by Nigel West
Simpson was indeed an extraordinary intelligence officer, in a profession in which eccentricity is not a rare phenomenon, for while he was employed by SIME he also found the time to write a book, Time in the East, which described his travels to Jerusalem, Cyprus, Beirut, Aleppo and Persia, and included some unfashionable opinions about Charles I, psycho-analysis, literary criticism and blood-sports, not to mention some limericks in French, Latin and Greek. A 1946 review in The Wykehamist described Simpson’s book as ‘humourous and humane’ while an earlier article drew attention to his versatility as a poet, actor, playwright and historian. He was also a frequent contributor to the Spectator.
Simpson was originally transferred to Cairo to run sabotage operations in the Caucasus to prevent oil being shipped to Germany, and to take over the work of a special bureau headed by Oliver Baldwin, son of the former prime minister. However, as Axis forces swept through the Balkans, the opportunities for sabotage diminished, and Simpson found himself posted to SIME.
Simpson gave some thought to Levi, reflecting that
his motives for working for us are difficult to fathom. He is, of course, a Jew and says he wants to do something to help the Allied cause because it is fighting on behalf of the Jews. In addition, he obviously has considerable love of adventure, and enjoys the work for its own sake. He is very fond of women, and the work gives him opportunities of travel, and of handling large sums of money, which he would not otherwise get. He showed no particular dislike of the Germans or the Italians; in fact he often described the good times the Germans had given him, and how friendly he was with Travaglio.
Another SIME report, allegedly endorsed by Major Jones, observed that
he appears to be a man of personality rather than character, quick-witted and resourceful, consciously proud of his role of his double agent (e.g. he was inclined to air his ‘intimacy’ with Helfferich and Travaglio) and highly imaginative (between Cairo and Istanbul he elaborated the man Paul he had met in a bar in Cairo into Paul Nicossof, born in Egypt, and believed to be a Syrian). He was fond of women and vain of his contact with them. It seems highly improbable that he acknowledged any loyalty, except to himself. His professed attitude towards the Germans was that he naturally resented their treatment of the Jews and he appears to have felt no antipathy.
Although he carried £500 in Sterling notes, there was no message for him at his Cairo hotel, and no wireless. Accordingly, Levi called on Lina Vigoretti-Antoniada, who was placed under surveillance by SIME, but she appeared ‘unintelligent and quite unresponsive to his hints and suggestions’ so she was put under discreet observation, with no result. Khouri, on the other hand, was a Syrian money-lender already known to SIME as being anti-British and involved in agitation in Palestine. An investigation by SIME revealed that Khouri had lent cash to several British personnel, among them officers named Chesterfield, Stirling, and Captains Massey and Soames.
Evidently the Abwehr believed that Khouri was the organiser of a network of low-level local spies, but his encounter with Levi, which was not monitored independently or recorded by SIME, proved to be unproductive. Khouri was interned and his network ‘melted away’ without Abwehr money. The relationship between Khouri and Levi presented some fundamental problems, not the least of which was the fact that Khouri ‘was flesh and blood’ so ‘it was decided that Paul should not have any actual contact with him’. Instead of meeting, they corresponded through three addresses in Cairo, with Nicossof signing himself ‘Willy’ while Khouri wrote as ‘Albert’.
Much later Evan Simpson recorded that he ‘was very uncertain about how much of Levi’s accounts of his conversations with Khouri could be believed’. Khouri, when arrested in 1941, denied ever having met Levi. While undoubtedly this was a lie it is considered possible that Levi met Khouri on one or perhaps two occasions, that Khouri refused to have anything to do with him and that the accounts given of subsequent conversations with Khouri were sheer invention on Levi’s part. Before leaving Cairo, Levi told SIME that he had informed Khouri of the setting up of a wireless communication, arranged for him to supply the operator with reports for transmission by means of a post box and promised to send him more money, signing himself ‘Willy Rogers’. In actual fact, no information was ever supplied through this post box.
Initially, Bill Kenyon-Jones’s enthusiasm for promoting a wireless link with the Abwehr attracted some derision at GHQ, and in later life he would recall that the signals branch had explained to him that their principal function was to prevent illicit transmissions to the enemy, not to assist them.
CHEESE tried to communicate with the Abwehr on 17 May using a homemade transmitter constructed by a skilled Royal Signals technician, Staff Sergeant Ellis, whose role would later be taken by Sergeant Rowland (‘Rowley’) G. Shears, because of ill health. Shears held an amateur licence with the call sign G8KW and in 1956 started his own radio manufacturing business, KW Electronics, at his home at the Vanguard Works in Heath Street, Dartford, Kent. When he died in November 2009, at the age of ninety, none of his obituaries mentioned his connection with CHEESE.
Initially Ellis was unable to make contact and a technical study concluded that the agreed frequencies were unsuitable, so they were changed through a simple plain-language code over the commercial cable to Istanbul, as previously arranged for just such an eventuality, and his messages finally were relayed to Rome on 14, 17 and 21 July 1941 when the first radio link was established. For the first three months these signals were transmitted from a flat next to a military base in Heliopolis twice a week on most Mondays and Thursdays, but they contained little information of value as SIME’s deception skills were then unsophisticated. During this same period the amateur transmitter was replaced with an army model, and illness required two changes in operators, none of which apparently attracted the enemy’s attention.
SIME’s case officer complained that ‘the book-cipher code suggested by the Italians proved clumsy and unsuitable’; a SIME officer devised a new substitution cipher.
SIME also complained about the quality of Bari’s substandard radio technique, observing that
the organisation at Bari appeared to be very bad. The encoding was particularly careless (it has improved a little since but has never attained a reasonably good standard), and there was much repetition of questions, etc. The slipshod methods suggested that Levi himself was handling the job at the other end!
A survey conducted by SIME of the first 163 messages transmitted by Shears demonstrated that ‘as many as twenty-four transmissions were unsuccessful due to four causes:
1. Bad atmospheric conditions – (particularly October – November).
2. Heavy interference.
3. Incompetence or laziness of enemy operator.
4. Enemy ‘not on the air’.
The third cause became so bad that on 21 October he registered a complaint in no mean terms. This had the effect of bringing new operators into action. The enemy are now using six operators whom we call:
• The ‘original’ for whom CHEESE has a high regard.
• The ‘goon’ – a dull-witted and lazy operator.
• ‘Curt’ – so called from his style.
• ‘Good’ – an expert ‘ham’ operator.
• ‘New Good’ – first appeared late in December 1942.
• ‘Square Morse’ – a good operator who sends in Continental style.
Wavelengths have been changed three times. We can now work two alternative frequencies. Callsigns have been changed five times and hours of transmission three times.
In April 1941 when Levi was scheduled to return home, he recruited Paul Nicossof, a notional agent, to replace him, and gave him £150. Thereafter, Nicossof became a valuable cog in the CHEESE deception machine, and at first was played by a SIME officer named Beddington. He was supposedly a Syrian of mixed Caucasian heritage, eager to work as a mercenary. In September 1941 ‘A’ Force adopted CHEESE, and as a first step it was reported that he had acquired a South Af
rican source who, a few weeks later on 29 September, was replaced by PIET, a well-informed South African NCO with money and women trouble, but was employed as a confidential secretary to General John P. Whiteley at GHQ Middle East, and therefore ‘in a position to acquire first-class information’. SIME noted that ‘experience shows that the enemy is curiously unwary and eager to accept stories of the disloyalty of disgruntled Colonials, Irishmen, etc. and even of supposed ex-members of Fascist organisations in England.’
General Whiteley, a Woolwich graduate who was a willing participant in the scheme, had been commissioned in 1915 and had served in the First World War in the Royal Engineers at Salonika and across the Middle East, having won the Military Cross. He had been posted to Wavell’s staff in Cairo in May 1940. In May 1941 he travelled to Washington, DC to negotiate delivery of Lend-Lease material to Egypt. Some sixteen ships arrived each month for the remainder of the year, bringing eighty-four M4 Stuart light ‘Honey’ tanks, 10,000 trucks and 174 aircraft. The arrival of the Stuart tanks, with their 37mm gun and high speed, ensured their participation in CRUSADER, although with a limited range they would be out-performed by Rommel’s panzers which were equipped with better armour.
After Auchinleck replaced Wavell in July 1941 it was Whiteley who was selected by him to fly to London to brief Churchill in October 1941 on the delayed CRUSADER offensive. At the end of March 1942 Whiteley was appointed Chief of Staff for the 8th Army, but was replaced by General Freddie de Guingand in October, and in February 1943 Whiteley joined General Dwight Eisenhower as deputy Chief of Staff at Allied Forces Headquarters to plan the invasion of Sicily. In August 1943 he acted as Eisenhower’s envoy to fly to London to brief Churchill again, and in January 1944 moved to SHAEF to plan the D-Day invasion.
Whiteley’s senior staff posts enabled his notional clerk, PIET, to provide invaluable strategic information, as well as details of the Stuart tank to MISANTHROPE and, through her, to Nicossof.
As he reported to the Abwehr, Nicossof paid PIET 40 Egyptian pounds (E£), but was soon in debt to him to the tune of E£35, and when asked how much he needed, he replied E£1,000. By 4 July 1942, that figure had grown to E£1,400, and Nicossof claimed he was no longer in a position to borrow more. Indeed, CHEESE’S chronic lack of cash led SIME to discuss the idea of inventing an alternative source of income for him, perhaps as the proprietor of a garage, but the idea was dropped. Another suggestion was that CHEESE should spend his afternoons giving lessons in Arabic and French, which would allow him to meet more officers, one of whom might be a construction expert from the Royal Engineers with a knowledge the Cyranaican and Tripolitanian railway systems.
As well as recruiting PIET, Nicossof from July had the benefit of a Greek girlfriend, codenamed MISANTHROPE, who he referred to as his ‘petite amie’. She is a fascinating character because, although she was mainly notional, SIME felt obliged to recruit a real person to act her role so she could, if the circumstances arose, act as an intermediary and receive Nicossof’s money from the Abwehr. Accordingly, SIME went to considerable lengths to fabricate her background.
Codenamed MARIE by the Abwehr, she was
a Greek girl animated by her hatred of the British – well-educated, intelligent, witty and courageous sustaining him [CHEESE]when discouraged or disgruntled – she aided and abetted him by forming a series of friendships – and possibly ‘alliances’ – with British and American officers – military and Air Force. From these she extracted information of varying degree of reliability and importance. This enabled CHEESE to supplement information gleaned from his Greek military friends – and other acquaintances. Without funds he could no longer employ reliable agents. All information – whether high-level or low – true or false – he passed on to his Axis friends – leaving them to sift the chaff from the wheat. Those sources that misinformed him he discarded, and thus always had the requisite retort if and when accused of passing on false information. For instance – on 17 August 1942 he said that he was sorry for having given false information but without money he had to collect such information his friends told him and report what he saw himself.
SIME’s decision to introduce MISANTHROPE turned out to be an inspired one, and was probably taken by Evan Simpson in conjunction with other Special Section colleagues and, of course, Dudley Clarke. It may also have been influenced by Rowley Shears who had strong links to the local expatriate Greek community and the Greek government-in-exile’s radio station in the suburb of Abu Zaabal which broadcast bulletins twice a day on the medium wave in eleven languages under the sponsorship of the Political Warfare Executive (PWE). The studios belonged to Egyptian State Broadcasting but were largely managed by British personnel, among them Shears’s close friend Norman Joly, and was the principal means for the coalition government to maintain one-way contact with Greeks living under the Axis occupation. Among those who appeared regularly on the channel were Crown Prince Paul and the leading politicians, among them Prime Minister Emmanouil Tsouderos, his successor Eleftherios Venizelos, the Minister for War, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos and Admiral Petros Voulgaris. A conference in Beirut established George Papandreou as the Prime Minister of a coalition government, and his administration moved briefly to Naples before finally reaching Athens in October 1944. Whenever these individuals were allowed access to the microphone a switch engineer was present who had the authority, under the Chief Censor Professor Eric Sloman, to cut the transmission. Formerly the first director of Corfu’s police academy, Sloman ensured that no indiscretions were transmitted, fully aware that every broadcast was monitored by the enemy for any potential intelligence leads.
MISANTHROPE’s Greek background allowed CHEESE access to a complex world of political intrigue and competing groups who tried to influence Allied policy and were anyway determined to exercise power in Athens after the liberation. It was a maelstrom of personalities and military commanders who were, of themselves, of minimal consequence in terms of strategic importance, but they did represent a plausible milieu which SIME and ‘A’ Force could portray, to the Abwehr at least, as a constituency in Cairo that could shed light on Allied policy towards the Balkans. The dispossessed Greek forces would obviously be essential in any action taken in the eastern Mediterranean, and could be represented as a barometer of Allied plans in the region. At a time when there were no textbooks available on strategic deception, and little experience of the wholesale manipulation of double agents, not to mention the fabrication of notional sources, MISANTHROPE was a truly extraordinary development. Appropriately, Simpson created a narrative, complete with domestic details, to describe how she had gained CHEESE’S confidence. They had met at a party with some Greek friends, and
he had attempted to obtain from her military information about the Greek forces, supposing her to have many officer friends. He had observed her air of indifference as to the military success of the Allies, and as they became more intimate she had revealed the full extent of her antagonism to the British.
Some time in May 1942 Paul had remarked to her half-seriously: ‘Supposing that we were agents for the Axis. How easily we could obtain valuable information.’ She had been skeptical; whereupon he had suggested that she should make the experiment of noting what she saw in the course of an hour’s walk in the Cairo streets. She had agreed, and Paul had appeared much interested in the result of the experiment. A little later in the same month he had revealed to her (uncertainly and with much and anxious insistence on secrecy) that he was acting as an agent for the Axis. His manner had been at once vain and nervous. He had not at this stage told her that he was in wireless communication with the enemy. He had then asked her to continue systematically to keep her eyes open for badges and vehicle signs; also for any other kind of military information obtainable visually; and to try and make the acquaintance of members of the Allied forces for the purpose of obtaining military information from them. She had hesitated, pointing out the risks and had asked for time to think the proposal over. But she has a natural disposition
for the risk and had been finally convinced by Paul’s assurance that there would be good money for them both in the venture.
She had noticed that Paul was always anxious that she should not be in or near his flat between about 7.30 and 10 o’clock in the evening. One night early in July, however, he had called her to look at his wireless receiver – on which they had been in the habit of listening to the radio programmes together and which she had never suspected to be anything but an ordinary domestic apparatus. Having locked the door of the room he had pulled back a false panel from the apparatus and shown her that it was a transmitter as well as a receiver. Unlocking a door, he had produced a Morse key; and then, to her further surprise, had suspended an aerial from nails already inserted in the walls near the ceiling.
All this had been done with an air of mysterious importance and great nervousness. At just after half past seven he had begun to tap out something that she could not understand on the Morse key. He had worn earphones and she could faintly hear the note of the signals. After about twenty minutes he had ceased tapping and had produced paper and pencil and began to write as he listened.
When the proceedings were finished he turned to her and remarked: ‘Now you know exactly what I’m up to.’ Then he told her the whole story of his nightly communication with the enemy and had proposed that they should work as partners. She had hesitated once more; but once more she had been persuaded by her own disposition for adventure and by Paul’s assurance that it would make their joint fortune and assure their safety and honour when – he was certain, the genuine Rommel entered Cairo.
