The Müller Washington Journals- 1948-1951: From Gestapo Chief to the CIA - Part 5

Edited  by Dr. Rainer Scholz

Editor¹s Foreword

“The American Army even recruited and evacuated the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller. To prevent later accusations that the United States government was employing the notorious Mueller, the Americans used Gehlen’s organization to finance his work.”

Joseph Trento, “The Secret History of the CIA” New York, 2001, p29

The Müller Journals

Translation from the German by Ernst Gauss

Wednesday, 23 November 1949

Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving Day here, an American Harvest Festival. No one in this house is American with the exception of Heini but as a concession to the national customs, we will be having an entirely American dinner. I have spoken with the cook on Monday about this and we will have the turkey, the bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams (a purely American potato also called a sweet potato), soup, fresh rolls, a pie made with pumpkin and nutmeg and other things. Am told it is a very traditional and good feast so one has hopes my informants are correct.

Thursday, 24 November 1949

Today we had the Thanksgiving dinner that seemed to be entirely worthwhile. There were two turkeys, one for the staff and one for me and my immediate circle which consisted of Irmgard, Heini and the First and Second Murderers. I have been reading Macbeth. Arno made remarks about the turkey, indicating that he preferred it to chicken and the pie was a great success.

It was raining today and warm during the day.

After the dinner, I put on my raincoat, took an umbrella and Maxl for a walk up and down the streets around here for my exercise and the welfare of the carpets.

A very pleasant experience with what I have learned are called the Cave Dwellers!

I will put some of this down because I am in a particularly good mood and everyone else has gone to their beds, or someone else’s, and I am not tired enough to go to sleep.

Tomorrow, I will have to start preparations for my trip to Florida but tonight I can enjoy myself with thoughts about the future.

During my walk today, I went past an old but obviously very expensive house and as I was passing, I heard the sound of a piano so I stopped for a moment and listened. It was a very proficient rendering of a Bach piece that I have played myself so I looked up at the house and saw that a window on the first floor was open. Although it was raining, it was still a warmish day and it was very humid. A few moments later, a well-dressed, elderly woman emerged from the front door, umbrella in hand, and came down the front walk and through the gate.

Since Maxl and I were standing in front of the fence and she emerged no more than three feet away, I raised my hat to her. I said that I hoped she would not take offense at my standing in front of her house but that I had heard someone playing most proficiently on the piano and that as an amateur pianist, I was very much impressed. To this the woman replied, in excellent humor, that she had no objections to my listening and that it was her niece who was practicing for a recital.

There were formal pleasantries exchanged (reading Emily Post has been of great help here in Washington, at least with civilized people) and I gave her my nice engraved card with my nice new name on it.

Her car came out from the rear of the house with not only a chauffeur but also a footman, both in livery! Before she got into the car, this grande dame said to me that she and her niece were at home on Wednesdays and they would be most happy if I would call. She had all of the panache of the wife of an Ambassador and when I made some reference to this, she said that she was a Cave Dweller and had nothing whatsoever to do with the Transients.

On that note, she entered her car and drove off.

Although Maxl has no ear for music, I certainly do and I stood there for another ten minutes. When I got back home, somewhat wetter than I had wanted, I had someone dry Maxl off before letting him go upstairs.

I also had the occasion to speak with one of my American friends and asked him about the Cave Dwelling lady and was promptly told that this is the terminology for the old Washington society whose roots go back to the eighteenth century and who take a dim view of diplomats and politicians.

When I gave him the address, he told me he would check on it for me. An hour later he called back with the news that this house, or mansion, was the property of a very prominent, and wealthy, old family.

I shall first digest my meal and then plan to make my call on Wednesday. No doubt the niece will be fat and ugly but she plays like an angel.

Sunday, 27 November 1949

To an early Mass and trying to put together some material for my meeting with the P. (resident, ed.) in Florida. Robert came by just before lunch, hoping no doubt to get a free meal. He is very upset about the visit of some retired Japanese general to Maryland. One of his brothers died in Japanese captivity during the war and Robert now claims that this Lieutenant General (Dr. Shiro, ed.) Ishii was in charge of a bacteriological warfare complex in China who experimented on living people, mostly Allied prisoners of war. Killing them rather badly of course. Also this gang spread anthrax, the plague and other charming things all over China and up into Russia. Poor Russians. Schreiber’s people give them plague on one side and General Ishii gives it to them on the other.

But, according to Robert who ought to know, General MacArthur not only protected Ishii and his medical assassins but actually set them up in a secret compound in Japan to continue their happy work!

And now some of the more important killers have been invited to the United States as honored guests to lecture on their activities to American Army personnel out at Ft. Detrick in Maryland where, Robert tells me, we are planning to do the same thing to the Russians that Schreiber (Dr. Walter Paul, ed.) and Ishii did during the war.

I enjoy the irony of the situation. That is the irony inherent in Robert coming to me for assistance! And I am a wanted war criminal who ran the dread Gestapo! I suppose if the government will make love to Ishii and his men, they must have no problem with me at all. And, Robert tells me, not only does MacArthur know but the President has been informed as well!

This is a Pandora’s Box which should be kept tightly shut in my opinion because Washington is still full of Soviet friends in spite of all our labors in the vineyards of the Lord and if Josef gets wind of this nasty business, no doubt people will be dropping like flies in Cleveland and certainly here.

I must make an effort to buy some property, hopefully with a house on it, in some nice remote place like Colorado, where I can escape if such a filthy business gets started.

The account of General Ishii is certainly not a great secret but there are some aspects of it that are not so commonly known to the public and for obvious reasons. The Japanese Political Police, the dreaded Kempeitai, set up a biological and chemical warfare center in Manchuria during the 1930s. Initial experiments on living prisoners were conducted using Chinese, but during the war, Unit 731, as the huge complex was called, received over 3,000 American, British, Dutch, Russian, Korean and Chinese prisoners for vivisection, injection with deadly diseases, artificial freezing experiments and other pleasantries.

In addition to such activities, Lt. General Dr. Shiro Ishii also used Japanese Army special units to spray dysentery, bubonic plague, typhoid and cholera germs over the population of China’s Zhejiang Province to test various diseases and determine the most effective means of liquidating large numbers of their enemies.

A translation of a Japanese official report exists in which Army Headquarters in Tokyo was considering putting pathogens onto air-borne balloons and letting the prevailing air currents deliver the deadly contents to the United States Pacific Northwest.

This activity was by no means limited to China and the Kempeitai had other facilities throughout their Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere including Malaya, other Chinese sites, the prison complex at Singapore and Hiroshima on the main island of Japan.

Not only did MacArthur protect Ishii and his staff but also all of his files dealing with his experiments were taken over by the United States Army and Ishii was put to work along with members of his staff on the identical projects at a secret site in Japan. This site was later developed into a major Japanese pharmaceutical firm in which MacArthur and some of his closest collaborators initially had a financial interest and were considered to be participating partners.

There are several reports on this business, one prepared by G2 in Tokyo in 1948 and another follow-up prepared during the Korean War in 1951. At that time there was a very high level argument as to whether or not the atomic bomb should be used on the North Koreans and Chinese invaders of South Korea. Some counsel held out for using Ishii’s version of an Asiatic Final Solution but fortunately, Truman vetoed both projects.

Monday, 28 November 1949

A number of matters. I spoke with Hoover again about the British and have absolutely stressed my belief that not only were they spying on us, especially on our atomic programs here, but also giving vital secrets to the Soviets! Hoover hates the British as much as he does the Russians so it has not been difficult to gain his interest.

T. (ruman, ed.) is neutral about the British and even cooperative with them and I will have to do what I can to wreck this situation. I suggested to H. that perhaps he had better set up a section to keep an eye on the British.

We will start with the telephones and observation of those who use their embassy here and their consulates in Chicago and New York. He agrees to start this program “very soon” and I gave him some information on a few British agents here. He told me Stephenson was a Canadian murderer who killed Americans who got in the British way during the war and who had agents spying all over Washington. They and the Russians!

I am keeping Harold P. (hilby, ed.) in the background until I can have my own people get enough background material on the new spy chief to make an impression on Hoover. I dug out the papers covering Philby’s defection, or rather cooperation with us in 1939 and will have photocopies made to add to my reports to Hoover.

Spending tonight on a report for Truman in Florida and have decided to downplay the menace of the communist intellectual and stress actual spies in place, especially in the Atomic program. Using material from Pash and some from Hoover. I will talk about the atomic program and the Russians, and then move right into the British situation without letting any light get in between.

Also some piano practice and preparations for my Wednesday visit to my neighbor and the unknown niece. I keep imagining what she looks like. Hopefully attractive (I cannot abide ugly women, especially fat and ugly women). It would be pleasant to at least become acquainted with a really attractive younger woman who is a good pianist and likes Bach!

It never fails that she will have huge buttocks, bad skin and teeth and a shrill voice. Or legs like my Bechstein (a German piano, ed.). Well, the aunt has enough money to make her interesting but she is far too old.

One of the guards who is from Utah and is a Mormon (but not a very good one Heini tells me because he smokes and drinks coffee) told a joke which is worth putting down. The head of the Mormon Church was called Brigham Young. He was a raging polygamist but liked younger women, as I do. He used to say (and I had to write this down to get the English correct), “I don’t care how you bring them but bring them young.” Or a contraction to say “Bring’em young.” An American joke. It’s true that we always learn the nasty parts of a foreign language first.

Learning French, one does not first say, “Please tell me how to get to the nearest cathedral so that I may pray,” but instead, “where is the local whorehouse so I can screw to clear my sinuses,” or even better, “what price do you charge for your services, Madame, and do you have a health certificate?” Always avoid a prostitute who has a pack of dogs following her down the street while she is on combat patrol. They have a better sense of smell than we do and God knows what goes on internally.

Imagine having three beautiful young wives? It would kill me but would be an interesting way to commit suicide as well as being very expensive. One wife is quite enough but I never can keep my eyes off a woman with pretty legs. Heini knows this little failing of mine and comforted me with a story about his father’s dog. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with chasing pretty women, Boss. But my dad (Vati) has a dog that chases cars too.” Yes, and of course what happens when the dog catches the car? Does he mount the exhaust pipe and burn his vital parts? Heini is an excellent fellow but is sometimes too sharp. Although I am no virgin in that area either.

Tuesday, 29 November 1949

Notes for conversations with T. (ruman, ed.)

My area of expertise is Soviet Russian foreign intelligence but I wish to expand to cover other hostile areas. While communism was very popular here during the Roosevelt era, most people, even so-called professionals, do not realize that the actual spy apparatus was very limited. The Soviets always have a large pool of sympathetic loyalists on which to draw, but only for random information. This information is fed to the actual rings whose leader then passes it to Moscow, either through his Russian control or directly. All of this is sent out by radio to Moscow.

I could write papers on this by the hour and America and her politicians, and most especially the general public, are now well aware of Soviet spies. But they tend to lump Soviet sympathizers and intellectual communists in the same bag. To pursue all of these people would be impossible, even with American manpower and wealth. Better to concentrate on either penetrating the Soviet rings and feed them misleading information or to destroy them. Arrests and publicity on one hand and the knife or the heart attack on the other. (Memo: Stop throwing them out of the window! Much too obvious. One, perhaps, but not so many.)

Then, having done this, the next step would be to so sensitize the public to Soviet spies that all communist sympathizers would be too terrified to cooperate with Moscow at any time!

Senator McCarthy and his kind are perfect for this agitation. The Senator is a boor of the worst kind but so blindly ambitious that he will jump onto this train with glee.

Will point out to T. that M. is a Republican and that T. can deny any participation in this business. Of course T. is not too popular with his own party because they still yearn for the liberal years of Roosevelt but if the Democrats are able to distance themselves from a Republican Congressional razzia (European term for police raid, ed.) against Rooseveltian Reds, they will do so at once.

Having dealt with the so-called Red Menace of Col. Hoover, I will turn to a much more serious matter...that of British spying on the United States. I will outline to T. that the British hate us (I will use this word for solidarity) because we beat them in two wars (1776 and 1812) and bankrupted them in 1940 by taking all of their cash in return for old weapons, they have no problem in spying on us.

They do not view us, as so many Americans think today, as their saviors but rather as their destroyers and they all do hate us for destroying their thoroughly rotten Empire.

I will point out, very clearly and with supportive documents (Memo: Have these ready if and when required!) that the British intelligence and governmental agencies are filled with either actual communist agents or worse, radical Moscow sympathizers.

It is also filled with fairies but we won’t go into that unless T. shows some interest. T. is certainly not a fairy and probably hates them.

I will point out that England has no more navy or army to speak of and a squad of Soviet Boy Scouts (which do not exist) could invade England and conquer it within a week.

Therefore.... certain higher-level British government people have arrived at a secret convention with Stalin. Do not attack our weak, undefended people, and we will assist you by the sharing of certain very important intelligence material we are able to steal from our erstwhile allies (but actual enemies.)

And this especially means atomic secrets!!!

1. In sum, the British spy on us with greater impunity than the Soviets could.

2. They have stolen and are stealing American atomic secrets.

3. These secrets go to London where the British would like to build at least      one atomic bomb just to show the world that they are really still important.

4. The same secrets are eagerly given to Stalin to curry favor with him as well as to fulfill the ideological requirements of so many of the Soviet lovers now in power in the British bureaucracy.

THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

By cutting off the British from their spying, we equally cut off the Russians who are now under the spotlight and have to be very careful.

Note here: I understand that Stalin did not set off an atomic bomb but instead exploded several standard bombs from an aircraft. These bombs were full of radioactive material that spread into the upper air so that the Americans could detect them. Source has been correct so far. Mention this to T.? Not a good idea at all.

Solution: Countermeasures at once against the British. Hoover will be in full cooperation on this. He has specifically said so to me recently and very firmly. I believe him on this. We put devices into their Embassy and consulates, listen to their telephones and follow anyone leaving the Embassy and photograph anyone going in and then investigate them later.

We set up a disinformation section to allow them to have faulty and misleading material. Also.... we could give them the sort of information which could literally blow up in their faces but I doubt if their scientists are that stupid. It will be vital in all of this to totally discredit not only the British but most especially all of their intelligence apparatus!!!

We don’t want them to work their way into our skin the way they did here during the war. Note here...IMPORTANT...Almost all of the top CIA people are rabid Anglophiles. Angleton’s mentor during the war was Philby and both the Dulles brothers sniff at the bottoms of all Englishmen. Be sure to work these facts into your presentation and impress on T. that this Anglophilia blinds them to the truth. Again, EXERCISE GREAT CAUTION HERE...UNTIL T. IS CONVERTED! If he shows any real resistance, inject just enough to make him think and then...CHANGE THE DIRECTION!!!

I will be visiting with my interesting neighbors tomorrow and then on Thursday, will take the train down to Miami and from there drive down to the Keys to have my meeting with the President. I will be using my new name on the tickets and will be checked into the Naval Base at Key West under this name to keep the CIA people from knowing about this. Now I have three sets of papers; one German, one Swiss and now, one as an American citizen. On the one hand, I am a Bavarian Catholic and on the other, a Jew! Such an irony! Dulles, who knew my other persona, made several rude remarks about my adopting the guise of what he supposed to be my archenemy. Hitler’s perhaps, but not mine. They could make me an Eskimo for all I care and Dulles is one of the most pompous, self-important asses I have ever met and I have known many.

These well-born idiots think they and they alone are capable of directing the foreign policy of the country, but in truth I doubt if any of them, Angleton included, could run a church outing for deaf and dumb children. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!

The names used by Heinrich Müller after the war are of great interest to a significant number of people...and agencies. At the beginning of the Twenty First Century there are virtually no major players still alive who knew Müller, as Müller, while he worked for the CIA and the U.S. Army in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

With the assumed names not a matter of official knowledge, there is a very real fear that something unpalatable and true will emerge about the former Chief of the Gestapo before Washington can, as is their standard custom, destroy any pertinent, damaging records.

It is a matter of record that Müller used the name of “Schwartzter” when he escaped from encircled Berlin in April of 1945 but there the investigative trail ends.

Shortly after the third volume in this series was released, a very reputable American reporter with a background in U.S. intelligence matters was contacted by a source that he had every reason to trust. This source, who had retired from the CIA, told the reporter that he had personally known Heinrich Müller after the war, living under the name of Lothar Metzel and that this Metzel had lived on Connecticut Avenue in Washington. This specific information checked out; the name of Lothar Metzel was immediately located in old Washington telephone directories.

However, a thorough, professional investigation disclosed that the Metzel who lived at that address was a Viennese Jew who had fled the Germans and came to the United States in 1939. This Metzel was a minor playwright who worked for the Office of War Information (OWI) during the war, preparing anti-Nazi radio scripts. Further, after the war and the formation of the CIA in 1948, this Metzel joined that organization and rose to a position of some importance.

Photographs of the playwright Metzel bore absolutely no resemblance to the former SS General and it is impossible to believe that anyone who personally knew the CIA official could think that he even remotely looked like Heinrich Müller.

This is not quite the end of the story, however, because a search by the media of old OSS files disclosed another Lothar Metzel, also from Austria but of German origin, who worked for the OSS in Switzerland during the war. The second Metzel, while on an intelligence mission into Germany, was captured by Müller’s Gestapo and shot in August of 1944.

Before this OSS file suddenly disappeared from sight and into a burn bag, the investigating media located a picture of the second Metzel who looked neither like the playwright nor the head of the Gestapo.

The final addition to this entertaining scenario was supplied by a retired U.S. Navy officer who had been involved with various high-level intelligence activities in the 1960s and identified for members of the media, a picture of Heinrich Müller as a man “whose face he had positively seen before.” The name in his old telephone book was Lothar Metzel. This Metzel looked exactly like Heinrich Müller.

While in Washington, Müller lived in a large town house in Georgetown and not an old-fashioned red brick apartment house on Connecticut Avenue. Since both of the Metzels were Jewish in origin, this might well explain Müller’s remark about having a false Jewish persona.

It is fortunate that the media thoroughly checked out the facts in this bizarre matter or someone might very well have published a story about Müller’s survival which could be very easily refuted and this refutation then used to discredit anything published about him.

Well, first the recital with the probably ugly pianist and then the business with Truman. We shall see what is business and which is pleasure.

The anti-communism of Senator Joseph McCarthy, R. Wisconsin, has been the subject of many books and scholarly studies since the end of the 1950s. Most of these works are written by those who espouse the liberal idea that McCarthy was a vicious, fascistic opportunist whose incitement of the public against American communists ruined many lives and destroyed the reputations of a legion of intelligent, anti-racist and progressive Americans, and absolutely none of whom were communists and certainly none of whom ever spied on the United States for Russia.

The same writers have written similar works about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which the radical Spanish left is depicted as progressive and the equally radical right is depicted as a brutal fascist movement entirely under the control of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

It takes many decades for anything even approaching objective truth to emerge concerning any matter that involves religious cults, be they secular or sacred and only after the bitter fanatics are long in their graves can objectivity begin to poke its way up through the heavily asphalted parking lots that represent generations of ideological propaganda.

These misleading and very often entirely false representations by fanatic partisan writers have been long accepted by the public because of the lack of alternative published views. Alternative views, regardless of accuracy, are severely discouraged in nearly all countries because often highly profitable structures are constructed on the weak foundations of mythic history.

Müller became acquainted with McCarthy through the good offices of one Father Edmund A. Walsh of Georgetown University in Washington. The most bitter and enduring enemy of Stalin’s Cominform was the Catholic Church. During the post-war period, the Church was under the control of Pius XII, who as Papal Nuncio to Germany in the period between the Second and Third Reichs, had the opportunity of witnessing firsthand the brutal and murderous effects of the various Soviet-directed revolts inside Germany.

Müller’s papers and notes indicate that he often met with Father Walsh and passed a considerable amount of valuable information to him which was eventually given to McCarthy to aid him in his very public crusade against the radical left in America. The one issue so often cited with great glee by McCarthy’s detractors was his allegation made in a February 9, 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia that there were a large number of clearly identified communists in the Department of State. His legion of livid critics state that this statement was entirely false and had no foundation in any kind of truth.

In point of actual fact, at that time there were, and had been for some time previous, at least 80 known and clearly identified communists in the Department of State. No one, McCarthy included, ever pointed out that these communists were former members of the communist-dominated Office of Special Services or OSS. Truman had disbanded this organization as early as 1945 because of its composition, and its communist members were sent to the Department of State to await a graceful, and permanent, exit from governmental service. Many other members quickly joined the new CIA when it was formed.

It was the specific policy of Franklin Roosevelt to insist to General Donovan, head of the OSS, that as many active communists as possible be recruited and utilized by that organization. Throughout its spotted history, the OSS agents cooperated with and certainly coordinated with the wishes of Soviet intelligence, the NKVD, in matters of interest and concern to Moscow.

The communist Tito was supported over his rivals (who were later murdered) in the Yugoslavian theater and the OSS supported the communists both in Greece and Italy, both areas that were of intense interest to the expansionist Soviet dictator.

In comparing Müller’s period notes with the utterances of the Senator from Wisconsin, one can see that McCarthy was not a good learner and while he was almost always correct, he had a severe problem with remembering, and accurately reporting, the specific facts given to him.

The comments by Müller about the espionage activities of British intelligence against the United States will be fully explored in their proper chronological place as will Müller’s assistance to the anti-Communists in the American government and media.

Thursday, 1 December 1949

Notes made on the train.

Well, I must say there are times when one is pleasantly, even happily, surprised by the turn of events. Last evening started out with dull formality and ended up as a genuine pleasure for me.

First, we met the aunt in the drawing room. Old furniture and dim portraits of ancestors. Mine could never afford paintings. Some in solemn black, others in uniform and a number of uninteresting women in period costume.

The niece was upstairs dressing and I gathered from the aunt that she was not pleased to be entertaining the neighbor. We were sitting on very uncomfortable but expensive old chairs when the aunt smiled over my head and stood up. “Here, my dear is your fan club.”

She is not ugly at all. Rather on the short side with a long, solemn face, dark brown eyes and a very firm chin and mouth. Very decently dressed and carries herself very well. Figure? Small and certainly not fat. Couldn’t see her legs but the rest of her seemed in good proportion. Hair was pulled back into a knot at the back of her head, neatly framing her face.

I bowed, kissed her hand (a disgusting Viennese custom) and managed to introduce myself by the proper name. Remarks were made and I said some sarcastic things about a popular pianist that got a quick smile. We had about twenty minutes of social conversation and she said, “I suppose you would like to hear me play something’”

“The Bach you were assaulting the other day would be excellent.”

Up went the eyebrows. “Assaulting?”

“Oh yes, a firm, very determined effort. And I might say, successful.” An excellent evening, short though it was and with the aunt ever present.

Analysis: A young woman of character and appearance who is a very strong, almost masculine performer. She certainly understands Bach as well as Schubert, which she plays with both strength and feeling. She attended Julliard School, loves the piano but will not make a career of it, (which she certainly could) because in her family, women do not go into the professions.

She has an excellent sense of humor, very dry and sometimes sharp.

I wanted to show her how to make a transition in a Bach piece and while she very politely gave me the keyboard, I could see that, at first, she was not happy. I think I made my point and she asked me to keep on playing for her and warned me she would be equally pedantic. “Actually you are rather good,” she said and from her omnipresent aunt’s expression, I assume that this was very rare praise.

She would do very well on the concert stage but at this point, all is too soon for anything but the enjoyment of the moment.

When I come back from Florida, I have invited them to my house for a little dinner and some music afterwards. This may go nowhere, as so many new things do, but I did enjoy the evening and apparently everyone else did too. They think I am Swiss but that my German is “ever so much better than the Swiss dialect.” A bit of Munich Bavarian mixed up with military and police, all overlaid with Berliner Prussian does not sound Swiss but most Americans cannot speak their own language, let alone someone else’s.

This trip is interesting as we penetrate deeper into the southern United States. Really appalling poverty seen from the train windows and many shabby old houses, millions of very poor and equally shabby blacks, not too many automobiles. One reads about the high civilization of the pre-Civil War south but if all of that was true, the country has lost everything.

I recall (Frank G. ed.) Wisner calling (Ralph, ed.) Bunche a “saddle-colored coon” which had to be explained to me. We had such in the Ruhr after the French had quartered their own dark ones on us. I don’t ride but I know what color a saddle is and the image is entertaining.

Miami, I am told, is being filled up with illegal refugee Jews being smuggled in from the Dominican Republic and Cuba but no one seems to care very much about it. Africa above and Palestine below.

I read somewhere that there was a terrible hurricane twenty years or so ago and there was a railroad which actually ran down to Key West. There was so much damage that the tracks were ripped up and the causeways were turned into a highway. That should be an interesting scenic trip.

I am going to take up advance photography and I brought my Leica along but taking pictures from a train window is only fit for trippers. Pictures of yourself and your friends in front of the Eiffel Tower during the war. I do not wish to be photographed these days but one can never be too insistent, merely careful to avoid the possibility.

The food is acceptable on these trains but was better on the one to Colorado. After lunch, two games of twenty-one and a little chess for relaxation and then some Pascal until dinner.

Hopefully, Truman tomorrow and then back to Washington for much better food and even better music. A full report later.

Tuesday, 6 December 1949

I will write this in sections. First, general impressions of the trip.

Florida is a different sort of climate. I have been to Greece and Spain but the tropics are an entirely new world. The ocean and the beaches are magnificent and I took advantage of the time in Miami to put on a suit and get into the ocean. Salt water is sticky but the temperature is warm and a landlocked Bavarian like myself is used to still, cold lakes at best.

Nice young ladies sunning themselves on the beach and some pleasant flirtations but then down to see Truman.

The drive down to Key West was spectacular, driving along over the waters of the Caribbean on the old railroad bridges. Key West is a naval base with neat white barracks.

The President has what he calls a “working holiday” and said that he could never have afforded a place like that even as a senator. Take what you can from every situation.

I was introduced as a Swiss expert from the CIA and no one paid any attention to me. I bought a very nice white suit in Miami and an expensive Panama hat that one can roll up and pass through a ring. It would have cost me a month’s salary in the old days.

I met Truman twice privately and once with a group of his friends. He wore a terrible shirt with short sleeves that looks like a modern painting but is called “Hawaiian” and would frighten a horse.

Ate meals in a naval dining room. The food was good and the fresh fish excellent, especially one called pompano. Aside from intelligence matters and some self-advertising, I went out on a navy boat to take a trip to see an old brick fort out in the Caribbean where important political prisoners were once kept. Some fishing and a good deal of beer drinking. The navy people let me steer the boat from up on the bridge.

Nice young men, polite officers and steering a boat is not that easy. With a car, one merely moves the wheel and with a plane, the same, but the boat will tend to stray from its course and one has to be constantly observant and watch the compass. As there are no points of reference in the ocean, the compass is very important to watch.

I went around without a shirt most of the time and have acquired a very nice tan that should impress my neighbor. Unfortunately, I am getting very thin on the top of my head so it got rather burned and now is scabby looking but it is passing quickly.

Now, on to business.

T. was very friendly from the beginning and I find him pleasant to work with. We spoke generally at first and then he asked me for my comments on various personalities of the Reich, especially Hitler. He asked me repeatedly if Hitler died in Berlin. He said when he was at Potsdam in 1945, the Russians told him, and Stalin too, that they did not believe the British story at all. I told him what I knew and then we went on to discuss more important matters.

T. is concerned about the Russians. The Army and the CIA (whom he calls the “Criminal Idiots Association”) are telling him daily that Stalin is going to attack us and that we must attack him first. T. has no intentions of doing this. I told him that in my professional opinion, there would be no military attack. I had actual figures with me showing the reduction in Soviet forces in Germany and their destruction of the railroad system there to rebuild their own.

Neither the Army (using faked material from Gehlen) nor the CIA (using faked material from their own strange sources) have told him any of this but I know he believes me and not them. I did warn him that Stalin would use infiltration and not tanks.

We talked about the CIA’s bribery in the Italian elections and Pash’s murder attempt on Togliatti. He approved the bribery but deplored the assassination attempt and said he wanted nothing to do with such vicious behavior. He complained bitterly that the CIA, whom he put together to keep him privately informed on foreign intelligence, was obviously pursuing its own course and repeatedly lies to him.

I gave him quite an earful of my inside observations. We discussed how they had put devices on his own phones and told him that they had tried to do this to me but my people were much better than theirs and the attempt failed. I also said that we were listening to them! This he thought was very funny but wanted me to keep him fully informed.

Conversation then turned to Hoover and the FBI. Since Hoover is an ally, I spoke well of him and his men, calling them real professionals as opposed to the rank and somewhat crazy amateurs of the CIA. He agreed but does not like Hoover who he said had “the dirt” on “everyone on the hill and used it when he had to.” I must keep in mind that Truman is basically honest and finds such treachery repulsive.

I then talked about the atom bomb programs and Truman told me some stories.

We had no such bombs at the end of the war. And we did not have enough enriched uranium to build them. This ore is mined in the Belgian Congo and the Belgians control it. The Russians, who have no such resource, tried to threaten the Belgians and then attempted to persuade them to nationalize the mines and give them the ore.

Our good friends the British then got all of the supplies from the Belgians (probably with charity money they got from us) and had over three thousand tons of the ore. Naturally, they would not give this to us, but Truman to his credit, forced them to do so under threat of excluding them from any kind of aid program and forcing them to repay their enormous wartime loans to us. They caved in, first trying to sell us their ore at a huge profit and finally, when Truman got really forceful, giving the ore to the U.S.

They are now working on a bomb-making program here. By simulating an atomic explosion to warn the U.S. that he had a bomb, Stalin started a genuine atomic race with us. He is normally quite clever but in this case, he overplayed his hand.

From this thesis, I was able to discuss Soviet espionage with Truman. I said that the actual Soviet spy networks in this country were nowhere near as large as the public thought. A dozen or so handlers and perhaps thirty or forty actual paid spies.

There were, I said, hundreds of communist sympathizers who supplied the American spies with information but these were not real spies but sources. Hoover, to his credit, kept his eye on this bunch in spite of strict direct orders from Roosevelt to stop watching his Soviet friends. The FBI knows almost everything about the Soviet agents and is picking them off one by one.

Truman says he knows this but the problem is also political. As we all know, Roosevelt permitted hundreds of communist activists into his regime and Truman has to be very careful about attacking them. The New Deal is still a potent political force and Truman doesn’t want to be seen pursuing them. This is all understandable and to me, acceptable, because he wants to root them out entirely. It is merely a question of how to do it without him getting the blame.

It was then that I brought up McCarthy. Truman hates the man. He calls him a fairy and a drunk. Just like Churchill, I told him, and just as dangerous. I told T. that I had a connection with M. through Georgetown and I suggested, very carefully at first, that I could supply M. with inside facts that he could use in public to enhance his career and create an atmosphere of conspiracy and fear. Before T. could object, and I could see it in his face, I pointed out that McCarthy was a Republican (I have joined the Democrat Party) and that as an opponent of Truman, the President could put a very large distance between them. He tentatively agreed but said he did not want to start a Spanish Inquisition here.

I agreed but said that if the public believed that there were spies everywhere, there would be arrests made and the actual informants and suppliers of secret information would have to go underground and be very careful indeed! This Truman quickly agreed was a good idea.

It was at this point that I brought up the British. I said that even if Stalin lost his eyes in this country, the British were here to help him out. I pointed out that England has, in essence, lost the war. She has no empire, no navy, no merchant shipping and no gold reserves. She hates us for having demoted her to a third rate bankrupt country. Also, I said that I had a great deal of factual information that their intelligence agencies were riddled with homosexual Marxists and that any information their agents could extract from us especially in the atomic area, would go to Whitehall first and to Moscow second.

I had prepared a number of easily assimilated files for him to read through. These were constructed so that he didn’t have to take them with him and risk some snoop finding them in his quarters.

It took him nearly an hour to read through them and at the end, he seemed to be very receptive to my suggestions that the British agents in this country should be watched carefully, prevented as much as possible from any critical access to atomic secrets, and when possible, fed with disinformation.

He asked me to prepare a paper for him on how this could be accomplished and I am very pleased to have been able to pull up a file with the exact program set forth, clearly and very accurate in all respects.

Truman said, when he had finished reading it, “Well, we are certainly getting our money’s worth with you, General. I am impressed with this.”

At the second meeting, we talked about less important matters.

He asked me about the Jews in Germany. I told him my views and he said that he was being pressed by the Zionists to give huge sums of money to the state of Israel. He said he had let them talk him into recognizing the government of that country in 1948 but he was now having some regrets about having done this. T. states that this has permanently destabilized the Middle East and that the reign of terror instituted by the Zionists in their desire to eject all the Arabs from their homes was repulsive to him

He stated that on many occasions, he had personally blocked the clandestine shipment of arms from this country to Israel, something I learned about from Hoover.

However, T. stated that the Jews were very influential in this country. They have money, have a big hand in the banks, the newspapers and certainly in the motion picture industry, and he does not want to antagonize them. He said that his lack of immediate support of their new country by giving huge sums of cash to them resulted in very serious political problems in the last election. They went to Dewey and got him to promise this golden shower if he was elected. But Truman went to the people and beat Dewey so now the Zionists are back again with their hands out.

T. had a business partner once who he holds in high regard and this man was material in persuading T. to recognize the new state. The President is certainly not an anti-Semite but will not be extorted.

Several of his associates have pointed out that most of the traitors and Soviet spies were Jewish but he wants absolutely nothing to do with this business and very sternly warned me not to go down this path at all. I have no intentions of doing so and reassured him about this.

At this point in time, I have the President’s attention and at least a tentative approval of my ideas. I have permission from him to expand my staff and more of my people will be brought over here to assist me.

We both agree that the CIA is not to know of any of this and I am to report directly to him. Also, he expressed gratitude to me for warning him about the spying on him and would like my man to keep checking his office for any telephone problems. I said if we caught anyone trying this again, I would have the man buried in the woods somewhere and Truman laughed and did not object.

Let us see to our shovels!

Note: On Wednesday, I will be having my musical neighbor and the aunt over for a small dinner and perhaps I can show off my own keyboard accomplishments. I have given some thought about my neighbor and in fact I find that when I start thinking about a woman more than once, I am interested.

We will see where this goes.

Thursday, 8 December 1949

When I was in Key West, T. made a reference to the Jewish Stern Gang and how they tried several times to murder him. He said I should talk to one of the Secret Service men and gave me a note.

Today, I had a conversation with one of the CIA people who knew about this and said that (James Jesus, ed.) Angleton was the man who “took care of the business with the hebes” (he is commonly believed to be part Jewish although he claims his mother was a Mexican) and I will have to confirm this. T. knows my former organization was involved with the protection of the Führer and his Secret Service man made very many notes when he talked with me. In fact, he was on the boat trip and followed me around with his little pad in his hand.

It seems that in mid-1947 a team of four Stern Gang members, using false British papers, went to Toronto, in Canada. This city has a very strong Jewish presence and they basically control a large portion of Canadian business from there. There were two plots to kill Truman. One was to send him anthrax germs in what appeared to be an important personal letter and the other was to shoot him while he was out on one of his daily walks. The poison was quickly discovered by the White House security staff and the matter was investigated by them. They are quite competent and they discovered a trail that led to Canada. However, they cannot operate outside the country so the CIA was called in, especially Angleton and then Pash.

Three of the agents were caught in a “safe house,” very severely interrogated (one died on the spot) and then shot and their bodies disposed of very crudely (thrown into the pens at a large hog farm on the outskirts of the city). The fourth man had fled to Miami where there is a large Jewish population, augmented by thousands of illegal refugees smuggled into the country by the Mossad, and from there, fled to Cuba. While he was awaiting a nice trip back to his country, Pash’s men caught him, interrogated him and turned his remains over to Batista’s secret police. I suspect they just dumped him into the ocean.

From the papers and the interrogations, it was learned why this group of lunatic killers, who had already killed the British High Commissioner in Cairo and later killed Bernadotte, the UN supervisor in Palestine who had the temerity to criticize the terrorists there for slaughtering Arab civilians, decided to kill Truman. Number one, he had not shown “the proper respect” for the needs of the Jewish people in seeking a home state in Palestine. Number two, he refused to give these creatures huge sums of American money.

When Truman was told about these plots, he became very angry and at once stopped the sale of arms to the Zionists and was otherwise very obstructive to their causes. He did recognize the new Jewish state but he makes a distinction between the serious leadership of Israel and the criminal lunatics who are on the fringes of the Zionist movement.

Photocopies of the interrogation reports and other documents are being sent over some time this week and I will write a paper on this for the President. He told me that one of the reasons he authorized my hiring was because I had some firsthand knowledge of these people and he was sure I would “come in handy” if he had any more troubles.

Of course, when the removal of the Stern people got back to Tel Aviv, Truman was made the target of a boycott in America. Jewish money, which to that time had gone without reservation to the left-wing Democrats, now was promised to the conservative Dewey on the condition he would “fully support the military, geo-political and fiscal needs” of the new state. He agreed and the “big money” swung behind him. Truman was not expected to win, especially because the Democrats did not like him, comparing him with Roosevelt the God. But he stayed the course and beat them handily. My God, there must have been deep mourning at the eastern end of the Mediterranean when that happened!

The notorious Stern Gang had no hesitation in murdering anyone they took a dislike to. Besides the personalities noted in the section above, they were also responsible for a devastating reign of terror in Jerusalem prior to the creation of the new Jewish state which included dynamiting the King David Hotel, headquarters of the British civil administration, and other bank robberies, train derailments, assassinations, ambushes and dynamiting. They were eventually disowned by the officials of the new state but one of their leaders and the man who engineered the King David episode was Menachim Begin, who later became the Prime Minister of Israel. Begin could not travel to England during his lifetime, even as head of state, because there was an outstanding murder warrant against him.

Confirming information on these plots can be found in: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, New York, 1973, p. 489; Michael Collins Piper, Final Judgment, Washington, 1998, and records of the White House Protection Detail of the Secret Service of 1947-48.

Monday, 12 December 1949

Today I inspected my new offices at the CIA headquarters at the Naval Hospital complex over on “E” and 23rd streets. There is simply too much work to accomplish here at the house so all but my most important files will be sent over there. The really important papers are securely locked up in a vault in my basement. I had my people rebuild a wine cellar and then hide the new steel door behind some shelving so that curious people could never find it.

I have a nice view of both the river and the Lincoln Memorial, a big office with an antechamber for my secretary (and two guards to drink coffee in), and a private lavatory. This was once a hospital and some of the signs are still in place on the doors.

It is a short drive from here, but if the weather is good and my knee doesn’t bother me, I could easily walk it and probably will when I feel like it. The problem for me in working there is that I have to suffer all of the CIA people firsthand. Most of them are from the “best” schools like Harvard and Yale and joined the “correct” clubs like the “Deathshead” (Skull and Bones at Yale, ed.) and so on. Everyone knows everyone else. They have married women who are related to other snobs and all they talk about are their little boats, their summer homes, their parties, their golf games, their tennis matches, and so on. Many of them were in the OSS and they love to talk about their mysterious missions during the war when they could wear trench coats. Most are pro-English, anti-Jewish and all of them loathe Truman as “not one of us” and call him all kinds of names behind his back.

I have never met so many educated people in my life who are as empty of brains as a ladle. They have absolutely no knowledge of anything outside their small and vicious circles and they simply are not interested in learning new facts. All of them are too stupid to try to explain complicated facts to. Like our aristocrats in Germany, they are very superficial, very social and very stupid. They view all CIA personnel through their elitist eyes and no matter how qualified a man might be, they judge him first and foremost by his school tie, and next, by his family connections. God help us all is what I say.

I have to be bored with their incessant cigarette smoking, long and alcoholic lunches and very dirty conversation dealing with private parts and fecal matter. I would never have allowed such conversations while I was running things but everyone there thinks pudenda jokes are extremely funny.

The aim of all of them is to set American foreign policy, something they have no knowledge of in the first place (nor ever will), and to circumvent the plebeian President at every opportunity. These inbred donkeys all seem to have brothers or cousins in the State Department that explains a good deal. Most are heterosexual, generally speaking, but I am certain that a number walk on both sides of the street when they can. The new space will be pleasant but this is offset by the terrible company.

Heini asked me this morning about taking a leave to go home at Christmas to visit his family. I cannot really spare him so I told him I would do what I could. What I intend to do is bring his family here for the holiday as a surprise. I will hold him off for a while and have all the arrangements made. I do enjoy surprising people, which I will do to Philby just after he has begun to digest his Christmas meal.

The President will be back in the capital on the 20th and I have a great deal to do before he gets back.

Memo: select the paintings and furniture for the office tomorrow but be careful not to include anything that was looted. If it was from Russia, that’s fine because I doubt if the Russians will be visiting me at CIA headquarters...unless they have someone on the inside here...which is not impossible.

I will be enjoying more piano foreplay with my new friend down the street and who knows where that could lead. Somewhere positive one hopes. Irmgard no longer loves me and spends all of her time making eyes (and other things) towards what she hopes will be her new husband. She has visions of citizenship swimming about in her head. My, how soon they forget all the earlier joys. In any case, I certainly have and I am off on the hunt again. I shall have to persuade the new one to change the color of her hair. I much prefer women with blonde hair and this one has darker hair than mine...although a good deal more of it than I have. It all comes out in the comb these days. I should get some wax for my head and wear a monocle like von Stroheim (an Austrian-born actor with a monocle and shaved head who played Prussian officers in the movies, ed.).

Large Otto (SS-Standartenführer Otto Skorzeny, ed.) will be here after the first of the year and Wisner wants me to have discussions with him. Wisner has made a deal with the Irish to supply some technical assistance to the IRA (Irish Republican Army, ed.). If he blows up Englishmen, I will be delighted to help. Of course, Wisner told me he has to keep these plans away from Dulles and Angleton because they are, to quote him “a pack of drooling Anglophiles.” I have no problem in keeping quiet on this business at all and good luck to that project.

I did have a pleasant conversation recently with Polly Wisner, Frank’s wife, and she has more sense than he does, is not manic and does not soak up alcohol. The wives of these boobs are often very pleasant, well educated and well mannered. If I have no luck with the piano player, there are other pastures to graze in. Their husbands are too busy acting important to worry about their wives.

A note from Willi (Krichbaum, an SS Colonel, once Müller’s deputy for Border Police matters and later the CIA-run Gehlen’s chief recruiter, ed.) about the fact that there is some Soviet penetration going on there. My advice...let it go on but keep a close watch on things...and especially to keep me informed. His boss, Colonel C.(ritchfield, ed.) has absolutely no idea whatsoever about what is going on and we should keep it that way.

Gehlen is an arrogant, useless man who licks the feet of his CIA bosses and does what they tell him to. His agency is worthless and his reports reflect what he is told to write. They have employed a mixture of my men who are professional, sadists, brutes and eastern European murderers. I am sure Stalin must laugh himself to sleep at night when confronted with this toothless lion.

Just after Christmas I will make my pounce on Philby. I have spoken to Hoover about this and he wants to record the entire meeting. Why not? After all, we will conduct it in English (Hoover does not understand any foreign languages and knowing it is going to be recorded, I will do myself well without a problem.) Tuesday, 13 December 1949

I no longer have the time to do this full justice, but a few notes.

I met with Patrick Hayes briefly. He is an impresario who is connected with the National Symphony Orchestra. Discussion of a debut for my friend.

I have booked a suite at the Hay Adams for Heini’s family...mother, father, brother and sister...and reserved compartments for them on the train. This is to be a big surprise for him. He wants to go home for Christmas but will work here for me. He is loyal, very much so, and this is my reward for him. Truman wants an overview from me, which I have completed. He will only be in Washington for a day or so and then will be traveling back to his home in the country for Christmas. No fancy White House affairs for him. We can leave those for the Harvard and Yale people.

After the New Year, I am thinking about having T. for a dinner and have been talking about a piano recital afterwards. Still in the planning stage. Have sent off things for the family at home. Maybe I can return there some day but certainly not now. Not safe with the CIC watching the house (they have been told nothing at the lower levels although I was amused to note that Critchfield found out about my stay in Switzerland and made a huge fuss about it. He was visited and told to keep his mouth shut).

Christmas and Philby, in that order, and then Truman for dinner. This ought to keep me busy.

Hiss being retried again. They may get him this time. Such lamentations among the CIA people. Many of them knew him at Harvard and they are very supportive of him. They say you can always tell a Harvard man...but he will never listen. They had best keep their sympathies to themselves because I have passed their woe on to Hoover who is promptly investigating them! I ought to slip some of this to McCarthy just for entertainment sake. Merriment for the holidays after all.

Sunday, 18 December 1949

After Mass, a talk with my religious friends about the communist menace. I was in good form and gave them Truman’s personal views. He doesn’t like them but doesn’t want to upset the left wing of the Democratic Party who still thinks in terms of the New Deal, or the Dead Deal, as I like to call it.

We have agreed that I will see to it that McCarthy (and others) gets to look at some interesting figures which should get them to stir up enough trouble to allow us to mount a really effective attack on the remnants of Roosevelt’s Red Army.

At least twice in the conversation, the position of Jews was brought up. It is their belief, and certainly that of many others here, that the spies and traitors were almost all Jewish. This, of course, is true. I explained the background on this to the company, going back to post-war Germany, the Council Republics, and so on.

These people are so ignorant of history after all.

I did say, and no doubt the Jews will love me for this, that stirring up pogroms in this country would most certainly not be a good idea although the spirit is certainly ready for such a thing. I explained all of the problems that Germany now faced because of this and recommended that spies either be secretly done away with or that their racial backgrounds are carefully ignored. The public can draw its own opinions from the names.

We spoke of the attempts on Truman’s life and other matters, but I still hold firm that the long-term results of racial warfare are not worth the short-term gains. They do listen to me in the end but I know that if I were somehow discovered here and the Jews (and the communists on the eastern coast) got their hands on it, chaos would prevail.

Three people have already been sent to see Jesus. That includes the one Arno gave a heart attack to in Colorado, and a former OSS man who went for a swim in the river one night wearing only an old steel safe and some lengths of chain. The other one, another unfortunate refugee from the Third Reich, does not bear talking about at all.

Arno is a marvelous murderer but sometimes he does like his tableaux. The thought of policemen vomiting violently when faced with his small entertainments is distressing to me as a former policeman. And, I am sure, to those who had to remove what was left of the remains of the little man with the very big mouth for forensic examination. I can at this very moment hear one of the doctors saying to another:

My God, how did his penis get into there? Or, are you sure this is human? I think it’s probably a skinned sheep or maybe two skinned sheep that someone dropped off of a very tall building. I ought to give Arno a nice set of carving knives for Christmas but he wants an English bible so he can have that instead. Arno once wanted to be a Lutheran minister at home before he developed his skills in dealing with people I do not like and when he gets older and slows down a bit (he can get so vigorous at times) maybe we will be regaled by the sight of him, his collar on backwards, preaching the word of the Lord. This we did not discuss!

I am to have a nice discussion with Cardinal Spellman when I go to New York tomorrow. His Eminence has told my friends that he would very much like to meet me and so he shall. Perhaps I can go to Rome and have a Papal audience next! Pius is the best Holy Father in years and he understands from personal experience what beasts the communists are and how necessary it is to drive them back into the swamps they crawled out of.

While there, and just before having to hurry back for Christmas, I and my sweet neighbor (who has given me a very nice cashmere scarf for Christmas) will be attending a gala performance of the “Messiah” by Handel. The aunt will come too and introduce me to some of the more elegant people in New York. I am to have a luncheon at the Knickerbocker Club there to meet them. Wonderful how things go along.

One of my new friends wants to “put me up” for membership in the Metropolitan Club here in Washington and I am assured of getting in. Having eaten there a number of times, it is passable enough although my cook is so much more accomplished than theirs and my wine cellar, at least the one for my private use, is far better.

Monday, 26 December 1949

There has been almost no time at all to do more than put down a brief outline of my affairs up through Christmas.

First, I have been a week out of service and there is a huge pile of paper that has to be gone through. Then to record events but briefly.

To New York with my new lady friend and aunt. There we attended a very gala performance of Handel’s “Messiah.” Impressions: A very rich setting for an equally rich work of art. We sat in a box and everyone was in full formal. The women were dripping with jewels and all you could see were the gleam of white shirtfronts and the glitter of diamonds. A very fulsome, solemn and often exalted work. Not the original scoring but a moving work indeed.

We stood, as is the custom, for the great Hallelujah Chorus and I can well understand what the composer meant when he wrote upon its completion: “I did see before me Almighty God in all His glory,” and this great chorus certainly gives truth to his words.

And there I stood, in the midst of America’s elite, thinking of the strangeness of fortune. At the worst, I would have been executed if I had been caught at the end of the war and at the least, stuck in a damp cell for dozens of years. Now I am on friendly terms with the American President and many of the important people in the country that only a few years ago was our most dangerous enemy. Strange indeed are the ways of the Lord! And to be sure, His servant, very humble servant indeed, Heinrich, is filled with gratitude.

A banquet at aunt’s suite at the Waldorf later with a number of very rich people of old families. More white shirts, more diamonds and the food was acceptable enough. I am spoiled with my own chef. The humble servant Heinrich was also filled with very good champagne and spent some profitable time in making the acquaintance of a number of helpful people. When I become a member of the Metropolitan Club, I can entertain there and not at home. Much safer that way.

My romance, and I can now call it that, is making great headway. I call her my little rabbit. The American word is “bunny” and that will do henceforth. She likes, and as she says, admires me. Off we go for another romp. Irmgard will be most happy now as she has her own romps to consider.

Visited several clubs. Note that Colonel (Sosthenes) Behn, head of ITT is a member of both the Knickerbocker Club in New York and the Metropolitan in DC. I really must look him up one of these days and renew our old friendship. Courtesy to a fellow club member. That one won’t dare open his mouth about me or I might open my mouth about him. At a certain level, morality and assumption seem to vanish into infinity.

Back to Washington to take care of Christmas.

As I planned, Heini’s family came into town on the train Wednesday and they were put up at the Hay Adams in two suites. Mother and Father, younger brother and sister. Of course, they are poor farmers and not used to such luxury and certainly do not have the right kind of clothes for a formal dinner so the best part of a day was consumed in outfitting the lot.

A huge tree in the central hall and boxes of presents for all plus a small string orchestra, courtesy of Mr. Hayes, which played in the music room with the doors opened into the living room. Or assembly room as aunt calls it.

Heini was almost in tears when he found out about the arrival of his people but he has good self-control. He ought to, being around me every day.

We sat ten to table with five wines and nine courses, including the famous turkey and traditional side dishes.

The family is excellent people, if totally unsophisticated.

Father is a farmer in Iowa, borrowed too much money from the bank and now has economic problems. Both are German, second generation for the father, third for the mother. Brother and sister are handsome, blonde and well set up. Father looks older than he is because of all the hard work. Actually, very much like Bavarian farmers. Good, solid people.

There was some confusion about which glass to use and which knife or fork to pick up but I made a few jokes and everyone managed to get by without embarrassment.

I spoke well of their son to them, as is my habit at such times, and to his face that caused him to get very red above the stiff collar.

Irmgard is very possessive and hangs onto him a bit more than is proper but after the wine, no one would have noticed if she got naked up onto the table and did a country dance in the centerpiece. Heini’s sister is attractive but one does not meddle with employees or their sisters. Not that I wouldn’t want to, but the household is quite compact and friendly and why disrupt it?

Arno was friendly with the sister and I wish him well. If she knew about his little nocturnal habits, I doubt if she would have received his attentions quite so openly, although Arno is a handsome devil. And a master carver after all! As a joke, I had him carve the turkey, telling everyone that Arno was a genius with a knife. We both understood this little joke and he even twitched an eyelid in my direction. I kept imagining Stalin on the table and Arno slicing off various portions of the “great Georgian’s” anatomy. People wonder why I laugh so suddenly but I doubt I would bother to explain it to them.

After dinner, some music and then, when all were headed back to the hotel and a train trip back, I presented the father with an envelope containing a banker’s check that will pay off his mortgage, including all the interest. He and Heini made a terrible, emotional scene in the hall. For a moment, I thought they were both French and not German.

Still, a good Christmas for all and Heini told me later that it was the best Christmas he had ever had and walked away blowing his nose. A sudden cold, no doubt.

Saturday, 31 December 1949

A new decade ahead and what will it portend? The damp weather is bothering my knee again but one learns to live with such things. A large party tonight for some of the CIA people. A note from the President that I put together with his Christmas greeting card in my desk. I don’t want the donkeys from Harvard and Yale sticking their blue-blooded horse noses into my papers. The servants and the guards have the strictest orders to allow absolutely no one above the first floor. They can spew in the cloakroom or off the back terrace if they want to, but no one goes upstairs. After all, there is enough recognizable stolen art up there to stock a good museum and there is the possibility that someone on the guest list might have some knowledge of real art as opposed to Chagall or Norman Rockwell, America’s Spitzweg.

I must remind myself to keep off the topic of Hiss. Why offend my upper-class friends and co-workers by insulting their friend? I hope he goes to prison and some thoughtful patriot sticks a sharp file into him. As soon as this stupid socializing is over, I can get down to dealing with the interesting Mr. Harold Philby.

A most Happy New Year to myself and to my family!