LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

A COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE ANECDOTES

BY JOHN

SEPTEMBER 2005

INTRODUCTION

There are many difficulties in writing anything interesting about the life of an intelligence agent, for several reasons. The intelligence business tends to be a tightly knit closed fraternity, not unlike that of police officers or mercenaries.

Some of the work can be extremely dangerous, the profession has its own set of rules and ethics, which may be at variance with society as a whole, and many of the activities and incidents are so bizarre and unreal that nobody outside the fraternity would ever believe that they happened. Much of the work is also highly classified, and cannot be revealed, even years later. Also, the fraternity looks askance upon anyone telling an inside story.

The spy business has been glamorized by innumerable books in the James Bond image, and perhaps some such agents do or did exist. In my experience, however, the agent's activity tends to be 90% boredom, 9% excitement, and 1% sheer terror.

All this, taken together, makes it difficult to weave an interesting and informative message about field intelligence operations, and I am not even going to try. There is however, another aspect of the business, which may be, even more interesting, particularly to the outsider.

Intelligence agents tend to be young, smart, high living, devil may care, highly motivated over achievers. So if there is nothing going on, they will make their own excitement to combat the boredom. Some of this is hilarious; some is just good fun and occasionally the high jinks backfire, with tragic results.

I intend to weave a story, hopefully high on humor, which will attempt to tell how these high-spirited young guys actually lived, at work and play, and how they combated that 90% boredom factor.

The author was an active intelligence agent in post WW II Europe, and this story, while fictionalized for obvious reasons, is broadly based upon the experiences of himself and those in his organization.

This story is set in a country which was just recovering from losing a major war. The cities were in ruins, just beginning to be rebuilt. Unemployment was high, displaced persons numbered in the millions, and some people even had no place to sleep at night. Occupation troops were everywhere, and the country was governed jointly by German civil authorities and Allied occupation forces, with the lines of demarcation often not clear. On top of this, the country was divided into four occupation zones, one of them being that of the USSR. There was a perpetual state of armed alert between the Soviets and the others, and distrust to varying degrees between all four.

The occupation zones making up “West Germany” in particular, were an armed camp. The three Western Allies (US, United Kingdom, and France) were convinced that the Russians were poised to invade Western Germany on a moment’s notice, and the Allies had built up massive numbers of combat troops to meet this perceived threat. So, on top of everything else, there were hundreds of thousands of military personnel from those three countries thrown into the mix.

Everyone wanted to keep track of what all the others were up to, and in this environment spies and counter spies flourished. There were those working for various agencies in each country, and those selling themselves to the highest bidder. Professionals, amateurs, and everything in between.

The Gehlen affair was a good example of this, where a German Wehrmacht general, running a high level intelligence operation for Hitler, switched sides at the end of the war, and brought his whole operation, lock stock and barrel, over to work for the US Air Force.

American intelligence activity also seemed confused, with a whole alphabet soup of agencies, civil and military, running their own agents, investigators, police and whatever. If there was any coordination of any of this activity, it was not obvious to the everyday working agents, particularly in our outfit.

SO MUCH FOR THE BACKGROUND. LETS GET ON WITH THE STORY

The arc lights fought a losing battle beaming through the cold mist, as the troopship warped into the pier. A bedraggled band was attempting a Sousa march, watched by policemen in high peaked hats and long leather greatcoats. And there were funny beetle like cars scurrying around in the background. If this was Germany, then maybe I should have stayed home, thought John. What an inauspicious way to start a new career. In any event, he thought, it can only go uphill from here.

The next couple of hours were bedlam by the numbers as the troops disembarked, processed into the repo depot, and found a bunk in the barracks. Once settled, John and some of his newfound friends decided to visit the NCO club, to check out this Germany first hand.

The place was noisy, crowded, and smoky. Everyone had the same idea, after 15 days of enforced temperance on the troopship, to get drunk as quickly as possible. Anyway, the Fraeulain barmaids were friendly, and the beer, it was called Beck’s, although somewhat unusual tasting, was cold and refreshing. After a couple of hours of this, John and his buddies, feeling much better, but somewhat the worse for wear, staggered back to the barracks and promptly sacked out.

Six AM came early with some corporal walking through, blowing his whistle and hollering for the troops to fall out. John opened his eyes and thought his head was going to split open. Things had really gone downhill, and substantially, since last night. He had the mother of all hangovers, and thought that he would have to feel much better before he would be well enough to die.

Anyway he and the others finally staggered over to the mess hall, where one of the resident permanent party explained that the brewery sold its reject beer to the Army, and that had caused the reaction, and not to worry, all German beer was not like that.

The morning was a whirlwind of tests and interviews, with the Air Force doing its best to place square pegs in round holes. It culminated with an interview by a friendly civilian who showed a lot of interest in John's photographic and driving skills, as well as his ability to read a map, and orient a compass. Also his previous score of one hundred out of a possible one hundred, on the Armed Forces Qualification test. The civilian said he had an interesting assignment where John could use all of these skills, something about the Intelligence Service. It sounded better than a photo lab tech, so John thought what the Hell, why not, and said that he would go for it.

Riding the night train to his new assignment, John found that one could actually sleep in the overhead baggage racks, and that they were really preferable to the hard seats.

Alighting from the train at his destination there was only one American in sight. This was a red headed guy dressed in what looked like old (German) SS camo fatigue bottoms, torn sneakers, and a garish Hawaiian sport shirt. He was also sporting a large automatic pistol in a shoulder holster.

He said he didn't know anything about intelligence, but that his name was Tony, he was from the Hysterical Office, and was supposed to pick John up. Out front of the railroad station, which everyone was calling a Bahnhof, parked in a no parking zone, was a beat up blue box on wheels. The driver and passenger rode in two seats in front of the front wheels with nothing in front of them but a thin sheet of metal and the windshield. This was of course a Volkswagen Microbus, the forerunner of the modern minivan, but being 1954, this was the first one that John had ever seen.

Driving through town, which in fact was a major city, but about 80% destroyed, John was so busy rubbernecking that he didn't really notice that the van was spitting and missing, and finally stopped altogether, right on the railroad tracks. “Damn”, said Tony. “Out of gas. I'll just be a minute.” He got out, went around to the back (where the engine was), opened the hood, fiddled with something, then came back around and got in. He cranked the starter, the motor coughed twice then caught and purred like a kitten. Tony then explained that there was no gas gauge, and that when you ran out of gas you had to go round back, and turn a valve which activated the reserve tank, giving you another gallon and a half of gas. This arrangement was the same as the Volkswagen car, but the car had the gas tank in front and the valve was under the dash. So much for German engineering.

Up on a hill in the distance, John could see a complex of some kind, which looked like a military installation. Tony finally allowed that this was in fact the destination, and as they got closer John could see that it appeared deserted, and looked somewhat like a major battle had passed through. Some buildings were almost totally destroyed while others had gaping holes in roofs and walls. Somewhat incongruously, though, the whole place was surrounded by a shiny new chain link fence, with wicked looking barbed wire on top.

This place was an abandoned Wehrmacht (German Army) post, which had been the home of a Panzer Grenadier (Mechanized Infantry) Brigade. There was a double soccer field size parade ground, ringed by a 30 foot wide track. On all four sides of the parade ground stood substantial 2 to 4 story masonry buildings, which having withstood numerous bombings and much shelling were in various stages of disrepair. Some lacked roofs, gaping shell holes in walls and floors were common, some walls had collapsed and there was hardly a pane of intact glass. In stark contrast to this desolation, at the North side of the complex stood a 3 story masonry building about 60 by 200 feet, which had been totally restored, and looked like new. This building was the home of the Intelligence Detachment, locally known as the Hysterical Office.

There was a fairly substantial gate with a small guardhouse nearby, and John could make out a sentry, in some sort of a strange uniform. When about a block from the gate, Tony got his speed up to about 50 miles per hour, then at the last moment, stood on the brakes and leaned on the horn. This resulted in a satisfying four wheel skid toward the gate, with the guard running for his life, and with the van finally stopping with the front bumper six inches from the gate, and our noses (remember where the seats were) about 18 inches behind that.

The guard appeared from behind the guard shack, unlocked the gate and let us in. Welcome to the Jaegerkaserne said Tony, your new home away from home.

John, however, was somehow spared the usual initiation for new arrivees, which went something as follows. First, the guys would work most of the day cleaning and fixing up a couple of rooms in one of the most dilapidated buildings. Rough boards over holes in the floor, tarps over holes in the walls and roofs, etc. Anyway, you get the idea. Then they would drag in a couple of truckloads of desks, chairs, tables, filing cabinets, typewriters and other accouterments to make the rooms look occupied. When the newcomer arrived, always at dusk or later, he was escorted into these "offices”, which were staffed by hard looking types, and feebly illuminated by Coleman lanterns. As the newcomer was being welcomed and interviewed, guys rushing in with comments like “Our requisition for stoves was turned down again” continually interrupted the meeting. If I have to spend another cold winter in this place I'm going to defect." or. The plumbing is stopped up again, tell the guys to use the rock pile behind the office until further notice". After a sufficient amount of this "indoctrination" the newcomer was shown to his "room", which was another patched up mess, and bid goodnight. Everyone else retired to the bar in the real office building for a drink, waiting for the newcomer to figure out what was happening. Surprisingly, it took some of them a long time. The next day, after everyone had a good laugh at the expense of the newcomer, the stuff was all packed back to the real offices, and the building was returned to its previous state, to await another arrival.

Another scam, which was only done infrequently, would happen about a week after a new arrival showed up. This one involved a couple of the old timers inviting the new guy out for a beer in one of the less reputable German civilian bars in a not so good part of town. And since this, as we mentioned earlier, was a big city, there were lots of such bars. The new guy was never armed, and his drinking friends parked their car some distance away, both for reasons which you will soon understand, but the new guy paid no heed to any of this. Anyhow, the guys would just about be settled down to some serious drinking, when the front door of the establishment would fly open, a couple of real hard looking types would burst in, take a look around, see our agents, holler Get Em, or some German expletive, like "Ferdamdt Aamerikaner" and start shooting. Our guys would return the fire, and soon there would be blood and bodies all over the place. In a matter of seconds, it was all over, the bad guys would drag out the new guy's friends, who were now very dead, throw the bodies into the get away car, prod the new guy in as well, at gun point, and roar off into the night.

You probably have figured it out by now. The guns were shooting blanks, the blood was fake blood or dye, and the bad guys were really a couple of agents who the new guy didn't know. A variation on this would be for the new guy and his friends to win, drag the other bodies out front, hail a Taxi, throw the bodies in, climb aboard, and roar off into the night.

Needless to say, as well as traumatizing the new guy, this act could generate some pretty serious side effects. Like scaring Hell out of the locals, and convincing the German civilian population that Americans were really Chicago gangsters, just like in the movies. Not to mention royally pissing off the local German cops as well as the MPs, and aggravating the US occupation authorities. Additionally there was a serious possibility that someone could really get hurt. For all these reasons, although it was loads of fun, it wasn't pulled very often. And, of course, it was never pulled on any new guy who the old timers thought might have his wits about him, or might react instinctively to what the new guy might consider a real situation. So, I suppose that's why it was never pulled on John.

So, I digress, but lets get back to the story, and follow along to see what happened next.

So you are supposed to be an intelligence puke, the Station Chief said. Let's take a look at your qualifications. Degree in Political Science, not bad. Professional photographer, could be useful. Sometime stock car driver and hopped up car owner, might help. Can you read a map and compass? Sure, learned all that in the Boy Scouts. Any foreign languages? Weak Spanish (Mexican type) weaker French (D in school) and no German, not much help there.

Doesn't look like we better turn you loose in the field right away, the guy said, but we are short a photographer up in Pukehausen, so we'll send you there for awhile. Figuring that this was better than nothing John agreed. Actually he didn't really have much choice.

Pukehausen turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Stuck in a darkroom, in another bombed out town, this time on the Rhine River, in a barracks shared by a bunch of African American truck drivers, and smack in the middle of an entire US Army armored division. Little America it certainly was, one was lucky to see a German for days at a time, outside the ever present drivers and janitors.

This intelligence (to use the work loosely) detachment was headed by a bumbling, though good looking US Air Force Captain. He and his wife lived down the road in American housing, and he did manage to straggle into the office on most days.

This officer turned out to have a taste for the local ladies, one in particular, and for some inexplicable reason decided to memorialize this relationship by taking pictures of both of them, sometimes together in interesting positions, in various stages of undress. Even more inexplicably, he for some unknown reason, asked John's photo lab to develop his latest batch of pics.

As the image on the first print materialized in the developing tray, John knew that he had found his key to deliverance. After making all the prints, and a set of copies which he carefully filed away, he personally delivered the completed original set to the good Captain. He complimented the Captain on his fine choice of ladies, and in the same breath suggested that he, John, was ready and willing to get into the field as an agent, at the first opportunity.

Although not the sharpest knife in the drawer, the Captain was bright enough to recognize blackmail when he saw it, and soon John was on this way back to the Jaegerkaserne as a brand new field agent.

So you see, getting to be a field agent wasn't always automatic, sometimes one had to show unusual initiative.

Now let's proceed to see where the agents actually lived and worked, and find out what John's first job as a field agent really was all about. To do this, lets look again at the Jaegerkaserne, which we previously mentioned, as this was where John was first assigned, and was a typical facility.

As mentioned previously, this place was an abandoned Wehrmacht (German Army) post, and the one restored building was the home of the Intelligence Detachment, locally known as the Hysterical Office.

This being the second time we have mentioned the Hysterical Office, a small explanation is probably in order. It seems that sometime in the dark and distant past, someone decided that the outfit would allege to be conducting historical research. That scheme died a quick death, but the name, corrupted to hysterical, stuck, as it aptly described most of the goings on at the Jaegerkaserne. The ground floor of this building housed offices for the agents and analysts, as well as interrogation rooms. The second floor (First floor in Europe) was hotel style rooms for the bachelor Americans and the field agents. The married personnel had quarters elsewhere. The third floor (Second floor) consisted of temporary quarters, something between a hotel room and a jail cell, for indigenous people who were being held, or invited to stay with the outfit, for various reasons. They were generally confined to the floor, and bussed out to be fed elsewhere, but sometimes some of them joined the Americans in the bar and restaurant. The attic had been converted into a first class pistol range, although automatic weapons were sometimes fired there for familiarization or testing.

Finally, in the basement was a restaurant and bar, for the use of the detachment's American personnel and the Field Agents. (Who were of every conceivable nationality, but mostly Russian and American) We need to discuss this bar a little further, as it was instrumental in John’s first assignment, but before that, we need some background on the liquor situation in Germany at that time.

Germany was still an occupied country, divided into four occupation zones, and the US Army was responsible for all logistics in its zone, including the procurement and distribution of alcoholic beverages, which were euphemistically referred to as Class VI. Army regulations, for some unknown reason, specified that only married American personnel, living in authorized on or off post housing, either military or civilian, were authorized to buy and posses alcoholic beverages. Single people had to get by with drinking in various clubs authorized by the US Army or Air Force, or German civilian drinking establishments. The stock available for married folk was strictly rationed by the Army and all married personnel were issued ration cards. The allowance, however, was liberal. Enough to Keep a New York Irishman happy, even if Saint Paddy’s Day lasted all month. And much more than the average family could possibly drink. Single guys though, as previously mentioned, were out of luck.

The guys in this detachment were not about to be denied their booze, so with typical American ingenuity, they set up a bar, assigned a bartender, and were in business. The bartender’s basic job, along with tending bar was to first collect all Class VI ration cards from the married personnel and lock them in the bar safe. Then periodically, when stocks ran low, he would take these cards to the Class VI warehouse, purchase as much liquor as the bar fund would allow, and drive it all back to the detachment, where it was safely locked behind the bar.

Anyway, the current bartender was tiring of the job (For reasons which we will soon see) so John, being the newest guy, and also the one with the least to do, was appointed, elected, or Shanghaied, to this prestigious position. John was kind of at loose ends anyway, because in that outfit, agents always worked in pairs, and his supposed partner, a Pole named Djerski, or something like that, had just been shipped out with a confirmed case of tuberculosis. So John was left with no partner, a spanking new Opel Kapitaen sedan with German civilian plates, and not much to do except auction off the Pole's clothes and other personal effects, which only took a couple of days.

When John took over, or any other new bartender, for that matter, all existing stock had to be inventoried and signed for, and an interesting procedure, which generally occupied a full day, developed to expedite this transfer. Starting at about 9:00 AM, or whenever they got up, both the old bartender and John proceeded with the inventory. To assure that the stock was drinkable, and had not spoiled or been watered down, all open bottles were sampled by both bartenders and the results, as well as the bottle count, noted in a log. Needless to say, by the time the task was well underway, John and the other guy became less and less interested in the count, and accuracy suffered accordingly.

During the week, this bar was usually quiet. A couple of nonstop Hearts games going on till all hours, some guys reading while nursing a drink, and maybe the phonograph in the corner spinning those old bakelite records. On Friday and Saturday nights, though, It was a different story. The bar became the social focal point, and nearly everyone including the field agents who were in town, gathered there, except the Station Chief and his senior management, who were smart enough to stay home and out of the way. Since everyone was unwinding from a tough, or maybe a not so tough, week, the drinking usually got hot and heavy. And actually, the place often more resembled a Wild West saloon, than an American officer’s club. Drinking champagne out of ladies shoes, squeezing a wine glass stem till the base broke off and the glass could thus be no longer set down, or throwing empty glasses over one's left shoulder were all more or less acceptable practices, even though the glass squeezing trick often resulted in significant hand lacerations to the sqeezor.

Payment for drinks was on the honor system, with everyone running a tab and settling up on the first of the month. The bar records though, were always in a state of confusion, mostly because of the common practice of delegating bartending tasks to anyone willing to serve as temporary assistant bartender. Often even young German ladies who, although fraternization was strictly forbidden, somehow would magically appear in the barroom. These assistants generally did not keep accurate track, if any, of drinks poured, which did not help the integrity of the inventory records, and often forgot to have the drinkers sign for their hooch. Payment was on the honor system, due the first of the month, but most of the guys, while honorable, forgot about all the drinks they had not signed for. The end result of all this mismanagement was that funds would generally be so short that a monthly mandatory assessment of all personnel was usually required to make ends meet. Repair or replacement of furniture and accruements damaged or destroyed also made a big hit on the bar finances.

Meanwhile, in spite of all these hi jinks, John was getting settled in. He still lacked a partner, and since his German had not improved beyond the "awful" stage, nobody was crazy about taking him on missions, and he was usually stuck in the office. Anyway, the morning of Christmas Eve, two of our agents picked up an alleged Soviet spy and brought him into the office for interrogation. This was not our normal duty, but due to the holiday season, the CIC (Army Counter Intelligence Corps) the German KRIPO (Kriminal Polizei, or Criminal Police in English), and other responsible agencies were not available or not interested so we were stuck with the guy for awhile. Again, since John was the new guy, and had no other real job, he and one of the chronic goof off clerk types were detailed to guard the alleged spy. Since it was Christmas, and the place was officially shut down, most everybody else had bailed out for girlfriends, Army R&R camps, or parts unknown, leaving our friends alone with the spy.

(You can tell from the foregoing sentence that the Germans were really great on acronyms. Did you know, for example, that GESTAPO stood for Gestates Heim Polizei, or National Internal Police, in English?)

Anyway, John and the clerk locked the Soviet spy in a room on the second (third) floor, and everything went well till he, the spy, hollered that he had to go to the bathroom. The clerk got out the key to unlock the door, but was so nervous that he broke the key off in the lock. Since the lock experts had all disappeared, and John’s skills in this area had not yet been developed, the only thing to do then was to break down the door, but since those old German barracks were built like a brick outhouse, and a GI bunk made a rather unsatisfactory battering ram, this process took some time. To make matters worse, since John's German was so bad, and the spy apparently had no command of English, nobody could explain what was happening, and the poor guy was scared spitless. Anyway, they finally got him out and to the Men's room before he peed his pants.

Since this outfit was smack on the East German border, and the Soviets had a propensity for sending over 5 or 6 confusion agents to mask the insertion of every real agent, our guys, although this was not their real work, were kept busy chasing spies, and were generally up to their ears in them. How an agent treated a spy was strictly random, depending on the agents mood at the time, the spy's demeanor, and maybe the phase of the moon. These Soviet or East German Agents were usually turned over to the proper agencies, sometimes being forcibly interrogated by our guys or another agency first. Sometimes though, if our guys were in the mood, the spy would be taken to the nearest Army PX, be given a hamburger and milkshake, driven to the border, kicked out of the car, and told never to come back. On the other hand, if our guy doing the interviewing was having a bad day, or if the spy looked to be a hard case, he might come off a bit worse for wear. Most of our guys usually refrained from any real rough stuff, however, not out of any humanitarian reasons, but because the Soviets and East German Communists had long memories, and might be inclined to come after any perpetuators.

How long those memories were was demonstrated thirty years later, when the son of one of our then ex agents who had the same name, was briefly detained while visiting East Germany as a tourist, because his dad's name was still in the STASI, (East German rough equivalent of the Soviet KGB) computer.

But now, lets get back to take a further look at how the guys lived and worked.

In the first place, as the bar story suggested, nobody much worried about money, particularly the field agents. On top of their not inconsequential regular pay, they got clothing allowances, ammunition allowances, (even though most ammunition was furnished by the Government), hazardous duty pay, overseas pay, a food and lodging allowance, a free car, and free gasoline. Gas for your personal car, of you had one, was supposed to be fifteen cents per gallon, but Government gas generally somehow found its way into those tanks as well. On top of all this, the agents were collecting an additional per diem allowance most of the time, and the exchange rate for local currency was 4.2 Marks per dollar. (Compared with about 1.6 immediately before the currency was converted to Euros) The per diem, and some of the other allowances stacked up at the nearest US military finance office, to be drawn when one was in need of funds. No wonder these finance offices were commonly referred to as "The Money Tree". As in "I have to stop off at The Money Tree for some more cash."

To show just how far a dollar would go in those days, field agents working in rural areas, if not overly extravagant, could get by on $2.00 US per day. They could live on even less, if they wanted to stoop to bumming food and lodging from the US military. One of the favorite scams, in this regard, was to find a remote Army post, and tell the Officer of the Day that the agents car had broken down just outside the gate, and they needed lodging until it could be repaired. At the other extreme, if an agent team really wanted to go first class, $10 per day each, which is about what they drew in per diem, would let them live like kings.

Speaking of living on the cheap, two of our agents one evening, after expending their ready funds drinking till 3 AM in a German bar under the guise of collecting local intelligence, once pulled a scam like this, and were put up in an infantry squad room. At 6:00 AM the Platoon Sergeant came through, loud of voice and boorish of manner, attempting to roust everyone out. Hearing the commotion, the lead agent opened one eye, and in no uncertain terms suggested that the Sergeant perform an unnatural sex act. The Sergeant, having never been spoken to in such a manner since his own basic training, decided he had better not mess with these guys, and slunk out of the room. Needless to say, this agent was an instant hit with all the doggies (Infantrymen) in the place.

You have heard a couple of discussions about clothing and guns. and at this point it might be well to take a moment to expand on this thought. In the first place, decent American sport clothes were expensive and hard to come by in post war Germany, mainly because most Americans there were in the Army, and had little use for civvies. The field agents, when working, tended toward German workingman's dress, which was cheap, sturdy, unobtrusive, and easy to obtain. An almost mandatory part of this "uniform" was a beat up briefcase and a dirty trench coat. Every adult German male in those days carried a briefcase, even though it probably contained nothing but lunch and a bottle of beer or two. Sometimes the agents wore heavy tweed sport coats of European cut, tailored either in Germany or England. These held up fairly well through mud, barbed wire, and other like hazards, and were generally referred to as horse blankets. The coats were heavy by necessity, because in those days there was almost no central heating, and it was usually almost as cold inside as outside. The trench coat, as mentioned previously, had to be really dirty. This was generally accomplished on a new coat by using it as a front seat floor mat in the car for a couple of weeks, a process that was known as seasoning.

Someone had made arrangements for the agents to order made to measure clothing from a London Seville Row tailor known as Alexander's of Seville Row. This was good stuff, relatively inexpensive for the quality, but had the disadvantage of making one stand out like an outhouse in the fog. In this regard, an occasion comes to mind, when several of the guys, who all happened to be wearing Alexander's clothing, were drinking in a pub in Sachenhausen, and one of them remarked. We look like a (expletive deleted) band.

Some of the guys took to wearing pieces of uniforms of various armies when hanging around the office or the living quarters. This came about basically because the stuff was comfortable, cheap, like generally free, and readily available. One sure supply was the displaced persons and refugees the agents came into contact with, who either abandoned the stuff, or were willing to trade it for almost anything. Waffen SS camo utilities, less insignia, while harder to get, were particularly prized. Since costumes like this were not encouraged, they became sort of a status symbol, telling all and sundry that the wearer didn't pay much attention to the authorities, particularly the MPs.

The agents were supposed to be armed under most circumstances, but the pistols usually ended up in a briefcase or under the front seat of the car. When the agents did carry a gun, the favored place was in the pocket of the trench coat or the "horse blanket" sport jacket. The disadvantages of this were that you wore out pockets pretty fast, as the gun had sharp edges and was heavy. Also, with gun in pocket, the trench coat made an annoying and potentially attention drawing "clank" when tossed over a chair, on a table, or on the floor in a public place. Shoulder holsters were available, but were generally avoided in the field, as they were uncomfortable, and hard to conceal. They were, however, often worn in the office. This marked one as a field agent, (because the few others who were armed wore a pistol belt) and was supposed to impress the indigenous personnel and the clerical staff. To continue on the subject of guns, quick draws are mostly in the movies. If the pistol is an automatic, one would be required to carry it with a round in the chamber, which is not the safest thing, and there is the real possibility of literally shooting oneself in the foot. And believe me, this actually happened to at least one hot dog. Most of the agents didn't care much for pistols anyway, except to occasionally intimidate people. If they really needed firepower, an M2 carbine (which was kind of a lightweight submachine gun) was a much better bet, and many agents carried one in the car. And, if in a really tough spot, most of the guys preferred not to be armed at all, figuring the chances were better of talking ones self out of a jam, than shooting ones way out. The standard pistol, by the way was the venerable Army .45 automatic. While a great weapon, this pistol was heavy and hard to conceal, and a lot of the guys ended up with .32 Berettas.

The agents all were issued cameras. There was a wide selection of types and brands available, depending on agent preference. Almost anything, in fact that was available on the German market. My camera of choice was a Leica III C. Although I had others, as well. Hard to load, but with a brass case and a solid back, it was practically indestructible. Binoculars were another necessity, but these were generally bought and paid for out of the agents personal funds.

Communication was primitive, there being no cell phones, CBs, or even reliable two way radios smaller than a suitcase. The German civilian telephone network was unreliable, and not secure, so the only real way for the agents to communicate with home base was teletype, or a reasonably secure phone line at a US military installation. So the agents were pretty much on their own in the field, with no way for headquarters to reach them, and no real incentive for them to check in with headquarters.

Speaking of guns and briefcases, one evening during Oktoberfest in Munich, one of the teams decided to really lay one on. Having nowhere to put the field notes they had generated on that trip, (which, incidentally, were classified) and knowing that guns and booze don't mix, they came up with an ingenious and totally satisfactory solution. Taking their oldest and largest briefcase, they stuffed in all their field notes, along with the pistols and a couple of thermite grenades. The binoculars and cameras, they left with the girl friend of one of the agents. Anyhow, they then wrapped two sets of tire chains around the briefcase, and secured them with about a dozen combination locks. They then took this formidable looking package to the nearest US Army MP station, (Corresponding to a police precinct house) gave it to the MPs and told them to guard it with their lives till the agents came back to claim it. After a glorious three day drunk, in which among other things they completely lost their car, they came back and retrieved the package. It was, of course, totally intact, which was more than one could say for the car, when they finally found it.

Cars, incidentally, were kind of considered to be expendable, and nobody got too excited when one got beat up a bit, or even totaled. As the following anecdote will show.

Two of the guys were in Munich, and after working about 2 hours and drinking about 12, it was 11:00 PM and time to start the long drive home. They had just got to moving along well on the Autobahn when the car inexplicably swerved into the median, took out about six trees, rolled over at least once, and ended up in the ditch.

The guys extracted themselves from the wreck, too drunk to have gotten seriously hurt, and too dazed to know what had happened. The driver thought that the hood had come off, startling him and causing him to swerve. It was true that the hood was off, but whether that happened before or during the gyrations of the car, it was impossible to tell. Anyway, as the guys were standing there in their alcoholic stupor, a German Highway Patrol car drove up. (Remember that the agent's car was a civilian model and was wearing German civilian plates.) The guys had the presence of mind to tell the cops that they were Americans, flashed some kind of phony ID, (with which they were well supplied) and then asked the German cops to call the US Army MP Highway Patrol. The German cops, being essentially nice guys, explained that the agents were obviously drunk on their ass, that the MPs would in all probability look askance at such behavior by Americans, and besides, there was the matter of paying for the trees. Finally, the German cops, tiring of the argument, gave an "It's your funeral" shrug of their shoulders and called the MPs. When the MPs arrived, our agents, of course, told them who they really were. Hearing that, the MPs turned to, got a wrecker to tow the car to the nearest US installation, and gave the guys a ride back to Munich. After a good nights sleep in a decent hotel (Free, one might add, since the hotel had been requisitioned by the US Army, and the guys talked the MPs out of a chit) our agents took a train to headquarters, drew a new car, and then drove back to the detachment. They got per diem for all the additional time spent on this activity, and the incident was never mentioned again. And yes, the US Army finally paid for the trees.

Now is probably as good a place as any to spin another yarn about cars and cops, which incidentally took place while we were working, and wasn’t even our fault. (Yes, we did get in some work once in awhile) And while it gave us quite a scare at the time, we were able to laugh about it afterwards. By this time, incidentally, John had teamed up with an ethnic Russian agent for a partner, become a fair German speaker, and a pretty decent agent himself. But before we get into this story, we need some more background.

It seems that for a couple of months some crooks had been plying their trade up and down the Autobahn. These guys specialized in robbing folks at Autobahn rest stops, leading the cops on merry chases, and upon getting away clean, which they always did, distributing some of the loot to poor folks, usually displaced persons without the proverbial pot or window, and throwing in comments as to the inefficiency of the police. A regular bunch of Robinhoods, as it were. Anyway, they developed quite a following, were widely reported in the press, and the average German man on the street was kind of rooting for them. Anyway, this infuriated the German cops, and they doubled and then redoubled their efforts to catch these guys, but to no avail. Incidentally, the bandits normally drove a black late model Opel Kapitaen.

Anyway, John and his partner had a mission to go up the Autobahn to a designated location, find a particular refugee, who was supposed to have some interesting information, and see how good his stuff really was.

So, our two intrepid agents took off for the designated location one morning, driving a new black Opel Kapitaen, and after a couple of interesting scrapes, which did nothing for their nerves, finally located the guy they were looking for. He turned out to be a veritable gold mine of information, and our guys, with his concurrence, decided to bring him in for some in depth interviews. So far, so good. Now all that was left was to get this guy back to Headquarters, share a couple of pints and collect the per diem. So the guys are headed back down the Autobahn, and were keeping a pretty good lookout, but all seemed normal. A few miles further on nature called, and the guys ducked into an Autobahn rest stop for a quick whiz. They no sooner got the car door open than the place erupted. German cops everywhere. Needless to say, instinct and training kicked in, and our guys were out of there in about three seconds, trailed, of course by a string of cop cars with the blue lights flashing and the horns going like mad. These Opels like the one our guys were driving, if in good condition, were hot cars, and about the only thing that could touch them was a Porsche or a big BMW V8. Anyway they were out on the Autobahn, and pulling away, when what looked like gunfire, started coming from the cop cars Hey, looked like those boys wanted to play rough, but there was no way our agents were going to let the Germans catch them with that guy in the car. Due to poor planning or bad luck, the M2 carbine, which was what the situation called for, was in the trunk. It might as well have been back in the office, for all the good that did.

The guys couldn't figure out what was going on. Both the route home, and the unscheduled stop had been purely random, so there was no way they could have been set up, even if someone had known of the mission, which it was fairly certain was not the case. Anyway the cops looked to be taking this real seriously, and they were beginning to find the range. So while John drove like a mad man, his partner, the Russian, stuck his automatic out the side window, and loosed off a couple of clips in the cops general direction. The Russian never was a good shot, but this had the desired effect anyway, and slowed the cops down enough for the guys to make a hairy lights off escape down an off ramp. This led to a medium size town, where the guys lost the cops and snuck off on back roads. Thanks to mud on the license plates (pretty standard procedure), and primitive police radios, the cops couldn't identify the car or call up roadblocks, and everyone got home OK, although the guy we had picked up said that he was very close to having to change his drawers.

The guys were rally mystified as to what had gone wrong, but the morning after the next, while reading the German paper at breakfast, the mystery was solved.

"Autobahn Bandit Strikes Again", the headlines screamed. The accompanying article went on to say that the bandits had attempted to rob a decoy motorist, actually a disguised cop, but were driven off by the Highway Patrol, who were waiting in ambush, before they could do any damage. In the ensuing chase, the paper reported, the suspects fired back for the first time ever, so the cops, not wanting anyone to get hurt, broke off the action. (And maybe went home to change their drawers.)

Our guys swore that they saw no stranded motorist, and figured that the cops, when seeing their Opel, figured them for the bandits and went after them.

Anyway the German cops had more egg on their face after this one, and our guys had a good laugh. The autobahn bandit was never heard from again. Probably laughed himself to death.

This puts me in mind of another situation where John and the Russian actually played James Bond, with comic effects. Seems they were checking out the East German frontier one slow afternoon, with nothing particular going on, when they saw what looked like weather balloons periodically sailing up over a hill and off to the east. (In the direction of East Germany). Parking the car and crawling over the top of the hill, they confirmed, by looking through binoculars, that there was a group of people near some parked vehicles engaging in some very suspicious activity. It looked like they were attaching small packages to balloons, then filling the balloons with gas from a cylinder, and then turning them loose to float away. The guys were vaguely aware of intelligence activity on both sides involving balloons, so surmised that these guys were probably East German or Soviet agents who were up to no good. Our intrepid agents also could imagine the commendations which would be heaped on them for capturing this bunch of spies. Seeing no weapons laying around or within reach of the balloonists, they decided on a frontal assault. So, back to the car, and with all guns blazing roared down upon the unsuspecting group. “Hande hoch”, (loosely translated as hands up) they ordered, jumping out of the car with guns drawn. Our agents literally scared the bejesus out of those poor guys, and two women, and they complied at once, probably peeing their pants in the process. Anyway, it turned out that they were missionaries trying to convert the heathen Soviets by sending bibles, written in Russian, over their country. John’s Russian partner, who of course could read Russian, verified that this was all true, so with profuse apologies, our guys left them to their business. I’ll bet those folks had some war stories to tell when they got back to their base!

Speaking of the East German frontier, although there about ten American Army divisions in Germany at that time, just waiting for the Soviets to start something, the actual border was patrolled by a small US Army force called the Constabulary. These were wanna be cavalrymen, all spit and polish in their fancy uniforms, but would probably have peed their pants if confronted by a real Russian. Not so their German equivalents, the Grenzpolitzi, or Border Patrol. These guys were ex German army professionals, with a smattering of Waffen SS thrown in. They were well trained, tough as nails, mean as junkyard dogs, and hated the Russians. They were organized into what amounted to three light infantry divisions, complete with armored cars and towed anti tank guns. Outfitted in what looked like WW II German Army uniforms and carrying American arms and equipment, they were an awesome force, and if turned loose, would have gladly fought their way to the Oder and beyond.

Their panache was only exceeded by the French Foreign Legion, whose enlisted ranks, in those days, were almost one hundred percent Waffen SS. Fortunately, the Foreign Legion mostly confined themselves to North Africa.

Since the US Army was occupying the country, they were a continual presence, and some interaction with them was inevitable. So here is as good a place as any to tell an interesting story about a trick a couple of our guys played on the Army, which taught everyone a lesson. The Army had hundreds of these big Opel staff cars, most of them painted black. Remember, these were German cars, made in Germany right after the war, and some German industrialists really didn't like Americans since our Air Force had made kind of a mess of their factories. The point is that, our agents, because we had some of the same cars, figured out that these cars had some serious design flaws, built in either purposely or accidentally, which made them the easiest car in the world to steal. First there was the matter of the door locks. One could walk up to one of these locked cars, grab and twist the door handle a certain way, and the locked door would pop open. With practice, this could be done so smoothly, that even a bystander who was watching closely would conclude that the car thief was merely opening the door on an unlocked car. The second defective part was the ignition switch. One merely had to hold a five Mark piece (About the size of an American 50 cent piece) at a proper spot under the dash, shorting out the switch, and one could start up the car up, and drive it away. Again, without attracting any notice.

Anyhow, it came to our attention that an Army courier, driving one of these Opel staff cars, was making a run from one Army headquarters to another every morning at precisely 9: 00 AM. A little discreet checking also found that this guy almost always carried some pretty important, and highly secret stuff. We also found out by observation, that while plying his appointed rounds, this courier almost always stopped at a particular Army coffee shop, locked his dispatch case in the trunk of the car, and proceeded inside to have a cup. One morning, however, this routine was rudely broken, when one of our guys sauntered up to the car after the doggie had gone into the coffee shop, and in a blink of an eye, the car was gone.

We then stashed the car and awaited developments, which were not long in coming. The couriers now started operating in pairs, they stopped tarrying in coffee shops, and generally cleaned up their act. The courier who lost the car, of course, disappeared from the scene. We waited a couple of days, then sanitized the car and left it near Army headquarters. Not a mark on it, of course. (We had picked the lock on the trunk and lifted the dispatch case without damaging anything.) The Army, to be sure, immediately found the car, but couldn't figure out what had happened. After a couple of more days, we finally told the Army that we had their papers. Anyway, negotiations ensued, the upshot of which was that we gave back the papers, and in return for amnesty, told the Army how we pulled off the entire caper.

Another interesting confrontation with the Army happened to two of our other agents, who happened to be an American and a foreigner. (I don’t remember his nationality, but he was working for us, of course) Returning from a tough mission in the late evening these guys decided to pull into a US Army snack bar outside Frankfurt, and have a few before going to bed. There was also fiscal method to this madness, as if you checked in to the office after midnight, you collected per diem for another whole day, a sum much larger than the price of a couple of beers. Anyway, these guys were wearing ratty German civilian clothing and looking pretty beat up, but were just sitting there minding their own business, conversing, mostly in German, and drinking their beer.

At this time, we must digress again to explain some of the finer points of living in occupied Germany. First, most of the better hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs had been taken over by occupation forces and were strictly off limits to German civilians. Second, mixing with the German civilian population was discouraged, and any relationship between occupation forces and German civilians was strictly forbidden. Third, most of the soldiers in the occupation forces were kept on an extremely short leash. Midnight curfews were the norm, unless a soldier possessed an infrequently issued three day pass. All of this was enforced by the Occupation Forces Military Police, (US Army in the American zone of occupation) who acted as City Police, County Sheriffs, Highway Patrol and FBI all rolled into one, along with some Counter Intelligence responsibilities. Their authority was awesome, and one did not normally mess with or provoke them.

The German civilian government, acting under the authority of the Allied four power occupation authorities, had their own civil police forces, responsible for policing the civilian population, but had NO authority over Allied, including US government, military and civilian personnel. The MP’s likewise, pretty much left policing he German civilian population up to the German police.

Now throw into this situation the Field Intelligence Agents of whatever Agency. These guys essentially had cart blanc authority to do most anything they pleased, often backed up by written authorization, which was sometimes from some pretty senior people. The MPs had, from time to time, by either accidentally or purposely interfering with Agents engaged in the performance of their official duties, gotten into some pretty serious trouble with top occupation authorities. One, however, could not really fault the MPs, because some of these intelligence duties were so bizarre that even the smarter MPs couldn't always figure out whether the agents were engaged in official duties, or just screwing off. This confusion in the minds of the MPs was understandable, as the agents generally mixed business with pleasure, and sometimes they themselves often did not realize the difference. On top of this, US intelligence agents, generally drove cars licensed as German civilian, and were usually equipped with papers giving them multiple identities, so neither the German cops or the MP’s were sure who they were dealing with. And finally, the Agents were a lot smarter, generally tougher, considerably meaner, and always much better armed than the MPs.

Understandingly, given all the above, the occupation authorities kind of backed off, and the MPs pretty much left known agents alone. If any agents got into a real jam, however, or condescended to be halfway polite, the MPs would almost always do their best to help them out. There were sometimes misunderstandings, though, when the MPs didn’t realize the guys they were dealing with were agents.

So, back to the story. Our two agents are sitting in the US Army snack bar, (Which was off limits to Germans as explained above), drinking beer, and talking quietly in German, when in comes this US Army MP Second Lieutenant. He is in dress uniform, with no name tag (This was before Army guys had name tags on dress uniforms), and has "Fresh From the States" written all over him. He sizes up the situation, decides to throw the German bums out, and starts to hassle our agents.

At this point, I need to digress enough to say that teams of really tough (or so they thought) MPs had made the mistake of hassling these two agents on similar previous occasions and had ended up considerably the worse for wear. A fact which was not lost on the MPs who patrolled these places regularly, but was unknown to the young Lieutenant.

The lead agent, an American who really didn't like any kind of cop, was a particularly hard case, who had recently won instant notoriety when he shot out the tires on an MP jeep with an M2 carbine. (A kind of sub machine gun.) His excuse, which was accepted, was that the gun had gone off accidentally. Anyway, the agent set his beer down, looked the Lieutenant directly in the eye, and in a strong German accent said. "Lt. Blank, I presume." The Lieutenant's mouth dropped open, and he stammered something to the effect of "how did you know my name, and who are you". Our agent, replying with a mid American accent, introduced himself and his partner to the Lieutenant as US intelligence agents, told him that he knew everything about everyone, including the good Lieutenant, and further that his (the agent's) mother had warned him about people like this, and that the lieutenant should probably bugger off while he was still able. While the Lieutenant was processing this information, our agent apparently changed his mind, and said in a friendly voice, "What the Hell, you look like a good guy, sit down and we'll buy you a beer." By this time the other agent and the Lieutenant are both totally confused, and discretion being the better part of valor, the Lieutenant decided to take our agent up on his offer. The other agent was a foreigner, remember. And couldn’t figure out what the crazy American was up to this time, but decided to play along.

The explanation for all of this was that our agent knew most of the MP officers in the district and he had never before seen this guy, who was obviously fresh from the States. Furthermore, our agent’s mother had an old college pal who had a son who was a Lieutenant in the MPs in Frankfurt Germany, and had asked our agent to look him up. Our guy, accordingly, had made a good guess on The Lt.'s name. The Lieutenant, on the other hand vaguely knew our agent's name from MP tribal knowledge, but he had never made the connection.

Anyhow, everybody had a good laugh, and the MP Lieutenant had a good war story for his buddies.

But when this story reached the agent’s mother, she was totally confused. Having a letter from the agent’s boss, telling her that her kid had a boring desk job, then finding out from her old friend that her son was actually an out of control field agent, running amok in West Germany.

Now, let’s talk a bit about the personal lives of the agents, and how being a field intelligence agent tends to complicate matters. By this time John was getting a bit bored with drinking and hell raising, so he brought his young wife and year old daughter over from the States to join him. Being a bit paranoid, and with good reason, he decided make his home in a remote German village near the Stuttgart airport. This place was really idyllic, and could only be reached via a maze of dirt roads. Some German professional people, although, were beginning to discover the place, and move in. Kind of like our suburbs. Anyway, John got a daylight basement apartment in a very nice house, and settled in.

John, Pat , and LaRene having a drink with our German landlords.

The first thing to be handled was a cover story, as there needed to be some logical reason for an American family to be living in the village. Since the only Americans within miles were a small US Air Weather Service detachment at Stuttgart airport, John decided to be a weather forecaster. This turned out to not have been a real good choice. For example, when John hung with the village Burghers in the local Gasthouse (pub), and the subject turned to weather, it soon became painfully apparent that John didn’t have a clue as to whether or not it was going to rain tomorrow. As his track record on this subject became worse and worse, the good Burghers, of course, became more and more suspicious. Hardly anybody in the village spoke English, so John developed a unique method of teaching his wife German. Essentially it consisted of handing her a German/English dictionary, and taking off on a five day mission. Although John had two Government cars, as well as a personal vehicle at his disposal, the poor lady couldn’t even jump in one and go find another American, because she didn’t have a German driver’s license. Daughter though, fared better in the German department. After playing with the German kids for a couple of weeks, she picked it up fairly well, and mom probably learned more German from daughter than any other way. John, Pat , and LaRene having a drink with our German landlords. Speaking of the license, getting one turned out to be a real problem. Since wife couldn’t read or speak German, she couldn’t pass the test. John finally resolved this issue by going to a town about 100 miles away, and bribing a driving inspector who owed him a favor. So why didn’t she get an American license like the other American wives, you ask. Well, there are two answers to this question. The first is that some of the cars were registered with German civilian plates, which required a German drivers license. The second answer went something like this. Because John was a field agent, and his wife was traveling under a US State Department passport, rather than military orders, she was technically not under US military control. They could work around this to get US Commissary and Army PX privileges, but ran up against a brick wall when it came to a driver’s license. This status, though, came in handy from time to time when some overzealous Military Commander, with nothing better to do, decided to impose dress codes on American dependents. Since she was on a State Department passport, there was nothing the military could do when she told them in no uncertain terms to Bugger Off. Life in the village did have its moments, however. One time was when John brought home a Federball. (Badminton) set, and installed it in the village square. None of the villagers had seen or heard of Badminton, but they caught on quickly, and Sunday Federball tournaments soon became an institution. Another interesting story is the one about the barbeque. The Germans of course, had never heard of a barbeque grill either, and even though John’s family was hankering for a good barbequed steak, there was no grill to be had in all of Germany. American ingenuity, though, came to the rescue. John found an old 20 liter (5 gallon) paint can and cleaned it up somewhat. He then scrounged two old refrigerator shelves for the charcoal and grill racks. But John had overlooked an essential ingredient, charcoal. The Germans did have so called briquettes, which kind of looked like our charcoal briquettes, but which were so full of coal tar that they would poison you, let alone, ruin the food. So that wasn’t the answer. It looked like John had run into a dead end. But then an old German told him something. In some remote villages, way up in the mountains of Bavaria, well beyond the reach of the electric lines, it was rumored that the hausfrauen (housewives) used holtzkohl (charcoal) irons to iron clothes. So, on their next mission, John and his partner detoured up into the mountains to one of these villages. And would you believe, they did have charcoal irons. So, they headed to the village store and bought two large sacks of charcoal. This stuff really should have been called char wood, because that it is what it literally was. Charred sticks of wood, not pressed into any kind of shape. Anyway, the next Sunday morning, John set up his grill contraption in the front yard and lit it off. This, and the smoke and smell when the steaks were put on brought the whole village out to his front yard in record time. Enduring comments like, “What will the crazy American do next”, and “Look, he’s burning up perfectly good meat” (steak, incidentally was expensive and almost impossible to come by on the German market). John good naturedly started passing out samples. The upshot was that all the steak disappeared and the Germans got a taste of good American cooking. Learning from experience, from then on John barbequed in the garten, or back yard, but even then, would occasionally have visitors. As to keeping a low profile, John wasn’t doing too well. What really blew it though was his run in with the German Highway Patrol. Again, a little background is in order. In those days, the German Highway Patrol drove four door Mercedes convertibles, almost always with the top down, which could have doubled for Hitler’s staff cars. Usually there were four cops in each car, all wearing their peaked caps and armed to the teeth. A real formidable sight. As we mentioned earlier, the village could only be reached via a maze of dirt roads. There was an exception however. The Autobahn ran near the village, and less than a mile away there was an unused, and forbidden Autobahn exit. Leave it to German logic to decide not to allow use of a perfectly good exit, but that’s the way it was. John soon figured out that by using this exit, he could cut about 10 minutes from his commute. At about the same time, the cops figured out that someone was using the forbidden off ramp. As you can see by now, an eventual confrontation was inevitable. So, as John was wheeling off the off ramp one night, he ran smack into a carload of cops. As mentioned previously, those big Opels the agents drove were hot cars, and John’s agent survival instincts kicked in immediately. John might not have been able to outrun a cop car holding one cop, but when filled with four beefy cops, it was no contest. Anyway, there they go down the road and through the village, John’s Opel in the lead and the Mercedes cop car in hot pursuit. Scattering housewives, dogs and chickens in their path. Eventually, John outran the cops, who headed back to the Autobahn, and John snuck into the village. Since there were only two big black Opels in town, and both belonged to John, the villagers had little trouble figuring out who was the culprit. These and similar hi-jinks were definitely not low profile, but the final blow came when a Stuttgart Police Detective Sergeant moved next door. By that time John had started using the place as an occasional safe house, and cars and agents seemed to be arriving and departing at all hours. Being a smart cop, it took this guy about two days to figure out that something was very amiss. Through contacts in the German KRIPO, Kriminal Polizei, or Criminal Police) John got the cop’s superiors to put the clamps on him, but it was obviously high time for John to clear out, and his family has had enough of German village life by that time anyway, so they pulled up stakes and moved to Frankfurt, where they found a place to live, right downtown.. The office in Frankfurt was in the old Gestapo Headquarters, on the edge of downtown. It was a three story pile of granite, and even looked sinister. It was guarded by hard looking German types, in strange uniforms, which added to the unreality. The field agent’s lair was a wing on the third floor, walled off from the rest of the building, with bars on the windows, and cipher locks on the one door leading out. This entire agent’s area was classified Secret, was off limits to German personnel, and was presided over by a real bitch of an American secretary. She drove a Karmann Ghia, which was brand new in 1954, so she really thought she was hot s***. This woman also had a real propensity for trying to run everything, and had to be told who was the boss, in no uncertain terms, every couple of weeks. I think that she picked this bad habit up from some of our German personnel, who, although not allowed in our wing, pretty much tried to run the rest of the office. But who could blame these guys, most of them were Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe officers, who had skills, which we could use, but had not been deNazified, so could not get a regular job. Fritz Bayerlein, a Wehrmacht general who, among other assignments, had been Rommel’s chief of staff in North Africa, was one of these guys, and most of the agents enjoyed chatting with him, or the others, from time to time, about the state of the world, and other weighty matters. Incidentally, English and German were the languages of choice around the office, as all agents had to be minimally proficient in both. About half the agents also knew Russian, and it was spoken between them, at times. This office was the most informal in the organization, but the guys were also the best producers, so go figure. Telephone etiquette usually ran to “Hello” when answering the phone, and replies to the callers inquiries usually ran to “Who the Hell wants to know” in either German or English. Occasionally one of the jokers would announce in German that he was Herr Blitzen (Lightning), and if it was perchance Herr Donner (Thunder) calling, they could go off and make a storm together. (Sounds better in German than in English) Horseplay was not confined to the telephone. One favorite was to hide a classified document which had been in plain sight on an agent’s desk only moments before, then announce after answering a put up phone call, that the Station Chief wanted to see that particular document, right away. Also, there was a kid who we shall call Hauser, who was an Indonesian Dutchman with a pretty imperfect command of the English language. Anyway, since he was in the Air Force, and not yet twenty one, we convinced him that he was an Air Boy not an Airman. It was really funny, when the Station Chief or another big shot called him, to hear him announce, “Air Boy Hauser here, sir”. Each team of two agents had a private office furnished with desks, chairs, a map table, and a safe chained to a ringbolt in the floor. Also a burn box for classified waste, which was almost everything. For awhile though, John’s team was just tossing the waste behind the door, which was always open, till one day when the boss marched in, closed the door and almost got drowned in the deluge. John’s team office also had a cooler for beer, a cabinet for cameras, photo supplies, spare ammunition, thermite grenades, beer glasses, and other assorted paraphernalia, and a number of filing cabinets containing large scale maps covering most of Western Europe, as well as considerable other source data. And one wall was hung with a large scale map of Western Europe. Weapons were kept in an armory, right down the hall. The bureaucracy insisted that in order to draw travel pay, the agents had to have travel orders of some kind, so to pick a destination, they either threw an ink pen at the European map, or one of them closed his eyes and walked up to it and pointed. The destination didn’t matter anyway, as the orders always contained a clause to the effect of “And anywhere else in Western Europe one wished to go.” There also was enough source material in the office filing cabinets, or in the excellent library elsewhere in the building, so that if really lazy, and by using a bit of “poetic license” an agent team could oft times dispense with travel altogether, and write their reports in the comfort of their office. Living quarters for the single guys were several miles away in a hotel situated in a resort suburb. This hotel had been totally taken over by the Occupation authorities, and had accommodations similar to those described earlier for the Jaegerkaserne. Except, of course, the office was remotely located. Life in Frankfurt was a little less hectic. John and his family lived in a district where many American diplomats and Pan American pilots also resided, and these people paid little attention to who they thought to be a minor American functionary and his family. But one day, when John was off on a mission to who knows where, his wife came down with a pretty serious kidney infection and had to be hospitalized. Since John was nowhere to be found (remember the previous communication discussion) and the baby had to be cared for, John’s boss’s housekeeper was pressed into service till John surfaced. When John eventually showed up, the boss gave him a choice, he could take some time off to care for daughter, or continue working and leaving the domestic chores to the housekeeper. John, to nobody’s surprise, elected to keep working, but did take over her care after working hours, when he was in town. This led to an interesting situation one evening when John, becoming bored, collected his daughter, his partner and some of the analysts he worked with, and headed for the same Americans only bar we heard about earlier. Needless to say, by 2:00 AM, the party was going great, the beer was flowing freely, and John's daughter was sitting in the center of the table, the queen of the ball. About this time, who showed up? You guessed it, the MPs. Since John and his partner were wearing casual American clothes, for a change, not their working German attire, and had a baby with them, the MPs did not recognize them as agents, and the MPs were not acquainted with the analysts, who were American civilians, and did not normally run in such circles. So, the MPs really did not realize what they were up against. Anyhow, John and his guests took instant offense to the MPs questioning their presence with a baby at this time of night, and the situation rapidly degenerated into a first class free for all. This time the MPs were outnumbered, as well as outgunned, the analysts made a surprisingly good showing, and the MPs came out second best.

Agents and analysts gathered in John’s Frankfurt living room.

Left to right: Don, the Team Leader; John; agent Ed; analyst John; agent Alfonso in foreground.

Two right hand guys, names forgotten. Partner Gene was photographer.

Most of these guys , (not including the boss) were in the dust up discussed above

Too bad that daughter was too young to remember all this, as it would have made a hell of a good story for her in later years. As the previous story suggests, being married to a field agent, is about as bad an existence that can be imagined for a young woman, particularly one from a small Midwestern town. Living in a foreign country and being barely able to speak the language. Spouse constantly traveling to who knows where for who knows how long. And often coming home from a trip with clothes in tatters, miscellaneous unexplained scrapes and bruises, bullet holes in the back of the car, or all of the above. Not to speak of guns lying around, and interesting characters wandering in and out of the house.

Finally, John’s young wife couldn’t take it any longer, and with daughter in tow, moved back to the States.

But let’s have one last story about life in the big city to round out this chapter.

As told before, John had a late model American Ford as his personal car, along with his Government vehicles. At this time, American cars were prime targets for car thieves as well as smash and grab artists, and other assorted crooks. The standard method of protection was to remove all valuables, leave the doors unlocked to avoid having the windows broken by people trying to break in, and secure the steering wheel, gearshift, etc. with multiple chains and padlocks. Not high tech, but seemed to do the job.

One night, just before John's wife and daughter moved back to the States, he became a bit sloppy with his security arrangements and he woke up in the morning to find his American Ford gone.

John immediately notified the German cops and the American MPs, and sat back to await developments. It transpired that a known shady character had been seen driving John's car around town the night of the disappearance, but the MP who allegedly had seen the car had assumed that it was being driven by one of John's contacts. Knowing John's love of the MPs and his propensity for violence, the MP wisely (he thought) decided to let well enough alone. Aside from that, John heard nothing.

Finally, in desperation John put a description of the car, along with a plea for information, on the intelligence net. This was a Teletype network linking all Allied intelligence agencies, somewhat like today's Internet, but much more primitive, over which various information of interest to the Intelligence Community was shared. Anyway, he didn't have long to wait. In a day or two he got a call from another agency saying that his car was in the railway station parking lot at Ludwigshafen, which was in the French Zone of Occupation, and was apparently undamaged. Just missing the short wave radio, which was no big deal.

John then contacted the nearest US Army MP detachment, asked them to check out the car, and tow it back to their station. This they did, and so informed John.

John told them to hang on to the car, and that he would pick it up on his next trip through that area. A few days later, as John and his partner were returning from another tough mission, tired, bedraggled, hung over, and generally out of sorts, they decided to swing by the MP station and pick up the car. They went in, told the Desk Sergeant who they were and asked for the car. The Desk Sergeant explained at this point that since the car was found in the French Zone and was picked up by the US MPs merely as an accommodation, John would have to get a release from the French Military Gendarimerie in Ludwigshafen before he could claim the car. To John, this seemed like unnecessary bureaucratic bullshit, which he was not in the mood for. He explained this to the sergeant, while nerviously chambering a round in his Beretta, and then asked for the keys to his vehicle. The MP desk sergeant knowing John by reputation, was not about to mess with this nut case, and immediately handed over the keys. Anyway, John and his partner then drove both his and his partner's cars off into the sunset, and nothing more was ever heard about the incident.

So finally comes the dreaded time of decision. John’s enlistment is almost over, and he had to decide what to do next. You heard previously that John’s young wife and daughter had kind of given up on him and returned to the States leaving John sort of at loose ends. Since John and his Russian partner were the detachment’s top producers, the station chief worked them harder and harder. They were in the field almost continually, returning to headquarters only to turn in their reports, pick up new assignments, and get a change of clothes. As the tempo of work accelerated, so did the drinking, and it was getting to the point where neither one of them literally ever drew a sober breath. Within a couple of months, they were both certified alcoholics. On the road, they had their famous “quota”, which was three liters of beer swilled down by 10:00AM, after which they could drink at their leisure. When in the office, they would send the secretary out for a dozen beers about 9:00AM and finish them by 12 or 1:00, after which it was time to do some fieldwork in the local beer hall. They were also getting sloppy in their field craft, and had some real close calls. The station chief either didn’t see this self destruction, or didn’t want to. After all, these two agents were his top producers.

Eventually a Colonel showed up, asking John to consider his future. What a sight. John in rumpled German civvies, complete with Beretta in shoulder holster, lounging in a chair with his feet on the table, while this scrubbed and pressed Colonel seriously tried to convince John what a good deal he was getting. At the same time, some pretty senior guys in other intelligence agencies were also giving John and the Russian a pitch to join them.

Finally the Russian succumbed to the pressure and joined another agency, where he enjoyed a long and distinguished career. John decided that being an agent, while interesting and even exciting at times, was really a career with no future, so he went back to the world, sobered up, reunited with his family, and got a real job.

From then on, he would have to get his spy thrills by reading James Bond books.

AUTHOR’S NOTES:

Some story, huh! And that was just the tip of the iceberg. And I almost forgot, during this time I also attended the Winter Olympics in Italy, and Pat and I traveled extensively for pleasure, both on the Continent, and in Britain. Not to mention my almost constant travel in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland while on the job. And believe it or not, Pat and I traveled on $10 to $20 dollars per day Speaking of money, remember the Finance Office “Money Tree” in the story. Well, let me give you an example of how Pat and I once put it to good use. Seems Pat, myself, and daughter were headed to England, in Pat’s American Ford, to meet a friend and relax for a few days, away from the hectic Agent routine. But on the way, somewhere in Belgium, Pat, while changing the baby, misplaced her purse, containing almost all our money and her ID, but luckily not our passports. As we had just used them to get across a border. So no biggie, we’ll just go back home, get some more money from the Finance Office, and start over. Remember, this is long before the days of credit cards and ATMs, and our checking account was with a Canadian bank back in Germany. So, we start to retrace our steps, when BANG those awful Belgian roads knock out a tire. So we put on the spare and head out again. And after a few kilometers, BANG, that tire blows. So now we are in kind of a bind. Only three good tires, a hungry baby, no money, and very few Flemish language skills. But fortunately, as we are trying to decide what to do next, along comes the Auto Club Strassenwacht guy on a three wheeler. We explain our plight, empty our pockets of ALL our small notes and change, in various currencies, give him one flat tire and wheel, (We had scraped up barely enough money for one used tire, let alone two), and off he goes, probably never to be heard from again. Anyhow, in a couple of hours he is back with a bald but serviceable tire, which he helps us mount, and refusing any pay, (which didn’t matter since we had no money) waved good by and Godspeed as we disappeared into the sunset. About three AM, we finally get home, having driven slow to save the tire, but guess what, the house keys are in the lost purse. So I have to pick the lock on the entry door, as well as the apartment door in order to get in. Anyway, next morning we head for the Finance office, draw a few hundred, get a new set of tires and some temp ID for Pat, and by noon we are off again. This time we make it with no problem, and eventually Pat’s purse even found it’s way back to our place. But that is a story for another time. As for the people, Gene, the Russian in the story, and my real life partner for almost two years, went on to a long and interesting career in another agency, finally marrying a Russian national who he met in a hard currency bar in Moscow. He is now retired and lives in New York City. I still see Gene when I am in New York, and we talk on the phone every couple of months. I did have some official contact with him when he was working, but that is a story for another time. Two other ex agents, with whom I remain in contact are Alfonso, who lives in northern New Mexico, and William, an Indonesian Dutchman, who was recruited into the intelligence service and ultimately given US citizenship. William now lives in Tennessee, and we maintain an e mail correspondence. In October 2005, Gene called me. He wanted to rehash the old times, which really didn’t interest me. Anyway he started talking about the car wreck in this story. About midway in his reminisces, I broke in to remark that in my recollection, every time we wrecked a car (and there were several), he was driving. I also opined that it was a good thing that Gene spoke Russian, since he couldn’t drive or even shoot very well. Gene, of course, took instant offense, and then went into great detail as to how that wreck was not his fault. So, fast forward to January 2006. Gene called again. The car wreck thing must have been really bugging him, because he reviewed all of our accidents, most of which I had forgotten about, explaining in detail, in each case, why even though driving, he was not responsible. In the summer of 2002, while escorting a bike hike through the South, I met William for dinner and drinks in Columbia, South Carolina. My son Whalen and son in law Hugh joined us for part of the evening, and got an earful of spy stories, and tales of other assorted high jinks. One interesting story related how we somehow got William’s American 1949 Ford convertible at the head of a parade honoring the then German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. The punch line was when the car hit something, and William in his somewhat stilted English, exclaimed, “I believe that we have just driven over someone”. I tried to get a fiftieth anniversary reunion going at the old Bad Soden (near Frankfurt) location in Germany, but everyone is either broke, dead, or not interested. It was my son who got nailed by a STASI computer check at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, just before the wall came down. He was saved by his sister, a fluent German speaker, who explained to the STASI agents that since he had a 1964 birth date, it was obviously his dad that they wanted, not him. It was my mom’s buddy who had the MP Lt. son, and I was the guy who hassled him. She was really confused when she got a partial story third hand, because she didn’t have a clue that her son was a crazy field agent. On the contrary, she had received a letter from a senior American official (which I still have in my archives) telling her that I had a routine desk job.

Another thing which I didn’t mention in my story, was an interesting byproduct of the Occupation, the Oberbayern bars. Which loosely translates as “The Best of Bavaria”. These were really “meat markets”, and they did a land office business facilitating meetings between German refugee women and America GIs. Thus offering a chance for a down and out refugee, or even some everyday German women, to meet a “rich” American GI, and get treated royally, at least by the standards of those days. One could even dream of conning the guy into marriage, which was a free ticket to the United States, the Land of the Big PX. Many of these women though, were really predators, preying on the social misfits who had few friends, were inexperienced with women, had never had a date in high school, etc., etc. These bars were also frequented by a few every day Germans, and were generally good cheap entertainment. A loud Bavarian um-pah band, dressed in Lederhosen and Jaeger hats was ensconced on a stage, belting out the old Bavarian drinking songs. Periodically during the evening, the band would form a conga line, and snake through the audience, blaring their instruments at full volume. The bandleader, at the head of this procession, would spot a likely male in the audience, and place his green hat on the guy’s head, making him an honorary band leader. The poor guy who got tapped was then required to mount the stage and lead the band in a rousing song, after first buying them a round of drinks. Needless to say, as the evening wore on, the band got drunker and drunker, as well as louder and louder. The patrons would even get into the act as well. Dancing on the tables, and sometimes even swinging down from the balconies. One of my favorite memories, incidentally, was listening to a drunk Bavarian band in one of these joints, led by a drunk US Army Staff Sergeant, try to play the Stars and Stripes Forever.

Since the Doggies all had to be back in the barracks by midnight, these bars pretty much emptied out by about 10:30 PM, leaving only the girls, some hard core foreigners and perhaps the aforementioned Germans. These girls would get pretty desperate around midnight, as many of them literally had no place to sleep. So, if you were experienced like we were, you would get out of the bar about 10:00 PM, and not come back till 1:00AM or so. Otherwise, you would probably end up finding one or more of these women a place to sleep for the night, before you could go back to serious drinking.

Our excuse for frequenting these places was intelligence gathering, and occasionally we would, more by accident than anything else, pick up some minor tidbit from a refugee. And yes, we did usually charge off the drinks on our expense account. Pat, incidentally, would sometimes hang with me in one of these bars, which was right down the street from our home in Frankfurt, but generally she avoided them. Too depressing, I guess.

By the way, this music has now all but died out. Even in the venerable Hofbrauhaus in Munich, the last time I was there, the place was full of Japanese tourists, and the band was playing New York, New York. I really believe that at present, there is more of this old Bavarian music to be found in the German bars in the US, than in Germany.

John, Palm Desert CA, January 2006. .