Handbook for Spies

by Foote Alexander

It is obvious what Lorenz, or rather his German masters, wanted. With me out of the way and the code in their hands they could not only pick up the remainder of the network at their leisure but also use the channel for deception purposes if they wished. The Centre had prevented that plan from working, and so the Germans had to fall back on identifying me and then abducting me so that they could extract the necessary information from me by torture.

The Abwehr are nothing if not efficient and they put two operations in hand- both of which were successful. One was probably planned in Paris and the other in Switzerland and it was thanks to this separate planning that, though successful in their primary aim, that of identifying me, they were not successful in their ultimate aim, that of getting me into their power.

Early in June I received instructions from the Centre to meet a courier from France and hand over some money to him for the French network. I was given four different days as rendezvous. The first two inside the entrance of the funicular station at Ouchy, and the last two inside the main entrance of the Botanical Gardens at Geneva. All meetings were to be at midday and I was given the necessary passwords and control questions and also descriptions as to how both the courier and I were to be dressed. No one contacted me on the first three days and it was only at the last rendezvous, the second time I was at the Botanical Gardens, that an individual came up to me and we exchanged the correct passwords and I handed over the money.

The director had ordered me to have no conversation with the courier but merely to hand over the cash and go away. However, the courier handed over to me in his turn a large book done up in a bright orange paper and told me that between two of the pages I should find three ciphered messages which must be sent off urgently by radio to the Centre. He also said that he had valuable information which he wanted to get over and suggested a further meeting as soon as possible and named a place near Geneva- which was also very near the German- controlled French frontier.

All this made me very suspicious as such loquacity against strict orders was unusual in a Soviet agent. I began to suspect that perhaps the original courier had been arrested and his place taken by an Abwehr agent. The orange wrapping would serve as a convenient beacon light for anyone who was trailing me home, and the meeting place near the frontier would serve admirably for abduction in the best Gestapo traditions. As for the cipher messages- if these were also phony, then they would serve as admirable pointers towards identifying my transmitter. I had no doubt that the Germans had long been monitoring the network and if on one of the services that they were listening to they suddenly found the three messages they had planted it would at once identify that transmitter as mine.

I tried to dissemble my suspicions as much as I could and said that I could not attend a meeting that week as I had business elsewhere and so fixed on a meeting in a week's time. On leaving the rendezvous I hid the book as well as I could under my coat and returned home by a roundabout route, taking evasive action. In my next transmission I reported on this fully to the director and he agreed that I should not attend the meeting. As regarded the cipher messages, which were there as the courier had said, gummed between two pages and in a cipher that I did not know, the director asked me to send them over but so to disguise them with dummy groups and then by re-enciphering in my own cipher, that they would neither be recognisable as the original messages to the monitors nor serve as a guide to our cipher to the cryptographers.

A fortnight later the Centre informed me that my suspicions were correct and that the courier had been a German agent and that as I had been recognised by at least one member of the Abwehr I must regard myself in jeopardy and at least partially compromised. I was therefore to break all connection with Rado and his group and contact my own agents only through a system of cut-outs. I took this opportunity to break finally with Lorenz and Laura and told Moscow that this was because they had refused to deal with me through a cut-out. This was probably lucky for me as I learnt afterwards in Moscow that the Russians had discovered from captured German documents that I was to be kidnapped at my next rendezvous with Lorenz and taken to Germany.

From the end of June 1943 I had contact with Moscow only about twice a week, and the traffic was principally concerned with financial transactions and reporting on the liquidation of Anna and her group. As regarded finance, it was about this time that I started my most ambitious single financial transaction. I was arranging for the transfer of a hundred thousand dollars from the United States for our use in Switzerland. The innocent intermediary in this case was a Swiss firm with, of course, a branch in New York. The Centre was being more than usually tiresome and insisting that the money should be paid in ten separate instalments of ten thousand dollars each, while the Swiss company wanted it in a lump sum. The negotiations dragged on for months and it was not till the end of October that a compromise was finally reached whereby the money was to be paid in two equal sums of fifty thousand dollars each. In order to see fair play it had been arranged that the Swiss franc equivalent of this sum, three hundred thousand francs at the black market rate, should be paid into an account in the names of two lawyers, one to be nominated by each side. I approached a well-known Lausanne lawyer, known to me only by reputation, and asked if he would act for me, explaining that it was a normal business black market transaction. Unfortunately for me my arrest came just before the transfer could be made; this was, however, fortunate for the lawyer as otherwise he might have found himself in the embarrassing position of being the unwitting paymaster of a Russian spy.

After I had reported on the arrest of Anna and completed the preliminaries for the transfer of the hundred thousand dollars I had little to do, as I was now out of touch with Rado on Moscow's orders. As a result I got permission from the Centre to take a holiday and so in September I had a well-earned rest in Tessin, far away from the hurly-burly, excitement, and fatigue of international espionage.

In my absence, however, that precious pair, Lorenz and Laura, had not been idle. On my return I questioned my concierge Madame Muller as to whether anyone had been inquiring for me in my absence. She then told me that a couple, answering to the description of Lorenz and Laura, had been round and had tried to pump her as to my friends and my habits. The excuse that they gave was not uningenious. Laura said she was very worried as I had been at one time very much in love with her sister and had indeed not only promised to marry her but things had gone so far that it was imperative that I should marry her. However, at this stage my affections had apparently cooled off and they were trying to find out whether there was not perhaps another attraction which had seduced me from the charms of her sister. If there was someone, then they wished to contact them and warn them of my "true character" as a heartless seducer. They had also visited my charwoman, Helene, with a similar story, and had offered money to both in an endeavour to extract the information.