Churchill's Spy Files
Page 13
Green caused trouble by agitating for trade union representation at his first employers after his release from prison, and was eventually moved by the Ministry of Labour to the Woolwich Arsenal where, he boasted, he was entirely free to wander into areas on the site where classified engineering work was undertaken.
MI5’s Michael Serpell eventually closed Green’s file, apparently confident that he had not returned to espionage. In a conversation recorded at King Street, Green was heard to tell Robson that he had fooled his inquisitors by pretending, at the time of his arrest, that he had been preparing a stay-behind organisation for the eventuality of a Nazi invasion and occupation as an explanation for all the incriminating material seized by the police from his home when he was arrested. Wisely, Robson had remarked that MI5 probably had not really believed him.
* * *
There was also more to be said about the case of Dr Antonio Pastor as the true story was not quite as described by Petrie. In fact, as Guy Liddell noted in his diary on 9 June 1943:
The Abwehr at Vigo are expecting the arrival of an agent from London. This man, code-named PASTOR, will travel via Lisbon. Efforts are being made to identify him.
This information, based on ISOS, assumed that PASTOR was a code name, but as it turned out, this was his surname, and an investigation identified him as a London University academic who was already known to MI5 as he was an informant for Tommy Harris’ Spanish section, designated B1(g). A week later, Liddell noted that:
At the weekly meeting Herbert Hart mentioned the case of PASTOR who, from his source, seems to have some contact with the Abwehr. They are at any rate anxious to get into touch with him. From the facts given, Tommy Harris was able to identify this man as a Spanish Professor who had recently left this country and who is in fact a B1(g) agent of a kind. We shall have to consider how we are going to deal with him when he returns.
As well as being somewhat disingenuous in the account offered to the Prime Minister, there was another curious aspect to the case, for PASTOR had already come under suspicion by the Spanish authorities when his name had been passed surreptitiously to a Spanish diplomat in March the previous year. The incident had occurred when a detainee, Luis Calvo, was permitted to attend a supervised meeting at the London Reception Centre with the embassy’s second secretary. At the time Calvo had been under arrest at Camp 020 for the past month, having been implicated as an Abwehr agent, but he had been allowed to see Vitturo under controlled conditions, so he had taken the opportunity to slip his visitor a message voicing his suspicions about PASTOR and one other member of the Spanish expatriate community in London. Naturally, this lapse in security was extremely embarrassing for MI5 because their officer, Eric Goodacre, had neither searched Calvo before the meeting, nor spotted the sleight of hand. Indeed, MI5 only learned of what had happened when Calvo finally made a full confession. Thus, far from being frank about PASTOR’s role, MI5 had implied to Churchill that he represented a willing, controlled leakage of information to the enemy, when in reality his link to the enemy was unknown to B1(g), and anyway he had been placed in jeopardy by Calvo’s denunciation. However, PASTOR evidently survived the experience as he returned safely to his post at London University.
* * *
Among the references to the double-agents GARBO, MUTT and ZIGZAG was an introduction to FATHER, a Belgian pilot named Pierre Henri Arents, who had reached England from Lisbon in June 1941. In June 1943 he was posted to India to avoid answering some increasingly difficult technical questions submitted by the Abwehr, and supplied with a transmitter code-named DUCK that became operational in August 1944. When FATHER was posted back to Belgium in October 1944 his radio was operated until the end of the war by a police officer in Calcutta, supposedly a disaffected Indian courier based at the Strategic Air Force’s headquarters.
* * *
Oscar Liehr was arrested in Trinidad on 2 June 1943 en route to Buenos Aires, where he was to report on shipping movements, and on that day he confessed to having been recruited by the Abwehr in Lisbon in January when he had been in financial difficulties. He also surrendered his secret writing materials hidden in a pair of neck-ties, and his cover addresses, one in Lisbon and the other in Geneva, as was reported to Kim Philby:
Oscar Liehr, a passenger for Buenos Aires, Argentina on the SS Cabo de Esperanza, was arrested at Trinidad as a German espionage agent. At the time of his arrest, Liehr stated that he was an agricultural machinery mechanic who had been studying in Europe and that he was now returning to Buenos Aires to re-join his father.
Liehr advised that he was born in Buenos Aires on October 10, 1922, of a German father and a Paraguayan mother. He was educated at the Colegio Germania at Buenos Aires until he was fifteen years of age. In 1936, his father arranged with his brother, Ernst Liehr, who was employed by a stained glass window manufacturer in Leipzig, Germany, for Oscar to go to Germany to study as an agricultural machinery mechanic.
Liehr left Buenos Aires on the Polish ship Kosciusko in February, 1938, and arrived in Leipzig in March of the same year. He advised that he travelled on this occasion on a German travel docket issued by the German Consulate at Buenos Aires. During his stay in Leipzig, from March, 1938 until November, 1942, Liehr lived with his uncle Ernst at Altenburgerstrasse 82’ and with the two sons of his uncle, who are at present serving in the Reichewehr.
In 1938 Liehr took up employment with one Rudolf Sack, a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, where after first being employed as an apprentice, he became a mechanic and was employed by this firm until August, 1942, although Liehr states that he did not work after May 15 1942, due to ill health.
In 1939, Liehr volunteered to the Argentine Consul at Leipzig to be registered for military service in the Argentine. He obtained his present passport in 1941, and also received a mobilization notice from the Wehrmacht during this year. He advises that when he applied to the Argentine Consul he was told that he could not be called for German military service and that the Consul intervened successfully on his behalf. His working permit was obtained for him by the factory and the police granted an Aufenhaltsurlaubnis without difficulty. In May, 1942, he found that the cold climate did not agree with him and he therefore decided to return to the Argentine to do military service and see his family.
Liehr’s father, who is now 61 years of age, has lived for some forty-six years in the Argentine and is a watchmaker in the Calle Lavalle. Liehr states that his father has never been naturalized as an Argentinean but is still a German subject. The father, however, has not returned to Germany since his original immigration to the Argentine.
Liehr states that he started making arrangements at this time to return to the Argentine as a repatriate and was told by the Argentine Consul in Leipzig that the latter had been informed telegraphically by the Argentine Consul in Lisbon that a passage could be arranged on the Argentine ship Onbu, which was due to sail from Lisbon in December, 1942.
Accordingly Liehr completed his arrangements to leave and purchased 89 Pounds Sterling and 900 French francs from the Banco Aleman in Leipzig. Upon being questioned as to why he had chosen to buy pounds, he stated that the bank had offered him foreign exchange in either dollars or pounds, but that he had chosen the latter.
Liehr is travelling on an Argentine passport, No. 4/1941, issued at Leipzig on June 9, 1941. The passport also carried a gratis visa issued at Leipzig by the Argentine Consul on November 30, 1942 for a journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This passport contained a Spanish transit visa, No. 2672, issued at Berlin on November 10, 1942, and a Portuguese transit visa, 1-Jo. U5U0, issued at Madrid on December 4, 1942.
This passport shows that Liehr left Germany on November 30, 1942, and he states that he travelled in direct transit via Paris and San Sebastian to Madrid. He had purchased a third-class ticket for this journey prior to leaving Germany. His passport also confirms that he entered Spain on November 30, 1942. Upon his arrival in Madrid, he stayed for a few days in a pension near the Plaza Callao, where he
contacted the Argentine Consul and left with him twenty British pounds to pay for his expenses to Lisbon. This Consul also arranged for Liehr’s Portuguese visa. Liehr states that he arrived in Lisbon on December 5, 1942, left his suitcase at the Hotel Metropole and went immediately to the Argentine Consulate, which was closed. He tried unsuccessfully to reach the Consul by telephone and then went to the harbour in order to make inquiries on the SS Onbu.
He saw one of the officers of this ship who told him that he would have to contact the Captain or the Consul and obtain a Portuguese entry permit and have his passport navicerted by the British Passport Office. He slept on the ship that night but was unsuccessful in finding the Consul the following day, which was Sunday, and as the Onbu was sailing that day it was impossible for him to leave as he originally intended. Liehr asked a British official who was visiting the Onbu to recommend a pension to him. As a result he went to the Pension Algarbe, where he paid 1,500 escudos per month for his room and board. In January, Liehr moved to a less expensive room in the Rua Escaldenias Marques, Porte de Lima #18.
Liehr further advised that he succeeded in contacting the Argentine Consul the following day, which was Monday, but the latter was not helpful and said that Liehr must wait for another Argentine ship. During the following weeks Liehr called again several times but with negative results, and there seemed to be little hope of his reaching the Argentine at that time. He was rather fearful regarding this matter, inasmuch as his money was dwindling and the Consul would not give him additional money for living expenses. Liehr went on to say that one day toward the end of January he went to the Eden Movie Theater and that while waiting for a ticket he noticed a good-looking Portuguese woman approximately thirty-five years of age looking at the photographs outside the theater. Liehr advised that he offered to purchase this woman’s ticket to save her the bother of waiting in line and that she thanked him and gave him the money for two tickets. When he returned with the two tickets he found her talking to a man who spoke Portuguese with a German accent. They had some conversation during which Liehr spoke in German. He told the stranger that he was an Argentinean who had studied in Germany and that he was now returning home. They also spoke on general topics during the interval and when they left the theater the woman left the two men to go shopping. Liehr continued his conversation with the stranger, who suggested another meeting. Liehr pleaded poverty, saying he could get no money from the Consul and was therefore unable to pay his way if they went out together.
The stranger then introduced himself to Liehr as Ernst Schmidt and gave him 200 escudos as a present. Schmidt explained that he was a German engaged in a ‘bitter world conflict’ and that Liehr might be able to assist him in the Argentine. In return, Schmidt might arrange to assist Liehr financially during his stay in Lisbon. Schmidt told Liehr to come to see him in his house in a few days, bringing his passport and proof of his stay in Germany. Liehr cannot remember Schmidt’s address. However, he visited him within a few days, in the early evening, and found that he lived in a small private house with the woman with whom he had seen Schmidt at the theater. This woman does not speak German. Liehr was admitted by a Portuguese servant girl and then had a drink with Schmidt and the woman, whom he presumed was the wife of Schmidt. This woman left the room and Schmidt then asked Liehr about his background.
Liehr is not very precise about this conversation but it seems that Schmidt was interested in where Liehr had lived and worked in Germany, his father’s nationality, occupation, and other similar details. Schmidt retained Liehr’s passport, the Aufenhaltsurlaubnis stamped on the passport apparently being sufficient proof of Liehr’s residence in Germany. They arranged to meet again in a few days.
Liehr’s second visit to Schmidt’s house also took place in the evening. At this time Schmidt returned Liehr’s passport and outlined his proposals, which were that Liehr should proceed to the Argentine and report from there by letter on the following:
(a) Ship movements in the port of Buenos Aires, including details of names of Allied ships arriving and leaving, their tonnage and cargo.
(b) Details of any armament or other factories working on contracts for the USA or England.
(c) Morale and opinion of the Argentine population.
Liehr at present is unable or unwilling to give any more precise details of Schmidt’s requirements than the above.
Schmidt also gave Liehr two drop box addresses to which he should direct his correspondence. These actresses are as follows:
1. Helena Fonzeca, Rua Don Franzisco de Almeida #4. Santa Amara de Oeras, Lisbon, Portugal
2. Karl von Presch, Rue de Chene 68, Geneva, Switzerland
Schmidt also told Liehr that his (Liehr’s) operating name would be ‘Icarus’ and that he need not concern himself with any other matters aside from those described above, as other matters were already well covered by other agents. Schmidt emphasized that information was not required concerning purely Argentine matters, in view of the friendly attitude of the Argentine Government.
Following this conversation, Schmidt took Liehr in a snail gray Fiat car with CD plates to a flat in the Rua Padre Antonio Vierira. Liehr states that this house is one house before the last on the left-hand when proceeding towards Quartel de Artilharia #3. Upon their entrance, the door of the flat on the third floor was opened by a young man who treated Schmidt as if the latter were more important than he. Schmidt introduced Liehr by saying that he was ‘the young man about whom we spoke.’ The occupant of this flat was introduced to Liehr as Stubbs. Liehr advises that he did not see Schmidt again before leaving Lisbon. Liehr furnished the following descriptions of Schmidt and Stubbs:
Name: ERNEST SCHMIDT
Height: 5’8”
Hair: Fair, turning gray, closely cut
Age: Approximately 45
Build: Medium
Characteristics: Clean shaven, well dressed
Languages: Portuguese and German
Nationality: German
Peculiarities: Pictures of warships and vessels on the wall of Schmidt’s sitting room gave Liehr the impression that Schmidt might be a naval or merchant marine officer.
Name: STUBBS
Height: 5’8”
Hair: Fair, with a slight wave
Age: Approximately 27
Eyes: Blue
Build: Thin
Face: Thin and clean shaven
Peculiarities: Wears ring with a blue stone on the middle finger of his left hand. This ring has the initials E, S. engraved on it.
Address: 63 Rua Almeida, Sousa #1
Languages: German, Portuguese, Spanish and a little English.
Nationality: German
Liehr seems to have taken a liking to Stubbs, whom he describes as a cultivated man, fond of music. Although Liehr states that he never discussed politics with Stubbs, the latter seems optimistic about the outcome of the war. Stubbs shares his flat with another German whose name Liehr does not know, but whom he describes as follows:
Age: Approximately 27
Face: Thick-lipped, clean shaven, wears black horn-rimmed spectacles
Build: Medium
Dress: Well dressed, usually wears sports jacket
Languages: German – does not speak Spanish or Portuguese.
Stubbs and the above-described individual frequently play billiards at the Cafe Llave de Oro in the Plaza Rossio.
Liehr visited Stubbs by prior arrangement about twenty times, from February until he left Lisbon in May. On each occasion Stubbs told him when to come the next time. The interviews took place between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening and later on, in the morning.
Liehr gained the impression that it was the original intention to train him as a wireless operator, but as there was insufficient time available before his departure, he was only given elementary training by Stubbs, who told him to enter a telegraphy school in Buenos Aires to complete his proficiency. Stubbs told him that when he was fully trained, he would receive a combined transmitter and receiv
er, together with plans for assembly and operation. Stubbs stated that these articles would be forwarded by an unspecified, indirect route.
On one occasion, Stubbs showed Liehr a combined radio transmitter and receiver contained in a brown leather suitcase about 2’6” x 2’. He was given no technical details concerning it, but believes that it operated between 9,000 and 2,000 kilocycles.
Liehr’s course of instruction with Stubbs was the following sequence:
(a) Tested with morse key and earphones to see if his hearing was suitable
(b) Morse alphabet
(c) Cipher code
(d) Practicing sending and receiving cipher messages with the practice set
About one week after his first meeting with Stubbs, Liehr was introduced by the former to another German named Meier. Stubbs told Liehr that he would instruct him in how to write the letters containing the information. The first meeting took place at Stubbs’ flat, but later interviews were held at Meier’s flat. Liehr saw Meier about six times in all.
Liehr describes Meier as follows:
Name: Meier
Height: 5’ 8”
Age: 26
Hair: Fair
Eyes: Blue, wears spectacles with light-colored frames
Build: Husky and strong
Face: Clean shaven
Nationality: German – typical German type
Address: 35 Rua Manual da Laia, Lisbon
During the course of Meier’s instructions as to secret writing, although Meier was informed that Liehr’s code name was ‘Icarus’ Meier advised that for secret writing purposes he would he known as either ‘Juan’ or ‘Carlos’.
Liehr was instructed in two methods of secret writing and was instructed to sign as either ‘Juan’ or ‘Carlos’ in the open letter, which was to be in the form of a love letter when writing to the Fonzeca address; and in the form of an acquaintance letter when written in German to ‘Lieber Karl’ at the Geneva address, supposedly posing as a student. In the secret writing letters, which were to be written in block capitals in German, he was to sign as ‘Caru’.