This is the remarkable story of Reinhard Gehlen, former head of the German Secret Service, who helped to found the CIA, the American Central Intelligence Agency. Gehlen was Hitler's Chief of Intelligence on the Russian Front during World War Two. However, long before May 1945 he had secreted himself and his files on the Soviets, away from Berlin, to the so called Alpine Redoubt in Southern Germany. He waited his chance to bargain for his freedom with the advancing Americans. His bargain was accepted and he and his files formed the basis of the CIA when it was set up in 1947. At the height of the Cold War three-quarters of the West's intelligence regarding the Soviets came, it was said, from Gehlen, who recruited, trained and infiltrated behind the Iron Curtain more than 5,000 secret agents. The Story is traced from Gehlen's joining the Nazi party during the early 1930s to his retirement on a CIA pension in the late 60s.
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