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Gehlen turns over to his hand-picked successor, Lieut. General Gerhard Wessel, 54, an organization of 3,500 full-time employees that ranks after the CIA and Britain's MI-6 as the free world's most ubiquitous intelligence service. Though he will slip into retirement as furtively as he conducted his operations, Gehlen can take some pride in the fact that his reputation for omniscience has entered the German language. In response to an unanswerable question, a West German is likely to reply, "Das weiss nur der Gehlen" (Only Gehlen knows that).