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Washington does not admit that the U.S. has financed Gehlen's activities (the preferred phrase is that he enjoys a "favorable relationship" with U.S. intelligence agencies). Büro Gehlen's headquarters, a clump of houses surrounded by barbed wire, is south of Munich and not far from Dachau. Outside the main offices the Stars & Stripes fly alongside the flag of West Germany. Gehlen himself stays out of sight. He is married and has four children; he loves fast cars and still has a student's fascination for tricky paraphernalia, obsolete codes and invisible inks. The only available photograph of Gehlen was taken when he was a colonel, twelve years ago.
Agents & Double Agents. Gehlen's agents, like their master, shun publicity. For security reasons, few of them know more than two or three other members of the organization. Their successes go unheralded (except by the squawks of pain from the Communists), but for their failures they may pay with their lives. In East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, the Communists claim to have captured scores of so-called "American-paid Gehlen agents."
In the shadowy, secretive world of Reinhard Gehlen, it is often hard to distinguish legend from fact. Some Gehlen agents are ex-Communists as well as ex-Nazis; others have been double agents. But there is little doubt that the newly sovereign West German Federal Republic will inherit one of the most efficient intelligence organizations in the world.