Mises and the Struggle Against Italian Fascism in World War II

0:00My paper deals with the US intelligence community, so bear with me. Some of these concepts, I'll do my best to define them. You may not be familiar with them. Biographers of Austrian School economists face at least two significant obstacles when attempting historical research within the US intelligence community's wilderness of mirrors. The first is lack of experience litigating and obtaining documents under the Federal Freedom of Information Act. The second obstacle is a general unfamiliarity with investigative reporting and open sources and methods within the intelligence field. I did investigative reporting between 1983 and 1989 while working as a journalist, and that experience helped me write this paper.

0:50While conducting historical research into the Austrian School, I filed a FOIA request with the Central Intelligence Agency for declassified records pertaining to several deceased economists, including Ludwig von Mises. The CIA cited two FOIA exemptions in denying my request. Those were the B1 national security and B3 sources and methods exemptions. The Story of Ludwig von Mises during World War II worked with US intelligence in the struggle against fascism, Italian and German.

1:41And this is in contrast to the claim by Herbert Marcuse made in a 1934 article reprinted in a 1968 book that Mises was somehow sympathetic to fascism based on one paragraph in liberalism, a book that he'd written in the 1920s. Both Murray Rothbard in 1981 and Ralph Reiko in 1996 attempted to respond to Marcusa. I'm responding to Marcusa using correspondence that I obtained from these archives. And I'm arguing that these claims of Marcusa, viewed in light of his work as an intelligence analyst and the CIA's denial of my request, raise some important questions about government secrecy.

2:31Let me say that this paper would not have been possible without the cooperation of Dr. Jeffrey Herbiner at Grove City College who oversees the Mises Archives. And I'm building on the work that was done by Weido Halsman. I'm going to start by noting that Mises was the target of the Gestapo during World War II. He was exfiltrated from France with his wife, Margeet. The story of his help in the struggle against fascism, though, has its origins in his World War I military service. Hulsman is the authority on that service.

3:17And the important point about his service, in some, is that Ludwig von Mises served in the military and understood logistics. I'll give you a definition of logistics. Logistics deals with the procurement, supply and maintenance of military equipment and with the movement, evacuation and hospitalization of personnel and provision of other services. These become issues that Ludwig von Mises is dealing with as he writes unsigned editorials for the New York Times during World War II, commenting on the logistical problems that that the Nazis face on the Eastern Front. So I mentioned Halsman, Marjit Mises, Ludwig von Mises' wife, wrote a memoir, and that memoir is the authoritative story of how they escaped from Europe as the Nazis closed in on them.

4:17Now I'm going to talk briefly about Mises' work as a wartime analyst writing for the New York Times before getting into what the archives show. A subplot of Mises' work with U.S. intelligence during World War II was his work as a wartime analyst while living in New York for the American paper of record, the New York Times. Margit Mises, Graves in 1993 and Hulsman all refer to this relationship and additional information is provided by the New York Times index for 1943, which is open source. The New York Times published at least eight unsigned editorials written by Mises and another two letters to the editor in 1942 and 43.

5:04It's likely that another two unsigned editorials published by the Times were written by Mises. Just to give you the flavor for this, his fourth unsigned editorial, which gets into logistics entitled The German Supply Problem, published 26 December 1943, notes the Nazi's problems on the Eastern Front. Quote, it becomes increasingly clear that the Russian campaign has strained German manpower Power and Material Resources to the utmost. In the earlier stages of the war when they were advancing, the German armies had to transform the wider Russian railroad gauge into the narrower European gauge. Immense quantities of German material, iron and steel, lumber cement, electrical equipment are embedded in the vast sandy steppes and swamps of Russia.

6:02So he's analyzing logistical problems just like an analyst. And in fact, he's approached in 1943 by the Office of Strategic Services, which is the predecessor of the CIA, in a letter from Taylor Stark. Now, just back up for one moment, Mises is doing this logistical work. He's also concerned with post-war reconstruction. This is pointed out by Hulsman in his biography. Mises was convinced the fascists would lose World War II at the conflict's onset in September 1939. He was already thinking about the time after the war. By May of 1940, he elaborated a fairly detailed plan for post-war reconstruction but kept it private. He referenced post-war Reconstruction, and a January 1941 article written for Trusts and Estates magazine, but then in January of 1943 he actually wrote an editorial, an op-ed, for the New York Times exclusively on that topic of post-war reconstruction. So he's out there, his name is now in the paper of record, and he receives this letter, November 15th, 1943, from Taylor Stark. This

7:24Services in the Mises Archive at Grove City College. The American Defense Harvard Group, according to the Harvard Library Archives, the Biographical Records Committee was authorized by the OSS to make a study of learned personnel in enemy and enemy-controlled countries. As Stark's letter to Mises begins, quote, the American Defense Harvard Group at the and the instigation of the Office of Strategic Services has undertaken a survey of reliable individuals in enemy and Nazi-dominated countries, though our inquiry is primarily concerned with the educational, learned and artistic world, we are always glad to receive pertinent data about anyone, no matter what his occupation might be. Stark also tells Mises that the establishment of fascism in Italy and the committee's anxiousness to have the names Mises reassures Mises about his own personal safety. He tells Mises you need to have no hesitation on the score of injuring unwittingly any friends or acquaintances who are still within the reach of the Gestapo. They are interested in people that are back in Europe, not in the United States.

8:45Okay, Stark did not receive a reply. He approached Mises in a second letter dated 12 January 1944. However, Mises within three days replied. He had taken some time to consult with a colleague, an Austrian, and he provided five names to Stark for the OSS. Okay. There were other approaches by the government to Mises. In the interim between Stark's first and second letters, Mises received a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Edward L. Barlow, Chief of the New York Office of the War Department's Military Intelligence Division. And this is a copy of the letter. Okay. And in this letter, it states that it's been brought to our attention that you might have information of value which should be useful to the work conducted in this office.

9:33Office, Mises replied, and in fact, he was later contacted by the Office of War Information, the Writers' War Board, and he was asked to provide information for a shortwave broadcast into Italy, occupied Italy, against fascism. Remember, Marcuse is accusing Mises of being sympathetic to fascism. He's repeating that claim. The leftists have repeated that claim into the 21st century in articles and books, and here is Mises working with US intelligence against fascism. He's providing names to the OSS about people who can help in the denazification process after the war ends.

10:18He's helping the OWI with a broadcast into Italy. That's what these archives show. So finally, as World War II neared its conclusion in Europe, Mises received an 8 March 1945 letter from Colonel S. V. Constant, Security and Intelligence Division, U.S. War Department. The letter noted that Mises had been suggested as a possible source of information and asked him to complete an attached form and return it to this office. He did. In fact, Mises identified 11 Austrian economists and lawyers who did not yield to the Nazis and are at present in Austria, Five German non-Nazis and seven non-Nazis in Austria. Mises provided additional information on five non-Nazis in an 11 April 1945 letter, of course, on 8 May 1945, World War II ended.

11:10Now the fate of Mises's friends I think could be a completely separate paper, but we'll narrow that long list down to five. He gave the same names to Stark in January of 1944 and then the War Department in early 1945, unbeknownst to Mises, three of the group had already perished at the hands of fascists. One was first separated from his family and forced to reside in a mass residence in Vienna, according to Hulsman. He was later deported and never seen again. Another was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 and later perished while in captivity. Finally, one of the others was, along with his wife, perished in a German and Concentration Cap, again according to Halsman.

11:55Now one of the five though, Tautcher, who was a chamber of commerce official and also a pre-war Austrian minister of trade and transport, lived and played a key role in Austria's post-war reconstruction. He actually led the ERP under the Marshall Plan in Austria and was an early supporter of European economic integration. So, I'm going to wrap this up. I mentioned Murray and Ralph Reiko defending Mises against Marcuse. I've come about it a different way. I've gone into these archives to come up with this correspondence. I think it's compelling. And I think it shows that this is who Ludwig von Mises was. He was an anti-fascist, okay? However, government secrecy increases the and the probability of false histories.

12:45One characteristic, of course, of intelligence services is their creation of legends, which are false histories. These do not fool competing services most of the time. They're designed to fool the people. And this is a point made by Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer. In fact, legislators in the press in many cases are intimidated by the resources that an intelligence service can bring to bear. Independent historians face a similar challenge. Journalists have tools at their disposal. FOIA is one example, though open source intelligence is often times more useful in reporting on the intelligence community. Open source intelligence in this case reveals several ironies and several unanswered questions. Now, the New York Times in noting Marcuse's death, 31 July 1979, quote, during World War II, Dr. Marcuse has served as a European intelligence analyst with the Army's Office of Strategic Services. After After the war, he spent four years doing research for the quote-unquote government.

13:47The government in this instance is revealed in another open source material to be the CIA. This open source material is O'Toole, 1988. O'Toole was former chief of the Problems Analysis Branch of the CIA. According to his book, Marcuse has served in the OSS's Research and Analysis Branch during World War II. to the war, he went to work at the State Department, and finally he supervised intelligence studies for the CIA. This leads us to note this irony that Mises and Marcuse both worked with the OSS in the anti-fascist struggle in different ways. Marcuse, as an analyst, Mises providing human intelligence, however, there's one unresolved Question Did Marcuse know that Mises had provided intelligence to his employer, the OSS, during World War II?

14:44We don't know because of government secrecy, the denial of my FOIA requests. Observers might speculate that Marcuse's intelligence analysis of Central European fascists suggests he knew of Mises's anti-fascist work. The compartmentalization of intelligence services prevents us from really coming up with a definitive answer without some documents that we can get out of the agency. However, I believe we can bury this false history that Marcuse and his followers have erected. The revelation of these documents from archives establishes that Mises worked with U.S. intelligence during World War II.

15:29He was not a fascist, however government secrecy prevents the American people from knowing whether another legend has emerged in its place.