Garbo, the double agent who manipulated the Nazis
Juan Pujol Garcia, code name Garbo, considered to be one of the greatest double agents of the Second World War.
28 September 2016: Garbo, the double agent who manipulated the Nazis
Source: Le Monde avec AFP
Author: Luc Vinogradoff
Juan Pujol is considered to be the greatest double agent of the Second World War, perhaps of all time. With around twenty completely fictitious ‘sub-agents’ under his command, this Spaniard worked for several years with the British intelligence service MI5 (codename Garbo), at the same time making the German Abwehr believe that he was one of them (codename Arabel).
His greatest feat was to have manipulated the Nazis into believing that the great landings that everyone was waiting for in June 1944 would take place in the Pas-de-Calais, and not in Normandy, giving the Allied troops enough time ahead to get the better of their enemies. According to new documents declassified by MI5 and posted on the British National Archives website, this crucial operation, which had been meticulously prepared, almost came to nothing because of a domestic quarrel between Pujol and his wife, Araceli Gonzalez.
Real threats and false imprisonment
By June 1943, Pujol had already been working for MI5 for some time. In Madrid, he had thrown himself into the world of espionage with no experience or contacts, just a vivid imagination and an uncanny ability to gain the trust of his interlocutor. Posing as a fanatical Nazi, he joined the German services, who sent him to London after he led them to believe that he had a network of spies in the British capital. There he worked secretly with MI5, occasionally giving the Nazis correct information to gain their trust.
As his work of deception becomes increasingly complex and vital, Pujol’s cover threatens to be blown. His wife, no longer able to stand the double life in London, the isolation and the British food, threatens to expose his identity if he doesn’t let her go to Spain. One of the documents revealed by MI5, written by Garbo’s case officer Tomas Harris, gives an idea of the atmosphere:
« When this didn’t have the desired effect, she threatened to act in such a way as to jeopardise [her husband’s] job and allow him to leave. »
In another document, the situation seems to be becoming critical:
« I don’t want to live another five minutes with my husband. Even if I’m killed, I’ll go to the [Spanish] embassy. »
To avoid being exposed, Juan Pujol reacts in the only way he knows how: by inventing a situation to manipulate the person in front of him. He convinces MI5 to arrest him and make his wife believe it was his fault. They even went so far as to organise a meeting between the couple in the Camp 020 detention camp, where Pujol was supposedly being held.
His wife, whom the British agents had already tried to coax with a dozen quality stockings, agreed to sign a document promising never to reveal her husband’s identity so that he could be ‘released’.
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