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More on 'Lucy'

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 APPROVED FOR RELEASE 1994
 CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
 2 JULY 96
  
  
Notes and Comments   

  SECRET   

        
MORE ON "LUCY"
        
The article "The Rote Drei: Getting Behind the Lucy Myth"* is an admirable contribution to the literature of an important case. However, it is unlikely that its readers will feel that they have been taken very far behind the myth; instead, the article's effect is to perpetuate it. Even the author seems to entertain doubts, since a sentence on his penultimate page would tend to dismiss much of his previous argument. (I will return to this sentence later.)
 
Part of the article's argument, and symptoms of its weakness, are to be found in three phrases:
 
(1) "The record clearly shows that Lucy had four important sources." (P. 63).
  The author is, of course, referring to the record of the transmissions from Switzerland, which however bulky is still inadequate for any such conclusion. There is no record of the transmissions from Germany to Switzerland, which would offer a more solid base from which to speculate on the identity of the sources. Any material received from Germany-in whatever form--could have been edited in Switzerland, perhaps partly to hide the identity of the source or sources.
(2) "Rudolf Roessler did divulge the identity of his sources   to a trusted friend." (P. 64).
  In addition to the author's apparent assumption that the four "divulged" by Roessler are identical with the four "clearly shown by the record," other assumptions underlie this phrase, some of them perhaps naive:
  -   the assumption that (Roessler) had sources,   
  -   the assumption that he knew their identities, and  
  -   the assumption that he divulged them truthfully.  
  Note the coincidence that those "divulged" were, with one (unidentified) exception, well-known resistance figures who had been the subject of guesswork concerning "Lucy's sources," probably for years before Roessler revealed their identities to his intimate friend. Even without this coincidence, one should be more skeptical than the author about Roessler's own statements. Roessler's postwar silence and relative obscurity are well known; the motives for his silence, which stands out oddly in an era of
        
                        
* Studies. Vol. 13, no. 3, 1969.
        
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Posted: May 08, 2007 08:35 AM
Last Updated: May 08, 2007 08:35 AM
Last Reviewed: May 08, 2007 08:35 AM