Photo By Erin Thompson | Brig. Gen. Edwin Zundel (front right) with members of the 7970th CIC Group in Berlin,...... read more read more
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On Jan. 11, 1948, Brig. Gen. Edwin A. Zundel became the chief of the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). Despite having no intelligence background, General Zundel would oversee the CIC during its postwar personnel crisis.
Zundel graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, as a second lieutenant in 1915. He served in various field artillery units on the U.S.–Mexico border between 1915–1917 and supported General John J. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition during the Mexican Revolution. By the end of 1917, Zundel had achieved the rank of captain and was attending the Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He was promoted to major on Jul. 3, 1918 and deployed to France two days later, where he served at the Artillery Training Center at Camp du Valdahon and with the III Corps during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
By December 1941, then Col. Zundel was serving as the artillery officer of II Corps. He transferred to the XI Corps in Chicago, Illinois, in June 1942 and remained until February 1943, when he was assigned as artillery officer for the Sixth Army in the Southwest Pacific. For the next few years, Zundel participated in numerous campaigns across the Pacific islands. In May 1944, he was promoted to brigadier general and made commander of artillery for the 41st Infantry Division. He earned a Silver Star for actions during the Battle of Biak, a Bronze Star during the Battle of Mindanao, an Air Medal for operational flights undertaken over enemy territory, and two awards of the Legion of Merit. He returned to the U.S. in February 1946 as the Fourth Army artillery officer.
On Jan. 11, 1948, General Zundel was appointed chief, CIC, and commandant of the CIC School at Fort Holabird, Maryland. Upon assuming the position, he was made aware of the CIC’s increasing personnel crisis at stations around the world. Postwar military downsizing had significantly hindered the recruitment and retention of qualified, experienced counterintelligence agents. During a tour of the CIC in occupied Germany in February 1948, Zundel confronted reports of “some undesirable personnel” whose inefficiency or misconduct brought into question the recruitment standards of CIC agents.
Meanwhile, under Far East Command (FEC), retention policies presented a different problem. Experienced agents were frequently transferred out of counterintelligence roles following their tours in Japan, rather than being retained within the CIC. In a memo to the FEC commander in March 1948, Zundel addressed the need to keep agents who wished to remain in counterintelligence positions and “do all in our power to insure that their careers are not altered due to circumstances beyond their control,” especially as the need for experienced linguists and counterintelligence specialists grew in Korea.
Furthermore, within the U.S., CIC personnel attending Officer Candidate School were also often transferred to other organizations, and retaining experienced staff officers became difficult. In February 1949, Zundel ordered an investigation “to ascertain what becomes of CIC personnel, creating a situation that requires such large numbers of replacements.” He saw the CIC as “continually being restricted” by the number of officers it was allotted and the need to consistently train new counterintelligence specialists to assume higher command and staff and faculty positions. Although his efforts to retain experienced officers were supported by the Army G-2, they were rejected by the Army deputy chief of staff. Zundel was unable to make any further progress before relinquishing command in June 1949.
In November 1949, Zundel returned to the Pacific as the FEC inspector general. During the Korean War, he was called on to investigate charges of poor performance by the segregated 24th Infantry Regiment. Zundel supported the Eighth Army inspector general in his recommendation that soldiers from the regiment be rotated into other units through the replacement process. This would improve battlefield performance and “provide a good opportunity to accomplish integration” in accordance with the newest Army desegregation policies.
General Zundel retired from the Army in 1953 and settled in Florida, where he passed away on Feb. 13, 1985 at the age of 91.
Article by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian. New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, request previous articles, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 01.09.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 01.09.2026 13:18 |
| Story ID: | 555919 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 26 |
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