Insights: How the Age of the Counterspy Shaped the Past
The chances of D-Day succeeding weren't incredible. Roughly 50,000 Nazi soldiers defended the five shorelines that Allied forces assaulted on D-Day. Although ultimately 160,000 Allied troops would invade France through these five beachheads that day, the very first ones to reach the shore were largely outnumbered and outgunned. Overcoming these initial Nazi defenders, who were shielded by strongholds and other fortifications of the so-called Atlantic Wall, was just the start of the challenges.
The second problem was what would transpire once the Germans realized that the Battle of France had commenced. Hitler's 15th Army was stationed in the Pas des Calais, where the English Channel is at its narrowest, while tank divisions lingered in readiness in northern France and Belgium, all prepared to zip in and annihilate any Allied forces that cracked the Atlantic Wall. To improve their prospects, Allied officials resorted to the secret world's dwellers.
These were peculiar spies. Firstly, their primary duty was to offer false information to Adolf Hitler rather than pilfering Nazi secrets. Also, some of these spies didn't exist at all - they were figments of British intelligence's imagination. Half a century before the internet was prevalent, they were the pioneers of bogus Facebook and Instagram accounts.
These spies were known as the Double-Cross network to British and US intelligence. They were operatives who served the Nazis, those who defected to the British or were captured by them in the initial years of World War II.
Counterespionage is the most intricate of the sinister arts. It essentially is how a government safeguards its secrets by scrutinizing the activities of foreign governments keen on acquiring them. However, World War II marked a significant escalation of the offensive usage of counterspies - not merely to prevent the enemy from knowing things but to deceive the enemy by disseminating lying information. And even though strategic deception, as it was called, was used several times in World War II, the most incredible and influential example belonged to the D-Day plans.
The British conscripted members of the Double-Cross network who were turned against Berlin to trick Hitler's military intelligence service with radio transmissions from the UK or letters sent from neutral capitals about where and when the Allies planned to attack occupied France.
The architect of this deception mission was Juan Pujol García, a Spaniard who was designated Garbo, namesaked after the renowned actress Greta Garbo. As it was made clear that the Germans not just believed Garbo, but considered him to be uncommonly effective, the British started concocting fictitious sub-agents for him. In conjunction with his British handler, Garbo fed wrong information about these completely invented individuals who were claimed to work in the British government and US bases in the United Kingdom. The British collaborated with the American military and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and they furthered the disinformation that Garbo was spreading to Berlin. This encompassed dispatching radio signals from non-existent US military units in Britain and fabricating "ghost armies" - with inflatable tanks, fake radio traffic, and sound effects - to deceive German air reconnaissance and direct their focus away from the acts of genuine units.
Since January 1944, Garbo and his "agents" commenced fabricating a false impression in German minds of a D-Day scheduled for July 1944 in the Pas de Calais. Based on the fraudulent intelligence circulated and sown by the Double-Cross system, the supposedly grand invasion would be preceded by one or more feints - scattering bombardments intended to deceive the Germans. To achieve this diversified strategy, Allied deception officers endeavored to persuade the Germans that there was a monumental amassment of Allied troops in the UK readying to ravage the Third Reich, including a fabricated "ghost army" overseen by the actual General George Patton from across the Pas de Calais.
The aim of this deception was to encourage Hitler to maintain the 15th Army and tank divisions in reserve, away from the Normandy coastlines for as long as practicable, to furnish Allied soldiers with a viable probability of seizing a beachhead. Chiefly, the Double-Cross system crooned in unison.
As the authentic D-Day drew nearer, the Allies could detect that the deception was paying off. Hitler was oddly forthcoming in discussions with the Japanese diplomat in Berlin, whose encrypted messages to Tokyo were habitually deciphered and interpreted by American intelligence. Hitler expressed to the Japanese that the Allies intended two strikes from the English Channel in the summer of 1944 and that he wasn't going to be duped by the initial one.
Magnificently, as anticipated, the deception succeeded. The Nazis didn't scatter all their assets to Normandy, as their intelligence services remained certain that the big one was still brewing. Even until July 8, 1944, a month after D-Day, Hitler still believed that Normandy was a feint. Therefore, he refused his generals' demands to amass all forces against it. "The enemy has managed to land in Normandy," Hitler jotted to his commanders. "Despite the attendant risks, the enemy is likely to engineer a second landing in the 15th Army's domain ..."
In the past, during my research for my dissertation, I had the good fortune of encountering some of the surviving MI-5 officers responsible for managing the Double-Cross agents. These officers were exceptionally resourceful and disciplined, not just in managing captured agents in England, but also in imitating how they reported to their German case officers and masterfully blending truth and lies in their messages sent to Berlin.
I also met the man who devised the D-Day deception, Roger Fleetwood Hesketh. This creative individual, a trained architect, relied on diverse talents for the D-Day deception, known as Fortitude South. Growing up in a large estate adjacent to Liverpool, he and his sister developed an elaborate fantasy world of playmates in the absence of friends their age.
In creating the D-Day deception, Hesketh utilized this imaginative ability. Additionally, he leveraged the skills of various individuals to pull off the elaborate scheme. The deception involved spreading false information about the invasion of France, contributing to the success of D-Day.
The exceptional counterespionage campaigns during WWII relied, in part, on codebreaking, which allowed the Allies to gauge the effectiveness of their efforts. While the Japanese and German intelligence operators were using codes and ciphers to hide their most important messages, Allied codebreakers, such as Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, consistently broke these codes, providing crucial information on whether the Nazis were falling for the deceptions.
These counterespionage techniques were largely kept secret for nearly three decades following D-Day. By the end of WWII, some of these methods were widely used during the Cold War. Interestingly, the Soviets learned about the Double-Cross network through two of their own spies embedded in MI5 and MI6 – Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby.
The Double-Cross network set a high standard in counterespionage and strategic deception, one that was difficult to match in the Cold War as the adversaries were more evenly matched and capable of concealing their actions. The historical television series, "Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game," from CNN, depicts the intense and sometimes hazardous global games of spycraft during this period.
Diagnosing the trustworthiness of an agent is a complex and challenging task for a case officer. Working with double agents presents a unique problem: their ultimate loyalty can never be guaranteed.
For the most part, neither the Western powers nor the Soviets had a way to monitor their adversaries' spies effectively throughout the Cold War. The lack of reliable information on opponents' activities led to wasted efforts in seeking out spies, known as "mole hunts," and heightened paranoia among intelligence services. However, sometimes, the absence of reliable counterespionage opened the door for spies to subtly manipulate their adversaries' understanding of each other. Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB agent who switched sides and provided valuable information to the British, was one such case where this led to positive outcomes for peace and security.
Occasionally, the weaknesses in counterespionage made the world a more dangerous place. From 1979 to 1999, Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames were two simultaneous Soviet agents within the FBI and CIA. These betrayals hindered the West's ability to track and understand fully the Soviet Union's reforms and eventual collapse. Thankfully, Mikhail Gorbachev, who rose to power in 1985, primarily pursued his transformative goals openly, helping the West see him as a different kind of leader.
Ellipsis…
The complexities of counterespionage, hinging on the evaluation of human intelligence, make it a difficult task. Case officers - who manage specific agents - often face challenges in differentiating between fabricated and genuine information presented to them by double agents.
For most of the Cold War, both the Western powers and the Soviets lacked a reliable window into their adversaries' spies' actions. The hunt for traitors became increasingly difficult, and intelligence services became susceptible to costly and ineffective "mole" searches as well as the mistrust and paranoia these cases bred.
Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 brought subtle changes, which assisted the West in identifying him as a distinctive leader. Unfortunately, counterespionage efforts were lacking during this period, making it more challenging to fully comprehend the changes occurring in the Soviet Union and, ultimately, its collapse.
Fortunately, Gorbachev's most significant work was largely overt, allowing the West to see him as a different kind of leader, both to his people and to his enemies. However, the compromised state of Western counterespionage during the Cold War posed significant challenges, as it often allowed spies to shape their adversaries' perception of each other.
For instance, Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who turned against his former masters, revealed details about the Soviet Union's nuclear paranoia to London and Washington, contributing to peace and stability. Yet, the lax state of counterespionage during the Cold War also provided cover for perceived threats, such as the dual FBI and CIA moles, Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, respectively, proving perilous in the long run.
Overall, evaluating human intelligence, particularly that of double agents, demands a careful appraisal of their motives and actions. While the D-Day deception and WWII counterespionage operations rewrote the book on deception and strategic intelligence, the challenges of the Cold War demonstrated the difficult, ever-changing nature of the world of covert operations and their implications.
Today, 80 years after D-Day and 35 years following the end of the Cold War, fake identities and misinformation have shifted from simply being a concern for counterintelligence agents. They're now a regular part of our online consumption. Essentially, we've all transformed into our own counter-deception experts, struggling to tell fact from fiction. A strategy adapted to rescue lives and triumph over potentially the worst dictator in human history has become incredibly common on the internet, tarnishing the trust in establishments and among one another.
Read also:
The British utilized the Double-Cross network to spread misleading intelligence about the D-Day invasion, hoping to deceive the Germans and keep their forces away from the Normandy coastlines. The deception was so successful that even until July 8, 1944, Hitler still believed Normandy was a feint.
Despite their assigned duty to mislead the Nazis, the members of the Double-Cross network were subject to rigorous scrutiny by MI-5 officers to ensure their loyalty and truthfulness in their reports to Berlin.
Return to Insights: How the Age of the Counterspy Shaped the Past
