The Defence of the Realm

by Christopher Andrew

  Though the implementation of Operation MINCEMEAT was not MI5’s responsibility, it provided considerable assistance. Montagu invited secretaries in B Division to submit photographs from which he chose a suitable candidate to become ‘Major Martin’s’ fiancée, ‘Pam’. His choice fell on a B1b secretary. An attractive photograph of her in a swimsuit was placed in ‘Martin’s’ wallet.24 Other secretaries helped draft love letters from ‘Pam’ to place in ‘Martin’s’ pocket.25 The photograph in ‘Martin’s’ identity card was of a B1a officer, Ronnie Reed, who bore some resemblance to the unfortunate Glyndwr Michael.26 ‘Martin’s’ pockets also contained stubs of London theatre tickets dated 22 April, as evidence that he had left England after that date.27 In reality, the corpse had been loaded several days earlier on to the submarine, HMS Seraph, which took it to the Spanish coast. On 22 April Montagu and Cholmondeley presented the secretaries mainly responsible for the love letters and the swimsuit photograph with the theatre tickets whose stubs had been planted on the corpse, and the four of them celebrated ‘Bill Martin’s farewell’ with a show and dinner.28

  Just over a week later, on 30 April, the corpse was picked up offshore near Huelva by a local sardine fisherman. Though the body was handed over to the British for burial, pro-German Spanish officials, as expected, allowed the Abwehr to photograph the documents in the briefcase. Among them were letters by Mountbatten and the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye, as well as proofs of a manual on Combined Operations to which Eisenhower had, supposedly, been asked to write a foreword. The letters falsely indicated that the Allies were planning a landing in Greece, codenamed Operation HUSKY. Soon afterwards ULTRA decrypts revealed that the Germans had been comprehensively deceived. A message sent to Churchill during a visit to Washington said simply: ‘MINCEMEAT swallowed rod, line and sinker.’ Even when the Allied attack came in Sicily rather than Greece, the Germans did not doubt the authenticity of the MINCEMEAT documents but concluded that Allied plans had changed.29

  The preparations for Operation MINCEMEAT persuaded the head of the Security Executive, Duff Cooper, that the time had come to brief Churchill on some of the other deceptions devised by B1a and the double agents which it ran.30 As late as March 1943, Guy Liddell noted in his diary that the Prime Minister, despite his regular meetings with ‘C’ and close interest in the work of Bletchley Park and SOE, still knew nothing about Security Service operations.31 The double-agent case chosen by Duff Cooper as most likely to enthuse the Prime Minister during his first briefing on the work of B1a was that of Eddie Chapman.32 Before the war Chapman had been a flamboyant London career criminal, who drove a Bentley and dressed in Savile Row suits. While on the run from the Met in 1939, he fled to Jersey where he was jailed for house-breaking and larceny. His fortunes were changed by the German occupation of the Channel Islands. Chapman’s offer to spy for Germany after his release from prison was eventually accepted by the Abwehr. In the early hours of 16 December 1942 he was dropped by parachute over the Cambridgeshire countryside, equipped with false identity cards, £990 in used notes, a wallet taken from a dead British soldier, a radio set and a suicide pill. By morning he had contacted the local police and told them he wished to tell his story to the ‘British Intelligence Service’. Chapman was taken to Camp 020, where it took the commandant, Tin-eye Stephens, only a few days to turn him into a double agent, codenamed ZIGZAG. Though no detailed account survives of Churchill’s briefing on ZIGZAG, the Prime Minister was almost certainly told that early in 1943 he had carried out a sabotage operation against the de Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield which built the Mosquito bombers then pounding German cities. Dramatic photographs were taken of wrecked factory buildings covered in tarpaulins with debris strewn around. ZIGZAG’s exultant German case officer, Stephan von Gröning, comfortably ensconced in a large mansion at the French port of Nantes, celebrated by ordering ‘champagne all round’. At a secret ceremony in Oslo later in 1943 ZIGZAG became the first British subject to be awarded the Iron Cross in recognition of his ‘outstanding zeal and success’. The ‘sabotage’ of the de Havilland factory, however, was a hoax, orchestrated by B1a.33

  The second case on which Churchill was briefed by Duff Cooper in March 1943 was that of a senior Abwehr officer, codenamed HARLEQUIN, who had been captured in North Africa in November 1942 and brought to Britain as a POW. Though it was not possible to run him as a double agent, since the Germans knew he had been taken prisoner:

  he was turned round to a point where, convinced of the inevitability of a German defeat, he placed in our hands a written offer of his services, subject only to the reservation that he should not be compelled to take up arms against the German Forces. He has supplied a wealth of intelligence, much of which is subject to check [that is, can be corroborated], though this fact is unknown to him. He has also been used in a consultative capacity and has contributed helpful and informative comments on cases submitted to him.34

  The Security Service believed that HARLEQUIN had ‘a none too rigid conscience’ and had agreed to co-operate partly because he lacked the ‘moral courage’ to face up to life as a POW and wanted the war over as quickly as possible. But Petrie reported in April: ‘So far he has played well by us and it is anticipated that provided we hold to our side of the bargain he will continue to do so.’35

  Struck by Churchill’s evident fascination with ZIGZAG, HARLEQUIN and other colourful MI5 operations, Duff Cooper proposed that the Security Service send the Prime Minister a monthly report of two or three pages.36 Like Petrie, Liddell was anxious that Churchill might be carried away by what he read: ‘There are obvious advantages in selling ourselves to the PM who at the moment knows nothing about our 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.’37 On balance, largely in the interests of Security Service staff, Petrie decided in favour of a monthly report to Churchill:

  It is a disadvantage of Security work, by and large, that the results are apt to be mainly negative, that is to say the better it is done, the less there is to show for it. Also from its very nature, its secrets can be confided only to the few. It is only fair, therefore, that the good work of the Service, to which I would like to pay my own tribute, should be brought to the notice of the Prime Minister and certain other high quarters.38

  The Service leadership was particularly concerned by the likely reaction of the Labour Home Secretary in Churchill’s coalition government, Herbert Morrison. A meeting of Liddell, Dick White, Tar Robertson and Roger Hollis agreed not to include counter-subversion in the monthly reports, on the grounds that ‘The PM might speak to the Home Secretary about it and if the latter was not also informed we should find ourselves in trouble.’39 Their reluctance to send reports on subversion to Morrison was heavily influenced by the Zec case in the previous year. In March 1942 the Home Secretary had been enraged by a cartoon by Philip Zec in the Daily Mirror, showing a torpedoed sailor, his face smeared with oil, lying on a raft in the Atlantic. Morrison interpreted the cartoon, probably wrongly, as implying that the sailor’s life had been sacrificed to increase oil companies’ profits. Though no evidence survives in Security Service files, it seems likely that Morrison asked the Service to investigate.40

  Probably fearful of provoking more demands for more investigations of alleged subversives, the Service leadership decided that the monthly reports to Churchill should be confined, almost exclusively, to its role in the war against the Axis powers. For the first monthly report, the various sections of the Service (excluding Hollis’s) produced drafts totalling about sixteen single-spaced typed pages. Anthony Blunt prepared a précis, and the final draft of about two and a half pages was produced in collaboration between him and Dick White.41 Since Blunt continued to draft the monthly reports to Churchill for the remainder of the war,42 it is highly probable they went to Soviet intelligence as well – and quite possibly to Stalin personally.43 I
ndeed,

  Extract from first monthly ‘Report on Activities of Security Service’, dealing mainly with counter-espionage and double agents, submitted to the Prime Minister in the spring of 1943. Churchill was much impressed and annotated ‘deeply interesting. WSC’ at the end. Since the draft reports were prepared by Anthony Blunt, copies may well have gone to Stalin also.

  Moscow may well also have received the longer version before it was condensed by Blunt and thus have seen more detailed reports than Churchill.

  The first monthly ‘Report on Activities of Security Service’, submitted on 26 March 1943,44 was an instant success with the Prime Minister.45 Churchill wrote on it in red ink: ‘deeply interesting’.46 Henceforth, Petrie wrote later, Churchill ‘took a sustained personal interest in our work’.47 The first report began with a summary of counter-espionage successes since the outbreak of war:

  In all 126 spies have fallen into our hands. Of these eighteen gave themselves up voluntarily; twenty-four have been found amenable and are now being used as double-cross agents. Twenty-eight have been detained at overseas stations, and eight were arrested on the high seas. In addition twelve real, and seven imaginary persons have been foisted upon the enemy as double-cross spies. Thirteen spies have been executed, and a fourteenth is under trial.

  As examples of how comprehensively the Germans were being deceived by the ‘double-cross spies’, the Report revealed that GARBO (like other agents, not identified by name) had been sent £2,500, as well as having a further 250,000 pesetas put at his disposal in Madrid by the Abwehr, and that a radio set of new design, sabotage equipment and £200 in banknotes had been dropped by parachute in Aberdeenshire for MUTT and JEFF.48

  The case which Churchill seems to have found of greatest interest in the first monthly report was that of HARLEQUIN, and he asked for more information from MI5 on the intelligence HARLEQUIN had provided.49 On the additional report submitted to him, Churchill marked the following passage in red: ‘HARLEQUIN states that when the German [1942] summer offensive failed to bring about the annihilation of the Russian armies, every single officer of the Abwehr was convinced, as was HARLEQUIN, that Germany had lost the war.’ The Abwehr believed that the growing superiority of arms production by the Grand Alliance (the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union) made its victory inevitable.50 Two months later, however, the Security Service reported to Churchill that, though HARLEQUIN had provided ‘invaluable’ intelligence, he had ceased to co-operate, had put on his German military uniform and had been sent to a POW camp:

  He asked to be released from his bargain because it had become evident to him that the Allies were determined to impose crushing terms on a defeated Germany and he did not want to feel that he had played any part in bringing about the oppression of the German people.51

  The written reports to Churchill did not, however, mention that after his capture HARLEQUIN had been assured by military intelligence that, in return for his co-operation, he would be allowed to travel to a neutral country to meet the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, whom he saw as ‘the centre of a future anti-Nazi organisation’ which would succeed the Hitler regime. After reading British press reports in April that Canaris had been dismissed, HARLEQUIN abandoned his plan and lost interest in co-operation with the Security Service. The press reports, however, had been planted by the Political Warfare Executive. Though Canaris’s influence was being rapidly supplanted by that of Himmler, he was not dismissed as head of the Abwehr for another year. The Service regarded HARLEQUIN’s decision to cease co-operation as ‘singularly fortuitous’, since it had no interest in his scheme to meet Canaris and believed it had already obtained ‘all but an infinitesimal part’ of the intelligence he was able to provide.52

  The second MI5 monthly report, submitted to Churchill on 1 May, contained further exciting news of ZIGZAG. After arriving in Lisbon to begin a lengthy period abroad working for the Abwehr, he had been given an explosive device camouflaged as a large lump of coal with instructions to place it in the bunkers of a British ship.53 Instead ZIGZAG handed it to the captain and MI5 later staged an incident designed to demonstrate that ZIGZAG had carried out his sabotage mission.54 Duff Cooper sent for a full copy of ZIGZAG’s MI5 file which he discussed ‘at some length with the Prime Minister, who’, he told Dick White, ‘is showing considerable interest in the case’.55 Some of Churchill’s ‘considerable interest’ was probably aroused by ZIGZAG’s plan to assassinate Hitler when he visited Berlin while working for the Abwehr. Improbable though his plan appeared, ZIGZAG’s case officer, Ronnie Reed, did not dismiss the possibility that he might succeed. ZIGZAG claimed that, having convinced his Abwehr case officer that he was an enthusiastic pro-Nazi, he had been promised a seat near the podium at a rally addressed by Hitler. According to Reed, ZIGZAG knew that the assassination attempt would cost him his life but liked the idea of going out in a blaze of glory: ‘He can think of no better way of leaving this life than to have his name prominently featured throughout the world’s press, and to be immortalised in history books for all time – this would crown his final gesture.’ There is no evidence that B1a encouraged or even welcomed ZIGZAG’s plan. Tar Robertson told him: ‘. . . I am most anxious for you not to undertake any wild sabotage enterprises.’56 But he probably suspected that, if the opportunity arose, ZIGZAG might go ahead with the assassination plan. The only surviving report to Churchill on ZIGZAG’s plan, submitted to him over a year later, describes it as ‘his own proposal’ and, rather obscurely, as ‘a parergon’ – in other words, as subsidiary to his main aim of operating as a B1a double agent within the Abwehr.57

  Following HARLEQUIN’s decision to cease co-operation with MI5 and the beginning of a lengthy period during which ZIGZAG was out of contact, the Security Service judged – no doubt correctly – that the double agent most likely to capture Churchill’s imagination was GARBO.58 Service reports to the Prime Minister emphasized the extraordinary creativity and productivity of GARBO, his case officer Tomás Harris and their MI5 support team, who were able to convince the Abwehr that GARBO had a network of highly productive sub-agents, eventually numbering twentyeight, mostly in the UK but some as far afield as North America and Ceylon:59

  Apart from the work of those of our officers who forge the letters of the sub-agents and from the work of the case officer, who spends his entire time in controlling, organising and developing the case, living GARBO’s life and thinking GARBO’s thoughts, GARBO himself works on average from six to eight hours a day – drafting secret letters, enciphering, composing cover texts, writing them and planning for the future. Fortunately he has a facile and lurid style, great ingenuity and a passionate and quixotic zeal for his task. This last quality has indeed caused an outburst of jealousy on the part of his wife, who, considering herself neglected, was with difficulty persuaded not to ruin the whole undertaking by a public disclosure.60

  As well as feeling neglected, Mrs Pujol (known to B1a as Mrs GARBO or Mrs G) was also extremely homesick. ‘Her one desire’, noted Liddell, ‘is to go back to her home country,’ where she was thought likely to reveal all and thus sabotage the entire Double-Cross System:

  We have . . . thought of warning the Spanish embassy here anonymously that a woman of Mrs G’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.

  That scheme, however, was abandoned in favour of a cruel charade devised by GARBO himself. A senior Scotland Yard officer called on Mrs G on 22 June to say that her husband had been arrested after deciding to end his career as a double agent because of his wife’s objections and threatening to ‘give the whole show away’. Later that day GARBO’s radio operator, Charles Haines, found Mrs G in a room full of coal gas. Though Haines suspected that this was ‘a bit of play-acting’, Tommy Harris’s wife spent the night trying to ‘calm her down’. Next day, 23 June, after a tearful
interview with Tar Robertson, she 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 future’, and was then taken to see her husband who was masquerading as a prisoner in a cell in Camp 020. On the 24th the Security Service’s Legal Adviser, Edward Cussen, explained to Mrs G in what Liddell considered ‘masterly style’ that she had escaped arrest only by ‘a hair’s breadth’, and that, if there were any repetition, she and her husband would be interned for the remainder of the war. GARBO returned home, somewhat shaken by the deception practised on his wife, but resumed his career as a double agent with undiminished enthusiasm.61

  All agents except ‘J’ (GARBO himself) were figments of his and his case officer’s fertile imaginations. The principal sub-agents, 3 (a Venezuelan ‘of independent means’ normally resident in Glasgow but currently in London), 4 (a Gibraltarian working for the NAAFI in Chislehurst), 5 (the brother of 3, currently in Canada) and 7 (a retired Welsh seaman), ran fictitious sub-networks, all of whom deceived the Abwehr.