Christ I'm Confused

By Duane A. Rasmussen

In the 20 chapters the author has detailed as much recollection as possible of the activities of the 470th CIC Detachment in the Canal Zone during the Cold War, 1953-54. The story is told as a first person narrative but with the author using a different name. Each chapter serves to tell an individual anecdote with many evidences of the confusion that existed among agents at the time. The anecdotes are true, the language and detail are as recalled in later years. The reader can determine that much of the average day's work was quite ordinary and methodical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 26, 2007
• ISBN: 9781466957497

Duane A. Rasmussen

The author received his B.A. in Journalism from the University of Minnesota in 1951. He immediately enlisted in the Organized Reserve Corps, assigned to a Military Police unit in Rochester, MN. He enlisted in the Regular Army in February 1952. After light infantry basic training, he was assigned to Ft. Holabird, MD, to take the 16-week basic investigatorÕs course. He was assigned to the 470th CIC Detachment December 1952 and discharged in December 1954. He has completed over 60 years with the newspaper business, having been a publisher of daily and weekly newspapers and the owner of two weeklies and a shopper along with a central printing plant that was printing some 90 other newspaper-formatted publications. He is now "retired", but continuing to write a bi-weekly column for the local semi-weekly newspaper in Port Isabel, TX.

Book preview

Mission Of The Counter Intelligence Corps

The mission of the Counter Intelligence Corps is to contribute to the successful operations of the Army Establishment through the detection of treason, sedition, subversive activity, and disaffection, and the detection and prevention of enemy espionage and sabotage within the Army Establishment and such areas over which it may have jurisdiction.

Authority: SR 380-310-1

"Counterintelligence (as applied to the Counter Intelligence Corps) is that part of military intelligence which deals with the prevention or neutralization of hostile intelligence activities. It further includes those aspects of military intelligence which relate to security control measures, both active and passive, and which are designed to insure the safeguarding of information, personnel, equipment, and installations against espionage, sabotage, or subversive activities of foreign powers and of disaffected or dissident groups of individuals which may constitute a threat to the national security."-Section I, a, SR 380-310-1

It is accomplished through active means such as seizure of enemy agents and saboteurs. It includes the detection of treason, sedition, and disaffection within the ranks and among the civilian employees of the Army. It deals with the neutralization or destruction of the effectiveness of actually or potentially hostile intelligence and subversive activities.

CIC Detachments are responsible to the Theater Commander who delegates CIC security authority to G-2 (Army Intelligence) who in turn delegates it to the CIC officer who is often the detachment commander. In a division, CIC works under G-2.

The investigative jurisdiction of the CIC is governed by SR 380-320-1 and supplementary agreements covered by SR 380-320-2, which represent the Delimitations Agreement of 1949. This agreement divides counterintelligence responsibilities among the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, Department of the Air Force, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Delimitations Agreement of 1949 determined that the 470th CIC detachment would have the jurisdiction of the FBI in the Canal Zone although it was governed by the Panama Canal Company, a company organized by the United States. This was our responsibility as this story unfolds.

Forword

Intelligence and counterintelligence activities have seemed to be a natural anathema to Americans throughout their history. However, from the beginnings of the War for Independence, we have often used the tactics of the intelligence services to acquire information, to thwart enemy actions and to provide for the safety and effective management of our own efforts.

During World War I and II our intelligence and counterintelligence detachments performed admirably in support of our military efforts and our home defenses.

The National Security Act of 1947 as amended by Public Law 216, 1949, outlined and defined the various agencies within the Department of Defense and Department of the Army. It also detailed the flow of command from the President down to the field levels in the continental United States and overseas. Congress was attempting to provide a comprehensive program for the future security of the United States. The three military departments of the Army, the Navy (Including naval aviation and the Marines), and the Air Force were established. They were all under authoritative coordination and unified direction of the Secretary of Defense, but not to be merged.

Later in the Korean War, the Army turned to the CIC to establish and operate a very sophisticated, behind-the-lines network of intelligence collectors. However, counterintelligence’s greatest contribution may have occurred in the occupation period following World War II. In Germany and Austria, coun-terintelligence agents were responsible for the successful denazification program that gave democracy a chance. In Japan, they served as the ears and eyes of the occupation authorities to monitor the steps being taken towards a representative form of government. Agents of the Counter Intelligence Corps were among the first to define and then confront the emerging threat posed by communism bent on derailing the progress toward free societies, and throughout the Cold War, counterintelligence would remain as the Army’s principal shield against hostile intelligence services-as related by John F. Kimmons, Major General, USA, Commanding, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, in the Foreward to In The Shadow Of The Sphinx, a history of the Army Counterintelligence.

The Panama Canal Zone was during the 1950s in many ways in the backwaters of intelligence activities and out of the limelight of world attention. However, the headquarters for the entire Caribbean Command were located in Quarry Heights, Canal Zone, which made it a possible target for any kind of subversive activity. The Republic of Panama had become a jumping off place for individuals from all over the world but more especially from formerly occupied nations under the domination of Germany and Italy, but also the thousands of political refugees from Eastern Europe, for their entry into the United States legally through the visa program. The duties of the 470th CIC Detachment in the Canal Zone, located at Fort Amador near Balboa, Canal Zone, on the Pacific side, included background checks of those seeking entry into the United States for any reason.

Through a series of changes over the years at the end of the decade of the 1950s, the coun-terintelligence activities of our government began to change in many ways. This narrative is not meant to reveal anything other than what occurred surrounding one agent in one detachment in the period 1953-54. While the anecdotes related by chapters are essentially true, the names of the characters, including the author’s, have been changed. Conversations have been altered only to the extent that time and memory have dictated.

We hope that you might enjoy this series of stories of the far more ordinary work of the counterintelligence detachment through the eyes of a common field agent without the highlighting of the most infrequent sensational case that usually makes it into the traditional spy novel.

Author: Duane A. Rasmussen

CHAPTER I 

The Making of a Counterspy

There I was, at 20,000 feet, not flat on my back as the World War II bromide goes, but sitting in a metal bucket seat in a DC-4 bound for Albrook Air Force Base in the Canal Zone and the Republic of Panama. I and another agent newly graduated and detailed, were headed for the greatest experience of our young lives as counter intelligence agents in a foreign land. The steady drone of the four engines of the DC-4 mesmerized us as we made our way over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea for the multi-hour trip. We were packed in among gear and freight, tied and covered with olive-drab canvass, for the trip along with us to Albrook Air Force Base in the Canal Zone on the Pacific side. It was drafty and noisy to the point that conversation was difficult. The DC-4 showed only structural members covered by its thin metal skin all around us. Sound proofing was not a luxury. The time passed with eight passengers in a dreamy state of existence. The endless noise gave me time to recall how I had passed from the period in my life that was marked by my finally beginning my professional work to this detour along the way to fulfilled goals.

I had just completed 16 weeks of training as a counter intelligence investigator at Ft. Holabird, Baltimore, MD, the home of the counter intelligence school. It was the end of December, 1952, and the Army was grinding out agents by the hundreds. We were being sent to two primary areas, Korea and Europe. A few were assigned to the many posts in the world as well as stateside posts.

By the throw of the dice, I suppose, Jim Johnson and myself drew the Canal Zone because our background indicated some knowledge of Spanish and of the Latin America area. The Army didn’t have to wait for us (so they thought) to complete the Army Language School at the Presidio in California before putting us into harness.

Before all of this latest episode in my life, my military life began in ninth grade when I was enrolled in a military prep school in Minnesota. After four years in the military school with only an average record of achievement, I attended a Minnesota liberal arts college and then finished with two years at the University of Minnesota where I gained a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. The Korean Police Action (a lovely term of understatement) began in the summer of 1950, between my junior and senior year.

The day of the announcement found me at a Minnesota private summer camp as a counselor and water front director. The Korean Police Action came to a boil quickly. All young men of that day were expecting to be called to duty in the military. It was just a matter of time.

Upon receiving my degree and taking my first job, I looked around for some way to begin to satisfy my military obligation and through the advice of a family friend settled on a military police organized reserve unit about an hour’s drive from home in Minnesota. I enlisted for three years and was assigned to the headquarters company, soon given the specific job of publishing a monthly news-paper for the several companies spread around the state. But I realized that effort would not be enough.

I researched other opportunities and found that one of the most interesting challenges would be counter intelligence. I could have gone into public relations, but that would prostitute my training in journalism, I thought. I could have gone into regular intelligence, but that was regarded as a temporary assignment with no hope of remaining in that capacity.

I found I was able to enlist directly into the Counter Intelligence Corps for three years with the understanding that I would be assigned to that duty after successfully completing basic training and the counter intelligence corps investigator school. So, that is what I did, leaving St. Paul, MN, for Ft. Sheridan, IL, in February, 1952.

Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, Sheridan was not the place to winter. The wind blows off the lake, it is damp, always, and the troops had to stoke their coal-fired furnaces to keep their barracks heated. It was my downfall as I couldn’t seem to master the art of banking a coal fire. Fortunately, the stay was not too long and in about two weeks I was off on the bus with a load of recruits traveling to Camp Breckinridge, KY, for infantry basic. Breckinridge was then the home of the 101st Airborne Division, famous for its dropping into Europe on D-Day. Our basic units wore the 101st patch on our sleeves.

With the exception of mastering the technique of banking coal fires, basic was quite easy for me. Beside my considerable knowledge of the military, my record served to confuse the cadre. They noticed my four years of military school, six months of reserve duty, completion of the Army 10 Series in Military Police subjects (a requirement for a commission in the organized reserve at the time) and enlistment into the counter intelligence corps, and thought that I must be a plant to look for subversive activity, sabotage or some other transgression. That confusion brought me a lot of respect that others did not gain. I especially recall how the sergeants marveled at my mastery of the manual of arms, drilling and field tactics.

I was greatly surprised to learn that a college classmate had turned up in my company of basic trainees. Somehow, he was at the right place at the right time to snare himself the job of company clerk as an E1 basic trainee when the E3 corporal in that position was reassigned. We all gave him a bad time when he passed most of his requirements, including the rifle range, while sitting in the orderly room of the company office. Some guys get all the breaks! But we were also cursed on the cold, wet days that we were run around the post while he was warm and dry.

Toward the end of basic, I became engaged to the woman I had begun dating the last year of college. The plan was to be married after basic during the travel time allotted on the way to school at Holabird. That was accomplished and in early May, 1952, we were on our way to Dundalk, MD, a community right next to Ft. Holabird.

While the single men lived in the permanent brick barracks on the post, those of us who were married lived wherever we could find lodging. We were fortunate to find a couple with a row house in Dundalk who chose to rent out their second floor which they had converted into an apartment with kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and front room. With no air conditioning in those days, the summer moist heat was unbearable. We had to sleep on the floor many nights to find some cooler air.

I had to wait several weeks before the class that I was assigned to would begin. Rather than doing the normal policing duties that others did, I found that the post needed a lifeguard for the post pool. Once again I