Handbook for Spies

by Foote Alexander

As a result of my new assignment I received from the Centre numerous books, magazines, newspapers, etc., published in Canada, America, and Mexico in order that I could "read myself in" and familiarise myself with recent developments in those countries. For practical a; well as cover reasons the Centre always requires an agent to have a good working knowledge of the political trends in the countries in which he is living and against which he is working. As I had only one idea, namely to get out of Russia and quit the service of the Centre forever, I naturally feigned great enthusiasm for the project. At last freedom seemed almost possible.

Any idea of a speedy departure from Russia was knocked on the head in November when my health broke down and I became seriously ill with a duodenal ulcer. A legacy from the hectic days of my work for the network in Switzerland, it had not been improved by Russian food and got so bad that I was taken to hospital where I remained for a month and then had a further month in a convalescent home.

I was taken to the Central Military Hospital in Moscow, which was reserved for senior officers and their families, and there I was treated with great kindness and efficiency. The hospital was most competently run on lavish lines, with at least as many doctors and nurses as there were patients. The sanatorium at Bolshova whither I went after my time in hospital was equally comfortable and efficient and I have the happiest memories of this period of my life in Moscow.

I was something of a mystery to my fellow patients as I was an obvious foreigner though I had Soviet documentation. One theory was that I was a high-up German officer, and one elderly general at Bolshova tried to have a conversation with me about military tactics. It was there that I made probably my only contribution to culture and enlightenment during my stay in Russia.

Playing cards were illegal in Russia, but many of the officer patients had brought back packs with them from Germany. I therefore taught all the patients (the sanatorium was mixed, with a preponderance of women) all the gambling I knew. If anyone ever finds a Russian abroad with a profound knowledge of the complexities of gin rummy or stud poker he probably learnt it from me during those winter days in Bolshova.

I returned to the flat in the early days of 1946 but was soon informed that my assignment to Mexico was off as the Canadian spy case had made it impossible for them to get Canadian passports. Vera continued to visit me weekly and she was obviously deeply worried over the Canadian affair, as both she and the director were being blamed for having allowed the organisation to be run against all the rules and regulations.

I gathered that the resident director for Canada had been withdrawn sometime in 1941. Sometime later the intelligence liaison member of the Canadian Communist Party had approached the official Soviet representative in Ottawa and informed him that they were in a position to obtain valuable scientific information. As, owing to wartime conditions, there was no possibility of sending out another resident director who could build up his network in the classic and secure way, the Centre was forced to organise on an ad hoc basis. They had been compelled to use regular members of the legation staff to handle the agents and sources, tasks for which they were not trained, and their position made them particularly vulnerable should anything go wrong. That something did go wrong, and disastrously so, is now history. The repercussions of the case spread far outside the bounds of Canada and affected the Centre's work all over the world, as, quite apart from internal organisational repercussions, it demonstrated clearly to the world Soviet post-war intelligence intentions.

The director and Vera were removed from their posts and replaced about May 1946. I never saw them again nor were they ever mentioned. The Centre has only one penalty for failure.

Vera was succeeded by one "Victor" who became my contact with the Centre. He had not Vera's long espionage background but he had had some pre-war espionage experience in the United States. During the war he had had no connection with the Centre, having served as a staff officer. As a result of his pre-war training he spoke excellent English and was in some ways a pleasanter character than Vera, who had been a little too much imbued with the atmosphere of the Centre to be an entirely agreeable companion.

A little later the new director came to visit me. Like his predecessor, he was not a pure Russian and was also possibly a Georgian, although he had a very Mongolian cast of features and an unimpressive personality, being short and rather squat. About his previous career I know nothing, and the only foreign language he appeared to speak with any fluency was German.