back both deception and penetration agents, and the improved access to such material must have been a major factor in the development of DA work in the Mediterranean region. As mentioned earlier, MI6(V) sent ISOS information by radio, and their disguising of the material for security reasons resulted in SIME being unable to adequately understand it. “The circumstances were even considered by B Division officers to constitute a danger of misdirection as well as causing SIME to be badly informed”. [34] To improve this situation, MI5 provided B Division officers to assist SIME.
ISLD started up its Counter-Espionage section in December 1941, and in the spring of 1942 an MI5 specialist in DA casework (Col TAR Robertson) visited Egypt to review and advise on casework, so it was decided in March 1942 to create a joint Special Section in SIME to handle jointly all further casework of this type, and the section expanded to a half dozen officers in just over a year. Capt James Robertson of SIME became head of the DA section (consisting of two officers!) for the Middle East, being subordinate to the joint Special Section. The Special Section became the official forum for distribution of ISOS and the analysis of double agent operations, eliminating competition between SIME and the ISLD by centralizing such operations, and was an important step for the Middle East Double-Cross system.
From mid-1942, the various interested agencies held Special Activities Meetings regularly to discuss casework. The arrival of several new enemy agents (see above), some of whom were judged suitable as deception channels, and a report by Capt Robertson on the lack of progress by the Joint Section in counter intelligence operations, led to the creation of a joint committee in December 1942. Col Dudley Clarke hoped to control all new DA cases through the committee, and to have sole authority to decide on usage of DAs. Maunsell of SIME managed to retain the deciding role on agent usage, but the Thirty Committee which was subsequently created did end up being responsible ultimately to A Force. The Special Section was replaced by the new Thirty Committee as the inter-agency body responsible for handling double agents in March 1943. A number of DAs were chosen to work solely for deception purposes, with SIME controlling the actual agent activity, so that A Force officers need not be involved in the physical running of the agents.
If an agent became a deception asset then the deception organization A Force became the final authority for deciding future case handling. This was because in the Middle East, as an area of active operations, “it has been desirable that the operational advantages of successful strategic deception – and the successes have been very considerable – should take precedence of the narrower aims of counter-intelligence.” [35]
According to the minutes of the Thirty Committee, Cairo had a separate Penetration Committee, which probably had an overlapping membership with the Thirty Committee - but it would have had a different chairman, as the emphasis for these cases differed from those controlled for deception. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the various Thirty Committees covered both types of agent. [36]
Double-cross agents used for penetration rather than deception were handled by SIME and ISLD jointly via the Special Section, with liaison and input from A Force. Even where penetration was the main aim, A Force still had a large say in the cases, as they needed to ensure the chickenfeed the agents passed did not conflict with that passed by the deception agents. These cases were not regarded as the primary task of SIME, however; that was operating DA channels for deception. As the MI5 Official History clearly states,
“A number of secondary double-agent channels were also developed with the object of penetrating enemy intelligence organisations operating against the Middle East, including Iraq and Persia from Turkey.”[37]
A visit by Dick White, Deputy Director of MI5’s B Division, in February and March 1943 provided some encouragement to SIME, helping the organization to get recognition of counter intelligence as an accepted goal of the new double-cross system. He arranged for an MI5 team to be sent from London to streamline SIME CI operations and improve ISOS usage, even appointing an MI5 officer (a Major Stephenson) as permanent ISOS representative at SIME to provide analysis and help utilize the decrypts. The Special Section became the SIME Double Agent Section, and Capt Robertson went to London to learn from the MI5 DA experts. [38]
A new ME Section was set up in MI5 to liaise with SIME and ensure a steady flow of ISOS. This was another example of MI5 encroaching onto the turf of Section V’s control over ISOS, though the claim could be made that SIME, based in Cairo, was within British territory. The MI6(V) officer under ISLD cover was responsible for the distribution of ISOS, but the ME section would have ensured that all ME-related ISOS was being sent to SIME, even when MI6(V) might have had reason to withhold certain material for its own reasons. In fact, one of Brigadier White’s recommendations following the visit to Cairo was for SIME to be amalgamated with MI5. This decision, was however, postponed by MI5’s Director General, who foresaw difficulties arising out of “the assumption of responsibilities outside the three-mile limit and outside British territory which would involve adjustment with higher military authorities and with SIS”. [39]
Organizing Deception Across the Mediterranean
As the number of deception channels grew, so did A Force, with Col (subsequently Brigadier) Dudley Clarke being given control of deception for the whole Mediterranean. It was decided by Clarke that he would remain with “Main HQ A Force” in Cairo, now under the control of Col Noel Wild; “Advanced HQ A Force” was opened in Algiers with a US complement under the joint control of British Lt Col Michael H Crichton and Lt Col Carl E Goldbranson, US Army. British Lt Col David Strangeways was responsible from February 1943 for tactical deception in the field, commanding “Tac HQ A Force” under General Alexander’s 18th Army Group, [40] while “Rear HQ A Force” was based in Nairobi, responsible for Indian Ocean matters.
General Eisenhower’s AFHQ had appointed Lt Col Carl Goldbranson, a National Guard officer, as “Cover Officer” to liaise with the LCS on deception. Goldbranson and three other American officers formed part of the new Advanced HQ A Force. Although they had arrived in Algiers in January, Clarke was unable to visit them and help start up the new unit until 15 March, so Goldbranson spent some time learning the ropes with Main HQ A Force in Cairo. He then returned to Algiers to acquire several low-level DAs from the French who might be built up for use in deception. [41] These agents were later discarded as being unsuitable. Goldbranson’s first few months in Algiers proved frustrating as he was not yet aware of ULTRA, and therefore had to be kept in the dark on some of the deception planning. It has been suggested that this lack of progress was a deliberate design by Dudley Clarke to scotch a plan for separate, American-led deception units at AFHQ. It certainly resulted in Goldbranson being posted back to the US in August 1943. [42] It did not however prevent the creation of an all-American unit. No 2 Tac HQ A Force was created from the AFHQ unit for deployment with 7th Army to Southern France.
The French Services worked in clandestine CE units called Travaux Ruraux (TR), since the cover organization for the CE service was the "Societe des travaux ruraux" (Rural Works Company), set up in July 1940 under Commandant Paul Paillole of the Deuxième Bureau. Col Eddy, who was head of OSS in North Africa in 1942, liaised closely with Breitel of the French TR120, and they cooperated on penetration operations and feeding deception to the Abwehr in Tangier and in Tetuan, Spanish Morocco. This deception work was being handled without coordination at a higher level, which was a concern to Commandant Paillole when he learned of it during a visit to TR120. The French unit had several successful wiretaps and bugging operations working - in Casablanca, where Capt Parisot was listening to the German Consul-General’s private conversations, and in Fez, where German and Italian Armistice Commission meetings were being overheard. [43]
When A Force extended its remit to include the newly occupied areas of North Africa following Operation TORCH, the joint CE work with CEAs and DAs was run through the Forty Committees. As well as the Algiers Committee, there were others in Oran
