SPIES Are Flourishing In These Days Of Rearmament!

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 13 (Supplement)

SPIES Are Flourishing In These Days Of Rearmament!

THE United States, which believed itself insulated against the intrigues of Europe and the Far East, was startled in June when a Federal grand jury in New York indicted 18 persons, three of them officers of the German military and naval intelligence services, for espionage. But the invoking of the wartime E-pionage Act, with its. broad provisions, to smash a Graustarkian ring of international spies—the largest spy ring uncovered in that country since the World War—was not surprising to those who have watched shadowy and sinister figures—modern Mata Haris and Stiebers—move mysteriously across the stage of international politics in reevmt days. For espionage is flourishing again in the midst of world rearmament.

In the United States restrictions as to military and naval information have been tightened and penalties for spying have been increased. French courts handled nearly 100 cases of espionage last year, M compared with seven in 1932, and restoration of the wartime penalty of death ha* been urged. In Hitler's Reich the fearful ring of the headsman's axe recently has marked the end of several •eeret agents; in Russia's Lyubianka prison the typical Soviet coup de grace— the pi«to! shot at the base of the brain — has punctuated some of the mo*t bizarre trials for treason, treachery and spying •ince the days of de Beauinarchais and Belle Boyd.

Throughout the world spies and •ounter-spie# increase in number and activity whenever the forges of Mars are fanned into flame. They exi*t, of •ourse, even in peace time, but tlie •gents provocateurs, the Ift formers, the international sleuths and secret agents feed on trouble.

Few Spies Ever Wax Prosperous

Ther fe«d, but few, 5f any, ever wax and prosperous, though the mirage of riches may shimmer often before avaricious eye«. They outdo Oppenheim, knt they grow grey early and they die poor—and perhaps young. For the wages ®f spying are so small that the ideal •gent is rarely attracted by the hope of fain alone. Many of the more ignorant and less valuable agents -like Guenther ©"stave Kuril rich, the former Medical Corps sergeant of the United States •Army who collected with diligent obtuseBess information generally available to *" work for 50 dollars a month or a little more.

Often their motives are obscure, de-p----bnried in their past, locked in th»ir iearts and twisted minds. Mata Hari, wore of a glamorous courtesan than a **t-rate spy, spent years of unhappi*®M with a brutal husband before she wcame a dancer and—Later—a secret agent. Fritz Duquesne, whose exploits fa America and other nations during the World War have become legend, was ■*id to have been motivated primarily a hatred of England, traceable back to the Boer Wir when he fought on the •Jde of t.lie Boers.

Hatred—or love, fear or anger, a personality inclined to deceit, strategern and cunning, a na!ure essentially that of the adventurer- Ibis is the human material out of whii-li spies and agents are shaped. In tin l books and novels it is Ime of cuiiiiiry which motivates the spy hero ~,• heroine; actually many—probably most- of t lie jwret agents of the World arc moved bv base reasons.

Tho portrait of a typical spy is •ombre, against the dark background of • shadowy, or tragic, past. The eyes may be shifting and furtive, or bold and

staring. with the fanatic's gleam. The face may he mean and shabby or strong and determined. But there 'is a necessary elasticity of mind and quickness of* action, even a suppleness of conscience conveyed in tlie ol>seure image of thi.3 man, or woman, that nohodv knows. Personality and adaptability are the outstanding essential*; as for 'other equipment, the more the letter. A knowledge of languages—at leant one foreign tongue—is almost a necessity.

I"or the higher-grade agent a vaster field of learning is desirable, lie must have a thorough knowledge (if the country in which h" is to work, particularly of its military set-up. He must have an indelible memory and a sketchbook mind. He must have the rare faculty of making friends easily; he should he the sort who slaps you on the l.a.k and finds out all about you and voiir

business without alarming you in the process. Preferably the spy is not married; preferably he is young, but not too young—a man loses his daring with age and his rashness with maturity.

But the portrait is a confusing one. for there is no certain formula for a good spy. Frederick the Great, of whom it used to be said that he took into tlie field with him one cook and a hundred spies, divided his agents into four classes; common spies, workir-g for a pittance; renegades, serving the enemy as well as you; spies of prominence and consequence working in the hope of large reward, political as well as monetary, and spies forced by fear to spy against their will. The Office of Xaval Intelligence of the American Xavv Department, speaking informally through one of its officers, once said that an ideal intelligence officer—particularly one working in the Far East, where the old lure of the harem and the houri, the wine and the vine, ic still rersuasive—should be a man who cared little for wine and less for women. Xo matter what the character of the spy, the importance of the individual agent who works beyond the pale of the laws of nations has steadily diminished in recent centuries. To-day the individual agent is no longer the kingpin in an informal structure of espionage, but merely a small part in a far-dung and closely knit service of information. Irchind which stand all the resources of (Jovernmcnts and in which are enlisted most of the branches of Government. The great bulk of information is gathered by means within the law. for there has developed in th« high civilisation of to-dav a vast international system of "give-and-take," a system tacitly accepted, in times of peace, by all nations.

This system in America is centred around the army's <; 2. nr Int el licence Section of the Ceneral Statr and the Office of \a\al Jntcllicence of the Navv. 11l !' la lire it centres around the "l)eu\ieme Bureau."' in Britain around M. 1-5 land in other nations st;ifr sections or

divisions roughly c<ra)>!<> to these. Into tin- hoppers comes the -i i~t of ;t]l tho orld. I*i>reign <Wli• •<• and commercial reports, press clippings, book». mot ion pictures, radio t:iik-. interviews with jeturning travellers. For more teehniciil information the War ;md Navv Offices depend primarily upon their 'military and naval attaches ;it principal capitals throughout the world.

I liese officers are in no sen-e spies— if they are wise -but they must 1*? keen an<l intelligent reporters "and observers. Occasionally some of them step across the shadowy border line where the legitimate and tlie tacit meet the dangerous

zone of espionage, and thereby cause grave embarrassment to their Governments. J liree did so not "long ago in the 1* arnsworth and Thompson cases, when three Japanese, former assistant naval attaches in Washington, were implicated in espionage, but, fortunately for all concerned, not until after their departure from the country. Most attaches and most Embassies are content to keep their ears and eyes open, to cultivate wide acquaintances, to travel much, to say little, and to "swap"-—as their Governments dictate—technical military and naval information.

J hit* process of "swapping" is not vastly different from old-fashioned horse-trading; the more shrewdly a nation and its attaches manage it, the 111 ore that nation gleans from other nations, and the less it gives in exchange. If, for instance, an American naval attache in Berlin wishes to see the German dockyards at Kiel, or the training ship Horst Wessel, he mav apply to the Naval Ministry, perhaps with a gentle reminder—if necessarv—that the German naval attache in Washington has been accorded the privilege of inspecting the New York Navy Yard or the N'aval Academy at Annapolis: The exchange often extends to tables of organisation of units and divisions or to highly technical information, such as the characteristics of tanks and ships. We may learn all about the French antitank gun by giving information about our tanks.

As a. matter of fact there are relatively few secrete; although there is a vast amount of information that never reaches the public and may seem hi<rhlv confidential, it is well-known in most War Offices and Admiralties. The AmeriArmy, for instance, is testing an anti-tank gun of the type now used in the German Army, and our newest planes, only a few of which are in service in our army, are bein<r purchased in quantity by several foreign nations.

By--Hanson W. Baldwin

There is, however, eertflin information that is considered genuinely secret, and in these times of suspicion aad fear it is increasing. Some of it, largely concerning technical secrets, such as a new gas, a new alloy producing a higher tensile steel for armour, or war plans including data on mobilisation and general strategy, is held confidential. Other information, such as performance data of new types of 'planes and characteristics of men-of-war, is restricted only for certain periods of time.

This is where the true spv or secret agent fits into the modern picture; he must garner the crumbs of technical information—sometimes, as in Russia. Germany and the Far East, of political and economic information—not openly available to the accepted organisation of which he is a carefcullv-liidden part. Because of this official "swapping" process and the vast information-collec-tion machinery of which the spy is but a co£, there are relatively few spies in the world to-day. despite the vast increase in their numbers and activity in the past few years. Of permanent, paid, professional spies or informers, the United Stotes in peace-time has none, although there are those who collect and volunteer information for love of the game or for patriotism, and there are probably a few who are paid small amounts now and then for specific bits of information. France. Germany, Japan and Russia (the hitter particularly within her own country) have large organisations, and Enjrlnml has one of the most efficient secret services and counter-espiona 2re agencies. Tn oil there are probably fewer than 3000 full-time.

salaried, professional spies operating in and for the world's principal nations to-day. What they «re after and how they work may vary with their employer and field.

Spies of every nation are generally, though often secretly and indirectly, responsible to G-2, the "Deuxicme Bureau," Office of Naval Intelligence, or the corresponding Government agency charged with the collection of secret information. Thus in Hawaii some years ago there were several army men— rative Hawaiian*, half Japanese, etc. — who never wore army uniforms, never appeared at army posts and who were charged solely with keeping track of any subversive activities of Japanese residents in the islands. Many persons knew they were operating, but no one—except a few army officers —knew who thev were, so their value was unimpaired. A spy ring is headed by a field a<rent operating abroad, like Captain von Rintelen, the German saboteur, or von l'apen, his inept chief, and back home is directed by some military or naval officer or sjtecial agent, like Sir Reginald Hall, the Briton of war fame. Through intermediaries and forwarding agents sometimes known as "post offices"— often by circuitous routes, so that those at the bottom rarely know those at the top—the ring is linked. Frequently it operates in several countries.

In the case of the German spy ring uncovered in America, it was learned that the ring operated both in England and in the llnitcd States, and according to Dr. Ignatz T. Griebl, the phvsician who fled to Germany during the investigation, much of the information garnered was supposed to be passed on to Japan through Berlin. The ring was supposed to be headed by German naval officers who directed operations from Oermanv.

A mysterious roving agent attempted to entice good-looking women and other icady human material into the spy and his collaborators included at least three men who were skilled mechanics and worked for a time in military and plane factories. There were other less important agents, like former Army Serjeant Rumrich and Private Erich Glaser or Mitchel Field, L.1., whose efforts were clumsy and fumbling * D

'Ihese people communicated with one another by means of a system of matchbox codes and sent much of their information back to Germany by the '"couriers (who often held humble positions such as hairdressers and dishwashers, but who »«ere important figures in the German secret political organisations and espionage system), at least one of whom was "spotted"' aboard nearly every German ship. If certain information was considered too dangerous for direct transmission by theae means, it was mailed to a Scottish woman, now in prison, who in turn sent the information on to Germany.

Spies are sometimes Jeft and clever; often, particularly in peace-time, fumbling and stupid. The Germans and the Japanese especially, as evidenced by their war-time activities and their subsequent opera bouffe attempts to secure by childish clandestine methods information which would be available to them for the asking, have displayed a lack of understanding of the psychologies of other peoples.

few civilian agents left over from World AA ar days, whose chief activity now is the secret searching of the baggage of suspicious visitors, shadowing of suspects and a checking up on all suspected subversive organisations. Both the army and the navy, however, are often materially helped—in the early stages of investigation before a case is turned over to the G-men—by their reserve officers, often civilians in big positions. Spies of European powers operating in America—perhaps from 20 to 50 fulltime agents, with an unknown number of petty ''tipsters"— are chiefly interested in getting technical information, particularly about aviation, as shown by the data so far -uncovered in the German spy investigation. Technically, America is well ahead of the world in aviation, and knowledge of her technical secrets would help European nations in their race for military supremacy.

Britain was peculiarly successful during tlie last war in obtaining advance information of German plans; the