Apart from the specific sources mentioned below, Pakbo was also in touch with several military attachés, including the Chinese, of whom he made use after the wireless link was broken by my arrest. On my departure from Switzerland for Paris Pakbo also asked me to deliver a message to the Soviet military attaché to the effect that one Lieutenant Colonel Thibault, the Vichy French military attaché in Berne, wished to be placed in direct touch with the Russians. Thibault stated that he had details of V-3 and wished to hand the plans over personally to the Soviet military attaché. I passed the message on but do not know what, if any, action was taken on it by the Centre.
The other main cut-out was of course myself, who also acted as one of the wireless operators for the group.
The organisation had three wireless transmitters working after the German attack on Russia. One was run by me from Lausanne, another by the Hamels in Geneva; and the third, ultimately in Geneva, by one Margarete Bolli (cover name "Rosie").
At this stage I need say no more about myself and my activities as an operator. I have already given details regarding the recruitment and training of the Hamels. Rosie, like the Hamels, had been recruited by that invaluable and industrious talent spotter Nicole. I trained her in transmission in Lausanne in 1942 and she set up her transmitter at first in her parents' house in Basle. This led to certain domestic difficulties and after a time she and the set moved to Geneva.
The only subsidiary contact of any importance was Taylor. He was not only a cut-out but an agent as well.
He worked back to Rado through Cissie. He provided the network with a certain amount of gossip and information from the International Labour Office where he worked as a translator. By origin a German Jew, his real name was Schneider (of which his cover name was of course only an English translation). In himself he was of little importance to the network, but as the recruiter and contact of "Lucy," our link with the German high command (who was of such importance that I have thought it worth while to devote a chapter to his activities), he was of vital importance. He and only he knew Lucy's real identity, and it was therefore vital for the network to keep him working and happy. It is not everyone who acts as intermediary for an agent who has access to all the secrets of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and Taylor was at first our only link. At a critical period of the war the Centre offered him a salary for life if he would give up his job with the I.L.O. and devote himself solely to being contact man for Lucy. The only stipulation that Moscow made was that Taylor should provide an address in the United States to which the money could be sent in a lump sum in dollars. This, unfortunately for him, Taylor was unable to supply. Despite this, however, he gave up his job with the I.L.O. and did nothing more save cut-out work between Cissie and Lucy. I think that he is still waiting for his money.
The only couriers of any importance of whom the organisation made use were Rosie, who as well as being an operator acted as courier between Rado and me and also between Rado and Pakbo and Maude, the wife of Hamel, who, herself a trained operator, also was a courier between Rado and me when the latter was too busy I to make personal contact.
The above is the main internal communication network. Rado at the centre with his two main cut-outs, Cissie and Pakbo, with Taylor as a secondary contact to the former. Both Cissie and Rado had personal contact with Nicole, who in turn acted as contact with the left-wing Socialists and also one portion of the Geneva and Tessin Communist parties. Cissie was also the cut-out to Hofmeier of the Party. Communication with Moscow was assured through the three transmitters, and Rosie and Maude acted as couriers between Rado, Pakbo, and me.
Before Rado had access to Sonia's transmitter he was, of course, using the old microphotographic technique for the transmission of his information through a cover address in France, whence it was delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Paris. It was the fall of France which, as I have explained before, forced the Centre to put him and Sonia in contact so that communications could be maintained.
With the organisation for the communication and transmission of information clear, the actual sources of information can be examined. To give a catalogue of all the sources would be extremely tedious and, after this lapse of time, almost impossible for me. There were, if I remember correctly, some sixty sources, i.e., agents with cover names, who supplied information to the network. Many of these I knew only by their cover names and many of them, in their turn, merely provided occasional information. Here I give only the main sources
from which Rado drew the material for his reports. They alone were more than sufficient to keep our three transmitters fully occupied. I was often so rushed that I had only time to read and encipher the messages, and no time at all to digest their content, and as a result was on the air for hours at a time, which of course offends all security canons and would lead to certain discovery in an enemy country. The "Bupo" (Bundespolizei, the wartime Swiss police security organisation) were either kinder or less efficient.
Cissie's main sources were three in number:
1. Isaac, by origin a Lithuanian Jew. He asserted that when Russia occupied the Baltic States he had applied to the Soviet Embassy in Paris for Soviet papers, having registered as a Soviet citizen. He also stated that he had been told to stay in Switzerland and not go to Moscow. He was of use to the organisation not only as a source but also, being a member of the staff of the I.L.O. and therefore possessing quasi-diplomatic privilege, as a useful depository for compromising documents and as a "safe house." The information that he supplied via Cis- sie was mostly material from the League of Nations and the I.L.O. and generally dealt, not unnaturally, with political matters. He was never given a regular retainer but was paid only by results.
2. Another source of Cissie's was "Brant," who supplied a certain amount of material on League of Nations matters. He was, I believe, some sort of connection of Cissie's by marriage. He later left Switzerland for France, of which country he was a national, and, as far as I know, is now out of the whole racket.
3. Cissie's third and most important source was Lucy, through the medium of Taylor. She had, in addition, several minor sources and contacts who were of use to the network but these do not merit mention here and will appear only in the course of the narrative.
Pakbo also had three main sources and as well acted as occasional contact with Nicole and the Swiss Communist Party. Probably his main source was "Rot," an organisation in South Germany, which I suspect was closely tied up with the German Communist Party and had links into and with the Swiss Party. This source produced political, military, and economic information from South Germany. Occasionally the source also yielded information from Berlin.
I never knew much more about the organisation, but I should imagine that it was a small group in close touch with events in South Germany, occasionally receiving information from members of the group who were stationed in Berlin or elsewhere and came down to South Germany for leave. The information was never very "hot" and it probably reached Pakbo through a series of couriers. I also suspect that he did not organise these but that they were organised by the Party in Switzerland.
His other source outside Switzerland was one known to me only by the rather romantic name of "Lili aus Vatikan." This source, as the name suggests, produced diplomatic information from Italy in general and the Vatican City in particular. I never knew how it reached Pakbo but always assumed that it was via the diplomatic bag (the delay in receipt would fit that assumption), and that the source was some diplomat accredited to the Vatican City.