The arrest did not go quite according to plan, and as a result I was able to save something from the wreck. The door was meant to give at once under the axe and fly open so that I could be caught in the act. In fact the lock did not give and it was the doorframe itself which went. As a result there were about three minutes while the police were prising their way in, which breathing space I put to good use. I managed to put my set out of commission and burn the few documents I had in a large brass ash tray which I kept handy for the purpose. The conflagration was helped by the judicious addition of lighter fuel from a handy bottle- also kept for just such an emergency.
My first reaction to this somewhat unceremonious entry was that it was the Abwehr who had arrived, and the notion was not dispelled by the first remark made by the uniformed figures who poured in. A voice shouted "Hande Hoch!", and the comment was emphasised by a most pointed demonstration with an automatic pistol. A second glance reassured me that I was still in the hands of the democracies.
The police were accompanied by two radio technicians who attempted at once to continue radio communication but they could do nothing with my damaged transmitter. There was also present a genial bearded young cryptographer, Marc Payot, who made a fruitless search for clues to help him break the cipher. He confessed to me later, when he came to see me in prison, that he had worked on the cipher for months with no result. His initial mistake was in assuming that it was similar in type to Rado's - which of course he could now read thanks to Rado's carelessness. I learned later in Moscow that the technicians had attempted to continue communication with the Centre and a day or so later called up Moscow on my set, which they had then managed to repair. My call signs they of course knew, as they had been monitoring my traffic for months, but they made the mistake of using Rado's code- the only one they had. This at once aroused the suspicions of the Centre, who began to smell a rat, and the Moscow operators also recognised that there was a difference in transmission technique. A few trick questions from the director soon showed him that the set was being worked by the Swiss and that they were not being helped by any of the network.
While Inspectors Pasche and Knecht, who were in charge of the raid, searched the flat, I was taken out into the hall and put under the guard of a young armed detective. I began rather smugly to congratulate myself that I had left no clues behind, for I had been expecting some sort of action for weeks, ever since the first arrests, and had destroyed all my records, cash accounts, etc., and as a result there was nothing for the police save a heap of charred ashes and a damaged transmitter. My pleasant daydream was rudely shattered when I saw laying on the hall table my electric torch. It was one of the long thin type which take two 1-1/2-volt batteries. The top battery was genuine but the bottom one I had hollowed out and used as a hiding place for important messages. A couple of days before I had received from Jean Beauchamp the names and addresses of various individuals whom he proposed to recruit as operators and cutouts. I had intended to memorise these and in the meanwhile had written them down in the first part of my cipher before it was "closed"- which was as easy for me to read as ordinary text - and if found would make my cipher easily "breakable" by any competent cryptographer. This would be a disaster which, among other things, would lead to the arrest of several more members of the network; and it would certainly be my death warrant if I ever fell into Russian hands.
To my horror my guard picked up the torch and began flicking the switch. Fortunately, when he found it did not work he merely laid it down again on the table. The torch was taken to prison along with all my other property and later I was able to apply for it, extract the messages, eat them (thereby following the best traditions of espionage) , and breathe freely once more.
The search did not take long. The police found no difficulty in locating the hiding place for my transmitter because, as it was in use at the time of the raid, the door of the hiding place was open. After I had been in the flat for some time I had constructed a hiding place in a cavity about a built-in cupboard in my sitting room. So well did the join blend into the surrounding wall that both Pasche and Knecht admitted that had it been closed they might well have found considerable difficulty in discovering it. At that time all it contained was my cash reserve. The police were, however, a little apprehensive about booby traps and brought me back into the room so that I myself could extract what was in it under their eyes. A sensible precaution and one which I recommend to anyone dealing with a suspected saboteur or his equipment.
About three in the morning I was taken by car to police headquarters in Lausanne, and my interrogation by Pasche and Knecht began and continued until the following evening. At the time of my arrest they had been most jovial and the whole affair had been conducted, after the first rather sensational entry, in an atmosphere of complete international amity. There was, however, a complete change in their attitude once the interrogation began; they became very severe and grave. Pasche opened the proceedings as he was really in charge of the case, Knecht being federal police chief for the canton of Geneva.
The former made me a long and impressive speech. "It is useless for you to deny your activities, Foote," he said. "The suspects Bolli and the two Hamels have all made long statements which incriminate you completely and all your activities are known. It is now only necessary for you to make a complete confession and you will he immediately released." He added that there was no suggestion that I had acted against Swiss interests and as far as he, personally, was concerned he inclined favourably towards me as I had been working against Germany - which was the only country in the world which threatened Swiss independence - even though I had been working for the Soviet Union and not for my own country.
I replied that I admitted nothing but if what he said was true I must obviously be a moderately important person in the service of a great power fighting for its life. I pointed out that in the eyes of the Soviet Union I had been arrested by a power which was an enemy- as any power not allied to Russia was so regarded by them. If I were released at once they would imagine that I had betrayed all their secrets in order to secure my release. Therefore I demanded that I remain locked up and, what was more, for a longer period than all the other arrested persons, as the charges against me appeared to be graver. I added that if the accusation that I had been working for a Soviet intelligence organisation was true, then the interrogation that I would get at a later stage from the Russians would be infinitely worse than anything the Swiss could do. All the Swiss police could do was imprison me; the Russians on the other hand could make me face a firing squad and I infinitely preferred a few years in a Swiss prison to a few minutes up against a Russian wall.
This line rather flummoxed Pasche; he was not used to suspects pleading to be locked up and refusing chances of liberty. He then almost begged me to make a statement and I replied that I might after I had had time to think it over and consult my lawyer. I was then told that according to the wartime emergency regulations under which I was held this was not allowed until the police had completed their case against me. They could thus hold me incommunicado indefinitely. After this the interrogation dragged on throughout the day and in the end degenerated into a general discussion when everything under the sun was discussed save the case in question. As evening fell, I was taken away from police headquarters and to the Bois Marmet prison where I was to spend the next ten months.
A few days later I was again visited by Pasche, Knecht, and other police officers, and told that in an hour's time I was to be cross-examined again and that this time I must tell everything I knew or it would be the worse for me. I suggested that the proceedings might be helped if a few bottles of scotch and schnapps were taken from my cellar, as they would help to pass the time away and also might loosen my tongue. I was taken out of my cell into the interrogation room and the typewriter was prepared with a nice new sheet of paper in it all ready to take down my confession. The paper was as virgin at the end of the interrogation as it had been at the start. With the aid of the scotch and the schnapps a good time was had by all, and if it did not advance the investigation much it at least cemented Anglo-Swiss relations. I can only hope that the next time I am arrested for espionage I will meet such kind and courteous interrogators.
Though they got nothing from me, I managed to learn a certain amount from them. They had no idea where Rado was hiding, but had got Cissie under surveillance and were letting her run loose in the hope that she would lead them to further contacts- particularly Lucy. They had of course found much of Lucy's material when they raided the Hamels' flat, and from the content of some of the messages, especially the one about the Oerlikon cannon, had deduced that Lucy was probably none other than their valued evaluater and source, Selzinger. This they confirmed, as the Lucy messages and the material he gave the Swiss General Staff were typed on the same machine. He was not arrested, however, till long after I was, and was then held in prison but three months before being released with a certificate from the General Staff.
I also learned that they knew of the plan of escape for the Hamels and Bolli, since they had deciphered some of the Centre's messages to Rado which mentioned it. As a result they had moved the three from Geneva, and they, too, were now in the Bois Marmet prison. They had been monitoring both Rado's and my transmissions for a long time and were now busy deciphering all Rado's back traffic to see if it would give them any new lines.
My time in prison was not unpleasant. For the first time in years I was able to relax completely, and I settled down to what I imagined would be a long stay as I did not believe it likely that I would be released until the end of the war, by which time all my usefulness to the Centre would be over. Life in any prison is much the same, and enough books have been written about it without my adding to the number. I was allowed to wear my own clothes and buy anything I wanted from outside, including one hot meal a day, wine, tobacco, etc., so I did not do badly. I also had transferred to the prison all my store of tinned food, of which I had accumulated about enough to last me for a year if I had ever been forced to go into hiding. Also, imagining that my stay was going to be a long one, I gave up my flat, and the prison authorities obligingly stored all my personal effects. I was thus able to settle down to a peaceful period of eating and reading, and the days merged imperceptibly one into the other. My cell was not uncomfortable though hardly up to the standard of my flat. My principal complaint at first was the noise of the other inmates pacing their cells. Bois Marmet being a remand prison, most of the prisoners were awaiting trial and not yet accustomed to prison life. Later I was transferred to a "political" cell in the women's block which was a haven of peace and quiet.
After the last schnapps party the Swiss police apparently gave me up as a bad job, for I was not bothered again and was left in peace to consume my stock of food and work my way gradually through the prison library.
Early in September 1944, after I had been in prison for ten months, I was visited by a certain Captain Blazer of the Swiss Army Legal Branch. He stated that the federal police had completed their case against me and the rest of the network (by this time they had also arrested Cissie, Lucy, and Taylor) and had handed the case over to the military for the latter to take any action they thought fit. He added that there was no evidence that I had worked against Swiss interests and that therefore I could be released on bail pending trial before a military tribunal if I would first of all sign a statement admitting that I had been working as a Soviet agent. This I refused to do until I could consult my lawyer, whereupon Blazer produced the article in the military code stating that persons detained for espionage or offenses against the neutrality laws were not entitled to legal aid until the case against them had been completed. The police had given me the same answer, though in this case I was given chapter and verse.
I had unfortunately to decline the offer, as it is one of the rules of the Centre that an arrested agent must never admit that he has been working for the Soviet Union. However, a day or so later Blazer came to visit me and said that he was desolated that a person who had worked against the only potential enemy of Switzerland, meaning of course Germany, should stay in prison. He suggested therefore that I sign a statement saying that I had been working for "one of the United Nations" and leave out all mention of the Soviet Union. This I agreed to, and after signing the statement and a check for two thousand francs for my bail I was released on September 8, 1944.
I went straight to a Lausanne hotel and sat down to think things out. Obviously it was impossible for me to do anything till I was certain that the Swiss police really had finished with me and that I was not under surveillance. After a week or so I was certain that at any rate for the moment I was not being shadowed and so started a tour of the various places of conspiracy in the hope of picking up contact again with Cissie, Pakbo, or Jean Beauchamp. I knew all their addresses of course, but for obvious reasons was not going to visit them there in case they were themselves being watched.
The first person I met was Jean. He told me that Rado had never been found by the police and that he and his wife had left Switzerland clandestinely for Paris only a few days before. Rado had told Jean that he would at once contact the Soviet military attaché in Paris and arrange for a courier to be sent to contact him (Jean) in order to re-establish communication and finance the network. Finances were in a very parlous state- far worse even than when I had been arrested. Among other debts, Rado owed the Swiss Communist Party some seventy- five thousand Swiss francs of which twelve thousand were owed to the Geneva branch. Most of this had been borrowed from third parties and they were pressing for repayment, which put the whole Party in a very difficult position.
I also picked up Pakbo at his place of conspiracy. He had never been arrested, though he said that the police were suspicious of him (presumably as a result of some clue left by Rado in his papers which the police seized at Hamel's flat). He believed that the reason he had not been pulled in for questioning was that the police had no concrete evidence. He had seen Rado only twice since the latter had gone into hiding the year before, but had maintained contact with him through Jean Beauchamp.
Pakbo said that his sources were still capable of producing information and he was anxious to get things going again. He was not in the least satisfied with Rado. The latter had gone off cheerfully saying that he would send a courier and money, but had quite omitted to settle any place of conspiracy or to arrange any passwords or recognition signs. In fact he felt that Rado's departure had been dictated more by panic rather than any desire to re-establish the network. Pakbo's personal position was not too easy. He had incurred heavy debts in keeping his sources alive during the time I was in prison and needed money urgently.
He told me one rather amusing incident which shows the ramifications that a spy network may produce. After my arrest Rado, still in hiding, wished to get a message to the Centre suggesting a possible new line of communication. He consulted Pakbo, who said that he might be able to get a message sent to Moscow through the medium of one of the Allies. Despite the reprimand Rado I had received when he suggested taking refuge with the British, he thought this was an excellent plan. He therefore gave Pakbo a message in his cipher, asking if it could be sent on. Through one of his contacts, possibly Salter, Pakbo had the message given to the Chinese military attaché in Berne who re-enciphered it in his diplomatic code and despatched it to Chungking with a request that the Wai Chiao Pu (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) hand it on to the Russian Embassy for onward transmission to Moscow. I learnt when I was in Moscow that the message had arrived. The Centre were furious, for they knew that Rado's code was compromised by that time, and they made no reply. What the Chinese thought about the whole thing will unfortunately never be known.
Finally one night Cissie herself came to our place of conspiracy and all the threads were picked up again. She had been arrested in May of that year together with her daughter Tamara and a former German minister, Paul Boetcher, with whom she was living. At the same time they had arrested Lucy and the cut-out Taylor. Cissie told me that until her arrest she had not known that I had been arrested and had thought that I had merely broken contact with Rado when the latter was compromised and went into hiding, and she had hoped that one day I could contact her at our place of conspiracy. She had kept open her channels of communication with Lucy despite the arrests, and all her other sources were also ready and willing to begin functioning again as soon as there was a new resident director and a channel of communication- and of course the necessary funds. This lack of funds had made Cissie commit a cardinal mistake, one which Moscow was later to regard with the gravest suspicion.
Desperate for money after my disappearance and Rado's going underground, she had, against all the rules and regulations, telegraphed to a former cut-out of the organisation, one Hermina Rabinovitch, who was working for the I.L.O. in Canada. This message was sent through Isaac, who was one of Cissie's sources in Switzerland and whom she used as a safe deposit for compromising documents. In veiled language the message asked Hermina to go to the Soviet Legation in Ottawa and ask for ten thousand dollars to be sent to Cissie through the medium of a New York watch company whose Geneva agent would pay the money to Cissie. Knowing that the message would be given to the military attaché at the legation, she also gave news of Lucy and Rado and asked news of me. (This message is mentioned in the Royal Commission report on the Canadian spy case and the relevant extracts from the report showing the connection between our organisation and the Canadian network are given in Appendix C.)
This telegram was sent at a time when Cissie was under surveillance by the Swiss police, who also saw copies of all telegrams sent abroad. In Moscow it was believed that this was the first clue that the Allies got regarding the Canadian network and that it, together with other information in Swiss hands, had been handed over to the Allies by the Swiss, that through this the whole organisation was uncovered, and that the defection of Gouzenko had been but a minor contributory factor.
It was quite apparent to us both that before anything else was done it was essential to see Lucy. He had been released at the same time as I, and after a short delay we all three arranged to meet at the Restaurant Bolognesa in Kasernenstrasse in Zurich. Cissie and I arrived first and awaited with some curiosity the arrival of this agent who had his lines so deep into the innermost secrets of Hitler. A quiet, nondescript little man suddenly slipped into a chair at our table and sat down. It was Lucy himself. Anyone less like the spy of fiction it would be hard to imagine. Consequently he was exactly what was wanted for an agent in real life. Undistinguished-looking, of medium height, aged about fifty, with his mild eyes blinking behind glasses, he looked exactly like almost anyone to be found in any suburban train anywhere in the world.
It was not difficult for us to establish our identities. He had been shown photographs of Cissie and me when he had been in prison, and a few questions from us soon proved that he was Lucy. He said that despite the July purge he was still able to supply information from Werther, Olga, and his other sources as before, and indeed was most anxious for communication to be re-established so that he could send his material to the Centre regularly. During the ten months that I had been in prison Lucy had continued to supply information from his sources, but there had of course been no means of transmitting it to the Centre. Cissie had collected it and paid for it and it had all been deposited in Isaac's safe (he had diplomatic privileges so it was safe there). Lucy had, however, insisted that certain of his information be made available to the Allies - even if it could not go to the Centre direct. As a result Cissie had arranged, through a series of cut-outs, for certain selected items which affected the western front to be passed to the British. The items which had been so passed were marked with a red cross on the copies of the Lucy material kept in Isaac's safe so that if and when the information was sent to the Centre they could see exactly which items had been passed over to their allies.
It was obviously essential that someone should go to Paris as soon as possible in order to re-establish the network. Rado could and should have done so, but he had left without a word, having made no arrangements. The obvious person was I, as I had taken over the job of resident director after Rado went into hiding. Lucy therefore agreed to give me all the material he had, and I arranged with him and Cissie a system by which they could be contacted quickly and safely by any new resident director who might arrive. I also saw Pakbo a day or so later and made a similar arrangement with him and collected a large quantity of information which he had accumulated.
At this time, November 1944, France was in a state of chaos and all normal means of transportation had broken down. I therefore commissioned Jean Beau- champ to arrange my journey to Paris, telling him it must be as quickly as possible and without any nonsense about visas or passport formalities. Jean arranged matters with his usual efficiency. He gave me a rendezvous in a cafe near the Swiss frontier on the road to a French frontier town. He would be sitting at a table there with two people, one the chief of police and the other the president of the Committee of Liberation of the French town, and I was to hand them any money or documents that I had in case I was searched by the Swiss customs. After leaving Switzerland I would be joined in no-man's land by these two, who would pass me through the French control. The whole thing worked like a charm. I left Switzerland on my valid British passport and I was then joined by my two new friends and additional reinforcements in the shape of two young members of the Maquis with tommy guns who waved the French douaniers and frontier guards aside. Thus I entered France for the first time since the war started.
My documents were returned to me and I was given a safe-conduct for Paris and a seat was found for me in a car which was just about to leave for the capital. The journey was completely uneventful and late that night I arrived in Paris and took a bed off one of my fellow travellers.
The next morning I set off on my search for a Soviet official to whom I could tell my story.