Fighting to Lose (59 page)

36. For the Government Code and Cipher School noticing the change, see PRO, HW3/155. For OKW/Chi being responsible creating and overseeing German military ciphers: CSDIC, Interim Report Trautmann and Schlottmann, 10 Oct. 1945, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 133, 65-37193-333. OKW/Chi was headquartered at 80 Tirpitzufer Strasse, next to the Abwehr’s offices. It was here that the explosives and small arms were hidden for the aborted Abwehr-inspired coup of 1939: “Lahousen,” III, PRO, KV2/173. OKW/Chi is short for OKW/Chiffre.

37. The German Police decrypts in NARA, RG457, HCC, Box 1586 are duplicates from the British set check-marked on the distribution list as the “for file” copies.

1. Mitchell, an “English businessman,” had been the security officer with the British Purchasing Commission in 1940 before transferring over to British Security Coordination: Montgomey Hyde,
Room 3604
(New York: Dell, 1964), 78–79. As MI5 did not have an overseas security function, this means that he would have been an MI6 officer. Popov,
Spy/Counterspy
, 154, incorrectly remembered it being BSC’s John Pepper who took the briefcase through customs.

2. Col. Sharp, MID, to Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, 15 Aug. 1941, NARA, RG65, FBI HQ file “Dusan M. Popov.” FBI documents cited in this chapter are from this file unless otherwise noted. Sharp wrote that Popov was reported to have given Mitchell a package while they shared the taxi and Ellis subsequently produced copies of some of the microdots at a meeting with the FBI on 14 Aug., so they can be assumed to have been in that package. See Note 4 below.

3. Connelley to Director, 20 Aug. 1941; and C.H.C. to Foxworth, 21 Aug. 1941. This action by Popov must have caused the army/navy officers to wonder how he managed to get the cash through customs, leading them to back-check his arrival and discover the details about Mitchell: Sharp to G-2, 15 Aug. 1941.

4. Foxworth, MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR, 14 Aug. 1941. Handwritten notations on this document indicate that it was specifically drawn to Hoover’s attention, and its attachment — a “questionnaire” — was forwarded to Hoover on 16 Aug., indicating the earliest that the FBI director would have seen it. It would have been a photographed or typed copy of the English-language version that was on two of the microdots Popov was carrying. Popov had done none of the things Ellis claimed of him.

5. There is moderately strong evidence for this deduction. The secret “BSC History” that Stephenson had compiled in 1945, and which only finally became available in the 1990s, makes only bare mention of Popov and says nothing of Pearl Harbor or his questionnaire, which Stephenson surely would not have missed including had he known of it: Nigel West, introduction to,
The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940–45
, by William Stephenson (New York: Fromm International, 1999), 388–93. There is no mention in Montgomery Hyde,
Room 3604,
either. Indeed, Stephenson disclaimed the Popov/Pearl Harbor story that author William Stevenson wrote into his controversial autobiography of him,
A Man Called Intrepid
(1976): See Bill Macdonald,
The True Intrepid: Sir William Stephenson and the Unknown Agents
(Surrey, BC: Timberholme, 1998), 148–50. Also, strangely, Ellis is referred to in the documents as “STOTT’s assistant,” rather than Stephenson’s, but STOTT is a code name derived from Ellis’s personal past. Stephenson is never mentioned by name.

6. Connelley to Hoover, PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, 20 Aug. 1941. This was a follow-up to his report of 19 Aug. and appears to have been done for the record, after Connelley and Hoover talked on the telephone.

7. Connelley to Director, 19 Aug. 1941. It is curious that he used the verb “transmit,” for up to the time he left for the United States, Popov’s communication with Portugal had been by personal visit or secret-ink letter. Ellis must have shown Connelley the text of some of these letters.

8. Ibid., 6. See also, Carson to Foxworth, 21 Aug., and 23 Aug. 1941. Popov may have been instructed to say the thirty-eight thousand dollars was British money because it would have been subject to seizure under the recent law freezing Axis assets in the United States. It was an outright lie, however, to say that the spy was to draw directly from the account in the United States, and cashed cheques were to be traced. The actual scheme involved an equivalent amount being paid in England to a British double agent. Popov hid this fact, although the FBI eventually sorted out the truth: “A Brief Synopsis of the case,” Dusan M. Popov, 15 Jan. 1944, NARA, RG65, WWII, FBI HQ Files, Box 11(17). The sum in British funds was twenty thousand pounds: Liddell Diary, 3, 25 Aug. 1941.

9. Connelley to Director, 19 Aug. 1941, Exhibit C and Exhibit D. These are white on black, presumably because they are photographs taken by a camera mounted on a microscope, a not uncommon piece of scientific equipment at the time. The FBI lab was soon to develop an apparatus for making direct enlargements and positive prints. Popov’s transmission frequencies were to be 13400 and 6950 kcs, requiring an aerial of twenty-five metres.

10. Jeffrey,
MI6
, 194–5, 316.

11. Peter Wright,
Spycatcher
(Toronto: Stoddart, 1987), 325–30. See also, H.A.R. Philby to Miss Paine, 25 Nov. 1946, with attachments and other documents pertaining to the interrogation of Richard Traugott Protze, PRO, KV2/1740. Protze disclosed that a Captain Ellis had handed over “extensive information about the organization of the English Secret Services.” It appears to have been a slip because he then said Ellis was a Russian and the information was only partly believed. Protze probably played a part in the Abwehr’s secret peace overtures to Stephens and Best in 1939 that led to the Venlo incident. It was in his territory. See Chapter 6.

12. Thomas Troy,
Wild Bill and Intrepid
(New Haven, CT: and London: Yale UP, 1996), 98–108. See also, Joseph E. Persico,
Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage
(New York: Random House, 2001).

13. Connelley to Director, 20 Aug. 1941. Hoover was
required
to go through Astor on intelligence matters involving the army and navy: James Strodes,
Allen Dulles: Master of Spies
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1999), 204.

14. Laboratory Report re Dusan Popov, 3 Sep. 1941, Lanman, “Synopsis of the Facts,” 17 Sep. 1941. The lab only reported on eight microdots, even though Lanman collected eleven from Popov. The omitted three were the two comprising the English-language “Exhibit C” and Popov’s wireless transmitting instructions, “Exhibit B.” As these were in English, Lanman apparently saw no reason to send them to the lab. See also, “Brief Synopsis of the Case,” 15 Jan. 1944 (above).

15. John Bratzel and Leslie Rout, “Pearl Harbor, Microdots, and J. Edgar Hoover,”
American Historical Review,
87, No. 5 (December 1982). The illustrated text shows that Hoover sent Photo #2 from Q1 of the FBI lab report. These were the general queries of the questionnaire, beginning with “All information regarding the American air defense …” and ending with the paragraph on Canada’s air training plan: FBI Laboratory Report, 3 Sep. 1941. The particular example may also have been chosen simply because it was the first item in the report.

16. Shivers to Hoover, Report, 26 Dec. 1941, NARA, RG65, FBI WWII HQ file, “Julius Kuehn.”

17. Robert B. Stinnett,
Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor
(New York: Free Press, 2000), 85–86. Hoover’s rationale is inferred by the present writer, not by Stinnett. The issue of normal/acceptable espionage came up at various times during the post-attack Pearl Harbor inquiries.

18. Hoover also long prided himself on simply laying out the facts in his reports to higher authorities, leaving it to his political or military clients to draw what inferences they would: Richard Powers,
Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover
(New York: Free Press, 1987), 238.

19. Phillips did not last long as Donovan’s spy chief. He left Donovan’s employment shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack on 7 Dec. It is not known under what circumstances.

20. Strodes,
Allen Dulles
, 203.

21. Liddell Diary, 20 Nov. 1941. Churchill could also send messages directly to Roosevelt by this means.

22. The collection of British-supplied German Police Decrypts for 1941 found in the U.S. National Archives at College Park surely got to the United States by this route. See NARA, RG457, HCC, Box 1386. The Americans were not intercepting and decrypting this traffic at this time.

23. Cowgill to Robertson, 19 Aug. 1941, PRO, KV2/849, Doc. 204b; and Luke to Cowgill, 22 Aug. 1941 Doc. 206a. The texts of the two questionnaires are next in the file, the German-language one being a carbon copy on onion-skin paper, suggesting that the English version on the microdots had been on onion skin, as well. Cowgill could not turn this over to MI5 because it was either in Roosevelt’s possession or still on the
Prince of Wales
.

24. PRO, KV4/64.

25. Ibid. An internal reference to Masterman’s
Double-Cross System
makes it certain that the W-Board summary in KV4/70 and probably the minutes were written after 1972, probably by Ewan Montagu from memory or personal notes.

26. This assertion is based on the assumption that if after nearly seventy years no one has found mention of the Pearl Harbor questionnaire in the wartime archives of these bodies, they were not informed. Note that the Wireless Board and XX Committee understood that the “junior” Joint Intelligence Committee in Washington was only to deal with questions dealing with Britain and the Commonwealth.

27. According to his diary, Liddell was on leave the week of 19 Aug. when Cowgill sent MI5 the questionnaire, which theoretically would give him an excuse if his 17 Dec. statement were ever challenged. However, surely he would have read his files on his return and surely the questionnaire would have been at the top in his in-basket. In any case, he was at the Wireless Board meeting.

1. “His first communication in secret writing containing the information requested by the Germans was sent on August 22, 1941. Further communications were sent on September 15, 16, October 7, 8, 9, and 10, 1941, containing information prepared by the Army and Navy in response to questions contained in Popov’s questionnaire.…” Brief Synopsis of the Case, 1/15/44 collected in “Espionage (World War II)”; NARA, RG65, WW II, FBI HQ file, Box 11(17), Dusan Popov.

2. Effective 17 Jun. 1941, Coast Guard decrypts were distributed to MID, ONI, State Department, and FBI. NARA, RG457, SRH-270. For background on Canada’s code- and cipher-breaking agency that started up in Ottawa that spring, see Bryden,
Best-Kept Secret
, passim.

3. FBI, Memorandum re TRICYCLE, 5 Oct. 1943, PRO, KV2/854, 662B. It is not clear whether this is a translation of Portuguese into Englishmen’s English, or whether Mady was a fifteen-year-old English-language prodigy. “Uncle” could well be Canaris. Notice the use of “chap,” a middle- to upper-class British word. For the lower classes, the word “bloke” would have been used instead. Apparently obtained from FBI files.

4. Popov appears to have been alluding to “Dickie” Metcalf, a.k.a. BALLOON.

5. “I went over to see Valentine Vivian and found him with Dick Ellis who had just flown over from New York.…” Liddell Diary, 3 Nov. 1941; PRO.

6. Quoted in Caffery to Berle re CEL espionage ring, 5 Sept. 1942; NARA, RG457, SRIC.

7. Foxworth to Director, 16 Dec. 1941. See: Max Fritz Ernst Rudloff with aliases (ND 98), NARA, RG65, WWII FBI HQ File: 65-37233-4.

8. A source inside Spain reports that there is “now in America” a Spanish-speaking German spy close to Franco who travels on an Argentinian passport. Siscoe to Hoover, 14 Aug. 1944; IWG Box 153, 65-37193-237(1). FBI reaction to this news cannot be determined because Hoover’s messages in the Mosquera file after that date are heavily redacted.

9. “Synopsis of Facts,” 4 Dec. 1944, 22. See: Max Fritz Ernst Rudloff, NARA, RG65, WWII FBI HQ File, 65-37233 (above).

10. NARA, RG242, T-77, 1569, card 1549. See also, Farago,
Game of Foxes
, 648–49, who states categrically that Canaris saw the report, but without citing his sources. They must have existed, however, because the quotation he attributes to von Roeder echoes the information asked for in Popov’s March questionnaire (which Farago would not have seen).