CIA PREPARES TO SUSPEND ONE OF IT'S SUPER-SLEUTHS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400390049-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2003
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: August 4, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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Documents Furor in Georgetown
By JULIAN MORRISON
The CIA plans to formally
suspend one of this country's'
most respected intelligence
agents today In the wake of
disclosures that one of its young
agents "discovered" classified'
documents in the man's home
And even as the CIA acted,
the latest controversy swirling
;about it reached Capitol Hill
'' where Sen. Eugene McCarthy
(D., Minn?) a' member of the
.Foreign Relations Committee
and an outspoken critic of the
Agency's operations, said he's
asked for a full committee study
of the incident.
The -suspension notice was
scheduled to be handed to Hans
V. Tofte at his home at 1667 35-
st, nw, which was entered by a
CIA agent July 24 In what Mr.
Tofte described as a silly cloak
.'and dagger raid to retrieve
Agency documents the ? agent
-said he spotted -there earlier
on what was described as an
innocent house hunting expedi-
tion.
The 55-year-old, Danish-born
Tofte, who's been an on-again,
off-again Government intelli-
gence agent for 23 years, has
had a soak and dagger career
that puts James Bond to shame.
I
Donovan's favorite operatives had him commissioned and sent= k- mutual friend, Mason City
during World War II when the him to Cairo. businessman H an f o r d Mac-
legendary Donovan ran this On Sept. 16, 1943, Gen. Dono- Nider, wrote letters of introduc-
country's Office of Strategic van *rote a memorandum to tiun both to Gen. Douglas Mac-
Services, and was later credited Army command advising that. Arthur, under whom he'd served'
by Gen. Matthew B. Ridgeway he was sending Capt. Tofte and during World War II, and to a
with "the collection of vital in- another officer "on a secret mis- MacArthur aide.
telligence on Korea, based on aioa of great Importance to'
"
X
his specialized knowledge of un- Sicily and the Italian mainland"! "VALUABLE
conventional warfare." Weeks after U.S. Forces had In- To the aide, on July 28, 1950,
he said, "I am asking my good,
Mr. Tofte practically cut his' tided he Island.
teeth on a spy's handbook, be-. 'Then Capt. 'Tofte_pulled__off friend and fellow townsman, Lt.
ginning with the German inva= his biggest single coup of the' Col. Hans V. Tofte, now at your
lion of Denmark In 1040 when he. war, organizing a secret supply; headquarters, to deliver this
became a charter member of line across the Adriatic to the, note to you. I have no idea
the Danish underground. Partisan Yugoslav forces under'what he is up to or how he Is
h t
t if
d
b
i
In 1941 he had to flee for his
life and wormed his way to
freedom 'thru a tortuous route
that included Germany itself,
France. Spain and Portugal.
i Later. that year, he was re-
cruited by a top secret British-
Danish organization in the Ori-
ent and was flown to Australia
.and then to Singapore where he
took Commando warfare train-
ing.
They year 1992 found him
running a supply line Into China'
ever the Burma Road and lead-
ing a guerilla force of Gurkhas
and Shan tribesmen and, still I (lent of his wife's family busi- and was subsequently lauded by 1
later, operating clandestinely In ness in Mason City, Idwa ' Gen. Ridgeway for developing
China near Hong Kong. But the Korean W a r had techniques for the rescue of
But he wanted to transfer to barely started when the Gov- airmen downed behind enemy.,
American service ?_and in 1943 ; ernment summoned him ;balk lir' ?- -
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cialummeff
ave no
you
ng use
,
u
Marshall Tito - an operation be
that earned him the Legion of already met him in the pres-
Merit and involved 42 ships, sure of the present emergency,
the secret I want to be sure his peculiarly
battles with PT boats
,
landing of 2000 Partisan troopst valuable Far East background is
along the Yugoslav coast, par- being employed.
achute operations and the sue "Tofte did some outstanding
cessful evacuation of 600 work in the last big fracas for
wounded underground fighters Donovan, who told me only a
-all under the noses of Ger- few days ago that he considers
man forces. him one of the best in almost.
CIVILIAN any capacity for which his ex-14
After the war he joined Amer-'perience qualifies him."
ican Overseas Airways as oper= , Co. Tofte went on to organize
ations manager in Copenhagen', Korean guerilla operations for
then resigned to become presi- the late Far East commander I
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He left active Government': lire also is believed under fir;:
again during the Korean War, ': from the Agency's desk-bound
lwt continued his long arid.cluec bureaucrats, some of whom are
:association with such top CU. '?'e tar nets of his proposal -
officials as Richard Helms, now ? known cryptically as "Five-
By-i's director, and the late Frank Five"-to revamp the CIA's en-
G. Wisner, both of whom urged Li-r training procedures.
'tin] repeatedly to return to the There is some suspicion that
Agc:'cy. - J c "raid" on his home was
In a letter dated Aug. 20, ordered by these officials, whose.
1954, that began "Dick Dick", apparently constant battles wi(1L~
Mr. Tofte wrote to Mr. Helms_ active "operatives" such as Mr.!
at his home at 4105 Bradley Tofte, have caused the CIA
Lane, Bethesda, explaining that much embarassment before. he was trying to wind up his
Iowa business affairs "in order
that I can button up things out
here and return to duty in
Washington complete with fam-
ily.
LOG JAM
"I am afraid that this is be
ginning to sound somewhat
monotonous, but I know that i
you appreciate what I am try-
ing to do. For my part I cer- i%
fairly appreciate all the co-op-
eration, that you and F r a n k
have given me to assist me in,
clearing the decks for future.-
action with the Agency."
Mr. Tofte could not wind up
his personal affairs as early
'as he thought and did not re--
join the CIA until 1957.
In 1959 and 1960 he was en-
gaged on an important South
.American mission, and later the
handsome, ruddy-faced Dane
played a major part in the
CIA's operations in Guatemala
and, still later, had a high role,;
in the planning stages of the`
disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion,
which he recommended be?
halted because of morale among.
the Cuban exiles.
There are indications that:
much more is afoot in connec- ,
tion with the "silly cloak and
dagger raid" on Mr. Tofte's;
home last week than is obvious:`
Mr. Tofte, for instance,. has
been critical of the appointment
of "one of us" (career agent
Helms) as director of the CIAO;
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