by Larry Loftis
The following day he waited for the Americans to contact him but heard nothing.
On August 14, Washington-based Sam Foxworth sent an update to Hoover, advising the director that Dick Ellis had stopped by to see him that afternoon. Foxworth recapped for J. Edgar what Ellis had said of Dusko’s background and, without using the term, explained how Popov was working as a successful double agent. “The British say that since he is to operate here,” Sam wrote, “their only interest is to turn him over to us.” Sam also mentioned that Popov had arrived and, based on what Ellis had said, was “bringing with him a set of instructions; a questionnaire, a copy of which is attached.” [emphasis added] Adjacent to the “Attachment” reference at the bottom, however, was a handwritten note: “attached to memo for director 8/26 P.F.”
Foxworth also informed of his initiative: “Without the knowledge of Popov or of Stott’s organization [BSC], I have asked the New York office to discreetly cover any telegraphic messages which may be received by Popov and, if possible, to arrange to know of any other contacts made with him.”
It was the start of a scandalously dysfunctional relationship.
Around nine o’clock that evening, Washington agent C. H. Carson notified Foxworth that he had spoken with Earl Connelley in New York, informing the FBI assistant director that Popov “should not be contacted at the present time, but his office should discreetly obtain any possible information about Popov, any messages he might send and any contacts he might make.” Carson also told Earl that “the British have indicated that Popov is waiting to be contacted by the FBI . . . however, the Bureau thinks it advisable to obtain any possible information before contacting him.”
Unknown to the FBI, two military intelligence officers, Captain Murray from MID and Lieutenant Chambers from the Office of Naval Intelligence, had called on Popov at the hotel that very day to discuss conditions in Yugoslavia. Dusko, thinking these were his American contacts, revealed that he was a counterespionage agent working for the British, and that he had in his possession $70,000 “for special purposes.” The following day, August 15, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Sharp of MID copied FBI Special Agent in Charge E. A. Soucy on a memo of the prior day’s contact with Popov. Immediately, the FBI notified MID to “lay strictly off” Popov as the Bureau was handling him.
The British, however, remained in the dark. Popov had not been able to reach Ellis by phone, and Dick began to worry. He called Agent Soucy and said he wanted to set up an introductory meeting with someone from BSC, the FBI, and Popov. Three days later, on Monday, August 18, Dusko met with New York Assistant Director Earl J. Connelley, Special Agent Charles Lanman, and BSC’s Dick Ellis at the Commodore Hotel. For three hours, Dusko testified to his background and German assignment.
In his memoirs Popov misremembered the details of the meeting,* recalling by memory an event more than thirty years prior and confusing Earl Connelley with Foxworth, who later replaced Connelley as assistant director, New York. But what Dusko shared during the meeting—that the German investigation of Taranto and his assignment to investigate Pearl Harbor warned of a similar attack by the Japanese—Popov swore to until his death. Unless the Japanese-American negotiations reached a resolution, he recalled saying, the U.S. could expect an attack by the end of the year. To be sure, Popov was guessing on timing, but the Taranto investigation verified the seriousness of Dusko’s questionnaire.
At this meeting Dick Ellis gave Connelley an English version of Popov’s questionnaire, stating that he’d supply a copy of the German original later. The following day, August 19, Connelley sent to Hoover a twelve-page letter recapping the discussion. Providing J. Edgar with a full account of Dusko’s work as a double agent, Earl wrote: “Mr. Popov was furnished with a letter of instructions in German, which letter was turned over to the British authorities here, and Mr. Ellis furnished me with an English translation of these instructions, a copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit C. Reference to these instructions indicates considerable information as to what the German authorities already have . . . and . . . indicates the detailed information which they expect him to obtain while in the United States.”
Exhibit C was Popov’s questionnaire.* As of August 19, 1941, then, almost four months before the Pearl Harbor attack, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI were on notice of the German/Japanese interest in the Hawaiian naval base, and Dusko’s assignment to investigate its defenses.
That same day Lanman met again with Popov, this time at the Lincoln Hotel. At this meeting Dusko turned over the materials from his briefcase: secret ink, code book, papers, addresses, instructions regarding setup of a radio, and the file of telegrams, including four with microdots reproducing the questionnaire. He also provided a typewritten copy of the German original.
As J. Edgar Hoover reviewed Connelley’s Exhibit C, and Lanman received Popov’s microdots, Britain’s Double-Cross Committee received copies of the questionnaire from MI6. “It will be remembered,” J. C. Masterman wrote after the war, “that the full stops [microdots] were photographed and enlarged by the F.B.I. in America, who were therefore in possession of all the information contained in the questionnaire.” And, for Masterman and British Intelligence, the purpose of the questionnaire could not have been more evident:
The whole questionnaire covers approximately three quarto sheets typed, and of this one-third deals with Hawaii and in particular with Pearl Harbour. It is noticeable that, whereas all the other questions are more or less general . . . those connected with Hawaii are specialised and detailed. . . . It is therefore surely a fair deduction that the questionnaire indicated very clearly that in the event of the United States being at war, Pearl Harbour would be the first point to be attacked, and that plans for this attack had reached an advanced stage by August 1941.
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On August 25 Lanman personally delivered the microdots and other items to the FBI laboratory in Washington. Nine days later, on September 3, the lab released an eight-page report, three of which reproduced the questionnaire as hidden in the four microdots. The following day Hoover forwarded a copy of the report to Connelley. J. Edgar had now seen the Pearl Harbor questionnaire twice, and would see it a third time when Special Agent Lanman submitted a full report on September 17.
Hoover submitted no copies or warning to the U.S. military.
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After surveillance and the introductory meetings, the FBI-Popov relationship was anything but stable. On August 21 Hoover sent Assistant Director Connelley correspondence setting forth the British transfer of MI5/MI6 agent Popov and his bona fides: “The American Embassy in London advised the State Department that there was no question concerning Popov’s honesty,” J. Edgar wrote, “his reliability and his loyalty, further advising that Popov was being sponsored by Sir Walter Monckton, Director General of Information of the British Government.” Seemingly averse to using the term “double agent,” Hoover went on: “Through a confidential source [MI6 or BSC] the Bureau ascertained that Popov had been furnishing information to the British in London for some time although he had been actually working for the German Government.” Even with assurances from the British and the American Embassy in London, however, J. Edgar instructed: “The Bureau desires to be kept closely advised of developments in this investigation.”
One of four microdots containing Popov’s German questionnaire. “Pearl Harbor” can be easily seen in the text.
National Archives and Records Administration
Connelley assured the director that henceforth the New York office would refer to Dusan Popov—British double agent on loan to the FBI—as “Confidential Informant ND-63.” What was weeks prior a planned collaboration with MI6 agent Popov was now being recorded in FBI files as an investigation of agent Popov.
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Even without the questionnaire, Popov’s warning from Jebsen and von Gronau about the German/Japanese interest in the Royal Navy’s Taranto raid should have been
sufficient. The Japanese did, in fact, use Taranto as a blueprint. On January 7, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Fleet, had submitted a nine-page outline to Navy Minister Koshiro Oikawa entitled, “Views on Preparations for War.” The admiral also gave a copy to Rear Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, a naval aviation strategist, for tactical evaluation. The report, bolstered by the British success at Taranto, suggested a preemptive strike on Pearl Harbor.
Left to right: FBI Assistant Director Earl J. Connelley, Special Agent Charles Lanman, Assistant Director Percy “Sam” Foxworth.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
More importantly, Dusko’s questionnaire and report constituted the FBI’s second warning about Pearl Harbor. Just before Ulrich von der Osten’s death at Times Square, BSC had tipped off the FBI about a German spy using the aliases of “Konrad” and “Phil.” In early March 1941, the FBI intercepted a report from Konrad to “Mr. Smith of China.” The package contained maps and photographs of Hawaii—including details of the defenses at Pearl Harbor—and a letter which concluded: “This will be of interest mostly to our yellow allies.” Since Admiral Kimmel’s* record of intelligence received did not include this intercept, it appears that neither the FBI nor the Office of Naval Intelligence forwarded it to Honolulu; if the FBI passed it to ONI, it stopped there.
The contents and interception of this letter could not have been more important to the Abwehr, and to the Allies. Since the details of Pearl Harbor’s defenses never reached Berlin, the Germans needed someone else to collect it. From the FBI standpoint, the Konrad report would corroborate the questionnaire and warning the Bureau would later receive from Popov. When the connection was made between “Konrad”/“Phil” and the man killed on Broadway, later identified as Ulrich von der Osten, it was clear that Germany was gathering intelligence on Pearl Harbor as a target for the Japanese.
The dots should have been easy for the FBI to connect: Since the original Pearl Harbor report had been intercepted, Osten had been killed, and the German net in the U.S. dismantled, Popov was dispatched to replace Osten, recruit a new espionage ring, and acquire the Pearl Harbor information personally.
The FBI, then, had two indications of the enemy’s interest in Pearl Harbor. With Hoover’s bureaucratic infighting against the OSS and BSC, however, Osten’s letter and Popov’s questionnaire were buried on the intelligence beach.
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Popov, meanwhile, settled into Manhattan. On September 2 he moved into a penthouse two blocks from Central Park, on the twenty-second floor of a new building at 530 Park Avenue. Since he could not provide the landlord with references, he paid a year’s rent—$3,600—in advance. He had the apartment lavishly furnished—artwork, books, hi-fi equipment—but there would be no housewarming celebration. The next day he received a letter from home bringing news about the ongoing Ustaše genocide in Belgrade. Tragically, his uncle Jovan had refused to run away. He was killed, along with Dusko’s aunt and two cousins. One cousin, Bata—a world champion water polo player—was crucified on a barn door.
He took four days to die.
13
COVER-UP
When J. Edgar Hoover received the FBI laboratory report on September 3, he fired off a letter to Major General Edwin Watson, FDR’s secretary. The correspondence was not a warning about Pearl Harbor, however, but a curiosity piece informing the President of the German method of sending secret messages via “microphotographs.”
Hoover included an enclosure—a copy of a telegram containing two microdots. He did not mention:
how he came into possession of the telegram,
whose telegram it was,
how he learned of the microdots, or
the purpose of these particular microdots.
The telegram was Popov’s, as can be seen from the two places where he wrote his name, and was given to the FBI upon Dusko’s arrival in New York. The telegram was apparently legitimate, having been sent from Dusko’s cover business address in Lisbon—Rue Bartholomew Dias (seen at the bottom of the image). Cleverly, Dusko did not include a street number, which could have been checked by the PVDE. The note, which Popov wrote in French, provides:
Please notice on this last packing list (lit. mode packed reference), your last request [of] gunny sacks (stop)
Push back, urgent. (stop) Continue to try to send you tin/pewter despite suspension [of] licenses. POPOV
J. Edgar Hoover’s September 3, 1941, letter to Major General Edwin Watson.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
Tin was one of the commodities Dusko handled in his export/import business, and the shipping referenced may have been genuine. The microdots, circled by the FBI, were given by Popov to Charles Lanman at the Lincoln Hotel meeting on August 19. Hoover stated in his letter to Major General Watson, however, that the dots were “secured in connection with a current investigation,” suggesting that discovery had been made through astute police work.
Popov’s Lisbon telegram, including two microdots (circled by the FBI), which Hoover included with his September 3, 1941, letter to Major General Watson.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
While Hoover provided translation and enlargement of partial text from one of the dots, he did not mention that they were part of a German questionnaire given to double agent Popov, or that a third of the questions pertained to the defenses at Pearl Harbor. Seemingly intent on hiding the Hawaii information altogether, Hoover sent only the last two paragraphs of the questionnaire, which included none of the Pearl Harbor text, and not any of the eleven Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, or Honolulu references.
The FBI’s English translation of one of Popov’s microdots, and the only part of Popov’s questionnaire given by Hoover to FDR (via General Watson).
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
General Watson’s transmittal letter to FDR.
Franklin D. Roosevelt library
The pertinent portion of the translated questionnaire omitted by Hoover is set forth below:
HAWAII.—AMMUNITION DUMPS AND MINE DEPOTS.
Details about naval ammunition and mine depot on the Isle of Kushua (Pearl Harbor). If possible sketch.
Naval ammunition depot Lualuelei. Exact position? Is there a railway line (junction)?
The total ammunition reserve of the army is supposed to be in the rock of the Crater Aliamanu. Position?
Is the Crater Punchbowl (Honolulu) being used as ammunition dump? If not, are there other military works?
AERODROMES.
Aerodrome Lukefield.—Details (sketch if possible) regarding the situation of the hangars (number?), workshops, bomb depots, and petrol depots. Are there underground petrol installations?—Exact position of the seaplane station? Occupation?
Naval air arm strong point Kaneche.—Exact report regarding position, number of hangars, depots, and workshops (sketch). Occupation?
Army aerodromes Wicham Field and Wheeler Field.—Exact position? Reports regarding number of hangars, depots and workshops. Underground installations? (Sketch).
Rodger’s Airport.—In case of war, will this place be taken over by the army or navy? What preparations have been made? Number of hangars? Are there landing possibilities for seaplanes?
Airport of the Panamerican Airways.—Exact position? (If possible sketch.) Is this airport possibly identical with Rodger’s Airport or a part thereof? (A wireless station of the Panamerican Airways is on the Peninsula Mohapuu.)
NAVAL STRONG POINT PEARL HARBOR.
Exact details and sketch about the situation of the state wharf, of the pier installations, workshops, petrol installations, situations of dry dock No. 1 and of the new dry dock which is being built.
Details about the submarine station (plan of situation). What land installations are in existence?
Where is the station for mine search
formations [Minensuchverbaende]? How far has the dredger work progressed at the entrance and in the east and southeast lock? Depths of water?
Number of anchorages [Liegeplaetze]?
Is there a floating dock in Pearl Harbor or is the transfer of such a dock to this place intended?
SPECIAL TASKS.—Reports about torpedo protection nets newly introduced in the British and U.S.A. navy. How far are they already in existence in the merchant and naval fleet? Use during voyage? Average speed reduction when in use. Details of construction and others.
That same day the President had a forty-five-minute meeting with Japanese ambassador Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The full German questionnaire, together with Popov’s and Jebsen’s reports, likely would have been relevant to the discussion. The following day, September 4, Secretary Watson delivered Hoover’s letter to the President: “I thought you might be interested in this report on German methods of distributing information,” his note read, “just forwarded from J. Edgar Hoover.”
At 2:45 p.m. that afternoon, Hoover had a meeting with the President and Attorney General Francis Biddle. Given the FBI director’s correspondence, and the presence of Biddle, it is doubtful that Pearl Harbor was mentioned.
Dusko, meanwhile, waited for instruction and tended to personal affairs. He hired a Chinese manservant, Chen-Yen, took some flying lessons at Mitchel Field, and otherwise preoccupied himself with a new girlfriend, Terry Richardson.
