Into the Lion's Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond

by Larry Loftis

  Wilson also prepared a number of stories for Dusko to memorize, some verbatim, about information or rumors he had acquired from fictitious officers concerning British and American troop training and deployment, hospital accommodation for civilians, air-raid shelters, army lorries seen transporting barge sections, electrically propelled canoes manufactured, commercial shipping, construction of a “large plane” at Hartfordbridge Flats, Sherman tanks delivered, and the American development of blimps and helicopters for submarine warfare. Weaving in the finest details, Wilson also imagined that Dusko’s tailor had mentioned a large number of senior officers having battle dress made or altered.

  Finally, Ian connected Dusko’s lifestyle to his duties: “It is proposed to take TRICYCLE to visit certain south coast towns. . . . He has already reported on his notional visit to Bournemouth and should therefore see the place, and, as a keen spy, he should I think have taken his girl friends to different south coast towns on various weekends.” Popov would have no trouble with female names and von Karsthoff would have no trouble believing it.

  That evening Wilson gave Dusko homework—independent of the data noted in his memorandum—“so that he should have the right general background”: two volumes of press clippings and several books on the British Air Force, the Royal Armoured Corps, and other military matters. Although not recorded in MI5 files, it is likely that Popov cursed the day he had been given a lawyer as a case officer.

  While Robertson, MI6, and half the British generals in England worked on producing Wilson’s information, Ian took Dusko on a field trip: June 17 to Bournemouth, June 18 “on a tour of the coast between Brighton and Hastings.”

  Without girlfriends.

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  On June 20 Wilson heard from the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry that Popov’s diplomatic passport had been prepared. The Portuguese visa would be forthcoming in a few days, they said, but since Yugoslavia had no diplomatic ties to Spain, Dusko was on his own for a Spanish visa. The British couldn’t help either, Ian noted, since “the last thing we wish to intimate to the Spaniards is that we are interested in TRICYCLE’s trip.” Dusko would have to get to Spain by hook or by crook once he was in Lisbon.

  Two days later Ian received instructions from MI6 on how Popov was to contact SIS agents in Madrid and Lisbon should he run into trouble. In Madrid, he was to contact a “Senor Gallegos” at Orfila 7, or call him at 35059. Dusko was to identify himself as “Gregorio.” In Lisbon, he was to contact Colonel Jarvis at Passport Control, calling 29105 from a pay phone. He was to speak in French and give his name as “Monsieur Jean.” As before, the rendezvous would be at the Tennis Pavilion in Tapada da Ajuda, this time two hours early. At night he was to ring 29942 and ask for the duty officer, again giving his name as Monsieur Jean. Any meeting with MI6, the instruction stressed, was discouraged absent dire emergency.

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  The following week another scare arose. MI5’s Anthony Blunt* received word that the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry had, with its issuance of Popov’s diplomatic passport, recorded that “Doctor POPOVIC is going on a special mission to Spain for the British.” Such a leak not only imperiled Popov’s mission for Operation Mincemeat, it risked blowing his cover in general. Dusko had warned the British several times to be careful with his identity when dealing with Yugoslav emissaries, and it was discovered that the leak most likely emanated from Rakic or Vladimir Milanovic, assistant foreign minister.

  Once again, Popov was on a tightrope.

  It would get worse. Just before he was to leave, Popov wrote in his memoirs, Wilson and Robertson showed up at the Clock House with an urgent warning. “You may be walking into a trap in Lisbon,” they said. One of the agents coming through the first escape route, the MI5 officers explained, was likely compromised. THE WORM, a twenty-seven-year-old Czech named Stefan Zeis, had disappeared during the trip and was now seen regularly at Hotel Lutetia, Abwehr Paris headquarters. The route had backfired, it seemed. Dusko couldn’t believe it; Ivo had assured him that everyone coming through would be a double agent working in the underground. The danger was obvious. WORM had been working with Ivo for months, knew he was being sent to London as a double, and knew all secrets, Dusko’s included.

  “You’re probably burned,” Robertson said. “As a personal friend, I advise you not to go.”

  Dusko appreciated Tar’s concern and the risk, but his mind was settled. He had asked for danger, for something important, and now he had it.

  “They won’t kill me first thing.”

  Wilson winced. “You might wish they had.”

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  On July 16 Popov boarded his flight at Whitchurch Airport with Wilson’s words surely ringing in his ears. Watching the green squares of Bristol disappear beneath him, he assumed this would be his last trip. Von Karsthoff would unwind his maze of lies and the big cat would finally devour him.

  Though he expected the Germans to kill him, Dusko was not afraid. He was angry. “I was angry that after all I would not see how it would work out, and that I would [not] know the end of Hitler,” he later told an interviewer. The thought of not returning to Lisbon never crossed his mind. “I was completely engrossed in the struggle,” he wrote, “and could no more think of abandoning it than, say, Rembrandt could allow himself his final gasp while in front of an incompleted canvas.” Popov would finish the canvas.

  He packed a Luger.

  While he had no fear of dying, and largely expected it, he had no intention of being tortured. “I would shoot my way out of a tight situation, or be killed in the attempt.”

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  On the flight over Dusko had much else to think about. His covers and assignments for the trip were precarious. In addition to his Portuguese visa, he was carrying an Egyptian visa, which Portugal had required in granting transit to Lisbon. He was also carrying a Yugoslav diplomatic bag containing a questionnaire and other documents—for the British. His official cover was as attaché to the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry, and he was supposedly traveling to Cairo and Lisbon as a diplomatic courier. But his duties were quite real: The Yugoslavs wanted him to continue running the escape route from Madrid; the British wanted him to visit Spain for Operation Mincemeat and Lisbon for pumping information from von Karsthoff; and the Germans wanted to interrogate him as a possible double. Over the next two weeks he would have to fool the Portuguese, Spanish, Yugoslavs, and Germans. He was, as it were, a Matryoshka doll—each identity hidden and layered inside another.

  He aged.

  Arriving safely in Portugal, he took up his usual suite at the Palácio. That evening, Dusko recalled in his memoirs, he headed to his pickup on the Estoril road. In pitch darkness he practiced what he had been taught at Arisaig: the quick draw from a shoulder harness. Again and again he drew his Luger, making sure the weapon slid freely and didn’t catch on his coat.

  The Abwehr car arrived, and as he jumped in the backseat, he noticed that the driver was new. At the villa she showed him to the drawing room and left to notify the major.

  Dusko scanned the room. Two doors—one on the right, which led to the dining room, and double French doors on the left, which led to the garden. That would be his escape route. Slipping his hand inside his jacket, he pushed the Luger safety catch forward, unlocking it, and moved to the French doors.

  Suddenly, steps behind him—

  “Turn around slowly, Popov, and don’t make any sudden moves.”

  Von Karsthoff’s voice was hard. Ludovico had entered quietly through the hall entrance behind him. Dusko’s heart pounded.

  This was it.

  He slipped his palm over the pistol.

  20

  TICKING

  As he began to turn, intending to shoot in one motion, he caught von Karsthoff’s reflection in the window. The major was alone, unarmed, and had a small monkey on his shoulder.

  Dusko dropped his hand, his coat still concealing his weapon.<
br />
  The animal was a gift from an agent in Africa, Ludovico said, and if frightened, might bite. Pulse still racing, Dusko chuckled as if mildly amused and asked the major to put the animal away.

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  Later that summer British Intelligence received evidence that Popov was wearing his mask well, observing what Lethbridge had told him—to act as if he were a genuine German spy. On August 1 MI6 Lisbon notified Frank Foley about a “Mrs. Jackson,” whom Dusko had met the year before in New York. Celia Jackson, the report said, was astonished to see Popov at the Palácio, and complained to Passport Control. Given Dusko’s “strong pro-Axis bias,” she could not understand why he was allowed to travel from the UK to Lisbon. She also “thought it strange that he should be persona grata with the British authorities.”

  Thanking Mrs. Jackson for her patriotism, the British said they’d look into it.

  Over the next week Popov met with von Karsthoff, Sahrbach, Jebsen, and Kammler. Ludovico didn’t question Dusko’s loyalty, and embraced the notion of a Yugoslav escape route wholeheartedly. He was excited about the possibility of sending German agents through, and suggested that Dusko could run it from Madrid or Berne.

  OHMS file cover.

  The National Archives of the U.K.

  Popov’s sketch of Abwehr structure given to MI6 Lisbon on August 10, 1943.

  The National Archives of the UK

  The report Dusko turned in to MI6, however, raised a red flag. Kammler and Jebsen had told him privately, he wrote, that “they were sure he was working for the Allies—and that if he wasn’t he was a fool!” Johnny, they expected, but Kammler? The man who had given Popov a bad mark for his work in America? The man whom Johnny had considered his worst enemy? Was the Abwehr supervisor playing Dusko and Johnny only to build a dossier to send to Berlin?

  Popov’s notes regarding von Karsthoff and Kammler’s real names and German code words.

  The National Archives of the UK

  Dusko’s report, which sketched out the Abwehr structure as he knew it, along with German code words, was highly regarded. Frank Foley sent both to Tar, together with Popov’s other notes. Dusko’s diagram, Ian Wilson noted the following day, was “remarkably accurate,” the code names reported with “remarkable accuracy.”

  Meanwhile, the Germans made arrangements to create a forged Yugoslav diplomatic bag for Popov to carry to London. They had borrowed his official legation letter and sent it to Berlin for duplication. Weeks later the Abwehr returned the letter with a stamp and seal matching exactly the Yugoslav original. Dusko passed the information along, and Ian Wilson began working on a scheme whereby the British would take temporary possession of the real bag, and permanent possession of the forged bag. A triple-crossed diplomatic bag. The Germans, it turned out, wanted Dusko to sneak a wireless radio to London in the forged bag, while the British wanted him to carry secret materials.

  Dusko made two forged Yugoslav bags.

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  Between 1942 and 1943, Popov’s romance with Simone Simon had fizzled, but he wasted no time harvesting fresh fields. Days after his arrival in Lisbon, British censors intercepted a letter from London addressed to him at the Yugoslav Legation. The woman was new, but the tone familiar:

  My darling,

  How have you been lately? . . . Darling, it seems ages and ages and ages since I last saw you and I can’t tell you how much I miss you—I can’t write it in a letter . . . and anyhow there is not enough paper around here for me to put it all down. . . .

  Darling, I haven’t anymore [sic] news but I shall write again soon—

  All my love to you always sweetheart—Thinking of you all the time.

  Nani

  »

  Weeks later, Nani would send a second letter to her darling Dusko, this one ending with all her love “and more—Nani xxx.”

  Dusko’s darling in London, however, competed with another darling in Lisbon. In a memo to Tar on August 20, Ian Wilson noted that before Dusko left he had requested assistance in acquiring English visas for the Bailoni family, most particularly Ljiljana, who was now twenty-one.

  “Evidence from various independent sources,” Wilson wrote, “has recently reached us that TRICYCLE is paying considerable court to Ljiljana. TRICYCLE is doing an extremely good job of work under conditions of considerable risk at the present moment. He would undoubtedly be an easier agent to run if he became a little more settled in his domestic habits, which he probably would be if this girl were here, whether or not he entered into the marriage tie.” Ever the thoughtful and thorough case officer, Ian asked Tar if MI5 could assist in bringing Ljiljana to London.

  In the meantime, Dusko went to Spain to investigate Operation Mincemeat. “I checked in Madrid,” he later said, “and found that they had swallowed the whole story.” As Montagu had assumed, local police had photographed the papers Major Martin was carrying and had given copies to the Germans. Berlin perceived the documents as genuine and sent troops to Greece and Sardinia, submarines to Crete. The Allies would meet little resistance in Sicily.

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  By the time Dusko returned to Lisbon, the WORM had surfaced in London. On August 1 Wilson and Masterman interviewed him at the “Reception Center.” WORM had not been turned, they happily discovered, and made an “extremely good impression.” He was prepared to double, not only from national interest, but also to protect Ivo’s position in Belgrade. WORM also carried particularly valuable information about Ivo and Johnny. In a meeting with Dr. Popov in Paris, Zeis said, Ivo informed him that Dusko was a German agent and that he was “90 percent certain, but not entirely sure” that he was doubling for the British. Ivo asked him, Zeis continued, to warn Dusko that the Germans might suspect that some of his information “had been faked,” and to have a good explanation ready when he returned to Lisbon.

  Zeis added that Dr. Popov had given him and two other escapees false passports which had been produced by the youngest Popov, Vladan. All Popov brothers, it appeared, had joined the Allied cause independently. Robertson placed WORM in the TRICYCLE network, and Dusko had his fourth sub-agent.

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  One day when Popov and Jebsen had an afternoon free from von Karsthoff and Kammler, they headed to Cascais.

  “During an air-raid Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Himmler took refuge in the same air-raid shelter,” Johnny said with a grin. Their bunker “received a direct hit. Who was saved?”

  Germany.

  Johnny’s joke about the Nazis confirmed their silent meeting of minds. While Dusko had not told Jebsen specifically that he was working for the British, he was certain Johnny knew. With their cards partially on the table, Johnny told him to move from London due to the rockets the Germans were about to launch.

  “What rockets?”

  “Some new invention. From 120 to 150 are fired together, and each of them has the same effect as a two-thousand-kilo bomb.”

  “Don’t be a fool, you are influenced by the German propaganda.”

  “It is true.”

  “Where should I go and live?”

  “Scotland.”

  Jebsen was referring to the FZG-76—a rocket bomb later called the V-1 or doodlebug. Developed by Werner von Braun, it was launched from the ground and flew like a bird thousands of kilometers to hit a target.

  Dusko noted the warning and asked Johnny what Berlin thought of agent IVAN’s work.

  “There are two types of people in the office in Berlin—Nazis, who are damned idiots, and reactionaries.” The Nazis were too stupid, Johnny said, to question Dusko’s genuineness. The others, who might suspect him, would remain silent since voicing their concern would be adverse to their own interests. Nevertheless, he warned, Dusko’s work had to improve for the sake of Johnny’s protection against the Gestapo.

  The secret police had already tried to get rid of him, he said, and would try again.
In one of Johnny’s currency exchanges some Gestapo had given him forged notes; when he complained, rumors spread that “a group of Gestapo people were making money at the expense of the Third Reich.”

  Himmler had one of them shot.

  Johnny couldn’t return to Germany, he said, because the Gestapo would certainly execute him. Up till now the Abwehr had been protecting him, and the Lisbon station had specific orders to do so. Kammler had even said, “In case of emergency you had better go to England.” But if he didn’t return, his wife Lore would soon be receiving visitors. The Nazi protocol of Sippenhaft—exacting revenge on one’s family—was swift and sure.

  Complicating the matter for MI5 was Johnny’s relationship with Dickie Metcalfe, Dusko’s sub-agent BALLOON. On August 31 Ian Wilson prepared a memorandum for Robertson, Masterman, and Marriott. In it he gave an update on Metcalfe, and the delicate handling of him vis-à-vis Popov and Jebsen. “I cannot help feeling,” he wrote, “that the Germans do no[t] place any real trust in information given by BALLOON.” If that was the case, Wilson warned, Jebsen was caught in the middle. “I think we can assume that, as JEBSEN knows that TRICYCLE is controlled, he equally knows that BALLOON is controlled. He seems to have concealed from Berlin TRICYCLE’s real position, but it is not clear that he is pretending to Berlin that BALLOON is also alright.”

  Wilson posed the dilemma: “It is, of course, illogical for Berlin to believe in TRICYCLE and at the same time regard BALLOON as controlled, but unless that is their attitude I cannot understand why TRICYCLE was not asked to bring a new ink, money and cover addresses to Lisbon.” Ian countered—thinking as a German—that the British would not allow a controlled agent to travel to Lisbon. In either case, the situation was troublesome.

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  A day or so later Dusko visited the Bailonis. The farm offered quiet therapy and refuge, and for a few hours at least, he needed both. As he pulled in, Ljiljana rushed up.