Special Counter Intelligence in WW2 Europe. Keith Ellison
to buy and operate a radio (the original Axis W/T set was supposed to have been provided through the Hungarian diplomatic bag to Cairo, but was never sent). Levi returned to Italy in April 1941 in order to give his spymasters the code which he had supposedly devised with Nicossof, arriving in Rome on 14 June 1941. The W/T link between Cairo and Bari was established in July, following an exchange of commercial telegrams between Levi and the notional Nicossof (codenamed ROBERTO by the Germans) to arrange transmissions on alternative signal settings.
Initially Levi was greeted with acclaim by the Abwehr, who wanted him to return immediately to Cairo with funds for the network. Levi feigned reluctance and then demanded two weeks leave with his family before returning, agreeing to a departure date of 5 August. He had apparently successfully fought an accusation, based on the interrogation of a captured French penetration agent, that he had been working for the Deuxième Bureau when he had been operating as a GIS agent in France. However, it was reported that his German Case Officer, Rossetti, was also employed by the Italian SIM (as was Rossetti’s assistant Elizabeth Tabbo @ ANNABELLA, according to the SD chief in Rome, Kappler), and presumably was passing everything obtained from CHEESE to them, and they proved more suspicious of the agent. [11]
After an approach by a SIM agent-provocateur named Alessi, Levi was detained on 2 August by the Italians and later charged with co-operating with the British Intelligence Service in Belgrade and in Cairo. The Italian CE service claimed during their first interrogation of Levi that they knew his Cairo W/T set was under Allied control, though this appeared to be based on suspicion rather than confirmed fact. How much of their suspicions they shared with the Abwehr is unclear. The Abwehr only began reporting from November 1941 that “the intrusion of the enemy Intelligence Service into the ROBERTO network is becoming clearer and clearer”, indicating that the Abwehr thought there was some penetration of ROBERTO’s network, but not necessarily suspecting ROBERTO himself. Sentenced to 5 yrs prison for being a danger to the state, Levi was released by the British 8th Army in October 1943. He was then employed by the local AMGOT as an interpreter, and connected with the British authorities in Turkey and Cairo in order to establish his claims for compensation for his detention and the loss of personal funds at the time of his arrest. [12]
There is a possible further chapter to this story. Captain Rene “Mac” Kisray of the British Intelligence Corps was active in Italy, helping to send agents behind enemy lines. One such agent was a “Renato Levy”, described as a former member of the French Foreign Legion. Levy was parachuted with a young man from Genoa behind the lines near Turin, but they were seen descending. To escape the search party the agents split up, Levy stripped naked and gave his clothes to his partner while he hid in a drainage culvert with his W/T set. After the search party moved on, Levy emerged to find his partner had disappeared with his clothes! Naked, he approached a farmhouse occupied by an old lady. He explained his condition by saying he had been found in bed with another man’s wife and had to escape naked. Lacking trousers in her house, she provided him with a gown. He was captured shortly afterwards, but repeated the story to the Italian officer in charge and deployed part of his cover story, claiming to be an Italian officer. His captor believed him, provided him with clothes and set him free.
Levy had been ordered to contact and work with an existing group led by a man called Luciano. He did so, but they soon clashed as Luciano provided no information to send back and spent most of his time in clubs, drinking with women. When Luciano returned to Allied lines he made allegations against Levy, accusing him of cowardice and disobeying orders. When Levy returned to Allied lines he was put into prison in Rome. Kisray saw him in prison and got his side of the story. He succeeded in getting Levy released and Luciano was confronted with Levy and his version. According to Kisray, Levy ended up living in Trieste with the Military Medal and one million lire. Whether this Renato Levy is the same man as CHEESE is not clear, but the similarity in name makes for a strange coincidence. [13]
In the meantime his notional radio operator Nicossof - a role played by a British Signals sergeant [See Footnote a] - continued to provide doctored information (“chicken feed”) to the Abwehr. This W/T channel (known in British radio traffic as LAMBERT) was available to A Force from July 1941, and played an important role in A Force deceptions in October that year to mask the beginning of the Western Desert campaign known as Operation CRUSADER. A telegram sent to SNUFFBOX, Oxford (MI5 covername in radio traffic) in January 1942 reported:
“LAMBERT was the main source by which successful deception recently achieved, resulting in complete strategic surprise at outset of Western Desert Campaign....LAMBERT still in touch but doubt further utility”. [14]
The reliability of ROBERTO’s reporting was not restored in his German controller’s eyes until November 1942, though from July onwards the enemy was requesting daily transmissions in place of the twice-weekly schedule, and his reporting was being assessed as “credible” and “trustworthy” from about this period. Nicosoff was able to claim that original network members responsible for the faulty intelligence of October 1941 had either been interned or had split from the group, disgusted at the lack of monetary reward from the Germans. The handler for the ROBERTO network, Rossetti, moved in late 1941 to Abwehrstelle (Ast) Athens and took control of the case with him. He later moved again, to Istanbul, but the case stayed under Athens’ control.
It has been suggested that the main reason for the rehabilitation of ROBERTO in the eyes of the Germans was the fact that their other, better sources had been closed down. [15] They had been intercepting and decrypting the telegram traffic of the US Military Attache in Cairo, Col Fellers, a fact which eventually became clear to the British through ISOS. After the codes were changed, the leakage stopped. Rommel had also been benefitting from an excellent wireless interception unit which was reading much of the lax British military radio traffic in the field. This stopped when the unit was captured by the British with its records intact, and its leader, Capt Seebohm, was killed.
Through 1943 CHEESE was used to sell a number of deceptions successfully, but by 1945 A Force became concerned that they had little further use for his services in deception work, while his possible use in penetration of the GIS might compromise all A Force deceptions if he were to be blown. By early 1945 Nicosoff was notionally in Greece and his mistress MISANTHROPE was controlling the CHEESE W/T link. The Germans had left behind money and a W/T set for Nicosoff in Greece, and MISANTHROPE in due course informed the Germans that this had not been found. They then proposed for another stay-behind agent in Athens to provide Nicosoff with a W/T set. According to a SIME letter to MI5,
“it was apparent that the longer we continued, the greater would be the difficulty of avoiding the development of CHEESE on penetration, as opposed to deception, lines. ‘A’ Force no longer had an operational use for the link.”“‘A’ Force were very loath to allow CHEESE to become entangled in penetration activities, arguing (quite rightly, in my opinion) that however carefully SPECIAL SECTION and S.I.M.E. Detachment in ATHENS (KLINGOPULOS) handled the case, there was always the possibility that unforeseen complications might lead to German suspicion that CHEESE/MISANTHROPE were working under British control. This in turn might lead the Germans to re-examine all past CHEESE traffic wth a more critical eye than they have done in the past. As far as ‘A’ Force are concerned, it is imperative that CHEESE must not run any risk of being blown; having been running since July 1941, any suspicion falling on this link might ultimately jeopardise the security of all ‘A’ Force activity in the MEDITERRANEAN theatre during the past three years. This is the ‘A’ Force view, and, in my opinion, a very logical one”.
Against the highlighted section in the letter, a comment was written in the margin: “This is contrary to what Harmer told me last year. J.M.” [16] Harmer, presumably, had either been told otherwise or had reviewed the case himself. As Harmer was the DA expert assigned by MI5 to both liaise with G Ops in SHAEF and to become the OC of 104 SCIU [See Footnote b], the section chosen to run DA deception cases in 21st Army Group (21 AG), his opinion must carry some weight in the discussion. “J.M.” was presumably John Marriott, who succeeded Lt Col T A Robertson as head of B1a in MI5 (the Section running all DAs in the UK). The CHEESE case was closed in early 1945. MI5 were keen for the case to be reopened in case