Aksel Larsen - As CIA Agent

As CIA Agent

The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), concluded in 2005, that Larsen held a secret working relationship between 1958 and 1964 with one of Denmark's allied partners in the Cold War, stating that "Larsen... obviously was an agent of a Western intelligence service."

In the 2005 book Firmaets største bedrift historian Peer Henrik Hansen argues that Aksel Larsen was recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). According to Hansen Larsen had his first meetings with American agents in November 1958 in his own home. According to the newspaper Information Larsen was offered information on sentiments among the party hard-liners if he would cause a split in the party. For years the CIA had a bugging device in the apartment of Alfred Jensen the vice-chairman of the Communist Party of Denmark. From there they knew about the tensions in the party leadership.

According to Hansen Aksel Larsen was at the time afraid of retaliations from the KGB and Larsen, suspecting the American agent of being a KGB assassin, brought a friend with a gun to the first meeting to act as bodyguard. Poul Dam a party colleague of Larsen has reported that he had made preparations to go into hiding in the case of a Soviet invasion. Hansen speculates that Aksel Larsen's cooperation with the CIA was part of a trade-off where the CIA got information on communists and Larsen in return would be protected from the KGB.

Over ten years Larsen had several meetings with the CIA where he gave information on the relationship between the Soviet Union and communist parties in other countries. He was asked if the Communist Party of Denmark was doing espionage work for the Soviet bloc or if the party was preparing an illegal party apparatus. He denied direct knowledge about this but told the agent that the party had turned down Soviet and East German requests for aid with espionage. According to some of Hansen's sources Larsen was rewarded with vacations, dinners and money for his co-operation.

Larsen met with a CIA agent with connections to Radio Liberty. He told the Americans much about international communism but were less keen to tell about Danish communists especially how Moscow funded them. He stated several times that he would like to destroy his former party and others who did the Soviet Union's bidding.

According to Hansen the Russians knew about Larsen's cooperation with the CIA as did Danish intelligence agencies who learned about the connections between Larsen and the CIA as soon as 1958. Although the CIA operation was illegal according to Danish law the Danish intelligence agencies promised not to intervene in return for transcripts of the debriefings.