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Juan Pujol García

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Joan Pujol Garcia
Joan Pujol Garcia
Born(1912-02-14)14 February 1912
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Died10 October 1988(1988-10-10) (aged 76)
Caracas, Venezuela
Burial placeChoroní, Venezuela
NationalitySpanish
Spouse(s)Araceli Gonzalez; Carmen Cilia
ChildrenJoan Fernando, Carlos Miguel, Juan Carlos
Parent(s)Juan Pujol and Mercedes Garcia
Espionage activity
Allegiance British Empire  United States
CodenameGarbo (British)
CodenameAlaric Arabel (German)[1]

Joan Pujol Garcia (Catalan), also known as Juan Pujol García (Spanish), MBE (14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), was a double agent during the Second World War who was known by the British codename Garbo and the German codename Arabel.[2] Pujol had the distinction of being one of the few people – if there were any others; this is uncertain – during World War II to receive decorations from both sides, gaining both an Iron Cross from the Germans and an MBE from the British.

After developing a mistrust of both the Communist and Fascist regimes in Europe during the Spanish Civil War, Pujol decided to offer his services to the Allies during the Second World War. After being rebuffed several times by both the Americans and the British, he decided to first establish himself as a German agent. By various subterfuges, Pujol convinced the Germans that he was in Britain (whilst actually living in Lisbon) and fed them false information largely invented from what he could pick up from train timetables, newsreels and other public sources.[3] Although some of the information would not have stood up to deep examination, Pujol soon established himself as a trustworthy agent. He initially invented two sub-agents, claiming to have recruited them, with the intention of pinning on them any information proven to be false.

Possibly with the help of Pujol's wife, the Allies finally took note of his efforts. He was moved to Britain and given the code name Garbo. During the remainder of the war, Pujol continued to feed misinformation – first by letter and later via radio – and expanded his network of fictional sub-agents to twenty-seven, all being paid by the opposite side. He had a key role in the success of Operation Fortitude, the deception operation intended to mislead the Germans about the timing and location of the invasion of Normandy towards the end of the war. The false information Pujol supplied helped persuade German intelligence that the main attack would be in the Pas de Calais, resulting in a decision by the German government to deploy the main body of troops there instead of in Normandy.[1]

Early life

Pujol was born in the Catalan city of Barcelona, Spain on 14 February 1912[4] (or possibly 28 February 1912)[5] to Juan Pujol, a Catalan who owned a factory that produced dye, and Mercedes Guijarro Garcia, from the Castilian town of Motril in the Province of Granada.[5][6] The third of four children, Pujol was sent at age seven to the Valldèmia boarding school run by the Marist Fathers in Mataró, twenty miles from Barcelona[7] and remained there for the next four years. The students were only allowed out of the school on Sundays if they had a visitor, so his father made the trip every week. At age thirteen, he transferred to a school in Barcelona run by Father Mossen Josep and remained there for three years.[8] After an argument with one of the teachers, he decided that he no longer wished to remain at the school, and became an apprentice at a hardware store.

His Catholic education was despite his family's liberal political beliefs.[9] He attended Mossen Josep's school because Pujol's father and the priest played cards together.[8] Pujol engaged in a variety of occupations prior to and after the Spanish Civil War, such as studying animal husbandry at the Royal Poultry School in Arenys de Mar and managing various businesses, including a movie theater.[8][10][11][12][9]

His father died a few months after the birth of the Second Republic in 1931, while Pujol was completing his education as a poultry farmer.[13] Pujol's father left his family well-provided for, until his father's factory was taken over by the workers, around the start of the Spanish Civil War.[9]

Spanish Civil War

Pujol was called up for service on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, but being against the Republican government – due to its Communist influence and its inability or unwillingness to stop various injustices – he went into hiding instead in the basement of a friend's house, along with others. This was ultimately unsuccessful, and he and the others were taken and imprisoned; thanks to a woman having a relationship with one of the guards, they managed to escape. Pujol then acquired false identity documents and enlisted in the 7th Regiment of Light Artillery on the Republican side, but deserted (as he intended from the start) to the Nationalist side during the Battle of the Ebro in September 1938.[12][9] However, he was equally ill-treated by the Nationalist side, disliking their Fascist influences and being struck and imprisoned by his Colonel upon Pujol's expressing sympathy with the monarchy.[14] His experience with both sides left him with a deep loathing of both fascism and communism,[12] and by extension Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.[15] He was proud that he had managed to serve both sides without firing a single bullet for either.[12] After his discharge from the Nationalist army, he met his future (first) wife, Araceli Gonzalez, in Burgos and married her in Madrid; they had one child, Juan Fernando.[12][16]

World War II double-agent

Independent spying

He decided around 1940 that he must make a contribution to the Second World War "for the good of humanity"[3] (and to oppose the Franco regime) by helping Britain – which, with its Empire, was Germany's only adversary at the time.[12][14]

He initially approached the British three different times,[3] including through his wife,[12] but they showed no interest in employing him as a spy. Therefore, he resolved to establish himself as a German agent before approaching the British again to offer his services as a double-agent.[12]

Pujol created an identity as a fanatically pro-Nazi Spanish government official who could travel to London on official business;[3] he also had created for himself a fake Spanish diplomatic passport via fooling a printer into thinking Pujol worked for the Spanish embassy in Lisbon.[17] He contacted Gustave Knittel, a German Intelligence agent in Madrid codenamed "Frederico",[15] and German Intelligence accepted him and gave him a crash course in espionage, including secret writing, a bottle of invisible ink, a codebook and 600 pounds for expenses. His instructions were to recruit a network of British agents.[3]

He moved instead to Lisbon, and – using a tourist's guide to England, reference books and magazines from the Lisbon public library and newsreel reports he saw in cinemas – created seemingly credible reports that appeared to come from London.[3] He claimed to be travelling around Britain and submitted his travel expenses based on fares listed in a British railway guide. A slight difficulty was that he did not understand the pre-decimal system of currency used in Britain,[18] expressed in pounds, shillings and pence, and was unable to total his expenses. Instead, he simply itemised them, and said he would send the total later.[19]

During this time he created an extensive network of fictitious sub-agents living in different parts of Britain. As he had never actually visited the UK, he made several mistakes, including claiming that his alleged contact in Glasgow "would do anything for a litre of wine", unaware of Scottish drinking habits.[3] His reports were intercepted via the Ultra program, and seemed so credible that the British counter-intelligence service MI6 launched a full-scale spy hunt.[15]

In February 1942, either he or his wife (accounts differ)[20] approached the U.S. after it had entered the war, contacting U.S. Navy Lieutenant Patrick Demorest in the naval attache's office in Lisbon, who recognised Pujol's potential.[15] Demorest contacted his British counterparts.[21]

Work with MI5

The British had become aware that someone had been feeding the Germans misinformation, and realised the value of this after the German navy wasted resources hunting down a non-existent convoy reported to them by Pujol.[21]

He was relocated to Britain in April 24, 1942 and given the code name Bovril, after the drink concentrate. But after he passed an MI5 security check conducted by two MI5 officers (Cyril Mills and Tomás Harris) and an MI6 officer (Desmond Bristow), Mills suggested that his code name be changed to Garbo, after Greta Garbo.[22] Pujol's wife and child were later relocated to Britain.[10] Pujol operated as a double agent under the aegis of the XX Committee. Mills spoke no Spanish, and passed his case over to a Spanish-speaking officer named Tomás (Tommy) Harris.[3] Together, Harris and Pujol wrote 315 letters, averaging 2,000 words, addressed to a post office box in Lisbon supplied by the Germans. His fictional spy network was so efficient and verbose that his German handlers were overwhelmed and, according to the Official History of British Intelligence in WW2, they made no further attempts to recruit any additional spies in the UK.[3]

The information supplied to German intelligence was a mixture of complete fiction, genuine information of little military value and valuable military intelligence artificially delayed. In November 1942, just before the Operation TORCH landings in North Africa, Garbo's agent on the River Clyde reported that a convoy of troopships and warships had left port, painted in Mediterranean camouflage. The letter was postmarked before the landings and sent via airmail, but was timed to arrive too late to be useful. Pujol received a reply that "we are sorry they arrived too late but your last reports were magnificent".[3]

Pujol had been supposedly communicating with the Germans via a courier, a KLM pilot willing to carry messages for cash. During 1943, Pujol and Harris created a fictional radio mechanic to communicate directly to Garbo's German handlers, because of the difficult timing associated with this (limited to when KLM flights were); after that, virtually all his reports were passed via radio.[23] On occasion, he had to fabricate reasons why his agents had failed to report easily available information that the Germans would eventually know about. For example, he reported that his (fabricated) Liverpool agent had fallen ill just before a major fleet movement from that port on the north-west coast of England. The illness meant that the agent was unable to warn the Germans of the event.[24] To support the story of the illness, the "agent" eventually "died" and an obituary was placed in the local newspaper as further evidence to convince the Germans,[25] who were also persuaded to pay a pension to the agent's "widow".[26]

Operation Fortitude

In January of 1944, the Germans told Pujol that they believed a large-scale invasion of Europe was imminent and asked to be kept informed. This was Operation Overlord, and Pujol played a leading role in the deception and misinformation campaign Operation Fortitude, sending over 500 radio messages between January 1944 and D-Day, at times more than twenty messages per day.[27] During planning for the Normandy beach invasion, it was decided that it was vitally important that the German High Command be misled that the landing would happen at the Pas de Calais.[3]

In order to maintain his credibility, it was decided that Garbo (or one of his agents) should forewarn the Germans of the timing and some details of the actual invasion of Normandy, although sending it too late for them to take effective action. Special arrangements were made with the German radio operators to be listening to Garbo through the night of 5/6 June 1944, using the story that a sub-agent was about to arrive with important information. However, when the call was made at 3am, no reply was received from the German operators until 8am. Turning this piece of bad luck on its head, Garbo was able to add more operational details to the message when finally sent and increase his standing with the Germans. Garbo told his German contacts that he was disgusted that his message was missed and "I cannot accept excuses or negligence. Were it not for my ideals I would abandon the work".[3]

On June 9 (3 days after D-day), Garbo sent a message to German High Command that reached Adolf Hitler[15] saying that he had conferred with his agents and developed an order of battle showing 75 divisions in England (when in reality there were only about 50). His message pointed out that units of the First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG; a fictitious unit under General Patton that was part of the British deception) had not participated in the invasion and therefore the first landing should be considered a diversion. A German message to Madrid sent two days later said "all reports received in the last week from Arabel [Pujol's German code-name] undertaking [sic] have been confirmed without exception and are to be described as exceptionally valuable." [2] A post-war examination of German records found that during Operation Fortitude no fewer than sixty-two of Pujol's reports were included in German military high command intelligence summaries. [28]

The German High Command accepted Garbo's reports so completely that they kept two armoured divisions and 19 infantry divisions in the Pas de Calais waiting for a second invasion through July and August of 1944. The German Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, refused to allow General Erwin Rommel to move his divisions to Normandy.[3] There were more German troops in the Pas de Calais region two months after the Normandy invasion than there had been on D-Day.[29]

In late June, Garbo was instructed by the Germans to report on the falling of V1 flying bombs. Finding no way of giving false information without arousing suspicion, and being unwilling to give correct information, Harris arranged for him to be 'arrested'.[30][31] He returned to duty a few days later, now having a "need" to avoid London, and forwarded an 'official' letter of apology from the Home Secretary for his unlawful detention.[31][32]

The Germans paid Garbo (or Arabel, as they called him) US$340,000[33] to support his network of agents, which at one point totaled 27 fabricated characters.[34]

Honors

For his efforts in aid of the Allies Garbo received an MBE from King George VI, on 25 November 1944.[35] In an ironic twist, on 29 July 1944 he was awarded (for his contribution to the German war effort) the Iron Cross Second Class, normally reserved for front-line fighting men, with Hitler's personal authorisation.[36][37] The medal was presented via radio, and he received the physical medal from one of his German handlers after the war had ended.[15]

The Nazis never realised that Garbo had fooled them, and thus he earned the distinction of being one of the few people during World War II to receive decorations from both sides.[1]

After the War

After World War II ended, Pujol faked (with MI5's assistance) his death, of malaria in 1949 Angola[5] (to protect him against any post-WWII Nazi activity) and moved to Venezuela, where he lived in (relative) anonymity.[3] Pujol lived in Lagunillas, Zulia, Venezuela, where he ran a bookstore and gift shop.[38][39] Pujol married again (having divorced his first wife),[20] to Carmen Cilia; they had a daughter together, who died in 1975 at the age of twenty, and two sons, Carlos Miguel and Juan Carlos.[5] Pujol subsequently (by 1984) moved to his son Carlos Miguel's house in La Trinidad, Caracas.[5]

The British politician Rupert Allason, writing under the pen name Nigel West, became interested in Garbo in 1971. For several years, he interviewed various former intelligence officers, none of whom knew Garbo's real name. Eventually Tomas Harris' friend Anthony Blunt, the Soviet spy who had penetrated MI5, said that he had met Garbo, and knew him as "either Juan or Jose Garcia". Allason's investigation was stalled at that point until March 1984 when a former MI5 officer who had served in Spain supplied Pujol's full name. Allason hired a research assistant to call every J. Pujol Garcia in the Barcelona phone book, eventually finding Pujol's nephew. Pujol and Allason finally met in New Orleans on May 20 1984.[40]

At Allason's urging, Pujol travelled to London and was received by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace, in an unusually long audience. After that he visited the Special Forces Club and was reunited with a group of his former colleagues including Colonel T. A. Robertson, Colonel Roger Hesketh, Cyril Mills and Desmond Bristow.[41][5]

On the 40th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1984, Pujol travelled to Normandy to tour the beaches and pay his respects to the dead.[40]

Pujol died in Caracas in 1988.[3][38][5] Juan Pujol is buried in Choroní,[42][5] a town inside Henri Pittier National Park by the Caribbean sea.[43][44][5]

Pujol's network of fictitious agents

Garbo/Arabel
Joan Pujol García
Agent 1
KLM steward
resigned in 1943		Agent 2
William Gerbers
Swiss-German
businessman
died in
Bootle, England
in 1942		Agent 3
Benedict
"Carlos"
Venezuelan student
in Glasgow, Scotland		Agent 4
Chamillus
Gibraltarian
NAAFI waiter
based in Chislehurst
(London), England		Agent 5
Moonbeam
Venezuelan
based in
Ottawa, Canada
brother of
"Benedict"		Agent 6
Field Security
NCO
died in 1943		Agent 7
Dagobert
Ex-seaman in
Swansea, Wales
KLM pilot
and courier		WIDOW
Mrs. Gerbers
(paid a pension
by the Germans)		Pilot OfficerAlmura
radio operator		Cousin of
"Moonbeam"
and "Benedict",
residing in
Buffalo, New York,
USA		Soldier
in British 9th
Armoured Division
Head of
Catalan
MOI Section		Officer in
British 49th
Infantry Division		Guard
based in
Chislehurst		Donny
Leader of
World Aryan Order
Censor in MOIGreek seaman
and deserter		US NCO
based in London		Wren in
Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Secretary in
Cabinet Office		Dick
Indian fanatic
Drake
in Exeter, England
Welsh fascist
in South Wales
Dorick
in Harwich, England

Film and television

  • Garbo: The Spy (El espía). Documentary film, Directed by Edmon Roch, Production: Ikiru Films, Colose Producciones, Centuria Films, Spain 2009.[21]
  • The Man Who Fooled the Nazis. The 90-minute Spanish documentary re-titled and narrated in English, shown as part of the Storyville series, first shown on BBC Four, 22 February 2011.[45]
  • Secret D-Day – US television, 1998 – portrayed by French actor Sam Spiegel.[46][unreliable source?]

Feature films of the Garbo story have been attempted on several occasions,[47][48] but none have reached production to date.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Kelly, Jon (27 January 2011). "The piece of paper that fooled Hitler". BBC. Retrieved 1 January 2012. The Nazis believed Pujol, whom they code named Alaric Arabel, was one of their prize assets
  2. ^ a b Masterman, John C (1972). The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-7081-0459-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |originaldate= ignored (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Agent GARBO". MI5 History. MI5 Security Service. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
  4. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 9
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Template:Es icon Juárez Camacho, Javier (2004). Juan Pujol, el Espía que Derrotó a Hitler (in Spanish). Madrid: Temas de Hoy. ISBN 978-84-8460-372-6. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 22 February 2012. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) Spanish edition of Catalan book (see Further reading).
  6. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 10
  7. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 12
  8. ^ a b c Pujol (1985). p. 17
  9. ^ a b c d Seaman (2004). p. 42.
  10. ^ a b Seaman (2004). p. 30.
  11. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 8.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Seaman (2004). p. 9. "He was a reluctant participant in the Spanish Civil War, being persecuted by the Republicans in his native Catalonia and feeling little sympathy with the Fascist ideology of the Nationalists."
  13. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 18
  14. ^ a b Seaman (2004). p. 43.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Isby, David (12 June 2006). "World War II: Double Agent's D-Day Victory". Historynet.com. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
  16. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 93.
  17. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 46.
  18. ^ Levine, Joshua (2011). Operation Fortitude. HarperCollins UK. ISBN 978-0-00-741324-9.
  19. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 59.
  20. ^ a b Weber, Ronald (2011). The Lisbon Route: Entry and Escape in Nazi Europe. Government Institutes. p. 331. ISBN 978-1-56663-876-0.
  21. ^ a b c GARBO The Spy: The Man Who Saved The World (Motion picture). Spain: Ikiru Films. 2009. {{cite AV media}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)
  22. ^ Holt (2010). p. 210. "Mills was initially BOVRIL's case officer; but he spoke no Spanish and quickly dropped out of the picture. His main contribution was to suggest, after the truly extraordinary dimensions of Jujol's imagination and accomplishments had become apparent, that his code name should be changed as befitted 'the best actor in the world'; and BOVRIL became GARBO."
  23. ^ Holt (2010). p. 213.
  24. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 96.
  25. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 106.
  26. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 126.
  27. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 342 "...which at times amounted to more than twenty messages per day..."
  28. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 196"The post-war analysis demonstrated that, during the period of the FORTITUDE campaign, no less than sixty-two of his messages were quoted in the German high command's intelligence summaries".
  29. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 197 "Indeed, there were more German forces in that region at the end of June than there had been on D-Day".
  30. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 26, 259.
  31. ^ a b Seaman (2004). p. 159.
  32. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 397.
  33. ^ Shugaar, Antony; Guarnaccia, Steven (2006). I Lie for a Living: Greatest Spies of All Time. National Geographic. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-7922-5316-7.
  34. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 40.
  35. ^ The National Archives. "Security Service Records Release 25–26 November 2002" (PDF). The National Archives (UK). Retrieved 10 January 2012. 25 November Garbo received MBE from King
  36. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 159 "With great happiness and satisfaction I am able to advice you today that the Fuhrer has conceded the Iron Cross to you for your extraordinary merits, a decoration which, without exception, is granted only to first-line combatants. For this reason we send you our most sincere and cordial congratulations."
  37. ^ Seaman (2004). p. 75, 286.
  38. ^ a b Campbell, Oliver L. (6 June 2004). "Juan Pujol, alias Garbo, was the double agent who had convinced the Germans the invasion was to take place at the Pas de Calais and not at Normandy". VHeadline. Archived from the original on 10 November 2005. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  39. ^ Campbell, Oliver L. (4 December 2002). "Not Such an Ordinary Man". VHeadline. Archived from the original on 10 November 2005. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  40. ^ a b Pujol (1985). p. 7 "Our rendezvous was to be in New Orleans. There on Sunday, 20 May 1984, I first met my quarry." Cite error: The named reference "Pujol11" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  41. ^ Pujol (1985). p. 2 "Late in May 1984 a group of retired intelligence officers gathered in the drawing room of the Special Forces Club to be reunited with a spy reported dead in 1959."
  42. ^ Juan Pujol García at Find a Grave
  43. ^ "Choroní". Venezuela Tuya. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
  44. ^ Template:Es icon "Su Guía de Turismo para Choroní y Venezuela" (in Spanish). Retrieved 19 February 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
  45. ^ Fraser, Nick: Series Editor; Roch, Edmon: Director (22 February 2011). "The Man Who Fooled the Nazis". Storyville. Season 2010-2011. BBC. BBC Four. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
  46. ^ Secret D-Day at IMDb
  47. ^ Goodridge, Mike (December 19 2001). "Artisan Pictures revs up with Garbo Deception". Screen Daily. Retrieved 2 March 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  48. ^ McNary, Dave (May 4 2006). "Pair protect 'Bodyguard'". Variety. Retrieved 2 March 2012. Bob Cooper's Landscape Entertainment is teaming with Chuck Weinstock to produce WWII drama "Bodyguard of Lies," based on the true story of double agent Juan Pujol. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Works cited

Further reading

Template:Persondata

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