- AHEPA TIES TO THE MILITARY & CIA
Being a secret society composed of ethnic Greeks, US military intelligence was especially interested in recruiting AHEPA members. During WWII, the precursor to the CIA, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), formed special Greek regiments to provide wartime surveillance, and counter British influence in the area. As WWII ended, these Greek American Operational Groups became more intricately tied to US Cold War efforts. To “contain communism” (the new Truman Doctrine), US provided decades of “aid” and “military protection” to Greece & Turkey.
https://twitter.com/OrderOfAHEPA/status/883043519048364034
https://twitter.com/OrderOfAHEPA/status/883044297838272512
https://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/ossgreece.aspx
http://www.pahh.com/oss/straight.html
In 1987, the 122 regiment files were declassified by the CIA. However, some claim there was an additional regiment that recruited Ivy-League educated Greeks into the OWI (office of Wartime Intelligence)
http://greekodyssey.typepad.com/my_greek_odyssey/2006/06/greek_american_.html
(first comment on the article)
“Most Greek American OSS operatives who ended up serving in Greece did not come through 122 or even the Army at all but were Ivy League Greek Americans recruited directly through an operation coordinated by OWI (which was just as much a precursor to CIA as OSS was) Greek desk head, Harry Lagoudakis together with the WWII AHEPA Supreme President George Vournas. The Mousalimas history linked and your entry primarily reflect the radio operator group which was a fraction of the actual effort. A lot of this is tangled up with the fact that the British blocked deployment of the 122 and 2671. This had less to do with the concept of Greece being in "the British Sphere" than the SOE's main concern -- blocking EAM/ELAS. In memo after memo the SOE accused the OSS, and American and Greek American OSS operatives, of being "leftists." Greek American OSS involvement, or more precisily the hampering of their invovlemnt in fighting the Germans, Italians and Bulgarians in Greece, is tied up with the history of British involvment in polarizing the resistance and creating a lot of the aftermath.”
Interestingly, I’ve found no trace of a “Harry Lagoudakis” working for the US Government outside of his Springfield College Alumni newspaper in 1948. I suspect this is due to parts of the Greek Operation still being classified.
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p16122coll3/.../download (warning PDF)
“Harry Lagoudakis is in the office of intelligence and research of the State Dept. Washington, D. C., as a senior political analyst.”
Nonetheless, the close relationship between Frankin Delano Roosevelt, George C. Vournas, and AHEPA, is documented by Stanford University:
https://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/Couvaras.htm
“George C. Vournas is an attorney at law by profession, with offices in Washington, D.C., and a former Supreme President of Ahepa (1924-1945). In World War II he was commissioned Captain in the Army of the United States and was separated from that service with the rank of Major. He had been designated to go into occupied Greece, as a head of a military mission to come into contact with the Greek resistance fighters but, unfortunately, he failed his physical examination because of injuries sustained during maneuvers in the Egyptian desert.
“[George C Vournas] in August 1940, upon my arrival at the National Convention of the Order of Ahepa in Seattle, Washington, I found a telegram from a prominent journalist in Washington urging me to contact Anna Roosevelt Boetinger. Her husband was the editor of the city’s leading newspaper, the Seattle Intelligence; her father was Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt had telephoned his daughter the previous evening. The situation in Europe was getting darker by the day and Roosevelt had asked that Ahepa assist in mobilizing public opinion in favor of exchanging “old United States destroyers to Great Britain for bases in the Americas.” As chairman of the convention, I was instrumental in preparing appropriate resolutions for the consideration of the assembly: They were unanimously approved.
The 1942 Ahepa Convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Ahepa was already busy in World War II activities, and I, as Supreme President, vigorously intensified these efforts. We organized the fraternity into Ahepa War Service Units, whose efforts were directed toward war bonds,4 selling American Red Cross campaigns, Greek War Relief and National War Chest campaigns, civilian defense, blood donations, hospital visits, and preparation of Red Cross supplies. Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn, assisted by the Supreme President of Ahepa, Lyndon Johnson, then congressman, inaugurated the Ahepa’s sale of war bonds over a national radio broadcast.”
[Because George C. Vournas failed his physical examination, another AHEPA Ivy Leaguer, Costa Couvaras was recruited for the intelligence mission]
“In late 1942 the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was eager to recruit Americans of Greek descent into its service. Members of Ahepa in and out of uniform were urged to apply for acceptance in the OSS. This is how Costa Couvaras was recruited. Costa Couvaras had been in the United States since 1935. He studied political science and history at Cornell University receiving B.A. and M.A. degrees. His first job was with the National Herald, a Greek daily published in New York. After joining the OSS, he was dispatched to Cairo.
In the spring of 1944 he was sent into enemy-occupied Greece as head of an OSS mission. He eventually succeeded in reaching the EAM (Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo, Greek Liberation Movement) command in the mountains of Greece. His reports were eagerly awaited by his higher-ups at the OSS headquarters. “PERICLES”—his assumed name—became famous for his objectivity and lucidity. His immediate superior, Arthur J. Goldberg, postwar Supreme Court Justice and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said:
“Costa Couvaras served under me with great distinction and although naturally proud of his origins, as we all should be, he remained faithful throughout to his sworn duty to forward, to the best of his ability, the interests of the United States. I never found in his work of the OSS that he ever deviated from this solemn obligation.”
Couvaras saw the EAM as a patriotic movement dedicated to the liberation of Greece and so reported.Costa was with the EAM command until liberation. As liaison officer he promised the command of EAM that America would stand by them. He was given the Bronze Star medal with the following citation: “First Lieutenant Costa G. Couvaras, performed meritorious service as chief of an intelligence operation in occupied Greece from March to October, 1944. Penetrating the mountain regions he established contact with and gained the confidence of leaders of the Greek Resistance Movements, secured and transmitted important political and military information and assisted other United States intelligence missions in their operations.”
The war in Greece was upgraded. From civil war it became “International Communist aggression,” despite the fact that Stalin—the internationally-acknowledged Communist High Priest—was fighting on the side of Truman. Through a constant barrage of anti-communist statements, news releases and pronouncements from the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, plus special Presidential messages to the Congress personally delivered, McCarthy’s “anticommunism,” became Truman’s policy. The “Truman Doctrine” was born, inaugurating the era of Cold War.
The U.S. domestic political dialogue soon discovered that “poor Turkey,” which played “footsie” with Hitler during the war, was also “menaced,” and awarded the major part of the “Aid to Greece” [12] program. From there the march proceeded merrily on until every country bordering the Soviet Union was included, making this the third attempt at containment of the Soviet Union. John Foster Dulles extended the principle to encompass the world.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/01/us/george-c-vournas-lawyer-98.html
“Born in Greece, he came to the United States at the age 17 and earned his law degree in Washington. He was in private practice until about 10 years ago, often representing business interests before Government agencies. He was a past president of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. His familiarity with Greek-American affairs led President Lyndon B. Johnson to name him to the official United States delegation to the funeral of King Paul I of Greece in 1964.”
https://www.facebook.com/OrderOfAHEPA/photos/ahepa-hails-todays-passage-of-the-office-of-strategic-services-oss-congressional/10154797368233887/
Finally, the head of the 122nd regiment, Peter Clainos, was a member of the Order of AHEPA, the first Greek graduate of West-Point, and a FOUNDING MEMBER of the Sons Of Pericles.
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NOMOCHOMO ago
https://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/Couvaras.htm
though long, I encourage everyone to read the entirety of Couvaras' military journals.
It reveals that the OSS tasked Couvaras with infiltrating "communist" Greek guerillas. Claiming to be a communist sympathizer and part of the OSS "labour" wing, he subverted the institution, pledged US military support, and basically through gasoline onto the fire that became the Greek Civil war.
In my following posts, I'll demonstrate how AHEPA and the US intelligence agencies played both sides of the conflict in an effort to reduce British influence over Greece post WWII.
This attempt to infiltrate directly led to the Cold War Truman Doctrine. Then, they utilized the chaos to create a displaced orphan funnel into the United states.
NOMOCHOMO ago
Excepts:
The British and ourselves already have many missions in Greece, but relations with the EAM guerrillas are not always as smooth as they might be. My job will be to persuade the leaders of EAM that our purpose is strictly intelligence gathering, and that we have no other axe to grind. In this respect, I possess certain advantages. Besides being a U.S. officer (the guerrillas prefer Americans to British), this mission is part of the Labor Section of the OSS a factor that will supposedly facilitate my work. My labor background will, of course, help in this respect. Once I can persuade the resistance leaders that our purpose is strictly the collection of intelligence and that their internal affairs are of no interest to us, we can expect a good reception.
George, the guerrilla to whom I mostly spoke, is a young man of about twenty, and extremely intelligent. At the same time he seems modest and sincere. In talking to him I know I had found the best companion of the lot. Besides, what he said more or less reflected the thoughts and ideas of all the guerrillas that we have met during the last few days, and it is important to understand the feeling prevailing among these fighters.
Of course George is no philosopher. He is not even remotely aware of Marxist dialectics; he is not even a Communist. He is a peasant boy who felt the patriotic call to duty. His duty, he figured, was to become a guerrilla and fight the enemies of his country. At the present time his social ideas are [23] only in the process of formation, but he absorbs well and rather quickly.
Two years ago George was just a peasant and today he is a guerrilla: tomorrow, he will be a full-fledged Communist! Of that I have no doubt, because his mind has taken that direction already. Communist or not, though, there is one fact that cannot escape the student of modern Greece: these young guerrillas are full of idealism and vigor. They belong to a rising generation that will fight hard to give their country the leadership they believe it needs.
The Greeks have always complained about their leaders, but they have never had any cohesive ideas to develop their complaints into a coherent philosophy! The EAM seems to have been providing exactly those. They have been supplying the people with the ideas and the people seem to approve, to like the change which is being promised. The popular democracy idea is good enough in content and vague enough, and very few people are troubled about its vagueness; perhaps that is precisely what people like.
The discussion came around to my mission. I told them I belonged to an American intelligence outfit, of which Bill Donovan was in charge, and that I belonged to the labor section of that outfit, the section most sympathetic to their ideals. I wanted their cooperation to establish my mission near them and also to explore the possibility of getting more missions into Greece to work in cooperation with other guerrilla units.
Three things I stressed: first, that I had no authority to conclude any agreements; second, that I had very little to offer in tangible remuneration; and thirdly, that, according to my opinion, it was to their benefit to cooperate with us, because it was important that the Americans get firsthand information on the Greek situation themselves instead of getting it through British sources. Also I told them that the Americans, who have no big interests to support in Greece, stand on the side of what they think to be right.
My thesis was accepted without much difficulty, and they were soon satisfied that they were dealing with a sympathetic Greek-American. From this very first meeting the leaders promised to help us as much as possible. They permitted us to set up an intelligence organization of our own, and promised to make their intelligence reports available to us.
I had more talks with him on the possibility of organizing American intelligence groups around Greece, and he accepts my general plan. I told him that I am submitting a report to my superiors for the organization of twelve; or thirteen additional missions around Greece, in order to cover the country well. I said that we would like to use their people to gather intelligence, but in every case the main agent would be a person appointed and trained by us; he could be an American of Greek descent, a person recruited in Greece, or one recruited in Egypt, but in every case a man sympathetic to the labor point of view. The main intelligence we are interested in is military, but we also want economic and some political information. We are not interested in organizing groups that will work against the EAM, because American interests in Greece are not of that type.