“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.” Thomas Jefferson — Letter to John Norvell (1807) “Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.” Goethe — The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice.” Albert Einstein

March 7 2020 — Greg Miller — Washington Post — forgot to tell his readers that the Minerva Files contain disturbing information about a series of suspicious deaths. One should “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” However, in his following piece and during an interview with NPR, Greg Miller clearly distorts the facts about Crypto AG in such a way that one can no longer ignore malice. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

On March 5 2020, Greg Miller was interviewed by NPR Dave Davies. You can read and listen to this interview posted online: Uncovering The CIA’s Audacious Operation That Gave Them Access To State Secrets.

Let me comment on three FALSE statements made by Greg Miller during this interview.

# 1 — Boris Hagelin is Russian-born — FALSE

DAVIES: Let’s talk about the origins of this. It wasn’t like these spy agencies just decided – hey, let’s open a shop and sell this stuff. It starts with an interesting character, Boris Hagelin, right? Tell us about him. MILLER: [Boris Hagelin] is Russian-born. His family flees to Sweden. And he develops this technology at a really opportune moment because it’s just happening as World War II is on the horizon.

Boris Hagelin was NOT Russian-born [1]. And his family did not flee to Sweden to escape the Russian revolution.

His Swedish father Karl Wilhelm Hagelin was a friend of the Nobel brothers.

When Karl Hagelin became director of Nobel Brothers Oil Production Company in 1899, he moved his family to St. Petersburg.

By the end of 1921, all private enterprises, including the Nobel Company, had been confiscated and the Hagelin family had returned to their home in Sweden.

Boris Hagelin had left St. Petersburg in 1904 where he graduated from the Royal Technical University in Stockholm in 1914 with a degree in mechanical engineering.

Let me make this clear. The Hagelin family did not escape to Sweden. Boris Hagelin was sent to School in Stockholm 13 years before the abolition of the monarchy (1917), and 19 years before the Bolshevik establishment of the Soviet Union (1923).

In fact, in 1921, Boris Hagelin was working with the Standard Oil Company in the United States.

But Greg Miller wants his readers to believe that Boris Hagelin was Russian-born, because he hates Russia, and in his opinion, only a Russian could betray everyone around him — family members, friends, employees, customers and the whole planet.

Miller only manages to remind us that no country has a monopoly on betrayals.

# 2 — William Friedman and Boris Hagelin met in the 40s — FALSE

DAVIES: Right. So the United States has this relationship with Hagelin and buys these encryption devices during the war. Afterwards, they’d like to continue the relationship. And you tell us that it was fortuitous that the head of the United States Army’s signals intelligence service – a guy William Friedman – was a good friend of Hagelin. What kind of deal did they manage to strike? MILLER: They’re both fascinated with this kind of mathematics and technology. And they forge a relationship. They meet each other in the 1940s. And it’s Friedman who then becomes sort of the manager of this relationship with Hagelin over time. So after the war, Hagelin goes back to Sweden. He’s flush with cash from his huge contract from the U.S. Army. He’s got – you know, he was paid $8 million for all these devices he made.

This again is absolutely false. In truth William Friedman and Boris Hagelin met — at least twice — during the 30s.

The US Army Signals Intelligence Service was looking for a replacement for their M-94 hand cipher device.

Hagelin first met William Friedman in 1937. Hagelin demonstrated his C-36 machine but Friedman rejected the device.

After much improvements, Hagelin tried again in 1939, but Friedman rejected the design once more.

In other words, Friedman knew all along that Crypto AG cipher devices were not secure and this is exactly why he pushed very hard for these devices to become used worldwide after the war.

[NB : For military application during WWII, the machine could be used for most purposes. Sure, the German could easily break the Hagelin codes, but they needed about 2 hours — in ideal circumstances — which is of course useless if the message is about something that already happened anyway.]

#3 — Boris Hagelin always planned to sell Crypto AG — FALSE

DAVIES: So how does this morph into a CIA-owned company? MILLER: So there were always, you know, ideas all along the way. Wow, this is a great arrangement we have with Hagelin. Could we tweak it further? (…) by the late 1960s, Hagelin is getting on in years. He’s in his 80s. He’s looking to retire. He wants to get out of this. And he’s trying to figure out what’s going to happen to this company. And that is when the – he’s interested in selling it.

Once again, this explanation is simply false. Declassified documents make it very clear that Friedman (NSA) and the CIA knew that Boris “Bo” Hagelin Jr. was expected to run the company when his father would retire.

Both Friedman and the CIA were highly suspicious of Bo as it was no secret that he believed his father had been wrong to engage in a secret deal.

A CIA document puts it rather bluntly:

“He [Boris Hagelin Jr.] was viewed (…) as a wild card in the deck who, if he discovered the true arrangements, might try to derail them.”

One day, their suspicion became reality. Boris Hagelin Jr. visited several embassies in Washington DC.

Bo explained — in great details — to several ambassadors that the Crypto AG cypher machines were unsafe.

One ambassador felt that the news was so important that he decided to cable the information… with a CRYPTO machine. The cable was — of course — intercepted and read by the NSA & the CIA. (Ask yourself which country possibly employs such idiot as an ambassador?)

Friedman personally informed Boris Hagelin of his son’s treason. When asked for advice, Hagelin answered that the Americans were in a better position to stop him.

The game was over. Boris Hagelin decided to sell Crypto AG. The CIA and the BND bought the company on June 4 1970 for 25 million Swiss francs.

Hagelin Sr. then resigned from the board. Beside himself, only Boris Jr. and Sture Nyberg — to whom Hagelin had turned over day-to-day management — knew the CIA and the BND had acquired Crypto AG.

Boris Hagelin Jr. was killed in a car accident (involving a truck) in Washington D.C. on November 17 1970. [2]

Neither the Washington Post nor ZDF could locate Nyberg or determine if he is still alive.

What is Wrong with WP Reporter Greg Miller?

Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but not to his own facts. I will let you decide if these false statements are due to malice or stupidity.

But keep in mind that Greg Miller is a person who pushed for the “Steele Dossier” despite having been told by his FBI & CIA sources that they did not believe the information was correct.

One thing appears certain. Miller likes grandiose titles. When reporting on the 2016 election, he called it the “Crime of the Century” and when he published the Crypto AG story, he labelled the CIA/NSA Rubicon operation the “Intelligence Coup of the Century.”

I do not know if Greg Miller is the “Idiot of the Century” or the “Crook of the Century”. But this amazing reporter is surely something of this century.

PS: On February 6 2020, the Washington Post Announced that announced that Greg Miller will become a Europe-based investigative correspondent, beginning this summer.

Greg is one of The Post’s most accomplished reporters, with an extraordinary record in breaking some of the most important national-security scoops in recent years. He unearthed stories at the core of The Post’s coverage of Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign, and then drew from reporting around the newsroom in writing “The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy.’’

WaPo reporter Greg Miller on Putin election interference

According to a Washington Post investigation, in August [2016] the CIA gave then-President Obama a report that “detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.”

REFERENCES

[1] — Boris Caesar Wilhelm Hagelin was born on 2 July 1892 in Adschikent, a small town near Baku in Azerbaijan.

Citizenship of Sweden is based primarily on the principle of jus sanguinis. In other words, citizenship is conferred primarily by birth to a Swedish parent, irrespective of place of birth.

Actually, William Friedman’s family fled Russia in 1892 to escape the virulent anti-Semitism there, ending up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[2] — Erich Schmidt-Eenboom is a well-known secret service expert and has published numerous books and articles on that matter. He is head of the Research Institute for Peace Policy in Bavaria.

Asked about the death of Boris Hagelin Jr., this expert answered: “Even the vice president of the BND assumed that Boris Hagelin Jr. was not the victim of an accident. It was an intelligence murder.”

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Crypto AG — What is Wrong with WP Reporter Greg Miller?