‘Stella polaris’ and the secret code battle in postwar Europe

Abstract

Much has already been written about the September 1944 evacuation of the Finnish intelligence service to Sweden, which was designated Operation ‘Stella Polaris’. Newly declassified intelligence documents found at the US National Archives provide a fresh perspective on the role of the American wartime foreign intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its successor, the Strategic Services Unit, in ‘Stella Polaris’ and its aftermath. The documents reveal that throughout World War II, the OSS secretly obtained sensitive intelligence information concerning America's wartime ally, the Soviet Union, from agents within the Finnish intelligence service. The OSS Stockholm Station purchased Soviet and other foreign government code and cipher materials from the Finns, not realizing until later that the Finns had sold the same material to other states. The Americans responded by recruiting some well-placed agents within the Finnish ‘Stella Polaris’ organization, who provided detailed information about the intelligence activities of the Finns in Sweden, and the work of Finnish intelligence officers in France after the end of the war. Among the key pieces of intelligence obtained was the fact that the French intelligence service was intercepting American radio traffic.