American Officer Writes a Letter to His Son on Hitler's Personal Stationery

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Richard Helms was a US Navy officer during World War II and later the Director of the CIA. At the end of the war in 1945, he wrote a letter to his young son on Hitler's personal stationery:

“Dear Dennis,” reads the letter from Helms, then a spy stationed in Germany. “The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe – three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat – a boon for mankind. But thousands died that it might be so.  The price for ridding society of bad is always high.  Love, Daddy."

Dennis Helms found the letter among the family papers in 2002. He donated it to the CIA Museum, where it is now on display.

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