Book Review | Codename TRICYCLE: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent

CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence

Studies in Intelligence, 2005

Codename TRICYCLE: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent

Russell Miller. London: Secker & Warburg, 2004. 290 pages, endnotes, appendices, photos, index.

Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection

The World War II British double-agent operation run by MI5—first made public in John Masterman's book, The Double Cross System—was one of the most successful undertakings of its kind for two principal reasons: First, the agent-handling tradecraft was excellent; second, the British had broken the Abwehr—the German Security Service—codes used to send instructions and comments to their “agents” so that London had nearly perfect feedback, a genuine basis for trusting the more than 20 double agents. One of the early recruits, Dusko Popov, was a multilingual Yugoslav lawyer solicited by the Abwehr in Belgrade in mid-1940 to work against Britain and eventually America. Popov reported the approach to MI6, which handled overseas operations, and, after careful screening, was given the codename TRICYCLE. In 1974, he published his autobiography, Spy Counterspy, which made several controversial claims. Foremost among them was that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had known about the planned attack on Pearl Harbor beforehand but had failed to warn the country. Only marginally less outrageous were Popov's claims to have been the model for James Bond.

Journalist Russell Miller adds new details to the TRICYCLE story based on recently released documents in British and US national archives and papers provided by the Popov family. He provides many interesting new facts about the Double Cross System and TRICYCLE's handing by MI5, although analysis of their significance in some cases is open to challenge. An example concerns the claim, made by Popov in his book and Miller in his, that TRICYCLE was “the inspiration for” or “rather in the mould of” James Bond (5). Yet the quotations from British intelligence files that Miller cites as evidence raise their own doubts. Miller's assessments that Popov had a greater attraction for women “than might be expected from his personal appearance,” had the facial characteristics of a “Mongolian Slav,” was “a careless dresser,” and was “short, and not handsome” (6) are not suggestive of the James Bonds known to movie goers.[13]

There are also some inaccuracies about the British intelligence players that he mentions. For example, his comment that “Kim Philby . . . ran MI6 operations on the Iberian peninsula” (50) is untrue; Philby was a counterespionage officer and he studied, but did not run, operations.

Miller's difficulties increase when he turns to the American side of the TRICYCLE story. Tasked by the Germans to go to the United States and establish agent networks and find answers to a questionnaire provide by the Abwehr, Popov, in coordination with British intelligence, arrived in New York on 10 August 1941 where he contacted the MI6 station and the FBI. The questionnaire was in the form of a microdot, the first that the Bureau had ever seen. It contained several questions about the naval base at Pearl Harbor. According to Miller, “until the end of his life, Popov was convinced that Hoover, motivated by personal animosity [toward Popov], was responsible for ignoring the clear warning that he had brought with him to the United States that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor” (115). The “personal animosity” charge followed from Hoover's disapproval of the “Balkan playboy” cover persona that Popov executed with skill and persistence.[14] In his book, Popov claims that Hoover did not even send the questionnaire to the White House, the War Department, or the Navy Department. In his well-documented study of these questions, intelligence scholar Thomas F. Troy shows beyond any doubt that Popov is wrong: The questionnaire was sent to the principal agencies involved, although they did nothing.[15] Troy also suggests that if the Pearl Harbor message was as clear as Popov and some historians later claimed, the British would not have relied on a low-level double agent to be the messenger. Miller cites MI5 comments that the Pearl Harbor data should have been transmitted separately, but “no one ever dreamed Hoover would be such a bloody fool” (254–55). He suggests another interpretation might be that the British did not want the Americans to take preventive action that might keep them out of the war and, thus, used TRICYCLE as a courier knowing he was unlikely to get much attention. Miller does not resolve this issue, although he lays out the various sides well.

Codename TRICYCLE adds much new material about Popov's personal life before World War II and in the European business world after the war, but it neglects to mention the prison term he served for financial irregularities. And although Popv was unquestionably a valuable double agent for four years, nothing in the book or his file supports the author's contention that TRICYCLE was the “most extraordinary double agent” in the Second World War. Most experts would give that accolade to Juan Pujo, codenamed GARBO. Finally, the careless errors and many undocumented comments place the book in the easy-to-read-but-of-limited-scholarly-value category.

[13] I met Dusko Popov after his book was published in 1974. There was nothing in his appearance or manner to suggest that he was the role model for James Bond and he indicated that that was publisher hype. He did say that an episode in Ian Fleming's Casino Royale was close to his own experience at a casino during the war that he thought Fleming had witnessed. Miller mentions this on page 89, but does not give a source.

[14] Hoover's final insult to Popov was delivered in a Reader's Digest article in April 1946 in which it was explained “how the FBI ‘discovered' the existence of microdots.” The Balkan playboy was mentioned as the unknowing carrier of the discovery made by the FBI laboratory (248). Miller retaliates by including, as fact, a statement that Hoover “was exposed as a closet homosexual and . . . cross dresser” (92), among other undocumented insults.

[15] Thomas F. Troy, “The British Assault on J. Edgar Hoover: The Tricycle Case,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 3/2, Summer 1989: 169–209.