Project SYMPHONY (1946) — SSU/X-2 Watch on the Brichah
nodeIntelligence & Surveillance · Nations & Geopolitics
The US-Israel intelligence partnership actually began in secret in 1946, five years before anyone admits it did.
Who they are
A March 1946 US intelligence operation in Austria, led by Major Edward P. Barry, watching the underground movement of Holocaust survivors toward Palestine.
What they do
It monitored Soviet secret-police attempts to slip agents into the 'Brichah,' the organized effort moving Jewish survivors from Eastern Europe toward Palestine and beyond into the Middle East.
How it works
James Angleton, then US counterintelligence chief in Italy, saw the Brichah's unusual reach into Soviet-closed areas and built trust with Jewish Agency figures including Teddy Kollek — relationships later written into the formal 1951 partnership (documented in NARA and CIA records).
Why it matters
It shows the official alliance grew directly out of these earlier wartime relationships, not from a clean start in 1951.
The engine's record — word for word
[Report #168] The operational seed of the CIA–Israel relationship, five years before the formal handshake. In March 1946, SSU officers in Austria led by Major Edward P. Barry launched Project SYMPHONY to monitor Soviet NKVD attempts to infiltrate the Brichah — the organized Jewish underground moving Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe toward Palestine — with agents targeting the Middle East (NARA RG 226; CIA Studies in Intelligence, 'US Intelligence and the Jewish Brichah in Post-war Austria'). James Angleton, then head of OSS/SSU X-2 counterintelligence in Italy, had tracked the Brichah's exceptional collection reach inside Soviet-denied areas via black-market and refugee streams. Through SYMPHONY, Angleton's staff built reciprocal trust channels with Jewish Agency operatives including Teddy Kollek — the interpersonal network that was codified into the 1951 liaison (cia_israeli_account_1951). Finding #168.005: a documented carry-forward of counterintelligence relationships into the formal liaison.
Follow the trail
Walk this on the live map →