Primary source analysis, document spotlights, and research from the Intelligence Archive.
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
CIA Document Reveals Reinhard Gehlen's Secret Memoirs and Explosive Critiques of German Intelligence Newly declassified CIA documents expose manuscript fragments from Reinhard Gehlen's posthumous memoirs, offering unprecedented insights into the inner workings of post-war German intelligence. T...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
The CIA's Secret Ukrainian Gambit: How Cold War Paranoia Forged Alliances with Nazi Collaborators A newly surfaced 1998 CIA historical study draws back the curtain on one of the agency's most morally complicated early partnerships — its deliberate recruitment of Ukrainian nationalist leaders wi...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
Inside the Mountain: The OSS Officer Who Spent Six Months with Yugoslavia's Most Controversial Resistance Leader In the summer of 1943, an American intelligence officer parachuted into the mountains of occupied Yugoslavia to assess one of the war's most contested resistance movements. What Lt....
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
Inside America's First Special Forces: How OSS Operational Groups Pioneered Modern Unconventional Warfare A newly surfaced declassified report reveals the untold story of the Office of Strategic Services' Operational Groups—the elite combat units that served as the direct predecessors to today'...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
The OSS Role in Europe's Liberation: Operation Sunrise and the Path to Victory As we commemorate Victory in Europe Day, it's worth examining the intelligence operations that helped bring World War II to its conclusion. Among the most significant was Operation Sunrise, a covert diplomatic initia...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
Document of the Week: Mission SPOKANE – OSS Commandos in the Final Alpine Campaign Against Nazi Germany This week marks the anniversary of VE Day, making it fitting to examine a detailed OSS operational report from the war's final months in Europe. The "Report of the Spokane Mission," filed jus...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
The Heinz Felfe Files: How the CIA Recruited a Nazi SS Officer Who Became the KGB's Most Damaging Mole A newly released CIA personnel file chronicles one of the most spectacular intelligence failures of the Cold War: the career of Heinz Felfe, an SS officer turned CIA asset who secretly served...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
From "Centralized Snooping" to Global Intelligence: The Evolution of America's Spy Chief When President Harry S. Truman disbanded the Office of Strategic Services in September 1945, he effectively ended America's first centralized intelligence operation almost overnight. Yet just four months la...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
OSS Operational Group "A": Inside America's Elite Commandos of World War II A newly featured 25-page activity log reveals the intensive operations of OSS Operational Group "A" from 1943-1944, documenting how Italian-American volunteers became some of America's most effective special operations...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
The Birth of the CIA: Vandenberg's Historic 1947 Senate Testimony Reveals Agency's Cold War Origins A newly declassified 11-page testimony from May 15, 1947, captures a pivotal moment in American intelligence history as Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg argued before the Senate Armed Servic...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
Declassified Papers Reveal How America's First Intelligence Chiefs Built the CIA The Intelligence Archive has acquired a substantial new collection documenting the formative years of American intelligence: the personal papers of the first four Directors of Central Intelligence who transformed P...
Field Notes
Intelligence Archive
The CIA's Blueprint for Regime Change: Declassified 1953 Albanian Coup Plan Reveals Cold War Template A newly surfaced 72-page CIA document from April 1953 exposes the complete operational framework for overthrowing Albania's communist government—likely the most detailed coup d'état plan ever d...