Publication

The Military Liaison Missions (MLM) of the US, the UK and France in Potsdam collected information to produce realistic situation reports about military adversaries. This dossier contains an analytical essay discussing the role of the MLM, as well as a comment by former head of the US National Security Agency William E Odom. The dossier examines western surveillance activities and the rising importance attributed to them during tension periods such as the second Berlin crisis (1958-63), the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, or the unrests in Poland in the early 1980s. It demonstrates that the MLM were an important component of the western allies' early-warning systems against a potential Soviet attack in Central Europe.