It all really began in Spain. On a cold wet night in December 1936, I embarked for France. Most of my fellow volunteers were Party members, and most of them are dead. I myself, though not a Party member, had been vouched for by two responsible members of the Party, and as such departed to fight for my clear-cut ideals; to fight to prevent Fascism from overrunning Europe.
The journey into Spain was uneventful. We made our rendezvous in Paris and were incorporated in a larger body of volunteers already collected there, and then sent on into Catalonia with responsible Party members as bear leaders. In Albacete, which was the headquarters of the International Brigade, we were all sorted out and I was posted to the nearby village of Madriguerras, where a British battalion was being formed.
Too many books have been written about the Spanish Civil War for me to say more than is necessary to my story. Too many of my comrades have died to make it easy for me to write about it at all. It was for me merely a halting place on my way. The fact that I did not realise that it was only a halting place and regarded it as the be-all and end-all of my existence at the time is neither here nor there. For me the war was a struggle where my friends fought and died. For others it was merely a testing ground and a suitable place for talent spotting.
The man in charge of the formation of the battalion was Wilfred Macartney. The political commissar was Douglas Springhall, who played a more vital part in my life later, when he recruited me for the Red Army Intelligence. Battalions were formed approximately on language groups and in our battalion we had British and dominion troops and a sprinkling of Swedes whose only other language was English. We even had an Ethiopian who claimed that he was the son of Ras Imru, one of the Negus' chieftains. After the preliminary flurry, however, it was discovered that he was merely a Lascar sailor who had picked up his English on British ships, and he then faded out of the propaganda limelight. Despite the occasional bad egg that is as inevitably attracted toward a cause where there is a possibility of loot as a fly is to honey, the morale of the battalion was high. Whatever were the motives of the Republican equivalents of brass hats, the rank and file fought magnificently. The casualty lists are sufficient evidence of this; almost half of the thousand-odd British who served with the International Brigade were killed.
I remember Professor J. B. S. Haldane, when for a short period he served with the brigade as a private soldier, standing in a trench, brandishing a tiny snub-nosed revolver, and shouting defiance at the advancing Franco infantry. Luckily for science, we managed to repel the Rebel attack and the professor was spared for his further contributions to world knowledge.
I was posted as battalion transport officer. Ranks at that time bore little relation to fact. I was not "politically reliable" and as such ranked lower in the political hierarchy than the fellow comrade who had sold the Daily Worker with distinction in North Shields. Though I never achieved commissioned rank, I performed all the duties for my battalion which would have been carried out in the British Army by a transport officer. The work was as varied as it was dangerous, ranging from the prosaic bringing up of the rations to the evacuation from an encircled town of the Republican alcalde with the entire civic funds. In this case the alcalde abandoned us first and fell promptly into the hands of skirmishing Moorish cavalry. The funds, however, lingered for days in the boot of the car, as we had rashly supposed that the mayor had been evacuating his wardrobe rather than his revenue. It was on such a trip, with Franco planes machine-gunning the road, that, bundling without dignity into a nearby shell hole, I was stepped softly on by Slater, then on the Planning Staff, who was similarly hurrying for shelter from the back seat of my car. He curled himself gracefully down on top of me with an exquisitely polite "Excuse me" which I have always treasured as a fine example of courtesy under difficulties.
There were not unnaturally preliminary teething pains in the battalion. One of these resulted in the Irish contingent's transferring in a body to the American Lincoln Battalion; they refused to serve under Macartney because he had been an officer in the Black and Tans in Ireland after World War I. Eventually the British Battalion was included in the 6th International Brigade, which for the greater part of the Civil War formed part of the 11th Division of the Republican Army.
This division was commanded by a Russian-trained General "Walter, " who recently became Minister for War in the Polish government. By using his Christian name he was following the example of his Soviet colleagues, who preferred to veil their identities behind a noncommittal first name. I myself came into close touch with only one Red Army officer while in Spain; this was a certain "Max" who, despite his junior rank of captain and his function as "observer, " wielded great authority. He came into my life again later when his endorsement of my suitability for work for the Red Army Intelligence helped to establish me in the confidence of the Russian D. M. I.
As an infantry soldier the strategy and politics of the war naturally passed me by. We, fighting in the line, knew little or nothing of Barcelona and Valencia politics and intrigues, and less still of their international ramifications. We only knew that we fought, always ill equipped and frequently under-armed, against an enemy who appeared to be furnished with a multiplicity of modern weapons. Our task was not made easier by the frequent "purges" of our officers which took place. After every reverse we could be certain that one or more of our colleagues would vanish- failure and "Trotskyist inclinations" being almost synonymous. Attacks did fail. This is hardly surprising when an army, often with only five live rounds a day to fire off, is thrown against a well- equipped force with modern weapons and stiffened with foreign troops. Not all our failures, however, can be attributed either to the Republican General Staff or to the lack of equipment. The "Moscow Operation" of Fuentes de Ebro will long be remembered by those who were lucky enough to survive it.
It appeared that Moscow had evolved a new tank theory which they wished tried out, not in mock combat but in battle conditions, which were found, conveniently and economically, in Spain. (I have no more bitterness toward the Russians for this technique than I have toward the Germans and the Italians, who did exactly the same thing. The only difference is that the Germans were publicly arraigned for it at Nuremberg. ) The idea was to throw some forty tanks against the enemy during the siesta. These tanks were to break through the infantry front line and push straight forward to the artillery and, having disposed of the latter, turn back and take the infantry in the rear. The tanks were brand-new and the crews were Germans newly trained in a Russian tank school. It was in vain that our chief of staff, Malcolm Dunbar, pointed out that the rebel position had been heavily plastered with artillery fire, with the result that the irrigation ditches had been broken and the place was a quagmire. Moscow orders were orders, and the attack went in. Some twelve out of the forty tanks returned; the majority of the rest were captured intact by the enemy. I trust that the lesson was instructive to the Russian observers. It was certainly so to the surviving tank crews, who drove their Russian commander back to the base area never to be seen again.
This is, however, all past history, and the average person nowadays has forgotten the Civil War or remembers it merely as a curtain raiser to the second Great War. Of course it was such, and my comrades in their unmarked graves round Teruel were merely the first skirmishers in the great encounter to come.
After two years' continual service with the International Brigade, I was sent back on leave to England in September 1938 to be present at the Communist Party Congress at Birmingham. The political commissariat at the brigade must have regarded me with some favour to allow me, a non-Party member, to be selected to return. My job as transport officer made me less vulnerable to accusations as a "Trotskyist" and my personal friendship with my own particular commissar may have helped. I left the brigade, decimated by losses and beginning to be demoralised by "purges" never to return.
The original intention had been that I should return to Spain- though not as a fighting member of the I. B. The Party had decided that I was a suitable person to run a Red Cross truck which was to go to Spain from England at regular intervals, carrying medical supplies and comforts. This part of the assignment was highly respectable. The organisation which ran the service was non-Communist and the funds were raised by public subscription. This was to be only my "cover." My real job was to have been as a courier between King Street (the headquarters, then as now, of the British Communist Party) and the Communist command of the British Battalion of the brigade. I was also to have acted as a passeur for unauthorised persons who wished to enter Spain (it will be remembered that by this time non-intervention was in full swing and frontier control had been tightened up) and as a smuggler of unauthorised goods. I was also to ensure that the lion's share of the goods in my truck went to the politically enlightened. This job, however, fell through.
To this day I do not know whether it in fact ever existed or whether it was merely put up to me to see my reactions to employment which was, to say the least, not quite what it seemed and definitely illegal Party work. Whether the offer was genuine or not does not really matter. The job was stillborn and that particular move in the undercover game of chess was over. It was Red's turn to move again and another pawn was put out temptingly. I accepted the move and the real game began.
After the Congress in Birmingham and a few days' leave, I returned to London and reported to King Street to discuss the Red Cross job. I was there met by Fred Copeman, who told me that the whole project had fallen through. Fred was an old friend, as he had been at one time commander of the British Battalion of the I. B. He invited me to his flat in Lewisham for a meal with him and his wife. After supper the next move was made.
"Springhall has been asked to recommend someone for an assignment. We have discussed various people and think that you might fit the bill. I know nothing about the assignment save that it will be abroad and will be very dangerous. "
I think that was all Fred Copeman did in fact know. He was in this case merely acting as the mouthpiece for Springhall. Though the latter remained in the background, his role as talent spotter and recruiter was clear. I always- and events have so far not proved me wrong-regarded him as the contact man for the Red Army in the British Communist Party. Gossip in Spain went so far as to state that he had held Red Army rank in his time. As far as his part in my recruitment went, I know no more than I have already stated. As any reader of the newspapers will remember, Springhall was later tried and convicted for a similar offence during the war. Fred Copeman's part in these preliminary flirtations was obscure. He was, I believe, merely on the fringe of the Soviet net and was used by Springhall and the others as an innocent cover for their contact work. Certainly my subsequent questioning of him seemed to show that he was as much in the dark as I was. Later, of course, Cope- man split with the Party and joined the Oxford Group.
Despite the vagueness of the offer I jumped at it. Looking back on the whole affair in cold blood, it is a little difficult to understand why I should have accepted such an assignment with no notion that I was working for or for what purpose. If someone had told me at the time that after six months at the work I should still have no idea as to the identity of my masters, I should have laughed at them. But such is in fact the case, and I think that many of those who were on the fringes of, for example, the Canadian case must have found themselves in a similar predicament.
However, I soon realised that the work for which I was destined was illegal, and very soon afterwards it became clear to me that I was ultimately intended for espionage work. It was soon apparent that I could not be working for the British Communist Party. I thought that perhaps I was working for the German Communist Party (K. P. D. ) or perhaps for the Comintern (as regards the inner workings of the latter I knew little more than did the average reader of the papers). But here I am slightly outrunning events. I may ultimately have been a good spy, but as regards my early career I was certainly an innocent abroad.
After my acceptance of the offer Copeman told me to go to an address in St. John's Wood. There I went one fine October morning and duly found myself inside the flat with the green door.
I have already related the instructions that I received there. They were not illuminating, and I learned no thin, much more from the respectable housewife with a slight foreign accent who interviewed me. Her name I never knew for certain, though I have my own ideas on the subject. She was certainly friendly with, if not actually related to, my contact and spy master, or rather spy mistress, in Switzerland. Our business was done with briskness and despatch. I do not suppose that I was in the house more than ten minutes. I was dealt with by the lady of the house as briskly and impersonally as she would have engaged a housemaid.
Apart from the directions as to where I was to go, I also received a few further instructions to enable me to make contact with the person who was to deal with me in the future. I was to present myself outside the General Post Office in Geneva. (A favourite rendezvous, as a G. P. O. is easily found and provides an admirable excuse for loitering. ) I was to be wearing a white scarf and to be holding in my right hand a leather belt. As the clock struck noon I would be approached by a woman carrying a string shopping bag containing a green parcel, and holding an orange in her hand. One would have though: that this would have been sufficient to enable anyone to contact anyone, even an unknown, in the middle of a Swiss street. But to avoid any possibility of error the whole rendezvous was made even more precise. The woman would ask me, in English, where I had bought the belt; and I was to reply that I had bought it in an ironmonger's shop in Paris. Then I was to ask her where I could buy an orange like hers, and she was to say that I could have hers for an English penny. Hardly sparkling dialogue, but sufficient to ensure that the meeting was foolproof and an example of the usual thoroughness of my employers. For a similar type of rendezvous I refer the reader to the details of the contact which Professor Nunn May was to make with an unknown outside the British Museum. The technique and indeed the choice of locale are exactly parallel.
I left this snug little St. John's Wood spy nest in some confusion of mind. I had no objection to the illegality and obviously clandestine nature of the mission which I had accepted. Looking back, I do not think that espionage even entered my head at the time. The average person does not think immediately of a spy mission when he is offered a job, even when it is hedged round with such Oppenheim secrecy as this one was. Nowadays I suppose that one would merely think one had fallen in with a particularly well-organised gang of black marketers. At that time, if I did think, I probably imagined that I had been cast for some Scarlet Pimpernel-like role of rescuing prisoners from Dachau. In fact I do. not believe that I thought at all. I was pleased enough to be offered a job, and satisfied that since it came from the Party it would not clash with my political opinions.
It was as neat a piece of recruiting as I met throughout my career with the Russians. Admittedly I was a small fish and an easy one to hook and land at that; but the technique showed considerable experience. First the offer of the job which, though illegal, was in fact straight Party work; then the change of assignment to something quite unknown but obviously even more illegal. The fish was well hooked and my employers could be certain that if I accepted a shot in the dark such as this Geneva appointment must appear to a tyro, they could be equally- sure that I would not balk at anything further. Even if I did, what had they to lose? I could have gone round to Scotland Yard with my story, and they would be hardly a pennyworth the wiser. All I could have told them was an address in St. John's Wood (which I afterward checked and found to be one of impeccable, if foreign, respectability) and a confused story of a complicated rendezvous which in all probability they would have put down to the maunderings of an unbalanced individual with spy mania. It is certain that, had I blown the gaff, the rendezvous would have been cancelled and any special branch officer who had undertaken the long and tedious journey to Geneva would not have been rewarded by the sight of a woman laden with an orange.
Confusion of mind or no confusion of mind, I resolved to go on with the whole affair, and returned home to collect my kit and make the necessary arrangements for a visit to Switzerland. I had not much time, as the date of the rendezvous was only a few days ahead. Luckily in those days travel was easy and I soon found myself on the boat crossing the Channel. My last crossing had been on an equally clandestine mission- to fight for what 1 thought was freedom. Then I had my comrades with me. This time I was alone and moving into the dark.
A hardened spy regards a rendezvous with his contact as a matter of routine. If the contact is successful, so much the better. If it fails, then there are varieties of reasons which may have occasioned the failure, only a few of which may affect the personal safety or comfort of the spy himself. The human character is infinitely adaptable, and after a short time I regarded clandestine meetings and undercover assignments as the normal course of duty. It would be idle to pretend, however, that I went to this, my first assignment, with complete sangfroid. My attitude of mind was similar to that of the debutante at her first dance: extreme nervousness with a lively anticipation of pleasure and excitement to come.
Geneva is not an exciting town. The centre for international espionage in two wars, it singularly fails to come up to expectations. Swiss architecture, admirable as it may be, does not supply that Puritanical atmosphere of the dark alley and the shuttered casement which should go with the meeting of agents. It may be for this reason that it is such a favourite for clandestine encounters. A meeting of the Inquisition with Torquemada in the chair would there take on the semblance of normality of a parochial council. It must be remembered also that at that time the dove of League peace was still hovering over the town. Slightly bedraggled after Munich, she was still surrounded with an aura of international amity, as bogus, alas, as my role of tourist. It would be difficult to have found a more cynical rendezvous for a spy meeting. Nor is it really relevant that I was only one of many members of varied and various spy rings who were hurrying there for meetings of varying degrees of secrecy and respectability.
Remaining true to my role as a tourist, I stayed at a small hotel near the station and on the appointed day went to the post office for the rendezvous, armed with the necessary paraphernalia for my contact. Anyone who has ever attempted to pick someone up under the clock at Charing Cross station, with the usual marks of identification dear to the writers of notices in the personals column of the Times, can imagine my feelings. It seemed that all the hausfraus of Geneva had conceived the happy idea of supplying their loved ones with a nice orange for their midday meal and all Geneva wrapping paper appeared green. All the women looked equally respectable and equally indifferent. Holding my leather strap, I felt a self-conscious fool and an ass, at best self-doomed to embarrassment and at worst to a Swiss charge of accosting.
The local clocks announced, rather smugly to my heated imagination, that noon had arrived, and not one of the crowd swirling past the steps had even vouchsafed me a glance. Then I noticed her. Punctuality may be the politeness of princes but it is certainly a perquisite of Soviet spies. Slim, with a good figure and even better legs, her black hair demurely dressed, she stood out from the Swiss crowd. In her early thirties, she might have been the wife of a minor French consular official. Her bag contained a green parcel and she held an orange.
"Excuse me, but where did you buy that belt?"
Contact had been established.