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

  On November 19 Johnny went to Madrid to coordinate with the Germans de Bona’s arrival—a dry run through the escape route. A week later Dusko joined him to instruct British Passport Control. Around December 1 de Bona arrived and MI6 coordinated his transit to Gibraltar. Giving him the code name FREAK, SIS provided Frano with a false identity—Canadian Peter Banwedon—and travel documents for London. For the British, he was added to the TRICYCLE net to operate the radio for Popov, GELATINE, and METEOR. For the Germans, GUTTMANN was to make acquaintance with the highest lords of English society—particularly colleagues of Yugoslavia’s King Peter, his friend exiled in London—and encourage them to seek terms with Germany.

  Johnny and Dusko returned to Lisbon on December 3 and 4, respectively, only to find new squatters. Three new German intelligence officers had arrived, including two from the SD. The Abwehr had been steadily losing power and Schellenberg, the Nazi intelligence chief, had been gaining. Whereas Abwehr agents previously had been off-limits to the SD and the Gestapo, the Nazi intelligence arm now boldly ignored protocol.

  Around December 6, Wolfgang Henss, the lanky SD chief in Porto, gave Jebsen a questionnaire to pass to Popov for his upcoming trip to London. The questionnaire was comprehensive, asking for information on everything from the English rationing system to the significance of changes in the English Cabinet. IVAN was asked to acquire copies of publications like the Socialist Appeal and the British Weekly, as well as documents pertaining to conferences in Moscow, Cairo, and Casablanca. Dusko submitted it to MI6 and a copy was sent to London. J. C. Masterman passed it along to Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and Frank Foley forwarded a copy to the War Office.

  On December 20 Major Wiegand arrived, and for the next several days he and Dusko went over details of the escape route. A condition precedent to Dusko’s running of the operation, which Wiegand and the Abwehr accepted, was that Ivo would maintain sole authority over escapees selected. Explaining to Ian Wilson that his discussions with Wiegand were delaying his departure, Dusko wrote: “The man is very pedantic and I think it would be very unwise not to discuss the ‘smuggling’ with him in all detail.”

  Just before Popov left, Henss gave him a second questionnaire. When Dusko arrived in London on January 5, 1944, he carried a cache of espionage. John Marriott, who picked Popov up in Paddington, itemized the spyware:

  Two envelopes containing $10,070 for Dusko’s expenses

  An envelope containing $1,380 for GELATINE

  The principal SD questionnaire

  The last-minute SD questionnaire

  Microphotograph instructions and codes for the wireless transmitter

  A list of seven new cover addresses

  An envelope from Abwehr agent Hans Brandes to be given to a Mr. Rackwell

  A code book, Histoire des Etats-Unis, by Andre Maurois

  A report from Johnny on Germany

  A package for GELATINE containing a five-page questionnaire and two styptic pencils

  A paper containing the name and address of an Abwehr paymaster in Tangier

  Marriott placed the dollars and documents in the MI5 safe and gave Dusko £250 for incidentals.

  One of Popov’s first stops was at the Public Control Department to obtain a visitor’s driver’s license. His card provided: “Dr. Dusan Popov, c/o Section 15c, Foreign Office, London, is hereby licensed to drive MOTOR CARS and REVERSIBLE TRICYCLES.”

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  February 1944 was a tumultuous time for Britain and Germany. The Allies had launched Operation Fortitude South, the deception campaign preceding the invasion of France, and difficulties mounted. On February 18 Hitler sacked Admiral Canaris and ordered the Abwehr abolished, its functions to be assumed by Himmler’s Reich Security Head Office (RSHA), governing body of the Gestapo and the SD. Abwehr station chiefs, including von Karsthoff, were summarily replaced as responsibility shifted to RSHA Amt (office) VI and foreign intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg.

  British and American generals, including Eisenhower, realized that the war hinged on the invasion of France. The Atlantic front, however, was guarded by sixty infantry and nine Panzer divisions, all led by Germany’s best, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The Allied landing spot—Normandy—would be exceedingly tough as it was; if Rommel placed the feared Fifteenth Army and one or more Panzer units there, the invasion would fail, perhaps costing the Allies the war. The goal was to convince the Germans that the Allies were attacking in the Pas de Calais area, some 150 miles northeast of Normandy, and that the best Allied commander, General George S. Patton, would be leading a massive notional army, the First United States Army Group (FUSAG). To assist the charade, the British would place dummy installations, landing craft, field hospitals, artillery, and trucks at Dover, the closest point across the channel.

  The invasion deception success—at least in terms of direct misinformation—would fall largely on the shoulders of Dusko and a Spaniard named Juan Pujol (codenamed GARBO). “You and Garbo vie for the number-one spot on the German spy list for over a year,” Colonel Robertson had told Dusko as the operation began. While not paired, the two agents provided a compelling team. What Popov found appalling—pushing a scrivener’s pen—Pujol found appealing. Juan was regularly spending six to eight hours a day composing secret letters and radio transmissions. From his perch in London, he was sending hundreds of messages to Berlin from fourteen agents and eleven well-placed contacts—all fictional. In like fashion, Dusko found long hours of intense SD interrogation—often six or more—exhilarating. The duel of wits, the danger, the play for unlimited stakes, all suited Dusko’s madcap desire for challenge and adventure.

  But thrusting Popov into the bowels of German Intelligence was risky. Given the close calls with his cover and Johnny’s tenuous situation with the Gestapo, MI5 and the Double-Cross Committee wondered whether the TRICYCLE net could be used at all. If Jebsen were tortured, they feared, he’d reveal the double dealing of Dusko, Ivo, METEOR, WORM, and others. But Dusko’s influence on the highest levels of German Intelligence—perhaps at its zenith in late 1943—had to be utilized. In a memo to Colonel Robertson on December 20, Ian Wilson had urged his boss to risk it, and continue the net’s activity: “There can be no doubt that at the moment TRICYCLE’s stock in the eyes of the Abwehr is extremely high,” Ian wrote. “He was treated like a hero by the Abwehr in Lisbon, and SCHREIBER, in addition to obtaining authority to pay him for three months in advance, took steps to obtain for him questions of the highest grade. Berlin gave a favourable evaluation of his material and I have myself seen a fulsome personal letter of congratulation from MUNTZINGER to ARTIST.”

  Wilson knew, too, that Aloys Schreiber’s star also had risen and that Aloys was now one of the Abwehr’s most influential senior officers. “The fact that SCHREIBER is a very strong supporter of TRICYCLE is of extreme importance,” he noted, “because SCHREIBER is due at any minute . . . to become head of the western part of the Army Intelligence Section of the Abwehr. SCHREIBER will be responsible for passing on TRICYCLE’s material . . . and it seems virtually certain that he will give that material the highest possible backing.”

  But it wasn’t just the information; it was that Dusko Popov was a known entity. “Quite apart from the merits of the material, [Schreiber] is likely to pay more attention to the reports of an agent of whom he has personal knowledge than the reports which come to him from out-stations from agents of whose personal particulars he has no knowledge [i.e., GARBO and his stable of notional sub-agents].”

  Returning to the risk involved, Wilson made his final point: “In the case of every double agent, however well run, there is always the chance that something will go wrong. . . . I do not believe that this risk at the present time is any greater in the case of the TRICYCLE group than with any other agent, and I think we are justified in thinking that TRICYCLE’s material will be more strongly backed by Eins Heer [Army Espi
onage] than that of other agents.”

  Three days later the Double-Cross Committee discussed Wilson’s memo, and the risk/reward gamble of continuing Dusko’s operations and net. At the bottom of his original copy, Ian jotted a short note: “Discussed at XX Cttee 23/12/43. No ban.”; the committee and W Board voted to continue running the TRICYCLE team. While various agents, including GELATINE, would contribute to the overall operation, the four principal operatives of strategic deception were TRICYCLE, GARBO, FREAK, and BRUTUS.

  But the Allies had a problem: ARTIST’s knowledge of GARBO. When Dusko returned to London in January, he had brought with him a report summarizing conversations with Jebsen. Included was a list Johnny prepared—as evidence of his loyalty to the Allies—of a number of the Abwehr’s best agents in Lisbon. ARABEL, the German’s code name for GARBO, topped the chart. Pujol’s case officer, Tomás Harris, was petrified. If the British took no action against Pujol, Harris argued, Jebsen would realize that ARABEL was in fact a controlled British agent. If so, the army of notional sub-agents created by GARBO would be exposed, as well as the entire Operation Fortitude scheme. Harris was aware of Jebsen’s relationship with Popov, but stressed that under duress or torture, Johnny could talk and bring down the house of cards.

  Harris had a point and the committee discussed three options. They could evacuate Jebsen from Portugal, but if they did so the Germans would realize that Johnny had been captured or turned, and would assume that his contacts would be compromised. Alternatively, the British could do nothing and hope for the best, praying that the SD and the Gestapo had more pressing issues than the bona fides of ARTIST and GARBO. This had little appeal, too, since the SD and the Gestapo were already investigating Jebsen. The third option was proactive but messy.

  Assassinate Johnny.

  The committee discussed having MI6 do the job but decided that such action would trigger a massive German investigation that might expose Jebsen’s relationship with the British in general, and Popov in particular. The committee opted to do nothing.

  On the German side, intelligence gathering became at once chaotic and intense. Schellenberg’s Amt VI and the General Staff’s Amt Mil had to absorb some 13,000 Abwehr employees, while ferreting out incompetent and untrustworthy agents. The SD and the Gestapo had long disdained and distrusted the Abwehr, Canaris in particular, and Schellenberg inaugurated a spring cleaning. Popov’s two principal supervisors, Major von Karsthoff and Major Munzinger, would soon be replaced. For the immediate future, Dusko would be managed by a team of SD and Abwehr officers.

  With the invasion pieces in place, the game began. Popov returned to Portugal on February 26 and fired the first salvo of Operation Fortitude South—lies posed as questionnaire answers. The pressing issue for the Germans in early 1944 was the activity at Dover. It was the logical point from which to launch an invasion of France, and the place to which most radio traffic pointed. Were the British making preparations? Was an infrastructure being created from which to launch a massive campaign? What did IVAN see? Were troops already assembled?

  Dusko’s report to the Germans confirmed the Dover hoax:

  During this tour I satisfied myself that preparations were far from complete. I learnt from the claims officer, Major McKenzie, that little had been done since last summer to improve the permanent buildings, such as cook houses, wash houses, etc. used in conjuction with the tented camps which had been set up during the large exercises last summer, or R.A.F. advanced landing grounds in Kent. He said that an extensive programme for repairing and improving these buildings had been drawn up. . . . Chester Beatty* said that a lot of work still had to be done before full use could be made of Dover Harbour. He also said that a recent large-scale exercise in his neighborhood between the 43rd and 61st Divisions had been a shocking failure. . . . Feeding arrangements were hopeless and most of the troops got nothing for over 24 hours. There seemed to be no idea of making full use of cover for vehicles which bunched together in the open.

  What Dusko didn’t know was that the Germans had a bead on him. Two days before his scheduled departure, MI6 Lisbon sent London a startling cable: “WIEGAND states Berlin unhappy about authenticity [of] TRICYCLE’s reports and that TRICYCLE’s present tasks have been set so that answers could be checked.” After almost two months of preparation by various British military and intelligence sources, however, it was too late to modify answers to Popov’s questionnaire. Discrepancies and inconsistencies would have to be overcome by Dusko’s deftness. Compounding the problem was that he would no longer have a friendly ear—von Karsthoff had been reassigned to Vienna and the interrogation would not be conducted by Schreiber, but by new, aggressive SD and Gestapo officers.

  Through what appeared to be an espionage sixth sense, Dusko stopped to see Jebsen before heading to his meeting with the Germans. He recalled Johnny’s warning: “You will report to our SD friends, Schroeder and Nassenstein,” he said. Jebsen’s use of “friends” was sarcastic; Major Erich Schroeder was Lisbon’s strident SD chief, and Major Adolf Nassenstein, whose real name was Nogenstein, was a fanatical Gestapo agent who would later stage a shoot-out reminiscent of the O.K. Corral.

  With some trepidation Johnny added that a third officer was being sent specially from Berlin to interrogate Dusko after the first team finished. “The report you’re making tonight has top classification,” he advised, “important and urgent. They’ll pick your brains down to the last curlicue, and they won’t be gentlemen.”

  Suggesting that he and Jebsen meet afterward in case his story needed “patching up,” Dusko gave Johnny a key to his hotel room and headed to the meeting. At 7:30 p.m. he met the Nazis in a barren villa. For seven hours the Germans took turns cross-examining him about the upcoming invasion. As always, Dusko provided the chicken feed supplied by British Intelligence. He sketched the insignia of Patton’s mighty FUSAG troops and delivered commanding officer names—some actual, some notional. At three in the morning the Germans wrapped up. As they were walking out, Schroeder told Dusko that a superior officer from Berlin would be in town to interrogate him as well, confirming Johnny’s warning.

  When he returned to the hotel, Popov remembered, Jebsen was waiting. How did it go? he asked. The interrogators were party hacks, Dusko said, neither as smart nor as dangerous as von Karsthoff.

  “Wait till the lord high executioner from Berlin gets hold of you,” Johnny shot back. “I’m not sure you appreciate the extent to which the OKW is banking on what you’ve gleaned in London. They trust you but they’ll want to be double sure you haven’t been misled. I can’t put it strongly enough, Dusko: be on your toes.”

  Popov shrugged. “I’ve been in the game for four years now and I’m a smarter fox than they are.”

  Johnny wasn’t convinced. “Oh, you’re a real fox. You can outwit them as long as your head stays clear, but what happens when they give you truth serum?”

  Sodium thiopental—better known as sodium pentothal—had been developed in the thirties and the Germans had been experimenting with it in 1944. A patient under its influence was incapable of lying, Johnny said, and the Abwehr’s Lisbon station had just received a delivery of it. Since IVAN was the only agent undergoing interrogation, Dusko was surely the intended recipient.

  The Berlin specialist would likely ask Dusko’s consent to accept an injection as a gesture of good faith, Johnny said. If Popov declined, they would inject it by force.

  Dusko told Jebsen to finagle or steal a dose. Calling Cecil Gledhill to an emergency meeting, he asked the MI6 station chief to find a physician who “doesn’t ask questions.” Gledhill didn’t ask why Popov needed a doctor, but told him one would show up at his room at six the following evening. On March 5, the day before the meeting with the “Berlin specialist,” Johnny and a Portuguese doctor arrived.

  Stating that twenty-five grams would be the appropriate amount to cause partial paralysis of the nervous system, the doctor plunged the syringe
into Popov’s vein. A few moments later Dusko felt dizzy and sleepy. “With it all,” he wrote in his memoirs, “everything seemed gay and funny. I loved everyone.” He called for Jebsen to bring on the Gestapo, and Johnny peppered him about why he had been arrested and expelled from Germany, what he thought of Hitler, and what he was doing in England. Throughout, Popov maintained composure and answered methodically.

  Jebsen smiled. “Either this truth serum is for frightening children, or you have a will of iron.”

  Dusko asked for a larger dose and at 2:00 a.m.—sufficient time for the first dose to have worn off—the doctor returned and jacked him with fifty milligrams, double the prescribed dosage. Dusko remembered Johnny waking him twelve hours later, at five in the afternoon. He had responded brilliantly, Jebsen said, disclosing nothing. With a bite to eat and a cold shower, Dusko left for his meeting.

  He would need the show of a lifetime.

  Refreshed by his coma-like slumber, Popov felt terrific as he entered Club Sparta at eight. The “Berlin interrogator” appeared and introduced himself as Major Muller. The man was in fact Aloys Schreiber, who had just been promoted to Oberstleutnant and was now replacing von Karsthoff as head of the Lisbon station. Highly regarded, Schreiber for two years had interrogated prisoners of war and reported directly to Hitler. Kindly and patient, Dr. Schreiber probed about places Dusko had visited and sources he had cited, slowly and carefully dissecting every answer.