NATO'S GREAT SPY-TINGLING THRILLER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300200024-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 15, 2005
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: November 5, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release wilgidzi CIA-RDP70600338R000300200024-7
? DAILY 'NUS
5 Nt9V 668
, THE ALLIANCE'S SECURITY WAS LEFT OUT IN THE COLD
0T
Here is a special report on the NATO spy scan-
dal that caused "the biggest switch of nuclear
and convention sites in NATO history." The dis-
patch was written by "Express correspondents Co-
lin Lawson from Bonn, ilenry?Lowrif from- Wash-
ington and lioward Williams in Brussels,Y
Landon Express Servof
The biggest switch of ninelea.r and conventional
weapons sites in NATO history has now been
.eompleted.
Following the wave of suicides in West Ger-
many and defeetions to the country's Eastern
sector by top military personnel, the Atlantic Alli-
ance has changed almost every "system" on its
; books. ?
Weapon storage sites fron1 the northern tip of-
Norway down to the Meditelsvarteen coast of Italy ;
have been moved, cornmunicatiens titles have
been changed, coding and de-coding devices al-
'tiered and security cheeks stepped up.
NATO headquarters in Brussels and SHAPE1
.headquarters in Casteau. Belgium, have turned
their organizations inside out in a massive clean-
up operation.
MOST SERIOUS BLOW ?
- NATO and SHAPE regard the latent series ofespionage incidents'. as the most serious blow le ;
their security ever known ? even snore sevious.
than the Burgess-Maelean-Philby affair.
? Alliance chiefs are convinced that thru G-ermanAdmiral lierrn?ann Luedke, the former deputy '
chief of logistics at SHAPE, the communist bloc'
have a very clear pieture of all the West's mite
tarty plans and maneuvers. And thru Nahit lanre, ?
the 50-year-old former financial controller at i
NATO who is now awaiting trialsin Ankara. the
'communists have a complete breakdown of the;
civilian structure and political organizatien 1)01
hind the Alliance.
However, several of ale moves in switching
such things as communications lines and storage
depots were planned before the wave of spy
scares.
SHAPE is constantly altering its depot system
as .an insurance against communist espionage
e-nd plans for these changes are kept in the can-,
? fines of the Supreme Allied Commander, Go.
Lyman L. Lemnitzer, his British deputy, Gen. Sir -
John Bvay and the' heads of the respective dc-
par meets involved in -the proposed switches.
Work had also begun on altering commute-in-
Siam .lines from overland telegraph wines to
space satellites.
Ironically, this change was not made because
of any fear of Soviet intelligence but as an insurs
anise against France's growing policy of "non-
cooperation". .Many of the most important com-
munications lines currently cross French terri-
tory.

"
,:,,gri
,, ill
. LI
i Other changes, which have been 'pushed for-, ILLNESS BLAMED
ward by the spy scares, include the mechanical.. The secret was preserved for two days and was
;scrambling and unscrambling devices used for followed by
i"-top-seeret" telephone and telegraph discussions. M a bald announcement that he was
: suffering from an incurable complaint. T, was
PROBE GOES ON
Meanwhile, further top seed tuvestigiabiaas are :?umess?61.!,ted later to "an incurable depressive ill-
Meanwhile, further
to weed out then it transpired that he had been twice
and America- in an effort
being made by visiting security teams from Brit.' Ana
,Imere possible espionage links, any given sick leave over the past nine months and
; At the Last count the spy activities stretching ' There been discharged on the last occasion as fit.ere are no public nquests in Germany and
from Italy to West Germany have resulted in four ti
' i
'suicides, four arrests and six fugitives. But de- noclerurefailte.private inquiry term Males in the usual
iii
'spite all tile sensational ingredients of the mys- 1 On the night Gen. ?Wencliland's death was an-
'Wry ; the one that really aroused the Americans nounced the whisper went round in Bonn that
- was the trundling away in a wheel barrow ftri another senior officer had been found dead.
-f
an allied base in West Germany o the
Sidewinder air-to-air missile. It was Use telr.'"airhoc
The lights burned late that night on the Hard-
freighted to Moscow. KO the high hill overlooking Bonn where the
defense ministry, known as the Bonntagen, has
' Ironically, it Is recogriized that the extraerdi: Its
ea
.. nary affair which would never have made the,
And senior officers wore seen huddled in the
pages of a respectable writer of spy fiction has
ded the usual gay demeanor of men relaxing
; quiet corner of a Bonn restaurant later but they
nothing to do with the macabre events an
strange deaths and suicides reported in Westerislack
Europe. after a day's work.
. ? _
? The concern at Pentagon high levels is over Inquiries the next day were fobbed off with
what the Russians coo-id learn from stolen or '
balf-hearted denials but faced with persistent
, captured missiles. For example, if they discover callers a bald, five-line announcement was put
how sensitive the guidance systems aft they pos- out, saying Admiral Hermann Lufdke, retired, had
sibly could develop various type, of counter-! accidentally shot himself while hunting in a wood
measures. in the. Fifel mountains, 40 miles from Bonn. His
death
first sight all the ingredients of a Jahn Le Cas-re
drill. (31 Oct. 8' the same say as Gen.
The full story of the great spy scandal has al! w
novel. - Police 'told reporters: "It appears he flung his
. hunting rifle in the back of the ear without fixing
A VERY GRIM FARCE
; the safety, eaten. When he climber into the car
But as the details unfold irt a crazy-quilt pat-. the rifle must have gone off shooting him in the
tern it takes on a touch of an old farce. Except; back."
that it is a very grim farce indeed, 'affecting as iti
does Western military security. But this theory was laughed at, for Admiral
- ,Lufdke was a passionate hunter, a crack shot and
If officialdom is to be believed, there -is no a man known for taking all safety- precautions,
connection between the recent suicides nor be-',even unloading his weapon when taking a rest.
tween the suicide of 57-year-old SHAPE Admiral .
Hermann Luedloc and recent arrests. The body of another official ? 61-year-old De-
So far three men have been seized, a fourth is ' Leese Ministry clerk Gerhard Boehm, missing los
:11 days, was found in the River Rhine.
under interrogation. And the whisper persists in 1
Karlsruhe, seat of the federal chief public prose- Originally it was thought Boehm may have fled
cuter, that these ere only the sesesumen, and to the East altho he left a suicide note behind.
that more arrests are imminent. , His body was identified by his son, and police
Whether there are links or not, the story must .-Spokesmen said that all the signs pointed tosui
- .
begin with the suicide of Gen. Horst Wancitland, eide.
56-year-old regular army officer who was deputy They also said that his death was not connected
head of She federal intelligence service, formerly iwith espionage eases. They said he was disap-
famed as the Gallen Organization. .pointed at not being promoted.
There are. marked discrepancies in statements i ANONYMOUS TIPS .
.
made by officialdom over this death on Oct. 7.1 But they admitted that last week two anony-
For some said Gon. Wes-Aland was cheerful, in Maus phone calls were made to police headgear-
his usual good health and showed .no signs or tors saying Beelun's briefcase, overcoat and ha
worry when he lesithe usual morning 0??nrerenceteould be found in a hut near the Rhine.
at the closely guarded ?compound containing intele Chapter two begins with the surprise announce
ligenee H. Q. ,?!meat by the public prosecutor of the arrest o
Ile strolled back to 'his Office and ao minutes?three man.-
later shot himself. . - ? ? ? ? - - s -
Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP70600338R000300200024-7
A r ved
?0
They are Warrant Officer ss ne of h I We 31995alarAtte.itql#-R9Ped7,9454,913WcRomp),30000467ed his jab under the new:
occupation would not last long.
- ?
A third theory ? and you need to appreciate
the dreadful convulsions of espionage, political as
well as military to understand it ? is that the
major was told to defect.
Ordered to defect so as to create a diplomatic
incident with the government of Bonn, so blindly
and vioiously hated by the communists.
? NEWSMAN NAMED
2
man Luftwaffe Wolf-Diethard Knoppe, 33, archi-
tect and builder Manfred Rarnminger of Krefeld
and Polish born Josef Linkowski, 47, also of Kre-
feld.
These, of course, are the men who impudently
stole the Sidewinder navigation instruments.
Knoppe, the boy viho started as an unskilled'
laborer, joined the Luftwaffe and reached pilot's
:rank flying Starfighters, loved to show off.
He bought himself expensive cars, took up rid.'
Mg and planned an ambitious riding center in
IngokkIstadt. near his flying field. He married
clever and talented language student, 29-year-old
Dagmar, the mother of his two children.
. Ramminger? 40, is recognized as the man who
. led the brilliant pilot to flying. He appeared in
Goldstein one day in a Ferrari sports car, of the
:type he used in races on the Norburgring..,
Ramminger was under MoscoW orders to 'obtain
NATO equipment for the Russians and he gravi-
tated naturally te Luftwaffe stations., At Ingold-
stadt he met Knoppe, heard of his passion for
horses and riding and offered to put up the money
for the riding center.
OTHER DELIGHTS
_ From that mOment it was no great task to
? ensnare the pilot ? particularly if, as is said, he
paid the bills for the young man's other delights,
girls and night club life.
Soys Dagmar: "I am found of theater, opera
. and so on. In eight years of married life Wolf
? went once to an opera, left after the first act and
went to the bar."
? The Knoppe-Ramminger friendship began two
years ago. At least one previous attempt to steal
secret equipment went wrong.
But when the Sidewinder disappeared just a
year ago it was the German federal CID which
was brought in, not counter-espionage or intelli-
gence services. Fifty clues were followed. They
all earne to an abrupt end. The 51st ? and no one ?
will say what it was ? provided _the key to the
? affair.
Ramminger was arrested at his home on Octo-
ber 2.2. With him went Josef Linkowski who has
played an equally key role in the thefts.
In his case there is a mixture of hatred of
.Germans and an urgent need for cash. For he
was sent to a concentration camp in 1939, sur-
vived those horrors and returned to Poland. Just
When he returned is not known. In 1963 he mar-
ried a Polish girl; 25-year-old Helena.
And he told her: "I hate all Germans". When
. his wife asked for a divorce he snapped?o"Never.
I will never allow the chance that you might
remarry so that our son would 'call a German
'daddy'." She added: "He was often penniless,
? but somehow always got hold of money. Once I
opened his post out of curiosity, for much of it.
came from 'abroad- He found out and boat me up..
Never again, he said. was I to interfere with his
mail."
With the arrest of Raraminger and Linkowski
Three days after Ramminger's arrest Knoppf
was officially forbidden by his commanding offi-
cer to fly.. .
the seizure of Knoppe was inevitable.
ea
off his uniform, broke down and confessed to his
wife who, altho they were divorced still lived in
their old flat and was constantly visited by her
ex-husband. Ile Was there when the police an
,
rived. 1
If suicide . is infectious in' Germany, so is
spying..
And no better example can be pointed at than ,
; that of the double agent only known as "X". !
He, however, went to an allied ? telfgen
agency, told them he was spying for the East ;
Be that aS it may, he came and shortly there-
after detectives appeared at the home of the
Czech news agency chief Otakar Svercina. There
is not the slightest doubt he was named by the
major.
Svereina was Interrogated for 10 hours and aft-
erwards indignantly denied he has had anything
to do with spying.
As all spies, of course, would.
Now it is also a fact that Svercipa has long
' been suspected of being an agent for the old,
Novotny regime. But suspclious need to be
proved.
Whether the major has brought the proof is not
yet known. Svercina subsequently underwent an-
other long' interrogation bringing the total to 17
hours.
Bonn is just as well clued up on the labyrinth of
agent activity as the dictator countries.
Which is probably why the chief government
spokesman said caustiously he had "certain
grounds for hopes that the case would not lead to
Anything at prrsent not to give the communist
ammunition to step up the anti-Western cam-
paign, anything to stop communist accusations
that Western imperialism is undermining the so-
cialist countries ? and thus give a pretext for
action on Czech invasion lines.
Action against whom? Romania? Yugoslavia?
West. Berlin? There for the moment rests the
complicated spy saga: Nobody expects it to re-
main so. The Czech major, we are told, has al-
ready handed a list of agents known to be work-
ing iaffi,T.Artsi for. th.c3.4edi-
rig
;!1
. .
'Manfred Ramrninger
German communists and, offered to doublecross
them by working for the West.
After the usual security check he was engaged.
And it was he who irovided the information last
month for the arrest of physicist Harald Gottfried
at the atomic center in Karlsruhe,
OTHERS IDENTIFIEDh
I. He also knew of six oterRed agents working ,
in the West ? a maimied couple named Henning
living in Hamburg, a couple nam edB?teue v
in Frankfurt and two unnamed physicists.
Double agent X however, was let. down ?1
whether unwittingly or deliberately no one is over
likely to know.
It happened like this ? after the arrest of I
G-ottifried, a lawyer for his defense was duly ap-
? pointed. The lawyer made loud, noises that his
? olienthad been put on the spot by an agent ?
and 'an agent working not for the fatherland but.
for a foreign, if allied, power.
The grapevine inevitably worked, and the six j
Eastern agents who were under observation pond-
big a convenient moment to pick them up, got the
message loud and clear.
, They, hurriedly skipped, leaving an einbar-1
rassed German government to explain ?
presumably apologize ? to the allied government,
This brings us to the latest ? (known) -4
:episode in spies incorporated.
A Czech major in Prague intelligence de/octet:1i
last month. Maybe he was savagely bitter over
, the Russian rape of his country' and decided to 'do
? a little towards squaring accounts.
?.._ .
Approved For Release 2005/12/14 CIA-RDP70600338R000300200024-7