CIA found pacifist Danes make for bad spies

Danes are ‘pacifist, self-sufficient, who don’t care about the greater good and are more interested in protecting themselves.’ This is according to a confidential 1970s CIA report which recently resurfaced, reports seven59.dk.

It also characterises Danes as “loose-living” who are at times cooperative, but never fully willing to commit themselves.

The 1971 “Scandinavians as Agents” report was a top-level attempt to assess Scandinavians’ usefulness as spies. It has since been declassified in the US, and obtained by Danish newspaper Berlingske from the National Archives in Washington DC.

Denmark is a hedonistic paradise

“Nearly all agents dream of coming to Denmark” writes author ‘Max A. Hatzenbeuhler’, which is really a fictive cover name for a group of CIA agents with field experience in Scandinavia.

This is because of its “Open sandwiches, Tuborg, Tivoli, Hamlet..and blondes’. But the reality is nothing more than a ‘hedonistic paradise.’

““The winters are very, very long and then there’s the Danes, who are very Danish and, in bigger political issues, uncommitted…they are aware that their economic survival depends on being friends with everybody.”

Danes don’t tackle problems

The report describes Danes as pacifistic and uncommitted:

“Denmark has not fought a war since 1864, which was the last in a long series of humiliating defeats. Since then, pacifism and neutrality have become the most powerful factors in Danish politics and personal philosophy…”

“A CIA agent in Denmark needs to understand that the Danes are products of one of the most well-structured welfare states with a very homogeneous population, which has created a religious sense of compromise.”

“The dominant theme of all Danish public and private life – go with the flow, don’t say anything and maybe the problem goes away by itself because there’s a little good and a little bad in everything.”

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