Agent Zigzag

by Ben MacIntyre

  Of greater concern was Chapman’s relationship with Dagmar Lahlum—“the inevitable girlfriend,”33 as one MI5 officer sighed. By confiding in this untested woman, Zigzag had, in Stephens’s view, “blundered badly.”34 She could betray him at any moment with disastrous consequences: If von Gröning realized he was being double-crossed, any information Chapman sent to Germany would then be interpreted, rightly, as the opposite of the truth. Zigzag would then be providing real, not false, intelligence to the enemy.

  Chapman insisted, loudly and repeatedly, that Dagmar was not only loyal to him, but a skilled spy in her own right and vigorously anti-German. He described how he had wooed her, and how he had debated with himself for months before telling her the truth. “She is not a ‘fast’ girl,”35 he protested, “and I am quite satisfied that she was not ‘planted’ by the Germans in the café when I first met her.” If she had betrayed him to the Germans, “he would have36 at once observed a change of attitude of the Germans towards him.” If the Germans had suspected Dagmar, or himself, they would not have agreed to provide her with a free apartment and a monthly stipend. Dagmar had his “complete confidence.” But for Chapman’s British handlers, “the unofficial introduction of this girl into the service of the British government” added an unexpected and unwelcome complication.

  Chapman’s interrogators noted that he was “anxious at every opportunity to talk about Dagmar Lahlum.” He returned to the subject again and again, insisting that he had made a promise to “ensure her financial position” and clear her name after the war. “One of his objects will be to reinstate her with her compatriots by asserting that she had double-crossed the Germans,” wrote his case officer. Chapman’s passion seemed genuine enough, but then MI5 had not forgotten Freda Stevenson, who was still being supported by the British secret services. “There was some sort37 of understanding, of which ZZ has by now doubtless repented, that if he ever came back he would marry Freda,” noted a skeptical interrogator.

  As his trump card, Chapman described how Dagmar had learned of the Sicily landings through the Norwegian underground, and how she was linked to the resistance movement. What better proof could there be of her bona fides? MI5 did not quite see it that way. British intelligence services were in contact with Milorg, one of the main Norwegian resistance groups, but regarded the organization as inefficient and unwieldy, and prone to leaks. That Dagmar was apparently part of Milorg and may have told them of Chapman’s real identity only served to muddy the waters further. Dagmar was working for one secret organization, in league with another, and being paid by a third. From the British point of view, the lady had too many suitors for comfort: “Dagmar is in contact38 with the Norwegian underground movement, at the same time has the confidence of a British Secret Service Agent, and is at present being maintained by the German Secret Service.”

  Stephens’s faith in Chapman was undimmed, but he urged caution: “I do not wish to be held39 wanting in admiration of a brave man [but] I must issue a warning about this strange character. In England, he is wanted for crime. In Germany he is admired and treated royally by the German Secret Service. It is not unnatural, therefore, in the years, that he has come to dislike the English in many respects and to admire the Germans. Indeed, there is more than admiration, there is a genuine affection for his spymaster Graumann. His present ambition is to settle down with Dagmar Lahlum in Paris at the end of the war. Where do the loyalties of Chapman lie? Personally, I think they are in fine balance.”

  Chapman’s supporters, including Tar Robertson, pointed out that he had thoroughly demonstrated his loyalty already. But set against this was his criminal past, his affection for von Gröning, and now the problem of yet another romantic entanglement. After long debate, the spymasters agreed. There would be a final installment in what Stephens described as “one of the most40 fascinating chapters of contra-espionage history in the war.” Chapman would be given one more chance to prove his mettle.

  On June 30, two days after landing, Chapman sent his first radio message to von Gröning, while Ronnie Reed looked on approvingly: HARD LANDING BUT ALL OK.41 FINDING BETTER PLACE. COMING AGAIN THURSDAY. DAGMAR.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Doodlebugs

  BRITAIN, PUMMELED AND pounded for so long, was braced for Hitler’s flying bombs. Nazi propaganda had given early warning of a new weapon that would wreak vengeance for the bombing of the Fatherland and finally crush British resistance. Early in 1944, the Germans began instructing their agents that they should soon evacuate London for their own safety. The first robot bombs, powered by a jet engine, with a crude guidance system, had whined over the city on the night of June 13. The bombs, each carrying eighteen hundred pounds of explosive, flew at around four hundred miles per hour with a buzzing drone like a venomous insect that would abruptly stop when the fuel ran out, leaving an eerie, empty silence as the bomb plummeted to earth, followed by the explosion.

  At first, the flying bombs came in ones and twos; then in swarms. On the night of June 15, 217 missiles hammered into Britain, with 45 dropping on central London. Unpredictable and hard to shoot down, the V-1s gave a horrible new twist of uncertainty to civilian life. People on the ground would stop to listen anxiously to the engine overhead, waiting for the sudden silence. Typically, the British found a comic nickname to blunt the fear of these atrocious weapons—“doodlebugs.”

  The bombs flew blind, and this was both a strength and a weakness. There was no one to report where the payload had been dropped, and no way to aim them with confidence. A pattern emerged in London. The German gunners appeared to be targeting the heart of the city, but most of the bombs were dropping two or three miles short of Trafalgar Square. John Masterman made the obvious deduction: “It was clear that1 the Germans could only correct their aim and secure results by adjustments based on experiment, and that their data must rest in the main upon reports from this country.” If those reports could be doctored, then the V-1s could be diverted to where they would do less damage.

  By the time Chapman arrived in Britain with orders to report on the flying bombs, a rudimentary deception plan was in place. If the double agent’s reports exaggerated the number of bombs in the north and the west of London, but minimized those in the south and the east, the Germans at the launchpads would logically assume that they were overshooting, and reduce the range. The flying bombs were already falling short, and with a careful stream of false reports they might be lured even farther south and east, away from the densely populated areas of central London and even into the countryside, where they would fall mainly in fields and woods. Clearly, there were limits to this form of deception: “If St Paul’s was hit,2 it was useless and harmful to report that the bomb had descended upon a cinema in Islington,” since the Germans would swiftly discover the truth, and the credibility of the double agent would be compromised. Masterman ruled that the Twenty Committee must “decide what measure3 of useful deception was possible without blowing the agents.”

  To the hardheaded men of military intelligence, the plan was clear and logical, but persuading the British cabinet that it should authorize a ruse that would spare some Londoners but might condemn others to death was far harder. The politicians argued, somewhat bizarrely, that public morale would be damaged if the flying bombs were diverted to new, hitherto unscathed areas of the country, since the bomb-scarred residents of central London had “learned to live”4 (and die) with the devastation, and they were best able to cope with a fresh bombardment. The ministers balked at the “terrible responsibility5…for directing the attack against any part of London.” Despite their qualms, the deception went ahead.

  The barrage intensified. By the end of June 1944, some 660 V-1s had landed on London. The Germans seemed to be aiming for the Charing Cross area, but the mean point of impact was calculated to be the Dulwich station in southern London. Juan Pujol, the celebrated Spanish double agent code-named “Garbo” by the British, had volunteered to provide his German spymasters with accurate informatio
n about where the bombs were landing: “I might take on the work of making daily observations…and let you have by radio an exact report on objectives hit so that you will be able to correct any possible errors of fire.” Garbo spiced up his reports with characteristic eruptions of Nazi fervor: “I am certain you will be able to terrify this very pusillanimous people who will never admit that they are beaten.”

  The Germans were hungry for more, and the arrival of Zigzag, with specific instructions to monitor bomb damage, was the clearest indication that the Germans were short of accurate intelligence, and thus vulnerable to being misled. Chapman also brought evidence of Berlin’s faith in a weapon that “his German masters6 confidently believe has reduced London and the South coast to a shambles.”

  Chapman sent his first report, misrepresenting the location, timing, and damage inflicted by the bombs, on July 1. He continued to transmit disinformation in a steady stream for a month. The data had to be carefully coordinated so the double agents involved—most notably Zigzag and Garbo—“should report actual incidents7 in North West London but give as the times of those incidents the actual times of incidents in South East London. If this is done skilfully it is hoped the enemy will identify the bomb which fell in South East London with the incident in North West London and plot it there.” The Germans must be persuaded that they were consistently overshooting. In the words of Dr. Reginald Jones, the brilliant physicist assigned to Air Intelligence: “We could give correct8 points of impact for bombs that tended to have a longer range than usual, but couple these with the times of bombs that had actually fallen short.” When the enemy corrected their aim, they would therefore “reduce the average range.”9 The resulting disinformation then had to be carefully vetted, before being sent over on Zigzag’s wireless. All this took time. “It is essential,”10 wrote Chapman’s handler, “that it should not be apparent to recipients that there is always a substantial time lag.” The gamble was huge. If Chapman was discovered, then instead of taking his reports at face value, the Germans would read them for what they were: the obverse of the truth. Instead of shortening their aim, they would extend it. Rather than draw the flying bombs away from the target, Zigzag might inadvertently lead them to it.

  To bolster Chapman’s credibility, photographs were taken of the doodlebug damage at various points around London, so that he could send these on to the Germans via Lisbon. But Air Intelligence vetoed the move: “I am afraid we cannot11 approve of their being sent over, since they would be of considerable value to the enemy, and naturally those that would be of no value to the enemy would stand Zigzag himself in very little stead.” Here was the essential dilemma of running a double agent: how to send information that appeared accurate, but could do no harm.

  Chapman had been instructed to provide daily weather reports with barometric readings. MI5 asked the Twenty Committee whether he might send these without compromising security. Chapman had been provided with more than enough money to buy a barometer, after all, and therefore had little excuse not to send the readings to his German masters. Reluctantly, the authorities agreed. Chapman could send barometer readings, but with “slight errors introduced.”12

  Chapman’s deception messages have survived only in fragments. MI5 was careful to destroy the traffic, aware of the potential repercussions if the inhabitants of southern London realized they were being sacrificed to protect the center of the city. German intelligence in Oslo picked up Chapman’s coded messages every morning, and Paris in the evening. At first, reception was poor and patchy, but it improved after Chapman sent a volley of abuse. “The outgoing traffic,13 apart from complaints of poor service, has consisted almost entirely of reports on the times and places of impact of flying bombs,” reported Chapman’s case officer. There was no hint in the Most Secret Sources that Chapman’s bomb reports were regarded with suspicion. His British handlers were delighted: “The Zigzag channel14 was considered indispensable to the bomb damage deception scheme.”

  The success of that scheme is still debated. At the very least, the Germans never corrected their range, and the bombs continued to fall short, in the suburbs and countryside, where they killed and destroyed, to be sure, but on a far lesser scale. Chapman has “held his place15 in German confidence,” wrote John Masterman. Masterman knew what it was like to be bombed. He had lain awake on the floor of the barber’s shop at the Reform Club, listening to the doodlebugs overhead, wondering, in the thudding silence, if the next one would destroy him. “I was as frightened16 as the next man of the bombing,” he admitted. But the “shambles” predicted by German propaganda had not materialized. St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Reform Club, and Masterman himself all survived the onslaught of the doodlebugs, and owed their survival, in some measure, to a double agent tapping out lies in Morse code on a German wireless.

  Masterman was exultant: “The deception was a very real triumph…saving many thousands of lives.”

  On July 25, the bomb deception scheme was suspended. Evening papers had begun to print maps showing where bombs had fallen, potentially threatening the deception. But in any case, radar-controlled antiaircraft batteries from the United States had begun to shoot down V-1s in large numbers, and a month later the threat had effectively been neutralized, though the bombs had killed 6,184 people. Chapman told his German handlers he was going in search of the “secret equipment for17 which he was promised high reward.” Chapman’s low boredom threshold was well known, as was his venality: The announcement that he was going in search of more lucrative espionage targets appears to have aroused no German suspicion.

  Chapman had spent a month in his safe house, dutifully “tapping out such messages18 as the Air Ministry want to put over,” but he was becoming restive: “If this state of affairs19 continues he will go bad on us,” warned one case officer. “He will turn his tortuous mind to working out schemes for making more money, which will almost certainly bring him to the notice of the Police. It would be extremely embarrassing for us if he should be arrested while still on our hands.” As ever, Chapman’s libido was in constant need of exercise. One evening, Reed accompanied him to a notorious pickup bar in Cork Street and handed him a £20 note: “Take your pick!20 But be back in half an hour.”

  Chapman still could not walk the city’s streets alone in case he was arrested, for Scotland Yard had a long memory. MI5 wondered whether that memory should now be erased. “I do feel his exploits21 to date have amply earned him a pardon for the various outstanding crimes he is alleged to have committed,” wrote John Marriott, one of MI5’s lawyers and Robertson’s deputy. “I agree,”22 wrote Tar. Under constitutional law no one may be pardoned for a crime unless already tried and convicted. Instead, police forces around the country with an interest in prosecuting Eddie Chapman were simply informed through Special Branch that the home secretary “desired that no such23 proceedings should be brought.” This was a pardon in effect, if not in name. “No action should be taken24 against him, at least not without prior consultation with us,” MI5 insisted. Chapman, however, was not informed that his slate had been wiped clean; the threat of prosecution remained a useful leash.

  The spy chiefs now debated how best to employ Zigzag. Chapman himself volunteered to return to France, saying he could help “comb out any German25 underground movement which may have been left behind.” That idea was vetoed; Chapman was too valuable as a double agent in Britain, feeding lies to the enemy. “Any question of Zigzag’s26 return to the Germans at this stage of the war is out of the question,” his handlers decided. Ronnie Reed took him to lunch at the RAC Club, and marveled at his guiltless internal contradictions. In one breath, Chapman would be describing his love for Dagmar, but in the next proclaiming he was “anxious to write to Freda27 to tell her he was back in London.” Reed agreed to pass on the message, but advised Chapman to tell her he was “very busy and would28 communicate with her in a few days time.” More worrying, Chapman was talking about writing up his adventures as an “autobiography,”29 an idea that MI5 quashe
d immediately, pointing out that it would be “impossible for him30 to disclose during the war, and in all probability for a long time thereafter, anything about his work for the Germans or for ourselves.” Chapman grumpily replied that he wanted to write up an account “while it was still fresh.”31 He promised to confine his reminiscences to “his old criminal activities.”32 MI5 was not convinced.

  Chapman had brought ample evidence of German anxieties over the vulnerability of its U-boat fleet. Tar concluded that the best way to “stimulate Zigzag’s interest,”33 and baffle the enemy, would be to exploit those fears by sending over “deceptive material about34 anti-submarine devices.” A new plan was formed: Chapman would dispatch a message to his handlers, saying that he had located the factory in the north of England where a new submarine detection device was being manufactured, but had been unable to obtain the device itself because the factory was “in continual active operation.”35 He would then claim that he had managed to “steal a document36 and photographs from an office in the building” the document could be transcribed and sent over by wireless, and the photographs sent via Lisbon. Both, needless to say, would be fake.

  Through the Most Secret Sources and traditional espionage, the British knew that the German navy was alarmed by the rising U-boat toll, and that it feared some new weapon must be in use. In fact, the Germans were wrong. As Ewen Montagu of Naval Intelligence observed, “the increasing number37 of U-boat kills was due to other devices, most notably the Mark XXIV mine, and by intercepting and decoding U-boat signals using Ultra.” The most important British weapon in the underwater war was the ability to pick up and read the U-boat radio traffic. However, if the Germans believed there was some other new and powerful underwater weapon in use, that fear should be encouraged and expanded. As always when practicing to deceive, MI5 stuck as close to the truth as possible while planting a deception.