Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter

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Person.png Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter.gif
BornMay 8, 1897
St. Louis, Missouri
DiedJune 18, 1982 (Age 85)
New York City
RelativesJane C. Hillenkoetter

Employment.png Director of Central Intelligence

In office
May 1, 1947 - October 7, 1950
EmployerCIA
Succeeded byWalter Bedell Smith
During his leadership, the CIA was empowered to undertake "propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition, and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world'. It had already exceeded this mandate.

Operation Gladio

Full article: Operation Gladio

With top secret document NSC 4-A, Hillenkoetter allowed the CIA to take a range of covert actions to prevent a communist victory in 1947 the Italian elections. A year later another directive, the notorious NSC 10/2 was passed which authorised the CIA to carry out covert actions anywhere in the world. Covert action was defined as activities "which are conducted or sponsored by this government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorised persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them", and specifically included "propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition, and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."[1] Hillenkoetter’s successor, Walter Bedell Smith, claimed that by 1951 the CIA covert ops had already "far exceeded" even this broad definition.[citation needed]


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References

  1. Paperback: ISBN 0-7146-8500-3, Hardback: ISBN 0-7146-5607-0, Daniele Ganser, p.54


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