Some of you know me. I head up the Intelligence Program here. Before we begin our session and everybody gets set down, id like the make sure there will be q and a at the end. If everyone would be so kind as to shut off your cell phones. Frank fletcher has a very large and heavy mic and if he hears the phone, he will run to you and hit you on the edhad. Be careful. Were dealing with dangerous people. The best thing someone who introduces can do is get out of the way quickly. So im going to try to do that. Well kmnt to Daniel Morgan graduate school of National Security. We have a latest in the series of speakers in the National Security area and thank you to cspan people here as well. Im an old spy i started in cia in the soviet european division. And today i get to find out at long last. James skasal is here today, our speaker. Special forces berlin clandestine cold war operations of the u. S. Army elite from 1956 to 1990. Jim is someone who came out of nebraska, midwest and did a few stints in some very special places as special forces. And then onward to work ngo where he served as an operation career. A concrete archeologist, id like to hear what that is. Last book being the horn of the beast the River Campaign of world war i in south africa. If you would be so kienld as to welcome our friend and author here. [ applause ] well, first off id like to say invitation and hopefully this will be an joyable and a learning experience for some of you. Im winging it to some extent. Given this presentation about five times in the last month and the audience is varied. At one point im preaching to the choir and last week i was preaching to more or less giving a sermon to the college of cardinals. Nothing like briefing Senior Army Officers who live this and know exactly what youre talking about and just waiting to pounce on you. I should, at the very beginning i acknowledge all the serviceman that talks with me, that i serve would. About 8 hp people served in this unit in the 30 some years that it existed and very few have been able to talk to me about it. You managed to pick up my notes. Thank you. But a lot of people said this book could not be written. Its missions were top secret up until a number of years ago. I had to go through a complete review process. It took about 14 months to get through that process. Everything was classified before and now its not. But anyway. This is the history, the story of not only the unit but of the people who served there. Like i said 800 guys, very diverse membership, first europeans. Quite a diverse unit. But to really get to the heart of the matter, we have to go back to just after world war ii. As you all know we fought world war ii with our allies, france, britain of course the commonwealth countries a number of others with the soviet union. We started to realize it soviet union was perhaps not the partner we wanted to continue going to the ball with so to speak. Stalins rhetoric will not the czechoslovakia. And the berlin air lift in 1949 1950. Were all signs that our relationships with the russians was going badly. A gentleman by it name of George Kennen who wrote a very long telegram out of moscow outlined his had worries and fears and that really outlined american policy for the next 30 years. Tilted the United States towards containment of the soviet union and became even more offensive in the 1950s when korea was when south korea was ifvaded by north korea. Of course it domino theory was beginning to be explained for one of the reasons of the containment theory. The it government also started looking at rollback as a possible policy and rollback was nothing more than pushing the soviet union back to strip it of its Eastern Europe and european countries. Roam in aia, yugal slav yug slavia, and the Czech Republic were all within it soviet sphere. And the british mi6 or secret Intelligence Service began to run programs to actually turn those countries against the soviet union. As we all know most of them did not work out so well, primarily because of a gentleman like jim dullby. But about that same time it u. S. Army was rethinking its conventional mindset. The office of Strategic Service been eliminated after world war ii. It peace, the army was concentrating on conventional warfare and about 1950s people started to think we needed more of an unconventional approach to things. So a number of military officers got together and created what became to be known as special forces. The first group was created. Its mission was to conduct Unconventional Warfare. That is direct action, guerilla warfare behind enemy lines. This wasinate a new thought but it was a rethink of some old ways of doing warfare. 1953 special forces group is moved forward to germany. And stationed down here south of munich. That group was given the mission of conducting Unconventional Warfare in all the countries i talked about except one, east germany. About 1955 the berlin commander who had had with his allies a total of about 12,000 troops in the small city wrong button. Of course the divided city of berlin 110 miles behind the iron curtain decided he have had an offensive mission. 12,000 u. S. Troops or u. S. Led troops surrounded by east russian and german troops. Fair odds. He requested abtuach teams from his commander in west germany and the and gave him six special forces team who would be there permanently. Stationed in the american sector and their mission would be to compare for your warfare in east germany. 1956, the first six teams go up there and this unit would stay in one form or another for about 44 years until after the berlin wall fell. Their missions were Unconventional Warfare, sabotage. One thing you see on this chart is this green trace. This is the Major Railway thorough fair that goes through east germany. Basically rails from the south, hungary, from poland all conver converge. This was a strategic charter. And so these six teams became a strategic cog for all of nato. As general rogers put it in the 1980s, he said basically your mission is one thing, to buy me time and these guys were basically stationed at this small barracks in the american sector if war would come, they would disappear into the city, wait for the opportunity time to cross over the wall and sabotage key targets along this railway. Later on this target was thrown in and this target was thrown in. Those were the command bunkers for the soviet forces. Again its pretty fair odds. This one, for example, the soviet one was guarded by three soviet regimens. So about 12,000 troops. 12 guys against 12,000. Not a bad thing. So for 30 years these guys stayed in the city and planned for the mission but i should go back and say give you information about the guy whose were there. There had was no special test to say you qualified for berlin. If you were special forces you had the qualifications with one caveat. You had to speak an Eastern European language or german well eff to pass as a local or to confuse the east germans and russians for long enough you could do your mission and you had to be able to accept the fact you were going to wear civilian clothes, which was important because wearing civilian clothes meant if you were captured by the east germans or the russians you would be within probably five to 10 minutes shot as a spy. So with those two caveats the first 40 people were sent in 1956. Those 40 volunteers no one had any problems and for the next 34 years a lot of guys served there and never gave it a Second Thought of what lousy odds they had in front of them. As i said a lot of them were americans, probably at the beginning 60 were first or second generation. Either hungarian or russian in some cases. Russian was the predominate language and 30 were lodge act recruits. And that was public law 57, which was passed very early in the skiktsz rr to get Eastern Europeans to join the American Military just for this type of an operation. A lot of them served up into berlin. A lot of the people were immigrants from Eastern Europe and came into the american army. So quite an Interesting Group of people. They were train ood be clandestine soldiers. Not only did they need to know the military skills, but the trade skills to operate as a clandestine force. Because when the war started they knew that the russian, the kgb and the east german mfs were going to be looking for them. Not only would they shut down the west berlin government but they would geafter the command centers, the police force and they would also go after any elite units they thought might be in the city. Naturally the unit, special forces berlin was known as detachment a at the time was one of the targets. So immediately on receiving information that war was imminent or if it would actually happen, the unit would not go back to its Head Quarters but disperse into the city and operate as an underground with it help of germans who had had been sought out using safe houses, using nontechnical communications to talk with each other, as well aztecniccal Communications Like vhf radios and disappear until such time as they could cross over the wall to do their main target. Two teams would remain in the city to give it russians and east german as hard time. Destroy critical targets like power plants to give east german as hard time. While the other guys would cross over the walls to hit these targets. The red squaresroom rail yards and if you could sabotage one of those rail yards to actually slow traffic for 24 to 72 hours, that would dwgive the american troops that mission where they could meet and hopefully defeat a russian attack. Nato a big problem in the 1950s 1960s with 72 total divisions sitting west in west germany. The russians on the other hand and the east germans and their allies had a minimum of 96 divisions just on this side and another 100 or so a bit further east. So this rail line is going to be critical. But to slow these troops down, this was a hail mary pass. They figured that east germany would be a pretty well denied area. The east german and Russian Air Defense systems were pretty good then. Not impen trbl but close. So we knew we couldnt fly airplanes in and have them survive. So these six team wurz going to be critical to the Unconventional Warfare plan. Now the guys that came into the unit. As i said were kind of unconventional. First off they have to be a bit odd to begin with. I can say that because i am one. But as i said they trained unconventionally from very early on they did are the Standard Special Forces kind of training. This is actually where they were stationed. This is the old Head Quarters of the prussian senior cadette school during the time of bill helm, the emperor. This is a very nice olympic pool and these buildings were constructed by the American Engineers after world war ii. This was also the Head Quarters for the first ss division during world war ii. So obviously we took it as a prize after the war and for about 30 years the unit was located in this outfit. This barracks. Front door of course. Very innocuous. One of the issues that weve come up later was the unit a bare modicum of cover. It was detachment a berlin. Its mission was to sonority berlin brigade but beyond that, the story peatered off. If someone would ask you specific questions, then everybody was pretty well on their own for making up their story. So that was a problem area that came out later. The wall at the time was not a wall. The city itself, the outside of the city was surrounded by small fence and towers. Not difficult thing to cross. The inhad teterior of the city walled off. Thats the brandonberg gate of course. You could walk across, drive across. So getting in to east berlin and east germany was not a problem. Sp of the first guys that came looked like any other soldier. You look at their name tagz and theres quite a few Eastern European names. We trained unconventional type warfare tactics in east germany. Obviously berlin was the city the size of approximately new york surrounded by a fence. Not easy to run military exercises in the city. So we would go out to the west. This of course is practicing a truck ambush in germany. Youll notice these guys dont seem to be wearing uniforms, thats because theyre not. That weapon right there is a world war ii german submachine gun. Airborne operations just like the guys, the unit did airborne operations. Not because they thought they might actually have to use them but to keep up their qualifications was easier than having to retrain them later and you can never tell with a mission might come up somewhere else that would require it. Lieutenant colonel roman peernic was a polish immigrant of the United States, served with general gavin in world war ii. In berlin 1946 47, came back as a unit commander. Anybody in todays army would recognize this guy as what we call a leg, a nonairborne qualified soldier. At looeast until you look right there. Those are Service Stripes for overseas combat zone. Speck 5 medic with three senior military decorations for valor in north korea. Just an indication of some of the people that served in this unit. Falling out of an airplane. As i said, parachuting. People often asked me why would anybody want to jump out of an airplane. I said if youve ever flown in an air force aircraft. Sorry. Small unit operations required using small airplanes. This is practicing for message drops in small units. That was based out of berlin. Quite useful for setting down on short air strips or in farmers fields anyplace, anytime. 1956. This is what the teams looked like. This is actually an exercise in west germany. Theyre still carrying american weapons because they have not been able to get enough communist block or eastern german weapons. This is an interesting story. It was about the time that government started thinking about using Small Nuclear weapons as a way to slow down the russians. So the engineers had a version they could blow up a bridge. But somebody came up with an even better idea. Why dont you give special forces guys one of these things and see what they can do with them. Because the unit had members that were all top secret cleared, this was the First Special forces team that was trained to use the atomic demolition mission. Back then it was not quite so small. Four pieces, 400 pounds with a low kiloton yield which would be enough that if you left it in the basement of the building, it would probably clear out five square blocks. But you can imagine what these things would have done to that railway around berlin. Later on the unit acquired german weapons. Nobody knows what this is. Its a walter mpk. This is what walter p38 used by both sides. More interesting weapons. Thats called the well rod mark 1 hand fire dg vice, developed by the british. Very silent weapon. Completely unmarked. Single shot but it had a magazine that operated like a piece of plumbing equipment. Small radios. That piece on the left side about the size of this book. This is called an rx 6, it was called an agent radio. An hf radio that had a Transmission Distance of about 6,000 miles. So from germany you can easily communicate with your Head Quarters in england or wherever. Later on we switch to british equipment. But thats neither here nor there. 1961. The wall goes up. Makes the mission a bit more difficult. That wall splits the city. And goes all the way around. 110 miles. Of total wall. Donald trump could get some ideas from this. Of course you have to remember it took them 30 years to perfect it before they decided it did work and they knocked it down. The teams had had to come up with if had genius ways to cross the wall, to find out how to get there to their target sites. This is a target model of their wall crossing point. We had intelligence available from the air force from east german who would be interrogated. Very close up looks by our people at it wall and we could determine ways to kracros that l without being caught. One of the things you did not want to do is cross the wall and find out youre in an east German Military base. We had had to do recognizance on both sides. The wall had had one fallacy. It was designed to keep their people in, it was not designed to keep people out. So there were ways in. But as i said 30 years they can start to perfect things. Decent motorcycles, dogs, not so much as an attack device but as an Early Warning device because they were very atuned to who or what was in the area. East germans of course are as interested in what were doing as they are. So thats very close to check point charley. But you see the layers of defense. Wall fence, obstacles and then another wall right here. Very difficult for the east germans. Thats up in the french sector. So this is the wall between west berlin and east germany, not east berlin. So obviously you had to find a location that was a bit closer, bit easier to get across and as i said all methods were used to find out information. Having personal knowledge of that photo, that tower was empty. Did not want to risk getting shot in the back. A also you didnt think about just going over the wall or through the wall, you had to think about going under. So the city of berlin has more sewer systems, more canal systems than amsterdam, for example. So we also worked with scuba ge gear, demolitions using scuba gear in the water. Just had to know what your enemy was. Thats one of the east german patrol boats. But as i said if youre under water with a nonbubble making device like a rebreather, scuba gear. Then you can get under these things and through these things. Not only could we get into east berlin through this means, we could get into east germany. I should say the unit also did holistic training because it wasnt all fun and games in the city. Holistic training, ski training, mountain climbing, of course scuba diving outside of berlin. If youre in a contained atmosphere, you have to get out once in a while to enjoy the open air. Thats garmish, looking towards austria. Not just down hill but cross country. So our mission through the 1950s, 1960s, Unconventional Warfare fighting the russians and east germans. Because when you start seeing them coming up theres opposition in the vietnam war and europe and terrorism starts to become a problem in europe and the middle east. 1974. This is shortly after the debacle at munich. And after the israelis do their rescue, the American Military starts to look at theerrorism a building a Counterterrorism Force but for the most part decides its better left to law enforcement. So they give it to the military police to handle as far as the military goes. That would change. But the u. S. U comcommander and nato ucom commander decided they needed a means of their own because they were really at the hot bed of terrorism at that time to combat it. So they task berlin because it was a special forces unit, because it had intelligence collection tasks, because it used clandestine operations. All of these things were well versed in the unit. They tasked berlin to come up with a basically a precision marksmanship unit to help had out in the case of aircraft hijackings. So 1974 the unit begins to do this. By 1975 1976 it has the first counterterrorism unit in the u. S. Military thats not military police. Theyre doing anticonventional warfare and antiterrorism, which is a problem i can discuss later. But early on we decided that our allies had information that would be useful to us. This is the bg, stands for the german Border Patrol had a unit called gsg 9 created after munich specifically for this. The british sas, the local police forces. The bgs practicing with their door breaching charges. So there was quite an exchange of information between the americans, the british and the germans very early on, even with the israelis. We would pass techniques and tactics back and forth. This was from berlin. Theyre training with gsg 9. As far as gsg 9 knew they came from the United States. They have no clue they came from berlin. We had an urban Training Area that we used inside quite a bit. Thats the bare bones assault unit. Today you would never see an assault in a uniform like this. He would be in 200 pounds of armor. Lightweight armor but still 200 pounds. Being able to engage a target quickly, multiple targets, discriminatory. To pull down shot groups the size of a tea cup. And we built an assault range where you could practice multientry tactics and we began to train on airplanes. This is an interesting story because the field manager said went out on a limb and said i know you guys have something to do with us so if you want to use our airplanes, its all right with me. He didnt clear this with corporate Head Quarters or anything. This is a jet that would be used the next day. And it gives you full access to the jet, pulling the doors open, knocking the windows in and then of course not telling the passengers the next day what had had happened the previous night. But we would also train on the tarmac. Thats tagal international airport, probably the second largest airport in germany at the time. Obviously the guy in the back door has got it beat on the photographer. But working ostensably as maintenance crew, baggage handler and aircraft handlers, people would be on the tarmac as these pana. M. Airplanes were moving in and out. Gave them the familiarization with the operations and how to possibly use it if there was a hijacking. 1979 in teheran, iran, student would quote extremists take over the embassy compound. And immediately the United States is thrust into one of its first counterterrorism problems. We all know the story of detachment delta who was going to go into teheran to rescue the people from the American Embassy compound. What is lesser known is that charley beck with said i cannot handle the second target. The second target was the Iranian Foreign min stwrr the acting ambassador, a cia officer and his deputy were being held by it iranian government the commander of the unit, a czech immigrant who fought in world war ii with the resistance said i can do this. So the unit was enlisted as the second assault element and these are the nine guys that would have participated in desert one. They were at desert one. But another aspect is the clandestine training. The knowledge of special operations and targeting. Led the army to pick two guys from the unit to send them into teheran to collect the intelligence needed for delta and the force to do its mission. Very early on, about january of 1980 two guys from berlin appropriately covered as businessman made multiple trips if to teheran to collect this intelligence. When desert one went bad there were three americans right here waiting for this force to move on. The mission failed, the troops were recalled and they found out the next day when americans try do a rescue, there may be more americans. Basically in a wake up. Instead of running, they paid plan. Its probably the only Successful Mission of that operation was that intelligence collection operation. And it was special forces. That went from a rescue mission to basically a revenge mission. The delta force went from 90 to 300 and the detachments force went from 9 to 40. Thats just one. The mission on this case would have intentailed using helicopt going into the city whereas before they were using trucks. The detachment got the small helicopters. And they came from a National Guard reserve unit which was given the name temporarily of task force 159. I participated in this and ive never seen pilots that can fly like these guys. You might know them as task force 160, the night stockers. Way up here thats a ch 47, command ship. Our aspect of the unt was 16 of these helicopters loaded up with all the ammunition they could carry doing all sorts of things. Practicing in florida on a building that looks very much like it Iranian Foreign ministry. Youll recognize this as camp ruder. As i intumated the cover that the unit had had had and then the association of that unit with counterterrorism would be basically a problem area. The unit would be exposed in a Time Magazine article or news week article and ended up in the unit being closed down in 1984. But everyone at the time thought that mission had closed down. In reality it army came up with a new unit that would carry on until the end of the cold war and that was a unit known as physical security support element. Would carry on the mission just as the first unit did. But this time with a cover that made sense. These guys were doing physical security, vulnerability surveys for the ucom commander are had across africa, europe and the middle east. Thats actually one of the security surveys in uganda. Along with that mission theyre still doing the war time and ct mission. Quite busy. And you can see that from the earlier pictures the equipment has changed radically. One of the guys i interviewed for this book served in the unit in 1960. He saw the pictures in the book and said it looked to him like the it difference between World War Army and u. S. 1 and going to star wars which, yeah. Along with assault times we had had sniper teams. And special weapons for opening doors. Thermite door opening technique. Thats a steel door. So thats an exceptionally difficult target. If anyone was directly on the other side of this they would probably be dead. Again practice, practice, practice. Interestingly, we had exchange courses with delta force. Some of the operators in this picture are Delta Force Operators and some are from the unit. Continue to practice with panam, how to get in to talk to the copilot when you have no other means and doing actual mission practices, exercise. In this case it Brigade Commander of two star was on board as one of the hostages. Luckily we didnt shoot imhad. And the wall continued to be a problem. It was Getting Better and better. You mention the military Liaison Mission. One of the ways that we got across the wall was with the ostensably legal lay azon mission. The french, english did it in east germany. We also used it it as a way to look at our targets. This guy is looking at russian troop train on the east german border with poland, obviously from concealed spot. Sometimes you got too close to the east germans. Hes obviously upset. The guys would become specialists at identifying any type of equipment, especially equipment under tarps. I had this outlined. Its a track guide for a t80 tank. If you saw this tank on a railway car, the only way you can identify it specifically is because of this. Im just showing you this is the kind of esoteric detail you had to know to work on this mission and by association the unit it was assigned to and tell your ob guys, order of battle guys, which units are actually where at any particular time. Quite a valuable tool. The unit changed its mission again. Still going across the wall but not sabotage, not Unconventional Warfare but strategic recognizance. And strategic recognizance is nothing more than finding a nice hole to sit in, billing a top over it and watching a railway, a bridge on a highway to count the russians as they move forward. Thats what they did. And then you radio the information back to your Head Quarters and next thing you know hopefully the air force is bombing it. So its not quite as dangerous as blowing up bridges but its still dangerous in youre sitting behind the lines with the russians. 1984 1990, psse is the unit thats working, physical security support element. The wall goes down finally. November 9th, 1989. A surprise to the almost everyone i think except for it one Police Officer on the east german side that actually opened the gate and said just go across. The unit closed down shortly thereafter, part of the peace divdnd. I think probably it was inevitable with the reduction of the military, capitalization of forces, delta force of course said its not necessary to keep that unit. We have it. We see how busy they are now. As far as it Unconventional Warfare side we see what it east germans are doing in ukrain and other places. The army is rethinking the conventional warfare,allau, berlin. So the legacy is there, much as the legacy of oss led to this unit, now it is leading to a new unit within the army. But the history of this unit has been incapsulated, as i said, in this book. I did for the guys that served there, for their families. Its only been a result of the book that ive started to come to talk to people. But that, in a nut shell because this is 30 years of history, its special forces berlin. Can i entertain any questions here . Well, if somebody raises his hand, sir. In writing this book, what surprised you the most about it . When writing the book what surprised you the most about it . I think what surprised me the most was the fact that we had a Nuclear Mission when i never knew that before. That was very classified. I was in a pretgy position though. I worked in both units. I worked in the Operation Center and got to see a lot of the documentation. So i knew a lot of the history before. So what surprised me i think more was the fact that lot of the guys that served in the unit that i talked with did not know where they had come from. Where their predecessors were, did not know that the connection with the office of Strategic Service. Thats another reason to put this stuff down into a book. What you forget in the history you end up redoing anyway. Past is pro log and you have to really look at that when youre a soldier. Have we done this before . What can we learn from our predecessors . And that surprises me is how many people do not know where they came from. Sir. Could you making a clarification on yug yugo slavia. But it was never part of the soviet orbit. Did you have operations there . Berlin did not but it was not part of the soviet orbit but it was tas udly agreeable to supplying forces to the war in the event of war. One of the things that the soviet war plan states very obviously was were heading for the gap in west germany. What they dont talk about so much is the parallel moves that would go through scandinavia, through italy and through surngt europe. Italy and southern europe. There was going to be massive amounts of forces involved in any offensive movement of the soviets. Not to extend it too far, yugoslav military doctrine at the time called for opposing any soviet troops that came through. As you know, im sure, a little bit after that, chto was asked to join nato. This is evolving and does not involve berlin. In the beginning early 50s and 60s, they were looking at the Eastern European front as a whole. Speak of opposing sides, jim, how did military interact with cia during this period . Ostensibly the cia was going to give the unit support in the early 1950s directing them to resistance organizations in eastern germany. As the east germans perfected their Security State and the cia realized how difficult it was to recruit an agent and operate there they became less interested in supporting Unconventional Warfare and directed their energies towards intelligence collection. Naturally, their cooperation with the unit fell off measurably, so i think the line from Blazing Saddles is, youre on your own, son. Yeah. Thats pretty much how we felt. How difficult was it for special forces to set up to infiltrate on the other side and then set up businesses so that it looked like they were part and parcel of the scene . Well, that might be taken out of context but our crossing the wall was done through the legal means of going with the military Liaison Mission into east germany for berlin patrols in east berlin. We would have people go on leave as american soldiers into east germany to see what they could see basically. Actually, going in and living there, no, we didnt do that. The cia was very adamant about who would operate in their on their turf. They would not even let their people from west germany or west berlin go into east germany. You had to be stationed in east germany with the agency to move into east germany. We all know how well that worked. I had another question about kennon. Could you explain again what he wrote, to help us decide how to look at this . How influential was kennons letter . Memorandum. It was extremely influential. Truman based his strategy of containment off that letter, 1949, 1950. Some of his senior advisors took that letter and basically expounded upon it. A lot of military Senior Officers also used to it base their military strategy off of. It was extremely influential. Its called the long telegram, written by george cannon. It was printed in open press later on. It was signed mr. X. It was extremely influential to american strategy in the early 50s and 60s. I havent read the book but it alluded to the number of immigrants that came into the unit and im curious if you did followup research to see what happened to them, if they retired, if they went back to their communities and what kind of Lessons Learned they bring looking forward to revamping this capability. You had other examples in the 70s and 80s in terms of their capabilities, do you have any Operational Missions that took place in the 50s that were in the strategy at the time . To break it down, im in contact with a number of the people and germans that actually came into the american forces. Many of them went back to germany and retired. Most of them stayed in the United States. I think they preferred it here. I think when the wall went down some considered going back but quickly changed their minds once they got there. As far as missions in the 1950s, most of our missions were happening elsewhere. Some people might remember the congo and also early on in vietnam. So there were no specific Strategic Missions the unit was involved with. There were some Tactical Missions within west berlin and east berlin. That did happen but most of those remain classified. Sir. I was curious, in your research, did you get any access to any of the open east German Military files or soviet files that gave any insight as to what they knew about your unit or didnt know . The soviets are no longer our friends and wouldnt really give me access. I did manage to get into the east german archives. With a specialist, we went through about 50,000 pages of information on the berlin brigade and 15 pages applied to the unit. Most of what the unit, what they had was extrapolated from their group. They knew generally what the mission was. They had some names. Of the 800 people that served in the units over the years, the east germans had six names and one of them was incorrect. We thought if they had the chance to coral the unit in its headquarters they would do their job. Once the unit disbursed, all bets are off. Sir . Yes. Were there ever any incidents where there were members of the unit that had been abducted, kidnapped, arrested, otherwise disappeared other had certain mysterious accidents or other problems . No. However, one unit member did have an east german court with a death sentence on his head. So, yeah. It was not necessarily dangerous at that point but it had the probability of getting dangerous quickly. Actually, we had more problems with the west berliners. We had more than a number of guys that would have runins with spurious elements downtown, lets put it that way. Can i ask another question . I dont know if you can answer but what were the rules, if any, about dating, relationships with women while assigned to berlin . If theres anything you can say about that. Well, lets put it this way. The guys were not as altruistic as they should have been, but there were no restrictions on dating west germans or west berliners, but anyone that came from an outside country or especially the east was offlimits quoteunquote, if a guy was interested in someone else that name would be run through the agencies and police files to see where they came from. We were doing extreme vetting back then, even so, just to find out who you were dealing with. Any more questions . Well, in that case, i will say thank you very much. Appreciate your attention. Cspans washington journal live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning, American University law professor angela j. Davis talks about race and criminal Justice Reform and politics and the media with the washington examiner. 7 00 a. M. Eastern wednesday morning. Join the discussion. American history tv on sprks spsprks cspan3 tv. Wednesday night. Black Voter Suppression during the 1940s. Russell lud row in indiana said, what a travesty, were sending negros by the thousands to fight for freedom while telling them they shall have no part or parcel in freedom at home. Wednesday night, president jacksons struggle to challenge and even cripple the bank of the United States. Already in june of 1989 would he had been president three months he was writing friends the only thing to prevent our liberties to be crushed by the bank and its influence would be to kill the bank itself. Friday night, an interview with senator john mccain and the impact of the vietnam war on his life and the country. I dont hold a grudge against the north vietnamese. I dont like them and some i dont ever want to see again. I was part of a conflict. I thought they were some of the meanest people i ever met in my life and never want to see again. There were several that were good people and that were kind to me. Thats why it was much easier for me to support, along with president clinton and others the normalization of relations with our two countries to heal the wounds of war. Watch American History tv this week in primetime on cspan3. Congress is out for the week and the rest of the year. Next week, the second session of the 115th congress begins, with the senate returning wednesday, january 3rd with two new democratic members. The house resumes january 8th, with spending for the government expiring january 19th and state of the union january 30th. Watch the house on cspan and senate live on cspan2. A 1962 u. S. Army film narrated by actor james cagney presented a critical history of soviet communism beginning with a failed revolution in 1905 up to the construction of the berlin wall. The film was nominated for a 1963 short subject documry
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