Operation Bloodstone was a

covert operation A covert operation is a military operation intended to conceal the identity of (or allow plausible deniability by) the party that instigated the operation. Covert operations should not be confused with clandestine operations, which are performe ...

whereby the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA) sought out

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

and collaborators living in Soviet-controlled areas, to work undercover for U.S. intelligence inside of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

, and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, as well as domestically within the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Many of those who were hired as part of Bloodstone were high-ranking Nazi intelligence agents who had committed war crimes.

History

Operation Bloodstone was initially proposed by the U.S. State Department, and was approved by SANACC (the State, Army, Navy, Air Force Coordinating Committee) on June 10, 1948. In the initial stages of the operation, a brief paper identified these anti-Communist elements in non-Western hemisphere countries outside of the Soviet orbit who "have shown extreme fortitude in the face of the Communist menace" and have "demonstrated the know-how to counter Communist propaganda and techniques to obtain control of mass movements." Operation Bloodstone sought to tap these individuals who were "immobilized" on account of lack of funds and a coordinated international movement. In July, SANACC expanded the operation to:

comprise those activities against the enemy which are conducted by Allied or friendly forces behind enemy lines ... oinclude
psychological warfare Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Mi ...
, subversion,
sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
, and miscellaneous operations such as
assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
, target capture and rescue of Allied airmen.

By 1976, Operation Bloodstone was no longer a closely guarded secret but an investigation revealed that two other highly classified programs were connected to it:

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World Wa ...

and

Alsos Mission The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was on the German nuclear energy pro ...

References

{{ColdWar-stub CIA activities in Russia and Europe Covert operations Central Intelligence Agency controversies

History

See also

References