The Balance of Espionage

THE SECRET WAR FOR EUROPE by Louis Hagen. 287 pages. Stein & Day. $5.95.

"Whereas religion, organizations and conferences based on the higher aspirations of man have failed to bring the human race closer to lasting peace, the intelligence services based on the more primitive instincts of distrust and enmity have ironically become the more effective instruments in preserving peace amongst the major powers in the atomic age." Thus Louis Hagen, a British author and movie maker, concludes his well-documented "dossier of espionage" conducted since 1945 in a secret political struggle over Germany.

The come-in-from-the-cold novelists have schooled us all in the vileness of the espionage agent's world. Murder, kidnaping, blackmail and the theft of secrets, moreover, hardly appear to be the stuff of which peace is made. Yet there is much documented support for Hagen's claim. His main concern lies in Europe, and he makes a convincing case that since 1945, the balance of power there has been partially maintained through the growth, care and feeding of espionage agencies.

P X P. To elucidate the parapolitical function of modern spying, Hagen explores the development of espionage agencies and re-examines most of the outstanding cold war spy cases, frequently offering intimate glimpses of the spies themselves. The result is a little like watching a three-dimensional chess game played on a European chessboard with flesh and blood pieces. "Pawn takes pawn" is the most chillingly frequent move, and the most desirable outcome for both sides is a stalemate.

Russia opened the game in 1945 by infiltrating the secret-police forces of Eastern European countries with double agents who were used to murder or blackmail local anti-Communist politicians. The CIA was not founded until 1947, but the U.S. fought back by employing the spy system of defeated Germany, directed by General Reinhard Gehlen. An aristocratic non-Nazi who had directed Eastern-front espionage for Hitler, Gehlen knew early that Germany would lose. Sensing that the cold war would soon develop, he maintained his network of agents in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Grisly as the idea of using them may have seemed to the Allies at the time, Gehlen's teams proved invaluable; he assessed Soviet strategy and kept watch on the uneasily emerging political forces in Germany.

Because of the fear and fluidity in postwar Europe, the Russians found Gehlen's organization easy to infiltrate with double agents, primarily ex-Nazis like Heinz Felfe. Felfe, similar to Britain's renowned traitor Kim Philby, for ten years ran the Russian desk of West Germany's counterintelligence service. Acting as a Russian agent, Felfe effectively negated the Gehlen organization's counterespionage efforts against Russia while keeping Russia informed on operational intentions of the END and the Allies. The exposure of Felfe's treachery in 1961 almost cost Gehlen his job.

Abductions Inc. The Soviet Union and East Germany specialized in political kidnaping. Otto John, head of Germany's BFV--a counterespionage organization devoted to maintaining political order in West Germany--was either kidnaped or "defected" to East Germany in 1954. Walter Linse, head of Germany's League of Free Jurists (UFJ)--one of the "main instruments of Western propaganda policy, guiding and directing anti-Soviet forces in East Germany"--was abducted in front of a witness in 1952. By 1959, Hagen says, recording an astonishing statistic, "there had been 255 abductions and 340 attempted abductions in West Berlin alone."

Assassination also became part of the game. Russian exile groups in West Germany, particularly the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), worked actively to overthrow the Soviet government. To stop them, a Russian KGB spy named Bogdan Stashinsky was sent to murder Ukrainian Exile Leader Stepan Bandera and Lev Rebet, the editor of an anti-Soviet newspaper. Using a cyanide pistol, Stashinsky was successful in both cases. Hired killers are not among the world's most attractive people. Yet Stashinsky emerges as a tragic figure. A brilliant young scholar, he was blackmailed into murder by the KGB. Later, driven by conscience, he turned himself in to the Allies.

To unravel this skein of spies and spying, Hagen interviewed many of his prin-cioals--including General Gehlen and Otto John--collecting much personal information never before known. His book brings the story of cold war espionage up to date. But the struggle goes on. No end game is yet in sight. Meanwhile, The Secret War for Europe makes an absorbing spy watcher's guide and rule book for espionage-chess.

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