Spy Stuff: How Does One of Your Neighbors Become a Spy?

Many stories can be found of otherwise seemingly solid folks becoming spies for America’s enemies. How does that happen?

The FBI offers some interesting insights in “The Case of the Friendly Neighborhood Spy.” The story of William Holden Bell being lured in by Marian Zacharski to hand over secrets to the Polish government, then firmly in the camp of the Soviet Union, is a classic case of a foreign agent preying on an individual in tough circumstances.

Toward the end of this interesting read, it’s noted: “Bell’s betrayal of his country mirrors the story of many others ensnared by foreign spies both past and present. Over time, vulnerable Americans are drawn in with money, companionship, attention, and other “carrots” in exchange for information, which gradually increases in importance, classification level, and quantity.”

- Ray Keating

Spy Stuff: Amateur, Adventurer Spies of WWII

RealClearLife.com serves up a fascinating article about three amateur spies during World War II. They were known as GBT group, “a secret operation that worked alongside, but not for, Allied intelligence agencies during the Japanese occupation of what was then called Indochina. In a part of the world where the Allies were struggling to get any useful information, the GBT group’s network of amateur informants became one of the most effective spy rings of the war.”

This is fascinating and exhilarating stuff.

Read the RealClearLife.com article here, or the CIA report that it was based on here.

Spy Stuff: The French Woman Who Ran One of the Most Important Resistance Efforts Against the Nazis

There’s a fascinating report from the New York Post about a new book covering Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, a French woman who “headed one of the most important resistance networks during World War II and oversaw the collection of crucial intelligence that helped turn the battle’s tide.”

It is noted: “In 1941, Fourcade ascended to command a vast intelligence network in France, overseeing some 3,000 agents and operating in nearly every sizeable town in the country.”

Consider the following from the piece:

    “If you’re raised not in your country, you’re raised with this love of an ideal,” Olson says. “She was raised with this love of France as an ideal, of liberty, equality, paternity. And the idea that Hitler would come in and destroy everything she held dear about her country outraged her.”

    She and Navarre were soon working to build a network of informers across Europe, and when Germany invaded France in 1940, the group moved completely underground.

    In 1942, Navarre was arrested, leaving Fourcade in charge of the network. In order to ensure the continued assistance of British intelligence, which had been providing money and supplies, Fourcade decided to travel to Spain to meet a MI6 representative.

    To meet her contact, Fourcade had to be smuggled across the border hidden in a small jute mail sack stuffed into the trunk of an accomplice’s car. She had to contort her 5-foot-6 body into a 2-by-4 bag and remain inside for more than nine hours, in excruciating pain the whole way.

    When they reached Spain and she was released, she fainted. Her accomplice revived her in the most French way possible: with a cigarette and a glass of cognac.

Check out this fascinating article, and the book - Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler (Random House) – is on my reading list.

- Ray Keating

Spy Stuff: Slave Becomes a Spy for the Continental Army in Revolutionary War

History.com serves up the fascinating story of James Armistead, who was a slave in Virginia, became a spy for the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and played a crucial part in the American victory at the Battle of Yorktown.

It is noted in the article:

Posing as a runaway slave, Armistead quickly infiltrated British forces via Arnold’s camp. While at first he took on menial tasks, his vast knowledge of the terrain—a trait that wouldn't seem suspicious for a local runaway slave—was useful to both Arnold and Cornwallis for British intelligence during the war. So they assigned him the task of spying on the colonies.
 Armistead’s work as a double agent made traveling between the camps easier, as he didn't stand out as a peculiar presence by either side. It also made collecting information on British forces less dangerous—as long as he wasn’t caught.
 It was a dangerous tightrope act for Armistead: He supplied Lafayette with information on the British through handwritten notes delivered to other spies, meanwhile feeding Cornwallis and his company inaccuracies.

Read the entire article and what eventually happened to James Armistead.

- Ray Keating