Double Cross in Cairo

by Nigel West

Stress should be laid on the great skill and ingenuity with which Levi ran his case in the early days, without which it could never have been developed. The point should not be overlooked that Levi may be tempted at some future date, if not treated generously enough, to make money by selling his story to the press. It would be most unfortunate if it came out prematurely and in a manner we could not control. This is thought to be a strong argument for generous treatment and for an explanation that it is given partly as the price for secrecy.

  Having been paid, CHEESE drops from view as far as Whitehall is concerned, but it is believed that he returned to Italy to collect his wife and son, and then travelled to Australia, having chartered a banana-boat and filled it with a cargo of Turkish carpets which he then sold in Australia. He died in Italy in 1954, never having fully recovered from the malnutrition he experienced while in prison, the details of his remarkable adventure apparently buried forever in MI5’s secret archive.

  It was not until David Mure, who served in ‘A’ Force and chaired the 31 Committee in Beirut, published his memoirs Practise to Deceive, in 1977, that a slightly garbled account of the CHEESE case was made public for the first time following a fleeting reference by J. C. Masterman in The Double Cross System of the War of 1939–45 as ‘a famous double agent of the Middle East … apparently blown in 1941 but was built up again and became once more effective in the summer of 1942’.

  Unfortunately Mure, without access to official records, unaware of Levi’s true name or background and heavily reliant on postwar conversations with Noel Wild, gave a rather fanciful account of a double agent codenamed ORLANDO, and tried to correct the error three years later in Master of Deception by describing another spy, codenamed MOSES. In fact, of course, Mure had conflated several different real and notional agents and succeeded in muddying the waters.

  The policy of successive postwar governments was to maintain secrecy about clandestine operations in case similar strategies might be needed in a future conflict, and unauthorised disclosures, or the speculation of individuals such as David Mure, were strongly discouraged by the authorities. Accordingly, almost nothing was said publicly about CHEESE and, even when his MI5 dossier was declassified, considerable efforts were made to redact any clues to his true identity. The secrecy surrounding his case was perpetuated only after details had been released about other wartime double agents because he had been run by SIME, an organisation that was wound up in 1958. Although MI5 would continue to have a peacetime existence right up to the present day, the British withdrawal from Palestine and Egypt eliminated the need for a large regional security apparatus and SIME simply disappeared, most of its remaining staff being absorbed by either MI5 or ISLD’s parent, the Secret Intelligence Service. However, the files in SIME’s registry, the essential, functioning heart of any intelligence structure, were not all repatriated to London, and most were consigned to the War Office and to the care of British Middle East Headquarters in Nicosia. Accordingly, what survives is a disparate collection of ostensibly unrelated files, together with various reports that, read separately, give little idea of what was accomplished.

  Levi himself, of course, was one of the war’s most remarkable spies and, working in relative isolation, was wholly dependent on his own mainly notional spy-ring. Furthermore, his handlers had absolutely no previous experience of the management of double agents, and essentially wrote the handbook on strategic deception, a concept that was entirely novel at that time. By the end of the war CHEESE had demonstrably fabricated a plausible but bogus Allied order-of-battle and, equally impressively, had conveyed it to the enemy. By any standards, this was an astonishing achievement, and the fact that the entire operation was kept under wraps for so long is equally remarkable.

  Often, in the shadowy world of espionage, it is hard to discern cause and effect, to find a definite link between a message conveyed by an agent, and its verifiable consequence. In the case of MINCEMEAT, MI5’s celebrated deception scheme undertaken in April 1943, it was possible to recover some enemy signals that suggested certain troop deployments had been made to the Balkans as a direct consequence of a German acceptance of the false material found on the body of a bogus military courier, ‘Major William Martin RM’. Equally, documents captured after the war proved that a message from GARBO on 5 June 1944, the day before D-Day, had persuaded the Nazi High Command to cancel the transfer of the 1st SS Panzer Division from the Franco-Belgian border to Normandy. Such compelling evidence is rare, yet we now know from intercepted signals, captured enemy documents and the interrogation of prisoners, that CHEESE accomplished more, over a longer period, than any other single Allied agent. Although, ironically, Renato Levi himself knew little of what had been undertaken in his name, especially during the months of his imprisonment, CHEESE undermined the accuracy of the Axis assessments of Allied strength, and helped save the Suez Canal and much of the region from capture and occupation.

  APPENDIX I

  CIPHER DEVISED FOR CHEESE

  The cipher may best be described as an extension of the familiar ‘Playfair’ system.

  The keyword is written down (omitting any repeated letters) as the beginning of a square of five letters by five. This square is then filled in by writing down the rest of the alphabet omitting all letters already used. In order to reduce the alphabet from twenty-six letters to twenty-five it is also necessary to omit the ‘K’. Thus, if the keyword is ELEMENTS the square will be:

  E L M N T

  S A B C D

  F G H I J

  O P Q R U

  V W X Y Z

  Each letter of the ‘clear’ is represented by a pair of cipher letters. The first letter of the pair may be any letter in the same vertical line as the letter to be enciphered: the second is any letter in the same horizontal line. Thus LD represents A, UM represents T, etc.

  It will be noted that the cipher differs from (and has one great advantage over) Playfair in that there are sixteen alternative ways of encyphering any given letter. E can be enciphered as SL, SM, SN, ST, FL, FM, FN, FT, OL, OM, ON, OT, VL, VM, VN or VT.

  ‘K’ being omitted from the square, is the signal for numerals. The first two lines of the square, following K, become the figures 1 (E), 2 (L) etc., up to 10 (D). The signal for ‘numbers off’ is the letter O encoded, i.e. AH, WJ or the equivalent. The letters standing for numerals must also be encoded: 1 is not represented by E but by SL, OT or its equivalent.

  It was arranged that the third word of each message should be the keyword for the next. Thus if a message (say on Monday) began with the words ‘Argent pas encore arrive…’ the square for Thursday’s message would be as follows:

  E N C O R

  A B D F G

  H I J L M

  P Q S T U

  V W X Y Z

  In case of emergency or doubt, a standard keyword is arranged. If it was not known whether the other side had or had not received the last message, or likely to make any mistake about it, the square was to be constructed on the keyword EQUINOX. To indicate that this was being done, the first group of the message was to be SCOOI. This precaution proved a wise one. Owing partly to the incompetence of the enemy, partly due to technical troubles, the emergency codeword has had to be used over and over again.

  It will be clear to the expert that, in spite of the alternatives, the cipher does not present any very grave difficulties to the ‘cracker’. This does not matter, so far as we were concerned, though it should have caused the enemy some anxiety, had he been alive to our wireless security precautions. Meanwhile, it was easy and quick to work, and free from possible ambiguities.

  APPENDIX II

  ALLIED ORDER-OF-BATTLE INVENTIONS

  Between 1942 and 1944 ‘A’ Force created a series of false military units with the intention of greatly exaggerating the strength of the Allied forces deployed in the Middle East. These fabricated units, which include battalions, regiments, divisions, crops and entire armies, supposedly possessed their own individual identifying insignia which
aided specific observations and reports. Having been established earlier in the war, these fabricated components remained available for deception purposes throughout 1944.

  1942 1st SAS Brigade

  2nd Indian Infantry Division

  8th Division

  10th Armoured Division

  12th Division

  27th, 38th, 39th, 101st Battalions Royal Tank Regiment

  15th Armoured Division

  74th Armoured Brigade

  Seven infantry divisions, including two Indian, one New Zealand 25th Corps HQ

  1943 Eight infantry divisions including two Polish and one Greek, three armoured and one airborne

  12th Army

  14th Corps HQ

  CHRONOLOGY

  1939 September SNOW becomes a double agent run by MI5

  November Richard Stevens and Sigismund Payne Best are abducted at Venlo.

  December Levi operates in Paris as a double agent for the Deuxième Bureau.

  1940 June Levi withdrawn from Paris.

  September Levi visits the British embassy in Belgrade, then returns to Italy.

  October Levi visits the British embassy in Belgrade for a second time.

  November The ATSB is established in Istanbul.

  1941 January Levi is arrested in Istanbul.

  Tobruk is captured by the British.

  February Levi arrives in Cairo.

  Rommel is posted to Libya.

  March Simpson participates in the Lofoten raid.

  Rommel captures Benghazi.

  April Levi leaves Palestine for Istanbul.

  Axis forces occupy Yugoslavia.

  May Allied BATTLEAXE attack fails.

  German paratroops capture Crete.

  June Levi leaves Istanbul for Rome.

  Ritter fails to infiltrate two spies into Egypt.

  July CHEESE establishes radio link to Bari.

  Auckinleck replaces Wavell.

  August Levi is arrested in Genoa.

  September Nicossof recruits Piet.

  October Levi is sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

  November CRUSADER recaptures Tobruk.

  December Italian HQ assessment of Allied forces seized.

  1942 January The Abwehr loses confidence in Nicossof.

  February Levi is transferred to Lucera.

  March Whiteley appointed 8th Army Chief of Staff.

  April Plan FABRIC devised.

  May Eppler and Sandstede arrive in Cairo.

  June Torbuk captured by the Afrika Korps.

  July Afrika Korps advance stopped at El Alamein. Eppler and Sandstede are arrested in Cairo.

  August U-372 is sunk off Haifa.

  Five German spies executed in Aleppo.

  September Simpson completes SIME’s CHEESE Report.

  October Fackenheim parachuted into Palestine.

  Nicossof’s nominee fails to bring money from Aleppo.

  November TORCH landings in North Africa.

  December MISANTHROPE’S flat in Cairo is raided by the police.

  1943 January Nicossof joins OETA.

  March T. A. Robertson critiques SIME’s CHEESE Report.

  April Dick White is briefed on CHEESE in Cairo.

  May Simpson responds to MI5 criticism of SIME’s CHEESE Report.

  August The PASCHA network closes down.

  October Levi is released from prison.

  Mayer is captured in Yugoslavia.

  December Plan BIJOU identifies HMS Indefatigable in the Indian Ocean.

  1944 January The Vermehrens defect in Istanbul.

  CHEESE receives payment from the Abwehr.

  MARIE visits Nicossof in Alexandria.

  February Hamburger defects in Istanbul. Levi writes to SIME from Italy.

  March Levi arrives in Cairo and is interviewed by Robertson.

  Pope writes the history of the CHEESE case.

  April The Greek navy mutinies in Alexandria.

  Cornelia Kapp defects in Istanbul.

  May Plan JACOBITE expands CHEESE to Greece.

  June Allied troops land in Normandy on D-Day.

  July BLACKGUARD delivers transmitter to FATHER.

  August Marwitz is interned in Turkey.

  October ODYSSEY fails to produce transmitter in Athens.

  1945 January Kossiadis is arrested in Athens.

  February CHEESE’S final radio transmission.

  March MI5 seeks to revive CHEESE.

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  INDEX

  1st Armoured Division 1

  1st Greek Brigade 1

  1st Indian Divisio
n 1

  1st SAS Brigade 1, 2

  1st South African Division 1

  2 Polish Corps 1

  2nd Armoured Brigade 1

  2nd Armoured Division 1, 2

  2nd Brigade 1

  2nd Greek Brigade 1

  2nd Indian Division 1

  2nd New Zealand Division 1, 2

  3 Corps HQ 1, 2

  3rd American Infantry Division 1

  3rd Artillery Regiment 1

  3rd Corps 1, 2

  3rd South African Brigade 1

  3rd South African Division 1

  4th Airborne Division 1, 2, 3

  4th Armoured Brigade 1

  4th Division 1

  4th Indian Division 1

  5th Division 1

  5th English Division 1

  5th Indian Division 1, 2

  5th Infantry Division 1

  6 Army 1

  6th Australian Division 1, 2

  6th Destroyer Flotilla 1

  6th Division 1, 2

  6th New Zealand Division 1, 2

  6th Regiment of Engineers 1

  6th South African Armoured Division 1, 2

  7 South African Division 1

  7th Armoured Division 1, 2, 3, 4

  7th Division 1

  7th Division Headquarters 1

  7th Infantry Division 1, 2

  7th Motor Brigade 1

  7th South African Division 1

  8th Armoured Division 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  8th Army 1, 2, 3, 4

  8th Division 1, 2

  9th Army Headquarters 1

  9th Artillery Regiment 1

  9th Australian Division 1, 2

  9th Brigade 1

  9th Division 1, 2

  9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen 1

  10 Indian Division 1

  10th Armoured Brigade 1

  10th Armoured Division 1, 2, 3

  10th Army 1

  10th English Armoured Division 1

  10th Italian Army 1, 2