US Army Intelligence gathering in the unified Germany

We continue the story of Bill, a US Army Intelligence Analyst with Combined Analysis Detachment-Berlin (CAD-B) from episode 127. Germany has now been re-unified and Russian troops have withdrawn from East Germany. Bill tells us of the little known story of continued US Army involvement in intelligence gathering alongside the German security services, the BND.

We hear about “Operation Giraffe”, described as the largest intelligence service procurement campaign of the West since the end of World War II, how Russian sources recruited during the Cold War were managed and how Britain’s MI6 was cut out of receiving the information they had received freely during the Cold War.

Bill tells us of a joint BND/CIA mission to monitor the disposal of Russian nuclear weapons.

It’s a fascinating look into the murky world of human intelligence gathering, corruption, and rivalry in the immediate post Cold War period.

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I am delighted to welcome Bill to our Cold War conversation…

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