King Olav worked
Norway's late King Olav once worked for the US intelligence agency that later became the CIA, and so did the head of the Norwegian resistance movement during World War II.
 Norway's King Olav, who died in 1991, has a personnel file with the forerunner to the CIA. PHOTO: HENRIK LAURVIK/NTB |
Documents released late last week by the National Archives in Washington reveal that both Norwegian resistance leader Jens Christian Hauge and King Olav worked for the CIA's forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). King Olav was still Norway's crown prince at the time.
Newspaper Klassekampen reported Monday that Hauge's name is listed in a catalogue of personnel files at the OSS of those employed from 1942 to 1945. Web site abcnyheter.no reported that a personnel file also exists for then-Crown Prince Olav.
Several other Norwegian politicians and military officials also have personnel files at the OSS, including the defense chief at the time, Wilhelm Hansteen.
It's not clear what Crown Prince Olav did for the OSS, but royal biographer Lars Roar Langslet said he thinks the American intelligence agents sought contact with Norway's heir to the throne in the 1940s. Norway was invaded by Germany on April 9, 1940, and Crown Prince Olav fled with his father, King Haakon, to London, where they led a Norwegian government in exile until the war ended in 1945.
Langslet doesn't think the crown prince continued any work for the OSS after the war. He succeeded his father as king in 1957.
War historian Lars Borgersrud said the OSS was founded as a wartime intelligence agency, adding that it would have been "natural" for resistance leaders from US-allied nations to work for and with the US intelligence agency.
Nina Berglund/NTB
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