A Double Spy

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18366, 7 April 1934, Page 13

A Double Spy

THE title of “ K.14—0.M.66, ” a A sensational book by Colonel Victor Iv. Kaledin, is a compound of the author’s code designations when he was serving simultaneously in the Russian and German secret services, before and during the Great War. Entering the German intelligence branch ostensibly as a “traitor,” but actually with the full cognisance and approval of his Russian superiors, he was able to turn his knowledge of German espionage methods to good account on behalf of his own country.

It was a dangerous game to play, and he was more than once within an ace of exposure, but apparently he contrived to hoodwink his German paymasters to the end. One of Col. Kaledin’s most interesting disclosures is that of the attempted assassination of the Grand Duke Nicholas, then Commandcr-in-Chief of the Russian army, by Austrian spies. A hand grenade was to be thrown at the Grand Duke as he left a hospital at Lutsk. But for the author’s presence of mind, one is told, the attempt would have succeeded.

In 1915 a German agent at Sebastopol, who was also a clergyman, contrived a scheme to bring disaster upon the Russian Black Sea fleet. He managed to enter the lighthouse at Balaclava and, having murdered the keeper and his wife, smashed all the lanterns. The Russian fleet had been decoyed out by a naval raid, and the plotters hoped that in the absence of a warning light the Russian battleships would come to grief on the rocks. This bold scheme was frustrated at the last moment, the German clergyman paying for his audacity with a bullet through the brain. In spite of many sensational stpries, the book as a whole bears the stamp of veracity. Certainly Col. Kaledin has an intimate knowledge of the Russian and German secret service personnel and their respective methods.