WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A SPY

* By ROBERT CLAYTON *

There's more to espionage than Mata Hari!

OF ALL professions, becoming a spy is one of the hardest of all tasks to accomplish. It takes more than the desire to serve as such, for it also takes the courage and the willingness to face all kinds of danger, and it takes the more than average intelligence a spy must have in order to keep himself from being apprehended.

Actually, there are four different and distinct classes of spies, and this article will deal with describing all of them. They are classified as such in time of war, and these are the classes roughly described into which they fall: the officers of the regular army, the patriotic volunteers, the mercenaries, and always, the informers.

It can be well appreciated and understood that during a war, the most effective form of all these classes, is the officer class, which is trained and equipped for the job and the men so occupied are carrying out their duties as part of their war service, only this happens to be in excess of duty. They are well equipped to handle all the different types of work that may fall into their hands. Actually, these officers, for the most part, are in command only of e group of spies, and very rarely is it found that they do the work themselves. They have subordinates who they order to do the work, and who are told exactly what it is they are to look for and where to look for it. But when there is some matter of great importance, these specially trained men do their work, too. just before the last war, when no one in this country dreamed oi such things happening to them, naval officers in the Japanese Navy, dressed in greasy overalls and heavy sou'westers, sailed aboard the alleged fishing boats of their country, that used to snoop around our Pacific fleet during maneuvers, and these same fishing boats were also found with the crews of the same caliber of men near the Aleutian Islands, where they explored and sounded out the preparations that were being put into effect by our forces stationed there.

The second class oi spies are taken from both the amateur side and the semi-amateur side of the profession, and for their work, they are considered almost as valuable as officers during the preliminaries that always occur just before a war. But just exactly what kinds of people volunteer for this work, what makes them want to do such things? These men and women are the ones who volunteer for spy service for patriotic motives, and probably they do so also because of some personal reason, and more than not, the reasons are spiced with a yearning for adventure, which they are more than certain to find in the mildest form of this type of work. Looking at the other side for a while, for definitely there are two sides to a war, we are all familiar however vaguely with the many spying tactics used by the Germans during the armistice which lasted from 1919 to 1939. For their work here in America, which went on right underneath our noses, so to speak, take for instance the office of the Hamburg American Steamship Line in New York, which served as a nerve center for espionage and sabotage during this period and even after, until apprehended by our spies in the government. The men who controlled and ran this type of service for the Germans, along with the men who served as members oi the German Tourist Bureau, ell were officials of the steamship companies and the Bureau, and they organized all these espionage rings on the side, besides drawing the checks for their official jobs. Also, the people they had working for them in the official line of duty, such as the employees on the steamships, were top notch spies and key men in the whole system. Most of them were actually reserve officers in the German Army, and were being paid by the German Government for "services rendered."

ALSO, the Japanese were busy here, too, during this time, and they worked in planting their men over here to observe and learn the secrets of our government. Due to the fact that Japan, too, was a totalitarian government, the one hundred Japanese individuals who were allowed into this country each year, as agreed years before in a "gentlemen's agreement," were selected on the basis of their willingness to serve the Mikado and the Empire in civilian dress, as spies. Also, besides these one hundred, who were intending to settle in this country and make this their home, there came to these shores many more loyal Japanese subjects, who entered as students and merchantmen for a short space of time, and they, too, were approached in the same fashion before they left home. It was merely a question of no espionage, no passport, and as we know that each year the quota was filled, we know, too, that they acquiesced along these lines.

Perhaps that is why, for the most part, that it is so difficult for an honest, clean-moraled American, Briton, or Scandinavian to volunteer his services as a spy for his country, and do as good a job with it without any education leading up to his work. He has been brought up to respect other people's privacy, and the child of the Nazi government, for certainly he is a child of the government rather than of his parents, these children had to and did spy on their parents who were suspected oi having dangerous thoughts; these children gave up their own brothers to the Gestapo on evidence they had collected while snooping; they lied, blackmailed, and even murdered, because they had been educated in the state's schools to believe that this was the only right thing to do because they were doing it as a duty for the fatherland.

As to the third class of spies, those who are spies for mercenary reasons alone, it is not surprising to note that they constitute the largest class oi all, serving solely for the payment the job rewards. Sometimes, this mercenary trend is combined with a rather perverted enjoyment of dangerous and adventuresome living. For the most part, however, they are the small figures in the army of spies, acting as privates, and with only the menial tasks set before them, and more often than not, they are sheer traitors, who could not make a go out of civilian life, and are in this racket merely for the money angle. Also, the spies in this class are taken from the ranks of people who have come from another country, and have some grievance against their old country's government, and are only too anxious to hurt them in some way. Also, the political dissenters, and those of loose morals make up the body of this type of spy.

THE mercenary is almost the lowest type of spy, and is looked down upon by all in his profession. His job is usually one of being behind the enemy's lines most of the time and procuring information for which he is paid a sum of money. However, the greatest embarrassment in the secret service is said to be the fact that slippery people are the only kinds who are employed for this job, and in this type of work, they are often employed where they cannot be watched. That watching need ls so neatly proved by the fact that when the German government hired one of these mercenary characters to spy on the United States' office of Public Information in Switzerland during the armistice, in order to secure valuable information or documents, they paid him twenty-five dollars a week for such services. However, what they did not know was that the United States government at the same time was paying this same man fifty dollars a week for transmitting documents to the German government that were entirely worthless, or better still, were very misleading to the Germans.

The fourth and last class of spies, the informers, are not spies in the true sense of the word, at all. But no matter what they are called, they are probably the most valuable spies of all, including the officer and the patriotic volunteer. In this class of spy, there falls the category of nationals of a country, on which one is spying, who either are truly idealists and wish to help make a revolution, or else they are greedy individuals who are indistinguishable from the mercenary spies only because they ask a. different rate on their remuneration, or to put it more correctly, the amount of bribe, they request for their services. It is usually a piecework type of job that they do, and the price is generally high for their work. The nationals are to be found working into this group, but the commonest member of this class is the government worker, ranging from the diplomats or staff officers, all the way down to the ?ling clerks. Usually there is the reason that a diplomat wishes to promote a republican form of revolution. _During the last war, our government secured much valuable information from people who asked nothing in the line of money for their services. They merely wanted a better government for their people. As there are more spies in this world now and were during the last war, than there ever were before this, so there are more informers, in proportion.

THE types of spies were classified into only four groups at the beginning of this article. However, there is one other class, quite small and to date, greatly over-advertised. These are the spies who are in this profession for the sheer adventure of the job. They are the pure adventurers. As is mostly the case, these people, both men and women, are usually exhibitionists or at least have a streak of exhibitionism in them, and during their infrequent jobs for governments, they cannot resist the impulse to relate some of their tales of adventure. It is purely a touched-up job they relate, for they know that the press is just willing to write up such stories only it they are more than exciting. Probably the best-known spy in this class is the German Fritz Duquesne, who was a spy in the Boer War, and served during both World Wars. He is now in prison with enough sentences to keep him there for the rest of his lite. However, he was an adventurer and nothing more for all the time of his service. The only true and sincere spot in his twisted psychology was that he truly hated England and all that she stood for and all that was connected with her. But he would have sold out the Germans, too, it he felt there was more adventure the other way around. His last job consisted of forming a spy ring here in America, which he did, and which he bogged up so badly that all his coherts were captured, and it was painfully proved that he did more harm than good for his cause. He violated the cardinal rule that is practised in any spy ring. Everyone in the ring knew that there were other members in the ring, and also they knew who the other members were. Ii one of them were to get just the least bit talkative about the others, the rest were just as well hung, too. Duquesne was nothing more than a trickster, a boaster, and a pathological liar, and if these are the ingredients needed for an ardent adventurer, then he surely was one of the best.

No matter how many classes of spies there are, any corps of spies is organized just like an army or navy is, with a general staff, and a field commander with a board oi strategy for every separate front, But the main difference lies in the secrecy which surrounds the whole army of spies. Naturally, it is quite impossible to have the army of spies familiar with each other, as has been shown so effectively many times. Once one would lose his nerve when arrested, or would turn traitor, the rest of the corps would he at his mercy. It is no secret, too, that the main body of a service of spies is compiled from those who are morally defective, and would not let very much stand in their way to reporting on their own government. Only the heads are of any sort of intelligence, The privates are mere machines who carry out the work.

It has been said time and again that spying is one of the most fabulous and adventure-filled jobs the world has ever known. There is no doubt that it is a flourishing field today, too, and it will continue in this way as long as there are people on earth. No matter how corny a story about the spy may he, when it comes to the risks he must face, and often does, it is mere nursery-room story, and an expurgated one at that, compared to the reality each spy must face, not just occasionally, but always. There is no doubt about it, a spy leads an adventurous life.