Ace of Spies (34 page)

The plan was essentially to mount a campaign of raids on Russia's museums, aimed at robbing them of art treasures, which would then be smuggled to the West and sold by Reilly. This does not appear to have been an ‘off the cuff' suggestion, as Reilly apparently produced a detailed list which included French masters, Rembrandts, antique coins, engravings and miniatures. Yakushev was less than impressed and voiced grave misgivings about Reilly's scheme, protesting that this would ‘ruin' the organisation's reputation. Reilly merely brushed this off, telling Yakushev that ‘for the sake of money, a reputation may have to be sacrificed'.
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He also promised to supply Yakushev with $50,000 to finance the appropriation scheme as well as an introduction to Churchill, should Yakushev be able to visit England.

As dusk gathered Reilly said his goodbyes and got into the car he thought was taking him to Moscow's October Station to catch the night train back to Leningrad. As the car entered Moscow Reilly asked if he could be taken to a safe-house in order that he
could write and post a letter to his English contact (Ernest Boyce) to confirm that he had actually been in Moscow. This was agreed and they went to the apartment of Eduard Opperput. As soon as Reilly had posted the letter and returned to the car, handcuffs were snapped onto his wrists and the car sped off not to the railway station but the OGPU's feared Lubyanka building. Before the Revolution, the palatial Lubyanka had been the headquarters of the All Russian Insurance Company. One of the building's apparent attractions for the Cheka was its cavernous cellars. From the subterranean world below street level no one on the outside could hear the firing squads that during the ‘Red Terror' had often worked around the clock.

On arrival Reilly was taken to the office of Roman Pilar, who had arrested Savinkov the previous year. Pilar reminded Reilly that he was still effectively under sentence of death from the 1918 tribunal, and counselled that full co-operation was his best policy. By all accounts Reilly kept his composure throughout and other than confirming his own identity refused to answer any questions about the identities of other British spies in Russia. Reilly was also searched, and according to Mikhail Trilliser, head of the OGPU's Foreign Intelligence Department, found to be in possession of unspecified ‘valuables' that had apparently been ‘hidden in Leningrad'.
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He was then taken to cell 73 and from then on would be referred to as ‘Prisoner 73', or simply ‘73'.

The next day, 28 September, the OGPU staged an incident on the border at the very time and location where Reilly and his companions were due to cross back into Finland.

Villagers in Vanha Alakyla heard several volleys of rifle fire. In full view of the Finnish border guards on the other side of the river, a truck arrived and two apparently dead bodies were loaded into the back of the van which then drove away. A meeting of the Trust's Council was convened in Moscow and was informed that Reilly was one of the two dead. The OGPU was clearly banking on word getting out from this meeting, via the genuine White Russian conspirators involved, back to their contacts in
Helsingfors. Pepita, meanwhile, was trying to contact her husband at the Hotel Andrea in Vyborg, where he should have arrived that evening. When he failed to arrive she sent Boyce a telegram on 30 September: ‘No news from Sidney since twenty-fifth. Should have returned today. Hotel Andrea Vyborg expected him yesterday, but wired has not arrived. What steps shall I take? Wire if you have news – very anxious'. Boyce sent a short to the point reply, ‘Have had no news whatever, have telegraphed'.
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The next day he sent Pepita a letter:

Dear Mrs Reilly
I have heard from no one as to Sidney's condition. In fact I have had no news from that part of the world since I left. Judging from your telegram he has apparently undergone the operation after all. This is rather a surprise to me as I thought the doctors in Paris considered it unnecessary. I suppose further complications must have set in which decided him to have the operation. As I understood it the operation was a simple one but his recovery might take a little longer than was expected. We must not get panicky. I am sure he is in safe hands and everything will be done to make his recovery as speedy as possible. It will not help us to send frantic telegrams. We shall hear as soon as he is able to get about again.
¹⁹

As Reilly reflected on his predicament in cell 73, he may well have hoped that on learning of his capture, the British government would take steps to have him extradited, or swapped as they had done with Lockhart back in 1918. In this belief he clearly adopted the view that his best chance of survival was to play for time.

C
ontrary to popular opinion, Reilly was not tortured or subjected to any physical maltreatment by the OGPU. Seventy-seven years later, Boris Gudz, then a twenty-three-year-old OGPU liaison officer attached to Vladimir Styrne, recalled that, ‘no physical methods were used, I can guarantee that'.
¹
From the very start their approach was clearly one of respect for someone they considered a worthy adversary. Although he made several statements about himself, his background and his activities since he was last in Russia, he would not be drawn on any of the matters the OGPU most wanted to know about. Vladimir Styrne, credited with being one of the OGPU's best interrogators, duly noted the results of his initial interviews with Reilly:

7 October 1925
I, Deputy Head of KRO OGPU, Styrne, questioned the accused citizen Reilly, Sidney George, born 1874, Clonmel (Ireland), British subject, father, captain in the navy. Permanent residence, London and more recently New York. Captain in the British Army. Wife abroad. Education: university; studied at Heidelberg in the faculty of philosophy; in London, the Royal Institute of Mines, specialising in chemistry. Party: active Conservative. Was tried
in November 1918 by the supreme tribunal of the RSFSR, the Lockhart case
(in absentia)
.
²

The following is the full, unedited version of the statement which Reilly made to Styrne, taken from his OGPU file:

During the 1914 war, I joined the army as a volunteer in 1916, until 1915 I lived in New York where I was engaged in military supplies, including supplies to the Russian government. After joining the British Army as a volunteer, I was appointed to serve in the Royal Flying Corps (from 1910 I was engaged in aviation and can regard myself as one of the aviation pioneers in Russia; I was one of the founders of ‘Krylia', the first aviation society in Russia), where I worked until January 1918. In January 1918 I joined a secret political service, where I worked until 1921, after which I set up a private business of a financial nature (loans, stock companies and so on). During my service in the Royal Flying Corps I had no occasion to come to Russia... In March 1918, being on ‘Secret Service', I was sent to Russia as a member of the British mission as an expert to report on the current situation (I held the rank of lieutenant at the time). I arrived in Petrograd through Murmansk, then proceeded to Vologda, and subsequently came to Moscow, where I stayed until 11 September 1918, spending most of my time on numerous trips between Moscow, Petrograd and Vologda.

From passive intelligence work, I, like other members of the British mission, gradually switched to a more-or-less active fight against Soviet power, which I did for the following reasons:

The signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty on terms very profitable to Germany naturally aroused concerns about joint actions the Soviet powers and the Germans would take against the Allied powers, to which I should add the existence of numerous reports (which ultimately proved to be mendacious) on the movement of German prisoners from Russia back to Germany, and finally, the anger caused by the oppression of the Allied missions by the Soviet power. I believe that the Soviet government at that time pursued the wrong
policy towards at least the British mission, for Lockhart, up to the end of June, in his reports to the British government, recommended that it should pursue a soft line towards the Soviet power. At that time, as far as I remember, the Soviet Government was especially concerned about establishing a regular army, and Trotsky many times discussed this issue with Lockhart, stressing the importance of sympathies for this cause on the part of the Allied governments. The situation radically changed after Mirback's arrival and the continuous concessions of the Soviet power to his demands (the demands of the German government).

Mirbach's death triggered an immediate repression against us. We had anticipated that the Germans, apart from other claims, would demand the expulsion of all Allied missions, which did actually happen. Right after that, searches were made of the consulates and some mission members were arrested, but soon released. Also, the order was made banning all Allied officers to travel. From this very moment, I started my fight against Soviet power, which manifested itself mostly in military and political intelligence and in identification of the active elements that could be used in the fight against the Soviet government. For this purpose, I went underground and obtained documents from various persons; for some period of time, for example, I was a commissar in charge of transporting spare vehicle parts during the evacuation from Petrograd, which provided me with a good opportunity to travel between Moscow and Petrograd without any restrictions, even in the commissar's coach. At this time, I resided mostly in Moscow, changing flats nearly every day. The culmination of my work was my talks with Colonel Burzin, whom I met at Lockhart's. The essence of the matter you would know from the proceedings records. At the time I passed on to the patriarch a considerable amount of money allocated for the needs of the clergy which was in distressful circumstances then. I want to stress that I never discussed with the patriarch or his entourage any counter-revolutionary affairs, and my intentions were unknown to the patriarch and to his inner circle. The money was allocated from the funds I had received; I had in my possession considerable amounts of money, which, in view of my special status (total financial independence and exclusive confidence due to my ties with highly
placed persons) were provided me unaccountably. These very funds I spent on my fight against Soviet power.

I believe that the persons that were brought to the Lockhart trial had nothing to do with me, or in some cases, had a very remote relation to me; as for those who were closely associated with me, they fled to the Ukraine after the discovery of the plot. Meanwhile, I had a very vast net of informers, which I also immediately dissolved right after the discovery of the Lockhart case. I financed their flee to the Ukraine.

Reilly then related the story of his escape from Petrograd (reproduced in Chapter Ten), before moving on to recount:

I was then appointed a political officer in the south of Russia and left for Denikin's headquarters in the Crimea, in the south-east and in Odessa. In Odessa I stayed until the end of March 1919, and by the order of the British High Commissioner in Constantinople, I was dispatched to make a report on the current situation on the Denikin front and the political situation in the south to officials in London and to Britain's representatives at the Peace Conference in Paris. In the course of the Peace Conference, I was a liaison in charge of Russian affairs with different departments in London and Paris; during that time, I met B.V. Savinkov. Through 1919 and 1920, I had close relations with different representatives of the Russian émigré parties (the SRs in Prague, the Savinkov organisation, commercial and industrial circles and so on). At that time, I was pressing my comprehensive plan through the British Government concerning support of Russian commercial and industrial circles, headed by Yaroshinsky, Bark and others. All this time, I served the secret service, my main responsibility being to make reports on Russian affairs for Britain's higher echelon.

At the end of 1920, having become a rather close intimate of Savinkov's, I went to Warsaw, where Savinkov was then organising a foray into Belorussia. I personally took part in the operation and was inside Soviet Russia. Ordered to return, I went back to London. In 1921 I continued to provide active support to Savinkov, took him to
London and introduced him to government circles. The same year I took him to Prague, where I introduced him to government contacts. I also arranged his secret flight to Warsaw.

In 1922 my strategy changed. I was disappointed with intervention. I became increasingly inclined to the opinion that the most appropriate way of struggle would be to reach an agreement with the Soviet power such that would throw open the gates of British commerce and business to Russia. At that time I proposed a project for the establishment of an enormous international consortuim for the restoration of Russian currency and industry, this project was accepted by some in government circles. In charge of this project were the Marconi Company or, to be exact, Godfrey Isaacs, the company's chairman and the brother of the Viceroy of India. This project was discussed with Krasin and eventually dropped, yet nearly all the elements of this project were taken as a base for the proposed international consortium that was established at the time the Genoa conference was held.

In 1923 and 1924 I was primarily preoccupied with my personal affairs. As for my fight against the Soviet power, I was less active here, although I wrote much about it in the papers (British) and supported Savinkov, consulting influential circles in England and America on Russian affairs.

In 1925 I resided in New York. In late September 1925 I illegally crossed the Finnish border and arrived in Leningrad and subsequently
Moscow where I was arrested.
[signed] Sidney Reilly
³

Two days after making this statement, on 9 October, Reilly volunteered that:

I arrived in Soviet Russia on my own initiative, hearing from Bunakov of the existence of an apparently important anti-soviet group. I have always been actively engaged in anti-Bolshevik matters and to these I have given much time and my personal funds. I can state that the years 1920–24, for instance, cost me at a very minimum calculation £15,000-£20,000.
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