All messages, of course, were always in cipher and the cipher was one that could be read only by the Centre and the resident director. In the case of our net things were slightly different since, as well as Rado, the resident director, I also held my own cipher, and as I had my transmitter in my flat I was able to answer any questions from the Centre often in a matter of hours. Modern ingenuity has also reduced the risk of having a transmitter on the premises. In the old days transmitters were bulky pieces of apparatus which could not easily be hidden. Now they are made so that they do not occupy more space than the average portable typewriter and are capable of disguise in various forms. Any good modern receiving set is perfectly suitable for picking up messages from the control station. So much for communications.
The foregoing account is an attempt to describe how the network is designed to work under ideal conditions, if it follows strictly the lines laid down by Moscow. Obviously circumstances must alter cases and the network must be adapted to fit in with local conditions, but the general plan is constant and, as will be seen, corresponds very closely with the network in Switzerland. Any variations were due to the exigencies of war and occasionally to the human factor- such as the frailties of the resident director himself. A comparison of the two diagrams showing the organisation in theory and in practice shows the similarity.
It may be argued that the above description of the ideal Soviet network bears little or no resemblance to the espionage organisation uncovered in Canada. There the whole case centred round the Soviet Legation in Ottawa itself, and the legation was directly concerned with espionage against Canada. This goes entirely contrary to the canons of classical Soviet espionage. There is, I think, an easy explanation for this, one which accounts for this variation from the normal - and also, I believe, for the comparative ease with which the network was uncovered. If the network had been properly run even the defection of Gouzenko should not have exposed the whole network. But in fact the network was an ad hoc affair set up in rather a hurry.
The reasons for this are not far to seek. At the outbreak of war the main Soviet espionage effort was switched to Germany and her satellites, and the networks working against the British Empire and the United States were allowed to lie fallow. With the German attack on Russia it became even more imperative to mobilise all espionage resources for the current struggle. Also it was obviously politically undesirable for there to be any chance of a worsening of relations between the Allies as might result from the uncovering of a Russian espionage ring working against one of Russia's own allies. As a result the Soviet spy rings working against the Allies were closed down or allowed to lie dormant.
When it was apparent to Russia that victory was only a matter of time and that her Western Allies were so involved in the war that a separate peace was out of the question, the Centre began to think of reviving their networks in the democracies, so that they would be in full working order when peace came and Russia would once more be in a position to obtain information of value to her from her quondam allies but real and ultimate adversaries- Great Britain and the United States. In the meantime, however, the old networks had fallen apart and the old resident directors had been moved to other posts. There was no time to establish new resident directors and as a result the rather haphazard organisation as exposed in the Canadian case came into being. I myself have no doubt that even though this network was paying dividends to the Centre in the shape of good and high-grade information, new resident directors were being established and were building up their networks quietly in the background. The world was sufficiently startled at the amount of information that the Canadian network was able to obtain. I myself have no doubt that the permanent network will do as well - if not a great deal better- if it is not doing so already. Only the network in Canada and portions of it in the United States have been exposed. It is a fair assumption that a similar emergency network existed in England also. Meanwhile the new resident directors should be well established, perhaps in Mexico and France, working and building up their networks against the United States and Great Britain. Time alone will show how successful they are.
THE BLUEPRINT IN ACTION
Having outlined the theoretical layout of a Soviet spy ring, it is now time to give the actual details of the Russian espionage network working against Germany. To a certain extent I am outrunning my narrative, as I did not learn some of the facts and details until much later in my career- some of them not till I went to Moscow. But in order to draw a clear picture of the whole organisation I have here assembled all the details that I learned at all stages. It will be noticed, and a glance at the diagram of the network will show, how closely the actual spy ring corresponds with the blueprint. It must be remembered that I am dealing only with the main espionage organisation directed against Germany and based on Switzerland. Before the outbreak of war there had been several other organisations- of which Sonia's had been only one. These had lost touch with Moscow and been gradually and in part incorporated into the main Red Army network- as had Sonia's. I can speak only of these subsidiary networks in so far as they came into contact with mine. I have little doubt that they were inactive during the war as none of them, save Sonia's, had any means of communication after the fall of France. The unexpectedly swift advance of the German armies threw the whole Russian setup into confusion and caused the amalgamation of the minor networks into the main Red Army organisation.
For the sake of clarity and to keep as closely as possible to the outline given in the previous chapter I have divided the characters roughly under the heads under which they fall in the blueprint.
