by Larry Loftis
Early in September he met again with Lanman and told Charlie that he’d like to take Richardson on his trip to Hawaii. Without explanation, Popov recalled, Lanman replied that Hawaii was off. Dusko was shocked. If the Germans found out he never went to Hawaii—his most important task—his cover would be blown. He pleaded with Lanman, but the case officer said Dusko would have to take it up with Hoover when the director came to town in two weeks.
About this time, J. Edgar sent a note to Foxworth: “Sam: see Connelley in N.Y. and get this Popov thing settled.” Sam didn’t get it settled, and Hoover and Popov left town—Hoover with his partner Clyde for vacation, Popov with Richardson to Miami. If Dusko couldn’t luxuriate in the luaus of Honolulu, he’d settle for the sands of South Beach.
He notified Lanman of the trip and offered that they would stay at any hotel the FBI wished. Richardson was looking for a house to rent, he said, and if Terry found something they might transfer after a few days. Charlie arranged for daily contact, and Dusko and Terry left New York on September 14. Three days later they checked into separate rooms at the Pancoast Hotel on Miami Beach. Lanman, who had flown to Miami in anticipation of Dusko’s arrival, reported the details to Connelley, who passed them on to Hoover. While Charlie would check in periodically with Popov, the FBI would secretly monitor Dusko’s and Terry’s calls from the hotel.
Dusko spent the seventeenth swimming, and the next day he and Terry went deep-sea fishing. That evening they went to Jack Dempsey’s Club and Bar at the Dempsey Vanderbilt Hotel.* What happened next is disputed. Popov wrote that on Saturday, September 20, while sunning on the beach with Richardson, his attention “was drawn to a man who stuck out like a fur-clad Eskimo in a nudist colony.” The man was an FBI agent, who motioned him for private conversation at the beach bar. There, a second agent waited and the G-men informed Dusko that he was in violation of the Mann Act. Officially titled the White-Slave Traffic Act, the 1910 law made it a felony to transport across state lines “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” Thinking the interruption was a shakedown, Dusko offered to fetch his wallet to clear things up. The G-men responded that they were on orders from Washington, and if Dusko didn’t put Richardson on a plane that day, they’d arrest him and he’d spend a year in prison, minimum. Realizing that the agents meant business, Dusko complied and Terry caught the next flight out.
Terry Richardson by the pool at Pancoast Hotel, Miami Beach, September 17, 1941.
National Archives and Records Administration
The FBI version of the story was that the agents merely kept surveillance. They knew when he was leaving, where he was staying, and what he would be doing each day. Bureau records state that Richardson flew to New York of her own accord on Saturday evening, September 20. Popov, meanwhile, returned by car on the twenty-first and arrived in New York at 4:00 a.m. the morning of the twenty-third.
Back in Manhattan, Dusko was fit to be tied. Hoover had blocked the Hawaii trip, seriously jeopardizing Popov’s cover, and—if his story was true—had spoiled his Florida vacation. By Popov’s account, Foxworth called about ten days later and summoned him to Rockefeller Center. Behind Sam’s desk,* Dusko wrote—“looking like a sledgehammer in search of an anvil”—sat Hoover. There was no introduction or greeting, and the director wasted no time expressing his displeasure. “You’re like all double agents,” Hoover said, bristling. “You’re begging for information to sell to your German friends so you can make a lot of money and be a playboy.”
“Hoover had no use for me,” Dusko later told an interviewer. “He detested my life style, my whole playboy reputation—the fact that I enjoyed going out with beautiful models and actresses, like Simone Simon. I explained to him that my personal life was my own affair, and that, besides, the Germans would become suspicious if I didn’t live up to my reputation as a capricious millionaire’s son. I told him I would gladly live in a slum if that would really help the war effort—but he just wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.”
According to Popov, he reminded Hoover of the purpose of his mission and reiterated his warning of where, when, how, and by whom America was going to be attacked. The director would hear none of it, and later that day Dusko called Colonel Ellis to complain. Ellis said that he’d discuss the matter with William Stephenson, who had FDR’s ear. In the meantime, Dusko would have to bide his time and work with Lanman as the FBI saw fit.
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Some challenge the veracity of Popov’s story. Clarence Kelley, the FBI director who succeeded J. Edgar, stated categorically that Popov and Hoover never met, pointing out that FBI files show no record of a meeting. Yet the absence of internal memos proves little. If they did meet, the lack of such records could readily be explained by Hoover’s “Do Not File” system, formally established in 1942 for FBI “Black Bag” jobs. Hoover biographer Anthony Summers explained:
Edgar made an art form of concealing information in alternate filing systems, or simply not recording it at all. Edgar’s office records, released only in 1991, show that he was indeed in New York in late September 1941, the approximate time of the meeting alleged by Popov—a fact Popov could not have known when he wrote his memoirs. Popov did not concoct his story in the seventies to create a publishing sensation, as detractors suggest. He reported the episode to his superiors at the time.
William Stephenson, BSC director and liaison between Popov and the FBI, confirmed the meeting. “He [Stephenson] said Popov had indeed met Hoover—he knew all about it,” said Stephenson’s biographer. “He thought it was a terrible failing in Hoover.” Anthony Summers, who interviewed Colonel Tar Robertson and the widows of two of Popov’s closest associates, Ewen Montagu and William Luke, found consistent testimony: “He [Popov] was debriefed when he got back to London,” Tar stated in 1990, “and he certainly reported that he’d seen Hoover. He was not going to make up a story of the nature he reported to us, that he and Hoover had had an awful row. I can’t see any reason for him to make up such a story.” Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Luke agreed, stating that their husbands “had no doubt Popov saw Hoover.”
The evidence of the Popov-Hoover meeting seems compelling, but even if Popov never personally spoke with the director, Dusko’s delivery in August 1941 of the German questionnaire—which revealed technical planning for a Pearl Harbor attack—is verified by countless reports, letters, and documents now housed in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the British Archives, and the U.S. National Archives. An additional document at the FDR Library, dated October 1, 1941, sheds light on Hoover’s motives. In a letter to the President, care of Secretary Watson, Hoover boasted that the FBI had one-upped the Germans: “As a matter of fact,” he wrote, “the Bureau’s technicians have been able to reduce the photograph to an even smaller size than that used by the Germans. I am attaching three charts which illustrate the extent of the photographic reduction and the appearance of the dot as it is later viewed through the microscope.” Hoover, who was now competing with Donovan’s OSS for intelligence jurisdiction, was parading the FBI’s lab in an effort to sway the balance of power.
On October 5, 1943, the FBI sent MI5 a twenty-four-page summary of Popov’s activities, which stated: “Tricycle was furnished with a letter of instructions in German, which letter was turned over to British authorities [Dick Ellis of BSC] upon his arrival in the United States, who in turn handed it to our representatives [Earl Connelley and Charles Lanman]. These instructions were in the form of eleven microphotographic points and contained the following information.” The memorandum continued, setting forth much of Popov’s German questionnaire but omitting seven paragraphs. Ironically, it included all sections pertaining to Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.
There were eight investigations concerning the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor:
The Roberts Commission (December 18, 1941–January 23, 1942)
The Hart Inquiry (February 15,
1944–June 15, 1944)
The Army Pearl Harbor Board (July 20, 1944–October 20, 1944)
The Naval Court of Inquiry (July 24, 1944–October 19, 1944)
The Clausen Investigation (November 23, 1944–September 12, 1945)
The Hewitt Inquiry (May 14, 1945–July 11, 1945)
The Clarke Investigation (September 14–16, 1944, and July 13–August 4, 1945)
The Joint Congressional Committee (November 15, 1945–May 31, 1946).
None of them mention Dusko Popov or the German questionnaire. Dusko was never called to testify before any commission or other fact-finding committee. “There have been official inquiries and courts-martial,” he stated in 1973, “but in none of them have I ever read or heard mention of the documented evidence of the Japanese plans that I brought to the United States.”
Admiral Kimmel, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, became the Pearl Harbor scapegoat. In his memoirs Kimmel stated that he had been given none of the “Magic” intercepts (which began September 24 when the Japanese failed to receive the results of Dusko’s questionnaire) of Japanese messages pertaining to the December 7, 1941, attack. He also was not given Popov’s questionnaire or the Taranto information from Jebsen and von Gronau.
Hoover biographer Curt Gentry summarized the information quarantine: “As far as the FBI’s role was concerned, the Pearl Harbor cover-up was completely successful, with one exception. The British knew.” Unfortunately, however, Popov, Stephenson, Montagu, Ellis, and the entire staffs of British Security Coordination, MI5, MI6, and the Double-Cross Committee were gagged by Britain’s Official Secrets Act. The German questionnaire and Popov’s warning would remain a secret until the release of Masterman’s Double-Cross System in 1972. Since then, both have been revealed by countless sources, including Popov himself, Lieutenant-Commander Ewen Montagu, British Security Coordination Director William Stephenson, BSC staffer H. Montgomery Hyde, and biographers of Hoover, Donovan, Stephenson, and Menzies.
After the war, in the April 1946 issue of Reader’s Digest, Hoover put a creative spin on how the FBI acquired the microdots. In an article entitled “The Enemy’s Masterpiece of Espionage,” J. Edgar set forth a masterpiece of subterfuge. Rather than explain how MI6 and BSC loaned double agent Popov to the FBI as part of a joint effort in counterespionage, Hoover stated that the FBI had discovered a “Balkan playboy” who was a German agent. To compound the ruse, Hoover also wrote that his men had discovered the microdots.
Incredibly, Hoover wrote:
One day in August 1941 we met a youngish traveler from the Balkans on his arrival in the United States. We knew he was a playboy son of a millionaire. There was reason to believe he was a German agent. With meticulous care, we examined his possessions. . . . While a labratory agent was holding an envelope so that the light slanted obliquely across its surface, he saw a sudden tiny gleam. A dot had reflected the light. A dot—a punctuation period . . . a black particle no bigger than a fly speck. . . . Under the microscope it was magnified 200 times. And then we could see that it was an image on a film of a full-sized typewritten letter; a spy letter with blood-chilling text. . . . We now knew that the Balkan playboy had orders to investigate not only our atomic energy project but also to report on monthly production of planes, how many were delivered to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and how many American pilots were being trained. Under questioning, he was bland, affable, and, seeing that we knew about the dots, he began to gush information. He had studied under the famous Professor Zapp, inventor of the micro-dot process, at the Technical High School in Dresden. . . . Through the constant scrutiny of micro-dots we got a daily insight into the doings of various gangs. They were viciously active, acquiring information on . . . the extent of destruction of our oil stores in the attack on Pearl Harbor. . . . On one spy we found what seemed an innocent telephone message on a crumpled memo form from a hotel switchboard. But the printing of that blank contained two periods which when enlarged contained several messages.
The article included significant misstatements, some intentional, some perhaps innocent. To date, the FBI contends that Popov and Hoover never met. Yet in 1946 Hoover wrote that “in August 1941 we met a youngish traveler from the Balkans.” [emphasis added]. The context would indicate that the FBI director is including himself in the pronoun “we.”
More importantly, Hoover’s statement that “there was reason to believe he was a German agent” was knowingly false and intentionally misleading. The FBI director knew that Dusko was a British double agent and had insisted that the FBI, rather than the BSC, run him. Discussions between British Intelligence and the FBI about Popov had begun as early as the spring of 1941. On March 15 that year Guy Liddell entered in his diary: “Arrangements have been made for him [Popov] to obtain an American visa from Portugal and an Egyptian visa from New York. He can get into touch with us in Lisbon and will be contacted both by us and by the F.B.I. in America. In America he will stay at the Waldorf Astoria.”
On June 5, 1941, J. Edgar himself had assisted in securing Popov’s visa, writing to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, Jr., to clear Dusko’s entrance. Perhaps couching his interest as part of an “investigation” to protect Popov’s identity, Hoover wrote: “It would be of value to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in connection with its current investigations pertaining to the national defense if we were afforded the opportunity of talking with Mr. Duchan [sic] M. Popov in the United States. We will, therefore, appreciate anything that may be done to make him available here.”
While Hoover led the American public in 1946 to believe that Popov was an enemy agent, on August 21, 1941, he had advised Assistant Director Earl Connelley that Dusko had been operating as a British counterespionage agent, that the British government was sponsoring him to the U.S., and that the American Embassy in London had vouched for Popov’s “honesty, his reliability, and his loyalty.” Yet J. Edgar’s article painted an entirely different picture. “With meticulous care, we examined his possessions,” Hoover wrote, falsely claiming that the FBI discovered the microdots through investigation. As with his self-promotion to FDR, Hoover was now soliciting accolades from the American public.
It is noteworthy that Hoover mentioned the Balkan playboy’s duties “to report on monthly production of planes, how many were delivered to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and how many American pilots were being trained.” The director was quoting from the last part of Popov’s German questionnaire, yet he omits the section just above it: “Naval Base at Pearl Harbor.”
J. Edgar Hoover’s article for Reader’s Digest, April 1946.
Reader’s Digest
Hoover continued the sham, suggesting that Popov “began to gush information” under FBI questioning. J. Edgar’s statement that Dusko “had studied under the famous Professor Zapp, inventor of the micro-dot process, at the Technical High School in Dresden” is also erroneous; Dusko never studied in Dresden, never had a professor named Zapp, and Zapp did not invent the microdot.
Dr. William White, a microdot expert and technology historian, commented in 1992 on Hoover’s statement: “Since the names of all German instructors in photographic science are well documented, it seemed strange to us that there was not a single reference to this ‘famous Professor Zapp’ anywhere in the vast and well-ordered German bibliography of photography.” Walter Zapp, White points out, invented the Minox 9.5 mm subminiature camera but had no involvement with microdots, as Zapp himself admitted in 1981.
“On one spy we found what seemed an innocent telephone message,” Hoover continued, not revealing that the spy was the same “Balkan playboy” he had just mentioned. By implying that this spy was in addition to the playboy, Hoover led the reader to believe the FBI was harvesting a litany of enemy agents.
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Why such unscrupulous sleight of hand by the FBI director? Hoover’s vehement opposition to the OSS and anyone threatening his turf—na
mely Donovan and BSC chief Stephenson—led to his ongoing efforts to publicize and exaggerate FBI efficacy. The Reader’s Digest article was an attempt, like Hoover’s letter to FDR, to position himself and the FBI in the best possible light. That Hoover thought the article would somehow escape the eyes of MI5, MI6, the BSC, Stephenson, and Popov is mystifying.
What Hoover included to highlight his agency’s brilliant “discovery” of a microdot, like the telegram sent to the President for the same purpose, Popov gave to the FBI. The “innocent telephone message” Hoover referred to was the “scrap of paper” cited by FBI Special Agent Charles Lanman in his December 24, 1941, report on Popov’s trip to Rio. As Lanman wrote, Dusko met with Albrecht Engels and Captain Hermann Bohny on December 1 and the Germans placed two microdots on a small piece of paper for him to carry in his pocket back to the United States.
Hoover included in the Reader’s Digest article a copy of the message. What he didn’t disclose was that it was from the Copacabana, notifying Dusko on November 29, 1941, that a Minister Alves de Sousa, Brazil’s ambassador to the Yugoslavian government-in-exile, had called. The message, translated from the Portuguese, reads: “Minister Alves de Sousa asks your Exa. to call him at hotel Luxor—27-00-95.”
Did Hoover assume that neither Ambassador Sousa nor Popov would see the image in the article? Sousa did see it, and phoned Popov to complain about the unwanted publicity. Since Hoover had portrayed Popov as a genuine German spy, and Sousa’s name was clearly legible on the image, the ambassador likely feared political (if not criminal) repercussions. Angered, Popov later wrote, he called Hoover’s office and left a message. He received no response. After a second call went unanswered, he flew to Washington and marched into FBI headquarters. When Dusko told an assistant that he wanted to speak to the director about the Reader’s Digest article, the man said that the director would not see him. Exasperated, Popov told the aide to tell J. Edgar that if the director didn’t speak to him, he would hold an immediate press conference and expose the whole matter. The director had time to see him after all. When he went in, Hoover exploded and threatened to throw him out of the country.
