INTELLIGENCE REPORT #5743: SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
1997 analysis. Prior to 1969, Delta Green monitored the activities of governmental agencies whose charters included investigation or study of paranormal phenomena. This program was to ensure that Delta Green would not have to again face an enemy like the Karotechia: a foreign intelligence agency proficient in, or dedicated to the use of hypergeometric principals for offensive purposes. Delta Green also monitored domestic programs such as the CIA’s MKULTRA and the DIA’s STARGATE programs, but the primary targets were in communist controlled countries.
In operation SUMMER BREEZE in May 1945, Delta Green teams penetrated Soviet-occupied Nazi Germany to retrieve or destroy Karotechia files and personnel. During the operation, Delta Green was opposed by Smersh. The name is an abbreviation of smert’ shipionam, meaning “death to spies.” Smersh was personally organized and named by Josef Stalin in 1941. Initially it operated as part of the Narodny Komisariat Vnutrennikh Del, “People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs,” or NKVD, one of the various incarnations of Soviet state security. However, from 1943 to 1946 it operated independently of the NKVD, answering directly to Stalin. Smersh was charged with tracking down traitors and deserters behind the front lines, shooting retreating soldiers, and arresting soviets who escaped from German captivity. Smersh supervised a network of informers within the Red Army, Navy and Air Force, and even the NKVD, and directed partisan operations behind German lines. Smersh also followed the advancing Red Army into Germany to seek out and detain Nazi scientists and officials.
During SUMMER BREEZE, Delta Green’s encounter with Smersh resulted in casualties on both sides. Smersh was dedicated to recovering Karotechia files and personnel as well. It is known that Smersh recovered at least one Karotechia researcher, Dr. Erwin Peis, one of the top men in the Karotechia’s “Resuscitated Casualties” project. There were, however, several Karotechia members found dead and research facilities burned to the ground prior to Delta Green or Smersh making contact with them. At the time those incidents seemed a bit to systematic and deliberate to attribute to random destruction following the Soviet occupation. The Karotechia could not have been liquidating its personnel and resources as it was undertaking Aktion Gotterdamerung. The assessment of the Delta Green agents in the field at the time was that there was another agency besides Delta Green or Smersh operating in the Soviet Zone, with particular orders to kill all Karotechia members and destroy all records of their research. The identity of this agency was never discovered, although there were several theories advanced that it might have been some rouge element of the Red Army, perhaps with connections to Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Zhukov.
Officially disbanded on March 16, 1946, Smersh continued to operate unofficially as Stalin’s personal murder squad, and perhaps much more, until the Soviet dictator’s death in March 5th, 1953. During Operation SIC SEMPER TYRANUS a Delta Green Team penetrated Siberia during a four month operation aimed at the destruction of Soviet “life extension” experiments designed to indefinitely preserve the life of Josef Stalin. The laboratory was located in Novosibirsk and was headed by the aforementioned Dr. Erwin Peis and guarded by agents of the officially disbanded Smersh.
SIC SEMPER TYRANUS involved the insertion of a 10 man team, six trained agents and four Aleut Indian guides, on the arctic coast of Siberia by submarine, a trek overland to Novosibirsk, and an extraction by “whatever means available.” Although considered a suicide mission, one of the six Delta Green agents survived and was able to cross the frozen Bering Sea and make contact with a USAF early warning station near Nome, Alaska. The agent was US Army Colonel Michael Keravuori, a naturalized Finn, veteran of the Soviet-Finnish “Winter War” and specialist in Arctic warfare. He reported the continued existence of Smersh, the death of Dr. Peis, and one other extremely curious encounter.
A Red Army Spetsnaz (Special Forces) unit captured the Delta Green team some 200 miles north of Novosibirsk. The team was turned over to officers of Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie, “Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff,” or GRU, the Soviet’s military intelligence agency. After a week of brutal interrogations, the team was inexplicably smuggled into Novosibirsk in a Red Army supply convoy, given Red Army identification, travel passes to Vladivostok and released with all their equipment. It was later determined that one of the team, US Army Captain Peter Hodge, had broken under torture and revealed the team’s mission. It was only then that the interrogations stopped and the team was released.
Since that time, there has been much speculation that a special branch inside the Soviet GRU has existed since the Second World War, with goals similar to, or compatible with Delta Green’s. Rumors have occasionally surfaced about a GRU Special Department 8, which allegedly operated outside the sight of the Soviet Central committee and even the KGB. No exact duties were ever attributed to this department, and its existence has not been confirmed.