Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  After an unsuccessful attempt in August 1942 to send information to the Japanese by courier, JOSEF returned to Lisbon in February 1943 and re-established contact with the Japanese. He had several interviews with the Assistant Naval and Military Attachés and succeeded in explaining satisfactorily his long absence. They questioned him at length about his activities in England and the information he had been able to obtain, and proposed that he should return and continue to work for them. They also proposed that he should prepare a plan for sabotage in the docks of Liverpool and Glasgow, and offered him £100 in cash.

  After JOSEF’s return to this country we were able to check his story at various points from other sources, and therefore decided to send him back to Lisbon again with certain information about Glasgow and a plan for sabotaging the Glasgow docks.

  As a result of this second visit to Lisbon we learnt particulars of certain persons engaged in espionage on behalf of the Japanese, and details of three addresses in Lisbon used by them for meeting places or for contacts. Further, it appeared that Kiyoi Kisaki was in charge of JOSEF’s case. The following was already known to us of Kisaki’s previous history: In October 1939 he was staying at the Palace Hotel in Copenhagen, which he left on October 28th, travelling to the Streit Hotel, Hamburg. In January 1940 he was the recipient of a letter from a certain Sekime, c/o Mitsui, New York, enclosing several cheques drawn on Swiss and German accounts with London banks, and mentioning that a certain Moriya (known as a member of the London office of Mitsui) was a subordinate of Kidosaki.

  JOSEF was in Lisbon again during April 1943 and had seven meetings with the Japanese. He was interrogated at length, passed over the information he had brought with him and was paid £70. On this visit JOSEF appears to have established himself securely in the confidence of the Japanese. It was arranged that for the future he should work in England collecting information, principally about naval construction, and should send reports by courier. Another of our seamen agents, who had co-operated with JOSEF in the past, was introduced by him to the Japanese, and undertook to carry JOSEF’s reports, though not to engage in espionage himself. JOSEF was given a little seal with the initials ‘A.T.’ (by which he was known to the Japanese) engraved upon it, with which his reports were to be sealed.

  From May to October 1943 JOSEF was resident ashore in this country. At the end of May he sent his first report to Lisbon by courier. As he had only been ashore for about a fortnight, he had not had time to collect a great deal of information, with the result that this report was not of a very high grade. The courier returned with a large sealed envelope which he brought back for JOSEF. This envelope enclosed two similar envelopes and all three bore the official seal of the Japanese Legation in Lisbon. Of the two enclosures one contained the sun of £65 for JOSEF’s expenses ashore, while the other contained a letter expressing a certain disappointment in JOSEF’s first report and hoping for further information to come. This letter also mentioned that the Japanese were still interested in naval construction and the ‘so-called radio electric television’ which was explained to the courier as being the latest type of radio location. The letter made no further mention of sabotage. It was signed ‘K.K’.

  By August 1943 JOSEF had collected a great deal of information for his second report by courier. This related principally to naval construction and, in addition, a certain amount of political and military information. The reply, which reached us at the end of September, this time bore no official seals. It enclosed £150 for JOSEF’s expenses, generally commended his last report and contained certain further instructions. Again, no further mention was made of the subject of sabotage. Kidosaki, however, had told the courier that he would be glad to see JOSEF in Lisbon again, as had been provisionally arranged by JOSEF himself last April.

  On October 11th JOSEF left again for Lisbon, taking with him a long and detailed report on naval construction collected on the Clyde, on the Tyne and on the Mersey. His report also included a certain amount of political and military information; in addition to his report his courier carried out for him a number of technical shipping magazines, a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1942 edition, and a number of aircraft recognition pictures and some Admiralty photographs marked ‘Secret – not to be released’, which JOSEF had notionally obtained from a friend in the WRNS. JOSEF was also instructed to represent to the Japanese that the method of communication by courier was unsatisfactory and very slow, to ask them for a secret ink for better communication in future and to see how they reacted to the suggestion that he should have a wireless transmitter. He was also to ask for instructions as to how to communicate with them in the event of Portugal declaring war on Japan and their being removed from Lisbon.

  JOSEF arrived in Lisbon early in November and stayed there a month, having nine meetings in all with the Japanese. Kidosaki was very pleased to see him, questioned him at length about his voyage and about general conditions and morale in this country. JOSEF handed over his report and the publications he had brought. At his second interview he was interrogated very fully on his report by a Japanese, whom he had not met previously, who has since been identified as Jeikichi Kamikoshimachi. His report was criticised much more severely than on any previous occasion, and he was told to concentrate on information about naval construction, principally of capital ships, convoys, relations between the British and Russian Governments, the coming invasion of the Continent, conditions in this country, radio electric television, and American troops in Britain. He was told that information about the merchant navy was of no interest.

  At his next interview he was asked if he would be prepared to work for the Japanese either in Portugal or the United States, both of which suggestions he declined.

  On November 26th JOSEF had a long interview with another Japanese, who was clearly a person of higher authority, and he was interrogated from a questionnaire, prepared by someone of greater experience who had examined JOSEF’s work in detail. At this meeting, this Japanese professed to be dissatisfied with the accuracy and thoroughness of JOSEF’s reporting. At subsequent meetings, Kidosaki, who was still convinced of JOSEF’s trustworthiness, told him that his report would have to be examined by still higher authorities, and that until it had been approved, he could only pay him £150. JOSEF told him that he was very annoyed about this treatment, but would wait two or three months till his report had been examined before deciding whether to break with them. In fact, JOSEF’s courier left again for Lisbon towards the end of January, bearing a letter from JOSEF in this strain, and a little further information.

  JOSEF’s requests for secret ink or a radio transmitter had no success, but he was told to get in touch with the Japanese Naval Attaché in Madrid, in the event of war between Japan and Portugal. He was urged to recruit sub-agents to help him in his work, and in particular he was asked if he could get someone employed on the regular trip to North America to bring back American publications; at the same time he was asked to get information from North America on any topics he could.

  Miscellaneous Points:

  JOSEF has supplied us with eleven addresses in Lisbon, used by the Japanese for meeting places or cover addresses, which were not previously known to us.

  JOSEF’s own identity documents show him as being stateless and of Russian origin. Because he would not be granted shore leave in Lisbon by the Portuguese International Police on the strength of these documents, it has been necessary to supply him with new ones showing him as a British subject.

  It has been agreed with JOSEF that he is working for us on a regular salary, that any sums received from the Japanese are our property and that any bonuses paid to him are purely ex-gratia payments.

  The reports which JOSEF has supplied to the Japanese have been largely factual and have not attempted to play any major part in any deception policy. His reports relating to naval construction have however consistently exaggerated our production, particularly of smaller escort vessels.

  JOSEF took to the espionage business as a nat
ural, and would eventually disclose details of his past. He was the youngest of three children and his father had been an Imperial Russian Army soldier killed in Romania in 1916. His mother died in Kiev in 1925 and his sister Nina had married the local kommissar. JOSEF’s brother, whom he had last seen in 1939, was a high-ranking officer in a tank division stationed in the Soviet Far East. Having graduated from school in 1928 he had enrolled in Kiev’s military academy and in 1931 transferred to the Political Military School before undertaking an assignment in Yugoslavia where he was to pose as a White Russian and attend a military academy in Sarajevo. He was then sent on another mission to Louvain University to investigate an anti-Soviet movement sponsored by a Roman Catholic priest.

  During his period in Belgium JOSEF reported to an NKVD controller, Victor Pourin, a Comintern activist based at the International Seaman’s Club in Antwerp, and to Ivanov, a waiter working at the Imperial Russian Cabaret-Café in Brussels. Later JOSEF was directed by a new controller named Kurtz to join the SS Hannah on a voyage to Romania with instructions to report on local conditions and recruit sub-agents. After several voyages he was moved to Rotterdam where he was introduced to a GRU agent, Thelma, who acted as secretary to the local rezident, Walter Krivitsky. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, he was then switched to sailing between Rotterdam, Barcelona and Valencia. Before the end of that conflict he was moved onto the transatlantic route and at a meeting with Pourin at the City Hotel in Buenos Aires he was ordered to make contact with the German embassy while posing as an anti-Communist White Russian and offer his services as a courier. However, during his second voyage in this capacity the Germans invaded Holland and JOSEF found himself isolated, the Germans having confided that the Nazis planned to attack the Soviet Union. In the absence of Pourin and any local Soviet organisations he could approach, JOSEF went to the British naval attaché, who didn’t believe him but was interested to learn more about German plans to sabotage British shipping in Argentina,

  JOSEF decided to travel to London to report to the Soviet embassy, and in 1940 joined a ship bound for England, but after a case of suspected sabotage it was diverted to Halifax, where JOSEF was detained by the Canadian authorities. When he finally reached London he was sent to the London Reception Centre at the Oratory School. He was only released, and able to visit the Soviet consulate, on condition that he worked for the LRC as a stool pigeon, a task he undertook willingly.

  Once at liberty, JOSEF won over his MI5 case officers, Richmond Stopford in London, Peter Hope in Newcastle, and Jack Hooper in Glasgow, whose confidence was supported by Section V’s Graham Greene. He would work from Newcastle and Glasgow, and exploited Matsumoto’s mistaken trust by becoming a source for the Japanese naval attaché in Lisbon. In doing so, as his MI5 file reveals, he was code-named RHUBARB by SIS and joined a group of other ship-borne agents, among them SPARK, PEACH, PLATO, IRMA and MADELEINE, who cultivated the enemy whenever they visitied Portugal. However, unlike the others, JOSEF was handled by MI5 in England and was deliberately insulated from local SIS station personnel. His first visit took place in May 1942, with a second in February 1943 when he received instructions to sabotage Glasgow’s shipyards. During a third rendezvous, in April 1943, JOSEF held seven meetings with various Japanese intelligence personnel, all of whom he later identified to MI5. In November he had a further nine briefings, all of which served to show that he was highly regarded as a spy.

  Later in 1944, following the Italian armistice, SIS learned from the local Italian naval intelligence officer, Commander del Castello, that his Japanese counterparts had acquired an important source in Glasgow, and this turned out to be JOSEF. The same defector also confirmed Kidosaki’s true identity as Dr Takeo Saki, the naval attaché’s secretary. Actually, JOSEF was an assiduous agent, to the point of being arrested by the Glasgow police in March 1944 after he had been seen making sketches of the Clyde shipyards, but all the information he passed on to the Japanese was cleared for release by Ewen Montagu, the Admiralty’s representative on the XX Committee. According to del Castello, who was interviewed by SIS in Lisbon in February 1944, JOSEF’s reports ‘appeared spasmodically, read most convincingly’.

  JOSEF’s case came to an end in December 1944, but there would be a curious postscript to it in 1945 when his case officer in Glasgow, Jack Hooper, was identified by Hermann Giskes as a former member of the Passport Control Office staff in The Hague who had sold them SIS secrets before the war. Specifically, he had betrayed SIS’s star agent in Germany, Karl Krüger, who had been arrested by the Gestapo. Reportedly, Krüger had committed suicide in prison. When challenged in July 1945 by Herbert Hart and Richmond Stopford, Hooper claimed he had declared his German contacts to SIS. However, when another Abwehr officer, Adolf von Feldmann, was questioned in Germany and confirmed Giskes’ version, although there was no evidence, nor suspicion, that Hooper had spied during the war, he was dismissed, but was never charged with any offence. He returned to Holland after the war.3

  4

  FOURTH REPORT,

  2 JULY 1943

  The Director-General’s fourth report returned to some cases referred to previously, so as to keep the Prime Minister informed of progress on matters with which he was already familiar, and mentioned at the outset an entirely new development, that of the arrest in Trinidad of Oscar Liehr, an Argentine recruited by the Abwehr in Lisbon, trained in wireless and secret writing, and sent on a mission to Buenos Aires. Once again, an enemy spy had been compromised by ISOS and interdicted almost before they had the chance to commence their espionage.

  Similarly, access to the Abwehr’s communications with Madrid and Lisbon gave advance notice of intended operations, and MI5 was particularly interested in an Austrian, Rudolf Ender. However, there is no record to show that he ever embarked on his mission to England.

  The two other major topics were the Spanish consul in Cardiff, the Count of Artaza; and Richard Wurmann, the defector code-named HARLEQUIN, and Gibraltar. Appointed in 1937 to Southampton, the notoriously anti-British Count of Artaza later served as consul in Newcastle and Cardiff, and was often suspected by MI5 as the author of messages, officially protected by the embassy’s diplomatic immunity, that were intended for the Abwehr:

  FOURTH REPORT

  A SPIES ARRESTED.

  LIEHR

  Oscar Liehr, an Argentine national of German parentage, was arrested at Trinidad on information derived from Most Secret Sources. After interrogation by our representative Liehr confessed that he had been recruited by the German Secret Service in Lisbon as a spy to work in South America. He described to us in detail the secret inks he was to use to send his reports back to Europe, and has also given us the cover address to which he was to write. This spy is being brought to this country for further interrogation by our officers.

  B SPIES EXPECTED

  (1) The Austrian spy mentioned in last month’s report is still in Lisbon awaiting a passage to this country. He has already received the jewellery which he is bringing with him instead of money. He has also been given the name and address of a British subject in Switzerland as a cover address for his reports. The history and record of this British subject are being investigated, and meanwhile adequate arrangements have been made for the reception of the Austrian when he arrives.

  (2) Most Secret Sources show that an agent has been recruited by the German Secret Service in Spain to come to England. He has been given a sum of money in English pounds, secret ink and a cover address. Precise information as to his identity and the date of his departure have still to be obtained.

  DOUBLE CROSS SPIES

  (1) MUTT

  It will be remembered that MUTT recently received money and a wireless set which were dropped by the Germans by parachute. He has just returned from Scotland, where he has been trying to take delivery of sabotage equipment and more money. Unluckily, owing to a combination of misfortunes, the old dropping place and the night arranged were not convenient, and eventually the operation had to be planned for a
night when conditions were very bad owing to mist. The Germans dropped the equipment about ten miles away from the spot selected, where it was found by the police the next morning. The sabotage equipment and £100 were contained in a suitcase of British make. The equipment was also British and some of it has been recognised as having been specially made for one particular operation. As the Germans had dropped the suitcase at the wrong place, it was thought inadvisable for MUTT to acknowledge receipt, and he has asked for a repetition of the operation, but the Germans have replied that this would not be possible before the middle of July as the nights are too short. Meanwhile the plan for having an explosion at an electricity undertaking previously referred to as Plan BUNBURY has had to be transferred from Basingstoke to Bury St. Edmunds. Preparations for this are proceeding satisfactorily, and it will take place when the explosives are dropped in the middle of July.

  (2) PLAN DREAM

  The second part of Plan DREAM has been carried out satisfactorily and £2,373 has been transferred to GARBO by the German Secret Service. To obtain this amount the Germans paid over 225,000 pesetas.

  (3) FATHER

  It has been found possible to make available the services of this double cross agent to India for deception purposes. He is a member of an Allied Air Force and has been posted to India. He left this country on 29 June 1943. Arrangements have been made for him to be run by the competent Indian authorities. In this connection we sent out to India at the request of DIB an officer from this Department to advise them on the running of double cross spies. This officer will be returning to this country shortly, but we have sent another person who has been fully trained by us to replace him.