August 11, 1945
Allen Dulles was the key facilitator of merging Nazi intelligence with US intelligence after the war.
Together With Some of His Top Generals, Nazi Spymaster Gehlen is Flown to Washington DC on Military Jet Authorized by General Bedell Smith.
They will be housed at Fort Hunt, Virginia, for nearly a year. Their exchange of intelligence with Allen Dulles (of the Office of Strategic Services and future director of the CIA) and other US intelligence officials will result in the merging of Nazi intelligence with US intelligence to fight the USSR and communists worldwide. The so-called Gehlen Organization, re-established in Germany, will be overseen by the CIA, and by 1955 will become the basis of Germany’s new foreign intelligence organization, the BND, with Gehlen serving as its first president. Many of his men would go on to advise policies within NATO.
For further reading:
Carl Oglesby “The Secret Treat of Fort Hunt,” Covert Action Quarterly, Fall, 1990.
Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND, 1945-49, edited by Kevin Ruffner. Declassified CIA history available at the National Archives.
The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot.