The Spy with 29 Names (12 page)

Yet their relationship was not built simply on the fact that they spoke Spanish. They also shared a common language of mischief.
Pícaro
is a common word in Spain, often used to describe someone who is both sharp-witted and a troublemaker. It is morally neutral – you may criticise the person one minute and admire them the next. There tends to be something slippery about them, hard to nail down, almost as though they were obeying some other code of conduct or morality – one which is invisible or unknown to ordinary society. The ‘
bandidos
’ of the Spanish sierras, colourfully
depicted by writers such as Mérimée in
Carmen
, belong to a similar tradition.

In Spanish literature, ‘picaresque’ novels were stories published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, inspired by the classic
Maqamat
tales of ‘rogues’ in medieval Arabic literature. The writer Gerald Brenan summed up the picaresque genre:

These novels depict as a rule a child growing up under sordid conditions and making his way through the world where everything is hostile and dangerous. He has no arms but his mother wit: by using it he becomes a criminal, but essentially he is innocent and well intentioned and it is the wickedness of the world that corrupts him.

They are satirical and funny, commonly episodical and depicting a realistic view of the harshness of everyday life. Hypocrisy is a frequent target, while fate and chance act as a permanent backdrop. Most striking, though, is the insistence on the need for cunning, a sense that only a fool takes the world at face value, playing by its rules and following its logic. Be smart and be light, the stories seem to tell us – almost as though imparting a teaching – otherwise the world will lock you in its jaws.

‘Garbo’ may have worn a suit and spent most of his time in central London offices rather than begging on the streets of Toledo, but there is a parallel. Pujol and Harris could not have created their character had it not been for a shared world view born from
Lazarillo de Tormes
or
El Buscón
– classics of the picaresque genre.

Pujol was no mere ‘front man’ for Harris. In the official account of the Garbo operation that he later wrote for MI5, Harris was at pains to point out that Pujol was hard-working and imaginative, and was vital to the functioning of the Garbo operation. In no way did he act ‘purely as a scribe’, as many of the other double agents did. ‘On the contrary, his entire existence remained wrapped up in the successful continuation of the work which he had so skilfully initiated.’

Nor did Pujol sit back or slow down once he arrived in London. His workload increased now that he was officially employed by the British. Over the course of the next three years he would write 315 letters, some of which were up to 8,000 words long. Each one of these letters not only contained writing in secret ink, but a plausible cover letter as well – two texts on the same page.

‘There was a lot of work,’ Sarah Bishop remembered. ‘There were so many things to do – writing letters to the Germans. Garbo would change them and write them in his own style. Then they had to be written out again.’

Later, his communications with Madrid included wireless messages, and he produced the final version of around 1,200 of these, dressing the dry communiqués in his own unique style. Were anything to be sent in his name with a different voice, questions might be raised at the other end and his cover blown.

‘He jealously examined the development of the work lest we should choose to pass material to the enemy through his medium which should result in discrediting the channel with which he had supplied us,’ Harris wrote.

In addition there were bureaucratic tasks to perform, such as sending his accounts every month to Kühlenthal, and keeping a diary of the movements of each of his imaginary agents.

Once Harris got the green light, he rented a tiny office for their joint use near the Piccadilly Arcade, on Jermyn Street. This was very close to the MI5 building at 58 St James’s Street, and Harris could cross from one to the other in a short time: at a brisk pace it takes just over a minute door to door.

The office had little natural light and just enough space for a couple of tables and some chairs, and a lamp that was almost always switched on. Pujol would tend to sit next to the wall, sandwiched between a desk and a filing cabinet where copies of his messages were kept.

Harris was not there all the time, but Pujol was kept company by an MI5 employee who became an integral part of the Garbo team. Sarah Bishop had worked previously in the War Cabinet before moving to the French section of MI5. She spoke fluent Spanish, and bumping into her on the stairs one day, Harris asked her to join him on the Garbo team. Soon she became Pujol’s translator, assistant and close friend.

It was clear that the best arrangement would be to have Pujol stay in London for the long term. Pujol willingly agreed, but on condition that his wife and son be brought over from Lisbon to join him. Araceli was now expecting their second child.

The couple had been communicating by letter over the previous weeks – always passing through the wartime censor first. Pujol was clearly anxious for news from his wife, and wrote in his usual style:

I am writing to you again today with the natural surprise caused by my not having yet received any letter from you in reply to mine, and my surprise is the greater since my letters asked you for particulars which I am particularly interested in receiving; I hope therefore that without further delay you will reply to this letter and will give me some more news about Juan Fernando and about yourself, I want to know how you are . . .

He told Araceli the arrangements for her leaving Lisbon: she was to tell her mother that she was travelling with Pujol to America; and she was to leave summer clothes behind – they would not be needing them in London.

Pujol clearly missed his wife and son, but the letters show how happy and relieved he was to have finally reached England:

I am feeling quite well and getting better acclimatised than I thought I would to the country in general, which to me is charming and smiling, and above all one breathes the real air of liberty, which I never thought or ever suspected would be possible. I promise you many pleasant surprises when you come and get to know the country.

For her part, Araceli wrote back telling him how their son’s first teeth were coming through, how the doctor had told her that her new pregnancy was going well, and assuring him that they were both well, but missing him too.

You cannot know, my dearest Juanito, how I long to be at your side. I cannot imagine life without your affection and attention. I would tell you so many things right now if Mr. Censor weren’t so curious . . . Just to say that before finishing the letter I will give the baby lots of kisses from you, and tell him that Daddy loves him and will see him soon, right?

And you be careful with the pretty girls over there. You know how much it would hurt your little wifey. I believe you to be a good man and you wouldn’t do anything like that for anything in the world. You just remember how much I adore you and concentrate on working like a madman against that gentleman in Central Europe, that no matter how much is done against him can never be enough.

Araceli clearly thought it wiser not to refer to Hitler by name. By the early summer of 1942, after some complications, the British authorities finally brought her and her son over to London to be with Pujol. Jorge was born in September 1942.

To allow Pujol to move freely in wartime London, Harris arranged some identity papers in the name of Juan García – Pujol’s second surname, that of his mother. He also arranged for him to have a nominal posting within the BBC as a translator, as well as a job in the Ministry of Information’s Spanish section.

Pujol’s mornings at this early stage were spent in the office, working on new letters and messages to be sent to his German controllers, then at lunchtime he and Harris would eat at a nearby restaurant – either Garibaldi’s on Jermyn Street, or Martínez, just across Piccadilly on Swallow Street, where they served Spanish food. The intense German bombing of the Blitz was over a year in the past now and air raids were less frequent, but damaged buildings in the area were a visual reminder of the war. Just across the street from the office, the crooner Al Bowlly, the world’s first ‘pop star’, had been killed when a German parachute mine blew up outside his flat. Some structures had been pulled down completely and vegetable patches – ‘Victory Gardens’ – planted in their place.

In the afternoons Pujol went to English classes at a nearby Berlitz school, before heading home to Hendon. The Crespigny Road address was soon swapped for another, very similar house a two-minute walk around the corner at 55 Elliot Road. Although a relatively safe part of London, the area had suffered some damage during the earlier part of the war, when high-explosive bombs had been dropped on nearby streets. It was a short stroll to Hendon Central Underground station, from where the Northern Line went straight down into central London. MI5 paid Pujol £100 a month for his services, which he considered more than enough – his rent cost £18 per month, while lunch in a restaurant cost around 6 shillings.

Harris and Pujol combined brilliantly, with Pujol’s imagination and eagerness sculpted by Harris’s intuitive brilliance and inside knowledge. Later, Pujol would commonly refer to Harris as ‘always smiling’ and his ‘best friend’. Harris was held in high regard by his colleagues: Masterman wrote that he was ‘the most remarkable’ of all the people he collaborated with during his time on the Twenty Committee.

But while they could communicate in Spanish and quickly developed a personal rapport, security measures still had to be enforced. Pujol was never a member of MI5, as a result of which much of what Harris knew – for example the existence of the Bletchley intercepts – could
never be passed on to him. Trust in Pujol strengthened over time, but for the first five months in London he was accompanied twenty-four hours a day by an official, his personal phone was tapped and his letters back to family members in Spain were censored. It was never properly explained to him who he was working for or how things were organised around him. Over the months and years he gained a sense of some of this, but the fact that he rarely asked any questions helped to deepen the trust in him, and in particular the esteem in which Harris held him.

One of the first tasks facing Garbo, once Pujol was established in London, was to account to his German controllers for the long gap in between his letters. The journey from Lisbon to Gibraltar and then to Britain had taken several weeks, during which time he had not communicated with them. It was vital that he resume his messages lest the Germans conclude that he had been caught. The Luis Calvo affair was still fresh: the Spanish spy formerly working for the Germans was now languishing in Camp 020. There was a danger that Kühlenthal might conclude that Pujol had suffered a similar fate.

Pujol had had the foresight to bring the same stationery with him that he had used for his messages written in Lisbon. Also, in the run-up to his leaving Portugal, he had mentioned that he was suffering from pneumonia – a ruse to give him the alibi of illness to explain away what he already imagined would be a lengthy period without corresponding.

Once in London, he made up for some of the time gap by pre-dating his first letter, and sending it along with the second, claiming that he had gone to see his KLM courier only to discover that he had left for Lisbon the previous night. Thus two letters, the first and second, would be sent simultaneously on his return. In this way he was able to cover up almost a week of silence.

The first letter from London – the first ‘Garbo’ letter – was dated 12 April and sent on 27 April, only three days after his arrival. Pujol continued sending more, all in the same style, as though nothing had changed. The important difference was that now, rather than having to make up the information, he was being given genuine material by Harris. It was all ‘chicken feed’, but at least it was accurate. No more ‘chapels of Santa Catalina’ or nonsensical expenses accounts.

Given that Pujol was not sending the letters himself from Lisbon,
MI5 had to come up with a new way of getting the letters there. It was decided to send them by diplomatic bag at first, with MI6’s man in Lisbon forwarding them on and picking up the Germans’ replies.

The new letter had been sent, and the system to move the Garbo operation forward was put in place. Yet, puzzlingly, no word came back from the Abwehr. The Germans’ last letter was dated 2 March. Since then Pujol had had no word from them, despite continuing to send further letters himself – a total of seventeen in the end. What was going on?

Just when everything should have started operating smoothly there was nothing from the other end but silence.

THE FIRST LETTER
from the Germans finally arrived in the second half of May, a month after Pujol had landed in Britain. In it, his Abwehr controllers explained that they had been disturbed by their agent’s silence and had decided not to write for a while so as not to attract any attention to him; they feared that he had been caught or was being watched by the British. Now, however, they felt confident enough to carry on the correspondence, providing new cover addresses to send his letters to, along with promises of more money.

Harris and Pujol were delighted. The final step in setting Garbo up as a double agent had been completed and the channel between MI5 and the Germans was open. Kühlenthal himself was becoming more interested in the Garbo material, and from now on some of the letters were to be sent directly to a cover address of his in Madrid, to a Don Germán Domínguez. When signing his missives, Pujol was also to adopt certain pseudonyms: Germán Domínguez was to receive letters from ‘Jaime Martínez’ or ‘Jorge Garrigan’, while for his letters to ‘Manuel Rodríguez’ Pujol had to sign as ‘Rodolfo’.

The German’s choice of pseudonym is interesting. The writer Ben MacIntyre has described Kühlenthal as ‘a one-man espionage disaster area’ who, among other blunders, played an important part in the Germans’ falling for the ‘Man-who-never-was’ hoax. Kühlenthal appeared fully convinced that his new spy in London was working
for him and was sending over genuine intelligence. That the British should have fooled him might be understandable – it was more a testament to their skills of deception than to his credulity – yet his choice of pseudonym seems positively reckless. ‘Germán’, pronounced
kherMAN
, is a bona-fide first name in Spanish. It also means ‘German’, plain and simple. Not the best cover name for an Abwehr intelligence officer, one would imagine.