WORK OF SPIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 May 1938, Page 3

WORK OF SPIES

THE PART WOMEN PLAY. A woman was recently arrested in New York', on a sensational spy charge, lit this article Lt.-Col. Graham Seton Hutchison (Graham Seton) author of "The W. Plan.” tells of women’s part, both in spying and counter-espionage. The spy, he says, has no protection, no privileges, no entrenchments, no cover. Upon the spy’s services may depend the issues of victory or defeat. the very life of a nation.

The born spy is the man or woman who from dawn to dusk —and long after —each hour and each day, either of work or leisure, keeps the mind receptive to every chance human conBul always must, the spy be alone. Consider the perils of a girl alone, dealing with desperate, unscrupulous men. In war the penalty for espionage) is the firing squad at dawn; in peace, a long term of imprisonment. Traitors selling their country will stop at nothing. Reflect upon the ccurage and resource of a girl who, with her eyes open to the dangers, gives herself to a traitor’s undoing. There is no middle course between sucess and failure. No compromise. Success —in anonymity, with no delicious ftuit as (he heroine of the hour—or destruction. She is fcarlul of substance and of shadow, She has no friends, but everywhere, enemies, | alone, always alone, her own deathwarrant in her pocket. In espionage, women have always played a prominent part as the secrets of the Secret Service might reveal. Of all. Mata Dari, the dancer, is a classic example of one whose technique was to use her charms with which to beguile State secrets frpni men. She was arrested by M. I riollet, chief of the French counterespionage bureau, and executed. Felice Pfaadt, the notorious 1 agent Rl7 was shot at Marseilles on October 22, 1916. La. Tichelly, a chambermaid m the Hotel Meurice, a famous meetingplace of statesmen in Paris, was executed on March 15, 1917. One woman escaped the firing squad—La Ducimetlere, aged 20, trained to treason by one of her lovers. But the French President would not pardon Marguerite Francillard, a girl of 20 also, a vicious and degraded creature, who at her execution be-

wildered tlio soldiers by her loveliness, and, repenting her evil life, was afforded the last rites by the Cure of Vincennes and fell crying, “Vive la France!” Spies are always with us; and as war clouds gather, their activities increase, their agents multiply. The degraded, who sell themselves for gold, are in every capital, without home or Fatherland. They congregate like vultures, wherever there is excitement, money, drink drugs . . . the older, hard-bitten and callous. the more experienced, the und< rworld: of the Diplomatic Corps, secret agents.

The plans of war are made by men. Deep-laid schemes of strategy are arranged behind locked doors; the, details of movement, supply, munitions stored in closely watched' steel safes. P>ecause men make the plans, and most men have the weakness in their armour known as women, the latter are selected to play a part in the Secret. Service.

llow von may ask. are. women trained’ for this work? They are not. They are chosen. Not more than one woman in a. thousand could do the job. A woman’s intuitions and capacity for enlisting confidences are her natural, psychological assets, where! physically she is weak. Very' few women can endure the hourly strain of watchfulness, not only of the ciuurry* but of Hut it is true —‘'Love is Blind!" It it through romance that the suspect traitor is led. so often, to reveal, stage by stage, the plots to which he is privy. In such a work a woman must be possessed' of exceptional ability. It is a high art to be able to judge just what to say at any moment, and never to be caught off one’s guard. To defend themselves against traitors, Governments employ men and women of irreproachable integrity in counter-espionage.