Agent Garbo
Page 29
But in reading them, his family must have known that, in some way, the old fabulist was at it again. Wasn’t this the method—long, passionate messages written from a distant exile—that had bewitched the Abwehr? Weren’t the missives written by, as one Spanish journalist who met him said, “the great pretender, the comedian nonpareil” ? And weren’t the details a bit sketchy here and there? He wrote that after the neo-Nazis came looking for him, he “had to disappear for a long time” and so couldn’t write. Yet his Venezuelan children don’t remember any such disappearance. Isn’t it possible that even with the most painful episode of his life, Pujol couldn’t resist inventing a dramatic detail or two?
It didn’t matter to his children and grandchildren. They accepted Pujol and welcomed him back into their lives. The letters matched the person they met: compassionate, funny, gentle and wounded. Even the evasions were filled with tenderness. His children embraced Pujol as he was, and he loved them back. “He seduced us with the writing,” admits his granddaughter, without regrets.
Pujol never stopped being Pujol. When, in Spain after his public coming-out, a woman saw the old spy being interviewed, she came over and asked who he was. “I’m a famous writer,” he said nonchalantly, and his interviewer stared at him in horrified amusement. Pujol posed for a photograph for the Spanish newspaper El País wearing an army hat and holding a grenade in each hand, re-creating his death-defying escape from the Republican lines during the Civil War. And at the German embassy in Madrid, he climbed up the stairs and posed with a smile on his face, the light dancing mischievously in his eyes. As much as he’d risked his life for humanism and for those innocent boys in uniform, it was clear that making utter asses out of the Nazis gave Pujol a wicked, unending pleasure.
Araceli, too, wasn’t safe from his mischief. When he saw how well his Spanish children had turned out, he turned to her and asked, “Why don’t we get married again?” (Never mind that they were both happily married to other people.) Araceli, for once, was speechless. She relayed the story to the children later, saying only, “Your father is crazy.”
Forty years before, Pujol told a story to his debriefers in that house on Crespigny Road, a story about his brother Joaquín and terrible Gestapo massacres, as Tommy Harris watched every twitch of the Spaniard’s handsome face. That white lie allowed Pujol to connect his fantasies to the real world of war and espionage, enabled him to walk out of the realm of boyhood dreams and into the great drama of his time. But his imagination remained stubbornly his own; he reserved all rights to employ it as he saw fit. One senses Pujol believed that, no matter how much he let his secrets into the world, they belonged to him and to him alone.
On October 10, 1988, Juan Pujol died after suffering a stroke. He was buried in Choroní, next to his daughter, in Venezuela’s Henri Pittier National Park, filled with cloud forests and swept by warm rains from the Caribbean Sea. The graveyard is poorly maintained and overgrown with weeds. Many of the graves are missing their markers. Pujol’s tombstone, however, remains untouched. It has a simple inscription—“Remembered by his wife, children and grandchildren”—along with his name and dates of birth and death.
What else could one write, really, about Pujol’s life other than the usual clichés about “loving father” and “dutiful husband”? The blank stone is true to his achievement. The best spies dwell in silence.
Appendix A: Organizations
Abwehr: The German intelligence-gathering organization responsible for human espionage, established in 1921.
BiA: Section within MI5 that “ran” all the controlled agents in England.
German High Command: The military staff that coordinated the activities of the Luftwaffe, the German navy and the Wehrmacht, the German army.
London Controlling Section: Founded in June 1942, the LCS was an arm of the Joint Planning Staff responsible for the creation of strategic deception policy and planning.
MI5: The British internal counterintelligence and security agency.
MI6: The British Secret Intelligence Service, responsible for foreign intelligence operations.
SD: the Sicherheitsdienst (“Secret Service”), the intelligence organization of the SS and the Nazi Party.
War Office: The British government office responsible for the administration of the British army.
XX Committee: The organization that supplied information to the double agents in Britain, chaired by J. C. Masterman.
Appendix B: The Garbo Network (Entirely Fictitious)
J (1): Pilot on regular flights between England and Portugal. Garbo’s courier.
J (2): RAF officer and “unconscious collaborator” who passed information on rocket batteries in Hyde Park.
J (3): Top official in the Spanish Department of the Ministry of Information. Another “unconscious collaborator” who was assumed by the Germans to be the real W. B. McCann, head of the Spanish section of the ministry. Perhaps Garbo’s most essential agent.
J (4): Censor at the Ministry of Information.
J (5): Secretary at the Secretariat of the Ministry of War and Garbo’s mistress.
No. 1: Portuguese commercial traveler named Carvalho who reported on Devon and Cornwall. “A rather colorless individual,” somewhat lazy and haphazard in his reports.
No. 2: William Maximilian Gerbers. An Englishman of Swiss-German ancestry who was the source for the “Malta convoy” report that first revealed Pujol’s operation to the British.
No. 2 (1): William Gerbers’s widow, recruited into the network,
used as a radio operator and “cutout” between Garbo and his agents.
No. 3: University-educated Venezuelan, nicknamed Carlos, and chief deputy of the Garbo network.
No. 3 (1): Noncommissioned officer in the RAF, stationed in
Glasgow. The agent who purchased the aircraft recognition handbook, later baked into a cake by No. 2 (1).
No. 3 (2): Lieutenant in the 49th British Infantry Division, used mainly in Operation Torch.
No. 3 (3): Greek merchant seaman and fervent communist based in Glasgow, used in Operation Fortitude.
No. 4: “Fred,” a waiter from Gibraltar, essential to the Chislehurst Caves scheme and later used in Fortitude South.
No. 4 (1): Left-leaning technician who helped Garbo obtain a wireless set.
No. 4 (2): Guard in the failed Chislehurst Caves plot and source for No. 4.
No. 4 (3): American NCO, befriended by No. 4 and the source for much of the information on FUSAG.
No. 5: Brother of the Venezuelan student, No. 3, and a “restless character” who roamed the southern coast of England and Wales before relocating to Canada.
No. 5 (1): Commercial traveler and cousin of No. 5 who passed information on American subjects from his home base in Buffalo.
No. 6: Nicknamed Dick, a South African linguist with strongly anticommunist views. Had to be killed off when his real-world scribe died in a plane crash while traveling from Scotland.
No. 7: Welsh sailor known as Stanley who became head of one of Garbo’s subnetworks.
No. 7 (1): British soldier in the 9th Armored (“Panda”) Division who was used during Operation Starkey.
No. 7 (2): Retired Welsh seaman and founder of the Brothers in the Aryan World Order, used extensively in Fortitude South.
No. 7 (3): English secretary of the Brothers in the Aryan World Order who was the lover of No. 7 (4). Later moved to India.
No. 7 (4): Indian poet and Aryan fanatic known as Rags who reported from Brighton during the run-up to D-Day.
No. 7 (5): Welsh employee of a commercial firm who monitored the areas around Taunton and Exeter.
No. 7 (6): Low-grade operative and member of the Welsh fascists who reported from Swansea.
No. 7 (7): Treasurer of the Brothers in the Aryan World Order who sent in military updates from the Harwich area.
Notes
The references to KV, AIR, PRO WO, PRO AIR, HW and WO all refer to files kept at the National Archives at Kew, England.
Introduction
page
xi “This damned secrecy thing”: George S. Patton, letter to Beatrice Patton, March 6, 1944. Quoted in Patton, p. 421.
xii “a living dynamo”: Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 88.
He was smoking four packs: D’Este, p. 326.
“bowed down with worry”: McManus, p. 116.
Waiting for him in France: Hesketh, p. 101.
xiii “thought to be held as a centrally controlled mobile reserve”: Ibid.
“slim, elegant little man”: Holt, p. 216.
“Just keep the Fifteenth Army”: Quoted in Holt, p. 579.
xiv “the best actor in the world”: Pujol and West, p. 120.
xv “power-drunk egocentric”: Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 52.
“I had the idea”: Juan Pujol, interview with Josep Espinas, Identities, Catalan TV documentary, date unknown.
the man they called Jesus: Bristow, p. 271.
“I wanted to start a personal war”: Author interview with Rafael Fraguas.
1. Tom Mix in Barcelona
4 “complicit expression in his ironic gaze”: Juárez, p. 39.
“In my house”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, May 6, 1988.
“I really believed”: Ibid.
“I was constantly covered”: Ibid.
5 “That cowboy was doing”: Ibid.
“The contents of my fevered fantasies”: Ibid.
“I wanted to be the beloved hero”: Ibid.
his nickname was Bullet: Ibid.
“I didn’t hurt anybody”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, May 8, 1988.
“Punishments and retribution”: Ibid.
“sturdy and straightforward”: Pujol and West, p. 22.
“He taught me to respect”: Pujol and West, p. 24.
four “interminable” years: Ibid., p. 23.
6 “My imagination would travel with them”: Ibid., p. 20.
the leftists’ idea of a joke: Carr, p. 60.
“One day a right-wing faction”: Pujol and West, p. 31.
“Every morning my father went”: Ibid., p. 19.
7 they settled into a magnificent home: Juárez, p. 44.
“a hefty fellow of fifteen”: Pujol and West, p. 28.
“endless and dull”: Ibid.
“I’ve always adored romanticism”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, May 25, 1988.
8 “I was destroyed”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, August 16, 1988.
he would awaken: Pujol and West, p. 23.
“I felt my stubbornness”: Ibid.
“prudent, very religious”: Ibid.
Pujol had learned to ride: Juárez, pp. 46–47.
9 “Everybody was crying and shouting”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, August 24, 1988.
“The flight of his soul”: Pujol and West, p. 29.
10 “He was a terrible businessman”: Author interview with Juan Kreisler.
“I don’t know”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, August 24, 1988.
2. The Training Ground
11 “in such a fratricidal fight”: Pujol and West, p. 37.
“I loved liberty”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, August 24, 1988.
“nothing great has ever been achieved without violence”: Carr, p. 13.
12 “Every shop and café had an inscription”: Orwell, p. 4.
“snatched from certain death”: Pujol and West, p. 37.
“a brutish appetite”: Ibid., p. 94.
“A horrible atmosphere of suspicion”: Orwell, p. 140.
“Trotskyist treachery”: Ibid, p. 173.
13 one of many young Spaniards: Thomas, p. 481.
“I was petrified”: Pujol and West, p. 38.
“I kept assuring [them]”: Ibid.
14 “I had … become a criminal”: Ibid., p. 39.
16 “I began to look like a decrepit old man of forty”: Ibid., p. 40.
In order to plan an escape: The details of Pujol’s life after his confinement are found in Pujol and West, pp. 40–53.
20 The hotel had one other guest: Juárez, p. 78.
“Years of hiding and persecution”: Pujol and West, p. 43.
21 “I am only his shadow”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler’s mother, October 29, 1987.
3. Araceli
22 her mother nicknamed her Antoñita la Fantástica: Author interview with Maria Kreisler.
“There is a part of the family”: Araceli Kreisler, letter to her grandchildren, undated.
23 “She was the most seductive woman”: Author interview with Tamara Kreisler.
“Lugo was the kind of place”: From the documentary Hitler, Araceli y Garbo, directed by José de Cora. A Lugopress/Cora Production for Galician television.
“It was the best way to leave us”: Araceli Kreisler, letter to her grandchildren, undated.
“We lived in a fantasy world”: Ibid.
She took with her an enormous wooden chest: Ibid.
“All my friends would say”: Ibid.
A friend and fellow nursing student: Interview with Cachita Nuñez, from Hitler, Araceli y Garbo.
24 “I went to Burgos”: Quoted in Hitler, Araceli y Garbo.
“Where he was weak, she was strong”: Author interview with Maria Kreisler, September 2011.
In Navarre, men in short-sleeve shirts: The details of life under Franco are from Carr, pp. 211–13.
Those suspected of speaking against the Führer: This and the anecdotes about Hans Lazar are from “Los espías nazis que salvó Franco,” El País, January 26, 2003.
25 what London could reasonably expect: Carr, p. 187.
“The countryside … was pockmarked”: Bristow, p. 10.
“It didn’t even deserve one star”: Pujol and West, p. 54.
26 “Francoist Madrid was too small for him”: Author interview with Rafael Fraguas.
“a maniac, an inhuman brute”: Pujol and West, p. 26.
“My humanist convictions”: Ibid., p. 61.
“I would be tormented”: Ibid., p. 60.
27 “If a Pythian oracle”: Ibid., p. 57.
“Aryan race,” “superior being”: Ibid.
“I must do something, something practical”: Ibid., pp. 60–61.
28 “They considered such a drink essential”: Ibid., p. 55.
“We were just fighting for the right to survive”: Ibid., p. 61.
“Your services of what?” The phrase is from the author’s interview with Rafael Fraguas, who spoke to Pujol about the incident after his reemergence in 1984.
“I must confess that my plans were fairly confused”: Pujol and West, p. 62.
29 The future Il Duce: The details of Hoare’s caper are from “Recruited by MI5: The Name’s Mussolini. Benito Mussolini,” Guardian, October 13, 2009.
30 “Out of amour-propre”: Pujol and West, p. 62.
“In order to offer myself to the Nazis”: Ibid., p. 63.
31 “My contact with the Germans”: Ibid.
it employed 391 people: Macintyre, p. 156.
“All classes were represented”: Ibid.
Knappe-Ratey had grown up in luxury: Juárez, p. 114.
“slight but rather athletic”: KV 2/101.
32 a “hot Nazi”: Liddell, p. 23, referring to Richard Sorge.
“extraordinarily magnificent”: Pujol and West, p. 64.
“It dawned on me”: Ibid., p. 63.
“a thousand foolish things”: Ibid.
“It’s something you have to know”: Juan Pujol, interview with Josep Espinas, Identities.
33 “dreaming up new rigamaroles”: Pujol and West, p. 64.
When Pujol showed up: For an account of the meeting, see Harris, pp. 44–47.
4. The White City
35 still maintained flights: Kahn, p. 79.
MI6 and American OSS officers: Pujol and West, p. 74.
36 whose bartender reportedly made: Lochery, pp. 125–26.
Graham Greene, then working the Lisbon desk: The information about Greene, Fleming and Casino Estoril comes from Miller, p. 50, and James Milton, “Discovering Lisbon, the ‘Capital of Espionage,’” Daily Mail, March 24, 2010, www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1260276/Portugal-holidays-Discovering-Lisbon-capital-espionage.html.
Our Man in Havana, which was inspired: Denis Smyth, “Our Man in Havana, Their Man in Madrid: Literary Invention in Espionage Fact and Fiction,” in Wesley Ward, ed., Spy Fiction, Spy Films and Real Intelligence (London: Frank Cass, 1991).
“She … would play three times”: Quoted in Kahn, p. 289.
“It was an expensive code”: Ibid.
37 “I was getting desperate”: Pujol and West, p. 69.
“I resolved to become better acquainted”: Ibid., p. 68.
39 “I was fully aware of the risks”: Ibid., p. 70.
the Zueleta brothers: Juárez, pp. 102–3.
“He was becoming increasingly interested”: Pujol and West, p. 72.
40 “He did not wish … to be caught a second time”: Harris, p. 47.
“You must return urgently”: Ibid.
41 “Alarmed and furious”: Ibid., p. 48.
“Greatly impressed”: Ibid., p. 49.
42 “[He’d] swallowed the story”: Ibid., p. 73.
“In a few days I’ll depart”: Ibid., p. 49.
“No conquest conquered me”: Juan Pujol, letter to Tamara Kreisler, March 3, 1988.
5. The Game
43 “In what stage of construction”: KV 2/63, summary of letters and questionnaires.