Handbook for Spies

by Foote Alexander

One of the most important sources of information and one of the main recruiting grounds for agents is of course the local Communist Party, referred to in network jargon as "the Neighbour." (Not to be confused with "the Neighbours," in the plural, which means the Comintern or rather the function which continued in Russia after the Comintern had been officially, and of course only in theory, abolished.) In every Communist Party there is one highly placed official whose main task is to gather information gleaned from Party members and fellow travellers and pass it on to the resident director through the main cut-out, who is in close but secret touch with him. It is this official who keeps an eye open for likely and useful recruits and passes their names on to the cut-out. The majority of agents are recruited through this means, and in any case any name forwarded by the network to Moscow for vetting is always referred back to the local Party for their views.

Another useful function of the Neighbour is the organisation of study and discussion groups among young students and intellectuals. From among the members of these groups it is possible to discover likely potential spy material: people who, though not members of the Party, are likely to be amenable to an espionage approach, and people who are either in, or likely one day to be in, posts where they could obtain information of value to Russia. Such promising candidates would be discouraged from openly joining the Party or openly expressing Communist or left-wing views. This ensures that their backgrounds are innocuous should they ever come under suspicion or be checked up by the counterespionage authorities. Such characters are sometimes paid for information which is valueless to the Centre purely in order to keep them on a string in the hope that one day they may advance in their profession and be in a position to supply really vital information. The network is prepared to wait a long time for its information to mature. It is much better, if the time can be afforded, to let your spy work his way gradually up into a position of trust rather than to be forced to make a pass at someone in a high position with the risk of failure or compromise. "Catch'em young" is a motto which applies as well to espionage as to other walks of life.

Once an agent is recruited from the Neighbour, he passes his information direct to the cut-out and severs all connection with the Party intelligence system. His final recruitment will usually take place only after a long period during which time he will not be in touch with the network at all but will be passing his information through the contact in the Party. His material and his background will be checked and double-checked against other information supplied from similar sources and the Party records. Only then will he meet the cut-out and become part of the network. Even then he will be able to compromise only his own particular contact who, if he is arrested, will also be knocked off- but will not compromise the network as a whole.

Apart from agents, which term I have used in this chapter only to cover individuals who actually supply- information- spies in the strictest sense of the word-  the Party also is a recruiting ground for radio-telegraphists and minor cut-outs and couriers. These may be of the nationality of the country against whom the network is operating or in which the resident director is living. The sole task of the couriers and minor contacts is to act as channels for the information from the agent himself to the resident director, and vice versa. In most cases (and this is of course desirable as often as it is feasible) they are unaware of the identity of the agent they contact or the cut-out to which they work, merely meeting them at predetermined times and places and never at their homes. The information or instructions that they carry are either memorised or typewritten. In the latter case the message is typewritten through a well-used bit of carbon paper and the carbon copy is carried and the original is destroyed. This method makes it much harder to identify the typewriter upon which the message was written should it fall into unauthorised hands. The carbon copy is of course destroyed as soon as the resident director has incorporated it into his enciphered message.

As stated, liaison between the resident director and the local Communist Party is usually carried on by the chief cut-out, who is naturally a person in whom both parties have complete confidence. However, on certain occasions when important directives are being transmitted from Moscow, a secret meeting is arranged between the resident director and the Party leaders where the matter can be discussed. This is one of the few occasions when a director comes out into the open, and happens very rarely.

In all agents' messages and in all enciphered texts, only cover names are used for the sources, etc., and the messages are couched in a jargon which would make them difficult of interpretation by anyone not "in the net," so even if the gist of the message could be made out the agent's identity is concealed by the use of the cover name. The resident director has to memorise all the cover names used in his network. English Christian names are most commonly used, and both male and female names are employed indiscriminately without regard to sex: thus a male agent may easily have a female cover name. In cases where a source is only casual and not in frequent use, the director may give him a name which can be easily remembered by association- such as "Red" if he has red hair or "Lanky" if he is very tall. This is used only for unimportant characters whom the director might not easily be able to remember, and is a practice which is discouraged by Moscow, as such a cover name is obviously less secure than a purely arbitrary one.

In addition to persons, countries also have cover names as well and these vary from network to network. In the Swiss network against Germany, Great Britain was "Brazil," France "Florence," Germany "Jersey," and so on. The U.S.S.R. was always "Home." Other institutions and objects also had their own names. In my network a wireless transmitter was a "musical box"; a passport a "shoe"; a forger of false passports thus naturally became a "cobbler"; a prison was a "hospital" and thus the police became the "doctor."

Finance is one of the major responsibilities of a resident director. He is responsible for paying the entire network and submits his accounts to the Centre once a year. He also has to send an estimated budget for the next year's expenditure. This yearly grant is seldom paid in a lump sum, but at least twice a year the director sends a courier to a neighbouring country where he meets a courier from the Centre who hands the money over, always in dollars. This the director is forbidden to put in a bank; he keeps the entire sum in dollars, hidden somewhere, and removes what is necessary from time to time to change it into local currency for immediate expenses. He is, however, sometimes allowed to put the money in a safe-deposit box.

Salaries in a Soviet espionage network bear little if any relation to the work performed. Instead they are based on the amount the individual needs to maintain his position and support his dependents. Thus the anomaly frequently occurs of an old and trusted agent who is doing valuable and dangerous work being paid far less than, say, a cut-out who has been newly recruited but who has a certain position in life to maintain if he is not to come under suspicion.

A resident director receives about two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars a month, depending on his dependents, his social position, and the cost of living in the country concerned. A wireless operator under the same conditions would receive from a hundred to two hundred dollars a month. If, on the other hand, he or she has a regular job as well, all that would be paid would be the actual expenses of the job. Agents are paid by results, but an agent of long standing who has produced consistently good and voluminous information may also receive a fixed retainer. Bonuses are also paid for exceptionally good pieces of work. The rates of pay are based on the amount of money that the member of the network has to expend from his day-to-day living expenses. The Centre does not encourage overpayment, as this might result in the individual's accumulating a large bank balance. This is regarded as undesirable, for not only is it a waste of Soviet government money but it also increases the risk of the person's "going private" (i.e., leaving the organisation).