Into the Lion's Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond

by Larry Loftis

  Pacing the hotel daily, Dusko remembered, he was consumed with thoughts of his friend. As Christmas neared, hope of seeing Johnny waned, and on December 24 he gave up the vigil and returned to Paris.

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  Just before the New Year he met with Major Foley and agent Desmond Bristow. While MI5 had placed him on indefinite sabbatical, MI6 hadn’t. They asked him to help build a new network in Paris. A considerable number of General Mihailovic’s operatives, they said, had been imprisoned by the Germans but had escaped during the retreat. If Popov could supply names, MI6 would approach them to become “straight line-crossing agents.” Others with suitable backgrounds might be sent to Switzerland as bait to become double agents. Dusko couldn’t be visible in the operation, of course, since again one slip and his cover would be blown.

  Meanwhile, Popov’s mission for King Peter had fallen through. The Yugoslav Foreign Office—apparently from objection by the Russians—refused to authorize it “as a question of foreign policy.” That was the good news. Dusko also received word that the Partisans had identified his brother as a Nazi collaborator. The situation was a frightening re-creation of the Ustaše nightmare in 1941: Since Ivo was in England, the sentence would fall on his wife and child.

  Dragica and Misha were to be shot.

  28

  PARTISAN POLITICS

  Near the end of February 1945 Dusko saw an old girlfriend in London. She was a Yugoslav and the former mistress of General Vlatko Velebit, a Serb who had joined the Partisans in 1941. She asked if Dusko was related to Dragica Popov, and he confirmed that she was his sister-in-law. Velebit had recently told her, she said, that the Partisans had robbed and arrested Dragica on the basis of Ivo’s supposed collaboration with the Nazis. Ivo’s wife and their small child were to be shot, she went on, but a Scottish brigadier—Fitzroy Maclean of the SAS—apparently had intervened. Maclean’s credentials were above reproach: As Winston Churchill’s personal representative, he had parachuted into Yugoslavia as commander of Britain’s military mission to the Partisans, and worked directly with Tito.

  Dusko passed this on to Wilson, and Ian to Major Bristow. In a letter to the MI6 agent on February 27, Wilson lamented the lack of information security in Yugoslavia. While Maclean was to be lauded for saving the Popovs, Ian wondered aloud whether the Scot could have achieved the result without compromising DREADNOUGHT and, by extension, the entire TRICYCLE net. Ian asked Desmond to find out exactly what had been told to which Yugoslavs, and by whom. Bristow might as well have been told to kick an anthill and record the activity of each insect.

  On March 14 Belgrade SIS reported back. To secure Dragica’s and Misha’s release and safety, local agent L. H. Cohen wrote, Maclean had approached Tito directly. He told the Partisan general that Ivo was indeed working for MI5, and offered that the British would provide a flight for Dragica and her son to join Ivo in England. Tito assented and assigned General Velebit to assist.

  Cohen added that “DREADNOUGHT’s work for us is fully understood, but in the eyes of the general public Dragica must unfortunately suffer for what her husband agreed to do in Belgrade.” As for the fallout of security, he went on: “Dragica, with some knowledge has unfortunately talked herself and it must therefore be assumed that many more people in Belgrade now believe her husband is in England and worked as a British, and not a German, agent.” As a result, the Americans and Russians also now knew, and keeping it from the Germans would be difficult.

  While accurate at the time, Cohen’s report underestimated the danger to Dragica and Misha. In the end, they would flee Yugoslavia—Dragica dressed as a man in a British uniform, Misha (now four) drugged and sleeping in a duffel bag carried by Fitzroy Maclean—on a British bomber.

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  As spring brought warmth and new life, good news trickled in on all fronts. Dusko was living in Paris and had started a publishing business, which was flourishing. On April 6 he received word that his father had escaped to Switzerland, and that Dragica and Misha had arrived safely in Bari. Hoping that MI5 could pull strings to get him to Zurich, Dusko flew to London.

  Milorad Popov had been outwardly working for the SD, Wilson and Bristow told Dusko, but, like his sons, had been double-crossing. Mr. Popov was now in a refugee camp, they said, and had little money. The intelligence officers didn’t have information as to why Milorad fled to Switzerland, or why Mrs. Popov was not with him. Dusko’s father would have trouble getting out of the camp, they added, as it required a sizeable payment to Swiss authorities. For the sake of Dusko’s cover and possible repercussions to Johnny, however, British representatives could not contact Swiss authorities.

  MI6 had already briefed an agent in Switzerland, Bristow said, who would try to contact Mr. Popov and give him money. In the meantime, they would find out what payment was required for the authorities, and Dusko could transfer funds from his Banco Espirito Santo account in Lisbon to his Schweizerische Bankverein account in Berne. If his visa came through normal channels and Dusko made it to Switzerland, Ian offered, he was free to find Johnny’s friends and inquire about Jebsen’s status.

  Days later, promising news about Johnny arrived. Major Bristow reported that an American source in Lisbon had said that Jebsen was not only alive, but had left for England. Dusko couldn’t celebrate, however, because SIS reported at the same time that his father was having a rough go in the Swiss camp. The situation was considered urgent, they said, and Dusko asked the Yugoslav Embassy to help with the visa. Unfortunately, that would take time.

  On May 2 Dusko returned to Paris, still longing for a way to help his father. Meanwhile, the pillars of the Third Reich crumbled. General Patton had relieved Bastogne in late December 1944, concluding the Battle of the Bulge on January 16, 1945. On March 7 Allied troops had crossed the Rhine and encircled the Germans in the Ruhr. Two months later, at Rheims, France, on May 7, 1945, General Alfred Jodl signed on behalf of the German High Command Germany’s unconditional surrender. VE* Day on May 8, 1945, was the largest outdoor party in the world, spanning from Los Angeles to Vladivostok.*

  Dusko sent a congratulatory letter to Ian “and all my friends in the office, hoping that a terrific hang-over they might have will pretty soon disappear.” Since Jebsen had not shown up in England, Dusko also mentioned that Johnny once had a hideout at a pub near Freiburg, and that the owner was a man named Schmidt. Perhaps MI6’s Major Peter Hope, he suggested, might be able to pursue the lead. If not, Dusko was more than ready to go himself. He asked if Ian had any news about Johnny’s wife, Lore, whom Dusko also believed to be in Freiburg. If Ian authorized him to go, he said, he could look for both. Wilson declined, deciding to let local MI6 agents handle it.

  As summer approached, things seemed to unravel. Dusko still had not acquired the Swiss visa and had no further news of his father. Johnny’s fate, which Dusko had clung to for a year now, seemed in doubt. On May 26 the Allies interrogated an Abwehr agent named Waetjen, who seemed to have intimate knowledge of Johnny and his activities. “In spite and because of good connections with the Gestapo and S.D.,” he had said, Jebsen “helped many people who had difficulties with [the] Nazi organization. By his warnings many people were saved.”

  Waetjen believed Johnny had been killed.

  Two weeks later the Allies interrogated a senior Abwehr officer, Oberstleutnant* Wilhelm Kuebart. As Major Wiegand’s immediate superior, Kuebart had voiced numerous doubts about Popov, and was suspicious about Jebsen as well. When Johnny refused to go to Biarritz, Kuebart stated, Colonel Hansen ordered his arrest. After Johnny arrived in Berlin, he went on, “Hansen had to turn him over to the S.D. on the direct instructions of Field Marshal Kietel, which produced a great deal of ill-feeling in the Abwehr.” After that, Kuebart claimed, he heard nothing more about Jebsen.

  On June 9 Ian finally received news about Dusko’s father in Switzerland. The local SIS agents apologized for the delay, saying that they had heard Mr. Popov was in Ticin
o, but eventually traced him to the Bear Hotel in Baden. At the same time, Ian received through Major Hope correspondence from Dusko to Ivo, which Ian passed along. The letter stated that Dusko had finally received his Swiss visa, and hoped that the British could assist in transferring money to Switzerland and getting his father to France. Dusko was planning to leave the following day, so Ian passed word through MI6 to let him know that Mr. Popov was in Baden, that they would work on the money and entrance to France, and that Ian was still working on locating Jebsen or his wife. Johnny had not survived, Wilson thought, yet he had no particular evidence.

  That evening Ian gave Dusko’s letter to Ivo and asked if he knew Lore Jebsen’s stage names during her acting career. Ivo didn’t, only that she had worked at the State Theater in Hanover.

  Two days later Ian updated Frank Foley, and reminded him of their promise to Jebsen: “You will remember when we were both in Lisbon, about the only assurance which we gave to JOHNNY was that if anything happened to him we would look after the welfare of his wife. He explained that he was not particularly worried about her financial future as he had taken other steps to provide for that, but that he would like to know that we were seeing that she did not meet any undue difficulties.” Ian added that he felt Johnny’s chances of survival were not very high, but that there was no evidence that Jebsen had disclosed any secrets about doubling or the TRICYCLE net. If Foley had the occasion, Wilson asked, Frank’s assistance in finding Johnny would be appreciated.

  On June 6 the SOE had forwarded an enciphered message that seemed to shed light on Johnny’s plight. The message was dated February 1945 and was from Lieutenant Commander Cumberledge, an SOE operative who had been captured in Greece while trying to blow up the Corinth Canal. He was interned at Oranienburg, the note said, and was believed to have been shot prior to the camp’s liberation by the Russians on April 30. Before he died, however, he passed a coded letter to another prisoner, Colonel Jack Churchill, who survived the war and made it back to England:

  Johny Jebsen hun held high treason can D repeat D Popoff Jslav Warminster help urgent F.O. know of J. J. all charges against us are baseless.

  Cumberledge also wrote a letter to his wife and enciphered the following sentence:

  Johny Debsen hun held high treason can [MI5 concealed] of Selection Trust help?

  Two weeks later Wilson received a note about “Mrs. ARTIST” from MI6. Through METEOR they learned that Lore’s maiden name was Peterson, and that her father was a professor at a language school in Leipzig. Lore was about thirty-two, it said, five-foot-eight, with a good figure, very beautiful, and was fluent in German, French, and English. She was regularly employed, it also stated, as a leading lady at Frankfort-am-Oder theater.

  On June 25 Popov sent a letter to Wilson, updating him on the trip to Switzerland. While helping his father, Dusko wrote, he had met another camp refugee, a Greek named Aframides, who had been imprisoned at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse with Johnny. The principal Gestapo agent investigating Jebsen, the Greek said, was Obergeheimrat Quetting. Aframides went on to say that Quetting boasted of having sent men to Lisbon to bring Johnny to Berlin.

  Knowing that British and American officers would be vetting war prisoners, Dusko thought Ian might pass word to keep a watch out for Quetting. “If you have luck and find the man,” he wrote, “keep him alive until I come, I would love to have a few words with him.” Nothing more was heard about Quetting.

  Officially.

  At the end of the month, Ian finally received encouraging news about Johnny. SHEAF sent a telegram which contained an extract from the interrogation of Walter Schellenberg the day before. “In Berlin handed to Mueller [Gestapo chief],” the message read, “was accused of working for Britain.” Noting that the suspicion of Johnny stemmed from conflicting reports he sent to different departments, the telegram stated that Schellenberg “thinks that Jebsen has not been killed.”

  Clinging to any hope, Dusko met with Ian and William Luke to inquire if he could go to Freiburg to look for Johnny’s wife. The MI5 officers said that they could not officially support it. Days later Luke checked with Trevor Wilson of MI6, who stated that SIS could probably “unofficially” assist Popov. Meanwhile, Dusko’s father had made it to France and was planning to visit Ivo in London.

  A month later Ian received another extract from the interrogation of Oberstleutnant Kuebart. Passing the testimony on to Masterman and Luke, Ian wrote that Kuebart did not seem “even now, to suspect that Tricycle’s information was plant material nor that Tricycle was under our control.” Equally important, it was evident that Johnny had not talked, as he was “clearly suspected of intending to desert but not of having already, for some time, acted as a British Agent.”

  About this time Ian sent a memo to Masterman, Luke, and Harris, summarizing MI5’s deception with Operation Fortitude. Kuebart testified, Ian wrote, that Abwehr agents IVAN (Popov) and OSTRO* had sent information on English division numbers and locations, although the latter’s were mostly unusable. “It is eminently satisfactory,” Wilson stated, that “the man who held the position of head of the enemy military espionage services from July 1943 to July 1944 was relying for his information about England upon three controlled agents.”

  Things were looking up. The deception operation had been successful, Mr. Popov was now in France, and Kuebart’s testimony indicated that Johnny had not talked and might still be alive. Ian sent letters to the army and the SOE to pursue Jebsen leads. The SOE, in particular, had contacts to a prisoner who had survived Oranienburg—Captain Payne Best from the Venlo kidnapping incident—and Wilson encouraged steadfast investigation.

  By mid-August, however, the search had stalled. SOE found nothing from Oranienburg and Best’s whereabouts were unknown. “I am still concerned at the lack of definite news about the fate of ARTIST,” Ian wrote in a note to Major Luke. “TRICYCLE is himself going to try and seek information from friends of ARTIST’s known to him.”

  Dusko went to Germany that month and located Lore Jebsen’s friends, although he was unable to catch Lore. She was in the Russian zone, he found out, and was doing her best to cross into the American or English zone. Upon his return to Paris on August 27, he sent Ian a letter with Lore’s address and telephone number, as well as the two cities where she was expected to appear. Dusko also told Ian that while on his trip, he had found out that a close relative in Belgrade had been attacked, robbed, and arrested.

  His mother.

  29

  JOHNNY

  On July 18 Partisans had attacked and robbed Dusko’s mother of her money and jewelry. Ten days later she was arrested. “You can imagine how I feel about all that,” Popov wrote to his case officer. With only slight exaggeration, Dusko suggested that he might use the same “nazi-gangster methods” and kidnap a Partisan general to assure his mother’s safety.

  Knowing that Ian would move heaven and earth to help, Dusko thanked him, saying that the entire Popov family should elect him as their “honorary father.” Wilson went to work, as Dusko had expected, firing off letters and calls. The feedback from SIS Belgrade on September 6, unfortunately, was frightening: “I had heard subject [Mrs. Popov] was in prison and have been trying to discover reasons,” wrote Major R. M. Hamer. Dusko’s mother had been advised by family, he reported, to visit Dubrovnik for her health. The night before her departure, she was arrested.

  Suspecting that the arrest was due to “foolish talking” by Mrs. Popov or her acquaintances, Hamer noted that “stories got put about” that she had sons in the U.K. and U.S. who had advised her to go to Dubrovnik, from where she might escape Yugoslavia. If this was the reason for her arrest, he warned, “it will not repeat not be easy for me to mediate and results for doing so might worsen matters.” Hamer went on to say that the chances of springing Mrs. Popov were remote, and that the wiser plan would be to let the matter run its course. In all likelihood, he figured, Mrs. Popov would have to remain in prison to
serve the “usual corrective period,” or another three to six weeks.

  Meanwhile, Ivo’s wife dashed off letters to General Velebit and a Belgrade lawyer who she thought could help. Zora Popov never meddled in politics, Dragica told them, and “only lived for her children, and whose one ambition” was to see her children happy.

  As the effort to free Mrs. Popov continued, MI5 received a lead on ARTIST. The Americans had arrested Baroness von Gronau, British Intelligence heard, and Johnny’s old friend just might have information on his fate. In a letter to a Major Forrest on September 9, William Luke provided the Americans with Jebsen’s background and asked that von Gronau be questioned about Johnny. “As we feel some sense of responsibility towards this Abwehr officer who ultimately came under our control,” Luke wrote, “we should very much like to know his ultimate fate and, if, as now seems unlikely, he is alive, we would wish to secure his release.”

  While Popov awaited news about his mother and Johnny, King Peter called and Dusko again assumed duties as the king’s emissary, this time to political and military officials in Austria and Italy. In particular, the king wanted Dusko to help raise an army to resist Tito. No sooner than that assignment started, however, reports came in about Johnny and Dusko’s mother.

  On October 17 Major Hamer notified MI5 that, according to Belgrade sources, Mrs. Popov had finally been released from prison. After an almost two-month incarceration, he said, Zora was going to the Vrnjačka Spa to recover. The leads on Johnny, unfortunately, proved to be dead ends. With no progress in sight, Dusko asked William Luke if British Intelligence would object to a trip to Hamburg so that he could at long last find out what happened to his friend. In a letter to MI6’s Hamer, Luke passed on the request:

  “As you know, we have been unable to find out from any Field Source anything about ARTIST. . . . I told TRICYCLE that I did not think he could obtain any information which would not also be available to us, or that his enquiries in Hamburg would get him any further, but he disagreed with me and felt that . . . he was mainly responsible for ARTIST’s misfortunes and that if ARTIST was no longer in this world, which seems likely to be the case, he would wish to do something for the long suffering widow.” Luke mentioned that MI5 would not sanction the trip, but would not object. Adding that the visit might help resolve the ARTIST mystery, Luke wrote that he would be glad if MI6 would stamp Popov’s papers with “No Objection.”