Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark by Eveline Lubbers

Author:Eveline Lubbers [Lubbers, Eveline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Democracy
ISBN: 9780745331867
Google: 7jYbtAEACAAJ
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2012-06-15T04:04:37+00:00

6

Hakluyt and the Jobbing Spy: Case Study

This case study first examines how a private intelligence firm linked closely to the British foreign intelligence service spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for oil companies. The intelligence firm is called Hakluyt, and it attracted attention when an allegedly left-wing film-maker was exposed for spying in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere in Western Europe. Manfred Schlickenrieder’s cover was blown after a Swiss activist group published confidential files that proved he was on Hakluyt’s payroll. The Schlickenrieder documents provide examples of covert corporate strategies developed for Shell and BP. Confronted with this material, Hakluyt reluctantly admitted having employed the spy. After the British press published the story, both Shell and BP acknowledged hiring the firm.

The second part of this story concentrates on Manfred Schlickenrieder’s activities. The documents show that his spying experience had been built up during years of working for Germany’s domestic and foreign intelligence services. In this context his work focused on revolutionary groups such as the Rote Armee Fraction (Red Army Faction, RAF), their supporting network and their connections with similar groups in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

For more than 20 years, Schlickenrieder’s secret work was paid for by private intelligence agencies as well as state services. He received assignments from both, alternately or simultaneously. Schlickenrieder’s existence as a freelance spy is a personification of what Hoogenboom (2005, 2006) calls ‘grey intelligence’ and as such, this chapter maps the blurring boundaries between public and private intelligence and espionage.

BACKGROUND

The case is primarily based on research by an activist group in Switzerland, Revolutionäre Aufbau.23 Schlickenrieder was uncovered as an infiltrator of this group because he was no longer trusted in his private and his public life. Strong suspicions by other members of the Aufbau group proved to be well-founded, as it was discovered that he held an archive of intelligence files. One of the members of the informal investigation group had access to his office, discovered the spy files, and took them (Eine Deutsche Genossin, 2001).

My involvement with this case started when the Aufbau group went public with the findings of their comprehensive internal investigation. They published the outcome of their research on the internet, illustrated by a selection of the discovered documents. Several German and Swiss papers reported the exposure of the spy and his intelligence files. I met with several people from the Aufbau group to share some of the Jansen & Janssen expertise, and subsequently investigated some links leading to people whom Schlickenrieder had approached in the Netherlands. As a freelance investigative journalist, I covered the case in the Dutch press (Lubbers, 2001a–d).

After our two-day meeting, the Aufbau group trusted me with a more complete set of the discovered documents on a CDrom, given to me for research purposes only. In addition to the many talks we had, the group also provided reports of their research, not all of which had been published in full. It included, for instance, the rough recordings (90 minutes) of an interview with a business journalist who had investigated the corporate assignments of the freelance spy.

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