I purposely have not dealt with service matters in this letter. This I shall do when I have received your personal letter, which, I hope, will give me details about your plan for escaping, which I asked for by message, which will enable me, forthwith, to reply regarding all the possibilities in this connection.
I enclose, with this letter, a remittance of $3,000.
With our most cordial regards and a firm handshake.
The $3,000 brought the total paid to GARBO’s network up to $20,000, enough to finance most of MI5’s other double agents. As usual, the money was paid to a Spanish fruit merchant in pesetas in Madrid. He then made the dollar equivalent available to GARBO at his London office. The enclosure of $3,000 referred to in the letter was simply a note authorising the fruit merchant to release the Abwehr’s funds to their spy in London. The scheme had been code-named, appropriately, plan DREAM by MI5. In spite of German optimism, GARBO’s mind had already been turning increasingly to the notional question of escape. The following month he grew a beard and sent a photograph of himself (referring, for security, to his ‘friend’) to the Abwehr in Madrid. They were not noticeably impressed with the disguise. In a letter from Lisbon dated 20 March, but received 1 April, the Abwehr commented tactfully:
Having examined the photographs of the friend I must assure you that the camouflage is perfect. On the other hand, if I am to be quite frank about expressing my opinion I must say that this camouflage presents quite a lot of difficulties on account of the by no means usual shape of the friend’s beard, since I think I can say with certainty that one can see very few people nowadays who wear a beard of that shape, with the exception of those beards which are rather more developed and one connects with people advanced in years.
GARBO ignored these adverse remarks and, even in the last weeks of the war, gave no hint that his entire network had been an elaborate sham.
In the last of some 2,000 messages GARBO broached the subject of the future of his own network. DICK and DORICK had remained particularly loyal, in spite of the adverse military situation on the continent. Throughout the winter months of 1944 these two sources had been active, although the signals must have made depressing reading for the Abwehr. On 23 November, for example, DORICK had liaised with BENEDICT and reported:
DORICK. Sudbury: Saw large convoys of 58th Infantry Division moving direction of Cambridge. BENEDICT: This confirms that the troops of this division seen by me in Glasgow were on leave … Have ascertained that 80th Infantry Division has been stationed in area between Ipswich and Stowmarket but that it left this district again between 10th and 15th of this month. Am proceeding to Yorkshire to investigate on basis of information received from my contact that 5th Armoured Division was moving to that county.
Once DORICK had reached Yorkshire, he maintained a steady flow of information:
DORICK reports from York: has discovered that Fourth British Army has moved here but can find no sign of other divisions reported moving north in this area as yet. He is continuing investigations, though he states there is no sign of preparations for embarkation and has been told that Fourth Army and Northern Command are being amalgamated and will control any future landings in Germany, whether to help the present offensive or to occupy areas which you abandon, in the same way as other commands have been given similar roles; for instance, Norway in the case of Scottish Command and the Channel Islands in the case of Southern Command … 80th British Infantry Division has left Canterbury area.
Even at this late date DORICK was still sufficiently keen to indulge in a little detective work to achieve his objectives. On 6 December GARBO gave this account of his activities in the north:
DORICK. York. Agent has finally discovered that 58th Division is stationed in the areas surrounding Leeds. He discovered this division by following the direction of very large convoy of brand-new heavy trucks with divisional sign painted, which were being delivered to the division. Have discovered that 80th Division is stationed in the areas of Bedale and Catterick. … Agent assures me there is no immediate danger of an embarkation since 80th Division is undergoing training.
Ten days later DICK demonstrated that he too was still active in the south of the country:
DICK. Bournemouth. Saw considerable number of newly arrived American troops which are starting to occupy camps near here. These wear the sign of red shield divided horizontally, the main, lower portion in red, the smaller, upper portion blue. Superimposed on blue portion is white design like a telephone receiver. Have not been able to identify this yet but am continuing investigation.
By the New Year of 1945 it was impossible to avoid the truth – that the Third Reich was crumbling – and DAGOBERT’s agents became increasingly anxious to disband. In GARBO’s thirty-ninth letter, dated 8 April 1945, he explained:
These individuals are inspired by other ideas and their ends are different from ours. They have helped us because they believe and hope that with the assistance that they were giving us we would one day be able to help them and the ends of their party. Now that they see that our situation is itself difficult and they cannot hope for anything from us, they wish to get out without compromise from the promise of loyalty which they have expressed.
DONNY was prepared to carry on, in spite of a severe asthma attack, as was BENEDICT, but DORICK and DICK had already announced their intention to resign. DORICK was not convinced that his continued involvement would help the Welsh Nationalists, and DICK, the Indian, claimed that he had only helped in order to assist his mistress and, anyway, intended to return to India at the end of the war. Eventually, on 1 May, the Abwehr were forced to admit that GARBO should cease operations altogether:
The rapid course of events and the confusion reigning all over the world makes it impossible to see ahead with clarity the future developments of the general situation or to take decisions in this connection. We thank you with all our hearts for the offer from BENEDICT and yourself for your continued collaboration, understanding and fully appreciating the motives which animated this. On the other hand, you will understand that in a situation which does not allow one to look ahead it is our greatest wish and duty as colleagues to arrange matters in such a way, taking as a basis the present events, so as to ensure generally for your safety and that of the collaborators, giving them an opportunity to return to their private activities.
On 3 May GARBO himself admitted defeat and requested Madrid to burn any compromising files they may have accumulated on him or his network. He added:
I have absolute confidence, in spite of the present crisis, which is very hard, that our struggle will not terminate with the present and that we are entering into what is developing into a world civil war which will result in the disintegration of our enemies.
The Abwehr were suitably impressed with his expressions of undying loyalty and seemed prepared to entertain GARBO’s latest idea, that he go back to Spain and start a new spy ring to penetrate the Soviets. Madrid replied on 6 May:
Grateful for your latest messages and, especially, your offers of unconditional collaboration. The heroic death of our Führer clearly points the course which must be followed. All future work and efforts, should they be carried out, must be directed exclusively against the danger that is threatened by a coalition of the east. Only a close union of all the sane peoples of Europe and America can counteract this tremendous danger, against which all other questions become unimportant. You will understand that, in view of the very rapid evolution of the situation during the past week, it has become completely impossible for us to be able to tell you now whether we will later be able to dedicate ourselves to the work, the basis of which is indicated above. Should we do so, we hope that we will be able to count on your proven friendship and the enormous experience in service matters. We, therefore, fully approve your plan to return to Spain where, once you have arrived, the plan for a new organisation directed against the east can be dealt with.
Two days later, in his penultimate wireless communication with the Abw
ehr, GARBO received specific instructions on how to renew contact on his arrival in Madrid. He was to go to La Moderna bar at 141 Calle Alcalá every Monday evening and carry a copy of the London News under his arm. Between eight and half-past he would be approached by ‘a friend of Fernando Gomez’. This intermediary would give further instructions.
In his final transmission GARBO said:
I understand the present situation and the lack of guidance due to the unexpected end of the military struggle. News of the death of our dear chief shocks our profound faith in the destiny which awaits our poor Europe, but his deeds and the story of his sacrifice to save the world from the danger of anarchy which threatens us will last forever in the hearts of all men of goodwill. His memory, as you say, will guide us on our course and today, more than ever, I affirm my confidence in my beliefs and I am certain that the day will arrive in the not too distant future when the noble struggle will be revived, which was started by him to save us from a period of despotic barbarism, which is now approaching.
Some months later, when GARBO finally returned to Spain after a brief visit to the United States and South America, he followed the instructions he’d been given and managed to track down his Abwehr case officer to the small Spanish town of Avila. A broken man, desperate not to be deported to Germany, he begged GARBO to help his escape to South America. GARBO’s reply? He promised to consult BENEDICT or DAGOBERT.
2 ARABEL’s deputy, the Venezuelan student BENEDICT, Agent THREE
11
VICTORY
The last stages in life are always sad. Memories readjust biography, the past outweighs the present and the future outweighs nothing.
Francisco Umbral, in his foreword to Miguel Delibes’s La Hoja Roja
From the moment I set foot in England in 1942 until I left after the war, I gained great pleasure from the beauty of the countryside, from the lush greenness of London’s gardens and from the great variety of trees which lined the streets and filled the parks. I arrived in April, when the country was just about to appear at its best; the days were getting longer and the sun, the little sun that there is at that time of year, came peeping through the cloudy skies, welcoming me with its warmth and friendliness to a land which was to be a most hospitable host, a land which received me with open arms and often made me feel extremely happy, especially when it allowed me to associate myself with its joys and sorrows.
Although it was April, I found England cold. The day after my arrival I asked Tommy Harris if he would come with me to help me buy some warm clothes, but that had to wait. First I had to undergo a long and detailed interrogation. Mr Grey led the cross-examination, with Harris interpreting.
My English was not just poor, it was almost non-existent, so they suggested that I should, as a matter of priority, have some lessons so that I could learn the basics of the language of Shakespeare. However, I thought it much more important to make immediate contact with the Germans, sending them some really useful information, for I had been silent for some weeks. Three days later, after consulting various sections of MI5, we sent the Abwehr a juicy letter that, for the first time, included true information about England.
As soon as Colonel T. A. Robertson, who was responsible for MI5’s B1(a) section, dealing with counter-espionage through double agents, and his fellow officers had given me their full backing, Tommy Harris and I concentrated hard on drawing up a short-term and a long-term program of action.
Tommy Harris had endeared himself to me right from the start, not just from the firm way he had shaken my hand but because he had also put his arm around my shoulders in a gesture of protection and friendship. We soon began to confide in each other and I always trusted him completely; my trust was never misplaced. Together, we invented the role of GARBO, a creation that afforded us both great pleasure. Someone has said that GARBO without Harris or Harris without GARBO would have been unthinkable, for both were crucial to the other in carrying out the work that had to be done!
Tomás Harris, or Tommy as we affectionately called him, must have been thirty-five or forty then. Although he loved art and although painting was his dominant passion and his peacetime livelihood, he was no unkempt bohemian but an extremely sensible and capable individual, who always dressed impeccably in an elegant sports jacket, which he wore with a most distinctive air. He smoked like a chimney and the fingers of his right hand were almost chestnut coloured as he never put out a cigarette until it was about to burn him. Always cheerful, he had a most attractive smile. His wife Hilda, whom he adored, was also charming and very loving; both were gourmets who enjoyed good food and an excellent bottle of wine. Tommy owned an impressive art collection, which included paintings by Velázquez, Goya and Rubens, as well as those by more recent innovative artists. He also painted himself; his early works leant towards the El Greco School but, in the later part of his life, he was influenced by Goya. But he painted almost nothing during the war as his time was fully taken up with our mutual task. Tommy became a very great friend and a most hard-working and indefatigable colleague for whom I had the greatest admiration.
I continued to live in Hendon, travelling into the office in Jermyn Street, off St James’s, every day. Once in the office I would sit down and write letters in Catalan hour after hour, leaving wide spaces between the lines so that I could then insert whatever Tommy and I had concocted in between in invisible ink. When the V-1s began, I went to live at a hotel near Taplow in Buckinghamshire owned by a Spaniard who came from Valencia. There were about twenty-five other guests there, including a red-haired girl of Jewish extraction who was always asking me for Spanish lessons, and I also remember a Spanish vice-consul and a Czech couple. It wasn’t a bad existence. I told them all I worked for the BBC and I commuted up to London every day by train. When I returned in the evening, we would sometimes have a party and I would dance. At that time I was very good at the paso doble and the foxtrot.
V-2s were more frightening than V-1s. On 8 September at 6.43 p.m. there was a screaming noise followed by a great explosion, which shattered about twenty buildings in the centre of London. Sixteen seconds later a whole block disappeared in another part of London, literally falling down like a house of cards. No one had heard the characteristic whine of the V-1’s engine nor seen any plane in the sky. This was the beginning of the V-2s.
The first V-2 fell on a school and killed seventy-eight children. No one knew where it had come from. It seemed to fall straight out of the stratosphere and it left a crater over eight metres deep. Everyone was surprised to find ice in these craters, a by-product of the rocket’s stratospheric route. There was no possible defence then known against these flying bombs.
Soon the Germans wanted to know exactly where the point of impact was for each V-2, so we sent them false information in order to make sure that the rockets fell on the outskirts of London and not on the most densely inhabited areas, but doing this pricked my conscience. It was not easy to find areas of low population density near London and I was all too well aware that the least error could cost thousands of innocent lives. The Germans became more and more insistent with their demands for details and I became increasingly nervous, as they could easily discover that I was giving them false information.
Then on a glorious – though for many people also tragic – day, 6 June 1944, British and American troops landed in Normandy and were eventually victorious; and so we were able to bring Western democracy back to Europe and to end hostilities with the least possible number of casualties.
The work Tommy Harris and I did was hard at times because it meant having to solve complex problems and make difficult decisions. All the messages we sent exist on file, and I hope that one day they will all be published in full. For the time being, MI5 keeps them secret, even though some of them have leaked out. I was very proud to be given the MBE during the war; although it had to be presented to me privately, I had prepared a little speech for the occasion and, when I had been given it, all those present began to bang on the table to co
ngratulate me. It was a very moving moment.
In my last message to the Germans I told them that I would try to go to South America by boat as soon as I could. Then, on 7 May 1945, London exploded with joy: people invaded Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street, and traffic came to a standstill; everyone was drinking beer, singing and dancing to celebrate the arrival of peace. Our office was disbanded; GARBO had no more messages to send and the whole team was broken up. I lost touch with most of them except for Tommy Harris, who had always been my best friend in MI5. They didn’t want me to leave the country and even offered me a managerial job with the Eagle Star Insurance Company, but I had made up my mind to go to South America because I believed that the pact between the Allies and the USSR was not going to last and I feared that another war would soon follow.
I left Great Britain in June 1945 on board a Sunderland hydroplane for the United States, accompanied by Tommy Harris, for MI5 were determined to look after GARBO right to the end. The British were always marvellous to me and, at the end of the war, MI5 gave me £15,000 as a reward for my work; they arranged for this money to be sent to Caracas through the Banco de Londres y Sud América.
We left from Southampton and landed in Baltimore after a twenty-four-hour flight. From there we went to Washington, where I had an interview with J. Edgar Hoover, the boss of the FBI, who wanted to meet me personally. He invited both Tommy and me to his house, where we had dinner in an underground room. Hoover showed great interest in my activities as a double agent and was most affable throughout, but he never asked me to work for him.
Operation Garbo Page 21