General Bruce Clark, met with the Commander of the Soviet Forces in Germany, Marshall Ivan Koniev (of World War II fame), and things went back to normal.

Clark and Koniev

I am fired. My assignment to USMLM came to an abrupt end in the late spring of 1963 under conditions that caused me enormous emotional turmoil. Lieutenant Colonel Gordon was transferred to Air Force Headquarters in Europe (largely because of his bad heart). A new boss, also a Lieutenant Colonel who shall remain nameless, was brought in. Instead of the devotion and dedication to duty I had experienced in Ben Gordon, this new man was an immoral lout, who cared only about how many women he could conquer. Our first trip together took us to Dresden, where we were to stay in the Wild Park Hotel. As it turned out, the day was Rosenmontag, one of the last days of the German holiday season called Fasching. The hotel was having a large and very successful celebration. In our American uniforms, we were an immediate hit. Everyone wanted to buy us drinks or for us to sit with them at their table. Women wanted to kiss us. The new boss simply exploited this opportunity and took a very young East German girl to bed. The next morning he appeared in the room I was sharing with Sergeant Krieg, a sometimes driver who was replacing Ratz on that trip, and said he had just put the girl in a taxi. I was shocked, but reasoned that things of that nature sometimes happened. Nonetheless, I was gravely concerned since all the security briefings I had been exposed to dealt with the issue of entrapment by communist authorities using young girls as bait.

This was not a one-time affair for the new boss. Instead, it seemed to consume him. It was all he cared to talk about. Sitting in an observation point, where we would monitor East German and Soviet flying programs, he would not shut up. This was an impossible situation; I was appalled by his behavior and deeply concerned about our security. Finally, I could stand no more and reported the man's activities to Colonel Gordon. Unbeknownst to me, Sergeant Ratz had made the same report. So, the two of us were called to headquarters to make a report. I remember with great clarity, being patted on the back and told that I had done the right thing. The accused had his pass allowing him to enter East Germany taken away, and I was advised to take a few days off. I grabbed a flight to Copenhagen. When I arrived back in Berlin, I was being paged at the airport. The Soviets were conducting a giant exercise, and every pass holder was expected to be out in East Germany. The accused had his pass back and was insisting that he tour only with me. For two days, I had to listen to his accusations of disloyalty.

A few days later, the new Director of Intelligence, named John Gibbons, from the headquarters came to Berlin. He hardly spoke with me. When he left, the accused told me that Ratz and I had both been fired, and I was being transferred to Frankfurt. I came unglued, as this was patently unfair. This time I went to the Army Chief of Mission and reported what had happened. The Army headquarters in Heidelberg now got involved. I received an order to report immediately to Air Force headquarters in Wiesbaden. When I did, I was ushered into the Director of Intelligence's office, forced to stand at attention, while Colonel Gibbons browbeat me about being disloyal to the Air Force. We did not, he emphasized, air our dirty linen before the Army. I was ordered to say nothing more about the incident. Interestingly, Gibbon was later promoted to general. Obviously, I didn’t care for the man. He had tried to protect his selection of the man, as well as the man himself. What he did deserved only disdain and punishment.

I fought the reassignment as best I could under the circumstances. I was, after all, only a lieutenant. However, by now enough people understood the injustice of the situation that my orders to Frankfurt were canceled, and I was allowed to remain in Berlin. Less than six weeks after this, the accused insulted a French officer's wife with some overt sexual advance. The French complained to the Berlin Commandant and within twenty-four hours this despicable person was shipped back to the United States.

This was my first real encounter with the politics of injustice. I felt the Air Force owed me a debt of gratitude for exposing the activities of this guy who, I believed, placed our operations at risk. We operated in a sensitive and hostile environment in East Germany; in my view there was no place for any activities, which could bring discredit on the United States. It seemed I was wrong.

Case Officer. For the remaining fifteen months of my tour of duty in Berlin, I became a case officer. In other words, I learned to direct the activities of spies operating in the East. My basic pseudonym was Otto C. Hawk. With this name, I signed all my reports. In addition, I had two other identities, with documents to match. One was Peter Lund and the other was Robert Johnson. In a short, and very informal, training course conducted in Frankfurt I learned the art of secret writing and various other skills associated with what was known as tradecraft. But in reality, it was not a very professional operation. I still lived in military housing on Argentinische Allee, used my military identification to get into the Post Exchange, and generally was recognized to be an air force officer.

I was able to reactivate a spy we had lost contact with when the Berlin Wall went up and had a couple of other minor successes. In general, however, this was a line for work for which I had little enthusiasm. The quality of information we were getting was extremely poor and hardly justified the investment. Then, too, we were just using and discarding people. The final straw came when I made contact with a sergeant in the East German Air Force who worked in a facility that set the frequencies for all East German radar. He agreed to defect, if we could find a way. Using his sister and her boyfriend, we made all the necessary contacts. The CIA approved the operation, but would lend no assistance. As a result, I had to make contact with a local Berliner who specialized in getting people out of the East. He modified a Volkswagen Karman Ghia so it could hide a passenger. He made the gas tank so it would only hold two liters and used the space saved to build a secret compartment. He said he wanted to test it once before using it for my man. It worked fine.
On the night we were to exfiltrate the East German, his sister and I were waiting in a rendezvous point expecting word of a successful operation. None came. Finally, violating all operational rules, we drove to Checkpoint Charlie and arrived just in time to see her brother being dragged off by the police. They had discovered him. Luckily, this was near the end of my tour and I was soon able to divorce myself from this ugly business. Lest I be judged naive for my dislike of this activity, I would note that I recognize its importance in the general scheme of things in the modern world, but it is still largely a business I find personally repugnant. Nevertheless, I understand the importance of the endeavor and admire those who do it well.

Father's Day

Dad passes on. Dad passed away on October 30, 1983 while I was in Texas. My sister, Eula, had called me to say that he was sick and in the hospital. I flew to Idaho Falls immediately. The doctor had diagnosed lung cancer that was terminal. He mentioned the possibility of chemotherapy, but noted it would only slow up the inevitable and cause Dad a great deal of discomfort. I voted no. I checked Dad out of the hospital and drove him home. He worried about how Mother would get along without him; he had been helping her dress and do the housework for years. Since he had never smoked a cigarette in his life, he did not understand why he, a farmer who worked outside all his life and never had anything to do with asbestos, should get cancer of the lungs. Knowing his illness was terminal, he took it all rather calmly and did nothing to fight the inevitable. He died within a month after learning he had cancer. I spoke at his funeral.

During this period, I accidentally heard my brother, Wayne, speak to Dad about the hereafter. Wayne had gone into Dad to ask him to find Wayne's son, Mark, and also his infant daughter, Sandra, as soon as Dad got on the other side. It was perhaps the most poignant witness of the testimony of the gospel I have ever witnessed. It shook me to the core of my being.

I cannot speak enough of my father. I loved him, as I believe all of us did, with an incredible fervor. I have no special explanation for the feelings I have always had for Dad. Perhaps I knew he loved me. He was neither rich nor famous. He was just my Dad. I think of him every day. The following obituary was printed in the Post Register on October 31, 1983:

LeRoy Maurice Hansen, 81, a farmer, died at his home Oct. 30 of cancer. He was born Sept. 23, 1902, in Smithfield, Utah, the son of Erastus and Annie Marie Gamet Hansen. He lived at Smithfield and then moved to the Lincoln area where he has lived since. He attended schools at Lincoln. He married Amy LaVon Buttars June 18, 1924, in the Logan, Utah, LDS Temple. He has farmed all of his life.

He has been an active member of the LDS Church.  He is survived by his wife; three sons, Maurice V. Hansen, Grand Junction, Colorado, and Vienna, Austria, Wayne Lynn. Hansen, Washington, D.C.; one daughter, Mrs. Larry Baldwin Eula, Idaho Falls; 17 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; five sisters, Loveda Peterson, Lydia Perry, Hilda Burnham and Leona Johnson, all of Idaho Falls and Hortense Andrus of Ucon and one brother, Leland Hansen, Iona.

Funeral services will be Thursday at 1 p.m. at the Lincoln Third LDS Ward Chapel. Bishop Larry Acor will officiate. The family will meet with friends Wednesday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at Wood Funeral Home and Thursday, one hour prior to services, at the church.  Burial will be in Fielding Memorial Park.

I was distraught at Dad’s passing. While putting on a good face, I wept inwardly for a very long time. During this period, I wrote an amateurish poem that helped capture my feelings.

When I was a boy I looked up at my Dad.

One might think now I'd be a little sad,

For now it seems I look down at him.

He has grown smaller and somewhat thin.

But when I was small,

He was the biggest Dad of all.

And oft I looked up to see

If maybe he was looking down at me.

As time passed and I grew,

There was nothing my Dad couldn't do.

Why in baseball, a curve he could throw

And on the trumpet, a mean tune he'd blow.

But insignificant were such things,

Beside the wisdom and love his image brings

To me still. For now I have a father's joys

And know the questioning eyes of girls and boys.

When I was a boy I looked up at Dad.

I'm not sorry, nor remorseful, nor sad.

For even though I now look down at him,

I will throughout all eternity look up to him.

Berlin Part III: "Clobbered," Disciplined, and Decorated - All in a Days Work

Schwerin. For reasons that I have never quite understood I, a lowly Second Lieutenant, was often sent to the Headquarters of the United States Air Force in Europe – at that time located at Lindsay Air Station in Wiesbaden. During several of these visits, the liaison officer from Strategic Air Command (SAC) voiced the urgent requirement to get a photograph of the guidance radar for the SA-2 surface-to-air missile system. It seemed that the Soviets had changed the radar guidance signal from the S-band to the C-band and it was causing SAC significant concern. The only problem was that all SA-2 sites were in permanently restricted areas. I decided that if the Air Force wanted such a photograph, I would get it for them.

SA-2 "Guideline" Surface to Air Missile System

Without a great deal of detailed planning, but imbued with the determination to get what the Air Force Strategic Air Command wanted, Sergeant Ratz and I left Berlin late one afternoon on our way to visit the Soviet missile site at Schwerin in East Germany. During the darkness of night, we spent several hours near the Soviet Air Force base at Rechlin-Lärz/Mirow tearing down every mission restriction sign we could find. Many of these signs had cement posts and were very heavy. We couldn’t just take them down, we had to carry them some distance away, throw them in the river, or take other steps to ensure that it would not be easy to put them up again. In all, we got rid of about fifty such signs and were exhausted when finished. We then drove on to the periphery of the permanently restricted area in which Schwerin was located. There, we grabbed a couple of hours of sleep.

Just before dawn, we awoke and drove to the perimeter of the missile site at Schwerin. As soon as there was sufficient light, I crawled onto the roof of the car and with my Leica camera, equipped with a 640-millimeter lens, took an entire roll of film of the missile guidance radar. At the time, the NATO code name for the radar was "fruitset"; it was later changed to "fansong."

We escaped from the missile site without incident. However, somewhere along the way, we broke our automobile. We had no choice, but to return to Berlin to get another car. While we were there, I gave the roll of film to the photo lab with the instructions to develop it, but not to print anything. We then took another car and returned to the area from which we had come.

First Clobber. It was our intention to take advantage of the fact that we had torn down the mission restriction signs at Rechlin-Lärz airfield near Mirow. As we approached the airfield, we saw a Soviet staff car. We turned around, beat a hasty retreat and hid for about an hour and then returned. However, the Soviets had laid a trap for us. We were captured, held at gunpoint, and threatened with various abuses. In our vernacular, we were clobbered. We knew, however, that only the Soviet area commandant was empowered to deal with us. When he finally arrived, we noted, with some trepidation, that it was the notorious commandant from the town of Neustrelitz, who had the reputation of being extremely security conscious and a great enemy of the military missions. As soon as he arrived, he stormed out of his car and proceeded to heap verbal abuse on me for violating his mission restriction signs. I responded that there were no mission restriction signs. (I knew there weren't because we had torn them all down the previous evening.) He kept insisting that I sign a confession, which I, of course, refused to do. Finally, he showed me his private map on which the location of all the mission restriction signs was carefully marked. I finally said that I would sign his dumb confession if he could show me a single sign that I had violated. So we formed a convoy with my car in the middle, preceded by the area commandant in his vehicle, followed by two Soviet vehicles from the air base and went looking for signs. There weren't any. We stopped in the village of Mirow, where he admitted that there were no signs; however, he explained, British mission car number forty-five had been seen removing the signs. The British subsequently received a diplomatic note protesting this action that we had perpetrated.

Air Force Commendation Medal. The reader will remember that I had turned in some film to the photography laboratory with the instruction to develop it without printing it. Well, in the press of his daily activities, he both developed and printed the pictures I had taken of the Schwerin missile guidance radar, and they were lying on my desk when we returned after two days on the road. Also awaiting me was the order to report to the Chief of the Mission, as soon as I returned. I did. He demanded, "Where did you get those photos of the Fruitset?" "At Schwerin, Sir,” I replied. He dismissed me curtly and called for Lieutenant Colonel Gordon. For disobeying mission policies, I was to receive an Article 15 – a non-judicial form of legal punishment meted out by the military. Colonel Gordon called the Air Force Commander at United States Air Forces in Europe, General Truman Landon, explained what had happened and asked for cover. General Landon then wrote a letter of commendation to the United States Army Europe commander, who endorsed it down to the Chief of USMLM, who had no choice but to endorse it down to the Air Team and finally to me. The Article 15 was forgotten. Instead, I was decorated with the Air Force Commendation Medal on December 13, 1962 in a ceremony conducted by the Commander of the 7000th Support Wing at Rhein Main Air Base.

Receiving the Air Force Commendation Medal

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.