First published on August 16, 2010

August 14, 1945 in the United States people rejoice as many of them hear these words from the mainstream US media “Today the guns are silent. The sky no longer rains death.. The entire world lies quietly at peace.” But it wasn’t to last for long. This was VJ Day, Victory in Japan Day, victory over the last of the Axis powers in that war.

The next day the announcement of the Japanese government’s surrender would become international news. The dates for VJ day actually vary from this date to August 15, the next day when news of the Japanese government’s surrender became international news and people everywhere celebrated it, and September 2 the same year, the date of the official Japanese government signing of the surrender document. But the crucial question remains. Why was peace which came with this victory to be so short lived and no peace dividend for all to follow?

Hadn’t Harry Truman, the US president on that very day said: “This is a day when Fascism finally dies as we always knew it would?” Even if he had a slight reservation by adding that the goal of creating a lasting peace was still to come which was obvious to all, it still at the time wouldn’t have seemed fatal to this worthwhile goal.

How did peace fail to last with such happening and an end to the most terrible war in history over three of the worst despotisms in history, the Nazis, the Italian Fascists, and the Japanese war lords?

How did Winston Churchill’s speech on the “Iron Curtain” at Fulton Missouri in March 1946 affect this? How about the top secret actions of Allen Dulles and other cloak and dagger US Army Intelligence types in Switzerland in March and April of 1945 with hard core Nazis making sweetheart deals for them, with at least one of worst ending up later with the help of the same US military intelligence cloak and dagger types at a top level in the US intelligence apparatus? What did this “Operation Sunrise” in Switzerland really do and why is that so crucial to understanding the way the end to this war didn’t lead to any sort of lasting peace? What later was the effect of a turf battle in the US intelligence community in the time just following this war and how might that have cost humanity a lasting peace? How and why did some in prominent roles in the US intelligence community even before the war’s end get hard core Nazis including SS (the most ideologically brain washed by Nazi propaganda of all the German military), SD (the Nazi political security apparatus), and the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) into the US intelligence community and its payroll? All of these played surely significant roles in the end to a lasting peace and peace dividend for all the human race which might have been. Then how about the role of US domestic politics? Yes, it played other than an insignificant and fatal role as it turned out for a lasting peace. What about the idea of the military spending as a WPA program to keep the US economy booming? Yet again another important factor though not quite so significant until years after a lasting peace was already doomed.

This is that story with all its tragedy and lies, intrigue, propaganda, and so much more that went along with it.

By June 1945 some in the US intelligence community were actively aiding hard core Nazis in getting into the US intelligence apparatus and on its payroll. This is no minor matter, for later these same hard core Nazis would reach the top level of the US intelligence community, providing a complete distortion of information that would make its way to the president and others at the top level of the US executive. When this happened the president and others at his level wouldn’t in the least have any way to know that they were getting “information” from those with such fanatical Nazi ideology. Predictably such “information” would be that the USA and the rest of the West faced a “terrible threat” from Moscow’s “terrible Communists,” the same ones who had been such crucial allies for the Western powers fighting the Nazis. That this could take place without the president or others in the executive at his level knowing about it was due to some in the US intelligence community so thoroughly purging the records of these hard core Nazis of all even the most minimal of Nazi past. How those such fanatical Nazi ideology and seeking protect themselves from war crimes prosecution could ever be trusted to be in the least reliable for their “information” is a good question which should have come up with those US citizens in their intelligence apparatus recruiting these hard core Nazis. Naivete does seem to be the the nicest interpretation that can be put on it especially for that recruitment beginning right after the Nazi surrender or only slightly after the end of same war and the following the year. Very likely it was the rule that those US citizens in US military intelligence who recruited these Nazis after the Nazi surrender were doing out of naivete rather than approval of Nazi ideology, but it was naivete to the extreme as these Nazis had to tell the kind of atrocities they had been involved in even if they used Eichmann defense of “We were just following orders” to these US intelligence personnel, which given the level of these Nazi officers wasn’t even close to real. Officers at that level could have refused and influenced others down in the ranks to refuse, these didn’t. That says how naive and silly these US intelligence types were along with then believing that Moscow which had been such a critical ally in that war would all of a sudden become such a “great threat” to the USA and the rest of the West.

As early as autumn 1944 Richard Gehlen, the top Nazi military intelligence officer on the Eastern front, Heinrich Himmler, the top SS officer, and Karl Wolf were planning to secretly surrender to the Western Allied military. Their strategy was to offer something that would appear of value to the Western powers and in the bargain seek special treatment for themselves most especially to be protected from prosecution from taking part in genocide and other war crimes, and they would seek to provide an alibi for whatever level of participation war crimes which they had been involved in. The “something of value” would be either “crucial espionage information” or the offer of a rapid surrender of Nazi troops, though not unconditional, and it would turn would be very much conditioned on the Western response to prominent hard core Nazis’ pressure for special treatment for them, which as it occurred while the shooting war was going on against the Nazis was actually treason on the part of senior US and British military officers involved in such actions. With that being the case, this would later lead to at one of these hard core Nazis ending up later at the top level of the US intelligence community where that person with the purging of his record of all but the most minimal of his Nazi record could put out the same kind of misinformation and propaganda that he and other hard core

Nazis had put out in the early 1930s to bring the Nazis to power in Germany by telling what a great threat Moscow’s “terrible Communists” were. Among the US military intelligence personnel who played a major role at this stage was none other than Allen Dulles a top level cloak and dagger type with the US Army’s Office of Strategic Services. Gehlen who had presided over some of the most outrageous atrocities committed on the Eastern Front where it was clearly worse than on the Western Front would go on to have his own organization providing “information” to the the top level of the US executive including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and others. Wolf who was an SS general and a hardened Nazi war criminal would go on to be a top US intelligence asset serving under a one time top US Army intelligence officer selling “infomation” to the US State Department, the CIA, and businesses in Western Europe and the United States. All of this would lead to insane exaggeration of the “threat” from Moscow’s “terrible Communists” and the East bloc. As early as the end of the summer of 1945 Dulles, head of the Secret Intelligence Branch of the OSS and others at the top level of US Army intelligence including Walter Bedell Smith were giving the green light to backing Gehlen. By 1953 the CIA was bankrolling and protecting the top level of Adolph Eichmann’s organization. By this time Klaus Barbie and others were also getting bankrolled and protected by the US intelligence community. These were people in the SS, SD, and Gestapo at top levels with their records fully purged to keep some people from finding out about their past.

Before the victory in the turf battle in the US intelligence community, some really solid independent and impartial analysis from US Army personnel right on the scene in Eastern Europe in 1946 showed what a pack of lies and propaganda these hard core Nazis were handing out to the US intelligence types they were dealing with. In 1946 a US Army analysis of Moscow’s capability and plans coming from on the scene reports from US Army personnel in Eastern Europe from the “US strategic bombing survey research teams’ as well as other on the scene reports showed Moscow’s military was tearing up the railroad network in Germany even though the Red Army as it was known to lack the motorized strength of Western forces would be forced to rely on railroads for movement of its troops as well for logistical support– not the kind of action a power bent on aggression toward Western Europe would take. The same year an official US Army report from Eastern Europe concluded that the odds were heavily against Moscow being capable of launching any assault on Western Europe for at least 10 years. But such analyses wouldn’t see the light of day among those at the top level of US foreign policy formulation after the turf battle in the intelligence community in the USA led to the victory by the hard core Nazis and those aligned with them over those who wanted to provide completely independent and impartial analysis to the policy makers including the president.

Thus playing a major role as well was the turf battle in the US intelligence community which would lead to the purging of independent and impartial voices in that community and the victory of those Moscow bashing types who were hell bent to prove Moscow’s great threat. This turf battle was primarily between the Research & Analysis Branch of the OSS under Colonel Alfred McCormack and the Military Intelligence Service or MIS, a secret espionage agency in the War Department in and a bit after the Second World War, with R&A being a branch of the OSS which was an impartial and independent outfit persistently providing cold reasoned analysis of Moscow and what it was doing, and the MIS hell bent on “proving” that the Moscow was a “great threat” to the USA and the rest of the West. The deciding factor ended up being one member of R&A who had likely become a member of the Communist Party in the early 1930s and failed to to report this when applying for government employment. That this proved crucial and especially with GOP congress members and the media was proof positive that the hard core Nazis that those so determined to carry out a grand crusade against Moscow must have completely purged the records of these same Nazis or completely kept all about them quiet otherwise, as such revelations in this case would easily have given rise to questions about the party affiliations of these people. The reason for this is that the R&A had charged that the MIS was pro Nazi and the MIS had charged that R&A was pro Communist. With this being the case, then the side which could best hide any concerns about even the most of minimal party affiliations with either the Communists or the Nazis would be in the best position to prevail and did, no matter the actually facts of the case. Congress would side with the MIS and move to break up R&A, and this would serve as a warning to those who didn’t want to toe the line put out by the hard core and concealed hard core Nazis and their allies that they would have to protect their careers in the intelligence community by doing so or at least appearing to.

Opening the way to the hard core Nazis getting into the US intelligence apparatus and eventually reaching a top level would come easier with “Operation Sunrise,” a very clandestine operation by Allen W Dulles and others in talks with hard core Nazis in Switzerland in March and April of 1945 with the fighting with the Nazis going full blast and these same hard core Nazis offering a quick surrender of the Nazi command in Italy if they got special treatment and actually would keep them from facing the bar of justice for their involvement in horrendous war crimes. Such action by Dulles and others clearly constituted treason as defined in the US Constitution as “giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States,” which it definitely did by giving a most kind of special treatment, as these were the most fanatical enemies the United States or any other country had ever faced in history.

Add to this in March 1946 Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” talk at Fulton MO and any hope for a lasting peace following the Second World War grow even dimmer especially with the heavy US media coverage awarded to this speech much of which has never been at all ever supported by any independent analysis and conveniently ignored the Iron Curtain the British empire imposed on its colonies which the sun never set on and would easily have covered twice or three times the body of land as all Eastern Europe.

The military industrial complex would come into the picture but not right after the Second World War, as Truman had demobilized the US military right after that war and wouldn’t remobilize it all out until the Korean War broke out in 1950 with the Cold War turning hot. Nevertheless when it did get going, it became a factor as it could be used a WPA program as I F Stone put it to provide huge amounts of money for the economy and keep for more people in employment with such an economic factor later proving very important in keeping this complex and actually the Cold War going.

Domestic politics also played a role, with the GOP starting in 1946 to use it as a club to smash the Democrats over the head with and use as a trump card in stacking the deck in same domestic politics in that party’s own favor. This would put the Democrats on the defensive to not appear “soft on Communism” further pushing the political debate to the right. With Joseph McCarthy’s Wheeling WV speech about “205 Communists in the state department,” things would only get worse with regard to this. It would take a GOP president in the 1950s to cut down on some of this madness with his “Spirit of Geneva” in 1955, his attempt at the same in 1960, and other moves such as the Austrian State Treaty providing for an independent and neutral Austria.