THE SPY IN VIOLENT YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 128, 26 November 1938, Page 26

THE SPY IN VIOLENT YEARS

THE United States, which be- -^probably most—of the secret agents lieved itself insulated against of the world are moved by baser reathe intrigues of* Europe and sons, the Far East, was startled The portrait of a typical spy is recently when a Federal Grand sombre, against the dark background

Jury in New York indicted eighteen persons, three of them officers of the German military and naval intelligence services, for espionage, writes Hanson.

But the invoking of the wartime Espionage Act, with its broad provisions, to smash a Graustarkian ring of international spies—the largest spy ring uncovered in this 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 recent days. For espionage is flourishing again in the midst of world re-arma-ment.

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 150 cases of espionage last year, as compared to seven in 1932, and restoration of the wartime penalty of death has been urged. In Hitler's Reich the fearful ring of the headsman's axe recently has marked the end of several secret agents; in Russia's Lyubianka prison the typical Soviet coup de grace—the pistol shot at the base of the^rain—-has punctuated some of the most bizarre trials for treason, treachery, and spying since the days of de Beaumarchais and Belle Boyd.

Throughout the world spies and counter-spies increase in number and activity whenever the forges of Mars are fanned into flame. They exist, of course, even in peacetime, but the agents provocateurs, the informers, the international sleuths, and secret agents feed on trouble.

They feed, but few, if any, ever wax fat and prosperous, though the mirage of riches may shimmer often before avaricious eyes. They outdo Oppenheim, but they grow grey early and they die poor—and perhaps young. For the wages of spying are so small that the ideal agent is rarely attracted by the hope of gain alone. Many of the more ignorant and less valuable agents—like Guenther Gustave Rumrich, the former Medical Corps sergeant, of the United States Army who collected with diligent obtuseness information generally available to all—work for 50 dollars a month or a little more.

Often their motives are obscure, deep-buried in the past, locked in their hearts and twisted minds. Mata Hari, more of a glamorous courtesan than a flrst-rate spy, spent years of unhappiness with a brutal husband before she became a dancer and—later—a secret agent. Fritz Duquesne, whose exploits in America and other nations during the World War have become legend, was said to have been motivated primarily by a hatred of England, traceable back to the Boer War when he fought on the side of the Boers.

Hatred—or love, fear or anger, a personality inclined to .deceit, stratagem, and cunning, a nature essentially that of the adventurer —this is the human material out of which spies and agents are shaped. In the books and novels it is love of country that motivates the spy hero or heroine; actually many

of a shadowy, or tragic, past. The eyes may be shifting and furtive or bold and staring, with the fanatic's gleam. The face may be mean and shabby or strong and determined. But there is a necessary elasticity of mind and quickness of action, even of suppleness of conscience conveyed in the obscure image of this man, or woman, that nobody knows. Personality and adaptability are the outstanding essentials; as for other equipment, the more the better. A knowledge of languages—at least one foreign tongue—is almost a necessity.

For the higher-grade agent a vaster field of learning is desirable. He must have a thorough knowledge of the country in which he is to work, particularly of its military set-up. He must have an indelible memory and a sketch-book mind. He must have the" rare faculty of making friends easily; he should be the sort who slaps you on the back and finds out all about you and your 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 the field with him one cook and a hundred spies, divided his agents into four classes: common spies, working for a pittance; renegades, serving the enemy as well as you; spies of prominence and consequence working in the hope of a large reward, political as well as monetary, and spies forced by fear to spy against their will. The present Office of Naval Intelligence of the American Navy 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, is still

persuasive—should be a man who cared little for wine and less for women.

No 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. Today the individual agent is no longer the kingpin in an informal structure of espionage but merely a small part in a far-flung and closely-knit service of information, behind which stand all the resources of Governments 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 the high civilisation of today 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 G-2 or Intelligence Section of the General Staff and the Office of Naval Intelligence- of the Navy. In France it centres around the "Deuxieme Bureau," in Britain around M. 1-5, and in other nations staff sections or divisions roughly comparable to thse. Into the hoppers comes the grist of all the world: Foreign office and commercial reports, Press clippings, books, motion pictures, radio talks, interviews with returning travellers. For more technical information the War and Navy Offices depend primarily upon their military and naval attaches at principal capitals throughout the woijld. These officers are in no sense spies —if they are wise—but they must be keen and intelligent reporters and observers. Occasionally some of them

step across the shadowy border line where the legitimate and the tacit meet the dangerous zone of espionage, and thereby cause grave embarrassment to their Governments. Three did so not long ago in the Farnsworth 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 this country. But most attaches and most embassies generally 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.

This process of "swapping" is not vastly different from old-fashioned horse-trading; the more shrewdly a nation and its attaches manage it, the more 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 may apply to the Naval Ministry, perhaps with a gentle reminder—if necessary —that the German naval attache in Washington has been accorded the privilege of inspecting the New York Navy Yard or the Naval 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 anti-tank gun by giving information about our tanks.

As a matter of fact there are rela-

His Role in Military Affairs is Shrinking

tively few secrets; although there is a vast amount of information that never reaches the public and may seem highly confidential, it is well known in most War Offices and Admiralties. The American Army, 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 being purchased in quantity by several foreign nations.

There is, however, certain information that is considered genuinely secret, and in these times of suspicion and 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 new mem-of-war, is restricted only for certain periods of time.

This is where the true sp. 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 carefully hidden part.

Because of this official "swapping" process and the vast informationcollection machinery of which the spy is but a cog, there are relatively few spies in the world today, despite the vast increase in their numbers and activity in the past few years. Of permanent, paid, professional spies or informers, the United States in peacetime 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 latter particularly within her own country) have large organisations, and England has one of the most efficient secret services and counterespionage agencies. In all there are probably fewer than 3000 full-time, salaried, professional spies operating in and for the world's principal nations today. What they are 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 "Deuxieme 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—native Hawaiians, 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 they were, so their value was unimpaired.

A spy ring is generally headed by a field agent operating abroad, like Captain yon Rintelen, the German saboteur, or yon Papen, his inept chief, and back home is directed by some military or naval officer or special 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

and There are Few Secrets

for Him to Discover

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 the U.S.A.. it has been learned that the ring operated both in England and in the United States, and according to Dr. Ignatz T. Griebl, the Yorkville physician who fled this country for 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 Germany.

, A mysterious roving agent attempted 5 to entice good-looking women and other ready human material into the spy ring, and his collaborators included at least three men who were skilled mechanics and worked for a time in some of our military and plane factories. There were other less important agents, like former Army Sergeant Rumrich and Private Erich Glaser, of Mitchel Field, Long Island, whose spying efforts were clumsy and fumbling.

THese people, communicated with one another by means of a system of match-box codes and sent much of their information back to Germany by the "couriers" (who often held humble positions such as hairdressers or dishwashers, but who were 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 these means, it was mailed to a Scottish woman, now in prison, who in turn sent the information on to Germany. ,

Spies are sometimes deft and clever; often, particularly in peacetime, fumbling and stupid. The Germans j and the Japanese especially, as cvi- ; denced by their wartime activities and' their subsequent opera bouffe at- j tempts 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. In the spy ring, members of which have been indicted here, one of the accused wrote at least one threatening letter demanding information from a young naval; officer, whose name he had picked at random from the Army and Navy Register, a service publication. In another instance he tipped a soldier one dollar to supply him with the venereal rate at a local army *post; and at other times he obtained with a great air of mystery the number of officers and men stationed at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, figures which are readily available to anyone.

abandoned, but not until a "tip" had put the counter-espionage agents of the Government on the job.

In this country investigation and prosecution of espionage cases in peacetime are entrusted to the Department of Justice, with the G-men acting as sleuths in co-operation with G-2 of the. army, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and other Government agents, such as State Department and Customs men,. postal inspectors, and the Secret Service. The Army and Navy. Bureaus have practically no investigating staffs; the navy has 'a few civilian agents left over from WorJd War days, whose chief activity now is the secret searching of the baggage of suspicious visitors, shadowing of suspects and 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 this country—perhaps from twenty to fifty full-time agents, with an unknown number of petty "tipsters" —are chiefly interested in getting technical information, particularly about aviation, as shown by the data uncovered in the German spy investigation. Technically, America is well ahead of the world in aviation, and knowledge of our technical secrets would help European nations in their race for European military supremacy. European spies preying upon European nations and Japanese spies ferreting here are exceedingly interested in war plans, details of defences, and information which would help their employers directly in war rather than indirectly in the preparations for war. , And, of course, when war comes, the emphasis of all intelligence organisations is shifted immediately—with the aid of greatly expanded and strengthened staffs—to the effort to get as full and comprehensive information of enemy plans and operations as possible, in order to avoid surorise. Britain was peculiarly successful during the last War in obtaining advance information of German plans; the British were fully informed of j German operations and concentrations before the Battle of St. Quentin, rh 1918, and prior to other battles, and j yet their armies were beaten. For even though espionage services should perform their functions wellnigh perfectly—and they rarely do, for sooner or later all of them blunder— they are only one element, and not a major element, in a nation's complex defence. There is little evidence to support the theory that any spy ever won a war, and although today the secret agent's field of opportunities has increased, hie difficulties have many times multiplied. Thus the spy. though he may be always with us—an adventurer in fact as well as '■ in fiction, a man mean or mighty, a "glamour" boy of a secret world—will probably never again rock thrones, or destroy nations, as he helped to do in years now long gone.

In fact the blundering methods of this German ring betrayed it; some of its local agents had concocted an impossible Oppenheim scheme, to lure Colonel "H. W. T. Eglin, commanding the Sixty-second Coast Artillery (anti-aircraft) at Fort Totten, Queens, to the. McAlpin Hotel, in the hope of there relieving the colonel of very secret documents which he did not have and never carried! The plan was