by Ted Allbeury
He looked at Shapiro. “Have you got any points?”
“Nothing official.”
“What unofficial?”
“There was a question raised at my last liaison meeting with GCHQ. They queried whether Fort George Meade ever passed on commercial surveillance material to US companies that could disadvantage British industry or commerce.”
“What did you say to them?”
“I assured them that it didn’t happen and would never happen but I promised to raise the point either with NSA or you guys on a semi-official basis.”
“Well let’s put the cards on the table. The National Security Agency, as you know, carries out radio and telephonic surveillance on everything. Specific targets are the main traffic but their listening facilities are non-specific. They sweep the whole world like a damn great vacuum cleaner and suck in everything. Radio at all levels, satellites, telephones—the lot. And that includes commercial stuff. Foreign and domestic. Indiscriminately. The censorship comes at evaluation level.
“There’s no way we can handle all we get but some commercial stuff has a security element in it. High-tech and weaponry for instance. Also the movement of large sums of cash here and overseas. That stuff’s pulled out with check-words. The rest is retained on tape for two months and then wiped clean. It’s treated as highly confidential before it’s destroyed and that’s because we recognise that that information could make a guy a fortune or even destroy an industry.” He paused. “So we care, Joe, we really do. If it was leaked, which would be very difficult because of our cut-out systems, we should treat it internally as a criminal offence and any outsiders involved would be treated the same.”
“Have you ever uncovered a leak, Robert?”
“Yes. Two. Both way back. They were picked up in hours. The NSA employee concerned has spent the last two years manning a dish aerial on some lonely rock in the Pacific, and the guy who suborned him never quite worked out how his company went bust inside six months. In the second case we intercepted the whole deal at an early stage and the information passed on was both spurious and damaging to the company that received it. The NSA person concerned not only was dismissed without a reference but never quite understood why she was called in by the IRS to look at her tax returns for the previous eight years. It cost her seventeen thousand bucks.” He shrugged. “So that’s the picture. Cards on the table. Not even the President could ask for that stuff without authentication of grounds. It’s dynamite and we know it. OK?”
“I’ll pass it on. But I guess they’ll raise it again from time to time. Any points from you?”
Macleod smiled. “Yes. Same sort of query. Our Polish and Soviet people think you’ve been holding back on them in the last few months.”
“What grounds do they give?”
Macleod pulled out a slip of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and read it before he looked back at Shapiro.
“They say that the exchange of information shows a very obvious deterioration. Routine stuff, OK, but your usual top-level stuff has been missing. Seems they set great value on that information.”
“How great a value?”
“My impression was that they consider that that ‘special source’ material is vital.”
“They’re right in saying that. It’s dried up I’m afraid.”
“They told me that they’ve put a lot of cash and effort into supporting that operation. They’re not pleased. I need to give them a convincing explanation or I think it can mean a high-level hassle. Way above you and me. And the possible withdrawal of reciprocal information.”
“The explanation’s simple, Jake. Our man disappeared some months back. We assume that he’s in the bag.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Why weren’t we told?”
“Because we don’t know what’s happened. He may not have been picked up. He boarded a scheduled domestic flight from Warsaw to Moscow. The plane never landed at Sheremetyevo. We’ve cast around a bit but we’ve drawn a complete blank and we don’t want to indicate an interest that would blow his cover if it isn’t already blown.”
“Can I tell my people this?”
“We’d rather you didn’t.”
“Why? Don’t you trust our people?”
“We just don’t want to stir the pool. He may be in the Lubyanka but not talking. He may be dead. He may have been involved in an air-crash that they have never publicised.”
“We’ve got people in both Warsaw and Moscow who could keep their ears to the ground if they knew more.”
Shapiro shrugged but didn’t reply, and Macleod said, “Would you talk to my guys?”
“If London clear it—yes.”
Macleod pointed to the red phone on his desk. “Call ’em, Joe. I’ll leave you alone.” He smiled. “It’s auto-scrambler. And it’s not monitored.”
Shapiro talked with London for nearly an hour and it was only his suggestion that if they came clean with the CIA they might cooperate on an exchange that made London agree to him going ahead. A meeting was arranged by Macleod for the following day in Washington.
Macleod walked with Shapiro from his hotel to the meeting in the private house in Foggy Bottom. It was a modest town house on 24th Street not far from Washington Circle. There was a small, neat front-garden and a white picket fence and a paved pathway that led to the front door.
Macleod made the introductions and Shapiro noticed that he only introduced two of the three men. The third had nodded and half-smiled but had not been named or introduced.
Goldsmith and Merrick were typical of the broad spectrum of American society from which the CIA recruited its officers. Goldsmith was tall and lean and in his early fifties. He had taught history at Berkeley, specialising in the history of revolution. Merrick was in his thirties, heavily built and already showing a tendency to pudginess, but he had a sharp mind and a forceful personality. Son of a California fruit farmer he had surprised his contemporaries by his success at Yale. And surprised them even more when he was invited to join a well-established law firm in Washington. When he had successfully represented various interests of the CIA he had been recruited, not as a legal adviser, but as a clear-minded situation evaluator.
They listened attentively to Shapiro’s report on the disappearance of Phoenix. He had not been entirely candid about all the operation, particularly in its early days, and he had said nothing that would enable them or their colleagues in Warsaw to pinpoint Phoenix’s identity or official position in the Polish security service. When he finished it was Merrick who started the questions.
“This guy, Phoenix, how good was his Russian?”
“At least as good as his English. He was bi-lingual and Russian was his first language.”
“And his Polish?”
“Fluent but not perfect.”
Goldsmith said, “Have you considered that he may have gone over—defected?”
“Of course.”
“And your evaluation?”
“Unlikely to the point of not worth considering seriously.”
“And how likely is it that he would talk under pressure?”
Shapiro shrugged. “Who can tell? He had the usual training but our experience is that you can never tell until it happens. Sometimes it’s the tough macho who’s spilling the beans after ten minutes and your ivory tower intellectual who goes silent to the Gulag.”
“If you had to bet, which way would it go?”
“Not talking.”
Goldsmith looked at Shapiro. “Was he the source of the material we got on the inside of the KGB HQ?”
“Yes.”
“And on the Polish Politburo?”
“It’s fair to say that any top-level inside stuff concerning the Warsaw government and the KGB came from Phoenix.”
Merrick nodded. “Could you give us a brief picture of his activities?” When he saw Shapiro hesitate he went on, “You can rely on anything you say staying inside this room, Joe. We appreciate how delicate the situation is for you peopl
e.”
Shapiro looked away for a moment towards the window and then down at his clasped hands on the table. Then he raised his head and looked at Merrick.
“He spoke English, and fluent Russian and Polish. He was recruited by SIS from the Army. He was intensively trained to go back to Poland and infiltrate into any government establishment that could give us an inside picture of what was going on inside the regime.
“For five years he has been Deputy Chief Liaison Officer between Polish Intelligence and the KGB in Warsaw and Moscow. He fed us information on the Soviet internal rivalries, the organisation and personnel of the KGB in Moscow and Warsaw, especially those who were active against Britain and the United States.
“He prevented both Langley and London from making several major mistakes in our operations and it’s fair to say that there was little that they planned against either of us that we were not warned about. Not always in precise detail but enough to allow us to take general precautions.”
Macleod intervened, looking at his two colleagues. “The Agency’s considered comment to me was that the material provided by SIS from this agent was the only reliable material that we have received in the last four years. I understand that it is the wish of the Director himself that we furnish any help we can to assist SIS.”
Goldsmith said softly, “What help do they need that we can provide?”
Shapiro shrugged. “There is nothing that could help us at the moment. The reason why Robert Macleod wanted this meeting was so that I could clear up your doubts that we were deliberately holding back information from you. I hope I have convinced you on that score.” He paused. “But if I could move to the future for a moment—maybe our friends in CIA could help. I’m hypothesising that we discover that Pheonix has been taken. Whether he’s talked or not doesn’t really matter. We should want to get him out. We have nobody of theirs at the moment who would make the Soviets interested in an exchange. If we put all our Warsaw Pact prisoners together Moscow wouldn’t be interested for a moment.” Shapiro paused again. “Have you got anybody?”
Goldsmith and Merrick looked at Macleod, who looked across at the man who had not been introduced and who had contributed nothing to the conversation. He in turn looked at Shapiro for several moments before he spoke.
He said very quietly, “My name’s Paul Nowak. I’m also CIA. We don’t have anybody who would constitute a likely exchange for Phoenix.”
Shapiro nodded. “Can I ask you why you are here at this meeting, Mr. Nowak?”
“I’m just an observer.”
“Why is that necessary? Does somebody not trust your colleagues here?”
“I don’t have to give a reason.”
“Only three or four people in Britain know about Phoenix. I’ve talked to your colleagues as a courtesy, I don’t appreciate having somebody else in the picture without it being established that they have a need to know. A man’s life is at stake.”
“I came because I was invited to come. It’s not just curiosity I assure you.”
Shapiro looked at Macleod who looked across at Nowak. “I trust Joe Shapiro implicitly, Paul. So does the Director. Are you going to tell him or shall I?”
Nowak stood up and walked to the door. Before he opened it he looked at Macleod. “I won’t tell him. If you do …” He shrugged, “… then it’s your responsibility.”
Macleod nodded, his face calm and showing no concern at the apparent threat. When Nowak had left, Macleod said, “Nowak’s under a lot of stress at the moment. I won’t go into the details.” He paused. “What matters is that what he said is quite correct. At the moment we have no suitable body for exchange. But it is possible that that could change in the next couple of months.”
“Can I be told the basics?”
“OK. But just the basics. We have a man in custody. An important Soviet. He’ll be coming to the final stages of the legal battle in the next few weeks. Nowak was in charge of the operation. There may be a legal cock-up. Nowak is obsessed by getting him the death sentence or at least life. When it all eventually gets untangled there’s just the possibility that the best solution would be an exchange. Nowak knows this but doesn’t want to admit it so that an exchange doesn’t become an alternative in the legal people’s minds and they hold back from making a one hundred per cent effort to nail the guy.”
“Is this Sivrin at the UN, or is it Colonel Abel?”
Macleod shook his head. “I can’t answer any more questions, Joe. But it’s not Sivrin.”
“Can I keep in touch with you on this?”
“By all means. But remember—it’s vague on both sides. On your side you don’t even know that you need an exchange. And on our side we don’t know if it’s a possibility.”
“Is your guy in the same league as Phoenix?”
“Maybe higher. Even more important. We think. Do you want me to book you a flight? I’ll take you to the airport myself.”
“That would be fine, Robert.”
27
The trial of Lonsdale and his network was set for March 13, 1961, only narrowly depriving the press of the chance to quote Shakespeare and the Ides of March. By then the media knew quite a lot about the private lives of the accused but nothing of their alleged activities. The original formal charge gave no details. But they had to restrain their eagerness to unveil glowing statements from Lonsdale’s discarded girlfriends, the love-life of Houghton and Gee and the middle-class normality of the Krogers. It was all sub judice until the verdict had been given.
So the personal stories were of the barristers who were to prosecute or defend. The Attorney-General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, headed the prosecution, and four leading counsel were to appear for the defence, one each for Houghton, Gee, the Krogers and Lonsdale.
Sir Reginald was already quite well known to the public. Bespectacled, fifty-five, testy in public but kindly and witty in private, he had a reputation for crushing his opponents like a legalistic steamroller. Living in the market town of Towcester, he was inevitably pictured as a man of the rolling acres despite the fact that his house and gardens barely made up to six acres. Word pictures were painted in the Sunday press before the trial of Sir Reginald pruning his floribunda roses to soothe his nerves before rising in court next day for what seemed to be Britain’s most important spy-trial.
Baron Parker of Waddington, the Lord Chief Justice, was to preside at the trial. A gentle, moderate and modest man. Against the death penalty, but for corporal punishment. A man who had had to give up his rare hobby on appointment as Lord Chief Justice. The study of genetics applied to the breeding of high butter-fat dairy cattle.
The barrister defending Lonsdale was the grandson of an admiral and the son of a naval officer killed in the war. Born in Guernsey in the Channel Islands Mr. W.M.F. Hudson was well aware of the significance of the charges against his client.
Two barristers from the same chambers were to defend Houghton and Gee. Mr. Henry Palmer was to defend Houghton, and his equally young colleague Mr. James Dunlop was to defend Gee.
The heavyweight of the defence team was Mr. Victor Durand QC, a tough, able barrister who was to defend Peter and Helen Kroger.
When the trial started the defence objected to twelve of the jurors. Nine men and three women. It was finally an all-male jury.
Lonsdale sat in the dock, smartly dressed in a light grey suit. Ethel Gee wore a dark blue dress and Helen Kroger wore a heather mixture costume.
The Attorney-General opened the case, describing the circumstances of the arrests and of the accused and the details of what had been discovered in the parcel handed by Ethel Gee to Lonsdale. And then he went meticulously through the espionage material found at Lonsdale’s flat, the farm cottage, Houghton’s home and the Krogers’ bungalow.
It became obvious that the Krogers’ bungalow was the hub of the network. The searchers had found a microscope that could be used for reading micro-dots, a list of radio call-signs using the names of Russian rivers, a high-powered radio
transmitter hidden under a trapdoor in the kitchen, one-time code pads and several letters in Russian. There were two New Zealand passports in the Krogers’ names, a Ronson table lighter with a concealed cavity in its base which contained film; the camera that had been in Lonsdale’s briefcase deposited in the Midland Bank was in the study.
The Attorney-General showed the jury a tin of well-known talcum powder which had a special compartment with a standard KGB micro-dot reader. There were black-painted boards in the loft to cover the bathroom windows so that the bathroom could be used for enlarging or reducing photographed material. Also in the loft was 74 feet of aerial which led to a radiogram in the sitting room. Under the loft insulation were several thousand US dollars, and American and British travellers’ cheques.
At Houghton’s semi-detached cottage was a list of the Admiralty Test pamphlets that had been passed to Lonsdale. Further Test pamphlets were found hidden in Houghton’s radiogram. There were Admiralty charts with pencil markings of secret submarine exercise areas, others had pencil marks pinpointing the site of suitable pieces of equipment for sabotage. £500 in Premium Bonds and a camera were found in a drawer with what looked like a box of normal Swan matches. Under the base of the match-box was a paper which registered dates for meetings and codes if a meeting had to be called off. In an empty tin of Snowcem paint in a garden shed was £650 in pound and ten shilling notes.
In Lonsdale’s flat there was another Ronson lighter with a concealed cavity holding radio signal plans similar to those found at the Krogers’ place. There was a similar tin of talcum powder with its hidden micro-dot reader, and a large amount of money in US dollars and sterling.
Nowak listened with envy as the prosecution established the evidence and its significance in carrying out espionage. The Attorney-General established the connections between them that constituted a conspiracy. Compared with the legal circus that they had had to go through in New York it all looked so simple.
Witnesses gave evidence of how the various espionage items were used and others gave details of dates, times and locations of meetings.