Re: The Cold War



Letter for Col. Prouty

Subject: Questions for Mr. Prouty in regards to Allen Dulles and the downing of his VIP DC-6

Dear Mr. Prouty, I am wondering about the fact that Allen Dulles was able to pick up a telephone, contact a Soviet individual and arrange for the return of the air crew.

The reason I'm asking is because I'm doing some research about the cold war being used as a scare tactic to promote military spending. The reason this story of Allen Dulles interests me is because it seems to suggest that no cold war existed except in the public eye. The fact that the director of the CIA could make such a phone call, and produce such dramatic results does not imply hostility but co-operation.

You gave the explanation "That was the way the Dulles brothers carried out their business..."

In your judgement Mr. Prouty, what is the reason that such a call could be made? and also do you agree that the cold war was propaganda for the promotion of the arms industry? Do you agree that the assination of JFK represents the culmination of the cold war, and that the elements that led to that assination were in place long before JFK took office?

Thank you Mr. Prouty I am a big fan of your work,and I am greatful for the chance to correspond with you

-Frank Werner

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For Frank Werner:
From L. Fletcher Prouty:


Your note is an indication of a good understanding of the "Cold War" and certain of its characteristics. As I have written many times, the first major element of the Cold War took place in Sept, 1944 when the OSS under Frank Wisner in Bucharest, Romania was able to round up more than 750 American air-crew POW's in the Balkans and to put them aboard an improvised freight train and ship them from Romania through the Balkans, into Turkey to Syria.

I was the Air Transport Command "chief pilot" in Cairo at the time, and was ordered to assemble enough transport aircraft to pick all of them up from a landing ground north of Aleppo, Syria and then back to Cairo.

We discovered, after we had flown them to Cairo, that the OSS had recruited more than 150 German and Romanian Nazi intelligence agents who were specialists on the East European and Western USSR region. They were slipped into the American POW shipment for the trip to Cairo. Then they were to form a nucleus of "experts" to work with American counter-parts "after the end of WW II" AGAINST our ally, the Soviets. In 1944, the Soviets were very much our Ally against the Nazies. (This is a brief outline. More is available via the Site resources.)

That's how it all started. Now, to Allen Dulles' VIP DC 6.

Gen Cabell had taken it for the flight from Washington to Weisbaden. There he "loaned" it to a 10-man Air Force team of men from the U-2 program for a flight to Pakistan. Unfortunately none of those crewmen had experience with that airway. They had landed in Turkey as a fuel stop and then headed for Teheran. In the Ararat-Lake Van vicinity, with broken clouds on their route, they missed the turn at Lake Van and thought the Caspian Sea was the lake, and that all was well.

All of a sudden the Co Pilot saw two Soviet MIG's beside them. In that area south of Baku one MIG put a burst into the DC-6's #2 engine. The plane was on fire; but landed safely on an open field, and all were captured.

The Soviets made a big deal about the "American Spy-Plane" that had crossed their border and was shot down. They called in all the foreign correspondents in Moscow for a special briefing. The news flashed all over the world.

During that time, the Eisenhower administration flatly denied that any American aircraft, military or civilian had over-flown Soviet territory, anywhere,"No American planes are missing."

This continued for 18 hours. John Foster Dulles could find no "lost" aircraft. Neil McElroy the Sec Defense swore that no American aircraft was involved. All the airlines reported the same. However, the Soviets continued the story, and then added that they had the crewmen---alive. Eisenhower was in one of his rages over the inability of our top people to find out about a lost plane.

It was about 7:30pm here, when my telephone rang and my daughter told me that Gen Thomas White, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, was on the phone. He asked me to go to Allen Dulles' home as soon as possible. When I got there Dulles, and his Plans Deputy, Dick Bissell were there. They told me about the Soviet story and asked me to see if I could find a "Lost aircraft"...anybody's and anywhere.

Allen Dulles stressed that they had been telling Ike that no American aircraft was lost for 18 hours; but the President was still doubtful. The Soviets were making a big story about that.

I left the Allen's home and drove to the Pentagon where I could get a world-wide communication system. I had a hunch, no more, that I might know who could answer our question. I called Weisbaden, Germany to the home of the CIA's air operations man there. It was about 3:00am when I got him out of bed. I told him the story, and when I mentioned that the Soviets claimed they had the "ten man" crew of a DC-6 my associate snapped awake.

I told him to get to his operations office where we could speak on secure phones. About 20 minutes later he called to say that ten men had left with Dulles' DC-6 for a U-2 meeting in Pakistan. We found out that they had left Adana, Turkey and had not arrived at Teheran. (As a "secret" flight there had been no "Flight Plan" filed; so Teheran did not expect the plane and Turkey had no formal record of its departure.)

With all the information I could get on hand, I drove back to Allen Dulles home. I told him that I was quite sure that I had found the airplane, "It is your DC-6." We talked for a while and then he said, "Be back here at 8am tomorrow and we'll go to my brother's home to discuss this, and how to get the plane and the crew back."

I picked up Allen Dulles, and he directed me to John Foster's home where we found Neil McElroy, Sec Defense and Gen. White. We all sat in Dulles library and talked about "what to do': but most importantly, I noted that their real concern was, "What do we tall Ike? How do we break this to him, after assuring him, for ,ore than a day, that there was no missing plane?" They were more concerned about Eisenhower's reaction than that of the Soviets.

At about that point, John Foster Dulles (not Allen, as you have written in your note) reached up between a shelf-full of books for a plain white telephone with no dial or push-buttons, and simply told someone who had answered it, to get him a man whose name had been mentioned briefly in the conversation. The man was Russian, not in the government, and in Russia at the time.

Without delay Dulles began to speaking, in English to this man, and then they got into the details of what would have to be done to get the plane and crew back. It all seemed just so much business, and no more. That man obviously was powerful and well-connected with Khrushchev and his associates in Moscow. Dulles and his "contact" spoke affirmatively and assuredly all the time.

Finally, Dulles turned to me and asked, "Can you have a plane out there in the Caspian region in ten days to pick up the 10 man crew? The DC-6 burned and is destroyed."

I agreed to do that. They had found out that Eisenhower was on the golf-course. Then our unusual meeting ended.

Ten days later I had a crew and plane at the designated airport on the Soviet/Iran border near the shores of the Caspian. They were all home shortly.

In line with your comments: to me the most important items to arise from this deal were a) that John Foster Dulles so easily was able to contact a non-government source in Moscow with assurance, and to get the job done quietly and effectively; and b) that Allen Dulles had his own aircraft out on a U-2 support mission and no one in his agency knew where it was.

This is clear evidence of the way the Dulles brothers, among others, were able to carry out international "diplomacy" despite the public's concept of the Cold War. Remember, above, it began while the Soviet's were still our allies, and it was a cover story for what Buckminster Fuller in his remarable book, "Critical Path" tells us was a "Six Trillion Dollar" international enterprise (that was, up to the early Eighties.)

There can be no question about the impact of this Cold War game upon a capable and successful politician such as John F. Kennedy. If he had been permitted to live and to have been re-elected in 1964, the Cold War game would have been exposed for what it was and things in this country and around the world would have been so much better today.

Just consider the scenarios of the 1970's "Energy Crisis" with its hundreds of billion dollar profits. That charade was followed by the extremely costly decade of the Eighties with all the bank failures and the revolutionary changes in our financial world. Today the "Dulles-type" operators are globaly active as never before.

Thank you for your note: L. Fletcher Prouty

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