Wednesday, August 11, 2010

A Real LIfe Burn Notice: Krunoslav Draganovic's Burn Notice

My favorite show is Burn Notice. The premise of the show is that the lead character, a former CIA spy named Michael Westen, was "burnt" (a burnt spy is one who is fired and transformed into a pariah) as part of an effort to recruit him into a still unknown or unknown covert conspiracy against enemies and enemies unknown. As of about midway through season four, Westen has made some progress in discovering in why he was burnt, who burnt him, and why he was burnt.

The title of the show Burn Notice comes from the document issued when a spy of individual is burnt by the intelligence community. A Burn Notice is issued when a person proves untrustworthy, dangerous to the American intelligence community after previously worthy, or just becomes a dangerous nuisance. Below is a US Army CIC “burn notice” for Krunoslav Draganovic, a Croatian priest, member of the Ustasha movement, and US Army CIC asset directed against Yugoslavia during the early portion of the Cold War. Draganovic will initially come to US Army CIC attention during the early days of the Cold War. He was evacuating members of the Ustasha movement from Europe to destinations such as Argentina. Later, Draganovic was employed by the US Army to evacuate Klaus Barbie from Europe. Eventually, Draganovic became a target of US intelligence and an asset for the US Army CIC. (*)

That was true until 1962 as shown by this Burn Notice, Krunoslav Draganovic was burnt by the US Army CIC for reasons of security, demands of support for his fellow Croatian terrorists, and simply not being controllable. While his activities were still monitored by American intelligence, he ceased to be a source.

Krunoslav Draganovic's Burn Notice

(*) This post is based off of reports in Draganovic's CIA Name File, Paul Hockenos' Homeland Calling, and John Loftus and Mark Aarons' Unholy Trinity.

Bring Out Your Dead- Files

Conveniently for the FBI, the Bureau does not maintain a ready list of the files slated for destruction. So, unless someone happens to luck out with a FOIA request, files slated for annihilation will probably be destroyed before the public can request them.

Update- Correct goof in title of post. Twice.

FBI FOIA Index of Records Slated for Destruction