The Lady Is a Spy

by Don Mitchell

  Gina Minguillan Gillis

  (1965–2015)

  and

  Liza Minguillan Beyer

  (1965–2015)

  During her World War II service, Virginia Hall was known by a number of aliases, or “cover” names, to protect her true identity. This is a common practice in the field of espionage. Her colleagues in British intelligence (the Special Operations Executive, or the SOE), US intelligence (the Office of Strategic Services, or the OSS), and the French Resistance would know her by a variety of names, including: Diane, Marie Monin, Philomène, Brigitte Le Contre, Renée, Marcelle Montagne, Nicolas, Germaine, Anna Müller, and Camille. To avoid confusion, I have minimized references to Virginia Hall’s aliases and have relied primarily on her “true name” to tell her story.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  AUTHOR’S NOTE ON NAMES

  PROLOGUE: VIRGINIA HALL’S WAR

  PART ONE: A SPY IN TRAINING

  CHAPTER 1: THE FIGHTING BLADE

  CHAPTER 2: STUDENT OF EUROPE

  CHAPTER 3: STATE DEPARTMENT YEARS

  CHAPTER 4: THE GATHERING STORM

  CHAPTER 5: WARTIME LONDON: WEARING LIFE LIKE A LOOSE GARMENT

  PART TWO: A YANK FOR KING AND COUNTRY

  CHAPTER 6: THE NEW RECRUIT

  CHAPTER 7: VIRGINIA’S INTELLIGENCE CIRCLE

  CHAPTER 8: WARTIME FRANCE THROUGH A SPY’S EYES

  CHAPTER 9: TAKING CARE OF BRITISH AGENTS

  CHAPTER 10: ABBÉ ALESCH: FRIEND OR FOE?

  CHAPTER 11: THE RIVER IS RISING: VIRGINIA’S FINAL DAYS IN LYON

  CHAPTER 12: VIRGINIA’S ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 13: ON THE SIDELINES IN SPAIN

  PART THREE: SPYING FOR UNCLE SAM

  CHAPTER 14: THE OSS: AMERICA’S WARTIME SPY SERVICE

  CHAPTER 15: THE GREAT ADVENTURE: VIRGINIA’S RETURN TO FRANCE

  CHAPTER 16: SETTING UP SHOP

  CHAPTER 17: VIRGINIA TRANSFERS TO THE OSS

  CHAPTER 18: SUPPORTING D-DAY AND OPERATIONS IN THE HAUTE-LOIRE

  CHAPTER 19: VIRGINIA GOES HER OWN WAY

  CHAPTER 20: RAFAEL AND HEMON FALL FROM THE SKY

  CHAPTER 21: HOPING FOR A FINAL MISSION

  CHAPTER 22: THE AUSTRIA MISSION

  CHAPTER 23: A FINAL ACCOUNTING

  CHAPTER 24: THE TRUE STORY OF ABBÉ ALESCH

  CHAPTER 25: RECOGNITION

  PART FOUR: THE CIA

  CHAPTER 26: COLD WARRIOR AT THE CIA

  CHAPTER 27: A NEW BEGINNING

  CHAPTER 28: RETIREMENT

  WORKS CONSULTED

  ENDNOTES

  PHOTO CREDITS

  INDEX

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY DON MITCHELL

  COPYRIGHT

  On a March evening in 1944, a boat pulled out of an English harbor, heading across the English Channel to Nazi-occupied France. On board was Virginia Hall, an American from a prominent Baltimore, Maryland, family and only days away from her thirty-eighth birthday. She was placing her life at great risk by returning to France, where Virginia was well known as a spy. One British intelligence officer would later say of her, “From my point of view and that of many of my colleagues, Virginia Hall can be considered the greatest wartime agent.”

  As the boat left the English harbor, Virginia and her colleague—code-named Aramis—went on deck, where they observed three British patrol vessels following them. The boats tested their machine guns and antiaircraft guns on rocks laying outside the harbor—a sobering reminder that they were about to enter a war zone. After several hours of uncomfortable sleep, they were rousted out of their bunks at around 3:00 a.m. to prepare for their landing in France.

  Self portrait of Virginia in a mirror.

  Fortunately, the sea was calm as two small boats were lowered over the side of the vessel. Each boat contained four men—three to row and a British officer armed with a Thompson submachine gun—to accompany Virginia and Aramis to shore. They rowed in silence. They could barely see the outline of the cliffs in the darkness as they approached the beach. Finally, they heard the crunch of stones as the boats slid onto the shore of Brittany in the early morning. Everyone quickly jumped out of the boats, where two men and two women waited to assist them. The bags were gathered up, and the party walked uphill on cobblestones.

  As her adventure began, Virginia was determined to meet the challenges she knew were waiting for her.

  Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 6, 1906. Her grandfather, John W. Hall, stowed away on one of his father’s clipper ships when he was nine years old. John would later become the master of a ship engaged with the China trade. He would go on to make his fortune in Baltimore as president of the Gas and Electric Company and president of the First National Bank. John’s son, Edwin “Ned” Lee Hall, was Virginia’s father. He had banking interests and owned several movie houses in Baltimore. Ned married his secretary, Barbara Virginia Hammel.

  Baby Virginia in her mother’s lap.

  Virginia’s only sibling was her brother, John, who was four years older. Family lore had it that in their childhood years, John mispronounced Virginia’s name, calling her “Dindy,” and the nickname stuck. They were a close-knit family.

  Young Virginia and her brother, John, with flowers.

  The Halls had an apartment in Baltimore, but Edwin and Barbara purchased a country home outside of Baltimore—Box Horn Farm—in Parkton, Maryland. Their house in the country was a welcome respite from the city, particularly in the hot summer months. The farmhouse had plumbing but no central heating until after World War II, so it was most comfortable during the spring and summer. There were woodstoves and fireplaces to provide warmth during cold weather.

  The family home at Box Horn Farm.

  In order to satisfy the children’s curiosity, the home’s library was filled with books. The farm had over one hundred acres and was looked after by a tenant farmer who worked the property for the family. A train, called the Parkton Local, ran regularly between Baltimore and Parkton, and it made the commute easy for Edwin to attend to his business interests in Baltimore. During some parts of the school year, Virginia would also take the commuter train from the farm to her school in Baltimore.

  Virginia with pigeons.

  Virginia and John loved spending time on the farm. There were hills, orchards, and woods to play in, and the two learned to hunt and fish. The barn was home to horses, goats, chickens, and cows. Handling farm animals would later become valuable to Virginia in ways she could not have imagined during her childhood. Looking back at her time there, Virginia once reminded her niece, Lorna Catling, how important it was to learn everything you can. She remarked that “learning to milk the cows for fun turned out to be very handy.”

  Young Virginia riding piggyback on John.

  Virginia and John (left and middle) on the farm.

  In 1912, six-year-old Virginia Hall began attending the prestigious Roland Park Country School in Baltimore, where she immediately distinguished herself. Virginia loved sports and was an excellent athlete, playing tennis and baseball and going on to become captain of the school’s varsity basketball and field hockey teams. She also enjoyed acting in the school’s theatrical productions—where she sometimes portrayed male characters, a necessity in the all-girls’ school.

  Virginia also became editor in chief of Quid Nunc, the school’s yearbook, and was elected president of her senior class. Virginia’s profile in her senior yearbook stated:

  The “Donna Juanita” of the class now approaches. Though professing to hold Man in contempt, Dindy is yet his closest counterpart—in costume. She is, by her own confession, cantankerous and capricious, but in spite of i
t all we would not do without her; for she is our class-president, the editor-in-chief of this book, and one of the mainstays of the basket-ball and hockey teams. She has been acclaimed the most original of our class, and she lives up to her reputation at all times. The one thing to expect from Dind is the unexpected.

  Virginia (right) playing a man in a costume drama at Roland Park Country School.

  Virginia (standing, second from right) and her teammates on the 1924 girls’ varsity basketball team at Roland Park Country School.

  One of Virginia’s classmates would later recall that “there was a different manner about her. She was not a typical school girl. She was low key, rather than isolated. She was tall, big-boned and striking, but not in a conventional way. She kept her own counsel but was a definite presence.”

  Young Virginia at Box Horn Farm.

  Once, Virginia went to school wearing a live garter snake wrapped around her wrist as a bracelet. Self-confident and seemingly fearless, the school’s ninth graders nicknamed her “The Fighting Blade.” From an early age, it was clear that Virginia was destined to leave her mark on the world.

  After graduating from high school, Virginia went to college to pursue her restless intellectual curiosity, as well as her desire for adventure and travel. She attended Radcliffe College (which later merged with Harvard College) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the 1924–25 school year. She majored in economics, with a minor in foreign languages. She then transferred to Barnard College in New York for the 1925–26 academic year. But Virginia was impatient with these prestigious schools because she wasn’t able to take the courses she wanted without taking what she considered to be “a lot of uninteresting required courses.”

  Virginia’s sympathetic father encouraged her to pursue her academic interests in Europe, where she spent a year at the École des Sciences Politiques in Paris, France, studying economics and history. She then spent two years in Vienna, Austria, where she studied economics and international law at the Konsular Akademie and graduated in June 1929. During her college years, she spent summers studying at the French Universities of Strasbourg, Grenoble, and Toulouse. Virginia also took courses at the American University in Washington, DC, during the 1929–30 academic year, as well as additional courses in French at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

  Virginia’s father, Ned.

  Virginia’s extensive travel and study in Europe gave her the opportunity to learn more about the politics, history, and culture of the continent. Her extended residence in Europe, along with immersive language study, made her fluent in French, Italian, and German, though natives could often tell Virginia was a foreign speaker. She also picked up enough Spanish and Russian language skills to make herself understood where those languages were spoken.

  Virginia’s education and early experiences prepared her for a career in espionage. Prospective spies can be sent to school to learn about foreign languages and cultures, self-defense, firearms and munitions training, and espionage tradecraft such as surveillance and covert communications. But getting through “spy school” is no guarantee that the student of espionage will be successful.

  Virginia’s 1928 passport.

  No single quality guarantees success as a spy, especially in such a specialized and dangerous line of work where exposure—particularly during wartime—can mean imprisonment, torture, and execution. But by the time Virginia had completed her formal education, she had displayed the qualities that would suggest great potential for becoming a successful spy: She was smart with broad intellectual interests; she had an interest in, and skill with, European languages, history, and culture; she was observant; she exhibited leadership; she was self-confident; she had courage; she was willing to take risks but without being reckless or irresponsible; she was focused and determined; she demonstrated an ability to play different roles convincingly as an actress; she was adventurous; she had a love of the outdoors; and she was athletic.

  Virginia would draw on these and other attributes for the rest of her life. But she would later say that all you really needed to be successful in espionage was common sense. And common sense was something that Virginia Hall had in abundance.

  Young Virginia next to a lake.

  Virginia once said that the only way for a woman to get ahead at the time was to have plenty of money or her own business. But Virginia knew herself and characteristically decided to take an independent path by pursuing a public service career in government. Specifically, Virginia wanted to live abroad and work in the State Department. It was her goal to become a member of the professional diplomatic service as a Foreign Service Officer.

  In August 1931, Virginia began her career as a civil servant, rather than a diplomat, in the State Department as a clerk making $2,500 per year. Her first posting was at the US Embassy in Warsaw, Poland. Her other overseas duty stations were Izmir (formerly known as Smyrna), Turkey; Venice, Italy; and Tallinn, Estonia. As a State Department clerk, Virginia’s duties included translation; filing; visa and citizenship work; welfare; and reporting on economic, political, and financial issues.

  Virginia’s Polish ID.

  While she was living in Europe, Virginia fell in love with a Polish army officer. The two seemed to be heading toward marriage, but then things ended. This was not the first time that Virginia had come close to being married. Earlier, when she was attending college in the United States, Virginia was involved with a man in Maryland. The couple was serious, but Virginia found out that he had been unfaithful to her, and she ended the relationship.

  When Virginia was working at the US Consulate in Turkey, an incident occurred that would change her life forever. In the swamps outside Izmir, Virginia and several friends were hunting snipe, a game bird commonly found in marshy areas. While Virginia was experienced with firearms, she had her gun pointed down, and somehow it slipped. When she grabbed for it, she accidentally hit the trigger with her finger. The gun went off, causing serious damage to her left foot. By the time Virginia’s friends got her to a hospital, septicemia, or blood poisoning, had set in. In order to save Virginia’s life, it was decided that her left leg had to be amputated below the knee. An American surgeon rushed from Istanbul to Izmir to perform the operation.

  Teenage Virginia holding a rifle.

  It wasn’t certain that Virginia would survive her injury. One night at the hospital, while she was fading in and out of consciousness, Virginia had a remarkable experience that she would recount over the course of her life. She said that her father, who had died in January 1931, visited her in the hospital room. He scooped her out of bed and held her in his lap in a rocking chair to talk to her. He told his beloved daughter that if the pain she was experiencing was too awful, she should simply let go; otherwise, her mother needed her.

  That was a turning point. Virginia soon got better. She returned to her mother’s home in Maryland to heal, was fitted for a prosthetic limb, and learned to walk again.

  Virginia never allowed her disability to define her in any way. The loss of her leg was just something Virginia dealt with, and she kept moving forward. Within the year, she returned to Europe and the State Department, resuming her clerical duties.

  Virginia and her friend Angelo in Venice, Italy.

  Virginia soon became dissatisfied with being a clerk, and she continued to apply unsuccessfully for a career in the State Department’s Foreign Service. Virginia believed that she may have been discriminated against because of her artificial leg. While serving in the US Consulate in Venice, Italy, Virginia asked her friend Frank Egerton Webb for help.

  Virginia leaning over a canal in Venice, Italy.

  Webb in turn appealed to his influential friend Colonel Edward M. House on behalf of Virginia. He characterized her as “a thorough gentlewoman of great intelligence.” Webb told House that despite having an artificial leg, Virginia “walks without lameness, rows and swims and rides a horse.” He noted that “she was then told that she would never rise any higher owing to the loss
of her leg.”

  Colonel House, a prominent former diplomat and advisor to President Woodrow Wilson, in turn wrote then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 31, 1938, citing Webb’s concerns about discrimination against Virginia because of her disability. House told President Roosevelt, “if anything can be done in reference to Miss Hall, both he and I will appreciate it. It certainly seems unfair to bar Miss Hall from advancement for such a cause.”

  President Roosevelt on the porch at Top Cottage in Hyde Park, New York, in 1941, with Ruthie Bie and Fala.

  President Roosevelt, himself disabled because of polio and who generally used a wheelchair, was sympathetic to Virginia’s situation. “Why, Oh, Why do the regulations governing entrance into the career service prescribe that amputation of any portion of a limb, except fingers or toes, disqualify the applicant?” an indignant Roosevelt wrote to his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, on February 9, 1938.

  It seems to me that a regulation of this kind is a great mistake because it might exclude a first class applicant who had an artificial hand or an artificial leg and was perfectly capable of performing all Diplomatic Corps duties. After all, the Diplomatic Corps does not call for gymnasts; it does not have to climb trees, and I have known many people with wooden legs who dance just as well as many diplomats do who have natural legs.

  President Roosevelt concluded his letter to Secretary of State Hull about Virginia (using a term for people with disabilities common at the time but now considered derogatory): “I feel deeply about it because cripples ought not to be penalized in the Government service if they are capable of performing their work. F.D.R.”