The direct entry of the United States into World War II followed after the attack by the Japanese Navy on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the official support of this action from Germany. The Japanese attack was presented to the public as "unprovoked" and "sudden". Meanwhile, after the war, documents were made public, according to which American military intelligence, thanks to the opening of the naval code of Japan, knew in general terms both the timing of this massive attack and the targets on which the strike was carried out. The inconsistency in the actions of the leadership of the US military and naval intelligence services and the confusion in the reporting system significantly hindered the timely notification of the upcoming action by the higher military-political authorities of Washington.
Despite the fact that the Americans had announced in advance that in the coming war a reanimated model of interconnected military intelligence and military counterintelligence would be introduced into the armed forces (AF), which had successfully coped with its tasks in the course of previous global clashes, in fact it turned out that the situation with the activities of the special services is again developing in the most unfavorable way, generally reminiscent of the eve of the First World War.
General Dwight Eisenhower, who at the turn of 1941-1942 held the post of Chief of Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, later mentioned the negative impression that made on him and his colleagues the obviously short-sighted attitude of the country's military leadership to the problems of military intelligence in general and actually re-established in within the headquarters of the intelligence department, on which the military counterintelligence also largely closed. According to Eisenhower, allegedly due to a "shortage of general vacancies" in the highest military circles of Washington, it was considered acceptable to keep only a colonel in the post of "intelligence chief", thereby relegating the post itself, and the serviceman assigned to it, and the staff of the department "to demonstratively of a secondary level. " As in the initial period of the First World War, Washington believed that the information that the British presented to the American command was quite enough for the intelligence support of the Armed Forces. And only after repeated and persistent demands from the Chief of Staff of the Ground Forces, General George Marshall, who enjoyed indisputable authority both with the head of state and among the legislators, in May 1942 the full-time position of the head of the intelligence department was raised to the level of major general, and the head of the department was appointed General George Strong, well-known in the army, who later, together with the head of the Office of Strategic Services (Political-Military Intelligence) (OSS), William Donovan, formed during the same period, managed to create "a system that ultimately turned into a huge and effective organization."
On the other hand, due to the decentralized system of military leadership that has developed over the years of the development of the US Armed Forces, Washington believed that the main "investments", both material and human, should be concentrated not in the center, but, as they say, in the localities. In this regard, immediately after entering the war, the American military-political leadership took emergency measures to strengthen intelligence (departments and offices - G-2) and counterintelligence services affiliated with them at the headquarters of strategic groups of forces in theaters of war: European (and related him strategically in the North African) and in the Pacific zone. At the same time, the solution of organizational issues and counterintelligence activities was given more weight than it was during the First World War. So, for example, in order to increase the status and, accordingly, the importance of this service, a week after the US entered the war, the Intelligence Police Corps, which was "in a semi-active" state, was transformed into a Counterintelligence Corps with a new significantly expanded staff - 543 officers and 4431 employees.
FEATURES OF PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES
On the territory of the United States, the corps officers, in cooperation with the military police and the FBI, immediately began to perform tasks of checking military personnel who have access to restricted information materials, investigating cases of sabotage, conspiracies and sabotage at military facilities and defense enterprises, manifestations of "disloyalty", especially directed against American military personnel by persons of German, as well as Italian and especially Japanese origin.
In accordance with the so-called Presidential Emergency Decree No. 9066 of February 19, 1942, the military counterintelligence, in cooperation with the FBI, was granted the right to "expose people of" disloyal nationality "to the eviction zones. In reality, the internment was mainly Japanese, both American citizens and those who did not have time to leave the United States. Within 12 months, starting in March 1942, 10 concentration camps were opened in seven states, in which more than 120 thousand Japanese were detained.
Military counterintelligence officers in the United States during the war years launched an active activity that periodically went beyond even the laws of wartime. There were repeated cases of interference by military counterintelligence officers in matters, the military aspect of which was clearly secondary or even far-fetched, in connection with which American lawmakers had to intervene and very significantly restrict the activities of this service in the United States. However, for the military counterintelligence officers, a new and, perhaps, the most important before the end of the war, application was found, associated with the implementation of the so-called Manhattan project to create nuclear weapons. The titanic efforts shown by the military counterintelligence in cooperation with the FBI in this field nevertheless failed, as a result of which there were constant leaks of information that contributed to the success of the nuclear project in the USSR.
"WORK" AT THE EUROPEAN THEATER OF WAR
In highly fragmented theaters of war, US counterintelligence worked closely with US military intelligence and Allied intelligence. The work of military counterintelligence officers could not but have differences. It was necessary to take into account: historical traditions, state and military structure, composition and mentality of the population of countries, colonies and mandated territories, the nature of the terrain, meteorological conditions, as well as, last but not least, the features of the opposing groupings of troops and forces. At the same time, the tasks facing the military counterintelligence were virtually identical: ensuring successful military operations of their armed forces and allied forces by neutralizing the enemy's agents, which impede the implementation of operations of a strategic, operational-tactical and tactical scale, including protection against various sabotage and sabotage. very extended communications. All these factors, as far as possible, were taken into account by the American command, which was flexible in responding to changes in the situation, adopting the experience and using the recommendations of a more sophisticated British ally due to the "rich colonial experience". At the same time, the main feature that significantly complicated the management of the activities of the American military counterintelligence was the almost simultaneous involvement of the US Armed Forces in hostilities in the European (and adjacent North African) and Pacific theaters of war.
Contrary to the well-known opinion about the alleged unwillingness of the Americans to "open a second front" in Europe, already in mid-1942, the United States began to methodically build up its potential in Great Britain and the regions adjacent to the European continent in order to realize it in the event of favorable political and strategic conditions.
Starting to arrive in the United Kingdom from the United States and Canada, numerous transports with weapons, military equipment and military personnel on board were initially unloaded in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the northwestern ports of England, and then were dispersed in Central and Southern England. In this difficult period, American counterintelligence officers were assisted by the powerful counterintelligence service of Great Britain, which, unlike the period of the First World War, from the very beginning of hostilities, quite successfully implemented plans to establish an extremely tough counterintelligence regime in the country. The situation with countering sabotage and espionage in the UK was indeed difficult. The fact is that since the mid-30s, and especially with the outbreak of World War II, London and other large cities of the country were overcrowded with emigrants from various European countries, many of whom were in the intelligence service of Nazi Germany. However, the British counterintelligence service, as noted by many researchers of the history of the special services, on the whole managed to cope with the tasks assigned to it.
American military counterintelligence officers, in addition to routine confidential checks on their servicemen, work to prevent leakage of classified information, measures to disguise and misinform the enemy, fight saboteurs, etc., had to solve a lot of tasks for which they were initially not ready. This primarily related to the specifics of the relationship between the US military and the local population. For the most part, the British were friendly towards the "guests", although they had to endure very serious "inconveniences". From time to time, the concern of American counterintelligence and the inevitable countermeasures caused hidden, and sometimes open "hostile manifestations" on the part of "anti-Anglo-Saxon" locals, Irish by origin, and especially a large number of "unreliable visitors" from the Republic of Ireland, which officially adhered to neutrality in the war. and literally "flooded" by German agents. However, the general moral atmosphere in Great Britain and the hatred of the local population towards the Nazis contributed to the overall successful solution of counterintelligence tasks by the Americans.
COLORITE OF NORTH AFRICA
Among the employees of the Counterintelligence Corps, there were more than 4 thousand civilian specialists. In the photo - employees of the Counterintelligence Corps pass the checkpoint. Photo by the US National Archives and Records Administration. 1945 year
The situation was different in North Africa, where at the end of 1942, with the aim of striking a group of armed forces of the "Axis powers", formations of the US Armed Forces began to arrive. They were tasked with organizing close cooperation during Operation Torch with the British troops already deployed in the region and the local garrisons of the Vichy France troops that had partly gone over to the side of the allies, as well as French servicemen who arrived mainly from Great Britain - members of the anti-Hitler Free France ". At the same time, the problem was not so much in the presence in the region of a large grouping of German-Italian enemy troops led by the authoritative German commander Rommel, whose formations the allies were aimed at directly confronting the formations.
The command of the American-British troops and the French who joined them were seriously concerned about the mood of the local population and the high probability of provocations and sabotage both directly against the Allied Armed Forces and in relation to their rear and support facilities, including the equipment of poorly developed communications. The fact is that most of the local Arab population was clearly pro-German and was subjected to intense Nazi propaganda, taking into account the traditional anti-Semitism of the Arabs and antipathies towards the "British colonialists". In this regard, the following example is illustrative: on the recommendation of counterintelligence officers, the commander of the Allied Forces, General Eisenhower, had to appear in the local media with explanations that "neither US President Roosevelt, nor he himself are Jews."
Anti-British and pro-Nazi sentiments were also strong among a significant part of the French population, mainly in cities and large settlements of the region. A significant part of the officer corps of the local French garrisons did not feel any sympathy for the "Free France" and especially for its leader, General de Gaulle, whom they considered an "upstart", "an officer who did not observe the rules of military ethics and discipline," the influence of the traditional rivals of France - the British”.
The American and British counterintelligence officers who worked with them in close cooperation had to take into account the factor of proximity to the areas of potential hostilities of Francoist Spain, which was formally an ally of Nazi Germany. In these conditions, in close cooperation with the intelligence units of the British, the US military counterintelligence had to with great difficulty (including by the method of "elementary bribery") attempts to revolt by Arab tribes in the rear of their troops, by preventive, including violent, measures to neutralize the intentions of the "Vichy French" to "counteract" the allies and to fight hard against the sabotage groups of the German and Italian special services. After the liberation of the settlements on the coast, the counterintelligence officers had to "cleanse" the local authorities from "Vichy", various Nazi accomplices and isolate them. The Joint Anglo-American Headquarters formally admitted that "by coordinated and skillful actions, the Allied military counterintelligence agents, on the whole, succeeded in fulfilling their tasks in the course of military operations in North Africa." Researchers of the special services note the fact that it was the active work during the preparation and implementation of Operation Torch in this region that enriched the American military counterintelligence with invaluable experience, which was useful to it in ensuring the subsequent actions of the Western allies in the direct liberation of Western Europe.
OPERATION HUSKY
In the spring of 1943, the Western allies, under the leadership of the American commander of the combined (variety) grouping, General Eisenhower, planned and began to carry out Operation Husky to seize the island of Sicily, where German and Italian troops were concentrated in readiness for defense. The intelligence of the allies worked quite well, which was able to identify almost all possible pockets of resistance, as a result of which the landing of American and British troops took place with minimal losses. The success of the Allies was also facilitated by the relatively weak resistance of the Italians, their general apathy, caused by the realization of the inevitability of the collapse of the Mussolini regime in Rome. In addition, the allies played into the hands of the first in the entire campaign large-scale measures to misinform the enemy about the landing sites, carried out jointly by the intelligence and counterintelligence of the allies. Not the least role in "breaking" the resistance of the Italians, especially in southern Italy, was played by the factor of involvement of the American special services in the so-called psychological pressure on the enemy by members of the Italian mafia, which has settled in the United States and has not lost its ties with "related structures" at home. For which, of course, the mafiosi were "encouraged" by American law enforcement agencies by "getting rid of the punishment they deserve."
The quick liberation of Sicily had its strategic consequences in the sense that Mussolini was finally overthrown, and the new Italian leadership immediately began to try to negotiate with the allies on a "sparing surrender". Representatives of the intelligence department of Eisenhower's headquarters and military counterintelligence officers were directly involved in organizing contacts with the Italians. The latter's participation in the organization and conduct of the negotiations was explained by the information obtained that a number of Italian fanatical fascists from the ruling circles in Rome planned provocations and sabotage in order not only to disrupt the negotiations on surrender, but also to "introduce friction" into the relations of the allies, in particular British and French.
Due to the fact that the next phase of the operation to liberate Sicily, and then the landing of allied troops on the coast of Italy itself went beyond the "purely military" framework, the Joint Anglo-American Headquarters joined in planning further actions, which, having "its own" sources of information and “wasting time” on agreeing on their next steps, significantly delayed the implementation of what was conceived at Eisenhower's headquarters and made it difficult for counterintelligence to implement plans for internment of enemy servicemen, interrogations, investigations, as well as analysis of numerous documents received at its disposal from the headquarters of surrendered Italian units and formations, as well as captured German soldiers.
However, the Americans and British managed to land on the Italian coast with relative success and begin a slow advance to the north of the country. At the same time, only German formations offered resistance to them. The new Italian leadership, despite the "countermeasures" of the Germans, came out with a proposal to the allies to surrender. Military intelligence and counterintelligence, led by the chief of the corresponding department of Eisenhower's headquarters, Brigadier General Kennath Strong, were connected to the negotiations that began soon. The problem of ensuring security in the rear of its troops, communication lines and transport arteries, protecting warehouses and echelons, and preventing subversive activities began to manifest itself in an even more prominent form than in North Africa. Specially trained teams of officers and civil servants, both American and British, could not adequately cope with the ever-increasing volume of work. The military counterintelligence was entrusted with the task of controlling the organization of the entire scope of activities. An unexpectedly intractable problem was the fulfillment of the task of organizing special camps for prisoners of war and displaced persons, removing interrogations from them and bringing war criminals to justice, as well as maintaining a specific document flow.
Gradually, as the front line moved north, life in the Italian province began to return to normal. However, the political leadership of the Western allies, with a certain degree of surprise, “suddenly” discovered that instead of the “communist elements” from among the former partisans who had deserved authority among the population as “true fighters against fascism ". The military counterintelligence of the allies was tasked with preventing the "gradual usurpation of power in Italy by the communists", for which any measures were not prohibited: from elementary bribery to blackmail and violent actions.
All this had to be done in parallel with the implementation of routine counterintelligence work to ensure the advancement of troops in the direction of the German borders.
Traditional in nature from the point of view of counterintelligence, but at the same time extremely responsible was the direct participation of the American special services in ensuring the security of the Cairo conference in November 1943 with the participation of US President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, as well as Tehran conference of 1943 with the participation of all three leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition. And if in Tehran the main role in ensuring security was played by the Soviet and British special services, then in the preparation of the summit in Cairo the Americans had to demonstrate their professionalism as well. The particular difficulty of the work in both cases was that the German intelligence carefully prepared a number of sabotage and assassination attempts on the leaders of the coalition, which were prevented only thanks to the coherence in the work and coordination of actions of the special services of the United States, Great Britain and, first of all, the USSR.
SECOND FRONT AND BLACK MARKET
In accordance with the final agreements of the leaders of the coalition, the invasion of the Western Allies on the northern coast of France (Operation Overlord) was planned for late May - early June 1944. By an agreed decision of the political leaders of the countries - members of the coalition, the American General Dwight Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, under which a headquarters was created with the inclusion of intelligence and counterintelligence units, staffed mainly by Americans and British. By the time of the landing, an unprecedented grouping of troops was concentrated in Great Britain, including up to 20 American, 12 British, three Canadian, and one French and one Polish divisions.
The counterintelligence regime in Great Britain was strengthened to the maximum level: free entry into the zones of deployment of troops was prohibited, communication between Great Britain and Ireland ("Southern Ireland") was interrupted, all diplomatic communications were prohibited, and a regime of total checks was introduced on the streets of cities and towns throughout almost the entire territory. country. The command of the invasion forces developed and, with the assistance of the US and British military counterintelligence, began to implement an operation to mislead the Germans about the real landing sites, for which the counterintelligence officers organized a skillful imitation of "violent activity" in false places of concentration of landing assets and troops. In general, the landing of the landing took place without serious disruptions, and the Allied troops began a slow advance to the East.
Despite the fact that the Allies planned air strikes behind the lines of the defending German forces in such a way as to inflict minimal damage on the civilian population, mainly in France and Belgium, they did not manage to avoid large losses. Under these conditions, counterintelligence, in cooperation with other services, was entrusted with "minimizing" the level of negative sentiments and protest actions of residents of the affected regions.
In contrast to the large share of the negative attitude towards the "Free France" and its leader de Gaulle in North Africa, the population of the French provinces - objects of direct invasion of the Allies in the summer of 1944, was generally prepared in advance for the inevitability of their "liberation", including the formation of troops of the new national the leader of France, whose candidacy for this post was eventually agreed by all three leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition. In this regard, there were no special problems in the rear during the advance of the Allied forces in the direction of the German border.
As before in Italy, the counterintelligence agents of the allies, in cooperation with the military police and other special services, had to solve two significant problems: placement and specific "work" with a very significant contingent of prisoners of war and the so-called displaced persons released from Nazi concentration camps, as well as the "elimination from the authorities "who came in many settlements to replace" Vichy "people of" communist orientation ", or members of communist and other leftist organizations who won the trust of the population by their active participation in the Resistance. Another manifestation of this "problem" was the fact that the commanders of some large French partisan detachments, consisting entirely of or oriented towards the communists, were required to be included in de Gaulle's liberation army "only as independent units and subunits." This issue reached the political level, but in the end it was "settled" not without the help of the active work of the counterintelligence agents of the allies.
In addition, military counterintelligence officers were involved in the work of the censorship bodies, the clarity and rigidity of which, especially during the preparation of operations at the operational-tactical level, received the closest attention, and a thorough check of the correspondence of American servicemen in Europe with their relatives and friends in the United States. Unexpectedly, a lot of effort and time had to be spent by the military counterintelligence on participating in the fight against the "black market", in the organization of which American servicemen, including junior and senior officers, were involved.
INTERACTION WITH THE RED ARMY AND PREPARATION FOR THE COLD WAR
The Allied invasion of Germany from the point of view of American military counterintelligence introduced two main innovations: the specifics of working with the German population and ensuring contacts with Red Army soldiers along the lines of demarcation agreed by politicians. The population of the occupied German lands as a whole realized the inevitability of the fall of Hitler's regime and practically did not respond to the calls of the remaining Nazi agents to carry out sabotage and acts of sabotage. However, the military counterintelligence officers and the military police had to be in a tense state all the time, expecting manifestations of discontent and mutinies in the territories under their control. At first, it was difficult to find a suitable replacement among the local population for the former administrative bodies, which consisted entirely of Nazis or sympathized with them. The selection of new personnel fell on the shoulders of military counterintelligence officers as well.
The frequent "meetings" of Western allies with units and formations of the Red Army in Central Germany and other states along the front lines in late April - early May 1945 also laid an additional burden on the American military counterintelligence, whose tasks, on the one hand, included "ensuring conflict-free contacts with ideologically alien, but still formal allies ", and on the other hand, in cooperation with the intelligence agencies of their country, to achieve greater awareness of the plans and intentions of the" Eastern ally ", using the entire range of" special methods and means."
In all countries and zones occupied by American troops, the military counterintelligence was entrusted with an unprecedented complex of tasks associated not so much with assisting specially trained teams from the occupation forces to normalize economic life in the controlled regions, as with controlling the developing political situation, recruiting agents among local residents, identifying valuable specialists and researchers, primarily in the field of the so-called nuclear project, new breakthrough military technologies, including missile technology, cryptography, etc.
With the appearance of the first signs of the Cold War between the former allies, the American counterintelligence officers were tasked with jointly "work" with intelligence with the Soviet citizens who remained in the camps of displaced persons, persuading some of them to not return to their homeland and, on the contrary, the usual recruiting work with the aim of subsequent the transfer of "processed" citizens to the USSR and allied states for espionage and sabotage work in the interests of the new owners.
According to the military-political leadership of the United States, the American military counterintelligence as a whole coped with its task during operations in the European theater of war and adjacent territories, as well as in the post-war period, gaining experience in ensuring the actions of troops and independent work in close cooperation with intelligence, which useful to her later.
