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United States and married (happily) a Ukrainian emigrée whom he had met
in Persia. After a spell in Walla Walla, Washington, preaching occasionally and
dealing in Persian fine art, he and his wife moved to Los Angeles, where Allen
taught in various colleges and occasionally went on lecture tours. In LA, he
may, of course, have had contact with Dayton, but we will never know.^72
Initially, OSS-SI had grown rapidly and flourished in the PAIFORCE
theatre, which would never have been the case without the cooperation and
resources of British intelligence and counterintelligence (ISLD [MI6],
SIME/CICI [MI5], and SOE). Donovan’s service ended the war with at
least three active-espionage agents targeting Russian activities within the
Soviet zone of occupation in northern Persia, which was effectively sealed
off from the other Allied powers, except for along the rugged northern
Perso-Iraqi frontier inhabited by the Kurds. Besides Tom Allen, who was
Baghdad-based, two high-calibre OSS field agents who operated in the
Soviet zone were based in Tehran under military cover with Pacific Gulf
Command (PGC) according to a special agreement between Bill Donovan
and the GOC, General Donald Connolly. The two secret agents were
Archie Roosevelt’s former boss Ed Wright (TIMBER WOLF [NE28A])
and Art Dubois (TEDDY BEAR [NE28B]).^73 It is not known if they, like
Allen, penetrated the fluid Kurdish border and also operated within Iraq.
At any rate, their exposure to Connolly and Connolly’s collusion in their
activities were necessary because OSS was technically contravening the tri-
partite moratorium on active espionage by deploying two of his army offi-
cers in northern Persia.^74 It is unlikely, however, that Wright and/or Dubois
were exposed to Robin Zaehner of MI6, who was also operating illicitly
within the Soviet zone despite the moratorium.^75 As far as we know, none
of the four was ever blown to the NKVD. Thus, realigning themselves in
readiness for the postwar era, both OSS and ISLD turned their backs on
the Nazi enemy and concentrated their wary gaze upon Stalin’s expansion-
ist efforts in the region. What was left of the war effort against Germany
remained a security-intelligence task and therefore the sole concern of
CICI, whose cooperation OSS-SI effectively depended upon less and less.
Notes
- On the importance of ULTRA during the Anglo-Iraqi War, see Ronald
Lewin, The Chief: Field Marshal Lord Wavell, Commander-in-Chief and
Viceroy 1939–1947 (London: Hutchinson, 1980), 136 passim; Martin
Kolinsky, Britain’s War in the Middle East: Strategy and Diplomacy, 1936–
42 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999), 159.
OH SO SOCIAL