Operation Bloodstone: Recruiting Nazi Collaborators for the Cold War

The Story

By 1948, Washington's main worry in Europe had shifted from Germany to the Soviet Union. That June, the National Security Council approved a directive, NSC 10/2, now published in the State Department's official history. It said that 'the overt foreign activities of the US Government must be supplemented by covert operations.'

The directive spelled out what that meant: 'propaganda, economic warfare,' sabotage, 'subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements.' The operations were to be planned so that 'if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.'

'Bloodstone proved to be an open door through which scores of leaders of Nazi collaborationist organizations thought to be useful for political warfare in Eastern Europe entered the United States.' (Christopher Simpson, Blowback)

According to historian Christopher Simpson, one program from that period was code-named Bloodstone. In his 1988 book Blowback, based on declassified committee files and records he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Simpson writes that 'The Bloodstone proposal was approved by SANACC, the special interagency intelligence coordinating committee, on June 10, 1948.' He calls it 'one of the department's most important covert projects from 1948 until approximately 1950, when it was superseded by similar programs under direct CIA sponsorship.'

Simpson quotes a Bloodstone briefing paper saying there were 'native anti-communist elements' abroad that 'have shown extreme fortitude in the face of the Communist menace.' His most troubling conclusion is about who came in. He writes that 'Bloodstone proved to be an open door through which scores of leaders of Nazi collaborationist organizations thought to be useful for political warfare in Eastern Europe entered the United States.'

The covert-action policy of 1948 is documented in the official record. The details of Bloodstone itself, including the people it brought in, come mainly from Simpson's reading of the files. Bloodstone is best understood as a real program whose specifics rest largely on one historian's work.