The Lady Is a Spy

by Don Mitchell

  SOE officials realized that they were fortunate to have an agent of Virginia’s caliber working there. As one official told another: “I think you will find her both intelligent, useful and pleasant to work with. She certainly is capable of getting things done …” The bureaucratic transition became formalized on May 5, 1943, when the SOE asked for approval for Virginia to transfer from F Section to work in Spain, and that the payroll would reflect that fact effective June 1, 1943. Arrangements were also made for Virginia “to travel by the first plane available” to Spain after May 15, 1943. Soon, Virginia was in Madrid.

  There was some concern about paying Virginia adequately for her mission in Spain. She had no embassy affiliation, and while her cover was as a journalist, unfortunately “her American editors will pay almost nothing for articles on Spain.” Yet Virginia needed to be able to have an adequate social profile to perform her mission, “since much of her usefulness will depend on her being able to give and accept entertainment …”

  Virginia’s fame within the tight world of the British government’s clandestine security service had grown, and she received notable recognition for her earlier service in France. Her file in the British Archive contains the following testimonial dated October 19, 1942:

  Since August 1941, when this lady went into the field on our behalf, she has devoted herself whole-heartedly to our work without regard to the dangerous position in which her activities would place her if they were realized by the Vichy authorities. She has been indefatigable in her constant support and assistance for our agents, combining a high degree of organizing ability with a clear-sighted appreciation of our needs. She has become a vital link between ourselves and various operational groups in the field, and her services for us cannot be too highly praised.

  In a telegram to Madrid on July 18, 1943, Virginia was informed, and congratulated by her colleagues, that the United Kingdom was making her a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her outstanding achievement. However, “in view of her nationality and cover, essential celebrations remain strictly private.” This was fine with Virginia as she wished to continue serving as an intelligence agent and needed to maintain her undercover status.

  Whatever gratification Virginia received from being awarded the MBE, it didn’t compensate for what she considered the futility of the work she was undertaking in Spain. In her desire to be useful, Virginia read the French and German newspapers daily. She offered to clip and share newspaper articles of interest with her SOE colleagues. But such activities, while marginally helpful, weren’t enough to make Virginia feel as if she was making a meaningful contribution to the war effort.

  In early October, Virginia notified Maurice Buckmaster and his colleagues in London that she wished to leave Spain and return to France. She felt that she was sidelined in the war effort and wanted to be involved. “I’ve given this a good four months try and come to the conclusion that it really is a waste of time and money.” Virginia had met up with “two of my very own boys here”—agents with whom she’d already worked in France—and proposed returning with them as a radio operator. “I can learn the radio quickly enough in spite of skepticism in some quarters,” she added. Virginia then made her most heartfelt appeal to Buckmaster:

  When I came out here I thought that I would be able to help F. Section people, but I don’t and can’t. I am not doing a job. I am simply living pleasantly and wasting time. It isn’t worthwhile and after all, my neck is my own, and if I am willing to get a crick in it because there is a war on … Well, anyhow, I put it up to you. I think I can do a job for you along with my two boys. They think I can too and I trust that you will let us try, because we are all three very much in earnest about this bloody war.

  Maurice Buckmaster responded to Virginia on October 6, 1943, in a letter affectionately addressed to “Dearest Doodles.” “What a wonder you are!” he remarked. Buckmaster conceded that Virginia could learn radio “in no time” and that “the boys would love to have you in the field.” But he also pointed out his view that the Gestapo would soon find out about Virginia’s return to France, and that was why Buckmaster was refusing to send Virginia back. Buckmaster went on to state that:

  You are really too well-known in the country and it would be wishful thinking believing that you could escape detection for more than a few days. You do realize, don’t you, that what was previously a picnic, comparatively speaking, is now real war, and that the Gestapo are pulling in everything they can? You will object, I know, that it is your own neck—I agree, but we all know it is not only your own neck. It is the necks of all with whom you come into contact because the Boche [Germans] is good at patiently following trails, and sooner or later he will unravel the whole skein if he has a chance. We do not want to give him even half a chance by sending in anyone as remarkable as yourself at the moment.

  Having closed the door on a return to France in the near term, Buckmaster put forward another proposal to Virginia. He told her, “If you are feeling that you are not pulling your weight where you are, why not come back to London and join us as a briefing officer for the boys?” Buckmaster wanted Virginia to return to F Section, where he told Virginia that her duties to her colleagues would require the following:

  To meet them when they come back from the field, to hear what they have to say, to analyze it, and to see that they got their questions answered.

  To see that they are properly looked after from the point of view of material things—i.e., clothes, equipment, etc. In other words, see that the clothing and equipment officers of F. Section produce the jobs in time and correctly.

  To brief the new boys with the fruits of what you have yourself learned and what you have picked up from the latest arrivals.

  Buckmaster conceded that these duties sounded like the same kind of “sit-down job” that Virginia was currently performing in Spain, but he said there was a possible advantage to it. The anticipated Allied D-Day invasion to liberate Europe would likely take place within the year, and when the SOE’s officers went into the field in support of the invasion, Virginia would be well placed to join the effort. But Buckmaster wanted to be clear with Virginia on this point: “I obviously can make no promises as to this at the moment, but it is a possibility.”

  Soon, Virginia was informed that SOE management had approved of her returning to London to work, with her focusing on France. She was asked: “Will you, therefore, make the necessary plans to leave Spain in such a manner as will permit you to return there ‘clean’ at some future date should it be desirable for you to do so.” Virginia returned to the United Kingdom from Madrid on November 29, 1943, and rejoined the SOE’s French Section. She was one step closer to resuming the fight for France’s liberation.

  In the years prior to World War II, the role of gathering information—in other words, intelligence—for the US government was largely left to the State Department and the armed services. Diplomats and military attachés posted overseas collected information in the course of their normal duties with foreign counterparts, and sometimes through secret contacts. Some of this information would make its way to senior policymakers in the administration, including the president. But there was no strategic approach to collecting and analyzing intelligence.

  Robert Murphy, a senior diplomat, later recalled: “It must be confessed that our intelligence organization in 1940 was primitive and inadequate. It was timid, parochial, and operating strictly in the tradition of the Spanish-American War.” As another world war was approaching, President Franklin Roosevelt sought to bring a more strategic approach to intelligence. Roosevelt would ultimately turn to William Donovan to lead this effort.

  William J. Donovan was a New York lawyer who had won the Medal of Honor in World War I for his heroism in combat and made a failed bid for governor of New York in 1932 as the Republican candidate. With war approaching, Donovan became a trusted advisor to President Roosevelt, who was impressed with Donovan’s views on the important role of intelligence in modern warfa
re. In the summer of 1941, Roosevelt tapped Donovan to lead the effort to force the civilian and military services to cooperate more on intelligence matters. On July 11, 1941, President Roosevelt appointed Donovan as the Coordinator of Information (COI), a new civilian office attached to the White House, and placed him in charge of collecting and analyzing information related to national security. As the head of American intelligence during World War II, Donovan would return to active duty as a brigadier general and later was promoted to major general in November 1944.

  General William Donovan of the OSS seated at a desk.

  On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leading America to declare war on Japan. Nazi Germany then declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, and later that same day, the United States reciprocated and declared war on Germany. At the time that the United States formally entered World War II, Donovan’s office had a staff of six hundred and a budget of $10 million, and was viewed suspiciously by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division (known as the G-2), and other agencies that considered the COI a competitor for their own intelligence roles and budgets.

  The newly established Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) also became wary of Donovan’s operation. The JCS became the president’s military advisors, providing recommendations to the commander in chief on strategy and all aspects of war plans related to the navy and the army. The JCS allocated resources and “supervised the collection of strategic intelligence and the conduct of clandestine operations.” It was decided to place Donovan’s organization under the JCS, but in a way that preserved its autonomy and gave it access to the military’s expanding resources. On June 13, 1942, Donovan’s organization became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). But this did not end bureaucratic turf battles that would persist throughout the war.

  The OSS had a number of functions. Among the organization’s elements, in addition to administrative and security support work, was a Research and Development Branch that was made up of technicians and engineers who developed spy gear and weapons. There was also a Research and Analysis Branch, which included scholars, diplomats, economists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and others. Virginia would become a member of the OSS’s Special Operations Branch (SO), the organization’s component dedicated to running guerrilla campaigns, conducting sabotage, and generally subverting the enemy.

  An OSS officer working on a piece of equipment for use in the field.

  The inexpensive, OSS-designed, .45-caliber Liberator pistol was easy to use and widely distributed to partisan groups during the war.

  By late 1944, there were 13,000 men and women working for the OSS, many from the armed services. Approximately 7,500 of those employees served overseas, and about 4,500 OSS employees were women, with 900 of them serving abroad. In Fiscal Year 1945, the budget for the OSS was $43 million.

  British and American intelligence were close partners during World War II, but it took time for this relationship to evolve. British officials had some concerns that the less experienced OSS might compromise British operations in occupied Europe, and Americans were concerned about their own operations being dependent on the intelligence service of another nation, no matter how friendly. But this bilateral intelligence relationship strengthened into a close and constructive working relationship as the two nations’ common objectives and shared sacrifice dwarfed any differences.

  The OSS Special Operations Branch, in particular, worked closely with Great Britain’s SOE. The two organizations jointly created the “Jedburgh” teams to support the D-Day landings in the summer of 1944. Ultimately, there were ninety-three three-person Jedburgh teams consisting of two officers (usually an OSS officer and a British officer), along with a radio operator. Their mission was to assist the French Resistance and the advancing Allied forces, coordinating airdrops of supplies, and supporting sabotage and military attacks against German forces.

  In March 1945, OSS officer William E. Colby (standing) led a joint OSS-Norwegian special operations team into German-occupied Norway to conduct sabotage.

  Philippe de Vomécourt had worked with Virginia in Lyon—he knew her as Marie—and later took over the leadership of one of the groups she organized during her second tour of duty in wartime France. He recalled that “as a neutral she had done many things to help us. She had carried messages for us, she had gone where we could not go. She wheedled the police into releasing many prisoners, including escaping POWs and agents …”

  But after her first operational tour of France with the SOE, Virginia decided she no longer wanted to be dependent on others to be a W/T operator. As she later said, “I became a radio operator because I had become distrustful of radio operators [who] were often careless. Also to be ‘self contained’!” Virginia was determined, and in early 1944, she was trained to be a radio operator.

  French Resistance fighters learning how to use a radio set.

  When de Vomécourt met up with her later in the war, he said that Virginia recalled how she returned to France as a member of the OSS in 1944. According to de Vomécourt, Virginia explained to him what she had to do to return to France after she escaped through Spain and returned to England. He recounted their conversation:

  “Your accent just isn’t good enough,” she was told—and by any normal standards they were absolutely right. But Virginia Hall was not to be measured by normal standards.

  “You can’t go back,” they said.

  “Why not?” she wanted to know.

  “You’d be a danger—a danger to yourself, and a danger to your friends. You’d certainly be a danger to your radio operator.”

  “Well, suppose I learn how to work a radio—would you send me back then, on my own?”

  “Oh yes,” she was told, “all you’ve got to do is learn how to operate a radio and you can go back.” And they laughed as they said it. They did not offer to teach her—and I cannot blame them for that.

  But Virginia Hall ignored their laughs and paid for lessons in radio work with her own money. In three months she had learned how to receive and transmit messages. She went back to the powers that be at the SOE.

  “Now can I go back to France?” she asked. “I know how to work a radio—I don’t need to take anyone with me.” The promise had been given to her casually, thinking it an easy way to discourage her. But “Marie” was hard to discourage.

  The OSS-trained communications officers at a facility in Prince William Forest Park, VA, before deploying them to the field.

  As March 1944 approached, Virginia was preparing herself to begin her second tour of France. This time, it would be far more dangerous as she was now known to the Nazis as an enemy intelligence agent.

  Virginia’s OSS companion for her return to France was an unlikely intelligence officer. He was sixty-one years old, around five feet, nine inches tall with a heavy build. Born in Bordeaux, France, on December 24, 1882, his name was Henry Laurent Laussucq. His code name was Aramis, after one of the three musketeers from Alexandre Dumas’s famous novel, and he was raised and educated in France. He had an engineering degree from the Sorbonne in Paris, as well as a degree from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

  Henry Laussucq: “Aramis.”

  Henry served in the French infantry during World War I, seeing combat against the Germans in St. Michel and the Argonne, receiving three wounds and five citations for bravery. In December 1929 he moved to New York City and became a US citizen. Henry worked as a freelance artist before serving at the New York Journal-American newspaper, where he worked as an art director, producing advertising layouts, illustrations, and promotions for eighty-five dollars per week.

  Henry had tried to enlist in the US Army at the outset of World War II, but he was denied because of his age. His oldest son, a French citizen, was a prisoner of war in Germany and another son was serving in the US Army Air Force. Henry wanted to join the fight against the Nazis as w
ell. Applying for the OSS, Henry suggested that because of his training and experience, he might be useful as a mechanical or architectural draftsman, painter, or mapmaker. He was also fluent in French, with a slight knowledge of German, Spanish, and Italian. His interviewer noted that Henry was “in excellent physical form, despite age. Very energetic and good education—willing to undertake any mission.” In August 1943, Henry joined the OSS.

  Aramis was informed that his OSS mission was to travel to France and establish three hideouts, or safe houses, large enough to accommodate up to three individuals, and to be used as meeting places for members of the French Resistance. The first safe house was to be located in Paris; the second safe house was to be located approximately 62 miles southeast of Paris; and the third safe house was to be located approximately 124 miles southeast of the French capital. The circuit he was establishing was code-named Saint.

  Aramis’s guidance was straightforward. He should establish his headquarters in Paris, or as close to the capital as possible. It was suggested, quite unnecessarily, that he be careful, and that he be in Paris when the liberation of France occurred. All other potential initiatives were left to his discretion, but he was given one admonition by the OSS about protecting operations: “Do not get too thick with the French movements of the Resistance, their ideas on security being quite different from ours.”

  Drawing of Virginia Hall by Aramis.

  Virginia was going to accompany Aramis into France as his radio operator. She was getting her wish to return to France and continue fighting the Nazis. Virginia and Aramis had two meetings prior to their departure from England. Aramis was concerned, however, that Virginia was ordered to establish herself in the Creuse department in central France, some two hundred miles from Aramis in Paris, and therefore not easily accessible to him.