BRITAIN’S SECRET SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 302, 16 September 1933, Page 18

BRITAIN’S SECRET SERVICE

Busy in Peace as in War

Novelists put it this way:—“Vladimoff has gone to Belgrade . . .yes, the plans. The secret service’ll get him . . . warn Mme. Gruyskaya in Paris, and have the forged passport ready . .” Can you blame them for giving a romantic personality to "X,” the power behind the British secret service, and the counter-espionage which works dqy and night in war and peace? Yet the men behind the British secret service—the "special intelligence” branch of the War Office—are phantoms, who move behind the scenes of international diplomacy. Their names are seldom mentioned. The headquarters staff of "special intelligence” is divided between the grim building of the War Office, in Whitehall, London, and the criminal investigation department of New Scotland Yard, Loudon. There are wings all oyer Europe and America. The organisation in London is devoted chiefly to counter-espionage; that is, the tracking down of spies and the maintenance of their records in the police files, writes Basil Francis in the “Argus," of Melbourne. There ar.e more than 100 men associated with the British secret service. At the beginning of the war there were only 14 men employed by the secret service branch, but this number had increased to 800 by the end of 1918. British secret service work to-day covers every branch of international investigation, which is connected more with Government affairs than with criminal laws. That is why New Scotland Yard plays such an important part in the work. The British War Office intelligence department was established just after the Crimean War, when the scandals of the Crimean campaign forced the Government to set up a statistical department to take an interest in the activities of foreign Governments and the topography of other countries. The headquarters of the secret service were then in London in a little building off Queen Anne’s Gate.

There is no such thing as peace-time for the secret service. The work in Britain is largely routine, involving the control of aliens and the collection of a vast amount of material concerning suspected persons in the pay of other Governments. In spite of the novelists, spies are not arrested when discovered. The Scotland Yard and special intelligence files are full of information regarding men, and a few women, who are paid by foreign Governments to investigate affairs in Britain. They cannot be arrested. In time of peace, anyway, there is insufficient evidence. The secret service moves ouly when necessary. It will not arrest these people because it would bring the searchlight of the press ou its own activities. Also, if these suspected men and women were taken, new ones would be sent over at a critical time when war broke out, and the service would have to begin its investigations all over again. The last spy to be “on the mat” of the British secret service was Mademoiselle Zeinet Vlora, the beautiful Albanian woman, who was found dead “ time ago at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall. She was one of the most romantic spies of the last few years, and she had been associated with one of the most important men in Eastern Europe until an Italian beautv took her place in his affections. Having a diplo-

matic turn of mind, she offered her services to the Italian secret service, which sent her on a special mission to France. It paid her an enormous salary—which is not customary—and after a trial it found that she did not justify it. So she came to London to try her luck. Immediately she came under the eye of the British secret service the British “intelligence” was saved the trouble of taking action, because the beautiful Zeinet Vlora was tracked also by a Balkan official. He tricked her, and, a failure and penniless, she took her life at the Cenotaph. The British secret service works in conjunction with the Chemical Defence Research department, a very “hush, hush" section of the British War Office, in Grosvenor Gardens, London, the right setting for a "thriller” story. Foreign agents are always willing to traffic in any new explosives. A recent discovery was a delayed detonator — the size of a sausage, and made of lead, so that it could not be X-rayed. But experts found that it was divided by a copper disc—sulphuric acid on one side, high-pressure explosive on the other. When held in one direction the cartridge was safe, since the acid did not touch the copper disc. But turn it up. The acid falls on the disc and begins to corrode it. Then 1 The agent who was discovered with this clever little device was trying to market it, and he had made endless experiments, employing copper discs of various thickness, so that he could tell to a second how long it would take for the bomb to explode. Bombs of this type cause a fire at sea in the British merchant-ship Bayropea, when two small cylinders about 4jin. long and Jin. in diameter were found down where the fire Vagan. New formulas for high-pressure explosives are being perfected at the Chemical Defence Research department, and the secrets are closely guarded. New jobs are closely cropping up for the secret service. Soviet anti-British propaganda is always under its eyes. Even the Sunday morning transmissions from the Moscow 100-kilowatt station are taken down in shorthand and noted. Recently an amateur transmitter was discovered working In the north of England without the sanction of the post-office. Anti-British propaganda sponsored by a misguided Soviet agent was the cause of the trouble. In peacetime the men behind actions such as these are simply a nuisance. But in war-time they would be branded as spies. The anti-British propagandainitiated by Lenin and his agents 12 years ago—still gives the service much unnecessary work. The propagandist school in Moscow has the theory that the best agents for spreading Bolshevism are the country’s own nationals. •That is one reason why the Ogpu. which is the active side of the Soviet secret service, has so much trouble with its agents in Britain. They are quickly traced.

The control of aliens and even details such as the checking of passports come under the watch of the secret service. Breeckow, a famous spy, arrived in England with a forged American passport, made out in the name of “Reginald Rowland.” The passport was an excellent forgery, but there was one mistake.