One of the first tasks facing Garbo, once Pujol was established in London, was to account to his German controllers for the long gap in between his letters. The journey from Lisbon to Gibraltar and then to Britain had taken several weeks, during which time he had not communicated with them. It was vital that he resume his messages lest the Germans conclude that he had been caught. The Luis Calvo affair was still fresh: the Spanish spy formerly working for the Germans was now languishing in Camp 020. There was a danger that Kühlenthal might conclude that Pujol had suffered a similar fate.
Pujol had had the foresight to bring the same stationery with him that he had used for his messages written in Lisbon. Also, in the run-up to his leaving Portugal, he had mentioned that he was suffering from pneumonia – a ruse to give him the alibi of illness to explain away what he already imagined would be a lengthy period without corresponding.
Once in London, he made up for some of the time gap by pre-dating his first letter, and sending it along with the second, claiming that he had gone to see his KLM courier only to discover that he had left for Lisbon the previous night. Thus two letters, the first and second, would be sent simultaneously on his return. In this way he was able to cover up almost a week of silence.
The first letter from London – the first ‘Garbo’ letter – was dated 12 April and sent on 27 April, only three days after his arrival. Pujol continued sending more, all in the same style, as though nothing had changed. The important difference was that now, rather than having to make up the information, he was being given genuine material by Harris. It was all ‘chicken feed’, but at least it was accurate. No more ‘chapels of Santa Catalina’ or nonsensical expenses accounts.
Given that Pujol was not sending the letters himself from Lisbon, MI5 had to come up with a new way of getting the letters there. It was decided to send them by diplomatic bag at first, with MI6’s man in Lisbon forwarding them on and picking up the Germans’ replies.
The new letter had been sent, and the system to move the Garbo operation forward was put in place. Yet, puzzlingly, no word came back from the Abwehr. The Germans’ last letter was dated 2 March. Since then Pujol had had no word from them, despite continuing to send further letters himself – a total of seventeen in the end. What was going on?
Just when everything should have started operating smoothly there was nothing from the other end but silence.
11
Britain, Summer–Autumn 1942
THE FIRST LETTER from the Germans finally arrived in the second half of May, a month after Pujol had landed in Britain. In it, his Abwehr controllers explained that they had been disturbed by their agent’s silence and had decided not to write for a while so as not to attract any attention to him; they feared that he had been caught or was being watched by the British. Now, however, they felt confident enough to carry on the correspondence, providing new cover addresses to send his letters to, along with promises of more money.
Harris and Pujol were delighted. The final step in setting Garbo up as a double agent had been completed and the channel between MI5 and the Germans was open. Kühlenthal himself was becoming more interested in the Garbo material, and from now on some of the letters were to be sent directly to a cover address of his in Madrid, to a Don Germán Domínguez. When signing his missives, Pujol was also to adopt certain pseudonyms: Germán Domínguez was to receive letters from ‘Jaime Martínez’ or ‘Jorge Garrigan’, while for his letters to ‘Manuel Rodríguez’ Pujol had to sign as ‘Rodolfo’.
The German’s choice of pseudonym is interesting. The writer Ben MacIntyre has described Kühlenthal as ‘a one-man espionage disaster area’ who, among other blunders, played an important part in the Germans’ falling for the ‘Man-who-never-was’ hoax. Kühlenthal appeared fully convinced that his new spy in London was working for him and was sending over genuine intelligence. That the British should have fooled him might be understandable – it was more a testament to their skills of deception than to his credulity – yet his choice of pseudonym seems positively reckless. ‘Germán’, pronounced kherMAN, is a bona-fide first name in Spanish. It also means ‘German’, plain and simple. Not the best cover name for an Abwehr intelligence officer, one would imagine.
Nonetheless, from now on Kühlenthal was to play a greater role as Pujol’s Abwehr controller.
A line of communication through Garbo went directly to the Abwehr. In time the British would try to use that connection to its fullest capacity, stretching it almost to breaking point, but for the moment the emphasis was on making it stronger – building up German trust in their ‘Arabel’ to the point where not only the Abwehr might be fooled, but perhaps even the German High Command. This chain of possibility could, if it worked, lead from a cramped office off Piccadilly, through the German espionage centre in Madrid to the highest levels of the enemy’s military structure.
In the summer of 1942, all this was some way off. For now Harris, Pujol and Sarah Bishop had to lay down the foundations for what would become, in Kim Philby’s words, ‘one of the most creative intelligence operations of all time’.
Much of that creativity came in the form of the various characters that were invented to populate Garbo’s network: ‘notional’ agents, to use MI5’s parlance, bona-fide sub-agents in the Germans’ eyes. Although none of these people existed outside Pujol’s imagination, real people would eventually play the parts of some of them as the network grew and became more complex.
Carvalho, Gerbers and Pedro had all been invented in Lisbon. In his first message to Madrid from London, Garbo mentioned a new contact – an RAF officer who told him about anti-aircraft batteries in Hyde Park. Up in Scotland, Pedro was also allowed to make friends with an NCO in the RAF.
The idea was to spread Garbo’s contacts as far as possible, with potential sources of information in various key points of the country, as well as in the various wings of the armed services, and even within government itself. Some information might be handed over knowingly by ‘traitors’, other material might be passed over unwittingly by people unaware that Garbo was ‘spying for the Germans’, while yet more might be overheard in conversation.
To this last end, Fred was created – Agent 4. Fred was a Gibraltarian waiter, a man who loathed the British, not least because he had been forcibly evacuated from the Rock, and now found himself in Britain. Hating his new home, he was a convinced supporter of the German cause and, as a waiter, was ideally suited to picking up titbits of conversation, particularly at tables where officers were seated. Garbo claimed to have become friendly with him and made him a fully fledged member of his network. And given that there was a shortage of waiters thanks to the war, Fred could find work in any one of several areas: between Hull and Newcastle, around Maidstone, or in Colchester.
Garbo sent the Germans a message telling them about Fred and asked where they themselves preferred him to be based. In the Hull-to-Newcastle area, came the reply from Kühlenthal. So there Fred went, on the direct recommendation of his new German masters. Without realising, by ‘sending’ him there, the Germans had told the British which part of the coastline they were most interested in, and as a result defence systems in the area could be built up.
One of the most important unconscious sources of information for the Germans was created shortly after Fred. Working at his new job at the Ministry of Information, Garbo claimed to have become friendly with his boss, the head of the Spanish Department who thought that Garbo was a Republican Spanish refugee. With time, this man became more indiscreet, so that he even allowed Garbo to see Top Secret material. Garbo referred to him as Agent J(3) – the ‘J’ standing for ‘Juan’, in that he was one of Juan’s (i.e. Pujol’s) direct sources. No name was ever given for him, but the Germans were forwarded enough information to draw the conclusion that he was W.B. McCann – the real person in charge of the Spanish section at the Ministry of Information. McCann himself was later informed that a notional agent had been built up around him and he was obliged to ‘play’ his ow
n alter ego on one occasion as part of the deception plan, a job that he was delighted to carry out.
The next new sub-agent to be created was Agent 5, the brother of Agent 3, Pedro. Agent 5 was never named, although the Germans gave him the code name ‘Moonbeam’. He was recruited by Garbo in June 1942 and described as an ambitious young man of independent means who would take any risks for the Germans. At that time MI5 was trying to find out if the Abwehr had any agents operating in Northern Ireland, and if it was an area that they were interested in. To this end Garbo suggested that Agent 5 be sent there. Yes, came Kühlenthal’s enthusiastic reply.
With that, MI5 had their answers: yes, the Germans were interested in Northern Ireland; and no, they almost certainly did not have anyone working there for them.
In truth the British did not want to send anyone over to Ulster – fictional or not – so Garbo had to backtrack, making the process of crossing the Irish Sea so complicated that it proved impossible to get Agent 5 over there. Thankfully, the Germans did not seem to mind too much. They were also interested, they said, in finding out about the Isle of Wight – then, in wartime, a virtual fortress. Getting anyone there, let alone a young Venezuelan, was practically impossible, but Garbo landed his man on the island nonetheless, inventing a story about his adventures that, as Harris described it, read like something out of ‘any spy novel’. The Germans believed it, and Agent 5 rose greatly in their estimation.
Finally, in midsummer of 1942, Garbo recruited a South African into his network – Agent 6, known as Dick. Dick was a virulent anti-Communist who was more than happy to work for the Nazis. Garbo promised him an important role in the New World Order when the war was over. Clever, capable and a top-class linguist, he had a number of contacts in government ministries, and was the person who had originally put Garbo in touch with the man who became his boss in the Ministry of Information. Dick hated Britain and was determined to get out of the country. His chance would come some months later, when an opportunity arose to send him to Algiers. Eventually the Garbo network would stretch over half the globe, with spies based from Ceylon to Canada.
All these agents, and the many that came later, were Garbo’s puppets, creations in a highly complex performance that was played out over the following years. Each one had to speak his or her own lines, in an authentic voice, never falling out of character as they slowly concocted a narrative causing the audience – the Germans – to reach conclusions that the Allies wanted them to. In the eyes of the Abwehr, the spectacle that Garbo put on for them was real – the living out of actual events. Any slip-up – an agent’s message striking a different, wrong note, for example; a contradiction between one character and another – and the Germans might start to suspect that what they took as real was anything but, and the whole fragile edifice would collapse.
It was imperative, therefore, that verisimilitude be the watchword for the entire operation. John Masterman later described how double agents were encouraged to live a life as close as possible to the one that they were putting across to the enemy. So, for example, if an agent was asked by the Germans to go and visit such-and-such a factory, MI5 would arrange for him – or at least a substitute – to travel there in person before replying. ‘If an agent had notionally a sub-agent or cut-out in the country, he ought actually to have met such a man.’ Otherwise the danger of getting facts wrong, of contradicting himself, was too great.
Another potential risk was the passing on of information that could be harmful to the Allied cause. Nothing of this kind would willingly be sent over by MI5. But what if an agent – even a fictitious agent – was ideally placed to report on something which the British did not want him to report? The characters had to perform as real people at all times. Failure to send information could be just as damaging to the credibility of a network as sending wrong or false intelligence.
In Garbo’s case, it became clear over the summer of 1942 that Herr Gerbers – Agent 2 – the German-Swiss living in Bootle, would be ideally placed for reporting on the build-up in Merseyside for the eventual Allied invasion of French North Africa – Operation Torch, scheduled for later that autumn. Clearly the Allies did not want such information to be passed on. Yet for Gerbers to remain silent about these shipping movements, or for that silence to go unexplained, was not an option. A solution had to be found.
As it turned out, Gerbers had failed to file any reports for some weeks. Garbo therefore travelled to Liverpool to check up on him. There he found that Herr Gerbers had fallen seriously ill and was about to undergo an operation, meaning that he would not be able to send any information for some time. Garbo reported this to Madrid and the Germans replied that he should continue to pay Gerbers through his illness; that he would be able to repay them with more shipping reports once he got better.
Sadly, however, Herr Gerbers never did get better. In fact he got steadily worse, his silence continued through the autumn and on 19 November, eleven days after the Allies had successfully landed in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, he died.
Garbo did not get to hear about this straight away. In early December, wondering what had happened to his sub-agent, and astonished that he had not even acknowledged receipt of his payment for the previous month, Garbo took the train back up to Liverpool. There a distraught Mrs Gerbers told him of her husband’s demise, showing him the obituary that MI5 had had inserted in the the Liverpool Daily Post which read: ‘GERBERS – November 19 at Bootle, after a long illness, aged 52, WILLIAM MAXIMILIAN. Private funeral. (No flowers, please.)’
Garbo sent the obituary notice to the Germans, who replied with condolences for his wife. Mrs Gerbers – ‘the Widow’ – would later reappear in the Garbo story, and become a fully paid-up member of the organisation.
Operation Torch was not only used to kill off the unfortunate Herr Gerbers: Garbo took advantage of it to build his reputation further in the Germans’ eyes. On 1 November, a week before the invasions started, he wrote a letter which included information from Pedro in Glasgow that a convoy of battleships had left the Clyde painted in Mediterranean colours. In the same letter, Garbo claimed to have seen a secret file in the Ministry of Information containing certain directives in the event of an Allied invasion of French North Africa. There was clearly a connection, he said, between this and the rumours circulating of action soon to come in North Africa.
Despite being dated the 1st of the month, the letter was not sent on to Lisbon until 7 November – the day before the invasion. Thus it did not arrive in the Germans’ hands until after the initial Allied assault had already taken place. It was too late for them to act on the intelligence that Garbo had provided them with, but the fact that he was trying to tell them about the landings before they actually happened was a major step in building him up as a source of valuable information.
Not only had Garbo shown that he had access to good intelligence, the time delay in getting his material to the Germans meant that, in their eyes, he should have a wireless transmitter. Garbo had suggested this to Kühlenthal back in August, after Fred, the Gibraltarian waiter, told him he knew a man in Soho who could provide him with the necessary kit. Kühlenthal had turned the offer down, but now, after the Operation Torch letter, he was coming round to the idea.
It would not only mean that he could receive his agent’s intelligence faster. Garbo’s wireless messages would have to be less wordy than his interminable letters and become considerably more concise.
Indeed, Kühlenthal’s spy in London could show himself to be moody, even petulant, at times. In his first proper letter sent to his Abwehr controllers after arriving in London, Garbo had complained, not unlike a jilted lover, that he was not being valued enough, and told them so in no uncertain terms:
I have often wondered whether you are satisfied at your end with my class of work, as in spite of some comforting letter which you sent me once in a while, I begin to suspect that they are intended to pay me compliments. If this were so it would greatly disillusion me for my work as I am
only here to fulfil a duty and not for pleasure. You do not know how homesick I sometimes feel for my own country. You cannot imagine how miserable life here is for me since I arrived. Since I arrived I have made a point of avoiding all contact with Spanish society or individuals, this in the interest of our work. My Catalan character does not adapt itself to casual friendship more so when it concerns Spaniards who talk through their arse and compromise one for less than nothing.
The letter was pages long, hidden inside a tin of Andrews Liver Salts and sent via the KLM courier in the usual way. It was in keeping with the messages Pujol had sent from Lisbon, but now that he was in London, it was also part of the MI5 plan. In Harris’s words, ‘Kühlenthal was encouraged to regard Garbo as a quixotic, temperamental genius, whom he learned to be cautious not to offend. He came to regard Garbo as a fanatic, prepared to risk his life for the Fascist cause.’
Over time, Harris and Pujol noticed that the more insulted and spurned Garbo appeared, the deeper Kühlenthal fell into their trap.
In Madrid, Kühlenthal was becoming increasingly reliant on his agent as a source of intelligence. The Spaniard’s eccentricities were, in his mind, a small price to pay for having a spy operating from the heart of enemy territory.
Yet it would be worth getting him a radio set, if only to force him to write shorter messages.
12
London, Glasgow and Madrid, March 1943
WINTER WAS COMING to an end. Weeks before, the Germans had suffered their first major military defeat on the Eastern Front, at Stalingrad. The course of the war, so long in the Germans’ favour, was slowly and painfully beginning to turn.
The Spy with 29 Names Page 10