SPY'S SECRET WORLD

KIM PHILBY 
DEFECTED TO RUSSIA 

The nowadays highly developed espionage and the secrecy of its world started as early as 2000 BC.

A written clay tablet was discovered from a soldier called Bannum. He was commanding the desert patrol in Mesopotamia (Nowadays Iraq). It contained information of activities by a village which loyalty was in doubt and the tablet was sent to his lord.

Every great ruler such as Hannibal, Mithridates, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar had their spies. It is known that Hannibal, before crossing the Alps in 218 BC, had informants. They provided him with details of terrain, climate and fertility of the country. It included information of the strength of the tribes and their attitude towards Rome. The Carthaganians won four major victories against the Roman legions because of all these information.

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At first, every ruler had its own intelligence service but as it become more sophisticate and intricate they hired a professional called 'Spymaster'. Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham (1530-90) was one of the greatest. Philip II of Spain complained that all his secret plans for conquering England were known before he told his own ministers.

Oliver Cromwell has even a better spymaster than Walsingham. The Secretary of State and Head of Intelligence, John Thurloe, was appointed in 1652. Thurloe run an espionage service covering England and Europe. The Venetian Ambassador wrote that there is no government on earth which is more punctually informed of those of others.

Only in fiction spies disguise themselves. In real life they rarely do. They only assume false identities or live under cover for many years.

One remarkable spy was sent to the court of the Russian Empress Elisabeth by King Louis XV. He was Charles Genevieve Louis Aguste Andre Timothee d'Eton de Beaumont. He was not only a great swordsman but also a brilliant female impersonator and these two qualities which made King Louis XV decide to send him as spy.

The Empress Elizabeth of Russia was so taken in by 'Lia de Beaumont' that she made her a maid-in-waiting and with that 'she' had great influence over the old lady. After a while Beaumont dropped his disguise. Elizabeth was not outraged the least; she made him an officer in the Imperial Russian Army.

Napoleon stated that one good spy in the right place was worth more the 20,000 men on the battlefield. Napoleon' spy Karl Schulmeister managed to be appointed as Head of the Austrian Military Intelligence. He sent information back to him and that enabled Napoleon to defeat Austria at Ulm and Austerlitz. Schulmeister was described as all brain but no heart.

Later on the journalist and Communist Richard Sorge were posted to Tokyo. In 1936. He made friends in the German Embassy and Japan's government. As a result he was able to send a stream of invaluable information to the Soviet Union. It was said that in 1940 alone he sent 30,000 coded messages.

1941, He gave Stalin the exact dated of the German invasion - 22 June. Stalin ignored it and the Red Army was almost wiped out. After that, Stalin, questioned the Japanese intention. Sorge discovered that they will not move west to attack Russia but south. Stalin sent the two million troops which were standing by in Siberia in case the Japan attacks and sent them against the Germans.

At the same moment Sorge was arrested in an early morning raid and sentenced and hanged. Some spies, to avoid this, turn and work for the country they spied on. This was the case of 30 spies sent in 1940 to Britain by the German Military Intelligence (die Abwehr).

When they were arrested some wouldn't co-operate and were executed. Most of them turned double agents. They transmitted a wealth of invaluable information but they were supplied by the British themselves. In 1944 the Germans were to believe that the landing on D-Day was at Pas-de-Calais which was far to the east of the real landing place in Normandy.

The most guarded building was Bletchley Park about 80km north-west of London. The headquarter known as Station X and it was there that they managed to brake the Enigma code. General Montgomery benefited most from this result. The secret of Bletchley Park was kept till 1977.

After the war Britain discovered that they were the target of a highly successful espionage from Russia. Two spies, Guy Burges and Donald Maclean, fled to Moscow after a warning from a mysterious 'third man'. Eventually it was discovered that it was Harold 'kim' Philby, senior officer in the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He also defected and a fourth and fifth men were discovered.

Even now the spy is still very much in business. He concentrates on commercial and industrial secrets instead of political and military information. The FBI stated that out of 173 countries 57 running espionage against the USA. The Japanese are on the top list and the South Korea and China to follow.

The 'Spycatcher' ex-MI5 officer Peter Wright wrote a book in 1985. He stated that most of the top people in Britain were involved and that Sir Roger Hollis, who was head of the service, was a Soviet agent. The government tried to ban the book to be printed but failed.

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