Counterspy: Memoirs of a Counterintelligence Officer in World War II and the Cold War

During World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, Richard W. Cutler was an officer with the elite X-2 counterintelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and with its successor, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). COUNTERSPY offers a rare firsthand account of the secret war against Hitler and the postwar competition with the Soviets for German intelligence assets.

While with X-2, Cutler analyzed the super-secret Ultra intercepts and vetted agents about to be sent into Nazi Germany. Cutler provides an insightful overview of OSS operations during the war and their contribution to the Allies’ victory. This is also one of the few books to describe the role of the OSS and the SSU in the postwar occupation of Germany. Cutler’s first job after the German surrender was to vet all of Allen Dulles’s wartime sources inside Germany, who were aptly nicknamed the Crown Jewels.

Just as the OSS was reorganized into the SSU, Cutler moved to Berlin, where his first task was to collect intelligence from former Nazis. Soon he became chief of counterespionage in Berlin. Soviet intelligence had already begun recruiting former German intelligence officers to spy on Americans, so Cutler’s top priority was to uncover Soviet objectives and either neutralize or double their agents. Cutler reveals previously unpublished case histories of double agents against Soviet intelligence and details agents’ recruitment, missions, methods of operation, successes and failures, and fates. All of these events are recounted against the fascinating background of postwar Germany. He provides a vivid picture of the mood of the German people, how they rationalized war guilt, and how they coped with the devastation throughout the country.

With photographs and a foreword by best-selling author Joseph E. Persico (ROOSEVELT'S SECRET WAR: FDR AND WORLD WAR II ESPIONAGE), COUNTERSPY is a unique account of espionage during the momentous years of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

RICHARD W. CUTLER is a retired lawyer living in Milwaukee. After graduating from Yale Law School, he worked for Maj. Gen. William Donovan’s New York law firm before serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces, the Office of Strategic Services, and, after World War II, the Strategic Services Unit.