project symphony: us intelligence and the jewish brichah ... in intelligence nazi - related...

Kevin C. Ruffner

66The project wasan early chapter

in the history of one ofCIA's oldest

liaisonrelationships.

99

SECRET//MR

Studies in Intelligence (2007)

A Rocky Beginning to a Critical Relationship

Project SYMPHONY: US Intelligence and theJewish Brichah in Post-war Austria (U)

Almost lost in the haze surrounding the birth of Israel and the periodbetween the end of OSS in 1945 and the creation of CIA in 1947, ProjectSYMPHONY provides a glimpse of how American intelligence tried toget its bearings at the start of the Cold War. By utilizing the Brielah,the Jewish underground in Europe, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU),OSS's immediate successor, sought to uncover perceived Soviet efforts topenetrate the flow of Jewish refugees to Palestine. Yet, the project didn'tproduce what was expected. It lasted only a few months, but it was anearly chapter in the history of one of CIA's oldest and most importantliaison relationships in a troubled region of the world. (S)

The SYMPHONY story also opens a window on the challenges intelli-gence officers faced in post-war Europe, when national strategicconcerns were shifting, intelligence priorities were unclear, and opera-tional tradecraft was tested and shaped in a maelstrom of refugees andambiguous characters desperate to find sustenance and safety throughany means, legal and otherwise. (S)

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

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tiAZ I WAR CR IMES DISCLOSURE ACT

fIATE 2007

The fate of the Jewish people inEurope at the end of WorldWar II was tied directly to theirstruggle to establish a Jewishhomeland in Palestine. "Europe,"Tom Segev wrote, "became ahuge traffic jam. Some 14 mil-lion displaced persons were try-ing to get home. They traveled intrains and cars, horse-drawnwagons and oxcarts. They rodebicycles and animals. Millionswent by foot, crossing borderafter border in endless caravans.It was a period of twilight andchaos." 1 (U)

The estimated one million Euro-pean Jews who had survived theHolocaust posed, among manylogistical and health issues, aresettlement problem. Many hadlost their entire families and fewwanted to return to their homes,even if they still existed in theSoviet Union and EasternEurope. Outbreaks of anti-Semitism in Poland and else-where pushed thousands of

1 Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: TheIsraelis and the Holocaust. Trans. byHaim Watzman (New York: Hill andWang, 1993), 123. (U)

CL BY: 2196985

CL REASON: 1.4 (b), (c), (d)DECL ON: MRDRV FROM: HUM 1-03

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 51, No. 1

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of theauthor. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying USgovernment endorsement of its factual statements and interpretations.

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US intelligence learned that the Soviets were purportedly tryingto infiltrate Jewish migration channels to smuggle Russianagents into the Middle East.

Displaced Jews inGermany, like thoseshown here in 1948leaving for a trans-port ship, volunteeredin large numbers tofight the British inPalestine. (U) (Photo0 Bettman/CORBIS)

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SECRET//MRA SYMPHONY and its CONDUCTOR

remaining Jews from EasternEurope into Allied occupationzones in western Germany andAustria. 2 The Zionist move-ment, which had its originsdecades before the war, alsoacted as a siren-call to Jews toleave Europe for the BritishMandate territory in Palestine.3(U)

British policy, however, called forthe restriction of Jewish immi-gration into Palestine. Thus, themovement of these refugees fromEurope became an importantweapon in the Jewish resistanceagainst the British in Palestine.Ultimately, the Jewish struggleto achieve an independent statemarked a major step in GreatBritain's retreat as an imperialpower. (U)

Jan T. Gross, Anti-Semitism in Polandafter Auschwitz: An Essay in HistoricalInterpretation (New York: Random House,2006). (U)3 For related readings on these subjects,see Further Readings at the end of thisessay. (U)

The Palmach, the strike force ofthe Haganah, the military arm ofthe Jewish Agency in Palestine,and two terrorist organizations,the Irgun Zvai Leumi and theLochmei Heruth Israel (respec-tively called the Irguri and theStern Gang), caused heavy lossesamong British military and secu-rity forces between 1944 and1948. As Winston Churchill com-mented, the conflict in Palestineproved to be a "squalid little war"and an intractable moral andpolitical dilemma for His Maj-esty's Government. (U)

International pressure, particu-larly from the United States, cou-pled with the United Nationscalling for the partition of Pales-tine between the Jews and theArabs led to the British with-drawal in May 1948. The newstate of Israel immediately founditself embroiled in a fight for sur-vival with the Arabs aroundthem and, nearly 60 years later,there is still no end to the blood-shed and violence. (U)

The Jewish Migration andEmerging Soviet Threat (U)

In late 1945 and early 1946, theSSU received reports from sta-tions in Europe about a Jewishunderground movement there.4Known collectively as theBrichah, or the Escape, couriersof the Jewish Agency in Pales-tine, including members of theJewish Brigade serving with theBritish army, were escortingJews from Eastern Europe tosafety in the West, with the even-tual goal of bringing them to Pal-estine. (U)

Alarmingly, US intelligencelearned that the Soviets werepurportedly trying to infiltratethese migration channels tosmuggle Russian agents into theMiddle East. According to anSSU/X-2 (counterintelligence),report from Paris in February1946, the Soviets were dispatch-ing agents into the British andAmerican occupation zones inGermany and Austria. (S)

Posing as Jewish victims of Naziconcentration camps, theseagents were being processedthrough Allied displaced persons(DP) channels and the secretJewish smuggling rings. TheSoviet agents planned to spreadrumors throughout Europe andin Palestine that the Britishhated the Jews and supportedthe Arabs for control of the Holy

*Primary material on Project SYM-PHONY can be found in Records of theNational Clandestine Service (NCS).

CIAAgency and Records Center (CIA ARC).The author has a fully sourced copy of thisarticle. (U)

34 SECRET//MR Studies in Intelligence Vol. 51, No. 1

X-2 proposed a penetration of the Jewish underground.Washington felt that this project could prove critical inunderstanding the modus operandi of the Soviets.

The specter of theSoviet Union hungover much of Europe,and especially inVienna, which theSoviets occupied in1945. Here, Stalin'simage remindsViennese a year laterof the presence of theRussians (U) (Photo ©Hulton-Deutsch Col-lection/CORBIS)

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SECRET//MRA SYMPHONY and Its CONDUCTOR

Land. Ultimately, according to anintelligence report given to theAmericans by the French, theSoviets wanted to draw the Jewscloser to communism and incitethem to revolt against the Brit-ish in Palestine. In addition, thereport listed the addresses ofmeeting places and the names ofJews in Austria involved insmuggling refugees. (S)

Other reports discussed Sovietefforts to exploit Jewish resettle-ment. A summary of a Bernreport, for example, highlightedthe Soviet penetration of Jewishorganizations in Austria by usingthe black market to raise funds.Capt. James J. Angleton, thehead of X-2 in Italy who wouldbecome CIA's chief of counterin-telligence, reported on Jewishescape efforts in January 1946.He cited sources that claimed theRussians were actively helpingJews flee Poland. (S)

Angleton also relayed informa-tion that the Russians had pro-voked Poles to attack Jewishcivilians to discredit the Polishgovernment, force the British todeal with the question of a Jew-ish homeland in Palestine, andjustify Soviet repression inPoland. In other dispatches dur-ing the first half of 1946, Angle-ton submitted Italianintelligence reporting on Jewstransiting that country on theway to Palestine, including thenames of ships carrying themfrom Italian ports. (S)

As concern mounted in Washing-ton about these reported Sovietefforts to infiltrate the Brichah,X-2 in early March 1946 pro-

posed a penetration of the Jew-ish underground. A non-communist Jewish refugee will-ing to go to Palestine would bean ideal candidate. Oncerecruited, the agent should be"advised to participate fully incommunist activities in Austria,Germany, or Italy short of vio-lence." More essential than howthe Soviets planned to spreadpropaganda in Palestine, SSUwanted to discover routes, iden-tities of agents, contacts, hide-outs, finances, and falsificationof documents. Washington feltthat this project could prove crit-ical in understanding the modusoperandi of the Soviets and itencouraged field stations to sub-mit projects for review in Wash-ington. (S)

Project SYMPHONY Is Born(C)

Even before Washington sent itsmessage, X-2 in Austria hadcome to consider the Brichah atarget. Maj. Edward P. Barry,the chief of SCl/A (as X-2 was for-

many known in Austria), laterrecalled:

This office began laying plansfor a project which was to usethe present extensive Jewishemigration for a source of CIinformation. Preliminaryinvestigations on the subjectplainly showed that no one inthe American Forces in Aus-tria had a clear picture ofeither the procedure or theagencies involved. (S)

By early April 1946, Capt. JulesKoenig, a member of X-2's smallbase in Vienna (the main officewas in Salzburg), had submitteda proposal to Headquarters "touse the influx of Jewish refugeesinto Austria from Rumania,Czechoslovakia, Hungary and

Poland for sources of CI informa-tion, for exact data on the intelli-gence service of the JewishAgency in Austria, for all intelli-gence activities run by any per-sons or organizations who usethis influx into Austria for suchpurpose." (S)

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 51, No. 1 SECRET//MR 35

Project SYMPHONY's Case Officer (U)

Jules Koenig: born in Ostend, Belgium, in 1912.. .the son of Polish inuni-grants...served in the Belgian army at the outbreak of the war... evacuatedto United Kingdom.. .worked for the Belgian Red Cross and other jobs beforemoving to the United States in 1942 and becoming a diamond cutter ...inducted into the Army in 1943, commissioned as a Signal Corps officer andjoined OSS. (U)


Koenig, born in Belgium of Pol-ish-Jewish parentage, had servedwith OSS as an Army officer inthe Middle East and in Italy. Atthe end of the war, he trans-ferred to Austria and joined X-2in Vienna. In his new assign-ment, Koenig observed firsthandthe immigration networks flow-ing through the Austrian capital.Koenig emphasized that the Jew-ish underground flight was not anew phenomenon:

The exodus of Jews from Rus-sian-occupied countries is anexact replica of the vast legal orillegal emigration movementwhich began at the ascension ofthe Nazi Party in Germanyaround 1932. Hundreds ofthousands of Jews fled Ger-many with the aid of Jewishcommunities of countriesneighboring Germany, (Hol-land, Denmark, Sweden,Norway, Belgium, France,Switzerland, Czechoslovakia,etc.), to find their way to anycountry in Europe or into Pal-estine. (S)

After the Nazis ended the legalmovement of Jews from Ger-many and Austria, undergroundorganizations helped the Jewsescape the Nazis. Funded by out-side groups, including the Ameri-can Jewish Joint DistributionCommittee (commonly called the"Joint" or the JDC), the HebrewSheltering and Immigrant Aid

Society (HIAS), the Political Sec-tion of the Jewish Agency, andthe Aliyah Bet, Jewish agentspenetrated the Third Reich torescue the Jewish and to collectintelligence during the war.These personnel later formed thebasis for the Brichah in numer-ous European countries izrunedi-ately after the war. (S)

According to Koenig, during thewar "the various British Intelli-gence Services freely used theemissaries of this section [i.e.the Jewish Agency] for penetra-tion, intelligence and DA [dou-ble agent] purposes. Therepresentatives of the AJDCacted as a liaison with the Alliedintelligence services and eventu-ally financed this courier-cum-intelligence service." Some 240Palestinian Jews volunteered toparachute into the Balkans in1943, and the British estab-lished training camps in Cairoand Haifa. The following year,32 men and women were dis-patched in joint British-AliyahBet missions into Romania,Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Slova-Ida, Austria, and Yugoslavia.The Nazis captured 12 of theJewish agents and executedseven. 5 (S)

In effect, Koenig saw ProjectSYMPHONY as a continuationof the earlier wartime collabora-tion between the Allies and the

Jews, this time facing a newthreat—the Soviet Union. In hisApril 1946 proposal to Head-quarters, Koenig visualized theproject, which he dubbed SYM-PHONY, as having severalimmediate and long-terms goals,overt and covert:

• Immediate Aims (overt). Toextract information of CI valuefrom refugees escaping fromRussian-occupied countries:composition, trends and activi-ties of the communist parties inthose countries; location andidentification of concentrationcamps in Russia and Russian-dominated countries; identifica-tion of NKVD deserters orNKGB deserters; identificationof NKVD agents or communistagents sent among the refu-gees; identification andelimination of Nazi elements,infiltrating amongst the refu-gees to escape punishment fromthe authorities of their respec-tive countries.

• Immediate Aims (covert). Toascertain and locate the agentsof the Jewish Agency in Aus-tria who run both theemigration of Jews from Rus-sian-dominated countries and ahighly-efficient intelligence ser-vice into those countries; toascertain and spot those per-sons who smuggle Jews out ofthose countries for high sums ofmoney and who, being in con-tact with NKVD officials, also

'The most successful of the Palestinianagents, Yesheyahu Trachtenberg, betterknown as Shaike Dan, had a remarkablewartime and post-war intelligence careerand is remembered as the savior of thou-sands of Romanian Jews. (U)


[Pier] runs an efficient net into Romania, Czechoslovakia,Hungary and Poland. . . and another net which tracks downGermans suspected or proven to have committed atrocities.


smuggle war criminals andagents into the Allied-occupiedzones, to work either in Aus-tria or in Palestine.

• Immediate Aims (covert). Tolocate those persons within offi-cial organizations, such as theHungarian Red Cross, the Aus-trian Red Cross, the Italian RedCross, some so-called repatria-tion committees with officialand semi-official status, theUnited Nations Relief andRehabilitation Agency and the(Lublin) Polish repatriationcommittees, who provide falsepapers and identification cardsto those smugglers and to thesmuggled for the furtherance ofthis traffic; to take all mea-sures of security safeguard toeliminate or neutralize suchtraffic when it becomes a dan-ger to the security of the Allied-occupied zones or to its estab-lishments and units.

• Long-Range Aims. To pene-trate those organizations ofwhatever kind they are—Jew-ish, political or of intelligencenature of any country—whichsend Russian-trained or Rus-sian-inspired agents throughthis flow of Jewish refugees tofurther propaganda or intelli-gence aims either in Allied-occupied zones of Austria orGermany, in Allied countriessuch as France, Italy, theUnited States and/or Palestine.(S)

A CONDUCTOR Is Found(C)

Capt. Koenig also outlined thestructure of the Jewish refugee

groups in Austria and the vari-ous international organizationsthat supported the immigrantsas they passed through the coun-try. In particular, Koenig com-mented on the role of a youngAustrian-born Jew, Arthur Pier,who represented the JewishAgency in Vienna but actuallyserved as the head of the Brichahin Austria. (S)

According to Koenig, Pierclaimed to represent several Jew-ish newspapers, including thePalestinian Telegraphic Agency."Officially Pier is here to collectitems of Jewish interest for hisnewspaper employer, principallyitems on atrocities against Jewsduring the war and after," theAmerican intelligence officerwrote. "Actually he runs a highlyefficient intelligence net, throughcouriers into Romania, Czecho-slovakia, Hungary and Poland.He is also running another net,"Koenig reported, "which tracksdown Germans either free or incaptivity in Allied-occupied zonesof Germany or Austria, who aresuspected or proven to have beencommitting atrocities againstJews during the war." Pier thenturned these war criminals overto the Allies, while he also col-lected evidence for the JewishAgency. (S)

Pier's operational activities inEastern Europe were of moreimmediate interest to Koenigthan his Nazi-hunting skills.Koenig told Headquarters thatPier was the key link in facilitat-

ing the movement of Jews fromthe Russian-dominated countries,and he gave him the operationalcodename of CONDUCTOR. Afterorganizing the Jews into smallgroups, Pier's agents led themsurreptitiously across the borderinto Austria. The groups madetheir way to Vienna, where theJoint initially placed them in thecity's Rothschild Hospital. (S)

Pier screened the refugees forinformation desired by the Jew-ish Agency and then prepared tomove them to other DP camps inthe American zone. Those refu-gees who were to go to Palestinewere placed in a camp nearSalzburg, while those who couldnot or did not want to go to theMiddle East were sent to othercamps in Germany. Koenig calcu-lated that Pier was responsiblefor smuggling hundreds, if notthousands, of Jews on a monthlybasis into Austria and eventu-ally towards Italy and Pales-tine. 6 (S)

At first, Koenig posed as a jour-nalist seeking information aboutthe Brichah. As his questionsbecame more of an intelligencenature, Koenig admitted to Pierthat he was an US intelligenceofficer. (S)

8 In addition to Pier's covert smugglingmission, Koenig discovered numerous ille-gal rackets in Austria, including smug-gling of goods and people and black-market activity. He also described smug-gling of Hungarian non-Jews, many withNazi collaborationist backgrounds, fromBudapest to Vienna. (S)


Headquarters reluctantly agreed to Wender's use. . . as toblack-market activity, Koening told Washington that an honestbusinessman in Vienna is "as rare as snow in a very hot place."


In the meantime, Koenig alsowanted to place American per-sonnel in the Jewish camps inVienna, principally the Roths-child Hospital and the JewishAgency's interrogation center onAlserbacherstrasse. Theseagents, also posing as Americanjournalists, would collect intelli-gence on Soviet order of battle aswell as economic and politicalinformation behind the Iron Cur-tain. (S)

American contact with the Jew-ish Agency, Koenig believed,would expand SSU's understand-ing of the personalities involvedin the illicit smuggling of refu-gees. This aspect of the project,however, proved the most diffi-cult because few Americansavailable to him in Vienna couldspeak Yiddish or Hebrew. Lastly,Koenig hoped to infiltrate a Jew-ish agent into the refugee pipe-line to assess the extent of theSoviet penetration of this move-ment. (S)

LILAC (C)

When he wrote his proposal inApril 1946, Koenig already hadselected a man to serve as hisagent to infiltrate the Jewishsmuggling network. According toKoenig's notes, Erich Wenderhad an extensive background inintelligence as an agent for boththe Germans and the British dur-ing the war. Born in 1907 in Aus-tria-Hungary, Wender was amachine construction engineerwho had immigrated to South

America in 1928 but returnedtwo years later to establish hisown company in Austria. (S)

Arrested by the Gestapo in 1939as a Jew, Wender was not sent toa concentration camp. Instead,the German Abwehr usedWender (with the name CarolPopescu) as an agent in the Mid-dle East. He was dispatched toIstanbul to travel to Syria, wherehe was to collect military infor-mation for the Nazis. Wender,however, turned himself over tothe British in Turkey and wasdoubled. He also became anagent of the Joint and estab-lished a courier network in East-ern Europe. Wender, along withseveral other Jews, smuggled let-ters from the JDC in Istanbulinto Hungary while also provid-ing British feed material to theGermans. (S)

In all, Wender made some 12trips from Budapest to Istanbulbetween 1941 and 1943, whenthe Germans arrested him forcommunicating with the enemy.Wender was held in captivityuntil early 1944 but was trans-ferred to an insane asylum afterhe was declared mentally incom-petent following a suicideattempt. When he learned thatthe Gestapo planned to interro-gate him again, Wender tried toescape from Budapest, but hewas betrayed to the Germans. Headmitted all of his activities onbehalf of the Joint to theGestapo. (5)

Wender was held in Vienna as aprisoner until the Soviets enteredthe city in April 1945. The Rus-sians then used him as an inter-preter for an intelligence unituntil his release after the Ger-man collapse. Wender accepted aposition with the Joint in Vienna,but was later arrested as a blackmarketer by the US military inVienna. (S)

On 19 April 1946, X-2 in Austriasent a cable to Washingtonrequesting that Wender be vet-ted as an agent for Project SYM-PHONY. Koenig, in fact, hadalready commented on Wender'spotential usefulness to the newproject and the need to get himout of confinement. "Inasmuch ashe is a fervent Zionist," Koenigwrote, "and has a very extensiveknowledge of the Joint and Bri-chard [sic] organizations he maylater be 'sprung' and used inproject SYMPHONY." (S)

Through Koenig's intervention,the US Army conducted a "mocktrial" of Wender. He was sen-tenced to 90 days in jail for hisparticipation in the black mar-ket, but he wasn't remanded toprison. Instead, Koenig took cus-tody of Wender and informed himthat he would be working forAmerican intelligence. In his newtask, Wender, now designated asLILAC, would be Project SYM-PHONY's conduit for clandestinecollection on the Jewish Agencyand penetrations by the Sovietsas well as the British. Koenigagreed to pay Wender 750 shil-lings a month and to provide himrations. (S)


Koenig discovered that the Soviets were particularly active inpenetrating Jewish groups in Austria.


Headquarters only reluctantlyagreed to Wender's employment."Previous information on subjectfrom British sources," Washing-ton reported, "appears to corrobo-rate points in subject's story."Aspects of Wender's backgroundraised questions about his hon-esty and his willingness to playall sides. "There seems littledoubt that subject is a typicalprofessional agent, and no morereliable than most of that stamp.There seems little reason toassume that he could be trustedany further than his own imme-diate interests lie, or that hewould maintain a confidence anylonger than it is to his immedi-ate profit to do so," Headquar-ters noted. "Contact and use ofsubject should be predicated onthis basis." (S)

Upon receiving the memoran-dum from Headquarters, Capt.Koenig met with Wender andwent over some of the points ofconfusion regarding his relation-ships during the war. In respond-ing to Washington, Koenigcommented, "it is our opinionthat Wender basically told thetruth." Looking at the wholeman, Koenig observed, "Wendercertainly is not the snow-whiteangel he occasionally pictureshimself to be, but his Zionistactivities are thought to be hon-est." (S)

Regarding Wender's black-mar-ket activities, Koenig explained,"this is so current right here inVienna that an honest business-man is as rare as snow in a veryhot place." Koenig felt that hehad suitable control over Wenderand that he could provide Amen-

can intelligence with informa-tion that it sought. 7 Koenigexerted considerable efforts toglean as many details fromWender about his contacts dur-ing the war and how the Jointoperated in Eastern Europe. (S)

The SYMPHONY Begins (C)

As he worked on getting clear-ance to use Wender, Koenigfeverishly collected informationabout Pier's associates and trans-mitted information about theAustrian Jew to other stations.Koenig was also interested in theefforts of the other Allied powersin Austria to collect informationon the Jewish Agency. 8 (S)

Through various means (includ-ing telephone taps and mailintercepts), Koenig discoveredthat the Hungarians and theSoviets were particularly activein penetrating Jewish groups inAustria. 8 On 22 April, for exam-ple, SCI in Vienna sent a reportto Washington noting that Rus-sian officers had visited Jewish

7 Wender's background and activities alsoattracted the interest of the Russians. Atthe end of June 1946, Koenig learned thata communist agent had offered Wender ajob to inform on the Americans. (S)8 The British in Austria were especiallyinterested in Pier's activities and soughtto arrest those involved in the clandestineJewish immigration. (S)

Transcripts of telephone taps and letterintercepts done by the Civil CensorshipGroup Austria (US) were given to thehead of X-2 in Vienna and are found in thefiles. (S)

camps in both the American andBritish zones. While inspectingthe Bindermichl camp nearLinz, one of Pier's agents, SimonWiesenthal—the famed Nazi-hunter of later years—recog-nized a Soviet NKVD official.18Furthermore, Koenig's reportnoted that during a Soviet visitto a Jewish DP camp in theBritish zone, Pier brought withhim a copy of a telegram fromthe British headquarters inAustria, leading Koenig to sus-pect that Pier had penetratedthe British military itself. u (S)

On 25 April 1946, US militarypolice in Vienna conducted a"surprise" raid on Jewish DPcamps, looking for evidence ofblack-market dealings, foreigncurrency, and unauthorized USArmy material. The Army alsosearched Pier's apartment, whereit found a box of microfilmed OSSrecords and forged border-cross-ing permits. The fact that Pierhad the OSS records raised eye-brows in Vienna and Washing-

10 For more on Wiesenthal's work after thewar and his connections with Pier, seeAlan Levy, The Wiesenthal File (GrandRapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub-lishing Company, 1994) and Hella Pick,Simon Wiesenthal: A Life in Search ofJustice (Boston: Northeastern UniversityPress, 1996). (U)11 Koenig later reported that Pier hadaccess to all of the British intercept fileson his activities and those of the AmericanJewish Joint Distribution Committee. Inmid-June 1946, Koenig reported to Wash-ington that he had learned from Pier thatthe Jewish Agency had a source in theBritish headquarters. (S)


Ruffer sought to establish formal ties between the JewishAgency and US intelligence. Koenig rebuffed him, saying hecould deal only in local issues.


ton, but fears were laid to restwhen the documents were foundto pertain to war crimes. OSShad apparently borrowed the doc-uments from the Jewish Agencyduring the war and microfilmedthem. The Americans then pro-vided a copy of the microfilm tothe Jewish Agency. (S)

During the raid, the militarypolice also arrested a man whoturned out to be the long-awaitedSoviet that Pier had offered theAmericans in April. At that time,Koenig told Washington, "infor-mation of high intelligence valueis being promised by the JewishAgency people. For instance,"Koenig wrote, "the JewishAgency people are arranging thedesertion of a Jewish NICVDmajor in Vienna around the mid-dle of May 1946." (S)

According to Koenig, Pier wouldallow American intelligence "tohold this Russian officer.. .untilsuch time that his detention willnot be necessary any more." As itturned out, Pier did not tellKoenig that he already had theman, Michael Pines, until the USArmy arrested Pines for posses-sion of an illegal firearm. (S)

Pines, a Polish Jew who was alsoknown as Stefan Janeczak, hadserved in the Polish army andthe Soviet NICVD during the war.At the time of his desertion inDecember 1945, he was the headof the Polish Security Police inDanzig. He barely escaped andmoved to Munich, where heworked as a doctor in a Jewish

DP camp. Koenig managed tohave Pines sprung from US con-finement and then interrogatedhim. (S)

Contacts with the JewishAgency (U)

By early May 1946, Koenig hadalready provided US authoritiesa good deal of information aboutthe Brichah at a time when theUS military governments in bothAustria and Germany were justbeginning to recognize the exist-ence of the Jewish undergroundand the sensitivity with whichthe United States had to handleJewish refugees. Koenig tried tohelp Washington better under-stand the underground by send-ing to Headquarters among otherreports a list of the organiza-tions involved and special desig-nations. (S)

A pivotal moment might havecome and gone in May whenKoenig met with a man thenknown only as Ruffer, the rovingrepresentative of the JewishAgency's Political Department inEurope. Ruffer was GideonRafael, a German Jew who hadworked since 1934 in efforts torelocate Jews out of Europe and,after the war, to recover lostproperty. In meeting Koenig,Ruffer sought to establish formalties between the Jewish Agencyand US intelligence. Koenig,however, rebuffed him, saying hecould only discuss local issues.He would, however, pass oninformation from the Jewish

Agency to his superiors. Accord-ing to Koenig's account of themeeting, Ruffer then presentedhis version of the history of theJewish Agency's relations withthe OSS and British intelligenceduring the war. (S)

Ruffer offered the Americans theuse of Jewish couriers in East-ern Europe, with the stipulationthat any intelligence obtainedwould be credited to the PoliticalDepartment of the JewishAgency. Ruffer had noted thatboth the British and the Ameri-cans had exploited the JewishAgency during the war for infor-mation, but gave it no credit. (S)

When Ruffer asked Koenig whatsort of intelligence he wanted,the American replied that heactually sought counterintelli-gence information. Specifically,Koenig told Ruffer that hewanted to know if foreign powerswere targeting the United Stateseither through military or politi-cal means or by subverting theJewish immigration channels.Koenig also mentioned that hewas interested in "any intelli-gence about war criminals whichwould be uncovered by the Jew-ish Agency representatives andwould benefit either the WarCrimes Board or the StateDepartment." (S)

Tensions Surface (U)

In Austria . . .In May Koenig complained aboutthe US government's lack of sup-port for the Jewish refugees.After a discussion with the SSUsection responsible for intelli-


'This is an example, again, of odds and ends of informationwhich come to us with no indication as to what development willbe or what corrective action may result from the information."

British attempts torestrict Jewish emi-gration to Pales-tine led todemonstrations ofthousands of refu-gees in Germanyand elsewhere. Thepolicy also led totension within USpolicymaking cir-cles. (U) (Photo 0Bettman/CORBIS)

UNCLASSIFIED


gence on Hungary, Koenigdescribed the problems the Jointfaced in helping Jews in thatcountry. Because the Russiansrefused to allow American citi-zens to staff the JDC or any ofthe other relief organizations inHungary for fear that these indi-viduals were American intelli-gence officers, the Jewishorganizations in that country hadno oversight from their mainoffices. (S)

Instead of supporting all Jews,the Joint in Budapest dissolvedinto a racket in which only thefavored few obtained supplies,Koenig argued. As a result,money, food, and supplies weresquandered, giving the organiza-tion a poor name. Koenig toldHeadquarters that the Americanelement of the Allied ControlCommission in Hungary wascompounding the problems, writ-ing that "[the commission] hastaken a completely biased atti-tude towards Jewish emigration.They are influenced by the com-pletely wrong connections theyhave made among Hungarian cir-cles and now are cooperatingactively with the Russians intheir program to stop any emi-gration towards the US Zone ofAustria." (S)

. . • and at HeadquartersAt about the same time, Head-quarters began questioningaspects of Vienna's reporting. Inone example, SSU questionedinformation Pier had givenKoenig about a US Army officerassigned to the Allied ControlCommission in Hungary whoPier alleged was "on more thanfriendly terms with NKVD offic-

ers in Budapest." SSU wanted toknow the identity of the officerand the validity of the informa-tion. Headquarters went on tochide Koenig:

This is an example, again, ofodds and ends of informationwhich come to us with no indi-cation as to what developmentwill be made, or what informa-tion or corrective action mayresult from the information. Ifany service to US organiza-tions can be rendered throughinformation which we obtain, itis important that this bedone. 12 (S)

Koenig's close ties with theBrichah in Austria also worriedWashington because of the poten-

12 In response, Security Control (the suc-cessor to X-2) in Austria stated that it hadcontacted the G-2 of the US Forces in Aus-tria and the American military mission inBudapest, informing both of the allega-tions against the officer. (S)

tial ramifications of the Britishcrackdown on the Jewish upris-ing in Palestine in June 1946,which included a raid on the Jew-ish Agency's headquarters. Thisled Washington to advise X-2 inAustria, "things of this naturemay explain to you why we havefelt that caution should be exer-cised in our activities in a cer-tain project." (S)

It also became more apparent toWashington officials that Koenigactually worked with a clandes-tine organization that counter-manded official US militarygovernment policies designed tostaunch the flow of refugeesfrom Eastern Europe into theAmerican zones of Germany andAustria. (S)

Coupled with the growing anxi-ety that American intelligencemight be supporting a subver-sive element, SSU had naggingdoubts about Arthur Pier.


"It is our feeling that this case should be neither continued norreinstated under circumstances attendant in the past."


Responding to Vienna's tracerequest, the SSU station in Cairoreplied that it could find no infor-mation on the man. In fact, Cairoconfirmed that Pier never workedfor the British Security Intelli-gence Middle East (SIME) andthat his press card was false.Cairo Station advised Vienna toproceed with caution. (S)

Closing the Project (U)

On 12 July 1946, Richard Helms,who had just been named the act-ing chief of Foreign Branch M—the section in Headquartersresponsible for operations in Cen-tral Europe—sent a cable toVienna stating that while Wash-ington had no objection to con-tinuing the project, Headquartersneeded more information aboutSYMPHONY's value and its over-all potential. By this time, Capt.Koenig had already returned tothe United States for demobiliza-tion, leaving the project withoutany US control. In late August,John G. Heyn, the acting head ofSecurity Control in Austria,offered this update:

The project continues to lie idlefor lack of a case officer. In themeantime, additional thou-sands of emigrants are pouringout of Poland into Austria. Theoriginal plan for operating theproject, by planting six Yid-dish speaking interrogators inthe Rothschild Institute inVienna, is as impossible tocarry out today as it was in thebeginning. Reason: There areno American Yiddish speakinginterrogators to be had. CON-

DUCTOR is as anxious as everto cooperate in removing non-bona fide Jewish elements fromthe stream of immigration. Thecontrol feature of the projectremains as it was; fear to inany way offend US authoritieslest the entire emigration beclosed down. CONDUCTORhas made every effort in thepast to fulfill our require-ments. However, direction isneeded and having received noreplacement for Konig [sic],Vienna is over-taxed. The Chiefof Mission has expressed aninterest in the positive informa-tion available throughCONDUCTOR. We shall try tomaintain the contact in orderto keep the avenue open to thewealth of fresh CE and posi-tive information that theseemigrants are bringing outwith them. 13 (S)

By the time Headquartersreceived Heyn's report, it hadalready lost interest in Project

John G. Heyn, head of SC/Austria.(U) (Photo courtesy of Margaret W.Heyn)

SYMPHONY. On 19 September,Helms and the Austrian deskofficer, Evelyn M. Williams, senta lengthy review of the project toAustria for comment.

It is our feeling that this caseshould be neither continued norreinstated under circum-stances attendant in the past. If[original emphasis] the case isdeveloped at all, it should be onthe basis of the most securecovert penetration of the agencyconcerned (by covert penetra-tion we mean without theknowledge of any of its offi-cials or personnel) instead ofthe open collaboration of thepast. (S)

The 16-page review was scathingin its criticism of the project.Headquarters felt that the twomain agents had significantblack marks in their past, espe-cially Wender who had made afortune as a courier between Tur-key and Eastern Europe duringthe war. After questioningKoenig upon his return to Wash-ington, Headquarters learnedthat Koenig's description of Pierhad been misleading. It turnedout that Koenig and Pier had meteach other during the war andnot, as Koenig had suggested, inVienna. Headquarters alsolearned to its dismay that Capt.Koenig had himself been affili-ated with the Jewish Agencybefore joining the Army. (S)

"When Heyn sent the report, SecurityControl in Vienna had only one officerassigned, while the main base in Salzburgcounted only seven personnel, includingsecretaries and a guard. (S)


Even more troubling, it was argued, Koenig's work had, nodoubt, come to the attention of the British.

• SECRET//MRA SYMPHONY and its CONDUCTOR

For his part, Pier operated in aconspiratorial manner while theBrichah "has been more andmore associated with, if not actu-ally sponsoring, certain terroris-tic groups in a desperate effort toattain its aims." Pier's own meth-ods, as seen by Washington, were"strong-arm and unethical."Those who opposed him weresimply "taken care of" or "liqui-dated." Koenig's own sympathiesfor the plight of the Jewish refu-gees and his growing reliance onPier for intelligence appeared togive sanction to the illicit activi-ties being committed by the Jew-ish underground in Austria. (S)

Moreover, Michael Pine, theNKVD major that Piers hadpromised and who instead hadbeen picked up on weaponscharges, proved a disappoint-ment. The information he pro-vided did not justify Koenig'sobtaining Pine's release from jailand his removal to Munich. (S)

Two other incidents raised secu-rity questions. In mid-May,Koenig had met a man whoclaimed to be a Russian scientistemployed by the Soviet militaryin Austria. This man, known asDonsky, wanted to leave Austriaas quickly as possible with hiswife to travel to Palestine. WhileDonsky stated that he would notreveal all of his informationabout his work for fear of beingbranded a traitor, he offered tosupply general details about lifein the Soviet Union. (S)

Koenig agreed to this proposaland began to make arrange-ments to have Donsky flown toItaly. When Headquarters finally

learned about Koenig's steps onbehalf of the Russian, it orderedits Vienna representative to dropall contact with him. SSU fearedthat Donsky's supposed defec-tion was a ruse, a provocationorchestrated by the Soviets tocatch the United States in anunfriendly act. Likewise,Koenig's withholding of Pier'salleged source in the Britishheadquarters in Austria becamea matter of contention betweenSSU officials in London, Vienna,and Washington. (S)

In sum, Helms and Williams feltthat the intelligence coming outof Project SYMPHONY had beenlow grade and could be procuredthrough the open press. TheBrichah had been the main bene-ficiary of the exchange, and itappeared that Koenig had fallenunder Pier's sway. The balancesheet of Pier's gains from X-2 inVienna far outweighed any bene-fit to the United States. (S)

Even more troubling, it wasargued, Koenig's work had, nodoubt, come to the attention ofthe British in Austria and Pales-tine. 14 The diplomatic ramifica-tions of British exposure of theAmerican operation would sim-ply be too great. The reviewadvised the abandonment of

14 The concern was justified. A CIA over-view of the project in May 1950 indicatedthat Pier closed his project down immedi-ately after Koenig left Austria in the sum-mer of 1946 because the British hadobtained copies of all of Pier's reports toKoenig. (S)

Project SYMPHONY. WhileHeadquarters did not rule out anew covert project to penetratethe Jewish immigration, itseemed impossible under the cir-cumstances. (S)

The Aftermath (U)

Chastened, the Vienna baseacknowledged in early Octoberthat Project SYMPHONY andthe use of Pier had come to anend. Despite promises to Armyofficials to continue to exploit theJewish Brichah, the lack of caseofficers effectively closed off thatapproach. The G-2 of the UnitedStates Forces in Austria, sup-ported by the 430th CounterIntelligence Corps Detachment,thereafter furnished the bulk ofthe reporting on the Jewishunderground. The Central Intel-ligence Group, which assumedSSU's foreign operations in thefall of 1946, dropped contact withErich Wender after a final reportin October 1946. (5)

Arthur Pier, however, did notdrop out of sight. In late Janu-ary 1947, Pier met with a CIGofficer in Vienna and com-plained that the United Stateshad "cooled off toward him."Pier, in turn, was told that hehad not been forthright in pro-viding information to the UnitedStates and that there was noway that the large numbers ofJews coming from EasternEurope could escape withoutsome type of cooperation on thepart of the Soviets. (S)


SYMPHONY had a dampening effect on the establishment ofintelligence liaison relations between the United States andIsrael.


The US representative informedPier that the US Army's CounterIntelligence Corps was nowresponsible for collection fromrefugees. If Pier were to continueto work for the Americans, hehad to agree not to impose anydemands on the Army. Pier againstated that he wanted to cooper-ate with the Americans, but "wasnot in a position to engage instraight intelligence." After this

point, Pier was turned over toHarris Greene, the deputy chiefof the CIC office in Salzburg

(S)

Pier's performance as a source forthe Army was equally disappoint-ing. Pier reported only once to theCIC, in February 1947, and failedto tell his handlers that he hadpicked up a Soviet lieutenant colo-nel and his wife who had defectedthrough Jewish channels. Pier'sdeparture from Austria to Pales-tine in the summer of 1947 endedthe short-lived relationshipbetween US intelligence and theBrichah. (S)

SYMPHONY's Significance(C)

As an intelligence-gathering oper-ation, Project SYMPHONY was abust, but it had a broader, damp-ening effect on the establishmentof intelligence liaison relationsbetween the United States and

Israel. It would not be until 1951,five years later, that the CIA andthe then-new Mossad could agreeto cooperate. In part, this was theresult of the lingering US concernthat the Soviets had penetratedthe infrastructure of the Israeliintelligence and security ser-vices. 15 Consequently, exchangesbetween the two servicesremained mostly of a counterintel-ligence nature c.

-7

+ +

1, According to one history, "since its birthin 1948, little Israel was a big target forSoviet intelligence and a massive sievewhen it came to leaks." Over the years,Israel suffered several high-profile spycases dating to recruitments by the Sovi-ets before the establishment of the coun-try. See Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman,Every Prince a Spy: The Complete Historyof Israel's Intelligence Community (Bos-ton: Houghton Miflin, 1990), 30-31,49—50, and 98-100. (U)

Afterword: What Became of the Players in Austria?(U)

SYMPHONY's case officer, Capt. Jules Koenig, would return to civilian life as a diamond cutter. Heremained in contact with some of those involved in SYMPHONY, among them Gideon Rafael (Ruffer) andEdward P. Barry, the head of X-2 in Austria when the project was conceived. At one point, the records show,Koening made a vain attempt through Barry to return to intelligence and join the CIA. He died in 1989. (S)

After the war, Edward P. Barry briefly returned to civilian life C.

3 Barry died in Italy in the 1990s. (S)John G. Heyn, the officer responsible for SYMPHONY after Koenig left Vienna, ironically, had studiedmusic in the 1920s in Germany to become a conductor. Early in the war he enlisted in the Army and rose to


SECRET//MRA SYMPHONY and Its CONDUCTOR

become a captain. Released from the military in January 1946, he joined SSU C,He died in 1996. (S)

Erich Wender disappeared. (U)

Gideon Rafael (aka Buffer), worked with the Jewish Agency in Europe to recover lost Jewish propertyand then served at the United Nations as the agency's representative during the partition talks in 1947.Rafael held senior positions in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, including Director-General and served five yearsas Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom. He died in 1999. 16 (U)

The longest and brightest burning star of the episode was Arthur Pier, who remained active in intelligencecircles long after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. He took the name Asher Ben-Nathan andserved as chief of the Operations Branch of the Political Department of the Foreign Ministry (HaMahlakaHaMedinet), the intelligence wing of the Israeli Foreign Service, under Boris Guriel. (U)

Competition among the intelligence services (including the Political Department, the Shin Bet or the GeneralSecurity Service, and Israeli military intelligence) after Israel's formation, led to the centralization of intelli-gence under the head of HaMossad Leeum, better known as the Mossad or the Institute for Coordination. TheMossad assumed the collection of foreign intelligence and disbanded the Foreign Ministry's Political Depart-ment, precipitating the "spies' revolt" in March 1951, when Ben-Nathan and other members of the PoliticalDepartment resigned en masse and destroyed their records rather than turn them over to the new Mossad. (U)

By 1953, Ben-Nathan was back in intelligence and played a key role in the transfer of French nuclear technol-ogy to Israel, thus allowing it to become the first nuclear power in the Middle East. He went on to hold positionsof power in the Israeli government, including service as Director General of the Ministry of Defense (1959-65),Israel's first ambassador to West Germany (1965-69), and ambassador to France (1970-75). He worked manymore years in advisory roles at the center of Israeli government and has won numerous public service awards.17In 2005, Ben-Nathan published a memoir in Germany in which he mentions Koenig in a section describing USinterest in the Brichah. (U)

16 See Bernard Reich and David H. Goldberg, Political Dictionary of Israel (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2000), 320, and GideonRafael, Destination Peace: Three Decades of Israeli Foreign Policy, A Personal Memoir (New York: Stein and Day, 1981).17 For more on Adler Ben-Nathan, see Itzhak Ben, ed., Who's Who in Israel and Jewish Personalities All Over the World (Tel Aviv: Who'sWho in Israel Publishers, 1999); Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel's Secret Wars: The Untold History of Israeli Intelligence (London:Hamish Hamilton, 1991); Haggai Eshed, Reuven Shiloah: The Man Behind the Mossad Secret Diplomacy in the Creation of Israel, trans.by David and Leah Zinder (London: Frank Cass, 1997), Samuel M. Katz, Soldier Spies: Israeli Military Intelligence (Novato, CA: PresidioPress, 1992); and Raviv and Melman, Every Prince a Spy. (U)

Further Reading (u)

On Zionism in general:Hershel Edelheit and Abraham J. Edelheit, History of Zionism: AHandbook and Dictionary (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000);

Bernard Reich, Historical Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992);

Bernard Reich and David H. Goldberg, Political Dictionary of Israel(Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2000). (U)



Post-WWII and the fate of Jewish survivors in Europe:Thomas Albrich, Exodus durch Osterreich: Die judischenFluchlinge 1945-1948 (Innsbruck, AU: Haymon-Verlag, 1987);

Yehuda Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust: The AmericanJewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939-1945 (Detroit, MI:Wayne State University Press, 1981);

Yehuda Bauer, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: RandomHouse, 1970);

Yehuda Bauer, From Diplomacy to Resistance: A History of Jew-ish Palestine 1939-1945 (New York: Atheneum, 1970, rep. ed.1973);Yehuda Bauer, Out of the Ashes: The Impact of Amenican Jews onPost-Holocaust European Jewry (Oxford, UK Pergamon Press,1989);Asher Ben-Natan and Susanne Urban, Die Bricha: Aus dem Ter-ror nach Eretz Israel, Ein Fluchthelfer errinnert sich (DusseldorfDroste Verlag, 2005);Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Beck, eds., The Holocaustand History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and theReexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998);

Ted Szulc, The Secret Alliance: The Extraordinary Story of theRescue of the Jews since World War II (New York: Farrar, Straus& Giroux, 1991). (U)British military and intelligence operations in Palestine:Menachem Begin, The Revolt (New York: Nash Publishing, 1977,rev. ed.);

J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out of Zion: Irgun, Lehi, and the PalestineUnderground 1929-1949 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977);

Gregory Blaxand, The Regiments Depart: A History of the BritishArmy, 1945-1970 (London: William Kimber, 1971);

David A. Charters, The British Army and the Jewish Insurgencyin Palestine 1945-47 (London: MacMillan, 1989);

David A. Charters, "British Intelligence in the Palestine Cam-paign, 1945-47," Intelligence and National Security 6 (January1991): 115-40;

A.J. Sherman, Mandate Days: British Lives in Palestine 1918—1948 (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997);

Saul Zadka, Blood in Zion: How the Jewish Guerrillas Drove theBritish Out of Palestine (London: Brassey's, 1995). (U)

The formation of Israel and its first war with the Arabs:The literature on this subject is extensive. One example is Ber-nard Postal and Henry W. Levy, And the Hills Shouted for Joy:The Day Israel Was Born (New York: David McKay Company,1973). (U)


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