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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VERNON KELL -- FOUNDER OF MI5

100 years ago this Vernon George Waldegrave Kell founded the Secret Service Bureau and later on it was called MI5.

When you saw him in public there was nothing outstanding about Kell. He did not look like a dashing James Bond. But he could smell a spy like a terrier the rat. He practically invented the spy catching.

A former British Army captain he had a sharp mind and spoke fluent English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Russian. His father was a wealthy Zulu War Veteran. Kell went through the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst in 1892 and was involved in defeated the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900.

At the age of 36 he was asked to head the first British counter-espionage department since Kell's ordinary appearances did not make him look suspicious. When he started he had a tiny office and a staff of 10 and all he had his instinct, observation and word-of-mouth. Kell started off with contacting chief constables and asked for information on anyone looking suspicious. Then he started a card-index system.

By 1914 he gathered16,000 information which were type up, filed, indexed and cross-referenced. Before the First World War Kell managed to uncover an entire German spy ring of 22 agents in Britain meeting in a barber's shop in north London. Kell had 21 arrested. A year after that he caught another seven spies of which some were executed.

As the war progressed he needed more agents. Some worked in British ports and their stories could have fitted in any spy novel. One day Kell intercepted a telegram saying 'Father dead. Await instructions.' Kell changed the telegram 'Father Deceased. What action?' The message came back 'Father Deceased or dead? Please explain' that convinced Kell it wasn't genuine. It was a report on the death of a senior fellow spy.

His successes earned Kell an acknowledgement to be the best counter-espionage experts in the world. He was quietly promoted to Major-General.

Before the Second World War there were people who weren't impressed of his skills. Churchill was one of them. When a British battleship the Royal Oak was sunk with 834 men it was due to being undetected by Kell's agents. Churchill told Kell to go.

Kell resigned after 30 years of dedication and determination. He moved to a small cottage in Buckingham. His wife wrote later that he never coped with the humiliation. While his beloved country was fighting to survive, he was still determined to do his bit. He became a special constable but it wasn't enough.