The Guy Liddell Diaries, Vol. II: 1942–1945
WALLFLOWERS is the codename given to one of the Security Service’s most treasured possessions, the daily journal dictated from August 1939 to June 1945 by MI5’s Director of Counter-Espionage, Guy Liddell, to his secretary, Margot Huggins.The document was considered so highly classified that it was retained in the safe of successive Directors-General, and special permission was required to read it. Liddell was one of three brothers who all won the Military Cross during World War I and subsequently joined MI5. He initially served with the Metropolitan Police Special Branch at Scotland Yard, dealing primarily with cases of Soviet espionage, until he was transferred to MI5 in 1931. His social connections proved important because in 1940 he employed Anthony Blunt as his personal assistant and he became a close friend of both Guy Burgess and Victor Rothschild, and was acquainted with Kim Philby. Despite these links, when Liddell retired from the Security Service in 1952 he was appointed security adviser to the Atomic Energy Commission, an extremely sensitive post following the conviction of the physicist Klaus Fuchs two years earlier. No other member of the Security Service is known to have maintained a diary and the twelve volumes of this journal represent a unique record of the events and personalities of the period, a veritable tour d’horizon of the entire subject. As Director, B Division, Liddell supervised all the major pre-war and wartime espionage investigations, maintained a watch on suspected pro-Nazis and laid the foundations of the famous ‘double cross system’ of enemy double agents. He was unquestionably one of the most reclusive and remarkable men of his generation, and a legend within his own organisation. Nigel West is a military historian specialising in security and intelligence topics. He lectures at the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Washington DC and is the European editor of the World Intelligence Review. In 1989 he was elected ‘the Expert’s Expert’ by the Observer and in 2003 he was the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officer’s Lifetime Literature Achievement Award.
THE
GUY LIDDELL DIARIES
VOLUME II: 1942–1945 MI5’s Director of Counter-Espionage in World War II
Edited by Nigel West
First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Westintel
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-415-35215-0 (Print Edition)
CONTENTS
Editor’s note
vi
Acknowledgments
vii
Personalities
viii
Executions
xii
British Intelligence establishments
xiii
Glossary
xiv
Glossary of Operational Codenames
xvii
Introduction
1
The Diaries, 1942–1945
3
Index
299
v
EDITOR’S NOTE
The original diaries were dictated each evening, before he strolled down St James’s Street to dine at the Travellers Club, by Guy Liddell to his secretary, who typed them onto both sides of small 7 × 5 inch pages which were bound in twelve looseleaf ring-binders, each with its own index and hand-written pagination.They were intended as a highly secret record of the Security Service’s contribution to the prosecution of the war, as seen from Liddell’s unique perspective. At the time (and for five decades afterwards) no thought was given to the possibility of making them available outside the organisation, so the originals tend to refer to Liddell’s closest colleagues, among them Cyril Mills, Herbert Hart,Victor Rothschild and Charles Butler, by their given names only, whereas other subordinates are mentioned by their surnames, usually without rank.The text contained no clues to indicate that ‘Ned’ was Liddell’s cousin Sir Edward Reid,‘Tommy’ was the King’s private secretary (Sir) Alan Lascelles and ‘Barty’ was Bartholomew Pleydell-Bouverie. Where the people concerned were unknown to Margot Huggins the spelling could be inconsistent, and foreign names are generally spelt phonetically.An added complication has been the redactions introduced during declassification for the purpose of concealing supposedly still-sensitive information, such as the names of Dick Ellis and Tim Milne, and identities of agents including Klop Ustinov, ARTIST and TATE.Where possible, the redactions have been restored, and MI5’s convention of placing agent codenames, like SNAKE, in small capitals has been adopted, as has the style used by Special Operations Executive of giving its agents’ nom-de-guerre in italics, so Francis Cammaerts becomes Roger. Operational and planning codewords also appear in capitals (HUSKY and OVERLORD) and all acronyms (CICI, CSDIC and DIB) so familiar to those directly involved during the war but now somewhat obscure, have been expanded. The editor has also intervened to clarify some of the more abstruse allusions, and has opted for consistency when, for example, the legendary MI5 interrogator Edward Hinchley-Cooke appears in the original simply as ‘Cookie’ or ‘H-C’, and Tommy Robertson merely as his initials,‘TAR’.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editor owes a debt of gratitude to Thomas Cheplick, who toiled in the National Archive at Kew in the preparation of this volume. Also to Hayden Peake, Ray Batvinis, Dan Mulvenna and Glenmore Trenear-Harvey who gave generously of their specialist knowledge in this field. The project could not have been completed without them. Among the members of the Liddell family who assisted my research were Sir Sandy Reid, Leonard Ingrams, Georgina Rowse, Joan Booth, and Theresa Booth.
vii
PERSONALITIES
John Adam Francis Aiken-Sneath Harry Allen John Archer Hugh Astor BALLOON BASKET Walter Bell Anthony Blunt David Boyle Dick Brooman-White BRUTUS Leonard Burt Charles Butler C Sir Alexander Cadogan Albert Canning CARELESS Victor Caroe Bill Cavendish-Bentinck Eddie Chapman CHEESE COBWEB William Codrington COLUMBINE Felix Cowgill Edward Cussen Claude Dansey Jimmie Dickson
MI5 officer MI5 officer MI5 officer MI5 liaison officer with the RAF MI5 case officer MI5 codename for Dickie Metcalfe MI5 codename for Joseph Lenihan SIS officer in New York MI5 officer and Guy Liddell’s personal assistant Personal Assistant to C. MI5 officer Roman Garby-Czerniawski (known to SOE as Walenti) Scotland Yard detective seconded to MI5 MI5 officer in the D-G’s secretariat Stewart Menzies, Chief of SIS Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office Head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch MI5 double agent MI5 officer in the Irish section Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Codenamed FRITZCHEN by the Abwehr, and ZIGZAG by MI5 SIME double agent named Renato Levi Ib Riis, SIS double agent in Iceland Head of the Foreign Office’s Security Department Abwehr defector Deputy head of SIS’s Section V MI5 officer Assistant Chief, SIS Ministry of Labour official seconded to MI5
viii
PERSONALITIES
General Sir John Dill DRAGONFLY DUCK John Dulanty Bertram Ede EGGS Dick Ellis FATHER FIDO Donald Fish Albert Foster Ingram Fraser FRITZCHEN Malcolm Frost Roger Fulford Friedle Gaertner Richard Gambier-Parry GELATINE Hans George Gilbert John Gwyer Jasper Harker HARLEQUIN Christopher Harmer Tommy Harris Herbert Hart Edwin Herbert Edward Hinchley-Cooke Sir Sam Hoare Roger Hollis Jack Hooper Henry Hopkinson Reg Horrocks Waldemar Janowsky Kemball Johnston JOSEPH Kenneth Keith Major-General Sir Vernon Kell Alex Kellar Sir Norman Kendal Bernie Kiener Klop Max Knight
Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff MI5 double agent named Hans George MI5 agent in the Spanish Embassy in London High Commissioner for Ireland in London Defence Security Officer, Malta MI5 informant SIS officer attached to BSC in New York MI5 codename for a Belgian pilot Henri Arents MI5 double agent, a French pilot named Grosjean Scotland Yard detective seconded to MI5 Detective Superintendent of Special Branch SOE officer in New York Abwehr codename for Eddie Chapman MI5 officer seconded from the BBC MI5 officer MI5 double agent codenamed GELATINE Head of SIS’s Section VIII and the RSS MI5 codename for Friedle Gaertner MI5 double agent codenamed DRAGONFLY SOE codename for Henri Dericourt MI5 officer Director, B Division Abwehr defector named Wurmann MI5 case officer MI5 case officer in the Spanish Section MI5 officer and analyst Director of Postal Censorship MI5 interrogator British Ambassador in Madrid MI5’s expert on the CPGB SIS officer Sir Alexander Cadogan’s private secretary MI5’s management efficiency expert Abwehr spy in Canada MI5 officer liaising with RVPS MI5 double agent Assistant to General Strong Director-General MI5 officer Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Scotland Yard MI5 double agent codenamed RAINBOW Klop Ustinov, MI5 agent MI5 agent-handler ix
PERSONALITIES
Walter Krivitsky LEMON Joseph Lenihan Cecil Liddell LIPSTICK Billy Luke Mr Machell Noel Mason Macfarlane Alan MacIver Ivan Maisky John Marriott J.C. Masterman John Maude Raymund Maunsell Sir Alexander Maxwell Tito Medlam Dickie Metcalfe METEOR Cyril Mills Helenus “Buster” Milmo Eric Mockler-Ferryman Ewen Montagu Herbert Morrison Desmond Morton Sir Oswald Mosley OSTRO Arthur Owens Denys Page PEACH John Pepper PEPPERMINT Toby Pilcher Dusan Popov PUPPET RAINBOW Peter Ramsbotham Ronnie Reed Ned Reid T.A. Robertson Adm Edmund Ashbrooke Hugh Trevor Roper ROVER Michael Ryde
Soviet defector MI5 double agent MI5 double agent codenamed BASKET Head of MI5’s Irish Section MI5 double agent Josef Terradellas MI5 B1(a) case officer MI5 officer Governor of Gibraltar MI5 officer in charge of the RSLOs Soviet Ambassador to London MI5 officer and secretary of the Twenty Committee MI5 officer and chairman of the Twenty Committee MI5 officer Head of Security Intelligence Middle East Permanent Under-Secretary Home Office DSO Gibraltar MI5 double agent codenamed BALLOON MI5 double agent Eugn Sostaric MI5 case officer, later DSO in Ottawa MI5 officer War Office, Home Forces NID representative on the Twenty Committee Home Secretary in the war coalition government Winston Churchill’s intelligence adviser Leader of the British Union of Fascists MI5 codename fot Paul Fidrmuc MI5’s double agent codenamed SNOW GC&CS cryptographer MI5 double agent SIS officer in New York MI5 double agent José Brugada Wood MI5 officer in the legal section MI5 double agent codenamed SKOOT, then TRICYCLE MI5 double agent named Fanto MI5 double agent named Bernie Kiener MI5 officer in the American section MI5 radio operator MI5’s financial expert and Guy Liddell’s cousin Head of MI5’s B1(a) section Director of Naval Intelligence SIS’s expert on ISOS MI5 double agent RSLO x
PERSONALITIES
Wulf Schmidt F.A. Sclater Alexander Scotland John Senter SHADOW Hugh Shillito SILVER Derek Sinclair The SNARK SNOW Reg Spooner SPRINGBOK
MI5’s double agent codenamed TATE Wireless expert attached to B3(b) MI9 interrogator MI5 officer seconded to SOE as security officer MI5 double agent MI5 officer Double agent run in the Far East MI5 officer and son of C, Sir Hugh Sinclair. MI5 codename for a Yugoslav double agent MI5 codename for double agent Arthur Owens Scotland Yard detective seconded to MI5 MI5 codename for Hans von Koetze, a double agent based in Canada Robin “Tin-Eye” Stephens Commandant of Camp 020 John Stephenson MI5 officer William Stephenson Director of British Security Co-ordination in New York Major Richard Stevens PCO in The Hague Harry Stone MI5 officer Richman Stopford MI5 officer Kenneth Strong Former British assistant military attaché in Berlin TANGERINE MI5 agent Derek Tangye MI5’s press liaison officer TATE MI5’s codename for Wulf Schmidt Arthur Thurston FBI legal attaché in London TRICYCLE MI5 codename for Dusan Popov Theo Turner MI5 officer Klop Ustinov MI5 agent Sir Robert Vansittart Chief Diplomatic Adviser at the Foreign Office VELOCIPEDE MI5 double agent Sir Philip Vickery Director of Indian Political Intelligence Victoire SOE codename for Mathilde Carr Walenti SOE codename for Roman Garby-Czerniawski (known as BRUTUS TO MI5) WATCHDOG MI5 codename for Waldemar Janowsky MI5 double agent The WEASEL WENDY MI5 double agent Geoffrey Wethered MI5 officer Dick White MI5 officer and future Director-General Ian Wilson MI5 B1(a) case officer The WORM MI5 double agent Walter “Freckles”Wren MI5 officer in New York Courtney Young MI5’s Japanese expert ZIGZAG MI5 codename for Eddie Chapman xi
EXECUTIONS
Oswald Job
Pierre Neukermans
Duncan Scott-Ford
Joseph Vanhove
Aged 58, Job was arrested in London in November 1943, tried at the Old Bailey in January 1944 and executed at Pentonville in March 1944. A Belgian seaman, Neukermans landed in England in July 1943 as a refugee but was arrested in February 1944. He was convicted under the Treachery Act in May 1944 and hanged at Pentonville the following month. A British seaman recruited by the Germans in Lisbon, Scott-Ford was tried at the Old Bailey in August 1942 and hanged at Wandsworth in October 1942. A Belgian waiter,Vanhove was arrested in London in May 1944, tried at the Old Bailey at the end of the same month, and executed at Pentonville in July.
xii
BRITISH INTELLIGENCE ESTABLISHMENTS
Barnet Blenheim Broadway Duke Street Ham Huntercombe Norfolk House Kinnaird House Room 055 Ryder Street St James’s Street Woldingham
Headquarters of the Radio Security Service MI5 headquarters in Oxfordshire SIS headquarters in London Headquarters of Free French Intelligence Camp 020, Richmond Camp 020R, Oxfordshire Headquarters of SHAEF Headquarters of the Security Executive MI5’s room in the War Office London headquarters of Section V MI5 headquarters in London Radio Security Service intercept site
xiii
GLOSSARY
4th Department ACSI ADMI ADNI AFHQ AMGOT B1(a) B1(g) B2 B5(b) B6 BCRA BGSI BJ BSC C. CCAO CCO CICI CIGS COSSAC CPGB CSDIC DDMI DF DGER DMI DNI DPP DSO DUFF
Soviet military intelligence service Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Intelligence Assistant Director of Military Intelligence Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence Allied Forces Headquarters Allied Military Government MI5’s German double agent section MI5’s Irish section MI5’s agent section Max Knight’s section MI5’s Watcher Service French intelligence service Brigadier (General Staff) Intelligence Diplomatic intercept British Security Co-ordination Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service Chief of Combined Allied Operations Chief of Combined Operations Combined Intelligence Centre Iraq Chief of the Imperial General Staff Chief of Staff Supreme Allied Commander Communist Party of Great Britain Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre Deputy Director of Military Intelligence Direction-Finding Direction Générale des Etudes et Recherches Director of Military Intelligence Director of Naval Intelligence Director of Public Prosecutions Defence Security Officer Microdot
xiv
G L O S S A RY
ENSA F2(c) FBI FUSAG FSP G-2 GC&CS GOC Group 1 HOW IB IRA ISBA ISCOT ISLD ISOS ISPAL ISSB ITS IZAK JMA KD MI8 MI9 MI(L) MSS NID NSDAP OGPU OKW OSS OVRA PCO PID PPF RSLO RSS RVPS SB SCI SIC SIS SIME SLB3
Entertainment National Service Association MI5 section dealing with Russian intelligence Federal Bureau of Investigation First United States Army Group Field Security Police US Army military intelligence Government Code & Cipher School General Officer Commanding Wireless intercepts of Abwehr hand ciphers Home Office mail and telephone intercept warrant Intelligence Branch of the General Staff Irish Republican Army Intelligence Service/British Agents Intercepted Comintern radio traffic Inter-Service Liaison Department Decrypted Abwehr hand cipher wireless traffic Intercepted Jewish cipher traffic Inter-Services Security Board Italian intelligence intercepts Intercepted German intercepts Intercepted Japanese military attaché traffic Kameradshaftsdienst radio station Radio Security Service Escape & Evasion Service War Office liaison with Allied services Most Secret Sources Naval Intelligence Division Nazi Party Soviet intelligence service German High Command Office of Strategic Services Italian secret police Passport Control Officer Political Intelligence Department Partie Populaire Français Regional Security Liaison Officer Radio Security Service Royal Victoria Patriotic School Special Branch Special Counter-Intelligence Unit Security Intelligence Centre Secret Intelligence Service Security Intelligence Middle East MI5 renegades investigation unit xv
G L O S S A RY
SLU S02 Special Material Tube Alloys VACNA VCIGS ZIP ZPT
Special Liaison Unit Special Operations 2 Intercepted diplomatic telephone conversations Atomic bomb research Vice Admiral Commanding North Atlantic Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff Intercepted enemy diplomatic traffic Intercepted enemy naval wireless traffic
xvi
GLOSSARY OF OPERATIONAL CODENAMES
ALACRITY AMATEUR ANVIL BODYLINE BUNBURY CROSSBOW DREAM HUSKEY LIFEBELT MINCEMEAT OATMEAL OVERLORD RANKIN STARKEY TORCH VAULT
Allied occupation of the Azores Wireless deception scheme Allied invasion of the south of France Committee to assess enemy secret weapons Bogus sabotage of a power station Committee to assess enemy rockets Scheme to finance double agents Invasion of Sicily in 1943 Allied occupation of the Azores Deception scheme to cover the invasion of Sicily Supply of material to MUTT and JEFF Invasion of Normandy in 1944 Allied invasion of Germany Deception scheme in Calais in 1943 Invasion of North Africa in 1942 Allied occupation of the Azores
xvii
INTRODUCTION
In the first volume of The Guy Liddell Diaries the author was preoccupied with internment, German espionage and the threat of German infiltration in Ireland. He was also concerned with the development of the double-cross system and its management through a new branch of the Security Service created during a disastrous period of reorganisation. In this second volume, the threat of imminent invasion of Britain has been lifted and MI5 is on the offensive, exploiting intercepted German wireless traffic to interdict enemy spies, but nevertheless there remains a continuous demarcation wrangle between SIS’s Section V and B Division over the proper supervision of that most secret of sources, ISOS. Known generically as MSS, an abbreviation for Most Secret Sources, wireless interception proved to be the key to MI5’s many successes in identifying enemy spies, checking up on the performance of their double agents and mounting elaborate deception schemes to dupe their Abwehr opponents. Liddell was preoccupied with three significant areas of concern. Firstly, MI5’s relations with the FBI and the problem of liaison through Bill Stephenson, the controversial Director of British Security Co-ordination. Stephenson’s relationship with J. Edgar Hoover was always stormy because BSC conducted clandestine operations in the United States, behaviour that Hoover strongly disapproved of, especially when it interfered with his own efforts to penetrate foreign embassies in Washington DC. SIS opposed MI5’s wish to establish a direct link with the FBI and wanted all communications to be channelled through Section V. Liddell’s second continuing anxiety was his deteriorating co-operation with Section V whose inflexible head, Felix Cowgill, had spent most of his career studying Communist infiltration in India and had a highly-developed sense of tight compartmentalisation. Cowgill recognised that ISOS with its derivatives was the holy grail, a source that had to be protected at all costs. Liddell, on the other hand, while acknowledging the value of signals intelligence, wanted to exploit the opportunities it offered. As Liddell documented, the two opposing cultures frequently came into long and bitter conflict, and threatened to compromise numerous other areas of mutual interest. Third, as MI5 gained the upper hand in the management of double agents and the interdiction of spies in the Middle East, South Africa and the Caribbean, there 1
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
were worries about the deployment of suitable personnel to manage an increasingly complex game being played with the enemy. As MI5’s deception techniques developed, the stakes increased as the plans for OVERLORD, the opening of the long-awaited Second Front, became dependent on surprise and misleading the Abwehr.A single blunder, a casual indiscretion or a deliberate leak could jeopardise tens of thousands of lives on D-Day, placing a heavy burden on Guy Liddell to exercise discipline over his double agents, carefully vet defectors, penetrate neutral embassies in London and maintain surveillance on suspected spies.As the pages that follow demonstrate, this was a juggling act that he accomplished with characteristic humour and consummate skill. However, although there is scarcely a hint of the pressure he was forced to work under, Liddell was not only playing the espionage game for the very highest stakes, he was also distracted by the fate of his four children, Peter, Gay, Juno and Maude, who had been taken suddenly to America by their eccentric mother, Calypso. In fact, following their abduction, Liddell only learned of their arrival in New York by chance, having spotted them in a publicity photograph reporting the Queen Mary’s arrival.Thereafter, he made many attempts through the courts to recover them, and on one occasion, while making an official visit to the United States, travelled to the Carolinas to find them. Such anxieties were never confided to his faithful secretary, Margot Huggins, who struggled each evening after office hours to catch Liddell’s quiet voice as he dictated what must now be regarded as one of the most remarkable documents of the Second World War. Nigel West
2
1942
1 October I discussed with J.C. Masterman a really pathological letter which I have received from Valentine Vivian about the case of MULLET. J.C. said that in certain eventualities the case would have to be passed back to us as it would have to be handled by the Twenty Committee. Vivian takes this to mean that we run and control the Twenty Committee, and cites it as an instance of friction between B1(a) and Section V. He goes on to express the hope that it may some day be possible for me to control my subordinates. The whole thing is nonsense since MULLET was dug out by us, and directed by us as being an agent resident in this country.The whole thing was done with the full co-operation of all parties concerned. If, therefore, the Political Warfare Executive or the Foreign Office or C do not wish to control him he will have to come back to us, who will have to be responsible for the instructions issued to him after they have been deliberated in the Twenty Committee. Gilbert Lennox came to see me about the Catalina which crashed off the Spanish coast.All the occupants were killed, including a representative of SOE and some officer who was carrying a letter to Noel Mason-Macfarlane about the Second Front.This letter actually gave the date.The body of the man who carried it was washed up on the Spanish shore and handed over by a Spanish naval officer to a British RAF officer. The letter was sealed and did not appear to have been tampered with. The Inter-Services Security Board is now in a great flap as to whether Operation TORCH has been compromised. Machell came to see me about a letter written by Lady Diana Cooper to a certain woman called Dr Kommer in the United States. In this letter she mentioned Randolph Churchill’s wife’s affair with Averell Harriman. She tells Dr Kommer to keep it to herself as she doesn’t want to spread gossip, which is of course exactly what she is doing. She also alludes to Duff having to pay income tax on £5,000 a year while he is receiving only £2,000 of the Duchy of Lancaster. She adds that he gets no money for his secret service work as this would be improper for a Member of Parliament. Personally, I do not think that there is any very great harm in either of these remarks but a nice point has been reached when the letters of the wife of the head of a department are submitted to his subordinates for censorship. If we
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
advise that the offending passages be erased and it subsequently transpires that this had been done on our instructions, Duff Cooper would be annoyed. On the other hand, if we give him the letter he may tell us that we are being stupid in taking exception to certain remarks which are more or less common knowledge. Machell also told me about two people called Collie and Anton or Aston who have recently come back from occupied territory and are in touch with Kenneth de Courcy, to whom they have given a good deal of information.They have written a book, the manuscript of which is now in the hands of Jonathan Cape. The book discloses a certain amount of information about escape organisations.There is a good deal of conversation of a derogatory kind about SIS. I gather also that de Courcy has been talking about the Second Front and that he is in close contact with Kennedy of the Planning Department. 2 October There is a tremendous flap going on about Kenneth de Courcy. Apparently [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] show that something about the Second Front is coming out in the next number of his Newsletter. Jim Hale has been sent off to see Dents, who were supposed to be the publishers, but on arrival he found that it was some other firm.This could have easily been ascertained by looking at one of the back numbers. Meanwhile, Toby Pilcher and Jasper Harker went over to the Ministry of Information to see Cyril Radcliffe who explained that he could do nothing effective. Finally, Toby rang up the publishers who said that a number of copies had already gone out and the rest were due to go today. I do not know what the sequel has been but clearly de Courcy will now know that the War Office is interested in his bulletin and that therefore its contents are probably correct. We had a meeting to discuss the arrangements for FRITZCHEN’s arrival. Stanford is going to be at Fighter Command heaquarters to watch the tracks for any suspicious planes coming in. The Regional Security Liaison Officers have been given full particulars and will mobilise the chief constables and a few selected Special Branch officers under the direction of Len Burt and his subordinates. Camp 020 is in the picture and will be given a brief for interrogation. I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell this afternoon about the case. It was decided that FRITZCHEN should go to Camp 020 and that he be detained in the first instance under the Arrival from Enemy Territory Act. It seemed unlikely that circumstances could arise which would necessitate his being brought before an Advisory Committee but if we were faced with such an eventuality the Home Office will do everything in their power to safeguard our interests. We propose to turn FRITZCHEN round immediately if his case has not caused too much publicity.We know a good deal about him already. He is probably an Englishman called Eddie Chapman. He has an identity card and a card permitting him as an Irishman to work in this country. He has had a large sum of money spent on his teeth. He is six feet tall, and has been carefully trained in wireless, secret ink, sabotage and parachute jumping. He will be wearing a special kind of kit, details of which are 4
1942
known, and will be dropped somewhere in the vicinity of London between now and 9 October. I have sent off a letter to Valentine Vivian about the MULLET case, in which I have told him that the misunderstandings between us appear to me to be almost pathological and suggesting we should tear up the whole correspondence, but that if he does not agree that I must pass his letter to J.C. Masterman for a reasoned reply and since he already consulted C, submit the whole thing to the Director-General. Helmut Klissman has arrived in Madrid and has been accompanied by, we believe, Frank Ryan.There is nothing at present to indicate exactly what is in the wind. Klissman was, of course, formerly active in Eire. ISOS indicates that on 28 September Berlin knew something about the Catalina which came down in the sea near Cadiz on 24 September. Since the Abwehr in Spain seem to be ignorant about the matter, there is at least a possibility that Berlin got this information through the interception of our messages on the subject. I am asking Valentine Vivian for his views and suggesting that some enquiry should be made. 3 October Richman Stopford showed me a memo that he had received from his agent who has just returned from East Africa and was apparently responsible for the arrest of Homer Serafamides.This had not been apparent from the report from SIS which indicated that their representative was responsible. Doubtless, however, Malcolm Muggeridge did a good job in protecting the agent. The latter is clearly full of resource and has succeeded in obtaining quite a lot of valuable information. A Greek merchant marine officer, Homer Serafamides was duped by one of Malcolm Muggeridge’s agents, another Greek named Goumas, and lured aboard the Leonidas, supposedly to sell the ship to a U-boat, and taken to Durban. He remained at Camp 020 until August 1945. Herbert Hart has given me a memo reviewing the activities of the German intelligence service over the last three years. He said that out of a total number of sixty-six enemy agents apprehended or identified in the UK during this time, only two or three were resident here before the war and had engaged themselves before the war to work for the enemy. He seems to have omitted a few names who might have been included in this category. Secondly, he stated that since the outbreak of war only two German agents out of a total of sixty-six have had instructions to contact other agents who were both residents and working for the Germans here before the outbreak of war. Thirdly, evidence shows that the Germans have no sources resident in this country before the war through whom they could pay their agents here. Fourthly, ISOS has never referred to an agent in England in terms to suggest that he was resident and acting under instructions before the war. On the other hand, they do make reference to sources known or partially known to us to have become resident here since the war. Fifthly, with the exception of Duncan 5
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Scott-Ford, the German and British agents have been persons of Aryan German origin who have acquired by marriage, naturalisation or accident of birth, British nationality.With the exception of Warschauer, they have not been drawn from the refugee classes. Lastly, none of the agents who have been apprehended or identified since the war had any instructions to make contact with any subversive political movement in this country, not even with the British Union of Fascists.This is not entirely correct if we accept the mission of Horsfall-Ertz, who was an official of the BUF instructed to get into touch with Mrs Whinfield who controlled the Party funds and whose son had gone into Germany through Switzerland under the direction of one Kruger, a German agent. Further, SNOW had certain instructions regarding Horsfall-Ertz. On the other hand, Herbert Hart goes on to say that the Germans have made an attempt to establish contact with the Welsh Nationalists and also with the IRA. He thinks therefore that the Germans have not in general concentrated on political movements but on movements which are racial or nationalist in character. From all this he deduces that there was no Kriegsnetz in this country because the Germans relied on the NSDAP, etcetera, to keep us out of the war; because they themselves were too preoccupied in 1933–37 with internal problems and problems affecting European states; because as long as France was in the war information about England could be got out of their organisation in France, and lastly because of their trust in SNOW and his notional group of twelve sub-agents. There is, I think, one other factor which Hart has left out of the account, namely the knowledge the Germans had through the machine tool industry of our incapacity to make war. This information had been obtained so easily and they were so confident that we should not make war that they did not take the trouble to establish a really efficient Kriegsnetz. While Hart thinks that we are rightly impressed by the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst, he does not think that we should be dazed or hypnotised by them into believing they can operate in all times and places with the thunder-bolt energy and precision sometimes attributed to them in their work of espionage and disruption of morale. He argues that the position on the continent at the outbreak of war bears no analogy to the position here today. I entirely agree with this but I do not think that Jack Curry in his memo ever implied anything of the kind. Hart draws the following lessons for the future. He suggests that we should pay less attention to aliens or people of enemy origin resident here before the war and concentrate more on those who have arrived since the war. In the latter category he includes seamen, persons arriving from German-occupied territory, neutral diplomats or official persons, persons wishing to join the Allied forces, particularly the air forces, SIS and SOE agents and persons coming to this country and taking employment as technicians, etcetera.We should devote more time to examination at the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, lines of communication whether wireless, secret ink, diplomatic bags, courier or otherwise, and that we should devote some of the personnel to the work who are now employed on combing through the pre-war alien population. I agree with a great deal of what he says, if we are purely concerned with catching spies. I am as convinced as he is, and have been since the early days of the war, that there was no 6
1942
long-term German espionage organisation left behind in this country. I always felt there might be one or two still operating although our evidence on this point was negative. If, however, we are to consider the potential Fifth Column here in a time of real crisis we cannot altogether abandon our enquiries into the pre-war population which in my view has never really been sifted. 4 October PEPPERMINT has returned and has been seen by Dick Brooman-White. He was welcomed with open arms by Angel Alcazar de Velasco, who explained to him that although his military information had been of great value he was now more concerned with political information.The motive behind this is that Ramon Serrano Suner is particularly anxious to re-establish his position as a mediator between the Allies and the Germans if an appropriate moment arrives. Serrano Suner thought of paying a visit to the United States on such a mission if it was likely to have any success.The Spaniards are anxious that the war should come to an end as they feel that it is reducing their country to a state of abject poverty. PEPPERMINT then explained that Alcazar de Velasco had offered to give him money in Swiss francs and American dollars, a Minox camera on which would be films containing a questionnaire, the camera to be used for photographs of documents, secret ink which had to be developed in three processes, and cover addresses if the bag could not be used. PEPPERMINT explained the difficulties of using the bag owing to its being censored by the ambassador. Alcazar de Velasco suggested that a use of the Greek bag might be made since the Greek minister in Madrid was in his pay. When PEPPERMINT went to collect his bag at the Foreign Office in Madrid he expected to find a small inner bag with all the things which had been promised him by Alcazar. Instead of that he was handed a letter from Alcazar by a representative of the Foreign Office who is in Alcazar’s pay. He did not open this but rather foolishly had it placed in the bag. When he arrived the bag was handed in and the letter opened by the ambassador, who wishes to see PEPPERMINT on Monday.The letter contained $2,000, 9,000 Swiss francs, and the film with the questionnaire. PEPPERMINT is going to say that he had no knowledge of the questionnaire which must have been inserted by Alcazar who for a long time has been trying to blackmail him, but that the money was to pay the debts of the Press Bureau and finance it for future operations. It is hoped that he may get away with this. It seems from conversations between PEPPERMINT and Alcazar that Villaverde has for a long time been cognisant of Alcazar’s activities. He disliked them but felt it politic to play with him. Now that Serrano Suner has gone he will probably change his tune. He is a real time-server. Dick Brooman-White also told me about certain negotiations with Sir George Young who is in touch with Juan Negrin. Negrin says that he is running agents into Spain and he has been asked to disclose to us his information and informants. He has replied by saying that we should talk to General Rotas on this matter, and that the latter should be allowed to come here for this purpose from the Argentine. 7
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
This seemed to be a ruse to get Rotas to this country. Sir George Young returned to the charge and suggested that he must at least have somebody here who knew something about the organisation. Negrin then said that he could not disclose anything of the kind without the knowledge and approval of the British Foreign Office. He was obviously playing a political game and was looking ahead to the time when he hopes he may get some support from the British government in setting up a new regime in Spain. Obviously the Foreign Office cannot be a party to this. On the other hand, it seems a pity that we or rather SIS, should not be able to take advantage of Negrin’s organisation, which is probably being run in conjunction with the Russians. Negrin spent much time with Ivan Maisky and in the meantime there is a wrangle between Anthony Eden and Herbert Morrison on the question of political asylum for Negrin. Morrison does not like the idea. We say that it is desirable that we should know about any organisation operating on British territory and have the support of the Foreign Office. I do not quite know what the next move should be. 5 October Two Dutch brothers named Erasmus have arrived here as escapees.They have broken down at the Royal Victoria Patriotic School and are being sent to Camp 020. They were apparently trained in Brussels. Valentine Vivian rang me up about the security of the factory that is making the ‘bombe’. Forty people are employed on the work and it is now suggested that they should be asked to sign the Official Secrets Act. I said that I wondered whether one might not be doing more harm than good by introducing special security measures at this late stage. Might it not perhaps emphasise the secrecy of the work? I suggested the possibility Joe Archer might go down and have a look at the place. Valentine Vivian rang up afterwards to say that he had referred this point to Nigel de Grey who seemed very agitated and reluctant that anyone should look into the security question. Nigel de Grey was a key cryptographer at Bletchey Park who in World War I had been responsible for solving the Zimmerman Telegram.The ‘bombe’ was a mechanical device to identify Enigma keys. 6 October I attended the Director-General’s meeting today. Toby Pilcher explained the position with regard to the Homer Serafamides case.The latter is a Greek seaman who has been working for Campini, the Italian Consul and secret service agent in Lourenco Marques.Through the ingenuity of a B1(L) agent and the SIS representative in Lourenco Marques, he was lured on to a ship and subsequently handed over to the South African authorities in Durban.We wish to get him back here in order to interrogate him and if possible produce a case for representations by the Foreign
8
1942
Office to the Portuguese government for the removal of Campini. To obtain the extradition of Serafamides is a somewhat complex matter. We have powers in the case of colonies under 18(b) or (a) but not in the case of dominions. In the case of a colony, the Army Council would have to empower a competent military authority on the spot. It would be difficult for them to empower a British officer to issue an order in a dominion and it would equally be impossible for them to empower a South African authority over whom they have no jurisdiction. It is therefore suggested that the dominion government should deport Serafamides and that on his arrival here we should refuse him leave to land and detain him under 12 (5)(a). It seems to me that under this action we could be challenged if Serafamides was brought to trial but since there is no other machinery we shall have to take the risk. Valentine Vivian has replied to my letter about the MULLET case. He takes the line that it would have been simpler if I had quietly ascertained what J.C. Masterman had in his mind. He then goes on to say that there has been considerable advantage in the past in him and myself speaking our minds freely and acting as a safety-valve. He seems to think that my remarks were rather strong and apt to be offensive, to which I might reply suggesting that he should have a look at his own letter. He has however agreed to tear the correspondence up and talk when he sees me next. 7 October I took the weekly meeting.The Germans appear to contemplate an attack by us on Dakar from the Gambia, landings by air and sea in Sicily and Eastern Italy and attack on the French coast in the area of the Gironde Estuary. There has been another OSTRO message giving details about the 8th Army’s supplies in the Middle East. The Sicherheitsdienst in Norway has been trying to penetrate escape parties by sending agents to England in the guise of bona fide escapees. Their recent attempt was unsuccessful since owing to premature arrests the boat left without the SD agents. RAINBOW has received a new type of DUFF which consists of white letters on black background. From 14 May to 25 September GARBO has received $4,000. I dined with Roger Hollis who has returned after a long illness.We talked about the Kenneth de Courcy case, details of which were not really known to me. He seemed to think that the whole business had been lamentably handled. Jasper Harker’s final interview with Julius Hanau was miked and on record. Hollis felt that it was far too friendly and that an excellent opportunity had been missed for taking action against de Courcy. Hollis then talked about the Director-General’s and Roger Fulford’s views on the Comintern, which he thought were unsound. There was some idea that the Comintern had ceased to function. Admittedly it is probably not functioning in exactly the same way but its activities are going on just the same. Neither Hollis nor I think that there is any evidence to show that the policy of the Soviet government 9
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
and the Comintern has changed one iota. Clearly the whole Second Front campaign is dictated from Moscow and whether the instructions come by courier or through the embassy makes no difference.There is no doubt that the Russians are taking every possible advantage of the present situation to dig themselves in and that they will cause us a great deal of trouble when the war is over. 8 October The Director-General called me down to talk with John Bevan and Gilbert Lennox. Bevan was very concerned about leakage of information regarding Operation TORCH which is being discussed freely in Fleet Street. It was decided that possibly we might try and find some channels through which we could put Fleet Street off the track. This however was likely to be extremely difficult. You can’t fox people like Kuh of UPI, Poliakov of the Evening Standard and Litauer, at any rate for long. Philip Jordan of the News Chronicle has told Casa Maury of Combined Operations that there is much talk going on in Fleet Street about the Second Front and that he had been told by A.J. Cummings of the News Chronicle who knew that Jordan was one of the Second Front war correspondents, that according to Ivan Maisky, north-west Africa was the objective. It is Jordan’s impression that Maisky imparted this information with the deliberate object of suggesting that a campaign in north-west Africa would not be considered by the Soviets as sufficient to meet their request for the opening of a Second Front.The purpose of Maisky’s statement was propaganda and he intended that Cummings should use it as such. On hearing this news Jordan had gone round to see his contact at the Public Relations Department at the War Office.This contact assured him that he would be looked after wherever he was sent and that it was possible that he would not be going with the first flight. He also said, a little to Jordan’s surprise, that two motorcars had already been sent off for Jordan’s use. No actual objective or data was mentioned, but from these remarks Jordan very naturally ruled out the possibility of Northern France or Norway. He therefore came to the conclusion that Maisky’s information was probably correct. Valentine Vivian came round to tell Dick White and myself that an order had now been issued appointing Claude Dansey as Vice Chief of SIS and himself as one of the many deputies in charge of security. He had replied to C. saying that although this order was only giving effect to a situation which had existed for some considerable time owing to the whittling away of his various functions, he nevertheless found it pretty mortifying. He wished to be informed as to whether he was in any way intended to be responsible to VCSS since if this were so he would refuse to consult him. So far he has had no reply.Vivian emphasised that this new arrangement did not auger particularly well for counter-espionage and that he more than ever regretted that we had found it impossible to accept the Axis CounterEspionage plan. I said that I could not see how ACE would give counter-espionage a better chance than it would have if it were all brought under this office. In the 10
1942
former case it would only have half the Director-General’s backing and in the latter case it would have his whole backing. C.’s backing, in Vivian’s opinion, was not likely to be of much use.Vivian said that he would sooner bring the whole organisation in here than work under Dansey, but he did not think the plan was a good one nor did he think it would be possible now to get C. to accept it. I am frightfully sorry for Vivian who is one of the few really honest people in SIS. I do feel however that his attitude towards our original proposal was intransigent and misguided. I saw Kenneth Younger and Buster Milmo about Tadeusz Szumlich, a Pole who at one time was in the hands of the Germans. The Poles want to try him on the grounds that he was never demobilised from Polish forces and is therefore their prisoner. In fact they wish to make the act under which they have jurisdiction retrospective. Szumlich has never been a prisoner and is at present under interrogation by ourselves. Certain information that we want from the Poles to complete our interrogation has been refused for some unknown reason. There is obviously a good deal of politics at the back of the whole case.We are telling the Poles that they must apply for the custody of Szumlich to the Home Office and that meanwhile they will greatly assist us by answering our questions. An escapee from France, Szumlich disclosed details of a plot by senior Polish officers in Poland to collaborate with the Nazis which, though true, was disbelieved by the Polish government-in-exile in London. Attempts to silence him were thwarted by retaining him at Camp 020. 9 October Herbert Hart and I went to the Naval Intelligence Division to discuss the Kameradschaftsdienst. In addition to Leary from the coding section of Censorship, Harry Hinsley of GC&CS was also present.The latter is by way of being particularly brilliant. He has examined Leary’s work and has come to the conclusion that there is definitely some sort of code in the KD, and other similar broadcasts. He feels however that until the whole field of such broadcasts has been surveyed it would be wrong to attempt to relate these messages to any particular action by the German armed forces or intelligence service.There is apparently definite evidence from Italian TRIPLEX that code is broadcast in certain messages which immediately follows the playing of a certain tune. Leary is also examining the broadcasting of certain tunes and has found that they come up at certain specified times although from different stations. I told the Director-General about the MUTT and JEFF plan which involves an explosion in Hampshire. The objective is a food store on Army property and the Germans will be informed that the store must have contained ammunition as well since the explosion was a very big one. The Chief Constable of Hampshire, the RSLO and Len Burt are in the know.
11
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
10 October I had a meeting with the Director-General, Gilbert Lennox, Machell and Tommy Harris about plans for misleading Fleet Street about Operation TORCH. The Chiefs of Staff have been in consultation with the Ministry of Information and appear to think that the leakages in Fleet Street can best be dealt with either by talking to certain selected journalists and asking them to take a definite cover-story line or by taking the press fully into our confidence. Personally, I think that either line would be a mistake. As regards getting at leading journalists here, I suggested that this could better be done through embassies such as the Spanish and Turkish. The information would then leak back to journalists such as Poliakov, Litauer and Kuh. It was proposed that we should make a concerted attack on Alba and also on Orbay, the Turkish Minister. I think the line would be to start with two minor indiscretions by people who might be slightly in the know, and follow this up with a major indiscretion by somebody obviously in the know.Alba would be bound to report this to Madrid and the information would go direct to the Japanese and Germans. I thought it necessary, however, that whatever story went over it should be different to any of the previous cover stories. 11 October We met two officers of the police at the given rendezvous, and then drove about quarter of a mile to the objective.This was about 12.15am.We drew the two cars up inside a field along the hedge. Meanwhile, guards were put out on the road to give us warning of any cars or cyclists. The SOE experts put in the explosives which consisted of nine pounds of Aminol, incendiary material and thunder rockets.The fuse was laid through the hedge on to the road.When this work had been completed and we were satisfied that no cars either way could reach the site within a period of two minutes, the car which was carrying the SOE representatives pulled out into the road opposite the end of the fuse, and remained with engines running.We then came out and headed straight for an observation post about quarter of a mile away. As we passed the first car the fuse was lit. The SOE representatives and Victor Rothschild immediately jumped in and streaked up the road behind us. The explosion took place in about two minutes, ten seconds and was a formidable one. The incendiaries worked well and a blaze of light went up which could be seen for miles round. There was an aeroplane somewhere in the vicinity which dropped a flare. We presumed therefore that the matter would be reported back to some RAF headquarters. Not wishing to be in the vicinity of the conflagration, we made off after watching the fire for about five minutes. We reached Michael Ryde’s house at Newbury at about 3am.We heard later that the fire had been seen by a number of the Air Observer Corps and had been reported to the Andover police who had sent out two sergeants immediately. They had remained on site during the night.They had already ascertained that somebody had been seen in the vicinity of the hut several days previously.This was probably one
12
1942
of the SOE men who was putting in the material.There was also a shepherd who might have given information, since he was questioned discreetly by Michael Ryde in order to find out whether any of his sheep were left out at night.We had originally intended to use eighteen pounds of Aminol but felt that this might be dangerous if the whole hut was lifted into the middle of the road. We anticipate that the police will make enquiries with the military about the hut, when they will be told that it was taken over by GHQ Home Forces. Brian Mountain of Home Forces has been informed and will say that the hut was taken over for special purposes and stored with certain Commando equipment. If the debris is carefully examined it is possible that a piece of a German Bickford fuse will be found and a Norwegian compass or the remains of it. Len Burt, who is in the know, will be sent down as a special investigator. I am told that the explosion has disintegrated the whole hut and that a few loose thunder rockets have been found. Steps have been taken to get some notice of the incident into the local press. 12 October Park of SOE came to see me about a rather peculiar message which Vallin, a dubious member of the Fighting French, wished to put over on the BBC.The message alludes to lines of communication “through Douglas or through Switzerland”. I asked Park if he could find out what these lines were and let us know. There has been a good deal of trouble about the Free French communicating code messages in broadcast. C. is rather inclined to think that we should have been looking after the security of this matter. We have in fact been writing to his organisation ever since November 1941 without getting any reply until fairly recently when Ivonne Kirkpatrick took the matter up with Claude Dansey. Dansey then agreed to Kirkpatrick writing at the end of May to the Free French suggesting that such broadcasts should go through Colonel Passy and SIS but no reply or final decision was reached until 29 June when Dansey wrote to Kirkpatrick saying that it had now been arranged that all messages for broadcasting from the Free French should go through Passy, who was in touch with the secret intelligence officer who dealt with such messages on the one hand, and with SOE on the other. Kirkpatrick was asked by Dansey to issue instructions to his representative in the BBC that such messages must arrive in future either from Passy, SIS or SOE.This arrangement was apparently satisfactory to Dansey at the time, but the latter, having seen a number of messages going through, is now telling his Chief that the Security Service are not doing their job. 13 October Major Field-Robinson came to see me about a German deserter called [XXXXXX]. This man who was a lorry driver deserted from France and according to his lorry got across the border into Spain. He was eventually brought back here via Gibraltar and has been interned as a PoW. Although his story is not very convincing on 13
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
paper, Field-Robinson feels on the whole that he is genuine. He is a young fellow of about thirty-three and purports to be a Social Democrat, hotly opposed to the Nazi regime. Field-Robinson wants to have him interviewed and give him our independent opinion. He also wishes us to take him over as a civilian prisoner.The man is apparently quite ready to be dropped back into Germany. Major Daubeny, who leaked about the Second Front to Audrey RichmondBrown, has been cashiered and given twelve months’ imprisonment. This is an extremely severe sentence which is to be widely promulgated. I gather from Egerton-Johnson, whom he consulted in his official capacity, that Daubeny is still quite unaware of the seriousness of his offence. Egerton-Johnson suggests that officers should be lectured on the dangers of careless talk and have it explained to them how a casual remark can develop into a serious leakage. An ISOS message discloses that Kameradschaftsdienst is definitely being used for Abwehr purposes, whether solely to communicate the receipt of a message or to convey instructions is not yet quite clear. It seems doubtful whether a service of this kind works on any uniform basis. Probably each agent has a special code. If this is so, it is questionable how far it is worthwhile to pursue the quote question; without knowing something of the context it would be impossible for anybody to crack these codes. 14 October A telegram has been received from the military attaché at Berne to the effect that a man called Hewson, a PoW captured in Crete, had turned up.After a rough time as a PoW he had been approached owing to his Irish parentage with a suggestion that he should work for the Germans. He had been taken to Brussels where he had been given a good deal of training. He was to use a special kind of match for his secret writing. This is interesting since similar matches were in possession of the Erasmus brothers. He was trained by a man called Ulrich Werner. He was to correspond through the PoW mail.This is the first positive evidence we have had of an agent using this method of communication although we suspected something of the kind for some time. Hewson is to follow the escape route from Switzerland about which the Germans are anxious to have details. He has instructions to send them a postcard from each stopping place. On arrival in Britain he is to collect military information. 15 October I saw Peter Loxley and handed him Gilbert Lennox’s memo on his interview with Philip Jordan. Loxley said that Anthony Eden had already been informed of the indiscretions of Ivan Maisky on the Second Front, that he was extremely annoyed and had been pressing to send a full-dress protest to Moscow. He had however been ill in bed for the last two days.The Foreign Office view is that Maisky is doing this on his own and not under instructions. 14
1942
Dick White attended a meeting at SIS with Norman Crockatt,Valentine Vivian and Claude Dansey to decide about Hewson, and it was agreed that he should be allowed to come through the escape route. He will be accompanied and will have definite instructions about the postcards he is to send off. These will be of a misleading kind. MI9 realise that they are running a considerable risk but they think it is worthwhile. 16 October I attended the RSLOs conference in the country. In addition to the RSLOs, a number of people from other sections were also present and, after giving a short account of the work of the various organisations in America and Canada, I summarised the position as I saw it today on the Home Front. I felt that the somewhat tentative conclusions reached when I spoke to the RSLOs about a year ago had been largely confirmed. It was our view then that the Germans, being confident that their propaganda would keep us out of the war and that the poor state of our armaments would make it impossible for us to fight even if we so desired, had not taken the trouble to establish in this country prior to the war any very deep-seated espionage organisation.We had up to the present caught sixty-six enemy agents in this country and thirty-three at points within the Empire. Of those who had arrived here, twelve were Norwegians, eight Dutch, eight Belgian, five Spanish, five German, six British, four Portuguese, three French, three Cuban, two Swedish, two Russian, two Yugoslav, two Polish, one Greek, one Czech, one Swiss and one Danish. Only a handful of these were resident here before the war. Only two of them had been instructed to get into touch with a pre-war resident: in one case with an agent of ours, and in the other with the moribund Duchesse de ChateauThierry. The Germans had great difficulty in paying their agents in Britain. Reliable information received from Special Sources did not indicate that they were getting any information from agents resident in Britain before the war. On the other hand, there were indications that two or three possibly notional agents were supplying information to the Germans which was of such poor quality that they could not last a minute if the data acquired by the German intelligence system about matters in this country was of any quality at all.The German document captured in April 1942 on the British Army showed that they had very little information about our formations since the outbreak of war and practically nothing since January 1941. It followed from the above that as far as we could see there was no extensive spy organisation here about which we did not know, and no organisation here of a pre-war resident kind that had probably not been sterilised. There might be a few more Warschauers but the probability was that if they did exist they were inactive. Did this justify our diverting our attention from the prewar resident population to the post-war arrivals? I felt that it would if we were only concerned with catching spies, and that it might if we were convinced that we were never again going to be faced with an invasion crisis.This led me to consider the Fifth Column position. The potential Fifth Column elements were: enemy 15
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
aliens, parties of the Right, dual nationals, Allied nations and the IRA. How far should we feel satisfied that the whole of this ground had been properly covered if we were faced with the worst possible invasion crisis – Russia out of the war and 150 German divisions on the western front, a jitter broadcast campaign by all the wireless masts on the continent and the dropping of Abt. II sabotage agents, resulting in the creation of a real spy psychosis? Would not certain people at this stage perhaps come out of their holes and did we know exactly who they would be? I then reviewed the situation as regards enemy aliens, which is the only Fifth Column body with which I am strictly concerned.At the beginning of the war we had a list of 750 suspects of whom only about 250 were finally arrested. The remainder had been allowed to trickle out. Some of those originally interned had been released without much interrogation. There followed the setting up of tribunals whose business had been conducted by individuals who had no knowledge of the subject, no standards and no background. Moreover, they had kept no records so their examination was therefore completely valueless. Next we had the general internment order and that back-pedalled half-way through. Regional tribunals were set up to clear up the matter.Their records were sketchy and they had not had much knowledge of the subject with which they had dealt.They had categorised enemy aliens under ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. Those under ‘A’ had been stool-pigeoned and examined to a considerable degree in the camps. Some of them however had been released ostensibly on grounds of ill-health and there was no record of who these people were.Those in Categories ‘B’ and ‘C’ had never been interrogated, nor had their cases been sifted except in a haphazard manner.We had a case running now which indicated that certain people whose cases had never been investigated were of a highly dangerous kind. The information about them had been obtained by agents and not by the ordinary routine methods of Home Office warrants, etcetera. Ought we perhaps to change our method of investigation? We knew the man who waved a swastika flag in the street, the man who waved it in his back garden and was seen by his neighbours, but did we know one who waved it inside his own house? I then asked RSLOs to let me have their views. Evidently they wanted to think the problem over before making any definite reply; Baxter however did say that three cases had come to his notice of the NSDAP who had got through all tribunals. He had only got on to them by accident. One had since been interned and the other two had been placed on the Invasion List. For some completely unexplained reason a British aeroplane has dropped an American agent in the middle of Dakar.This may be the work of Hutchison, the OSS man.American intelligence seems to be generally haywire. Last night forty maps of French Morocco fell out of the back of an American lorry. Only thirty-three of them have so far been recovered.To make matters worse the police have asked General de Gaulle’s headquarters whether they have lost any maps of French possessions.
16
1942
21 October Dick Brooman-White and Courtney Young came to consult me about Chinchilla Kobbe, the new Spanish Consul who is going to Vancouver. BJs disclose that he was flung out of the political bureau of the Falange on account of his Anglo-American sympathies.The Japanese were consequently very disturbed to find that he has now been sent to Vancouver. It had previously been arranged through Angel Alcazar de Velasco and the German Org that someone should be sent who would work as an Axis spy, in this very important post. In the course of his business Kobbe would be representing the Japanese and he has therefore made contact with the Japanese Embassy at Madrid. He was filled up with a good deal of propaganda as to how Spain’s interests were wrapped up with those of the Axis, and finally it seems that rather reluctantly he has agreed to work for the Germans and Japanese. BroomanWhite thinks that he would be easily turned round. He is going to New Orleans, Washington DC, New York and Montreal en route for Vancouver.The difficulty is that there is nobody very suitable to run him either in British Security Co-ordination or in Vancouver. I am asking Victor Rothschild to take the matter up in New York and Canada and if necessary Brooman-White might go out to Montreal to do the job, which he would undoubtedly handle extremely well. Having placed the man in touch with the police in Vancouver he could then retire. I took the Wednesday meeting.An important German agent, a Portuguese journalist named Manoel Mesquita dos Santos, left Lisbon at the end of April on a mission to Lourenco Marques. The ship in which he was recently returning to Lisbon put in at Freetown and he was arrested. He is being sent home for interrogation.An important German agent,Andres Pigrau Blay, a Paraguayan, has recently been detained at Trinidad on his way to South America. He is an agent of the Marine Section of the Abwehr. Blay was interrogated at Camp 020 and was not released from 020R until after the war. Mesquita also confessed at 020 and escaped the death penalty. The Germans are getting into the Portuguese ciphers which give them good information from Brazil. Buster Milmo spoke about the case of Pierre Morel. His interrogation at Camp 020 discloses that he received considerable sums of money from the Germans for services rendered, over a fairly long period. According to his own story, he originally got into touch with the Germans through one Constantini who was recruiting an air force after the French collapse which would be used against this country. He said that his purpose in joining this unit was to escape to England with his plane. Through Constantini he was approached by one Schmidt, of the German Embassy in Paris, who ultimately sent him to England in order that might join the Free French and fly one of our planes back to France. He also had other alternative assignments. He is one of those difficult cases where a man tells the truth, but not the whole truth, and we regard him with the gravest suspicion.
17
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Joe Stephenson talked about Donohoe who was closely associated with Willi Preetz. Quite unknown to us, he succeeded in reaching this country some months ago. Lately he has been employed in Mooney’s Bar, and has now been arrested and interrogated. He has told us a good deal about Preetz, and his story, though interesting in many respects, is not a very convincing one in so far as the part he played is concerned.There is little doubt that he knew what Preetz was doing.The Irish held him for a short time but he was released, probably owing to some dispute between the Garda Siochana and the Ministry of Defence. At that time he was a prisoner of the Garda. I am told that now all such prisoners come under the Ministry of Defence.The most interesting fact that emerged was that Preetz came here in the name of Mitchell on 28 September 1939. He arrived at Holyhead and aroused suspicion owing to the German visas on his passport. He was thoroughly searched but nothing incriminating was found on him. Clearly he lost his nerve, since he returned to Dublin by the next boat. There are some interesting ISBA messages showing that TRICYCLE and BALLOON are both still regarded as somewhat doubtful in Berlin, but have got away with it in so far as their master in Lisbon was concerned.TRICYCLE has been given $25,000 and a new ink known as “H”. He is due to arrive today or tomorrow. Sir Osbert Peake MP came to see me about a German called Luser. It is alleged that this man was naturalised at our request. I told Peake that I could not remember anything about it but I thought it had more probably been at the request of SIS or SOE. I would find out and let him know. It seems that Luser has told someone else that it cost Baron Hatvani £2,000 to obtain his release from internment. Peake also said a word about the Daubeny case. I told him that we regarded it as a very serious one, that the extent of leakage was appalling and that it was worse in high than in low quarters. He said that he hoped that did not include the Home Office. I told him of the suggestion by the Security Executive and that the Prime Minister should answer a question on the subject of leakage in the House of Commons. I attended the dinner given to Toby Pilcher by the office.The Director-General made an excellent speech and was followed by Toby, who gave an account of some of his experiences in the Security Service. He recalled the early days of the war at the Scrubs when Tin-Eye used to walk about with a large hiatus between his sweater and the top of his trousers, putting up minutes about “loathly Germans” and “scrofulous Bosches”. His best remark was connected with the case of a German who said he wished to remain interned. Tin-Eye wrote the following minute:“Since when has it been the privilege of a scrofulous Bosche to arrogate to himself the right to determine his own destiny?” After Toby, Theo Turner rose to protest against the unwarranted attack on “Tin-Eye’s No-Man’s Land”. He made an extremely amusing speech and everybody seemed to enjoy the evening. We have not got some further details about Operation BROCK. The Nissen hut was completely disintegrated and pieces were discovered as far as seventy yards away. Within half an hour two policemen, a Home Guard officer, a Home Guard private and a shepherd were on the scene. Since then the police have been busily investigating the case. Interest appeared to be flagging when the Home Guard officer 18
1942
advanced the theory that the top of one of the sticky bombs had corroded through and set light to all the rest. However, an expert from the War Office has now been down and parts of a fuse have been found. At least five policemen have been engaged for the last twenty-four hours digging among the ruins and suspicion now falls on a private in the Royal Engineers who asked for a lift that night at about midnight and who has made a statement which has been proved to be incorrect. The intelligence officer of the 25th Division has also been called in and is showing a lively interest. An announcement will go into the press on Friday and the Detective Superintendent of the Hampshire Constabulary is also going to arrange for the local press to run the case hereafter. Photographs are available. Burt came to see me as he felt that the discovery of the German Bickford fuse and the Norwegian compass was working the local police into quite a fever.They now feel that they have a serious saboteur in their midst so I told Len Burt to soothe them down a bit. It is possible that the Yugoslav who recruited THE SNARK in Madrid may be going to America on a forged Brazilian passport. In that event,THE SNARK and the head of the Yugoslav Intelligence have got a plan for having him eaten alive by rats in order to make him talk.The matter is under investigation. Sir Oswald Mosley has written a petition to the Prime Minister on behalf of the interned members of the British Union of Fascists.We have been asked to render a report. If we release any of these people it would seem to be a fundamental mistake since it would obviously raise misgivings in the minds of the Russians and the parties of the Left. It would also be undesirable from a purely security point of view. 23 October Valentine Vivian talked to me about the case of Humphreys which I had brought to his notice. Humphreys, who had been employed in GC&CS, knew all about MSS, etcetera, and was now at Gibraltar in connection with Operation TORCH. He had, I gather, caused a certain amount of trouble with GC&CS.Vivian was horrified about our information which showed him as a former associate of Arthur Albert Tester and Charles Addis, the [XXXXX] solicitor. He had not previously seen the correspondence which had been handled by [XXXXXXXXXXXX]. I said that if there was any prospect of Humphreys being blackmailed by Addis he was probably better placed at Gibraltar than in this country. 25 October Valentine Vivian telephoned about a report on Ireland which is being sent to the Foreign Minister for transmission to the Prime Minister. The latter had become alarmed by one of the telegrams by the Italian representative in Dublin which appeared to him to indicate leakage of information. In actual fact, the information that has been obtained by Berardis in Ireland is of little consequence. Much of it has been inaccurate. I told Vivian that I thought the report which had been put up 19
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
by Jane Sissmore gave away too much about our relations with Dan Bryan and SIS agents. I thought this could better be said verbally to the Foreign Secretary. John Marriott came to see me about [XXXXXXXXXXXX], the Brazilian military attaché. It had apparently been agreed that Toby Mathew should put over some deception in connection with Operation TORCH. He had in fact asked [XXXXXXXXX] to oblige him by sending a telegram to his government saying that all the information circulating in Fleet Street and diplomatic circles about Dakar as an objective had been put out intentionally by the British government in order to divert attention of the Germans from the real target which was France. [XXXXXXXXXX] had been somewhat worried about this and had gone round to see the Deputy Director of Military Intelligence (Operations). The latter was embarrassed and promised to look into it. He now wanted to know what reply he should give. He could not say that the information was true and if he said that the whole thing was unauthorised he might damage Mathew’s relations. Personally I think the approach, which was known to the Controller, was not a very wise one.The military attaché should not be asked to send a telegram to his government the contents of which are to be untrue. Apart from anything else the inference is somewhat insulting. It is tantamount to saying that anything that goes to the Brazilian government is bound to leak to the Germans, or that we know that the Brazilian ciphers are insecure.The information might have been passed in the form of a personal view by Toby Mathew based on something confidential that he had heard. 26 October Valentine Vivian telephoned to say that the Catalina investigation was satisfactory from the cipher point of view in so far as the Air Ministry and the Naval Intelligence Division were concerned. He had however since discovered that the GOC had telegraphed on the subject, and this angle was being investigated. It seems that [XXXXXX] has got documents from the Spanish police in Madrid which disclose SIS and SOE agents in Africa. These documents were being carried by a Frenchmen called Clamorgan who was washed up on the Spanish shore. ISOS shows that these documents are in the hands of the Germans. FATHER is now in London being coached up in his traffic in case he comes down in enemy territory and has to give himself up. If he can put over a good story the Germans may allow him to escape back to this country. 27 October Roger Hollis came to talk to me about the Communists.We appear at the moment to be extremely well informed about their activities. There is no doubt that they are trying to make hay while the sun shines, and serious efforts are being made to penetrate the armed forces.
20
1942
28 October I took the Wednesday meeting. An Einz I.Tech. Luft. agent, Oscar Sanchez Garcia, has been taken off at Trinidad on his way to South America. It has been decided to knock off Ernesto Simoes, who appears to be inactive. MI8 are asking us to let them have an officer at the London transit camp to deal with the security aspect of cases of escapees and evaders. I am proposing that Victor Caroe should take this on as a part-time job. Berlin has been calling Dublin all day. Some reply may be expected in the evening. I have suggested that the Dominions Office should instruct Sir John Maffey to inform Joe Walshe, so that if possible they can go in and close the set down. If this is done officially they will not be able to say that they never heard it operating.The matter is important in view of the impending TORCH operation. 29 October The Director-General discussed with Valentine Vivian, Dick White and myself the set-up in West Africa.Vivian said that SIS were really awaiting Gibbs’ report and it was agreed that the first joint meeting should take place next week.The DirectorGeneral wants Dick Brooman-White and Peter Ramsbotham to attend. This will make it difficult to discuss the controversial subject of policy, unless it is anticipated that they should come down in sailor suits and play with Kim Philby and [XXXXXXX] in the nursery while we have tea in the drawing-room. The new double-cross agent known as LIPSTICK is arriving. We contemplated the arrest of the wireless operator from the Gil Eannes. Having got the crew list from Newfoundland it was discovered that the wireless operator was a well-known ISOS character.The Foreign Office were ready to let us deal with him if the ship was still in port but were against his being removed on the high seas.The Admiralty is taking a different view. Gilbert Lennox tells me that a special enquiry is being made into the Catalina incident with particular reference to the documents found on Clamorgan. Although SOE sponsored Clamorgan’s departure, they do not appear to have censored his documents. Our view is that we cannot take responsibility for saying where documents of this kind should or should not be taken out of the country, unless we are fully acquainted with the activities of the agents of Allied governments. A repetition of the Catalina incident could probably be prevented if everyone carrying documents were made to empty their pockets before departure. Documents could be sealed in an envelope and placed in a leaded canister which could be jettisoned if the plane got into difficulties. I had a talk with Dick Brooman-White and Antony Blunt about tomorrow’s meeting with the Director of Military Intelligence on the subject of [XXXXXXXXXXX].They are rather afraid that the DMI may try and restrict our use of diplomatic personnel. Personally, I do not think so but in any case I shall resist it strongly. I put forward a suggestion that we might consider planting a bogus cipher
21
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
to be used between some South American attaché and his government.We would plant this cipher on the Germans and then use it for deception purposes.The difficulty is that we should have to take into our confidence not only someone here but someone in the foreign affairs department of the government concerned. If this got back to the Germans our deception would merely be an indication of what we did not intend to do. On the other hand if we use some cipher between ourselves and the Americans for the same purpose, the probability is that the contents of the messages would not be believed. The deception would in any case be difficult to maintain for long. 30 October Jasper Harker held a meeting about the facts that have to be published after the execution of Duncan Scott-Ford. With the concurrence of SIS details have been given about the part played by Weltzien’s show. It seemed a question whether this should be included or not. Later in the day I saw C and I pointed out that our only interest lay in the possibility of so much mud being thrown back about the attempt to penetrate Weltzien’s office that the value of our story about Duncan Scott-Ford might be diminished. It was, of course, for C to say how far he thought the publication of this information was going to react on his organisation. It was eventually decided that we should omit the passage about Weltzien but pass the facts to our minister at Lisbon for communication to Dr Salazar, after the execution had taken place. Representations had already been made to the Portuguese government about Weltzien’s activities but they had so far not seen fit to take any action. ISBA discloses that the Germans are wrangling a good deal about TRICYCLE’s expenses and future salary. C told me this afternoon that the Prime Minister was hopping mad about the Duke of Alba who had communicated a report to his government on our forthcoming operations. Personally, I think it is difficult to blame Alba. People will not realise that however benevolent and pro-British a neutral ambassador may appear, it is his duty to report to his government what he hears, sees and thinks.The fault lies with those who confide in him. He has an immense circle of friends in all walks of life and probably a good deal of information goes west over the second glass of port. We had a meeting this afternoon in the Director of Military Intelligence’s room which Brigadier Vale the DDMI(O), John Carlisle the MIl (L), John Bevan the Controller, T.A. Robertson and I were present. The purpose was to discuss [XXXXXXXXXX].We admitted quite frankly that although it had been agreed with the Controller that the information should be passed to [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] as a conscious agent, the technique was bad since it obviously placed the War Office in a false position. It was suggested that in future such information might be passed either as gossip or as a calculated indiscretion. In some instances MIl (L) might be a better channel. As Carlisle knew nothing about the impending operations it was decided that he should in the future be in the know. I then raised the question of 22
1942
leakage of information through high places, persons in the services and in civilian departments. I thought that for the purposes of deception, it would be well worthwhile acquiring a list of the principal contacts of the Spanish ambassador and military attaché, and possibly also those of the Turkish and Swedish Embassies.We could then select those who would have knowledge of operations.They could be approached on a personal basis and asked to notify the controller whenever they were likely to meet one of the ambassadors or military attachés selected. The Controller would give them the necessary guidance both on a defensive and offensive basis, e.g. they would know how to parry awkward questions and how to lead the conversation on to suitable lines of deception.This suggestion seemed to find favour. 31 October A Dr Wilson has been arrested in Dublin for assisting British prisoners of war to escape. Joe Walshe has complained to Sir John Maffey about the whole of the MI9 set-up, details of which appear to be known to the Eire government. Maffey is much concerned, and seems to be making rather heavy weather of the whole affair. He has suggested that the Secretary of State should go and see John Dulanty. Cecil Liddell and I agreed that it would be far better to say quite frankly to the Irish that as long as they remain neutral and detain our PoWs we shall of course try and get them out of internment.They should further be told that this is a rudeness which they must expect. I gather that several others have been arrested as well. Maffey is doing his best to get the proceedings damped down. It has been agreed with C. that all Axis wires emanating from Dublin shall be held up until after Operation TORCH has started.The attempts of Berlin to get in touch with Dublin were eventually successful and an en clair reply was sent: “Baldigst au anderem Wege.”This obviously means the diplomatic route. Probably the Germans have got wind of TORCH and are anxious to know about the movements of convoys from Northern Ireland. 1 November I read an extremely interesting report by two representatives of SIS who had managed to get away from Japan. One of them had been interrogated everyday from nine in the morning till lunch-time and two o’clock in the afternoon until sometimes eleven at night.After being held for eight months he was finally released. His accusers seemed so confident that he would get ten years’ imprisonment that they were more than usually forthcoming about their methods. They showed him a series of documents which they had intercepted and disclosed to him in some detail the activities of Dr Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy whom they had arrested in 1941. It is possible that they thought that C’s man had been associated with Sorge since he had resided in the same block of flats. C’s man did in fact know Sorge but had always regarded him as a hot Nazi. Sorge had been operating in Japan for ten 23
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
years and had a fairly widespread organisation and a wireless transmitter. He was assisted by a Yugoslav called Vukulevich.The organisation had been given away by the latter’s wife. She was disgruntled because her husband had deserted her for a Japanese woman.Vukulevich had been arrested and under great mental strain had given the whole party away. Dr Sorge was also arrested but would not have been broken down had it not been for the facts disclosed by Vukulevich. Sorge is apparently a German who was either born or had lived in Russia for many years. So much was he regarded as a hot Nazi by everyone that he succeeded in penetrating the German Embassy where he was persona grata and shown confidential documents. A man with whom he had relations there was summarily executed by the Germans in the grounds of the legation. Only once did Sorge give himself away: when he was tight he said that he could not stand the Nazis. His position was so strong however that nobody paid any attention to the remark. Sorge’s performance is all the more incredible when considered in the light of Japanese supervision of the alien population. Every alien has a dossier and is under constant supervision. The Japanese disclosed that Sorge had acquired a considerable amount of information regarding Singapore and Hong Kong which had proved very useful to them in their attack on these places.There is no doubt that the Russians are far better in the matter of espionage than any other country in the world. I am perfectly certain that they are well bedded down here and that we should be making more active investigations.They will be a great source of trouble to us when the war is over. 2 November I am told that Winston, in discussing TORCH with the President by cable, replied to the suggestion that the Americans should land first in North Africa and be followed by the British in order not to wound susceptibilities of the French, concluded his telegram by saying that though his experience in these matters was limited, he had never before associated seduction with rape. 4 November The Director-General has had a telegram from Bill Stephenson suggesting that Sir William Wiseman should supervise the work of the Security Service on Stephenson’s behalf.Wiseman is a director of Kuhn Loeb, and was over here a short time ago.This looks rather like another big business stunt by Stephenson. I dined with Philip Vickery and he told me the full story of Subhas Bhose. He was under a kind of preventive detention at Calcutta and got two Indian Sikh Communists to smuggle him out of his house and across the frontier to Kabul. In order to distract the attention of his guards he announced that he was going into retreat for meditation and fasting. He had himself screened off and grew a beard. The guards, not wishing to disturb his meditations, did not penetrate his inner chamber. One night the two Communists smuggled him out of the house. He had told the Communists that he wished to go and see Stalin but when he reached 24
1942
Kabul he decided, after being approached by the Germans, that he would prefer to see Hitler.The two Communists were rather bewildered by this but succumbed to the large sums of money which were forthcoming. When Germany attacked Russia they felt that things were going too far and reported themselves to Stalin. The OGPU took them in hand and told them to remain in the pay of the Germans. They were relieved of a good deal of money which they had already received. These intrigues were known to the Indian government who eventually persuaded the Afghans to expel them. One of them was arrested on crossing the frontier but the other one disappeared. It was at this stage that the Russians approached George Hill of SOE in Moscow and suggested that we and the Russians might run the agents together. In proof of their bona fides they supplied Hill with a great deal of interesting information about the German intentions at Kabul and their relations with Subhas Bhose. In return the Russians have persistently asked for information about subversive movements on their Chinese eastern frontier. They seem to have a pathetic belief in the British Intelligence Service, which in fact has no such information. This the Russians find it hard to believe. The Indian Intellience Bureau are now sending a representative to Moscow to collaborate with the OGPU.Vickery was wondering whether to send a high official or a man who really knew his stuff. I said that it might be better to send both.The Russians seemed to be rather bewildered and cannot quite understand why the Indian policeman is going to Moscow. 6 November Cyril Mills came to see me about LIPSTICK who is an extremely interesting character. He is a Republican who managed to fade into obscurity after the Civil War with the assistance of a friend who was in the Civil Guard. He was closely associated with the Catalan Movement and in particular with Cordunella. It was thought desirable that he should try and establish contact with Roca of the Catalan Movement in this country. It occurred to LIPSTICK that he might be able to obtain his exit permit more easily if he offered his services to the Germans, so he made tentative approaches to a German who was a member of the Barcelona Tennis Club, and through him eventually obtained an introduction to members of the German secret service. It was many months before he could get his exit permit and British visa. During this time he succeeded through the indiscretions of one Pashkis in learning a good deal about the German intelligence service. He has now arrived here with an interesting questionnaire, secret ink, etcetera. 10 November Ian Wilson came to talk to me about his visit to the United States. He, or rather Freckles Wren, had apparently a certain amount of trouble with the FBI who were not particularly helpful in the preparation of TRICYCLE. George McSwain in New York did his best and a man called Charles F. Lanman was sent up from Washington 25
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
DC for two days. During this time notional informants to cover the information which TRICYCLE had given were discussed and agreed upon. It was naturally assumed that McSwain and Lanman had the authority to go ahead on behalf of their department.When the whole scheme was submitted to the FBI a rude letter came back from J. Edgar Hoover complaining that the FBI found TRICYCLE’s instructions “for the most part extremely objectionable”. A reply has been sent to Hoover pointing out that the whole matter was arranged with members of his department. In order not to exacerbate the feelings of the FBI no mention was made of their very indifferent handling of the case, which was really responsible for the present difficulties. Ian Wilson did an extremely painstaking job and I am quite sure that had he not gone to the United States, TRICYCLE would never have got away with it in Lisbon. He seems to have satisfied Ludovico von Kasthoff and Berlin are now less skeptical then they were. He has received a highly interesting questionnaire and $25,000. 11 November TRICYCLE’s questionnaire deals mainly with naval and military matters. Unfortunately one of the DUFF was folded over on itself and only a few words of it can be read. It contains all the cover addresses and we hope to get over this by corresponding to one of the old addresses. GARBO has recently proposed sending one his agents to North Africa, so as to provide us there with a non-existent double-cross who we could use if necessary for deception purposes.The set-up would be that this agent would communicate back to GARBO in his secret ink for which he has no developer, and that the original reports should be forwarded to the Germans via this country. Buster Milmo gave an interesting account of the case of Gabriel Pry, a Belgian who fought at the beginning of the war in the Belgian forces. After the Armistice he went back to his insurance company, Constantin, and later he went for his company to Hamburg, where he met a Dr Franke, a friend of Dr Dey.According to his own account, he deliberately worked up a friendship with Franke and after three months in Hamburg he returned to his business in Brussels, but as it was not functioning well he offered his services to the Germans as a means of escape. He was given a mission to the Belgian Congo to report on the presence of American troops, especially air force personnel and airfields. He was then to be in touch with a Mrs Dings, the mistress of a Belgian known to the Belgian authorities here as one who had been trying to penetrate escape routes on behalf of the Germans. He was introduced by Dings to a man called Gilson, as a representative of the British Secret Service going to Lisbon. Gilson was induced to hand him a number of incriminating documents. He was then told by Dings to get the names and addresses of people on the escape route. He looks bad, because (a) he was in Hamburg for three months where his career as an secret service agent probably began (b) he consented to be an agent and never warned Gilson (c) he had a book with markings which suggested that the book was the basis of some code (d) the plain language code he 26
1942
was to use in the Belgian Congo was singularly inadequate for the purpose of reporting on the lines laid down by the German intelligence service. Cases of this sort present us with considerable difficulties. A somewhat similar one is that of Pierre Morel who has been sent here to enlist in the British Secret Service by joining the RAF and to fly a plane back. He says that he worked in the German secret service for six months but seems quite unable to give us any information of real value. His salary was raised from 1,700 francs per month to 2,000 and then to 3,000. One imagines therefore that the Germans must have been satisfied with his work. He was told to make a tour of aerodromes in order that he could see which one would be the most suitable on which to land the British plane but he only visited one. If he had really been out to help the Allies he might have taken the opportunity of making a detailed inspection of a large number.There are also other unsatisfactory points in this case.The difficulty is that Morel could be a German agent and yet not be forced to depart from the truth in any of the detailed information he gives under interrogation. Morel remained at Camp 020, and then 020R, until the end of the war. Pry was deported to Belgium in February 1945. 12 November The Duke of Alba has addressed a note to the Foreign Office on behalf of his government with a tentative and veiled offer of mediation. He has received a pretty stiff reply from Anthony Eden making it clear that we intend to fight this war to the finish. FATHER is in the process of applying for a transfer to high altitude flying. BALLOON has received an interesting questionnaire. In this the Germans have at least replied to his proposal that he should visit Lisbon. They say that they will require at least four weeks notice of any such message and ask him to explain his plan more fully. Since he has already given full details making it clear that the next move is with the Germans and since it has taken them seven weeks to think out this extremely unsatisfactory reply, it looks as if Berlin has instructed Lisbon to stall BALLOON off, at any rate for the time being. 14 November I had a talk with John Bingham of Max Knight’s section on the Rogeiro de Menezes case. He has been in personal touch with de Menezes for some time. He doubts whether he is doing very much.Women appear to be his main preoccupation. He is extremely cautious and suspicious. Teresa Clay tells me that Marita had challenged “Jack” about his name. She asked him if he was called Robert.“Jack” merely went on eating and said “Yes”. He is inclined to think that Marita does not really believe that this is his name.We do not know at present what led Marita to ask this question. I have asked for a short
27
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
note on the Marita case which I may want at any future discussion on Fifth Column. Roger Fulford talked to me about the Kenneth de Courcy case. He says that there have been further indiscretions, and that there is evidence that de Courcy has recorded a great deal in his confidential diary. Fulford thinks that his premises should be searched and the diary confiscated. De Courcy has a long story about Rudolf Hess, which he obtained from Pierse Loftus MP, who obtained it from his son who was one of the guards at Hess’s place of internment.The trouble is that all this information is handled in the first instance by the Deputy Director-General and not the Assistant Director, F Division. 16 November Colonel Edgworth-Johnstone, of the Public Relations department at the War Office, rang me about Hillson, who has considerable appeasement background and wrote a book on Germany in 1937, and wants to go out to West Africa as a newspaper correspondent for the Daily Sketch. At a time when he was particularly hard up, in March 1937, he received a payment of 500 marks from the German Embassy, according to Klop. He seemed to us therefore not altogether suitable for journalistic work in West Africa where he would be endeavouring to collect information from the armed forces. I do not think that he is a spy, but his heart was not in the right place in 1937. At the moment he is on the Inland Revenue Stop List. Edgworth-Johnstone said he would report this to his chief who was going to interview the editor of the paper. Last week the Director-General,T.A. Robertson, Jim Hale and Dick BroomanWhite had dinner with PEPPERMINT ending at about 1.30am.The idea was to give PEPPERMINT confidence and to make him feel that he was doing a good job of work.The evening seems to have been an unqualified success. 17 November Cyril Mills talked to me about a plan he had on foot for getting money for GARBO. Apparently some fruit merchant here who is known to Munoz, the Spanish assistant military attaché, wishes to transfer money from this country to Spain. It is suggested therefore that this money should be handed over to GARBO and that the German secret service should credit the fruit merchant with pesetas. Quite a large sum of money is likely to be involved.This is known as Plan DREAM. Ernesto Simoes has been knocked off. According to plan, a search was made in his rooms and revealed certain chemicals for the development of secret ink and an innocent letter on which he was probably preparing to write in secret writing. He was imprisoned with our informant EGGS in order that the latter might attempt to get him into the proper frame of mind for making a confession. Simoes seemed to be singularly indifferent as regards his fate.When EGGS endeavoured to bring home to him the seriousness of his position, he merely said “Something the police and 28
1942
something the military,” turned over and went to sleep. In the morning he said that he was hungry and wanted a good breakfast. He then proceeded to make a complete confession. Victor Rothschild has telegraphed about Waldemar von Janowsky, the German spy who has arrived in Canada.This man had been told to carry out reconnaissance in Canada with a view to assisting six saboteurs who were to land in 1943. He has a 40 watt set and is scheduled to come up on the air about 1 December. He landed in civilian clothes at 2am on 9 November, near New Carlisle, Quebec. He is an Einz Marine agent, although he is in fact a lieutenant in the German army. He has three cover addresses. On landing he buried his naval lieutenant’s uniform, which he later stated he was to wear when sending messages. He was formerly in the Afrika Korps with General Rommel and then in Brussels recruiting agents for Abteilungs I and 2. He carried identity documents taken from Canadian prisoners at Dieppe, altered to the name under which he was to live in Canada. He had previously lived in Canada from 1930 to 1933 and marred a Canadian woman who is still living in Toronto. He carried $1,000 in US gold pieces and $5,000 in Canadian notes. He had a code within his code which would indicate to the Germans if he was under control. He was to introduce three ‘U’s into the fifth group of a message. He is now beginning to talk. In the afternoon I saw Duff Cooper in order to explain to him that I had taken his name in vain on Sunday night by getting Victor Rothschild to convey a message from him to Malcolm MacDonald about the publicity in the Waldemar Janowsky case. He was quite satisfied that this was the right course. Walenti, the Polish spy who was rounded up by the Germans, has been allowed by them to escape and to return to this country.We are not yet at all convinced as to his bona fides. He says, and this is confirmed from other sources, that the Germans have been making overtures to the Poles and that his escape was connived at as a gesture to the Polish authorities in this country.This seems rather hard to believe. 18 November I took the Wednesday meeting and had a discussion about searching at the RVPS in light of the Ernesto Simoes case. It is clear that owing to the use of DUFF and of secret ink in the form of small pieces of cotton wool dipped in some solution, nothing but a very thorough and complete search can be of the slightest use. DUFF is now concealed on passports, ties, bits of paper, fingernails, cigarette cases, etcetera, and bits of cotton wool are sewn into the clothing or stuck into the ear. In another case they were carried in a shoe-tree. It would be possible to neutralise DUFF by the process of disinfecting everyone’s clothes, but it would not be possible to take away the clothes of every man entering the RVPS and put him into something which would immediately be dubbed as prison dress. Equally it would not be possible to select certain individuals for treatment of this kind without incurring endless complaints from Allied governments.The problem is a very difficult one and will need further discussion. 29
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Felix Cowgill said that a number of the members of the Armistice Commission had been captured in North Africa.Three Germans of some importance were on their way to this country, two from the Abwehr and one from the Gestapo. It appears from ISOS sources that someone in the Portuguese Foreign Office is selling what purport to be decodes of Portuguese official telegrams.These bear little or no relation to the actual telegrams from the countries concerned.The whole thing is clearly a racket. 20 November A careful analysis has been made of the met reports and after a meeting with Dr George McVittie, the meteorological expert at GC&CS, a definite conclusion is that the information in ZODIAC’s traffic can be attributed to TATE and DRAGONFLY. The salient point is that reports from their areas have never appeared at a date when they did not transmit. The other discrepancies can be accounted for by cryptographic errors and computations and mistakes in converting readings from one scale to another. It now remains to analyse the 1941 reports which appear to be coming from other areas in the north of England. I had a look at the House case. House has a curious background and was at one time secretary to the Deutsche Verein in Southampton which must have brought him into touch with Scharff. He visited Germany some years ago and also had a tour in the Middle East.This all seems rather extraordinary, since he is the son of a carpenter but has since married a rich wife. He has come to notice recently owing to the purchase of certain wireless equipment which according to Malcolm Frost can only be used for purposes of transmitting. When in Germany he appears to have been the guest of Colonel Lehr. He was also known to the Baroness van der Osten.The case does now seem to be making much progress and I am inclined to think that our best course will be to interview House and ask him the purpose for which he required the wireless equipment. Scharff was a known Abwehr officer in Antwerp who had visited Mathilde Krafft in England before the war. Peter Loxley sent over a Cabinet paper about Rudolf Hess.When he saw the Duke of Hamilton on 11 May 1941 he said he was on a mission of humanity and that the Führer did not want to destroy England, he only wanted to stop fighting. He suggested that his presence showed his sincerity and the German willingness for peace. His main theme was that the Führer was convinced that Germany would win sooner or later, that he (Hess) wanted to stop unnecessary slaughter. He asked Hamilton to get together the leading members of his party to take over things with a view to making peace proposals. He then stated that he could tell him what the Führer’s peace proposals would be. Ivonne Kirkpatrick saw Hess on 13, 14 and 15 May. Hess said that he had come without the knowledge of the Führer to convince responsible persons that since England could not win, the wisest course was to make peace at once. He gave his word of honour that the Führer has never entertained 30
1942
any designs against the British Empire, nor has he ever aspired to world domination. The Führer would sincerely regret the collapse of the British Empire. The solution which Hess put forward was: (1) that Germany should be given a free hand in Europe; (2) that England should have a free hand in the British Empire, except that the ex-German colonies should be returned to Germany; (3) that Russia should be included in Asia, but that Germany had certain demands to make on Russia which would have to be satisfied either by negotiation or as the result of war.There was however no truth in the rumours that the Führer contemplated an early attack on Russia; (4) that Germany could not leave the Iraqis in the lurch. They had fought for Germany and Iraq would therefore have to be evacuated; (5) the peace agreement would have to contain a provision for the reciprocal indemnification of British and German nations whose property has been expropriated as the result of war, and (6) that the proposal could only be considered on the understanding that it was negotiated by Germany with a British government other than the present British government. Mr Churchill, who had planned war since 1936, and his colleagues who had lent themselves to his war policy, were not persons with whom the Führer would negotiate. Hess concluded by emphasising that the Führer really wanted a permanent understanding with Great Britain on a basis which preserved the British Empire intact. His own flight was intended to give Great Britain a chance of opening conversations without loss of prestige. If this chance were to be rejected it would be the Führer’s duty to destroy Great Britain utterly and to keep the country after the war in a state of permanent subjugation. The conclusions drawn by others interviewing Hess were (a) that he was under the impression that he was engaged on a mission that had a considerable prospect of success (b) that he came on his own initiative (c) that he believed there was a strong opposition party in this country which wanted to end the war and that he could get into contact with it (d) that Hess’s plan was an attempt to reproduce Hitler’s frame of mind as expressed in many conversations, and (e) that Hess had contemplated carrying out his mission even since the fall of France. A medical report on Hess is that he is a man of good intelligence, but of poor character and personality. He had certainly been over-anxious and neurotic earlier in life. Whilst under observation here he had shown definite delusions and for more than half his time had been unable to control them and had in fact been suffering from a paranoid psychosis.This unsoundness of mind might very well be hidden if he had to take the lead in a party once more but his personal relationships and his judgment would however be destroyed by it.The fluctuations in the severity of his symptoms would recur and there was a perpetual risk of another suicidal attempt without much warning. For that reason he must be under constant psychiatric and nursing supervision. Hess has gone through periods of deep depression and has already made one attempt at suicide. He has at times refused to go out of doors. He has been suspicious about his guards and about poisoning in his food. BALLOON has received a payment of £725 through the overseas branch of the Midland Bank.This payment is said to be by order of Mr Arthur Carvalho. If this should be Arthur Carvalho, it appears to be the same channel of payment as has 31
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
been used for CARELESS, which indicates a link between the Abwehrstellen in Madrid and Lisbon. 2 December The Abwehr receives operational information on the situation in the Tunis area from Spanish Morocco and from Zuara. The latter place is becoming of great importance as a collecting centre for information.The Abwehr is interested in the work of a German wireless amateur named Felix Cremers who is employed by Siemens, and at present working at their Paris branch. During the working of Plan AMATEUR B1(a) several times got in touch with Cremers and it is of interest to note that the suspicions they then formed that these German amateurs were also in touch with the Abwehr and doing work on their behalf have been confirmed. FATHER has been given a questionnaire on gas.This is of interest in the light of a report from a reliable SIS source that if really up against it the Germans intend to use gas and bacteria. 4 December Buster Milmo and Len Burt have just returned with Charles Boyd who has been sent to 020.They have together handled the case extremely well, having extracted a confession shortly after crossing the border. Boyd is a peculiar type who would not respond to hard treatment. His immediate reaction would be to make himself a martyr. Milmo and Blunt have already done much to show him that the Germans have let him down. Boyd is an engineer who went in 1939 to the United States. On his way back he was captured by an armed raider and deposited on the French coast. He was interned subsequently at St Denis, near Paris, and became very disgusted with the British inmates. The head of the camp committee posted up a notice urging collaboration and moreover threatened those who wished to escape with denouncement to the authorities. This had disgusted Boyd to such an extent that he was ready to fall in with the plans of the Abwehr when they suggested he should work for them. He declined to accept any money and was to be employed in South Africa, but as an escaped internee he was sent to this country. He has since been trying to get a passage. He had two DUFFs on his wristwatch which related to the wireless set that he was to construct. He carried two duplicates on a slide-rule which had been taken from him by the Spanish authorities.There seems a reasonable chance of turning him round. 7 December Mrs RAINBOW’s brother is in a prisoner of war camp in Germany, and in the course of the past fortnight he has written no less than four times to his sister requesting the despatch of food and clothing.This seems rather unusual. 32
1942
DRAGONFLY is still discussing with the Germans how they should pay him. There are indications that he may be going to receive his money through TATE. TRICYCLE’s cover addresses have been received. He will therefore resume transmitting information. The O’Neill case is proving interesting. O’Neill was captured by a raider and interned. He eventually landed up in a camp for Irishmen where conditions were particularly bad. He was approached and questioned by our old friend Jupp Hoven, a German who before the war was active in Ireland. Hoven used the name of Rinhardt and, in order to make his escape, O’Neill agreed to work for the Germans.After instructing him in various means of communication they gave him work in a firm in Germany which had a sub-contract in France.While in France he was allowed to escape.This was to be his cover story. He was to go to Donegal and to transmit from there weather reports, and reports about the armed forces in Northern Ireland. He was to construct his own transmitter. Before departure he was to be given £1,000 and crystals for his wireless set. Unfortunately, however, he elected to cross the Franco-Spanish frontier before he had received either the money or the crystals. His excuse was that the man failed to keep the rendezvous. He notified the Germans of what he had done before leaving. In Spain he got into a certain amount of trouble and was eventually repatriated.We have considered the possibility of suing him but in all the circumstances we are inclined to turn down the proposition. 7 December I have read an interesting memo on the case of Oliver Green, the Soviet 4th Department agent. He states that certain of his subordinates have been communicating with Moscow in high-speed morse. He has refused to give their names or the location of their stations. 9 December I took the Wednesday meeting. Information received by the Abwehr in Lisbon regarding shipping, etcetera, seems to be fairly accurate.The Germans say they are getting it from the British consulate. Measures are under discussion as to the best way of closing up this serious leakage. The case of Charles Boyd has been developing and he is now quite ready to work for us.We are asking South Africa if they would be prepared to accept. Boyd is the first agent captured who appears to have undertaken his mission solely from ideological conviction. After an interval of several weeks, mention has again been made of FRITZCHEN. He is to be made familiar with conditions in the Welsh mountains and with communications from that area to London. Gastao de Freitas, the wireless operator on board the Gil Eannias, after being somewhat stubborn, has now confessed. He was employed for some time by the 33
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Portuguese Marconi Company in Lisbon. Having got into trouble with the company he decided to go to sea as a radio operator. Before he sailed he was approached by one Fernando Rodriguez, who invited him to see a German named Schmidt who offered him 1500 escudos a month in return for an undertaking that he would send wireless messages relating to his observations when at sea. He was subsequently instructed in a code. He admitted having sent two messages on his second voyage, one of which related to ships in the harbour of St Johns.This information tallies with what we knew from ISOS. Herbert Hart described steps taken to deal with the alleged leakage from Lisbon consultate. It seemed that there was no valid reason for the information reflected on ISOS relating to convoys being sent to Lisbon. We had to conclude therefore that it went by clandestine means, and that the leakage was probably taking place in this country or possibly at Gibraltar. Guy McCaw came in to say that the Duke of Buccleuch was involved with Lonsdale Bryans in some tentative approach from the Germans with peace proposals. 11 December I had a talk with Dick Brooman-White and Dick White about the Rogeiro de Menezes case. It is proposed to liquidate it by enlisting the co-operation of the Portuguese ambassador. DUCK has got an opportunity of getting the Spanish BJ material over the weekend.A suitable cover story has been worked out in case anything untoward happens. I told Peter Loxley about the DUCK proposal, and that we were in consequence arranging that no telegrams should be delivered to the embassy over the weekend. He said he was glad to know about this since he would see that the Foreign Office keep quiet.There was always a possibility that somebody unacquainted with what was going on might summon the ambassador to London. This would mean a return of the staff and possibly the despatch of telegrams. 12 December Dick White, T.A. Robertson, John Marriott, Christopher Harmer and I discussed the “Walenti” case. “Walenti” has instructions from the Germans to try and start something in the nature of a Fifth Column among the population. His whole story has been carefully examined and in the main we believe it to be true, although we think that he is trying to cover up certain of his disclosures to the Germans which he probably made under duress. He also appears to have been a little over-sanguine about the Germans’ trust in him after he was released.This led him to make contact with various Poles connected with their escape organisation and it may well be that they have been compromised. It was decided to let “Walenti” operate a transmitter under close supervision. We have had information that FRITZCHEN has gone to Paris.There is some indication that he is going to land in the Cambrian Hills. We are getting out the 34
1942
bloodhounds which we purchased at considerable expense at the beginning of the war and have never used. 16 December FRITZCHEN arrived at 1am. His plane started at Le Bourget, went up the coast of Holland, across the North Sea, to Lincolnshire and after making two circles came down to a height of about three thousand feet. Stanford, who was with Fighter Command, pin-pointed the descent at Ely.The Night Duty Officer got through to the RSLO, but before the latter could get to the police, they had received a call from FRITZCHEN, who had dashed into the nearest farmhouse, saying he was a British airman and wanted to phone. He told the police that he had some highly interesting information to give. 17 December I went to see Sir Alexander Maxwell about the case of FRITZCHEN whose identity has been established as Eddie Chapman. Enquiry shows that he has a long criminal record. He is an experienced safe-breaker and blackmailer.There were three amusing coincidences in this case. Firstly, a police officer who brought him to London recognised him as a fellow soldier in the Coldstream Guards who was discharged in 1933; secondly, Edwards of B5 had twice been concerned in Chapman’s prosecution. It was for this reason that Chapman was intending to reside within a hundred yards of one of our other agents. He was brought with him sabotage material, £500 and a wireless set. His documents are not good. We are proposing to turn him round and in the meantime we want the authority if necessary to hold him. It was agreed that I should sign an Arrival from Enemy Territory Order, and that in the meantime we should try and persuade him that it was in his own interests to reside quietly at some place which we would provide. He is at present being questioned at Camp 020. Later on I went and gave the story to Duff Cooper who was much interested. I had a discussion with Cecil Liddell, Cyril Harvey, Dick White and T.A. Robertson about O’Neill. The latter has given us an interesting account of his internment. He was captured by an armed raider in the early days of the war and put into an Irish camp. His treatment there, contrary to expectation, was definitely bad. He was eventually visited by our old friend Jupp Hoven and in order to escape agreed to work for the Germans.We are making no attempt to hold him and are allowing him to return to Eire. 19 December DUCK has been successful in getting the Spanish tape: a very good piece of work which should keep GC&CS going for about six months.
35
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
21 December Eddie Chapman has got through to the Germans, who are convinced that he personally is operating the key. 28 December Frank Foley came to see me about the MULLET case. He is very anxious to get over a man called Fanto, who is an associate of Dr Koessler. Fanto will be fed as a double-cross agent. The idea is to build up Koessler, as far as possible, with Masters. Foley feels confident about the reliability of Fanto. If he comes here we shall have to give him a considerable measure of liberty, but this is perhaps a risk worth taking. 29 December I attended a meeting with Sir Alexander Cadogan and others about the Rogeiro de Menezes case.The possibility of enlisting the assistance of Montero, the Portuguese ambassador, in the liquidation of Rogeiro de Menezes was discussed. The present position is that de Menezes writes to his sister with an enclosure to a man named Mendez. The enclosure contains secret writing. The letter goes through the bag. We have succeeded in bringing up the writing which under the combination of ammonia fumes and ultra-violet ray is visible, but then fades out.While subjected to this treatment it can be photographed. We do not yet know the nature of the ink. The interest of the case lies in the fact that de Menezes is a Sicherheitsdienst agent operating on British territory, and this is contrary to normal procedure. Although his information is of low grade, he is undoubtedly in a position to do us considerable harm. If we warn the ambassador he may well decide to send de Menezes home. On the other hand, if he could be induced to remove his diplomatic privilege, we could probably try him under the Treachery Act, but to do this it would be necessary to produce a copy of the letter which may cast suspicion on our activities. If we can get a really good piece of information the Foreign Office will consider making the approach to the ambassador.
36
1943
4 January Cecil Liddell established touch with a man called Peter Corcoran, who was formerly employed by the Garda Siochana. This man is now employed in a government office over here. He had had passing through his hands certain reports about our military dispositions in Northern Ireland. This he had obtained in the Ministry of Defence. While we do not mind Dan Bryan having this information, apart from the general impropriety of the action, we are rather worried about its passing through a number of different offices in Eire.There is very little to be done about it. If at a later date we have any trouble with the Ministry of Defence we can give them a hint that we know what has been going on in Northern Ireland. 5 January T.A. Robertson and J.C. Masterman came to see me about the Walenti case.They think that before proceeding the Wireless Board should be consulted as to whether we could co-operate with the Poles on a case of this kind. Peter Loxley rang me up about five Polish agents who have been condemned to death. He wanted to know whether we had anybody we could possibly exchange. I said that apart from the principle involved, which would be a matter of serious discussion, I did not think we had anybody who would not be able to give away a good deal of information if he were sent back to Germany. 6 January Admiral Wilhelm Canaris has had conversations with Juan Vigon and General Francisco Jordana.Vigon has made it clear that it is not possible for Spain to enter the war on either side. He did not believe that the Allies intended to attack Spain or Spanish Morocco. He pointed out, however, that an attack on Spanish territory would be rendered less likely if the army, which was already mobilised, was equipped with modern arms and weapons. It would be in Germany’s interest to provide such weapons. He said that in order to give the Allies no pretext for making
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
any attacks on Spanish territory, acts of sabotage carried out from Spain or Spanish territory must cease.A resumption of sabotage activities against Gibraltar was agreed to with certain reservations, and the continued use of posts on Spanish territory for observation of shipping in the Straits was also agreed to, provided that the greater part of the personnel employed at these posts were Spanish nationals. Vigon told Canaris that Jordana’s discussions with Dr Salazar had resulted in a mutual talk on the defence of neutrality and on political and economic support. Admiral Canaris had discussions with Jordana who took an identical line to that of Vigon. One of the results of this exchange of views was that Canaris made urgent representations to Berlin that the sabotage that is being undertaken from Spanish Morocco should cease, as it is placing difficulties in the way of Spanish acquiescence in German activities. The German agent Gabriel Pry has now confessed that he had a dual mission. In addition to carrying out espionage in the Congo, it was also intended that he should enable the Germans to intercept secret correspondence passing between loyal Belgians in Belgium and Belgian government officials both in London and in the Congo. Thus it was not only intended that he should deliver the letters entrusted to him by Gilson to the persons to whom they were addressed, including the Belgian Colonial Minister in London, but that he should use his best endeavours to see that he was entrusted with the replies and go with them to Lisbon where he was to hand them over to his German masters. 7 January Plans are going on for the national sabotaging of de Havilland’s by ZIGZAG. Camouflage is to be used. Fanto, of the MULLET case, has put up a plan to give him the necessary cover for visiting this country and we have indicated that we are prepared to accept him. DRAGONFLY is still having trouble about his money. 8 January The Director-General told me that after a conversation with Tin-Eye Stephens he thought Charles Boyd was unsuitable for sending to South Africa. I said this case was one on which I should not be prepared to accept Tin-Eye’s advice. Boyd was a type whom he would never really understand. I still thought that there were considerable advantages in sending Boyd to South Africa. I thought that before making up his mind the Director-General should see J.C. Masterman, Len Burt and Buster Milmo. I spoke to Anthony Blunt about the Turkish Embassy. I thought it was extremely important that we should do our best to get an agent in, owing to two or three important cases of leakage.
38
1943
9 January I had a talk with Walter Bell about a memo which Ian Wilson had prepared on the TRICYCLE case. It was fairly critical of the FBI.While I was all in favour of its being shown to Arthur Thurston I thought it undesirable that it should go in writing to the FBI. It would be better to leave it to Thurston to put it over in his own way. The real trouble is that the FBI objectives in running doube-cross agents are somewhat different from our own. The only use they appear to see in a double-cross agent is that he leads them to another whose arrest can be effected. 12 January Hughes rang me up about a complaint he had received from one of the chief constables that he had not been put into the picture about ZIGZAG.The question was whether Hughes should speak to Special Branch officers who must have heard about the case from their colleagues.The purpose would be to make an appeal to them to keep their mouths shut.The trouble is that if Hughes speaks to the Special Branch officers they would report to the chief constable, who complains that he has not been told. It is of course always open to him to go to the meeting of Special Branch officers but chief constables do not generally make a practice of this. 13 January Hughes talked to me about the chief constables in his area being informed about ZIGZAG. Unfortunately, they had been talking among themselves, and those who had not been told were up in arms. I saw that I would see no reason for telling any chief constable except those immediately concerned. 17 January I have had an interesting report from Cyril Mills about the Waldemar Janowsky case, otherwise known as WATCHDOG. He has evidently been through considerable difficulties in getting the case on its feet.The RCMP appear to be totally unfitted to deal with a matter of this kind. Had Cyril Mills not been there the case would have been blown three or four times over. He seems to be using the utmost tact and I feel sure will make good. According to a Japanese BJ, Dr Richard Sorge’s spy-ring consisted of 246 members, nine of whom are Soviet citizens. 18 January Waldemar Janowsky has given quite an interesting story about the proposed invasion of this country in 1940. He himself was at the time with the Brandenburg Regiment waiting to come over. It was intended that the Brandenburg Regiment,
39
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
followed by other troops, should land at night on the flat beaches west of Folkestone. They had been issued with British uniforms captured at Dunkirk. Janowsky’s section was to proceed on motor-bicycles to Dover and capture the dock. Nazi flags were to be hoisted on the docks as a sign to the Luftwaffe to stop bombing.The invasion plans were definitely cancelled at the end of October 1940. According to Janowsky, Dr Rantzau’s stock is very low. Canaris has been blamed for Germany being misinformed about Russia. 19 January Jim Hale talked about the Wilson case.Wilson was formerly a member of Laurence Grand’s organisation. He was interned because he went bad and committed indiscretions relating to the SOE set-up in Rumania. He had brought an action for wrongful imprisonment. Judgment was given against him and the judge refused to listen to details about SOE, MI5, etcetera. Mr Justice Humphries commented quite severely on the action of the Home Office in holding up Wilson’s petition to the Lord Chief Justice and accepted the Home Office’s apology. He said that any citizen in this country, whether he be alien, enemy alien or British, had the right to communicate with the court. It is feared that this remark may lead to a certain amount of trouble. Field Marshal Smuts has refused to have Charles Boyd, whom we wished to send to him as a double agent. Tommy Harris and J.C. Masterman came to see me about GARBO. GARBO was asked to send some of his ink to CARELESS.The latter is an extremely indiscreet and truculent fellow, who is in detention and has refused to write to the Germans unless he is released. The mistake has been to allow GARBO to make contact. If CARELESS does not write, the Germans may well think that GARBO has given him away. I have spoke to Tin-Eye Stephens and asked him to have another go at CARELESS. He tells me that he has tried every sort of interrogation but that CARELESS is adamant. 20 January Buster Milmo reported at the Wednesday meeting that there had been a large influx at Camp 020. The main increase is in spies going to South America. He mentioned the case of Johannes de Graaf, a Belgian who had come down an escape route and had been temporarily employed at the British Embassy in Madrid. De Graaf admitted that he had been in contact with the Abwehr but said that he had done so in order to escape. He was carrying pyramidon and tooth-picks. He was caught through a clever link-up on the information index at the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, which showed that he had been put on the escape route by someone known already to be working for the Abwehr. He is now beginning to come clean. He was highly trained both in espionage and sabotage and appears to have corresponded with German occupied territory after his arrival in Madrid. 40
1943
Another interesting case is that of the SS Reidar. SOE appear to have got in touch with three members of the crew at Lerwick on the false grounds that they were SOE agents. It now seems fairly clear that one or all of them are German agents. Dick White is firmly convinced that MAX, alleged to be a German agent operating in south Russia, is in reality a Russian double agent. The Sofia–Meldekopf traffic appears to work for the Bulgarian police as well as for the Abwehr.The name of Samoiloff, who appears on the traffic as a Russian traitor, was given to the Russians, who do not appear to take much interest.There are no inward messages to Sofia picked up by the Radio Security Service and the material covers a wide area from Leningrad to the Caucasus. Everything seems to point to MAX being an imaginary agent controlled by the Russians. We had a joint meeting with SIS today in London.The case of one Wurmann, an Abwehr agent captured in North Africa was discussed. It was agreed that we should house him, look after him and give him a certain measure of liberty. He would be regarded as a useful reference book on Abwehr matters. Authorised persons would be allowed to have direct access to him. Other matters discussed were the Chinchilla Kobbe case, Herbert Hart’s suggestion for the improvement of our relations with Censorship, the Kameradschaftdienst and the situation in America. 22 January Waldemar Janowsky has got through to the Germans from Canada. I had a meeting with Dick White, Tin-Eye Stephens, T.A. Robertson and Tommy Harris about CARELESS and GARBO. CARELESS is still adamant about writing to the Germans. We decided therefore to send him to Huntercombe, and to offer no excuse to the Germans for the cessation of correspondence. GARBO is very worried but personally I think we shall get away with it. 23 January The report from the Polish Military Mission about BRUTUS is favourable. Meanwhile contact has been established in a new place and the wireless side of the case is working satisfactorily. TRICYCLE is getting a little restless and has put up various possible plans for his getting abroad to recover direct personal contact with the German secret service. DRAGONFLY has not yet been paid and is therefore still silent. It seems however that the Germans are trying to make the necessary arrangements. Cyril Mills telegraphed that contact had been made by WATCHDOG. He has been giving interesting details about the Brandenburg Regiment. Details that he has given about the Abwehr in Belgium are far from convincing, however. SIS have agreed that ZIGZAG shall be allowed to return to France via Portugal. I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell and explained to him our plan about Wurmann. The latter was particularly anxious to get some assurance about British nationality. 41
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
He naturally thought that this could be done at the stroke of a pen. We have explained to him that this was quite impossible, but that we hoped we could get some letter from the Home Office which would give him grounds for thinking that if he behaved himself his naturalisation would be considered in due course. Maxwell has promised to let me have a letter stating that if Wurmann keeps to his bargain his naturalisation will be considered after the fulfillment of the statutory conditions and that the period of five years should be taken to start from his arrival in this country. In addition he will say that it is not the custom of the British government to deport aliens if by so doing they will be liable to persecution by their authorities. Wurmann has now changed his identity and is being fixed up with papers in the name of Count Stenbock. He will take the identity of a Baltic baron. 25 January According to Wurmann, England is badly covered by the Abwehr.The best information comes from Funk Uberwachung.Wurmann saw the periodical results of this wireless traffic and says he was terribly upset to realise how useless the Abwehr work was when compared with the splendid wireless intercept service. Wurmann says that, as a result of this service, everything is known about the distribution of the different divisions in England, their numbers, etcetera. He saw similar results in Athens resulting from the wireless service in Egypt.The Athens information came from General Rommel, who sent it also to Berlin. This information ties up with the following statement by one of the Panzer generals now in our hands: “I am always worried in case they should crack the code. All our communications with Japan are by wireless. All the things we hear when the English are using their wireless are startling when they are worked out. They don’t worry about it all ... of course they may be doing it purposely ... it was quite amazing up to the time I was taken prisoner.At that time our successes were partly due to that, otherwise it would not have been possible at all. Bayerlein and I actually gave our orders accordingly. Not exclusively, but at any rate it was very important information for us.” 26 January Wurmann is giving us some interesting sidelights on past events. The following refers to the incident some years ago when two German staff officers travelling by plane fell into the hands of the Belgians and were found to be carrying important documents giving the German invasion plans against Belgium. He says:“In January 1940 a Luftwaffe major arrived at Cologne en route for Munster, carrying with him the exact details of the part to be played by the Luftwaffe and paratroops in the invasions of Belgium. Before proceeding to Munster by train, he called on an old friend, a German air force major commanding the Cologne aerodrome. The two old friends cracked a bottle of wine together.The first bottle had, of course, to be rounded off by a second, and the excellence of the Rhenish wine, combined with 42
1943
the convivial atmosphere, sufficed to lead to an agreement that instead of going on to Munster by train that night, the messenger should wait over until the next morning, and to be flown there by his old friend.The two majors duly took off the next morning, and for causes not yet ascertained, but probably not unconnected with the quality of the wine they had drunk the preceding evening, they mistook the Maas for the Rhine, and made a perfect landing on an aerodrome near Brussels. Their first thought on realising their mistake was to burn their precious plans, but these two highly placed representatives of the most efficient nation in the world did not possess a single match between them, and the plans duly fell into the hands of the Belgian authorities.11 The German General Staff was torn with doubts as to whether the Belgians would really believe in the authenticity of these plans and the stupidity of the officers who allowed them to fall into Belgian hands, and finally concluded that the risk was too great to be taken. They thus postponed the offensive, which was planned for January 1940, until May 1940. Had the offensive taken place on the date originally fixed, the terrific frosts which set in at the end of January 1940 would have caught the German Panzer divisions in the middle of the Ardennes, and the whole of the 1940 campaign might have ended very differently. Was this luck, or was it Hitler’s intuition? 28 January Buster Milmo tells me that a Danish subject called Borisson, who is interned at Dartmoor, has written to the King’s Bench Division, having read about the Wilson case in the papers. Camp 020 took the precaution of withdrawing all papers dealing with this subject, otherwise we might have had a flood of applications to the King’s Bench for habeas corpus. As from Tuesday last we have been getting German BJs from Dublin.These are likely to prove highly interesting and will fill in an important gap in our information. 29 January Edwin Herbert has seen the Director-General. He has just returned from North Africa and he thinks it possible that the assassination of Admiral Darlan may have been planned by the de Gaullists in London. Enquiries made after Darlan’s death showed that the assassin, who was a Monarchist, had obtained facilities in the matter of papers, etcetera, from a certain d’Astier, an official of the North African government.While Herbert was at Gibraltar waiting for his plane, he met d’Astier’s brother, a member of de Gaulle’s staff who was very secretive about his journey. He said he was going to Syria, but actually proceeded to North Africa. It was a few days later that Darlan was murdered. Herbert had an appointment with him which was to have taken place about four hours after the assassination.When he arrived, he found officials carrying the body away. 43
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Wurmann tells us that Prince Hohenlohe was a highly placed agent of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and used by him for important political objects. In the early days of the war he had visited Sam Hoare in Madrid. It would seem that Hoare, anticipating the possible German invasion of Spain, had asked Hohenlohe to keep in touch with him.The motive of this arrangement was not clear. Tor Gulbrandsen, a Norweigan escapee and agent of SOE, when confronted with information obtained from another escapee named Jacobsen, had broken down and confessed that he was allowed by the Germans to escape and was given a mission to penetrate SOE. He did not intend to carry out this mission. He had not given the information previously because he was ashamed that under duress and serious ill-treatment he had given away quite a lot of information to the Germans. There does not appear to be any reason to doubt Gulbrandsen’s bona fides and his account of the circumstances is perhaps excusable. Gulbrandsen was detained at Camp 020 until the end of the war and then handed over to the Norwegians. 30 January ZIGZAG has notified his employers that he has done his job in sabotaging the Mosquito factory at Hatfield and that he is returning. The ZIGZAG operation was carried out on the night of 29–30 January. Theo Turner’s experts arrived at de Havilland’s at dusk and made up a complete representation of two large explosions by the morning. ZIGZAG has told the Germans that he was blowing up the two sub-stations and on his return will say that these supply motive power for all the machinery at de Havilland’s. Munoz, the Spanish military attaché, is returning to Spain on Monday, and for the purpose of Plan DREAM we have arranged for him to take with him a letter of introduction. GARBO is to send a letter giving a new address at which Munoz can be contacted and the money is to be deposited with Charles Russell & Company. Munoz will then send a telegram to his contact in London to say that one has received the pesetas and that the sterling may now be released to the notional Mr Wills, in other words Cyril Mills; on the back of Munoz’s letter there will be a message in secret ink about which he will know nothing.The Germans will be notified about the existence of this message. Consideration is being given to plans submitted from Canada for attempting to re-establish SPRINGBOK. 2 February One Mirko Rot, alias Michael Rath, a Yugoslav, has offered his services in Lisbon. He comes from Sofia where he was employed by the Meldekopf. He mentioned that a British agent in Egypt has been submitting reports and also that one Hager, the son of an Egyptian police chief, who was captured in Paris, has also been sent
44
1943
for the same purpose.The suggestion is that we should get Rot over here and run him as a double-cross. TRIPLEX has produced a letter in secret writing signed by Rogeiro de Menezes containing information about our anti-aircraft defences and certain other information specially planted by one of our agents. 4 February I saw Ralph Jarvis of Lisbon in the Director-General’s room, when we discussed the leakage case.The D-G impressed on Jarvis the desirability of finding a solution if possible. Tito Medlam’s agent COCK has staged a couple of big explosions in Gibraltar, one involving the sinking of an old trawler.The incident has been duly reflected on the ISOS, and those concerned have been congratulated. Victor Caroe came to see me about Wurmann. The latter has supplied a good deal of information and a large number of names of the people connected with the Abwehr. He is at the moment rather depressed. Caroe thinks it very important that he should have plenty of work. 5 February I had a talk with Alan Hodgkin about ZIGZAG’s statement on the invulnerability of certain German night-fighters from the effects of radio direction-finding. ZIGZAG had been told by his masters that no night-fighter could get within a mile of him, and this happened in actual fact. Alan said that it would be technically possible to send back a stronger pulse than the reflected pulse which might mislead a pilot who was not aware that he should look for the weaker reflection. He said that the German night-fighters were fairly good but of course had the great advantage of being able to operate immediately we crossed the channel. They could attack our aircraft for hours where we could only attack theirs for minutes. ZIGZAG is awaiting his passage in Liverpool.
6 February Plan MINCEMEAT is in the making. It involves the dropping of a body off the Spanish coast, ostensibly that of a British officer who will be carrying dispatches of a highly confidential nature.These will give our future plans and cover plans in the Mediterranean. In fact, the plans will be cover plans. The idea was conceived by Charles Cholmondeley and is being developed by him and Ewen Montagu. ZIGZAG has suggested to the Germans that they might get him back to Lisbon by submarine.When he gets back he will try and get another sabotage job, possibly in the United States. He will have a method of communication with us through talking in ham chat when transmitting broadcast messages. He thinks he could
45
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
probably get his old station to let him do this.We will endeavour to communicate with him in a simple advertisement code. Graumann receives The Times regularly. Victor Rothschild has had a talk with Archie Clark Kerr, our ambassador in Moscow, who gives an extraordinary account of Stalin. It took him many weeks to get an interview. Once inside the Kremlin he seemed to march through endless corridors before reaching Stalin’s room.This was extremely long and sparsely furnished. A long carpet led from the door to Stalin’s desk. Stalin was wearing a pink satin shirt. He apparently thinks aloud, addressing remarks to himself without looking at his visitor. This is rather awkward as the remarks are not always complimentary to the visitor. Just as the conversation started the sirens went. Stalin asked Clark Kerr whether he would like to go down to the shelter. Clark Kerr said he was quite accustomed to being bombed and had no desire to move. Stalin however had made up his mind to retire to the cellar, where there was an almost exact replica of his room above ground. Stalin began by asking him how it was that a man like Kenneth de Courcy, who was opposed to the opening of a Second Front, remained at large. Surely this meant that his views were supported by the Prime Minister? Clark Kerr tried to explain that the English people were at liberty to hold what views they liked provided they did not seriously impede the war effort. Stalin seemed unable to grasp that de Courcy’s views were of little significance and the majority of people in this country had not even any knowledge of his existence. After about three hours in the shelter and an exchange of one or two dirty stories, the friendship warmed up considerably. They parted apparently on very good terms. 9 February We have decided to allow Joseph Lenihan to go to Ireland on a visit and we are warning Dan Bryan.The government of Northern Ireland thinks we are crazy but I cannot see that there is any harm to be done. 10 February We have received £2,500 on the conclusion of Plan DREAM. I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell about getting a letter from the Home Office about HARLEQUIN’s naturalisation. He had agreed to give us such a letter which will in fact promise nothing but will indicate that if he wishes to become naturalised the statutory period will count from the date of his arrival in this country. HARLEQUIN was MI5’s codename for the Abwehr defector Wurmann. T.A. Robertson has had a request through GARBO to supply the Germans with information about our train service. This means that they probably contemplate shooting up our trains in the same way that we are shooting up theirs in occupied territory. I think the answer is that there are so many trains and since they do not always run at the time that is scheduled little harm can be done by giving the 46
1943
Germans the timetable.The Germans’ tactics are apparently to shoot up the engine and then the passengers if they are foolish enough to get out of the train. 11 February Johannes de Graaf, who is half Belgian and half British, but technically British, has confessed in Camp 020 that he was trained by the Germans in espionage and sabotage. It seems likely that he may have imparted to the enemy a considerable amount of information about our escape routes. He was given some temporary employment at the British Embassy in Madrid where he has been associating with other escapees, whose stories he doubtless obtained. De Graaf was broken through the mention by him of his connection with someone who, according to the London Reception Centre index, was believed to be working for the Germans. Had it not been for this successful look-up, de Graaf might well have got through the LRC. 12 February I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell again about Wurmann. He has arranged that the Home Office letter should be addressed to the Director of Military Intelligence, War Office. A copy of this letter will be shown to Wurmann, and then placed in a safe deposit in his bank. He will be told that any attempt to make improper use of it will render it null and void. He should present it in due course to the UnderSecretary of State for Home Affairs. Meanwhile, if he attempts to remove it from the bank we shall be informed. 19 February Len Burt came to see me about the Rex Hoyes case and he has had a talk with Sir Archibald Rowlands of the Air Ministry. It seems that Hoyes, through his confederate in the Ministry of Aircraft Production, Sir Hugo Armstrong, has received a warning that proceedings may be pending. Sir Stafford Cripps, in a moment of indiscretion, allowed Sir Frank Spriggs, a chairman of Hawkers, to become aware of the fact that Armstrong was at the moment under suspicion. Spriggs then warned Armstrong, called a meeting of the Board, voted Armstrong £6,000 in recognition of his services to the company, before he went to MAP and arranged that this money should be paid into Armstrong’s account after banking hours.The following morning Armstrong had paid back the £5,000 to Hoyes at his flat. Sir Alexander Cadogan is to talk to the Portuguese ambassador today on the subject of Rogeiro de Menezes. He will be shown details and impressions of Ernesto Simoes, Maria dos Santos, Gastao de Freitas, etcetera, and will then be told that the rot has even spread to his own embassy. He will then be shown the letter and an offer will be made to develop it completely in front of him.
47
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
20 February MUTT and JEFF have received a wireless set and £200 which were dropped by parachute just west of Loch Strathbeg in Aberdeenshire. This operation had been arranged with the Germans and a party went up to receive the set.The plane was heard and a light was flashed. After circling twice and coming down to about fifty feet, a parachute was dropped.The set was carefully packed in a canister which had a bag of sand as a buffer to take the shock at the point where it would strike the ground. It seems to have worked quite successfully. 22 February Ambassador Montero has informed his government about the Rogeiro de Menezes case, and asked them to let him have an immediate decision as to whether de Menezes should be handed over to the British authorities. He seems to be taking a very satisfactory attitude. Dick Brooman-White tells me that through a new informant he has obtained a number of documents from the Spanish consulate in Newcastle dating back to 1940, and there is one document in particular signed by the ambassador, the Duke of Alba, in which he requests the consul on the orders of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to supply him regularly with reports of air raid damage, and particularly damage to military objectives. We are keeping these documents with a number of others of a somewhat similar kind as I think there may be a time when they will make a useful stick with which to beat the Spanish government. 23 February Rogeiro de Menezes is to be prosecuted under the Treachery Act. It is felt that if a conviction can be obtained this will act as a marked deterrent on members of other legations who might be prepared to act in a similar manner. De Menezes’ only excuse so far is that he was blackmailed into working for the Germans on account of certain relatives he had in Germany. I went to see the Director of Military Intelligence about the letter addressed to him by the Home Office in the case of Wurmann. I wanted him to sign a covering letter to this which would give added weight. He got cold feet and refused. 24 February It now transpires that Rogeiro de Menezes was concerned with Italian as well as German espionage. His means of communication were through the bag to Mendez, now identified as Marcello, and thence to an Italian called Umerte. Convoy leakages from the United States, as disclosed by ISOS in Lisbon, have been fairly accurate.
48
1943
I saw the Director-General and Harry Allen about the letter for Wurmann.The D-G said that Harry had better sign it. Harry thought it would be better signed by Colonel Barry. Herbert Hart told me about Mirko Rot, who has given details about MAX and MORITZ. He said that a White Russian in the Soviet Embassy in Sofia who was working for the Germans had gone back to Russia some time ago where he had got into touch with relations on the General Staff. On his return he had established a wireless set which his Russian friends had been using to communicate information.This came through a station just outside Sofia. MORITZ has a collecting centre in Syria.This is all more or less accurate except that the whole set-up looks more than ever like double-cross. 25 February Rogeiro de Menezes has made a full confession. Marcello, alias Mendez, introduced him to Colonel Miranda in the Portuguese air force and it was through the latter that he got into touch with the Italian Umerte.There appears to be a cipher clerk called Ramos in the Portuguese Foreign Office who is also a German spy. According to ISBA, others implicated are a man and wife named Pfeifert, and the head of the English Department of the Portuguese Foreign Office. There is some doubt, however, whether these people may not be double-crossing. 26 February Edward Hinchley-Cooke has become very het up about the numerous statements which Rogeiro de Menezes has signed and he fears that he might be called upon to produce these statements by defending counsel. He was told by Edward Cussen and Buster Milmo that this was a risk we had always accepted. It did not seem likely, however, that defending counsel would risk sending in these statements. A message had been received from Downing Street about the possibility of General de Gaulle trying to get out of the country. It seems unlikely that an attempt will be made but if it is made, he will be stopped. 27 February Herbert Hart spoke to me about Mirko Rot and has evidence that Rot is lying about his association with the Abwehr, and that his wife knows it. They have between them some £20,000 brought here before the war, some of it in the form of jewellery. We have decided to send the husband to Camp 020 and the wife to Nightingale Lane after cancellation of her landing condition.We hope in this way to get the exact truth. Probably Rot is reluctant to admit that he was actually working for some considerable time on behalf of the Abwehr. His information so far has been quite important. Hager, a son of the Egyptian police chief denounced by Rot, has been arrested in Egypt and has incriminating documents. 49
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
4 March Len Burt is actively pursuing the Rex Hoyes case. He had what must have been an extremely entertaining interview with Hoyes. At first Hoyes wanted to call his solicitor, to which Burt replied: “Certainly – a very wise precaution, Mr Hoyes.” Hoyes later thought better of it, rang up Burt and said he was prepared to make a statement. Hoyes is not yet aware of the extent to which his banking transactions are known and is likely to put his foot in it pretty badly. Wiesner, who is interrogating Otto Witt, has put in a stool-pigeon.Witt has told the latter that he had been in wireless communication with Germany from Sweden, that he was at one time in touch with the Abwehr in Hamburg, that he was a member of the NSDAP and had known Reinhard Heydrich, that wireless transmission from a flat was impossible but it was as well that we should suspect him as others were doing the work. He went on to say that he was directed while in Denmark by a Gestapo announcement that he was a wanted man. He was afraid about the interrogation of his wife and of torture. Equally, he feared interrogation himself at the hands of the Czechs. He wanted to know if the fourteen spies executed had confessed, particularly “der grosse Hollander”. Even if broken down, he would not give away his accomplices. A BJ indicates that the Portuguese suspect that their bag has been opened but do not wish to raise the matter. 8 March I had a meeting with Wiesner, Dick White, Buster Milmo and Francis AikenSneath about Otto Witt. Wiesner was very confident that if he could employ his own methods he could break Witt down within three days and he suggested that Witt should be interrogated at frequent intervals during both the night and day or alternatively that he should be given the Czech for three days, at the end of which Wiesner gave a guarantee to hand him back without a bruise on his body and wrapped in cotton wool and silver paper. Our general conclusion was that Witt, though arrogant, was a physical coward. He had probably built himself up to a considerable extent in the eyes of the Sicherheitsdienst or Gestapo, more probably the latter, and had volunteered to get information about the activities of Otto Strasser’s organisation in this country.We were rather disinclined to believe his story that he had told to the stool-pigeon Haas about his having a Vorsatz gerät which would be used for the conversion of a receiver into a transmitter.Aiken-Sneath, on the other hand, had seen Witt leaving his flat with something heavy and there is a suggestion in conversations with Haas that this apparatus had been left with one of Witt’s accomplices. The most likely would be the Federns, whom he saw before his internment. The father is apparently all right, but the son is extremely doubtful. Witt has boasted quite openly to Haas about his connections with the secet service and also about a link with the Abwehr at Hamburg. He took Haas into his confidence because the latter was the son of a general and because he knew that he had
50
1943
a brother in the secret service.Witt is terrified of being handed over to the Czechs since he thinks they would probably torture him. He is quite certain that the British will not.When confronted with Haas he denied everything that he had told him. It was finally decided that Witt should be told by some suitable officer that as he was clearly lying and would not come clean, we had no alternative but to hand him over to the Czechs or the Russians, but before doing so we wanted give him a final chance to come clean. He would probably find British justice better than Czech or Russian. If this bluff fails we shall fall back on telling him he will be handed over to the International Tribunal as soon as the war is over, and that he will thereby lose the protection of the British government. 9 March Martin Forrest talked to me for some time today about the Newcastle police. He had found it an extremely uphill job to get them educated on our lines. They seemed to be solely interested in getting convictions and were rarely able to see anything on a long-term basis.They resented our running any informants in their area and agreed to allow Forrest to do this but had wasted a lot of their time in trying to find out who his informants were and if successful in torpedoing them.They have been extremely skeptical about TANGERINE who has recently been taken on by Dick Brooman-White. She has in fact produced very remarkable documentary information [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] and looks like being a first class informant. 10 March The Director-General has had a letter from Duff Cooper who, after consultation with the Prime Minister, has suggested that we should furnish the Prime Minister with a monthly report. It should not be too long and should only include items of major importance. Is suggested there should be contributions from Herbert Hart, Buster Milmo, T.A. Robertson, the London Reception Centre, Roger Hollis and occasionally items of interest received from Defence Security Officer points abroad. Dick White is going to get out a rough draft which we will then discuss. There are obvious advantages in selling ourselves to the Prime Minister, who at the moment knows nothing about the activities of the department. On the other hand he may, on seeing some particular item, go off the deep end and want to take action, which will be disastrous to the work in hand. Buster Milmo talked about the Rogeiro de Menezes case.The Portuguese have now arrested Miranda as well as Marcello. Something in the nature of a general clean-up seems to be going on. In the meantime we have given a report on the case to the Foreign Office for transmission to the Portuguese ambassador.
51
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
11 March Victor Caroe went to see Otto Witt today to give him a last chance to speak the truth before he is handed over to the Czechs. He broke down and said that he had been lying, and would now tell us the whole truth. Unfortunately, before Caroe left he told him that he personally did not believe that Witt was a spy.We feel that it is now desirable to bring in some new military person to do the interrogation and have obtained the services of Major Scotland.We want if possible to carry out the interrogation at the London District prisoner of war camp, but this will have to be subject to Home Office approval. I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell and asked him whether he had any objection. He said that as the man was a German detained under the Royal Prerogative, we could hold him where we liked. He was interested in the Witt case and would like to know in due course what we got out of it. 12 March The Czechs are a little crestfallen about the Otto Witt case being taken over by Major Scotland but everything has been smoothed over to their satisfaction. Scotland will commence operation on Monday.When we have got a statement, the Czechs will be brought in to cross-examine. We have decided to carry out if possible another DUCK operation as the Spanish ambassador is away this weekend. I had previously talked the matter over with Peter Loxley, who thought the risk was worth taking since it should give us the BJs for another three or four months. Efforts are being made to send TRICYCLE to Cairo but the construction of a suitable cover is still not solved. DRAGONFLY is still unpaid, but ISOS discloses that the Germans are still trying to devise ways and means. ZIGZAG left on 5 March 1943. GARBO has established wireless communication with Madrid. The MULLET case is hanging fire owing to Dr Koessler having got into trouble with the local police for currency smuggling. It remains to be seen whether Koessler can wriggle out of this difficulty and whether the Germans will in any event take advantage of this opportunity to send Fanto to England. 15 March Francis Aiken-Sneath came to talk to me about Otto Witt. Major Scotland has started his interrogation and has announced that Witt is an agent of some sort. He cannot however get him to come clean. The only previous falsehood on which Witt now recants is that he was ever attempting to get into touch with embassy circles. This makes his visit here even more peculiar. The trouble is that this case has been so messed about that he is now convinced that we have nothing on him and cannot bring him to justice. Scotland thinks that Wiesner should now return to the charge. Billy Luke has sent to me about his examination of the South African BJs. He thinks that Lothar Sittig, a German, is probably the head of the FELIX organisation.
52
1943
LEO, he thinks, is Wertz, the German Consul at Lourenco Marques, whose Christian name is Leopold. 16 March I had a talk with Roger Hollis about doing something more about Soviet espionage.There is no doubt to my mind that it is going on and that sooner or later we shall be expected to know all about it. On the other hand if we take action and get found out there will be an appalling stink. Hollis and I are going to discuss the matter with Peter Loxley on Monday. DUCK’s operation was successfully performed last Saturday and GC&CS will now be able to carry on for some months. Dick White, Courtney Young and Billy Luke went to Glenalmond to discuss the South African case. As I rather anticipated, the balloon has gone up. Paasche, who was carrying the addresses of van der Merve, a famous gynaecologist, an Afrikaaner with close associations with the OB, and also that of Lothar Sittig, a German who had twice escaped from an internment camp of which van der Merve was the doctor, was followed to a farm near the frontier. This farm was known to the police since two people suspected of murder of Lotte, the Crown witness of the Hennig case, had disappeared in the vicinity some time ago.The police therefore decided to raid the farm on 14 March.The results of this raid have not yet been obtained. Felix Cowgill takes the view that it is a good thing that the case has been liquidated, as he thinks that by the time another transmitter has been landed by submarine at Durban, the Mediterranean will have been cleared and the importance of Sittig minimised. This struck everyone as being a somewhat specious argument. 18 March We have decided to liquidate the Otto Witt case by sending him to Dartmoor prison.There is no doubt that he is a confirmed liar, but it seems quite impossible to extract from him the real reason for his visit to this country. I am inclined to think that he is a man who has at one time or another worked for the Gestapo, that they have not got a very high regard for his ability, but that he in his conceit succeeded in persuading them to let him go and try his hand in England by investigating in political refugee circles. I have just heard that the search of the farm in the vicinity of which Paasche was seen has drawn a blank. 19 March I saw Len Burt this morning. Sir Norman Kendal has suggested to him that perhaps the work of his section was coming to an end and that he might return to Scotland Yard. Burt explained to him that very much the contrary was the case, in 53
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
fact his people were fully employed. He also explained that there were many types of case which he could handle from here which could not be handled from the Yard. It appears that Kendal has been subject to some pressure from Special Branch, who resent the fact that Burt and his men have been handling political cases such as that of Lord Barnley and Rogeiro de Menezes. GARBO’s agent No. 3 has now been relayed on Special Sources. His late agent No. 2 is also relayed and given a number. GARBO’s number is now officially quoted. His wireless communication has temporarily broken down owing to the incompetence of the Germans in sending over their instructions. 20 March Felix Cowgill has sent a teleprinter message saying that the results of the raid in South Africa are disappointing but that he thinks this may be due to Webster giving the information to Lieutenant Coetzee, whereas Malcolm Muggeridge gave it to Baston. It asks us to warn Webster not to give any further information to Coetzee. I have pointed out that to give information to Baston and withhold it from Coetzee is the equivalent of asking Sir Norman Kendal to carry out a Special Branch job without informing Albert Canning. I have however sent a telegram to Webster warning him that he must not make any use of BJ information communicated to him by Michael Ryde until authority is given, as I thought it possible that he might think that as the balloon has gone up he would be justified in doing so. 21 March Ewen Montagu has informed J.C. Masterman about a Lisbon–Berlin message in which it is suggested that an agent should put explosive or incendiary coal on board a ship on which he is serving as steward. The agent is clearly ZIGZAG since the message implies that he is identical with the individual who did the Mosquito job and that he cannot go back to England. He is to slip away as soon as the job is done and go on to Paris.This all fits with ZIGZAG’s set-up.The difficulty is to know what appropriate action should be taken and I am trying to ascertain when the City of Lancaster is likely to leave Lisbon, since if there is sufficient time we might send an officer out. I have also asked Gergie to put a rush on the Berlin–Lisbon service in order that we might get a reply at the earliest possible moment.The message to Berlin was dated 19 March. Later I heard from Ferguson that he was proposing to send a wire to Ralph Jarvis informing him that Abt. III were proposing that ZIGZAG should sabotage his ship, and asking him whether ZIGZAG had informed the ship’s captain. If not, without indicating the slightest knowledge of the enterprise, it was suggested that the captain should be told to ask ZIGZAG (1) if, and when he was going to desert (2) whether he had contacted the Germans yet and if so with what result, and (3) had he any messages for the captain to take back to England? At that moment I was discussing the whole problem with Ewen Montagu, Ronnie Reed, J.C. Masterman and Ian Wilson.At first we thought that a 54
1943
telegram might be sent to Jarvis explaining to him the position and suggesting that he should arrange discreetly for the master to meet him at a suitable rendezvous for a purpose of arranging a still more discreet meeting between Jarvis and ZIGZAG, bearing in mind that the latter was probably being followed. Ralph Jarvis should show ZIGZAG the signal from Frank Foley and say that he came with other instructions from Reed to ascertain whether ZIGZAG has successfully contacted the Germans and if so, what instructions he had had at Lisbon. On no account was ZIGZAG to be asked questions about sabotage. If he failed to come clean about the plan to sabotage his ship, he would be placed in irons by the captain and brought back here. On further reflection we thought that it would be better to send Reed who had the advantage of knowing the whole case and of knowing ZIGZAG personally.This would avoid the difficulty of Jarvis or any of his people, who must be known to the Germans, making contact with ZIGZAG and would have the additional advantage of giving ZIGZAG no way out. If he were approached by anyone else he might not feel under obligation to tell them a story which he thought he had already dealt with in his own way. On the other hand, however, if he failed to disclose what had happened to Reed we should have to assume that he was definitely wrong. In any case we felt that Reed’s presence in Lisbon could not be otherwise than a help to Jarvis. Ferguson, in consultation with Frank Foley, seems to have some doubts about the necessity or indeed the advisability of Ronnie Reed going out but promised to let me have their decision in the morning. Meanwhile, the German reply dated 17.35 on 20 March 1943 had come in saying that the plan devised by the Abwehr in Lisbon had been approved by headquarters.We also learned from the Ministry of War Transport that the ship is not likely to be unloaded before 27 March. I spoke to Ferguson again at about 7 o’clock, the Prime Minister suggesting that he should send off a wire to confirm the time of departure of the ship and ensure that as soon as ZIGZAG deserted the matter should be reported. I had in mind that if he deserted in the immediate future we should have to take a more sinister view of his part in the suggested enterprise. 22 March I rang up Robert Cecil of the Foreign Office and arranged about Ronnie Reed’s Portuguese visa. He can, if necessary, carry a dummy bag. I also spoke to Ferguson who said the matter was now in the hands of Felix Cowgill who was in conference. Later I rang again and was told that Felix had left for London where he would be in consultation with Valentine Vivian. I rang both Vivian and Felix and found they were both out. I left a message asking them to ring up before they went to lunch, which they failed to do. I was not able to get hold of Felix Cowgill at all till 3 o’clock. He was at first rather reluctant to agree to Ronnie Reed going to Lisbon and thought the telegram would do just as well. I pointed out to him that unless ZIGZAG was confronted with Ronnie Reed we should never be quite certain whether he was right 55
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
or wrong. If he saw Reed he could have no possible excuse for not telling him about the suggested sabotage incident. I said I thought that no harm could possibly be done by sending Reed who knew the case and the man intimately. He and Jarvis could work out the best method of approach after his arrival. Cowgill eventually agreed. I then rang Herbert Hart and succeeded in getting a place for Reed on tomorrow morning’s plane. The Director-General called a conference of myself, Buster Milmo and Edward Hinchley-Cooke to discuss the Johannes de Graaf case. Hinchley-Cooke complained that he should have been called in the moment de Graaf said that he had been working for the German secret service and maintained that when he did speak to de Graaf he found him very easy. Milmo explained that de Graaf ’s story had only been extracted from him with considerable difficulty and bit by bit. Had he been interrogated in the first instance he would probably have given the story that he related at the London Reception Centre, namely that he had worked for the Germans in order to provide himself with means of escape, and that he had the pyramidon and the tooth-pick for purely normal reasons. The Director of Public Prosecutions turned the case down because the formal statement given to Hinchley-Cooke at a later stage had been preceded by a number of other interrogations.This might lay the prosecution open to attack on the grounds that the story had been extracted by third degree methods. Personally, I feel inclined to agree with Milmo that a weak statement in the first instance followed by interrogations by military intelligence and then another official statement would have laid the prosecution open to the criticism that the original story was the true one and that the subsequent story had been extracted under duress. My own view is that if the case had been pressed with the DPP, a successful prosecution might have ensued. It was agreed that whenever there was any doubt in the cases of this sort in future, there would be a consultation. 23 March I had a meeting with Dick White, Dick Brooman-White, Richman Stopford, Roger Hollis and Hugh Shillito about a man named [XXXXX] who is travelling as a ferry pilot between this country, Gibraltar, North Africa, Malta and Cairo. At Gibraltar he makes contact with a Communist airman who is known to have received money from Spanish Communists. [XXXXX] destined for Moreno, the Spanish Republican here who is working for Juan Negrin.There seem to be two aspects to this problem: (1) might be giving information to Republican Spaniards about things that he has seen, shipping, convoys, etcetera, which would ultimately reach the Germans. We know that to a limited extent they have made use of Spanish Republicans as agents; (2) the possibility of using this incident to persuade the Home Secretary to allow us to go more fully into the activities of Negrin.The Foreign Office were anxious that something should be done some months ago but Herbert Morrison had opposed action on the grounds that Negrin had the right of asylum and should not be persecuted in any war on account of his political views. 56
1943
Our main interest in Negrin is that he runs a small network of agents into Spain. We do not know how far his organisation is penetrated by the Germans. In any case we ought to know about any organisation of this kind which is being run from this country. If we can say from examination of Moreno’s banking account that he has been in receipt of considerable sums of money, we might approach the Home Secretary. Enquiries on these lines are going to be made. Brooman-White talked to me afterwards about Tuesta, the Counsellor of the Spanish Embassy who has now been appointed as Consul-General to Hamburg. Brooman-White suggested that we should approach him and try and recruit him as an agent, although he felt he would almost certainly go to the Germans on arrival in Hamburg. Personally, I cannot see any very sound objective in this. We all ultimately agreed that it would be far better to try by some means or other to discredit Tuesta in the eyes of the Germans. 24 March A piece of the parachute by means of which MUTT and JEFF’s wireless set was dropped some weeks ago has been picked up by a farmer near Loch Strathbeg. It only reached us quite fortuitously through an officer in AI-1(g) having given it to Room 055.The general instructions are that objects of this kind should be handed over to the air force by the police. I am going into this matter with R.C.The officer’s suspicions had been aroused because of a report he had read of an interrogation of a German airman who claimed to have landed an agent here in November 1939 in a Dornier 18 off the Yorkshire coast, not far from Scarborough. This agent was equipped with a short-wave wireless set. At the end of April 1940 he picked up the same man from a bay just to the north of Flamborough Head. This spy was said to have given the Germans immensely valuable information at the beginning of the Norwegian campaign and also about a raid carried out in April 1940, on which advance information was given.There was a raid on 18 April from which five Hampdens and two Wellingtons failed to return from a flight to southern Norway. The signal for picking up a spy was to be the dropping of a bomb and as a bomb had been dropped in connection with the MUTT and JEFF enterprise, the air force officer who brought in the bit of parachute thought it might have some significance from an MI5 point of view.The prisoner of war also spoke of another agent that he had landed at the beginning of the French campaign. This man wore civilian clothes and was provided with a squadron-leader uniform and a small transmitter. Landings from aircraft and also descents by parachutes had later gone out of fashion as they were thought to be too dangerous. An ISOS message shows that ZIGZAG will be leaving for Paris via Madrid on the night of 26 March. It is to be hoped that Ronnie Reed will have been able to make contact with him. Roger Hollis came to talk to me about a man called Chandler Morris of the American Embassy who seems to have a friend called Carlo employed in what is known as the Prevention Division of the OSS. On introduction from Carlo, Morris 57
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
paid a visit to the Communist Party. There are obvious difficulties in passing this information to the Americans without disclosing the source.We finally came to the conclusion that the best method would be for the State Department to have Morris in and ask him what he was doing when he visited the CPGB in London. He may say that he went on the introduction of a man called Carlo. If so, this will enable the authorities to make further enquiries about Carlo. If on the other hand there is no disclosure about Carlo we could at a later date consider passing information about him to OSS. I discussed with Victor Rothschild action regarding the ZIGZAG affair if Ronnie Reed is unable to make contact.We came to the conclusion that the only thing to do would be to pick over each piece of coal before it is put into the furnace. There has been another ISOS message indicating that ZIGZAG went to Madrid on 23 March, leaves for Hendaye on 26 March and will be in Paris on the morning of 28 March. I am afraid that this means that Reed must have missed him.We have drafted a telegram to the Naval Security Control Officer, telling him that Reed will be getting into touch with him regarding proposed anti-sabotage action. We also drafted a telegram which I read over to Ferguson suggesting that too should be sent to Jarvis for Reed.After giving ZIGZAG’s movements, enquiries are made as to whether ZIGZAG said anything to the captain, and what the present position is. If ZIGZAG has made no disclosure, Reed is to suggest the following action to the NCSO examination of the coal between the bunker and boiler immediately the ship leaves.The coal is explosive but will not detonate unless thrown into the furnace or violently handled. Dan Bryan has just telegraphed to say that the Stephen Carrol Held cipher has been broken and it may be identical with the one being used by Dr Goertz. Messages that we have obtained in Lisbon have been examined and appear to be in the handwriting of Andrews, who met Christopher Eastwood on arrival and there was an exchange of notes. A cipher has been found in Goertz’s cell, probably through the assistance of his servant who is in Dan’s employ. Dan has asked us to send over an expert to look at the cipher. Denys Page and Cecil Liddell will probably be going over on Saturday. Dick White, Jack Curry and I talked about the future of the Research Section. We all agreed that the most profitable line would be for the continuation of Curry’s book to comprise certain definite trends that should be treated on a special basis, e.g. the extent to which the SD is penetrating the Abwehr. In order to get a line on these various trends Curry should see representatives of the various departments concerned and perhaps call a meeting periodically. It was suggested that he should discuss this with Valentine Vivian. 26 March Two telegrams have at last arrived from Ronnie Reed. He has seen the captain who stated that he had been approached by ZIGZAG, but that in view of his instructions he would not have said anything to anyone except Reed. The sabotage 58
1943
project was suggested to the Germans by ZIGZAG. He had obtained a bomb which the captain had in his safe. Reed would bring it back by air. He suggests that we should stage some sabotage incident when the boat gets back to Liverpool.Victor Rothschild, in conjunction with SOE, is trying to devise some means of doing this without causing damage to the ship. 27 March I had a long talk with Len Burt about the Rex Hoyes case. He thinks the case is fairly complete. He was disappointed that Sir Frank Sprigg, who will not give a categorical statement that he warned the Air Ministry, merely says that he told Armstrong there was some sort of enquiry going on about the particular contract. The case has gone to the Director of Public Prosecutions and it will be for the jury to decide whether or not there was corrupt practice. Ronnie Reed has rung up to say that he is in Bristol. He says that the captain of the ship had been interrogated four times by the shipping office and had denied that he knew anything about the ZIGZAG affair. He affected to be extremely annoyed that an agent had been put on his boat without his knowledge. He was in fact acting on strict instructions that he was not to divulge the fact of ZIGZAG’s connection with British Intelligence. He was much relieved to see Reed.The piece of coal has been sent round via Gibraltar as Ralph Jarvis was nervous about its being taken on the aircraft in case it had some delay mechanism. 29 March I saw Dick White,Victor Rothschild, T.A. Robertson and Ronnie Reed about the ZIGZAG case. It seems that the captain has played his part well and he even instructed ZIGZAG to cause trouble on the ship. ZIGZAG threatened to attack one of the other stewards with a knife, and the incident ended in a brawl, and the steward was laid out. We discussed whether a fake explosion should take place at Gibraltar or Liverpool. There is an advantage in doing it at Gibraltar since the information could easily leak back to the Germans. On the other hand, this is a disadvantage in that since certain people, members of the crew and possibly others might have to be in the know, the fact that the explosion was a fake might get back too easily to the Germans.We eventually decided to take no action in Gibraltar and work some scheme which can be put into operation as soon as the ship reaches Liverpool. The piece of coal was notionally placed on some spot where it would not be thrown into the boilers until the ship was well out to sea. ZIGZAG has explained this to the Germans. Our methods of communication with him now are by code advertisements in The Times and through practice messages which he hopes to be able to send from Paris to Nantes. Buster Milmo came to see me about the Otto Witt case. He had a letter from Duff Cooper asking about the guarantees to Witt’s wife. He is replying that Witt has confessed that everything he said about his proposed mission to this country was a lie.We did not consider therefore that SOE had any further obligation to the wife. 59
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
31 March I had a discussion with T.A. Robertson, J.C. Masterman and Frank Foley about the MULLET case. ISOS indicates that Fanto is to be recalled and is on no account to be allowed to approach this country. It looks rather as if the Germans have rumbled something and are intending to arrest Fanto.The latter has a seat on a plane from Lisbon and a British visa. He was intending to come here on double-cross lines in the near future.This aspect of the problem has now broken down.The value of getting him here at this stage lies in the information that he might possibly provide about Abwehr personalities in Belgium and also about the military governor, General Falkenhausen, and his entourage. It is thought that Foley should go to Lisbon to make the necessary arrangements. I am not very sanguine about the value of this operation since nobody seems to be very clear as to exactly how much Fanto knows. I think, however, that we are justified in taking a chance. 1 April I went over to the SOE establishment in Hertfordshire, having stayed the night with Colonel Wood.Victor Rothschild and I were explaining our requirements in connection with the ZIGZAG case. A bomb is to be manufactured, if necessary like a bit of coal, which will give an appreciable bang and emit a good puff of smoke. Major Thornley of SOE came to see me about the Otto Witt case and he is very emphatic that SOE are under no obligation to the wife since it was primarily on Witt’s own suggestion that he came here. They think moreover that it would be extremely embarrassing to continue these payments, since such action would be tantamount to an admission that there was no case for Witt’s internment.A further point is that Witt failed to get a return visa from the Swedish legation. Evidently the Swedes did not like him, but we are not likely to ascertain their reasons. 2 April I saw Duff Cooper and took him the report for the Prime Minister. He seemed quite satisfied with its form and contents. I impressed upon him the degree of secrecy which should be attached to it and the necessity therefore of ensuring that it was seen by the Prime Minister only. At first he had thought of sending it to Desmond Morton. I said I thought it would be far preferable if he handed it to the Prime Minister himself. He would then be able to answer any supplementary questions and ascertain the Prime Minister’s reactions. From what he said I do not think that he intends to leave the report with the Prime Minister. In any case he will ask for its return. I told him that if it went to Desmond Morton it was highly probable that he would take a copy and send it to C.While there was no real objection to this it might possibly cause a certain amount of trouble. I also left with Duff Cooper a copy of Herbert Hart’s report on the Lisbon leakage case.We then talked to Otto Witt and I explained that the idea that he should
60
1943
come to this country had first been mooted by Witt himself after a conversation with Peter Tennant, the press attaché, to whom he had already supplied certain articles of an anti-Nazi character for publication in this country. After a good deal of discussion here we had fallen in with the view of SOE that in any case Witt, who was considered a doubtful character, would be better in this country than in Stockholm where he was trying to penetrate our organisation and social-democrat refugee circles. Further points were that Witt’s wife was now employed in Stockholm in a secretarial capacity, and that he himself before his arrest had been refused a visa by the Swedish authorities to return to Stockholm. Lastly, we had found Witt wholely unsatisfactory, and had at last extracted a confession from him that the reasons he gave for coming to this country were entirely false. I think that as a result of this conversation Duff somewhat modified his views about the whole case. He will probably say a word to Lord Selborne when he sees him. 3 April Duff Cooper has returned our report for the Prime Minister with a letter saying that the Prime Minister would like to have further details about Wurmann. The Prime Minister has minuted the report in red ink: “Seen. Deeply interesting. W.S.C.” Duff seems to think it has been a great success. The Germans are still trying to devise some means of paying DRAGONFLY who, in the interim, has dried up in a huff. SPRINGBOK is attempting to set up wireless communications between Canada and Germany. He has sent off a letter announcing this to his Lisbon cover address. The WATCHDOG case has been further jeopardised by a reference to his arrest by a member of the Quebec Parliament and references in French language papers in Canada. Waldemar Janowsky had been enrolled as a double agent code-named WATCHDOG. ZIGZAG has gone on from Paris to Berlin. We have just had a Lourenco Marques BJ indicating the identity of FELIX with Lothar Sittig.Webster has telegraphed expressing a certain mount of anxiety about the appointment of an SIS representative in South Africa. Meanwhile a telegram has been received from the High Commissioner to the Dominions Office suggesting that this representative should be attached to the MI5 mission. Jack Curry has written an extremely good memo on penetration of SOE and SIS organisations. What emerges more than anything is that lack of unity as between ourselves, SIS and SOE is a serious menace. Curry thinks it quite likely that a large number of organisations in Belgium are probably affected and that if they only decide to strike at the last moment such action might have a serious effect on military operations. Equally serious is the lack of co-ordination between SIS, SOE and the Belgian authorities. It happens on occasion that the Belgians give last-minute and contradictory instructions to one of their nationals working for SOE. 61
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
5 April Fanto arrived yesterday and is being interrogated today. It is difficult to know exactly what has happened since Dr Koessler appears to have been in Lisbon for the last fortnight.We shall probably get some reaction to Fanto’s departure on special sources, which may clarify the position. Cecil Liddell returned last Thursday from Dublin after a most successful visit. He was accompanied by Denys Page. The work on the Stephen Held cipher was done by Dr Richard Hayes, curator of the National Library, who appears to have done an extremely good job. The cipher is a very difficult and complicated one. Messages which refer to the bringing of an agent to Eire and also to the planning of the escape of Dr Goertz are of considerable interest. They are written by Andrews, the son of the butcher in Rush whose father buys his sheep on Lambay Island. His father once asked me to find his son a job in the police.Young Andrews was in touch with Dr Goertz before the latter was in prison and in fact was mainly responsible for the information given to the Eire authorities for Goertz’s arrest. It is presumed that through this association he became acquainted with Goertz’s cipher. How far he is using it on his own or in collaboration with Goertz is not yet clear. He is in any case somewhat of a double-crosser. Christopher Eastwood, the cook on board the Edenvale, is equally doubtful since he evidently does not think he is getting enough pay for the job he is doing. He has not carried it out very efficiently since he was quite ready to hand the letter for the OKW over to Granger Thomas in Lisbon, who was merely a Portuguese in the habit of hanging round ships in harbour in order to get food from the ship’s cook. Eastwood began by asking him if he knew where the German legation was. When he replied in the affirmative, he was given the letter to deliver. He had a friend in our press attaché’s office and very wisely took the letter to him. It was photographed and returned to him for delivery.The reply passed through his hands in a similar manner.We had a little trouble the other day with Eastwood, who frequently gets tight. The master had had about enough of this and sacked him. Fortunately however the crew protested and Eastwood was reinstated. Eastwood is now on his way back to Lisbon, presumably with another message. 6 April Rogeiro de Menezes has been condemned to death on Friday last at the Old Bailey. BJs indicate that the Portuguese ambassador has been instructed to put in a special plea on the highest possible level for the man’s reprieve.There is no death penalty in Portugal. William Craven, an ex-Fascist who wrote to the German legation in Dublin, mentioning that he had formerly done work for the German consul in Liverpool, etcetera, has been given a life sentence under the Defence Regulations by Mr Justice Singleton.The first I heard of this case was when I saw it in the papers.The letter had been intercepted by censorship and sent to the Home Office, who on
62
1943
the instructions of the Home Secretary sent it to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and it was not until proceedings had actually opened in court that the matter was brought to our notice. J.C. Masterman has had a long talk with Fanto and it does not appear that any attempt was made to stop him from coming here by Kriegsorganization Portugal. This may be due to the fact that he was being run from Brussels. Dr Koessler appears to have taken the offensive.There was a conference in Madrid on the subject of Koessler’s organisation. KO Portugal evidently resented the interference from Brussels and were in favour of its liquidation. Koessler said that he was quite indifferent but that if Berlin thought that his organisation was no good he would liquidate his company provided they would pay off his shareholders. On the other hand if they had confidence in him and wished him to continue he desired as a sign of their confidence that his wife should be sent to Lisbon. As his wife is a Jewess, this could not be done without the consent of the Gestapo in Berlin. Brussels sent a man specially to Berlin and obtained the necessary permission. Koessler’s wife is now in Lisbon and presumably his whole organisation has Berlin’s confidence. It is difficult to understand therefore why Berlin sent the last-minute instructions to KO Portugal to stop Fanto’s departure. 9 April As a result of the Rogeiro de Menezes case there have been twenty-three arrests in Lisbon including the head of the Sicherheitsdienst. Meanwhile, ambassador Montero has wired to the Foreign Office with a plea for de Menezes’ reprieve. Peter Loxley was anxious that we should consider our attitude. Sir William Malkin, the Foreign Office legal adviser, is definitely of opinion that a reprieve should not be granted on the grounds that there is no death penalty in Portugal, since this might create an extremely awkward precedent. The Foreign Office thinks, however, that a reprieve should be granted owing to the extremely co-operative attitude of the Portuguese, the insignificance of the information actually transmitted and the way de Menezes assisted the authorities after his arrest. De Menezes’ solicitor has written to Montero and taken pains to impress upon the latter that he personally will be responsible for the execution since it was on his recommendation that de Menezes was dismissed from the Portuguese Embassy and deprived of diplomatic privilege. Ben Greene has withdrawn his case against the Home Secretary. Harald Kurtz made an extremely good impression in the box, and evidently Greene could not face up to an examination of Kurtz on the interview that he had with Greene which led to the latter’s arrest. Greene did, in fact, compromise himself very seriously. It appears to be the opinion of all concerned in this case, including the Attorney-General, that Sir Norman Birkett’s handling of it in the Advisory Committee was beneath contempt. He interrogated Kurtz like a pick-pocket, and so far from interrogating Greene, placed himself in the position of an advocate for his defence. I only hope that steps will be taken to see that our critics in the Home 63
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Office are made aware of the condemnation in high legal circles of the proceedings before the Advisory Committee. In the William Craven case criticisms were also made by the Home Office. Craven’s release was strongly opposed by ourselves, and Sir Alexander Maxwell minuted the file to the effect that it was a pity that MI5 took such an unbalanced view, and had not got a liberal outlook. The effect on Craven of the Home Office’s liberal outlook has been to get him a life sentence instead of merely internment for the duration of the war. The case of one Steiner has turned out to be of interest. A Belgian, he escaped from Belgium by offering his services to the Germans. His wife and children are held as hostages. He arrived at Lisbon and was to go either to the Congo or Britain. He was interrogated by SIS in Lisbon who regarded him as low-grade and unreliable.They did not consider him any use as a double-cross, as they thought he would probably be blown. He had refused to talk to the Belgians in Lisbon as he did not trust them. It was thought better that he should come here than be allowed to proceed to the Belgian Congo. He duly arrived and was sent to Camp 020. He is based on Abstelle Brussels and his cover name is JACQUES. He seems to be a mine of information and of quite a high grade.We know from special sources that he got in touch with the Germans two or three days before he left. It will be some test of his reliability if he comes clean. 12 April Bill Younger came to see me about an informant of Max Knight’s who has got mixed up with Cradoc-Owen, Morgan and the Patents Development Company, a black market concern connected with the Stockman case. As Knight’s informant was getting into rather deep water, and was likely to get into deeper still, I decided to cut the painter.The informant is to extricate himself and return the money that he received in anticipation of the assistance that he was going to give Morgan to obtain a passport and exit permit for the United States. 13 April I had a talk with Len Burt about the attitude of Norman Kendal and Special Branch. He told me that he thought the attack was really coming from Albert Canning, who was disgruntled about the handling of the Rogeiro de Menezes case. Special Branch think that de Menezes should have been taken to Cannon Row and that they should have presented the case for the prosecution. Len Burt seems to be on quite satisfactory terms with Kendal but realises that he will have to draw in his horns a bit. He thinks that there are many cases which can be much better and more expeditiously dealt with by his section than by Special Branch, quite apart from the security aspect. He thinks that Special Branch are generally rather disinclined to take or to recommend action. Burt also told me that Inspector Robinson’s appointment had caused a certain amount of ill-feeling 64
1943
among other officers at Scotland Yard. He thought Robinson was quite a good man and he realises that he will be only concerned with the administrative side and will have nothing to do with intelligence.Apparently, some of the higher placed officials at the Yard think they might have been given the job.There is a certain amount of criticism of this department by Special Branch since they only see a certain number of our somewhat desultory enquiries.They have no idea of the number of spies that have actually been caught.They probably calculate that as we have only executed thirteen there are no others. Len Burt thinks too that although Rex Hoyes’ case was originally turned down by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the matter is evidently being reconsidered and Counsel’s opinion taken. It looks as if Sir Stafford Cripps was not prepared to accept the DPP’s ruling. 13 April I discussed with Dick and Milmo the question of Rogeiro de Menezes’ reprieve. We have now received a file from the Home Office asking us (a) whether de Menezes gave any assistance and (b) what effect a reprieve is likely to have in a general way.We have replied that de Menezes did assist us but that we cannot give any general ruling on the question of the deterrent effect of the execution.We offer the following observations however on this particular case: (a) the Portuguese authorities did give us considerable assistance, firstly in withdrawing diplomatic privilege and secondly in rounding up a number of German agents in Portugal; (b) that a reprieve may possibly give us assistance from other embassies and legations at a future date, since if they feel that a death sentence is inevitable they might be reluctant to remove diplomatic privilege; (c) that if a reprieve is granted for reasons which would be carefully considered, as it is desirable to leave any actual or potential enemy agents who may be working in foreign embassies a feeling of uncertainty about their fate should they be discovered, that some such phrase is suggested as “after due consideration of all the circumstances”, etcetera. Lastly, we have drawn attention to the fact that if de Menezes is reprieved he should be put either in Dartmoor or Camp 020. If he is to serve his sentence in some other penal establishment there may be a leakage of highly secret information. 14 April Buster Milmo talked about the case of Frank Steiner, who has proved to be an extremely interesting agent. As far as we know, he has come clean but he does not make an entirely favourable impression.All his information which is checkable has been found to be accurate, and he told us amongst a great many other things that the Germans carry secret ink in a woollen thread which is woven into their clothes.This is a new development.
65
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
15 April GELATINE has been promised some money. GARBO made a further attempt to establish wireless contact on 7 April but was not successful owing to weather conditions. The Germans appear to have fallen completely for GARBO’s underground project which involves the sending of saboteurs. We are thinking of getting FATHER transferred to India but meanwhile there is evidence that the Germans are still placing reliance in him. A report by LIPSTICK on operational matters has appeared in ISOS. It is stated that the report could not be vouched for but that the view is held in Berlin that previous reports on non-operational matters have been good. We now have seventeen actual double-cross agents and six notional. Four of the Russian agents who were brought over here with a view to their being dropped by parachute in Austria are awaiting a ship from Scotland which is to take them back to Russia via the Panama Canal.The party consists of three men and one woman, who are believed to be Austrians.They have been here for nearly a year and are being sent back either owing to their unsuitability or their reluctance to undertake the job. They told their SOE bear-leader that in fact they were not being sent to spy against the Germans but to bed themselves in as long-term Comintern agents.They think that they will now be sent to some desolate spot in Siberia and are anxious if possible to be allowed to remain here. It is possible that this may be merely a ruse to get us to allow them to bed themselves down here instead of in Austria. On the other hand, their story may be a perfectly genuine one. Geoffrey Wethered is going to have a talk with them. 16 April BALLOON has received £740, and Berlin has authorised a final payment to TRICYCLE of 187,500 escudos. We are still at a loss to find suitable cover for TRICYCLE to go to Middle East. Fanto, who is in future to be known as PUPPET, has sent two letters to Lisbon announcing his safe arrival and his reception in this country. He has given quite a lot of useful information about the Abwehr and German penetration in Belgium. No further action will be possible of a double-cross suspect until PUPPET gets his secret ink. The Germans appear to be satisfied with the work of BRUTUS and he is going to make a survey of the south coast shortly. GARBO made contact on 9 April and he has been asked to instruct sub-agent No. 3 to investigate the movements of troops southwest of Glasgow.This appears to be a request from Berlin who regard No. 3’s reports as valuable. Codenamed BENEDICT, GARBO’s Agent No. 3 was supposedly a Venezuelan student in Glasgow named Carlos.
66
1943
17 April I gave Sir Alexander Maxwell a copy of the HARLEQUIN report that we had prepared for the Prime Minister and I also discussed with him the question of the Home Office appointment, the Director-General having given me a note in which he asked whether consideration had been given to the two names that he had put forward, namely Sir Charles Stead and Sir Archibald Campbell, two of his Indian civil service friends. Maxwell said that he had been reconsidering the whole question and that he was now convinced that the Home Office should if possible appoint somebody from within their own organisation. Ronnie Reed has written an extremely good report on ZIGZAG, a copy of which I am proposing to send to Duff Cooper. Plan MINCEMEAT has been approved by the Prime Minister. I have seen the documents which are extremely well faked.The body is to be dropped somewhere off Huelva and the compromising document is one containing a plan and cover plan written by Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Archie Nye, to General Alexander.Actually, the cover plan is the plan. The Director-General has shown me his report to Duff Cooper making suggestions for the post-war re-construction of the office. He is quite emphatic about the question of proper establishment and pension rights. I agree with most of what he says and he gives some interesting figures about establishment in the past years. In 1909 there was one officer with no staff, in 1914 there were four officers with a staff of ten, in 1918 there were 97 officers and 470 staff, in 1924 a total staff of 28, in 1930 a staff of 54, in 1938 a total of 130, and in 1939 there were 200.Today there are 270 officers on the Security Service establishment, 180 on military establishment, and a staff of 2,515. 19 April The effect on BRUTUS of the recent trouble between Poland and the Soviet government is being carefully considered. The Germans are intending to send more sabotage material to MUTT and JEFF. TATE has expressed himself as being worried and disturbed as he thought that he saw a direction-finding van in his area recently. For this reason he will not be transmitting so often.The possibility is being considered of allowing TATE to take up a job as he is being given his freedom. Our plans for an explosion on the City of Lancaster have rather gone astray.The ship should have come in at East Ham, but had to go on to Glasgow and it was decided therefore that the captain of ship and the SCO, and certain officers, should inspect the bunkers and the crew would probably draw the conclusion that the investigation was concerned with something which had occurred in that part of the ship. It was thought that the subsequent expansion and distortion of this interrogation which would result when the crew got back to Lisbon would provide sufficient cover for ZIGZAG if the enemy were at the moment suspicious of him.
67
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Ronnie Reed went up but for some reason or other thought it advisable that the piece of coal would be “discovered”.This I think was a pity. Two more of GARBO’s agents have been identified with FELIPE’s V-men.Wireless contact has been maintained and instructions received to encipher all messages twice for greater security until we receive a new code. A new agent named METEOR has arrived. He comes to us as a double-cross with instructions to act in that capacity, but also to communicate with other addresses which he is not supposed to have disclosed. He has been put in touch with TRICYCLE. METEOR was a Yugoslav pilot, Eugn Sostaric. 20 April In my absence it seems that a German station was heard transmitting on 20 April trying to get in touch with SPRINGBOK. The outcome of Geoffrey Wethered’s interview with four Austrians intended to be dropped in Austria as Soviet spies, which I mentioned on 15 April, was as follows: He saw three of the four at Inverness and the fourth in a convalescent home in Surrey.Their names were Wilhelm Wagner, alias Kurt Traub; Hilda Uxa, alias Marie Dicksen, wife of Wagner; Alvin Mar, alias George Martens, and Anton Barak alias August Hoffman.The aliases are the names under which they arrived in this country from Russia on 18 December 1941. Martens arrived later than the other three, as he replaced one Karl Schwarz who fell ill and had to return to Russia in February 1942. Hoffman arrived at the end of September 1942 by Martens. The nominal object of the expedition was for them to be dropped by parachute in Austria under the auspices of SOE, in order to carry out a plan specified by the Russians, but unknown to SOE, who assumed it to be one of wartime espionage. Schwarz was to be the wireless operator, and had a radio set, code, etcetera, which SOE did not see, and which he took back to Russia with his wife. Martens brought a similar outfit with him, but was torpedoed and had lost the set and all his documents. The Russians then sent a third wireless set of the same kind and other papers, a few of which SOE have seen.The party, on their arrival, complained bitterly of the documents issued to them by the NKVD and the cover stories which had been arranged for them.They all declared that the NKVD had advised them to seek assistance from the English in these matters so that documents and cover stories could be improved. When SOE raised this point with the embassy, however, they received the reply that in no circumstances were SOE to offer any help or interest themselves in the matter. As no improvements could be effected the party refused to go and negotiations between London and Moscow began. New documents were sent from Russia, which apparently were scarcely better than the original ones.The main difficulty seems to have been not so much in the form of the documents – which was approximately correct– but in the cover they were
68
1943
supposed to give. Mistakes were also made, as for instance in one case three documents made out with different dates over a period of five years for the same man each contained a precisely similar photograph of the individual wearing the same clothes, etcetera. In spite of negotiations, no real improvement was effected, and the Soviet Embassy never allowed the party to seek assistance from SOE. On the arrival of Martens, with no fresh instructions or improved documents, matters reached a deadlock. Partly because of this, and partly because of ill-health, the party refused to make the trip.They were then ordered to return to Russia.This alarmed them very much and they asked if they could remain here, but the Foreign Office refused for political reasons. In January 1943 they were put on board a ship, which sailed for the Faroes, but as no convoy was available returned to Scotland in March. During this voyage the party were kept as prisoners by one Toropchenko, who made no secret of the fact that trial and perhaps death awaited them in Russia.This man is now at Inverness living in the same hotel as the three members of the party. All of the people concerned were Austrians who originally went to Russia at the time when an open invitation was given to refugees from European communist parties to come and take up work in Russia. Wethered thinks that the possibility that any member of the party had a role of penetration in this country may be dismissed. They are genuinely terrified of their fate should they be sent back and anxious to give all the facts in their possession in the hope that they may be allowed to remain here or go to the United States.Wethered concludes that none of them knew for certain what exactly their presence in Austria was designed to serve. It is clear that they were to form some sort of information service, and two of them strongly suspect that their chief role would have been a post-war one.They all said that instructions, requests for information, etcetera, were only to be transmitted to them after their arrival in Austria and when they had set up wireless communication with Russia.The present position is that as it is obviously impossible for them to remain here, the Foreign Office is at present considering a plan by which certain facts should be communicated to the Americans, and that if the Russian ship puts in at an American port in the Panama Canal or elsewhere, as is probable, the party should be arrested, taken off the ship and subsequently allowed to escape. On 2 May we heard that the body of MINCEMEAT had been washed up at Huelva and had been taken in charge by the Spanish naval authorities. 12 May The papers this morning had the news of the Prime Minister’s latest visit to President Roosevelt, the secret of which had been well-kept in advance this time. There was only one rumour as far as I know about it, which appeared on the telephone check for Freddie Kuh on 5 May. We have now heard from Cyril Mills that the package which SIS were sending from New York to Lisbon for delivery to SPRINGBOK’s cover address, giving particulars of times when he would attempt transmissions, was mishandled by the New 69
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
York office and sent by sea instead of by air, so that it could not reach Lisbon before the dates on which the transmission were supposed to take place.The attempts to establish SPRINGBOK as a double-cross have, therefore, been frustrated. DRAGONFLY has made contact with the Germans, one hour late.The Germans announced that they had a message for him, which will presumably be received next week. MUTT and JEFF’s wireless sets were both working last week, one from Scotland and the other from London. It appears from messages received that the Germans intend to drop sabotage material at the end of May. Plans are accordingly going ahead for working out a scheme to sabotage the power station at Bury St Edmunds as on investigation it was found that Basingstoke was unsuitable for various reasons. The Germans will be informed that JEFF has been posted to Bury St Edmunds and he will then put up his revised project. Richman Stopford’s agent JOSEPH, who has just returned from Lisbon, was approached there by the Japanese and asked to act as an agent in this country.They suggested various sabotage schemes to him, one to function in Glasgow in September. He was given a cover address in Lisbon, a seal specially made for him with his monogram on it to seal the letters he would send back by courier, and a promise of a wireless set which would be sent in separate parts by degrees through the courier who would bring his letters. On 22 May the Soviet government announced the disbanding of the Communist International. Johannes Huysmanns has been identified with the previously mentioned ISOS character Jean Legrand or Larour. One Gerard “P” left for the UK on 19 May, so far unidentified. Huysmanns was deported to England from Lisbon and made a full confession at Camp 020 where he acted as a stool-pigeon until the end of the war when he was returned to Belgium and sentenced to life imprisonment. 31 May The principal things of interest seem to be that: Plan MINCEMEAT has been an unqualified success. It has been reflected both in ISOS and MSS and it seems that a number of troops have been sent to Greece. A post mortem was held, and the conclusion reached was that the man had been in the water for ten days, or a fortnight, whereas he cannot have been afloat for more than forty-eight hours. Had the post mortem been properly conducted it would have disclosed that there was no water in the lungs.The “death” of the “Major” has been reported officially in the London Gazette, and “relatives” have sent wreaths. GARBO has had another great success. He has received a code which GC&CS say is almost the equivalent of a one-times table.What is more important is that he has instructions to use our army procedure in transmitting his messages.The preamble and conclusion of his cipher message will indicate that his messages are
70
1943
British Army communications and they will not therefore be recorded by voluntary interceptors. The replies to his messages will be in Abwehr procedure. It will not be clear who the recipient is in either direction. GARBO has also a complete table of call-signs, times and frequencies up to February 1944. DUCK has succeeded in her special job of getting the Spanish tapes again. Rogeiro de Menezes has been reprieved. Christopher Harmer, who has been waiting for MUTT’s sabotage equipment in Aberdeenshire, reports that the plane came in to drop the material some ten or fifteen miles away from the arranged spot and it was picked up by a farmer. Two hundred yards from where the parachute was dropped there was a mobile RAF beacon which may have been mistaken for Harmer’s electric flashes.The sabotage equipment was contained in a suitcase, dimensions 14 inches by 10 inches by 4 inches and inside were an SOE clamp, an SOE flare and an SOE detonator container, plus £400.We are not acknowledging receipt and are going to suggest going out again, i.e. on the assumption that we know nothing about the container being found. 5 June GC&CS has given us an appreciation of GARBO’s cipher and they say that it has three outstanding features: it is new, it is perhaps the highest grade cipher ever used by the Abwehr in their experience, and it is identical in principle with the cipher recently, since 1 May 1943, given by the Germans to their most important Spanish outstations, Huelva, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Melilla and Tetuan. These ciphers have not been broken but with GARBO’s information it should be possible to deal with them within a period of two to three months. It would appear therefore that the Germans must have good confidence in GARBO and also in his immunity from danger of capture. At the same time the Germans may believe, and the belief is probably justified, that possession by us of this agent’s cipher would not automatically “blow” the ciphers of the Spanish stations. Each use of the cipher has a different key process and without a knowledge of this the cipher has a good claim to be considered insoluble. The Abwehr have begged GARBO to guard his code with the utmost care. At the daily meeting I discussed the case of [XXXXXXXXX], the SOE agent who came here originally as a deserter and was subsequently dropped in Germany. He returned here again, passing through San Sebastian with a fictitious story, and apparently his masters at SOE believe him. Personally, I think he probably planted himself on SOE in the first instance, and that he is purely and simply a German agent. He is prepared to go back again provided he is not sent to Germany.This I interpret as being the feeling of his master in Germany that he would be of much more use in occupied territory. SOE is now proposing to use him again on some lone job but it seemed to me that, in the interests of SIS and of other organisations of the kind, he should not be again let loose on the continent. He should, in fact, be interned under the Royal Prerogative. I am proposing to have a talk with 71
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Field-Robinson about his case. Buster Milmo seemed to think that we should be within our rights in refusing to allow this man’s employment. I do not, however, wish to have a row with SOE if it can be avoided. Patrick Day mentioned that he has gone into the case of a Luftwaffe prisoner of war named Fried who said that he had landed an agent at Flamborough Head in 1940 and taken off again. This agent had done valuable work in reporting the departure of certain aircraft which were shot down over Norway and there seems to be some foundation of fact of this story. Firstly, the aircraft were brought down in somewhat mysterious circumstances, and secondly the local police did report two somewhat mysterious men rowing out to sea in a boat. The other cases mentioned by Fried were solely hearsay and probably untrue. 7 June GELATINE received £238 on 2 April. On 26 May DRAGONFLY succeeded in reestablishing contact. He was told that a diplomat travelling to this country at the end of May might bring jewellery which DRAGONFLY could sell.WATCHDOG has received a questionnaire which seems to disclose that the Germans are interested in his case. I took the daily meeting and Mrs Spring produced an ISOS message indicating that the Abwehr in Lisbon have a fairly good idea about our future plans in the Mediterranean. Buster Milmo mentioned that there were difficulties about Rogeiro de Menezes’ correspondence from Dartmoor prison.There is no evidence at the moment that the Germans are aware that de Menezes has been reprieved, although it is quite possible that the information has reached them though some Portuguese government channel. Professor Briscoe’s correspondence can be censored if it is considered in any way objectionable. Our only course, therefore, is to act on the assumption that any letter de Menezes writes is bound to be open to some objection. Buster Milmo thinks that the Germans may well consider it curious that in no single case have particulars been published regarding the execution of a spy who has been in the country for any length of time.All the established stories relate to spies who have been captured immediately on arrival. In the case of de Menezes he thinks it desirable that if B1(a) agents are not to be compromised the facts should as far as possible be withheld. I asked Vesey to consider carefully the question of the circulation of the RVPS report. It seemed to me that possibly we were going outside the terms of our agreement with SIS that details regarding their organisation should not be circulated.Vesey pointed out that the details appearing in the report referred only to the cases of organisations and individuals who were already in the hands of the Germans. I am going to discuss this matter tomorrow with Baxter. William Field-Robinson came to see me about Kurt [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. I told him that I had read the story and found it singularly unconvincing. I admitted that I had not had the advantage or disadvantage of seeing [XXXXXX] personally. I was only looking at the case in cold blood. Field-Robinson admitted 72
1943
that the story was an extremely peculiar one but was confident about [XXXXXXXX]’s bona fides, although of course he said he could not be 100 per cent certain. He thought that in some ways [XXXXXX] was slightly mad. In any case, he appeared to be unaware of the enormous risks that he would be running if he went on another mission. He has gladly accepted the job of blowing up the railway near Mainz. I said I was quite satisfied from the security point of view in this country, provided SOE could say that [XXXXXX] had been isolated throughout his stay here. Field-Robinson gave me an absolutely guarantee that this was so. On the other hand, I thought there were certain risks in having a man of his type rolling round the continent and possibly making contact with our controls or other organisations, particularly if he had anything in the nature of a passport. After further discussion we agreed that the possession of SOE material, which was now known to be thoroughly blown, would not give him the entrée. He would have no other credentials except German army papers, which would get him nowhere with the British.There was perhaps a slight risk of his getting mixed up with other people in Spain on his way out and learning something about escape routes.To obviate this, Field-Robinson said that he was giving very careful instructions that if he turned up he should be isolated from any other escapees and the fact reported immediately. Field-Robinson said that if we were really apprehensive they would call the whole thing off. I said that provided the above precautions were taken I did not see that we or anybody else had anything to lose. Roger Hollis came to see me about telephone checks and Special Facilities on certain doubtful members of the Russian Trade Delegation. It seems likely that the Foreign Office will agree to this provided a suitable letter is put up to Anthony Eden.The Foreign Office seems to regard it as their prerogative to sign telephone checks for anyone here who has diplomatic privilege. I presume that they base this on the old analogy of special material which was always worked by SIS. Such an arrangement would be quite satisfactory to us provided there is no Home Office objection. Dick Brooman-White discussed with me future action in regard to the Portuguese. We have received a letter from Kim Philby showing the action of the Portuguese authorities on the representations made by us about German espionage in Portugal. On 19 February they arrested Rogerio de Menezes’ sister, Marcello, and Miranda.The sister was released after interrogation. On 10 March they were given four charts illustrating the network of Foester,Weltzien, Schmidt and Grimm. Still concentrating on the de Menezes case, they arrested a number of people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who were thought to be connected with a cipher leakage. The principal offender, Cardozo, proved unbreakable and was released from prison but not reinstated in her former post.A new phase began on 26 March 1943 when Dr Salazar gave the International Police a copy of the charts and instructions to arrest everyone whose name appeared in them. Ten days later, the arrest of the Germans themselves began, not only in Portugal but also in the Azores. In middle April, however, the German influence made itself felt. By order of the Ministry of the Interior, Foester and Schmidt were released pending expulsion. No expulsion 73
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
has so far taken place. On 27 April three wireless operators working under Annes and Schmidt were arrested. Kuno Weltzien’s arrest appeared to present certain difficulties since two of his principal agents enjoyed the protection of the head of the secret service of the Portuguese Legion. Chance, however, put into the hands of SIS evidence since proved to be a forgery which seemed to indicate that Forges and Weltzien were attempting to penetrate the War Ministry.They were arrested on 18 May and 21 May respectively.Another lucky chance discovery of Marcado’s wireless set in the false bottom of his mother’s dog-kennel led to the re-arrest of Annes and further evidence against Schmidt. It does not seem that our minister, Sir Ronald Campbell, has been of much assistance and any successes are entirely due to the efforts of Kim Philby and the local representative of SIS.The ambassador has shown but lukewarm interest in the affair so it is our intention to bring some further pressure to bear on the Foreign Office. 8 June I lunched with Desmond Orr. He mentioned the case of a Miss Catto, who had found her way into the Planning Section of the War Office. She is apparently a night-club hostess who is more often tight than sober.When in her cups she is singularly indiscreet but she was given the all-clear after what was described as “positive vetting”, but this only included the passing of her name over Scotland Yard records. Orr quite rightly thinks that more positive enquiries should be made about people before they take up jobs of this kind. It was thought advisable to sack her since she knows most things about our plans for the next nine months. She has been transferred to a training branch of the War Office where she can do less harm. I took the Wednesday meeting and Herbert Hart said that an Argentine national of German origin called Oscar Liehr had been recruited by the Abwehr in Lisbon. He has been intercepted by the control at Trinidad. He has confessed that he was carrying out a mission for the Abwehr. He is to receive a questionnaire, a sum of money in English pounds and secret ink. He had been given a cover address.The Abwehr at Vigo are expecting the arrival of an agent from London. This man, codenamed PASTOR, will travel via Lisbon. Efforts are being made to identify him. Buster Milmo and I went over to see Sir Alexander Maxwell about the Rogeiro de Menezes case and about Otto Witt. Maxwell, who is going away on leave, called in Frank Newsam and it was agreed that de Menezes should be kept from communicating with the outside world.The Governor would be instructed to send all his letters here and we would hold them up. De Menezes would not be informed. It was felt that as the Lord Chief Justice has expressed the view that no publicity should be given to the trial and subsequent reprieve it was up to the authorities to do everything in their power to prevent the information getting back to the Germans. It was admitted, however, that the arrangement proposed could not possibly give 100 per cent guarantee. It was explained that it was in our interests that in so far as the outside world was concerned de Menezes disappeared in an atmosphere of mystery. We did not wish to lose the deterrent effect of his trial and 74
1943
sentence which would undoubtedly be a matter for discussion in diplomatic circles.We were, however, anxious that nothing should be known about the reprieve except by those in the Portuguese government who would be bound to know. There was another and more subtle reason for keeping matters secret. So far, the public had been given details of some twelve or fourteen cases where a trial and execution had taken place. In each of these cases it was clear that the man had been apprehended immediately on arrival.The case of Rogeiro de Menezes was the only one so far where a man who had been resident here for some time had been apprehended and put on trial. From time to time it becomes necessary for us to liquidate a double agent who may be tied up with other agents.The Germans know that this man has been in this country for some time and if it is our custom to publish details about long-term spies would naturally expect some announcement to be made by the press to the effect that the man had been caught and executed. If they were to reason on these lines they might become skeptical about the bona fides of quite a number of our double agents. It is far preferable that the Germans should think that we do not always publish details and it is quite possible for one of their agents here simply to disappear, the assumption being that he has been tried and executed without publicity. Buster Milmo explained to Sir Alexander Maxwell the outline of the case of Otto Witt. It had been raised again by a request from Charles Hambro that for some reason which has always been rather obscure to us, Otto Witt should not be allowed to write to his wife. Before seeing Hambro, Maxwell wanted to know the story from us. I told Peter Reid about GARBO’s new cipher and his instructions to use military procedure which was an added anxiety. He did not see any immediate solution of the problem since any measures that might be in force must first be dependent on getting a marked improvement in army signals discipline, and machinery for enforcing it. He had realised Fladgate’s position and very much deprecated the situation where people in that position were left in total ignorance of our Y activities. This was not so in the navy, who hold a somewhat privileged position. I suggested to Peter that I should put him in touch with T.A. Robertson on the question of signals deception. He very much welcomed this idea. 10 June The second part of Plan DREAM has been successful. £2,750 has been paid over today to GARBO’s account, so this brings his total up to something over £7,000. 11 June Derek Tangye has produced evidence that information is reaching the Evening Standard from their correspondents in Lisbon. This is carried in letter form and posted in London, probably by some member of the crews of the KLM. I am suggesting to Brook-Booth that he should inform the Dutch and that they should 75
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
warn KLM that if this continues we shall be obliged to search all members of the crews on arrival and departure. It is hoped that this will act as a deterrent. TRICYCLE has succeeded in getting himself appointed by the Yugoslavs to undertake a mission to Portugal and Spain, and is now being prepared for his journey. A letter from Dr Koestler enclosing further instructions for PUPPET and the match which he needs for secret writing has been received in Lisbon for onward transmission. ISOS reveals that Paris has obtained the aid of Berlin in getting DRAGONFLY paid. Berlin warned that the person paying the money should not personally visit the address given where the money is to be received because of the possibility that DRAGONFLY is not genuine.The courier is coming from Switzerland and may conceivably have some connection with the Bunsen organisation. He is believed to be a diplomat. I saw Duff Cooper for a few minutes and gave him some more recent information about the subjects dealt with in our last MI5 report. He was going to see the Prime Minister at 4.30. I showed him a copy of GC&CS report on GARBO which, I think, pleased him. If B1(a) has done nothing else for the last three years they would certainly have justified their existence with this case. I also talked to Duff about signals security and my talk with Peter Reid. I had a talk with T.A. Robertson and Christpher Harmer about the case of MUTT. MUTT’s father is a hairdresser in Oslo, and has sent a message to his son by a Miss White, who found herself in Norway at the time of the German invasion. She has just been allowed by the Germans to leave Norway with her elderly mother, aged eighty. Miss White has told MUTT that for a time his father was placed in a concentration camp. Miss White does not make a particularly good impression and if she was wrong she might have been told to give this message with a purpose. MUTT should normally react, but cannot do so because he is not supposed to have disclosed to his father that he was going to England. Miss White thinks that MUTT is in the Norwegian forces, which in fact he is, so that if anything gets back it will not affect MUTT’s position. 15 June ISOS disclosed that RICARDO, who has been responsible for a good deal of the leakage of information about convoys, etcetera, in Lisbon is an interpreter for the British and American consulates. Enquiries are now being made as to who this man is likely to be. If he is identified, our anxiety about action in Lisbon to find somebody connected with our missions there would fit the bill and will have been fully justified.
76
1943
16 June At the weekly meeting Herbert Hart mentioned the case of PASTOR who, from his source, seems to have some contact with the Abwehr.They are at any rate anxious to get in touch with him. From the facts given,Tommy Harris was able to identify this man as a Spanish professor who had recently left this country and who is in fact a B1(g) agent of a kind. We shall have to consider how we are going to deal with him when he returns. Roger Hollis has just told me that Douglas Springhall has been arrested. He had approached a girl named Mrs Olive Sheehan in the Air Ministry whose husband had been in the International Brigade and who was either a member of or fairly closely connected with the Communist Party. He had suggested to her that as we were fighting on the same side as Russia she might pass him information which would be useful to our ally and which he would see got to the right quarter. She had been in fairly frequent touch with a girlfriend of hers in the Ministry and also been present at some of the meetings. Sheehan fell ill a few days ago and gave her friend an envelope to hand a man called “Peter” who would be calling. The girlfriend consulted with her officer who steamed open the letter and found inside details of the CPGB cell in the Air Ministry and also details about some secret device. A copy was taken of the information about the cell and that about the device was removed.The envelope was then handed to “Peter”.When Sheehan was interviewed by the police she said she thought that Peter’s name was Springhall and she subsequently identified him from photographs.The police thereupon arrested Springhall and found on him the document about the party cell in the Air Ministry. The chain of evidence is therefore complete. Unfortunately, the law is somewhat inadequate in the case of a man who is spying on behalf of an ally. It seems unlikely that Springhall will get more than nine months to two years. Mrs Sheehan had communicated with her husband and more or less intimated to him that she was going to carry out some kind of secret work on behalf of the Party. The husband is employed on some RAF station. I attended a meeting at the Foreign Office in Loxley’s room, at which Kim Philby, Tim Milne and Sir John Dashwood were present. We discussed the memo we had prepared on the result of the protest to the Portuguese government about German espionage activities. It was agreed by all that as soon as the memo was approved the matter should be taken up vigorously at both ends. It was known that the Portuguese ambassador in London was anxious to see Sir Alexander Cadogan in order to thank him personally for his intervention in the case of Rogeiro de Menezes, and it was thought that this would provide a good opportunity for pointing out that we expected rather more in return. Harry Hopkinson, Peter Loxley’s predecessor, now Minister in Lisbon, was expected here in a week’s time. He is fully acquainted with our work, and it is suggested that we should brief him thoroughly on the inadequacy of the measures that they have so far taken.
77
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
19 June I had a long talk with Len Burt about corruption in the police force. Burt knows perfectly well that it is going on and he thinks that the Commissioner is largely in ignorance of the really rather serious state of affairs which has been reached. I gather there are certain reliable people of fairly high rank, chief inspectors, etcetera, who are also very concerned and would like to see the position cleared up. They know, however, that people who previously had a hand in these matters, like Superintendent Thompson, have made themselves extremely unpopular in the force and are therefore somewhat reluctant to go forward. Burt thinks that if they had any real backing they might do so. He thinks that Norman Kendal knows a little about what is going on and that Ronald Howe knows a good deal more. Burt is even more concerned about the pay of the police. He says there has been no increase in allowances for many years, and that with the high cost of living many policemen of the rank of Superintendent. Inspector, and Chief Inspector have been finding it extremely hard to carry on.A Chief Inspector’s pay under present conditions does not amount to much more than £6 a week net. Burt thinks this is far too little and only leads to bribery and corruption.The sums offered are extremely large: since pay is inadequate it needs a man of fairly strong character to resist the temptation of a bribe. I gather that recommendations for increased pay have gone forward but that Herbert Morrison has turned them down.All of what Burt says is, of course, confirmed by the Stockman case, which shows that there are at least twenty policemen heavily implicated in bribery and corruption. It is the greatest folly that any government can commit to fail in giving adequate pay to the forces of law and order, and it can only aggravate a situation where endless regulations involving control of prices make it worthwhile for certain people to offer big sums in order to evade the law.The Director-General is now considering the Stockman report. I asked Burt whether he thought that a matter of this sort could be cleaned up within the police. He was doubtful. He said he could do it himself but that he would not like the job. 21 June Operation MINCEMEAT seems to have been more of a success than we originally thought.The 1st Panzer Division has been moved from France to Greece. It is a fortnight overdue as it is meeting with all sorts of difficulties on the way. These include the blowing up of railways, etcetera. There is also considerable reinforcement in Sardinia.A further indication is that GARBO and BRUTUS have been asked to say whether any Greek troops are accompanying the Canadians destined for the Middle East. I saw James Robertson today who is doing double-cross work in the Middle East. He seemed a very sensible person. As in India, Twenty Committee work began the wrong way round. It started with CHEESE being used as a deception agent. There are now three reliable agents in the Middle East communicating by
78
1943
wireless and putting over deception. Deception is regarded as the beginning and end of double work and is under the control of Dudley Clarke. If new agents are caught he really has the first call on their services from the deception point of view. There is a good deal of trouble in Algiers where the French are in control. Strictly speaking they should not practise any deception except under Dudley Clarke’s direction. The French are not very inclined to tell about their agents at the moment. Clearly something in the nature of a Twenty Committee in North Africa is required. If however we attempt to send anyone, there is bound to be trouble. Perhaps the job can be done by A.G.Trevor Wilson. 22 June There has been a crisis in the GARBO case. Mrs GARBO is extremely homesick and jealous of GARBO who is completely absorbed in his work and has consequently to some extent neglected her. Her one desire is to go back to her home country. She thinks that as the whole of GARBO’s network is notional we have no further use for his services. It had to be explained to her that he is a most active collaborator which of course she knows already. She now threatens to go to the Spanish Embassy if she cannot get her papers. She ought really to be locked up and kept incommunicado but in the state of the law here nothing of the kind is possible. T.A. Robertson is going down to read her the riot act and to explain to her that she has already committed an act preparatory to an act by threatening to go to the Spanish Embassy. It has also been suggested, to give her an interest in life, that she would be shown a bogus message indicating that a Gestapo agent here has some instructions to make contact with GARBO. We would then put in Jack Bingham and let her run his case. This will, of course, be an added complication to the already complicated GARBO case. We have also thought of warning the Spanish Embassy here anonymously that a woman of Mrs GARBO’s description is anxious to assassinate the ambassador. This would, we hope, ensure her being flung out if she attempted to go to the embassy. It would however result in the police being called in which would be a bore. If we let her go back to Madrid it seems highly probable that she may talk. The plan to deal with the GARBO crisis has been changed. It is now proposed that Len Burt should take a letter to Mrs GARBO after 5pm when the Spanish Consulate would be closed, telling her that her husband had been arrested and asking for his pyjamas, toothbrush, etcetera. Tomorrow, if she appears to be in a repentant mood, she will be taken to see GARBO either in a cell at Cannon Row or at Camp 020. GARBO will say that the authorities decided to liquidate the case and suggested that he should send one final message, that he thereupon blew up, became abusive and threatened to give the whole show away. He had, thereupon, been arrested. It is hoped that Mrs GARBO will then say that her husband is entirely innocent and that the whole crisis has been due to her stupidity.
79
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
23 June The plan to bring Mrs GARBO to reason seems to be going fairly well. She rang up Haines and Tommy Harris in a frightful state. Haines went and found the room full of gas.This was clearly a bit of play-acting for his benefit. He did, however, think that there was a 10 per cent chance of her doing something foolish, so Mrs Harris was asked to go and calm her down during the night.This morning she was interviewed by T.A. Robertson who heard her plea and explanation. She has signed a statement saying that the whole of the incident was due to her fault and that on no account would she behave badly in the future. She is to be taken to Ham in a Black Maria this afternoon where Tin-Eye is staging an appropriate act. She will be allowed to talk with GARBO in his cell. GARBO will be released tomorrow when it is hoped that a reconciliation will take place and that he will fall into the arms of his ever-loving wife.Tommy Harris is to be notionally eliminated from the case. He will not see Mrs GARBO any more but will continue to work with the husband. 24 June An ISBA seems to disclose that ZIGZAG is still on the map and being prepared for another sabotage exploit. I introduced him to T.A. Robertson in order that they might discuss wireless cover for deception, which is one of Peter Reid’s jobs. T.A.R. told him that at a meeting held by the Controller the view had been expressed that owing to the manpower situation it would be impossible to build up wireless cover since so many trained operators would be required. Peter takes rather a different view. He thinks that the Germans could not be expected to get everything and that there would be ways and means of indicating to them through what they did get that there was a division in a particular area. I suggested that possibly the problem might be narrowed if we intimated to the Germans that the presence of certain divisions in an area was regarded as highly secret and that special instructions had been given that they should cut down their wireless communication to a minimum. Peter is going to try and reopen the matter. He also thinks that something in very general terms should be said about the possibility of German agents adopting our procedure, as in the case of GARBO. He thinks this could be done without jeopardising the source. He came up afterwards to see the actual documents which GARBO had received giving him instructions in the use of his new code. I think he is going to be a very valuable ally. Tommy Harris tells me that the GARBO crisis has now been liquidated, according to plan. The concluding scene was at Room 055 where Edward Cussen in masterly style explained to Mrs GARBO that she herself had only missed being arrested by a hair’s breath. She has given an assurance that she will make no further trouble and she understands that if there are any other incidents of the kind both she and her husband will be detained for the duration of the war. I think she is
80
1943
thoroughly chastened. GARBO, bearded from his prison life, is returning to her this evening. I gather that he is somewhat shaken by his experiences of the last fortyeight hours, and that although the plan was of his own making it was one of the most distasteful things that he has had to do in his life. A new plan has been worked out for getting GARBO’s brother-in-law over here. The latter will be impersonated by a Spanish-speaking agent who will make contact with the Germans in Lisbon. Ultimately, it is hoped to work this agent into the local German Abwehrstelle. 26 June The MULLET case appears to be going ahead. Colonel Servaes came down from Brussels to see Ludovico von Kharstoff in Lisbon and to tell him that authority for [XXXXXXXX] with Koessler’s organisation was approved by Berlin and was not to be interfered with by the Lisbon Abwehrstelle. On 17 June a warrant for the arrest of BRUTUS was issued by the police and his flat was searched. Copies of a new illegal publication called In Defence of Our Colleagues were found.This is an attempt by BRUTUS on behalf of certain younger elements of the Polish Air Force to organise a protest against the activities of General Ujejsky, Inspector-General of the Polish Air Force, and contains violent attacks on the Soviets and on the General for having attended a reception given by Ivan Maisky. BRUTUS was placed under arrest and has been transferred to Scotalnd where he is awaiting court-martial, on a charge of indiscipline and offensiveness to superior officers. The charge is not a grave one, though a substantial term of imprisonment can, under Polish law, result. A message has been sent to the Germans indicating that BRUTUS is in trouble. His action however fits in to some extent with his mission to this country. He may therefore be able to make capital out of his arrest. Preparations for TRICYCLE’s journey to Lisbon are virtually complete. He is only waiting for his Portuguese visa. The Otto Witt case has blown up in a rather unpleasant way. Sir Alexander Maxwell has written a letter intended for the Secretary of State for War in which the Home Secretary expresses his grave displeasure and concern at the treatment of Witt at the London District Cage.Witt has made a number of allegations about illtreatment which have been denied.The only admission is that Wiesner slapped his face. If the denials are accepted it seems an incredible thing that two Secretaries of State should be drawn into a matter which involves a lying little Nazi having had his face slapped by a Czech. It seems to me that the whole case has got totally out of perspective.The Director-General feels rather hot about it although we are not directly concerned since the incident did not take place on our premises. At some stage in the proceedings it is alleged that Buster Milmo or Francis Aiken-Sneath said that it was the British Government’s view that it was better that nine innocent men should be executed than one guilty one should escape. This statement was merely made to frighten Witt but it is argued that information extracted in fear is 81
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
of no value. I rather wonder what Maxwell would say if he read all the Camp 020 reports. I am quite convinced that no physical violence is practised at 020 but all sorts of threats are made without which in many cases one would not get at the truth. It depends on the man you are dealing with. If the Home Office think that they can handle spies with kid gloves on it is about time someone disillusioned them. I am going to suggest to the Director-General that he should see Grigg personally about this case and try and get it back on more sensible lines. 27 June J.C. Masterman and Ronnie Reed came to talk to me about TATE.They are anxious that he should be given permission to take employment in some photograph business in Watford if this can found. His detention under present conditions is getting on his nerves and also on those of his guards. If we can, with reasonable safety, ease the situation I think we should do so.According to present arrangements,TATE can go about the village unattended and it would have been quite possible for him to escape if he thought it worthwhile. Employment in Watford would only extend his area another five miles and should he attempt to escape the matter would become known to us within a few hours. I said that I thought provided we took all the necessary precautions like informing the Chief Constable and having photographs ready for circulation, we could afford to give him this measure of extra-liberty.TATE must know that if he attempted to get back to the Germans they would almost certainly shoot him. He might say that he had been working under duress, but he could not explain why he had not let the Germans know through the Japanese naval attaché that he was under control. Moreover, if they went back on his traffic they would hold him responsible for the execution of Karel Richter. Double-cross shows that the Yugoslavs have with their usual indiscretion informed their representative both in Lisbon and Madrid that TRICYCLE has a special mission for the British government. I think we may be able to cover this to some extent by giving TRICYCLE a mission from the Ministry of Information.The fact remains however that the circle of people in the Yugoslav legation here who know about his work must have been considerably widened. The facts were supposed to be known only to the Prime Minister. 29 June Dick Brooman-White has suggested that we might take action against Artaza who has been communicating air raid damage reports to the embassy for transmission to Madrid. If another raid on Newcastle takes place TANGERINE could report the facts by telephone and the conversation would be intercepted. She would be interviewed and then disclose what she had found at the [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].The Foreign Office could then make a formal protest, not only about this incident but about German activities in Spain. Peter Loxley is being consulted. 82
1943
30 June A French naval officer named Feyguin has arrived in this country. He has admitted that at one time he recruited a small party to fight against Soviet Russia. Arrangements broke down owing to the scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon and the occupation of the whole of France by the Germans. Feyguin was then recruited by the Germans for a mission for the Abwehr in this country. He was extremely badly trained.The French are anxious to use him as a double-cross but it is very doubtful whether he will be suitable for this purpose. He will probably go to Camp 020. John Gwyer talked about the case of Ernest Frederick Lehmitz concerning whom we had had reports from the FBI.This man’s correspondence was picked up at Bermuda. It was detected because the contents of the letters seemed to be too trivial and purposeless. There was a great deal of details about domestic matters, cats, chickens, etcetera. It turned out ultimately that all these details were completely true and in fact were used to prove the identity of the writer. The letters disclosed that Lehmitz returned to the United States sometime during the first four months of 1941.With infinite pains the FBI searched through the baggage checks of all arrivals from Portugal during that period. It was in this way, by comparison of handwritings, that they identified Lehmitz. This is a good piece of police work which is absolutely up the FBI’s street. Incidentally the Germans seem to have a very high opinion of the FBI. They have issued a very severe warning to GARBO about any suggestion for notionally sending MOONBEAM to Canada or the United States.Whether this can be taken as an indication that the Germans have very few spies in the United States I don’t know. It can of course only represent the views of one station of the Abwehr, perhaps only of one individual.The Germans evidently think that by comparison we are not much good. 1 July Charles Butler told me that he had just been having a talk with Duff Cooper. Duff seemed worried about the Director-General and wondered whether he would stay the course. If he did not, who was going to take over. Duff is apparently anxious to promote from within. Charles said that even if he wanted to, he would be physically unfit to do the job. Duff had apparently mentioned various names including Gilbert Lennox and Victor Rothschild. My name was also mentioned, but the feeling seemed to be that I was more suited to the intelligence side of things than the administrative side, and that I should be somewhat wasted in the position of D-G. Charles said that he really ought to talk to me about the whole question. He said that he would do so and seemed anxious to get hold of me at the earliest possible moment.
83
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
2 July Orr came to see me and told me that he had had a long talk with Duff Cooper more or less on the lines of the conversation that he had had the previous week with me. It was his view that it was extremely necessary to have the DirectorGeneral’s succession worked out. If by any chance the D-G fell down, a new man might be put in from outside and a combination of him and the Deputy D-G might be disastrous. He thought that my talents such as they are would be wasted. He thought however that I ought to have a far greater measure of independence to do what I wanted within my own sphere without reference to anyone else.What he thought was necessary was to get some suitable person in as Deputy D-G who could step into the D-G’s shoes when he left. He did not, as far as I can remember, suggest any particular person. When he talked to me today however it was clear that the individual he had in mind was Gilbert Lennox, and he had evidently sold this idea to Duff Cooper. He asked me what I thought. I said that I did not think that the office would take Lennox’s appointment and left it at that. I cannot quite make out whether the idea is Orr’s or Lennox’s. Orr assured me that Lennox would not dream of putting himself forward for such a position unless he thought it had my approval. Brook-Wilkinson asked me to go up and see the Sherlock Holmes film which I had seen some months previously, and it has now been drastically cut and altered. The Chiefs of Staff Committee has now become the Security Council, which appears to be largely a civilian body. Very little is seen of its deliberations and Sherlock Holmes is already a member of the Council when the film opens. The film is so obviously over-dramatised that even those who have never heard of Sherlock Holmes could not regard it as anything but fiction. If there had been any question of showing it in 1940 I should have voted against it but in present circumstances I cannot see that it will do any harm. I took over the MT5 report to Duff Cooper. He suggested that we might give the Prime Minister a two or three page report on the GARBO case, which he felt would arouse his interest. Duff then talked to me about the office, although I had to wait some time before he came to the point. He told me that he was rather worried about the succession problem. He had been turning over in his mind various possibilities, and had thought of Victor Rothschild and others. He then said to me “I suppose you would not do the job?” I said that I believed the view taken about me was that although I could carry the intelligence side of things, I was not a very good organiser, but that I should like to have a shot at it. He said he did not think it had been exactly suggested that I was not a good organiser, but that it would be difficult for me to give my attention to the intelligence side of the business if I had all the outside jobs to do as well. He asked me to turn over in my mind whether there was anybody in the office whom I thought suitable or, if I wanted to do the job myself, was there anyone who could give me the requisite assistance on the administration side. He was in rather a hurry to get away and suggested that I should come and see him some
84
1943
time next week. I told him that I did not think it was true to say that the D-G was failing in health or energy and that in many ways I felt his departure might have a disturbing effect. It would be difficult at this stage for anybody else coming in to do any of the drastic re-organisations of C and D Divisions, etcetera, until after the war. There were many things which were clearly not right but it would cause a major upheaval to get them altered after four years. He agreed with this. I told him all my difficulties with the D-G but said that lately I thought he had got more susceptible to argument. At moments he was extremely obstinate and he probably thought I was equally obstinate. On the other hand, he had very fine qualities, backed up his staff and fought their battles with outside departments. Duff said he thought that there was no hurry in the matter. Some people had got rather excited about it but he could not envisage anything happening for six months or a year or possibly until the end of the war. I told him that in fact the D-G was not now over-worked. Had this suggestion come a year ago it would have been different.The work of the whole department has declined considerably during the last two to three months. It may of course revive again but there is no likelihood of its reaching the 1940 pitch. 5 July T.A. Robertson tells me that young Grimaldi has been killed in an air accident. He was visiting his brother in the Outer Hebrides and the plane on which he returned has not been heard of.This is a real tragedy for us since, apart from being a nice little chap, he was doing very valuable work in B1(a). In addition to his normal duties he has been impersonating GARBO’s agent No. 6 in North Africa [XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] GARBO’s Agent No. 6 was supposedly a Field Security NCO in North Africa. TRICYCLE is off in a few days to Lisbon. He has a mission for the Yugoslav government which entails getting Yugoslavs out of Switzerland for enlistment in the Yugoslav army here. As TRIPLEX revealed to the Yugoslavs in Madrid and Lisbon that TRICYCLE had some mission to the English X a letter has been got from Bill Cavendish-Bentinck which gives him an introduction to Henry Hopkinson and makes it clear that the English are anxious not to recruit Pan-Serbs. He can show this to Ludovico von Karstoff if necessary. [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] Stewart Menzies rang me up to say that there was a ZIP message indicating that the Swedish military attaché in this country had learned that we intended to make a concentrated attack on Sicily. The Prime Minister had seen this and was angry, and has asked Anthony Eden what use these foreign military attachés are in this country and whether we get anything of a reciprocal kind from Sweden. News has come through that General Wladislaw Sikorsky has been killed in an airplane accident at Gibraltar.There is no news about the cause of the accident.The runway at Gibraltar is very short and it may be that the plane just failed to rise and went over the edge of the Rock. The incident has caused a serious flutter in the 85
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Polish political dovecotes and there are the usual cries of sabotage and treachery. It seems likely that the political and military side of things will be divided. General Anders from the Middle East is regarded as a possible military commander, and Zalewsky as a politician who though conservative is more liberal-minded than most and would not be too antagonistic to Russia. I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell in the afternoon about the suggested exchange of My Erikssen with one of C’s agents. Maxwell has no objection. Negotiations have advanced a little but at the moment are far from reaching a stage when an exchange can take place. I went on to see Duff Cooper and explained to him about the ZIP message which had so interested the Prime Minister I thought he should know about it since he was taking the MI5 report to the Prime Minister today or tomorrow. 7 July At the Wednesday meeting Herbert Hart stated that the man previously referred to as Jacques Jansen is Joseph Henri Pierre Janssens. This man had the same cover name as Steiner, both came from Antwerp and both were Eins Marine agents and came through France, Spain and Portugal. The result of this has been that the Abwehr have got them thoroughly muddled up.We have however been able to sort them out. Janssens is at Camp 020. There are two rather good stories going round about the Americans in Tunisia. When the Americans were attacked at Gafsa, they apparently ran pretty fast. A British general seeing an American general, asked him if he could do anything to steady his troops. He replied,“Well, General, if you could have sent those fellows on manoeuvres, they were just dandy, but I guess that right now they’re plumb scared.” The other story is an imaginary conversation between Eisenhower and Monty. General Eisenhower told Monty that he was giving him 100,000 troops. Monty then enquired about the quality of the men and Eisenhower replied: “Well, General, I guess they’re like a bunch of bananas.” Monty asked exactly what this meant. Eisenhower replied:“Those who are not green are yellow, and those that are not yellow are rotten.” I am not quoting these stories in any malicious sense but merely because they are rather funny. It does seem that the Americans regarded Tunisia largely as a training ground, and it must be expected that you cannot build up a trained army of seven millions in eighteen months. Everybody has to go through hell-fire and gain practical experience by their mistakes. 9 July A message was received from DRAGONFLY last night but owing to German mistakes they cannot decode it.There has been further publicity in a local newspaper in Canada about WATCHDOG. A final attempt has been made to ascertain whether the Germans have any real intention of sending out saboteurs or others to join him. If this seems unlikely he may be sent to this country. TATE has now got a job with a Watford photographer. 86
1943
13 July Roger Hollis told the Director-General’s meeting that the woman Olive Sheehan had been given three months under Section II of the Official Secrets Act and that Douglas Springhall had been committed for trial under Section 1.This renders him liable to a sentence of fourteen years and puts Springhall in a very awkward spot. The onus is on him to prove that he did not obtain the information for a purpose prejudicial. If he says that the information was for our Allies the Russians he will have to call witnesses to prove his point. It seems unlikely that Ivan Maisky or any of his minions will be particularly anxious to come forward. The Director-General, Dick White and I had lunch with Bill Stephenson.The future of British Security Co-ordination was not discussed but Stephenson did let drop rather confidentially that Bill Donovan might perhaps run for the President. This may be the key to quite a lot and it will be interesting to know Hoover’s reactions to the possibility. ISOS discloses the whole order-of-battle in Sicily. It seems that owing to a breakdown in communications the responsibility for making such reports rested on the station at Taormina. 14 July There have also been difficulties with Palestine. It was recently discovered that the Haganah, which is under the control of David Ben-Gurion, had come into the possession of 600 rifles, a number of machine guns, trench mortars and explosives. The fact was discovered through two soldiers who got tight in a brothel.The arms had been drawn from depots in Egypt on presentation of bogus documents, and had been taken to Palestine in army lorries. I saw Sir John Moylan with Buster Milmo about the case of Otto Witt. Moylan did not seem to realise that people detained at Dartmoor prison were corresponding with the outside world and in fact we were on occasions pressed by Mrs Lee of the Home Office to allow certain of their letters to go on. It was explained to him that this was the reason for our saying that there might be administrative difficulties if the whole of Witt’s correspondence was suppressed and those of other internees were allowed to go on. We also made it quite clear that as far as we were concerned there was no objection to Witt corresponding with his wife. We understood however that SOE had objections which the Home Office appeared to uphold. All we wanted was something in writing from the Home Office authorising us to detain all Witt’s letters. In connection with the sabotage case at Gibraltar, the Governor is anxious to try the offender by local court-martial. Dick White has approached Anthony Lincoln of the Colonial Office who says that a local ordnance is all that is required. If the trial is to take place here it will mean the whole of the security staff coming over as witnesses.
87
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
For the Duce’s fantastic ideas There are only two real panaceas – Either give him Gilbraltar And Tunis, and Malta – Or a kick in the Pantellerias. (J.C. Masterman) 16 July With reference to the ZIP message which reported on 25 June 1943 our projected attack on Sicily, the Prime Minister has now been informed by the Foreign Office that much of the additional information in the message was inaccurate.The Prime Minister, undeterred, has returned to the charge and asked the Chiefs of Staff what reciprocal advantages we get from having attachés, and suggested they should be cleaned out of the country. The Chiefs of Staff passed his minute to the Joint Intelligence Committee who passed it to the ISSB who passed it to Gilbert Lennox who passed it to me. Jolly good show. We have reviewed similar messages over a period. Out of nine, only three contained information which was accurate and two of these were based on information already made public. The situation seems to depend on the degree of reliability which the Axis attach to these reports which they allegedly get from the Swedish General Staff. If they are well-informed they will discount the good as well as the bad or at least regard the good as unreliable. If they are ill-informed they may accept everything as being true.We do not get Swedish material so we cannot say whether in fact these reports emanate from here or whether they are made up in Stockholm.There are some grounds for thinking that they may have been made up in Stockholm since the Swedish minister appeared to be of the opinion that the attack was coming in the Balkans and the assistant military attaché thought it was coming in Norway. In the absence of positive information we have to assume that anything picked up by the Swedish service attachés reaches the Axis.We cannot control service attachés beyond a certain point, so therefore the only thing to do is to feed them with false information. This we are doing as far as possible through the assistant military attaché on whom we have quite a good line. It is for the service authorities to say what value they get out of their attachés abroad. I gather that C also will have views on this.The Controller, to whom I have spoken, would not mind if all attachés were thrown out but as long as they are allowed to remain he finds them useful as channels. We shall reply in the above sense to the JIC. The Abwehr man at Taormina has been given a raspberry for communicating the dispositions of German troops in Sicily. He has been told that it is his business to report on the disposition of enemy troops and not his own. He intends to continue, however, but has asked Madrid not to pass the reports on in case he gets into further trouble.We are more than grateful for his excellent reports which are of the highest operational value. 88
1943
Jasper Harker tells me that Carola Luke has confessed that she was responsible for reporting Max Knight’s agent to the Communist Party. This took place at an interview between her and Edward Cussen. Carola Luke, a secretary in the registry, admitted having betrayed ‘M-8’, Max Knight’s source inside the CPGB. M-8 was Tom Driberg, who was actually identified by Anthony Blunt. No action was taken against her. 17 July Gibbs has got the Ministry of War Transport to agree that their ships calling at Spanish ports should call in at Gibraltar on the inward and outward journey.This will enable them to take divers on board who are to go down regularly in Spanish ports before the ship sails.The Governor, Noel Mason-Macfarlane, has rather gone off at half-cock in the Gibraltar sabotage case of which Sam Hoare has a garbled account. A protest has been registered in Madrid in which a number of cases are jumbled up together.The trouble is that Mason-Macfarlane is rather conceited and completely taken in by Barron, the Governor of Algeciras, who invites him to bullfights. He thinks that Barron is really interested in clearing these matters up and will take drastic action if he is talked to in a confidential way. Personally, I doubt whether Barron will do anything at all. Meanwhile, Kim Philby is trying to get things sorted out, when a full-dress protest can perhaps be made from here. The Germans appear to be making every effort to pay DRAGONFLY. They still appear to have confidence in FATHER and will make use of him when he arrives at his new destination. 19 July On an introduction from Bartik, [XXXX] has made contact with Ivan Chichaev, counsellor of the Soviet Embassy and formerly either an OGPU or 4th Department agent, with considerable background in Finland and Riga.The preliminary conversations had been confined to suggestions about the fields to be covered.These are, tentatively, an exchange of information and views on Axis intelligence activities directed against the Allies. In this connection, the enemy’s secret agents and secret organisation, together with their methods and technique, may from time to time be brought within the discussions.There may also be specific enquiries about suspects who are under examination here when it is thought possible that the Russians may have information about them. In general, our collaboration should be directed towards the defence of Allied interests against enemy secret and subversive activities. [XXXXX] seems to have scored quite a success already. His proposals were very well received but will obviously have to be referred to Moscow before we may expect developments. [XXXX] thinks that Chichaev is as direct and straightforward as can be expected from a man in his position, that he is human and has a pronounced sense of humour, a most valuable asset in a representative of the new
89
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Russia, which takes itself very seriously and is most anxious not to lose face. He thinks that provided the odds are not took much against him he can handle Chichaev without making the slightest concessions to the amour-propre of the man himself or the country he represents. Harry told me today that Brigadier Vale is worried about deception being passed to military attachés.Apparently he thinks that this procedure is likely to put Colonel Denton Carlisle of MI(L) in an awkward position if he is asked to confirm. I do not know what has got into his head but it is quite impossible for us to prevent stories reaching military attachés and whether the source is ours or somebody else, if the military attaché wants to get confirmation from Carlisle there is nothing we can do about it His mind is probably harping on the incident when Paul Mathew in uniform asked Brilhante, the Argentine military attaché, to pass over some bit of deception. This had created a rather awkward situation but the matter was satisfactorily settled. 20 July Colonel Carlisle of MI(L) rang up just before two o’clock to say that Commandant Rouvier of the Giraudist mission was with him and had recounted a story received from Admiral Muselier and the former French Prime Minister, Albert Sarraut, about a plot to assassinate General Giraud, who was due to arrive here at 4pm today. Rouvier had no details. He arranged with Muselier to be at 19 St James’s Square at 2.45 and I spoke to Chief Inspector Charles Gill of Special Branch, and he undertook to send up an officer to see Muselier. He told me that there were already two Special Branch officers on the plane coming from Prestwick and that Special Branch were taking special precautions in connection with Giraud’s visit. I also spoke to Brook-Booth who undertook to attend the meeting with Muselier. The SCO was warned to inform Special Branch officers. He also told the air commodore in charge of the aerodrome. The latter suggested diverting the plane to some other aerodrome but since there was no information as to when or where the attempt on Giraud’s life would be made, it seemed that the ensuing dislocation in all the arrangements was not justifiable. 21 July ISBA shows that the Germans are rather skeptical about TRICYCLE, and that they are inclined to think that BALLOON’s traffic was being planted on them.TRICYCLE took the bull by the horns and asked then whether they were suggesting that his information was also a British plant. Ludovico von Karstoff is reserving judgment, but is flirting with the idea of using TRICYCLE’s channel for bringing Yugoslavs out of Switzerland as means of getting an agent here and also a wireless set.The whole matter is to be thrashed out in Madrid.
90
1943
22 July Len Burt came to see me about the case of Fernando Casabayo. He thinks that the wife is now getting advice from a solicitor and may become troublesome. He wondered whether it would be possible to get Casabayo tried by court-martial and sentenced since he felt that this would forestall trouble. I explained to him that if Casabayo were sentenced by a court he would have to serve his sentence in some prison other than Camp 020.This would mean that he would not be kept incommunicado, since 020 is the only camp where these conditions prevail. The internment of prisoners in suitable conditions has been one of our greatest trials and incidentally a source of constant embarrassment to the Home Office who have never made adequate provision and have never distinguished properly between interment and imprisonment. A Catalan who had fought against Franco and had then joined the Pioneer Corps, Casabayo was married to a woman in Plymouth and had attempted to sell information to the Spanish Embassy. He was betrayed by an MI5 source on the Embassy staff. A search was made but Casabayo surrendered to the police as a deserter. He confessed at Camp 020 where he remained until the end of the summer of 1945. I saw Duff Cooper and handed him a copy of J.C. Masterman’s excellent report on GARBO which is to go to the Prime Minister. I also showed him our memo to the JIC on the subject of alleged leakage of information through the Swedish military attaché here, to the Japanese, and he entirely agreed with our view. I told him that I had seen Arthur Thurston and Freckles Wren but that neither could enlighten me very much. Apparently, Denham was very well received by the Bureau but would not commit himself on any question of organisation until he had visited the Caribbean. Duff thought that as soon as ValentineVivian got back we ought to have another meeting. 23 July Len Burt tells me that the case of Rex Hoyes is coming on in the Police Court on 5 August. Counsel for the prosecution now feels fairly certain that he will get a conviction.The defence are going to say that the alleged loan of £500 by Hoyes to Sir Hugo Armstrong was on account of the latter being in low water.They do not know, however, that the prosecution have discovered that various accounts with other banks showed a balance of some £3,000. Mrs GARBO is still somewhat unsettled, although she no longer talks of returning to Spain. GARBO thinks that the only solution would be to bring over Mrs GARBO’s mother and older sister. I must say, I seem somewhat reluctant moving over any more members of the GARBO family. On the other hand, it is vitally important to keep the case going. Munoz, the Spanish assistant military attaché, has agreed to carry out another transaction for Plan DREAM for £2,500 at the end of this month. The rate of
91
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
exchange is to be 90 pesetas to the [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX] MUTT and JEFF are waiting for a further consignment of sabotage material which is due to arrive in Scotland next week. As soon as it is received Plan BUNBURY, which involved the blowing up of a power station, is to be set afoot. Details have already been worked out. BRONX has received another £88 for monthly salary. The Germans are evidently pleased that DRAGONFLY has at last resumed work. They are particularly grateful for his weather reports. They are still trying to pay him through the medium of foreign postage stamps. 24 July GARBO in one of his reports spoke of intensive exercises in Wales which had been made a prohibited area. He said that he was unable to go into the area and suggested that the Germans might like to send over reconnaissance planes. Almost simultaneously, OSTRO sent a far more alarmist report about concentrations in Wales and the possibility of invasion.The Germans did in fact send over two planes the night before the last and took photographs by flashlight bomb and parachute flares. 28 July At the Wednesday meeting T.A. Robertson mentioned the dropping of the sabotage equipment for MUTT and JEFF had failed owing to the presence in the vicinity of two of our night-fighters.The German aircraft was over and circled once but on seeing our planes had sheered off. Our fighters had their navigation lights on so I do not think the Germans need necessarily be suspicious. Baxter reported on the case of a Frenchman called Grosjean who confessed on arrival that he had been recruited by the Germans. His case is somewhat similar to that of Feyguine. He had no intention of carrying out his mission but was anxious to keep the fact to himself till he arrived in this country. He has spoken of a new type of secret ink which is in plastic form and can be used on a match. He also mentioned a new type of pencil holder which the Germans were issuing to their agents and which were used to hold the match. Grosjean was late to be enrolled as a double agent, codenamed FIDO. WINDOW, namely the scattering of small pieces of metal during our bombing raids, was used with very great effect at Hamburg where we dropped 2,300 tons of bombs in the space of fifty minutes, with the loss of only twelve aircraft.The effect of WINDOW is to cause a reflection from each piece of metal.This to a considerable degree dislocates all the operations of the searchlights, anti-aircraft guns and night-fighters. The danger of it is that the enemy can very easily adopt these methods, to which there is at the moment no very positive answer. I gather that 92
1943
the air force are so confident of their superiority and the inability of the Germans to conduct any serious bombing operations that they decided that the advantage of using WINDOW was heavily in our favour. Incidentally, it was WINDOW that Douglas Springhall was trying to pass to the Russians. Information about it had also reached Kohout, who gave a piece of the metal to Jack to transmit to the Germans. 1 August Michael Ryde has wired to say that Lothar Sittig has been traced by directionfinding to somewhere in Swaziland. He is going down to Cape Town to co-ordinate further action with Mark Oliver. 3 August I took Dick White’s meeting and Herbert Hart mentioned FELIPE, V-mann No. 305, who is now described as a commercial traveller.The trouble is that wherever he goes he puts in a false report, if indeed he goes there at all.What is perhaps even more probable is that he does not exist. I saw Duff Cooper and left with him the MI5 report. He thought it was a little dull this month, with which I agree. He has the GARBO report, however, to stimulate the Prime Minister’s interest. He said: “I suppose you would not like him to take it with him to America?” I said no, because I thought it might be washed up on the shores of France, which would be unfortunate. On the night of 27 July the Germans dropped MUTT another consignment of sabotage equipment, a radio set and four hundred £1 notes, just south of the River Ythan in Aberdeenshire. Unfortunately, the parachute did not open so the radio set was smashed, and some of the sabotage material, again of British make, was broken. As this consignment landed only half a mile from the agreed spot, MUTT has acknowledged receipt of it, reporting the damage which occurred. Recent reports indicate that TRICYCLE has once more largely overcome any doubt which may have been held by the Germans in Lisbon. He has had difficulty in getting a visa for Madrid and his Abwehr friends are going to Lisbon. The WORM, who is a Czech recruited by TRICYCLE’s brother, has arrived from Switzerland. He seems to be genuine and is to be used as a double-cross agent. PUPPET’s first two letters have reached the Abwehr in Brussels. They think the quality might be improved. They are sending someone to assist [XXXXXXXX] in Lisbon. BRUTUS has been released by the Poles. 4 August I heard two rather good stories about the Prime Minister. After his return from North Africa Anthony Eden wrote a memo on the North African situation after 93
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Tunis. After reading it, the Prime Minister commented: “This contains every known cliché except ‘God is Love’ and ‘Adjust your dress before leaving.’” The other one was that at the Prime Minister’s meeting with General de Gaulle when he found the latter rather more irritating than usual, he concluded with the words, in a villainous accent:“Si vous m’obstructerez, je vous pulvériserais.” I now have some of the details of Desmond Orr’s visit to Duff Cooper. He told Duff that he was still worried about the succession problem, and he was quite convinced that Gilbert Lennox was the man for the job. He had previously discussed this point with Charles Butler. It had cost him a bottle of port, but he had found that Butler entirely shared his views.This is interesting since Lennox had also told Dick Butler that Charles was very much in favour of his getting the job. Orr did not think I was suitable and in any case my appointment would be undesirable as I was very much in the hands of Victor Rothschild. Duff said that he gathered that Orr was anti-Semitic. Orr said that he was not anti-Semitic, and that in fact he had a certain number of Jewish friends whom he regarded very highly. Duff said that was the answer one always got from anti-Semites. Orr then said that he did not think I was suitable for other reasons, and that I would be quite satisfied if I were given a decoration. At some point or other during the interview, Duff pressed his bell and asked his secretary to show Mr Orr out. Duff is quite clear in his own mind that Orr is more or less off his rocker. T.A. Robertson and J.C. Masterman also talked to me about Plan BUNBURY. They think that possibly the Home Office ought to be informed so I am arranging to see Frank Newsam as Sir Alexander Maxwell is away. 5 August At the 12 o’clock meeting today Herbert Hart mentioned a high-level message from Rome to Berlin indicating a leakage about fleet movements from this country. If the facts are correct there are some indications that the leakage may be due to a cipher break. I saw Archie Boyle and discussed with him the case of Ivan Chichaev. I asked him point-blank whether George Hill had spiked our liaison in Moscow. He said that frankly he did not think that he had, although he regarded him as a slick customer and extremely conceited. He thought him capable of it, but he certainly would not admit it. In fairness to him, the cable which he had sent asking that we should act with caution, etcetera, rather implied that he had not made any suggestion to the Soviet authorities that his organisation should be the sole link. I told Archie that we had asked the Czechs to arrange the meeting with Klop, that our purpose was to feel our way with the Russians, with whom we had no contact.We had no idea at the moment of keeping Chichaev under observation. If we intended to do anything of the kind we would certainly let him know and we would in any case take no such action before Hill’s return, which is expected in the course of the next few days. Archie wonders a little how it is that Hill has been able to establish himself so well in Moscow, after advertising himself as a British spy in Russia at the 94
1943
time of the revolution.Though he did not say so, I do not think he would rule out the possibility that Hill gives more than he gets. Hill apparently has some Russian blood. He is extremely well regarded by the British ambassador. 6 August T.A. Robertson came to see me about running JOSEPHINE for deception purposes. There is a slight rub between Anthony Blunt and Richman Stopford. I said that as Stopford was running her as an agent and Anthony only used her for TRIPLEX purposes, I thought it better that she should have one master in her capacity as agent. Anthony should, of course, have to prepare the deception and could send it to Shanks for transmission. He should, however, let Stopford know what it was proposed to send through JOSEPHINE. The information reached JOSEPHINE as from Stopford. 7 August I have seen Len Burt this morning. He tells me that last-minute efforts have been made by Rex Hoyes in high quarters to get some postponement of his case, which has been adjourned till next Thursday. Meanwhile, Messrs Gordon, Dadds, in the person of Ratcliffe, have made an extremely improper approach to Sir Alexander Dunbar, who is one of Burt’s witnesses, in connection with the manufacture of Seafire aircraft. Ratcliffe apparently assured Dunbar that there was nothing improper in this approach and he succeeded in getting from Dunbar a statement more or less indicating what he was going to say. Ratcliffe tried to cross-examine him on this statement, but Dunbar stood his ground. No harm has, I think, been done but Ratcliffe’s conduct is to be reported to the Law Society. OSTRO has been asked to report about concentrations on the southeast coast. From the point of view of deception, this suits us very well provided OSTRO reports correctly.This, however, is doubtful, as his information, which is alleged to come from civilian pilots, is usually extremely poor. I have now heard that Plan BUNBURY went off quite satisfactorily and that everything is proceeding as arranged. T.A. Robertson has been down to Holloway prison about the “Victoire” case. SOE are extremely worried about the special wing of Aylesbury prison having been closed down. Personally, I think that the chances of anything going wrong are about a million to one. They have previously agreed to My Erikssen going back to Stockholm in exchange for an SIS agent, which in fact involves them in far greater risk. However, they evidently feel that they have got to do everything possible to stop “Victoire”’s information getting out on account of one of their people who is at present in Paris and also the brothers of “Lucas” who are also believed to be at large on the continent. Unfortunately “Victoire” has been in touch with an IRA woman who is shortly to be released and also with Mrs Hirsch who wants to go to the Argentine. We are going to try and get the Home Office to re-open Aylesbury 95
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
prison since, in any case, the governor at Holloway prison finds the segregation of his new guests a great embarrassment.The initial trouble was that the Home Office were asked to close down Aylesbury prison, in spite of the fact that Christopher Harmer had put a minute on the file explaining that SOE would have to be consulted. MUTT has acknowledged the receipt of the sabotage material but has told the Germans that the radio set was smashed and asked them to send a new one. BRUTUS has been returned to his home pending court-martial. The Germans are still left in some doubt about TRICYCLE, but he has given them a categorical assurance that he is not working for the British. Johann Jebson and Ludovico von Karstoff still believe in him but Herbert Hart has his doubts. I think that TRICYCLE will probably get away with it but it may take a considerable time for him to re-establish complete confidence. The Prime Minister has got away successfully but the whole of Fleet Street is buzzing owing to a statement in the New York press that President Roosevelt is having another meeting with Churchill. They have been round Downing Street and finding all the blinds down naturally concluded that there was something in it. I understand that certain members of the Prime Minister’s staff left important papers in the train on the way to Glasgow. 9 August At Dick White’s meeting today Blanshard Stamp mentioned the arrival of ZechNenntwich, alias Boetscher, a German officer in the Totenkopf division of the Waffen-SS.This man had got into some trouble in Poland and was to be transferred to some other front. He fell ill, or feigned illness, and then deserted. He approached the British Consul in Stockholm, stating that if he could go to England he would be quite ready to be interned. He is being put up in one of T.A. Robertson’s houses and will be interrogated first by Melland. He served on the Russian front at Toropetz and received a decoration for gallantry. It was said that at one time he was Heinrich Himmler’s ADC. He is held under a Refused Leave to Land order. TRICYCLE has apparently been accepted and we are awaiting developments. Plan BUNBURY is going on but there has been considerable difficulty about the publicity.The local Chief Constable is however trying to stir up the local press. Len Burt is on the scene and Victor Rothschild is going down tomorrow. I saw Miss Mackenzie, a friend of Miss Sherer’s, who went out to New York with Evelyn Baring on his second visit. Evelyn, finding that British Security Coordination did not want him, returned and left her there. She took over the registry and says the filing system was extremely bad. There were no minute sheets and everything was lumped on to an omnibus file, for example German Intelligence Activities in South America. She spent a good deal of time trying to split these files up and make personal files but she got very little encouragement.There appear to be a number of concrete registries which are badly inter-connected. Bill Stephenson has a most secret registry of his own and does not always put a card in the main index.The same applies to SOE, and the consequence is that to be sure in 96
1943
doing a look-up that all the ground is covered it is necessary to consult all three registries. Miss Mackenzie cannot see that the uptown office really has any function to perform.The South American stations have been taken away and are being controlled from London.Wood, who sits in the uptown office, is responsible for policy or administrative matters in South America and receives copies of the South American reports which are presumably embodied in the Bulletin. The Section V representation consists of Bill Ross-Smith, Gavin Young, Mrs Sylveston, Mrs Montagu, and one other. Harford Hyde works more or less on his own on MI5 enquiries. John Pepper also works on his own. Ronnie Sinclair is dealing with Indian affairs, as is also a fellow named Hill who works directly to Bill Stephenson. He does not, however, co-operate with Sinclair. [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX], the Portuguese contact of Christopher Eastwood in Lisbon, has become known to the Germans as a British agent.They are therefore suggesting that Eastwood should desert his ship and proceed to Huelva where he will presumably be looked after and may be taken to Berlin. We do not know whether Eastwood is falling in with this idea and certainly the prospects are not very inviting. If he is sensible he will return to Eire and face the music. 11 August Herbert Hart has seen Zech-Nenntwich, the German Waffen-SS man, and listened to his interrogation by Melland. Zech-Nenntwich has had an extraordinary career. His father was a democrat in the police. He himself was also in the police, and it was in this way that he was recruited into the Waffen-SS. He was several times wounded on the Russian Front. He is about 26 or 27 years of age. Disgusted with Nazi atrocities, of which he gave a pretty lurid account, he became associated with what he describes as a fairly widespread movement in the SS which is opposed to the Nazis and are regarded with special favour by the army.The idea of this group is to overthrow Hitler and the Nazis, to continue offensive warfare on the Russian front, and to let the British and Americans into Germany. His group have even established contact with certain Polish resistance movements, and it was in connection with certain Polish contacts that he had made that he was imprisoned by the Nazis. His friends got him out of prison by means of false papers and took him to Denmark. From there he succeeded in getting to Stockholm and ultimately to England. He desires if possible to have his liberty in this country and offers his services in trying to help us to exploit the pro-Wehrmacht faction within the SS. 11 August Buster Milmo talked to me about Zech-Nenntwich. He is afraid that if it gets to the Poles there may be political trouble with the Russians. Personally, I think the risk is somewhat small but it would obviously be better to get him out of London. The best course would be to get [XXXX] to take him on for a week or ten days in order to get the full story.We should then be in a better position to know what to 97
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
do with him. Colonel A.R. Rawlinson says that the Director, Prisoners of War, will certainly refuse to take him. Ultimately, therefore, he will probably have to be interned as a civilian. I lunched with Anthony Bouverie and Louis Franck, who had just taken over the Low Countries and France in SOE. He is evidently looking at everything with a critical eye, and has the impression that much of the SOE organisation on the continent may very well be blown. I told him that we had a somewhat similar impression. In this connection, he welcomes Operation STARKEY which, he thinks, will give him a much clearer idea of where he stands. He seemed happy about his relations with us. I told him that SOE equipment had been turning up in Gibraltar and elsewhere and suggested that it might be of value to his organisation to have this equipment secretly marked. He said that such markings would not necessarily prove anything of a very definite nature since for various reasons canisters have been landed up to half a mile or more from the appointed spot, and naturally fell into the hands of the Germans. He agreed however with me that if canisters dropped in a certain area always seemed to reach the Germans some significance would be attached to this. Franck told me that one of the things he had done was to change the policy of dropping a high percentage of explosives. He was much more in favour of incendiaries since they did not necessarily indicate an act of sabotage. He had already made a change in this respect. I asked him what he was doing in the way of secret sabotage, e.g. the rejection of good parts of an aeroplane by a widespread organisation. He said that in his view not nearly enough of this work was being done. It had the advantage of being difficult to detect and it clearly slowed up the war effort if done on a sufficiently wide scale. Franck struck me as being very intelligent and thoroughly alive. He is thirty-four and has had a rapid rise in Samuel Montagu’s, where he is the only Christian partner. 12 August Victor Rothschild and Len Burt came to see me about Plan BUNBURY. Burt thinks it desirable to ease up the police a little, who are suspecting the Irish and the Poles. There is great activity in the eastern counties and I understand that guards at utility undertakings have been doubled. The local press have got the story but do not think it worth while sending to London, as they feel it would not be passed by censorship.We are doing our best to grease the wheels but cannot do this too obviously. Michael Ryde has sent a telegram about Lothar Sittig, Paasche and Massa, all of whom appear to have transmitters, the latter in the Union and the other two in Swaziland and Bechuanaland.They have been traced approximately by DirectionFinding but the bearings are not thought to be conclusive. Further bearings are being taken but in the meanwhile Ryde wants to have our advice on the proper course of action and particularly on the question of whether Field Marshal Smuts should be put completely in the picture and also the South African police. I have suggested to Felix Cowgill that we should have a meeting. He was inclined to stall 98
1943
this as Ted Maltby had told him that he was satisfied with the bearings. I said this was not really material. We wanted to discuss wider aspects of the case. He then suggested that Kim Philby should come over. I have had long discussions with Herbert Hart and Buster Milmo about ZechNenntwich, who presents us with a very difficult problem qua internment. As a temporary solution we are sending him to [XXXX] for a week next Tuesday. He will be out of range of the Poles and [XXXX] will doubtless be able to extract a good deal of information from him, particularly relating to Polish underground movements. We shall then have to let SOE and the Political Warfare Executive have a chance. Melland whom I saw today was very impressed by the information he has obtained. One fact emerges of which I was not clear, namely that ZechNenntwich had contact with the Polish military attaché in Stockholm. We may therefore get a request from the Poles to see Zech-Nenntwich. This would be extremely awkward if it came to the ears of the Russians, who would be highly suspicious if they thought we were encouraging Polish underground movements against Russia. Hugh Trevor Roper has written an extremely interesting memo on Abwehr incompetence. He pointed out that in strategic matters the Abwehr record is one of failure. It failed to forecast the attack on Madagascar, it failed over North Africa and it also failed over the Casablanca Conference. Since then it has sought eagerly for intelligence about Allied plans for a Second Front. It cannot distinguish between the good and the bad, the genuine and the tendentious. It was equally confused about the attack on Sicily. While Sicily was thought to be the target, so were many other places.Two agents, one in Melilla and the other in Lisbon, sent a warning about Sicily but they did not reach the Abwehr until after the landings. The result of this has been that reporting routes have been checked up with the object of shortening them.Tactical reporting on the other hand has been bettered, the most important service being the reporting of Gibraltar shipping movements. In Tunisia, valuable tactical intelligence was provided during the successful German attack on Gafsa, but since the destruction of the German army there has been a most notable blank in the Abwehr’s intelligence organisation. On the Russian front, MAX must be regarded as a success and to some extent MORITZ, Ibia and Pasha. MAX reports have been singularly accurate in forecasting Russian operations and the theory that it is a Russian double-cross rather goes by the board. It follows from all this that during the last nine months incompetence by the Abwehr is only partially mitigated by the tactical successes.A realisation of this has led to the direct supply of immediate operational intelligence to commanders in the field. From being a somewhat shapeless organisation controlled from and routing through Berlin, the Abwehr is becoming a number of decentralised groups each controlled more and more by the local service commanders. It is clear that the Abwehr, confessedly unable to evaluate and criticised for its official procedure, has either agreed or been forced to resign a large part of its responsibility to the Commands. Considerable changes have been made in the higher ranks of the Abwehr. Colonel Hans Pieckenbrock, at Abt. I, General Hans Oster, head of Administration, Captain 99
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Hermann Menzel, Abt. I Marine, Major Brede, head of I. Luft, and Ernst Bloch, head of Wirtschaft, have all been removed, with various other subordinates. It would be rash to assume too much from these changes but the cumulative effect is sufficient to suggest that the Abwehr’s answer to the charge against the quality of its results has been a purge of its personnel. 13 August I had a meeting with Kim Philby, Courtney Young, Hugh Trevor Roper and Little on South Africa. It was generally agreed that the bearings on Paasche, thought to be in Bechuanaland, and Lothar Sittig, thought to be in Swaziland, were not sufficiently accurate.When further bearings had been taken we thought it desirable that the vans should be used, provided local conditions would allow this to be done without too great a risk of detection. It was decided that, if necessary, Field Marshal Smuts should be told the night before the raids took place, in case information was obtained leading back to the Union and necessitating action by the Union police. It was decided that we should draft a telegram and then get SIS’s approval. 14 August BJs and ISOS, and TRIPLEX, show that a report made by the Duke of Alba based on information received from Solborg, the American military attaché, has been passed on verbatim to the Japanese and the Abwehr. C is going to take this up with General George Strong of G-2.With his approval he proposes to send for Solbert and give him a warning. Victor Rothschild had been talking to the RSLOs before lunch and had outlined to them Plan BUNBURY. He had written a circular letter which he had sent off to all his utility undertakings in which he had drawn attention to the incident at the electricity power station at Bury St Edmunds. He said quite definitely that we regarded this as an act of enemy sabotage, and had made some reference to spies being at large. RSLOs felt that the electricity undertakings would undoubtedly take this letter to the Chief Constable and ask him for his views. The Chief Constable would then go to the RSLO and ask why it had been thought desirable to communicate the information to utility undertakings which had not been given to the Chief Constables. They would want to know whether it was true. Was the RSLO to lie or take the Chief Constable into his confidence? The general opinion at that stage seemed to be that it might be a wise move to take the Chief Constable into our confidence if he approached the RSLO but not otherwise. The matter however was left in abeyance. 15 August Cecil Liddell came to see me about the Christopher Eastwood case. Apparently SIS at Lisbon were employing a Portuguese intermediary who for reasons of 100
1943
indiscretion in some other matter had been dismissed. It seems not unlikely that he has gone to the Germans. Another possibility is that [XXXXXXXXXXXXX] has been seen going to Passport Control. In any case, the Germans are aware that Eastwood is blown and are trying to get him off the ship at Huelva. We do not know whether he is prepared to fall in with their wishes.The ship is due back in forty-eight hours and Cecil is going over to Dublin. 16 August I had a talk with Victor Rothschild and T.A. Robertson about Plan BUNBURY. We decided that the best course was to send no letters to Chief Constables but to give a line to RSLOs when they were approached. So far Plan BUNBURY has only got publicity in the East Anglian Daily Times. BRONX has got another £360. FIDO [XXXXXXXXXX] has been taken on by B1(a). The Germans seem satisfied about METEOR. DRAGONFLY has again been in touch but will close down if funds are not received. LIPSTICK is going to Spain, in spite of the warnings he has had from his masters that he may not be able to get a return visa. FIDO was a French pilot named Grosjean. I had a meeting with the Director-General, Jasper Harker,Victor Rothschild, Alan McIver and T.A. Robertson about Plan BUNBURY.The Chief Constables are to be told if they approach the RSLOs that the incident is a special exercise.They are to be asked to keep up the deception with the utility undertakings. I am to visit Colin Robertson, the Chief Constable of Suffolk, and explain the position.There is to be no publication in the Police Bulletin.The D-G was rather annoyed about the letter to the utility undertakings being sent out without prior reference to himself.The fact is, however, that the normal way is for a utility undertaking to report to the Central Electricity Board who immediately send teleprinter messages to all their power stations in the country. Moreover, if we are out for publicity which we have so far not been able to get, there is bound to be a reproach by Chief Constables to RSLOs. The only unfortunate thing about the letter to my mind is that there is something about spies being at large, and it is perhaps a little too positive. 17 August A German agent named Franz Mayer has been captured in Persia. Plan BUNBURY has now appeared in the Evening Standard in quite a lurid light. Mention was made of investigations by Superintendent Len Burt. 18 August I had a talk with Len Burt about BUNBURY. There is to be publicity in today’s press. Burt pretended to get tight in a pub and had leaked to one of his more disreputable contacts and he has now protested to this contact that he has been let 101
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
down. In the light of this publicity the Director-General has agreed to reverse instructions to RSLOs, provided they have not already been approached. Jasper Harker subsequently ascertained that the field was clear. RSLOs were told that if the Chief Constable approached them they were to say that equipment known to have been used by the enemy was employed and that the matter was still under investigation. If they referred to the letter to utility undertakings they were to be told that this was “toned up” a bit to make the undertakings more securityminded. At the Wednesday meeting Herbert Hart mentioned a Portuguese known as Hansen who was coming here for I.Wirtschaft. Dolly Peekema, the separated wife of an official of the Dutch government in London, is also coming here as an agent. She was scheduled to come some time ago but her mission was postponed, and she has worked as a German agent in Holland and Spain. John Gwyer has made a very good analysis of Abwehr cover addresses in Lisbon. He shows that out of 135 known spy addresses, one-third have been used for more than one agent. In one case it has been used for nine agents, and in another for six. It does not follow that if an address is used for a communication from here it is not also used for a communication from any other country. Neither is it safe to assume that if an address has been obviously blown it will not be used again or that an address which has produced nothing for six months may not suddenly come into operation.The Lisbon Stelle is asked to provide these addresses but does not seem to be particularly interested in checking up on their reliability or informing other stations when they are compromised. In fact, this is another typical instance of Abwehr inefficiency. I went down to see Chief Constable Colin Robertson with Victor Rothschild and I explained to him all the various phases of BUNBURY and our difficulties. He told me that in spite of this morning’s publicity in every paper, not one question had been put to him about BUNBURY at a Chief Constables’ meeting he had attended. He expected everybody to come up and say “Now give us the lowdown about the sabotage at Bury, but not a word. He was, I think, pleased we had paid him a visit. He was in thorough agreement with the policy of saying nothing to Chief Constables, and entirely agreed with Len Burt’s view that quite a number of them on receiving the information would hold a mothers’ meeting. He was quite prepared to face his own superintendent if he ever found out. He explained to me how difficult it would be to get the searchers to find the unexploded bomb. He pretty well had to push their noses right into it before it was discovered. It looked just like a part of the old unused generator. 19 August C. told Dick White that the difficulty in giving MAX material to the Russians was in fact that the Germans were reading the Russian ciphers. I had a long talk with John Marriott, who arrived back from India yesterday. He seems to have done a very good job of work and he has quite a high opinion of the 102
1943
majority of the Indian police officers he met. He does not however think much of Denys Pilditch of the Delhi Intelligence Bureau. He has I think finally succeeded in knocking the heads of the military and the police together.The great difficulty is the shortage of manpower and the inadequacy of equipment.There is considerable difficulty in getting a car and still more difficulty in getting an aeroplane. India is generally a second-class war area and has to wait for everything. The officials are all doing their best, but there is clearly an atmosphere of “Is this or that really worthwhile if we are going to give the Indians home rule?”The distribution of food is not good and the situation is aggravated by the fact that the Indians would sooner lie down and die of starvation than eat anything that they are not accustomed to. Many of them in fact have died, and we of course get the blame. The Sino-Japanese war is regarded as something of a farce. Nobody believes in great battles or victories, and there are grave doubts whether anything serious is going on at all.The general view is that Chiang Kai-shek is putting aside his leaselend material for the war after the war.The only valuable double-cross case is the SILVER case which will now probably be taken over by the Japanese in view of the expulsion of the Germans and Italians from Kabul. The parties of Japanese spies with wireless operators have all been rounded up with the exception of one. Some of the wireless sets are being operated but not with any great success. SILVER was Bhagat Ram Talwar, a Communist working as a double agent for D Division, the British deception organisation in India. When visiting Special Branch, Langdon was confronted by Albert Foster, Charles Gill, and four inspectors with the announcement of Plan BUNBURY. They said “Whatever your views are about this case, we have come to the conclusion that it is either SOE or Lord Rothschild.” I am afraid Langdon did not put up a very good show. Although he did not commit himself positively, I think he left them with very little doubt about the origin of the outrage. Amongst other things he is reported to have told them to keep it to themselves, which is of course a complete admission of guilt. TRICYCLE’s document prepared by John Drew on the disposal of factories has been accepted by the 1. Wirtschaft. The Germans are anxious to accelerate TRICYCLE’s return but wish first of all to arrange for the escape of Yugoslav officers among whom they are introducing agents.TRICYCLE may now have a big organisation including BALLOON, the WORM,VELOCIPEDE, METEOR, plus a wireless set and operator. GELATINE has been asked to send the latest army list to a mythical LieutenantColonel H.E. Gutherbertson at a fly-blown address in Lisbon. WATCHDOG is to be liquidated in the middle of a transmission and then sent to England. FIDO has joined the French Air Force.
103
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
20 August I had a talk with Dick White and Alex Kellar about source ARTHUR. This source has been reporting frequently on matters in Syria. It started in November. Each item was sent out piecemeal to the Middle East but they were never told that the nine messages which came into our possession between November 1942 and May 1943 all came from the same source. Clearly, this makes analysis in Cairo extremely difficult. It was suggested to O’Brien that to get over the difficulty of using a cover name he might give the source a letter. O’Brien replied that there were so many sources that the alphabet was already used up. This was followed by a suggestion that perhaps numbers could be used instead. Len Burt has seen Albert Foster and considerably shaken him on the question of the genuineness of BUNBURY. Burt gave it as his opinion it was a true bill. There has been an interesting development in the Rex Hoyes case. Sir Archibald Rowlands, the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, who was to have given evidence about his conversation with Sir Frank Spriggs, who told him that he had given a warning to Sir Hugo Armstrong, is now conveniently going to America on important business, and Sir Frank Spriggs, reassured by this fact, is not disposed to assist the prosecution. The matter is not of much importance from the point of view of the case, but is interesting showing the herring-gutted mentality of people like Rowlands. Len Burt told me very confidentially that Sir Norman Kendal had rung him up at his home and asked him to do a special job. Kendal did not wish him to say anything about it to anyone. I told Burt that I left the matter entirely to his discretion but that if as I expected the matter had something to do with police corruption, which was now under investigation, I did not wish him to do anything that would give the impression that this office was being used as a king of Gestapo on the police. Burt told me later that he had been asked to cover a meeting which he was confident he could do without being detected. It was connected with a case of corruption and he had learned from Kendal that the state of affairs within the police was extremely bad. Burt was definitely not surprised and he told me that he had known about it for a long time. Chief Inspector Salisbury, Sergeant Noble and several other police officers have been sacked. They were all connected with the Stockman case but were caught out on some other incident. 23 August Hugh Trevor Roper has written a very good note on the MAX–MORITZ traffic. The present information seems to be that it is valuable to the Germans and accurate, so the double-cross theory has rather faded out.When this service was being run on ISOS, rather tardily we gave the cipher keys to the Russians. Meanwhile, MAX had gone over to ISK.We have also given the Russians Mirko Rot’s report.At least we assume that Cecil Barclay, the SIS man in Moscow, has done so, but we have never heard what response he got. The present suggestion is that we should
104
1943
give them some sort of resumé of the case and feed them out ISK as and when possible. The danger about giving them ISK is that we know that their ciphers are being read by the Germans.To do so, therefore, might compromise ISK. 24 August Alan McIver came to see me about an enquiry about Plan BUNBURY that Hughes had received from the local Security Control Officer. I said that I thought Hughes should tell the SCO exactly what he had told the Chief Constable, otherwise he was putting the SCO vis-à-vis his subordinates in the same difficulty as the Chief Constable would be placed.This meant a further spreading of the information. I had a discussion with Dick White,Victor Rothschild and Miss Clay about the Marita case. Dick was rather in favour of liquidating the whole business with a prosecution, which he felt would act as deterrent, but there are various difficulties to this course; firstly, it could not be taken without putting Jack Bingham in the witness box; secondly, I am strongly of opinion that it would create a bad impression both with the public and also with the Home Office. Although in my view there is nothing to which exception can be taken in wartime, I am quite sure that defending counsel would make a great song and dance about the whole case and that we should be dubbed as the Gestapo department, but in this matter I would like to be guided by our own legal department. Quite apart from this aspect of the case I cannot see that we stand to gain very much, since the Marita organisation in its present form does not really constitute any danger.The information is handed to us and goes into a cul-de-sac.The advantage that we get from the case is that it supplies us with information about people who would if they could do this country harm.When the war is over they will clearly gravitate into right-wing circles and some of them at least will probably take part in the formation of some revolutionary right-wing organisation. It seems to me, therefore, that our best policy would be to put in straight agents alongside them who will drift in the same direction in the post-war period and possibly be able to inform us as to what is going on. Provided we do not incur the odium of the public and the Home Office, I should not be averse to a prosecution of three or four, but I would still advocate the introduction of straight agents since the case obviously cannot run on its present lines in peace time. I am quite sure that after the war we shall have a good deal of trouble both from the left and from the right, and somebody should be thinking about putting in agents at the bottom and writing them off for a year or two when they may rise to a position of some importance or the post of secretary to some important leader. Dick, I think, has still got a general impression that the case is not of much importance and that we are dealing with a pack of hysterical women. Personally, I think there is more to it than that.The basic ideas of the people we are dealing with are Fascist and they are working with the tools of anti-Semitism, and anti-Communism, both of which may have a considerable appeal. I feel that if we just liquidate this case without putting in some straight against we may be losing an 105
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
opportunity. It may not be so easy in the post-war period to get into the movement which has already been formed; at any rate it would probably take some time. 25 August I saw John Rymer-Jones, who is going out to do a job in the Palestine police in conjunction with Saunders, and he struck me as a sensible man. Alex Kellar had a long talk with him in my presence about the present set-up in Palestine. There is no doubt that Kellar knows his job well. He rather anticipates the possibility of trouble in Palestine before the end of the war. The Jews are well-armed and it is quite on the cards that they might try some sort of coup.This has caused anxiety in Arab circles which are again becoming active. It is difficult to find out what the Colonial Office policy is, but the Foreign Office, on the other hand, seems to be tacitly supporting the Pan-Arab movement. Jones also had a word with Victor Rothschild, who told him about the sabotage cases at Haifa. William J. Heap, the seaman who deserted his ship at Gibraltar, has offered to carry out sabotage for the Germans.They apparently have confidence in him and are trying to make use of him in that capacity. RICARDO, previously reported as an interpreter to the British and American legations in Lisbon but unidentified, has started reporting again. He stopped reporting in May just about the time that Sir John Dashwood was visiting our missions in Lisbon. Most of what he says is inaccurate. Buster Milmo mentioned that Manuel Perez Garcia arrived last night at Camp 020. He came by British warship from Panama. Perez Garcia was a Spanish police attaché, and spent the remainder of the war at Camp 020. Alex Kellar stated that Franz Mayer, the German spy in Persia, had been arrested with another German agent who had come down by parachute.There are apparently six other parachutists at large in Persia. Ian Wilson and Cyril Mills came to see me about the case of SPRINGBOK. His contact in Brazil, Walthemath, was arrested in Brazil a month or two ago. The whole story has now been blown in the press both in south and north America, mentioning SPRINGBOK’s name and his alias. This has caused a certain amount of embarrassment to the RCMP who have told the press that he was working for the British Secret Service. Meanwhile, SPRINGBOK has been spirited away from Toronto to Montreal. SIS, who were warned a long time ago to make arrangements for his removal, are now clamouring to have him sent here. He will, of course, be a serious source of embarrassment as he is not the kind of fellow who likes work and is rather of the TRICYCLE type. First of all, we shall have to know from SIS precisely the terms on which they got him from Brazil to Canada.They have been paying him $300 a month and they propose to continue these payments. I do not think that we can intern him since he has really done nothing to merit such treatment. If he appealed to the Home Secretary we should have no case. 106
1943
Personally, I would much prefer for him to remain in Canada if this would not be too embarrassing for the RCMP. It would, of course, be necessary for SIS to go on paying him. If, in deference to Stuart Wood’s wishes, he is to come here, we shall presumably have to get him a job and keep him under some sort of supervision. 26 August A brief report has been received on the meeting between TRICYCLE and the SIS representative in Lisbon.According to TRICYCLE, Johann Jebsen and Kammler said that if he was not working for the Allies he must be a fool. Nevertheless ISOS shows that whatever Jebsen’s own opinion may be, he is still making out to his superiors that TRICYCLE is a genuine agent.TRICYCLE is to return as soon as Lisbon receives the seal which has been prepared in Berlin to assist the Germans in forging a Yugoslav bag.TRICYCLE also reported that there is only one agent in England whom the Germans think good, and his symbol is PBK or PBH. So far this is unexplained.TRICYCLE has given some useful information about the organisation of Einz Heer in Berlin and certain German codenames. He has also given us the real names of von Karsthoff and Kammler. The first four of METEOR’s controlled letters have come back from Lisbon as rebuts. METEOR is working as a triple-cross.The question arises as to whether we should refer to this incident in the uncontrolled traffic. WATCHDOG is on his way to this country. On 20 August Berlin included details of BUNBURY as taken from the British press in the Trans-Ocean News Service to North America. MUTT is informing the Germans of the postponement of Plan TINDALL. BRUTUS has sent a message which has had an encouraging reaction on ISOS. This in the first message seen since his release. I had a talk with [XXXX] about Zech-Nenntwich. He is quite convinced of the man’s genuineness. He is appalled by the stories of German atrocities in Poland and elsewhere. He feels that these have a very high significance as if we get into Germany we may expect the remnants of the Party to fight like wild beasts. He is getting out a full report which we shall have in a day or two.We shall then have to decide about the disposal of the body. Personally, I rather feel that we should not judge German bestiality on the same lines as Russian bestiality.The Russians are a much more primitive and tough people, whereas the German is bestial when he is top dog, but when he begins to feel that he is beaten he is apt to cringe and to become sentimental. 27 August I spoke to Buster Milmo about the case of SPRINGBOK. He agrees with me that the first thing to do is to get a clear statement of what has happened, the circumstances of his employment, and anything in the nature of an agreement which was reached with him before he was taken on. Milmo thinks that if SPRINGBOK is brought here 107
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
he should be interned.There is, however, a certain difficulty in getting him on to a ship. If the Canadians arrest him, it would be open to them to say that they wished him to be detained in England. It is, however, rather doubtful whether the Canadians would do this. It seems therefore that [XXXXXXXXX] will have to be persuaded to come here. Meanwhile, Freckles Wren is telegraphing frantically, urging his early removal. Milmo is drafting a letter to SIS. Len Burt tells me there has been another postponement of the Rex Hoyes case until 16 October. Apparently there is a tremendous amount of wire-pulling going on. I do not think however that in the long run it will do Hoyes any good. I saw the Director-General today about South Africa. He now takes the view that the changed conditions mean that there is not really a big enough job for Webster, who has done everything possible on the security front.There is only the intelligence side which includes the Lothar Sittig case.This is being worked out as between Michael Ryde and Malcolm Muggeridge. He thinks therefore that Webster should be withdrawn and Ryde left to carry on. He has written to C. to this effect. C, I know, will give his cordial agreement. An informant of OSS in Berne has obtained access to three messages from Dublin to the Germans relating to Dr Goertz. He has also had access to certain other messages, the nature of which we do not know at present, relating to communications or activities of JOSEPHINE. Presumably these messages have gone by the air route via Stockholm.This is another illustration of the dangers of OSS operating without a full knowledge of Y activities which are, of course, in the hands of G-2.We have ascertained from GC&CS that the mere finding out of two or three messages would not necessarily compromise BJ material. This is reassuring since clearly the OSS agent will have to go on expressing interest in any further messages which may be handed to him. The previous incident of this kind related to OSS activities in the Japanese Embassy in Rome. The OSS informant in Berne was Fritz Kolbe, one of Allen Dulles’s sources. 28 August Len Burt talked to me today about the job he did for Sir Norman Kendal, which was covering a meeting between a police officer and someone engaged in the racket to obtain exemption from military service. I asked him what success he thought the police would be likely to have in the enquiry that was being made. Rather significantly he said “Very little.” Whether this implied that people in charge of the enquiry were also in the racket I do not know, but Burt is evidently horrified, though not surprised, that members of the police should be engaging in activities of this sort. He personally has known about Inspector Salisbury for years. Christopher Harmer has written a note about using blown SOE wireless sets for deception. He points out many difficulties, the principal one being that the concern of the SOE section officer is to extricate his agent from a difficult position. This policy would not be consistent with deception. The result is that they fall
108
1943
between two stools.The deception is unsatisfactory, and the agent is generally shot. I have recommended that the use of blown SOE sets for deception should be discontinued and that SOE should work out some plan both with their agent before he goes and within their own organisation, to ensure that the maximum is done to extricate a controlled agent from his predicament. 29 August John Marriott came to talk to me about the proposal for overt censorship of peninsula mails, preparatory to Operation STARKEY. I had previously raised the question with T.A. Robertson about informing the Americans. We are showing a test on 80 per cent – 100 per cent of the letters for Aqua Vitae.This means that all GARBO’s cover addresses will be blown.We do not mind this as it will (a) throw the Germans on to the air, (b) worry them quite a lot and (c) give us some idea as to the reliability that they attach to each agent. In this connection if they supply them with a new address and new inks they will obviously be doing so because they think it worthwhile.There will be an intervening period when little communication will take place but this suits us quite well as we do not wish to have to answer awkward questions when operations are in preparation. The point I raised with T.A. Robertson was that our action might have a considerable effect on the Americans. First of all, some of GARBO’s addresses may also be in use in the western hemisphere and secondly, if we are blowing the re-agent for Aqua Vitae, certain of their agents using this ink may be in difficulties.Whatever the effects, the gesture to the Americans is a good one since it shows that we recognise that they have a stake in what we do over here. It may have the effect of bringing it home to them that we are equally likely to have a stake in what they are doing in the United States.They have recently blown the Grace Buchanan-Dineen case, and in so doing have made it clear that they have been passing information through to the Germans after having it approved by the military and naval authorities.While the possibility of this must be a matter of common knowledge to the Germans, there is no doubt that the less said about it, the better. Had we had someone in the Bureau to impress them with this point of view the incident might not have occurred. Grace Buchanan-Dineen was a recruited Nazi agent who was turned by the FBI and run as a double agent from 1942 until 1944. She had been recruited in Hungary by a certain Saril de Hajek and sent to the United States to collect military information that she sent home through the post. Ronnie Reed tells me that the transmitter known as PHONEY, which is somewhere in the Baltic, and got into touch with the Admiralty wireless station, is developing in quite an interesting way.The indications are, however, that PHONEY is quite an appropriate name. By way of testing out this transmitter we have asked for weather reports and have received a reply that these will be given.The reply came to us en clair. If we do in fact receive weather reports and they are accurate we shall have to think again.The operator has indicated to us that he is known to a certain firm in 109
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
this country and he may of course just be cashing in on the identity of some prisoner of war. Felix Cowgill has again distinguished himself by telling Jack Curry that Soviet espionage is not his business. Curry has told him that he joined SIS on the understanding that he worked direct to Colonel Vivian and that to make a hard and fast division between Soviet espionage and Soviet subversive activities is pure nonsense. His minute to Felix was in such terms that it even made Jane Sissmore a bit uneasy. She advised certain modifications but received the reply that the minute had already gone. Felix has also had a raspberry from Jane herself. He told her that she should not on any account tell MI5 about the JOSEPHINE messages and the Herman Goertz messages. Still less should she refer the matter to Denniston without the Chief ’s approval. She replied that she had already told MI5, and that as regards the Chief she was quite capable of looking after her own affairs. Lastly, Felix has written an extraordinary letter to Melland about the Purple Primer, which Melland had criticised from the military point of view. Felix had replied that these primers were prepared for a variety of customers. He seems, however, to ignore the fact that the principal customers are the military, who might reasonably be supposed to be interested in having some say in the form of the Primer. Some people think that Felix is going off his rocker. He wrote to Dick White the other day saying that “now that we know that the Germans knew that we knew that DUFF is being used, would it not perhaps be a good thing to tell the censorship.”As we told the censorship more than two years ago, there does not seem to be much point in his remarks. 30 August We have got John Cimperman to wire the FBI about the blowing of the re-agent to Aqua Vitae and the blowing of GARBO’s addresses. The fact is that certain of GARBO’s letters have already reacted to the methylene-blue test. This is probably due to the fact that he is using too strong a solution, and that he uses a pen instead of the matchstick covered with cotton-wool.This test has been going on since 19 August.We are letting one letter through with a slight indication which might have passed the eye of the censor that the letter contains secret writing.This may get us out of the difficulty of using tetra-base if the Americans do not want to blow this re-agent.Tommy Harris thinks that whatever test we apply we ought to go on the assumption that certain of GARBO’s letters have been read and to continue the test at any rate until the ink and cover address are changed. Whatever happens, I am sure that we are right in making the gesture of consulting the Americans in a matter of this kind since it is only in this way that we shall get them to understand that what happens in one hemisphere may well be important to investigating agencies in another. I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell today about TATE, who is not from the technical point of view lawfully detained. He has papers as a British subject but we hold an order under 18(b) which was intended for time of invasion but which has never 110
1943
been served. Maxwell suggests that we should keep the order in case we might want to serve it any time. Buster Milmo tells me that a German called Haffner has deserted from Spain where he was operating one of the BODDEN units. The idea is to get him over here as soon as possible for interrogation. His information should prove extremely valuable and provide us with a stick with which to beat the Spaniards. BODDEN was the German codename for an infra-red detection apparatus used by the Germans in Tangier to monitor Allied shipping in the Straits of Gibraltar. 31 August Len Burt tells me that there is further trouble in the Rex Hoyes case, which may ultimately be turned to advantage. £200 which was given to Bloss by the Ministry of Aircraft Production was said to be a loan on the security of certain shares, valued at that sum. In fact the value of the shares was only half that amount. Cunliffe Owen has now induced Arthur J. Rank to purchase these shares at their full value. Both Cunliffe-Owen and Rank will have some difficulty in explaining this rather peculiar transaction. T.A. Robertson tells me that Johnnie Jebson and TRICYCLE have come to an understanding. Presumably Jebson is playing straight as ISOS shows that he is backing TRICYCLE. Jebson’s idea is to go out to Lisbon and work there as an Abwehr official in touch with TRICYCLE and his gang. 2 September I went over to see C. about the case of Juan Lecube, a Spaniard who was recruited by the Abwehr somewhere in 1941. He is an ex-international soccer player, an exTreasury official and an ex-owner of a greyhound racing track.Whether there was any connection between his appointment in the Spanish Treasury and his greyhound racing activities is a matter for some speculation. In 1942 he obtained a mission from the Abwehr to report on the military forces in the Panama Zone. He was picked off at Trinidad and brought to this country.While he has told us a certain amount about his connections and activities, he vehemently denies that he is a German spy and has written several appeals to the Home Secretary, in typical Spanish style: “From my microscopic insignificance I fling myself against the pedestal of your greatness” or words to that effect, with professions of his innocence. The documents found on him contained a number of addresses which undoubtedly connect him with the Abwehr, but do not perhaps, to the uninitiated, provide an entirely conclusive case. Unfortunately for Lecube, however, there were some ninety messages on ISOS some of which tally completely with his own statements of his movements and associates. In order to convince the Home Secretary, it is necessary that he should be acquainted with the nature of the evidence. I explained this to C., who agreed.
111
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
Under interrogation at Camp 020 Lecube remained intransigent. He was transferred to Huntercombe but moved to Dartmoor in December 1944. He was returned to Spain in August 1945. I then told C. about the Zech-Nenntwich case and our views. He seemed to think it was quite possible, in the light of other information, that the man was genuine. He then referred to the agent in Switzerland who had been handing out German BJs relating to Dr Herman Goertz and also reporting on certain message emanating from JOSEPHINE. It seems that this agent, who in the first instance made contact with an OSS representative, may be something in the nature of a double-cross, but it is not really clear at the moment. C. was evidently not aware of the fact that we had no official knowledge about the JOSEPHINE messages. I said that we should be very interested to know precisely what these messages were. He said that of course we should be informed.Valentine Vivian was present and I think slightly embarrassed. The fact is that everything is being done by Felix Cowgill to keep this information away from us. However, we now have an opportunity of taking the question up. The Marita case seems to be developing in a rather interesting way, Marita having visited the Isle of Man. Bernard Perrigoe is giving quite a lot of information about our internees. One of his recruits appears to be our old friend Horsfall-Ertz. There may be an opportunity of finding out more about him, and possibly also Mrs Mathilde Krafft. Haffner, the deserter from Spain who knows about BODDEN, is still in Madrid. Meanwhile, certain ISOS messages indicate that the Germans have been making frantic efforts to get him arrested by the Spaniards.At the moment it looks as if the Spaniards have got hold of somebody whom they believe to be Haffner and who is alleged to have committed suicide.The probability is that they have got hold of the wrong man, since the latest SIS reports indicate that Haffner is still in hiding in the charge of our people. Herbert Hart and I discussed with him the case of Lecube and he readily agreed that the evidence was conclusive. He thought it quite clear that the man mentioned in ISOS as Espina and Gomez was identical with Lecube. TRICYCLE is expected back between 5 and 10 September and has obtained some further details of the agent PBK, who seems to be connected with OSTRO. The fact that Johann Jebson is prepared to give us information through TRICYCLE offers enormous possibilities. A further delivery of a wireless and sabotage material has been promised to MUTT and JEFF at the end of September. The possibilities of shooting down the plane on this occasion will probably be explored. The cover address received by BRUTUS was one of the addresses given to the German agent Joe K. The name, however, is different, and other addresses of this agent have been given at one time to agents such as the WORM but taken away later. The giving of these addresses therefore appears to be consistent with the interpretation derived from ISOS that the Germans regard BRUTUS as being a free
112
1943
agent up to the time of his arrest but are somewhat nervous about his having fallen into our hands as a result of his arrest. The Germans are now transmitting on FATHER’s old and new frequencies. It has been ascertained that the operator working to FATHER on his Indian frequencies is the same as the one working to the important double-cross SILVER. FATHER has now been posted to a night-fighter squadron. SHADOW has arrived in Lisbon. We have not yet heard whether he has made contact with Wilma Schultz. A further operation of Plan DREAM by which we expect to receive £2,631 has almost been completed. I have read [XXXXXX] report on Zech-Nenntwich, which is extremely well presented.The key to the man’s whole make-up is that he is obsessed by his status as an officer. This point is particularly emphasised by his extreme reluctance to disclose that while he was in prison he had his face slapped by a representative of the Gestapo. What he does not understand, of course, is that we are fighting German militarism just as much as Naziism.When this dawns on him a somewhat bitter disillusionment is bound to set in. His whole story reads like a film scenario. The circumstances in which he gradually drifted into contact with the Polish resistance movement appear to be quite circumstantial and authentic.At the moment SOE is having a look at him. 7 September Roger Hollis tells me that there was a note in Douglas Springhall’s diary on a certain date which said “See Ann Gresson and Ray Milne.”A look-up resulted in our seeing that we had vetted Ray Milne for SIS.There was nothing against her except, I think, some vague reference to the fact that at some former date she had been connected with Peace Pledge Union activities. She was the daughter of a Post Office official. She was interviewed by Roger and Felix Cowgill. She admitted that her friend Ann Gresson, who is, of course, a Party member, had introduced her to Springhall on one occasion. The latter had asked her what she was doing and she said that she was employed on highly confidential work in connection with the war. Springhall then said that if she saw anything that she thought would be of interest to the Party would she kindly let him know. She said that she would, but with no intention of doing anything about it. In fact, she had been rather shocked by the proposal. She was still more shocked when she learned about Springhall’s prosecution, but she did not say anything because she assumed that he was working for the Russians who were our Allies. Had she thought that Springhall was working for the Germans or for anyone opposed to the interests of this country she would have mentioned the matter. She admitted that she was a member of the Party herself and that she had a dual loyalty to this country and to Soviet Russia. I gather that she works in Section V and is right in the middle of ISOS and everything else. She is regarded as an extremely efficient and hardworking girl. The dilemma is to know whether to retain her services or whether to kick her out, when she may do serious harm. 113
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
The British deserter William P. Heap is to be trained by the Abwehr in Paris for some special mission. T.A. Robertson mentioned that GARBO had succeeded in bringing over another German reconnaissance plane to Scapa Flow. 9 September I had a talk with Kemball Johnson and Anthony Blunt about the former’s memo on the peace propaganda of neutral governments and missions. He had been prompted to write this owing to the case of Hans Sulzer. He thinks that the fact is not sufficiently appreciated in government circles that from now onwards we must expect all neutral governments and their missions to be hot appeasers since although they wish for Germany’s defeat they do not wish to see her annihilated, owing to their various financial and commercial assets in Germany.They are, therefore, likely to succumb to German propaganda about the Bolshevik bogey. Johnston does not think that we are suitably equipped to meet this danger. He is in touch with a left-wing Swedish Social Democratic journalist called Ava Andersen, who he thinks, would be willing to go to Sweden and take on a mission to find out precisely what the various trends of opinions are in government and other circles. He offered this man to SIS some time ago but got little response. I have told him to make out a note about the case which I will take to C. My suggestion is that the man should be allowed to go, make no contact with SIS in Sweden, and report here on his return. We would then supply SIS with the information. I have also suggested to Kemball Johnson that he should have a talk with Peter Loxley on the lines of his memo. I went after the meeting to see Duff Copper and left with him the Prime Minister’s report and the report on Zech-Nenntwich. 11 September Wells has raised the question of putting something in the monthly Home Office police report on the subject of Plan BUNBURY. He is reluctant to do this because he feels it wrong that the Home Office should mislead the police in an official document. I pointed out to him that we had faced up to this question long ago and made up our minds that in spite of the difficulties the question of the possible leakage of the truth had to be the first consideration. I discussed this matter with T.A. Robertson and Victor Rothschild.We eventually decided that provided Hughes did not think that the Suffolk police would be astonished not to read of the incident in the bulletin we should leave it out, and give a directive to RSLOs to the effect that they should if asked, explain to Chief Constables that the item had not been put in owing to the inconclusive nature of the investigation.Wells said that the Executive did not always put cases into the Bulletin and that they could therefore defend themselves in this particular case. He also said that the Bulletin was generally read by the head clerk who took an intelligence interest in a matter of this sort and would 114
1943
almost certainly bring it to the notice of the Chief Constables. Hughes telephoned later to say that he did not think that the omission of the BUNBURY item in the Bulletin would cause comment from the local police. It was therefore agreed that with the Director-General’s approval this line should be adopted and RSLOs if approached should say that the case had been omitted owing to its inconclusive nature. TRICYCLE is endeavouring to extract a bonus of $2,000 from the Germans as a fee for bringing their wireless set with him. 15 September I saw Zech-Nenntwich with Dick White at [XXXXXXXX] last night. I am absolutely convinced of the man’s sincerity, but he is undoubtedly fanatical in his outlook. [XXXXX] introduced us as Colonel Elphinstone and Captain Mallaby-Deely. After we had got over this, the meeting became quite informal and Zech, otherwise Nansen, gradually got into his stride and it became quite clear to me how the accumulative effect of the Nazi regime in Poland brought him to the break-point. He was horrified by the atrocities, the drunkenness and the general behaviour of the Germans. Having offered his life for his country and having been wounded in a dozen places, he began to wonder what he had been fighting for. His natural instincts led him to correct injustices wherever it was within his power.This soon became known and attracted others to come to him with their troubles. Gradually he became more and more a focal point and more and more sympathetic with the local inhabitants. His conduct could not escape the notice of others, particularly the Gestapo, who began to wonder why he received so many friendly greetings from Polish citizens in the street. Gradually he came to the point where he decided to give active assistance to the Polish resistance movement in spite of the fact that he regarded most of those concerned as highly indiscreet and some of them as not altogether disinterested from a personal point of view in connection with large sums of money they were obviously receiving from abroad.As soon as they got the funds, the tendency was to get drunk and talk about their activities. Although he liked women, he made up his mind to keep out of all love-affairs with women, many of whom he admired for the part they were playing. He gave a graphic description of the incident when he was wounded on the Russian front. He lay out in no man’s land three nights and two days and was, in fact, turned over by a Russian patrol and left for dead. He was finally picked up by a tank during a German counter-attack. A number of dead were placed on top of the tank and he was placed on top of them.The tank then turned round and made for the German lines. Shortly afterwards it received a direct hit and he was blown into the air and wounded again. When being removed from the dressing station he had ceased to feel anything from the waist downwards. He had the impression that his legs were being left behind and said so. He was only reassured that his legs were still part of his body when his coat was pulled up and he was allowed to look at them. He showed us his wounds at [XXXXXX] special request. He had one on his forehead, 115
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
one in his neck, five or six on his back, one on his hip and the remainder on his legs. It seems almost a miracle that he could have survived for three nights and two days lying on the ground during a Russian winter. He does not think a great deal of the Russian infantryman, but has tremendous admiration for the Russian tank, which apparently has double armour, with a space between the outer and inner shell. A direct hit does not, therefore, usually incapacitate a tank. Even if the tracks are damaged they can be removed and the tank can be operated on its wheels.The Russians have enormous numbers of guns which are fired by some radio-location apparatus with great accuracy.The position of enemy guns appears to be detected both by sound and by flash. Zech talked a certain amount of Henrich Himmler, and he regards him as a sadist and slightly mad. He is not intelligent and can easily be bowled out in argument, but he has a great deal of peasant cunning. His father was the principal of some school and he himself received a very good education. Zech has heard him talk about the English and their colonial policy. He paints the English as a people who walk about cracking whips and referred to an incident in India where it was alleged that an Indian had struck a British subject. All local inhabitants had apparently been made to crawl on their hands and knees through the village. These incidents are held up to the Germans as something to be learned from the British as the correct method for the Herrenvolk to treat an insubordinate nation. Zech said that he hoped that we would not think that he was merely concerned with giving us amusing and interesting details regarding his experiences. His mind was running on much bigger things. He had gone through an appalling time, both physically and mentally. He had taken the decision to act as he had and hoped that we would make the best possible use of him. He said that most people in Germany deplored the atrocities but that very few of them were prepared to do anything. He referred to his circle of friends at home, some of whom listened to the British wireless and longed for the overthrow of the Nazis, but always said “Well, we must wait and see what happens. One day it will all come to an end.” He was convinced, however, that if we treated Germany too leniently all those people and also the army would make preparation for a war of revenge.The whole country needed reeducating from top to bottom, otherwise the glorification of war and prowess on the battlefield would once more recreate a German Army or movements which would be as bad as that which had been experienced during the last ten years. I was surprised to hear him say this, as it had not been clear to me from the report that in spite of his reverence for the honour of an officer and the decent feelings of most officers in the Wehrmacht they were in fact just as great a menace as the Nazis. Zech himself is only twenty-seven but he sees all this quite clearly, and is ready to do anything within his power to put it right. I am quite convinced that some use ought to be made of his services. He himself, I think, envisages the possibility of being able to get into touch with his former colleagues in the Waffen-SS and to assist us in the final stages of the war when we occupy Germany. He thinks the struggle will be very bitter and views with considerable apprehension the organisation of the whole country in “Gaus”, for the purpose of civil defence. He 116
1943
thinks that when that stage is reached he should be close at hand to advise on all the various personalities connected with the Party and the army. He would be able to distinguish between those who should go and those who have certain remnants of decent feeling on which it would be possible to work. Zech was extremely impressed by the treatment he had received from Colonel Sutton-Pratt, our military attaché, in Stockholm. It took him some time to get accustomed to the fact that a lieutenant in the Germany Army could speak on equal terms and frankly to an officer of the rank of lieutenant-colonel. This was something which he had never experienced. I had a talk with Duff Cooper about Zech-Nenntwich and he felt that if possible some use ought to be made of him. I told him that I was going on leave, but that I could come back if necessary for the American wrangle. 29 September Penetration of the services by the Communist Party is becoming rather serious. Ray Milne has been sacked from SIS and it has now been discovered that she has a man friend in SOE in the Balkan section who is also a member of the middle class Communist group. He has admitted firstly that Ray Milne told him she was indexing all the members of the German intelligence service and, secondly, that having been approached by Douglas Springhall, he told the latter about the organisation of SOE and about the attitude of the British government towards various irregular forces in Yugoslavia. He will probably be prosecuted and tried by court-martial. There is another case of an officer who has given information to the Russians through Springhall and has in fact been in touch with the Russians himself.This is under investigation. The second officer was Captain Ormond Uren of SOE’s Hungarian Section. At the Wednesday meeting Herbert Hart mentioned that ISOS showed the preparation of three agents. One is described as an English agent destined for England and Canada. He is to travel as the representative of a Spanish business firm created for the purpose.The second is an Argentine, Ernesto Hoppe, who is to go to South America to work for the Wirtschaft. He will be taken off at Gibraltar when his ship calls there en route. Lisbon states that a Belgian, who Hart thinks is probably Mampey, is to come to this country as an agent under cover of joining the forces. Buster Milmo mentioned the [XXXXXXXXXXXX] case. This man landed in a small boat in a remote bay in Iceland.The Americans took him to their hearts and treated him as an honoured guest, and made us promise to treat him in the same way when he came to England. The man is obviously a spy and is now at the London Reception Centre, though it is intended that he shall go on to Camp 020. We shall, however, have to square this with our promise to the Americans to treat him as a friend.
117
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
30 September Blanshard Stamp and I went over to see General Crockatt about the Icelandic subject [XXXXXXXXXXX] who arrived a short time ago in Iceland ostensibly from Bodo. His story was obviously a poor one and when reported to [XXXXXX], the SIS man, he communicated with his headquarters. We also expressed doubts and said we thought it was desirable that the man should be sent here.The Americans, however, took a different view.They believed in [XXXXXXXXXXXX] and very reluctantly agreed to us having him sent to this country, provided he were treated as a guest and remunerated for the information that he had provided.There appears to have been some undertaking of this sort between the American general in command and the British admiral who was responsible for bringing him to the country. When we got him to the London Reception Centre and heard this story Baxter was quite convinced he was a spy.Taxed with this he collapsed and has now made a full confession. He was, in fact, dropped by submarine from Bergen. He had a wireless set, $5,000 and a code and instructions, all of which he had buried in Iceland. He has pinpointed the place where they are hidden.We broke this news to General Crockatt who called in Colonel Calvert and also Colonel Stevens, who recently arrived from Iceland and was conversant with the case of COBWEB. It seems that [XXXXXXXXXXXX] was to communicate with his masters by wireless and would then be informed how to dispose of the money. He would be given the name of a contact, which almost certainly would be COBWEB.We impressed upon Crockatt and Calvert that, by virtue of the large fund of information carefully indexed here, we had a very definite advantage over any intelligence people in Iceland.We thought therefore that some arrangement by which characters of this sort were put on a plane at once and sent here for examination would be profitable to all concerned, particularly since the time factor might on occasion be important. In this particular case, for example, it would be for consideration whether [XXXXXXXXXXXX] should be turned round. Crockatt and Calvert were more than co-operative and said that they would be delighted to fall in with any recommendations that we liked to make. I made it clear that the disposal of the body was really a matter between G-2 and SIS since they operated in Iceland and we did not. We would let them have a full report on the case at the earliest possible moment. 1 October At 4am today a man calling himself Nicolai Hansen, apparently a Norwegian, was dropped by parachute near Fraserburgh. He said that he came from Farstadt and was a stevedore or labourer who had been in jail for stealing cigarettes and had then been contacted by the German intelligence service and sent to this country. He had attempted to come last Monday but the weather had been too bad and the aircraft had returned.The aircraft left Norway at 10.55 yesterday evening and was to have landed Hansen at Ellon, but in fact landed him near Fraserburgh.The man had two wireless sets, one of which was dropped with him and the other dropped
118
1943
separately. His instructions were to give himself up with one wireless set after he had buried the other. He was then to express the desire to join the Norwegian forces and in two or three months he was to return to the other wireless set and start operations. He had been trained in Oslo and carried £60 in £10 and £5 notes.The smaller notes were Scottish banknotes. He thinks that a further packet of money is with the other wireless set which has not yet been found. Hansen, subject to the consent of the Lord Advocate, is being sent to Camp 020.This man is presumably identical with an ISOS character who was mentioned some weeks ago as being trained in Norway for a journey to this country. J.C. Masterman, John Marriott and Hugh Astor came to see me about the case of LIPSTICK who is to go over and see his masters in Spain on the excuse of a short holiday. He wishes to take with him certain documents from the Catalans here to their headquarters in Barcelona. He also wishes to fix up some arrangement by which the Catalans can correspond with this country in secret ink. The Catalan aspect of the business presents considerable difficulties since both SIS and the Foreign Office have been anxious to keep clear of Catalans or any suggestion that this country is fostering the Catalan movement. I have suggested that LIPSTICK should take the chance with the micro-photographs which he might conceivably have made himself with a Leica camera, and that as regards the correspondence from Spain to the Catalan organisation here, arrangements should be made for the letters to be sent to a cover address in Portugal and there collected.The secret ink in which they are written could be provided by LIPSTICK himself from stocks which he would demand for his own purposes from the Germans. If the correspondence was detected it would give the impression that the Germans and not the British were in fact giving assistance to the Catalan movement. It appears that Claude Dansey has rather thrown cold water on the proceedings as might well be expected, and we may have some difficulty in persuading C. that the project, which has the approval of the Twenty Committee, is a good one. I had a talk with C. about the TRICYCLE case, and he told me he had been extremely interested in the reference to the information which the Germans were obtaining through our army signals. He said he was quite convinced that this was true and that the Director of GC&CS, Edward Travis, had told him that army signals security was absolutely rotten. He was quite prepared to go before any committee and say so. The trouble was he could not get the Director of Military Intelligence to move in the matter. I asked him whether he thought it would do any good if I took the extract from TRICYCLE’s report and rubbed the DMI’s nose in it. He said he thought it might be well worthwhile. I was surprised to find C. taking this whole matter so seriously, since when we originally raised it he had been quite prepared to accept Richard Gambier-Parry’s view that there was nothing to worry about. He told me that I could tell the DMI that he was extremely concerned, that the whole of the deception plans could be jeopardised by this serious breach of wireless discipline, which in spite of the recommendations of the Reid Committee was still going on. He asked me if I would let him have a copy of the report, which I promised to do. I told him that I was sending a copy of the 119
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
extract from TRICYCLE’s report to Peter Reid and impressed upon him that Reid was an extremely able fellow and totally disinterested as far as he himself was concerned. His one aim and object was to get the mess cleaned up. He was however in a difficult position since in so far as the army and other departments were concerned he had no executive authority. The fact was that at the moment nothing really effective had been done.The army was still trying to get the necessary personnel to put their house in order. C. said he thought the DMI really ought to take the matter up with the VCIGS. I told C. about [XXXXXXXXXXXXX]. He was very pleased that the incident had occurred as he thought it would be an extremely salutary and much-needed lesson to the Americans. 2 October Nicolai Hansen has arrived and a statement has been taken from him by Edward Hinchley-Cooke. He came absolutely clean and there is no question of a prosecution. His spare wireless set has been found in a tree. A German airman deserter called Hoepperls is due to arrive from Stockholm. 3 October Colonel Stephens rang me up to say that Nicolai Hansen’s cover name is HEINI, and this definitely identifies him as an ISOS character. Somehow, this fact has been missed both by the SIS and B1(b) registries, and his case is not quite so good as it originally appeared. He was asked whether he had brought any secret ink. He said that he had, but that he could not remember where it was. Finally, he said that it was concealed in one of his teeth. He was then asked whether he had any cover addresses to which he replied in the negative. It was pointed out to him that if he had secret ink obviously he would have an address to which to write. He then said that he would be given the address only after he had got into wireless communication.The argument was then advanced that his sole purpose for carrying secret ink was to use in the event of the wireless set being damaged. It was suggested that he should think again. He finally produced an address in Stockholm to which he said he had been instructed to write. His excuse for not giving this information before was that he was afraid we should make a mess of things and that his wife would get into trouble. Camp 020 is not quite certain at present whether this excuse can be accepted. I have so informed Edward Hinchley-Cooke.The secret ink, which was in a little rubber cover, was placed in a hollow tooth and cemented over. Hansen had been instructed to pick it out himself, and if unable to do so to get the tooth extracted by a dentist. Having got him to sign a statement to the effect that he was willing to have the secret ink extracted from his tooth by a British officer,Wynn of Camp 020, who is a qualified British dentist, removed the cement and found the rubber casing with certain crystals inside.
120
1943
4 October At the daily meeting today Herbert Hart mentioned a character named Palo, an Eins Marine agent being prepared for this country.There was some indication that he might have made his departure about 1 October. Our view about the parachute spy Nicolai Hansen is that his explanation about not telling us about his secret ink and cover address is probably a genuine one. It would be difficult to prosecute him as not only has he told us that he is a spy but he has also told us that the Germans told him to tell us he was a spy. I do not think that we shall use him. His case will probably go to the Director of Public Prosecutions as a matter of routine, but will not be recommended as one suitable for prosecution. FELIPE appears to have a wireless agent in America. Arthur Thurston is making enquiries about this to see whether he is controlled. I saw Bill Cavendish-Bentinck with Hugh Astor about the LIPSTICK case, in order to get Foreign Office sanction for the taking over to Spain of the Catalan document, and for arranging communications between Catalans in Barcelona and Catalans in this country.The purpose of the LIPSTICK visit is purely a counter-espionage one, but since LIPSTICK’s heart is really in the Catalan movement his mission has a dual purpose. Anything to do with Catalans is extremely embarrassing to the Foreign Office. Cavendish-Bentinck finally agreed that the documents could be sent over in the diplomatic bag and handed to LIPSTICK when he goes to the Passport Control Office in Madrid to get his return visa. He also agreed that LIPSTICK could obtain ink from the Germans and give it to the Catalans for purposes of communication with this country by means of cover addresses in the UK. He undertook to speak to C. on this matter, and assure him that the plan had Foreign Office sanction. John Marriott and Tommy Harris told me that Johnny Jebson is now talking to Kenneth Benton in Madrid about GARBO’s organisation.This creates a somewhat awkward situation. If Jebson is going to tell us about our double-cross agents he will realise their true position if nothing results from the information which he gives. It is, therefore, desirable to try and put him off the track, but we must of course express some interest. Tommy Harris has worked out a plan for drawing Jebson off the scent. We have also decided to tell Benton that almost certainly Jebson, when speaking of the Karl-Erich Kühlenthal organisation, is referring to GARBO. I talked to Roger Hollis about Max Knight’s organisation. He seems to think that there is a tendency, and rather an unjustifiable one, to run it down. He thinks Max has done good work in the past and he says that he has a certain number of quite competent agents. He is trying to get others in on a low level but finding difficulty owing to the fact that most people are employed on other things. He thinks Max’s failing is that he lives too much in the past of these movements, which have changed considerably in the last few years, a fact that Max, in his isolation in Dolphin Square, does not realise. He ought to get round and talk to people much more than he does.
121
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
We then got on to the Marita case, and Roger Hollis evidently does not like it. He cannot get out of his liberal mind that this is a serious form of provocation. In a very mild sense it is, but in the absence of any other methods I do think it is desirable to ascertain something about evilly-intentioned persons. Roger’s view is that the country is full of evilly-intentioned persons, but that there is no necessity to drag them out of their holes.They had much better be left to rot in obscurity, and will be swamped by the common sense of the community as a whole. 5 October Colonel George Hill of SOE who is on a visit from Moscow called and was seen by Dick White and myself. He brought with him John Senter and two other members of SOE who presumably deal with Russian affairs. The main purpose of his visit was to discuss our liaison with the Russians. I asked him to give us some kind of account of his work in Moscow and the degree of confidence or otherwise that he had established with his opposite numbers. He said that he worked on a very high level, his contact being Lavrenti Beria who is head of that section of NKVD which deals exclusively with SOE matters. Like ourselves, all these various departments are inclined to work in water-tight compartments and to some extent in an atmosphere of rivalry. Beria’s representative over here was Ivan Chichaev. Colonel Hill, however, did not think that he would be qualified to speak outside the scope of purely SOE activities. Even if we did establish a liaison with him with the approval of Moscow we should not stand to get very far. Hill had apparently been able to make some progress in spite of numerous difficulties. It was in the Baghat Ran, or SILVER, case that the best co-operation had been achieved. The Russians had been, however, very much averse to the introduction of anyone from the Delhi Intelligence Bureau in India.They preferred to deal through one channel only. In exchange for the information that they gave they had hoped to get information about the Far East. In fact we had been unable to assist them because we had no information.This they had found very difficult to believe. Co-operation had been achieved also in Persia where there seemed to be a good understanding between the British officer, named Spencer, and a Russian from Beria’s department. Hill had been subjected to the usual tactics of provocation. The Russians had sent him a man who had worked for him in 1920, and who had made suggestions about working for him again. Hill did not fall for this, but immediately rang up the NKVD. The man was removed from the National Hotel, where Hill stays, with apologies. Three or four months later, however, he made another approach. Hill then became exceedingly annoyed. The man disappeared again and Hill was told that he had been suitably dealt with.The whole thing was an obvious plant. It was, however, an interesting example of Russian distrust. Hill had never made any attempt to disguise his past activities in Russia, which were of course well known to them owing to the publication of his book. He thinks he was accepted because he was regarded as a professional.The Russians have a liking for professionals and experts. Hill assured us that he had been in no way responsible for the instructions 122
1943
which Chichaev had received from Moscow not to hold official conversations with Klop. He said he thought the Russians would assume that Chichaev was under some kind of routine observation in this country and he particularly asked that if it came to our knowledge that Chichaev was conducting undesirable activities such as espionage, the complaint should go through the channel of Hill’s mission in Moscow. A propos of this, he had thought of making some capital out of the Douglas Springhall case, in so far as the facts had been published in the press. Dick White expressed the view that in addition to Chichaev’s SOE work, he was engaged in maintaining contact with the Czechs, possibly in order to obtain information as to Polish movements. I explained to Hill that the Russians with their long record of collaboration with the Germans going back twenty years, should have a great deal of information about German intelligence matters.We should, if possible, like to tap this information. Dick pointed out that Russians were very slow and unsatisfactory in dealing with questions affecting the identification of their prisoners who arrive in this country from time to time. We felt that if any progress was to be made in the future it would have to be a development of Cecil Barclay’s work in Moscow and come in the form of a request to the Russians to send someone here competent to deal with counter-espionage matters. We told SOE that our contact would not go further than a purely social one. I saw the Director of Military Intelligence about TRICYCLE’s information regarding signals security. I told him that I had discussed the matter with C. who felt that the position was serious since it clearly made nonsense of our deception plans.The DMI agreed and asked me to put the matter in writing to him and also to the other Directors of Intelligence. I said that I brought the matter to his notice since it seemed to indicate that the situation brought to light by the Reid Committee had not changed. I understood that there were certain difficulties about getting personnel but I thought that this confirmation of previous reports might stimulate activity. I told the DMI that I had sent a copy of the information to Captain Reid. 8 October The position of Johannes Jebsen seems to be somewhat precarious; we have done our best to urge him to stay on. He apparently thinks that Gestapo are on his tracks and a short time ago he wrote a suicide letter which he deposited with an Abwehr official now in Madrid whom he took into his confidence. The suicide letter was intended to stage a cover for Jebsen’s evacuation to this country. He also told this Abwehr official that TRICYCLE was working for the British.There is no reason at the moment to suppose that the official has passed the story on to his superiors. In the meantime, Jebsen has been passing apparently accurate information to SIS in Madrid. Jebsen has now committed himself to being a conscious informant. He has put us in the somewhat embarrassing position of giving information which would appear to relate to GARBO. If he gives us sufficient information to enable us to identify GARBO, he will be able to work out for himself that GARBO is under control.We 123
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
are therefore trying to get Jebsen away from Madrid to Lisbon. In connection with one of his Abwehr activities, it has been suggested that Jebsen should see Admiral Canaris while the latter is in Madrid and this may presumably bring matters to a head one way or the other. Meanwhile,TRICYCLE has been appointed to be a representative of the Yugoslav government in Canada and the Abwehr have agreed to make him a further payment subject to confirmation from the senior officers now visiting the Fuhrer. JOSEF’s courier Irma has returned from Lisbon bringing a letter from the Japanese Assistant naval attaché thanking JOSEF for his work, sending him further instructions and including £150 in payment for his services.The letter also stated that the Japanese were doing their best to supply JOSEF with secret ink and a radio transmitter. JOSEF will shortly be returning to Lisbon himself. MUTT’s transmitter and sabotage material are to be dropped about 15 October. SIS has now established direct touch with [XXXXX] 11 October I had lunch with Max Knight and talked to him about his organisation. I hoped that he would discuss Jimmie Dickson who, I gather, is causing a good deal of trouble, and is thought to be going slightly Fascist. I did get on to the subject of staff and I gathered that Max felt that Dickson had not the necessary qualifications to take over the organisation in an emergency. Dickson, in Max’s view, suffered from an inferiority complex. He will probably return to the Ministry of Labour after the war. Jack Bingham will also go back to journalism, as he normally draws a salary of about £1,200 a year. Max has a high opinion of Bill Younger. I told Max what we were doing about the Marita case and he seemed to approve. I emphasised the necessity of getting woman agents into subversive organisations with a view to their becoming of use in a couple of years’ time. He said that he was doing his best but that at the present stage of the war it was hard to get hold of reliable people. Edward Hinchley-Cooke’s blood-lust has been aroused by the Nicolai Hansen case. He thinks that we should prosecute and wants to interview certain of the officers at Camp 020. Colonel Stephens is breathing fire. We have however tactfully persuaded Hinchley-Cooke that before he does so the question of principle must be decided. 12 October Cecil Liddell has made a précis of the case of Charles Bernard Compton Phillips, an Irish solicitor who was working for the Abwehr before the war. His cover name was Tipperary. He started working in 1937 when he made an offer to the German ambassador and later he received instructions from one P. van Zuiden of Amsterdam who sent him £15 and asked him to go to Cologne. In 1938 Phillips met Dr Pfeffer at Osnabruck. He went to Hamburg in 1938 and again in March and June 1939 where he met a Dr Lutz. He was to report on the military dispositions in the UK 124
1943
and Northern Ireland. He does not appear to have done very much. He sent over press cuttings from Flight and The Aeroplane and a map of Northern Ireland with anti-aircraft positions marked. He had secret ink and a code. He received his money from Kol & Company of Amsterdam, who have featured in a number of other prewar spy cases. Had the necessary link-up been made of Kol he might have been detected at an earlier date. Phillips is thought to be unbalanced and a number of his relatives are in mental homes. 13 October Admiral Wilhelm Canaris has been down to Madrid again where he has seen both Juan Vigon and Francisco Jordana.The question of British protests about German secret service activities in Spain was discussed. It was agreed that while certain outward adjustments would have to be made, the work would go on as usual. 14 October ISOS shows that one Osmar Hellmuth, who is connecting with Pedro Ramirez’s government in the Argentine, is going on a secret mission sponsored by the Sicherheitsdienst to see Heinrich Himmler. It has been suggested that he should be taken off at Trinidad. I have read through an extremely interesting case of the SOE agent Knight. It discloses a lamentable state of affairs in the French section of SOE. Knight is a deplorable character who should on no account ever been furnished with any information which if divulged might endanger the lives of others.We already had certain records of him before he was taken on. SOE said they asked us to vet him but there is no record here of such a request.The point is not very material since Knight was already committing the gravest indiscretions during his period of training. He went on a special mission with others to blow up some factory or power station in France.The mission failed and Knight went on to Paris. Here he was befriended by two members of the resistance organisation who got him to Lyons. Here he behaved with the gravest indiscretions, frequented bars, etcetera. In addition he wrote several cards to a girlfriend. He eventually got himself arrested, betrayed the people in Paris and also the man who had taken him to Lyons. On his way back to Paris he says he escaped. His story is extremely phoney and he has lied so often that I doubt whether he himself now knows when he is speaking the truth. After his return here, which was never notified to us until a much later date, he was allowed to wander about out of control. Finally, when we wanted to get him interrogated either at Scotland Yard or Brixton prison, SOE objected on the grounds that he would first have to have his commission withdrawn. A delay of some nineteen days ensued during which time Knight evidently came to the conclusion that we had little information against him. The psychological moment had passed to break him down although we know positively from the two people in Paris who have since escaped, that he betrayed them. The whole case is one chapter of blunders and indiscretions. 125
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
The position of Johannes Jebsen, now known as ARTIST, seems to have improved. The Germans have given him a passport visa for Portugal and there is nothing to indicate that his position with the Abwehr has been impaired.TRICYCLE is to go to Lisbon and will probably bring back his wireless operator. BALLOON has had a letter that had three DUFFs on it, giving a code for informing the Germans about imminent operations.This, in spite of the fact that he has already told them that he is leaving for Canada. It seems that the letter was prepared long before it was sent off since the instructions speak of the possible invasion in September.The letter only reached here on 4 October.The WORM has at last got employment in the Political Warfare Executive. The Germans are being asked to drop another wireless set for MUTT and JEFF on 21/22 October or 22/23 October. Meanwhile MUTT is going to report the arrival of Nicolai Hansen at Fraserburgh and complain to the Germans about their wasting their time when he is waiting for much needed material and help. LIPSTICK left Lisbon by air on 10 October. DRAGONFLY is still without funds, although he has been assured that every effort is being made to effect payment. It is expected that some valuable jewellery will shortly be sent over by the Germans and they are still talking of sending a money remittance from Switzerland. 16 October Edward Cussen told me that he wanted Buster Milmo to tell Camp 020 that when Nicolai Hansen said he had secret ink in his tooth they should have stopped the proceedings and taken him to the Oratory Schools where a official statement could have been taken. Cussen agreed that there was no case against Hansen but, on the other hand, there might have been. At the daily meeting Herbert Hart mentioned the case of Osmar Hellmuth.The Foreign Office has agreed that he should be taken off at Trinidad.This is, however, a case in which we should give the Americans the opportunity of interrogation. Difficulty arises owing to the fact of the source of the information being IZAK. IZAK should have been passed in camouflaged form to the FBI who, by order of G-2 are not allowed to see it in the original. We should like to say to Arthur Thurston that on the basis of the information controlled by G-2 and by ONI, we know that Hellmuth is on his way to see Heinrich Himmler and that we propose to take him off at Trinidad. As in the case of Manuel Perez Garcia, it would be desirable if time permitted to get this man back to this country. If, on the other hand, we could not arrange transport he should be as thoroughly interrogated as possible at Trinidad on a brief telegraphed from this country and the information passed to the FBI locally. I do not know whether SIS will agree to this. Osmar Hellmuth had been appointed to a nominal diplomatic post in Spain as cover for a mission to negotiate the purchase of arms from Germany, and spent two years at Camp 020.
126
1943
20 October At the Wednesday meeting Herbert Hart mentioned that a certain difficulty was being experienced in getting Osmar Hellmuth back to this country. If we can get him to Bermuda he can come on a British warship. Unfortunately, there is no plane available from Trinidad to Bermuda unless we get a Catalina sent down to fetch him. Efforts are being made to arrange this. I had lunch with Jimmie Dickson and he seems to be very disturbed in his mind. He told me that he had a bit of a row with Max Knight over the case of Mrs Gladstone. He thought firstly that she was using one of the office cars for personal reasons, and secondly that she was rather slack in her dealings with the agents. He put up several reports to this effect to Max and eventually something was done about the car. Mrs Gladstone then resigned but was persuaded by Max to stay on. Later, the incidents of slackness occurred and ended in a row, when both Dickson and Mrs Gladstone went on leave. I gather that the latter is not returning. Dickson said that after those various incidents he had the impression that he had become the subject of suspicion. One member of the office had in fact been asked to keep an eye on him, and stage a tea party with his wife, I suppose with a view to getting Dickson’s reactions. Someone else had told him that Max did not like to get rid of him as he thought he might publish a book about his experiences. He said that these incidents had entirely destroyed his confidence in Max and that one or two others were feeling the same way. He wanted my advice as to what he should do. He did not wish to blow his own trumpet but he felt that if he left the agency in other hands it might go seriously wrong and that a number of the informants might throw their hands in. When he returned from his leave he found himself taken off the agency work and placed on Max’s staff where he had practically nothing to do.Then Shepherd fell ill, and they had to send him back to the agency as there was no one else to work it. I told him that clearly the present state of affairs could not continue. He would have to get those who had given him information to allow him to put his cards on the table to Max and talk the whole thing out. I thought that possibly there was quite a lot of misunderstanding on both sides. If as a result of this talk he still felt that he no longer had any confidence in Max, it would be better for him to go back to the Ministry of Labour.While I thought that the running of the agency was extremely important, I did not think it was any good his continuing that work in the present atmosphere. If he preferred it, I said I could speak to Max and try to find out what the trouble was. He said that he would prefer to speak to Max himself in the first instance. Desmond Orr rang me up to say that a photographer named Nigel Lawrence on the Daily Mirror had called to say that he was being sent to Cardiff to get in touch with the local Daily Mirror representative who would indicate to him where Rudolf Hess took his walks in the vicinity of Abergavenny.The camera had a telescopic lens and presumably the photograph would be taken at a considerable distance without anybody’s knowledge. I spoke to C. who said that Hess was no longer under his charge and he suggested I should have a word with Peter Loxley
127
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
and then with the Prisoner of War Department. I spoke to Loxley who agreed it was undesirable that the photographs should appear. I then talked to Major Crawford in the absence of Colonel Evelyn Smith who, I was told, had Hess’s case in hand. I told Crawford the story and of Loxley’s suggestion that the best move would be to keep Hess in barracks for a week or ten days or until the incident had blown over. I should probably be in a position to let him know when the coast was clear. After the whole incident had died down we could then consider the issue of a D Notice since it was the intention of the Mirror to publish the photograph without reference to Press and Censorship. Hess is at present detained at Abergavenny. Len Burt tells me that Barry of the Director of Public Prosecution’s office was asked to go and see Sir Hugo Alexander about the Rex Hoyes case.Alexander gave him a long speech about Hoyes and what a good fellow he was. He had often stayed with him. He then suggested that as there was a security angle to the case I might be a good thing to hold the proceedings in camera. He then drew attention to the fact that a bomb had been dropped at Southampton on Sunday. Burt has ascertained that this bomb was dropped about eight miles away on the docks. Clearly it had nothing to do with any report on the Hoyes case that had appeared in the papers. In any case, it was a matter for the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and Sir Stafford Cripps has expressed the view that the fullest publicity should be given to the case. 21 October I saw Duff Cooper this morning and showed him certain Japanese BJs. I also left with him two files relating to the cases which we have investigated for SOE, one of them contained Geoffrey Wethered’s report on Knight. I said that while the case of Knight was a deplorable one and showed an obviously bad state of affairs in the French Section, Duff should bear in mind that we always get the sticky end of SOE and that they may be doing extremely good work in other directions. It was however remarkable in the case of Knight that so much should have taken place without the knowledge of a senior officer. One of the great troubles about SOE was that their records were so badly kept. It was often extremely difficult to find out precisely what had happened when things went wrong. I pointed out to Duff that the suggestion had been made that perhaps the case of Knight might be taken up on a high level. The difficulty was that if SOE thought we were exposing them to high authority we should never hear anything at all about cases such as that of Knight. I talked to Duff Cooper about signals security and told him precisely what I had done about TRICYCLE’s report. I asked him whether, when he saw the Prime Minister and handed him the MI5 report, he could draw his attention to that particular item. I thought that it could do no harm and might do good. He said that he had tried to see the Prime Minister but he is apparently very busy and so he was thinking of sending the report instead of delivering it in person. David Boyle came to see me, firstly to say that he thought Hornung’s grandson, du Boulay of M02, who according to TRIPLEX, had in his cups blabbed about the 128
1943
Azores to the Portuguese minister, should be quietly removed to other spheres. It has been left to me to suggest this to the Director of Military Intelligence.We also discussed Swedish naval and air attachés.There is no doubt that the latter is getting a lot of information. He is accompanied on all his visits by an air officer but the latter does not seem to supervise him very closely once he is at an aerodrome. The naval attaché seems to have been more noisy, and the other day bounced a midshipman into allowing him to see something on board ship. He told him that the captain had given permission, but this was untrue. I thought that a paper should be prepared and presented to the JIC on the dangers of imparting information to neutral attachés. The matter had been raised before but there would be no harm in raising it in rather a big way. We should also put in a warning about talking to diplomats. David Boyle agreed and I have asked Anthony Blunt to prepare a paper. 22 October MUTT and JEFF did not receive their new transmitter, on the grounds that a plane with an experienced crew was not available. They have been promised delivery next month. Meanwhile, MUTT is to be manoeuvred into the Intelligence Corps. MUTT and JEFF have sent an indignant message about the unheralded arrival of Nicolai Hansen whose capture has come to their notice. They say: “Extremely important. Jack furious. He reports that parachute agent caught night 30 September near Fraserburgh.This is madness.You promised us delivery. Instead of that you play silly tricks in our area. Why our rotten treatment? Do you, by any chance, think that new man can give better service? On account of length of service we must insist that we are considered first. Another trick like this and we are through.” This drew the reply. “Don’t be abusive. It has its reasons. Greetings and best wishes.” Last Sunday’s Sunday Chronicle has raked up Plan BUNBURY again. The HAMLET–MULLET–PUPPET case is not going too well and raises some doubts. HAMLET has to go to Paris to explain that JOSEF has left for Lisbon. GELATINE has received £238. The WORM has got employment with the Political Warfare Executive. LIPSTICK has gone to Madrid where the Germans appear to be extremely satisfied with his preliminary interrogation. They have asked Berlin to send two experts on England to exploit LIPSTICK’s information to the full. It now seems that serious efforts are being made to pay DRAGONFLY and that in fact some jewellery may shortly be arriving. In view of the possibilities of this case being revived, efforts are being made to manoeuvre DRAGONFLY into a position which will enable him to travel about the country and report on troop movements. 27 October There is confirmation of the Mederic story. Certain messages are being handed out by a representative of the German Legation in Berne to a representative of OSS. It was from this source that the Dr Goertz telegrams, which are undoubtedly 129
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
authentic, were received. Other messages which apparently come from Stockholm are signed HECTOR and do deal with Ministry of Aircraft Production subjects, although the information so far received is totally inaccurate. It is of a somewhat high-level kind, referring to conversations between Air Marshals Portal and Harris in Sir Stafford Cripps’ ante-room. I am inclined to think that this line for what it is worth has little or no connection with the documents found in North Africa giving performances and production figures of our aircraft. ARTIST has put in an extremely interesting report about recent changes within the Abwehr. Owing to demands by General von Unruh that everyone of the 1908 class or younger should be called up, and that 50 per cent of the remaining Abwehr personnel should be replaced by wounded men from the front, Admiral Canaris reluctantly agreed to a cut of 25 per cent of eligible Abwehr personnel, provided it was left to him to decide who could be dispensed with. Eventually a list of only 15 per cent was made up and many of these did not in the end leave the service of the Abwehr. Instances have come to light of the expenditure of large sums of money on seven Jewish families which were got out with Canaris’ connivance to Switzerland. Ostensibly, the payments were made to them as agents but of course they have produced no information, except a certain amount that was made up. Colonel Hans Piekenbrock, the former head of Abt. I, resigned, firstly because he did not like the Nazi regime and did not wish it perpetuated through the victory of Germany, and secondly because he did not feel that as an officer he could take active steps to bring about Germany’s defeat. It is generally believed that he asked for a transfer to the Eastern Front on the assumption that he would probably be killed. In spite of his ability, he tolerated extreme inefficiency in the Abwehr, and since the arrival of his successor Colonel Georg Hansen, many subordinate officers in responsible positions have been dismissed. ARTIST mentioned that the director of Eins Luft refused to assess TRICYCLE’s reports from America since, in his opinion, it was impossible for anyone to transmit from that country. He took this view because his own wireless agent there had proved to be a double-cross. Hansen is a staff officer, but much younger and more energetic than Hans Piekenbrock. He is not a Nazi but he is determined to prevent Germany’s defeat at all costs even if this involves coming to terms with Russia. He was formerly in Fremde Heere and was in charge of southeast Europe.There is no doubt that he means to reform the Abwehr completely, although he is having very grave difficulty in getting suitable personnel. It is to be expected that traffic will be scrutinised with greater care and that certain double-cross agents now employed may be eliminated. ARTIST believes however that until Abt. I, besides vetting reports for their value from the point of view of the armed forces and asking for criticisms from the Fremde Heere, makes a practice of passing them to Abt. III for assessment as to the bona fides of the agents supplying them, the Abwehr will not work really efficiently. He states that Abt. III is not as a rule consulted when agents are recruited. This is an interesting conclusion and had the practice which ARTIST now suggests been adopted by the offensive sections of SIS and SOE many disasters might have 130
1943
been avoided. ARTIST recommends that all material fed to the Germans should be in as great detail as possible.This, of course, has both advantages and disadvantages since reports in detail can be more easily checked. On the other hand, vague reports do not carry much weight and are regarded with suspicion.The maxim is “If you lie, lie well and thoroughly and see that you do not get found out.”ARTIST draws attention to the fact that the Abwehr tests its agents by asking them to give the location of divisions in the UK.They are believed to do this as they get a lot of information regarding dispositions of our units through signals intelligence and low-grade cipher breaks.To sum up, the new officers appointed by Hansen to the Abwehr have no experience of intelligence work nor, in most cases, of life abroad. They are lacking in technique and in many instances the knowledge of foreign languages, but they are keener and more active than their predecessors and will probably succeed in tightening up the organisation. 28 October Dick White, Joe Stephenson, Anthony Blunt and I discussed the Ministry of Aircraft Production problem. It was agreed that Joe should extract from the German report those items for which there was no very reasonable explanation and that these should subsequently be the subject of enquiry by B5 under his, and our, direction.We were not inclined to think that there was any link between the HECTOR messages and the information in the German report. On the evidence available it seemed that the German report is almost certainly compiled and not taken from a British document.This, however, needs verification.A useful checking point will be the production figures and Joe will undertake this job.We all felt that whatever the prospects of getting to the bottom of the case were, it would be valuable to conduct some sort of enquiry which would doubtless bring to light a number of potential sources of leakage. Joe gave various instances of how the information might have leaked out. MacKenna, a director of Shorts Aircraft, was formerly an RAF officer and is employed in the RAF Experimental Establishment. His job is to go round all bomber stations and to find out from Stirling pilots what their difficulties are. He would naturally discuss any modifications to the aeroplane which were in contemplation. If these pilots were subsequently shot down, they might well have given the information away unwittingly. A good deal could be done on the production figures by computation. If, for example, the enemy knew that there were so many Stirling squadrons in action, they would be able to say roughly that to keep these aeroplanes in the air with the losses incurred would necessitate a production of so many aeroplanes per month.Anthony Blunt is examining the position as regards messages sent out via neutral attachés. He will also get special facilities both for certain service attachés and possibly also for test pilots. Joe does not think there is much in keeping visitors away from factories. It was rather doubtful whether much information passes in this way. It is much more likely to pass over the dinner table when an attaché has made contact with a test pilot, who must have the most up to date information about the machine.We know of course 131
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
that Rupert Belleville of Vickers is in the closest touch with Sartorius, the Spanish air attaché, and that the latter is in possession of the production figures for Speke. 31 October Tin-Eye Stephens rang up about Ernesto Hoppe, the ISOS character at Camp 020. They had been unable to get anything out of him up to the present. He had however forwarded his pants to this office in order that certain gelatinous substances found in the waistband or turn-up could be examined at the laboratory. Noakes got hold of Hedger who, after submitting the substance to various tests, said that he did not think it could be used either as an ink or a re-agent. The German agent FELIX in the Union of South Africa has received instructions to carry out acts of sabotage and has been given various formulae for incendiary and explosive bombs. Every recipe received is familiar to us, having been previously given to the German saboteurs such as MUTT and JEFF, ZIGZAG, Robles, George Dasch, Ernst Burger and others. FELIX is asking for information about the contamination of high-speed steel by chemical methods, impregnation of bales of wool with delayed action incendiary material, and the insertion of high explosive into cans of fruit intended for ships. He also wants to know about the contamination of locomotive boiler water and how this can be achieved. FELIX’s enquiries do not ring true in the sense that they display a certain amateurish ambitiousness which suggest that so far he has done nothing and is not likely to do much in the future. 1 November Captain Ormond Uren, the SOE Communist who gave information to Douglas Springhall, has been tried and court-martialled and received a sentence of seven years. He divulged the complete lay-out of SOE’s organisation. 2 November We have now been able to piece together the story of Franz Mayer, the German sabotage agent arrested in Persia, but there is much still to come in.At the outbreak of war Mayer, a man of twenty-nine, occupied a secretarial post in one of the commercial organisations of the Reichsgruppe Industrie. In December 1939, he was attached to the German Commercial Mission in Moscow. He returned to Potsdam in February 1940 to join a signals unit as platoon commander, but following orders from the Military Adjutant in Berlin, he was transferred in a few weeks to the Sicherheitsdienst. Here he met Ramon Gamotta, and together they volunteered for service in the Middle East, although neither of them had in fact any specialised knowledge of the area. They were, so Mayer claims, romantics imbued with the desire to emulate in this war the exploits of T.E. Lawrence in the last. After many delays and disputes with von Ettel, the German minister in Teheran who objected to the journey, Mayer and Gamotta at last reached Persia in October 1940. They 132
1943
were singularly ill-equipped, being without specialist training in intelligence, and without any directive as to what they were expected to do.They were obstructed in every way by the German minister, who refused to allow them to communicate with Berlin. They succeeded, however, in making contacts among Persians whose goodwill was later to stand them in good stead, for in August 1941 when the country was occupied by ourselves and the Russians, they had to go into hiding on the outskirts of Teheran. Mayer remained political inactive until March 1942 when he sought out the Japanese minister who was friendly but unco-operative. When, however, the minister left in April 1942, he left Mayer five wireless sets and some much-needed cash. Mayer in turn gave the minister a letter to the German minister in Tokyo with a situation report and a suggestion that the Kameradschaftsdienst programme should be used as a channel of communication with him, and enclosing a code to be operated if the suggestion was accepted. Mayer asked that his letter should be acknowledged over this greetings programme to which he listened regularly, and this according to Mayer was subsequently done. Mayer claims that his scheme to use these greetings broadcasts was original. Mayer’s main problem has been to bring about some measure of agreement among his Persian friends, who included the influential Deputy I-Shiraz, Habbibulah Naubaknt, and General Zahidi, GOC for the Isfahan area. He wished to use these people for the formation of an effective Fifth Column. In November 1942, Mayer was betrayed by one of his closest associates and narrowly escaped capture by the British when on a visit to Isfahan. His papers were seized and disclosed names of a great number of individuals in almost every class of Persian society as members of an extensive Fifth Column network. It was largely on this list that some 150 arrests were recently made in Persia. In December 1942, Mayer received a KD greetings broadcast which revealed that a special courier was on his way to Teheran. Nothing ever came of this and Mayer was forced to send his Persian merchant on a second trip to Ankara, stressing again his urgent need for a wireless operator and suggesting three alternative landing grounds. He also evolved a plain language code for use in broadcasts from Berlin. In March 1943, Mayer heard by these means that his operator could be expected at the end of March.This FRANZ mission, as it was called, duly landed on 30 March and made its way by camel and motor-truck to Teheran where contact was made with Mayer.The party consisted of six Germans, four of whom were trained wireless operators. Four of the party were SD men including its leader, Ernst Blume. The mission came prepared to sabotage the Trans-Iranian railway, although Blume was the only one who had any sabotage training.This was, however, the last thing that Mayer wanted. He considered his creation of a Fifth Column in Persia the best way of assisting the war effort and that acts of sabotage could only serve to undermine his political plans, which were as he described them, to obtain certain indirect control in Persian politics to enable him to thwart British policy in the short run and to assist a German advance through the Caucasus in the long run. The party was therefore diverted at the end of June to South Persia, where in the Bakhtieri country they were able to set up a wireless post and supply information on troop movements, aid to Russia convoys, and the 133
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
position of oil wells. This party was reinforced by Berlin on the night of 1 and 2 August with arms and equipment. Meanwhile, Mayer in Teheran established communication by wireless with Berlin early in May 1943 and continued operating until his arrest in August, which was due to Persian informers. Meanwhile, the SD in Berlin were planning an expedition to southern Persia which landed in the region of Shiraz in the middle of July.These people were not under Mayer’s control although he succeeded in establishing contact with them. The party is still at large, in addition to a later SD party of four Germans who are believed to have landed some fifty miles south of Teheran. Both parties included trained saboteurs. There would appear therefore to be at present and at large in Persia nine identified German agents. The security authorities in Persia believe that there may be some ten more in addition whose presence they suspect but has not yet been confirmed. The Mayer case shows the SD working along parallel but at the same time competing lines with the Abwehr, and because the former, unlike the latter, is not primarily concerned with the immediate operational plans of the OKW, the SD aided by their apparent greater efficiency and methods would appear today to be successfully displacing the Abwehr in Persia, as it may yet well do in the Middle East area generally. I then spoke to C. about the SOE case of Knight. I explained to him that since I had last seen him, Archie Boyle had called for a special report on certain aspects of the case from Max Knight, which we had given him. It seemed therefore that he was very conscious of SOE’s defects and was determined to get them put right. This being so, I thought that it would probably be better if he said nothing to Lord Selborne. Selborne would not know anything about the case, would send for Boyle or John Senter who would then feel that we had sneaked on them. This would mean that in the future they would not consult us. He thoroughly understood the dilemma, and we agreed that as long as something was being done it would be better to leave matters as they were. A British subject named Oswald Job has arrived here and was carefully interrogated by the Assistant Security Control Officer at Poole in the light of information given by us that someone was expected to come here with jewellery for DRAGONFLY. Job first attracted attention owing to his rather weak story, and the fact that he was the son of a naturalised German. He said that he had been interned in various camps and let out on parole and had finally got away through Spain. When searched he was found to have in his possession certain jewellery identical with that described as being destined for DRAGONFLY. Job was let through but has been picked up by B6 and housed with his brother. So far, he has made no attempt to contact DRAGONFLY.We are going to let him come and see what he does. B6, in following him, overheard him say to his brother that, vide his German origin, he was likely be followed in this country.
134
1943
3 November Len Burt is seeing Sir Stafford Cripps and suggesting to him that he should give evidence in the Rex Hoyes case.This would give considerable weight to the prosecution. At the Wednesday meeting we discussed the case of Osmar Hellmuth. He was arrested at Trinidad and taken to Bermuda by air and is coming thence by cruiser. He is due to arrive in about a week’s time. The case is not a very easy one since Hellmuth is technically an Argentine diplomat on his way to Barcelona to take up a position as Argentine Consul. In fact, we know him to be destined for Berlin where he is to discuss with Heinrich Himmler the question of getting arms into Argentina. If he has no incriminating documents on him and sticks to his statement that he is going to Barcelona, it will not be very easy to decide how he is to be disposed of. Vesey mentioned the case of Sibiril, who has been responsible for arranging the escape of some hundred Frenchmen by means of small boats. Sibiril himself got into difficulties and his organisation has been broken up.We are arranging for him to send a broadcast message which will convey to his collaborators that he has arrived safely in this country. I later discussed the Osmar Hellmuth case with Dick White, Herbert Hart, and Blanshard Stamp. We decided that the best technique would be to send [XXXXX] down to the port to meet him when he might ascertain something more about Hellmuth’s character and whether he had talked at all during the voyage. This would give us an indication as to the best method of breaking him.We all agreed that ultimately he would have to go to Camp 020 and that he would have to be detained here for the duration of the war. I felt that it was important that we should state the case with all its difficulties to the Foreign Office and make quite sure that if we sent him to Camp 020 they would not press us for confessions, visits by Argentine diplomats, etcetera.This is being done. We have had information from South Africa obtained through Massa, who was arrested a short time ago, that the Ossewa Brandwag arrested Sittig some five months ago owing to a quarrel that he was having with Paasche. Sittig is being detained somewhere by the OB. His whereabouts are known to Coetzee, the Assistant Chief of Police, who has long been suspect from the British point of view and is, according to Massa, a valuable link with the OB organisation.This information is being brought to the notice of Field Marshal Smuts. Meanwhile, Paasche’s transmitter is still operating. 8 November Herbert Hart and Buster Milmo came to see me about the Osmar Hellmuth case. A letter has come in from Peter Loxley which does not give us an absolute guarantee that we can hold Hellmuth at all costs.The indications so far are that he is likely to break fairly easily if subjected to the normal Camp 020 treatment. We think therefore that the best thing is to send him to 020 but to segregate him from the other prisoners. Camp 020 is to be very carefully briefed in order to protect IZAK.
135
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
10 November At the Wednesday meeting Herbert Hart said that the Austrian Rudolf Enders, who was recruited by the German intelligence service as an agent for this country, is to be brought over. He has already given the British authorities in Lisbon a considerable amount of information. Recently the German intelligence service in Lisbon has discussed the possibility of working Enders in with the organisation of Paul Fidrmuc, who works under a commercial cover. If this took place and Enders succeeds in penetrating Fidrmuc’s organisation he might be useful in this country. Fidrmuc’s reports purporting to come from this country are almost, without exception, untrue. The young English seaman William Heap, who offered his services to the German intelligence service in Algeciras and who recently returned to Gibraltar, has disappeared. He was not put under arrest owing to the difficulties of extradition or conducting the trial in Gibraltar. Steps had been taken to persuade him to return voluntarily. Evidently he thought things over and decided to clear out. He is poor material and it is doubtful whether the Germans will be able to make much use of him. It was probable that they had already decided not to use him. 11 November Derek Tangye tells me that there is a great deal of gossip in Fleet Street about the rocket gun.The press, having been left in rather a state of uncertainty are surprised that no precautions have been taken to evacuate hospitals or children, and that no instructions have been issued to police or civil authorities. He thinks that if a rocket bomb does land up here and nothing has been done, the government will be in a somewhat awkward position. One of the difficulties is, of course, unknown to Tangye. If we show any signs of alarm there is no doubt that the Germans will pile it on good and proper.There will then be increased difficulty in sorting out what is propaganda and what is truth. Tommy Harris has made a very good report on GARBO’s secret ink operation. The primary purpose was to assist censorship by letting it become known to the enemy that we were in possession of the re-agent for [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX], an ink which on account of its complex development creates considerable difficulties if mails are to be bulk-tested. A secondary purpose was to indicate to the enemy that through the medium of censorship additional security measures were being taken in the UK to prevent leakage of information prior to important military operations, in this case the exercise STARKEY, by imposing 100 per cent censorship on mails to the Iberian peninsula and Switzerland.They might feel that if this was done with an exercise for invasion, similar procedures could be adopted prior to OVERLORD. Thirdly, we hoped to create confusion by blowing a lot of GARBO’s cover addresses and throwing him over to wireless which in many respects is more convenient.The operation on the whole was fairly successful although had to some extent to goad the Germans into a realisation of the facts by various
136
1943
means.They did finally react after we had started to interrogate in Lisbon the various cover addresses. This was on 12 October 1943 when they sent the following telegram:“Nearly all Lisbon addresses have been interrogated with regard to origin of letters.This appears to be a general measure all over the country. In accordance with instructions, addresses have replied satisfactorily. Nevertheless, no more letters have arrived. Our representative has left for Lisbon. Cease all correspondence also via the courier until further notice. Likewise agents’ correspondence.We will have to study a new procedure for sending correspondence avoiding English mail also Portuguese by making use of cut-outs (contacts). I will continue to keep you informed as to the result of our representative’s journey. It is advisable that you should be on your guard.” Later they reacted even more forcibly, urging GARBO to lie low. Though it is perhaps a little early to draw conclusions, we can I think claim that we have put the enemy to enormous inconvenience, destroying completely the greater portion of their cover address network in Lisbon, bringing the total number of addresses given to GARBO and subsequently cancelled by them to twenty-three.We have deprived them of one of their best secret inks, concealing from them the fact of their use of [XXXXXXXXXXXX] basic inks. They will probably find it extremely difficult to establish a new cover address network on the scale of the one they have been using. It has served as a scare and they now realise the necessity of keeping GARBO well supplied with reliable cover addresses, good ciphers and inks. The fact that he escapes detection should tend to make them have increased confidence in his ability to run the organisation. It should tend to make his somewhat incredible set-up appear more realistic. It is difficult to assess the degree to which they have associated this manoeuvre with Operation STARKEY, but it is possible that reactions will yet come to light which will give us indications as to what they will expect us to do in connection with OVERLORD. The Director of Military Intelligence rang up to say that the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff was anxious to take disciplinary action against Neville du Boulay. He wanted to know whether he would be at liberty to discuss the matter with the Director of Personnel Services. I said that C. was the custodian of the source and that therefore I could not really give him the answer. I then rang up David Boyle and told him what had happened, advising him to have a word with C. TRICYCLE has left for Lisbon and Ian Wilson is going today. BALLOON is still notionally in Canada, but may later be going there on his own business. HAMLET has been assured that PUPPET’s reports are much appreciated as the Germans have so few lines into this country. LIPSTICK has reported to SIS from Madrid. He says that a specialist from Berlin interrogated him with satisfactory results.The Germans regard him as a first-class agent. LIPSTICK expects to receive concrete instructions and directions from the Germans in Lisbon, sent back to the country. DRAGONFLY now has notional employment as an investigator of Black Market offences in the Ministry of Food.This gives him the opportunity of travelling about. I dined with Walter Bell and Kim Philby. Walter tells me that [XXXXXXXXXX] has written a letter saying that Bill Stephenson and J. Edgar Hoover have now got 137
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
their arms round each other’s necks and are seeing each other every two days. If true, nobody could wish for anything better. It will be interesting to see precisely what it all amounts to. 15 November Dick White had a meeting with Felix Cowgill last week when he explained to him the part that he is playing in COSSAC. Felix was inclined to take the view that in so far as the dissemination of information to Intelligence Branch staffs was concerned, this had already been arranged with Army Group. Dick said that Army Group were subordinate to COSSAC and whether Felix liked it or not the juggernaut of COSSAC would pass over him. He would therefore be well advised to come in with us and join in some sensible form of planning. Rather reluctantly Felix agreed to do this. Dick is having a frightful time with Colonel Black and Colonel Blakeney who, with their American ATS secretary, commonly known as “Butterfly”, are a knockabout turn of the Marx Brothers variety.Their knowledge of IB matters is zero and since they are at the moment in charge of that side of intelligence work at COSSAC, the position is really rather serious. It is hoped that before long some responsible IB officer will be appointed GS01, IB. Dick seems quite worn out with the “Butterfly” atmosphere and the whole set-up. In the middle of a serious conversation, Blakeney suddenly remembers that he has a date, rings up on the telephone and holds a long, frivolous and sexy conversation with a girl, with asides of “How’m I doing, Butterfly?”An important document relating to IB staff matters was required but needless to say nobody could find it. Butterfly, on being somewhat harassed, tells the assembled company not to razz her. She also alludes to her senior officers as “the boys”. Something will have to be done about the situation soon. 17 November At the Wednesday meeting Mrs Spring said that ISOS disclosed that at the request of the Board of Trade man called “Bastler” is being sent to this country. The London Reception Centre has found a character called Condra from Bilbao who is coming to see the Board of Trade and seems to fit the bill. He appears to have in his possession a cover address which has been given to LIPSTICK. 18 November I had a meeting to discuss the case of Oswald Job.T.A. Robertson was rather anxious to knock him off on Saturday.The only fresh information is that he has visited an individual called Perliman who may conceivably have some connection with a man of that name in Paris who has an Abwehr connection. So far Job has not visited DRAGONFLY or delivered the goods.We have been trying to get through to the Germans to tell them so, but so far without success. Bearing in mind that our main 138
1943
objective is to get DRAGONFLY on the air and on good terms with his master and in addition to safeguard his position as much as possible, we have decided to let the case run on for another week in the hope that the jewels will be delivered. We might then consider whether Job was worth watching on the assumption that he might have some other assignment. If we could catch him out we might then prosecute him without introducing the DRAGONFLY incident at all. My own belief is that Job decided to serve the Abwehr as a means of getting away and that he intends to pocket the jewellery and say nothing, in case he might be misunderstood and get into difficulties.This is not a very patriotic attitude if in fact he knows the jewellery was intended for a German agent in this country. If we arrest him on present evidence it is by no means certain that we shall be able to hold him. He might very well say that, hearing that he was coming here, a friend gave him the jewellery to deliver to someone named [XXXX] of whom he had no previous knowledge. He had not done so, either because he had not had time to deliver it in person or because he thought the matter slightly fishy, or because he intended to keep the jewellery for himself. If he has to be released there will always be a certain risk of the truth getting back to the Germans. As long as he remains at large we cannot acknowledge the receipt of the jewellery since we do not know whether he has already communicated with the Germans in secret ink, in which case our story might conflict with his. We have decided to let the case run for another week. Meanwhile, we are discussing with the Home Office the conditions under which his arrest and detention can be carried out. Osmar Helmuth has broken entirely and given us particulars about his relations with the Sicherheitsdienst and his mission to Berlin.This is fortunate [XXXXX] the case was rather an awkward one from the political angle.The Argentine ambassador was already intervening on his behalf. JOSEF has arrived in Lisbon and established contact with the Japanese. TREASURE has arrived at last and after five days’ interrogation at the London Reception Centre was released. She is very intelligent and co-operative. Major Emile Kliemann is supposed to be sending her a wireless transmitter via the Spanish diplomatic bag or by getting the transmitter disguised as a portable gramophone, packed by a gramophone company in Lisbon and sent over by them. TREASURE is supposed to buy a second-hand wireless receiving set as soon as possible after arrival and to listen for Kliemann straight away. She has two cover addresses to which to report her arrival.We are trying to get her employment with the British Red Cross. TREASURE was Lily Sergueiev, a recent arrival from Gibraltar. 19 November GARBO asked a short time ago what steps he should take in connection with the rocket-gun scare. Should he move his wife and children out of London, and report on the results of the rocket, by wireless, correcting errors of fire, etcetera.? On 18
139
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
November 1943 he received the reply: “In regard to the rocket-gun, there is no cause for you to alarm yourself.”This seems to fit in with the theory that although the Germans may have a rocket-gun, its claims are grossly exaggerated. The question of the publication of escape stories has been raised again through a rather critical letter received from Admiral Thomson, whose Night Duty Officer has seen fit to criticise this department for being unco-operative.As luck would have it, both Blanshard Stamp and I were in the Night Duty Officer’s room when the Press and Censorship representative rang up. He could only give us an outline of the story with no name.We said that the story coincided very much with Perch, and that if the individual was Perch the story should not be published, since if Perch was all right, the organisation which helped him to escape and his relatives would suffer, and if the other hand he was all wrong, we should be making a present to the enemy of the fact that he has passed successfully through our controls.The Censorship representative said that the individual with whom he was concerned had arrived within the last twenty-four or forty-eight hours.As Perch had already been in the country for some weeks it was assumed that he was referring to some other individual about whom we had no knowledge.We asked him to ascertain the name but he did not seem inclined to help. Meanwhile, it has been discovered that the story had already been released to the News Chronicle. It is high time that a firm ban was put on all escape stories.The publication of the experiences of Lucienne Cloarec a few weeks ago has successfully blown the Sibiril organisation, which has been responsible for getting well over a hundred escapees to this country. 20 November I took Dick White’s meeting this morning and we discussed the case of Osmar Hellmuth. SIS are apparently anxious to cash in on the information by giving it to G-2, with the suggestion that they should discuss the position with the Chiefs of Staff. We, however, in the normal course of business, should and must give the information to Arthur Thurston since it concerns an area for which J. Edgar Hoover is responsible.The real danger is, of course, that the FBI may start instigating a number of arrests of Sicherheitsdienst personnel which will result in the closing down of IZAK.We therefore propose to give SIS forty-eight hours start in order that they may warn G-2 that they may be approached by the FBI for further information on the basis of IZAK, the existence of which the FBI are aware although they are not allowed to see the material.We shall then issue the Camp 020 report both to Thurston and to OSS SI, entering a caveat in our letter to Thurston against taking any precipitate action without prior consultation with the State Department. SIS may say that we are jeopardising the IZAK material. This, however, would be totally untrue since it is perfectly possible that the FBI could take action purely on a basis of the Camp 020 report. C. and David Boyle came to see me after lunch. I showed C. the note of GARBO’s traffic relating to the rocket. C. thought it is in a sense somewhat reassuring. He thinks it quite possible that the claims by the Political Warfare Executive in 140
1943
connection with the rocket may well be exaggerated and that its primary use is for anti-invasion purposes. It is by no means certain that the emplacements in France are to be used for the installation of rocket apparatus. Meanwhile, other German experiments are going on with something in the nature of a Queen Bee carrying a heavy load of explosive, but the indications are that nothing is likely to come into production before the New Year.The whole business seems to be still to a considerable extent in the experimental stage, although every possible effort is being made to get this new form of glider bomb into production. 21 November It was agreed that Klop should go to Lisbon and Madrid for a period of three months. He will make contact with his former German connections in the embassies and may ultimately worm his way into Abwehr circles. We then discussed the case of BALLOON. He normally corresponds through Sousa de Campos, from whom both he and GELATINE receive drafts. Sousa de Campos has recently confessed to an agent of SIS that he is in touch with BALLOON and GELATINE.This creates rather an awkward situation, since if we take no action Sousa de Campos will know that BALLOON and GELATINE are double-cross agents, and may report the fact to the Germans.This will, of course, compromise TRICYCLE, ARTIST and everybody else.This suggestion is that ARTIST, who is after all, in control of the whole party, should be given the facts and provided some solution by which the Germans will cease to use Sousa de Campos. John Marriott and J.C. Masterman think this incident is the result of the blowing of cover addresses in Lisbon and Madrid during the 100 per cent secret ink testing and subsequent action by GARBO, which has had the effect of frightening all those who are working for the Germans to such a degree that they are inclined to sell out to the British. Apropos of this we have had a letter from Cyril Mills in which he states that OSS have recently picked up several of ASPIRIN’s controlled letters and sent them back to the FBI as of possible interest since they indicate the presence of an agent operating in the United States. It may be that the individual who is being used as a cover address has reported the facts to OSS. Alternatively, OSS having got hold of the Watch List, may be trying to make contact with all the owners of cover addresses.This would very easily account for J. Edgar Hoover’s attitude as disclosed by Sir Edwin Herbert at the famous Kinnaird House meeting on the future of our relations with the US authorities, when he said that Hoover had refused to pass addresses to his own censorship because he was afraid that they might reach OSS. In the property of Osmar Hellmuth, who has completely broken, was found a piece of paper with the following words written under each other: “Sigismundo, Panadera, Principal,Temporal, Conductor.” [XXXXX] has worked this out as follows: Sigismundo is Sigismund. Panadera is the Spanish for Baker and means Becker, Principal means “Haupt”, Temporal means “Strum”and Conductor means “Führer”. Hence Sigismund Becker, Hauptsturmführer, who is the principal Sicherheitsdienst representative in Buenos Aires. 141
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
22 November I spoke to Ferguson about Osmar Hellmuth. He asks us not to tell Arthur Thurston that a copy is being handed to G-2 of our interrogation report. I said that the only purpose the action suggested would serve would be to build up G-2 at the expense of the FBI. Ferguson denied that this was the purpose. He said that the sole idea was to inveigle G-2 to give the maximum assistance to the FBI. He argued that if G-2 knew the full facts of our report they might then be in a position to divulge more from secret sources. I could not quite follow this point since it seemed to me that if G-2 were only going to disclose the IZAK where it was confirmed by the interrogation report, their contribution would not be a particularly profitable one. It seemed to me that they would have to make up their minds whether they were prepared to disclose the IZAK, or a paraphrase of it, to the FBI or not. Quite obviously they should disclose it, at the same time making stringent stipulations as to the use to which it can be put. Ferguson told me that SIS had already notified G-2 that Hellmuth had broken on the lines of the information contained in Most Secret Material, and had advised them to approach the FBI and if necessary the State Department with a view to preventing any precipitate action by the FBI which might lead to a discontinuance of IZAK. I said that if SIS had already done this, it seemed to me more than ever unnecessary for them to communicate an advanced summary of our interrogation report to G-2 before it had been passed to the FBI. I pointed out that while we thoroughly appreciated the necessity for preventing ill-considered action by the FBI, they were the department primarily concerned with the case. If, therefore, they found us communicating our interrogation report in advance to G-2 they would undoubtedly regard our action as a breach of faith. This was the situation which we wished to avoid at all costs. Ferguson ended by accepting the terms of our letter. It was agreed that we would simultaneously hand a copy of the report to Thurston and to SIS and that Thurston would receive no covering letter at all. Oswald Job has challenged his watchers.This means that there is no object in continuing the observation, and that we shall have to pull him in. It is proposed to arrest him under Emergency Regulation 18(b) and send him to the Oratory Schools. I saw Jock Whiteford this evening. I told him about Niall Macdermot’s past history. I said that four years ago he had been associated with the organisation known as New Britain, which had at its head a curious individual called Mitronovitch, who seemed to have almost hypnotic powers over his followers.Young Macdermot had been drawn into the organisation by his mother, who had financed him to a certain extent. The organisation was anti-Communist and anti-Fascist. Its basis seemed to be a kind of Beveridge Socialism. During one of the meetings young Macdermot had had a row with another member which had ended in a fight. His opponent who was hit in the chest and died of heart failure, and Macdermot was put on trial for manslaughter. He was acquitted, and since this incident he has had nothing more to do with the organisation and hardly ever sees Mitronovitch.
142
1943
23–27 November Oswald Job was arrested on 23 November. He has been interrogated at the Oratory Schools and confessed. So far, I have no details but I gather that T.A. Robertson proposes to run him. He had some secret ink concealed in his razor handle and in a key, but so far had not made use of it. He intended to hang on to the jewellery. I heard a rather good Prime Minister story which I am told is absolutely true but not for repetition. Apropos of Anthony Eden’s visit to the Middle East, he said “The Foreign Secretary has asked me what he is to say to Turkey. I am of opinion that he should remind Turkey that Christmas is coming.” He longed to send the message but refrained from doing so as he thought that Eden might take him too literally. 29 November I returned to work and I have been looking into the case of Charles Bedaux, who is under arrest in North Africa. Bedaux, who is a naturalised American citizen of French origin, is in the custody of the Americans and may be tried for treachery or for trading with the enemy. From papers found in his possession there is no doubt that he is a whole-hearted collaborationist but probably he is more interested in Bedaux than anything else. He has had many connections with the Abwehr and with German officials, which he admits. He says, however, that he was only in this way so that he could carry out his constructive policy by establishing a pipeline from the River Niger to North Africa, which was to carry vegetable oils. He needed lorries, petrol, oil, tyres and finally iron and steel which he could only get with full German authority. Unfortunately for Bedaux, ISOS and HARLEQUIN show that he has told only the half-truth, interspersed with a few lies. One of his more interesting statements is that he went to Berlin in October 1941 at the instigation of a Dr Joseph Francois Medicus, where he spent approximately four weeks discussing with a large number of experts the various plans for protection against the destruction of many oil refineries in the Persian Gulf.The idea was to protect these refineries from bombing from the air and also from long-distance artillery firing by the use of sand. Bedaux explained that these refineries belong chiefly to the English, and that Mr Eho Elkington of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in London could vouch for the purpose of his visit to Berlin. Bedaux advised that he felt the refineries of the Persian Gulf belonged to the world at large and their destruction either by the retiring Allied forces or by the attacking Germans would be a futile gesture. In his opinion these refineries should be standing intact at the conclusion of the war, regardless of its outcome, and it was his suggestion that the pipes of the refineries should be emptied and filled with sand so that they would be of no value to any country during the war, and therefore there would be no strategic purpose accomplished by destroying them. Bedaux claimed that many of the German experts did not consider his plan practical while others contended it was out of the question in a total war. ISOS shows that on 25 October 1941, the Abwehr in Brest
143
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
informed Eins Luft, Bremen, that Bedaux was travelling to Berlin at the request of the German Embassy in Paris. He was anxious to have a conference with Sonderführer Dr Bensmann of Bremen, who was to travel to Berlin for the purpose. On 27 October 1941 Bremen was informed by the Abwehr in Paris that as Colonel Hans Piekenbrock was ill, Bensmann was in the first instance to make a verbal report to his deputy Lieutenant-Colonel Scholz. Bedaux was not to be present at the interview. On 5 November 1941 Bensmann was instructed to introduce Bedaux to a certain Professor Endrou of Friedrich-Wilhelmstrasse 12, Berlin. From the above it seems not unlikely that as Bedaux’s company, for a long time, had been closely associated with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and had presumably rationalised the whole concern according to the Bedaux system. Germans thought that he might give them useful information at a time when they hoped to conduct a pincer movement in the Middle East.They would obviously have been anxious to prevent any destruction of the oil wells, and if they had had it in mind to drop airborne troops, it would have been of great value to them to have full information about the key points.This was, in fact, the mission of Muller who visited the area in the autumn of the following year. His purpose was to prevent a possible scorched earth policy by the British. It was, of course, in August 1942 that Persia was occupied by ourselves and the Allies, but at that moment things were looking very ugly both in the Caucasus and in Libya. T.A. Robertson is not quite so certain about running Oswald Job and is even contemplating the possibility of sacrificing DRAGONFLY and putting Job on trial. Job, when first arrested, still denied that he had been working for the enemy. After twenty-four hours at the Oratory Schools in solitary confinement he confessed that he had secret ink in the handle of his razor and in a key. He did not however say anything about the jewellery.When asked about this, he denied that it was for that purpose. It was only when he was shown the address to which he was to send it that he finally collapsed. His excuse for not mentioning it before was that he had intended to keep it for his own use. Edward Cussen told me about his latest leakage case.A Dr Rawdon-Smith, who has been employed by the Ministry of Supply and left to take up other employment, handed a great deal of information concerning deficiencies in our tank construction to Ronald Hyde, Derek Tangye’s friend on the Evening Standard. Hyde passed them on to Wilfred Roberts MP, whose secretary, having forgotten to post the documents back to Hyde before going on leave to Ireland, gave them to a Censorship representative to put in the post for her. It was in this way that the contents of the document were discovered. Cussen is going to talk rather severely both to Hyde and Rawdon-Smith.The idea was that when Wilfred Roberts asked awkward Parliamentary Questions in the House of Commons, the Evening Standard would have the necessary background in writing up the debate. Roger Hollis came to talk to me about Max Knight. He has been rather disturbed by a recent case where Max put three agents and [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] on to a stateless Russian who was telling everybody that he was an agent of the OGPU. In fact, this man had posed as an agent of the OGPU on no less than three 144
1943
different occasions and was thoroughly well known to the police.What Roger feels is that Max’s organisation should not be allowed to pursue cases in the void. He should bring cases to the notice of sections concerned and accept their ruling as to future conduct. Max lives more or less in isolation and is really very much out of touch with the work of the office, and therefore becomes somewhat of a danger. Roger is, I think, going to register rather a strong protest. Tommy Harris has concocted a very good anonymous letter which has been posted in Eire to the German minister. It contains some quite reliable information which has been duly passed on to Berlin.T.A. Robertson intends to use this channel for deception. The Director of Military Intelligence rang me up about Neville du Boulay, who has apparently been posted back to duty with the Irish Guards at Lingfield. The DMI has asked us to put a check on his correspondence. 30 November I discussed the case of Oswald Job with T.A. Robertson. I said that I did not think that it would be possible to liquidate Job and still continue to run DRAGONFLY. If it was of paramount importance to keep DRAGONFLY, we should have to give up the idea of the prosecution of Job. 1 December It has been decided to prosecute Oswald Job and to close down the transmitter and DRAGONFLY. The principal reasons are that Job’s method of communication, namely to people in internee camps, is to be discouraged since the censorship are unable to cope with the large number of mails. At present they only test a small percentage.We could never trust Job nor could we, in view of what has happened, ever use DRAGONFLY for deception. Information just received indicates that Job had been previously trained as an Eins Luft agent.This he had not disclosed to us. I saw the Director of Military Intelligence about the assessment of information disclosed in BJs as being sent from attachés in this country, in this particular case the Swedish military attaché. I said that we obtained the assessment from Operations from our own security angle. In this case the information seemed to be fairly accurate and rather important. Could I take it that a matter of this kind was brought to the notice of the DMI by his own staff? The DMI said that a matter of this sort would be done within his department. I then asked whether Carlisle would be informed. He did not seem quite sure about this, but made a note of it. He thought definitely that Carlisle should be given a hint to exercise rather more than ordinary care when dealing with the Swedish military attaché. There has been a tremendous fuss about Sir Oswald Mosley’s release. No reference was made by the Home Office to this department beforehand.This might have been a good thing since although the decision was clearly a high-level one, some precaution might have been taken to see that Mosley did not live with people with 145
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
whom it might be undesirable for him to be in contact. Wing-Commander Jackson, with whom he is residing, is engaged on highly important experimental flying work which has caused the Air Marshal to say that as long as Mosley remains in his present abode, Jackson cannot visit his own home. Alternative accommodation is now being sought for Mosley.The debate in the House of Commons went off fairly well and the voting against Herbert Morrison was sixty-two. A great fuss has been made by Labour, presumably because they imagine that they may lose the support of the workers if they in any way identify themselves with Mosley’s release. I wonder very much whether the workers, soldiers, sailors and airmen care one way or another. It seems to me that all the Opposition has done is to give Mosley a lot of unnecessary publicity. It would have been much better to let him fade away into obscurity. Bernard Shaw who was interviewed by a newspaper woman called Miss Wheeler Ryan, was asked:“Do you think that anything short of the resignation of Mr Morrison would pacify those who are risking life and limb, to say nothing of enduring prolonged toil and privation, in the struggle against Fascism?” Shaw replied: “Those who are risking life and limb to defend their country are soldiers, sailors, airmen, and miners, chiefly.You are asking me whether I think that the soldiers and sailors will run away and the miners come out on strike unless Mr Morrison resigns.To put it more briefly, you are asking me whether I am a damned fool or not. I reply that it is not for me to say.” Miss Ryan then asked whether Shaw thought it too strong to say that the Home Secretary’s decision, whether taken individually or in concert with others, was calculated to cause alarm and despondency among the masses of the people who responded to his exhortation to “go to it.” Shaw replied: “I do not think it is a strong proposition at all. It makes me suspect that you are mentally deficient. I think this Mosley panic shameful.What sort of people are they who can be frightened out of their wits by a single man like Oswald Mosley or Rudolf Hess? They are fit subjects for the derision of Goebbels.” Miss Ryan than said:“A decision having been made, was it astute or stupid to bring Lord Dawson of Penn into the matter, as though to overawe the public?” Shaw asked what was wrong with Lord Dawson of Penn. “Can you name a higher medical authority? He was a good enough for King George V. Is he not good enough for Sir Oswald Mosley? If he says that imprisonment would endanger Sir Oswald’s life, do you expect Mr Morrison to say ‘All right, I will re-imprison him because I want to kill him and so does the whole Cabinet?’ But even if Mosley were in rude health, it was high time to release him, with apologies for having let him frighten us into scrapping the Habeas Corpus Act because we dared not bring him to trial.”The last part of this remark is not, of course, very sound. 2 December I had a discussion with Helenus Milmo, Blanshard Stamp and T.A. Robertson about Oswald Job.T.A. Robertson had sent a minute to me expressing his view that 146
1943
he agreed to the prosecution of Job subject to there being no mention of the jewellery or of DRAGONFLY in the proceedings, as this might endanger FATHER who had connections with DRAGONFLY. T.A. Robertson was also anxious that the Germans should not think that DRAGONFLY had been a double-cross agent, although he did not mind them thinking that possibly DRAGONFLY had been arrested. My view was that the moment Job was prosecuted we must expect that the Germans had got onto [XXXXXXXXX] from [XXXXXXXX] to DRAGONFLY and possibly from DRAGONFLY to FATHER.We could not rely on the stupidity that they had displayed in the case of Karel Richter. We might, of course, get away with it again but we could not be certain. If therefore the maintenance of FATHER’s position was of paramount importance, Job ought not to be prosecuted.The question of the mention of the jewellery was in my view irrelevant, apart from the fact that it was a matter which we could not control. The defence might very easily plead that Job had intended to tell us everything but that after he had crossed the frontier he was asked to carry the jewellery and that cupidity had got the better of him. He had therefore decided to keep the jewellery and say nothing. T.A. Robertson, I think, is not very much worried about the link between DRAGONFLY and FATHER. He is, however, particularly anxious to prevent the Germans from getting the impression that DRAGONFLY was a double agent since this might cause them to review their other cases. The proposal is therefore that Job should be prosecuted and that DRAGONFLY should simply cease to transmit. The Germans will then be left guessing as to his fate. He may have got tipped off and escaped, or he may have been caught and held but not executed owing to the lack of evidence. Ian Wilson, who is in Lisbon, has reported that according to ARTIST, who had had a talk with Henss, an old friend in Amt.VI, no leakages are taking place to the Abwehr or to the Sicherheitsdienst from British offices in Lisbon.The Germans do however get a certain amount of information from Colonel Robert Solborg, the American military attaché whose indiscretions are well known to us. I had a long discussion with Joe Archer, Len Burt and T.A. Robertson about the Ministry of Aircraft Production case. Donald Fish, in the course of his enquiries, has ascertained that the particular piece of information about the speed of the Spitfire 21 at a given height was officially only in possession of a few people, one of whom was almost undoubtedly FATHER. He was a test pilot at Worthy Down when the trials were taking place.The trials began on 7 May but the prototype crashed on 15 May. Sometime between those dates the information first became available. It is unlikely that it was computed, since the speed obtained was some 40mph faster than any of the engine experts expected.The document in which it appeared was compiled up to 1 June. Leakage, therefore, must have taken place at some date between 7–15 May and 1 June.This gives roughly a period of three weeks.The test pilot was a man called Quill. He says, however, that FATHER was constantly in and out of his office with other test pilots and that the results of the test would almost certainly have been known to him and also to others engaged on similar work. He says, moreover, that before he left, FATHER made a statement when in his cups that he had formerly worked for the German secret service.This matter had been previously reported to 147
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
us, and need not necessarily denote anything more than an indiscretion. In fact, it might be argued that if he was in fact working for the German secret service it would have been an extremely stupid thing to say. The result of the test of course was passed on to other people and though highly secret it probably was like ISOS known to a good many. It did not, however, reach the Ministry of Aircraft Production in print until 27 May, which would only have left four days to get to Berlin.The suggestion has been made that possibly FATHER may have added something to one of his secret ink letters without our knowledge.This could not be so, since clearly these letters are closely supervised. The next question is whether the letter could have reached the Germans in time. It normally takes some four weeks for a letter to reach FATHER’s control station in Barcelona.There is also the possibility that if Christopher Harmer had communicated to FATHER that the Germans were not altogether satisfied with his information he might have wished to enhance his reputation with them on account of his wife who is resident in Belgium. He might also have been rather piqued at being sent to India. If FATHER has really been playing a double game it is rather remarkable that we have not seen any traces of it on ISOS.The whole matter is being gone into very carefully by Harmer and Fish. Personally, I am skeptical about the information having leaked through FATHER, but one never knows. I think it is more likely to have gone through an air attaché to Stockholm or Madrid, since what passes by these routes is only occasionally known to us. I am quite sure too that if the Spitfire 21 had exceeded all computations by 40mph, the fact must have been known to a large number of people who would have been prepared to dine out the information. 3 December Arthur Thurston came to see me about the Charles Bedaux case. He told me that he had seen Elkington and taken two statements from him which he had sent on to Washington DC. He had also had a look at Eho Elkington’s files. He was quite certain that neither Elkington nor the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were a party to Bedaux’s visit to Berlin in October 1941. Elkington had known Bedaux intimately for a long time and was, in fact, at Abadan when Bedaux was there before the war. Bedaux rationalised the whole method of production according to his own system, and was therefore in possession of full details about the whole plant. Before the war Bedaux was playing politics with the Persian government in connection with Anglo-Iranian. He caused a considerable amount of trouble and had to be told quite definitely that he had no authority to represent Anglo-Iranian with the Persian authorities in any discussions. Thurston said that he did not know at the moment whether Bedaux was in the custody of the FBI or G-2 or even where he was.The FBI had sent a couple of chaps to North Africa to interrogate Bedaux but in his view it was not possible to stage anything in the nature of a prosecution for treachery or espionage, since Bedaux had covered himself by reporting frequently to William Bullitt, Robert Murphy and Mathews at Vichy. I explained to Thurston that our interest in the case was to some extent academic but that we should like to 148
1943
tie up tag ends and get as clear a view as possible as to the extent to which the Bedaux network had been used as a medium for espionage. Thurston suggested that we should send out a brief to Cyril Mills and that Mills could go down and examine the Bureau’s files. I told Thurston about Muller’s mission to Persia in the early autumn of 1942 which I thought might well have been based on information supplied by Bedaux. I have asked Alex Kellar to send a wire to the Middle East to get Muller interrogated on this point. It is possible too that Muller may know something about Bensmann of Ast. Bremen who was present at the meeting, and of Professor Endrou. AMGOT is now known as Amgotterdämmerrung, or “The Twilight of the Rods”. I had a long talk with T.A. Robertson about the Ministry of Aircraft Production case and FATHER. I think we can fairly confidently eliminate the possibility of FATHER having reported the performance of the Spitfire at the end of one of his letters. There are only two letters which are in any way material to the investigation. In both these cases we have seen the contents of the letter go right through to Berlin.The full text is there without any addition.The only other possibility is that FATHER may have another link and that he is corresponding to another address. This seems equally unlikely since as his information was regarded as of considerable importance, it is almost inconceivable that we should not have seen some reflection of his alternative method on ISOS. Donald Fish is, of course, hopping with excitement and it is very difficult to damp his ardour without telling him the full facts. T.A. Robertson has, however, gone so far as to tell him that we have positive information that the communications FATHER sent at the material time reached the Germans in terms identical with those despatched from here and without any additions. Personally, I think that Donald Fish and Joe Archer are relying far too much on the alleged secrecy of the information and the limited circulation. I shall not be at all surprised if it were found that a large number of Spitfire pilots are possibly also Costal Command pilots who are operating on the aerodrome at Worthy Down and had not been acquainted with the remarkable performance of the Spitfire 21, which did roughly 450mph at about 24,000 feet. PANDORA shows that the Irish have already warned Dr Edouard Hempel that they may be recalling all wireless sets. This has probably come about from a conversation which Cecil Liddell had the other day with Colonel McKenna, the Irish Chief of Staff. McKenna asked him what we were really anxious about. Cecil said that in connection with the Second Front we were clearly concerned about the leakage of information which might take place by wireless from the German legation and said that possibly some démarche might be made in this connection. McKenna was very sympathetic.The probability is that he reported the matter and that Eamon de Valera thought it better to take action before receiving a pre-emptory request.The Germans have no alternative method of communication except cable and are wondering whether it would be possible to get wireless parts by submarine.They will be left without a receiving set as well as without a transmitter as their set is both. 149
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
4 December So far as can be judged, the affairs of TRICYCLE and ARTIST in the Iberian Peninsula are going well and the traffic which TRICYCLE took over with him has been welljudged in Berlin, who have given their consent to a large money advance being made. DRAGONFLY has succeeded in re-establishing contact with the Germans, although no traffic of any import has been exchanged. In view of the unfortunate developments in the Oswald Job case it has been deemed advisable that DRAGONFLY should not again transmit, in the hopes that the Germans will conclude that he has been identified and arrested.We particularly do not wish them to think he has been a double agent as this might cause them to review other traffic. A position which may be serious has arisen due to a possible leakage from the internee camp at which JEFF was originally detained, namely Camp WX.There was apparently communication between Camp WX and another adjacent internment camp from which certain individuals were returned to Germany on an exchange basis. If the Germans know that JEFF has been interned, they must think that both MUTT and JEFF are compromised. BRONX’s payment for November has now arrived. ARTIST has been giving information about Plan DREAM, a method of payment to GARBO. ARTIST has informed us that the Germans in Brussels believe in PUPPET but that nobody else does.We should learn in the fairly near future what attitude the experts in Berlin take towards HAMLET at their forthcoming meeting. JOSEF has had further meetings with the Japanese. No details are yet available. TREASURE has already been communicating with the Germans in secret writing. 6 December Anthony Blunt showed me a TRIPLEX report of Colonel Frank Cervell, the Swedish air attaché. It contained a certain amount of confidential information about our engine construction at Bristol, with a promise that more highly confidential material would be given in the next bag carried by a Swedish courier. It was stated that in passing this information the firm had gone behind the backs of the Air Ministry as they were looking to their commercial prospects after the war, and wished to impress Sweden with the performance of their aircraft. Cervell further disclosed by inference that he was getting a good deal of information from his American colleague, Colonel Turner, who at the moment is in the United States but will be returning shortly. This information is rather opportune in the light of the paper that we have recently submitted to the Joint Intelligence Committee on the subject of leakage through attachés. Len Burt talked to me about the Ministry of Aircraft Production enquiry. Donald Fish is ardently pursuing FATHER. He has ascertained that Quill actually asked for the services of FATHER. I told Burt that while I did not wish to impede investigations in any way, frankly I did not think that FATHER was the guilty party.
150
1943
I was of the opinion that at least a hundred people must have known about the performance of the Spitfire and probably most of the squadrons. Certainly everybody at Worthy Down would have known, and news of that kind gets about very quickly. It would then only be necessary for a pilot to be brought down and for his conversation with another pilot to be intercepted by microphone in a prison camp. Moreover, I had just had information of a serious leakage of information through the Swedish air attaché. Anthony Blunt and I saw Air Commodore Buss about Cervell’s TRIPLEX report. Buss said that he was very worried about the information it contained and still more worried about the confidential information which is to go to Sweden about the middle of the month. I said that we were doing our best to intercept this but of course we should not be able to stop it. He said that he had spoken to Inglis, who was not very inclined to take any action since he was on friendly terms not only with Cervell but also with Colonel Turner, the American air attaché. Buss on the other hand thought that the matter was extremely serious. I suggested as a possible way out that we should draw the attention of the Joint Intelligence Committee to this report in connection with the memo which we had recently submitted, and that we should recommend to the Chiefs of Staff that service departments should inform attachés that owing to the discovery of a document in Sicily indicating that the enemy had a considerable knowledge of our aircraft, they had regretfully been compelled to suspend visits to factories and aircraft firms.This could be coupled with a warning to firms themselves. Buss seemed to think this a good idea but before we take any action he is anxious to have another word with Inglis. He will let me know the result. I have not told Joe Archer about this as he is away with flu. 8 December T.A. Robertson is rather worried about the position of his double agents. Owing to the intervention of ARTIST, the whole TRICYCLE set-up might collapse at any moment, and cannot at any rate be used for deception purposes. ARTIST has also heard about Plan DREAM which brings him perilously near to GARBO. Meanwhile, it has been ascertained that for a good many months communication by signalling has been going on between Camp WX and the adjacent Nazi internment camp. Sometimes this signalling took the form of throwing a brick with a message on it. It seems also that broadcast of programmes was made in both camps which were linked to the same receiver. This means that a person in one camp could by speaking into the microphone employed be able to be heard in the other camp. A number of prisoners have been questioned as to their knowledge about the inmates of Camp WX. As a result, we have ascertained that the presence there of JEFF and SUMMER was known to the Nazi camp and, in particular, to a man called Karl who was allowed to go back to Germany a short time ago on an exchange basis.This may mean that TATE is blown and also MUTT. Karl was doubtless vetted on his record, but not on the fact that he had been in close proximity to Camp WX. 151
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
DRAGONFLY has had to be liquidated.This leaves us with rather a motley crew, since even LIPSTICK who is in a very strong position is probably known to ARTIST. SNIPER and FIDO and BRONX appear to be secure, but the first two have not yet really got going.TREASURE is also all right but not really in action and has no wireless set. I understand that the German bombing raid on Bari was rather a disastrous affair for us. Some twelve ammunition ships were blown up. LIPSTICK arrived back the other day with large quantities of DUFF on his tie. 9 December Hans Ruser, who has gone to Camp 020, has told us that he was given a promise by the assistant military attaché in Madrid that if he came back to this country he would be allowed his liberty. He has also told us that his mother, who is still in Madrid, is known to the Germans, and so is his desertion to the British. Since the Germans are looking for the mother, it has been decided if possible to get her out since she might conceivably compromise ARTIST. Meanwhile, we are trying to find out what promises were in fact made to Ruser.This is, of course, a matter on which we should have been informed before Ruser came here.TRICYCLE has got a questionnaire from the SD, which is the first that we have had from the organisation. It deals almost entirely with political matters in this country. Ian Wilson has returned with quite a lot of interesting information. Amongst other things ARTIST has told him that Fremde Heere do not do more than say that a report is reliable or unreliable, confirmed or unconfirmed; they have no knowledge of the antecendents of the agent. Abt. I do not appear to assess the information.They generally leave this to Fremde Heere, whose comments are somewhat colourless. In ARTIST’s view Abt. I will always be led up the garden till they have the antecedents of their agents carefully vetted by Abt. III. Mercifully, there seems very little chance of this coming about. 11 December LIPSTICK, in addition to bringing nine DUFFs on his tie, which contained an elaborate questionnaire, brought escudos to the value of £1,380 so his visit has been very satisfactory. The questions are mainly of a technical character relating to various forms of radio direction-finding and rocket propulsion. In Madrid he was asked to submit a report on the concrete runway at Sutton Common, an aerial photograph of which had been taken and a copy of which was shown to him. It was suggested that the runway might be an underground hanger. It was also suggested to LIPSTICK that he should take a course of lectures in pyrotechnics as the Germans were very anxious to have information regarding our latest developments in this science. The enemy appear to be taking a much greater interest in the messages TATE is sending and are asking a number of questions in extension of the information which is sent over. This may indicate increased 152
1943
confidence or that special tests as to his reliability are being carried out in the light of information supplied by Erich Karl, who was in touch with Camp WX and may have reported on the possibilities of TATE being blown. Shelford and I went over to see Vincent Massey about the case of Lord Sempill. I gave a brief outline of Sempill’s record and explained that I did not think we had sufficient information on security grounds to refuse him an exit permit, particularly since the case had already been backed by the Canadian Army authorities. Vincent Massey got on to a member of his staff and ascertained that the suggestion for Sempill’s visit to Canada had arisen through his connection with a Catholic welfare organisation known as the Knights of St Columbus, of which he was President in this country, and Mr Slade, the Canadian representative of the organisation here, had obtained the backing of the army. I explained to Massey that Sempill’s case might be summarised by saying that his primary interest was in his own pocket. He would not have direct dealings with the enemy, but if there was a chance of doing a deal and the divulging of confidential information might assist in negotiations, he would have no scruples.Apart from this, he was notoriously indiscreet, and had recently blotted his copybook at the Anglo-Swedish luncheon when he had supported Lady Snowden in her views about a negotiated peace. Massey said he knew Sempill, who was an ardent Catholic. Had he been consulted in the first instance about the exit permit he would undoubtedly have done all he could to prevent the matter going forward, since in his view Sempill was not the kind of person who was likely to improve Anglo-Canadian relations. He might easily say something stupid. He thought Sempill was unbalanced but, in the circumstances however, he did not think that it was possible now to intervene. He thought it better that Sempill should be allowed to go and that the Canadian police should not be informed. I have suggested to the Director-General that we should write a private letter to Cyril Mills giving him a general outline of Sempill’s case and telling him to keep the matter to himself unless he was consulted by the RCMP or the military authorities or unless he saw Sempill committing indiscretions or poking his nose into matters which were not his concern. Kim Philby came to see me. He had further information about the plot to assassinate Jan Smuts. There is now some suggestion of a revolutionary movement by the Broederbond. Kim is rather skeptical about the information which comes to SIS third-hand, the intermediary being a prostitute. 12 December ZIGZAG has again been referred to on ISOS. He is evidently still in the land of the living and appears to have another assignment abroad. He is to correspond with a cover address in Lisbon. His cover letters are to be on the subject of cork. This probably has some bearing on the affairs of zum Hingstel and Linke case.
153
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
15 December Ernesto Hoppe escaped from hospital and asked a priest for permission to use his phone. The priest appears to have overheard a certain amount of what was being said and telephoned for the police. Hoppe had asked the Argentine Embassy to send a car for him and told them that he had been wrongfully detained.Through one of Dick Brooman-White’s agents we have ascertained that the Argentines were not particularly interested.There is no doubt that Hoppe is a German agent, but he has resisted all our efforts to get him to talk. According to ARTIST, OSTRO works direct to Eins Heer in Berlin where one von Karnap has no function other than running OSTRO. The Kriegsorganization Portugal forward OSTRO’s reports for him but took no part in running his case. When von Karnap is out of Berlin, Beck, alias Wernicke, acts as his representative. OSTRO has never disclosed to KARNAP or anyone else who his agents are or how he gets his information.ARTIST does not believe in him, but he is however regarded by Berlin as sort of a prima donna who must not be ruffled. Berlin sometimes sends other reports to OSTRO for his evaluation. ARTIST thinks this helps him to invent his own reports. A civil pilot is supposed to act as a courier for him about once a fortnight. He draws some money for his supposed agents, but not very much. 16 December A message has come through to GARBO, the full text of which is being deciphered, recommending him to get out of London but to say nothing. I have passed this on to C. who says that it confirms information he has just received that the rocket or the QUEEN BEE may be expected early in January.The nature of his message, which is from a good source, is slightly vague since it refers to the neutralisation of the air force. C. said that he would see that the information reaches Bill CavendishBentinck and the head of the committee which is looking into this particular question. C. was much amused by a report which Jasper Harker had shown him giving Kenneth de Courcy’s views on Stewart himself. One of the accusations is that C. is the kind of person who would pump you and then go and tell MI5. C. sees de Courcey from time to time in White’s Club and regards him as a poisonous fellow, although not unlikeable to meet. He is clever in certain ways, but obviously meddles in things which he does not understand, and is far too big for his boots. 17 December I met Pollock who is our consul in Stockholm. He had apparently been talking to the Swedes here, and knew about Cervell and Count Oxenstierna. He had told the Swedes while discussing the case of Oxenstierna that we were extremely anxious about information leaking out and that neutral attachés should, for the time being, be content to sit back and virtually do nothing. He received quite a sympathetic
154
1943
hearing. The Swede replied that he rather had the impression that the air attaché was doing a bit too much. In this, of course, he is quite right. I had a talk with Anthony Blunt and Joe Archer. Joe is going to see Air Commodore Buss and find out whether Inglis had made up his mind as to what should be done about Cervell. Our proposal is to put forward another paper to the JIC, pointing out what has happened, and suggesting that the Chiefs of Staff should close down on the visits both to aerodromes and factories on the basis of the document picked up in Sicily.We should further recommend that these measures will be ineffective as long as Turner, the American air attaché, remains in his present post, since he is clearly imparting a great deal of information to Cervell. Lastly, we should recommend that Joe should lecture to the managements of the principal aircraft factories on the basis of the German document. He still seems to be very convinced that the performance of the Spitfire 21 constitutes a definite leakage and he still thinks that FATHER was responsible. Certainly there is a good deal of circumstantial evidence but my own view is that FATHER is innocent. I base myself almost entirely on the traffic and on the general ISOS set-up. Meanwhile, Donald Fish is pursuing his enquiries. TRICYCLE’s stock seems to be very high and the material which he took over to Lisbon has found great favour. He is particularly well regarded by Schrube who is shortly to take up the duties of Gruppenleiter IH West.TRICYCLE has received an elaborate questionnaire of a technical naval kind. The first man to come out through his escape route has now reached Gibraltar. He was selected by TRICYCLE’s brother in order to play the part of a double agent and wireless operator. TRICYCLE’s brother, Ivo Popov, was codenamed DREADNOUGHT by MI5. The Germans do not take a very good view of BALLOON.They regard him as lazy and as having poor judgment. They also suspect that as an Englishman he would never give anything really vital away though he would not be beyond giving a certain amount in order to get money. Efforts are being made to close the BALLOON case. LIPSTICK has announced his intention of marrying the daughter of Suner, the well-known Catalan separatist. This is rather an unfortunate development since if news of the marriage leaks back to the Germans, LIPSTICK’s position will be jeopardised. The Germans are offering to drop a transmitter for MUTT and JEFF between the first and tenth January. Another message has been received from GARBO dated 16 December about arrangements that he is to make in connection with BODYLINE. 18 December Joe Stephenson tells me that the brother of Gabriel Creteur, who is at present in the air force, was a great friend of FATHER’s. He thinks therefore that FATHER may 155
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
possibly have told Creteur about the performance of the Spitfire 21 and that Creteur passed the information onto the Germans. I doubt whether this is right, since Gustave Bertrand, from whom we first heard of Creteur, said that he was asked by Rademacher to enquire about Leon Jude and Creteur, as he has received no information from them. Moreover, Rademacher in mentioning Creteur said that he was referring to the one who was formerly a Sabena pilot. We assumed therefore that he was referring to Gabriel, who is now at Camp 020. 21 December I spoke to the Director of Military Intelligence about Alex Kellar’s ISPAL material. In view of the rather critical situation in Palestine, it has been decided that a resumé of this material should go out at the earliest possible moment, and should be in the possession of the High Commissioner. I said that while I heartily concurred with this view, I thought it was extremely important to ensure that the material was properly handled at the other end. We knew that most offices in Palestine were penetrated. I pointed out to the DMI that there were numerous types of information which were sent to me personally but that in practice quite a number of people had to know about them. It was this situation against which I was anxious to guard in the Middle East. He said he was quite satisfied that the military offices were not penetrated, and he agreed to our instituting the necessary safeguards on a lower level when the Colonial Office had given their final agreement to the material being sent out. I have so informed Kellar. Two parachutists named Kenny and O’Reilly have come down in County Clare. They descended on the night of the 15/16 December. One of them was injured and is now in hospital with pneumonia, and the other one is in custody. Both these individuals were formerly in the Channel Islands like Joseph Lenihan and had been listed and circulated after careful research by B1(h). One of them has been broadcasting from Germany. I had a talk with Buster Milmo and T.A. Robertson about the case of Gabriel Creteur. No progress has been made at Camp 020, and the general impression is that we may have got hold of the wrong man or that Rademacher, who was obviously vague about Creteur’s Christian name, may have made a mistake or had some ulterior motive in coupling his name with that of Leon Jude. It seems clear that Gabriel Creteur will have to be released. The next difficulty is to decide how to dispose of him. We cannot very well send him back. Christopher Harmer points out that if a man is a pilot on an aerodrome it is always open to him to get into an airplane and fly off. It may, therefore, be better to send him either to India or to the Belgian Congo.This is hard treatment if the man is innocent, but I do not see how it can be avoided. Creteur was concerned in several resistance movements in Belgium before coming to this country and there are several people who can speak as to his integrity, but unfortunately their evidence is not conclusive. In the absence of positive evidence we cannot take the risk of Creteur stepping into an airplane between briefing day and D-Day. Milmo is having a talk with Cheney of the Air 156
1943
Ministry and Harmer will probably speak to Colonel Wouters of the Belgian Air Force who seems to be a sound person. Meanwhile, we may attempt to get some reaction from Rademacher through SNIPER, but this will take some time. A request for the removal of the wireless set at the German legation was made by Eamon de Valera on 21 December after the latter had been seen by Sir John Maffey. De Valera mentioned the possibility of the removal of our own set. Maffey said it was a convenience, and the question was not pressed. Meanwhile, Dr Hempel is trying to get hold of an old Abwehr set deposited in Ireland before the war.This is probably the set referred to years ago by SNOW.At one time we though it might possibly have been used by Sam Stewart, but there was never any real evidence on the point. If Dr Hempel can hand this set over he will keep his own. If, however, he has to give up his set in the immediate future, he will try and get hold of the Abwehr set. I had a long talk with J.C. Masterman about Hans Ruser. J.C.’s view is that although SIS got Ruser out in case he should be kidnapped and betray ARTIST, there is a greater danger to ARTIST if Ruser’s presence in this country is discovered. The Germans will conclude that he has blown TRICYCLE and possibly also ARTIST. Ruser could be of little use to us here, but might do good work in Spain. I said that I thought the presence of Ruser’s mother in Spain was a danger and that SIS should continue their endeavours to get her out.This would ease Ruser’s mind and not in any way prejudice his chances of working in Spain.The matter is to be discussed at a meeting tomorrow with SIS. Roger Hollis has put up a paper about Max Knight’s section. He thinks that Max and his boys are out of touch with the work of F Division, and he suggests that each section should have an officer who would be solely responsible for the handling of the section’s agents.This officer should work in the section and be fully acquainted with all available information. Max should be used as a talent-spotter and adviser. I entirely agree that Max is out of touch with recent developments in the Communist and Fascist field and that he and his subordinates do not see nearly enough of the section officers with whom they are working. I personally do not see Max more than once in six months. Roger tells me he has not seen him for three months. My own view is that Max should have far closer contact with sections, and access to reports, if he is going to perform any useful function at all. While he may occasionally come across a suitable agent, I do not think he is in a strong position as a talent-spotter. A section officer will know far more about the personalities. He will be able to say that so and so is worth buying up or that so and so constitutes a focal point, whence interesting information can be obtained.At this stage, Max should be called in to consultation and assist in carrying out the section’s wishes. He could either arrange an indirect approach to the individual concerned, or he could arrange for an agent to be put in alongside, for example as a secretary. His advice in this connection should be valuable. He could on no account run agents on his own without the co-operation of the section. The old system worked when the office was small and Max was thoroughly au fait with Communist and Fascist affairs. When the office expanded he was also of value in 157
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES VOL. II: 1942–1945
giving advice and handling agents, for the simple reason that many of the people in the sections had no experience at all. Now that the office has settled down and competent people are in charge they are able to do a lot of this work for themselves. 23 December I had a meeting with Kim Philby, Peter Lloyd, J.C. Masterman,T.A. Robertson, Ian Wilson, John Marriott and Ronnie Reed, on the subject of the future of Hans Ruser.We came to the conclusion that before making up our minds as to whether Ruser should go back, it was necessary to put the proposition to ARTIST and get his views. An endeavour would be made to persuade him that Ruser was far more valuable to us in Spain than here, and that unless he thought Ruser would constitute a serious menace to his own position, we should like to send him back. Meanwhile, J.C. Masterman will talk to Ruser and find out whether he would prefer his mother to be got over here if he himself goes back. SIS will endeavour to ascertain whether Ruser’s mother’s passport has run out and whether either the Germans or the Spanish authorities have tried to make contact with her. 24 December I went to see Hans Ruser with J.C. Masterman and Ronnie Reed. He was very pleasant and civil and I think honest of purpose.There is no doubt to my mind that he is anxious to return to Spain and confident that he can get away with it. His proposal is to live somewhere just outside Madrid and to maintain contact with some six or eight agents who are rather on the fringe of the Abwehr. He would not have any contact with the regular officials of the Abwehr. He would move about only at night. He says that now that the Falange militia has been abolished, there is little danger from the Spanish police. He would like, if possible, to return with Costa Rican papers or, failing these, with Brazilian. I suggested to him that if he were going back it might be better for his mother to remain in Spain since people would consider it rather odd if she disappeared. He seemed to agree about this and thought that he would be able to gauge the situation better when he got back. He would in many ways prefer to see his mother in this country. Anthony Blunt tells me that Colonel Frank Cervell has succeeded in getting his most secret information away.This comes out on Special Material. 29 December TRICYCLE’s return has been delayed for reasons which are not clear. In the meantime FREAK has arrived in this country. He has made a good first impression and his full story is being obtained.
158
1943
30 December T.A. Robertson and I had a talk with Charles Butler and Reg Horrocks about B1(a) funds, with particular reference to making provision for paying back all agents after the war.We have the X Fund but we do not know what claims may be made upon it. It contains some £33,000 for which we do not think there can be any claim, and probably £13,000 or more which will more probably have to be handed back.There are many points of law which are not particularly clear, e.g. if an agent lands here by parachute with £500 and for certain reasons is not prosecuted, is he entitled on his release to the £500 he brought with him? Similarly, are the relatives of an executed spy entitled to any effects found on him when he was arrested? We have therefore decided not to touch the X Fund until all these various points have been cleared up. If the Treasury try and get their fingers on it, we shall have to explain to them the position. I had another meeting with SIS and B1(a) on the subject of Hans Ruser. It is agreed by all except Ian Wilson that Ruser should go back and that ARTIST should have the position explained to him either by Frank Foley or by Ruser. He would be told that after a thorough examination of the case we had come to the conclusion that Ruser did not constitute any real menace to ARTIST’s own security, and that in any case he had strict instructions not to make contact with ARTIST. SIS will try to supply Ruser with the necessary papers and to get him back as early as possible. Ruser will explore the position of his mother when he gets there.
159
1944
7 January Dr Edouard Hempel has received instructions not to hand over his wireless sets. Unfortunately, he has already done so. 8 January Anthony Blunt has got mikes in on Cervell. We have heard too that one of the Spanish diplomats in Eire is shortly going back to Spain. On his return it is quite possible that he may be induced to carry a wireless set for Dr Hempel.We shall try and get a look at this and, if possible, put it out of order. 17 January Cecil Liddell tells me that the two Irish parachutists who came down in Eire a few weeks ago were both Sicherheitsdienst agents. We are doing our best to assist the Irish in their interrogations, but they have not so far succeeded in extracting very much. The Prime Minister has passed on a wire that he has received from President Roosevelt indicating leakage from the British Embassy in Cairo about AngloTurkish relations.The report came from OSS and was believed to be reliable.The Chiefs of Staff are apparently very concerned. It seems possible that the information may have been derived from the breaking of Turkish ciphers.We know from the case of Max Gerhard, an agent captured in the Middle East and formerly a member of the German cryptographic bureau in Athens, that Turkish ciphers have been read for some time. TRICYCLE has now been questioned on his stay in Lisbon and it is clear that he has been extremely successful and that the material he took with him is very highly regarded both in Lisbon and Berlin. Ludovico von Karsthoff obtained agreement at the Abwehr conference at Baden-Baden that TRICYCLE was to be entrusted with the most secret and important tasks. In Lisbon he was treated like a hero by all concerned, including Schreiber, who is now moving to Berlin as head of Eins Heer
1944
West. For the first time he was able to persuade the Germans to pay his extremely liberal salary in advance. During the visit FREAK duly passed through the escape route and TRICYCLE was able to arrange that the next batch of escapees should not contain any agents but should consist entirely of persons whom he had nominated. He further secured acceptance of the condition that if at any time in the future any agents were to be sent out through this route, they must be chosen by DREADNOUGHT which would ensure that their people would know from the start that they are to double-cross the Germans.TRICYCLE is to return towards the end of February, when he will be expected to take back answers to some of the questions which he brought. He was told by von Karsthoff after the Baden-Baden conference that he was regarded as the number one agent.TRICYCLE has brought GELATINE a fresh ink, instructions to receive communications by DUFF, and a questionnaire, money, etcetera. He was to deliver this material to GELATINE without disclosing his identity.The judgment on GELATINE in Lisbon was that she did not know what was important, and that while her letters contained a lot of nonsense she occasionally, without knowing it, included something of considerable importance. The MUTT and JEFF case is still in doubt owing to the possibility of its having been blown by Erich Karl, the German who was repatriated from the Nazi camp which had communication with Camp WX. As the dropping operation did not take place in spite of JEFF over-staying his leave for two days, communication has broken off at the end of the last week and an attempt will be made to force the Germans to carry out the operation later. Meanwhile, it has been decided that MUTT should forthwith be moved notionally to an Officer Cadet Training Unit so as to get away from Scotland, and in this way it is hoped that whatever the Germans believe in the case, harm will be done and possibly may help in continuing the case. The Germans’ interest in BRUTUS appears to be reviving and they are starting to ask interesting questions. A letter has been received from HAMLET enclosing correspondence from Bergman of Ast. Brussels, showing that the latter does still not have the confidence of Berlin in running this case.At the same time HAMLET has offered PUPPET 15,000 pesetas, payable in Madrid. 18 January The Rex Hoyes case opened yesterday, and is likely to take a week.A further piece of evidence has been obtained from Ministry of Aircraft Production to the effect that Armstrong signed a statement before taking up his position, in which he agreed that he would not accept any commissions from firms. Squadron-Leader Chaney came to see me at my request about Lord Sempill.We had intercepted a letter from him to Sempill indicating that he would like to see the latter on his return from Canada. Chaney told me that this was in connection with a proposal to form a committee and a club for Polish air officers. Funds were to be raised for the purpose of helping distressed officers particularly those who 161
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
had got into debt. The Poles did not really like the idea but did not wish to turn down what appeared to be a generous offer from the noble lord.The moving spirit is apparently a Mrs Stafford Lewes, formerly known as the Countess Carla Jensen. This lady has written a book about the spying activities of the British government in the last war. She is an adventuress of the first order and was a short time ago declared bankrupt. Her debts have now been paid by her husband who is a wealthy stockbroker, possibly in order to enable her to bring an action against Lady Jersey (Virginia Cherrill) who has been talking rather indiscreetly about Mrs Stafford Lewes being a Fifth Columnist.The latter has given out that she can raise thousands of pounds but when pressed to say how much she had raised, she gave the figure of £225. Her committee consists of Lord Sempill, Chairman, Sir Hector McNeil, whose general undesirability is well-known, Sir Hector’s daughter Moira Montgomery, Lady Manton, Mrs Stafford Lewes, Secretary and John Mills, alias Jan Milstein of Les Ambassadeurs Club,Treasurer. It is perhaps a little curious that Mrs Stafford Lewes is believed to run gambling parties; presumably her idea is to fleece the Polish Air Force officers by gambling and then pay them back out of funds which she will raise from the public. Meanwhile, efforts are being made to persuade the London County Council to refuse a licence for the club and the Poles have been induced to defer acceptance of Lord Sempill’s offer for three months. Chaney has seen Sempill’s secretary in his absence. She states that he knows nothing about Mrs Stafford Lewes, but that the lady had written to him and asked him to be president of the Club, and he, wishing to further what he considered a good cause, had accepted the proposal. Lord Sempill apparently has an office at 120 Pall Mall, on the top floor, where his secretary resides.There is no name on the door. 19 January Stanford read out long questionnaires received through TRICYCLE and covering almost every conceivable subject. I spent the afternoon at the Old Bailey where Hoyes,Armstrong and Bloss were on trial for corruption and bribery. Rex Hoyes was being defended by Pat Hastings, Armstrong by Khaki Roberts and Bloss by Beyfus, KC.The prosecution was conducted by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, the Solicitor-General, and Byrne. Pat Hastings made an extremely good opening speech for the defence, although he was at times a little too facetious to carry conviction. He did very little in the way of cross-examining Len Burt, Reg Spooner or Donald Fish. He was up to all his usual tricks of trying to discredit the case of prosecution in the eyes of the jury. He said that Sir Hugo had gone in for aircraft construction because his son was interested in civil aviation but his son had joined up and had been killed in action. Sir Hugo’s one ambition was to construct the best possible aircraft that could be designed. Rex Hoyes went into the box for five minutes but as Sir Patrick had another engagement, proceedings were adjourned to the following day.
162
1944
20 January I attended the Old Bailey again this morning when Rex Hoyes was cross-examined. He did not make a good impression and clearly the judge was not on his side. The most difficult question that he had to answer was why he had thought it necessary to open a special account for his transaction with Armstrong, when he could have quite easily got an overdraft through his bank.This would seem to have been far and away the most desirable course, seeing that the defence had stressed very strongly the personal nature of the transaction.The account that he opened was in his own name, and in that of the secretary of Cunliffe-Owens, and the amount had been finally debited to Sir Hugo’s personal account. In other words the transaction was given very much a company flavour rather than a personal one. Hoyes really had no answer except that he had not given the matter much thought and had done it that way because it seemed the most convenient. Sir Hugo went into the box and made a bad impression under cross-examination. He said that he knew nothing of the transaction until the police enquiries had begun.When asked what he would have thought of the transaction had he been aware of it, he said he did not know what he would have thought. Later, he was asked about the sale of Bloss’s shares in the cinema company. He stated that Rex Hoyes had consulted him about the matter as he thought that the shares were worth more than ten shillings, and that he had rung up Rank, who was the owner of the company, and Rank had agreed to purchase them at £1. It was suggested to him that he had done this to oblige Hoyes or Bloss, but he insisted that he had done it as a purely business transaction. He was then asked whether he did not consider it rather peculiar that two millionaires should be telephoning about such a paltry sum as £200, which to them would merely be a matter of pocket-money. He said that he was not in the habit of doing this, but in this case it was merely an ordinary business transaction. It had been decided to send Sir John Dashwood to Ankara to investigate the case of leakage relating to our plans for operations in the Balkans. It is quite clear from ISOS that certain documents have gone astray between Sir Hughe KnatchbullHugesson’s return to Cairo and that date of the first ISOS message, which actually gave one of the codenames of the operation. There was a leakage some time ago from the British Embassy in Ankara when it was clear that an agent had been getting into the ambassador’s safe.The position was never cleared up, nor do I think it is likely to be by Sir John Dashwood, who has no experience whatsoever of investigation.This is, once more, a case of territorial division between ourselves and other departments instead of functional ones. An investigation of this sort could best be conducted by a combination of Herbert Hart, Edward Cussen and Len Burt.There is, of course, also the question of sending through another document (a) for the purpose of seeing what happens to it and (b) for the purpose of neutralising the harm come by the leakage of the previous document. I do not know whether this question has even been considered, as we were not consulted. The whole business was transacted between SIS, the Foreign Office, and the Chiefs of Staff. I am so heartily sick of the absurdity of the present situation that if I were ever offered the job of
163
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
taking over this department, I should feel inclined to stipulate that unless territorial boundaries were abolished and the show re-organised on a functional basis, I would not be prepared to take over. I should not be very keen on taking over in any case. In the present atmosphere the position would be intolerable. 21 January I attended a meeting of the Wireless Board.T.A. Robertson brought the position up to date as regards the double agents at present at the disposal of the Twenty Committee. He then explained about the unfortunate incident at Camp WX, which has probably resulted in the blowing of MUTT and JEFF, if not also of TATE. The latter, however, we believe has got away with it. The next point was BRUTUS. The Wireless Board agreed that he could be used for deception on the order of battle provided this were done on present lines and discreetly. The Wireless Board expressed confidence in the agents who were to be used for the purpose of deception in OVERLORD. Lastly, we discussed the question of approving authorities. It was agreed that Noel Wild, recently brought back from the Mediterranean and an officer who had worked under Dudley Clarke, should be the approving authority both British and American in COSSAC, and should become a member of the Twenty Committee. If he needs a deputy it will probably have to be an American.That officer would have to be initiated. Present at the meeting were the Director of Military Intelligence, the Director of Naval Intelligence, Sir Findlater Stewart, Air Commodore Buss, Felix Cowgill, T.A. Robertson, Ewen Montagu and myself. Cecil Liddell has had a lot of trouble over a Parliamentary Question in the House of Commons by James Little of an Ulster constituency who is agitating about the Irish parachutists and urging that the seriousness of the situation should be taken up with the Eire authorities. Little was not satisfied with the answer he got and now proposes to raise the question on the adjournment. It has been decided that the Home Secretary should see Sir Basil Brook, the Ulster Prime Minister who is over here at the moment, and explain to him that we are in close touch with the Eire authorities in this matter and they are proving extremely co-operative. Basil Brooke will then be authorised to tell Little that from enquiries he has made he is satisfied that the Eire authorities are doing all they possibly can and that Mr de Valera will implement his pledge not to allow southern Ireland to become a base for operations against this country. It is hoped in this way to get Little to withdraw his motion. I had a talk with John Bevan about the leakage of documents relating to our Balkan plans from the embassy at Ankara. He said that he had heard about this, and that he had been rung up yesterday evening by William Codrington’s people with some suggestion that he should prepare a deception document. He agreed with me that the idea was a good one (a) from the point of view of neutralising the ill effects of leakage and (b) from the point of view of detecting the collaborator. He was, however, largely in ignorance as to what the documents contained. It was obviously impossible for him to prepare any counter-documents unless he could see the full 164
1944
text and unless he knew precisely the circumstances in which the leakage had take place. He expressed his intention of looking into the matter. 22 January Gilbert Ryle told me that the ISK situation is not as bad as they expected. Two changes have taken place, one on the first and the other on 15 January, and apparently there were to be no further changes. While this has resulted in a temporary decrease in the product owing to the difficulties of getting it out, it is thought these difficulties will be overcome fairly soon.The situation with regards to the Iberian Peninsula is less serious than in regard to the Balkans.There has been a blaze in the press about the arrest of Osmar Hellmuth. It is important that we should stop a Parliamentary Question being asked in the House of Commons as to why he has not been tried. Such a question would not only embarrass us with the Argentine authorities, but would make it apparent to the enemy that in fact no charge lies against a man working for the Germans in other than British territory. Jasper Harker is seeing Herbert Morrison’s private secretary. Apparently you cannot prevent a question being put on the Order Paper unless it discloses information vital to the enemy. In answering the question, however, it is always possible to say that more cannot be said for security reasons.The other alternative is to get the MP to withdraw his question. It is possible, however, to arrange with the clerks to be informed as soon as the question is put down.This we have done. There is a reflection on ISOS which indicates a possibility that the Germans may be attempting to send a wireless set to FATHER. TRICYCLE has written a letter to say that FREAK hopes to be able to start transmitting on 1 February.TREASURE has received a call, but unfortunately part of the message was missed owing to conditions and it has not been possible to decode. PEACH, previously known as WENDY, is a White Russian from Siberia who has lived most of his life in the Far East, probably in Shanghai, but has served intermittently for some years on British ships. In 1940–41 he worked according to his own statement as a double agent for the Americans against Japan. In November last, he was sent to Lisbon by B1(1) with an idea of re-establishing contact with the Japanese. He has carried out his mission successfully and was interviewed at some length on 14 December by two Japanese whom he believes to be the military attaché and the assistant military attaché. His former connection with the Japanese secret service is being verified, and he has been asked to return to Lisbon in about two months’ time. Meanwhile, he has been given a questionnaire. 24 January Rex Hoyes, Sir Hugo Armstrong and Bloss were acquitted on 22 January.The Judge in his summing up seemed to treat the matter rather light-heartedly, and gave a clear direction to the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. It would seem likely that after 165
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
hearing the evidence of Sir Alexander Dunbar, who had stated quite incorrectly that Cunliffe Owens were the only firm who would take on the Seafire contract, the judge had made up his mind that the bottom had fallen out of the case of the prosecution and that in the absence of any startling evidence the jury should acquit.The result is disappointing and unfortunate, although I think that the case may still have considerable repercussions and that it was rightly brought. Len Burt tells me that Sir Stafford Cripps has caused an independent investigation to be made into the firm’s affairs and that before the proceedings opened he notified Cunliffe Owen that unless Hoyes and the secretary, Chown, were removed, he would take over the whole business. It remains to be seen whether in the light of the court proceedings he is intending to modify his views.There is no real reason why he should. I had a discussion with Anthony Blunt and Richman Stopford about the suggested re-opening of the Swedish airline. We are putting forward the following views to the Air Ministry. We realise that the overriding consideration is OVERLORD.We feel, however, that it would be advisable to possibly defer the question at any rate until the Germans give a safe conduct, without which the Swedes will not operate. We do not want AB Transport in London to be liquidated since we obtain valuable information from there through an agent. If the line is closed down this will probably close down as well. As regards personnel on the Swedish airline, they are always a potential danger. On the other hand, two of the suspects were killed when the aircraft was shot down a month or two ago. D4 would find it convenient to have only one airline, since they are in a stronger position in checking the entry of people who want to come here on quite plausible missions and whose visas cannot justifiably be refused. [Four lines deleted] On the whole we prefer the route not to operate, but we would like to convey to them that it might be opened at any time. [Four lines deleted] has now told Florman and Cervell has special means for getting special stuff over to Sweden by fast motorboat. SOE reports show that they are running fast motorboats to Sweden which bring back to this country ball bearings. It seems likely therefore that Cervell is in on this racket. I am proposing to take this matter up with Archie Boyle. Richman Stopford has ascertained through an official in the Air Ministry responsible for liaison with British air attachés abroad, that Maycock, our air attaché in Stockholm, has sent an open letter transmission to Cervell in which he warns the latter to be careful as he is the subject of enquiry by the security authorities in this country. It is almost past belief that such a letter could have been written.There does not appear to be any sinister intent at the back of it, but is an example of sheer stupidity. Air Commodore Buss is taking this matter up.William Codrington asked me whether any measures that we were taking in this country were against the Swedes [Three lines deleted] 166
1944
He wanted to know this as HMG were intending to lodge a strong protest to the Swedes about their rather clumsy miking of the British Embassy.They had apparently been dropping mikes down the chimneys. 25 January Len Burt tells me that he has been asked by Mr Justice Stable to go and see him. I have advised him to spill the whole beans. Since the trial Burt has ascertained from the Ministry of Aircraft Production that Cunliffe-Owens is in a frightful mess. They have an overdraft of £1.3m since they cannot produce proper costing figures to the government. If this evidence could have been produced in court, it would have torpedoed that given by Sir Alexander Dunbar. 26 January Blanshard Stamp said that further evidence cast considerable doubt on the case of Fressay, who was being run by T.A. Robertson under the name of BOOTLE, in conjunction with the French. An OSS agent happened to meet Fressay and gave information to the effect that his real name was Tikhmanief, a White Russian.This is now confirmed from other sources, and links up with information that Fressay may have been working for the Germans in North Africa.There has also been further evidence against Feyguin who has been interned in the Isle of Man. Both these cases make one slightly apprehensive about FIDO, and indeed about many other Frenchmen, Belgians, and Dutchmen who are off-loaded through the London Reception Centre on the Allied governments. Anthony Blunt tells me that through LEMON he has ascertained almost certainly that Bartlett is Cervell’s contact in the Bristol Aircraft Company.We are taking steps accordingly. Last night I had a long discussion with Victor Rothschild and Teresa Clay about the Marita case. The latest development shows that the Imperial Fascist League is forming an inner council of six of which a Mrs Leach is one of the members. I think this shows the value of the case. I am sure that for the present it should proceed on the same lines.There is no doubt that a prosecution is out of the question both on technical and other grounds. Oswald Job was condemned to death at the Old Bailey today. 28 January Tommy Harris came to see me with a toy Scotch terrier which is stuffed with correspondence from GARBO. This peculiar-looking object will notionally be taken over by GARBO’s courier. Cervell’s TRIPLEX gives an account of his successful visit to the American Marauder station, and a letter of introduction to the new American air attaché who, he says, is “very communicative”. He speculates on invasion and gives a certain 167
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
number of details about technical devices. We decided that this communication would have to go on.We thought, however, that Cervell’s removal would have to be seriously considered. It may be that we should defer any action about Maycock until the decision about Cervell has been made, since if we turn out Cervell it may conveniently lead to the expulsion of Maycock by the Swedes. C. has had a letter from his representative at Stockholm telling him about the indiscretions of Pollock. [One line deleted] about Cervell to Maycock.This was evidently what led Maycock to write such a stupid letter to Cervell warning him to be more discreet. C will now ask the Air Ministry for a copy of this letter and take the whole matter up on a fairly high level. Meanwhile, we are considering what can be done about Bartlett, the sales manager of Bristol Aircraft Company. He is notoriously indiscreet and we now know from our own sources that Cervell regards him as his technical adviser on aircraft matters. It seems not unlikely therefore that he was the person who communicated the information from the Bristol Aircraft Company about the Orion engine. We are considering whether he should not be questioned by Edward Cussen and Len Burt. The matter is, however, somewhat complicated as the evidence at the moment is by no means conclusive. 29 January Both ISAK and BJs indicate that the Germans are firmly of the opinion that Osmar Hellmuth’s downfall was due to intrigues between the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst in Buenos Aires. Herbert Hart is strongly of opinion that we should [XXXXXXXX] these differences by the publication of as much of the information that we have from Camp 020 as possible. Stuart Hampshire of the Radio Security Service is also very keen on this.We are going to work this up. 30 January [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] Bengt Nordenskiold, hearing of the Swedish Air Force, has told Cervell that he has recently had a visit from Maycock, the British air attaché in Stockholm. Maycock said that Cervell was seeing much more of the English, so much so that there was some anxiety in case they might tell him too much. Nordenskiold has therefore repeated his advice to Cervell not to appear interested in any operational or strategic matters which are important for the British to keep secret, and which are of minor importance from the point of the development of the Swedish Air Force. He has also intimated to Cervell that although the Swedes are naturally curious to find out where our invasion is to take place, this is a matter of relatively little importance to Sweden, if it does not actually affect that country. He thinks, therefore, it is unnecessary for Cervell to expose himself to suspicion by making enquiries on this point. His principal objectives should be the state and development in technique and tactics, and such matters as 168
1944
would appear reasonable to the British.This is, of course, a very proper attitude, but it may have been written with a purpose. 31 January As arranged with David Boyle on Sunday, we sent in our paper about Colonel Frank Cervell to the JIC today.We recommend that Cervell should be removed, but if the consequences are considered too grave owing to his close association with Bengt Nordenskiold, it was suggested that an officer of fairly high rank from the Air Ministry should go out to Stockholm, inform Nordenskiold that it had come to our knowledge that Cervell had been getting information of a secret kind from one of our firms and generally poking his nose too deeply into our affairs, that a prosecution of certain officials of the firm would probably ensue, that we hoped to keep Cervell’s name out of it but that we should have to insist in the future that no visits take place.This would apply to all attachés, military, naval or air.We have also suggested that the Americans should be brought into line on the highest possible level. The measures need cause no embarrassment to them since they could say that as attachés were accredited to the Court of St James, and not to the US government, it was for the British to place what restrictions they thought fit. Frank Foley and Tommy Drew-Brook came to see me and Buster Milmo on the subject of SPRINGBOK. Drew-Brook feels rather under an obligation to the RCMP to relieve them of SPRINGBOK.We pointed out that we did not wish to be unhelpful in any way but that it would be extremely embarrassing for us to receive SPRINGBOK at this moment. All sorts of restrictions both of civil and military populations were being imposed on grounds of security.We could not very well leave SPRINGBOK at large, even if there was only a one per cent chance that he was wrong, and that he would undoubtedly cause comment, since troops were so thick on the ground that there was no place where he could be isolated. If we locked him up he would have a legitimate complaint owing to the conditions in which he has been working for the last three years and it is not unlikely that the Home Office might feel obliged to release him. I asked Drew-Brook to put this to Commissioner Stuart Wood, and to explain that it was only on account of the tremendous importance of secrecy in connection with future operations that made it necessary for us to request him to keep SPRINGBOK for the time being. I gave an undertaking that we would receive him here as soon as the crisis was over. 1 February I attended the JIC meeting this morning, when our paper about Cervell and another one about general restrictions on foreign attachés was heard. Bill Cavendish-Bentinck was against any drastic action against Cervell, but favoured the plan of sending out an air force officer to see Nordenskiold.The DNI was in favour of turning Cervell out. Cavendish-Bentinck asked me whether I would be satisfied with the alternative project. I said that as long as Cervell was here we could not say 169
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
that there was adequate security. Whatever reprimand he might get it would be rather like instructing a journalist not to report what he saw and heard to his editor. On the other hand, I thoroughly understood the diplomatic difficulties and if the meeting felt they outweighed the extra security that would be gained by Cervell’s removal, the procedure suggested was obviously the next best thing. It was agreed that service attachés should be refused leave to visit within the fifteen-mile belt, and at Cavendish-Bentinck’s suggestion the Foreign Office will be consulted about extending this ban to other neutral diplomats. The Americans are to be brought in line with this policy, and also with the policy of closing down entirely on all visits to factories, aerodromes, dockyards, military camps, etcetera. J.C. Masterman tells me that there is a warning out for CELERY’s arrest for embezzlement. CELERY has apparently disappeared. ISOS discloses that the Germans are getting hold of American uniforms. Len Burt tells me that both Rex Hoyes and Cheown, the Secretary of CunliffeOwens, have been dismissed, and that the company is for sale.There is an overdraft of £1.3m. Denys Page tells me that the information supplied to him about GARBO’s code was of the utmost value. Before he received this code he was working entirely in the air and says that it is quite doubtful whether he would have ever got on to the right lines. Once he had the system he knew that all his energies were going in the right direction, and he was able to solve the code in about five months. It covers Huelva, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Cadiz, Melilla and a number of other stations. 5 February Admiral Wilhelm Canaris gave an order two days ago that there was to be no more sabotage in Spain until further notice. It seems therefore that our protest to the Spanish government has borne fruit. Spain has clearly got rather nervous about her position and there is considerable comment in their newspapers about the American decision to cut off oil supplies. I asked Victor Caroe to find out from Zech what he thought about the Katyn murders. Zech was in the German army when they marched into the parts of Poland which the Russians had occupied. He says that there is absolutely no doubt that when the German army arrived the Poles welcomed them as liberators, despite the fact that the Poles have no love for the Germans.Their hatred of the Russians is considerable, and the latter had treated them during the months of occupation with great cruelty. Zech gives, as examples, the large numbers of all classes of the population who were deported to European Russia, chiefly Archangel and Siberia, for heavy labour. In Lemburg, the population was made to parade in front of the Russians and show their hands. Anyone whose hands indicated that they were unused to manual labour was deported. No one was shown any consideration. He says this is a fact and not just rumour. The Russians also treated all prisoners of war, especially Polish officers, shamefully. At the time when Smolensk fell and when, according to Zech, the officers were probably 170
1944
murdered, General Wladislaw Sikorski was in Moscow and the Russian–Polish Treaty was being signed. Had the Russians taken these prisoners of war with them when they retreated, they would have supplied Sikorski with plenty of evidence of Russian cruelty and ill-treatment, and would have opposed a Russian–Polish alliance. On the other hand, had the Russians let these officers fall alive into German hands, they would have run the risk of their being used by the Germans for propaganda purposes against the Russians.This might have prevented the treaty from being signed. Zech is convinced that had these Polish prisoners of war in anything like such numbers fallen into German hands he would have heard of them, and that they would have been shown to the Red Cross as evidence of Russian cruelty. The Germans were extremely keen to impress upon their soldiers the sort of treatment they could expect if they fell into Russian hands, so as to make them fight to the bitter end. When the Russian–Polish Treaty had been signed, the Russians flooded Poland with leaflets dropped from planes informing the population of the treaty. The Germans were anxiously looking round for good propaganda and these officers would have been useful, had they been available. He thinks that it is unlikely that the Germans would have captured the officers alive and murdered them at some later date, but he does not exclude the possibility that certain Polish prisoners of war subsequently murdered by the Germans might have been put into the same graves. Zech who, of course, is well-disposed towards the Poles, is very antiBolshevik, but he is quite willing to admit that both the Gestapo and the SS would have been capable of executing large numbers of Polish prisoners of war. In fact, he knows they are guilty of worse crimes against the civilian population. His view of the whole incident is based on the fact that the Polish officers were cruelly treated by the Russians and as such, if captured alive by the Germans, would have been of great value for propaganda purposes. 7 February I had a meeting with Dick White, Jim Hale, Chaney, Baxter and Buster Milmo to discuss Milmo’s report expressing anxiety about doubtful characters passing through the London Reception Centre. My attention was drawn to the case of Pierre Neukermans and also to that of Fressay.The former had a good cover story and was extremely skilful under cross-examination. He was later denounced by Wyckaert and brought back. He has since confessed not only that he got his secret ink through the LRC and communicated with the Germans but that he had other means of communication if all others broken down, i.e. transmitting from an aircraft in flight. Neukermans is a Belgian and a trained pilot. The case of Fressay is equally serious. He was being run by the French in conjunction with ourselves as a double agent and was sleeping with a woman working for Vaudreuil of the French Deuxième Bureau. It was decided that Milmo and I should see Sir Alexander Maxwell and seek his co-operation in asking the Foreign Office to support us in refusing admission to aliens abroad during the next three or four months. If he 171
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
agrees to this we can put up a paper showing proposals for the diversion of Belgians to the Congo, Frenchmen to North Africa, Poles and as many other nationals as possible to the Middle East. This would be handled by a Foreign Office note to each of the Allied governments in question. If the Home Office did not come into line on this we should have to impress upon them the necessity for locking up all doubtful cases which may amount to something like a hundred a month. 9 February Buster Milmo raised a rather grave issue concerning censorship as disclosed by the case of Pierre Neukermans, who sent out two letters to a cover address which was on the IB list. It was thought by some that at any rate the addresses on the IB list which are covered from our own sources might be included in the Security List without very much danger.The IB list is to be scrutinised from this point of view when we would have a further discussion with Grogan, Milmo and T.A. Robertson. 10 February Geoffrey Wethered told me about the case of an SOE man called “Gilbert”, a Frenchman who has been running a reception committee for SOE agents in France. He has been denounced as an enemy agent from three different sources. It is, however, extremely difficult to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion since either the material witnesses are not here or “Gilbert” cannot on grounds of security be interrogated on the basis of their evidence. “Gilbert” is at present the only channel through which SOE can put agents into France.They are therefore anxious if possible to send him back. ISOS shows the demand by Berlin from Italy to supply British and American uniforms.They may be required for agents, saboteurs or commando troops. 11 February The Director of Military Intelligence rang up to tell me that he now had misgivings about ISPAL material being sent to Henry Hunloke in view of the suggestion that he had a Jewish mistress. He wanted to me to consult C. I saw C. later in the evening and he said that until the question of the Jewish mistress was cleared up he did not wish Hunloke to have access to ISPAL. I said that it would be necessary for me to inform Raymund Maunsell that there were allegations against Hunloke, and that meanwhile he would have to be kept out of the picture. I sent a clear line telegram off the same day. I showed C. a draft letter to Sir Alexander Cadogan about the Polish General Kukeil who, according to ORANGE, is in touch with the Germans on the subject of Polish resistance movements. Some negotiations are apparently going on through Red Cross channels. C. was interested in this as he had certain confirmation about 172
1944
the Red Cross [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. He thought the moment was right to send the letter to Cadogan and asked me to let him have a copy. 12 February Geoffrey Wethered has seen “Gilbert” who does not on the whole make a bad impression. It is, however, impossible to get at the truth and we cannot but recommend that he should not again be sent into the field. 14 February SNIPER received a wireless communication about the 10 February but reception was poor. BRUTUS is still trying to persuade the Germans to send him a new wireless set and if possible a new photographic apparatus.The possibilities of dropping material in France are also being considered. According to ARTIST, Hansen, the head of Abteilung I, has been very favourably impressed by TRICYCLE’s last report. Great efforts are expected from him. Lisbon has instructed the station which is to receive FREAK’s transmissions to use their very best operators and take every care because news of the highest military importance is expected through this channel.ARTIST has stated that three people, none of them agents, are to be sent out through TRICYCLE’s escape route when he returns to Lisbon at the end of the month. Again, according to ARTIST, the Germans want TRICYCLE to be back by 20 February, which is earlier than what was previously arranged. Plans are being made for PEACH to leave for Lisbon in the course of the next few days with a certain amount of traffic which should establish him in the eyes of the Japanese as a competent agent. 15 February J.C. Masterman and Ronnie Reed came in to tell me about Hans Ruser. ARTIST does not want him to go back to Lisbon, and this view is supported by SIS. The argument is that the Germans are already looking for Ruser and his mother, and that if he were taken he might be forced to talk, and possibly to compromise ARTIST, although in fact he can have only a suspicion that ARTIST may be working for us. He knows that ARTIST offered his services, but thought they were turned down. I cannot help feeling that this case has been rather mishandled.There have been endless delays through [XXXXXXXX] in Lisbon not getting into touch with ARTIST. Personally, I think it is a pity that Ruser does not go back. He can only be an embarrassment to us here as we cannot give him anything to do. The press announces that Charles Bedaux, on being informed that a Grand Jury was to investigate a charge laid against him under the United States espionage laws, committed suicide at Miami.
173
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
16 February ISOS this week shows that as a result of the announcement of Erich Vermehren’s defection to the Allied side (he was employed at Ankara) the Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst have been called upon to investigate possible ramifications of the case in Lisbon, where Vermehren’s mother Petra, the journalist, has been living. She is a member of the German intelligence service and has been interviewed by the local SD. She had left by air presumably for Germany. Arising out of this, the German intelligence service had been warned by Portuguese contacts that their activities have been betrayed to the Allies by a British agent in Berlin, who is said by them to have access to German intelligence service correspondence, and by a Rumanian in Lisbon named Bogomolets. The latter had previously worked in the German intelligence service and, according to the Portuguese contact, had been responsible for recent leakages to the Allies about Admiral Canaris’ movements and about the activities of Hans Brandes. Brock had a good story which, I gather, has some foundation in fact, of an SOE officer of right-wing tendencies, who was induced through a member of some Greek resistance movement to meet the Mayor of Athens, who asked him if he would collaborate with the Germans in suppressing the Communists. He apparently agreed, and a meeting was arranged at which representatives of SOE and the Gestapo were present, armed with tommy-guns. The SOE officer eventually flew back to Cairo in order to obtain instructions. History does not relate the sequel to this fantastic story. I had a meeting with the Director of Military Intelligence, C. and Brigadier Kirkman about Henry Hunloke. The DMI asked me to correct my telegram to Raymund Maunsell where I had referred to “allegations” made by the War Office that Hunloke had a Jewish mistress. He thought the word “allegations” was a little too strong. Apparently, there are only rumours brought back from the Middle East by three officers. Personally I cannot see the difference between rumours which lead to the withholding by high officials of the War Office of information from a security officer which he needs in order to perform his work, and “allegations”. I said that I thought it was essential that the matter should be cleared up, or that Hunloke should be removed.The DMI said he was worried about the information reaching a wider circle and thought that some telegram might be sent from Padgett through the War Office rather than through Maunsell and ourselves. Meanwhile, he thought I should telegraph to Maunsell and ask what arrangements would be made for the reception of the information and for its safe custody. I said that I had no jurisdiction over Maunsell and that since he was under the military authorities and had been head of SIME for four years, I felt that he might resent any enquiry by myself as to whether he knew how to carry on his business. I thought that any such enquiry should be made more appropriately either by the War Office or by C. who was the custodian of the sources. It was finally decided that the DMI should telegraph to Paget and that C. should telegraph to John Teague. I told the DMI that meanwhile Maunsell had gone to Palestine in order to make enquiries about Hunloke.
174
1944
The Director-General very kindly gave a dinner for me at the Hyde Park Hotel to celebrate my CBE. It was rather an ordeal but everybody made very kind speeches. Most people were fairly tight, in particular Tin-Eye Stephens, who struck a rather dangerous note in his speech by referring to people who, in contrast to myself, went about in red tabs but were not really soldiers. He was taken up on this rather later in the evening by Victor Rothschild, and at one moment it looked as if there might be a stand-up fight. Making the usual gesture with his hands,Tin-Eye said “Now I am going to give you a snub.”Victor replied, by telling him to keep his Palethorpes quiet. At this stage the D-G drew up, evidently interested in fanning the flames. Reg Horrocks did not mend matters by giving an account of his own war service, but the argument eventually became so incoherent that the party broke up without any serious incident. 17 February J.C. Masterman came to tell me about Hans Ruser.There is a definite decision that he should not go back. Ruser, though distressed, has accepted the position with good grace. Steps are to be taken to get his mother over here. Geoffrey Wethered tells me that the letter which I signed to SOE on the subject of “Gilbert” has created a tremendous upheaval in SOE.Archie Boyle and the security station support us in our views. Colin Gubbins takes the line that either we should have cleared “Gilbert” or locked him up.The fact is that from the evidence available it is quite impossible for anyone to say whether “Gilbert” is right or wrong. There is however a strong element of doubt about the case, and in our view he should not be allowed to return to the field. Equally, we consider that Louba, the other gentlemen in the case, is extremely doubtful. He is, however, being sent back. T.A. Robertson is rather in favour of the release of the Little Man (SNOW) and his son. Personally, I am opposed to this until after D-Day. 18 February The Director-General spoke to Herbert Morrison after the meeting this morning, and showed him two examples of the Communist Party getting hold of MULBERRY or PLUTO. In the case of MULBERRY, a man who had been working on the job was extremely perturbed because he could not get a dredger. He was very much afraid that he would not be able to complete his job by the scheduled time and that therefore the Second Front would not be able to open. He would like, if possible, to go to the Mersey and bring a dredger round by sea himself. So worried was he about this that he reported it to the Party with the suggestion that Willie Gallagher MP should ask a question in the House.This is an interesting example of the Red Flag becoming the red, white and blue.The reporting of PLUTO was perhaps more malicious.The trouble and danger lies in the fact that the CPGB encourages its members to poke their noses into all sorts of secret matters.This can only lead to the dissemination of knowledge and is clearly highly undesirable. It does not, however, provide 175
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
any argument for the visitors’ ban since the CPGB would not send out agents to discover these matters but merely rely on their members to come and report to them at headquarters if they saw anything of interest to the Russians. Herbert Morrison was very quick to make the point that these leakages were rather an argument against the visitors’ bans. It is precisely what I had told the D-G, previously, on two occasions. The D-G also showed Morrison an even worse potential leakage through an organisation known as Mass Observation. In a directive for January 1944 issued by this organisation and marked Priority A, people were to be asked to describe in as much detail as possible their feelings about the Second Front. They were to say where they thought we would land, how soon we expected to open the Second Front and their fears and hopes focusing on the Second Front. 20 February TRICYCLE is ready to depart but has to wait until Saturday for a plane. FREAK has got through satisfactorily. The fact that the enemy put two stations on to the job of receiving his traffic confirms that they regard it as of the greatest importance. TREASURE is leaving by air on Saturday and hopes to bring back a wireless set. The MULLET and PUPPET case still goes on, although Berman, who was running it in Brussels, has been sacked. His successor is one Werner whom HAMLET hopes to meet in the near future. BRONX has received another monthly payment with an additional £100, of which £50 is for expenses and £50 as a bonus for hard work. LIPSTICK has given an explanation of the circumstances in which he received a postcard from Spain which was at first accepted as satisfactory. In view of information which has now been received regarding LIPSTICK’s activities in connection with the Catalan organisation in the autumn of last year, there are further grounds for doubt as to his integrity.This case is being very closely gone into.There is no doubt that he has been indiscreet, as a result of which a number of his Catalan friends have been arrested. 26 February The GARBO network now consists of about twenty-four agents, some conscious and some unconscious but all notional. Steps are being taken to get them placed notionally in various parts of the country where they may provide useful information about OVERLORD. 29 February I had a meeting with Brook-Booth, Kemball Johnston and Kim Philby about the case of General Kukeil.The letter that we sent to the Foreign Office had been sent back to SIS for comments. Claude Dansey had made a number of comments of a 176
1944
somewhat vague kind and definitely inaccurate. Kim had no evidence of improper activities by Kukeil, although he knew him to be strongly anti-Russian. Kemball Johnson was very confident about ORANGE, but said that he would try and press him for further details. Meanwhile Jim Hale is going to dig round in Broadway. Kemball Johnson, Brook-Booth and I then discussed the Cervell case and the interrogation of the Czech officer Knorr. Plant, who had left for Stockholm on 23 February to see Bengt Nordenskiold, was going to draw the latter’s attention firstly to Cervell’s relations with the Bristol Aircraft Company, and secondly to the indiscreet conversations he was having with a Czech officer on the subject of the Second Front. Simultaneously with this action it had been proposed that we should on the one hand severely interrogate Bartlett, and on the other try and extract a confession from the Czech officer Knorr.We came to the conclusion that there was nothing further to be done about Bartlett who has already received a rocket from Freeman of the Ministry of Aircraft Production and apparently is a much chastened man.We agreed, however, that there might be considerable advantage if we could get Paddy Barry to talk to Knorr.This was arranged. 4 March TRICYCLE left for Lisbon on Saturday and has already had an all-night interrogation from Schreiber.This has evidently made him a little nervous but he seems to be doing fairly well. Ludovico von Karsthoff is taking TRICYCLE’s information to Berlin.TREASURE left on 1 March. 7 March I told the DMI that I had had a telegram from Raymund Maunsell in which he said that Henry Hunloke had been completely white-washed. He would like therefore to bring him into the ISPAL picture.The GOC Palestine was thoroughly satisfied and so was the Commander in Chief. I have just heard about Lukacevic, a Yugoslav who is arriving here in the suite of King Peter.According to ISOS he contracted a treaty with the Germans some time ago and in fact agreed to collaborate with them against the Partisans.The indications are, however, that the Germans do not altogether trust him. The question arises as to what they are going to do with him when he gets here. 8 March Kemball Johnson and Guy Burgess came to see me about ORANGE. Burgess has ascertained that ORANGE got his information about Kukeil from the Swiss military attaché who got it from the Polish military attaché. Burgess raised the question of ORANGE’s future. He has the opportunity of becoming editor of the Zuricher Zeitung. This gives him considerable financial 177
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
advantages. On the other hand, in many ways he and his wife would prefer to remain here. In order to tip the balance it is proposed that we should pay ORANGE his expenses when he throws a party which provides us with information. This, I think, we should certainly do as there is no doubt that ORANGE should prove extremely valuable to us particularly in the post-war period. I went to see Peter Loxley about Lukacevic.We agreed that it would be best in the first instance to approach King Peter’s entourage and find out what story Lukacevic had told his own people.We should then be in a better position to judge whether he should be locked up. I asked Reggie Gibbs to come and see me about the SPRINGBOK case. He told me that to the best of his recollection,Arthur Thurston had asked him whether he could see our file. Knowing that it contained Felix Cowgill’s letter, Gibbs told Thurston that there was nothing on the file that was not already at SIS and that since it was their case he had better make application to them.This story had got somewhat magnified into a refusal by SIS to tell them anything about SPRINGBOK. SIS say they never intended to keep from the FBI information about SPRINGBOK except that which related to his finances. On the other hand, there is a letter in our file in which Felix says that it would not be appropriate to discuss SPRINGBOK’s case with the FBI. 9 March Brigadier Norman Crockatt came to see me about the case of a man called Campbell, an escaped prisoner of war who, according to LEMON, has been describing his experiences to Cervell and others. MI9 wanted to prosecute. I said that this would be impossible but that we should not mind Campbell being given a reprimand on perfectly general lines. He could be told that it had come to the knowledge of the War Office that he had been talking about his experiences and that if any more reports reached us he would find himself in serious trouble. I went over to see Orme Sargent about the Lukacevic case. Peter Loxley and Ward were also present. Orme Sargent has a typically Foreign Office manner and outlook. He clearly had not studied the papers and began by treating me as a somewhat crude policeman who wanted to get everyone locked up. I ended by shouting him down and explaining that at the moment we were not suggesting any such course.We felt that the best thing would be for the Foreign Office to approach the King or someone in his suite and ask them to give an account of Lukacevic’s activities during the last six or eight months, as disclosed to them by Lukacevic himself. If it transpired that Lukacevic had disclosed to his own people that he had made a treaty with the Germans for special purposes, this information coupled with the MSS information that the Germans did not want Lukacevic to leave Yugoslavia would go a long way towards clearing matters up. If, on the other hand, Lukacevic had merely told his own people the same story that he had had told the British authorities in the Middle East, the case against him would look fairly black and in our view he would then merit internment and interrogation. Orme Sargent 178
1944
seemed inclined to “get rid of him quietly”. I said I thought that this did not really meet the case. Obviously he would be an embarrassment if he were at large in the Middle East and if he got back to Yugoslavia he might be a real danger. Equally, we did not want him wandering about here. He had, therefore, much better be locked up. BRONX has just received her monthly payment from the Germans of £98. She has the plain language code on the Guaranty Trust previously mentioned: “Send £80 which I need for my dentist” means “Invasion in a week’s time Atlantic.” £70 means Northern France and Belgium, £60, Northern France and Bay of Biscay, £50, Bay of Biscay, £40 Mediterranean, £30 Denmark, £20 Norway, £10 the Balkans. In case of invasion at several places, these sums added together are to be given, for example,“send £30 plus £80 and the rest as soon as possible”. GARBO is preparing to carry out another Plan DREAM. The Abwehr have told TATE that they have no one who can assist him in getting bomber reports from the Cambridge district, but they are making enquiries from “other departments”. In view of the nature of the two questionnaires recently received by LIPSTICK from the Germans, it is considered that he is not at present compromised, although the danger of his becoming so as a result of the Catalan round-up still exists. I had a long talk with Ian Wilson, who has just returned from Lisbon. He seems to think that the position both of TRICYCLE and ARTIST is fairly secure at the moment. He has managed to lay ARTIST off from poking his nose too deeply into the affairs of Karl-Erich Kuhlenthal by expressing the view that Kuhlenthal, like OSTRO, is one of the people who make up most of their information. 10 March [XXX] and Maurice Buckmaster [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] Dick Warden of SOE came to see me about Henri Dericourt. Buckmaster is evidently at his wits’ end to know what to do with Dericourt who is bored to tears at Stratford on Avon and likely to blow up at any moment.The proposal had been put forward that he should operate as an ATA pilot. I said that if we considered that he was too doubtful to be allowed to go back into the field, flying an aeroplane was the last job we should wish him to do in this country. I said that on the evidence available I did not see how anybody could possibly clear Dericourt although he might be entirely innocent. Personally, I felt that Louba and Roger were quite as suspicious if not more so. Buckmaster then said that Louba had been responsible for blowing up and seriously damaging certain factories. I asked whether he was quite sure that Louba had committed the acts of sabotage. Were they not perhaps carried out by Communists? Louba might well have cashed in on the incident in order to build himself up in the eyes of the British. I just could not believe in Colonel Heinrich and his relations with Louba and Roger. At this stage, Buckmaster said “Presumably you do not think anybody ought to go into the field at all.” I said,“Well, frankly, in 179
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
the present circumstances, I don’t.” I am sorry for Buckmaster who is obviously very overworked and harassed, and I promised to do what I could to think up some job for Dericourt. 11 March According to ARTIST, the Chief of the German General Staff, Zeitzler, has had access to TRICYCLE’s latest reports but is inclined to express doubts about their authenticity. Apparently, what is wanted is more detail. It is interesting that reports of this kind do in fact reach and are considered by the General Staff. Karl-Erich Kuhlenthal has also expressed doubts about TRICYCLE’s reports. ARTIST is suggesting that we should pass similar reports to those submitted by TRICYCLE through Kuhlenthal. This would give added authority. It seems that as a result of the enquiries being made into the Kriegsorganization in neutral countries, a compromise solution will be reached reducing the personnel of the Abwehr at the expense of the Sicherheitsdienst. There is a drastic re-organisation of the Abwehr in France and Belgium owing to invasion prospects. Brussels station is to be transferred to Wiesbaden, leaving Abt. II behind. Dijon is to be transferred to Stuttgart, Bordeaux to Cologne or Wiesbaden. The Paris Abwehrstelle is to be renamed Leitstelle Westen and to remain in situ. All Meldekoepfe are to go except the Bureau Wiegand which is to be kept open for the sake of TRICYCLE. Leitstelle Westen is to be much smaller than Leitstelle Paris and the spare personnel is to be transferred to Wiesbaden. Stations in France and Belgium will leave behind their shadow organisations. Brussels claims to have twenty-five men, Bordeaux has frankly said they have nobody, Paris had four at present, working on main sets. These are to be replaced by battery sets as soon as possible. In order to run the shadow organisation and presumably for other Abwehr duties, Abwehrtruppen are to be formed from the old Abwehrstelle.These will consist of six men in uniform attached to IC of the General Staff of the OKW.There will be two Abwehrkommandos attached to the Army Group in France. 22 March Cyril Mills is back from Canada on a visit. He seems to have got on well and to have had no further trouble with British Security Co-ordination.All his dealings in Washington DC are with Barty Bouverie, who is more than helpful. He told me that he had tipped off BSC about Lord Sempill but had received a note from Dick Ellis to the effect that Bill Stephenson knew Sempill well and thought him entirely beyond any subversive activity of any kind.This, of course, is not exactly the point. The trouble with Sempill now is that he is grossly indiscreet and has a knack of saying the wrong thing on every possible occasion. Furthermore, he is not in the western hemisphere in order to further the cause of the Knights of St Columbus, but rather to do some business deals in connection with post-war aviation. It is probably in this connection that he has become acquainted with Stephenson. 180
1944
Owing to an oversight, Denys Page has sent us a copy of a new series of messages which appears to relate to Russian espionage in Scandinavia. Enquiry shows that this series has now reached 280, and was issued to all the other recipients of ISOS and ISK with a special note from SIS that on no account was it to be shown to MI5. It seems to me that this procedure on the part of SIS is both irregular and insulting.We have a right to know precisely how the forces of RSS are being disposed. This is part of Dick White’s duties as chairman of the Radio Security Intelligence Committee.The RSIC has to assess priorities but cannot possibly do so unless it knows how the personnel and equipment of the Radio Security Service are employed. RSS is the technical tool of ourselves and SIS and not an SIS body as most people in that organisation seem to imagine. Secondly, if the messages disclose Russian espionage methods they are certainly relative to the studies of the department. Lastly, it is highly insulting to MI5 for a letter to be circulated to other departments implying that we are not the sort of people who can be trusted to handle confidential papers. 24 March Len Burt came to see me about some pornographic photographs which he had obtained for SOE who are arranging to have them dropped over the Japanese lines. They have on the back of them a statement to the effect that any Japanese surrendering with one of these photographs will be given reasonable conditions of internment. Burt wondered whether this whole scheme was approved in the highest quarters and whether if not we as an office might find ourselves in trouble. I said that I had confined myself to getting a request in writing from a responsible officer in SOE, that we as an office took no responsibility but were merely rendering SOE a service. I agreed, however, that it might be wise to put the whole question to Archie Boyle and point out that if this action had not the approval of the government departments there might be trouble.The distribution of photographs of this kind would inevitably be laid at the door of the British government and be held up against us as a breach of the Geneva Convention. I accordingly spoke to Archie Boyle. He said that he did not much like the whole proposition himself but that he was under the impression that it had the highest approval, including that of the authorities in India. He would, however, look further into the matter and let me know. GARBO’s story to the Abwehr about being blackmailed by his courier has gone down in a big way. He has received a message of hearty congratulations and his conduct is regarded as being on par with the highest gallantry in the field. TREASURE has returned. Her wireless set is coming by bag. She had got £1,200 and a diamond bracelet for £300. In addition, she has brought some excellent cigars for her notional head in the Ministry of Information.
181
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
25 March I had a long talk with Roger Hollis, who has read Jimmie Dickson’s memo on Max Knight’s section.While he feels that it contains slight indications of neurosis, there is nevertheless a fairly large substratum of truth indicating a certain lack of organisation and laxity of control in financial matters. There is also sex, which rears its ugly head in various directions. Relations between officers and members of the staff outside office hours may not directly be the concern of the department.At the same time, when the head of a section who is married is known to be living with his secretary or another member of the female staff, the general atmosphere within the section is likely to deteriorate. Roger tells me that the present discussions with Jasper Harker and Reg Horrocks are not getting very far.There seems to be a tendency to try and solve the difficulty by effecting a closer liaison between Max’s section and F Division. Roger does not think that this meets the point. He take the view that most of the people in Max’s section are not really qualified to interrogate agents intelligently since they themselves are not sufficiently au fait with the Communist and Fascist movements. He suggests that it might be an advantage if I had a talk with Horrocks after I have seen Frank Roberts on Monday. I telephoned to Peter Loxley about a TRIPLEX report which indicated that Colonel S.W. Bailey had been talking to a Yugoslav official in Cairo and had expressed the view that the Chetniks were far superior people to the Partisans.This is as may be, but probably Bailey, who would not have access to ISOS material, is in ignorance of details relating to Mihailovic’s collaboration with the Germans. I gather that Bill Bailey will not be returning to Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, Lukacevic is being sent back at Mihailovic’s request in order to facilitate the exit of twenty or thirty British liaison officers who are present at Mihailovic’s headquarters.There is not doubt that the Yugoslav situation is in a thorough mess. There is evidence to show that the traffic supplied for deception purposes by Dudley Clarke to TRICYCLE has been sent on to the Balkans. We intend to carry out another Plan DREAM directly with Garcia Armas, eliminating Leonardo Munoz as the intermediary. Pesetas will be paid over directly to Armas’s brother when he visits Madrid from San Sebastian. By arrangement with the French, FIDO is to be posted to Algiers and subsequently to West Africa. In this way it is hoped to keep him out of FATHER’s way.We planned for the delivery of a new wireless set for BRUTUS by parachute. This plan has now been abandoned by the Germans but instead they are promising to make two deliveries at a hotel in London. It is feared that this may be effected by TRICYCLE, although the latter will be instructed to refuse on the grounds that he does not want to be tied up with another agent. 27 March TRICYCLE, who is at present in Lisbon with his brother, is playing for very high stakes. He is telling the Abwehr that he will not go on working for them unless he gets a guarantee regarding his post-war future. I suppose he wants them to deposit
182
1944
a large sum in a neutral country. Lisbon are backing him but Berlin is clearly a bit worried. 28 March I had a talk with Reg Horrocks about Max Knight’s section. I had previously talked last night with Roberts. I said that my general impression was that Jimmie Dickson was perhaps a little too neurotic, but at the same time there was a good deal in what he said. The atmosphere in Max Knight’s section is certainly deplorable, both from the sex point of view and organisationally. I told Horrocks that in my view it was rather difficult if a married man, head of section, was known to his staff to have formerly lived with one of the secretaries and now be living with another. Horrocks entirely agreed. He said that the facts were known to Harker but that his sole efforts were concentrated on shielding Max.As regards the organisation, I told Horrocks my views as to what this should be on the assumption that all the personnel were thoroughly desirable. At the moment I thought Max was an unsuitable head, [three lines deleted] that the appearance of Richard Darwall whom I didn’t know personally did not inspire confidence, that Bill Younger was a nice chap and I should say quite straight, and that Jack Bingham was probably able and generally speaking all right. I had a high opinion of Roberts. Dickson I felt under better conditions would be all right. He was certainly hardworking, keen and conscientious. He had moreover done very good work with the agency. Horrocks and Roger Hollis are meeting Harker on Sunday but Horrocks does not think that they are likely to make much progress.The trouble is that if I take up the whole thing with Harker he will probably discuss it with Max. Horrocks thought that as far as Dickson was concerned, I might suggest that in future he should work direct to Anthony Blunt, and give as my reason that his present relations with Max were not condusive to good work. 29 March I saw Tommy Lascelles the night before last. He told me that Joe Stalin is being extremely troublesome and has recently sent two very rude telegrams to the Prime Minister on the subject of Poland.This is rather a setback as it was thought that his manners had been improving lately. The Prime Minister is, however, said to have remarked that his belly was already red from crawling to old Joe.The question of paramount importance is that no possible excuse should be given to the Russians for making separate peace. There is no special reason for thinking that they have intentions in that direction, but there is always a lingering fear. Personally, I am inclined to doubt whether crawling to old Joe will ever do us much good but the question is obviously a very difficult and delicate one.
183
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
31 March I discussed the leakage case at Ankara with C. I asked what had happened and C. said that all that Johnnie Dashwood had succeeded in discovering was that the ambassador was extremely lax in his ways. He took documents home, etcetera. It seemed likely that the papers had either been looked at in the train between Cairo and Ankara or that someone had a key to the ambassador’s box. Nothing definite, however, had been discovered. I took the opportunity of saying how ridiculous it was to send out people like Dashwood to conduct enquiries of this kind. Functionally, it was obviously a matter for MI5. Had we been asked, we should have sent a team of two or three, one person with knowledge of secret sources, another accustomed to dealing with leakage. I pointed out that we literally had hundreds of cases which we were investigating daily. Lastly, probably Len Burt or one of his men.We might then possibly have discovered the culprit.The probability was that the leakage had been taking place ever since the subject was open two years ago and we were still no further. C. entirely agreed about this and said that he would speak to Peter Loxley, but that he realised, as I had, that Will Codrington was the real snag. 16 April TRICYCLE has returned and appears to have the full confidence of the Germans. ARTIST has made it clear that he knows all about the GARBO set-up and believes it to be a blind. He talks to us now on the assumption that the whole of Karl-Erich Kuhlenthal’s organisation is under our control. Meanwhile,ARTIST himself appears to be under a cloud as far as his own people are concerned.They think that he is being too inquisitive, particularly about the OSTRO organisation.The Germans are doing their best to isolate him from information of this kind.Whether this is due to jealousy or suspicion is not clear. It may be that they are nervous about his discovering that OSTRO’s set-up is largely notional... LIPSTICK has been liquidated, as it was felt that the Germans might believe him to be under control owing to his active connection with the Catalan movement which owing to LIPSTICK’s indiscretions may well have come to their notice. During my absence there have been various wireless tests. GARBO, on instructions from the Germans, has been communicating in British Army procedure. He was picked up after a certain time and after a hint had been given to Radio Security Service. He was, however, also picked up in Gibraltar, who notified the RSS about certain peculiarities in the signals. This is on the whole fairly satisfactory. TREASURE is going to start communicating blind and we shall see whether they are equally successful in her case. Tests have also been taking place to see whether spies can move freely within the fifteen-mile belt. One has been caught, but another, whose documents were by no means good, has succeeded in getting through seven or eight controls and has so far not been spotted.
184
1944
20 April I had a talk with C. about the possibility of the Swedes having an illicit wireless set. I told him that Cervell had remarked that while the restrictions were irksome there was a way round.There had also been a report of a mysterious box in the Swedish Embassy.The situation was being watched by mobile units, but I wanted to be clear precisely what action we could take if a transmitter came up, without damaging C.’s interests. He said that he would be seriously concerned if the Swedes took away his set in Stockholm, although it was at present only being used for reception and not for transmitting. He suggested that I should have a talk with Peter Loxley and see whether the Foreign Office could find suitable grounds on which to argue. 21 April I went to a meeting at the Foreign Office with the Director-General, at which Sir Alexander Cadogan, Findlater Stewart, Desmond Morton, Frank Newsam, Peter Loxley and Eyre Crowe were present.This meeting had been called to consider certain cases of diplomats who either wanted to come in or go out and were prevented by the ban. It was decided generally that we ought to take a strong line. Otherwise we should be overwhelmed with applications.The most difficult cases were those of the Portuguese ambassador who was to return to this country from Lisbon, and the Prime Minister of Luxemburg who wanted to come back from the United States. The principal reason for stopping the movements of diplomats was that they would possibly be able to fix up some sort of code for communication.This, of course, in theory would very much apply to the Portuguese Ambassador. In fact, however, no one thought that he would be a party to any such arrangements. On the other hand if he were allowed to proceed it might create a dangerous precedent.The same feelings existed regarding the Prime Minister of Luxemburg. It was eventually decided to refer these two cases to the Prime Minister. Three Norwegians, including the Defence Minister, wished to go back to Stockholm to continue their activities in the underground movement in Norway. It seemed that they constituted a serious danger but nobody knew quite how they got here or whether they were under SIS or SOE control. It was decided that this matter should be further gone into. The other cases were turned down. They included new ambassadors passing between here and Moscow and here and the United States. A difficult one was Harold Macmillian’s wife. Macmillan had telegraphed to her through the Foreign Office telling her to come out as soon as possible and to get the Foreign Office to make all the necessary arrangements. Everyone felt that if she would deny herself this privilege it would provide both the Foreign Office and Frank Newsam’s committee with an excellent argument if they could say that the wife of a Cabinet Minister had been refused an exit permit from this country, and that therefore ambassadors and others should not feel aggrieved if they receive similar treatment. I suggested that she might be approached on these lines. It was eventually decided to refer this case to Sir Edward Bridges.
185
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
22 April Kim Philby came to see me in the afternoon about a Belgian who had been arrested and condemned to death by the Germans for assisting at the escape of some three hundred Allied airmen. He wanted to know if there was any possibility of an exchange.This is, of course, an old question.The only kind of exchange that would be likely to appeal to the Germans would be the release of a German subject who was under sentence of death. We have no Germans in this category. Nearly all our prisoners are neutrals. Secondly, if we try and effect an exchange with an Allied national whose country is occupied by the Germans it merely encourages the Germans to arrest others with the idea of using them as a quid pro quo to get their spies here released or at least their names disclosed. It seemed, however, just possible that the Germans might be prepared to accept one of their own generals like Cruwell. They would not be of much use to the enemy at this stage and most of them are hotly anti-Nazi and some of them are even pro-British. All of them are fairly disillusioned. Kim will probably explore this avenue. I said that I thought there was some advantage in starting communications through the Protecting Power, since once negotiations were opened the carrying out of the sentence of death would probably be suspended. It might in the end be possible to tide over the negotiations till the re-occupation of the continent. 26 April GARBO has received a message intimating that someone will make contact with him for the purpose of using his wireless to send 17 single group messages. This looks as if this man was intended to report on the date and target of OVERLORD. It is extremely important as it may give us a first-class opportunity of deceiving the enemy on a big scale. It is possible that this man may be one Pedro who is, according to ISOS, to arrive here about 29 April. Colonel Sclater reported that the wireless sets of the two Irish parachutists, O’Reilly and Kenny, who were dropped in Ireland some time ago, are of a very high grade.The voltages were not, however, suitable for either this country or Eire, but were suitable for the United States. Equally, this applied to the crystals. I think this is, therefore, one more example of Sichersheitsdienst inefficiency unless it was intended that the agents were ultimately to proceed to the United States. Joseph Vanhove is to be put up for trial. Pierre Neukermans, who is on trial, is pleading insanity.They are putting a witness for the prosecution, a doctor Edward Hinchley-Cooke is getting hold of. J.C. Masterman came to talk about Hans Ruser who is very anxious that something should appear in the press to indicate that he was caught by the British while attempting to get away from the persecution of the Gestapo to the Argentine. I said that first it would be necessary to ascertain how he could have come into British hands on his way from Spain to the Argentine and secondly that it would be better if his story appeared under an American dateline and was
186
1944
copied over here. Ruser thinks that if such a story were made public it would help him after the armistice. We gave a dinner to TRICYCLE which the Director-General,T.A. Robertson, John Marriott, Ian Wilson, Frank Foley, Martin Lloyd, Dick Butler and I attended. The dinner was, I think, a great success.The D-G made a short speech to which TRICYCLE replied.TRICYCLE was full of praise for Wilson for whom he clearly has the greatest respect. I think he realises that if Wilson had not been at his side coaching him he could never have achieved the position that he has now reached. He told me also that Wilson had made a very good impression on ARTIST and that further, if he could find time to go over to Lisbon it would, undoubtedly, give ARTIST very great encouragement. He spoke in a very moving way about his brother whom he had met in Lisbon. His brother has, of course, been leading the Germans up the garden in Belgrade for the last four years. It was unknown to TRICYCLE that the cigars smoked at the dinner were kindly provided by Dr Emile Kliemann of Ast. Paris.These cigars were given to TREASURE for her notional boss in the Ministry of Information. 27 April The Paris controls of TATE, BRUTUS,TREASURE and FREAK have now moved back to Hamburg. This confirms other reports that we have had from ARTIST that the French stations of the Abwehr were moving back to Hamburg and Wiesbaden. 28 April It is now quite clear that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who has been head of the Abwehr since 1936 at least, has been virtually dismissed from his post. This is thought to be due partly to the inefficiency of the Abwehr and partly to the political unreliability of some of its members, who had recently deserted. Himmler took advantage of the situation to discredit Canaris by implicating him in a scandal concerning the irregular use of Abwehr funds.The situation was aggravated by Abwehr activities on neutral territory which had caused protests and got the German Foreign Office into trouble.There followed a general review of Abwehr personnel in neutral countries. The present position is not altogether clear but it seems that some time during the middle of March the following agreement was reached between the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst. Hansen will remain head of Abt. I and has taken over the direction of all three sections.The SD is to receive copies of all Abwehr reports.The names of all Abwehr agents are to be communicated to the SD. No one is to be sent abroad without the SD’s permission. Ernst Kaltenbrunner is the administrative head, but Colonel Hansen is said to have the right of appeal to Himmler. I hear that an envelope containing important extracts from ISOS which goes to the Controller of Deception from the Radio Security Service was inadvertently handed to the Poles by the messenger.The Poles also receive communications from RSS.The Poles opened the envelope and returned it saying they though it must be 187
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
intended for someone else. This incident has caused a considerable flutter in the ISOS dovecots. 29 April Further messages have been received this week, indicating that the Germans are receiving TREASURE’s messages. Both sets are still sending blind, but we are trying to get the other side to acknowledge TREASURE’s transmissions by giving OK at the end.This will save repetition and should speed things up. The MULLET and PUPPET case is still going on. HAMLET has received a payment from Werner in Madrid. There has been a slight hitch in the latest Plan DREAM. Although the enemy said that the fruit merchant’s brother was not staying in the hotel in Madrid, a telegram was received by the fruit merchant in London saying that he was. A further request was made to the enemy to pay over the pesetas. Although they say that this has been done, the fruit merchant in London has not yet received a confirmatory telegram from his brother which we are awaiting before we can take possession of the sterling deposited with Dick Butler’s firm. A further deal is to be carried out for 200,000 pesetas plus a promissory note for the balance which will be paid over on the deal after this one. ISOS indicates that the Germans remain entirely satisfied with TRICYCLE. ARTIST’s position continues to be somewhat involved as his so-called friend Brandes continues to report on him to the Abwehr and the Gestapo, who are investigating his finances. JOSEF’s courier returned from Lisbon. He had been interviewed and a written report is on the way. His meeting with the Japanese was satisfactory.They paid him £40, confirmed the accuracy of an earlier report, and gave a new address in Lisbon to which traffic could be sent. The Radio Security Service has carried out an extensive test to discover the GARBO transmitter.The report on this exercise is very distressing.The GARBO camouflage plan commenced on 13 March but the Mobile Units were not told to commence their investigations till 14 April. From 13 March to 14 April GARBO’s transmitter was on the air (and the operator was listening) for a total of twentynine hours, an average of one hour per day. On 14 April the Mobile Units were brought into action and they reported that the GARBO transmitter operated for four hours between 14 and 19 April inclusive. In fact, it operated for over six and a half hours, and it would seem that the second frequency of the transmitter was not recorded at all. On 15 April, GARBO transmitted for two whole hours.This incident shakes my confidence completely in the power of RSS of detecting illicit wireless either in this country or anywhere else. It is disturbing since the impression was given to Findlater Stewart’s Committee and subsequently to the Cabinet that no illicit transmissions were likely to be undetected for long. Clearly, this is not the case.
188
1944
2 May I spoke to Leonard Ingrams about the security of Political Warfare Executive broadcasting. I said that this matter might be raised by the Findlater Stewart committee on OVERLORD and to save himself trouble he might like to have a statement on the security aspect made by Sefton Delmer and sent to me. He promised to do this and said it would be difficult for anything to happen as all or most of the programmes were recorded. Unless, therefore, there was a special code, there was no real danger. Some of Delmer’s employees are certainly a bit odd. He has a good many rabid Communists who should not, however, constitute a danger where action against the Germans is contemplated, but he also has people like COLUMBINE and HARLEQUIN. ARTIST has been given the Kriegsverdienst Kreuz. TRICYCLE’s latest reports have been treated very favourably in Berlin. 4 May I met Sir John Dashwood at the Club last night. I asked him to give me an account of his visit to Ankara, to investigate the leakage of our Balkan plans, the cover names of which had appeared on ISOS. He said that the ambassador has travelled with members of the Turkish government from Ankara to Adana, and that during the period of three hours while they had lunch their private baggage and papers had been left in a compartment. It would have been possible for these to have been opened. It would equally have been possible for the documents to have been taken or seen in the ambassador’s house which is staffed by Turks, Yugoslavs, etcetera, etcetera.There were many sinister occurrences in the house while he was there. On one occasion he was sitting in the ambassador’s sitting room when he heard a very faint knock on the outer door. He made no response. He then heard the door open and the inner door very carefully pushed open. Finally the valet appeared, who was a Yugoslav. When asked what he wanted he could only reply that he thought Dashwood had left. The possibility of the place being miked was gone into but nothing was found. I gather that [XXXXX] or two of his experts have been there. [XXXXXXXXXXX].What is apparent, however, is that the house could be burgled by anybody from inside or outside. Instructions are being issued that in future the ambassador must study his papers at the chancellery.There was an almost total lack of security at Ankara, and this state of affairs must have existed practically during the whole war, even though it was known two years ago that the ambassador’s safe had been opened. So much for Will Codrington’s organisation. 6 May I am rather worried by discovering that the Vermehrens are in the country under SIS control. It seems to me that they should only have control over people who are to be used by them as accredited agents. If an enemy alien is to be brought here
189
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
solely for the purposes of his being pumped for information he should, I think, as in the case of Hans Ruser, be under our control. There is first of all the security aspect and secondly the possibility that the man may get into difficulties. The Vermehrens are housed in Hampstead but I have no idea under what restrictions. Erich Vermehren was an Abwehr officer in Istanbul who was persuaded by Nicholas Elliott to defect to the British. He was taken to Egypt with his wife, and then brought to England. Gilbert Lennox also told me about his plan for sending Monty’s double to Gibraltar and Algiers prior to D-Day.The man selected is a lieutenant in the Pay Corps, whose features are undoubtedly very similar to those of Monty. The cover-story to the man himself is that Monty will be going away to some other theatre at some future date and that it is desirable to disguise the fact by having his double, who will be required to play a certain part in this country and give the impression that Monty is still here. This story has been given both to the double and to the head of the Pay Corps but no one else. In actual fact, it is the double who will be sent out of the country prior to D-Day and whose presence in Gibraltar and Algiers we shall endeavour to make known to the Germans, through arrangements which are being made by Dudley Clarke.The double will arrive at Gibraltar in Monty’s plane, his crew being briefed at the last moment. He will then lunch with the Governor and then go on to Algiers where he will be suitably received.The Governor’s servants will be told that “General S. Smith” is coming to lunch. This is just the sort of plan which might conceivably come off, like MINCEMEAT, although the odds are heavily against it producing any real results. In any case, it cannot do any harm. Monty is rather flattered by the whole plan which, of course, is based on the theory that the Second Front cannot possibly start without him.The double is to be paid a normal rate except during the period he is impersonating Monty, when he will be paid as Monty is paid, i.e. £10 a day. The Sicherheitsdienst in Lisbon are very worried about the disappearance of ARTIST. He may have been lured into France against his will by the Abwehr.The SD are worried because they have been employing ARTIST and fear that if this comes out there will be a row. The whole situation is rather worrying as TRICYCLE’s value depends almost entirely on ARTIST being kept in position. It may be that the enquiries about ARTIST are due to his various speculations in currency which have come to the notice of the authorities. Felipe has just given a description of his V-man 305. He says that he is an officer in the Portuguese navy, over thirty-five, who has always refused to make direct contact in spite of tempting offers. He is controlled through V-man 217 in Lisbon. He gives his reports orally every two or three months when his ships visits Lisbon, and collects his information from various friends in ports in southern England. He had been reporting since 1939 and has on occasions received favourable comments from Berlin. The fact that personal contact cannot be made and the bona fides of his various sub-agents cannot be assessed, more than ever confirms 305 is entirely bogus, since there is quite clearly no method by which Berlin can get a 190
1944
real check on him except through weighing up his reports against information received from other quarters. 7 May J.C. Masterman tells me that the Germans have taken ARTIST off to Berlin.We do not know the nature of the enquiry but there are indications on ISOS that someone is being deputed to take over the TRICYCLE case. It may be that the enquiries relate solely to ARTIST’s financial transactions on the exchange.TRICYCLE has been told that all is not well with ARTIST who has disappeared from his home in Lisbon. 8 May C. then talked about an extraordinary incident which had occurred in Italy. An OSS man named Pilatti arranged for a party consisting of Princess Pignatelli, who had been working for the Allied Military Government, and others to pass through the lines in a Red Cross van and proceed to Rome. How this could actually happen is a mystery. I believe, however, that ISOS shows that she did in fact go through and divulged a considerable amount of information to the Germans. Her husband has apparently been acting as a spy behind our lines.While in Rome the Princess brought back Pimbino’s wife. It looks, therefore, as if she can impose a plan on Pimbino to bring his wife to safety as a cover for communicating information obtained by her husband. She has, I believe, given the approximate date of our next attack, which is not altogether accurate. Two lots of two spies have arrived in Iceland from Norway.This is perhaps due to the Germans’ interest in an attack on Norway, which has been part of the cover plan for some time. I believe, too, that they have recently sent another division there, making a total of thirteen divisions. 10 May Anthony Blunt told me that Tommy Harris was extremely worried about the ARTIST situation. He had a strong feeling that TRICYCLE should be liquidated. He thinks that this would have the effect of preventing the Germans from investigating GARBO. He is afraid, firstly that ARTIST will under pressure say that he thinks that the Felipe organisation is controlled. He also thinks that if comparison is made of the traffic of TRICYCLE and GARBO it will be seen that they both point in the same direction. He feels, therefore, that if the Germans know that TRICYCLE is controlled they will more than probably think that GARBO is controlled. Personally, I do not share his apprehension a bit. I intend to talk the whole thing over with T.A. Robertson and J.C. Masterman. At the first weekly meeting Miss Clay said that for the first time the training and instructions of Sicherheitsdienst saboteurs had included murder.The two SD saboteurs who had been captured at Anzio had said that one of their assignments was to 191
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
murder General Alexander and General Mark Clark. They were in possession of low-level photographs of a house which was said to be the headquarters of the two generals.Which, in fact, it was not. Blanshard Stamp said that Knut Brodersen, who had arrived yesterday, was now at Camp 020. He had confessed that he was a German agent. He had a two-way communication method, secret ink for outgoing letters, and a plain language code for incoming messages which would come over on the Norwegian radio station. It is possible that he may be of some use to B1(a). Herbert Hart gave the results of the recent exercises in the regions, when notional spies were set to work and the police given a warning after three hours. The “spies” were disguised in a variety of ways, both military (Allied and British) and civilians.The only ones who were not caught in a very short time were those disguised in American military uniform. All the spies were provided with faked documents and papers, many of them with quite obvious mistakes in them, but those carried by the “Americans” were passed even by the American military police. Brock said that Nellie Kapp, the secretary from the German legation at Ankara, was being questioned. GC&CS considered that her knowledge of codes and ciphers would be of great value to them.As she had only been in the post for about five months, however, her general knowledge would not probably be of much value on the whole. It appears that she was educated in the UK and in America, had lived for some time in India and had spent very little of her life in Germany. Her father was in the German Consular Service. Brock said that the Kriegsorganization in Turkey was being strongly reinforced. Nellie Kapp was an SD secretary who was persuaded to defect by her pre-war American lover. I had a long discussion with T.A. Robertson, J.C. Masterman, and Tommy Harris on the situation that has arisen owing to the removal by the Abwehr of ARTIST to Berlin for detention.Tommy is still extremely apprehensive and I think a little too inclined to imagine that the Bosche will think as we think. I am personally against any departure from the policy which has been very ably argued by J.C. Masterman. He recommends (a) that we continue to run TRICYCLE traffic in the same style as before and with as little change as possible, but that no cover for the deception should be put over on it, (b) that the other agents continue for the time being exactly as at present, (c) if we get information that the situation has deteriorated the agents should be used to fill the German mind with confusion instead of passing over a complete cover plan, and (d) that if and only if the blowing of TRICYCLE and GARBO is certain, we close down all agents shortly before D-Day and deny all information to the enemy. Tommy’s grounds for thinking that GARBO may be compromised are rather that we know that ARTIST thinks that all Felipe’s V-men in this country are under our control. He reported these facts to us and did not for obvious reasons get a very strong reaction. We took the line that he should not endanger his position by poking his nose too much into other people’s affairs, and that the probability was that most of Felipe’s V-men were figments of Felipe’s 192
1944
imagination and therefore not worth bothering about. It is doubtful, however, whether ARTIST has accepted this view since he has continued in his conversations to assume that Felipe’s V-men are under our control. He cannot be certain about this, but may express this view to the Germans under duress. The other reason is that if the Germans make a comparison of TRICYCLE’s and GARBO’s traffic they will see that they both point in the same direction.We are having a comparative table made out because we are on the whole rather doubtful whether this deduction could be made. In any case, if you do get a particular regiment or headquarters pinpointed by both of them, it does not necessarily mean that if the Germans know one of them is controlled they will assume that the other is also, particularly since the information given by TRICYCLE has been picked up by wireless intelligence. Tommy thinks that if the Germans review all our traffic over the last few months as we have done recently by an officer with an entirely fresh mind, they will come to the same conclusions as he has.This may or may not be so. Somebody else, reading the traffic, might place much more emphasis on one thing than another.Whichever way you look at this case it is full of imponderables and my feeling is that it would be a mistake to move at this moment in any direction.We ought to get some reaction as regards ARTIST’s fate from watching any communications to Belgrade by TRICYCLE’s brother. We should also get some reaction if Berlin started enquiring into the affairs of GARBO’s organisation from Madrid. I feel certain that if we were to close down TRICYCLE at this stage it would be just as likely, if not more likely, to call GARBO into question than otherwise. There is the additional factor that such action would undoubtedly put ARTIST completely in the cart and seriously jeopardise TRICYCLE’s brother.While I think the odds are much in favour of the Germans eventually coming to the conclusion that TRICYCLE has been controlled, I was not in favour of giving them any assistance in coming to this conclusion. It may well take them some time and get us over the critical period. 12 May GARBO has received a message asking him to pinpoint the Second Front headquarters. It is not thought that this can be for the purpose of bombing and it is more likely that some airborne operation is contemplated.This view is somewhat reinforced by the statement of a French woman named Androyes who has recently come through the London Reception Centre. She reports that she saw an airborne division near Troyes and that she overheard someone saying that these troops were to be used for sabotage purposes at the time of our invasion.The fact that an airborne division has been moved into the area is confirmed by MSS.We are getting out a paper for the JIC who dealt with sabotage some time ago in a rather light-hearted way.We took exception to the paper they produced as being somewhat misleading but they refused to accept our amendments. Some six months ago there was a paper by the Chiefs of Staff rather writing off anything in the nature of airborne or seaborne raids. I very much doubt whether if 250 parachutists came down in Hyde Park or Bushey Park there would be any troops there to deal with such a situation. 193
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
Leonard Ingrams rang me up about Schrader, a Dutchman who came out of Holland last October. This man has drifted into the Political Intelligence Department and, according to Prince Bernhardt, is making a certain amount of mischief by telling the Dutch government that the British government is trying to intrigue against certain Dutch officers in this country. Prince Bernhard never liked the man and evidently regards him with some suspicion. I promised to get the records and let Ingrams know. I recall the case vaguely and I think that we had considerable doubts about Schrader ourselves. 13 May We have put in our paper on the possibility of Brandenburg regiment raids from now onwards. I hear that according to MSS, a battalion of Brandenburg regiment has been moved up to the vicinity of Paris. This is the additional evidence of the woman Androyes and the questionnaire received by GARBO. Brooke-Booth talked to me about Schrader, whose case was gone into very carefully at the London Reception Centre. He was one of the people who caused us considerable anxiety. It seemed, however, that he had been instrumental in effecting the escape of a very large number of people and there was nothing which could be proved to his detriment. Brook-Booth tells me that he was approached the other day about this man by Superintendent Francois van t’Sant. Schrader, apparently, sees SIS and SOE agents before they go into the field and gives them notes or instructions. He tells van t’Sant about them and sometimes the Queen avails herself of the services of these agents to send a letter. All this sounds eminently undesirable even if Schrader, himself, is perfectly all right. There is no further positive news about ARTIST except that the Sicherheitsdienst being charged with having relations with him are going to say that they did so in order to assess his reliability.They did, in fact, establish relations in order to get his information, which they considered valuable. A suggestion has been made by the Director of Military Intelligence to start a Free German Movement under General von Thoma and if possible other officer prisoners of war.There does not seem to be much chance of this movement linking up with the civilian Free German Movement in this country which is very much at sixes and sevens, except for the Communist group. Von Thoma clearly would not co-operate with the Communists. He might, however, be ready to start a movement on his own, but I doubt whether he would do so except on the understanding that he and his cast would have some place in the sun after the Armistice. He will, undoubtedly expect this, unless the position is made quite clear at the outset that he is only being used as a disintegrating force to get rid of the Nazis.The whole question would seem to be a matter for discussion on the highest level since if there is any suggestion that favours are going to be granted to high officials in the German Army, the whole of the Left Wing, the Vansittartists and probably the whole of the population here, will rise up in anger.
194
1944
15 May There is evidence in ISOS that we may expect quite shortly the arrival of a parachute agent who will be bringing a wireless set and Leica camera in addition to funds for BRUTUS.The present arrangement is that these goods will be delivered at the Connaught Hotel for a Monsieur Lefevre.The difficulty is that the hotel will refuse to accept them because Monsieur Lefevre is not registered as living there and because hotel keepers, at this moment, are particularly reluctant to accept packages for people they do not know in view of various black market transactions. Unfortunately, we cannot approach the hotel management as the owner is a German, or of German extraction, and regarded as slightly suspect. However, we shall probably get more precise details through BRUTUS in due course. Meanwhile, Fighter Command has been told to be specially on their toes. I saw Tommy Lascelles last night. He told me that the Prime Minister had backed up General Eisenhower’s wire to Washington DC about disclosing the target and approximate date of future operations to General Koenig. The President replied giving his agreement to this and, I think, also to General de Gaulle being told. I mentioned to Tommy the rather naïve idea about these sort of things being told to one person. In a matter of this sort where the underground movements were concerned, obviously many more would have to be informed. The Prime Minister seemed to be under a similar delusion, particularly where people gave their word of honour. He did not seem to realise that in doing so to one person, it meant accepting the word of honour of at least a hundred. A report has now been received about HAMLET’s meeting with Werner in Madrid.Approximately £1,390 was paid back to HAMLET in escudo notes.Werner then borrowed £250 back. According to HAMLET, PUPPET is trusted, though his difficulties continue. A new questionnaire has come in as a result of this meeting. Werner is interested particularly as letters can be and have been transmitted by the Ministry of Supply bag. The fruit merchant in London has received confirmation that his brother has received 250,000 pesetas and has now handed over to us the deposit note for the sterling left with Dick Butler’s firm. GARBO has thus gained £2,952.A further deal for a quarter of a million pesetas was postponed until 9 May and sterling has been deposited with Butler’s firm. TREASURE is being controlled from Wiesbaden. For the first time on 10 May two-way contact was established with the German transmitter.The Germans have evidently found that sending blind is unsatisfactory and have now adopted the normal method of working. PEACH has signed off his ship and is now ashore in the pool at Cardiff. He will remain there at least a month to see whether the Japanese make any payment through the Carmen Ferandes bank as they agreed to do and also to see whether they send anyone to get in touch with him. The further transaction under Plan DREAM has now gone through and we have received £3,027.
195
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
16 May T.A. Robertson tells me that an MSS appreciation up to 7 May shows that from wireless intelligence the enemy have a very good idea of the disposition of our forces and of our objective.The whole picture is built up from a number of details. Agents reports do not appear to play a very big part.These are the views of General von Rundstedt, on which he bases his demands for units to deal with the situation. It is not possible to say how far the OKW accept his appreciation or how far, if they differ, they would be able to impose their views. I cannot help feeling that the enemy, as in the case of ourselves, are more likely to rely upon Y information and wireless intelligence than on anything they may receive from other sources, when formulating their plans.All that agents can really do is to fill in the picture. I had a discussion with T.A. Robertson, J.C. Masterman, Hugh Astor and Blanshard Stamp about the case of FIDO. I went over the ground very carefully. I rather dismissed the evidence of Bothereau who is under arrest in North Africa, which did not seem to me to have much significance. Bothereau met FIDO originally at the training centre and later outside Montet’s office. On that occasion, according to FIDO, Bothereau asked him to come and see him at the Hotel Avia. FIDO went but found that Bothereau had gone. Montet, seeing the two men were acquainted with one another, was rather concerned but told FIDO that Bothereau had done several jobs for him. Bothereau’s account is that FIDO told him that he had just got a job which would take him either to England, the United States, or North Africa. FIDO never mentioned this in his statement.This would, however, be quite a natural thing for him to say if he had been informed by Montet that Bothereau was in the game. I then discussed the statement in FIDO’s letter to his parents that he hoped that they had been getting his parcels. I rather wondered what these parcels were. Are parcels which are sent as from a postbox in Lisbon like letters also subject to censorship? Another point was the weakness of FIDO’s cover story. Was it possible that the Germans had never bothered much about it as they really intended FIDO to plant himself on us and then double-cross us? These are other points which should be weighed against the general impression created by FIDO and the fact that he is now engaged to an English girl. In general, there seems to be some element of doubt about the case although the odds are that even if FIDO had intended to carry out his assignment, he gave up the project before he made his statement at the London Reception Centre. It seemed impossible to send him either to North or West Africa, Russia, or Canada. It was, therefore, for consideration with Wing Commander Chaney how he could best be disposed of during the next month or so. The point to be aimed at was to ensure that in so far as it might be humanly possible he did not get into a plane and fly it back to occupied territory. It was further necessary to ensure that he got no access to operational information of any kind and that he was as far away from the zone of operations as possible.
196
1944
17 May GARBO will receive a special questionnaire of a very delicate kind. Its nature has not so far been disclosed. The answers are to be given a special prefix which will give them priority in their re-transmission to Abwehrkommando Arras. It seems not unlikely that these messages may be connected with commando raids against headquarters and other vulnerable points in this country. I lunched with Leonard Ingrams and Sefton Delmer, primarily to discuss the security arrangements with regard to Delmer’s “black senders”. On the whole, I think, the situation is fairly satisfactory. His prisoner of war personnel are under guard and do not leave the premises without escort. Other personnel like Padgham, Zech, etcetera, have a greater measure of liberty and on occasion do come up to London. His refugee personnel are mostly left-wing.They get the customary holiday of two days a fortnight. It is not thought that any of them would be the least likely to attempt to give away operations in the remote possibility that they could have gleaned anything about them. There were all domiciled down at Woburn Abbey. The Marinedienst, Soldatendienst and Luftwaffedienst are all recorded programmes. Certain news items, however, come straight over the air from a script which has been censored.There is, also, a monitor with a switch who can cut off on the slightest sign of anything going wrong. For his sources of information Delmer draws on foreign broadcasts and press, CX reports and information from the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and on CSDIC reports. He never uses an CX report without permission but has a certain latitude as regards CSDIC reports. He sees nothing in the Top Secret category. I have seen the MSS reports on the enemy’s appreciation of our invasion intentions. It does not seem to me to be quite so bad as T.A. Robertson described it. On the other hand, wireless intelligence has given away a certain amount in relation to the exercise FABIUS and has set the Germans thinking as to whether we are likely to attack at high or low tide, when the obstacles which they have placed all along the coast will be more easily dealt with. Abwehr reports feature in all these summaries and have produced a plethora of dates of forthcoming operations. This apparently refers to OSTRO and the like since we have not so far committed ourselves in any way.We have merely reported factually and left the Germans to draw their own deductions. GARBO, for example, gave considerable details about the preparations going on immediately prior to FABIUS. This all pointed towards an invasion operation. GARBO’s other contact in the Ministry of Information, however, simultaneously reported that this exercise was not the real thing. He had, therefore, given a raspberry to his agent on the south coast. The Germans came back in some anxiety saying that he should reprimand his agent who after all had reported quite correctly what he saw, since if and when invasion really came he might not report the facts at all.This was, of course, precisely what GARBO wanted them to say.They have warned GARBO against possible deception in the Ministry of Information, but he has shown that on the occasion of FABIUS his MoI informant was quite accurate. The stock of his two agents, therefore, should be high.
197
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
They have given information which at first appeared conflicting and both have been shown to be right. MSS, however, shows that very large numbers of the male population between the ages of fifteen and sixty have been evacuated from the coast in Belgium, Holland and France. This is a useful piece of information for those who will have to deal with the refugees but would not normally have reached us. 18 May J.C. Masterman came to talk to me about TRICYCLE. A message from General Draza Mihailovic from his Director of Military Intelligence has been intercepted and deciphered by the Germans locally. Its contents have been sent on with a high priority to Colonel Hansen in Berlin.The gist of the message is that FREAK, who is TRICYCLE’s wireless operator, here, is working for the Germans. Similar information has reached SOE through Mihailovic.This gives us an opportunity of closing down TRICYCLE’s transmitter, at any rate temporarily, and may possibly assist ARTIST. The Germans might quite naturally think that Mihailovic had passed the information on to us or even that we had picked it out of the air and deciphered it while being transmitted by Mihailovic to his DMI. Our natural reaction would be to get on to FREAK and for him owing to his anxiety to close down further transmission.TRICYCLE will write a letter which the Germans will not get for some six weeks telling them that there has been trouble for FREAK and that for that reason he felt bound to stop communicating. If we see from the traffic that ARTIST is once more on a good wicket we can go on the air again and explain the trouble by wireless, stating that the difficulties have been got over and that FREAK has come successfully through his interrogation. This arrangement, of course, will be very acceptable to Tommy Harris, who is anxious to dissociate GARBO from TRICYCLE’s affairs. He felt during the previous discussions that this could only be done by closing down TRICYCLE’s transmitter. This would not have been desirable at the time since it would not only have compromised ARTIST and TRICYCLE but probably also TRICYCLE’s brother.The FREAK incident gives us a let-out.We shall not suffer from the point of view of deception because TRICYCLE is merely reporting factually and giving no pointers as regards invasion. 19 May The ciphers used by BRUTUS and TREASURE have enabled GC&CS to break another extremely important group. I spent a good deal of the morning going into the significance of the recent indications that GARBO is to receive certain questions, the answer to which are to be despatched by special priority to Berlin and the Abwehrkommando in Arras. I spoke to Brooks in Melland’s section in order to find out what the significance of Arras was. It seems that there is a direct link from Arras with Corps 65 of the Abv. Brandenburg regiment. Apart from this there is no very satisfactory explanation as 198
1944
to why Ast. Arras has been established.There is also information dated 24 April to the effect that the Japanese military attaché reported to his government that 65 Army (believed to be Corps) is Hitler’s anti-invasion unit. The JIC paper on the subject of possible commando raids here is a little inclined to write off the possibility. It is, however, difficult to explain precisely why the Germans should ask not only for the town but also for the street and number in the street of various headquarters, if they do not contemplate a landing and subsequent attack on the ground.There is just a possibility, of course, that they may wish to have the street and number in order to sort out the welter of reports that they are probably receiving, mostly of a notional kind, particularly if there are more than one headquarters in the same town. I gather from the Radio Security Service that GARBO’s cipher is being given to Arras so that his information can be transmitted from Madrid to Berlin and on to Arras without any re-ciphering. Richman Stopford came to see me about the two KLM pilots who have been arrested for diamond smuggling. One of the agents has got on to a Dutch Jew called Pepper who is apparently at the back of the whole business. It seems that fairly large quantities of diamonds have been going of the country to Lisbon where they are presumably sold to the Germans. My suggestion is that [One line deleted] with a view to finding out which other people are concerned. The diamonds are taken out sewn into articles of clothing. 20 May There is still no indication that ARTIST has made any confession or that the Abwehr have come to realise the true position of the TRICYCLE case. The Portuguese International Police have handed to SIS in Lisbon a statement about TRICYCLE in which they come to the conclusion that he may be either a British or a Russian agent. BRONX has received a further monthly payment of £98 for the Germans. We are still waiting for a full report of HAMLET’s meeting with Werner in Madrid. It is still possible to use the bag for letter-writing. The Germans have now received further letters from FATHER and have transmitted two new messages to him. It now appears that broadcasts from India have been heard continually but it has not been possible to pick them up here. Arrangements for the delivery of the wireless set to FATHER through BLACKGUARD appear to be proceeding satisfactorily. 22 May I spoke to Melland. He did not know about the new GARBO Stichling messages and was much interested by what I told him. I have arranged that he will in future be kept informed through the War Office representative on the Twenty Committee. 199
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
I talked to Richman Stopford and Crauford about the KLM diamonds case. Crauford is going to try and get Special Branch to interrogate all KLM and BOAC personnel as to whether they have ever been approached to carry either diamonds, other valuables or documents. We might I think get something out of this. Meanwhile, we shall try and get Special Branch to lay off Pepper, the Dutch Jew, and also a man called Brandel. It seems likely that these people are the ones behind the whole racket. There has been a serious leakage by a Captain Wright of the US Navy, who was on the staff of Admiral Stark.A friend of his, du Pré, gave a party at which General Sturges of the Commandos and others were present, when Captain Wright referred to the target area. He had on a previous occasion disclosed the approximate date. Statements have been taken and he is now under arrest. 23 May I spoke to Gilbert Canning of Special Branch and suggested that he might find it worthwhile to interrogate eleven members of the crews of KLM and BOAC travelling to Lisbon. They could be asked whether at any time they had been approached by anyone to carry anything. In the present atmosphere of the arrest of the two KLM pilots for diamond smuggling this may produce some results. In any case, it will act as a deterrent which at this moment is extremely desirable.We know that BOAC crews frequently fail to disclose papers which they carry. Canning agreed that this would be a good idea and said that he would look into the question. 24 May One of our Icelandic spies who arrived a week or so ago was in all probability trained by ZIGZAG in Oslo.The description of the trainer has been given in some detail and corresponds accurately with that of ZIGZAG. Moreover, ZIGZAG’s former master is now in Oslo. This does not necessarily imply that ZIGZAG has gone wrong. Obviously, having gone back to the Germans he would have to swim with the stream. Maybe he is angling for a job over here which he may, in due course, succeed in getting. Hill, the Cunliffe-Owens’ solicitor, has told L.A. Byrne and the SolicitorGeneral that he is worried about Rex Hoyes. He thinks that he ought not to be at large in the banned area and is inclined to believe that he may be a spy. The Attorney-General was informed and sent for Jim Hale. Dick Butler is going down to find out exactly what Hill’s information is. I am quite certain that Hoyes is merely an unscrupulous crook. It is reported that he had both General Eisenhower and Monty to dine at his house, and it might be just worthwhile to have them warned. Hoyes continues to live on a lavish scale at his country house, Marwell Hall.
200
1944
25 May We made arrangements two or three weeks ago that E Division should have a general check-up on all doubtfuls released from the London Reception Centre. The object was to find out whether they were employed and where and with whom they were associating. Beaumont accordingly wrote to Special Branch about a man called de la Fer. Our old friend Inspector Cain was deputed by Special Branch to go down and interview de la Fer. He did this in characteristic style, hectoring and bullying.The result has been a complaint by Theodore Goddard & Co., de la Fer’s solicitors, to the Home Office. It is a wonder to me that Cain has lasted so long. He is, of course, a lunatic. On looking at the file I was amused by Tin-Eye’s opening remarks in the yellow peril summing up: “De la Fer is a hyper-sensitive bastard who arrived here in a canoe. Once this is understood, the case of this shabby individual falls to the ground.” Buster Milmo has produced a note on the recent arrivals in Iceland. Prior to April this year the enemy had sent over three espionage expeditions to Iceland in the course of the present war. All three had been Abwehr enterprises. The first involved a Norwegian by the name of Saetrang who made a passage from northern Norway in a boat accompanied by genuine refugees.This man committed suicide before he was interrogated. The second expedition involved the landing of the double-cross agent COBWEB by U-boat in the spring of 1942, and the third, the double-cross agent BEETLE who was landed by similar means in the early autumn of 1943. The latter half of the month of April this year has been marked by the arrival in Iceland of no less than seven new enemy agents. These agents carried between them six wireless transmitters and came in three parties from Bergen, two by submarine and one by small boat. Two of the parties were despatched by the Abwehr and one by the Sicherheitsdienst. They were all of Icelandic nationality except one Fresenius, who was a German. The SD pair has instructions to report on weather and Allied troop movements and shipping.The two others in addition to reporting on weather for which they were equipped inter alia with barometers, had orders to send information on the presence of troops, landing craft for invasion, and number of ships in the fjords, keeping a special watch on certain harbours.The third party had the usual instructions with regard to weather reporting and were also required to report on shipping, particularly for invasion purposes, troop movements, divisional signs and other matters. One of them, the German, who appears to be a convinced and ardent Nazi, incidentally the first we have encountered, has stated in terms that the Germans are expecting that invasion may be coming from Iceland. Five of the seven agents were recruited as far back as 1942, the other two being recruited the following year.They have all had extensive training, although the wireless efficiency of one or two leaves a good deal to be desired. The agents have roughly $3–4,000 each in their possession. The first two parties were captured within a comparatively short time after their arrival, and protest that they never thought of operating.The third party however were at large for over a week before they were captured and have now admitted that during this
201
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
time they made attempts to establish contact with the enemy by wireless. These cases afford positive evidence that the enemy is anticipating an offensive operation of some magnitude to be launched from Iceland at some not far distant date.The fact that both the Abwehr and the SD are in the field suggests that the idea is not confined to the intelligence services but may well be occupying the minds of the OKW itself. We have, of course, for some time been running the deception plan which implies an attack on Norway. BRUTUS, and GARBO, have been actively engaged on this. John Bevan asked the Russians to co-operate when he was in Moscow.They were enthusiastic but we have no details of what they are doing. Edward Cussen tells me that the Daily Mail has got a camera with a telescopic lens fixed up in a house at Seaford. They intend to take pictures of the invading barges. This comes to us through one of Max Knight’s informants. This is, of course, a technical breach of the regulations although from the point of view of security I cannot see that much harm would be done by the publication of the photographs at some later date. It shows, however, that the press are, as usual, all out to get scoops regardless of security and of the regulations. 27 May I spoke to Robert Cecil of SIS about the case of Miss de Jong who is being tried in Berlin for assisting British airmen to escape from occupied territory. I gather that her father has since been arrested. Some attempt was made to effect an exchange with My Erickssen about six months ago but negotiations were allowed to fall into abeyance owing to the arrest of the father. SIS are now anxious to reopen the ball through the Swiss government. Before doing so, they want to know whether we are still prepared to let My Erickssen go. I said that as far as we were concerned there was no objection.At that time SOE had also agreed but since then they had raised very serious objections to the release of anyone who had been in contact with “Victoire”. They think that any information going back from here might affect her agents in the field. This all seems to me to be a little far-fetched and to pale into insignificance when considered in conjunction with many cases which we have looked into on behalf of SOE. It seems to us that they are running far greater risks by their employment of people like Louba and Roger. I told Cecil that we would make another approach to SOE and let him know the result. 28 May TREASURE has made a statement to the effect that she is in a position to blow her case to the Germans at any time she wished to do so.Although her statement may not be true it shows that she is unreliable and for this reason it is impossible to send deception material by her transmitter. Her case is being continued because valuable information of a cryptographic nature is being obtained, but only accurate information is being sent over.The future of the case will be considered again in a month or six weeks. Meanwhile, a telephone check 202
1944
[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] will be working. Although TREASURE sends her messages herself she is under close observation all the time. A report from SIS indicated that she had made an arrangement with her German master in Lisbon by which she could communicate.We see no particular object in having a showdown with her at this moment, since if she refused to send any more we should not get the cryptographic material. She is a very temperamental person and suffering from a serious kidney disease which she is not likely to survive very long. FREAK transmitted his last message on 18 May and fixed the next transmission for 22 May but did not go up. It is intended that TRICYCLE should write a letter explaining that transmissions had been interrupted because an accusation has been made in London as the result of the accusation against FREAK coming from Draza Mihailovic, but such a letter need not in fact be written for a fortnight or so, during which time the position may be clarified. TATE is shortly to change his location and will be transmitting from the Wye area in Kent, probably by the end of next week. He had just sent his thousandth message, in which he extends humble greetings and good wishes to the Führer. HAMLET has now returned to Lisbon, and is compiling a full report of his meeting with Werner in Madrid. We have already received two matches which were given to HAMLET in Madrid to replace the original matches which were wearing out. FATHER’s wireless set has arrived in Bombay. BRONX is sending a telegram in code to the Germans indicating that an attack will be launched against the Bay of Biscay on about 15 June. “Monty” left for Gibraltar and Algiers on Friday. BRUTUS is being notionally posted to the First United States Army Group. The bogus Monty scheme appears to have been successful. His arrival in Gibraltar has got to Madrid and has been wired through to Berlin. The whole thing was I believe very well staged in Gibraltar.A Spaniard named Molina was visiting the Governor at the time of “Monty’s” arrival. He was shut in a room waiting to see the Governor, from the window of which he could see “Monty” and the Governor walking up and down on the terrace.The only trouble about the scheme is that it had perhaps been placed a little too early. General de Gaulle has said that he won’t come here unless he is allowed to communicate in his own ciphers.This raises the question as to whether he should arrive before D-Day or immediately after. If he is allowed to remain in Algiers he will probably broadcast to the resistance movements on lines which we might not consider to be very appropriate. If, on the other hand, he comes here before D-Day he may communicate information about the date and target in ciphers which will probably be read by the Germans.The question is to be decided by the Chiefs of Staff. John Senter came to see me about the French agent Lieutenant Rosenthal who appeared to have information about the target area. At a meeting at Claridge’s in the suite of Colonel Stirling of the SAS Regiment, at which several other British 203
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
officers were present, the use of SAS troops had been discussed. At one point during the discussion Rosenthal made a semi-circle on a large-scale map immediately behind the target area. He said that he thought that SAS troops could be effectively used at this point.There was some doubt as to whether he had put his thumb on that particular spot accidentally or whether he had done it with knowledge. The general impression was, however, that he had done it with full knowledge of the target area. As a result of this incident, Eric Mockler-Ferryman and John Senter visited SHAEF on 26 or 27 May and reported the facts to Colonel Sheen and General Betts. It was felt that it must be assumed that Duke Street were aware of the target area and that in consequence no French agents run by SOE in conjunction with Duke Street should be allowed to go into the field before D-Day. I raised the question as to whether a similar instruction had been issued by SHAEF to SIS since if the presumption about Duke Street was correct, any agents that they had of a similar type should also be prevented from going into the field. Apparently this point had not been considered.With Senter’s approval I went over and saw C. to whom I explained the situation. He said he would look into the matter and issue the necessary instructions. SOE are reporting the whole matter to SHAEF. 31 May On the 27 May Hitler, when speaking to the Japanese ambassador, said that he himself thought that after having carried out diversionary operations in Norway, Denmark, the southern part of the west coast of France, and the French Mediterranean, the Allies would establish a bridgehead in Normandy and Brittany and after seeing how things went would then embark on the establishment of a real Second Front in the Channel. If this is the firm view of the German General Staff it is not altogether discouraging since they evidently expect that our first effort will be a diversion.They do, however, seem to think that the main attack will be dependent to some extent on the success or failure of the establishment of the bridgehead in Normandy or Brittany.This might, therefore, lead them to make an all-out attack on the bridgehead at once. If however, they think that the main attack is coming across the narrows, they should at least maintain considerable reserves, and the firmer the establishment of the bridgehead the more inclined they should be to withhold these reserves. GARBO’s whole plan is not to speculate on the actual target but to build up the idea that the first attack will be a diversionary one and that reserves are being kept for the main drive. Meanwhile, we have destroyed, two or three days ago, the principal bridges over the Seine.This should leave the Germans in doubt whether we intend to attack north or south of the river. They may, of course, think that this is a somewhat early manoeuvre and merely a blind. Meanwhile, the 21st Army Group are getting rather nervous about the number of divisions moved into the area south of the river and are suggesting that we should put over some hot deception to get them out of the area. My own view, and T.A. Robertson’s, is that we should continue as we are. It is extremely 204
1944
doubtful whether anything we could do, unless we were prepared to blow all our agents, would have any material effect at this juncture. GARBO’s build-up is more likely to be effective after D-Day. 3 June An informant of Jimmie Dickson’s in the Agence Française Independante has stated that a cable in code was received at the agency yesterday evening from one Jeannerat, who has gone as a war correspondent with the Second Front.The cable said that at that moment Jeannerat was on board ship expecting to leave at any moment. He gave exact details of the equipment which the soldiers carried, and it is believed that he mentioned the regiments concerned. He deduced that they were bound for France because everyone on board was particularly nice to him as soon as they learned that he was French. There was some speculation at the FI office as to how this cable got through Censorship. It would not, of course, be surprising if a message had come through since except for a snap censorship there is no other obstruction. It was decided to inform Norfolk House, also Admiral Thompson, in order that the latter might keep a sharp lookout on all Agence cables. Lastly, it was decided to get at SHAEF in order to find out exactly where Jeannerat was quartered. 5 June There has been an appalling slip-up by the offices of the Associated Press of America. A message was issued for cabling to America saying “Eisenhower’s troops have landed in France today.”The message was given to the operator who was told to practise getting it over quickly. The Russian communiqué came through for despatch to Washington and the girl apparently typed it on the same sheet on which she had been practicising the above message, and within a matter of minutes it was broadcast all over America. Almost worse than this, it was discovered as a result of the Jeannerat case that this correspondent had quite correctly handed his message to the American officer who had forwarded it to SHAEF. SHAEF, acting on an extremely badly worded and ambiguous directive written by Lieutenant Colonel George Warden, Chief of the Press Censorship Branch, stamped the telegram “Not for publication until release of first SHAEF communiqué.” According to the directive the original was to be stamped and returned to the Public Relations Branch for forwarding to the “Parent Service” for holding, Censorship retaining a copy.The words “Parent Service” were apparently taken to mean the paper’s headquarters or the new agency concerned. Jeannerat’s message was passed to the Agence Française Independante who passed it back to Ministry of Information. The latter, seeing the SHAEF stamp, sent it back again to the Agence for holding until the appropriate moment. On discovering this, Sheen and Edward Cussen made further enquiries as to what special messages of a similar kind had been received by SHAEF. They found quite a number, one from Reuters, 205
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
Newark Evening News, another from the Sydney Morning Herald, another from the Washington Evening Star, another from the Daily Express, another from the Canadian press, one from the Baltimore News Post, one from the Toronto Globe Mail and one from the International News Service. All these messages left no doubt that the operation was imminent. The Sydney Morning Herald, the Toronto Globe Mail and apparently the International News Service have all communicated their information to the headquarters of their papers and the cables were presumably passed to the Ministry of Information. Lastly, OSTRO in a long message, though entirely inaccurate, has hit on the target area.T.A. Robertson has three times, backed by the Twenty Committee, put up suggestions for getting OSTRO blown. Each time the scheme has been turned down by C. as he thought it would jeopardise the source. The information about the target area is supposed to have come from a colonel on Monty’s staff. This is clearly untrue but it is bound to cause considerable anxiety at 21st Army Group. I have just heard the result of the case of Dufours, a Frenchman [One line deleted] On arrival here he was passed through the London Reception Centre and enlisted in the French forces. The French then imprisoned and ill-treated him. He eventually escaped from Camberley and brought an action against General de Gaulle and company for ill-treatment and wrongful imprisonment.The case was due to come up shortly.The French have always taken the view that they have a perfect right to treat their own nationals as they wish, and that if there are legal differences it is up to the British to get over them. They were told that in this country British law had to be respected and that the courts were supreme. It now appears that the Prime Minister, hearing of this case and realising how undesirable at this moment it would be for General de Gaulle to appear as a defendant in an action of this kind, told Stafford Cripps and the Attorney-General to look into the whole question and see if there was any way out. It was eventually decided that negotiations should be opened with the plaintiff ’s solicitors for a settlement. The British government proposed £1,000. The plaintiff asked for £10,000 and settled for £5,000. Application to discontinue the action was made to Mr Justice Pilcher by Pat Devlin. Pilcher was informed that the defendant’s solicitors were withdrawing the case and that the plaintiff was satisfied. A representative of the Foreign Office was present to explain the details if necessary but only vouched that the British government had not paid the sum of money, but rather that they had made the necessary arrangements for the sum to be paid. In fact, the sum is being paid by the Secret Service vote. It was pointed out that it was a matter of considerable urgency that the settlement should be reached yesterday afternoon, presumably on account of the opening of the Second Front tomorrow. I am bound to say that this arrangement, thought apparently satisfactory to all parties, is rather distasteful since it seems to violate the principles of British justice, which should be entirely free from government influence or politics. On the other hand, the plea of expediency at a moment like this is very 206
1944
great. It would have been the British government who would have paid, since de Gaulle is beholden to us for every penny he gets. 6 June The Second Front opened at five this morning with aircraft roaring overhead. T.A. Robertson went up to Hendon early this morning to get a message over at 3am from GARBO to the effect that one of his agents who had escaped from a marshalling area had reported that the Canadians had embarked. The Germans were evidently asleep and he could not get any reply until 8am. GARBO has complained bitterly that by their negligence they are endangering the Fatherland. Gilbert Lennox tells me there is some Swedish Special Material indicating that the Swedish Legation here considered that Monty is in Corsica.This may indicate some sort of a leak on the bogus Monty story. 7 June The TRICYCLE–FREAK transmitter is still off the air.The control stations call from time to time and there are indications that it is tuned in ready to receive FREAK at most if not all the scheduled times. On 29 May the control station indicated that it had a message to transmit. No arrangements have been made by the Germans with FREAK for them to transmit blind in case, for example, his own transmitter broke down and it is, therefore, very doubtful whether they will send this message so long as we are off the air this end. There is still no clear indication as to what has happened to ARTIST, though some messages passed that suggest the Abwehr is investigating his dealings in money.The deposit note for Plan DREAM was handed over last week and instead of the cheque for £355 cashed, Garcia Armas paid over £5 notes.We have received a total of £3,027 during this last transaction. TATE’s transmitter has now been moved to Wye and contact has been made. HAMLET’s further report has arrived but contains little of interest. In our May report for the Prime Minister the case of Knut Brodersen was mentioned. This man has confessed that he had a mission on behalf of the German secret service to supply them with information regarding invasion details here.This information was to be sent in secret writing to cover addresses in Spain and Brodersen was to get further instructions by means of broadcasts in code sent over the German controlled Norwegian radio. Particulars of this code have been given by Brodersen and attempts are now being made to decipher messages broadcast over this service which appear to be intended for him. His secret ink was concealed in one of the straps of his plus-fours and in a pocket-knife. More material for secret writing had been hidden underneath his big toe nail and in his tooth.The former came out when he had a bath and the tooth broke off while he was eating. The Belgian spy Joseph Vanhove was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey on 24 May. 207
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
9 June We had a meeting of Harry Allen’s security committee today at which Edward Cussen and Derek Tangye disclosed that SHAEF had passed a report sent up by the Evening Standard war correspondent on the subject of MULBERRIES.The report was to the effect that everybody had been wondering how we could hope to establish a bridgehead without capturing a port, and that this difficulty had been overcome by the special landing stages which had been towed across the channel. It is amazing that a report of this kind should have been officially passed by SHAEF censorship.The whole incident draws attention to the fact that there are two bodies carrying out censorship in this country, one the Ministry of Information and two, SHAEF. This is clearly undesirable, and steps are being taken to bring it to notice as soon as possible. The latest disclosure should lead to a more satisfactory arrangement. Personally, I think that censorship should remain with Ministry of Information who have all the necessary experience and knowledge of D Notices, etcetera, and that SHAEF should have their officers attached. Certainly nothing should go out unless passed by the Ministry of Information.The only contribution that SHAEF makes is purely operational. GARBO is continuing with his set-up about attack on another front. The German reply to his indignant message was extremely apologetic, although they did not say precisely why they were not listening at 3am.They are evidently very worried at his being so upstage. In passing on his message (they ultimately received it at 8.30) they told Berlin that it had only reached them at 9.30 owing to severe pressure on the lines. GARBO’s traffic should be helpful in this respect. The Japanese in Vichy is still betting on the Calais–Dunkirk area and is presumably getting his information from Pierre Laval and Abetz. The Brazilians are very cockahoop about having got the invasion date from their representative in Ottawa twenty-four hours before the event actually took place.This was, undoubtedly, due to the indiscretion of SHAEF in allowing reports from war correspondents to go to the various newspapers, to be held until after General Eisenhower’s first communiqué. We know that such a report went to Toronto and probably there were others. General de Gaulle is getting excited about the anticipated arrival of French refugees. He wants to go down to Shoreham and make them a speech.The answer is that up to the moment only two have arrived and one is half-dead. C. put over a deception a short time ago, through a blind transmitter which he knew to be under the control of the Germans.The Germans asked where escapers and evaders should rendezvous. The answer was that they should all make for the Bordeaux area by 15 June where there would be a good chance of their being picked up.This piece of deception may have been effective since there has been a big concentration of submarines, some thirty, in the Bay of Biscay.These are now moving up to the bridgehead, one has been sunk and the other chased off.
208
1944
10 June A very encouraging message has been received by TATE. The enemy say that his reports can even decide the outcome of the war. BRUTUS’s reports are being passed to Paris with all possible despatch and we have made an arrangement with the Germans that a wireless contact can be made regularly three times a day. The Germans have suggested to SNIPER that he should try and get a letter out of the country by contacting naval personnel. They should know, of course, that anything of the kind is quite impossible. 12 June A message received today indicated that the Germans are extremely pleased with GARBO.They say that the reports received in the last week have confirmed almost without exception information from other sources, and are to be regarded as of special value.The main line in future for GARBO is to be the enemy group of forces in eastern and south eastern England.They would also like to know in good time when the formations assembled in Scottish ports put to sea and what their destination is.This all shows that the cover plan is working well and that up to the present the Germans are convinced that the major offensive is coming elsewhere. Another message indicates that ZIGZAG may be with us again before long, probably accompanied by a man named Lehar.Von Groening, ZIGZAG’s boss, was asked on 7 June to ascertain from the 9th Fliegerkorps whether the operation was possible. Since the occupation of Rome a large number of probably Sicherheitsdienst agents have either fallen into our hands or given themselves up. These include a man called Armando Perroni, and important member of the SD post-occupational sabotage network. As a result of his information the premises of the former German Embassy in Rome were raided and sabotage material, arms and wireless sets were found. Perroni has also reported the location of other sabotage dumps and given the names of about forty saboteurs. Many of these are ISOS characters. Other valuable information has been given by the Rome police who had by unspecified means obtained documents from Kappler’s office.These contained the names of sixty saboteurs among whom were many identical with those denounced by Perroni, the originals of SD messages dealing with despatch of a group of saboteurs to Belgrade in April, etcetera. ISOS discloses that 150 stay-behind agents were left in Rome and other areas near or south of the present front line. Sixteen of various categories, wireless operators, secret writers, and others, who are to recruit couriers and send them north through the lines, are mentioned as being in Rome. Of these only three are, so far, in our hands but two are key men who should with luck lead us directly to half a dozen others and indirectly to many of the remainder. Outside Rome one wireless man and his assistant are already behind our lines and another should be overrun in the near future. There are also six wireless men waiting to be overrun before
209
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
making their way south and establishing themselves in towns such as Naples, Catania, Bari, etcetera. According to information from Section V, there is a German agent called Ivans working a wireless transmitter on the Cherbourg Peninsula. 13 June Denys Page and Peter Twinn have been up here seeing T.A. Robertson about the possibility of using double-cross agents for getting cribs. This is already working accidentally in the case of TREASURE and BRUTUS but it seems possible that we might engineer something which might be useful to GC&CS on similar lines.The SOE French section under Colonel Maurice Buckmaster have a circuit operating near the north coast of Brittany. A study of the traffic received from this circuit appears to Warden to suggest the possibility of German control. This impression was verified by the report of an SOE officer who had been over in an aeroplane which was dropping stores to the organisation.This officer had had a conversation by means of an S-Phone with the head of the organisation reception committee. He reported on his return that the voice of the latter individual had sounded extremely gutteral and that he spoke neither fluent French or English. This was dismissed by Buckmaster as probably due to atmospheric conditions.Two days ago a surprising message was received from the wireless operator of the circuit, thanking SOE for the stores which had recently been delivered and stating that unfortunately certain of the agents had had to be shot but that others had proved more willing to do what the Germans asked them. So blatant did this message appear that at first it was thought to be some sort of hoax. Independent information was received, however, to the effect that the whole circuit had been under German control for some weeks.This circuit is dangerously near the present operation.A list of the names of the people concerned in it has been sent to the London Reception Centre. At the weekly meeting Mrs Spring said that Brandes, who some time ago talked of sending a Swiss courier named PEDRO here as an agent, has now stated that PEDRO has returned from his mission to the UK with detailed answers to an Eins Heer questionnaire, and that he will be returning to the UK at the end of this week at the request of the British. There is no one so far whom we can identify with PEDRO, who is probably notional. Brandes also talks of recruiting as an agent the assistant to the Swiss military attaché, and is discussing the setting up of a wireless agent in Britain. He talks also of training PEDRO in secret writing. If, as seem likely, all these projects are notional, Brandes’ imagination is going to have to work overtime. On 7 June Abt. II in Paris asked Berlin to arrange for Unter Offizier Count Solikov to be sent to Lille, and also asked for supplies of English underclothing to be sent there. Solikov is probably identical with a man of that name who was here before the war and who has a certain number of traces. He may be going to be used for some sort of parachute landing here. 210
1944
John Marriott said that GARBO has been asked to find the headquarters of General Omar Bradley and Admiral Cunningham. 15 June I dined with the Director of Military Intelligence and J.C. Masterman last night. The DMI was very complimentary about the work of this office both as regards deception and security. He was intending to write a letter to the Director-General expressing his gratitude for all that has been done. He said that he had given it as his opinion that it would not be possible to deceive the enemy as to our real intentions for more than four to six days and that quite possibly it would not be possible to deceive him at all. He thought, therefore, that an immense success had been scored through the tactical surprises which had held so long and, indeed, were still holding, although perhaps to a slightly lesser degree. He said that the JIC were writing a weekly paper on this particular point and he thought that we ought to be consulted since the JIC might not be aware of the degree of confidence placed by Himmler and the Abwehr in GARBO’s theory of a two-pronged attack. I mentioned the Japanese BJ quoted above and said that at any rate on 11 June the Germans were still in some doubt, and were clearly re-insuring, although perhaps to a lesser degree.They have so far had four panzer divisions in action and others were coming up. One had, for example, been brought down from Antwerp. I gathered that there are only eight in the whole of the western theatre and that some of these are not very well equipped or up to strength. 18 June GARBO received a message on 16 June stating that it was of the utmost importance that he should give information about the effects of the bombardment. The Germans were not interested in partial details but wished him to indicate results as follows:“Take you basis a plan of London by the publishers Pharus which I suppose you have in your possession, and indicate how many targets or missiles have fallen in determined squares on the plan, defining them by the ordinates and co-ordinates and the approximate hour. For example during the bombardment from 3 to 4 o’clock, six shells fell in the east end in square K.10. No further details are necessary. The foregoing is only intended for your guidance, knowing that it will be almost impossible for you to get these details but it is intended you should know the form in which these reports should be transmitted.Your primary object is not to endanger or take risks with the rest of the service which continues to be of primary importance.” FREAK’s control station has not been heard since 10 June. TRICYCLE’s letter explaining why radio transmissions have been suspended has now been despatched. There is still no conclusive evidence of the extent of the Germans’ knowledge of the true position of TRICYCLE or ARTIST. Such evidence, as exists, is consistent with the view that the full facts have not been extracted from ARTIST. 211
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
TREASURE operated her transmitter herself for the last time Friday.We have now taken over and are imitating her, and she no longer has any connection with the case. As a further illustration of the German desire to maintain confidence in their agents in the face of contrary evidence, it is of interest to note that information has recently been received on ISOS which shows that the Germans are still debating whether or not they should send a further questionnaire to LIPSTICK, although the last letter written by this man was dated 15 March 1944. The Germans appear to attribute this failure to correspond to the fact that the airmail service has been suspended. 19 June Nevile Bland has been rather concerned about two ex-SOE agents, Johan Ubbink and Peter Dourlein, of Dutch origin, whom we have locked up pending the OVERLORD period. On consideration of their case we have thought that they can now be released. The Dutch have been fussing about them, particularly Colonel M.R. de Bruyne who was mainly interested because, quite improperly, he gave these agents a mission in addition to the one that they had from SOE. Nevile Bland seems quite satisfied with the action we have taken in this case and is very grateful for the concession that we are making. The escapees Ubbink and Dourlein gave the first news that SOE’s Dutch network had been penetrated by the enemy. Stichling messages should now be coming into operation.A message to this effect was sent to Madrid on 16 June 1944. It will be interesting to see whether any messages that GARBO sends about CROSSBOW receive the ‘S’ prefix. Such messages should go direct to Arras, the headquarters of CROSSBOW, without re-ciphering. 21 June At the weekly meeting Herbert Hart mentioned the case of ZIGZAG and the request to Lisbon to provide two wireless sets for an operation in England. It is thought that these sets were required for ZIGZAG and another agent known as LEHAR who is to be sent to bring money to BRUTUS. I lunched with Bill Stephenson at Claridge’s. I told him that for personal reasons I was rather anxious to visit America but that I could not very well do so unless there was an official reason. I thought myself that it would be a good thing for someone from here to visit America and Canada. In fact, when I was last there I had recommended that visits should be as frequent as once every three months. I said, however, that I did not wish to go if it was going to cause any upheaval. Stephenson said that the whole of that question was dead and that, in his view, nothing but good could result. He would be quite ready to sponsor such a visit if the proposal were made. 212
1944
I dined with Philip Vickery who gave me an interesting account of the latest developments in the SILVER case. It appears that the Russians have been playing rather a dirty game. Originally, the case had had a considerable bearing on their affairs since plans were being devised against Russia, as well as against India. Since this factor had been eliminated, largely through the removal of Witzel, SILVER’s controller on the German side, the Russians evidently felt they were not getting very much out of the case. They, therefore, arranged a meeting with Rasmus, the First Secretary of the German Legation, told him that they knew of SILVER’s code and that unless he was prepared to work for them, they would expose him.This, of course, had led to considerable suspicion by the Germans of SILVER.The Russians then pressed for SILVER’s return to Kabul. India felt anxious for SILVER’s safety and as an excuse said that he could not very well go back to Kabul unless the suggestion came from the Germans. Eventually, however, they agreed to his going back. He was cross-questioned about the code but apparently put up a good story and so far seems to have got away with it. Rasmus, of course, refused to work for the Russians. SILVER notionally controls a large subversive organisation in India which supplies information regularly to the Germans and also to the Japanese.The latest development is that Witzel, with a wireless set and party, was to be landed somewhere on the northwest frontier. He is to establish touch with SILVER, though the precise purpose of his mission is not yet known. The whole matter could not be taken up with the Russians as the information about the meeting between the Russians and Rasmus was obtained from a German BJ.The matter, however, is further complicated by the fact that George Hill, the SOE representative in Moscow, who is in touch with the NKVD, does not know about this piece of Russian duplicity and merely thinks that the government of India is being sticky. On 17 June 1944 Madrid sent the following recommendation to the successor of GUILERMO (Admiral Canaris) about GARBO:“Immediate aware of Iron Cross II to Spanish national V-mann 319 ALARIC, Leiter ARABAL, who has rendered services of great importance in the war for the last two years as the Leiter Golfplatz (England) network, at the constant risk of his life. We consider immediate award necessary to maintain morale, because under present conditions he is further endangered by our own fire. In this connection we draw your attention to the special mark of recognition recently conferred on REX. In our view V-mann is in the same capacity as the volunteers of the Blue Division who received the same decoration.” 28 June ZIGZAG arrived last night at a place called West Wratting near Newmarket. He was dropped from a height of 12,000 feet but came in at about thirty feet, turned north up the coast and then rose to a height of 12,000 feet. He said that another aeroplane started with him but that he had no idea who was in it. He thought that possibly it was sent solely for the purpose of cover. He had been told that a raid on London would be staged to come off simultaneously with his arrival.This was, of course, purely for the purposes of bringing him up. Although he reported himself 213
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
to the police, he found they were inclined to disbelieve his story. He, therefore, told them to ring up the police station at the place where he had dropped before.This they did. The police communicated at once with Hughes. ZIGZAG brought with him £6,000, £4,000 of which is almost undoubtedly for BRUTUS. He has no sabotage mission but a five-fold espionage mission (1) to obtain information about night fighters, (2) to obtain information about Asdic types, (3) to ascertain what jamming devices we have against radio-controlled aircraft, (4) to report on the doodlebug and (5) to find out whether we had any plan by which aircraft starting from certain places are directed on certain targets in Germany.They have a theory that if aircraft leave a certain aerodrome they always attack Hamburg. If the air force is prepared to play, this should provide an excellent opportunity of getting the Luftwaffe in the air. 29 June I discussed with Dick White, T.A. Robertson, and Buster the question of the exchange of My Erikssen or Fresenius for Andrée de Jongh, the Belgian woman who is under sentence of death for having assisted over a hundred British airmen to get out of occupied territory.We have decided that My can be exchanged provided SOE saw no objection, and likewise, Fresenius could go provided there was no Camp 020 objection, and provided that the Americans whose prisoner he was, were in agreement. I went with J.C. Masterman to talk to Hans Ruser who had expressed a wish to see me. He was very distressed about his position. He thought that he was not altogether trusted. I assured him that this was not the case. His real difficulty, however, is that he feels that if he remains here he will never be able to go back to his own country. Germans of all political views, even though they were bitterly anti-Nazi, would not understand a German who deserted his country and went over to the enemy. They would, however, all understand his running away from the Nazis. If, therefore, he could get back to Spain or South America, the way for his return to his native country after the war would still be open. I said there were very grave difficulties which I could not explain to him but that I would certainly reconsider the whole position. I discussed the case, afterwards, with J.C. Masterman. While I can see that it is probably impossible to send him back to Spain, where he might well be kidnapped and under duress give away information about ARTIST, I could not see any real objection to his employment in the Argentine. I feel pretty confident that he would play straight and that he would not disclose any information unless he were kidnapped and tortured. If SIS do not wish to employ him in the Argentine, possibly the FBI would be ready to do so. I propose to take the matter up with Kim Philby. I had a talk with Ronnie Reed about ZIGZAG. No track has been found for the other plane.There is no doubt, however, that it came in with ZIGZAG’s plane from Utrecht, since three of our own aircraft were shot down over their bases when returning from a raid.There is, apparently, a row going on about this. Presumably, 214
1944
the plane came in about thirty feet as ZIGZAG did, and so was not recorded by radar.The air force did know, however, that two planes left Utrecht and in view of previous action by planes from that quarter should have taken some sort of action. ZIGZAG, who is being interrogated by officers at Camp 020, has mentioned two or three of the Icelanders who came here some weeks ago. He gave a description of some and got the names of some of the others fairly accurately. He has also got a list of the frequencies and times used by the Oslo station. His code is similar to that of BRUTUS and TREASURE, with certain modifications. From Lisbon, he was sent to Barcelona, and eventually to Paris and Berlin. He refused to be interrogated at any length, except by his former master, Graumann. He was told that Graumann was in disgrace, and has been sent to Oslo. ZIGZAG himself was sent to Oslo where he was subjected to fairly searching interrogations. He was given 10,000 Reichmarks for putting the piece of explosive coal on the ship which took him to Lisbon, and later got 100,000 Reichmarks for his exploits in his country. He is not quite sure whether the Germans accepted his story about the sabotage at de Havilland’s factory, since they had no evidence against which to check the story. He rather got the impression that they thought he was trying to build himself up, although they did not appear to question his loyalty to Germany. He says that he made two trips to Berlin from Oslo where he was questioned about the possibilities of sabotage in factories in this country. He expressed the view that this would be extremely difficult. He had very little to do in Norway and spent most of his time amusing himself. He got a yacht and cruised up and down the fjords. He also did a lot of winter sport. He brought two wireless sets, one is for a notional subagent, a friend in the crook world who is to report from the Cambridge area on the departure of our aircraft on bombing raids.The other is for his own use. Of the £6,000 he brought, £1,000 is for another agent.The impression is given that this agent was to arrive here shortly. On the other hand, as he was told that the money was to be delivered at a hotel, we are inclined to think that it must be intended for BRUTUS. He will receive instructions about this money when he gets into wireless communication. ZIGZAG had two courses with the air force and also with the navy, as he said that if he has to fulfill his assignments he must know precisely what they wanted him to discover in regard to night-fighter devices and Asdic. He told them that he was not a wireless expert and would not be able to retain all the information that he required, and that it was, therefore, necessary for him to get some of it over the radio once he established communication. It was thought at first that his story did not quite tally with that of the Icelandic agents, an impression having been given by them that ZIGZAG had acted as their instructor. On further examination of the reports of the Icelandic agents it seems, however, that they never said more than that they met him at the headquarters of the Abwehr in Oslo. 30 June FREAK has returned from his journey with the King of Yugoslavia. He did not meet anyone who could give him news of DREADNOUGHT. The Yugoslav government 215
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
wished to send TRICYCLE for a short visit to the United States for their own purposes and it is proposed that FREAK should send a short message on his radio explaining that his own and TRICYCLE’s travel will prevent them from continuing to report. 4 July Roger Fleetwood-Hesketh has done a note on deception in support of OVERLORD before and after D-Day. The object was to contain German forces in the Pas-de-Calais (Plan FORTITUDE) and to a lesser extent in the Bordeaux area (Plan IRONSIDE).The latter was not put into operation until the second half of May. It threatens an assault from the west of England with a shore-to-shore build-up from the United States. For a variety of reasons it was not possible to pitch this threat very high.The agents BRONX, GARBO and TATE were employed in its execution. Before D-Day the implementation of FORTITUDE, the main deception plan, was confined to building up an order-of-battle and location of forces notionally engaged. Care was taken to avoid the specific mention of the FORTITUDE target area. The FORTITUDE forces in the south and southeast were to balance the NEPTUNE forces in the west and southwest, thus leaving the enemy in doubt as to our intentions. From D-Day onwards, the NEPTUNE area being known to the Germans, it has been the policy specifically to threaten the Pas-de-Calais with the highest degree of intensity possible, to exaggerate the state of preparedness of FUSAG which controlled the notional operation, and to encourage by every means the belief that 21st Army Group and FUSAG are being employed in FORTITUDE. At the present stage are GARBO, BRUTUS and TATE, all three communicating by wireless. They are supporting the plan in the following ways: (a) GARBO through his position at the Ministry of Information has interpreted notional Political Warfare Executive directives in reverse. He explains away the removal of the diplomatic ban by referring to a Cabinet dispute on the subject. He has continued to receive detailed observation reports from his network of subagents which confirm the location of the FUSAG formations. These reports he summarises and a full appreciation was transmitted on 9 June in which the Pas-deCalais was given as the target area for the second assault. He has also sent the Cabinet document which indirectly discloses transport difficulties in eastern and southeast England, caused by impending operations. (b) BRUTUS was appointed to an Allied mission attached to FUSAG on 27 May. From this position he has been able to give a comprehensive FUSAG (FORTITUDE) order of battle with locations of formations under command. (c) TATE, through his connection with a railway clerk at Ashford, has seen a schedule of troop movements which with other information already in the possession of the Germans indicated the move of FUSAG formations from concentration to embarkation, without giving actual dates.The continuation of the present threat against the Pas-de-Calais is limited by two factors: (a) the appearance of FUSAG formations in the NEPTUNE area, (b) the withdrawal of wireless equipment. For the protection of our agents it was 216
1944
decided, therefore, to put over shortly after 20 June the story to the effect that the NEPTUNE assault had failed to draw sufficient reserves from the Pas-de-Calais and that it had consequently been decided to reinforce the present operation with formations of the First Canadian Army. From now onwards the story will be passed that NEPTUNE has succeeded beyond expectation and that Monty has, therefore, asked that the assault against the Pas-de-Calais be postponed, and FUSAG be used to exploit his success. General George Patton, notionally commanding FUSAG, will notionally object strongly.The Supreme Commander will notionally decide in favour of Monty and, therefore, General Patton will be relieved of his command and will assume command of the 3rd US Army, General Omar Bradley assuming command of FUSAG. Meanwhile, the Second US Army Group will be built up in Britain, whereby the threat to the Pas-de-Calais and to other ports of the northwest coast can be maintained after FUSAG has been committed. It was clearly demonstrated by Most Secret Sources that up to 11 June at any rate Plan FORTITUDE was firmly in the minds of the German High Command. The 1st Panzer Division, which on D-Day was at Turnhout, was estimated to be likely to move in the target area between D+3 and D+7. On D+6 it was at Ghent.The 2nd Panzer Division which on D-Day was at Amiens was instructed to move into the target area between D+3 and D+8 and was actually engaged on D+8. It was probably delayed as a result of the bombing of the Seine bridges. The 116th Panzer Division which was at Pontoise and was expecting to be in the target area on D+1 did not move south of the Somme until D+5. The 84th Infantry Division which was northeast of Rouen and expected to be in the target area between D+3 and D+7, was on 18 June 1944 still in its old location. The same applies to the 331st Infantry Division at Hazebrouck. In the Bordeaux area the Second SS Panzer Division which was at Toulouse on D-Day, had only reached Tours by D+10. It was originally calculated that it would be in the target area not later than D+7.The 11th Panzer Division estimated to be in the target area about the same time still has its headquarters at Bordeaux on D-10. It was then dealing with French resistance groups. The 17th SS Panzer Grenadiers which were at Thourars and expected to come into action on D+2, did not enter the field until D+4. 5 July The German intelligence service in Lisbon has recently been making arrangements to send certain agents to the United Kingdom who are referred to by numbers. They have a strong Swiss flavour and it is possible that they may be connected with the Swiss courier Pedro, the agent with which Eins Heer representative Brandes claims to have working for him in Britain. One of them is expected to leave Switzerland between 17 and 20 July and would arrive in England at the end of July after staying in Lisbon. Discussions could, therefore, take place either in Switzerland before 17 July or in Lisbon after 20 July. It was thought that Lisbon would be preferable since German subjects were liable to be shadowed by frontier police in Switzerland. Another one was said to have successfully trained in secret writing at 217
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
Lisbon and was due to fly to England on 27 June. Only two non-British subjects travelled by air from Lisbon on that date. One was Dutch, named Maas-Gestenaus, who until recently was head of the Dutch intelligence service in Lisbon. Up till now there has been no question of his loyalty, but he has recently been sent home either for inefficiency or indiscretion.We are making further enquiries about this. The second non-British traveller was the Swiss courier Rudolf Hafter. This man has been going regularly for the last year or eighteen months, travelling on an average once a week. ORANGE considers him to be reliable, and if he travels so frequently it would be necessary for him to have undergone training in secret writing as he could not carry his information in his head. It was quite possible that we may once more be dealing with one of Brandes’ notional set-ups. 6 July Edward Cussen has told me about the worst OVERLORD leakage case that has so far come to light.Apparently in March last the Ministry of Information sent a map of the target area to the British vice-consul in the Faroes, who is a Norwegian, instructing him to withhold it from the press until D-Day. Precisely what the covering letter was we do not yet know. The map was opened by an intelligent secretary, whom seeing the implication locked it up in the safe and said nothing about it to her chief. The question arises as to how the Ministry of Information knew anything about the target area at all, what led them to send the map to the vice-consul in the Faroes, and whether they did, in fact, send these maps to other consular officials. My own view is that we should get a mandate to investigate this matter. If it is left to the MoI we shall never get at the true facts.The first thing is to obtain the covering letter and the envelope in which the map was despatched through the open post. Findlater came over to see the map this evening. He thinks the case is a really bad one and should be investigated by the Security Service on Sir Edward Bridges’ authority. If the case is, as it appears, prima facie, it is enough to blow the whole MoI sky high. I showed Findlater and the Director-General a copy of the Duke of Alba’s despatch obtained by DUCK in which it was stated that he had dined with Sir John Anderson, who had disclosed to him information about MULBERRIES. This was apparently done on 6 June. Both thought that this constituted a bad leak but there is I think a certain reluctance to bring it to the notice of John Anderson. 7 July ZIGZAG has started to transmit.At the moment it is intended that he should be stationed in London in order to carry out deception in connection with flying bombs. I spoke to Richman Stopford about the future of his organisation, when he goes to the Channel Islands and also in the event of his going later to Germany. He said that he was quite hard-pressed. I suggested that Michael Ryde might be 218
1944
put completely in the picture as he was going to work in B1(a) for the time being. I had the idea that this would help to co-ordinate the activities of B1(L) and B1(a). It might too be possible for Ryde to look after the accounts, which are too much for Elton, who is already overburdened. Stopford told me about the case of JOSEF, who is being worked in conjunction with the FBI. JOSEF is based in Liverpool or Glasgow. He has a notional agent in Baltimore and also one in San Diego on the Pacific coast, whom it is hoped may get into direct touch with the Japanese by wireless.There is also a scheme for the recruiting of a notional wireless operator who is proceeding to Kandy.This man will be fed with information by Peter Fleming. 8 July I talked with T.A. Robertson this morning and told him the suggestion that Michael Ryde should look after B1(L) in Richman Stopford’s absence. He seemed to think this would provide a satisfactory solution. He told me that GARBO has been notionally arrested for poking his nose too deeply into buildings damaged by flying-bombs.This was reported by his deputy to the Germans who are in a terrible state. GARBO will be released in a week’s time. The main purpose of this manoeuvre is to provide an excuse for liquidating some of GARBO’s twenty-seven sub-agents. He will plead that this is necessary in view of the possible vigilance of the authorities.The manoeuvre will have a subsidiary purpose in reliving GARBO to some extent of the necessity to report flying-bomb damage. Charles Cholmondeley showed me some MSS today, which indicates that on 30 June General von Rundstedt still believed in an attack on the second of July on the Pas-de-Calais by General Patton’s Army. This idea of Patton’s Army has been entirely put across by GARBO. The fact is, of course, that there is no such army. Patton’s army is a phrase that is also used by the Germans when discussing the military situation with the Japanese. Units which notionally form part of Patton’s Army are now appearing in the field and deception is going on which will provide a plausible excuse.The total number of German tanks in France at the moment is estimated at 630. 10 July Last week, Dan Bryan notified us that O’Reilly, one of the Irish parachutist spies dropped in Eire, had escaped. He rather stupidly went home, and his father, who is an ex-Royal Irish Constabulary man, gave him up to the Garda Siochana but has refused the reward for his capture. I had a talk with Teresa Clay about the Marita case, and Jack Bingham is rather beginning to get into difficulties.A stage of the war has been reached where he has got to express some rather definite views about the future. There is a tendency amongst the Fifth Column to attribute Germany’s defeat to treachery by the generals.This is a question, of course, on which Jack in his role of Gestapo agent should 219
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
be informed. We decided that he should quote the instance of von Rundstedt’s departure, explain that, of course, the generals are not party men and that although loyal to their country they have not got the same fanaticism as party members. It is for this reason that Heinrich Himmler is gradually extending his control. He is further to say that defeat, although not yet a fait accompli, must be regarded as a possibility, and that it is, therefore, important that his followers should take no overt action which would spoil their chances of reforming and playing their part in the preparation for the next war. Roger Hollis dined with me. He has just read Lish Whitson’s report on the Communist movement in the United States, which he says is extremely interesting. The Russians apparently have a clandestine wireless set in New York and another in San Francisco. These are in touch with each other and also with Moscow. The trouble is that we are in duty bound not to pass this information to SIS, as it has been given to us under the strictest bond of secrecy. It may be that if we had the monitoring of these services of the times and frequencies that we could break the message. 12 July Joseph Vanhove was executed this morning, his appeal having failed. 13 July I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell today on the subject of ZIGZAG. He agreed to his position being regularised and is taking out documents in his own name. Regarding the possibility of a pardon he said he was doubtful in the Bill of Rights that the King could not pardon a man who had not been up on trial. On the other hand, he said that obviously if ZIGZAG were taken into custody we should take steps immediately to get him out and it would be necessary to use the Home Secretary’s name. If we were in difficulties we could tell the police to communicate with Maxwell. I have told Ian Wilson to ascertain precisely what charges lie against ZIGZAG. We are concerned and asked them whether they would be prepared to drop the idea of a prosecution. Meanwhile, it was necessary for us to lay on some machinery by which if ZIGZAG gets into trouble Ian Wilson can get to work on the job at the earliest possible moment. The great thing is to prevent a charge being preferred. Once that happens it is always difficult, if not impossible, to get it backpedalled. Maxwell is very intrigued by the whole story. 14 July Len Burt talked to me about ZIGZAG. He said that he was pretty confident that he could arrange with all the chief constables concerned to have the charges against him dropped. He could also ensure that any circulars out could be withdrawn. In this way, we shall achieve our object. 220
1944
Klop has just returned from Lisbon.We had a long talk at Dick White’s flat. He paints a positively lamentable picture of SIS.When he arrived he was seen by Cecil Gledhill, who is head of the station and holds a cover position with the embassy. Gledhill said,“First, I should like to know whose idea was it that you should come here.Was it C.’s idea? Section V’s? MI5’s? Or, perhaps your own?” Klop replied that he really did not know whose idea it was. He had merely been approached and asked to go out. Klop learned later that his arrival had been viewed by Gledhill as an attempt to set up some new organisation independent of himself. He then told Klop by hints of one kind or another that very few people, particularly the minister Henry Hopkinson, knew anything about intelligence matters except himself. His whole conversation was full of innuendos of one kind or another. Klop is horrified by the way both Gledhill, Charles de Salis [XXXXXXXXX] go about their business.They do not appear to exercise any reasonable precautions and are obviously being led up to the garden in a number of cases which were brought to Klop’s notice. Attempts were made to put Klop himself in touch with all sorts of undesirable people who would have ruined all the work he was doing with Mariaux. He tactfully declined. The office itself is overlooked and no attempt is made to screen it. People can be seen from the other side of the street photographing letters and every sort of thing. The only part of the work that he seemed to think was good was the facilities which had apparently been obtained for examining the air mail. This is presumably done through some informant in the Post Office. Doubtless, the Germans are doing it too, since everybody takes bribes from both sides. SIS apparently have information that Lorenzo, the Chief of Police, has been bribed by the Germans to the tune of a million escudos.They, nevertheless, seek Lorenzo’s co-operation in cases where their hand must inevitably be disclosed to the Germans. The whole business is childish. Klop said that [XXXXXXX] and [XXXXXXX] were both very nice people but obviously complete amateurs and pretty indiscreet ones at that. Far and away the best element in the office are the women. One of the failings of the post is that there is no one there with any intellectual qualifications. Huge dinner parties are staged for likely representatives of the Portuguese press, but they fail completely because nobody makes a real study of the man’s personality and interest, and if they did they would not have the requisite knowledge or ability to talk to him in an interesting way. All this, of course, confirms precisely what we have known and suffered from for a long time. Henry Hopkinson was the only man of real intelligence, but of course, could not play a very active part in these affairs, and kept out of things as far as it was within Gledhill’s power to do so. Klop was very anxious that no use whatever should be made of this information. He had, of course, many amusing stories about his various experiences. 15 July The Germans have ordered GARBO’s agents to maintain wireless silence for two weeks. In future there is to be no further reporting by GARBO’s organisation on the 221
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
Doodlebug.The Germans have just been informed that GARBO has been released and that a letter is on the way.This has confirmed it in their minds that his arrest was due solely to his poking his nose into air raid damage.They have consequently stated that he should report only on operational matters.This is all very satisfactory. 16 July ZIGZAG is now in regular communication. He has fully satisfied his interrogators as to his bona fides. 22 August I told T.A. Robertson about my consultations with Cyril Mills on the subject of GARBO’s sub-agents. Cyril did not think that it would be possible to run any of them very effectively from Canada owing to the dearth of suitable material. He has very great difficulty in getting anything from the Directors of Intelligence and can only just keep MOONBEAM alive under present conditions. If a transmitter is required it could probably be arranged for MOONBEAM to get one.T.A. Robertson said that there were rather wider issues at stake as we were considering the transfer of GARBO and all his works to the Argentine, where he might be able to sell himself to the Japanese. I also told T.A. Robertson about the plan for threatening the Germans with the uranium bomb if they attempt to use V-2. He said C. had a good deal of information about the uranium bomb but was extremely cagey about the whole business. C. probably does not realise that the FBI have been trying to protect the experiments in the United States for the last eighteen months or two years and consequently know what is going on.They are extremely concerned since the Communists have muscled in on the experiments and on the manufacture, details of which are almost certain to be known to the Russians. Meanwhile, the Canadian Government have bought up the El Dorado mines in Canada, which produce pitchblende from which the uranium is extracted.There are a good many wheels-within-wheels, since if the uranium bomb claims are substantiated (I gather that successful experiments have already been made) there will be a complete revolution in the method by which all machines are driven. Enrico Fermi achieved successful chain-reaction with his experimental atomic pile in Chicago the previous December. 23 August Alex Kellar brought in Wing-Commander Walker, our Defence Security Officer in Turkey, to see me. He told me about the BLACKGUARD case which he is running. This man who is a Persian was formerly associated with Rashid Ali, the Iraqi, and has on more than one occasion visited Berlin. He is being paid a high salary by the Germans but is working for us as he did not approve of his treatment in Berlin.
222
1944
BLACKGUARD is in some way tied up with FATHER.Walker works closely with SIS but, as far as I can gather, the work that he is doing is in many ways more effective than that done by SIS. The Turks are on the whole very co-operative but the wheels of their organisation grind very slowly, particularly when it is in their interests to procrastinate.They will tell us most things if we ask but do not volunteer a great deal. 24 August Jack Curry came to see me this afternoon. He told me that ISCOT seemed to indicate fairly clearly that in a number of countries, Yugoslavia, China, Holland, France, etcetera, the Soviets appear to have taken soundings after the abolition of the Comintern as to the effect of this move.They were to report on the reactions, particularly of those who were in opposition to Moscow and to take the necessary counter-measures. Curry seemed pleased with Lish Whitson’s visit and agreed with me about Valentine Vivian’s latest démarche on the subject of direct correspondence between ourselves and Whitson. I told Curry that in my view it was quite hopeless to build up SIS in the United States and that we had much better continue as at present until a final decision was reached as to the form of amalgamation of ourselves and Section V. Len Burt during my absence has fixed up everything about ZIGZAG.There are now no warrants for his arrest or interrogation. Burt contemplates using him as an informant. He is quite convinced that ultimately he will go back to his old life, appear in the dock, and plead that he has been of great service to the British Empire. Tommy Harris has a plan for evacuating GARBO to the Argentine, where he may have considerable post-war value.Their plan will be gradual and will not take effect until we are sure that the war in the west is over. He is, therefore, keen that No. 14 and No. 7 should if possible be transferred to Canada. No. 7 was DAGOBERT, notionally an ex-seaman in Swansea, and No. 14 was DORICK, supposedly based in Harwich. 25 August I saw C. today about the uranium bomb and put to him the suggestion that it should be used as a threat of retaliation to the Germans if they used the V-2. C said that he had no reason to think that the V-2 was imminent although it was possible that it might start in the near future. He felt, however, that there was nothing to be lost and said that he would put the suggestion to the Prime Minister who might take it up on his visit to President Roosevelt, which is to take place early next month. On the other hand, he might decide to act more quickly. C. was a little shocked when I told him that a large number of people in America, including the FBI, were aware of what was going on and that the Germans had in fact been enquiring as to the progress of the experiments. He said 223
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
that only about three or four people were supposed to know anything about it in this country. He said that the potentialities of uranium as a motive force were enormous and that some attempt was being made by the Americans to get control.The President had, however, made an offer to Winston to discuss some sort of control of the El Dorado mines in Canada which had recently been taken over by the Canadian government. I do not know what other pitchblende mines there are within the Empire. Presumably, the Russians, who were already aware of the experiments going on, had pitchblende resources. C. told me that the great expert on this matter, Professor Niels Bohr, a Dane, had been got out of Denmark by SIS a year or two ago and was working in the States. Bohr told SIS that he had received an offer of work on this problem for the Russians but had turned it down. 26 August I had a talk with Joe Spencer of Combined Intelligence Centre Iraq and with Brocas-Burrows. Harry Allen, Roger Hollis, and Alex Kellar were also present. Spencer and Brocas-Burrows were anxious to exchange notes, Brocas-Burrows being head of the British Military Mission in Moscow and Spencer responsible for liaison with the Russian Asaturov in Teheran. Spencer had established good relations there due to the fact that he had bawled the Russians out on two occasions and forced them to come to him hat in hand about one of their agents who was either being followed or had been arrested. After a great deal of referring back to Moscow,Asaturov had evidently got instructions to co-operate within certain limits. The latest case was of a man called Vaziri who had for a long time been suspected as a Russian agent. Spencer had been following him about and making all sorts of enquiries which were rather jeopardising this agent’s position.The effect had been to make the Russians come clean and to place them under somewhat of an obligation. On the other hand, the case of KISS, whose real name is [XXXXXXXXX], an ex-agent of Franz Mayer, the German saboteur, was somewhat hanging fire. It was desired to obtain chicken-feed for the Russians to keep this man’s set alive, but all overtures in this respect had received no response although a good deal of telephoning to Moscow was still going on. Brocas-Burrows did not think that an approach in Moscow was likely to improve matters, although he was only too ready to complain to the Russians if Spencer thought it would have the desired effect. Brocas-Burrows was afraid it might jeopardise Spencer’s relations with Asaturov and possibly lead to the removal of the latter. It was agreed, therefore, that for the time being nothing should be done. 27 August Through the FBI the objections of the State Department to granting a visa to TRICYCLE have been overcome and if and when the Yugoslavs make application, a visa will be granted. A further application which the Yugoslav Prime Minister 224
1944
promised TRICYCLE would be made does not, in fact, seem to have been made. I discussed this case with the FBI while I was in Washington.They were rather worried, because the previous application for TRICYCLE to attend the monetary conference has been turned down by the State Department (I understand privately from Joe Lynch, because it had not been supported by the Yugoslav Minister).The State Department thought that we and the FBI were trying to bounce them.The FBI did not know that the previous application had been made, and refused.They, of course, were particularly keen on seeing TRICYCLE again but they quite appreciated our position, and J. Edgar Hoover had given orders that everything was to be done to get the State Department to comply with our request. Since I have been away DREADNOUGHT, TRICYCLE’s brother, had arrived here as a refugee. The Gestapo were on his tracks for black market activities. He does not think that ARTIST has been compromised, otherwise his younger brother in Paris would, probably, have been disturbed. Moreover, Abwehr contacts in Bulgaria are still assisting him in his difficulties with the Sicherheitsdienst on charges of corruption. The Germans have resuscitated DRAGONFLY by sending him money through Swiss sources. He is, therefore, on the air again but has not yet succeeded in establishing contact. JOSEF is now in New York and has been interviewed by the FBI. They have given us a suitable story for a notional agent in New York, whom JOSEF is supposed to have recruited.The FBI have also supplied us with traffic supposed to have come from this agent. It is hoped that he will be shipped back to Britain shortly with the assistance of the Bureau. 28 August I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell today and I told him about the case of Guy, a Frenchman who had been brought back from Normandy to be interrogated.The French here had asked if they could keep him under interrogation all night. This had been refused, and Buster Milmo and Dick Butler had given an assurance to Maxwell that the French were not being allowed to undertake any interrogations without a British officer being present. From an indiscretion by a French officer to Milton of the London Reception Centre it seems that an officer from Camp 020 had allowed the French at their request to interrogate Guy alone for a short period and that a break had subsequently been obtained. The 020 officer was acting entirely contrary to instructions and disciplinary action has been taken. I explained all this to Maxwell as Milmo and Dick Butler did not wish him to think that they had deliberately misled him. He took the matter very well and entirely accepted my explanation. I then talked to him about the case of CARON, and left with him a letter. CARON is a German agent who has been operating in North Africa. Unknown to himself he had been fed by an agent of the French and had been passing on the information by secret letter. Recently, however, he received a wireless set from the Germans and the French felt that he could not be allowed to operate any more 225
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
except under control. They, therefore, arrested him and have taken over his set. They cannot keep him under lock and key without bringing him to trial, which would almost inevitably jeopardise the case. They have asked, therefore, if we can lock him up at any rate for the duration. Sir Alexander Maxwell felt this was virtually a request by the French to get them out of an administrative difficulty which they ought really to solve for themselves. He would, however, speak to the Home Secretary, explaining that there was not likely to be a recurrence and that we were anxious if possible to do the French a service.The proposal is that CARON should be sent over here and put into Camp 020. We afterwards had a talk with T.A. Robertson, who outlined Tommy Harris’s proposal that GARBO should be evacuated to Canada. The reason for this is that various members of the Abwehr are coming over to us in Spain and must be expected to know of GARBO and all his works.The Germans would naturally suppose, therefore, that we should get on to GARBO and liquidate him. In anticipation of this he, himself, is going to ground and leaving his organisation in the hands of his No.3. GARBO will then suggest his going to Canada which will be notionally arranged by MOONBEAM. He will then suggest joining up with the German rats in the Argentine.We may in that way maintain some sort of connection with the remnants of the Abwehr, Sicherheitsdienst, SS, who may try to carry on the fight.The presence of GARBO in Canada will not involve sending over much traffic except that which concerns his domestic affairs and his organisation generally. 29 August Anthony Blunt talked to me about an extremely bad case concerning Special Material. SIS had given us a report of a conversation with the Swedes of a somewhat sensational character which, when compared with our conversation, was completely erroneous. SIS explained this by saying that a different officer was working on the board and that he had heard another conversation on a legation line not tapped by us. He had amalgamated this with the conversation that we had picked up. Apart from the danger of mixing up two conversations SIS were not prepared to admit any liability.This once more shows the very unsatisfactory nature of [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] organisation. I have asked Anthony to go over and see the installation which had already been suggested by Christopher Arnold-Foster. We shall, of course, never get any further but personally I very much doubt whether any other conversation on the lines reported to us ever took place. 31 August Len Burt came to see me. He had been to Southend to have a talk with ZIGZAG, from whom he has extracted a certain amount of useful information on criminal lines. He also at our request threw a fly over ZIGZAG about the reward that he was expecting for his services. It seems that Michael Ryde had mentioned a figure of £6,000. Burt said he thought there must be some mistake, but that in any case 226
1944
Ryde was not high enough in the organisation to make a promise of that sort. It transpired ultimately that ZIGZAG thought that if he got £3,000 he would be doing extremely well. He is apparently well satisfied with the way that his case has been conducted by this office. He seems anxious to make contact again with the Germans somewhere in the North Sea where he has an idea that he will be able to hand over bogus photographs of Asdic devices for which he thinks he will receive the sum of £5,000. I said to Burt that I doubted whether the German navy would ever fall in with a scheme of this sort particularly at a time like this. We had previously had cases of submarine rendezvous but the indications were that the naval authorities were not prepared to risk their ships for the Abwehr. They would be still less likely to do so now when they have had so many submarines sunk. 2 September Ian Wilson has put up two very interesting reports based on information that he has received from DREADNOUGHT. They throw a particularly interesting light on the attitude of Draza Mihailovic. If DREADNOUGHT’s appreciation is correct, Mihailovic is really doing what he considers to be best for his country as distinct from the Allied cause. He dislikes both the Germans and the Partisans. He had collaborated with the Germans for two purposes: (1) to get greater freedom of movement and control over certain areas of the country, and (2) to get arms. He has not, so far, been in a sufficiently dominating position to come out into the open and deal with both the Germans and Partisans, and continues his collaboration with the Germans in the hope that he will, as a reward for his apparent collaboration, be in a position to obtain such equipment as they will be forced to leave behind or be prepared to hand over to him. As far as General Milan Nedic is concerned, he is playing a somewhat similar game, fighting bogus battles in order that Nedic can have plausible excuses for losing equipment which comes to Mihailovic’s headquarters. DREADNOUGHT’s own efforts were concentrated on economic sabotage, i.e. in preventing the Germans from getting raw materials and manufactured goods by devious means, and seeing that if they did get them they were likely to be defective in one way or another. He has given a long account of his association with ARTIST which tallies in almost every detail with reports we have already received. As regards the TRICYCLE case he said that neither Munzinger nor Wiegand had ever expressed any doubts about TRICYCLE, but DREADNOUGHT said that Abt. 3 had raised two points as casting doubts on the bona fides of TRICYCLE.The first was that after TRICYCLE had visited Rio de Janeiro almost the entire German intelligence service in Brazil had been arrested. (TRICYCLE had, in fact, not been responsible for this.) The other was that at some time during the early stages of the case TRICYCLE had had some knowledge of another German agent in London, and the latter had broken down. Unfortunately, DREADNOUGHT cannot amplify this statement which might presumably refer to GIRAFFE, TATE, or 227
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
BALLOON. Munzinger’s opinion on these points was that if you looked only at them it was possible to argue that TRICYCLE was controlled but to do so was to ignore hundreds of other things pointing to the fact that he was not. Wiegand’s opinion was that when TRICYCLE’s last report had been vetted they would see whether TRICYCLE was controlled or not and, in fact, after the vetting they were completely satisfied. They were also completely satisfied with the wireless messages that FREAK was sending while TRICYCLE was in Lisbon. After DREADNOUGHT had returned to Belgrade, Sensburg came and asked him for some details about FREAK. (This would probably be during the second half of May or early June 1944. It was about this time that the Germans intercepted a message from Mihailovic to his DMI about FREAK’s bona fides, which was relayed to Berlin.) DREADNOUGHT was curious to know why Sensburg was asking about FREAK and tried to find out through Toplak. Toplak reported back to DREADNOUGHT that Sensburg had said that there was a slight possibility that the English had grounds for suspecting FREAK.Toplak had asked Sensburg if he thought that there was a suspicion that FREAK was controlled and Sensburg had denied this and said,“God help us all if FREAK goes bad.We will all lose our heads.” DREADNOUGHT’s explanation of the lack of interest shown by the Germans in the reports of the WORM and METEOR is that both were regarded primarily as Munzinger’s men and when METEOR lost his job in 1943 nobody was interested in trying to run his cases successfully. 4 September We have been asked what should be done with renegade or collaborationist British subjects, who are picked up by the army, who are in no sense public figures. We have said that each case will have to be treated on its merits and that before a man is sent home we should like to be informed of the case against him. P.G. Wodehouse has turned up in Paris, and Edward Cussen has gone over at the request of the Home Secretary to interview him. It might be that if he were sent back he would be the cause of considerable embarrassment through MPs wishing him to be imprisoned and brought to trial for treachery. 5 September According to ISOS, FATHER was heard for the first time on 5 August 1944 operating from India. No message was transmitted, but contact was made. 10 September BRUTUS was informed at the end of August that the Germans had left a wireless transmitter for him in Paris, but they have not yet supplied details as to where or how it is concealed. Arrangements have also been made for BRUTUS to receive a sum of money in London. 228
1944
Since 26 August, ZIGZAG has been pressing his German control station to send him particulars of parts of the night-fighter radar equipment that they want him to steal. At the end of August he received these particulars, which have been considered by the Admiralty and Air Ministry. It has been decided that ZIGZAG should inform the Germans that he is in possession of very valuable information on antisubmarine detection devices. He has also transmitted verbatim a letter written by Professor Wood containing some deception on the capabilities of the invention. He is now waiting instructions from the Germans as to how he can get photographs of the apparatus which he has notionally stolen from a factory in Manchester, to them. He has also said that the obtaining of information of this sort is a costly business and has asked for a further £6,000. SNIPER is still waiting for the delivery of a transmitter but he has made it clear to the other side that his departure for the continent is becoming imminent and that he may have to go before the delivery is effected. In such an eventuality he will continue to listen for their messages on the continent and will hope that they will put him in touch with someone who can help or at least tell him where he can find a transmitter. FATHER has now arrived in this country. A German officer prisoner of war of considerable education and intelligence with a fairly wide experience both in the Balkans and on the western front states that the invasion of Normandy came as complete surprise.To illustrate this he says that on the night of the invasion a meeting of all Division Commanders of the 7th Army was called at Rennes to discuss operations in case of an Allied airborne landing. 11 September I saw C. this evening. I told him about our little exploit on Saturday night, in which he was much interested. I also asked him whether there were ways and means of getting GARBO a decoration without it being published in the press. He said that this was quite possible. He has been doing it frequently by putting the names specially through Peter Loxley. 13 September Buster Milmo mentioned the capture of Cotelon (Koetlocan), which he thinks is the most important capture since D-Day, and perhaps the most important of the war. He is a Sicherheitsdienst agent, once a member of the Breton Nationalist Movement, and has worked with Abt. II. He is holding out on many points and it is essential that he should be sent here for proper interrogation. At present he is in the hands of the Americans in France. He has mentioned several interesting things, however, such as the fact that he had run an agent from Brest to the UK who so far we have not been able to identify, and the fact that he had a system of reports coming from this country. He is in a position to give a great deal of information about SD and IRA connections. 229
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
14 September Maurice Jeffes came to see me about Back of Passport Control’s son who has got himself into very serious trouble with the police. He is being prosecuted at Exeter. Jeffes was anxious, if possible, to keep the father’s connection with Passport Control out of the papers.This had been done at the police court proceedings at Torquay. Apparently, [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] has spoken to Alan McIver about this.The latter has said, however, that RSLO could not intervene as the delinquent is once removed from the government official. I said I would speak to Len Burt and see if anything could be done. 16 September I have seen Machell and fixed up with him and Alan MacIver about an approach to the Torquay police in the case of Back’s son. As usual [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] had got the whole thing muddled. MacIver was asked to intervene with the Ministry of Information in order to keep the whole thing out of the press. [XXXXXXXXXXX] that is really required is a word to the Chief Constable or the Superintendent asking that Back’s connection with Passport Control should not be mentioned. I have just been reading the case of Hans Carl Scharf who was captured by the French and sent over here for interrogation. He has a long history and is of particular interest in view of the fact that he took part in the Roby Leibrandt expedition to South Africa, although he did not actually land. The case has been extremely well written up by McAllister of Camp 020 and is an excellent example of what can be done by careful interrogation. Under interrogation Scharf admitted that he was really named Schneider, and came from Alsace-Lorraine. He had been captured after he had parachuted into Algeria on a sabotage mission. 18 September I saw Captain Howman, the American who is working with Victor Rothschild in Paris. He has come over to try and get another jeep and trailer and a camera.Tess Mayor appears to have got over all right and had discarded her battledress.This carries with it the disadvantage of not being able to get anything to eat. I believe, however, that she is being put on the ration strength of the British Embassy, doubtless through the good office of Duff Cooper. Howman is very excited about a French Abwehr II agent who is called JIGGER. This is not of course his real name.Victor writes that he was responsible for the selection of all saboteurs in France. He was also present at all conferences with von Eschweger in Paris, not only regarding French sabotage but also with such persons as Umberto from Madrid, officials from Berlin, Belgium and Holland. He also had access to all Abwehr II files and for a period of about six months before the Germans left Paris systematically stole files from them which he now has and 230
1944
which are being studied. For example, he has a complete list together with the official designations of all persons working in the German Sabotage Service at Berlin. He also has details of the locations of all underground sabotage dumps in France, which number sixteen. These we are unearthing for the American authorities. JIGGER met ZIGZAG and is most interesting about the confidence that the Germans had in him and their joy after his first act of sabotage at de Havilland and the second on the City of Lancaster at Lisbon. JIGGER has a complete list of all the targets which stay-behind organisations in France, Belgium, and Holland are proposing to sabotage after the Allied advance. JIGGER was a German NCO who had been based at the Hotel Lutetia, the Abwehr’s headquarters in the Boulevard Raspail. 19 September Edward Cussen has seen P.G. Wodehouse in Paris. He says that he is a stupid old man who has made so many blunders that he had brought himself perilously near the clutches of the Treachery Act. For the time being he is to remain in Paris. It is hoped that there may be an opportunity later of interrogating the Germans who handled his case. 20 September BRONX has received the sum of £247, £178 which represents her salary for the months of August and Sept. at the rate of £100 per month. There is some doubt about the reason which prompted the payment of the additional £50, which appears to be in the nature of a bonus. It is known that immediately after BRONX’s telegram to ALMEIDA which implemented Plan IRONSIDE, the Germans authorised the payment of 50 pounds to BRONX. It may be that this sum has only just arrived.Alternatively, the bonus may be in recognition of the general excellence of her traffic. TRICYCLE’s letter dated 20 May in which he gave an explanation of FREAK’s ceasing to transmit has been returned from the Dead Letter Office “Addressee Unknown”. He gave a subsequent explanation early in July which it is hoped has reached the enemy. Letters written by GELATINE have also been returned through the Dead Letter Office. ZIGZAG has, during the past week, received a message from the Germans in which they undertake to expedite the delivery to him of a sum of money. He is still waiting for instructions as to how he can deliver the photographs which he has taken of the Asdic, which he notionally stole in Manchester, and until these instructions are received, little progress can be made. JOSEF has just got back from New York after being torpedoed twice on his return journey without suffering any serious damage. He was interviewed at great length by the FBI and got on well with them after making it clear that he must work through London until otherwise ordered. He has established a notional agent
231
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
in New York called ‘Mr C’, a Communist who is supposed to think that JOSEF is working for Russia. Meanwhile, JOSEF’s courier Irma has returned from Lisbon where he saw Kidosaki three times at the beginning of August.The Admiralty document on submarine matters which Irma delivered produced an almost overpoweringly cordial atmosphere.There was nothing to suggest that the Japanese were about to leave Lisbon or were nervous about their own future. Irma brought back £100 for JOSEF, which is less than he expected. 24 September SNIPER has been promised a transmitter by the Germans in ten days time. His future employment either here or in France has to be considered. Christopher Harmer is being asked whether he wishes to have him in France. Major Emile Kliemann of Ast. Paris, the spy-master of TREASURE and BRUTUS, has been captured. He is to be brought over here. He is to be the prisoner of MI-19 but we shall supply material for his interrogation.They have also got the brother of his mistress. Both of them were caught in Paris.There is some idea that Kliemann had been mixed up in the plot to murder Hitler and that for this reason he thought it better to stay where he was than to attempt to go back to Germany. 30 September JEFF is being interrogated by the Norwegian Security Service and it is reasonably certain that the latter will form such an unreasonable view of his conduct that the question of his disposal on the termination of hostilities will be able to be settled now. A wireless transmitter together with 50,000 francs has been buried somewhere outside Paris, and the Abwehr are proposing to put this equipment at the disposal of BRUTUS in the event of his being posted to France. 10 October [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] to see me about SIS agents on the Continent at work for the Germans. The first case related to two Russians, apparently lent to [XXXXXX], the P Section man in France, by the French and sent over here without warning, for what purpose nobody knows.They eventually landed up at the London Reception Centre and the French now want them back. We, on the other hand, are pledged to hand all Russians over to the Soviet authorities. [XXXXXXXXXXXXX] says that the French will be very upset if they do not get these people back.The other question relates to Germans, either civilians or prisoners of war, found on the continent, whom it is desired to bring here for training as agents to be sent back to Germany. There are no very satisfactory arrangements here for vetting them. The LRC is rather unsuitable as the agents 232
1944
come into contact with other people. Interviews in friendlier surroundings are equally unsatisfactory. What is really necessary, of course, is that such people should be interrogated in the first instance in a really searching and not too friendly manner. Once they have been in the hands of SIS and lived in comparatively luxurious surroundings they regard SIS as their protectors and interrogation by anyone else has little chance of success. Lastly, there is the difficult question of getting rid of such potential agents as SIS after preliminary training do not think satisfactory. I told [XXXXXXXXXXXX] that I would go into these points and let him have an answer as soon as possible. I dined with Tommy Lascelles last night. He was going to Eindhoven with the King today, where they would be the guests of Monty.There has been quite a fuss on the part of the Royal Air Force who were worried lest there should be any mishap. Monty on the other hand takes the whole thing very light-heartedly and says there is not a German plane in the sky.Winston told Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal to make the necessary arrangements. This resulted in the production of a bright blue plane which has since been changed to something less obvious. Winston is determined to show the world that Stalin is being kept au fait with everything that is going on, in spite of his reluctance to come to another meeting. On the other hand, I gather that the Prime Minister is a bit bored with old Joe’s constant pleadings of ill-health which will not permit him to leave his country. 11 October I attended a meeting in Peter Loxley’s room at which Colonel Cordeaux, Dick Brooman-White, Lord Reay and Buster Milmo were present.The subject was the exchange of spies with Germany. It boiled down to this, that Jack Cordeaux was anxious to register that if at any time we had a German who was likely to be sentenced to death we should let SIS know in order that some negotiations could be opened for the exchange of this man for one of the many British subjects in the hands of the Germans. Cordeaux quite recognised that at the moment there were no suitable candidates. I had a word with Loxley afterwards about GARBO. He said that if we were to forward a letter recommending him for an MBE to Sir Alexander Cadogan this could easily be arranged. Godfrey Thomas has handled quite a number of cases of the kind for SIS.Thomas told me that if the man was put forward as a special one he did not await the ordinary list. 13 October I understand that about two weeks ago a representative of OSS and Bill Donovan’s secretary were captured by the Germans while sight-seeing on the western front. This is an unfortunate incident to say the least since they may both well be conversant with ISOS. 233
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
Victor’s Rothschild’s Fifth Column case is becoming of increasing interest. A man called Joe Bates, whose father was a German and interned in the last war, officially joined the group. He is about as highly pro-Nazi as anyone we have come across. Further, Maria Lanzl has got into touch with a servant of Superintendent Hatherill who has a friend who is apparently working in SOE. Kohout wants to have this girl followed in order to find out where the headquarters are in Baker Street.This woman has also got on to Bletchley Park which was described as some Allied intelligence organisation. I have told Jack to ride Kohout off Bletchley Park. The group are now concentrating very much on establishing connection with the underground movement in Germany with a view to preparation for the Third World War. The sentiments of these people are really astonishing. Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess came to see me, firstly about ORANGE who wants to go to Switzerland but cannot get a passage.We are trying to get his ambassador to support his application. Secondly, they wished to discuss the questionnaire for ORANGE.We have put up a number of points concerning Germans endeavouring to establish themselves in Switzerland, the transfer of funds and the passing of German patents and companies to Swiss nominees. After lunch I met a friend of Guy Burgess called Lucas who had worked his way up from the bottom of the Royal Air Force both here and in Canada, and has just been whipped out and put into the BBC. Burgess asked him what the general talk was in air force messes in the junior ranks. He said that main interests were centered round their homes and their technical equipment; general conditions in different branches of the service, clothes, and food are also discussed. Outside this the main topic is Bing Crosby or Betty Grable. Nobody seemed to be the least interested in Sir William Beveridge beyond a vague hope that they might return to somewhat better conditions after the war.This only shows how wide off the mark papers like the New Statesman are. 14 October Anthony Blunt came to see me about a good piece of work by DUCK who has got all the latest instructions from the new Spanish Foreign Minister as to how Spanish affairs are to be conducted.Anthony tested the postal special examiners for translation and found that the document had [XXXXXXXXX]. Seeing that we have produced with the greatest regularity copies of all the Duke of Alba’s dispatches which have been circulated on an SIS ticket, it seems a bit thin that a document of this sort should not have been passed to us as a matter of routine. Clearly, it is of interest as general background. David Boyle generally takes the line that matters of this sort are of the highest political importance and are wholly for the eyes of the Foreign Office. This, of course, is a ridiculously narrow point of view. Anthony is going to register a strong complaint. Anthony tells me too that there has been another incident in regard to Cervell, who has got into touch with the managing director of the Armstrong Siddleley 234
1944
group who has applied for permission to show Cervell round the works.We knew from [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] that this little intrigue had been going on. The Air Ministry are apparently keen that the visit should take place as they think it would be good for post-war trade. The danger does not necessarily lie in Cervell seeing these particular works but in his establishing liaison with the managing director, which will in the long run lead to trouble.What the Air Ministry cannot get into their heads is that any information which goes to the Swedes is more than likely to reach our enemies. If they are prepared to say that this does not matter, we had better give up looking after Cervell. 20 October Anthony Blunt tells me that he has had from Joe Lynch the gist of an en clair telegram from Tokyo to Stockholm which was sent in English. It stated that units of the British fleet were reported to be concentrating in the Indian Ocean and asked for information from a neutral military observer as to the truth of this statement.We are trying to find out more about this telegram, which has an important bearing on our case against the Swedes. 21 October I saw Alastair Denniston today about getting Lewis and Stalbo, who are working on ISPAL 1, and ISPAL 2, to read back some Hebrew reports for us relating to the activities of Shertok and others. Denniston was quite prepared that they should do this work, and regarded them as 100 per cent reliable. He thought, however, that as they both worked so closely together it would be a mistake to employ one and not the other. I said I would consider the position and let him have a final answer. The Radio Security Intelligence Committee states that if we could get over sufficient double-cross traffic on the Madrid–Berlin route and on the Wiesbaden network they may be able to break new groups which have recently come into use. Our double-agent material is relayed on these services, and therefore provides a crib. 22 October Slight danger to the case of BRUTUS has arisen in so far as “Violette”, his late mistress and sub-agent in France, has been arrested by the FFI on a charge of collaborating with the Germans. Unfortunately, the Germans allowed “Violette” to learn that BRUTUS was working for them in England and “Violette” is, therefore, in a position to compromise the case.A full report on the circumstances of “Violette”’s arrest is awaited and meanwhile a scheme for providing BRUTUS with the necessary safeguard is being devised. Emile Kliemann, who was DRAGONFLY’s later spymaster and who is, at present, in this country, has now given after considerable delay an account of his relations with DRAGONFLY, and has, in fact, revealed the latter’s identity to us. In order to 235
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
safeguard DRAGONFLY should he ever decide to return to the Continent, Major Kliemann is being given the impression that DRAGONFLY was, in fact, arrested in December 1943 but that insufficient evidence of espionage was found to secure a prosecution and that he was accordingly interned. Kliemann has now suggested that we should run DRAGONFLY and TREASURE as double agents. He has no idea that they have been run as such over a considerable period and that he himself is the sucker. A party from this office accompanied by the RSLO Nottinghamshire and the Chief Constable of Boston visited the place selected for the parachuting of the two transmitters to SNIPER. The party was there on the nights of 10/11 October between the hours of 9.30 and 1.30 and on the night of 12 October between 9 and 9.30.The German plane did not arrive and SNIPER had since been told that this was due to weather and bombardment, but he has in the same message been asked to name another date and time on which he could be present at the same place. We have suggested the nights of 11 and 12 November, between 9 and 9.30 each evening. 24 October The following conversation took place between Nashat Pasha and his British bride Miss Priest this morning.They are due to be married at noon today: Pasha: (in a hoarse but faint voice) Hello, my darling. Priest: (in gay clear voice) Good morning, Hassan darling. Have you got your white carnation? Pasha: I don’t know. Oh, my God. My head! Priest: What do you mean? I’ve just had my face done. Pasha: I can’t get out of bed. Priest: Darling! What is it, lumbago? Pasha: No, an unbalanced head.We have to put it off till tomorrow. Priest: Oh, no, darling, please! Pasha: All right cherie, ma petite, I’ll try to get up. Priest: Darling, I’ve got a boil on my chin. I warned you. Pasha: Oh, my God! My legs won’t work. Priest: Please, Hassan, get better, have a nice bath. Pasha: All right, I will. I’ll be ready.When do you want Mrs Ali? Priest: Not till 10.30. It’s just for packing. I can manage to dress myself. Pasha: I can’t. Goodbye, darling. As Alex Kellar says, not a very auspicious wedding morning. I attended the investiture at Buckingham Palace where I met John Tiltman of GC&CS.Tiltman reminded me of the time when he and I had gone down to some firm in Southampton Row to inspect a Hollerith machine.This was a good many years before the war. He said he had no idea at that time that the Hollerith was going to be such a big factor in the work that he would be doing. He did not know 236
1944
what future there would be for GC&CS but he could not help thinking that the difficulties of the work might become insuperable when foreign governments realised the mistakes that they had made during the war. Intelligence might well be driven back on the old cloak and dagger lines. Tiltman is now Chief Officer on cryptography and a brigadier. He said that this does not prevent him from a certain amount of daily exercise in his special line, without which he thinks his usefulness to the organisation would disappear in a very short time. He says that methods change so quickly that it is absolutely essential to do a certain amount of hard work, otherwise one’s usefulness will entirely disappear. I spoke to C. about the cases of Ledebour and Otto John, the two Abwehr or Sicherheitsdienst officers whom SIS wanted to get out of Spain and Portugal. I said that certainly we were not very keen about people of this sort coming over here since we had to look after them from the security point of view and they eventually became a charge on our organisations. From the information point of view there was nothing to be gained since that had all been sucked dry before they started.We could not very well detain them after their past services and if we did we had to put them in different houses.They could not obviously be put into the Nazi camp in the Isle of Man. C. said that he would speak to Felix Cowgill. A Lufthansa lawyer and Abwehr officer, Otto John was implicated in the 20 July plot against Hitler and sought political asylum in Britain from SIS in Lisbon. 25 October Denis Capel-Dunn called here yesterday to start an enquiry into the work of this department. He said that he had been charged by the Joint Intelligence Committee to investigate all the sources of intelligence and their distribution. The DirectorGeneral asked him for his credentials, which he had not got.The D-G very politely told him that he would like to have a letter from somebody, as before allowing such an enquiry to be made he might have to consult his minister.This is, I think, quite correct though perhaps a little unfortunate as it rather gives the impression that we have something to hide, which is very far from the case. Major Field-Robinson came to see me about a man called Wengenfeld who had formerly been serving in the SS Division Adolf Hitler.This man, apparently, is prepared to bump off Himmler, though personally I think he is a bit sanguine. The question arises, of course, as to whether this is not merely an attempt to get back to his own lines. I told Field-Robinson that I did not think that Camp 020 or the London Reception Centre could express a very good opinion. The best plan would be to get Melland or somebody in MI-14(d), who were the experts on the SS, to express their view and it might also be worth asking COLUMBINE whether he knew anything about Wengenfeld. I undertook to get in touch with Melland.
237
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
31 October It has recently been learned that ZIGZAG has told a number of his doubtful acquaintances of his war-time visits to the Continent and the purpose of his coming to this country, including the fact that he has daily been transmitting messages to the Germans. In view of this breach of faith it has been decided in B1 that we should take advantage of this opportunity of closing the case with ZIGZAG in the wrong. Michael Ryde thinks it is just possible that he had a pact with Colonel Graumann, his spymaster in Germany. Graumann is, according to ZIGZAG, corrupt and when asking the Abwehr for funds for his agents always puts a certain amount in his own pocket. It is just possible, therefore, that in his foolishness, ZIGZAG may have told Graumann of his connection with ourselves and that the two were running a financial racket between them. This, of course, has no bearing on the case since Graumann wouldn’t appear to report the information to his superiors. We know, moreover, that what ZIGZAG tells him is passed onto Berlin. LIPSTICK has received an incoming DUFF in which he is told that his family has been paid 1,000 pesetas on his behalf even during his silence.They ask him to re-open communications and give him a new cover address in case the other one has gone wrong. It is not proposed at present to re-open the case. LIPSTICK is preparing to return to Lisbon to take up residence there with his wife. The fact that the Germans are attempting to revive this case is an indication that LIPSTICK was not blown through his alleged indiscretions while last in the Peninsula. This renewed interest also indicates that when LIPSTICK returns to the Peninsula he may be approached by the Germans there to co-operate with them in their postwar plans. 1 November I had a long talk with Tim Airey,T.A. Robertson, Bertram Ede and John Marriott when provisional proposals were made regarding our set-up in the Far East. It was suggested that Airey should, in accordance with Charles Lamplough’s wish, be attached in an advisory capacity to SEAC instead of to GOC Ceylon. It was also tentatively suggested that Airey might ultimately become responsible for counter-intelligence planning in SEAC. On this point I had certain reservations. Although Airey, reinforced possibly by Courtney Young, would probably be able to put a better plan than most of the staff at present in Ceylon he is not very qualified for the task. He has not been on counter-intelligence planning here nor has he had any practical experience in the field.This, however, he may acquire to some extent during his stay here. What SEAC really requires is someone like Niall Macdermot. Airey urgently requires a B1(a) case officer to handle the case of CARBUNCLE in Colombo. It is suggested that Russell Lee should go out to do this job. This matter is somewhat urgent owing to the illness of Geoffrey Paterson, who will clearly have to come home, but Lee cannot go until he has wound up the cases of TREASURE and BRUTUS which, at present, are producing
238
1944
useful results. Russell Lee is actually the operator in these cases. It is, however, suggested that Russell should come from West Africa to take Airey’s place at Kandy. Ede would like to get hold of Lieutenant-Commander Sir Robert Ricketts of NID to take Paterson’s place at SCO in Kandy. Ricketts would be prepared to take a job on provided he can be spared. DSO Trincomalee is also leaving and there appear to be no Security Service officers who could fill the post. At the moment we are also in difficulties regarding the supply of DSOs and Assistant DSOs for Malaya. 5 November There have been interesting developments in the case of one Christiaan Lindemans, codenamed KING KONG. An agent sent back from the front named Daman denounced a Dutchman called Cornelius Verloop. The latter when questioned gave information to the effect that Lindemans, in order to get his brother released from prison, had offered his services to the Sicherheitsdienst and had in all denounced some 267 Dutch, Belgian and French agents working in the resistance movement. Lindemans was one of the leading lights of Dutch resistance and has been appointed by Prince Bernhard, much against the advice of our old friend Oreste Pinto who is now on the Prince’s staff, as liaison officer between Dutch resistance and the Canadian Army. Orders were sent to the field for Lindemans’ arrest and he is now at Camp 020 where he has made a confession. An ISOS trace shows almost undoubtedly that he attended a meeting where agents from this country disclosed to the Dutch resistance movement the possibility of parachute landings in the Maas area. This was fairly late in August and was probably part of the plan to seize the Arnhem bridgehead. The SCI units could, apparently get nothing out of Lindemans who had several epileptic fits. He has had another since he arrived at Camp 020.Tin-Eye Stephens’s report about his confession opens with the words “This obstreperous giant.” 7 November A spy named Alfred Langbein has apparently given himself up in Canada. He was landed by U-boat sometime in 1942 with a wireless set. He had $7,000 which had now become exhausted. He says that he never used his wireless set nor communicated with the Germans by other means. There is some vague trace of him on ISOS. Langbein made a full confession to Cyril Mills, admitting he had been landed by the U-213 off St Martins in May 1942. He was interned at Fredericton until the end of the war and repatriated.
239
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
9 November I took Major G.J. Jenkins and Alex Kellar to lunch.We discussed Jenkins’ political reports. Jenkins was very insistent that if political reports were all bottle-necked through Lord Killearn they would just be blue-pencilled if they did not happen to agree with Killearn’s views. Kellar said that he thought it was important that in-sofar as it was possible Jenkins should get his reports discussed by BTE and the Political Intelligence Centre Middle East, etcetera. If they were agreed by all the principal parties they would carry more weight. If, on the other hand, certain portions of them were not agreed, he should notify us. He apparently receives reports prepared by the Egyptian police for the Ministry of the Interior. It does not always follow that these reports are accurate. They are, nevertheless, the basis for action taken by the Ministry of the Interior and in this sense have a certain value, though criticism of these reports has arisen in the past, I think probably through a lack of appreciation as to precisely what they are. There is no doubt that Lord Killearn’s reputation in Egypt is pretty bad. It is more or less common gossip that he made £1,300 last year from his duckshoot. Everyone is asked to buy his cartridges through some official who acts for Killearn. These are paid for at a prohibitive price. Each person then asked to shoot is allowed to take away two ducks. The remainder is sold at a considerable profit. Killearn also has the reputation of being a heavy gambler. Officials in Egypt are apt to criticise him for his attitude towards the King.They think that he should support the King, even though at times the latter may attempt to act in an unconstitutional manner. I saw Bill Cavendish-Bentinck after lunch, and told him Anthony Blunt’s case against the Swedes. He took the view that the best course would be to drop the document obtained in the Italian Air Ministry on the Swedes at Stockholm with the remark that it would be found in Rome and might perhaps interest them.This would have the effect of keeping them guessing.As regards the naval questionnaire, he thought we should ask Prince Bertil for an explanation about the question relating to maps. He did not think it would be possible at this stage to get the authorities to turn out the Germans and Japanese.This may be due to the fact that at the moment there is some suggestion that Sweden should be asked to join the Allies and declare war on Germany and Japan. TREASURE has been giving a certain amount of trouble. She has written a book on her experiences with us and also with the Germans. She is proposing to get it published. Malcolm Muggeridge has had a word with her but has not succeeded in getting the manuscript. I believe she has been talked to by [XXXX]. I suggested to T.A. Robertson that they might put some tame publisher and in that way obtain the manuscript. This would not, however, prevent her from writing the whole thing again nor if she had stayed here would it have been possible to prevent her giving the manuscript for publication in America.
240
1944
13 November The murderers of Lord Moyne are Eliahou Hakim and Eliahow Tsoury.There has been discovered in a Cairo hide-out two British uniforms, two AB 64s, one Royal Navy paybook, six blank leave passes, and fourteen cubes of cordite, six cases of TNT, and 612 rounds of Luger ammunition.The two men were seen in uniform on 27 October. Other members of the Stern Gang are said to be still at large in Egypt. I believe that the Prime Minister has been considerably moved by the assassination of Lord Moyne and that in consequence he is not quite so favourable towards the claims of the Zionists as he was. Complications have arisen in the BRUTUS case owing to the arrest of “Violette” in France and the fact that “Victoire” may have to be deported to France.We may have to wind the case up. When Len Burt and Edward Cussen went to interview ZIGZAG and to inform him that we proposed to dispense with his service they found in his house the notorious Wilfred Macartney, who got ten years for Soviet espionage. ZIGZAG implied that he was a guest and suggested that they should meet in the bedroom. Burt, however, pushed his way into the sitting room and found his old friend Macarthy. ZIGZAG, undoubtedly, got the impression that we were aware of his association with Macarthy and that it was on these grounds that we were really getting rid of him. He admitted to us that he had discussed with Macarthy the writing of his book. ZIGZAG accepted his dismissal and did not substantially dispute that the grounds for it were well-founded.We shall probably let him have a further £1,000 and two cameras which he brought over with him on his last trip.The Germans did not keep their appointment with SNIPER last Saturday, probably owing to bad weather. FATHER returned to this country last August. It is now proposed that the transmitter in India shall be taken over by a sub-agent and that FATHER should be supposed to have returned to this country prior to repatriation to Belgium. In this way his real and notional situation will again coincide. FATHER may have to resume letter-writing from this country. Meanwhile, we have heard that the Germans have a transmitter waiting for him in Belgium. Notwithstanding the position in the TREASURE case, the Germans seem to incorporate her messages in their high command communiqués. The Germans state inter alia that reports on V-2 received by them show that extremely serious damage has occurred in the Camberwell, Mitcham, Sidcup and Edmonton areas. This is taken almost verbatim from a TREASURE report dated 25 October which names these four districts in the same order as they appear in the German communiqué. 18 November Paul Paillole, or his successor since I believe he too has been given the sack, is being informed about BRUTUS and is being asked to sidetrack any enquiries about the latter’s escape from prison. Meanwhile, “Victoire” is to remain here. TREASURE is
241
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
now employed near Verdun and as far as can be gathered from an obscure telegram from the field, has aroused some suspicion in the minds of 12th Army Group.The latter have been referred to Dykes for full particulars. GELATINE has been given a fresh questionnaire and some words of encouragement. Captain Gache of MI-14(d), Brian Melland and Major Field-Robinson are continuing with the case of Wengenfeldt, whose story has recently been studied by COLUMBINE. COLUMBINE has pointed out several discrepancies and thinks that the whole plan is impractical. It would be quite impossible for Wengenfeldt to gain access to Himmler’s office. COLUMBINE thinks it possible that Wengenfeldt may have invented the plan to win sympathy and pose as a hero. Either way he stood to profit. If we turned the scheme down he would have the credit of proposing it without the onus of carrying it through. If we accepted it and gave him the required facilities it would be simple to return to his countrymen and relate how he had hook-winked the British Secret Service into giving him a return trip to Germany complete with car. Arrangements are being made for COLUMBINE to interview Wengenfeldt. 21 November The French have arrested P.G. Wodehouse and his wife, and Edward Cussen is to go over to Paris to sort things out.This will precipitate some decision in the Home Office as to how these characters are to be dealt with in the future. I imagine that this has come about quite naturally, the French who were arresting all collaborators would naturally find it embarrassing to have Wodehouse, so notorious a character, hanging about in the Hotel Bristol and have, doubtless, been criticised in consequence. The matter may in part be due to the resignation of Paul Paillole who knew about Wodehouse and agreed to his being left at large. His successor may have different views. 22 November At the Wednesday meeting Herbert Hart said that a new series of OSTRO reports were now coming in from West Africa, which seemed to have more foundation than his previous efforts. His sources are probably airliner crews and passengers. Herbert Hart also spoke of the case of Golenko. He is a White Russian, rabidly anti-Bolshevik, who will work for anyone so long as it is against the Soviets. He had worked for the Germans for four years intercepting Russian radio-telephone traffic and is an expert on the subject. He was left as a stay-behind agent in Paris, and was taken over by the Americans. They have brought him to the UK, and installed him at Claridge’s. He is sixty-five.We proposed to have him examined at the London Reception Centre, but unless there is a strong case for his retention he will be sent back to Paris. Ian Wilson mentioned the case of Miesersemann, who has been used by the Germans to run captured SIS and SOE agents as double agents for the other side. 242
1944
Herbert Hart came to consult me about the case of Golenko.This man is, in our view, not a menace to security. He is quite frank about his association with the German intelligence service which was based entirely on his hatred of the Russians. He has considerable technical knowledge of wireless and telephones. He has, I gather, devised some de-scrambling instrument and also a special instrument for intercepting telephone conversations. We are allowing the Americans to give him a certain amount of liberty until Monday when they return him to France.We are asking B6 to keep him under observation. Noakes tells me that Wengenfeldt has been broken by COLUMBINE who says that the man is not an officer at all and that his whole project was merely a blind in order to get back to Germany. COLUMBINE was, evidently, thoroughly worked up about the whole case and, seizing the man by the collar, accused him of being a liar and made him confess in front of Gache of MI-14. It seems that COLUMBINE’s annoyance was based more than anything on the fact that a private had had the impertinence to pose as an officer. 23 November Herbert Hart talked to me about the case of Golenko. It has now been discovered, beyond doubt, that he is a stay-behind agent. Mrs Spring happened to see a reference on an ISOS card for a man called GUSTAV. The facts fitted Golenko and checked up with certain information found in his diary.This led to other traces of GUSTAV, showing that he had been working for the Germans as late as August 1944 and that his whole story about his having refused to go back to Germany was a lie. Golenko is now at Camp 020, which he will find somewhat of a change from Claridge’s. 24 November I had a talk with Baxter,T.A. Robertson, Roland Bird, and Herbert Hart about the behaviour of SIS in the case of Otto John.They first agreed with us that he should be brought back and that they would be responsible for looking after him. They have now suggested to the Home Office that if the Political Intelligence Department do not want him he should be interned.This is contrary to the undertaking which they gave, and runs counter to our recommendation to the Home Office that the man is not a security danger. 25 November John Rymer-Jones of the Palestine CID came in today. He seems very pleased that his force has at least got the order to go ahead and clean up the terrorists. His only trouble is shortage of men. I gather too that he has succeeded in getting an increase of pay. He says this will make an enormous difference to the efficiency of his force. He expects trouble but appears fairly sanguine about being able to deal with it. 243
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
GARBO has received the MBE from the King who, having read the story, was apparently very much intrigued.The actual presentation will probably be done by the Director-General. The King was anxious to know what the word “notional” meant.This was explained to him by Tommy Lascelles. 28 November BRONX has been invited to visit Madrid. ZIGZAG has left London and there is some suggestion that he has gone to consult Compton Mackenzie about writing his memoirs. 29 November At the Wednesday meeting Teresa Clay mentioned that a saboteur had been captured in Paris who is the first example of one with a mission to do damage by poison. He had been supplied with tablets like aspirin, one of which could poison 50,000 litres of water. It is not yet known what the poison is. Baxter told us of the case of Parks, a British subject now in Brixton. He had been working for SIS and, according to his own story, their arrangements for receiving his messages were so inefficient that he was obliged to transmit more often that he should, and as a result he says the Germans traced him by directionfinding and arrested him.They then turned him round and from February of this year he was sending, under control. He says he warned SIS through certain channels that he was under control.The Germans appear to have allowed him a certain amount of liberty to visit Paris each week, and through another SIS organisation he arranged with SIS for his escape. He got down to the Pyrenees, but says he was not satisfied with the arrangements for picking him up there, so returned to Paris where he hid until the city was liberated, when he gave himself up to the Allies. He was brought over here and is under examination at Brixton.There is a check on his story through a man named Meissman now in the hands of MI-19. Meissman says that he knows Parks was under control much earlier than he admits, in fact, from October 1943 and that he had been captured by the Sicherheitsdienst and handed over to the Abwehr who had intended him to be a stay-behind agent. Baxter wondered whether he should go to Camp 020. Buster thought not, but that he should be re-examined on Meissman’s evidence and if necessary confronted with Meissman himself. 30 November Professor Briscoe came to talk to me about some devices for ensuring that a safe had not been opened. He thought that the best thing was to put a paper-weight on top and then take high precision measurements which can quite easily be done. Alternatively, he thought you could put three sheets of paper and draw some lines across in saliva across the overlapping edges. These could be brought up by iodine 244
1944
and would show if they had been moved. Probably either method would be quite effective as long as the person responsible does not get bored with making tests. I rather had in mind a piece of paper sensitive to light but Briscoe pointed out that that would on the whole be more troublesome since it would have to be developed. 4 December Derek Tangye came to tell me that Felix Cowgill had approached him some time ago to find a job for Erich Vermehren in some press office.Tangye informed Jasper Harker who told him to get into touch with me. Apparently, it is proposed to put Vermehren as a kind of adviser on German affairs to the Daily Mail.This arrangement seems to me most peculiar and most dangerous.There is no earthly reason for thinking that Vermehren is anti-German.What sort of advice, therefore, is he going to give the Daily Mail and in a year’s time he will probably have very different views about this country, and its attitude towards the German people. By that time he will be bedded down in a press office with all the facilities that that entails. On further enquiry, I was told that SIS ultimately hope to send him to Madrid. The idea that they have in mind is presumably that he would make contact with local Nazi groups, which is, of course, quite futile since he is entirely compromised. The Germans have informed SNIPER that a transmitter is waiting for him at Turnhout in Belgium. India has provisionally agreed to let us have the operator who has been working the FATHER transmitter. This will enable us to use the transmitter, which the Germans say they have waiting for FATHER in Belgium. A captured document dated The Hague, 26 June 1942, gives an account of a conference of Abwehr officials held in Berlin on 15–17 June 1942. A certain Kriminalrat Klemens spoke on the British and American intelligence services. He said that up till the outbreak of war only five British intelligence agents had been captured. Then follows the cryptic remark that the intelligence service is simply concerned with espionage, and the Secret Service with secret service:“The English Intelligence Service is divided into eight sections of which the section MI5 is the best known.The network of English agents includes hundreds of people who have nearly all been excellently trained. One special institution is the Passport Control Office called PCO. In case the PCOs should have to disappear a new Z organisation was set up in 1939.” (So much for the super-underground organisation of Colonel Dansey on the one hand and Major Grand on the other.) “Counter-espionage activity in England is partly in the hands of the police and partly in those of the armed forces.The English Security Service (Abwehr) makes use of a Black List which, more or less, corresponds to the German one. Measures against foreign agents include forbidding entry to and exit from the country.” (This means that somewhere the Germans must have a copy of old Adams Black List.) “In regard to the United States intelligence service, it is anticipated that it works in common with the English service. Nothing definite has been established about its activity in Germany.” (The answer to both these statements need not be stated.) 245
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
5 December ULTRA shows that a U-boat is proceeding to Canada with a German agent on board. This information had been passed to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Ottawa, who had informed the RCMP.The RCMP had asked Cyril Mills for his views and Mills had telegraphed home. Being an ULTRA, of course, nobody had thought of telling us. I am pointing out to SIS that for their own protection they would be well-advised to do so in the future since the RCMP might lay on all sorts of measures which would entirely give the show away. Apart from this we were concerned if a German agent was going to Canada and so was the Commissioner, who controls the armed coastal boats and the Coast Watchers. 6 December I dined with Anthony Blunt and Padgham. The latter talked a lot about his past experiences and in particular of those just prior to his departure from The Hague. He had given Klop the names of three Dutch collaborators.The following morning when he came into the embassy he saw Schultze-Burnett standing in the passage and eyeing him with considerable suspicion. He then came up to him and said, “Do the following names mean anything to you?” Padgham gave an evasive answer saying that he thought he had heard of one of them, but made up his mind from that moment that the game was up. The same evening, as Klop was leaving Padgham’s house, he passed Schultze-Burnett in the garden.The following morning Padgham left by special aeroplane. He was driven to the aerodrome by a Dutch chauffeur in the employ of the PCO, Major Richard Stevens. He thought that this man was singularly inquistive. He told Padgham that he spoke English with a German accent. Padgham replied that perhaps he did because he had lived in Germany for a long time.The driver then asked Padgham whether he would like him to drive past the Lufthansa offices. The remark was apropos of nothing and drew the reply from Padgham that he had no particular desire to drive in that direction. Padgham said that until he actually landed at Croydon he always envisaged the possibility that the pilot of his aircraft might land him in Germany. Padgham is, of course, convinced that there was a leak in Stevens’ office. He saw Stevens later in London, but the latter pooh-pooed the idea. Six weeks later, however, he was kidnapped in Venlo. It may be that had he investigated the leakage more carefully this incident might have been avoided. I talked to Padgham about the Seidlitz Committee. He is somewhat apprehensive lest there may be a get-together with the Russians on old lines of the post-war period. He thinks that we may suffer from Russian appeasement in the same way as we did from German appeasement. Padgham’s morale is rather low. He obviously feels his position acutely. He is horrified at what Germany has done and thinks that he like all Germans must take his share of the blame. He was often in the presence of Adolf Hitler and could, had he been sufficiently courageous, have bumped him off. I said that I felt that he had done as much as could be expected of any man, and
246
1944
that his actions had been extremely courageous. He told me how he first came into touch with the British government. He had known Klop from the very early days and established close touch with him after he arrived here in 1934. He trusted Klop entirely and expressed to him very definite views about the Nazi regime. Through Klop he was introduced to Clifford Norton who was then Sir Robert Vansittart’s private secretary. He felt that in dealing direct with Van he was on sure ground and that his actions would be in the best interests of Germany. He realised, of course, finally that his and Van’s words were falling on deaf ears. I wonder very much whether Sir Vernon Kell knew about this when he took a firm stand on Klop. Probably he knew at that time that Padgham, on Klop’s introduction, was giving information to Vansittart. It may even be that Van thought it more convenient that we should run the party than that there should be anything in the nature of direct communication with the Foreign Office. 9 December Brock showed me some ISTRIA indicating that SNAKE has given the Palestine Police over five hundred names and addresses of terrorists and dumps of arms.The police have already made over 250 arrests.There is not doubt, I think, that the more moderate elements in the Zionist Movement are afraid that the actions of the extremists may jeopardise the whole future of Zionism. Tommy Harris talked to me about the protest that the Foreign Office is making on our instigation about Frederich Knappe, codenamed FREDERICO.We are drawing the attention of the Spaniards to this individual and asking for the opportunity to question him as he has information as to the whereabouts of an important agent in this country, namely GARBO. In fact, FREDERICO does not know GARBO’s whereabouts although, of course, he knows about his work. It is not the least likely that we shall have the chance of talking to him but if we do we have a questionnaire which should give the impression that we are bluffing and that, in fact, we do not know very much. We feel it desirable to make this protest since it must be assumed that through Buenaga and others we know about Knappe and about GARBO. If, therefore, we do not register some protest it would appear rather unusual in the present atmosphere. If there is an interrogation it will be conducted by the military attaché, with Tommy Harris in the offing to give him advice. Christopher Arnold-Foster rang me up about my letter to C. concerning the German agent alleged to be on his way by submarine to Canada. He wanted to know how we had got onto the source. I said that we had rung up the Admiralty. He said that somehow or another that particular message had never been to Broadway at all but that he would look into the whole matter. Apparently, Ewen Montagu should have consulted SIS before sending the wire, and this may account for his having taken the whole question so lightheartedly when Herbert Hart tackled him about it.Whatever the circumstances, it is a bad show, because not only has Mills been let down but the source of the information has been seriously jeopardised. I gather that this particular form of ULTRA is high-speed morse.This means 247
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
that a whole message can be included in what sounds like one dot of a morse code. The Germans are now using a new device on their submarines which makes Asdic extremely difficult. It is a kind of extended exhaust pipe and air intake which enables the U-boat to recharge its batteries under water. Formerly a submarine had to surface for this purpose owing to the chlorine fumes given off in the recharging process which would, if allowed to collect, asphixiate the crew. The technical breakthrough was the Schnorkel. BONZO is being sent back to Italy where SIS are proposing to use him. Some time ago we made arrangements for a Palestine policeman named Richard Catling to go to the United States where he would make contact with a man associated with Bergson Group.This group from which radiated a number of committees has been collecting funds for the Irgun Zwei Leumi, and transmitting them to Palestine for revolutionary purposes. It was said that Bergson was to give a signal for revolt before very long.We gave Catling introductions to the FBI and he seems to have seen the State Department, G-2 and almost everybody in the United States, including British Security Co-ordination. He made contact with the agent whose story prima facie is quite plausible. I am not, however, altogether satisfied about this agent’s reliability and feel that while he ought to be encouraged he should at the same time be closely watched. Lord Gort now suggests that we should get Bergson and all his associates arrested. This seems impossible since I gather from the FBI that he has not committed an offence. He may be expelled by the immigration authorities for having overstayed his permit but this is subject to every sort of appeal and intrigue which may take months. On the other hand, Bergson might join the American forces which would give him American citizenship within six weeks. I doubt, however, whether he would do this as it would prevent him from carrying out his present task. I am suggesting that we should obtain the full co-operation of the FBI in having this man watched and in allowing us to continue to run the agent. Meanwhile, we should get some checks going on the various committees in the United States and also should get [XXXXXXXXXX] on one Halpern said to be the representative of the organisation here. On Halpern’s arrival in Palestine on some future date it is said that the balloon is to go up. We may have some difficulty with the FBI as I understand that Bergson’s affairs are technically regarded as a religious matter and therefore come within the sphere of the State Department. There does not seem to be anything particularly religious about Bergson’s present intentions. 12 December Bill Stephenson has telegraphed to the Director-General saying, “I shall probably be bringing J. Edgar Hoover to London shortly. Will you send me the time you would wish to have him on anything you desire other than meetings with the Cabinet which I am arranging.” The Director-General has drafted a fairly polite reply, but makes it clear that he expects to hear from Mr Hoover either direct or 248
1944
through his representative. Meanwhile, if Hoover could give us some idea of the time he had available we could arrange a programme. Bill Stephenson is obviously trying to impress everyone over here that he has got Hoover in his pocket. It may well be that he has; on the other hand, he may merely be angling for some wires from prominent people in this country in order that he can wave them in Hoover’s face and suggest to him that as everybody wants to see him in London a visit should be arranged. Christopher Arnold-Foster has written to me making it clear that SIS were at fault in not informing us about the submarine containing a German agent which was on its way to Canada. In future it is proposed that the Director of Naval Intelligence, Ottawa, should not pass anything of this kind to the RCMP except through Cyril Mills or at any rate after getting into touch with Cyril. Meanwhile, it is agreed that we here should be informed in order that we can pass the information onto Cyril. Ewen Montagu, apparently, slipped up by not consulting with SIS before sending off his wire to DNI Ottawa. I saw Klop today. He had just arrived back from Lisbon, where he has evidently been enjoying himself. He has been concerned with running the agent ECCLESIASTIC, a Czech girl who is the mistress of Kosich, the ITL representative of Lisbon. A room has been found for her in our air attaché’s office and she is now being used extensively for the purpose of deception chicken food being supplied from the Air Ministry through SIS. Klop seems confident that things are working well. He has planted a number of documents and even has a photograph of Kosich photographing the document which was taken by ECCLESIASTIC at Kosich’s request. He evidently sees it as a frontispiece to his memoirs when he writes himself up as a master spy. Details of this document are known from Most Secret Sources to have gone to Berlin. Klop is also feeding information to an American agent and has weekly meetings with Kramer and other members of the German intelligence service. His main line is to disrupt the Abwehr and the SD, to cause suspicion of their bona-fides and to give them all the jitters. Recently, he told an informant to say that while at a party, at which a number of people from the British embassy were present, he overheard one girl say to another,“I wonder why it is that the German list of war criminals held by the embassy is headed “Gold Fasanen?” Klop knew from COLUMBINE that “Gold Fasanen” was the nickname given to members of the Abwehr on account of their brown uniform with yellow lapels. This piece of information got right home and was followed up by a remark that all those who had served on the Eastern Front were to be put on the Russian Gold Fasanen list. I told Klop that I had seen none of these reports since last September. He is going to speak about this. Meanwhile, he tells me that Kim Philby and [XXXXX] are anxious to discuss long-term plans with him. In other words, I expect they want to offer him a job abroad. Personally, I think that if they had wished to do anything of this kind they should have spoken to us first, particularly if the question of funds is going to arise. However, Klop will report in due course and he will also see that I get copies of his reports.
249
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
13 December At the Wednesday meeting today, Herbert Hart gave a resumé of his paper on the Sicherheitsdienst. John Marriott said that there was a tendency to revive old agents. He had in mind GELATINE and, I think, others.There also seemed to be an interest in the movement of airborne troops, particularly Czech troops. In the evening I attended a meeting at the Colonial Office with Brock. Eastman was in the chair. Kim Philby, [XXXXXXXXXXX], Tony Rumbold, Harrington, John Rymer-Jones and John Macpherson of the Ministry of Supply office in Washington DC were present. The meeting wished to discuss the running of the agent [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. Rymer-Jones gave the history of this man; he was a member of the Irgun and had given information to the Palestine Police. For reasons of personal safety, application was made to the Americans for a visa for him to go to the United States. He had been sent there by the FBI, who passed him on to Major Snyder of G-2 who was interested in [XXXX] Palestinian affairs. He had subsequently been approached by the Bergson group and had become associated with a good many of its members. In this way he had discovered that there was to be a plot for an uprising in Palestine immediately after the cessation of hostilities in Europe. He had, therefore, got into touch with Snyder who, through the State Department, had placed him in touch with Macpherson of the Ministry of Supply delegation, Macpherson having been formerly a Colonial Office official in Palestine. It was in this way that [XXXXXXXXXXX], known as Y-32, came into touch with Macpherson, who has since been conducting the business from the US end. Macpherson, at Y-32’s request, got Catling of the Palestine Police to come to the United States. Little transpired from this visit except that Y-32 wanted £2,000 and £500 a month in order to continue his enquiries through Ruth Kaplan, secretary to MERLIN, who is Bergson’s deputy. The meeting had to discuss whether this money should be paid, and how, in future, Y-32 was to be operated. I said that I thought we should make contact with the FBI representative here, give him the full facts, tell him that we were interested in extracting the full facts from Y-32 and also in checking up on his bona fides. We would be glad if the FBI could carry out this task for us. If they felt they required the State Department backing we would be glad if they would let us know if they would prefer to ask for this themselves or to have the request made through the British ambassador. Harrington thought that it might be a good thing if the payments were made by the Americans.This would forestall any suggestion that might subsequently be made that we had been trying to run agents in the United States. 14 December I have seen an interesting pamphlet with photographs of the MULBERRY.There is a facsimile of the Prime Minister’s letter to the Chief of Combined Operations or his deputy which is dated 30 May 1942 and says, “They must float up and down
250
1944
with the tide. Let me have the best solution worked out. Don’t argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves.” BRONX is leaving for Madrid on 19 December on a Peruvian diplomatic passport with a Spanish diplomatic visa. The Germans have now disclosed the location of the hidden transmitter in Belgium, which was intended for SNIPER. This has been passed to Christopher Harmer who dug it up in a graveyard at dead of night. 16 December At a meeting of the Radio Security Intelligence Committee on 7 December Peter Twinn drew attention to the fact that the Spanish service with which he deals had undergone a blackout. New security measures had been introduced by the Germans but these were not of the fundamental type introduced elsewhere. It was, therefore, not impossible that the situation in respect of the Spanish service might improve before long. Both Twinn and Denys Page expressed the opinion that this change of method in Spain was not the culmination of a systematic policy of improving security but was a reaction to some specific and recent development. There are two possible explanations, one is the capture of the OSS man and his secretary by the Germans (one of whom certainly had a knowledge of ISOS) and the other Klop’s disruptive activities in Lisbon. 20 December A Marita report shows that William Strang has been in close touch with Tamara Wilson Crowe. It looks a little as if he may be having an affair with her. He has told her about his visit to Moscow, about Stalin’s refusal to join in the Tripartite Conference, and about a secret mission which he is now to undertake in Brazil. He did not give the nature of this mission. He was derogatory in his views about Stalin and conditions in Russia. I do not see what I can do with this information without jeopardising the sources. I have read the case of Henrik Miersenman.This man, who was connected with the German GC&CS, has given information showing that the Germans have been running about ten SOE transmitters for eighteen months between August 1942 and February 1944. Before closing down, the officer in charge of the German stations sent a message to Majors Bingham, Blunt, and Co.,“Thank you for your long mutual co-operation. In case you should come to the Continent I shall receive you with the same, as your agents.” 21 December At 12 o’clock today the Director-General, in the presence of Dick Butler,Tommy Harris,T.A. Robertson, John Marriott, J.C. Masterman, Buster Milmo, and myself, presented GARBO with the MBE.The D-G made him a nice little speech. Later we 251
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
lunched at the Savoy when GARBO responded to the toast in halting but not too bad English. I think he was extremely pleased. An entertaining German document captured in Belgium at the headquarters of the Abwehrstelle and dated 28 December 1941, gives an account of a lecture delivered by Admiral Canaris, to the assembled controllers of Abstelles on the 10 December 1941. It was emphasised that poaching by the Gestapo was continuously being countered by all available means. The use of Gestapo officials as Abwehr agents was strictly forbidden because a case had occurred where a Gestapo official was used by a certain Abstelle as an agent and paid out of a special fund. Messages were passed under the cover name of a non-existent sub-agent. Cases had also occurred of agents being given top secret documents and having access to safes. In one case such an agent had been found to be working for the enemy intelligence service. No women employees are allowed to have safe keys. Military intelligence is the job of Asts., hence reports on politics and morale are strictly forbidden. The Abwehr has nothing to do with the persecution of Jews. Ast. duties are to be carried out in a humane, respectable, correct and cultural manner.Activity against Jews is to be avoided but not criticised.The strength of the service is estimated at 2,026 officers, 931 officials, 18,251 employees and 287 workers. Expenditure was now about one million Reichsmarks a month. No excessive luxury or entertainment should take place. Admiral Canaris was angry about an expensive entertainment given to himself by one Ast. Modesty is the way to good fortune. Caution and moderation are also necessary over the consumption of alcohol.There is to be no excessive spending or celebrations. Only nonsense is to be talked about after 10pm. As regards the supervision of women employees, it is mentioned that there is to be no excessive dressing up, painted lips or fingernails. 22 December I saw John Marriott,T.A. Robertson, and J.C. Masterman about BRUTUS. SHAEF have intimated that they want either GARBO or BRUTUS to be on the air within the next few days.The trouble is that on SHAEF’s own request we put them both off the air. Presumably, there is something brewing in the way of major deception for a counter-attack. So important is this, according to Noel Wild, that it is worth sacrificing one of our agents. In Wild’s view it is the last occasion on which they can be used with real advantage.This is all very fine, but it is still important to preserve GARBO as we are intending to use him exclusively to smoke out the Nazis after the Armistice. We have, therefore, decided to put BRUTUS on the air. This means that we have got to bring him back notionally to London. We propose to do this tomorrow so that he can have time to settle down and pick up a certain amount of information. We do not know yet what SHAEF want us to put across. We have warned them that BRUTUS’ return is not very plausible and that there is, therefore, a certain risk in using him. I dined with GARBO, Mrs. GARBO, Tommy Harris and his wife, and Sarah Bishop at the Dorchester last night. Mrs GARBO was in tremendous form and 252
1944
related to me in animated and broken English the part that she had played in the early days of her husband’s double agent career. It is fairly clear that if at one stage she had not stimulated the American assistant naval attaché Commander Rousseau at Lisbon, the case would never have got on its legs. GARBO was completely in despair and was intending to go to Brazil. Mrs GARBO mystified the American and finally whetted his appetite by faking one of GARBO’s communications from the Germans, and thereby indicating that agents were going to the United States to commit acts of sabotage. GARBO, looking rather like Lenin in his new beard, is by contrast quite a placid creature. Both are very likable characters. 30 December I had a talk with Jimmy Dickson and Anthony Blunt. As regards Jimmy’s scheme for a diplomatic news agency to act as a cover for his work, I said that the first essential was that the organisation should be on a firm financial basis and succeed on its own merits.To do this it would have to provide news for journalists which they would not be likely to get from other quarters. If this news were purely of a gossipy kind would it be acceptable? If on the other hand, it was too hot, it would draw attention to itself both in diplomatic and journalistic circles, possibly with awkward results. Jimmy seemed to think that it might be possible to strike a mean line and that news agencies were common as dirt and would not be likely to attract a great deal of attention. I have suggested that before we take the matter any further Jimmy should go through all his gossipy information and put forward the kind of stuff he would offer through the agency. He should also estimate the extent to the flow, since it would be no use starting an agency if it was going to dry up in the first few weeks. Meanwhile, Anthony will have a talk with Kim Philby on the subject. We also discussed the prospective agent with the Italians. Jimmy has put forward a scheme for getting into contact. It seemed to me that someone else, possibly Jack Bingham, should initiate the scheme and Jimmy should take over if things looked promising. Someone has produced the following irreverent prayer and hymn for government departments: Let us, Oh Lord, grant that this day welcome the decision, Neither run into king of responsibility, But that all our doings may be ordered to establish New Departments, For ever and ever,Amen. The prayer to be followed by the hymn: O Though who seest all things below, Grant that Thy servants may go slow, That they may study to comply With regulations till they die. Teach us, O Lord, to reverence
253
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–45
Committees more than common sense, Impress our minds to make no plan, But pass the baby when we can. And when the tempter seeks to give Us feelings of initiative, Or when alone we go too far, Chastise us with a circular. Mid war and tumult, fire and storms, Confirm us, Lord, we pray, with forms, This will Thy servants ever be, A flock of perfect sheep for Thee.Amen.
254
1945
1 January BRUTUS is likely to be sent in the ordinary course of his duties to Belgium early this month.The opportunity will probably be taken for arranging for the transmitter which the Germans have hidden for BRUTUS near Paris to be picked up by the SCI unit. BRONX left England for Madrid on 19 December. It is hoped that SNIPER will be posted to Belgium in the near future.The Germans have acknowledged his final letter saying that he expects to be posted overseas. They no longer expect him to discharge his mission in this country. When GARBO’s transmissions are resumed they will take place from London and will be conducted through the new high-power transmitter with which it is hoped to establish a link with GARBO’s sub-agent in Canada. A new use has been found for GELATINE, namely to assist in the implementation of a plan for misleading the enemy about the effect of the V-2. The operator who has been simulating ROVER has just died but as during his illness and absence from the transmitter the Germans have been persistently calling and have sent blind messages, we propose to take the risk of using another operator and restarting the transmission. In accordance with the recommendation of the Twenty Committee who have considered the whole question of running Japanese special agents, it has been decided to close down the cases of PEACH and JOSEF.The grounds for this decision are that there appeared to be prospects of the approving authorities being able to supply enough untrue information to run these cases to advantage, and if at a later stage they desired to plant misleading information on the Japanese, better cases than these two would be available for the purpose. JOSEF was a Russian seaman.
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
5 January Kim Philby came to see me about Colville Barclay, who has been taken on in his section. Jane Sissmore, when introduced to him, recollected that he was one of the ones who might possibly have been identical with the individual described by Krivitsky as acting as a Soviet agent before the war, and was being employed in an important government office. [four lines deleted] Kim was very anxious to get at the old records of the John King case in order to satisfy himself that he was on sound ground. I have put him in touch with Roger Hollis. 6 January I dined with Peter Loxley last night. I told him that I had heard on what appeared to be good authority that SOE had been given a post-war mandate with the knowledge and approval of Anthony Eden, and that they were to remain an independent and would not operate under C.’s jurisdiction. Peter said this was by no means accurate.What has happened is that a decision has been reached that when the Ministry of Economic Warfare has been closed down and Lord Selborne retires, SOE will continue under the Foreign Secretary with the same allegiance as at present exists to the Chief of Staff in connection with paramilitary activities. It is generally agreed that certain activities outside the paramilitary duties will have to continue in the Middle East, e.g., their propaganda amongst the Arabs, but apart from this their charter is somewhat vague. Lastly, I came to the somewhat delicate subject of Johnnie Dashwood, Will Codrington and the Foreign Office security service. [fifteen lines deleted] The same reasoning applied in the case of the leakage at Ankara.The safe had been opened more than two years and eight months ago and Sir Hughe KnatchbullHugessen’s important documents had appeared on ISOS. There were various theories about how it had happened but in fact nobody knew. We had not even been told about the incident officially. We had just learned little snips here and there. Had we been called in we would have sent out somebody with a knowledge of secret sources, Edward Cussen and Len Burt, and should not have abandoned the case until we had tried every possible means of discovering the culprit. Apart from this we had a general interest in knowing when leakage occurred.We might be looking for some individual here when in fact he was in Stockholm, Lisbon, Madrid or elsewhere. It might be that there were no such cases but in any case we were never told about them if there were.All this arose I thought from an incident which occurred some years ago when Cussen and Burt had interviewed the Prime Minister’s cook on a leakage case. For some reason or other Will Codrington had
256
1945
interviewed and insisted on being present. He kept breaking into the interrogation and so embarrassed Burt and Cussen that they had to ask him to desist. Ever since he had been hostile to this department and extremely cagey about all security matters affecting the Foreign Office. I think Peter sees the point of all this but I doubt if he is in a position to do much about it. John Marriott said at the meeting that [XXXXXXXX], the controlled agent in Cherbourg, had been asked by the Germans whether certain ships, carrying troops, from the south of England on 22 December, had arrived. In fact, there was a secret convoy of troops on that date.The question arises, how did the Gemans know? The American SCI unit has made the bright suggestion that this information may have been obtained from a prisoner of war, goodness knows how, or from an agent in England. It seems almost certain that the information was obtained through a lack of signals security.There has been a great deal of loose talk on the radio telephone between troops here and those in the field and also between shipping departments. I have asked Sclater to go into this particular incident. 9 January I have ascertained from Ewen Montagu that the submarine previously reported to be carrying an agent to Canada is identical with the one which landed two saboteurs in the United States recently.We are informing Cyril Mills. On 24 December the BRUTUS transmitter was started up again for urgent military operational reasons, but the circumstances envisaged did not in fact arise, and the traffic is therefore confined to a series of innocuous messages about the air force.The security of the whole case of BRUTUS has become somewhat imperilled as a result of the capture and interrogation of the various members of the Walenti organisation, who have revealed to the French authorities that BRUTUS’s escape from German imprisonment was facilitated. Roman Garby-Czerniawaski’s escape from Fresnes had been part of his Abwehr cover. MI5’s concern was that word would be bound to leak to the Germans that he had co-operated as soon as he had reached England. A Belgian woman who was the mistress of the Abwehr officer who recruited SNIPER has under interrogation disclosed full particulars of SNIPER’s case.The same woman has furnished some information about FATHER. GELATINE has received another letter containing two more cover addresses and a promise of payment from the Germans. TATE has recently been used by the Admiralty for putting over deception material about the location of anti-submarine minefields. The Admiralty has received first-class evidence that the Germans are diverting U-boats in accordance with TATE’s messages. John Marriott tells me that TATE is being given another decoration for his work on reporting V-2 damage.
257
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
13 January I saw Gerald Templer, who is now in charge of the German section of SOE. Since running IB in France at the beginning of the war he has commanded a corps in this country which he relinquished in order to command a division in Italy.There he got blown up. He is now working for SOE during his convalescence. He wanted to know whether we were prepared to let Petersen of the Swedish Secret Intelligence Service to come to this country. The circumstances were as follows: Templer had got in touch with the Danish resistance movement for the purpose of getting them to run a show into Germany. In this he had been successful. Unfortunately, one of them named Nordenoft was acquainted with the arrangement and talked about his association with Templer to Petersen in Stockholm. Petersen suggested that he too might be able to help Templer in a similar way, and suggested that he should come over for a discussion. I said that provided the proposition was considered really important I did not think we should have any objection in principle to Petersen being sent to this country.There would be a certain security risk but not a very grave one. I asked Templer what he knew about Petersen. He said that he had had a talk with C. and with Bill Dunderdale, who was going to talk to Arno of the Polish Secret Service who had had dealings with Petersen in the past.As far as he knew Petersen had been rather on the fence in the early days of the war, if in fact he had not given the Germans a certain amount of information and assistance. Latterly, however, he is said to have been extremely well disposed towards ourselves. I pointed out to Templer that if he was accepting Petersen’s offer he was laying himself open to being double-crossed on a big scale. If he supplied money to finance Petersen’s projects in Germany he would never know the value of the reports that he received. Moreover, Petersen might well give away the whole show to the Germans and take money from both sides.The worst aspect of the situation was that as far as I could see he would never have any means of knowing precisely where he stood.Templer struck me as the kind of man who would be undeterred by considerations of this kind. 15 January FATHER notionally has left India on his return journey on 5 January and transmissions in India are now being done by the notional agents which he has recruited there.The Belgians have arrested one Adolf Robert Wielemans who after interrogation was released. He has stated that he introduced two persons to Hanstein, alias Dr Hacke, and one of those he claims was FATHER. This is not consistent with FATHER’s own story of his introduction to the Germans. There is I think little doubt that FATHER in his early days was a collaborator.When he changed his mind he probably felt that the less he said about his past the better. SNIPER has arrived in Brussels but has not yet begun operating his transmitter, as the Germans have not given him any details as to the time that they will be listening for him.
258
1945
ROVER established contact on 8 December. GARBO has now established contact with the high-power transmitter. Fingerprint tests have been made by the Admiralty before and after modifications were made to the apparatus and they are now of the opinion that the characteristics of this commercial transmitter have been satisfactorily removed. GARBO’s present situation in the eyes of the Germans is that he is still hiding in South Wales. They are examining the possibilities of supplying him with new documentation to implement a scheme which he has put up for his escape. Meanwhile his deputy is running the organisation.A new recruit has been added to the network in Canada. Our ambassador in Madrid has made a protest to the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs about continued espionage activities by Friedrich Knappe of Madrid and has demanded his immediate expulsion from Spain. It has further been requested that the ambassador’s nominee should be allowed to interrogate Knappe before his departure, with a view to ascertaining the whereabouts of one of his agents in the UK. It has been disclosed to the Spanish that this information reached the British Security Service through an ex-member of Knappe’s organisation. Knappe is GARBO’s assistant control officer in Madrid. The case of BRUTUS has been reviewed with the London Reception Centre and SHAEF. It has been agreed to accept the risk of his being compromised subject to the avoidance of publicity in the trials of “Kiki” and other agents who are in a position to compromise him. 16 January PEPPERMINT has asked whether we can supply his uncle who is ill in Spain with penicillin.This is being looked into but there is some difficulty in getting the necessary export permit from the Ministry of Supply. José Brugada Wood, codenamed PEPPERMINT, was an MI5 agent inside the Spanish Embassy in London. 17 January T.A. Robertson came to see me about PEPPERMINT’s penicillin.We are inclined to think that our reply should be ‘No’. We could however advise PEPPERMINT to make his application through the ambassador. If we manage things otherwise it is almost certain to leak out in Spain through the doctor and there may be applications from other diplomats which would embarrass the Foreign Office. John Marriott and Blanshard Stamp came to see me about the BRUTUS case. There are four people who have been arrested by the French and who know about BRUTUS. It therefore becomes necessary to get them out of French hands since the publicity of a trial might well blow BRUTUS.We cannot accept them over here permanently without going to the Home Office. I am therefore proposing to have them over as special cases for eight weeks and then consider the matter.
259
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
23 January ISOS shows that we may be getting some agents from Holland.We discussed at the daily meeting how they would be likely to come. It is possible that they might sign on as seamen in Antwerp. I asked Baxter to make enquiries as to how far we were really likely to know about this and whether they would be sent up to the London Reception Centre. Among certain captured documents a letter written by Oswald Job was discovered in which he freely offers his services to the Germans and concludes with “Heil Hitler”. 25 January We have been trying to establish contact between GARBO here and the notional agent in Canada, but owing to atmospheric conditions at this time of the year we have had very great difficulties.The Germans, of course, had been kept informed of what we were doing and noticing that we were not being successful in establishing contact they chipped in and passed our messages on to Canada from Madrid.This has been followed by a frantic telegram from Cyril Mills, who thinks it is us talking, saying that he is completely baffled as he has to get the code. We were intending to let him have it of course as soon as communication had been established. At the weekly meeting today Herbert Hart told us that SOE, General Templer again, had got a wild scheme for getting the Abwehr and SD employed on all sorts of useless tasks which would distract them from their normal business. He proposed various means to get them to think that groups such as railwaymen, etcetera, were plotting against the state. He had however chosen those categories of people who would be most likely to be of assistance to us when we get into Germany. There seemed to be no point in getting these people into trouble, even if the Abwehr and SD reacted as it was hoped they would. If the scheme was worthwhile at all it would be far better to persuade these organisations that certain of their own personnel were betraying them to the enemy and start a heresy hunt within the organisations. Alternatively, they might be persuaded that the army generals were preparing to betray their country. 26 January Joe Lynch came to see me about the case of [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. He showed me the FBI’s letter which stated that Catling described generally the activities of terrorist groups in Palestine to the FBI in Washington DC, but that at no time did he reveal the real purpose of his visit to the United States or that he had interviewed or intended to interview a British informant residing in the United States. The terms of the agreement between the State Department and Security Co-ordination are then quoted to make it clear that this action was contrary to that
260
1945
agreement.The letter concludes by instructing Lynch to ascertain from me (1) why Mr Catling at the time of his visit to the Bureau did not reveal the identity of [XXXXXXXXXX] and (2) why other British authorities did not subsequently advise of the presence of [XXXXXXXXXX] in the United States after Catling had failed to do so. Joe told me that question 2 is obviously a crack at British Security Co-ordination, the suggestion being that they advised Catling not to tell the Bureau about [XXXXXXXXXX]. I told Joe that as far as I was concerned I had merely been an agent in this matter. Catling had come over here with the story which he knew and I had made it clear that he could not possibly carry out his mission without disclosing the full facts to the FBI and enlisting their co-operation. It was for this purpose that I had introduced him to Joe. I had in fact assumed that he had disclosed the full facts to Joe. Joe replied that this had not been the case but that he had not enquired very deeply into Catling’s business as he thought it better that this should be thrashed out in Washington DC. He confined himself to saying that the Bureau did not know a great deal about Zionist matters.As further proof of my bona fides in the case, I pointed out that had I been a party to sending Catling on a secret mission I should not have revealed all the facts as I had done about [XXXXXXXXXX] and the Bergson Group. I gather that Joe has already made this pretty clear to the FBI if indeed any suspicion had existed in their minds. I told Joe that I would communicate with Palestine and try and get him the answer to his question. I was however rather averse to drawing British Security Co-ordination into the whole thing again. John Senter came to see me with Colonel Francis Cammaerts, an SOE officer who is in fact “Roger”, one of the three people who were released from the clutches of the Gestapo owing to the courageous action of a woman named Christine Granville.We discussed the case of Waem and the undertaking given by Christine. Cammaerts said that he too had given the undertaking which very much strengthened the whole case. In any event he thought that owing to Christine’s noble action her wishes should be respected, even though she was not a British subject. Senter wanted to get Waem over here from Bari. We felt however that there was nothing to be gained and that the Home Office might decide to deport him to Belgium against his wishes. He thought that he should either go back to Belgium of his own accord on the understanding that we should make strong representations on his behalf or that SOE would use him in the Far East in accordance with his wishes to serve the British and so purge his offence. If he agrees to do this he could go direct from Bari to Burma. He would obviously be a great embarrassment to us here. 27 January I dined with John Marriott last night and we discussed the future of B1(a). John thinks that outside GARBO, BRUTUS and TATE, there is nothing left in B1(a) which is really worth running. He thinks further that the original purpose of the organisation has largely lapsed and that the whole situation would be reviewed. J.C. 261
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
Masterman, I gather, is very much for the status quo, John thinks that Tommy Harris and Hugh Astor, with the necessary female staff, could really run the remnants of B1(a) and that the remainder of the personnel should be turned into other sections or into the running of a B1(a) double agent section in the War Room.This section would study all double agent cases being run in the field and would act as a sympathetic receiving-point for officers in SCI units engaged in this work. At present they seem to feel that their requests for assistance go into the void and that they are handled by people who are not really sufficiently experienced to appreciate what the officers in the field are trying to do. I have arranged with John that we shall have a meeting on B1(a) on Monday, with Herbert Hart. I have read Blanshard Stamp’s note on the activities of Abwehr IIIF The Hague, against SOE. It is purely factual, and worded in moderate terms but is an appalling indictment of SOE methods and intelligence. The story began in June 1942 when a certain JOHANNES and a radio operator were dropped in Holland. JOHANNES had been sent to contact the Orde Dienst, an indigenous loyalist organisation. He was to tell its leaders that he had come on a joint Dutch–British mission and was to disclose to them the plan for Holland which had been worked out. He was to obtain their comments on the plan and emphasise that the Dutch government in London had approved it in principle and expected it to be accepted in substance. After introducing himself to the leaders of the OD, JOHANNES was to make contact with its various sub-groups operating throughout the country. He would report back to London who would send out a trained organiser and instructors to the groups as and when JOHANNES reported they were ready to receive them. For the purpose of carrying out this mission JOHANNES had to organise reception committees, weapons and supplies for the additional personnel which were to be sent. The indications are that JOHANNES never operated except under the control of the Germans or that he was certainly under control in November if not in August of that year. SOE were informed on a set which was obviously under control that JOHANNES had been arrested on 8 November 1942. It is astonishing that this arrest did not indicate to SOE that it was quite hopeless to continue the undertaking if the chief organiser with all the plans was under German control.To act upon the assumption that a captured agent has not been broken is to court not only mortal peril for those concerned but disaster to the whole enterprise. After 8 November 1942 the part assigned to JOHANNES by the Abwehr was carried out in the name of Kalle, his successor, who had been sent out from this country as his number two. Upwards of twenty-five receptions were arranged over Kalle’s radio set and no less than ten wireless operators were despatched from this country. As SOE had failed to get back JOHANNES owing to his arrest, Kalle was asked to send to England some other person thoroughly well informed about the progress of the secret organisation. In the face of this requirement the Abwehr determined to go through all the motions of supplying such a person. On the one hand this would serve the purpose of allaying any suspicion which might be felt in London and on the other hand SOE should be made to disclose the method by 262
1945
which agents could be evacuated from Europe. On 14 March 1944 SOE was therefore informed that Kalle would send his chief assistant who was called ANTON.The Germans were asked for particulars about ANTON and gave his name as Nicolas de Wild of a certain address at The Hague. Damen, who we subsequently captured, was in fact the occupant of the address and on instructions from the Abwehr was to say, if anyone called, that de Wild was away and would return in a few days.When SOE decided to arrange for ANTON ‘s evacuation through Begium and Holland, someone was found by the Germans to fill this part and he left Holland about 12 May 1943 and travelled to Paris.The spurious ANTON was accompanied by a certain ARNAUD who has been an Abwehr IIIF agent since 1940 and who we also know was recruited by SOE as a passeur of theirs. In Paris ANTON and ARNAUD made contact with another SOE agent, MARCEL. As soon as they sat down in the café with MARCEL three German soldiers came in and started to examine the cards of those at the back of the café.ANTON got up and walked out.ARNAUD said “They have arrested ANTON.” MARCEL looked out and saw ANTON crossing the road with a man in civilian clothes. Such was the account given by MARCEL when he arrived in this country of ANTON’s disappearance. A great deal of trouble was taken to decide whether ANTON had been arrested because he had been followed, or whether it was sheer bad luck as the result of a snap check of identity cards.A great deal of trouble was also taken to stress the dangers which would fall upon the organisation as a result of this arrest, regard being had to the fact that ANTON, according to MARCEL, had been carrying compromising papers. It never occurred to anyone that ANTON was nothing but a German agent and that ARNAUD was lying when he said that ANTON had been arrested. ARNAUD’s stock inevitably rose in the eyes of London and MARCEL was sent back to the continent to fall into the enemy’s hands.The problem raised of SOE’s request for the sending to England of a man who was well acquainted with the secret army had been answered by the Abwehr with striking success. SOE then requested the field to send another man who had full knowledge of the secret army and the reply came back that a man in close touch with the Orde Dienst would be sent. Instead of choosing a fictitious individual or someone who might by chance be known as a German agent here, they chose a man against whom nothing adverse was known in London, who was in fact a bona-fide patriot. This man was Knoppers. He had been approached at the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943 by the IIIF agent van Vliet. Knoppers had been doing resistance work and had been in contact with a certain Colonel Coppert when van Vliet, representing himself as a member of the resistance, asked him if he might use Knoppers’ address as a letter-box. Thereafter Knoppers continued to see van Vliet regularly until he finally left Holland.Van Vliet gave himself an excellent build-up and got thoroughly into the confidence of Knoppers. On 20 June 1943 he asked Knoppers if he would travel to England and return with instructions for the resistance organisations.As Knoppers understood it, the idea was that several resistance movements needed co-ordination and central direction and official recognition and support from London. This could best be obtained by sending an emissary from Holland 263
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
and securing his return as a liaison officer with London credentials. Knoppers went via Paris, where he stayed some weeks and was finally brought out by SOE channels over the Pyrenees to Spain. For the purpose of facilitating Knoppers’ mission he was provided with documents purporting to come from resistance circles.These included a note to the Dutch and British authorities concerned suggesting the desirability of establishing an escape route over which important Dutch intellectuals, industrialists and officials in Holland who, without themselves acting in a rash manner, had assisted in the sabotage of the German war effort, might be got out of Holland. When Knoppers arrived here there were certain discrepancies between his story and that which had been put over on the German-controlled wireless from Holland, and when the investigation was still proceeding information which had been in the possession of SIS for many months but which had not been distributed by them, was brought to our notice. This showed that van Vliet, if not a German agent, was at least highly suspect. We came to the conclusion that Knoppers had been planted by SOE on van Vliet and that the wireless agent in Holland was under control. ARNAUD however, escaped suspicion and the suggestion that the SOE escape route from Paris onwards might have been blown was not accepted.According to Kalle who was supposed still to be in charge of SOE’s activities in Holland one STEAK, recruited in the field, had taken ANTON’s place as second in command,ANTON having been reported as arrested when attempting to reach this country. SOE were determined to get STEAK over here. He was also told to bring two other agents with him. The Germans had all these people interned and were placed in the position of having either to make excuses for the failure of the SOE field officers to bring out the four men or to announce the arrest of these people in circumstances which would inevitably suggest that the SOE organisation had been blown.They decided to create four substitutes for the four SOE agents. They were taken to Paris where they met the fourth man.There they were handed over to ARNAUD with instructions to find out by what route they would be evacuated from France. ARNAUD handed them over to a member of the VIC espionage organisation and they were accepted for what they pretended to be.The last stage of the journey was in a lorry across the frontier. Before they reached this point two of them jumped off.A little later the third jumped off and hailed a car belonging to the Feldgendarmerie, showing his papers. He made this car follow the lorry and in due course his partner was arrested.The four German agents returned to Paris and made their report to ARNAUD. Subsequently SOE was informed by a member of the VIC organisation that the four agents had been arrested while attempting to escape in the Pyrenees.This was accepted as sufficient explanation.As van Vliet was under some suspicion the Germans decided to make strenuous efforts to build him up. It so happened that the SOE agent APPOLLO was dropped in Belgium with BRUTUS on 18 October 1943 with instructions to use the route taken by Knoppers in reverse and to go to Holland.APPOLLO reached his contact addresses in Brussels, the house of a certain Madame Mertins, and was there visited by van Vliet.The latter successfully played the part of a patriot and assisted his return to this country. APPOLLO gave a tolerably good account of van Vliet on his arrival back here.The 264
1945
night after APPOLLO was dropped a Lieutenant Hirst, an American airman, made a forced landing in Holland. Hirst by devious means was put on to van Vliet who facilitated his escape.This story was also regarded as a reassuring incident in proof of van Vliet’s bona fides. In August 1943 two of the captured SOE agents CHIVE and SPROUT escaped. They reached this country in February 1944 and at some stage the Germans became aware of this.They almost immediately closed the traffic by a message on all lines addressed to the two SOE officers by what in fact were their correct names, thanking them for their long mutual co-operation and promising them that if they came to the continent they would be received with the same care as their agents. Had the whole of the wireless traffic been under review in the light of all the known facts; had trick questions been put to the agents; had each mishap been examined with a view to appreciating its possible implications on the position of themselves and the organisation as a whole; had each returning agent been meticulously questioned not because he was suspect but with a view to obtaining all possible information from him; above all, had a record been kept which set out in chronological order all the known facts regarding the enterprise and the sources from which such facts were known, a record which would have been readily available for consultation in considering all the above matters: had all this been done there is very little doubt that the SOE organisation in Holland would not have met the fate that overcame it. 29 January Bennett came to ask me about the atomic bomb. He is responsible for Tube Alloys who are concerned with experimental work.The Director-General asked him the other day what the Germans were doing in this line. He wanted to know whether I would keep him informed. I said that the atomic bomb was not really our business. Occasionally I heard about it from C., very confidentially, but that I was not really at liberty to pass this on. Bennett is apparently thinking of asking [XXXXX] of the Naval Section of SIS for the required information as he thinks that it places him in a rather awkward position if he cannot answer the Director-General’s question. I said that I thought probably the Director-General had merely asked out of curiosity and that he probably did not want any special steps taken to discover the answer. I recommended Bennett to lay off this enquiry since if C. thought he was asking about the atomic bomb he would probably have a fit. C. is under the impression that only he and two others in his department have ever heard of it. 2 February Commander Philip Johns came to see me. He is now employed by SOE in Brussels. He had been dining with Prince Bernhardt who had told him that two sorts of rumours were circulating in Dutch circles in London, one to the effect that Bernhardt himself led a very dissolute life; this rumour had been going on for years and he was quite prepared to laugh it off. The other, however, was more serious, 265
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
and suggested that information passed to Christiaan Lindemans, alias King KONG, by Bernhardt had led to the failure of Arnhem.This he said was manifestly untrue since he only met Lindemans for the first time six days after Arnhem. I told Johns that I was aware that in Dutch circles there was a belief that Lindemans had betrayed Arnhem.We had told Dutch Security but as a result of our enquiries there was no possible foundation for this belief. I had never heard any suggestion that Bernhardt was involved. I agreed that we would do our best to counteract such rumours in Dutch circles. Jim Hale was present at this meeting. A Dutch resistance leader, Christiaan Lindemans was suspected of having collaborated with the Nazis and had been arrested in October 1944. He committed suicide in a prison hospital in July 1946, never having been charged with any crime. Gilbert Lennox has just told me that the last plane to the Yalta conference carrying twelve passengers including Peter Loxley has come down in the Mediterranean off Lampedusa. Nine bodies have been picked up, five are said to be missing and even injured.This is quite the worst bit of news I have heard. I saw Peter the night before he left at the club. He told me he had just been to Oxford to see the doctor who is looking after his wife. She had just had a still-born child. He said that he could quite easily have avoided going to the conference but that the doctor had told him that his wife would probably be more worried if he had stayed than if he went.This is a curious turn of fate. I saw C. later in the evening. He told me that a wireless message had been received from the plane, which was a York, which said “running out of petrol, going down in the ditch”. It seems incredible that a plane of this kind could run out of petrol. 5 February Herbert Hart has completed his analysis of the Stockholm K reports which we have picked up on Japanese JMAs. The information relates very largely to the strength and dispositions of British and American air force units. In some cases the information appears to be quite important and a large amount of it is accurate.The fact that most of the information relates to air matters and British and American air matters, are a pointer toward the Cervell-Turner combination although there is no positive proof. Meanwhile a study of reports by Karl-Heinz Krämer, the I.Luft man in Stockholm, seemed to show that the information reaches the Japanese through one of Krämer’s agents in Swedish government circles. There is a possibility that some of the misinformation may be invented by Krämer or by the Japanese. Reports from Major Cervell, the Swedish Air Attaché in London, had been found in the messages to Berlin sent by Karl-Heinz Krämer, an Abwehr officer in Stockholm. Krämer’s maid had been recruited as an agent by the local SIS Section V representative, Peter Falk.
266
1945
6 February Since yesterday there have been no reports on ISOS or ISK from Berlin. On the other hand, there has been no operators’ chat to show that the Berlin station is closing down. In the circumstances it should not be surprising if it was. C. rang me up today about certain of Krämer’s reports which have been got by an SIS agent in Stockholm. One which was obtained on 26 January related to a change in their plans. It was said that the offensive which was to take place in early March has now been put on to early or mid-February owing to the Russian offensive. It stated that the attack was to come on the British sector and gave the units. Though the information is not strictly accurate it contains a certain amount of truth and is generally regarded as dangerous. The report in possession of Krämer was teleprinted on to Berlin on 31 January. C. had wanted to let me know that it had appeared on MSS on 28 January. He thought it might have been telephoned from Stockholm and then confirmed by teleprinter, or that the agent might have got his dates wrong. What, of course, would be of interest to us would be to see precisely the text of the MSS and to learn how far it coincides with the text of the letter transmitted by the agent from Stockholm. If they are identical then I think we must at least envisage the possibility of a leakage from this country, in which case we could regard Cervell and Turner as good starters. It might however be argued that since in any attack the air force in this country would be better informed than army circles. John Bevan and John Senter came to see me about the case of one James Ponsonby who had formerly worked for SOE in Tangier where he had done an extremely good job in which Dudley Clarke and Bevan had been interested. He had in fact posed as a disgruntled British official in Tangier and had sold the Germans a bogus document which was to mislead them at the time of our attack at Salerno. It was proved from ISOS that the plan was completely successful. Ponsonby had since been given a job in Lisbon, the exact nature of which I do not know.Through his own indiscretions and rather odd behaviour it had been decided that he was not the man to carry out the task, particularly since he no longer had the confidence of his subordinates. Ponsonby had taken this very hard and had made all sorts of threats (a) regarding disclosures and (b) demanding a sum of £110,000 in compensation. The general impression is that he is of the type that goes off into a tantrum and subsequently regrets what he has said and done. He was ordered to go home and threatened to commit suicide saying that he thought he would probably be shot when he got to London. He is obviously in a very unbalanced state. He has now agreed to come. The object of Senter’s and Bevan’s visit was to prepare me for the possibility that there might be some necessity to lock him up if he really became troublesome. I urged on them the view that if this could be possibly be avoided, it would be a good thing since once you lock a man up there always comes a time when you have to let him out. As soon as 18(b) was abolished, and it would be at Stage A, there would be no powers under which he could be held. If seemed therefore desirable if possible to find him some kind of
267
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
employment that will give him the outlet he requires. On the other hand if his threats do really appear to be serious and he contemplates giving away his past activities, both SOE and the Controller felt very strongly that he will have to be locked up, if only temporarily. It is very much hoped that this limit will not be reached. John Marriott and Hugh Astor came in to tell me that the French, with whom we have been looking into the case of “Gilbert”, have now come forward with an accusation against Nicholas Bodington of SOE who they think was working for the Germans.We have said they should state their full reasons in writing when we will, of course, conduct the most careful enquiry. It may, moreover, be necessary now for numerous other witnesses to come over from France.This accusation will presumably be based on statements of people held in France and if we are to bring a charge against Bodington we ought to have their first-hand evidence. 7 February Cipher instructions have now reached Cyril Mills in Canada. He is therefore in a position to decipher the message from Madrid by MOONBEAM. Wireless contact between Madrid and Canada continues to be maintained and Madrid is supplying GARBO in London with copies of the messages passed. MOONBEAM was one of GARBO’s many imaginary agents, this one supposedly based in Canada. BRONX has received from the Germans a further two months’ salary amounting to £197. She also has received a letter despatched before her visit to Madrid. C. rang up to tell me that a telegram had come in showing that steps had already been taken in Delhi to tighten up Chinese ciphers. He thought Anthony Blunt should see this before putting up his letter to the JIC. I took the opportunity of asking C. to let me have the relevant MSS in connection with the leakage about forthcoming operations. He subsequently sent this over on the understanding that I would return it to him personally. He has not even shown it to the unfortunate [Peter Falk] who is struggling with the other end of the case. There is no doubt from the text that the MSS refers to the same information passed on by Karl-Heinz Krämer in Stockholm. It even mentions that it was obtained from an agent. The probability is that the plan which was known here on 20 January was passed to air force circles, both British and American, as they would obviously be collaborating. It may be therefore that it reached Krämer through the Cervell–Turner combination. Cervell would have got it from Turner and would have cabled it or sent it by courier to Stockholm. He would have had anything up to six days to do it. Krämer had it on 26 January. It appeared on MSS on 28 January and was teleprinted to Berlin on 31 January.The message said that our attack had been put forward to the first half of February and would take place between Venlo and the Aachen village. It named the various divisions which would be taking part.The change of plan was said to be due to the success of the Russian offensive. 268
1945
8–9 February Ned Reid tells me that his enquiries regarding Rosie Schmidt are quite interesting and it seems that in both cases the remittances and money, one in 1940 and one more recently through the Banco Espirito Santo in Lisbon, were from people who, according to SIS, have at least some connection with the Abwehr. I suggested to Ned that before interrogating her it might perhaps be worthwhile to see what her connections are in this country and if possible get our hands on her out-mail.The chances of getting anything interesting are, I think, remote.What seems more likely is that she was at one time a pay-mistress for the Abwehr like Mrs Mathilde Krafft and that the Germans feel it is now incumbent upon them to keep her alive in view of her past services. Ned has also told me that according to Ledebour, the Sicherheitsdienst or Abwehr agent brought back here from Madrid, a woman called O’Brein connected with the Abwehr or SD is the mistress of a hanger-on at the Madrid Embassy who has been doing something by way of British film propaganda and is connected with Ellis Reece, the Financial Adviser. [six lines deleted] DUCK rang up to say that she had been sent a roll of tape. She had tried to get through to someone here but without success. She felt that it was not too late for her to go back and collect it. She was full of regrets that this opportunity should have been missed. I told her not to worry. I talked to Jim Hale about the case of James Ponsonby. He got in touch with John Senter who is already in difficulties. Ponsonby on arrival here today said he had left certain papers in Lisbon and on a word from him they would be handed over to the Germans and would blow the whole of SOE’s scheme on which Ponsonby was engaged.The man is obviously mad. I had a talk with J.C. Masterman about the Nicholas Bodington case. I wanted him to take it over but he is evidently reluctant to do so. He advances the view that we should not be mixed up with it more than necessary since it is a matter between the French and SOE. I explained to him that we could not altogether take that line since it had always been our policy to assist SOE in any enquiries, particularly in the case of a British agent who was thought to have gone wrong. It was left that we would see what the outcome of our meeting with the French would be. Vaudreuil, Kressman, Hugh Astor, Herbert Hart, John Marriott and I took part in the discussion on Nicholas Bodington this afternoon. I said that our only course in this matter would be to present the indictment to the Security Division of SOE and to co-operate with them in any enquiries that were necessary. Much of the work would, however, have to be done by them and we should be entirely dependent on them as to who was brought into the case. We could not, for example, prevent them from consulting Maurice Buckmaster. Had the French any objection? Or would they like to be informed before anything was done? They placed themselves unreservedly in our hands and said that they perfectly understood that
269
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
SOE would have to be the judges.We undertook to let them know as soon as possible whether we wanted any of the bodies in the case brought over to this country. We thought SOE should have the opportunity of expressing their views on this point. It was agreed that there was at this moment no evidence against Bodington and that the theory that Jeannette was the culprit fitted all the facts.The French felt however that Bodington was so linked with Jeannette that if she were wrong he must have known something about it, if indeed he was not a party to the activities. There is no doubt that some very curious facts have emerged and that Bodington has quite a lot to explain. I undertook to see SOE tomorrow and let the French know the result. It was agreed that in so far as BRUTUS was concerned we could renounce any interest in the bodies at present under arrest. All we asked was that their cases should not be tried publicly in the near future. An assurance on this point was given. 10 February John Senter came over. I showed him the memo which Kressmann had preared in which it is suggested that Bodington may be the culprit in the “Gilbert” case. He said that he would like to have an opportunity of examining the document and consulting other members of his office. Meanwhile he thought that the suggestion might have been prejudiced and that on the whole they seemed to him most improbable. I explained to him that the matter was somewhat urgent since the French wanted to know as early as possible whether the presence of Roger Bardet was required in this country.There is no doubt I think that the French rather have it in for Buckmaster, partly I believe because certain SOE people have made approaches to their former agents and asked them to continue working for them in France. Buckmaster has been making a tour of his various circuits with a view to giving rewards, and the French have been placing considerable difficulties in his way.They probably regard his visit as a tour for the purpose of giving instructions to his people on the work they are to conduct in France in future. In this of course the French are entirely mistaken, though their attitude is understandable. There is no doubt that in some ways they would be rather glad to prove not only that Buckmaster’s circuits were blown but that his head man, a British subject, was a traitor. Bodington is apparently a rather curious character, who has lived most of his life in France, and the possibility of his having acted as an agent cannot be entirely ruled out although so far there does not appear to be any concrete evidence. Anthony Blunt has picked up on TRIPLEX the details of a name which Frank Cervell has dictated to Bengt Nordenskiold. In this he refers to a conversation that he has had with Maycock. Maycock has told him that he has recently visited the secret service and had discussions with them about Karl Florman and his son who are suspect, and that the British and Americans are trying to eliminate them. On enquiry we find that Maycock did at the suggestion of Herbertson and Sir Victor Malet, our minister in Stockholm, have a conversation with Peter Falk in order that 270
1945
Maycock and the minister might know the general background of the Florman case.The latter had been refused a visa to go to this country and considerable pressure was being brought to bear on the minister to get the decision reversed.There is no doubt that Maycock’s disclosures are highly embarrassing both to ourselves and to SIS, and that this action really constitutes a court-martial offence. In view of the source of the information, however, we shall have to proceed with considerable caution. I have sent a copy of the information to C. and suggested that we should make a joint approach to Inglis. Maycock, we think, should be removed from his post and sent to some distant land. It would be disastrous to have him wandering about here.This is the second time he has blotted his copybook. On the previous occasion he wrote a letter to Cervell which he sent by the bag for Air Ministry approval, and delivery, in which he warned Cervell that the security people were interested in him. The only inference to be drawn on that occasion was that Maycock was of the lowest order of intelligence. On the other hand, as a dealer in Rolls-Royce engines he doubtless wishes to keep in well with the Swedes. [six lines deleted] then talked to me about George Hill, the SOE man in Moscow who is apparently very well in with the ambassador and very much in the latter’s confidence. There are rather unpleasant rumours about the reasons for this association. It is thought that Hill may be rendering certain services which, if known to the Soviet authorities, would place the ambassador in an extremely embarrassing position.This may be all idle gossip, but there is no doubt that Hill sees a great many papers in Moscow. There has recently been a suggestion that Hill should take over the SIS liaison as well as the SOE. C. has definitely turned this down. It would be by no means surprising if Hill was giving more than he got. He certainly gets very little. The Soviet people brought back his mistress from Siberia and she is now living with him for obvious reasons. I spoke to C. about Herbert Hart’s memo on the JMA. He said he would very much like to see the memo. He thought that possibly the best course would be to put the matter up to the JIC coupled with the information about the leakage of operational information through Karl-Heinz Krämer. I told C. that we thought that the leakage in this country was probably through the Cervell–Turner combination. He suggested that we might try and put through a piece of information and see how it came out in Stockholm.This seems a good idea. 12 February John Senter came in. He had read the memo about Nicholas Bodington and had come definitely to the conclusion that there was no real substance in the allegations made. We decided that Kressmann should have a meeting with Soskice of SOE tomorrow and that at the conclusion of this meeting they should decide whether it was desirable for Roger Bardet to be brought over.Vandreuil would be informed by telephone in Paris on Wednesday morning. Personally, I think that Kressmann is 271
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
quite sincere in his belief and quite open-minded.The French do not wish to proceed with their end of the case until they have cleared the ground over here. 14 February I saw John Senter, Soskice, and Kressmann. They had an all-night session about Nicholas Bodington. Kressmann is, I think, fairly well satisfied that Bodington is not the culprit and I think somewhat shaken on the question of Jeannette. Soskice does not seem to think that either is guilty, but is still open-minded. It is suggested that if possible Roger Bardet and Kiki should be kept in cold-storage until the case can be further probed. An endeavour will be made to persuade them that it is in their own interests that this should be done.They would almost certainly be murdered by the FFI if they were let out unless they were completely rehabilitated, given promotion and a decoration for gallantry with the French maquis. Two notorious collaborators, Roger Bardet and Raoul Kiffer, had been arrested and accused of betraying SOE and MI9 networks to the Nazis. Anthony Blunt, Herbert Hart and I had a meeting with the Director-General and explained to him about the JMAs, the Karl-Heinz Krämer case and Maycock. He asked that he might be kept informed of any developments. 16 February I saw Bill Stephenson. He was very friendly and we discussed things in general, he said “That was a rather snooty telegram you sent me about Hoover.” He said he was only concerned about getting Hoover over and tying him up with ourselves for all time. I said that I thought this would be an excellent thing and asked him what prospects there were of Hoover coming over. He said that he thought he would be coming in March or April. He was anxious that we should work out a detailed programme and that we should more or less take charge as Valentine Vivian was running around in circles. I said that we should be very pleased to show Hoover over our establishment and that if he would give us three or four days he could probably see quite a lot that would interest him. Bill does not think Hoover will take the job of Commissioner of Baseball. He thought it might be a good thing if we gave him a decoration. It should be nothing less than a knighthood as a similar decoration had been given to Bill Donovan. 17 February The Daily Mirror has published an account of a Dutch officer traitor confined in the Tower of London.The story obviously related to Christiaan Lindemans but was completely half-baked. Press and Censorship say that the Sunday papers want to open the floodgates. Can we give them any line on which to censor press submissions? After consultation with SIS we decided to say that we wanted the story 272
1945
confined as far as possible to its present limits, that we thought it desirable not to publish Lindemans’ name, his former contacts, or the names of those whom he had given away.Apart from this we did not wish to be drawn into any criticism of what had already appeared. At today’s 12 o’clock meeting it was disclosed that OSTRO has submitted information relating to the movement of some five Canadian divisions from the Italian front. As this information is true it seems more than ever desirable that OSTRO should somehow be torpedoed. The Controller is taking this matter up with C. This is the third time we have tried to get OSTRO removed, and the present suggestion is that we should try and buy him up or bump him off. The transmitter from Bavaria known as PHONEY has come to an end and is clearly in the hands of the Gestapo. Meanwhile, one of the party seems to have got into Switzerland. He says that Rhode has been arrested. It now transpires that SOE has been communicating with this transmitter for some considerable time. They have come forward quite naively with a story about the arrest of a man called Rhode who was operating a clandestine transmitter with which they had been in touch. We then discussed the Turner–Cervell situation and also the case of Maycock. Cavendish–Bentinck thought that the best line would be for C. and myself to make a direct approach to Inglis. He thought Inglis would be reluctant to get rid of Maycock as they were personal friends. He agreed, however, with us that something needed doing. As regards Turner and Cervell, he thought that Turner was much the worst offender. Cervell was only passing on information which he received from Turner but Turner was recklessly giving away information to a neutral. I said that as soon as we had verified certain facts we wanted to raise the whole question either with the JIC or with . 20 February Buster Milmo talked to me abut the KING KONG case. During the night two press representatives of the Daily Mail found their way to Camp 020 where they got a cool reception. As they went away they took a flashlight photo of the gates. The matter is being taken up by press censorship. We have been in touch with Niall Macdermot who did not wish anything published until after the trial. In the light of recent developments however it has been suggested that we tell the press that towards the end of last year a Dutch subject suspected of treachery was brought to this country by SHAEF, that early in December he was handed back to the Dutch authorities in Holland and that he is now awaiting trial there. The man was not a Dutch officer and is not in the Tower of London. Lastly, there is no evidence that he betrayed or had any advance knowledge of the Arnhem operation.We shall then say that in the circumstances it will be appreciated that many of the statements which have recently appeared in the press have been not only unfounded but mischievious and apart from causing pain and anxiety to relatives of the men who took part in the Arnhem landings have been well calculated to prejudice the further investigations of the case.The case being sub judice no further statement can be made at present. 273
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
I sent a rather stuffy telegram to Cyril Mills complaining that the FBI have not let us have a comprehensive report about Colepaugh and Gimpel.A report that has reached us from the Naval Intelligence Division on the case indicates that the agents were to use the 1942 amateur edition of the Radio Handbook. From this they were to use standard [word obscured] signals for the heading of their messages, such type signals as might be used by aircraft in communicating with the field or by outlying stations of coastguards or lighthouses. The men also carried letterdrops in Lisbon and Madrid as well as the names of American prisoners of war in German hands, to whom letters could be addressed. 21 February I talked to the Director-General about the publication of the Mirror about the alleged Dutch officer in the Tower. It refers, of course, to the Christiaan Lindemans case. He seems to be rather opposed to a prosecution but was in in favour of a question in the House of Commons, which would damp things down and indicate that the Mirror had probably caused a great deal of pain to the relatives of those who fell at Arnhem by staing that the disaster was due to a betrayal by a spy. The allegation is, of course, untrue. Eamon de Valera has agreed to the establishment of radar at Malin Head. The apparatus is used to enable our air force to locate their position when dealing with U-boats.The station will be run notionally by the Irish ostensibly for the guidance of aircraft.The RAF is to be in control until peacetime when the Irish trainees will take over. 22 February I saw Sir Alexander Maxwell about the Christiaan Lindemans case. I explained to him the position and that we proposed to let William Brown MP withdraw his Parliamentary Question and to put down another asking the Minister for War to make a statement. I then read over to Maxwell the statement which we proposed to make and told him that Christopher Hill of the Home Office was rather opposed to our mentioning that Lindemans had been brought to this country. Maxwell said he did not really mind about this but if we could avoid it so much the better. I had a long meeting with J.C. Masterman, Herbert Hart and John Marriott with regard to the future of B1(a) . J.C. was very obstinate about our getting rid of any of our B1(a) agents.We had suggested that GELATINE and BRONX could go. He felt however that they might come in useful in circumstances which we could not perhaps foresee. He did however agree to a considerable reduction of the staff and to the continuation of the traffic analysis which now seemed unnecessary. This should release two officers and perhaps three female staff. He felt in general that the Twenty Committee would have to go on. I went over in the evening to see Mr Lanyon who deals with Parliamentary Questions in the War Office. I suggested to him that he should get W.J. Brown to 274
1945
withdraw his question and put down another. He seemed to think the idea a good one. 23 February J.C. Masterman has come in to tell me that John Drew wants BRONX and GELATINE kept on to act as background for his rocket deception. He believes that this deception has succeeded in moving the mean point of impact about six miles in a northeast direction. TATE has been told to report on the V-1 which may indicate that an improved form of this projectile is to be sent over at some future date. GARBO has been told to render a report about alleged concentrations on the east coast for an invasion of Holland, Denmark or elsewhere.The Germans appear to be extremely windy about this. We have learned that Brandes has been instructed by Berlin to send £2,000 through to one of his agents in the Wings Club to be collected by BRUTUS. As we believe that Brandes’ agents are all notional it is not surprising that the money has not so far been received. Brandes himself will probably be on the spot in consequence. 25 February I had a word with Jim Hale about the possibility of a Pole attempting to assassinate the Prime Minister. In the light of recent decisions in the Crimea conference I wondered whether the Poles had considered this, although it might be that they could not do much more than they are doing already. I thought too that we were under a certain obligation to keep our ears down in Polish circles. If we knew the kind of people who were likely to make trouble we might try their telephones. Jim says he did not think they would be likely to talk about this sort of thing on the telephone. I pointed out that telephone conversations rarely gave direct evidence but they did at times convey something to those who had knowledge of the general set-up. When speaking on the telephone people generally are in the habit of guarding their conversation against the operator but do not against the informed listener. In a letter from Cyril Mills, he explains how things went wrong over the cases of Colepaugh and Gimpel, the two German agents who proceeded to the United States in a U-boat. Having heard nothing from us Cyril had assumed that the information we had got from the Director of Naval Intelligence in Ottawa was merely of the gossipy kind. He had left Ottawa before getting our reply, and consequently when in Washington DC mentioned the incident to Mickey Ladd. He thought possibly the US Navy might have been the source.The FBI had heard nothing nor did they hear anything until about 3 or 4 December when the Office of Naval Intelligence told them that a Canadian tanker had been sunk off the US coast and that one or probably more agents had been landed. From then on the FBI tried to secure further information from ONI and were eventually told that the statement 275
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
about landing agents was pure supposition. Under interrogation Colepaugh and Gimpel stated that on or about 22 December the U-boat received a message giving instructions that the landing was not to be effected at Frenchman’s Bay, as another submarine had been sunk there. These instructions were, however, disregarded. From the above statement the FBI assumed that the actual place of landing, namely Frenchman’s Bay, was mentioned in ULTRA and that they had been told they would have got on to the spies much sooner. Cyril has told them however that there may be a flaw in their argument since it is quite possible that Frenchman’s Bay may have been selected before the departure of the U-boat and that in their message the German commander may only have been told to avoid the previously selected place. The only reason that Colepaugh and Gimpel were caught is that they had a row and separated. Colepaugh, who is an American, was stupid enough to let his presence be known to a friend of his, and was eventually given away. He then gave a description of Gimpel and said that he had some kind of Peruvian background and read Peruvian newspapers.The FBI therefore covered every newsstand in New York where Peruvian newspapers were sold and caught Gimpel in one day. 27 February John Marriott has just come back from Paris. He tells me that Roger Bardet and Raoul Kieffer of the “Gilbert” case have both been released and that Bardet and several other toughs have been round to Dick Warden’s office waving revolvers and demanding Distingished Service Orders. They have evidently been told by the French that their continued internment is due to the British. John thinks that we really must write off the BRUTUS case. 28 February J.C. Masterman came to confess that he had been to seee John Drew and Findlater Stewart about the suggested dissolution of B1(a). He has, I am afraid, created such an atmosphere that before getting rid of any of these people we shall probably have to refer the matter to the Wireless Board.This is a frightful bore. 1 March I had a long talk with Burley about the arrival of seamen from the Low Countries. I explained to him that I did not think that the present situation was satisfactory. I had asked John Adam for statistics as to the numbers of arrivals per day but these had not been forthcoming. In order to cover the situation satisfactorily we ought to see all Dutch and Belgians signing on for the first time. Anothony Blunt and Dick Brooman-White came to see me about Henri Dericourt.Arrangements have been made with the French for us to search his baggage before it reaches the airport.
276
1945
Anthony has had a look at Dericourt’s baggage. There is a letter addressed to himself containing a number of British £5 notes and also American dollars. It may be that the notes are forged. In ay case an infringement of currency regulations has been committed. This will put Dericourt on the wrong foot when he is interrogated.The French are collaborating quite well in this case. 2 March At the daily meeting today Mrs Spring read out a message indicating that OSTRO has been interrogated by some British subject in conjunction with the International Police. OSTRO informed his masters that he has got clean away with it and that the charges were considered by the police to be totally unfounded.We are trying to find out what all this is about. If it is SIS’s method of liquidating OSTRO it does not seem to have been very successful. I discussed with Buster Milmo the question in the House of Commons about the number of spies convicted. It should be answered to give the figure with the nationalities, since for example Rogeiro de Menezes was convicted but no publicity was given. We want the Germans to think that people can be executed here without anything appearing in the press, and we wish to keep them ignorant or guessing about the numbers.We would therefore like the minister to say that it is not in the public interest to give either facts or figures. If he is asked whether there are others whose names have not been published in the press, he could answer ‘Yes’.This would create the right atmosphere in the minds of the Germans. 3 March BRONX has received a payment of £200 over and above her normal salary and it is probable that this represents a bonus to compensate her for her trouble and expense in making her fruitless visit to Madrid. The message received by TATE last week instructs him to report in detail upon the effects of and defences against the V-1. This has been regarded by the service departments as of first class importance, since it affords confirmation of evidence from other sources that the Germans contemplate the renewed use of the V-1. In fact the V-1 started again last night. SNIPER, who is being run by 21st Army Group, has established contact with the Germans. LIPSTICK was allowed to leave for Portugal en route for Brazil on 20 February. Immediately prior to his departure he was instructed and himself undertook not to approach the Germans unless the Germans first approached him. ISOS showed however that immediately on arrival in Lisbon he addressed a letter to the Germans in Madrid. It is unlikely that any harm will be done since ISOS shows that the Germans propose to have nothing to do with him on the grounds that he is suspected of having been in touch with the British.
277
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
5 March I saw a Combined Intelligence Centre Iraq major from Teheran who has been running the Russian cases since Joe Spencer left. We discussed the KISS case. It seems fairly clear that the Russians decided to discontinue collaborating owing to the final question put by the Germans as to what the Russians were doing in Aberbaijan. As they are up to all sorts of monkey-tricks, including propaganda for the inclusion of Persian Azerbaijan in the USSR, the question is clearly an awkward one. The Russians had no objection to our continuing the case since they have the cipher keys. It has been decided to attempt to draw them back into collaboration if the opportunity arises. Meanwhile, relations are perfectly friendly, though somewhat tentative. 6 March John Marriott, J.C. Masterman, Herbert Hart and I discussed the case of BRUTUS. We decided that BRUTUS would have to be kept on for a time although we could not see very clearly at present how he could be used for deception.We thought it just possible that he might be of value.We decided that Billy Luke should take over the case and thereby release Hugh Astor to join the Delhi Intelligence Bureau who want a case officer and a wireless operator. Burton, who is BRUTUS, will have to remain until the case is closed down but may go to India later. 7 March Kim Philby came to talk to me about Victor Rothschild. He was anxious that Victor should work for Section IX while in Paris. He appeared to have certain very valuable contacts. Kim has had the necessary approval for this. Certain information which Victor has already given him has apparently proved quite useful. I said I would enquire into the whole matter and find out whose Victor’s contacts were and how he proposed to operate. I should then be in a better position to put the proposition up to the Director-General. The only possible objection I could see was that we should not wish to run the risk of this office being accused by the French of engaging in any form of espionage. J.C. Masterman came to tell me about the new development in the BRUTUS case. Noel Wild having said that he would not wish to use BRUTUS for deception has now made a proposal to employ him for a scheme in connection with crossing the Rhine. Meanwhile, Hugh Astor says that Bill Cavendish-Bentinck would like to see the case closed down for political reasons. It looks to me as if there is a good deal of lobbying and counter-lobbying going on. J.C. Masterman is now going to see Cavendish-Bentinck. I have told him that he and Herbert Hart can make any decision they think best. Meanwhile, I have seen Hugh Astor who is not particularly keen to go to the Delhi Intelligence Bureau or to go on running double agents. He rather wants to go to China for SOE. I said that while I was in favour of
278
1945
letting people do what they wanted within reason, the Director-General might not take this view. So far as I was concerned I was sorry he did not wish to go to the Delhi Intelligence Bureau because from a general office point of view it was desirable that we should give any help that we could to the Delhi Intelligence Bureau. Meanwhile I promised to have a word with John Senter as to what Astor’s prospects might be in China. It seems to me possible that we might send Hughes to India after giving him a course in the Delhi Intelligence Bureau.The other alternative is Billy Luke. It would seem rather odd however to send him out again after he had concluded eighteen months’ penal servitude in British Honduras. Michael Ryde unfortunately cannot go owing to his father’s illness. A possibility is Peter Hope. I am off to Paris tomorrow. 19 March I had a talk with Charles Butler about expenses. He is not very anxious to issue a circular as he thinks it is too difficult to define.We are to have a further talk about this. I also talked to him about Klop’s salary which has been over-paid by £10 per month for the last eight months. He is quite prepared to write this off or to come to some compromise if necessary. I also talked to him about Victor Rothschild’s expenses in Paris which are very considerable. Cecil Liddell is going over to Eire to discuss various matters including the question of a U-boat which has been sunk off the coast of Cork. The crew all came ashore and have been interned.The most important part is the box which floated ashore and contained the ciphers and how to work them. 20 March J.C. Masterman tells me that according to Ewen Montagu TATE was probably responsible for the sinking of the U-boat off Cork. He has been giving quite a lot of misleading information about minefields. It has finally been decided that GARBO can go back to Spain. A blackmailing letter to OSTRO has been drafted and despatched. So far there have been no reactions. 21 March The Director-General talked to me about the programme for J. Edgar Hoover’s visit which has been drawn up by a Foreign Office committee under Bill Cavendish-Bentinck.The whole thing is on a very grandiose scale. Hoover might be the President or Mayor La Guardia.Three days of his stay are given to us.The D-G thinks it is all out of perspective. It is true, although it may be advantageous to pander to some extent to Hoover’s vanity.Anyway, the matter is not in our hands. I told the D-G that I was doubtful from what I had heard whether Hoover would come. I am quite certain that Bill Stephenson has made these elaborate plans so 279
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
that before giving up his job he could show everyone that he is on friendly relations with Hoover. It is however questionable whether Hoover will fall into this trap, if it is a trap. Victor Rothschild and Dick White arrived back for a few days last night. Tess Mayor has received the MBE for gallantry in dismantling booby traps at Rocquemont. Tess Mayor was Victor Rothschild’s secretary, and later married him. At the weekly meeting Edward Cussen mentioned the recent proposal to prosecute the Daily Mirror for publishing details of the Christiaan Lindemans case. The Judge Advocate-General had however decided not to prosecute as the articles had, in fact, owing to a misapprehension, been passed for publication in other papers by the press censor, who had been under the impression that the edition of the Mirror in which it first appeared was one which was printed for sending over to Ireland. He thought that it this was so, the information had already escaped from the UK and there was no purpose therefore in stopping further articles on the same subject.The Daily Mirror was however being warned. Gisela Ashley has got an offer to take a look at TREASURE’s book and I am trying to arrange for her to go out to Paris to do this. Jimmie Dickson came to talk about the future of his section. Max wishes to discuss the amalgamation of Redney and Ketes, also a second-in-command to Dickson. I told the latter that I thought it desirable that his organisation should remain separate and ultimately come under Anthony Blunt’s section and that I did not feel that anyone in Max’s section would be suitable as his deputy. He would of course like to have Jack Bingham but he is already too much occupied with other things. He is a little worried about his agents and their doings and thinks that some of them should be given extra pay to keep them sweet. I agreed to his doing this. The B1(h) report for 8 March states that a very long incoming letter has been received giving the promised details of the wireless traffic plan for GARBO’s Canadian sub-agent, in his direct contact with Madrid. Cavendish-Bentinck has decided that owing to the diplomatic dangers attending the running of the BRUTUS case and the lack of urgent military reasons, it would be better to close down.This is being done. John Marriott and Tommy Harris came to see me about Mrs GARBO who is in a somewhat neurotic state. GARBO cannot quite make out what is wrong with her, but both he and Tommy think that she would be all right if she could be got back to Spain with the children.We decided to adopt the previous plan discussed some months ago. She will ostensibly be deported from here on the basis of certain letters picked up by us from Spain from her husband. Derek Tangye came to talk to me about the Vermehrens. After tremendous labour he has in conjunction with them produced one article which is acceptable to the Daily Mail. He says that the Vermehrens are being paid £600 a year. He cannot see what use they can possibly be to SIS in the future. 280
1945
Dr Erich Vermehren defected from the Abwehr in Istanbul to SIS in February 1944. Joe Lynch looked in to say that he had sent a wire to Washington DC about Hoover’s alleged visit to this country and has received a reply that Mr Hoover was not at the moment contemplating any such visit. Joe said that he had tracked the origin of this project down to Bill Stephenson through a conversation that he had had with Howe. Howe had attended the meeting at the Foreign Office under Cavendish-Bentinck’s auspices, and said to Joe that a big programme was being laid on for Hoover. Joe said that this was the first he had heard of it and wired accordingly to Washington DC. 23 March BRONX has received a letter in which she is urged to make another visit to Madrid after Easter and promising the presence there of her case officer. She has also been asked to send a telegram in plain code indicating the point of attack for any new landing. The code is modelled on the one given her before D-Day and suggests that her message then was considered of importance by the Germans. GELATINE has been offered a part-time job as a translator in the American Embassy.We informed the FBI and will not give our consent unless they approve. 26 March At the Daily Meeting today Cecil Liddell gave an account of his visits to Ireland. In connection with the sinking of the submarine off the coast of Cork and the box containing the ciphers, etcetera, which had been washed ashore, it appears that Colonel McKenna on his own initiative had decided to transmit the contents of this box to us.This had led to certain difficulties as his act was obviously unneutral and had been carried out without the knowledge of External Affairs. It was therefore necessary to get the documents photographed as quickly as possible and returned to Ireland in case any question should be asked.The documents, instead of being put in an iron box according to the normal procedure, were in an old ammunition box. It seems probable that the captain and crew who had come ashore and had been interned, were quite unaware of what had happened. In addition to the ciphers the box contained details of the latest type of torpedo, which are of great interest to the Admiralty, and also charts of our minefields. 27 March Burton is being released from the BRUTUS case to go to the Delhi Intelligence Bureau as a wireless maintenance officer. We have managed to square the Prison Commissioners whose servant he is. The question of Hugh Astor going to the Delhi 1ntelligence Bureau is still in the balance. If the DIB will accept an attachment from SEAC, a deception unit,
281
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
Astor is prepared to go. It is interesting to see how these young people think that they can make terms and conditions. Strictly speaking, he should be told where the Director-General thinks he could be most useful. On the other hand, if he gets to the DIB and does not like the work, he is the kind of person who, through influence, would get himself out and into another job. I have warned Philip Vickery about this. Astor also wanted to go as a GS02. It makes me smile a little to think that someone of his age thinks that his first appointment in the army should be of GS02 rank. It took me four years’ hard work on active service to become a captain. 30 March Cecil Liddell has had another interesting PANDORA message indicating that the Germans are being persecuted in Dublin by the press, owing to a message from Radio Rome that peace proposals are being put out to the American ambassador. This seems to be based possibly on a PANDORA message of about 26 February which contained a long directive to Dr Hempel.There are various possibilities as to how the leakage has occurred. It may be that Eamon de Valera has been consulting with the Papal Nuncio and that the latter has radioed from Foynes to the Vatican. The Vatican ciphers have been broken by SIM before the Italian capitulation. It may be therefore that they have read the message and passed it on to Radio Rome. The alternative is that the PANDORA message of 26 February by OSS is from GUNPOWDER and that they are trying to be clever in Rome. A last alternative is that there has been a leakage in Rome from Vatican circles. I have suggested to Jane Sissmore that GC&CS should monitor the Vatican Radio which from now onwards is likely to be of considerable importance. She is getting this done. Roger Hollis left me a report by Jane Sissmore based on ISCOT which rather amplifies and simplifies Curry’s previous report. There have been considerable developments, and there is not the slightest doubt that the Comintern, in the form of the Communist International Liquidation Committee, continues its former activities.There are already the makings of a Lublin Committee in Austria. A further development of very considerable interest is that one of the ISCOT messages is in fact a quotation from ISOS. I have asked Roger to find out precisely what this message is and where it is going to and coming from. It may of course be a Russian double agent or even our old friend MAX whom we have always suspected as a Russian double. Another point of interest is that certain German intercepting stations in Spain are picking up ISCOT although there are no signs of their having been able to break it. 3 April I had a talk with Anthony Blunt and Mrs Pitt. During the weekend a complaint had been received from a woman in Birmingham to the Birmingham Police that she had been followed.The Birmingham Police believe that this was a censorship enquiry about which they had not been informed. In fact the enquiry had been 282
1945
made by an ex-CID inspector who is following associates of Juan Negrin on behalf of the Duke of Alba. I got hold of Len Burt who knows the CID man well and will find out precisely what it is all about. I asked Mrs Pitt about Negrin. He is apparently going shortly to Mexico to make contact with the republican group there. Moscow’s attitude to Negrin’s party appears to have recently undergone some change. La Passionara, speaking recently in Moscow, is advocating a rapprochement with Negrin’s Party. Negrin himself is dependent for his funds on the Soviet government. At the time of the civil war most of the gold was removed from Madrid to Moscow. Negrin has an account at the Moscow Narodny Bank in London and is therefore presumably held by the Soviet government at the end of a string. In view of La Passionara’s statement and Moscow’s control of funds, it must be assumed that Negrin is more or less prepared to dance to Moscow’s tune.This all fits in with the conception of Russian long-term policy which I heard the other day, advanced by a friend of Walter Bell, who has no access to inside sources. He thinks that the Russians, taking a long view, intend ultimately to get control of all the narrows.We already know that agreement was reached at Yalta on the question of the demilitarisation of the Dardanelles.The Russians are extending their influence in the Middle East by the establishment of consulates and are definitely taking an interest in Arab movements.They will therefore be in a good position to fish in troubled waters and if they so desire make difficulties for us with regard to the Suez Canal. In the Baltic, PANDORA states, if this can be believed, that when Molotov was last in Berlin it was Russian policy to control from the Skageraak and the Cattegaat. If it is Russia’s intention to build a large fleet after the war she would naturally wish to have certain access to the Atlantic, either through the Baltic or the Mediterranean. In view of the war situation TATE is asking for an alternative method of communication in case wireless contact should be broken, and also an assurance that no records disclosing his identity will be allowed to fall into Allied hands. GARBO’s domestic situation is once more causing a good deal of trouble and it appears that Mrs GARBO is now anxious to be separated from her husband. It is proposed to send Mrs GARBO back to Spain as soon as this can be conveniently arranged. 7 April Freckles Wren came in to pass the time of day. He is now back with his own firm on civvy street. He said that when SPRINGBOK arrives he would do his best to get him some sort of job on a temporary basis with his firm. Wren was managing director of Aga Cookers. I talked to John Marriott, Cuthbert Hesketh and Ian Wilson about certain reports found on a German prisoner of war who has been in the hands of CSDIC.These reports relate to information received from the Abwehr under what appears to be a daily summary sent out by Fremde Heere to Gruppe West. Some of them appear to be identical with reports put across by GARBO but this is being checked. It raises 283
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
the more important point as to what arrangements there are for the interrogation of representatives of Fremde Heere.That organisation is in a way a closed book.We know that it receives Y material on the one hand and agents’ reports, recce reports, etcetera, on the other. It would be of great value to us to know what importance they attach to an agent’s report and how far they integrated agents’ reports with Y material; also whether they got information from the Abwehr about their agents and the history of the agents. Martin Furnival Jones thinks this should be a SHAEF matter and that some sort of directive should go out, indicating that when intelligence officers were picked up steps should be taken to ascertain whether at any time they served in Fremde Heere. I have asked that similar steps should be taken with CSDIC who may have quite a number of intelligence officers in the cages. I had a talk with Tommy Harris, Herbert Hart and John Marriott about various queries that Cyril Mills had put up about MOONBEAM. We decided that the best thing to do was to get Cyril back and put MOONBEAM into cold storage by telling the Germans that he is going down to San Francisco to try and pick up information about the conference.The D-G has agreed to Mills’ return. 10 April I spoke to Peter Smithers at MI-19 about COLUMBINE. He told me that Thomas Kendrick had no vacancy as his own stool-pigeons were not fully occupied at the moment. I pointed out to him that COLUMBINE was rather exceptional and had been used with very great advantage for the purpose of direct interrogation. Smither said he would speak to Kendrick again and let me know. 13 April BRONX has received another payment of £197. it is not yet clear what this is intended to cover since she was last paid a month ago and in the ordinary way we should not have expected another payment until next month. The Germans have been trying for some time past to deliver some jewellery to GELATINE by way of paying her.We thought at first that it would be delivered by BRONX. The Germans have now announced that they are going ahead with the delivery by some other channel. Mrs GARBO is once more causing trouble. Her attitude to the proposal that she and her children should return to Spain continues to be changeable. Having eventually agreed to the journey and the administrative steps having already been put in train, she has unfortunately learned that a naval officer for whom some considerable time ago she formed an attachment, and who subsequently became a prisoner of war, has been released and is due to be repatriated in the near future. She is being told that it is now too late to change her mind and it is hoped that she will accept the position. Meanwhile arrangements are going ahead for carrying out the longdiscussed project of GARBO’s escape from hiding in this country in order that he may meet the Germans in Spain and discuss his future. 284
1945
14 April Herbert Hart and Anthony Blunt came to see me about COLUMBINE. Pending some solution I said I thought we ought to put him in one of the B1(a) houses or house him with Padgham. He has already met Padgham and they both appear to like each other. Meanwhile, I have written to Dick White to see if there is any chance of employment on the continent. 16 April The case of Ronald Seth was discussed at the daily meeting, an SOE agent who is to be brought here from Brussels.We had originally arranged that he should be delivered at Camp 020 daily for interrogation until we could get to the bottom of the case. It now seems that a good deal of telephoning has been going on about him on a high level between the British Minister and the Foreign Office. I suggested that we should find out precisely what the position was, by obtaining copies of the telegrams from the Foreign Office, also those from the military attaché to the War Office. Ronald Seth had been captured shortly after he had been parachuted into Silesia in 1943. In June 1944 he was found in Paris wearing a Luftwaffe uniform, as he described later in A Spy Has No Friends. OSTRO is suggesting to the Germans that they might give him and his network three months’ pay in advance in order to safeguard the organisation against a possible hiatus due to the military situation. John Senter rang me to say that he was rather worried about the case of Ronald Seth.We thought that possibly some expert ought to interrogate him on his peace mission from Walter Schellenberg of the Sicherheitsdienst. If as at present arranged Seth wrote out his story and was cross-examined on it several weeks might elapse, and the great ones might be asking what conclusions had been reached.They were aware of the existence of Seth and his story since there had been a great deal of telephoning between the Foreign Office and Berne. I said that I thought the first thing to do was to get Seth’s whole story. Only then would it be possible to say what importance should be attached to any proposal that he had to make. On its face, it looked as if he was pitching a tall story to act as a kind of smoke-screen for his own misdemeanours.The one thing to be avoided was that the case should get into the hands of the high-ups before it had been properly sifted. We had already had a bitter experience of this in the case of Marcos. Senter thought that possibly Seth might be interrogated by Section V, but I felt that if Mason got hold of the case he would be certain to go off the deep end and with possibly disastrous results. 17 April Edward Cussen, Buster Milmo, Roland Bird and I had a meeting on the case of Ronald Seth. It was agreed that Cussen would speak to Seth on arrival, explain to
285
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
him the delicacy of his position and urge upon him the necessity of co-operating fully with the authorities in clearing matters up. He would then tell Seth that he should report at the London Reception Centre daily until further notice. His case will be examined there in detail and copies of the reports will be circulated to SOE and SIS.We shall then be in a position to judge at an early date whether any attention at all should be paid to his rather sensational disclosures of peace terms, etcetera. 20 April I had a talk with Tommy Harris and Cyril Mills about GARBO and MOONBEAM. Mrs GARBO is for the moment at any rate agreeable to return to Spain and has got her marching orders. Cyril will have to fly back the week after next in order to get MOONBEAM on the air. 21 April Thomas came in to tell me that he had met Ronald Seth and had made him a little speech, pointing out that he had a good deal to explain, and to attend at the London Reception Centre at 10am tomorrow. Seth said he had a code and time frequency for the receipt of messages from the Germans.This has been passed over to the Radio Security Service. I subsequently telephoned to Baxter and asked him to find out from Seth early tomorrow precisely what the code was, what message he is expecting to receive from the Germans and how he was proposing to communicate with them. 22 April I had a talk with Baxter on the phone this morning. His examiner had ascertained from Ronald Seth that he was expecting the Germans to give him an address in Switzerland with which he was to communicate. He was also to communicate by wireless if they could make arrangements to deliver a set to him in Zurich. I gather that something apropos of this is going on. Seth had with him a medical certificate stating that he was subject to paranoic tendencies. From the sensational nature of his story this indeed seems likely. 23 April I lunched with Cyril Mills and Tommy Harris when we discussed the GARBO case. It is agreed that we should keep MOONBEAM, at any rate for the time-being, and that if Cyril had to leave Canada we should either replace him by Ronnie Reed or arrange that he should go out once every three months to send a communication by letter. He would work in the interval on the Canadian press and then get the Directors of Intelligence in Ottawa to pep the information up to some higher 286
1945
grade. As regards GARBO himself, we discussed quite seriously the proposition of selling his own organisation to the Russians.Tommy’s plan is to get him to write to the Soviet military attaché in London anonymously before he leaves for Spain. He would tell the latter the whole of his story and give them his code. He would tell them that he had been working for the English against Franco and that if they liked they could monitor communications between ourselves and the Germans to get what information they liked and incidentally to satisfy themselves as to his bona fides. He would then leave them entirely alone for about a year when he would write referring to his previous correspondence and suggesting that contact should be made. I think this may be worth going into in some detail. [XXXX] Dr Page came to see me about [XXXXXXXX] who has helped us considerably over Luis Calvo and other cases. [XXXXX] has now become somewhat mental and suicidal on account of the part he played in bringing about the downfall of Calvo and Alcazar de Velasco. Page thinks that he ought to see Brown, a psychiatrist of considerable eminence. I have got Charles Butler to agree that we can spend up to £100 on this as we may to some extent be responsible for [XXXX]’s mental state. 25 April Anthony Blunt came to tell me that according to a Japanese BJ, a Swiss journalist named Aeschmann had applied for a visa to come to this country and was in fatc to collect general information of a political kind for the Japanese. Having ORANGE in mind,Anthony thought that we might possibly allow him to come and fill him up with whatever the Foreign Office or the Controller wish to put over, for example that there is no rift in the Anglo-Russian lute and Japan may shortly expect a major operation on the Far Eastern front. Unfortunately Bill Cavendish-Bentinck is away at the San Francisco Conference. I therefore got Anthony to go round and see Johnny Bevan who seems to be rather taken with the idea. GARBO has received a rather peculiar message telling him that the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst in Spain cannot give him any help with the Spanish authorities. They will do everything they can to help him in the way of documents and finance in France but he will have to make his own arrangements about getting back into Spain.They say they are in difficulties because the authorities to whom they would normally look for guidance in this matter are “in distant lands”.What precisely is meant by this is not clear. It may be the redoubt of the Argentine. 26 April Teresa Clay tells me that Nebel, codenamed OSTRICH, has been overrun with two brothers and is now being interrogated. Tommy Harris showed me an ISOS message from Madrid to Berlin dated 19 April 1945 showing that on the orders of Lequerica, the Spanish Foreign Minister, thirty-three Germans are being ordered to leave Spain. This included Friedrich 287
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
Knappe, alias FREDERICO, who had been running GARBO, and Karl-Erich Kuhlenthal.A further list of expulsions is expected shortly.All those on the list are, for the time being, to go to some place near Barcelona.This move is probably the result of the various protests that have been registered and to the last Foreign Office reply to Franco’s overture, which was to the effect that Spain had actively assisted the Germans until there was some apparent change of heart. Full co-operation would be a different matter. We are trying to get the Spaniards to pipe down on Kuhlenthal, which may be useful to GARBO later on.This will, however, have to be done without it being apparent that we are in any way interested. The above telegram probably explains previous messages about difficulties to be encountered by the Madrid station and the statement that the controlling authorities were in distant lands. 27 April Mrs GARBO is due to leave for Spain on 1 May. One of GARBO’s agents has had to be cut out of the organisation. He was watching the 1st Airborne Division and as SHAEF cannot give any release of information about this division, it has been necessary to get rid of him. GARBO has explained to the Germans that though the agent pretends that he ran intro trouble, GARBO feels sure that he has concocted this story in order to provide an excuse for deserting the cause. In consequence of the last message from the Germans GARBO’s organisation here will probably be further reduced, as he is advised to give leave to his agents unless they can provide political information. TATE has received a questionnaire identical with one given to OSTRO which indicates that the Germans propose to use their submarine reserves to the utmost. 28 April I saw Len Burt today and he told me that the safe-breaking job carried out in Hampstead had involved a loss of £2,000 in banknotes. He is fairly confident that ZIGZAG, to whom he handed over £1,000 and £100 for two Leica cameras, was responsible for the Hampstead burglary. ZIGZAG is at present living in a flat in Knightsbridge for which he pays £5 a week and sub-lets a part for £7 a week. He has recently visited Compton Mackenzie and also Wilfred Macartney regarding the publication of his book which he has promised to submit for censorship. Burt is fairly confident that the book will be written by Macartney. 3 May On 1 May 1945 GARBO received a long message thanking him for his service and that of his organisation. It is hoped that in the course of a few days he will receive the necessary documents to allow him to travel to France. If not, he will either have to remain where he is or make his own arrangements. A remittance is being sent. 288
1945
The message then states that in order to leave open the possibility of making contact should circumstances make this necessary, with Agent No. 13 or with GARBO himself, if he remains in England, “You should let us have by message the name, surname and address where we could send a plain postcard which would be sent from a man Fernando Gomez who would communicate to the address his intention to travel on a particular date. On this date the wireless should start up, contact in accordance with the yearly plan which is in your possession.” It is left to GARBO’s judgment or that of Agent 3 to make similar arrangements with the network of Agent No. 5. The message concludes as follows: “We do not think it necessary for us to reiterate in these bitter hours our proven sentiments of gratitude and appreciation.We firmly hope that providence will inspire the leaders and build resistance for the future in order that we may avoid at the last moment a definite chaos which would envelop Europe in defence of those ideals we have struggled together.We will be listening daily from tomorrow so that 3 can communicate his approval of our suggestions and send the above-mentioned address as soon as he has consulted with J. Before definitely suspending the present contacts with ALMURA (the wireless station) we await our instructions in this connection.Very cordial regards from us all.” 4 May J.C. Masterman came to tell me that Canada was anxious to release the story of WATCHDOG. Had we any objection? I said I could not say off-hand but I thought that the case should be looked into to see whether there was any B1(a) aspect.We should also consider whether we might not be creating a precedent in the release of such stories. 7 May J.C. Masterman and Tommy Harris came in to talk about GARBO’s future. A message has come in from the Germans indicating that they would welcome his arrival in Madrid in order to discuss future plans. This seems eminently satisfactory. The difficulty is in getting GARBO to Madrid. Notionally he will get a lift by an American plane under a false name to France and make his way across the frontier. Actually, he will have to go by air or sea to Lisbon with a transit visa on his own passport. It is important that he should enter Spain with proper documentation. The only snag is that he left Portugal illegally and that the International Police there might conceivably question him if they have put his name on a blacklist. Tommy suggests that his landing card should be in the name of Garcoa instead of Garcia, a difference which would prevent his name being traced in the Travel Index. [XXXXX] on the other hand, the SIS man says he will have no difficulty if he is in transit. TATE has remained in contact with Hamburg right up to the evening of 2 May 1945. 289
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
10 May Blanshard Stamp came to see me about certain articles which the press wish to publish about Christiaan Lindemans. He agreed with me that it would be impossible for us to censor these articles. We could merely say that the case was sub judice in Holland and that we were not in a position to say how far publication would embarrass our Allies. They alone could be the judges. In the present state of their country it seemed undesirable that anything should be done which might conceivably hamper them in their enquiries, quite apart from the judicial aspect of the case. At the Wireless Board meeting today J.C. Masterman gave an exposé of the work of the Twenty Committee during the last sixteen months. He began by explaining the six purposes of running double agents and then explained how our organisation had gone gradually into liquidation since OVERLORD owing to the military situation.We had been left with five agents and would continue to communicate, but only one of them, namely GARBO, would be likely to survive in the post-war period. J.C. then asked for leave to dissolve the Twenty Committee but to retain the various links in the service departments, Controller’s office and Security Executive who would act as approving authorities for any messages which we might wish to send over in the future. The Board passed a vote of thanks to MI5 and SIS for the very successful work that had been done during the past five years. The Director of Military Intelligence expressed his intention of writing both to MI5 and SIS on behalf of the Board.The future of the Board was discussed and it was decided on C.’s recommendation it should be kept in being and to have ad hoc meetings as heretofore.A general write-up is to be made of the work of the Board. This would not occupy much space but it is to include a write-up of B1(a) and the Controller. A copy is to be kept by ourselves and by C. After J.C.’s speech I drew attention to the very valuable work done by the services in wireless deception which backed up the movements of all GARBO’s notional units. It seemed to me that probably the fact of Y material supporting agents’ reports had been decisive in misleading the Germans during the OVERLORD period. One was complementary to the other. The controller mentioned evidence of the success of our deception plans. Not only had we got the map showing our positions in this country on 15 May 1944 but the recent report by prisoners of war employed at Ic Gruppe West had given an account of how the Germans thought that we had concentrated in the southeast of England which was likely to be used against the Pas-de-Calais. A Colonel Arnst had recently given himself up with a suitcase of documents and had led the authorities to a special cache at his own home which he had buried in his garden. He had kept these documents as souvenirs and he clearly gave them up in the hope that his wife and family might be allowed to remain in their Schloss. The documents are OKH daily intelligence reports and I believed contained a good deal of the stuff which we put through GARBO.
290
1945
11 May I lunched with Anthony Blunt and Leo Long, formerly of MI-14(b), now in the Control Commission. Long has just been to Munich to deal with civil intelligence targets and had been accompanied by Patrick Day. He said that the Americans were not really tackling the problem at all. In the short time he was there he had not been able to achieve very much except to convince himself of the necessity of sending out qualified interrogators and German-speaking research workers.A good deal of the documents had found their way into that area and there was a mine of information.The danger was that the documents would either be destroyed or be dispersed by people who did not know anything of their contents. He described the German people, including the Gestapo prisoners, as being extremely docile. They were all saying that their consciences were clear. He had one rather remarkable experience with a woman who had implored him to shoot her. She evidently thought that he was a Soviet officer, but when informed that he was British she withdrew her request and handed over some antiquated ivory flintlocks, etcetera, which were taken away. Leo Long was identified by Anthony Blunt in April 1964 as having been a Soviet spy, recruited at Cambridge. He admitted this publicly in October 1981. Tommy Harris discussed with me the plan for GARBO. It now seems that his return via Portugal\is fraught with danger and that the only method of getting him back to Spain is to send him round via some South American republic where he could get a new passport, his old one having expired.This may take some time, which is a pity since it would be convenient for us to have him in Spain while the German intelligence service is reforming. We feel however that the risks of sending him direct are too great. 12 May Karl-Heinz Krämer and his mistress have been captured in Denmark and are being brought to the UK. He will go to Camp 020. 16 May J.C. Masterman, Herbert Hart, Edward Cussen, Derek Sinclair and I discussed a leakage case connected with ZIGZAG. Through a girl in SIS we had heard that a Colonel Wardell has recently seen ZIGZAG in the company of Frank Owen, late of the Evening Standard, to whom ZIGZAG had evidently related his story. It was decided that Cussen should see Wardell and that perhaps he might see ZIGZAG and give him another warning. Frank Owen later wrote The Eddie Chapman Story, a book that was followed by Chapman’s version, The Real Eddie Chapman Story.
291
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
Tommy Harris and I drafted a wires to Cyril Mills about GARBO, asking Cyril to go down to Washington DC and obtain Mickey Ladd’s co-operation in getting GARBO’s transit visa via the United States to South America.This seems to be the only way we can get GARBO back to Spain without arousing suspicions.When in the United States he will fill his passport up with South American visas and then apply for a new one. He cannot go via Lisbon as he left that country without an exit visa and he cannot go direct to Spain from here without the circumstances appearing suspicious. 17 May I have seen an interesting SHAEF report on the interrogation of a prisoner of war who was a clerk in the Ic section of the Commander in Chief West from June 1942 to 27 November 1944 when he was transferred to a signal battalion. The PoW is described as an intelligent man whose knowledge about strategy is necessarily limited to the talk current among the enlisted staff personnel, although he appears to have enjoyed the confidence of several staff officers. His story is not perhaps as detailed as it might be but it is interesting.The PoW stated that agents who were the C-in-C West’s main source of information prior to the invasion forecast April as the month. Later they thought early May and then late May. In June the general information was that no invasion was to be expected until August or September. D-Day came as a surprise. Colonel Mayer Detring of Ic picked Normandy as the landing-place as early as August 1943 when he expounded this view in a training course. He persisted in this view but his was but one voice. Reports from agents and other sources caused doubt and confusion. A landing in southern France was thought possible in March 1944 and persisted after D-Day.A landing in the Bay of Biscay between Bordeaux and the Spanish border which was associated with Spanish troop concentrations along the Pyrenees and the possibility of a push through Spain were also given a certain amount of credence. Fear of a landing in Holland caused the evacuation of civilians from the coastal area after D-Day and the flooding of the lowlands.There was a certain amount of talk about a landing in Norway and Denmark. Manoeuvres and exercises in England were watched with apprehension. HUSKY, the main exercise, caused particular nervousness and a special map was kept up to date by agent reports and signal intelligence as well as inability to locate the British 51st and 52nd Divisions, which were looked on as crack troops. Periods of radio silence were often considered a bluff. Finally, the atmosphere was so tense that everybody hoped for the arrival of D-Day to get it over.When it came it was taken fairly calmly at first. Rommel and Mayer Detring were both in Berlin. At first the attack was regarded as a feint and further landings were expected of a more serious kind elsewhere. The situation map of England showed only few units along the southwest (this is of special interest owing to GARBO’s pre-D-Day build-up of the order-of-battle. A good many of the units in the southeast were in fact notional).The PoW continues that the Commander-inChief West expected an Allied drive east along the Normandy coast combined 292
1945
with renewed landings in the direction of Le Havre, Dieppe and Calais.The evaluation, coupled with the fears of a landing in Holland, kept the 15th German Army in the northeast during this period. Reinforcements were drawn from southwest France.The accuracy of intelligence on the order-of-battle was considered a credit to the agent system. A Major Brink of Ic was concerned with deception and directed the Abwehr agencies of sabotage and subversive activities. Some of his plans entailed confusion through new divisional insignia which he personally originated, misleading signal traffic and simulated movement of heavy equipment to a division hitherto known as regular infantry organisations. A number of agents reports started with the phrase: “According to agents reports from Lisbon” or “Madrid”. In addition reports were received daily from the RHSA.These gave the agent’s number as their origin and specialised on damage caused by V-weapons.The PoW is certain that agents were the only source of information on this matter. Reports after April 1944 usually bore the comment “Air reconnaissance was not possible due to strong fighter defence.” Reports of V-damage were considered disappointing in so far as the results achieved. A signal intelligence section with a hundred monitors and interceptors under General Gimmler issued a fifteen to twenty-page report of intercepts daily.The situation was based primarily on information supplied by Fremde Heere West. According to the PoW, there were special interrogation units in the field. He learned from the officer in charge that if the enemy had launched an attack in which his intentions or strength were not known and if no prisoner volunteered information, then one knowledgeable prisoner would be selected and any methods used to make him talk.This prisoner was then to be shot. TATE last made contact on 2 May 1945 at 1655 GMT. BRONX last wrote on 5 May 1945 and received two letters on 7 May 1945. ROVER last made contact on 1 May 1945. GELATINE last wrote on 30 April 1945 and received her last letter on 25 May 1945. According to a Japanese BJ dated 4 May, Angel Alcazar de Velasco was then living somewhere near the German–Swiss frontier and trying to get into Switzerland. The Japanese were doing their best to look after him on account of “his devoted service”.This is not without humour since he double-crossed them by filling them up with junk. 18 May I dined with Victor Rothschild last night. He was full of his experiences at Wiesbaden and with 12th Army Group. He was instructing them in counter-sabotage work. He and Stuart Hampshire who was also there, referred to the case of Nebel, codenamed OSTRICH. Nebel was over-run and got back to Paris.They both thought that he was an extremely sinister figure, and may well have double-crossed the Germans and ourselves. He would, however, always remain at heart a Nazi and a thug. They both thought he ought to be bumped off and under certain conditions seemed to be quite prepared to do the job themselves. 293
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
Stuart Hampshire gave an account of Dick White’s visit to 21st Army Group, who were evidently somewhat in disgrace for having allowed Admiral Dönitz to broadcast. The fact was that the Germans, having surrendered, refused to allow British troops free movement in their area, and persuaded 21st Army Group that they were the only people with the necessary administrative machinery to demobilise their forces. When Dick arrived to inquire about the whereabouts of Himmler he found that the morale of the Germans was quite high, and that they were full of spit and polish, heel-clicking, etcetera, and were generally taking up rather an arrogant attitude.When he asked about Himmler he was told that he had been in the area but that he had been told to get out and go south as he was an embarrassment to the military authorities. Admiral Dönitz and Field-Marshal Jodl did not know his present whereabouts. Some panzer general took great delight in showing off his tanks and made his latest models perform for Dick’s edification. This may be a slightly libellous story but I hope to get a full account from Dick in due course. 23 May Tommy Harris and I saw the Director-General about plans for GARBO.The D-G seems quite amenable to the suggestion that Tommy should go with GARBO and thinks that they had better go by sea as an air passage might be considered peculiar seeing the difficulties that there was about priorities. I saw Anthony Blunt and Kemball Johnston and arranged for Graham Mitchell to carry the liaison with ORANGE when Johnston leaves, since a good deal of the stuff affects F3. Kemball Johnston thanked me for the letter I had sent him some time ago and expressed the view that I was quite right in the advice I had given him. 24 May Vesey told the 12 o’clock meeting about the case of a woman called Molkenteller, formerly of Amt VI in Berlin and captured in the field by the Americans. She said that while in Berlin she had been the recipient of photographs received from Ankara relating to information obtained from the British Embassy. She said that the Germans had recruited the embassy chauffeur and through him the ambassador’s valet, a Turk. The ambassador thought this man suitable (a) because he spoke no English and (b) because he had a good voice.The valet was given a Leica camera by the Germans, and photographed all the documents he could lay his hands on. In fact he photographed some when the ambassador was in the next room playing the piano. He thought this a good plan as he had the necessary warning as soon as the piano stopped.The documents that he photographed were of considerable importance. They included some relating to the time and place of the Teheran Conference, to the proceedings at the conference, the plans for the attack on
294
1945
Rhodes, and to other Balkan plans (which had in fact appeared on ISOS). Lastly, there was a document from the Foreign Office or SIS warning the ambassador that there was a leakage of information from the embassy.The effect of this last document had been that the valet was instructed to cease operations for a week. He recommenced after this period. He finally left in the summer of 1944 and is now believed to be in Germany. He started operations in the autumn of 1943. I do not think that any incident in the whole war has caused me so much pleasure. C. too is highly delighted. The Director-General is rubbing his hands. Herbert Hart attended a meeting in William Codrington’s room with a representative of SIS. Codrington was rather inclined to treat the whole incident light-heartedly and made a very bad impression on Herbert.This is perhaps the most glaring example of the inefficiency of the Foreign Office security organisation and the futility of sending out people like Johnny Dashwood to investigate cases of this kind. The valet, Eleysa Bazna, remained in Turkey after the war and published his version of events, I Was Cicero. I had a meeting with T.A. Robertson, J.C. Masterman. John Marriott and Billy Luke about the future of TATE.The difficulty is that he is known to all his friends and in his business as a press photographer, and he cannot without our assistance obtain the necessary documentation to travel abroad except in his own name. J.C. was therefore in favour of getting him naturalised. He thought that we should have a better hold on him. I pointed out that we should have no hold on him at all if he is a British subject whereas if he remained a Dane we should always be able to deport him. It seemed to me that anybody had the right to call himself anything he liked and we should try to get TATE registered as a Dane in the name of Wulf Schmidt. I spoke later to Markbreiter who thought this was quite feasible. If TATE wants to travel and he would be well advised to remain here for the next few years, we could probably arrange matters with the Danish authorities. If he went to them now they might institute inquiries and it might be found that Harry had been carrying out active work for the Nazis before he came here. If he went back on a visit, which he appears to be anxious to do, he might well be picked up and put on trial. We could do nothing for him except to say something in his defence. TATE’s real name was Wulf Schmidt, but he used the alias Harry Williamson. 25 May I had a long conversation with Tommy Haris about the necessary cover for GARBO. Cyril Mills has suggested a commercial cover but as GARBO is described as an author this will not quite do. We have thought of possibly getting Walter Bell to give him a letter from Lunn’s travel agency and we thought also of providing him with a banker’s letter. John Cimperman of the FBI came in to see me. He wanted my assistance in getting access to War Room information. Apparently General Donovan has barred
295
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
his entry to the War Room. He is, nevertheless, trying to fix up a liaison in order to ensure that such documents as concern him reach the FBI. If he fails I said I would see that Roland Bird could do for him. He showed me a telegram from Mickey Ladd instructing him to give every assistance with regard to GARBO. He also showed me a telegram from the FBI expressing anxiety about the release of Camp 020 prisoners who had been operating in South America or in the Peninsula. I told him that we had this matter very much in mind and that at the moment we were only getting rid of Allied nationals. We would certainly not take any steps with regard to the others without giving them the opportunity of expressing their views. A telegram from the FBI also asked whether it would be possible to hand over any of the South American cases to the South American authorities. I said that we would have to look into each case as the matter might be a somewhat delicate one. 26 May Tommy Harris came to talk to me about GARBO. He has now arranged that he will be provided with letters from the Courtauld Institute indicating that he is making a study of the influence of Spanish art on American countries. Anthony Blunt will be giving him some lectures before he goes and he will carry with him plenty of literature and photographs. Anthony Blunt had left MI5 for the Courtauld Institute where he was to be Director from 1947 to 1974. He would confess to espionage in April 1964, and be publicly exposed as a traitor and stripped of his knighthood in November 1970. 28 May Valentine Vivian rang me to say that the archives of the German Embassy in Lisbon were being examined but that a need had arisen for guards in case the International Police might try to pinch some documents. I have sent a wire to Philip KirbyGreen to see whether any of the counter-sabotage squad would be suitable for such a job. 30 May Blake-Budden came to see me about Valentine Vivian’s old agent Johnny de Graaf. He has taken out naturalisation papers in Canada and cannot get them for another year. Meanwhile he wishes to retain his bogus status as a British subject. I suggested to Blake-Budden that he should go and see Christopher Hill of the Home Office who already knows about the case. Klop came in. He is back from Lisbon for a few days. He thinks that within the next month he ought to reap a fairly good harvest from those Germans who are anxious about their future.As regards interrogation of prominent Nazis, he said that he did not think he could do any in a military area but that back here he might in
296
1945
semi-official surroundings be able to extract quite a lot of information if he were left alone for a couple of hours with some of the leading personalities. He told me many stories of his deception work in Lisbon. Tommy Harris has got his OBE which will be a great source of pleasure to all. Bill Cavendish-Bentinck rang me up about the case of Carl von Loesch who was formerly attaché to Joachim von Ribbentrop’s Dienstelle in this country. He has come into possession of the secret archives of the German Foreign office.They had been photographed and at the last moment it was decided to burn them. Von Loesch managed to bury them and the Sicherheitsdienst, who were doing the job, merely burned the empty boxes thinking they were burning the archives.The films are now in this country and von Loesch’s presence is required to elucidate them. He is by birth a British subject. I explained to Cavendish-Bentinck that if we once got him here we might not be able to get him out again and he might be an embarrassment. He is going to find out whether by virtue of his service in the German Army von Loesch loses his British nationality, or whether he would be liable to prosecution as a renegade. In actual fact, we should not proceed against a character of this kind, but his presence here might cause difficulties. Kenneth Keith came in to see me about the case of von Loesch and he asked me to let him know Cavendish-Bentinck’s final decision. He told me that he had been up to Berlin for the signing of the armistice with Field Marshal Keitel. He had had to find Keitel out of the dining room where he had been having a heavy lunch of caviar and champagne. He was not clear whether he had been lunching separately or with the Russians.The Russian Commissar haggled for hours over one word in the final document. Keith, in his usual rather uppish way, expressed some surprise at this. The Commissar replied, “Russia has been fighting Germany for five years and therefore three hours was a matter of no significance.” Keith replied,“We have been fighting the Germans for six years and the sooner we get it over with, the better.” Kenneth Strong was, I gather, a little shocked by this remark. At Flensberg there was an amusing interview with Field Marshal Jodl. We had issued to our troops an elaborate plan relating to their conduct in Germany and giving full details as to how the country was to be occupied and governed.The codename for this plan was ECLIPSE. Jodl apparently opened the conversation by saying,“I have read your plan ECLIPSE. I think it is very good and I shall see that it is carried out to the letter.” A copy of the document had evidently been captured elsewhere in the field.The joke of it was that Jodl had clearly read and studied it very carefully, whereas our officers knew very little about it.The French, I gather, were behaving extremely badly. General Le Juin wrote such an insulting letter to General Eisenhower that he passed it on to the Chiefs of Staff in Washington DC. They decided immediately to stop all further Lend Lease for French rearmament. The French are constantly writing rude notes to the effect that they are now entirely in control of affairs in France and that the things about which we ask are none of our business.
297
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES, VOL. 1I: 1942–1945
1 June The Joint Intelligence Committee has issued a paper on our future conduct in relations with the Russians outside the diplomatic field. No longer is information to be given gratuitously.We are to say, as the Russians say, that the question will have to be referred to London. There will be a delay of several weeks at the end of which we shall say that provided the Russians are prepared to show us so-and-so, we shall be prepared to let them see similar equipment of ours.The same will apply to captured documents, German war plants, etcetera. It is emphasised that only in this way can we command any respect. The present policy of just handing out information does us no good whatever. It ends by our being treated with contempt. I am going on leave tomorrow till 17 June.
298
INDEX
AB Transport 166 Abetz, Otto 208 Abwehr 5, 14, 21, 30, 42, 49, 55, 58, 59, 71, 77, 83, 88, 99, 100, 102–3, 111, 121, 130–1, 138, 143–4, 147, 157, 160, 168, 174, 179–82, 187, 190, 192, 197–9, 201–2, 207, 211, 214–5, 225–7, 252, 260, 284, 293; Abstelle Bremen 143; Abstelle Brussels 93; Abstelle Lisbon 32–3, 63, 74, 80, 81, 102, 147; Abstelle Madrid 32, 44, 123–4, 126; Abstelle Paris 32, 114, 180, 210; Abteilung I 29, 99, 130, 173, 269, 293; Abteilung II 16, 29, 180, 210; Abteilung III 130, 152, 263 ACE see Axis Counter-Espionage Adam, John viii, 276 Adams Black List 245 Addis, Charles 19 Advisory Committee 4, 63, 64; Chairman of, see Sir Norman Birkett Aeschermann 287 Afrika Korps 29 Aiken-Sneath, Francis viii, 50, 81 Air Observer Corps 12 Airey,Tim 238 ALARIC (Juan Pujol) 213 Alba, Duke of 12, 22, 27, 48, 100, 218, 234, 283 Alcazar de Velasco, Angel 7, 17, 287, 293 Alexander, Gen. Sir Harold 67, 192 Alexander, Sir Hugo 128 Ali, Rashid 222 Allen, Harry viii, 49, 208, 224 ALMEIDA 231 AMATEUR 32 ALMURA 289 American G-2 108, 118, 126, 140, 142, 148, 248, 250
Anders, Gen.Wladyslaw 86 Andersen, Ava 114 Anderson, Sir John 218 Andrews 58, 62 Androyes 193 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 144, 148 ANTON 263, 264 APPOLLO 264 ARABEL (Juan Pujol) 213 Archer, John viii, 8, 147, 149, 151, 155 Arents, Henri (FATHER) ix Argentine Military Attaché 90 Armas, Garcia 182, 207 Armistice Commission 30 Armstrong, Sir Hugo 47, 91, 104, 162–3, 165 Army Council 9 ARNAUD 263, 264 Arno 258 Arnold-Foster, Christopher 226, 247, 249 Arnst, Col. 290 Arrival from Enemy Territory Act 4, 35 Artaza 82 ARTHUR 104 ARTIST (Johannes Jebsen) 126, 130, 131, 141, 150–2, 154, 158, 173, 179–80, 184, 187–94, 207, 211, 214, 225, 227 Asaturov 224 Asdic 214–5, 227, 231, 248 Ashley, Gisella 280 ASPIRIN 141 Associated Press of America 205 Astier de la Vigerie, Henri d’ 43 Astor, Hugh viii, 119, 121, 196, 262, 268, 269, 278–9, 281, 282 Atomic bomb 265 Attorney-General 63, 200, 206 Axis Counter-Espionage (ACE) 10
299
INDEX
B1(a) 72, 159, 192, 219, 238, 261–2, 274, 276, 285, 289 B1(b) 120 B1(L) 8, 165, 219 B5 131 B6 134 Back 230 Bailey, Col. S.W. 182 BALLOON (Dickie Metcalfe) 90, 103, 126, 137, 141, 155, 228 Baltimore News Post 206 Barak, Anton 68 Barclay, Cecil 104, 123 Barclay, Colville 256 Bardet, Roger 270–2, 276. Baring, Evelyn 96 Barnley, Lord 54 Barron 89 Barry, Patrick 128, 177 Barry, Col. Richard 49 Bartlett 167, 177 Baston 54 Bartik 89 Bartlett 177 BASKET see Joseph Lenihan Bates, Joe 234 Baticon, Jochim Baxter 72, 118, 171, 260, 286 Bayerlein 42 BBC see British Broadcasting Corporation Becker, Sigismund 141 Bedaux, Charles 143, 148, 149, 173 Bell,Walter viii, 39, 137, 283, 295 Bellville, Rupert 132 BENEDICT 66 Ben-Gurion, David 87 Bennett 265 Bensmann, Dr 144, 149 Benton, Kenneth 121 Berandis 19 Bergman 161 Bergson Group 248, 261 Beria, Lavrenti 122 Bernhard, Prince 194, 239, 265 Bertil, Prince 240 Bertrand, Gustave 156 Betts, Gen. 204 Bevan, John 10, 22, 164, 267, 287 Beveridge, Sir William 142, 234 Beyfus, Gilbert 162 Bhose, Subhas 24–5 Bingham, Jack 27, 124, 219, 253, 280 Bird, Roland 243, 285, 296 Birkett, Sir Norman 63
Bishop, Sarah 252 BJ 34, 39, 43, 50, 54, 61–2, 100, 108, 112, 168, 211, 287, 293 Black, Col. 138 Black Market 137 BLACKGUARD 199, 222–3 Blake-Budden 296 Blakeney, Col. 138 Bland, Nevile 212 Blay, Andres Pigrau 17 Bletchley Park 8, 234 Bloch, Ernst 100 Bloss 111, 162–3, 165 Blue Division 213 Blume, Ernst 133 Blunt, Anthony viii, 21, 38, 95, 114, 129, 131, 150, 151, 155, 158, 160, 166–7, 183, 191, 226, 234–5, 240, 244, 251, 253, 268, 270, 272, 276–7, 280, 282, 285, 287, 291, 294, 296 Bodington, Nicholas 268–72 BODDEN 111–2 BODYLINE 155 Bogomolets 174 Bohr, Niels 224 Bombe 8 Bona, Frando de (FREAK) 158,165 BONZO 248 BOOTLE (Fressay) 167 Borisson 43 Bothereau 196 Boulay, Neville du 128, 137, 145 Bouverie, Anthony 98, 180 Boyd, Charles 32–3, 38, 40 Boyle, Archie 94, 166, 175, 181 Boyle, David viii, 128–9, 134, 137, 140, 169, 234 Bradley, Gen. Omar 211, 217 Brandenburg Regiment 39, 194, 198 Brandes, Hans 174, 188, 210, 218, 275 Brazilian Military Attaché 20 Brede, Maj. 100 Breton Nationalist Movement 229 Bridges, Sir Edward 185, 218 Brilhante, Col. 90 Brink, Maj. 293 Briscoe, Prof. 72, 244–5 Bristol Aircraft Company 167–8 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 13 British Security Coordination (BSC) 1, 17, 87, 96, 180, 248, 260; Director of see William Stephenson British Troops Egypt (BTE) 240 British Union of Fascists (BUF) 6, 19
300
INDEX
Brocas-Burrows 224 BROCK 18 Brock 174, 192, 247, 250 Broderbond 153 Brodersen, Knut 192, 207 BRONX (Elvira Chaudoir) 92, 101, 150, 152, 176, 179, 199, 203, 216, 231, 244, 251, 255, 268, 274–5, 281, 284, 293 Brook-Booth 90, 176, 194 Brooke, Sir Basil 164 Brooks 198 Brook-Wilkinson 84 Brooman-White, Dick viii, 7, 17, 21, 28, 34, 51, 56–7, 73, 82, 154, 233, 276 Brown, Dr 287 Brown,William 274 Brugada Wood, José (PEPPERMINT) 7, 28 BRUTUS (Roman Garby-Czerniawski) 66, 67, 78, 81, 96, 107, 112, 161, 164, 173, 182, 187, 198, 195, 202–3, 209, 210, 212, 214–6, 228, 232, 235–6, 238, 240–1, 252, 255, 257, 259, 261, 264, 270, 275–6, 278, 280–1 Bruyne, M.R. de 212 Bryan, Dan 20, 37, 46, 58, 219 BSC see British Security Coordination BTE see British Troops Egypt Buccleuch, Duke of 34 Buchanan-Dineen, Grace 109 Buckmaster, Maurice 179–80, 210, 269 Buenaga 247 BUF see British Union of Fascists Bullitt,William 148 BUNBURY 92, 95–6, 98, 100–15, 107, 114–5, 129 Burger, Ernst 132 Burgess, Guy 177, 234 Burley 276 Burt, Leonard viii, 4, 11, 19, 32, 38, 47, 50, 53–4, 64, 78, 91, 95–6, 98, 101, 104, 111, 128, 135, 147, 150, 162–3, 167–8, 170, 181, 220, 223, 227, 230, 241, 256–7, 283 Burton 278 Buss, Air Comm. 151, 155, 164, 166 Butler, Charles viii, 83, 94, 159, 279, 287 Butler, Richard 187–8, 195, 200, 225, 251 Byrne, L.A. 162, 200 C. see Stewart Menzies Cadogan, Sir Alexander viii, 36, 47, 172–3, 185, 233 Cain, Insp. 201 Calvert, Col. 118
Calvo, Luis 287 Cammaerts, Francis (Roger) 202, 261 Camp 020 4, 8, 27, 32, 35, 40, 43, 45, 64, 65, 81, 83, 86, 91, 112, 119, 126, 132, 135, 156, 168, 192, 214–5, 225–6, 230, 237, 239, 243–4, 285, 291, 296 Camp 020R 27 Camp WX 150–3, 161, 164 Campbell 178 Campbell, Sir Archibald 67 Campbell, Sir Ronald 74 Campini 8 Canaris, Adm.Wilhelm 37, 38, 40, 41, 130, 170, 187, 213, 252 Canning, Albert viii, 54, 64, 200 Cape, Jonathan 4 Capel-Dunne, Denis 237 CARBUNCLE 238 Cardozo 73 CARELESS viii, 32, 41 Carlisle, John Denton 22, 90, 145 Caroe,Victor B. viii, 21, 45, 52, 170 CARON 225, 226 Carré, Mathilde (Victoire) 95, 202 Carvalho, Arthur 31 Casa Maury,Viscount Bobby 10 Casabayo, Fernando 91 Catalan Movement 25, 119 Catling, Richard 248, 250, 260 Catto, Miss 74 Cavendish-Bentinck,Victor (‘Bill’) viii, 85, 121, 154, 169, 170, 240, 273, 278, 280, 281, 287, 297 Cecil, Robert 55, 202 CELERY (Walter Dicketts) 170 Cervell, Frank 150, 151, 154–5, 158, 160, 166, 167–70, 177–8, 185, 234–5, 266–8, 270–1, 273 Chapman, Eddie (FRITZCHEN; ZIGZAG) viii, 4, 34–36, 38–9 Chateau Thierry, Duchesse de 15 CHEESE (Renato Levi) viii, 78 Cheney, Sqdn.-Ldr 156, 161–2, 171, 196 Cheown 166, 170 Chetniks 182 Chiank Kai-shek 103 Chichaev, Ivan 89, 90, 94, 122–3 Chief of Combined Operations 250 Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) 138, 164 Cholmondeley, Charles 45, 219 Churchill, Randolph 3 Churchill,Winston 19, 24, 31, 46, 51, 61, 67, 69, 85, 86, 88, 93, 94, 96, 114, 160,
301
INDEX
183, 195, 206–7, 223–4, 233, 241, 250, 256, 275 CICI see Combined Intelligence Centre Iraq Cimperman, John 110, 296 City of Lancaster 54, 67, 231 Clamorgan 20, 21 Claridge’s 203, 212, 242, 243 Clark, Gen. Mark 192 Clark Kerr, Archie 46 Clarke, Dudley 78, 164, 182, 190, 267 Clay,Teresa 27, 105, 167, 191, 219, 244, 287 COBWEB viii, 118, 201 COCK 45 Codrington,William viii, 164, 166, 183, 189, 256, 295 Coetzee, Lt. 54, 135 Colepaugh,William 274–6 Collie 4 Colonial Office 87, 106, 250 COLUMBINE viii, 189, 242–3, 249, 284–5 Combined Intelligence Centre Iraq (CICI) 224, 278 Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) 197, 283–4 Comintern 9, 66, 223, 282 Communist International Liquidation Committee 282 Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) 58, 77, 89, 113, 132, 175–6 Condra 138 Constantini 17 Control Commission for Germany 291 Controller of Deception (John Bevan) 80, 88, 187, 268, 275, 287, 290 Cooper, Lady Diana 3 Cooper, Duff 3, 4, 29, 35, 51, 59, 60, 67, 76, 83–4, 86, 91, 93, 114, 128, 230 Coppert, Col. 263 Corcoran, Peter 37 Cordeaux, Jack 233 Cordunella 25 COSSAC see Chief of Staff Supreme Allied Commander Cotelon 229 Courcy, Kenneth de 4, 9, 28, 46, 154 Courtauld Institute 296 Cowgill, Felix viii, 1, 53, 54, 55, 98, 110, 112, 138, 164, 178, 237, 245 Cradoc-Owen 64 Crauford 200 Craven,William 62, 64 Crawford, Maj. 128
Cremers, Felix 32 Creteur, Gabriel 155, 156 Cripps, Sir Stafford 47, 65, 128, 130, 135, 166, 206 Crockatt, Norman 15, 118, 178 CROSSBOW 212 Crowe, Eyre 185 Cruwell, Gen. Ludwig 186 CSDIC see Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre Cummings, A.J. 10 Cunliffe–Owens 163, 166–7, 170, 200 Cunningham, Adm. Sir Andrew 211 Curry, Jack 6, 58, 61, 110, 223, 282 Cussen, Edward viii, 49, 80, 89, 126, 144, 163, 168, 202, 205, 208, 218, 228, 231, 241–2, 256, 280, 285, 291 CX 197 DAGOBERT 223 Daily Express 206 Daily Mail 202, 245, 280 Daily Mirror 127, 272, 274, 280, 289 Daily Sketch 28 Damen 263 Dansey, Claude viii, 10, 119, 176, 245 Darlan, Adm. Emile 43 Darwall, Richard 183 Dasch, George 132 Dashwood, Sir John 77, 106, 163, 183, 189, 256, 295 Daubeny, Maj. 14, 18 Dawson, Lord 146 Day, Patrick 72, 291 D-Day 156, 175, 192, 203–5, 216–8, 229, 281, 292 Deception, Controller of see John Bevan Defence Security Officer (DSO) 51, 222, 239 Delhi Intelligence Bureau (DIB) 103, 278, 279, 281 Delmer, Sefton 189, 197 Denham 91 Denniston, Alastair 235 Deputy Director-General see Jasper Harker Dericourt, Henri (Gilbert) 172, 179–80, 276, 277 Detring, Mayer 292 Deuxieme Bureau 171 Devlin, Patrick 206 Dewavrin, André (Col. Passy) 13 Dey, Dr 26 DIB see Delhi Intelligence Bureau
302
INDEX
Dickson, Jimmie viii, 124, 127, 182, 183, 205, 253, 280 Dill, Sir John ix Dings, Mrs. 26 Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) 21, 48, 119, 129, 137, 145, 156, 164, 172, 174, 177, 194, 211, 290 Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI) 164, 169, 246, 249, 275 Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) 56, 59, 65, 121, 128 Director-General see Sir David Petrie DNI see Director of Naval Intelligence D-Notice 128, 208 Dominions Office 21 Dönitz, Karl 294 Donohoe 18 Donovan, Bill 87, 233–4, 272, 295 DORICK 223 Dourlein, Pieter 212 DPP see Director of Public Prosecutions DRAGONFLY (Hans George) 41, 52, 70, 72, 76, 86, 89, 92, 101, 126, 129, 134, 137–9, 144–5, 147, 152, 225, 235–6 DREADNOUGHT (Ivo Popov) 155, 161, 215, 225, 227–8 DREAM 28, 44, 46, 75, 91, 150, 151, 179, 182, 188, 195, 207 Drew, John 103, 275–6 Drew-Brook,Tommy 169 Driberg,Tom 89 DUCK ix, 34–5, 52, 71, 218, 234 DUFF 9, 26, 29, 110, 126, 152, 161, 238 Dufours 206 Dulanty, John ix, 23 Dulles, Allen 108 Dunbar, Sir Alexander 95, 166–7 Dunderdale,Wilfred (‘Biffy’) 258 Dykes, 242 Eastman 250 Eastwood, Christopher 58, 62, 97, 100 ECCLESIASTIC 249 ECLIPSE 297 Ede, Bertram ix, 238–9 Eden, Anthony 8, 14, 27, 73, 85, 93, 143, 256 Edenvale 62 Edgworth-Johnstone, Ralph 28 Edwards 35 Egerton-Johnson, Maj. 14 EGGS ix, 28 Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight 86, 195, 200, 205, 208, 297
Elkington, Eho 143, 148 Ellis, C.H. (‘Dick’) ix, 180 Elton 219 Emergency Regulation 18(b) 9 Enders, Rudolf 136 Endrou, Prof. 144, 148 Erasmus brothers 8 Erikssen, My 86, 202, 214 Eschweger, von 230 Evening Standard 10, 75, 144, 208, 291 FABIUS 197 Falk, Peter 266, 268, 270 Falkenhausen, Alexander von 60 Fanto (PUPPET) 36, 38, 60, 62, 66 Farouk, King 240 FATHER (Henri Arents) ix, 20, 27, 32, 89, 147–50, 155, 165, 182, 199, 203, 222, 228–9, 241, 245, 257, 258 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 25–6, 39, 83, 110, 126, 140, 142, 148, 149, 178, 214, 219, 222–5, 231, 248, 250, 260–1, 274–6, 281, 295, 296 Federns 50 Felipe 93, 190, 192–3 FELIX 52, 61, 132 Fer, de la 201 Ferguson 54, 142 Feyguin 83 FFI see Free French Forces of the Interior FIDO ix, 152, 167, 196 Fidrmuc, Paul (OSTRO) 9, 136 Field-Robinson,William 13, 72–3, 234 Fifth Column 7, 15, 28, 133, 162, 219, 234 First United States Army Group (FUSAG) 203, 216 Fish, Donald ix, 147, 149–50, 155, 162 Fladgate, Courtenay 75 Fleming, Peter 219 Florman, Karl 166, 270 Foester 73 Foley, Frank 36, 55, 60, 159, 187 Forrest, Martin 51 FORTITUDE 216, 217 Foster, Albert ix, 103–4 Franck, Louis 98 Franke, Dr 26 FRANZ 133 FREAK (Frano de Bona) 158, 161, 165, 173, 176, 187, 198, 203, 207, 211, 215–6, 228, 231 FREDERICO 247 Free French 13, 17 Free French Forces of the Interior (FFI) 272
303
INDEX
Free German Movement 194 Freitas, Gastao de 33, 47 Fresenius 201, 214 Fressay (BOOTLE) 167, 171 Fried 72 FRITZCHEN see Eddie Chapman Frost, Malcolm ix, 30 Fulford, Roger ix, 9, 28 Funk Uberwachtung 42 Furnival Jones, Martin 284 FUSAG see First United States Army Group G-2 see Irish G-2 G-2 see American G-2 Gache 242–3 Gaertner, Friedle (GELATINE) ix Gallacher,Willie 175 Gambier-Parry, Richard ix, 119 Gamotta, Ramon 132, 133 GARBO (Juan Pujol) 41, 44, 46, 52, 54, 66, 70–1, 75–6, 78, 79, 83–4, 91–3, 109–10, 114, 121, 123, 136–7, 139–41,151, 154–5, 167, 170, 176, 179, 181, 184, 186, 188, 191–5, 197–9, 202, 204–5, 207–9, 211–13, 216, 219, 221–3, 226, 229, 233, 243–4, 247, 251–3, 255, 259–61, 268, 275, 279–80, 283–4, 286–92, 294–6 GARBO Agent No. 2 54 GARBO Agent No. 3 (BENEDICT) 54, 66, 226, 289 GARBO Agent No. 5 285 GARBO Agent No. 6 85 GARBO Agent No, 7 (DAGOBERT) 223 GARBO Agent No. 13 285 GARBO Agent No. 14 (DORICK) 223 GARBO, Mrs see Aracelli Pujol Garby-Czerniawski, Roman (BRUTUS) 34, 41 Garcia, Oscar Sanchez 21 Garda Siochana 18, 37 Gaulle, Charles de 16, 43, 49, 94, 195, 203, 206–8 GC&CS see Government Code & Cipher School GELATINE (Friedle Gaertner) 72, 103, 129, 141, 161, 231, 242, 250, 255, 257, 274–5, 281, 284, 293 George, Hans (DRAGONFLY) ix, 30, 38 Gergie 54 Gerhard, Max 160 Gestapo 30, 50, 63, 104–5, 123, 171, 186, 188, 219, 252, 261, 273–4, 291
Gibbs, Reggie 21, 89 Gibraltar 38, 45, 59, 85, 89, 98, 136, 190, 203 Gilbert (Henri Dericourt) 175 Gil Eannes 21, 33 Gill, Charles 90, 103 Gilson 26, 38 Gimpel, Erich 274–5 GIRAFFE 227 Giraud, Henri 90 Glad,Tor (JEFF) 11, 48 Gladstone, Mrs 127 Gledhill, Cecil 221 Goebbels, Dr Joseph 146 Goertz, Dr, Hermann 58, 108, 110, 129 Golenko 242–3 Gort, Lord 248 Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) 11, 19, 30, 35, 53, 70–1, 76, 108, 119, 192, 198, 210, 236–7, 251, 282; Director of see Edward Travis Graaf, Johannes de 40, 47, 56 Graaf, Johnny de 296 Grand, Laurence 245 Granville, Christine 261 Graumann, Col. 215, 238 Green, Oliver 33 Greene, Ben 63 Gresson, Anne 113 Grey, Nigel de 8 Grimaldi 85 Grimm, Hano 73 Groening, von 209 Grogan 172 Grosjean (FIDO) 92 Gubbins, Colin 175 GUILLERMO (Wilhelm Canaris) 213 Gulbrandson,Tor 44 GUNPOWDER 282 GUSTAV 243 Guy 225 Gwyer, John ix, 83, 102 Haas 50, 51 Hacke, Dr 258 Hafter, Rudolf 111–2, 218 Haganah 87 Hagen, Dr Hager 44, 49 Haines 80 Hajek, Saril de 109 Hakim, Eliahou 241 Hale, Jim 4, 28, 40, 171, 177, 200, 266, 269, 275 Halpern, Alexander 248
304
INDEX
Hambro, Sir Charles 75 Hamilton, Duke of 30 HAMLET (Dr Koestler) 129, 137, 150, 161, 176, 188, 195, 199 Hampshire, Stuart 168, 293, 294 Hanau, Julius 9 Hansen 102 Hansen, Col. Georg 130–1, 173, 187 Hansen, Nicolai 118, 119–21, 124, 126, 129 Harker, Jasper ix, 4, 9, 22, 89, 165, 182, 183 HARLEQUIN (Wurmann) 46, 67, 143, 189 Harmer, Christopher ix, 34, 71, 76, 96, 108, 148, 156–7, 232, 251 Harriman, Averell 3 Harrington 250 Harris, Sir Arthur 130 Harris,Tommy ix, 12, 41, 76, 80, 110, 121, 136, 145, 167, 191, 193, 247, 251, 252, 262, 280, 284, 285, 287, 291–2, 296–7 Hart, Herbert ix, 5, 6, 11, 34, 41, 49, 51, 60, 74, 76, 94, 99, 101, 112, 121, 126–7, 136, 163, 168, 192, 212, 242, 243, 256, 260, 262, 266, 269, 271–2, 278, 281, 284–5, 291, 295 Harvey, Cyril 35 Hastings, Sir Patrick 162 Hatherill, Supt. 234 Hatvani, Baron 18 Hayes, Dr Richard 62 Heap,William 105, 114, 136 Hedger 132 Heinrich, Col. 179 Held, Stephen Carrol 58, 62 Hellmuth, Oscar 125–7, 135, 139, 141–2, 165, 168 Hempel, Dr Edouard 149, 157, 160, 282 Hennig 53 Henss 147 Herbert, Edwin ix, 43, 141 Herbertson 270 Hesketh, Cuthbert 283 Hesketh, Roger 216 Hess, Rudolf 28, 30–1, 146 Hewson 14–5 Heydrich, Reinhard 50 Hill 97, 200 Hill, Christopher 274, 296 Hill, George 25, 94–5, 213, 271 Hillson 28 Himmler, Heinrich 96, 116, 125–6, 135, 187, 211, 220, 237, 242 Hinchley-Cooke, Edward ix, 49, 56, 120, 124, 186
Hingstel, zum 153 Hinsley, Harry 11 Hirsch, Mrs 95 Hitler, Adolf 199, 204, 232, 237, 246 Hoare, Sir Sam ix, 44, 89 Hodgkin, Alan 45 Hoepperls 120 Hohenlohe, Prince Max 44 Hollerith machine 236 Hollis, Roger ix, 9, 20, 53, 56–7, 76, 87, 113, 121–2, 144–5, 157, 182–3, 220, 224 Hoover, J. Edgar 26, 87, 137, 140, 141, 225, 248, 249, 272, 279–81 Hopkinson, Henry ix, 77, 85, 221 Hoppe, Ernesto 132, 154 Hornung 128 Horrocks, Reg ix, 159, 175, 182, 183 Horsfall-Ertz 6, 112 House 30 Hoven, Jupp 33, 35 Howe, Ronald 78, 281 Howman, Capt. 230 Hoyes, Rex 47, 50, 59, 65, 91, 95, 104, 111, 128, 135, 161, 162–3, 165, 170, 200 Hughes 39, 105, 214 Humphries, Mr Justice 40 Humphreys 19 Hunloke, Henry 172, 174, 17 HUSKY 292 Hutchinson, 16 Huysmanns, Johannes 70 Hyde, H. Montgomery 97 Hyde, Ronald 144 Ibia 99 Imperial Censorship 11 Imperial Fascist League 167 Indian Intelligence Bureau 25 Inglis 271, 273 Ingrams, Leonard 189, 194, 197 Inter-Services Security Board (ISSB) 3, 88, Invasion List 16 IRA see Irish Republican Army Irgun Zvei Leumi 248 Irish G-2 108 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 6, 16, 95, 229 Irma 232 IRONSIDE 216, 231 ISAK 168 ISBA 18, 22, 49, 80, 90 ISCOT 223, 282 ISK 104, 105, 165, 181, 267
305
INDEX
ISOS 5, 14, 20, 21, 34, 45, 48, 52, 57–8, 60, 66, 70, 72, 76, 87, 100, 104, 107, 111–3, 119, 120, 132, 138, 143, 148–9, 153, 155, 163, 165, 170, 172, 174, 177, 181–2, 186–9, 191, 195, 209, 212, 228, 233, 239, 243, 251, 256, 260, 267, 277, 282, 287, 295 ISPAL 156, 172, 177, 235 ISTRIA 247 Italian Military Intelligence Service (SIM) 282 Ivans 210 IZAK 126, 135, 140, 142 Jackson,Wng.-Cmmdr 146 JACQUES 64 Janowsky,Waldemar (WATCHDOG) ix, 29, 39–41, 61 Janssens, Joseph Henri Pierre 86 Jarvis, Ralph 45, 54, 59 Jeannerat 205 Jeannette 270, 272 Jebsen, Johannes (ARTIST) 96, 107, 111, 121, 123 JEFF (Tor Glad) 57, 67, 70, 92, 112, 126, 129, 150, 155, 161, 164, 232 Jeffes, Maurice 230 Jenkins, G.J. 240 Jensen, Carla 162 Jersey, Lady 162 JIGGER 230, 231 JMA 266, 271 Job, Oswald xii, 134, 138–9, 142–7, 167, 260 Jodl, Alfred 294, 297 Joe K. 112 JOHANNES 262 John, Otto 237, 243 Johns, Philip 265, 266 Johnston, Kemball ix, 114, 176, 177, 294 Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) 88, 91, 129, 150, 169, 193, 199, 211, 237, 268, 298; 271, 273 Chairman of see Bill Cavendish-Bentinck Jong, Andree de 202, 214 Jordan, Philip 10, 14 Jordana, Francisco 37–8, 125 JOSEF ix, 70, 124, 139, 188, 219, 225, 231–2, 255 JOSEPHINE 95, 108, 110, 112 Jude, Leon 156 Kalle 262 Kaltenbrunner, Ernst 187
Kameradschaftdienst (KD) 11, 133 Kammler 107 Kaplan, Ruth 250 Kapp, Nellie 192 Kappler 209 Karl, Erich 151 Karnap, von 154 Karstoff, Ludovico von 26, 81, 85, 90, 96, 107, 160, 161, 177 Keitel,Wilhelm 297 Keith, Kenneth ix, 297 Kell, Sir Vernon ix, 247 Kellar, Alex ix, 106, 156, 222, 224, 236, 240 Kendal, Sir Norman ix, 53–4, 64, 78, 104, 108 Kendrick,Thomas 284 Kenny 156 Ketes 280 Kidosaki 232 Kiener, Bernie (RAINBOW) ix Kiffer, Raoul (Kiki) 259, 272 Kiki (Raoul Kiffer) 259, 272 Killearn, Lord 240 King George VI 244 King, John H. 256 KING KONG (Christian Lindemans) 239, 266, 273 Kirby-Green, Philip 296 Kirkman, Brig. 174 Kirkpatrick, Ivonne 13, 30 KISS 224, 278 Klemens, Kriminalrat 245 Kliemann, Emile 139, 187, 232, 236 Klissman, Helmut 5 Klop see Iona Ustinov Knappe, Friedrich 259, 288 Knatchbull-Hugessen, Sir Hughe 163, 256 Knight 125, 128, 134 Knight, Max ix, 27, 89, 121, 124, 127, 134, 144, 145, 157, 182–3, 202, 280 Knights of St Columbus 153, 180 Knoppers, 263–4 Knorr 177 KO see KriegsOrganisation Kobbe, Chinchilla 17, 41 Koenig, Gen. 195 Koessler, Dr (HAMLET) 36, 52, 62–3, 76, 81 Kohout 93, 234 Kol & Co. 125 Kolbe, Fritz 108 Kommer, Dr 3 Kosich 249 Krafft, Mathilde 30, 112, 269
306
INDEX
Krämer, Karl-Heinz 266–8, 271–2, 291 Kressman 269–72 KriegsOrganisation (KO) Portugal 63, 154 Krivitsky,Walter x, 256 Kruger 6 Kuh, Freddie 10, 12, 69 Kuhlenthal, Karl-Erich 121, 179, 180, 184, 288 Kukeil, Gen. 172, 176–7 Kurtz, Harald 63 Ladd, Mickey 275, 292, 296 Lamplough, Charles 238 Langdon 103 Lanyon 274 Lanzl, Maria 234 Langbein, Alfred 239 Lanman, Charles F. 25 Lascelles, Alan (Tommy) 183. 195, 233, 244 Laval, Pierre 208 Lawrence, Nigel 127 Lawrence,T.E. 132 Leach, Mrs 167 Leary 11 Lecube, Juan 111, 112 Ledebour 237, 269 Lee, Mrs 87 Lee, Russell 238–9 Lefevre 195 Legrand, Jean 70 Lehar 209 LEHAR 212 Lehmitz, Ernest Frederick 83 Lehr, Col. 30 Le Juin, Gen. 297 LEMON x, 167, 178 Lend Lease 297 Lenihan, Joseph (BASKET) x, 46, 156 Lennox, Gilbert 3, 10, 12, 83, 88, 94, 207, 266 LEO see Leopold Wertz Lequerica 287 Les Ambassadeurs Club 162 Levi, Renato see CHEESE Lewes, Mrs Stafford 162 Lewis 235 Liddell, Cecil x, 23, 35, 37, 58, 100–1, 124, 149, 164, 279, 281–2 Liehr, Oscar 74 Lincoln, Anthony 87 Lindemans, Christiaan (KING KONG) 266, 272–4, 280, 290 Linke 153
LIPSTICK (Josef Terradellas) 66, 101, 119, 126, 129, 137–8, 152, 155, 176, 179, 184, 212, 238, 277 Litauer 12 Little, James 100, 164 Lloyd, Martin 187 Lloyd, Peter 158 Loesch,Von 297 Loftus, Pierse 28 London District Cage 81 London Reception Centre (LRC) 47, 56, 138, 167, 171, 193, 196, 201, 206, 210, 225, 232–3, 237, 242, 260, 285 Long, Leo 291 Lorenzo 221 Lotte 53 Louba (Henri Frager) 179, 202 Loxley, Peter 14, 34, 53, 63, 77, 82, 127–8, 135, 178, 183, 185, 233, 256, 266 Lublin Committee 282 Lucas (Pierre de Vomecourt) 95 Lucas 234 Lukacevic,Vojislav 177, 178, 182 Luke, Billy x, 52, 53, 278–9, 295 Luke, Carola 89 Lunn’s Travel Agency 295 Lutz, Dr 124 Lynch, Joe 225, 235, 260–1, 281 Maas-Gestenaus 218 Macartney,Wilfred 241, 288 McCaw, Guy 34 Macdermot, Niall 142, 238 MacDonald, Malcolm 29 Machell x, 12 MacIver, Alan x, 101, 105, 230 MacKenna, Gen. Dan 131 McKenna, Col. Dan 149, 281 Mackenzie, Compton 244, 288 Mackenzie, Miss 96 Macmillan, Harold 185 McNeill, Sir Hector 162 Macpherson, John 250 McSwain, George 25–6 McVittie, Dr, George 30 Maffey, Sir John 21, 23 Maisky, Ivan x, 8, 10, 14, 81, 87 Malet, Sir Victor 270 Malkin, Sir William 63 Maltby,Ted 99 Manton, Lady 162 Mar, Alvin 68 Marcado 74 MARCEL 263
307
INDEX
Marcello 49, 51, 73 Marcos 285 Mariaux 221 Marita 27, 105, 112, 122, 124, 167, 219 Markbreiter 295 Marriott, John 34, 102, 141, 158, 187, 211, 250–1, 257, 259, 261, 268–9, 274, 276, 278, 280, 283–4, 295 Martins, Madame 264 Mason 285 Mason Macfarlane, Noel x, 3, 89 Mass Observation 176 Massa 98, 135 Massey,Vincent 153 Masterman. J.C. x, 3, 5, 9, 38, 40, 54, 82, 88, 94, 119, 141, 157–8, 170, 173, 186, 191–2, 196, 198, 211, 214, 251, 262, 269, 274–6, 278–9, 289–91, 295 Mathew, Paul 90 Mathew,Toby 20 Mathews 148 Maunsell, Raymund x, 172, 174, 177 MAX 41, 49, 99, 102, 104, 282 Maxwell, Sir Alexander x, 4, 35, 41–2, 46, 52, 67, 74–5, 81, 82, 86, 94, 110, 111, 171, 220, 225–6, 274 Maxwell Fyfe, Sir David 162 Maycock 166, 168, 270–1, 274 Mayer, Hans 101, 106, 132–4, 224 Mayor,Tess 230, 280 McKenna, Col. Dan 149, 281 Mederic 129 Medicus, Dr Joseph 142 Medlam,Tito x, 45 Meissman 244 Melland, Brian 96, 99, 110, 198–9, 237, 242 Menezes, Rogeiro de 27, 34, 36, 45, 47–9, 51, 54, 63–5, 71–5, 77, 277 Menzel, Hermann 100 Menzies, Stewart 23, 85, 88,102, 111, 114, 120, 123, 127, 134, 140, 154, 265 MERLIN 250 Mesquita dos Santos, Manoel 17 Metcalfe, Dickie (BALLOON) x METEOR (Eugn Sostaric) 68, 101, 103, 107 Mieserenman, Henrik 242, 251 Mihailovic (THE SNARK) x, 19 Mihailovic, Gen. Draza 182, 198, 203, 227–8 MI 8 21 MI 9 15, 178 MI 14(b) 291
MI 14(d) 242–3 MI 19 232, 244, 284 MI(L) 22, 90 Mills, Cyril x, 25, 28, 39, 44, 69, 106, 141, 149, 153, 180, 222, 239, 246–7, 249, 257, 260, 268, 274–5, 284–5, 292, 295 Mills, John 162 Milmo, Helenus (‘Buster’) x, 11, 32, 38, 40, 50–1, 56, 59, 65, 72, 81, 87, 97, 99, 106–8, 111, 135, 146, 156, 169, 171–2, 201, 214, 225, 229, 233, 244, 251, 274, 277, 284, 286 Milne, Ray 113 Milne,Tim 77 Milton 225 MINCEMEAT 45, 67, 69–70, 190 Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) 47, 111, 130–1, 147–50, 161, 167 Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW) 197 Ministry of Information (MoI) 4, 82, 181, 187, 218 Ministry of War Transport 55, 89 Miranda, Col. 49, 51 Mitchell, Graham 294 Mitronovitch 142 Mockler-Ferryman, Eric x, 204 Moe, John (MUTT) 11 MoI see Ministry of Information Molina 203 Molkenteller 294 Montagu, Ewen x, 45, 54, 164, 247, 249, 257 Montagu, Iris 97 Montero, Ambassador 36, 48, 63 Montet 196 Montgomery, Gen. Bernard 86, 190, 200, 203, 206–7 Montgomery, Moira 162 MOONBEAM 83, 222, 226, 268, 284–5 Morel, Pierre 17, 27 Moreno 56, 57 Morgan 64 MORITZ 49, 99, 104 Morris, Chandler 57 Morrison, Herbert x, 8, 56, 78, 146, 165, 175, 176 Morton, Desmond x, 60, 185 Moscow Narodny Bank 283 Mosley, Sir Oswald x, 19, 145–6 Mountain, Brian 13, Moylan, Sir John 87 Moyne, Lord 241 MSS 19, 70, 178, 193, 197, 198, 217, 267 MT5 84
308
INDEX
Muggeridge, Malcolm 5, 108, 240 MULBERRY 175, 250 Muller 144, 149 MULLETT 3, 5, 9, 36, 38, 52, 60, 81, 129, 176, Munoz, Leonardo 28, 44, 91, 182 Munzinger 227 Murphy, Robert 148 Muselier, Emile 90 MUTT (John Moe) 48, 57, 67, 70–1, 76, 92, 93, 96, 107, 112, 124, 126, 129, 132, 150, 151, 155, 161 Naubaknt, Habbibulah 133 Naval Intelligence Division (NID) 11, 239, 274–5 Naval Security Control Officer (NSCO) 58 Nazi Party (NSDAP) 6, 50 Nebel (OSTRICH) 287 Nedic, Gen. Milan 227 Negrin, Juan 7, 56, 57, 283 NEPTUNE 216–7 Neukermanns, Pierre xii, 171, 186 New Britain 152 News Chronicle 10, 140 Newsam, Frank 94, 185 New Statesman 234 NID see Naval Intelligence Division NKVD see Soviet Intelligence Service Noakes 132 Noble, Det. Sgt. 104 Nordenoft 258 Nordenskiold, Gen. Bengt 168–9, 177, 270 Norton, Clifford 247 Norwegian Security Service 232 NSDAP see Nazi Party Nye, Gen. Sir Archie 67 OB see Ossewa Brandweg O’Brien, John 104, 269 Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) 126, 272–3 Office of Strategic Services (OSS) 16, 57, 58, 108, 112, 129, 141, 160, 167, 191, 233, 251; Secret Intelligence branch 140 OGPU see Soviet Intelligence Service Oliver, Mark 93 O’Neill 33, 35 ONI see Office of Naval Intelligence ORANGE (Eric Kessler) 172, 177–8, 218, 287, 294 Orbay, 12
Orde Dienst 262 O’Reilly 156, 186, 219 Orr, Desmond 74, 84, 94, 127 OSS see Office of Strategic Services Ossewa Brandweg (OB) 53, 135 Osten, Baroness van der 30 Oster, Hans 99 OSTRICH (Nebel) 287, 293 OSTRO (Paul Fidrmuc) 92, 95, 112, 154, 179, 184, 197, 206, 242, 273, 277, 279, 285, 288 OVERLORD 136–7, 164, 166, 176, 186, 217–8, 290 Owen, Frank 291 Owens, Arthur (SNOW) x Oxenstierna, Count 154 Paasche 53, 98, 135 Padgam see Wolfgang zu Putlitz Page, Denys x, 58, 170, 181, 210, 251 Page, Dr 287 Paget, Sir Bernard 174 Paillole, Paul 241 Palestine Criminal Investigation Department 243, 250 Palo 121 PANDORA 149, 282–3 Park 13 Parks 244 Pasha 99 Pasha, Nashat, 236 Pashkis 25 Passionara, La 283 Passport Control 101, 121, 230, 245 Passy, Col. see Dewavrin PASTOR 74 Patents Development Company 64 Paterson, Geoffrey 238–9 Patton, Gen. George 217, 219 Pay Corps 190 PBK 112 Peace Pledge Union 113 PEACH (WENDY) x, 165, 173, 195, 255 Peake, Sir Osbert 18 PEDRO 186, 210 Peekema, Dolly 102 Pepper 199, 200 Pepper, John x, 97 PEPPERMINT (José Brugada Wood) 259 Perch 140 Perez Garcia, Manuel 106, 126 Perrigoe, Bernard 112 Perroni, Armando 209 Petersen 258
309
INDEX
Petrie, Sir David 10, 51, 56, 78, 83–5, 101, 115, 175, 185, 187, 218, 248, 251, 265, 272, 274, 278–9, 284–5 Pfeffer, Dr 124 Pfeifert 49 Philby, Kim 21, 73, 74, 77, 89, 99–100, 137, 153, 158, 176–7, 186, 214, 249–50, 253, 255, 278 Phillips, Charles Bernard 124, 125 PHONEY 109, 273 Piekenbrock, Hans von 99, 130, 144 Pignatelli, Princess 191 Pilcher, Mr Justice 206 Pilcher,Toby x, 4, 8, 18 Pilditch, Denys 103 Pimbino 191 Pinto, Oreste 239 Pitt, Mrs. 282–3 Plant 177 PLUTO 175 Poliakov, 10 Polish Secret Service 268 Political Intelligence Centre Middle East 240 Political Intelligence Department 243 Political Warfare Executive (PWE) 3, 99, 126, 129, 140, 194, Pollock 154, 168 Ponsonby, James 267, 269 Popov, Dusan x, 18, 22, 25–6, 33 Popov, Ivo (DREADNOUGHT) 155 Portal, Sir Charles 130, 233 Portuguese International Police (PIDE) 73, 199, 277, 289, 296 Preetz,Willi 18 Press Censorship Branch 205 Pry, Gabriel 26–7, 38 Pujol, Aracelli 79–80, 91, 252, 280, 283, 285, 288 Pujol, Juan (GARBO) 26, 28, 79 PUPPET (Fanto) 66, 76, 93, 129, 137, 150, 161, 176, 188, 195 Purple Primer 110 Putlitz,Wolfgang zu (Padgham) 246–7, 285 QUEEN BEE 141, 154 Quill 147, 150 Radcliffe, Cyril 4 Rademacher 156–7 Radio Security Intelligence Committee (RSIC) 181, 235, 251 Radio Security Service (RSS) 41, 168, 181, 184, 187, 188, 199, 286
RAINBOW x, 9, 33 Ramirez, Pedro 125 Ramsbotham, Peter x, 21 Ramos 49 Rantzau, Dr 40 Rashid Ali 222 Rasmus 213 Ratcliffe 95 Rawdon-Smith, Dr 144 Rawlinson, A.R. 98 RCMP see Royal Canadian Mounted Police Reay, Lord 233 Redney 280 Reece, Ellis 269 Reed, Ronnie x, 54, 55, 57–9, 67, 68, 82, 158, 173, 214, 286 Regional Security Liaison Officer (RSLO) 4, 11, 15, 16, 100–1, 114–5, 230, 236 Reid, Sir Edward (‘Ned’) x, 269 Reid Committee 119, 123 Reid, Peter 75–6, 120 Reidar 41 Reuter’s 205 REX 213 Rhode 274 Ribbentrop, Joachim von 297 RICARDO 76, 105 Richmond-Brown, Audrey 14 Richter, Karel 82, 147 Ricketts, Sir Robert 239 Roberts, Frank 182–3 Roberts, Khaki 162 Roberts,Wilfred 144 Robertson, Colin 101–2 Robertson, James 78 Robertson,T.A. x, 22, 28, 34, 41, 46, 51, 79, 80, 85, 95–6, 109, 111, 114, 138, 143, 145–7, 158, 159, 164, 167, 172, 175, 187, 191–2, 196–7, 204, 206, 210, 214, 219, 222, 226, 238, 240, 243, 251–2, 259, 295 Robinson, Det. Insp. 64 Robles 132 Roca 25 Rodriguez, Fernando 34 Roger (Francis Cammaerts) 179 Rommel, Erwin 29, 42, 292 Roosevelt, President Franklin D. 24, 69, 96, 160, 223 Rosenthal, Lt. 203–4 Ross-Smith, Bill 97 Rot, Mirko 44–5, 49, 104 Rotas, Gen. 7
310
INDEX
Rothschild,Victor 12, 17, 29, 59, 60, 83, 84, 94, 96, 98, 100, 103, 105, 114, 167, 175, 230, 234, 278, 280, 293 Rousseau, Edward 253 Rouvier, Cmdnt. 90 ROVER x, 255, 259, 293 Rowlands, Sir Archibald 47 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) 39, 106, 153, 169, 246, 249 Royal Irish Constabulary 219 Royal Victoria Patriotic School (RVPS) 6, 29, 40, 72 RSIC see Radio Security Intelligence Committee RSS see Radio Security Service Rumbold,Tony 250 Rundstedt, Gerd von 219 Ruser, Hans 152, 157–9, 173, 175, 186, 190, 214 Rushbrooke, Adm. Edmund see Director of Naval Intelligence RVPS see Royal Victoria Patriotic School Ryan, Frank 5 Ryde, Michael x, 12, 13, 54, 93, 98, 108, 218–9, 226–8, 279 Rymer-Jones, John 105, 243, 250 Saetrang 201 Salazar, Dr 22, 38, 73 Salis, Charles de 221 Salisbury, Det. Insp. 104, 108 San Francisco Conference 287 Santos, Maria dos 47 Sargent, Orme 178 Sarraut, Albert 90 Sartorius 132 SAS see Special Air Service Scharff, Hans Carl 30 Schellenberg,Walter 285 Schmidt 17, 73–4 Schmidt, Rosie 269 Schmidt,Wulf xi, 33 Scholz, Col. 144 Schrader 194 Schultz,Wilma 113 Schutze-Burnett 246 Schwarz, Karl 68 Sclater, F.A. xi, 186 SCI see Special Counter-Intelligence SCO see Security Control Officer Scotland, Alexander xi, 52 Scotland Yard 53, 64, 74, 125 Scott-Ford, Duncan xii, 6, 22 SEAC see South-East Asia Command
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) 6, 8, 13, 15, 21, 61, 71, 73, 110, 118, 130, 140, 153, 158, 159, 163, 173, 176, 178, 181, 189, 194, 199, 202–4, 214, 22–1, 223–4, 226, 232–4, 237, 242, 244–9, 269, 272, 286, 290, 295; Chief of see Stewart Menzies; Deputy Chief see Claude Dansey; Vice Chief see Valentine Vivian; Lisbon Station 45, 64, 100, 220–1, 237; Madrid Station 123, 137; Moscow Station 104; Naval Section 265; Stockholm Station 267; Section V 113, 221, 223, 285; Section IX 278 Security Control Officer (SCO) 6, 7. 90, 105, 134, 239 Security Executive 114, 290 Security Intelligence Middle East (SIME) 174; Head of see Raymund Maunsell Seidlitz Committee 246 Selborne, Lord 61, 134, 256 Sempill, Lord 153, 161–2, 180 Sensburg 228 Senter, John xi, 122, 134, 203–4, 261, 267, 269–72, 279, 285 Serafamides, Homer 5, 8–9, Serrano Suner, Ramon 7 Sergueiev, Lily (TREASURE) 139 Servaes, Col. 81 Seth, Ronald 285–6 SHADOW xi, 113 SHAEF see Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Shanks 95 Shaw, George Bernard 146 Sheehan, Olive 76, 87 Sheen, Col. 204–5 Shepherd 127 Sherer, Miss 96 Shillito, Hugh xi, 56 Sibiril 135, 140 Sicherheitsdienst (SD) 6, 9, 36, 50, 58, 63, 125, 132–4, 152, 160, 168, 174, 187, 190–2, 201–2, 209, 226, 229, 249, 260, 269, 285 Sikorsky, Gen.Wladislaw 85 SILVER (Bhagat Ram Tahwar) xi, 103, 113, 122, 213 SIM see Italian Military Intelligence Service SIME see Security Intelligence Middle East Simoes, Ernesto 21, 29, 47 Sinclair, Derek xi, 291 Sinclair, Ronald 97 Singleton, Mr Justice 62
311
INDEX
SIS see Secret Intelligence Service Sissmore, Jane 20, 256, 282 Sittig, Lothar 52, 61, 93, 98, 135 Slade 153 Smith, Evelyn 128 Smithers, Peter 284 Smuts, Field-Marshal Jan 40, 98, 100, 135, 153 SNAKE 247 SNARK,The (Mihailovic) xi SNIPER 152, 173, 209, 229, 232, 236, 241, 245, 251, 257–8, 277 SNOW (Arthur Owens) xi, 6, 157, 175 Snowden, Lady 153 Snyder, Maj. 250 SOE see Special Operations Executive Solborg, Robert 100, 147 Solikov, Count 210 Sorge, Dr Richard 23–4, 39 Soskice 271–2 Sostaric, Eugn (METEOR) 68 Sousa de Campos 141 South-East Asia Command (SEAC) 238, 281 Soviet Intelligence Service (NKVD, OGPU) 25, 68, 122, 213 Soviet Trade Delegation 73 Special Air Service (SAS) 203–4 Special Branch 64, 90, 103, 200–1 Special Counter-Intelligence (SCI) 239, 256 Special Facilities 73 Special Operations Executive (SOE) 6, 12, 13, 20, 40–1, 44, 59–61, 55, 68–9, 72, 87, 95–6, 98, 99, 103 108–9, 113, 117, 125, 128, 130, 132, 134, 172, 174, 179, 181, 202, 210, 212, 214, 242, 256, 258, 260–5, 267, 269–71, 272–4, 278, 285, 286; Dutch Section 212, 251, 262–5; French Section 125, 128, 210, 269–72; German Section 258; SOE in Moscow, 122–3, 213, 271 Spencer 122 Spencer, Joe 224, 278 S-Phone 210 Spooner, Reg xi, 162 Spriggs, Sir Frank 47, 59, 104 Spring, Mrs 72, 138, 243, 277 SPRINGBOK (Hans von Koetzee) 44, 61, 68–9, 106, 107, 169, 178 Springhall, Douglas 76, 87, 93, 113, 123, 132 SPROUT 265 Stalbo 235 Stalin, Josef 46, 183, 233, 251
Stamp, Blanshard 96, 135, 140, 146, 192, 259, 262 Stanford 4, 162 Stark, Adm. Harold 200 STARKEY 98, 109, 136–7 Stead, Sir Charles 67 STEAK 264 Steiner, Frank 64–5 Stenbock, Count, alias of Wurmann Stephens, Richard 246 Stephens, Robin W.G. (‘Tin-Eye’) xi, 18, 41, 120, 124, 132, 175, 201, 239 Stephenson, John (‘Joe’) xi, 131 Stephenson,William xi, 1, 24, 87, 96–7, 212, 248–9, 272, 279, 281–2 Stern Gang 241 Stevens, Col. 118 Stevens, Richard xi, 246 Stewart, Findlater 164, 185, 188, 276 Stewart, Sam 157 Stirling, Bill 203 Stockman 78, 104 Stone, Harry xi Stopford, Richman xi, 5, 56, 70, 95, 166, 199–200, 218–9 Strang,William 251 Strasser, Otto 50 Strong, George 100 Strong, Kenneth 297 Sturges, Gen. Robert 200 SUMMER (Goesta Caroli) 151 Sunday Chronicle 129 Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) 204–5, 252, 259, 273, 284, 292 Sutton-Pratt, Col. 117 Swedish Secret Intelligence Service 258 Swinton, Lord xi Sydney Morning Herald 205–6 Sylveston, Mrs 97 Szumlich,Tadeusz 11 Tangye, Derek xi, 75, 136, 144, 208, 245, 280 TANGERINE xi, 51, 82 TATE (Wulf Schmidt) 67, 82, 86, 151–3, 164, 179, 187, 203, 207, 209, 216, 227, 257, 261, 275, 277, 279, 283, 288–9, 293, 295 Teague, John 174 Teheran Conference 294 Templer, Gerald 258 Terradelas, Josef 21 Tester, Arthur Albert 19
312
INDEX
Thoma, Gen.Wilhelm von 194 Thomas, Godfrey 233, 286 Thomas, Granger 62 Thompson, Supt. 78 Thomson, Adm. George P. 140, 205 Thornley, Ronald 60 Thurston, Arthur xi, 91, 126, 140, 142, 148, 149, 178 Tikhmanief 167 Tiltman, John 236–7 Times,The 59 TINDALL 107 Toplak 228 TORCH 3, 19–21, 23–4 Toronto Globe Mail 206 Toropchenko 69 Tower of London 272–4 Travis, Edward 119 Treachery Act 36, 231 TREASURE (Lily Sergueiev) 139, 152, 165, 176–7, 181, 184, 187–8, 195, 198, 202–3, 210, 212, 215, 232, 236, 238, 240–1 Trevor Roper, Hugh xi, 100, 104 Trevor Wilson, A.G. 79 TRICYCLE (Dusan Popov) 41, 66, 68, 76, 81, 90, 93, 103, 106–7, 111–2, 119, 120, 123–4, 128, 137, 141, 152, 157, 158, 160–2, 165, 173, 176–7, 179, 180, 182, 184, 187–93, 198–9, 203, 207, 211, 216, 224–5, 227–8, 231 TRIPLEX 11, 45, 95, 100, 128, 270 Tsoury, Eliahow 241 Tube Alloys 265 Turner, Col. 150–1, 266–8, 273 Turner,Theo xi, 18 Twenty Committee 3, 78–9, 119, 164, 199, 206, 255, 274, 290 21st Army Group 204, 206, 277 Twinn, Peter 210, 251 Ubbink, Johan 212 U-boat 201, 246, 248, 257, 274–6, 279 Ujejsky, Gen. 81 ULTRA 246–7, 276 Umberto 230 Umerte 48, 49 United Press International (UPI) 10 Uranium bomb 222–3 Uren, Ormond 132 Ustinov, Iona (‘Klop’) xi, 28, 123, 141, 221, 246–7, 249, 251, 279, 296 Uxa, Hilda 68
V-1 275, 277 V-2 222–3, 255, 257 Vale, Brig. 22, 90 Valera, Eamon de 149, 157, 164, 274, 282 Vallin 13 Van der Merve, Dr 53 Vanhove, Joseph xii, 186, 207, 220 Vansittart, Sir Robert xi, 194, 247 Van t’Sant, Francois 194 Van Vliet 263 Vatican Radio 282 Vaudreuil 171, 269 Vaziri 224 VCSS see Vice Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service VELOCIPEDE xi, 103 Verloop, Cornelius 239 Vermehren, Erich 174, 189–90, 245, 280 Vermehren, Petra 174 Vesey 72, 135, 294 VIC 264 Vice Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (VCSS) 10 Vickery, Sir Philip xi, 24–5, 213, 282 Victoire see Mathilde Carré Vigon, Juan 37–8, 125 Villaverde 7 Violette 235, 241 Vivian,Valentine 5, 8–11, 19–21, 58, 91, 110, 223, 272, 296 V-Mann 190, 192, 217 Vukulevich, Branko de 24 Waem 261 Wagner,Wilhelm 68 Walenti see Roman Garby-Czerniawski Walker, Ft.-Lt. 222–3 Walshe, Joe 21 Ward, John 178 Wardell, Col. 291 Warden, Dick 179, 276 Warden, George 205 War Room 262, 295 Warschauer 6 Washington Evening Star 206 WATCHDOG (Waldemar Janowsky) 61, 85, 103, 285 WEASEL,The xi Webster 61, 108 Wells 114 Welsh Nationalists 6 Weltzien, Kuno 22, 73 WENDY (PEACH) xi, 165 Wengenfeld 237, 242–3
313
INDEX
Werner, Ulrich 14 Wertz, Leopold 53 Wethered, Geoffrey xi, 65, 68, 172–3, 175 Wheeler-Ryan, Miss 146 Whinfield, Mrs 6 White, Dick xi, 21, 34–5, 41, 53, 56, 65, 87, 102, 105, 110, 115, 122, 131, 135, 171, 181, 214, 220–1, 280, 285, 294 White, Miss 76 White’s Club 154 Whiteford, Jock 142 Whitson, Lish 220, 223 Wiegand 180, 227–8 Wielemans 258 Wiesner 50, 52, 81 Wild, Nicolas de 263 Wild, Noel 252, 278 Wilson 40 Wilson, Dr 23 Wilson, Ian xi, 25–6, 54, 147, 152, 158, 179, 187, 220, 227, 242, 251, 283 Wilson Crow,Tamara 251 WINDOW 92–3 Wireless Board 164, 276, 290 Wiseman, Sir William 24 Witt, Otto 50, 52–3, 59–61, 75, 81, 87 Witzel 213 Woburn Abbey 197 Wodehouse, P.G. 228, 231, 242 Wood 97 Wood, Sir Ernest 60 Wood, Prof. 229 Wood, Stuart 107, 169 Worm,THE xi, 93, 103, 112, 129, 228 Wouters, Col. 157
Wren,Walter (‘Freckles’) xi, 25, 91, 108, 283 Wright, Capt. 200 Wurmann (HARLEQUIN) 41–2, 44, 48–9, 61 Wyckaert 171 XX Committee see Twenty Committee X Fund 159 Y-32 250 Yalta Conference 266, 283 Young, Courtney xi, 53, 100 Young, Sir George 7, 8 Younger, Kenneth 11 Younger,William 124, 183 Yugoslavia, King of 177–8, 215 Zahidi, Gen. 133 Zalewsky 86 Zech-Nanntwich 96, 97, 107, 113–7, 171, 197 Zeitzler, Gen. Kurt 180 ZIGZAG (Eddie Chapman) 41, 45, 52, 54–5, 58, 59, 67, 80, 132, 152, 200, 209, 212–5, 218, 220, 222–3, 226–9, 231, 238, 241, 244, 288, 291 Zimmermann Telegram 8 Zionist Movement 247 ZIP 85, 86, 88 ZODIAC 30 Z-Organisation 245 Zuiden, P. van 124 Zuricher Zeitung 177
314
eBooks – at www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk
A library at your fingertips!
eBooks are electronic versions of printed books. You can store them on your PC/laptop or browse them online. They have advantages for anyone needing rapid access to a wide variety of published, copyright information. eBooks can help your research by enabling you to bookmark chapters, annotate text and use instant searches to find specific words or phrases. Several eBook files would fit on even a small laptop or PDA. NEW: Save money by eSubscribing: cheap, online access to any eBook for as long as you need it.
Annual subscription packages We now offer special low-cost bulk subscriptions to packages of eBooks in certain subject areas. These are available to libraries or to individuals. For more information please contact
[email protected] We’re continually developing the eBook concept, so keep up to date by visiting the website.
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk