The Spy Game In Europe

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 19 November 1932, Page 14

The Spy Game In Europe

Secret Agents Meet In One Long Struggle

i‘t AMPIIOR ice,’* said the man in the ft , Leningrad barber shop when the barber asked what he would have on his face after a shave. The customer (let us call him Customer Number One) spoke perfect Russian without a trace of accent. A man in a nearby chair (Customer Number Two), who was waiting for his turn with the barber, rose quickly, according to William C. White in the New York “ Herald-TribTme Magazine. . ~ , “Let me see your identification card, lie demanded of Customer Number One. The card, produced, showed the owner to he a resident of Leningrad. . . 1 “I-low long have you lived in this city? “Ten years-” “Get your hat and coat and come with me,” Customer Number Two commanded. The identification card was found to he forged, and four days later Customer Number One was shot as a spy from the Baltic coun-

tries. , ’ And all, Mr White concludes, because he had asked for camphor ice, a common enough facial tonic in the Baltic States, and in Russia, too, before the Revolution —but one which disappeared from Russia after 1918.” The story is one of several told by Mr White to illustrate the prevalence of espionage systems throughout, Europe to-day. One night last June a closed car dashed through the quiet streets of the Polish town of Tschev. The driver swung into the road that leads to Danzig. Beside him were another young man and a woman, Mr White says as he launches into another anecdote: She was Majewska, a dancer, known and cheered in all the night clubs of Warsaw. Now, on this ride, she clung to a little bag, nervously, worriedly, frequently looking behind. Danzig!—three miles away—and; freedom there from t-lie Polish police! The frontier lights showed ahead, and the car slowed down. Instead of sleepy guards, a group of army officers sprang from the frontier - < station —and Majewska and: her friends had taken their last- ride but one. That last ride came three days later —to a stone wall and a. firing squad. • For several months the Polish Secret Service had been receiving discouraging news from Soviet Russia. One by one Polish agents there, men who had ‘worked’ in Russia for long years, were being discovered —and shot. The Soviet counter espionage system seemed to have developed second sight—or had they been furnished, with a list of the Polish spies in Poland? The latter seemed more likely, and investigation showed that four Polish officers,! together with Majewska, were selling to the-Rus-sians information that led to the death of Polish agents. The little black bag which Majewska was trying to get into Danzig offered final proof. Thus another set of spies trapped, another revelation of treachery where loyalty was taken for granted —and another firing squad on a chilly dawn. Embassies are obliged to exercise particular care lest their secrets leak out, either through guile or carelessness. Attaches figure in some "sensational tales. The disappearance of the Italian code hook from the Embassy in Berlin, in 1929, made a sensational tale. A number of countries, particularly Yugoslavia, France, and Russia, were keen to possess this code book. An attache named Garbeceio had charge of the book and kept it under lock and key- Garbeccio had a secretary, a middle-aged Italian woman —faithful, hardworking, but weary of having to work so hard. She was approached by two Yugoslavian agents, and after several weeks agreed to produce the code. She waited for a Saturday, since the code probably would not be needed over the week-end. IIIIIIIIIIIMill!IllIIIIIIIIIIIIiaUtllimmiMUHIIIIIlN UIiriIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIOMIMIII

Then she had a bright idea. Yugo-Slavia, a poor country, was paying her a. large sum ol money for the code; why wouldn’t a, French agent pay a still higher price? So she got in touch with a secretary in the French Embassy, and he Avas delighted. On a convenient Saturday, she took the code from the Embassy, and —the Frenchman photographed it. She then went to the Yugoslavs, and they to, made a copy. She alone knew there were two customers. Early Monday morning she Avent. to the Embassy to return the code book. And there, looking as if he had been, working all night, sat Garbeccio, trying to decode a pile of cables before him. The code book had been missed. The secretary was frantic, but Garbeccio said nothing to the Avoman that day or at any other time. lie had reported the theft to the Ambassador, but fearing punishment from Mussolini, they kept the Avhole matter quiet. Garbeccio’s secretary burned the code book and some time afterwards resigned from the Embassy. From May until the end of September, the French and the Yugo-Slavian Governments read every Italian Foreign Office cable and telegram that fell into their hands, and the Foreign Office AA'as none the Aviser. But in the autumn, Rome learned for the first time that ihe Berlin book had been stolen.

Developments came fast. Mussolini dismissed the entire Embassy staff in Berlin, from Ambassador to footmen, and sent some of them to Lipari, cheerless island of exile. . A A citizen who sells his country’s secrets to a. foreign nation, and is caught, often faces a firing squad even in peace times* In the case of Army officers, death is practically inevitable. Mr White cites certain eases:

Such Avas the procedure in July of last year Avhen Major DemboAVsky of the Polish Army Avas arrested as he opened the house gate of the Soviet Embassy in Warsaw. He and the suitcase he clutched so nervously were hustled into a ear and hurried to the Polish War Office. There the suitcase was opened, and from it poured a roll of documents—the entire mobilisation plans of the Polish Army, showing exactly Avhat that army Avould do in event of Avar between Poland and the Soviet union. A feAV days later, after court-martial, Major DemboAA'skv Avas shot.

. An incident some aa- hat similar, to this occurred in Prague several years ago. An officer in the Czecho-Slovakian Army hurried to the Prague airfield one morning, rushing to cateli the Berlin ’plane. He Avas noticeably excited. He caught the ’plane, but in his haste and excitement left a small attache case behind. Attndants at the field opened the case to discover its OAvner —and ’when the officer returned by the next ’plane to get the ease, he walked into the arms of the police and, a little later, to a Avail before a firing squad. In Slept ember last year, likeAvise, the Poles executed a corporal in their army for selling secrets to the Lithuanians.

Stories of Soviet espionage figure large among the tales which go round Europe, but very little is said of European espionage in Soviet Russia. In some ways it is the most difficult of all countries (barring, perhaps, Japan) for foreign systems to operate in. Every European city has its group of foreigners, retired gentlemen of wealth, business representsjives, students, workmen, and even some unemployed. And a spy can settle down among them without exciting undue attention. The central figure of the German espionage system in 'England before the war was a little German tailor, living in the poorest part of London. But Soviet Russia has virtually no foreign colonies in its cities; it offers no place for private business, for agencies of foreign firms, for retired gentlemen, for any of the hundred subterfuges that espionage agents adopt in other lands. Agents who would reside - in Moscow must .think of new excuses. l«llHIIIMI«IIIIIIII»M m _ , i i» W aiMMiini«n^iiiiiiiiiiiiii»»»« rt «m«im«iii/iimim««M«ii ,, imii |~, i« ,, i« ,,,,, »m ,, » , »*»«»»«*«»'