Editing Raoul Wallenberg (section)

==Intelligence connections==
In May 1996, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA) released thousands of previously classified documents regarding Raoul Wallenberg, in response to requests filed under the [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]].<ref name="angel spy" /> The documents, along with an investigation conducted by the news magazine ''[[U.S. News & World Report]]'', seemingly confirmed the long-held suspicion that Wallenberg had served as an American [[Asset (intelligence)|intelligence asset]] during his time in Hungary. Wallenberg's name appeared on a roster found in the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]]<ref name="angel spy">{{cite web| url= https://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/960513/archive_009540_4.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112011248/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/960513/archive_009540_4.htm |archive-date=12 January 2012 |url-status=dead |title=The Angel Was a Spy | first1= Charles |last1= Fenyvesi | first2= Victoria |last2= Pope| date= 5 May 1996 | work= [[U.S. News & World Report]] |access-date=28 June 2014}}</ref> which listed the names of operatives associated with the CIA's wartime predecessor, the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS). The documents also included a 1954 memo from an anonymous CIA source that identified a Hungarian-exile living in Stockholm who, according to the author: "assisted in inserting Wallenberg into Hungary during WWII as an agent of OSS".<ref name="angel spy" /> Another declassified memorandum written in 1990 by the curator of the CIA's [[CIA Library|Historical Intelligence Collection]], William Henhoeffer, characterized the conclusion that Wallenberg was working for the OSS while in Budapest as being "essentially correct".<ref name="angel spy" />

More telling was a communique transmitted by the [[Secret Intelligence Branch|OSS Secret Intelligence Branch]] in [[Bari]], Italy on 7 November 1944. This message apparently acknowledged that Wallenberg was acting as a [[liaison officer|liaison]] between the OSS and ''[[Magyar Fuggetlensegi Mozgalom]]'' (the Hungarian Independence Movement or MFM), an underground [[Resistance during World War II|anti-Nazi resistance organization]] operating in Budapest.<ref name="raoulwallenberg3">{{cite web |url= http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/news/raoul-wallenberg-s-unexplored/|title=Raoul Wallenberg's Unexplored Intelligence Connections in Hungary | date= 2 August 2007| first= Susanne |last= Berger | publisher= The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation |website= raoulwallenberg.net |access-date=28 June 2014}}</ref> The OSS message noted Wallenberg's contacts with Géza Soós, a high-ranking MFM member. The communique further explained that Soós "may only be contacted" through the Swedish legation in Budapest, which was Wallenberg's workplace and also served as the operational center for his attempts to aid the [[Hungarian Jews]]. The same message's assertion that Wallenberg "will know if he (Soós) is not in Budapest" is also curious, in that by November 1944 Soós was in hiding and knowledge of his whereabouts would have been available only to persons closely involved with the MFM.<ref name="angel spy" /> This conclusion is given further weight by additional evidence<ref name="angel spy" /> suggesting that secret communications between the MFM and US intelligence were being transmitted to Washington by the Stockholm office of [[Iver C. Olsen]], the American OSS operative who initially recruited Wallenberg to go to Budapest in June 1944.

This particular disclosure gave rise to speculation that, in addition to his attempts to rescue the Hungarian Jews, Wallenberg may have also been engaged in a separate effort intended to undermine [[Government of National Unity (Hungary)|Hungary's pro-Nazi government]] on behalf of the OSS.<ref name="angel spy" /> If true, this would seem to add some credence to the potential explanation that it was his association with [[Western Bloc|Western]] intelligence that led to Wallenberg being targeted by [[NKVD|Soviet authorities]] in January 1945.<ref name="angel spy" />

Several other humanitarians who had helped refugees during World War II accordingly disappeared behind the [[Iron Curtain]] in the period 1949–50, several years after Wallenberg's disappearance. OSS ties may have been of interest to the Soviets, but are not a complete explanation because some of those detained, i.e. Hermann Field and Herta Field, had not worked for the OSS. All of these humanitarians, however, like Wallenberg, had interacted with many anti-fascist and socialist refugees during the War, and this experience was used in the Stalin regime's factional politics and show trials.<ref>{{cite book |last=Subak |first=Susan Elisabeth |title= Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis |publisher= University of Nebraska Press |year= 2010 |pages=342 |isbn=978-0803225251}}</ref>