24 LAND

Salazar and the Funk Plan

2012-01-21T22:21:00.000Z

In a letter, dated 26 June 194, written to David Eccles [MEW in Lisbon] , Roger Makins [here and here], of the British Foreing Office, asked him about the intentions of Salazar concerning the course of the War. «Is he tempted by the possibility of exorcising the spectre of Bolshevism and the menace of American materialism at the cost of accepting a place in the New order?».

A footnote remarks that «Hitler's new order envisage in the Funk Plan», which means this plan for Europa devised by Walther Funk [see here and for further references here] III Reich's Minister for Economy and President of the Reichsbank [full text here]:

«By concluding long-term economic agreements with European countries it will be possible to assign a place for the German market in the long-term production planning of these countries, i.e. as a safe export outlets will be found to exist for German goods in European markets.
By creating stable exchange rates a smooth working system of payments must be assured for the carrying on of trade between individual countries. In so doing we hall link up with the existing payments agreements, which will be expanded to include a greater volume of trade on the basis of stable exchange rates. By an exchange of experience in the field of agriculture and industry a maximum production of foodstuffs and raw materials must be our aim, and a rational economic division of labor must be achieved in Europe. By the appropriate use of all economic resources available in Europe, the living standards of European nations must be raise, and their safety in face of possible blockade measures from outside Europe must be increased. A stronger sense of economic community among European nations must be aroused by collaboration in all spheres of economic policy (currency, credit, production, trade, etc.). The economic consolidation of European countries should improve their bargaining position in dealings with other economic groups in the world economy. This united Europe will not submit to political and economic terms dictated to it by any extra-European body. It will trade on the basis of economic equality at all times in the knowledge of the weight which carries in economic matters».

David Eccles & Salazar

2012-01-05T21:48:00.000Z

Incredible how secrets could be revealed with such a detail, but love prevails over reason and common sense. I am working now on David Eccles [MEW representative in Lisbon during WW2 days, arrived to Lisbon at the time Sir Walford Selby was HM Ambassador] book By Safe Hand [The Bodley Head, 1983] which is a collection of letters exchanged between him and his wife Sybil. Reading these we can follow not only the course of the events but became aware of information that could not be traced in the Archives. «I saw Salazar yesterday and was immensely impressed, nothing I had heard could have equalled the dignity, good sense and charm of the best-looking dictator in Europe», he shares with her.

Graham Green wrote a novel about The Human Factor in the intelligence world. He was right.

The Blitz

2012-01-01T22:59:00.002Z

Neutrality saved Portugal of these horrors.The flood of refugees that came across our frontiers know that this is the true.

Blunt and Operation Triplex

2012-01-01T12:18:00.001Z

In his memoir's book written in Moscow - then the capital of the Soviet Union - Harold Adrian Russel («Kim») Philby reveals: «There were also sophisticated techniques of opening foreign diplomatic bags. This method could not be used against the enemy directly, since German and Italians bags did not passed through British territory. But the bags of the neutral states and the minor allies, such as the Poles and the Czechs, were fair game». And he adds: «(...) the diplomatic correspondence of the South American states, of the Spaniards and Portuguese's, of the Czechs, Poles, Greeks, Yugoslavs and many others, was regularly subjected to scrutiny».

After research, I came to the conclusion that the man in charge of the Portuguese bag was Anthony Frederick Blunt, a MI5 official and one of the Ring of Five communist moles in the British intelligence élite, later Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtlaud Institute and Surveyor of the King's Pictures. I wrote it here.

I quoted from here [Oleg Tsarev/Nigel West book description] more details: «Triplex has been considered too secret a source ever to be mentioned outside the most senior levels of security and intelligence services, and none of the official histories of British Intelligence in World War II contain even a single reference to it. More sensitive than Ultra, Triplex was the codename for a joint covert operation to gain access to the diplomatic bags of neutral embassies in London and photograph their highly secretive contents. The MI5 officer selected to supervise this clandestine operation was Anthony Blunt, who also took copies for his Soviet contacts. Some of the most astonishing documents ever declassified by the KGB's archives are contained in this collection, unseen by anybody in the West since they were sent to Moscow by Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. These remarkable reports are never likely to be released by any British government, but they are of such compelling historical interest that they have been gathered together by the KGB's leading historian, Oleg Tsarev, and the British espionage specialist Nigel West, who have placed them in their proper context» [the book is indexed here].

About Triplex as a tool for intelligence in Mincemeat Operation see Ben Macintyre here.

SOE "Operation Longshanks": Marmagoa, 1943

2011-11-02T00:53:00.000Z

It's the 2nd revised edition of a book published ten years ago. It will be printed by Oficina do Livro at the end of this month. From the original synopsis I quote:

«During the Carnival of 1943, four merchant ships (one Italian and three German) stationed at Mormugão harbour, in Goa, were set on fire and sunk by their crews. Following their arrest and interrogation by the Portuguese authorities, the Axis crewmembers claimed that their actions were in response to an armed attack by a British commando. However, no one believed that explanation.

«The subsequent inquiry conducted by the Portuguese Navy, and the trial of the crew members held in the local court, both concluded that the attack alleged never occurred and was a mere invention to justify the sinking of the ships, following a political altercation between the crews. Also, the Governor General of Goa, Colonel José Cabral, had, on the night of the incident, telegraphed a message to the Ministry of the Colonies in Lisbon, which was then passed on to Prime Minister Oliveira Salazar, stating that the story of the British attack was, in fact, not true.

«The official account of the incident was convenient for everyone involved, not only for the British, who had violated Portuguese neutrality by launching an attack in Portuguese waters, causing loss of life, but also for the Portuguese, who were anxious to maintain cordial relations with one of their oldest allies. Even the Germans in Berlin, could not refute the official account, as one of the possible motives for the British attack was the neutralisation of an Axis spy network operating from the main ship, the Eherenfels. Consequently, some of the German crewmembers were wrongly convicted and sentenced for arson and the file was closed.

«In fact, the account of the events given by the crewmembers was true. The British attack did happen, and was carried out by a team of Special Operations Executive («SOE»), together with some civilians, recruited in British India. The operation was code-named “Longshanks”. Prior to the attack, the same team had kidnapped a German spy, Robert Koch, who, with his wife, was resident in Panjim.However, the outcome was considered by London authorities to be a «fiasco», because the operation approved by the British Foreign Office was one which involving only the capture of the vessels by means of bribery alone and without any violence.

«Many years later, in 1978, James Leasor, a British journalist, published a book entitled Boarding Party, translated in German, which revised the foregoing interpretation of the episode and claimed it was a glorious British victory. In the same vein, building on the account furnished in Leasor’s book, a fiction film of the event, The Sea Wolves, was produced in 1980, starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Roger Moore.

«Following exhaustive research in archives both in Portugal (Foreign Office, Colonial and Salazar’s) and in England (Public Record Office), José António Barreiros has written a book, that goes to the limit in the quest for the truth. Comparing material previously published with recently released documents, the author presents a full account of the entire episode, together with political insights and operational details. The legal facts and political expediency are brought together in a fascinating style, which can be read like a novel. This short book reveals names and details that were not public knowledge before, including the whole story of the kidnapping of the German spy».

Fleming's AU

2011-09-17T21:22:00.001+01:00

In 2008 I wrote a book comparising Ian Fleming and his creature, James Bond. It is psychological essay, but in a sense it was a biography of both. Working during WW2 in Room 400, with Admiral Godfrey - and both were in Lisbon, where Bond visited the Casino at Estoril that later would inspired him to write Casino Royale - his feverish mind devises plans to fight Axis Forces. One of the tools was the assault unit now described in this book by Nicholas Rankin. The acronym for Assault Unit is AU, the symbol for gold, Golfinger, The Man With the Golden Gun. Alchemy, in short. Ian Fleming translated a paper from Carl Jung about Paracelsus. Did you know it?

Desmond Bristow

2011-09-10T23:35:00.000+01:00

I met him in Periana (Malaga) after a press cut that a a friend, Emílio Sousa, send me of a letter to the editor he sent to The Daily Telegraph, about the Lt. Colonel Dudley Clark who acted as a spy in Madrid, disguised as a woman, being an expert on cross-dressing [see here].

In a small villa there he was, with his wife, a quiet life and was surprised by the letter he received from me remembering his past with the Secret Service in Lisbon.

"Derry" has talked with me about his work in Portugal and solve some doubts I had after reading his book of memoirs "A Game of Moles", already translated in Spanish. Here I publish a photograph of both of us [I was quite younger then...]

Later I traced an autographed copy of this book at Foyles, a strange event none of us could explain.

A nice fellow, he receveid me as a friend. Worried about the healtof his spouse he died before her.

I will return on him. Tonight I found his obituary here.

Velasco, the plot against the Duke of Windsor

2011-09-08T22:41:00.006+01:00

According with my records, and an article I've publish in a book edited by Cascais Council, the former bullfighter Angél Alcazar de Velasco, Press Attaché of the Spanish Embassy in London, a rabid Falangist, posing as "agent Viktor" brought a letter, signed in July 1940 by the Marquis of Estella, adressed to HH the Duke of Windsor, then at Ricardo Espírito Santo's villa in Cascais, inviting him for move to Spain where he would be safe. This was part of the plot organised by the Germans to kidnap him.This was revealed by Velasco in October 1963 to Michael Bloch, who wrote a book concerning what was called "Operation Willi".

What really happened remain obscure. In his Memoirs [The Heart has its Reasons, page 343] the Duchess wrote: «one day we received a call from a distinguished Spaniard. Our visitor said he had come on a confidential mission on behalf of the Spanish Government to offer us a house in Spain. David thanked him, saying 'A have accepted a post under the British Colonial Office. I inted to serve my country'».

Now that the British National Archives published declassified secret material concerning this Abwehr agent, the true about the Duke of Windsor's saga in Cascais could be confirmed.

Letters from Goa

2011-09-03T14:16:00.002+01:00

As the 2nd edition of my book about Operation Longshanks - SOE coup in Marmagoa harbour in 1943 - goes to the publisher I do regret because no access was possible to any document from Goa's Archives [may I ask for help?], despite the case was judged there, and from the Portuguese Ministry of the Navy, and it was ate least two official inquiries conducted by harbour authorities about the nature and cause of the incidents.

The book now quotes a decision from the Portuguese Supreme Court after an appeal made by the crew after their arrest and long proceedings that I could finally trace. Arrested in Aguada some wrote to the family. Here is one of the letters, written by Eng. Gerhard Brandt, from the Ehrenfels ship. See mucha more here with an English translation.

Some mysteries still remain, mainly the fate of Commander Röffer, the Captain of the Ehrenfel and Robert Koch and his wife, Grete, living in Altinho, allegedly shot in Castle Rock, after being kidnapped.

Poles & Salazar

2011-08-14T10:21:00.001+01:00

Milhazes is a Portuguese journalist living in Moscow. He disclosed here and here a document obtained by the Soviet Secret Service concerning talks held in Mars 1937 by the Polish Ambassador in Lisbon, Karl Dubic-Penter, with Premier Salazar. Main concern was the Spanish situation. Ambassor reported his feeling about Salazar's strong sympathy towards England.

Let's hope more documents will be released, mainly related with WW2 secret missions conducted by the Poles in Lisbon.

SOE in Portugal: a gloomy story

2011-03-05T19:55:00.000Z

Last year in Warsaw in a lecture for which I was invited by Professor Jan Ciechanowski, I said: «since Mackenzie, SOE activity in Portugal is usually out of official accounts, because it was a failure[1]. For some, SOE failure in Portugal is usually described as a result of local police infiltration. That is part of the truth. The real cause must be searched also on the ambiguous nature of the double game played by "Jack" Beevor, establishing its networks here with the left-wingers that were opponents to Salazar’s regime but not preventing from close contacts with the Legião Portuguesa, an armed militia, organized by the extreme right to fight communism. Internal disputes between Legião and PVDE, the State Police, the amateurish nature of Beevor’s work, and conflict with the Foreign Office's mentality created the explosive mixture. The British were saved by Salazar from the scandal of being traitor’s vis-à-vis our oldest diplomatic Alliance, the Portuguese involved suffered deportation to Tarrafal, a concentration camp and prison in Cape Vert. A gloomy story, and a case study».

I have now written a book with a more detailed account of this event.

[1] Neville Wylie is an exception to this. His ‘An Amateur Learns his Job’? Special Operations Executive in Portugal, 1940.1942, published on the Journal of Contemporary History [volume 36 (3), 441-457, 2001] is a landmark on the studies on this topic. He published another remarkable study about SOE and the neutrals in Special Operations Executive, a new instrument of war (edited by Mark Seaman), Routledge, 2006, pages 157 ff.

Rogério de Menezes: a spy in the Portuguese Embassy

2010-01-19T12:26:00.001Z

1943. a young pale man arrived at London. In a few days time he should be seated at his desk in the Portuguese Embassy, working as a typist. A modest job but a sensitive place it was. Portugal and the United Kingdom were engaged then in hard and most secret negotiation concerning the Azores facilities. The Axis secret service in Portugal knew it quite extensively and by that reason this young fellow was recruited in Lisbon as a spy. Cautious, the young man was suspicious about his surroundings. But what he ignored was that London, due to the interception and decoding of German radio traffic, knew from the very beginning his story and the dubious nature of his character.

Rogério de Menezes was a typical middle class son of a colonial civil servant. But he was a sad and lonely person. Orphan, he did not reach a degree in Law, as he was supposed to do. So in these hard times of the War a job in the Foreign Office in Lisbon was an excellent opportunity and a vacant place in the London Embassy something he intended to fight for. The opportunity emerged and he applied for the nomination. Washington was his preference, but he was exultant when he knew that the Minister intended to send him to London.

This high spirits were the cause of his misfortune.

During his nights, while playing billiard with former colleagues from the high school Menezes had usually some stories to tell and mostly news from the foreign press not known by the common people. As he worked in the press department of the Ministry, typing the press bulletin, under the direction of the writer Joaquim Paço de Arcos, he was aware of political and military events that the State Censorship forbade from being read in the country.

And it was in the smoky and relaxed ambiance of the Café Portugal, that between gossips, he said he should be in the London’s Embassy in a couple of weeks.

Menezes ignored but the friend he was chatting with was an informant of the Sicherheitdienst, the Nazi Party Intelligence Service. So a bell rang in this Axis secret service, for a new recruit was to be cultivated.

To make short a long story, Menezes accepted to work for the Germans and also for the Italians.

When he arrived at London he was carrying in his suitcase a bottle containing invisible ink he was instructed to work with before leaving Lisbon. With this tool he was supposed to write to his contacts in Portugal, sending letters hidden in the envelopes where letters for his sister were sent. Francisco Mendes and Manuel Castro were respectively the cover names he should write to as the information was for the Germans or for the Italians.

But British MI5 was after him. Charles Bingham, the father of the well known romance novels author, Charlotte Bingham was shadowing this Portuguese diplomatic clerk.

The first reports focusing his activities noticed that he was very fond on women, so some girls, acting for The Firm, were sent in order to entertain him and to fish any bit of information about what he was doing in his spare time.

But MI5 had a most secret way to trace his movements as an Axis spy. A letter from him was finally obtained by this method and in short Armindo Monteiro, the Portuguese Ambassador was embarrassed by the British Minister about this regrettable situation: an Axis mole was deeply infiltrated in his Legation.

This is the known part of the story. Working in the Public Record Office in Kew Gardens, and in the Portuguese Archives I reached some interesting conclusions about the case and wrote his biography.

First, Menezes recruitment was noticed by Bletchley Park code-breakers, able to break Enigma cipher machine and read the ISOS messages sent by the German station in Lisbon to Berlin about this new agent.

Second, the violation of the Portuguese diplomatic bag was a result of a systematic operation codenamed «Triplex», involving, among others, Anthony Blunt, one of the «ring of the five», the infamous Cambridge soviet penetration in the British intelligence community.

Third, London knew form the very beginning the modest danger that Menezes signified to the security of the nation, for most of this letters merely contained very well known facts that every man in the street was aware about.

Fourth, the rare exceptions to this were some data that were insistently passed to him by agents posing as «provocateurs» acting on behalf of the British Secret Service.

Fifth, London intended to use Menezes case as a «hard bargaining» tool towards Salazar, Portuguese Prime Minister, in order to force him down to counter act against the freedom of movements of the Axis agents in Portugal.

So the result of this puzzle was an amazing and extraordinary story. I wrote a book about it.

He is dead now, but his case is following me, each time I continue my research for further books about WW2 foreign intelligence networks in Portugal.

Meanwhile Guy Lidell Diaries was published». As I was reading the book, a remembrance about the original of the diaries I had consulted in London came to my mind. Lidell had been MI5 director of the counter-espionage during WW2 and he was quite well informed about this Portuguese incident. So what he tells is the truth without any masks.

Menezes was a minor spy. Harold Russell («Kim») Philby told that in his Moscow’s written biography, «My Silent War». But he was sentenced in the Old Bailey Criminal Court with the death penalty, later pardoned by the King, George the 6th.

Being a lawyer, I was impressed by this injustice of a minor young offender being submitted to such a harsh sentence.

As soon as Salazar expelled some German agents is Lisbon, Menezes sentence was commuted.

In 1945, «Times» of London newspaper issued a report about a statement made in the House of the Commons by His Majesty’s Government concerning foreign spies executed during the war. Menezes was in the list. When I met his grave this summer in Castelo Branco, I was paying my tribute to the man who died twice.

Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Stephens considered Menezes’ case as «one of the major triumphs of MI5 and Camp 020». «Kim» Philby called Menezes a «petty fish». This is the drama of the The Great Game: no one accepts defeats, everybody is always a winner.

Operation Longshanks, Goa: a non-ending story

2009-11-22T17:30:00.003Z

Quoting James Leasor's book Boarding Party, Johnn Grosvenor Beevor, head of SOE station in Lisbon states in his memoirs [Recollections and Reflexions, 1981] that operation against Axis ships in Goa [he forgets to mention the Italian vessel Anfora], conducted by Force 136 [Meerut] «suceed in kidnapping the radio operator», and the raid against the ships «was successdully carried out».

If that was the purpose of SOE's Operations Longshanks I agree the Brits can claim victory; but if the the plan aimed to capture the German Ehrenfels, Drachenfels, Braunfels, from Hansa Linien, and the above mentioned Anfora, then it was a fiasco. The crews set fire and sunk them [see photo]. A serious diplomatic crisis almost emerged. After all, Goa was neutral and Portugal and the United Kingdom were allies, after one of our oldest alliances. And where is Röffer, the captain of the Ehrenfels? And Robert Koch, the German spy ashore, and wis wife Grete? I made the research, wrote a book about the case [Operação Longshanks, O Espião Alemão em Goa], disagreeing with the official version of the events, and could not find any trace of them. Probably that is part of the story I have to start all over again...

Leslie Howard's death mistery: the man in the photo

2009-10-28T17:52:00.005Z

Ronald Howard, actor and Leslie Howard's son, wrote in 1981 a book about his father's life and death, In Search of My Father. There he publishes a photograph of daddy dining in Hotel Aviz with Alfred Chenalls and a man he declares to be Calouste Gulbenkian. But, after a book I wrote, I came to conclude that he couldn't be the oil mogul. Howard’ case still remains a mystery after IBIS aircraft KLM/BOAC was in 1st June 1943 sunk by a German Junkers flotilla in Biscay Bay, despite a gentleman’s agreement between the Allies and the Axis in order to spare the Lisbon air line from any attack by the Luftwaffe.

Who is the man having dinner with the famous actor, days before his tragic fate?

Tom Burns and the Duke of Windsor's case

2009-10-28T17:06:00.003Z

Jimmy Burns wrote the biography of his father, Tom Burns, press attaché to the British Embassy in Madrid under the orders of Sir Samuel Hoare [in his biography, Ambassador with a Special Mission, Hoare however makes no mention to Burns]. The book recall two episodes occurred in Portugal during that period, the case of the Duke of Windsor travel to Lisbon and Leslie Howard’s tragic flight from Portugal back home.

Windsor’s case is the story of a German plot to «kidnap» him, or at least to convince former Edward VIII to move from Ricardo Espírito Santos's villa in Cascais to the North of Portugal and from there to Castelo Rodrigo, where a joint German-Spanish operation would later transfer him to Berlin. In the capital of the Reich the former King could proclaim his return to the British Throne, from which he had abdicate in order to keep his marriage with Ms. Salis Simpson, an American divorcee that had conquered his heart.

Burns recalls how, acting with the agreement of the Foreign Office, the Windsor’s were entertained in Madrid and at the same time discreetly monitored for their contacts with Franco’s entourage, not knowing that the Germans were acting behind the scenes in order to keep them in Spain.

Later, after the Royal Couple moved to Lisbon, after 2nd July 1940, Burns traveled to Lisbon by train, where his second Marcus Cheke was working in the British Embassy, with close ties to David Eccles. He met the Duke but, despite the fact he mentioned his staying in this country in a letter he wrote to Ann Bowes-Lyon, little is known about the nature of his mission. Neither in his memoirs can be found any hint about what Burns is really up to in Lisbon.

Remarking that this rendezvous anticipated Walter Turner Monckton, former lawyer of the Duke, journey to Lisbon where he manage to convince HRH to accept the nomination as Governor of Bahamas – in a first move Churchill admitted to make him face martial court for leaving France without permission – the author of Papa Spy speculates: «another possibility is that Burns had taken the initiative to seek out the Duke, as part of a covert diplomatic operation which was stamped with Churchill’s personal authority».

An ambiguous case continues without any sound reply: why was Tom Burns doing in Lisbon and why he met the Duke in the Casino Estoril? Another topic gets no answer: one of the key contacts Walter Schellenberg [Section VI of Reich Sicherheit Amt] used in Lisbon – where he came in order to coordinate “Operation Willi”, the German «kidnap» plan, was in the Portuguese secret police [PVDE] «a double agent working for the British». Jimmy does not reveal the name. As we pointed in one article published about this case, untrusting Agostinho Lourenço [PVDE chief], Schellenberg had made arrangements with José Catela [secretary-general of the police] that he quotes ironically as «C» in his messages to Berlin. Is Catela the German V-Mann and a British double agent?

Gulbenkian at Hotel Aviz

2009-10-26T12:36:00.004Z

Today it is a awful tower, the Commercial Center Imaviz. But it was in one of the most sophisticated hotels in Lisbon, the Aviz Hotel, in the Avenue Fontes Pereira de Melo (telephone 48101). In 1941/42 an Armenian, Calouste Gulbenkian, with Iranian diplomatic passport nº 712, inhabited there, where Azeredo Perdigão, a reputed comercial Lawyer in Lisbon would make him to create the generous Gulbenkian Foundation. Installed in a “suite”, his entourage was Miss Isabelle Theis, secretary (passport nº 20328), Helène Wilhelm, maid, of French nationality, Eugène Bruneau, “valete” and nurse, of French nationality (passport nº 763), José Martinez, "courier" and interpreter, of Spanish nationality (passport nº 1411) and Mehmed Saradjoglu, driver of Turkish nationality (passaport nº 709/105). His wife stayed in Hotel Palácio in Estoril.

Known, as the Palácio, for the refusal to accept Axis connected guests, the Hotel was the stage for many stories concerning the secret war in this country.

Richard Sonnenfeldt dies

2009-10-25T16:10:00.000Z

Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief of the interpretation section of the US counsel at the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945-46, was born on July 23, 1923. He died on October 9, 2009, aged 86.

Quoting the Times of London obituary:

«As with much at the tribunal, his appointment at such a young age was the result of chance rather than of planning. A German Jew who had fled to America, he was stationed in July 1945 in Austria as a private in a US armoured unit when the passing General "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's predecessor), asked for an interpreter. Impressed by Sonnenfeldt's American accent, which was free of the guttural inflections that made other German native speakers hard to understand, Donovan whisked him off to the OSS office in Paris. There he began to translate captured documents and interview witnesses for the forthcoming war crimes trials. The venue and list of defendants was decided the next month, and Sonnenfeldt moved to Nuremberg. There he became interpreter initially for John Amen, the principal American interrogator, who had made his name prosecuting New York gangsters. Sonnenfeldt, accordingly, was to spend hundreds of hours in the company of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and other leading Nazis, such as Hans Frank, the governor of occupied Poland, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of Germany's security apparatus».

A very interesting interview with him can be seen here.

Polish Secret Services in Portugal

2009-10-25T14:55:00.009Z

Jan Stanislaw Ciechanowski wrote about Polish intelligence activity in the Iberian Peninsula. An important study, with extensive details and acurate information leading to the conclusion that «Lisbon became one of the foremost centres of Polish Intelligence, at least until the Allied landings in Normandy», being «the most important contribution made by the Polish secret services in the Iberian Peninsula the mission carried out by Lt-Col. Jan Kowalewski», case he also studied in full.

The text os these studies are published in the first volume of the Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee [volume 1, Valentine Mitchell, London, 2005, pp. 261 ff.].

Some pages before Gill Bennett makes a minor mention to «the few Poles to whom rerence has been found»: Eugenia Miladoska [«who appeared to have an intimate connection with both Polish and Czech Intelligence in Lisbon], Waclaw Sledziewski and Zygmunt Cedro [representative of the Polish Naval Intelligence in Lisbon] and Sylvia Wallace née Wokolowska [to be a member of the staff of the British POC in Lisbon in charge of Polish intelligence].

Nigel West & Bond

2009-10-14T22:40:00.015+01:00

One book more from "Nigel West" will be released soon: Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming's James Bond. "Nigel West" is the pen name for Rupert William Simon Allason, a former Conservative Party politician, remembered by not voting the Maastricht Treaty. A prolific writer, his bibliography on intelligence is massive. But academics take some distance towards his line of research.

Bond is yet a goldmine. After John Pearson (1966 and 2007), Donald McCormick (1993), Andrew Lycett (1995) biographies, Amis (1965), Benson (1988), Pfeifer & Worral (2003) and Chancellor (2005), not to quote many others studies on Fleming, let’s wait for this new one. Commander Fleming started his carreer as a writer after his work in the NID, the Naval Intelligence Department of the British Navy. He visited Portugal during WW2 and inspired in a night at the Casino of Estoril for his first novel, Casino Royale. Last year I published a book about Bond/Fleming psychological connections, the author being as neurotic as the creature he gave the codename 007.

Christopher Andrew's book and the story of a dog

2009-10-10T08:08:00.007+01:00

Professor Christopher Andrew, from Cambridge, wrote the official history of MI5, The Defence of the Realm. The part of the book dedicated to WW2 is comparatively small. One looks for events in which MI5 was involved and finds no trace of them. Some occurred involving Portuguese, arrested in Camp 020 as spies.
I read parts of the book, just published, basically what is written about a case I studied with detail, Nathalie Sergueiew's mission for the XX Committee, for which she worked as a double agent, codenamed Treasure. Please allow me to remember my biography of this extraordinary woman.
With due respect, what could be said about her is simplified in the short version given by Professor Andrew. But what surprises me is the outline of Treasure’s personality as «a temperamental woman» someone that almost blew up D’days operation because of a dog! Saying so, Professor Andrew reproduces what has been disseminated through the National Archives site and after Kenneth Benton, PCO and MI6 man in Madrid, wrote it in a short story of his life after his memoirs of his encounter with a young lady aplying for a visa to the UK: that she confessed to her British controller, Mary Sherer, that, irritated because the dog Bab’s was not given back up to her by the British, as promised, she threat to betray them in benefit of the German Abwehr, that candidly took her as one of the best assets in UK.
This version of the facts cannot be accepted without scrutiny. The problem of Sergueiew is very complex. First, she is a white Russian anti-communist, and British alliance with Stalin’s is not easy accepted in the circles where she came from. Second, it is possible to find if not a clear sympathy for the German nazism, at least for German values, in the first book she wrote in 1933, despite the fact she had been arrested by the Gestapo while in Berlin. Extreme conservative were the kind of newspapers she read and the organizations she had been in contact with, during her youth. But more important are two facts that are not mentioned in that regrettable dog’s story simplified version: her sister was found dead in very strange conditions an there are documents that show that Treasure was blaming the British Secret Service for that, claiming that she was the target; and there were deep connections between Stalin’s/Hitler operation against the White Russian ROV’s in Paris, and the kidnap of general Miller – his uncle! – and the German controller that was assigned to her, major Emil Kliemann, from Luft Eins. So, there is much more to justify her desire to cut with the British than that naïve dog's story! So allow me to ask: if she wasn't a woman, would that «temperamental» version be given as an explanation for the facts?
A final remark: Babs, a Fox-Terrier, was not kept in Lisbon, as it is written about one of the photographs published in Professor Andrew’s book, but in Gibraltar in November 1943. Nathalie flew to Lisbon in January 1944 only, some months afterwards, already without any dog at all. If truth must be said about the woman, the same to Babs!

MI for Military Intelligence

2009-10-08T22:16:00.005+01:00

Many recognize MI5 and MI6, some MI9. All these are services of Military Intelligence [disregard the picture...]. Here they are, organised, as they were during WW2:

MI 1 Administration.
MI 2 Information on Middle and Far East, Scandinavia, USA, USSR, Central and South America. MI 3 Information on Europe and the Baltic Provinces (plus USSR, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia after Summer 1941).
MI 4 Geographical section - maps (transferred to Military Operations in April 1940).
MI 5 Liaison with Security Service. Some Portuguese Axis controlled spies where caught in the UK by MI 5.
MI 6 Liaison with SIS. Section V of MI 6 had an office in Lisbon during WW2.
MI 7 Press and propaganda (transferred to Ministry of Information in May 1940).
MI 8 Signals interception and communications security.
MI 9 Escaped British PoW debriefing, escape and evasion (plus enemy PoW interrogation until December 1941). There was a station of MI 9 in Lisbon during WW2.
MI 10 Technical Intelligence world-wide.
MI 11 Military Security.
MI 12 Liaison with censorship organisations in Ministry of Information, military censorship.
MI 13 Not Used.
MI 14 Germany and German-occupied territories (aerial photography until Spring 1943).
MI 15 Aerial photography (in Spring 1943 aerial photography moved to the Air Ministry and MI 15 became air defence intelligence).
MI 16 Scientific Intelligence (formed 1945).
MI 17 Secretariat for Director of Military Intelligence (from April 1943).
MI 18 Not Used.
MI 19 Enemy PoW interrogation (formed from MI9 in December 1941).
MI (JIS) Axis planning staff.
MI L (R) Russian Liaison.
MI L Attachés.

SOE Portugal, conference in Warsawa

2009-10-07T23:15:00.006+01:00

SOE activity in Portugal is usually out of official accounts, because it was a failure. For many SOE failure in Portugal is usually described as a result of local police infiltration. That is part of the truth. The real cause must be searched also on the ambiguous nature of the double game played by John Beevor, establishing its networks here with the left-wingers that were opponents to Salazar’s regime but not preventing from close contacts with the Legião Portuguesa, a armed militia, organized by the extreme right to fight communism. Internal disputes between Legião and PVDE, the State Police, the amateurish nature of Beevor’s work, and conflict with the Foreign Office mentality created the explosive mixture. The British were saved by Salazar from the scandal of being traitor’s vis-à-vis our oldest diplomatic Alliance, the Portuguese involved suffered deportation to Tarrafal, a concentration camp and prison in Cape Vert. A gloomy story, and «a case study».

These are the conclusions of a lecture I gave at Warsawa yesterday in an international conference organised by the Office fo War Veternas and Victims of Oppression entitled On the Secret Front: the Intelligence during the World War II

Here we are!

2009-10-07T22:54:00.005+01:00

This blog is dedicated to the secret war in Portugal during WW2. It covers Axis and Allies networks working on intelligence, counter-intelligence, propaganda and subversion. The author is working on the topic for several years, and has some books published.