another who followed up on what was learned from these agents. Say nine men and women to support each agent.” [6]
CHEESE/LAMBERT/ROBERTO
Renato Levi, an Italian Jew based in Italy, was born in Split in 1902. Blue eyed, with light brown hair and 5’ 6” in height, with “typically Jewish appearance”, Levi had been recruited by a member of the German Intelligence Service in Genoa in November 1939 to spy for them in France. Levi was by profession a commercial agent, and by nature an “international adventurer”, who had lived in India, Switzerland and Australia as well as his native Italy, and possessed an Australian passport valid to 1940, which was replaced with a British passport.
An acquaintance in Genoa introduced Levi to his chief, Travaglio, who recruited Levi to work for the GIS in France. He immediately reported the approach to the British Consulate and the information was passed to MI6 in Paris. Levi was instructed by them to operate in France under the control of the French Deuxième Bureau. [7] One reference to his work in France in public British files stated that “the French are said to have mishandled his case, but detailed information is lacking." [8] Another document mentions a micro-photographed questionnaire concerning British or French military and air force dispositions.
Levi apparently failed to accomplish his mission, which he described as “a wild goose chase” to his German superiors in Italy when he returned on the fall of France in 1940, but he was soon approached again by the GIS. His original recruiter introduced him on to Lt Col Otto Helfferich (Abwehr liaison to the Italian SIM) and Sonderfuehrer Clemens Rossetti (real name Kurt Clemens von Rabe or Raabe) [9], who ran a spy ring aimed at the Middle East, and as a result Renato Levi was recruited to set up a spy network in Egypt. Rossetti was a very active agent, travelling widely in the Middle East and involving himself in numerous cases, which made him a target of interest to the British, though they understood both from ISOS and from defector and agent reports that he and his former superior in France were not well regarded within the Abwehr.
Levi, using a German passport in the name of Renato Ludovici, set off for Cairo on 7 December 1940 with fellow agent Gioyanni Magaraggi, alias Fulvio Melcher, who was to provide the radio contact back to their control in Bari, Italy. Travelling via Belgrade, Sofia, and Turkey, they were held for three weeks in Istanbul by the authorities for passing counterfeit money, requiring covert British intervention with the Turks to secure Levi’s release. Melcher, however, returned to Italy upon his release.
Levi continued on to Haifa, now using a British passport, and was welcomed in February 1941 by the British, who had been informed by London back in June 1940 to expect his arrival, and he was debriefed by SIME in Jerusalem on his tasking and the potential contacts provided by the enemy. This provided no new information, so Levi was then flown by the RAF to Cairo. The original Case Officers for CHEESE were Mr WJ Kenyon-Jones of SIME (later Capt, then Col and Deputy Head of SIME), and later Capt Evan John Simpson. Kenyon-Jones was described as “over six foot tall and broad for his height, a very good rugger [sic – rugby] player, remarkably original for an HQ officer in his ideas of dress... the brains and the organizer” of SIME. [10]
To build up the agent and make his communications more efficient for deception purposes, SIME came up with the idea of having CHEESE recruit a malcontent called Paul Nicossof (a notional character) 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
