Evening Star Newspaper, March 16, 1930, Page 99

x@ploits of 1O, Famous . ' By "Thomas M. Johnson. © (Famous War' Correspondent.) - | bogo A A NN \‘\\\ S N, " g O % O OOREK ’ N\ g\‘ D \ 0% ‘)\;\‘-.’0:0.' K3 :\\‘ ‘\ SRR s \\ ' :_She Spied for President Wilson and Was One of the Few Women to Succeed in Secret Serv_ice During the War. Some Met Death, Some Were Imprisoned and Some Fell in Love With the'Men They Were Set to Trap. | EDITOR'S NOTE: In April, 1917, twrites Thomas M. Johnson, author of -this amazing . ‘series of true spy stories, American military in- - gelligence was a joke. In Washington it con- sisted of two officers and one part-time clerk: ~abroad, of a few military attaches working largely on their own .. . . The Army stepped . .into the balejul .glare of the World War— - dlind . . . Sizteen months later there were in France alone 287 “headquarters” intelligence of- ficers, besides thousands attached to units. The stories, Mr. Johnson explains, are 90 per eent true—allowing 10 per cent jor intentional _énaccuracies, to protect American secret agents, one of whom cautioned the author: " «If you write about G-2-(“Intelligence Serv- fce”), watch your step!” OMEN do not make good 5 . Scotland Yard's chief spy " chaser, taught British intelligence officers dur- «ing the war, it, like many things one hears in secret service, perhaps it wasn't true. There, .t0o, it seems harder to get along without women than with them. : k< v : One of the most suecessful American secret agents was a woman—but' so was ome of the . .Woman spies! , Romantic creatures! Beputi- .ful, of course, seductive yet keen witted, using feminine charm to lure secrets from the un- - cting male; feminine. intuition to elude his clumsy attempts at capture. The words suggest a mask of black .silk, soft and delicately per- .fumed, emblem. of who knows what intrigue. - ,Woman spies, secret service chiefs agree, have _three drawbacks—their reports, especiaily -on military matters, tend to be inaccurate and . exaggerated; they wear out quickly with fatigue and nervous strain, or, on the other hand, rebel - at spells of monotony. that are an unsuspectedly large parts of spy work, and; last and worst of all, they fall in love. ‘Often, they fall in love with the very man they have been “put on"— whereupon they b2come worse than valueless. Womeny entered World War secret service from a variety of motives, among them usually desire for romantic excitement. Some won bril- liant success, but many found it a hard game. Their stories are pathetic. Of three outstand- ing woman spies already mentioned, two, and they of breeding and refinement, failed ulti- mately. The cne who did not fail was least .womanly of the three, hardly woman at all, a sort of Medusa, and her final fate was most terrible of all. There were high spies, like Queen Sophie of Greece, the Kaiser's sister; and low spies like Mademoiselle David of Longwy whom the Americans arrcsted for using. her French brother as source of information sold to the Germans for $100! None of the three was advertised like the well known Mata Hari whose spying was little better than her morals, which were awful. OW many ex-doughboys know now, more than 10 years afterward, that some 25 women did American secret work of one sort or ‘another? They were part of our war, like company Wwas the Iady described alresdy as one of our most successful secret agents. She was- never quite what is commonly called & “spy.” She was truly ‘a lady, which made her success greater, her adventures more surprising. The motives that drew her into secret seryice were as interesting as everything else about her. Member of & well known Southern family, cultured, ‘intellectusl, attractive in appearance and manner, she had been happily married. Her husband’s death left'a wound that work on a’ well known newspapér could not heal. ~ Grief forced her to seek ‘something absolutely absorbing, emotionally distracting.’ Desire to serve -her country, perbaps justifiable belief in her own ability, suggested secret service. So she became that best of all secret agents, a patriot spy. From generals down,’the few who knew testify how 'well she played her hasard- ‘at the Crillon, American headquarters, or at headquarters of -others of the thousand and one races congregated in Paris after the armi- stice. ‘Between whiles, -she ' frequented ' the press - room, where American correspondents gathered to -pass about “the lowdown” of the Peace Conference that. for one reason or an- other they could not write. This she passed on to the American Peace Commission’s Intelli- gence Service, without exciting suspicion even among newspaper correspondents proud of their vigllance., One day she told them she was going to the American' bridgehead zone on.the Rhine, at Coblenz, and they saw her no more. Not stiange, for she had gone to Berlin. Coblenz had been. only a way station, where Intelligence officers, of the Army of Occupa- tion could show Her how to get through the iines. That took managing, since beyond the American’ outposts and the neutral area were German Republican troops, and no one in the unoccupied - Rhineland was especially friendly toward -allied armies who as conquerors domi- nated their sacred river. There was, be it remembered, danger in the Spring of 1919 at the capfial of the new and precarious - German Republic. Factions still struggled. There was often street fighting. One day -as Col, Williams talked by long distance telephcne from' Coblenz with Gen. Harries in Berlin, he heard the crashing of machine guns. “They're at it again, Gen. Harries"remarked. Couple of bullets just came in this window.” . spoke : ing coffee with the new leaders, yet ‘terms with the families of some of the Kaiser's IN- Berlin alone, of course, were the answers to those important questions that President "Wilson was asking himself about the new Ger- many. He got answers sometimes from the woman journalist’s note book. She was indefatigable. Day and night she -worked, writing for her newspaper special articles; then for the Intelligence service very special articles into which she put'things news- -papers long for—highly valuable, confidential . information, political, social, economic, dug up and weighed by a mind that seemed often prov- identially masculine rather than feminine, pre- Every Intelligence ose reports grew enthusiastic ,or “Number 8" who wrote " them QGerman well. Before long she was drink- op good deserved to succeed, and wo i let it; that ultimately the German Peace Com- mission, headed ‘by Brockdorff-Rantzau, would sign whatever treaty the allies presented, though only after a struggle. 3 'HE American woman believed the Germans commenced to suspect her dual role. She returned to Coblenz, but there she found an- other challenge taat one of her spirit could not refuse, The American and British secret . service had mnearly unraveled the Dusseldorf plot, which has just been described fully. Several men who :ad tried to cause a bolshe- vik revefutton in the Brifish and American armies were safely locked up. One of the gang, the Dutch woman, had escaped into the interior of Germany, none knew where. But her testimony was important. “I'll find Her and bring her in,” said the American woman. Turning back into the country where she feared detection, she started When Alice and Charlotte were con- fronted with each other in prison, both told the Germans, “I do not know her.” And how well they did know each other! But spies never recognized each other, particularly if there was a firing squad waiting. a lone hunt that ended in the upper Rhineland. ‘She found the woman conspirator and by clever work induced her to return to Dusseldrf and tell her story. Had she rested on those laurels. her tale would end here, -but she sought fresh ones. After Germany, the great field for secret service then was Soviet Russia, and there, she decided she must go. Old hands tried to dis- suade her. 3 “Those Bolshies are a tough gang,” they told “her. “If they catch you, it’s a bullet, sure. That’s no game for any one like you.” “I think I can make it,” she said with calm _confidence, but a bit of pink in her cheeks. Some say she never had a chance, but that before even she reached Russia Red agents had her spotted. Yet some months passed before they put her in prison. Better for them, per- haps, to have her continue to play her dual role, for her reports to Washington concerned not the Red army or military matters, but the political and economic progress of the Soviet Republic, and were fair, ‘even favorable, to that rather friendless political experiment. Seeking Soviet government would' stand. But she was long in prison and it nearly was .a bullet. When American Intelligence heard -of her arrest it got in touch with Tchitcherin leaders. * “Trotsky wants to shoot her,” the Russians said. - “He says he’s got the goods on her—even .. “It seems so far away now,” she said recently, smiling. Thei, letting fall her sewing and look- ing about the cozy living room, “And see Row’ domestic I am! I'm sure you won't tell my name, will you?2” o fH ; Of course, there is only one answer to that. Ol’ all woman spies of the World War, the most poignant resembled in somé respects that American woman. Like her, Louise de Bettignies was a patriot spy, not a mercenary; like her, she was of good, even noble family; like her she did her secret work without de- meaning herself, without trading upon her sex. She won respect of friend and foe. She shone through the murky secret war, almost a Jeanne 1’Arc. Yet, as last, being not divine, but human, and a woman, gently reared, sensitive, she failed —and died in prison. = But her soul marched on. After the victory she had helped to win, French and British gave her great military funerals. They laid treas- ured decorations upon the casket, citations for “displaying, in a word, a heroism whick has Continued on Seventh Page