AP IMPACT: Before the CIA, there was the Pond

[defendandprotect]

AP IMPACT: Before the CIA, there was the Pond

By RANDY HERSCHAFT and CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writers Randy Herschaft And Cristian Salazar, Associated Press Writers – Thu Jul 29, 2:27 pm ET
NEW YORK – It was a night in early November during the infancy of the Cold War when the anti-communist dissidents were hustled through a garden and across a gully to a vehicle on a dark, deserted road in Budapest. They hid in four large crates for their perilous journey.

Four roadblocks stood between them and freedom.

What Zoltan Pfeiffer, a top political figure opposed to Soviet occupation, his wife and 5-year-old daughter did not know as they were whisked out of Hungary in 1947 was that their driver, James McCargar, was a covert agent for one of America's most secretive espionage agencies, known simply as the Pond.

Created during World War II as a purely U.S. operation free of the perceived taint of European allies, the Pond existed for 13 years and was shrouded in secrecy for more than 50 years. It used sources that ranged from Nazi officials to Stalinists and, at one point, a French serial killer.

It operated under the cover of multinational corporations, including American Express, Chase National Bank and Philips, the Dutch-based electronic giant. One of its top agents was a female American journalist.

Now the world can finally get a deeper look at the long-hidden roots of American espionage as tens of thousands of once-secret documents found in locked safes and filing cabinets in a barn near Culpeper, Va., in 2001 have finally become public after a long security review by the Central Intelligence Agency.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100729/ap_on_re_us/us_spy_agency_the_pond





-------------- And I'm sure the papers are intact and tell the full story after undergoing

"a long review by the CIA" ---------------

[xchrom]

1. Well CIA interpretation is one thing -- what it doesn't hide

Is that multiple-nationals know the worth of a good spy
System.

Why would they give it up or act on it's
Influence and information?

[leveymg]

2. This isn't news - that was "Operation 40" run by Dulles and Weisner

A little club run out of the War Dept Plans & Operations Division that kept things going, and the ratlines running, after most of OSS was closed down in late '45, and the '47 National Security Act enabled the CIA. These were the 40 "closest friends" of Dulles who, according to J.J. Angleton, didn't get polygraphed before moving over to the Agency.