Great Spies of the 20th Century

by Patrick Pesnot

  The role of the illegal was quite different. Their mission was to infiltrate a business or institution in order to gather information that would then be forwarded on to the network leader. Although they often worked alone, an illegal could also build up their own network by recruiting other moles who would then work for the original illegal, sometimes without even being aware of who or what they were actually working for. It all rested on very fine lines and was an extremely difficult task to implement.

  In the world of espionage, the contact between a case officer and their agent was major cause for concern, as it is at that moment that the mole is at their most vulnerable. This lead to the use of a number of sophisticated methods of communication, such as the dead letterbox. This worked by leaving a message in various locations agreed upon in advance; a crevice, a hole in a wall etc. The location had to be protected by a number of clues, chalk marks, for example, which indicated whether or not the coast was clear.

  Another fear that haunted the spy was how the information they had collected should be transmitted. A diplomat could easily use a diplomatic bag or encrypted radio links between the embassy and the ministry. Naturally, the task was much more difficult for an illegal, despite the advances in transmission technology that could encrypt message during flash radio broadcasts. A long message could now be sent in one or two seconds, meaning the job of monitoring these radio exchanges was becoming increasingly difficult: the shorter the radio exchanges became, the harder it was to locate the position of the person sending them.

  After this long theoretical preamble, let us come to the story of Wladyslaw Mroz, a character who has long attracted the attentions of the French secret service and whose role remains a mystery.

  One evening in October 1960, Paul Prudhon returned to his home in Argenteuil. Prudhon was a man of no particular interest, who worked at a quarry close to his home, a situation that had proved difficult, as too many people had often used this isolated place as a dumping ground. That night, Mr Prudhon saw a car parked up on the road that lead to the quarry. He began to approach it, hoping that it was not full of more people intending to dump their rubbish. As he got closer, he noticed that there were two men near the car, who upon seeing him, jumped into the car and sped off. Furious, Prudhon attempted to follow them in his own car, but it was too late.

  However, before returning home, he wanted to make sure that the men had not had time to throw anything into the quarry. Upon investigation and to his great surprise, he discovered the body of a corpse!

  Early investigations revealed that the body was that of a man in his 30s, who had been shot three times in neck. It looked like a professional execution, but was certainly not a robbery, as the man's watch and gold pen had not been stolen. The letters, invoices and Polish newspaper found on the body allowed the police to identify him as Wladyslaw Mroz, a photographer who lived in Epinay-sur-Seine with his French wife and two children. From what they knew, Mroz had led a relatively quiet life: taking the bus to Argenteuil train station at the same time every morning before boarding a train to Saint-Lazare. He spent his days working at a photography shop in Paris before returning home for 8 o'clock. There was nothing here that could account for his apparent assassination.

  Yet a few days later, the press headlines announced that this quiet man had actually been a Soviet spy and had worked at the head of a network, which had just been dismantled by the DST.

  There was some truth in what the papers said: Mroz really had been a spy for the

  East, but the rest was just a smokescreen that had been carefully crafted by the French counterintelligence-espionage agencies. So who was this little photographer without a history?

  Mroz had actually worked for the state security services in Poland and had first worked as the secretary to the head of the organisation. He rose through the ranks after completing missions in Britain and Israel whilst working under diplomatic cover. His career came to a halt when a Polish defector, Michael Golonievski, told the western authorities that the diplomat Wladyslaw Mroz was actually a captain in the Polish state security service.

  At this time, Kim Philby24 held a high ranking role in MI5. Upon learning that Mroz's identity had been revealed, Philby immediately informed the KGB, who then passed this information on to their Polish counterparts. Like all other countries in eastern Europe at the time, the Polish secret service was entirely subservient to the KGB. However, the reverse was not always true. In fact, the Soviets believed that the intelligence agencies of the ‘brother countries', as they were called at the time, were there to act as satellites and gather any information. Moscow, working alone, would then centralise and collect everything together.

  After Warsaw had been informed that his cover had been blown, Mroz logically expected that he would no longer be entrusted with missions to the West. However, some time later, in 1959, he was allowed to travel to France, and what's more, under his real name.

  Marcel Chalet [former head of the DST] and Thierry Wolton:25

  Some illegals were sent on a mission simply to establish themselves in the target country, in anticipation of subsequent events.These sleeper agents would be inactive for a certain number of years and were content to maintain contact with their bosses only at rare intervals. These agents would have had a pretty good idea of what their future goal might be and for this reason, made sure that they settled in strategically important areas. In principle, they were designed to be activated in case of tensions between the state where they presently lived and the one who sent them there. Their mission may even involve staying put should a particular conflict occur, which thankfully, never did.

  When Wolton asked his interlocutor if the DST had already discovered this type of sleeper agent, the former head of the agency replied, ‘Yes it has, but I don’t want to go into too much detail as it is a delicate subject. I do wonder, however, if in France as well as in other countries, some of these agents were in some way “given” to us. By capturing our attention that way, it meant that we were prevented from finding others who were working in a similar role.’

  Surely the entry into France of this Polish spy must signal a special operation on behalf of Warsaw? How else do you explain his being their under his real name? What might at first seem like a huge blunder must instead force us to open our eyes to the true workings of the KGB. After all, they were hardly accustomed to making such errors.

  Other explanations are, of course, possible. Wladyslaw Mroz had certainly been unmasked by this past defector and his employer was well aware of the fact. But did Mroz himself know? An agent whose cover has been blown becomes unnecessary, but by sending him to France, the Polish services may have been attempting a diversionary tactic: while the counterintelligence agencies were concentrating on him, they could save other, more important agents, whose true identities were at risk of being revealed.

  On a similar theme, another even more cynical hypothesis can be developed: for one reason or another, the Poles may have wanted to get rid of this agent and so sent him to France on the certain belief that he would be arrested. Although this seems unlikely, as at the time, the East had far more radical means of liquidating someone they no longer deemed useful. That being said, the Polish communist regime had evolved as a result of de-Stalinisation and it was becoming increasingly difficult simply to remove a bothersome figure.

  The third hypothesis is probably the most likely: Wladyslaw Mroz, a man already identified by western intelligence agencies as an eastern agent, crosses the Iron Curtain. There is little doubt that he will be picked up quickly, especially as he is travelling under his own name. Does this mean that he chose to expose himself by revealing his identity to counterintelligence services? This would suggest that he ‘chose freedom', as they used to say, by intentionally becoming a defector who would then pass on his precious information.

  So far, everything has been consistent. However, if Mroz was knowingly sent to the West by his Polish employers, then the story takes on a different appearanc
e. In this case, Mroz would be playing the role of a ‘false' defector, who role was to provide poisoned information to the DST.

  In reality, nothing in this case is especially clear and there is one question in particular that proves the most puzzling: how did Mroz make contact with the DST? Was he arrested or did he approach them? Assuming that he was, in fact, a false defector, it is more plausible for him to have expected the DST to come to him sooner or later.

  However, in this instance, it was Mroz who took the initiative and came knocking on the door of the French authorities. This approach would support the theory of a man who had already chosen to defect and move to the West. These cases are always a headache for counterintelligence agencies: how can you trust a man who is willing to intentionally betray his country? In the midst of all this there is usually a poisoned chalice to be found somewhere. After all, we have already seen how Moscow was willing to give up certain truths and even sacrifice its own agents in order to pass on further false information that would prove beneficial in the long run.

  It all means that dealing with a defector is a very delicate process. The Americans preferred to use a lie detector and firmly believed in its effectiveness. Yet a well-trained agent can easily slip through the cracks and many of the agents that Moscow sent to the West had been taught how to control their emotions. Rather, it is much better to rely on the virtues of psychology, observation and patience when dealing with defectors.

  Marcel Chalet and Thierry Wolton:26

  If we had to rank those in order of who caused the most harm, at the head would be whoever revealed themselves after the arrival of an important defector, who themselves had many revelations to make. This Defector Number 2, as we shall call him, has been put there in order to discredit whatever had been said by Defector Number 1, and to convince the enemy that he is the one telling the truth. This is the prototype of a dangerous defector. However, if one is able to break him, then he can become useful. In such cases, Defector Number 1 becomes more important and the whole operation will expose the enemy’s dark intentions and offers a remarkable opportunity to see what he has planned. It also allows one to determine what importance the enemy attaches to the information supplied by Defector Number 1, as opposed to the secondary information of Defector Number 2. In short it is a useful way of breaking the enemy and the whole process is intellectually fascinating. Capturing defectors is one of the favourite operations of any counterintelligence agency.

  Let us now return to Mroz. Upon arriving in France, he presented himself at the prefecture of police in Paris and submitted his case for political asylum. His name immediately drew the attention of the officials present, especially as several members of the general counterintelligence unit were based at the prefecture.As soon as they realised Mroz was a Polish agent, his file was passed on to the DST.

  When questioned, Mroz had no hesitance in admitting that he was a captain in the Polish State Security Service and was consequently place under immediate observation. Whether he was a genuine defector or not, it was important for the DST to continue to maintain a good relationship with the service. At the same time, it was necessary to take care of Mroz's material needs, such as finding him a house and a job. The Americans would have been green with envy at such an opportunity as this, but altering them would also alert the Polish authorities as to what had taken place on the other side of the Iron Curtain. They therefore had to take the risk of leaving Mroz to supply his information ‘naturally' and to try and diffuse any mistrust that he would understandably have had.

  Mroz first provided very valuable information on how the Polish intelligence agencies were organised. He was also able to provide information as to any Polish intelligence networks operating on French soil. By denouncing these networks he was giving a good indication of the degree of his sincerity, on the condition, naturally, that the names of those he was revealing would be of some importance..

  It was important to proceed with caution, but the information was too enticing. The French authorities had known for a long time that a Polish intelligence network, codenamed ‘Armand', was operating in France. Indeed, DST agents had even believed they had identified the network's chief a few years earlier, when a diplomat they had been watching, who was suspected of being a Polish agent, had held a furtive meeting with a stranger. The DST had decided to follow this stranger, and discovered that he was a suburban bookseller called Hermann Bertele, whose political past was very interesting.

  Born in Austria, he was a former member of the International Brigade27 and a communist. He had belonged to an FTP group during the war, and after the Liberation, had chosen to remain in France and take French citizenship. What is strange is that this former communist then began to sell religious books in his bookshop. Bertele was identified as the head of the Armand network and placed under surveillance. But he was clever: on permanent alert, he often managed to outsmart the agents who were tailing him.

  Nothing could be found to incriminate him and the only way for the DST to reveal the truth would be to catch him in the act of delivering secret documents. After years of surveillance, the police eventually gave up. However, one day they suddenly decided to search both Bertele's bookshop and his apartment. The year was 1959, which by a curious coincidence, was the same year in which Mroz arrived in France. It is clear that Mroz was well-aware of the steps taken by the French authorities.

  The raid proved successful as the DST officers discovered an array of spy equipment at Bertele's apartment: a radio to pick up shortwave message, codes and deciphers, white carbon etc. Hermann had to be Armand and he was forced to admit as such. But being the experienced agent that he was, he tried to minimise his role, claiming that he only served as a go-between.

  As Bertele was the head of a network that was essentially spying on NATO, whose headquarters at the time were in Paris, as well as other French military institutions, this discovery lead to further arrests. Many agents were unmasked, especially those working as engineers, with the latest being revealed just ten days before the assassination of Mroz. This agent was a Hungarian-born aristocrat who had first worked at the arsenals in Toulon. Caught while photographing secret documents, he was fired and then decided to work independently, without ever appearing to be worried about what had happened. He was then hired by a specialist metal company and continued to transmit trade secrets to the Polish authorities. Unfortunately, he was a victim of his own greed and was always in need of more money to repay his severe gambling debts.

  It would seem then that Mroz was shown loyalty, but in appearance only. If indeed Mroz had dismantled the Armand network, it is also clear that he did not reveal everything to the French authorities. There was, at the time, another Polish network operating in France known as ‘Beatrice', which was in fact far more dangerous than the one headed by Hermann Bertele. It is not impossible to believe that Mroz gave up the information on ‘Armand', in an attempt to protect ‘Beatrice'. ‘Beatrice', AKA Joseph Bitonski, was actually unmasked in 1963, three years after the death of Mroz, although he had been an object of interest for the DST for some time beforehand.

  However, Bitonski, a holder of the Legion d'honneur, had some of the best references you could imagine. As a Pole, he arrived in France after his country had been defeated by the Nazis and immediately signed up with the French Army. After France surrendered to the Germans in 1940, he joined the Resistance. Like Bertele, he remained in France after the war, but unlike his Polish counterpart, kept his national identity. He was the leader of the French branch of the PSL,28 an exiled anticommunist party. However, when de-Stalinisation began to happen in Poland, Bitonski approached Warsaw and not liking what was taking place, broke with the PSL, creating a new party in the hope of rallying the Polish immigrants in France to the communist regime. This was reason enough to suspect Bitonski, who after all, had contact with not only politicians, but also journalists and diplomats.

  When he was eventually arrested, like Bertele, he was found to own plenty of espio
nage equipment. Bitonski had been paid by the Polish authorities to supply general and economic policy information and, of course, discrete information about the Polish community in France.

  It is fairly certain that Wladyslaw Mroz knew about the existence of ‘Beatrice'. Nevertheless, there are several factors that help to prove his loyalty: he provided the DST with valuable information regarding the techniques used by the Polish authorities and the other eastern countries in general. These included how desk officers organised meetings without risking their field agents, or how to lose your tail if you were under surveillance. DST officers learned that eastern spies had systematically identified all the exits in the important buildings in Paris, in order to escape whoever it was who might be following them.

  Roger Faligot and Pascal Krop29

  [The authors explain some of the methods used by eastern spies to escape their pursuers, including those that Mroz may have revealed to the French authorities]

  The Czechs gave the DST a hard time. The agent of the STB, the Czech secret service, would only move during off-peak times, rushing to the metro station at La Motte-Picquet (near the embassy, towards the Dare d'Austerlitz station) and always chose the middle carriage, which was First Class. The DST agent had to follow him. It was easy to survey the fellow passengers, as there were never many in the middle of the afternoon. When the train reached the Emile Zola station, the STB agent would suddenly move to a Second Class carriage. Would his pursuer follow him, assuming he had only purchased a First Class ticket?

  At the same time, in Prague, as a car sped away from the French embassy, it would veer right and immediately be caught at a red light. In fact, it was a police officer who was responsible for manually controlling the traffic lights, who turned them to red as soon as his radio announced that a car had left the embassy. This delay allowed the STB agent to get away. It would take years for the authorities to figure out what was happening and send a decoy car towards the infamous traffic lights, while the real agents then sneaked off in the opposite direction.