Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain [Hardcover]

Peter Grose (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 2000

After the collapse of Nazi power in 1945, a sweeping change occurred in international relations that would transform the landscape of world politics for the next half-century. Uneasy allies in the war against Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union started secretly mobilizing forces against each other, building intricate networks of spies and digging in for the postwar era.
America's secret action plan was known as Rollback, an audacious strategy of espionage, subversion, and sabotage to foment insurrection in the Soviet satellite countries. The architect of the plan, an enigmatic American diplomat first known to the world under the pseudonym "X," publicly advocated an effort to "contain" communism. But following his legendary Long Telegram, Mr. X -- George Kennan -- devised a program of active confrontation with the Soviets through covert action. Within the secret councils of the Truman administration, hidden from the public as well as from most of the government, Kennan and his colleagues set in motion a series of daring and dramatic, though ultimately failed, secret missions behind the Iron Curtain.
Concealed by all sides for four decades, the dangerous episodes of the Rollback campaign have only now come to light. Peter Grose here untangles the extraordinary, little-known story for the first time, artfully reconstructing a hidden history of intrigue and tragic obsession, of secret plots and larger-than-life personalities. Operation Rollback reveals how and why suspicions and recriminations on both sides drove the world into the Cold War.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The early years of the cold war were marked by America's so-called containment strategy, which meant, in short, keeping Communism penned within its existing borders. Former New York Times reporter Peter Grose, however, suggests that this was merely window-dressing. In Operation Rollback, he writes:

Even as containment was being scorned as appeasement and timidity in the first months of 1948, a high-level staff within the State Department was devising a remarkable initiative to confront communism aggressively through clandestine action. The secret program would start with innocuous propaganda and persuasion, then proceed directly into sabotage, subversion, and paramilitary engagement.

This book is a history of that effort, kept under wraps until recently, says Grose, because both sides had a motive to avoid the publicity: the Soviets didn't want to acknowledge resistance movements inside their client states, and the Americans refused to admit their failure. Grose writes that the rollback was never revealed to Congress and that public monies didn't even pay for it; funding came from a secret account maintained by the Treasury Department and linked to Marshall Plan repayments. Operation Rollback is a groundbreaking work of cold-war history, and an engaging one to read. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

As WWII came to a close, the Soviet Union and the United StatesDuneasy allies in the agonizing struggle to defeat HitlerDbegan maneuvering their intelligence agencies against one another into what would eventually become the dangerously polarized Cold War. Grose (Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles, 1994) is a former New York Times foreign correspondent, the former executive editor of Foreign Affairs and now a Kennedy School of Government fellow at Harvard. He tells a fascinating and well-documented tale of intrigue and double-dealing during this heady period of covert policy making and secret actions. He reveals that it was none other than legendary Sovietologist George Kennan who helped orchestrate American strategy, advocating containment of the Soviet Union with one hand, and secretly working against his own official policy with the otherDculminating in a secret plot to throw the Communists out of Eastern Europe. Kennan's plan, Operation Rollback, aimed to subvert the Soviet empire by stirring up resistance in its satellite countries. Grose, using newly declassified material from both the U.S. and former U.S.S.R., takes us through the intricate machinations of Rollback and its architects, presenting a hitherto untold tale of a project that was kept secret even from the CIA, and includes enough revelations throughout to sustain the tension. He writes, for example, that Rollback's planners circumvented Congress entirely and funded the operation with unaudited U.S. Treasury and Marshall Plan dollars, and that Soviet authorities were tipped off about the operation by such spies as the British Kim Philby. Students of American politics will be surprised to learn that a prominent figure from 1960s' antiwar activism, William Sloan Coffin, trained undercover saboteurs for Rollback missions. Thorough, thought-provoking and entertaining, this is a work that casts considerable light on a topic that has long lingered in the shadows. Photos not seen by PW. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (May 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395516064
• ISBN-13: 978-0395516065
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,493,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Secret Disasters and Modest Successes, August 21, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (Hardcover)

In early 1946, Averill Harriman became personna non grata with Stalin and left Moscow as ambassador to the Soviet Union. His temporary replacement was George Kennan who soon sent the famous "long telegram" that espoused a foreign policy of attempting to overthrow communist regimes. This policy was soon printed in public by Kennan after he temporarily left the State Department as Mr. X.

Based on this argument, the Truman administration took up a dual position of "containment of communism" in public and a private approach of using propaganda, secret operations, and establishing spies behind the Iron Curtain. All of this private approach was unknown to Congress and to the American public. As Truman was publicly lambasted by those who wanted to overthrow communism for the policy of containment, these pro-overthrow policies were already in active implementation. In this book the hitherto unpublished full story of those operations is revealed.

Primarily funded from the Marshall Plan, these operations included some successes. For example, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty transmitted into communist countries and helped establish an alternative to communist propaganda. Both were secretly subsidized by the U.S.

But for the most part, the operations were unsuccessful. A very large percentage of the agents introduced behind the Iron Curtain were quickly rounded up, and many were executed. The reasons seem to be twofold: Kim Philby (the British spy for the Soviets) was aware of the details of many of these operations and passed the information along to his Soviet masters, and the Americans had waited too long to get started. The resistance movements they hoped to help were being systematically crushed by communist regimes right after World War II, and the emigre populations were soon filled with Soviet agents who could compromise insurgent operations. In fact, the most successful Soviet resistance movement was one that avoided connection with the U.S.

These disasters were kept secret by both the Americans (out of embarrassment about their lack of success) and by the Soviets (out of a desire to avoid people knowing about internal resistance movements). With the end of the Cold War, the author had access to many documents and people who were able to tell this story.

Readers will find a variety of things to condemn about this operation by the U.S. In many cases, Nazi war criminals were knowingly recruited. In other cases, the operations were done very amateurishly. So those who favor this type of activity will condemn its effectiveness. In almost all cases, there seemed to be a basic disregard for the lives of the agents. Also, how far should a democracy be going to affect the governments of other countries? The Eisenhower administration quickly concluded that Operation Rollback had gone too far, and pulled back its interference in many cases. Further, establishing and encouraging civil wars and guerilla wars in other countries certainly can harm the lives of those in those countries. What is the humanitarian thing to do? In both the Hungarian (1956) and Czech (1968) revolutions, the U.S. stood to the side. Humanitarian aid to striking East German workers after World War II, on the other hand, was well received. A particularly interesting question is whether one should only use the tools of one's own ideology to advance that ideology? In the case of the U.S., this would mean relying more on free speech and free competition than covert military action. Ultimately, the downfall of the Soviet Union came from its inability to compete economically, worsened by the overt military competition of the arms race.

The book is well-written and detailed enough to allow you to make your own evaluation of Operation Rollback and the policies behind it. You will also get new perspectives on famous Americans like President Truman, John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Joe McCarthy.

Reasonable people will differ on their answers to these questions, but Operation Rollback should be evaluated and understood for its lessons concerning future U.S. policies. Certainly, the Bay of Pigs repeated many of the mistakes of Operation Rollback. Although the intelligence community has long ago done this evaluation, this book should inspire some good debate in the general public.

This is a cautionary tale in many ways that should cause us to reexamine our own assumptions about when the ends justify the means. For example, in your life, how far should you go to avoid paying taxes? How far should you go to protect your family? What are the limits to protecting your own life?

Be cautious in implementing your idealism and your self-interest!

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The real Story of early Covert Operations, July 25, 2000

By 

Kenneth S. Smith (Goleta, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (Hardcover)

In January 1946, George F. Kennon, a career diplomat trained in Soviet Affairs, became the ambassador to the U.S.S.R. when Averell Harriman returned to the United States. Kennon wrote many dispatches about the turmoil within the Soviet Union, but they were largely ignored. When asked to write an "Interpretive Analysis" of Soviet statements regarding international institutions, Kennon let loose with both barrels. This paper became the basis for future American policies towards the Soviet Union.

This is a fine account of the people and early (if inept) efforts by the U.S. to subvert the Soviet control of Eastern Europe just after WWII. The book traces the political background and the maneuvering of the World Powers and is instructive as to the current environments in Albania, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and the emerging Balkan States.

The early efforts of the OPC (Office of Policy Coordination), that were mostly thwarted by the infamous spy Kim Philby (British Liaison Officer), are covered in some depth. The OPC was later absorbed by the CIA. Also discussed are the secret ways the OPC was financed and its existence kept hidden from the American public. I had never heard of the OPC, but these guys were responsible for covert operations. They tried to stir up trouble within the Soviet sphere of influence, including the Soviet Union itself. They trained operators recruited from Eastern European Refugees, arranged and carried out parachute drops of agents behind the Iron Curtain, smuggled weapons, and dispersed money to agents and sympathizers. They also carried out propaganda campaigns and started Radio Free Europe.

It is interesting that the Soviets had so penetrated the political parties and intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Great Britain long before World War II started. What is also fascinating is that we knew about much of their spying efforts and for a long time chose to ignore them. There were a lot of sympathizers in the U.S. that were rooting for the socialist experiment.

This is a fine book for students of Political Science, Post WWII History, and fans of the history of covert operations. I have read many novels and seen many movies about secret operations, but they pale compared to the real stuff!

21 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Account Spoiled by Political Bias, May 21, 2000

By 

Mark R., Whittington "author of Children of A... (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (Hardcover)

While this book is a fascinating account of early attempt to combat the Soviet Empire, the narrative is somewhat spoiled by the author's obvious political bias. The author gives the impression that he doesn't think Soviet tyranny was worthy of much concern and that people who were concerned about it were ill-advised. President Truman's anti-communism is at one point called "petulence." Even so the book is an invaluable piece of history about a little known subject. One of the most fascinating revelations is the fact that one of the figures of the radical sixties, one Reverand William Sloan Coffin, was a participant in Operation Rollback.

(...)