What a gift!
Posted on 01/28/2015 10:38:27 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
In today’s Impromptus, I have occasion to mention Richard Helms, just in passing. He was CIA director from 1966 to 1973. Then he was ambassador to Iran. He was one of my favorite people in public life. (Sometimes the CIA isn’t very public, true.) I had a couple of exchanges with him — one by letter and one in person — and am grateful for them.
In my column, I mention that, as a journalist, he interviewed Hitler. This was in ’36. In the war that came, he was an intelligence operative. And he snuck into the Chancellery after Hitler offed himself (with Eva).
I pause for a language note: Good old Americans are allowed to say “snuck,” instead of “sneaked.”
On Hitler’s letterhead — swastika and all — Helms wrote a note to his three-year-old son, Dennis. It was addressed to “Master Dennis J. Helms / c/o Mrs. Richard Helms” in Orange, N.J. That is redolent of an age. We used to address little boys as “Master” on envelopes. And we said things like “Mrs. Richard Helms.”
The father and future DCI wrote,
This letter now rests in the CIA’s private museum at Langley. To see an article about the matter, go here. LinkDear Dennis,
The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe — three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat — a boon to mankind. But thousands died that it might be so. The price for ridding society of bad is always high.
Love,
Daddy
There is, as you have seen, a great deal of wisdom packed into Helms’s few lines. For one thing, we should beware anyone who has “a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty.” That describes Ali Khamenei and many others. (Helms, incidentally, left Tehran two years before the Iranian revolution won.)
I would like to add a coda. On Christmas Day 1991, Helms wrote a letter to that same son, Dennis, saying,
My life has spanned an historic period, and I am rather awed by that fact. As I recalled other events, I realized that … Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and how many others bit the dust during this century. Now I am afraid that we are entering a troubled time, but of a different kind. … So-called “terrorism” may get a new lease on life. … But why be pessimistic?
For one thing, we should beware anyone who has “a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty.” That describes Ali Khamenei and many others. (Helms, incidentally, left Tehran two years before the Iranian revolution won.)
...
It describes Barry Obama.
My very thought.
What a gift!
yes, all leftists really
BTT!
Wow. Mr. Helms did indeed see a lot. And was at the forefront of some great events in the 20th Century.
And he was correct at how the 21st Century would develop into “terrorism”.
I was puzzled by Nordlinger saying Helms “snuck into the Chancellery” when as of VE Day it was under Soviet control. Had trouble picturing the NKVD tolerating an OSS operative getting in and stealing anything. Thanks for clearing up the confusion by posting the actual letter, address Obersalzberg, location of Hitler’s Alpine retreat then under control of the 101st Airborne. Whatever the circumstances, what a gift indeed.
That is very cool.
I suspect he got that detail wrong. The stationary says Obersaltzburg, which was the mountain retreat the Nazis built above Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, which was in the American Zone. Hitler had his mountain home there, the Eagle’s Nest.
Thanks for posting a copy of the letter.
The letterhead address is “Obersalzburg”, which would have been the Berchtesgaden “Eagle’s Nest” compound.
It’s possible that there would have been some Obersalzburg stationery in Hitler’s Berlin bunker in 1945, but it seems more likely that this stationery was recovered in Berchtesgaden.
Fascinating.
which included the Eagle's Nest further up the mountain.
There is a film clip I have seen a few times that shows a huge swastika atop a building in Berlin being dynamited. Do you know when this occurred and who was doing the demolition?
That’s pretty amazing.
The Ruskies.
Is the story incorrect in some details? Why was Hitler’s Obersalzberg stationary in the Reichskanzler’s office in Berlin? And wasn’t the place pretty well looted once the western allies got there? How would there have been anything left?
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