Military Liaison Missions

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The Military Liaison Missions arose from reciprocal agreements formed immediately after the Second World War between the Western allied nations (US, UK and France) and the USSR. The Missions were active from 1946 until 1990.

The agreements between the allied nations and the Soviet Union permitted the deployment of small numbers of military intelligence personnel - together with associated support staff - in each other's territory in Germany, ostensibly for the purposes of monitoring and furthering better relationships between the Soviet and Western occupation forces. The American mission comprised approximately a dozen active tour officers and NCOs, plus a few dozen other support personnel.

Although not widely known to the general public, the MLMs played a significant intelligence-gathering role during the Cold War. Probably the most publicly visible incident involving the American MLM was the death of Major Arthur Nicholson, a U.S. MLM Tour Officer. He was killed on April 23, 1985, and was considered the last American casualty of the Cold War, and the only U.S. MLM Officer to die in the course of duty, though other British and French tour personnel had died earlier. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Nicholson's death was honored on the floor of both houses of the United States Congress, with a speech that was read into the official record.[1]

The missions persisted through-out the Cold War period and ended in 1990 just prior to German reunification. The missions were;

  • British Commanders'-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany (BRIXMIS)
  • La Mission Militaire Francaise de Liaison (FMLM, more properly MMFL in French)
  • US Military Liaison Mission (USMLM)

and their reciprocal Soviet missions (SOXMIS/SMLM).

The British-Soviet missions were the first to be established (16 September 1946) under the terms of the Robertson-Malinin Agreement (the respective commanders-in-chief). It also had the largest contingent of personnel with 31 officers. Later agreements with the US (Huebner-Malinin, March,1947) and France (April,1947) had significantly fewer permitted personnel, presumably because those Allied powers did not want large Soviet missions operating in their zones and vice versa.

The Allied liaison missions, having quasi diplomatic status, were relatively free to roam around East Germany save for specifically designated restricted areas and were largely 'untouchable' either by the law or military personnel. However some of their officers were killed in accidents or 'incidents' which gave rise to significant military and political tensions.

Little is publicly documented about the Soviet missions.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Fahey, John A.. Licensed to Spy. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-294-3. 
  • Geraghty, Tony. Brixmis: The Untold Exploits of Britain's Most Daring Cold War Spy Mission. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-638673-3. 
  • Gibson, Steve. The Last Mission: Behind the Iron Curtain. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1408-4. 
  • Holbrook, James R.. Potsdam Mission: Memoir of a US Army Intelligence Officer in Communist East Germany. Cork Hill Press. ISBN 1-59408-534-X. 

[edit] External links

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