by Nigel West
• Plan 2: SIME Special Section propose the following plan. (a) A person known to DSO Egypt, but not known by the uninitiated to have any connection with him, to be selected. (b) The address of this person to be communicated to the enemy who will be informed that CHEESE has a reliable friend to whom a message can be delivered, but who knows nothing of CHEESE’S activities on behalf of the Abwehr. This intermediary will, in fact, will be little more than a human ‘postbox’.
PROs and CONs:
PLAN 1.
PRO: This plan provides protection against any attempt by the enemy to use the ‘money-intermediary’ as a means of verifying the genuineness of CHEESE.
CON:
(a) It involves a considerable rick to security in that it necessitates placing a person outside the 30 Committee organisation in full knowledge of the true CHEESE situation.
(b) It is not necessary or in accordance with the notional CHEESE story, for the intermediary who receives the money to give away much (if any) information about CHEESE. CHEESE’S nervousness and anxiety to conceal his whereabouts and identity have been made clearly apparent. It is therefore more in keeping with the notional picture of him that he should keep the intermediary as far as possible in the dark about himself, and that (fearing a British trap – especially after the police raid on 20 rue Galal) he should also instruct the intermediary to avoid answering questions.
(c) There can be no certainty as to the particulars of CHEESE given to the Abwehr by Renato Levi. Even if Levi’s description of CHEESE given to Zaehringer was as he told us it would be, there can be no knowing what he has said since. It follows that in authorising the intermediary to give a description of CHEESE, some risk must be run that this will be entirely at variance with a description given by the inventive Levi at any time since his visit to Egypt.
(d) The qualifications required in any person who is to play the part of CHEESE’S friend are so high as to be almost unobtainable. The BGM must be regarded as an exception not to be repeated. Their requirements are: firstly, absolute discretion, even when possibly kept idle and impatient over a long period; secondly, very considerable cover of memory, resources and acting ability. The finding of such a person cannot be guaranteed. The BGM has herself been asked for some time to look out for a suitable person, but has failed to produce one.
(e) Even if found, an agent earmarked for this purpose cannot be used for any other intelligence work, owing to the risk of compromise in the event of the enemy messenger (or his deputy) having been resident in Egypt for some time and thus having the opportunity to obtain information about the agent – either before or after the delivery of the money.
(f) If once the intermediary submits to being questioned, he or she may then inevitably may be drawn into further meetings with the enemy courier and his circle. The danger of CHEESE being unmasked will be directly proportional to the frequency of contacts between the intermediary and the enemy courier or his associates.
PLAN 2
PRO:
(a) Simplicity
The factual and the notional story in regard to the intermediary are almost identical; in such case he is told by a friend to accept delivery of a package, to inform the friend of delivery, to answer no questions, and to ask none.
(b) Security
From the 30 Committee point of view, the intermediary will have no knowledge of the real significance of the apparently simple task he has to perform.
(c) Security from the point of view of both CHEESE and the enemy
The exchange of an agreed password (which CHEESE should ask for – compare Café Bel Air scheme of October–November 1942) will ensure the safety of the transaction, which should be equally unwelcome to both CHEESE and to the enemy courier.
(d) Fidelity in the notional picture of CHEESE
(See Paragraph (b) under PLAN 1, ‘CON’ above.)
FINAL DECISION
The 30 Committee has already given a ruling against the recruitment of fleshly bodies to represent the notional characters who feature in the life-stories of special agents. The question is now open to a final decision, in the light of the above PROs and CONs.
The last straw was a ruling by the 30 Committee that the introduction of ‘fleshly bodies’ to substitute for notional agents carried an unacceptable risk of leakage, so the whole scheme was abandoned.
A few months later the SIS station in Istanbul shed further light on this episode when Nicholas Elliott on 10 May 1943 reported that one of his informants had revealed the contents of a letter dated 16 April which the source had read on 5 May, concerning the delivery of E£415 to a certain ARMAVIR at 20 Rue Golol in Cairo. According to Elliott’s contact, the person pressing for the delivery was a Swiss. Elliott, evidently unaware of SIME’s previous adventures in the Rue Golol, offered to let his man act as an intermediary, confident that the Swiss would not press him for details of precisely how he intended the money to reach Egypt.
On 15 May Elliott elaborated that he had been approached by an Armenian businessman who claimed to act as an intermediary for an established Abwehr network in Cairo and Alexandria, and alleged that the Cairo cell was ‘in wireless communication with Istanbul thence to Berlin’. His direct contact was a man he was only prepared to identify as ‘the Swiss’ who, he believed, was subordinate to the German naval attaché, von der Marwitz. He had been asked to pass E£415 to a certain ARMAVIR at ‘Madame MARIE, Cairo, Rue Golol 20, stated to be in the neighbourhood of Neiogan Tawgig.’
The Armenian went on to say that the chosen courier, using the route Gaziantepe–Aleppo–Egypt, was a priest whom he had met on 5 May upon his return from the Middle East, and who had produced a letter written on a piece of linen he cut from his coat. The Armenian, who wanted E£2,000 plus further large sums for more information, offered the note to Elliott who had it copied, and it was dated ‘Alexandria, 20 April 1943’ and appeared to be an accounting for E£6,250.
Elliott’s enquiries in Istanbul suggested that the priest was probably an Italian missionary, Filippo Talvacchia, who had arrived in the city on 4 May on an Italian passport, No. 6280, and had stated that he had left Italy on 29 January. According to the Armenian, he would travel again on or about 17 May, carrying a letter addressed to NAHICHEVAN.
At a further meeting, on 17 May, Elliott’s informant revealed that he had learned of two other bank transfers arranged by an Armenian cloth importer, M. Harliyah, to a recipient named Habib. One had occurred on about 15 December for £1,000, and the other on 20 January for £500, through the National Bank of Egypt in Cairo.
On 25 May Elliott had more to report:
Swiss has given INFAMOUS $1,700, the equivalent of £415. On return of courier from Aleppo INFAMOUS is to hand money to him. Courier will then return money to certain ABBAS who is organisation’s paymaster in Middle East. ABBAS (who is probably identical with the second courier) … will arrange transfer of this money to ARMAVIR. Most important, latter’s name not known to source. ABBAS has account Ottoman Bank Aleppo and INFAMOUS believes money will be transferred by him probably to Cairo. INFAMOUS considers reason Swiss has decided to send money by courier is that he has thereby been able to make substantial personal profit on our money exchange.
On the assumption that this information was true, it appeared that the Abwehr had succeeded in finding a method of sending cash to Cairo disguised as ostensibly innocent commercial transactions, so SIS set about recruiting Harliyah, who was suitably opportunistic to seize the chance of making plenty of money. His price proved too steep for SIS, but as a sign of his goodwill and capabilities he confided enough detail to Elliott about his past activities to enable SIS to confirm that he had indeed orchestrated the transfers already discovered. Elliott promised to seek advice about Harliyah’s proposal, without letting slip the fact that he had already checked his credentials, and then dropped the issue.
Meanwhile, SIME in Cairo was hatching HATRY, an ingenious plot which involved a merchant in Cairo, Henri Cohen, releasing E£1,400 to a nominee i
n August 1943 once his contact in Istanbul, Emile Nicolesco, had confirmed receipt of the equivalent sum. In effect this manoeuver enabled Cohen to transfer a large sum of money to a neutral country, something that the Egyptian currency restrictions prevented him from doing legitimately. The scheme had the added advantage that it did not require the employment of any courier or intermediary whose behaviour might draw suspicion from the British authorities.
On 28 August 1941 the Abwehr promised £2,000 and thereafter there were further assurances, but in reality nothing was received during 1942 and it was not until March 1943 that eventually a delivery was made, but to the wrong address. This underlying security served to sap CHEESE’S confidence, and prevented him from devoting his talent and energy to the espionage business. As James Robertson noted with some eloquence,
Continued lack of funds was felt on the one hand to be hampering CHEESE as a spy, since not only was he unable to travel, but he was even unable to spend money on the entertainment of individuals of a type likely to supply him with information, while on the other his position was being endangered by the increasing improbability that he would in reality continue to work for an indefinite period without reward. It was therefore decided that since it appeared that the enemy was unable to work out a plan for the payment of this valuable agent, SIME would be obliged to take the initiative and prepare a method by which the agent could receive his just reward. The result of this decision was the institution of Plan HATRY which was launched at the end of August and put into effect by the Abwehr in mid-November, the delay between that date and the actual receipt of the money in January 1944 being due to circumstances beyond SIME’s control.
For the effective execution of Plan HATRY, which is based on a normal, black market transaction carried out in Istanbul, we were to some extent indebted to a SIME agent, GODSEND, who is himself a banker who dabbles from time to time in the inky waters of the international currency market, at considerable profit to himself. GODSEND was informed that we were anxious to investigate methods by which the Germans could effect payment to their agents in the Middle East and a notional suspect was put forward who had, we alleged, confided to another of our agents that he expected to receive funds from the enemy as a result of a private clearing transaction; we intended to make use of this transaction to provide concrete evidence against the suspect and as a possible means of identifying other hostile agents. GODSEND informed us that such a transaction could easily be carried out since he himself knew a wealthy resident of Egypt named Cohen who was always ready to make use of any loopholes in the currency regulations for the purposes of transferring funds to his daughter in Switzerland.
GODSEND was therefore instructed to inform Cohen that he knew of a merchant who was willing to pay over a sum to the value of 30,000 Swiss francs in Istanbul against the counter value in Egyptian pounds. Upon receipt of this information Cohen wrote a letter to his agent in Istanbul (by name Nicolesco) dated 10 August 1943 telling him that he might expect a visit from a certain ‘M Baron’ who would pay over the sum of 30,000 Swiss francs (or a lesser sum) stating that it was ‘for Andrea’, this being the Christian name of Cohen’s daughter. Nicolesco was to indicate that he had received this money by dispatching a telegram to Cohen offering a certain number of tons of decorticated almonds, the number of tons representing the number of thousands of Swiss francs paid in by M Baron. This letter was taken from Cohen by GODSEND on the plea that he knew a ‘safe-hand’ who would deliver it to Istanbul, and it was in fact delivered to Nicolesco through DSO Turkey on 24 August 1943.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to prevent Cohen and Nicolesco knowing too much of SIME’s activities, the latter was instructed to inform the former that on receipt of Nicolesco’s telegram he was to pay the money direct into the account of a cotton broker in Alexandria who was also cooperating with SIME and to whom a suitable tale had been told. In order to enable us to receive the money from the cotton broker without being obliged to have recourse to GODSEND, censorship were instructed to intercept all telegrams from Nicolesco to Cohen, but in point of fact both these arrangements failed in practice since GODSEND – unable to restrain his commercial instincts – took the money (plus a business commission) straight from Cohen and brought it to this office while censorship failed to intercept the vital telegram.
CHEESE passed the plan to the enemy in two messages on 30 August and 31 August respectively, stating that he had a friend who knew a financier who frequently bought Swiss francs in Istanbul for his daughter in Switzerland. The friend had arranged with the financier that the latter’s agent Nicolesco should accept any sum up to thirty thousand Swiss francs from M Baron for Andrea and on receipt of a confirmatory telegram from Nicolesco would receive and pass to CHEESE the counter value of the sum paid in. He intimated that he would not be content with less than 25,000 Swiss francs and pointed out that no one, neither his friend nor the financier, realised that the affair was other than a private clearing agreement in payment of a debt.
The wheels of the Abwehr began to move on 6 September when they stated that the plan was being examined on 13 September, and on 15 September they asked for confirmation of Nicolesco’s name and address, while on 30 September they stated that they hoped that the transfer would be effected soon and asked for confirmation of the name BARON and the words ‘for Andrea’. At this stage matters became unduly protracted and owing to the fact that our wireless operator (CHEESE on the key) became seriously ill, and we were able to transmit at irregular intervals only. On 20 October we were told that arrangements were nearly complete and that the transfer would be made ‘soon’, and at our next contact on 5 November we pointed out that a fortnight did not coincide with our interpretation of that word!
Our operator’s health then became worse and we were unable to transmit again until 10 December when a message from CHEESE stated that he was urgently in need of funds to meet his doctor’s bill crossed with a message stating that the transfer had been carried out. We were unable again to transmit until 21 December and on that day CHEESE’S message stating that the money had not yet reached him crossed with the most definite message we had as yet received from the Abwehr stating that the sum of 25,000 Swiss francs had been sent to Nicolesco against a written receipt dated 12 November.
A further factual complication arose at this stage in that GODSEND had gone to Palestine for Christmas and we had no way of contacting and questioning Cohen through him as to whether he had had any news from Nicolesco. CHEESE was therefore obliged to inform the enemy that he could not make any investigations into the non-arrival of the money pending the return of his friend in the early days of the new year.
GODSEND returned from Palestine on 3 January 1944 and contacted Cohen on our instructions the following day. The latter stated that he had received a letter from Nicolesco dated 6 November 1943 stating that he had not yet received the expected visit from ‘M Baron’ and had further received a telegram from his daughter at the end of November which, as it had included the phrase ‘good news from Uncle Emile’ he had assumed to mean that she had received money from Nicolesco, whose Christian name is Emile. GODSEND, knowing that Cohen had been absent from Cairo owing to ill health during most of November, asked him to investigate the files in his office to see if any telegram had arrived which he had not dealt with personally. It was then found that a telegram from Nicolesco on 10 November making an offer of twenty-five tons of decorticated almonds, i.e. indicating that he had received 25,000 Swiss francs. The particular significance of this telegram was of course unknown to the staff of Cohen’s office who naturally realised that they were not interested in the purchase of almonds and then filed away the telegram. It was at this point that GODSEND exceeded his instructions and promptly extracted the counter value from Cohen amounting to E£1,400 plus an additional E£150 as banker’s commission. He then brought the total sum to this office and stated that he himself would pay it into the cotton broker’s account. After the delay he was informed that we would prefer to make t
his payment ourselves, and we finally took delivery of E£1,625 on 6 January, CHEESE informing the enemy that being the sum that he himself would have received at the current rates of exchange.
It is clear that had censorship been successful in intercepting the ‘almond’ telegram, CHEESE would have received his reward some six weeks earlier but in view of the fragmentary nature of his recent operations due to sickness, no great harm has been done and we have accomplished not only our primary object, the payment of CHEESE, but we have also opened the door for future payments either to CHEESE himself or to other agents under our control.
No sooner had the Abwehr’s money arrived, which included payment intended for the SAVAGES too, than Raymund Maundell circulated ISLD and ‘A’ Force with a division of the spoils, issuing an invitation to collect each organisation’s share from his personal safe. His statement for the distribution divided the loot into Sterling, gold, dollars and Egyptian pounds, which amounted to $8,600, £80 on Sterling, £30 in gold and E£1,400. Of this 10 per cent went to ‘A’ Force, 45 per cent was allocated to SIME and the remainder was retained.
Not surprisingly, in the opening weeks of 1944 there was an air of self-congratulation at SIME, with the end of the war in Europe eagerly anticipated. A manifestation of this atmosphere was a hugely entertaining letter dated 11 January from Rex Hamer addressed to Terence Robertson.
I am instructed by Brigadier Clarke CBE to extend his congratulations to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and to all persons who, working in the spirit of Clarence Hatry and under the guidance of the manifold involutions of the 30 Committee’s collective genius have provided so brilliant an example of that system of relief and rehabilitation which upon an even grander scale will be one of the finest features of the future co-operation of the United Nations.
