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Potsdam Mission: Memoir of a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer in Communist East Germany
Recently declassified information makes it possible for the first time to tell part of the story behind the Cold War intelligence operations of the U.S. Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) to the Commander of the Soviet Army in Communist East Germany. Intelligence collection often led to dangerous encounters with the Cold War spies, Soviet and East German armies. On occasion, Allied officers and non-commissioned officers were seriously injured. Before it all ended with the collapse of the Iron Curtain, one French sergeant and one American officer had been killed. Potsdam Mission traces the development of the author into a Soviet/Russian specialist and U.S. Army intelligence officer. The author then relates his own intelligence collection forays into East Germany by taking the reader on trips that include several harrowing experiences and four arrests/detentions by the Soviets. Finally, the author describes the challenges and rewards of interpreting at USMLM and comments on the important role played by the Mission in Cold War intelligence. Readers who are searching for nonfiction espionage titles and military autobiography books wouldn’t want to miss this masterpiece!
- GenresMilitary FictionHistory
354 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 15, 2022
I came upon this book completely by chance, not quite a year ago, while looking over the "military history dollar cart" at John K. King Books North in Ferndale, MI (for anyone unfamiliar with the Detroit area, Ferndale is one of the more affluent "inner-ring suburbs" just North of the city). It is fairly rare for me to visit King North, but I was waiting for my younger brother, who conveniently lives half a block from the book-store, to get home from work. There was an uncommonly good selection on the dollar carts that night, so I ended up getting several interesting-looking books while I waited. As I commented earlier, I wasn't actually expecting this particular book to be very good, but I was very pleasantly surprised when I began to read it.
The book is, for the most part, a memoir of the author's assignment during the 1970s to the U.S. Military Liaison Mission to the Group Of Soviet Forces, Germany. The USMLM operated from a mansion in Potsdam, which was then within the DDR, i.e. East Germany, and by the time of then-Major Holbrook's assignment there the primary mission had long since become intelligence gathering rather than liaison per se. As a Foreign Area Officer specialising in the Soviet Union (and of course as a career intelligence officer), the author was well qualified to serve with the USMLM. He had been trained as a Russian linguist at the Army Language School in Monterey, California during the early 1960s, and had served in West Berlin during an earlier tour of duty as an enlisted man with the Army Security Agency (ASA), prior to his becoming a commissioned officer.
Incidentally, when I was in the 7th grade I took a class called "Language Exploration" (taught by Mr. Skidmore, who also taught journalism and served as the yearbook adviser), which was an introduction to basic French, Spanish and German. Another teacher at our school, Mr. Smith, had been trained as a Russian linguist at Monterey during the early 1960s just as this author was, so he added Russian to the languages we studied in that class (my father had studied Mandarin Chinese at Monterey during roughly the same time). Given that this was during a particularly tense era (early 1980s) of the cold war, I found the Russian language fascinating. As many individuals (most with considerably more education than I) have indicated in the past, I believe one can gain a certain level of insight into the thought processes of other ethno-linguistic/cultural groups by studying the languages in which they think, speak & write. I was surprised, maybe even shocked, to discover that the structure of words & sentences in the Russian language resembled American English usage to what I considered an astonishing degree. This obviously had important implications for the politico-military interplay between the U.S. & the Soviet Union, and that insight completely shifted the way I saw the various interactions of the cold war. It also made me realise that a basic knowledge of as many languages as possible would be an immeasurably important tool in understanding history generally, but I'm going off on a tangent here, and really ought to get back to reviewing this excellent book...
When then-Sergeant Holbrook returned to the U.S. (after his first tour of duty in Germany), he was able to continue his education while remaining on active duty, and after earning his master's degree he received a direct commission at the rank of 1st Lieutenant. The new 1LT Holbrook then received orders to the Republic of Viet Nam, where he first served with IIFFV H.Q., then after receiving a promotion to Captain commanded the 856th Radio Research Detachment. This part of the book I read with great interest, because my father (1LT Michael Roy Williamson) was an officer of the 509th Radio Research Group in Saigon, RVN at exactly the same time (my former teacher, Mr. Smith, was also serving in an ASA unit at the time on the other side of the world in West Berlin, but I don't remember his rank or unit). After returning to the U.S., Captain Holbrook taught Russian at USMA West Point while pursuing his doctoral degree in that language. After a handful of other short assignments in the U.S. & West Germany, he received orders to the USMLM.
The main reason this book caught my interest (aside from the fact that one does not often see signed copies of even military memoirs for only US$1.00) was that I had actually read a book many years ago in which one of the main characters was an officer assigned to the USMLM in Potsdam, a book which I had greatly enjoyed when I read it as a teenager. That book was the best-written example I have ever encountered of a particular sub-genre of military thriller which worked from the premise that, when it came right down to it (i.e. "World War III"), rather than following orders which would inevitably result in the total destruction of Germany for the third time in less than a century, the West German Bundeswehr & East German Nationale Volksarmee were much more likely to stand back-to-back and fight together to kick out all non-German NATO & Warsaw Pact forces so they could utilise the situation to forcibly establish a re-unified and resurgent Germany. Obviously, there were many different iterations of what is now generally referred to as the "Cold War Thriller" genre*, but there were, as far as I know, only a comparative handful of this particular variation of that basic "WWIII" plot premise. This one,
, was written by Steven L. Thompson, a journalist and veteran of the U.S. Air Force who also co-authored the somewhat more successful
with the better-known Walter J. Boyne, also a USAF veteran and an accomplished historian & prolific author who is perhaps best known for his now classic
. All three of those books are worth reading; the first because it is almost certainly the best of its sub-genre, the second because it is, though not a masterpiece, still an enjoyable novel about pilots and aircraft in the tradition of Ernest K. Gann, and the third because it is widely considered to be the definitive work on the history of the U.S. Air Force (in terms of so-called "Popular History", at any rate).
That's my last digression. 'Potsdam Mission' is a fascinating and well-written look at an aspect of the cold war which is little known, even to those of us who are obsessive readers of military history. It is also an eminently readable account of the experiences of a career U.S. Army officer during the late 20th century. The second book of this author's memoirs has just been published (
), and I can hardly wait to read it. I would recommend this first memoir without reservation...
*I forgot to mention this when I originally finished the review, but the very best "Cold War Military Thriller" I have ever read was written by another retired FAO, Ralph Peters, who is now a successful journalist, author and syndicated columnist. The second book he wrote, when he was still a serving U.S. Army officer, was
. I have read it many times over the years, and have enjoyed it equally each time. Copies are plentiful and cheap at this point, so it is definitely worthwhile to keep an eye out for one...
The book is, for the most part, a memoir of the author's assignment during the 1970s to the U.S. Military Liaison Mission to the Group Of Soviet Forces, Germany. The USMLM operated from a mansion in Potsdam, which was then within the DDR, i.e. East Germany, and by the time of then-Major Holbrook's assignment there the primary mission had long since become intelligence gathering rather than liaison per se. As a Foreign Area Officer specialising in the Soviet Union (and of course as a career intelligence officer), the author was well qualified to serve with the USMLM. He had been trained as a Russian linguist at the Army Language School in Monterey, California during the early 1960s, and had served in West Berlin during an earlier tour of duty as an enlisted man with the Army Security Agency (ASA), prior to his becoming a commissioned officer.
Incidentally, when I was in the 7th grade I took a class called "Language Exploration" (taught by Mr. Skidmore, who also taught journalism and served as the yearbook adviser), which was an introduction to basic French, Spanish and German. Another teacher at our school, Mr. Smith, had been trained as a Russian linguist at Monterey during the early 1960s just as this author was, so he added Russian to the languages we studied in that class (my father had studied Mandarin Chinese at Monterey during roughly the same time). Given that this was during a particularly tense era (early 1980s) of the cold war, I found the Russian language fascinating. As many individuals (most with considerably more education than I) have indicated in the past, I believe one can gain a certain level of insight into the thought processes of other ethno-linguistic/cultural groups by studying the languages in which they think, speak & write. I was surprised, maybe even shocked, to discover that the structure of words & sentences in the Russian language resembled American English usage to what I considered an astonishing degree. This obviously had important implications for the politico-military interplay between the U.S. & the Soviet Union, and that insight completely shifted the way I saw the various interactions of the cold war. It also made me realise that a basic knowledge of as many languages as possible would be an immeasurably important tool in understanding history generally, but I'm going off on a tangent here, and really ought to get back to reviewing this excellent book...
When then-Sergeant Holbrook returned to the U.S. (after his first tour of duty in Germany), he was able to continue his education while remaining on active duty, and after earning his master's degree he received a direct commission at the rank of 1st Lieutenant. The new 1LT Holbrook then received orders to the Republic of Viet Nam, where he first served with IIFFV H.Q., then after receiving a promotion to Captain commanded the 856th Radio Research Detachment. This part of the book I read with great interest, because my father (1LT Michael Roy Williamson) was an officer of the 509th Radio Research Group in Saigon, RVN at exactly the same time (my former teacher, Mr. Smith, was also serving in an ASA unit at the time on the other side of the world in West Berlin, but I don't remember his rank or unit). After returning to the U.S., Captain Holbrook taught Russian at USMA West Point while pursuing his doctoral degree in that language. After a handful of other short assignments in the U.S. & West Germany, he received orders to the USMLM.
The main reason this book caught my interest (aside from the fact that one does not often see signed copies of even military memoirs for only US$1.00) was that I had actually read a book many years ago in which one of the main characters was an officer assigned to the USMLM in Potsdam, a book which I had greatly enjoyed when I read it as a teenager. That book was the best-written example I have ever encountered of a particular sub-genre of military thriller which worked from the premise that, when it came right down to it (i.e. "World War III"), rather than following orders which would inevitably result in the total destruction of Germany for the third time in less than a century, the West German Bundeswehr & East German Nationale Volksarmee were much more likely to stand back-to-back and fight together to kick out all non-German NATO & Warsaw Pact forces so they could utilise the situation to forcibly establish a re-unified and resurgent Germany. Obviously, there were many different iterations of what is now generally referred to as the "Cold War Thriller" genre*, but there were, as far as I know, only a comparative handful of this particular variation of that basic "WWIII" plot premise. This one,
, was written by Steven L. Thompson, a journalist and veteran of the U.S. Air Force who also co-authored the somewhat more successful
with the better-known Walter J. Boyne, also a USAF veteran and an accomplished historian & prolific author who is perhaps best known for his now classic
. All three of those books are worth reading; the first because it is almost certainly the best of its sub-genre, the second because it is, though not a masterpiece, still an enjoyable novel about pilots and aircraft in the tradition of Ernest K. Gann, and the third because it is widely considered to be the definitive work on the history of the U.S. Air Force (in terms of so-called "Popular History", at any rate). That's my last digression. 'Potsdam Mission' is a fascinating and well-written look at an aspect of the cold war which is little known, even to those of us who are obsessive readers of military history. It is also an eminently readable account of the experiences of a career U.S. Army officer during the late 20th century. The second book of this author's memoirs has just been published (
), and I can hardly wait to read it. I would recommend this first memoir without reservation...*I forgot to mention this when I originally finished the review, but the very best "Cold War Military Thriller" I have ever read was written by another retired FAO, Ralph Peters, who is now a successful journalist, author and syndicated columnist. The second book he wrote, when he was still a serving U.S. Army officer, was
. I have read it many times over the years, and have enjoyed it equally each time. Copies are plentiful and cheap at this point, so it is definitely worthwhile to keep an eye out for one...
June 14, 2018
Interesting book about all the games we played in Germany and East Germany during the cold war. Learned a ton of stuff I never knew.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews