Sensational Spy Arrests In Detroit

Northern Advocate, 25 August 1943, Page 3

Sensational Spy Arrests In Detroit

a 1.45 a.m.) WASHINGTON. Aug. 24. The arrest of Theresa Behrens, German-Hungarian Secretary for the International Centre of the Y.W.C.A., Grace Buchanan-Dineen and Dr. Fred William Thomas on charges of espionage is announced by the Justice Department. They are all of Detroit and are charged with obtaining information for Germany, including the location of war plants and production capacity. They allegedly gathered information concerning military planes departing for war theatres. The Justice Department said that these were the first arrests under the Wartime Espionage Statutes, which provide the death penalty. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Mr. Hoover) said that the group’s activities since America entered the war centred about Grace Buchanan-Dineen, described as an attractive, well-educated descendant of French nobility, who, though a native of Canada, had been carefully trained by the Germans in espionage work.

Mr Hoover said that Miss Dineen entered the United States on October 27, 1941, arriving at New York on an Atlantic clipper. She first came to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation "as the “mysterious Miss Smith.” of Detroit, in November. 1941. Subsequently she co-operated fully with the F. 8.1., receiving information desired by the German espionage service. ' When she realised she could not carry our her Nazi employers’ instructions, she operated under the surveillance of the F. 8.1., to which she passed on all information which, though forwarded to Nazi espionage superiors abroad, was cleared through the F. 8.1. army and navy intelligence services.