THE SPIES WHO CAME FROM NEXT DOOR

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5
Release Decision: 
RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
2
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
January 24, 2012
Sequence Number: 
6
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
September 1, 1985
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5.pdf114.08 KB
Body: 
6 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5 APTICIEAPPE*F.# NEW YORK TIMES ON PACA ffir j1 September 1985 From The Spies Who Came Next Door Johannes Wolf, the Communist world's 1 By JAMF..4 M. MAtl01AM serving spymejter. The son of Friedrich Wolf, a playwright, Markus Wolf was born near Stuttgart BOMB in I.M. ten years later, escaping the Nazis' perse- is one of the quiet, persistent anxieties of the cution of the Jews, the family fled to Switzerland North Atlantic Treaty Organization that its and then to the Soviet Union. A brilliant student, most important European member is also the "Mischa" wolf attended a Konsintern school and most penetrated by spies from the Warsaw at the war's and was placed by the Soviet authod- Pact. Lying on Europe's ideological fault. line, the ties in a Berlin radio station, where he vigilantly Federal Republic of Germany faces not only, the watched its political line. Be also covered the war massed divisions of the Soviet Union and its allies; crimes trial of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. After in the midst of its open, pluralist society lurk the. the German Democratic Republic was founded In agents of a formidable espionage establishment 1949, he briefly served as a.diplomat but soon took run by Germans who happen to be Communists.. over the Institute for Economic Research, the kw In the last two weeks, a major spy scandal has nel of what became the HVA. His brother, Konrad abruptly shattered the somnolent end-oMummer Wolf, was a film director, president of the East atmosphere in Bonn, pushing theme quiet'anxieties German Academy of Arts and a member of the to the forefront of NATO concerns. It started in a Communist Party Central Committee. Their fa. low key with the disappearance of two secretaries tber was Ambassador to Poland. and a West German army messenger,.and then Like the fictional Karla in the JA Carr* spy became dramatic and serious with the reported novels, General Wolf to regarded by West German defection to East Berlin of Hans Joachim Tiedge, intelligence operatives as a mesmerizing adver- a senior counterintelligence, officer in charge of sary. "He's very intelligent and is catching East German spies. doing good work," said Richard Last week, a highly placed secretary in the Meier. a former head of West Ger- President's office in Bonn was arrested. Two East man counterintelligence, who only German couples in Switzerland and Britain were twitted "Mischa" for getting himself also picked up. A second counterintelligence offi- photographed by Swedish intelll-, cer, Reinhard Leibetanz, was questioned about a gexuce while on a visit to Stockholm:' decade-old friendship with a vanished East Ger- Beyond their fascination with Gen. man agent. All were suspected of having links to eral Wolfs private life, his love for the Hauptverwaltung Aufklilrung or HVA, the hunting and reputed weakness for East German intelligence agency. beautiful women, however, west The Tiedge affair was not the first spy scandal German intelligence officers are con- 'to shake Bonn. In 1954, the first head of West Ger- cerned with the efficient methods of many's counterintelligence agency, Otto John, his spies. turned no in East Berlin; he returned home two Recruitment of west Germans years later claiming he had been kidnapped and ranges from assigning "Romans" to was sentenced to four years in prison. In 1961, court middle-aged Bonn secretaries Heinz Felfe, director of the Federal Intelligence who have access to important infor- Service's anti-Soviet counterespionage section. oration, to placing seemingly harm. ,was unmasked as a Soviet agent. And in 1974, less want ads in west Berlin papers, Chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign after gradually luring university students Gunter Guillaume, a close aide,.was revealed to into furnishing ever more compro- be a Communist "mole." Over the years, mgny mising information. For converts to Boon office secretaries have been discovered to be spying, financial gain can be a moti- spies, often lured into their dangerous avocation vation, but one West German intelli. by East German lover-agants. gene officer said that "an ambition Last week, Intelligence experts and politicians to be someone else," to have a secret were weigmag the damage of the Tiedge defection life that enlivens a drab existence, is and comparing it to previone losses. Some feared often uppermost. that the betrayal may have crippled West Germa- The East Germans have no trouble ny's cahnteriotslligeooe effort for years, since Mr. keeping West Germany infiltrated. ledge, a 19-year veteran of the service, had vast, Last year, 40,000 East Germans were detailed knowledge and was responsible for moos- permitted to emigrate to West Ger- toring 80 psruoeat of Warsaw Pact espionage many, and H.V.A. operatives were operations In West Germany. certainly in their midst. General These are carried out by several thousand East Wolf's agency also confiscates the Gervan agents, who blend easily into the western identity papers of West Germans who par >t what was once a united Germany. They are move to East Germany and dis- commanded by an intriguing figure, Gen.. Markus patches agents bearing them to West- ern countries and then into the Federal Republic. The two secretaries who vanished from Bonn last month had been operating for two decades under false identities. t/ Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230006-5 The Guillaume affair badly saoned German. German relatiaoe, but that weei