The Shrine

It has now been firmly established (see references below) that the OSS actively recruited and protected many high ranking Nazi officers immediately following World War II, a policy that was carried on by the CIA. These included, the CIA now admits, the notorious "butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie, Hitler's Chief of Soviet Intelligence General Reinhard Gehlen, and numerous less-renowned Gestapo officers. General Gehlen, due to his extensive (if dubious) intelligence assets within the Soviet Union, was allowed to keep his spy-network intact after the war in the service of the United States. The Gehlen organization soon became one of America's chief sources of Intelligence on the Soviet Union during the cold war, and formed the basis for what would later become the German intelligence agency the BND.

From the wiki's CIA article...

Hey, we have Kissinger, so why not?

Actually, <i>we</i> have Kissinger. He's my school's Chancellor. The last one was Margaret Thatcher.

I'd look for sources above and beyond Wikipedia. Preferably published ones.

Kupek wrote:Actually, <i>we</i> have Kissinger. He's my school's Chancellor. The last one was Margaret Thatcher.

I'm sorry. Goddamn convicted criminal should be in prison, where he belongs.

It doesn't work that way if you have powerful friends. Isn't Kenneth Lay still running around out there somewhere?

Tortolia wrote:I'd look for sources above and beyond Wikipedia. Preferably published ones.

While I agree that the Wikipedia's veracity is almost certainly comparatively lower than a (reputable) print-published source, I tend to think an error of this magnitude would most likely have caused a big enough stink by now that it wouldn't be in there.

Wikipedia is excellent for "I have absolutely no prior knowledge of this topic, give me enough information so I know where to start." Which is the same thing a print encyclopedia is good for. But if you really want to know about the topic, I agree with Tort: find print sources, or at least reputable online sources.

Aside from knowing you have a source you consider reputable, if the work is attributed, you can also research the author so you can get a feel for the author's biases.

All true. However, I don't really have the time or inclination right now to be writing research papers. And I'm sure there are a lot of sides to the story. It's just fucked-up that I don't learn about these types of things in history class, though, to be fair, my high school did a pretty good job of portraying the uglier side of America's history as well.