Pearl Harbor and the FBI – 10:01 AM December 7, 2020 – Meet Dusko Popov: A Nazi-American Double Agent. Could he have warned Washington about Pearl Harbor? By Warfare History Network
Meet Dusko Popov: A Nazi-American
Double Agent
Could he
have warned Washington about Pearl Harbor?
by Warfare
History Network
On March
18, 1941, an accident took place in the crowded streets of New York’s Times
Square. Normally an accident like this would not make news. After all, such
things happened frequently. This incident, however, was different.
The victim,
while lying on the ground, was then run over by a second vehicle, which sped
away. The man died the next day in a New York hospital. In his possession was a
Spanish passport in the name of Don Julio Lopez Lido. New York police officers
traced the man to the Taft Hotel in New York City. Upon searching his room,
they were shocked to find secret documents, including a report on the defenses
of the U.S. Army base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and nearby Hickam Field. This
information was then turned over to the FBI. After a thorough investigation,
Don Julio Lopez Lido was identified as Ulrich von der Osten, a top member of
Germany’s military intelligence service, the Abwehr, who had been sent to the
United States to set up a spy ring.
Unknown to
the FBI was that the death of Ulrich von der Osten would lead to another spy
case involving Great Britain, the United States, and Germany. It would also
involve two of the most influential spymasters in the United States, William
Donovan, who would later become director of the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS), which was the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, as well as the super-secret British XX
Committee (or Double Cross System). An added feature of this budding case
involved Japanese interest in the defenses of Pearl Harbor, nine months before
the attack on December 7, 1941.
The man at
the center of this international spy game was Dusko Popov, a flamboyant
Yugoslav, who was born in 1912. At the start of World War II, Popov began
working for the Abwehr, headed by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Popov had been
recruited into the Abwehr by a German friend, Johann Jebsen. His first
assignment was to go to France and report on any political leaders who might be
helpful to the Nazis.
Popov gave
the required information to the Abwehr. As time went on, Popov became deeply
disturbed by the way Hitler was carving up Europe, as well as the way he was
dealing with dissent inside Germany. Making a decision that would alter the
rest of his life, Popov decided to offer his services to the British and become
a double agent, if they would have him.
After a
detailed debriefing session by MI-5 it was ascertained that Popov was truly
what he said he was, and the British Secret Service made plans for their new
recruit. He was given the code name Tricycle, due to the fact that Popov was
often engaged in sexual activity with two women at a time.
Popov was
ensconced in a room at the Savoy Hotel in London where his initial training was
conducted. One of his early British handlers was a certain Major T.A.
Robertson, who was a frequent social companion of Popov. They often went dining
at posh London restaurants, played billiards, and met various women during
their nightly sojourns. After one nocturnal trip during the Christmas season in
1940, Major Robertson wrote of their escapades, “I think he [Tricycle] enjoyed
himself thoroughly once he took part in the Christmas champagne. We were picked
up by a couple by the name of Keswick who took us to the Suivi nightclub where
we danced. Early in the morning we returned to the Savoy, both viewing things
through rose-tinted spectacles.“
Bogus
Information Concerning the Number of Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane
Squadrons Were Secretly Sent to Berlin
The British
initiated an elaborate plan to pass Popov off as a genuine Nazi agent, while
all the time he was under the constant direction of the British Secret Service.
Popov was run by the so- called Double Cross System, a department of British
intelligence, which was responsible for the running (and turning) of all
captured German spies who were caught trying to burrow their way into British
society.
The
unsuspecting Germans gave Popov a file stamped “most secret” in which they
wanted him to provide them with the state of the British arms industry,
including which types of military equipment were being manufactured at
facilities in the towns of Weybridge, Wolverhampton, and Dartford. The Germans
also wanted to know how many squadrons of Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker
Hurricanes were operational in the Royal Air Force. Bogus information
concerning these queries was secretly sent back to Berlin.
With the
untimely death of Ulrich van der Osten in New York in March 1941, the Abwehr
decided that Popov should be sent to the United States to fill the important
vacancy. That decision by the leadership of the Abwehr was a boon for Popov and
an intelligence disaster for the Germans.
Popov left
for the United States in early August 1941. He carried with him $58,000
provided by the Abwehr to set up his New York espionage network. First, he had
to make a small side trip to the posh casinos in Estoril. As the dashing Popov
gambled at the roulette tables and made a killing using his Nazi-provided
funds, a man stood only a few feet from him, watching his every move. That man
proved to be Commander Ian Fleming of the British Naval Intelligence Service,
who had been dispatched by MI-6 to watch Popov’s every move. When Fleming created
his famous fictional spy, James Bond, Agent 007, it is widely believed that he
used Popov as his basis for the character. He also included a scene very much
like that of Popov at the Estoril casino in his book Casino Royale.
Popov
arrived in the United States on August 12, 1941, disembarking at LaGuardia
Airport from the Pan Am Clipper. After checking through immigration, he took a
cab to the posh Waldorf Astoria Hotel, overlooking Park Avenue in New York
City.
Just before
he left for the United States, the dashing 29-year-old Popov had been given a
vital, new piece of spy paraphernalia by the Abwehr. It was a list of questions
written on a microdot that would allow pages of information to be reduced to
the size of a pinhead. The microdot was affixed to a telegram, which Popov kept
on his person.
Once in New
York, Popov contacted the FBI and asked that someone come to meet with him. To
his disappointment, he had to wait five long days until the Bureau responded. He
was finally met by Agent James Foxworth, who was the FBI’s bureau chief in New
York. Popov handed over the microdot. As Agent Foxworth began to read its
contents, he knew he had something important. The paper contained a list of
questions that the Germans wanted answered for their allies, the Japanese.
Among the queries were information on American defenses at the giant naval base
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, including the exact locations of the airbases at
Hickam, Wheeler, and Kaneohe airfields, sketches of Pearl Harbor, the depths of
the water inside the harbor, and the number and locations of any antitorpedo
nets.
Hoover Did
Not Trust Popov, a Flagrant Womanizer, Believing Him to Still be Working for
the Germans
If FBI
personnel had been paying any attention, they would have noticed that the
material carried by Popov was the same as that found in the room of German
agent Ulrich van der Osten only five months before.
Foxworth
gave Popov’s questionnaire to Hoover, who did not trust Popov, believing that
he was still working for the Germans. Another strike against Popov was his
playboy lifestyle. He was a flagrant womanizer who had engaged in numerous
affairs, including one with French actress Simone Simon and her mother. He had
also spent the Abwehr’s money lavishly.
Popov’s
every move was watched closely by the FBI, and what the Bureau’s agents noticed
was that after three months of living the high life in New York, Popov had not
contacted any German agents in the city. The Abwehr, too, was beginning to have
second thoughts about its prize agent, becoming suspicious that he might have
been “turned.”
Popov
transferred the Pearl Harbor intelligence to the FBI under orders from the
British MI-6. His case was personally supervised by Stewart Menzies, head of
MI-6, who contacted Hoover and “loaned” Popov to the Americans.
Popov now
would become a pawn in the looming intelligence battle between FBI Director
Hoover and his nemesis, William Donovan who had recently been appointed head of
the COI (Coordinator of Information), America’s newest intelligence
organization with responsibility for all overseas espionage work.
Donovan was
a World War I hero, a Republican lawyer in New York, and a classmate of FDR’s
at Columbia University’s school of law. He traveled extensively to Europe and
the Middle East on behalf of the U.S. government during the interwar years and
collected much valuable intelligence on the people he met and the places he
visited. He was also Roosevelt’s personal emissary to Great Britain immediately
following that nation’s declaration of war against Germany. With Donovan’s
appointment as head of COI, he would begin a decades-long feud with J. Edgar
Hoover over the direction of American intelligence.
The concept
of COI did not sit well with Hoover, who took an instant dislike to Donovan’s
new agency and made his feelings quite clear to the president. Roosevelt, not
wanting to offend Hoover too deeply, allowed the FBI to continue its primary
intelligence gathering responsibility in South America.
After the
United States entered World War II, the British began to share sensitive
intelligence with COI, including the breaking of German military and diplomatic
codes, which led to the rounding up of all German double agents inside England.
Hoover distrusted the British and their secret
relationship with Donovan, and the fact that they were “loaning” Popov to the
United States rankled him greatly. When Hoover received Popov’s Pearl Harbor
questionnaire, he did a curious thing. Instead of handing it over to Bill
Donovan, or more importantly, to FDR, Hoover doctored the questions, gave
nothing to Donovan, and omitted the Pearl Harbor queries when he finally sent
the questionnaire to the White House.
In late
November 1941, under the ever watchful eye of the FBI, Popov received orders
from the Abwehr, sending him to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was contacted by the
Abwehr man in Rio and was told to establish a radio link between Rio and
Lisbon. Popov was to concentrate on seeking information on war production, the
destinations of Allied convoys, and any news he could provide on anti-submarine
warfare.
Questions
Concerning Popov and His Career as Tricycle Persist to This Day.
Since the
FBI had been given the responsibility of running U.S. agents in Latin and South
America, the Bureau knew all about Popov’s adventures and kept one step ahead
of him.
Popov was in Rio on December 7, 1941, when the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He returned to the United States one week later
and handed over a second set of microdots to the FBI. A sampling of his second
set of questions from the Abwehr concerned the types of powder used for
ammunition and seven pages concerning U.S. atomic bomb research.
Popov was furious with the way he had been treated
by the FBI and wondered why the Americans had not taken his warning of Japanese
interest in the Pearl Harbor defenses more seriously. In
hindsight, the British were of the opinion that it was the Americans who had to
verify Popov’s information, despite the fact that they had vouched for his
credibility throughout his stay in the United States. Popov was also
disappointed when the FBI refused to allow him access to long-range radio
equipment, preventing him from sending information, both real and bogus, to his
many contacts in Europe.
To cut any
further losses concerning Popov, the British decided he should be returned to
London as soon as possible. But that would be difficult to accomplish without
blowing his cover with the Germans and possibly getting him killed. Popov left
New York and arrived in Lisbon, where he was met by his Abwehr controller,
Ludovico von Karsthoff. Popov brought with him a gift for von Karsthoff’s
girlfriend, which broke the ice upon his arrival. Popov took a big chance and
berated von Karsthoff for not providing him with the necessary funds he needed
to set up his espionage network in the U.S. and brazenly told him that he was
resigning from any further work for the Abwehr.
Popov
returned to Britain in 1943 and worked for the XX Committee for the rest of the
war. One of his major contributions to the Allied war effort was information he
passed to Karsthoff detailing the strength and organization of the fictitious
First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG). While Karsthoff doubted the integrity of the
information, those who received it in Berlin did not. Their acceptance of
Popov’s disinformation helped to preserve the illusion of Allied intentions
prior to the Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944.
Questions
concerning Popov and his career as Tricycle persist to this day. One stems from
his claim that the Abwehr ordered him to go to Hawaii to learn as much as he
could about the military installations on the island of Oahu. Most military
historians believe that there is no credible evidence that the Germans ever
issued orders for any travel by Popov to Hawaii.
Another
unanswered question in the Popov case is whether or not he actually met with J.
Edgar Hoover at all during his time in the United States. FBI documents shed no
convincing light on this matter, and people on each side have differing opinions.
In his memoirs, Popov said that he “encountered J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI
office in New York.” After Hoover’s death, the FBI stated flatly that no such
face-to-face meeting had occurred.
In later
years, Popov wrote his memoirs, Spy/Counterspy. He died in 1981 at the age of
69, leaving behind a wife and three sons.
Author: New
Jersey resident Peter Kross is the author of The Encyclopedia of World War II
Spies.
Kurt
Frederick Ludwig
The capture
of German spy Teodore Erdmann Erich Lau on October 18, 1946—the last of the
infamous German espionage “Ludwig ring”—was put in motion five years earlier by
a jaywalker in New York City.
“Senor Don
Julio Lopez Lido,” ostensibly a courier for Spain, was crossing against a
traffic light one spring evening in 1941 when a taxi struck him—fatally
throwing him under the wheels of another car. His companion, who had tried to
stop the accident, instantly grabbed Lido’s attaché case and left the scene.
New York
police took note of the companion’s suspicious actions, but even more were
puzzled by dead man’s possessions: his papers were in German, not Spanish; his
notebook contained names and possible assignments of some U.S. soldiers; his
clothes had no labels. They turned these items over to the FBI. The Bureau,
though, could not identify the mysterious companion of the false Lido.
Another
case at the time puzzled them too: secret messages from a mysterious “Joe
K”—forwarded by British censors in Bermuda—described vital American defense
information. Neither the Brits nor the Bureau had been able to identify the
spy. Then the Bureau itself intercepted a message from “Joe K” that used secret
writing to tell his superiors of “Senor Lido’” fatality. A connection was made,
and the hunt was on.
“Joe K’
turned out to be none other than U.S.-born Kurt Frederick Ludwig. Ludwig had
moved back to his parents’ native land as a young man, and German intelligence
was delighted to recruit him as an agent in the war effort. It had sent him
back to the U.S. in March 1940 to set up a spy ring of young, industrious
agents who could gather information about U.S. troops, U.S. order of battle,
and U.S. manufacturing.
“Senor Lido”
turned out to be Captain Ulrich von der Osten of the German Abwher, and—the
final piece of the puzzle—his companion was none other than Joe K/Kurt
Frederick Ludwig. Tracking Ludwig around the country, FBI agents were able to
identify Ludwig’s spies and contacts. Arrests followed, and in March 1943,
eight members of the Ludwig ring were tried and sentenced to long jail terms.
The case,
though, was not over. One agent—codenamed “Bill”—had eluded capture, and the
FBI continued to follow new leads in the case. One led to Teodore Erdmann Erich
Lau, a German-born Argentinean who had served as paymaster for the Ludwig ring
in 1941 and 1942. The Bureau tracked “Bill” through South America, England, and
Canada, until agents finally captured him in New York on October 18, 1946. In
short order, Lau was tried and sent to prison like the rest of Ludwig’s
ring.
https://newsandtimes.org/2020/12/07/pearl-harbor-and-fbi-1001-am-december-7-html/
