MILLIONS FOR ESPIONAGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

MILLIONS FOR ESPIONAGE

IT is estimated by G-men experts that the Nazi oligarchs who organised the amazing "spy ring" in the United States—three members of which are now on trial in New York spent over £50,000 on that one espionage campaign alone before it was uncovered and disrupted by the American Secret Service and the Federal G-men. A good deal of the money went on bribes—agents were authorised to offer up to £000 and 400 dollars (£80) bills were dangled in front of dazzled keywork nieirs eyes, in exchange for blueprints, drawings, technical information about submarines, anti-aircraft guns, factory output and capacity, defence works, aircraft engines. This is just one angle on the liighvelocity growth of espionage in the contemporary world, where the annual

ByJocelyn ForroW —Copyright

arms bill is now approaching £7.000 000,000, and espionage in the dictatorship lands is on a full wartime scale. In 1033, £f)0,000 would cover the whole aiuiual bill for Germany's foreign espionage—which was then mainly busy in France and Stalin's Red Empire. Now, tens of thousands of spies, employed by at least a score of nations, are prowling around in the vicinity of factories, naval bases, aerodromes, arsenals, barracks,

defence systems, railway and road key points, strategic canals; and it is reckoned that the European nations alone are spending £10,000,000,000 a year on espionage. Last year 374 spies were caught, according to published records (which, in Germany.. take the form of a dull-red official notice pasted up. and announcing that so-and-so has been beheaded for the crime of treason against the .State) iu Europe, the United States, and Britain and the British Empire. How many more were caught in Russia and •Japan, where arrests are not published, is anybody's guess. You can add the additional guess of how many wore spotted and kept under surveillance—an old counter-espionage trick, designed to feed a foreign secret service with false information, or keep the unsuspecting spy "stringing along" until he leads the counter-espionage agents to other members of ,the ring or to some . higher-up the counterespionage badly want to catch and put out of circulation. The German, Japanese and Russian dictatorships are easily the most active now; although latterly the British have rapidly expanded their espionage, and have become very busy. And the first three are also the heaviest-handed. It is almost certain death for the caught spy in any of those three lands. France, and the British Empire, and the United States, are the main "playgrounds" of the Xa/.i and Japanese spies. It is surmised that at least a thousand spies arc busy within the United States, and the figure has been put higher. That is the easiest of all countries to operate iu, according, not only to the American Secret Service, but also to certain spy number ones who have privately discussed technical details of "the business," as it is internally known among the spy fraternity. Conditions are easy in America because there is no integrated police mechanism for tabulating aliens and regularly checking on their whereabouts and activities. In every country a very close check is kept on aliens, who have to report to the police at regular intervals if they protract their stay beyond an ordinary pleasure-trip period. I should put*the figure of a thousand spbs in America—where there are 3,000,000 aliens —as an under-statement.

And The Axe If You're Caught

There arc probably as many in Britain, and that is a very small country to operate in—aJtid not too easy a one for. a spy, either, for the British are pretty wide-awake. Dr. Herman Gortz. a German, sentenced to four years as an aviation spy, found that out. So did four surprised men, who thought they had succeeded in removing secret plan*— including those of a 14•inch naval gun and a depth bomb fuse—from Woolwich Arsenal—the great Government arm* plant, without being detected. A blonde and pretty "Miss X" supplied the evidence—as well as the romantic interest in traditional spy-plot manner—in that case, which resulted in convictions. The American Secret Service were rather proud to catch two of their own citizens, former Lieutenant-Commander •John S. Farnsworth, and former Seaman Henry T. Thompson, betraying naval secrets to Japanese intelligence agents. The two got long sentences. Much Money Spent On Counter-Espionage Most of the money spent by the British and Americans goes 011 counterespionage rather than on attempts to obtain military secrets of their neighbours and possible adversaries. But there is plenty of that direct "probing" now. The British especially, have a very ellicient secret intelligence service operating abroad. It costs the British more than a million a year to keep the various intelligence organisations at work; and that cost may Ik* stepped up again—the whole of the funds are not revealed in the budget appropriation for Secret Service. But on the record alone of German and Japanese spies caught in the last three years, either the British men are exceptionally astute at their job, or the Germans and Japanese are exceptionally clumsy. -It may be a Little of both. But both the German and Japanese agents have more money at their command now, and the Number Ones at home try to avoid direct Spy-employment of their own nationals in Britain especially, and seek to suborn workmen, sailors, soldiers, ollicers, draughtsmen and others in a position to obtain secrets, by the offer of heavy bribes.

The German Gestapo and the Russian Ogpu men gain experience in their countries in secret service work which .sometimes stands them in good stead— and sometimes makes them peculiarly clumsy when they conic to leave the conditions of their own dragooned countries, and operate abroad, Jn the democracies (the Secret Services of both countries draw their chief operatives from the ranks of the home political secret police). The best of the men are graduated for spy work, usually being put in charge of groups, or acting as key men at 'Stations" abroad. Lately three French .spies caught in Germany were exchanged at the frontier for three German spies caught in France. The French could not quite understand this clemency on the part of the Germans —for it amounted to that, the Germane* knowing their men would receive only terms of imprisonment in Franco, while the Frenchmen would pay with their heads, although the fact might never be ofiicinlly known (caught spies often simply disappear). A French spy returning from Germany explained the riddle. One of the three Germans was a valuable Gestapo man who was being trained for a special assignment, and had had the misfor tune to lie caught with the other two Germans in France. The latter were small fry; they were only being visited by the Gestapo man. It suited the latter to pose as one of them—they were suspected of petty espionage around the Maginot Line—rather .than reveal his true identity and be held as a rich prize.