Double Agent : The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring (9781451667974) by Duffy Peter

Author:Duffy, Peter
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2015-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

AND YOU BE CAREFUL

I noticed the beautiful dog that was following you on 42nd Street yesterday. I was very interested in it and a friend of mine wondered if you had it for sale or kept it for a companion. If you do neither, he will not be offended.

—Fritz Duquesne in a letter to Sebold, August 9, 1940

J. Edgar Hoover couldn’t have been more pleased with the progress of his premier case. In a memo to the White House, he crowed that the Bureau “has undercover agents actually participating in a German espionage group in such a manner as to enable the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to know the entire activities of this ring,” the only specific investigation mentioned in the nine-page letter. “. . . Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as members of this German espionage group actually maintain and operate a short-wave radio station which is in daily contact with Germany, and through this station pass the messages of a number of German agents. All messages, of course, are surreptitiously submitted to the State, War, and Navy Departments prior to the time they are transmitted to Germany and, of course, information and instructions received from Germany are transmitted to interested agencies.” During a gathering of 175 law enforcement officials, Hoover boasted of the depth of the Bureau’s infiltration of secret networks of spies and saboteurs, explaining that the news media would be informed (and “honor and glory to all” duly accorded) when the evidence was ready for presentation in court. “The enemy does not know our actions,” he said, “and cannot anticipate a time when he might plan his devious task with a minimum chance of detection.”

Determined to prevent a repeat of the Turrou embarrassment, Hoover assigned one of his best men, Earl J. Connelly, who had led the celebrated raid on kidnapper Kate “Ma” Barker’s Florida hideout in 1935, to relocate to the city and assume control from the New York office, probably at about the time he was promoted to assistant director in June. “They brought Froelich in from Pittsburgh to start a filing and index system on it,” Ellsworth wrote. “Maxwell Chayfitz read and coordinated reports.” A small team of stenographers and clerks was assembled. German-fluent agents such as Joseph Fellner, an Austrian-born graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, and William Gustav Friedemann, an Oklahoman with an LLB from George Washington University, arrived to work as interpreters. New men were assigned to follow the growing list of suspects, which was done clumsily in the case of Paul “Fink” Fehse, who noticed suspicious figures following him on the subway and parked out front of his house, prompting him to lie low for a while. Agents took jobs at Sperry Gyroscope and Norden Inc., went undercover on the SS Manhattan, initiated a twenty-four-hour watch on Hermann Lang’s home to guard against his flight, and relaxed in the nicest of bars while Lilly Stein was charmed by her latest suitors.

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