of success that they had a half decade earlier. There was little criti-
cism of Gehlen, who was allowed to transform his organization into
the Bundesnachrichtendiest (BND), West Germany’s foreign intelli-
gence service. Gehlen produced important order of battle informa-
tion for NATO; he was the only source of human intelligence on the
Red Army.
Gehlen’s greatest failing, however, was his unwillingness to vet his
sources and his deputies. Believing that he could not be deceived, he
invariably was. Following revelations in 1961 that a key deputy,
Heinz Felfe, was a KGBagent, Gehlen was forced into relinquish-
ing much of his power over the organization. Neither in Hitler’s court
nor later in work with the Western allies did Gehlen ever admit he
was wrong, which he was on a great many occasions. See also
MASKIROVKA; OPERATION BAGRATION.GERHARDT, DIETER (1935– ). Gerhardt’s German family was in-
terned in South Africa during World War II. Despite his seething re-
sentment of this “injustice,” he joined the South African navy and
was commissioned as an officer. In 1960 Gerhardt walked into the
Soviet embassy in London and volunteered to work for the GRU. A
short time later, he divorced his English wife and married Ruth Johr,
a Swiss woman who shared his interest in working against the South
African government and getting rich in the process.
For the next 23 years Gerhardt was successful as a South African
naval officer and a Soviet agent. He rose to the rank of commodore
and in 1983 was the commander of the Simonstown Naval Base. He
and his wife received training in Moscow, as well as sophisticated
communications equipment, and the Gerhardts provided their Soviet
handlers with details about the South African defense establishment
and its nuclear weapons program, as well as information about NATO
armed forces.
The Gerhardts were arrested in 1983. Dieter was sentenced to death
by a military court-martial, but the sentence was later commuted to
life in prison. His wife was sentenced to life by a civil court. Follow-
ing the collapse of the apartheid government, the Gerhardts were re-
leased and settled in Switzerland. In 1994 Gerhardt told the South
African press that he had told the Soviets that the South Africans and
Israelis had tested a nuclear weapon in 1979 in the South Atlantic.92 •GERHARDT, DIETER (1935– )06-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 92