Decoding the IRA (49 page)

Kate Gussfeldt was a 28-year-old German communist, who first came to the attention of the British authorities in the winter of 1924 in Cologne, which was then under British military occupation following the war. She was found in the company of a British soldier in a café and arrested by the ‘British Morality Police' as a suspected prostitute.

In 1924 the secret service observed her as she made three trips to Britain to attend and address meetings of the Comintern front organisation, the Workers' International Relief Committee or WIR. On her second
visit she stayed in Glasgow and met with the well known activist, Helen Crawford. They travelled together to a communist women's conference in Manchester, and realising that she was being tailed, she swapped clothes with Crawford, allowing her to elude the police and return to the continent using a German passport in a false name. Helen Crawford had spent time in Ireland as a communist organiser in 1925 and remained in close contact with the IRA supporter Charlotte Despard.

In 1925 Gussfeldt travelled to New York, returning to Europe in January 1927. That year she attended the League Against Imperialism meeting in Brussels, acting as an interpreter at secret meetings.

In March 1927 MI5 sent details to customs with instructions to arrest a woman with a British passport in the name of ‘Ethel Chiles' on her arrival in the country. Gussfeldt, was observed arriving at Dover by boat from Calais and was followed to London, where Scotland Yard detectives arrested her at Victoria Station. She gave her name as ‘Ethel Chiles' of Clapton and refused to give further information or make a statement. The following day she was charged with entering the UK on an ‘irregular passport' and refusing to answer questions as to her identity and nationality. However, as the passport was found to have been issued by the British Foreign Office, the charge was dropped and a new charge of ‘conspiring with some person or persons unknown to obtain by false pretences a British passport' was substituted. British intelligence suspected her of arriving in Britain ‘in order to get in touch with a certain suspect group in London'.

While under arrest she sent a message to Helen Crawford. Meanwhile MI5 went through her belongings in fine detail. Labels on her suitcases showed that she was travelling from Berlin to Britain. All the other labels had been removed so as to prevent tracing her movements – except for one: a small torn piece of a label indicating that she had recently been to New York. Among her luggage were ‘a vast number of pieces of soap and bottles of scent' which were chemically analysed, but turned up nothing. There was also a deflated rugby ball, which posed a challenge to the secret service: ‘So far no one has been able to offer any solution as to this!' A first aid kit contained two small tubes of potassium permanganate, which was an antiseptic but could also be used as both an invisible ink and developer.

There were three notebooks. One included rather mediocre poetry
written in German. Another was a diary, which contained information written in secret ink concerning three American ex-Air Service officers. The first was Lieutenant Herbert O'Fahy, who had spent five years in the Air Service but was dismissed in 1923 for ‘flying very low over a Lincoln Memorial meeting while President Harding was speaking'. He was currently employed ‘sky writing' and dropping pamphlets on race meetings, etc. Next was Frank, a pilot who wanted to serve in the Soviet Air Force. And lastly, George, a member of the American Communist Party, was a research engineer with Western Electric, specialising in radios.

With the aid of an ‘informant' within the London IRA, MI5 was able to trace the origin of her passport. The passport, issued by the London Passport Office, was obtained through Thomas Cook and Sons and posted to Kate Gussfeldt in Germany. An ‘Englishman' Frank Mathews had brought the application form to the Thomas Cook office and the referee on the application was a Dr Gately. British intelligence tracked the doctor down and described him as ‘a doctor addicted to low habits and a tippler'. They agreed with him that his signature had been forged. MI5 noted another coincidence; the letter sent to Donnelly, a British military policeman imprisoned for stealing government codebooks, was also signed in the name ‘Dr Gately'. ‘Ethel Chiles' gave her address as 62 Rendlesham Road, which also happened to be that of the Woods family ‘whose connection with the Irish Republican Movement is well known'. One of the young men of the family had been deported from Britain in 1923 due to his suspected IRA links.

After Gussfeldt's arrest the police interviewed Mrs Woods, but she remained unaware of the purpose of their visit, until she read later in the paper of the arrest of ‘Ethel Chiles'. She then sent a message to an IRA man ‘O'Neill' that she needed to meet him urgently. ‘O'Neill' told her to ‘say she knew nothing' if asked about the passport. At the same time MI5 were watching the short personal notices (commonly placed in newspapers at the time) for any cryptic message that could be connected with the case. They puzzled over messages such as: ‘Can I have lumble? Tumble. Wumbles' – which was carefully cut out of
The Times
by an agent and pasted into the Ethel Chiles file. But the message that caught their attention was one which Helen Crawford was suspected of having inserted:
‘W.- Thanks for message. Longing 2 c u 2. –M. Received. Be more cautious. Not settled yet'.

At the same time as Kate Gussfeldt's arrest George reported to Moss Twomey: ‘Things are very hot at present'.
²
Twomey replied: ‘Have you any fears for [the] connection on account of [the] matter about which you sent [the] newspaper cuttings?'
³
To which George added: ‘I don't think there is the slightest danger, but you never know what they may come across. I took all the precautions I could'.
⁴

The informer inaccurately reported to MI5: ‘that this type of work is not being conducted with the knowledge or sanction of the heads of the IRA in Ireland and their funds do not benefit by any money received. It is a private venture on the part of one or two senior IRA officers here who have got in touch with the Russian and German agents and are pocketing the proceeds. They are making use of people like the Woods and Donnelly in a pretence that the work is being done for the Irish cause'.

MI5's opinion was that Gussfeldt ‘was acting as an important agent, not only in connection with the Irish Republican Intelligence Service' and that ‘she had come over for the purpose of working with the German agent [
sic
] and in his absence taking charge of the business here'. MI5 suspected that both the Russian and German intelligence agencies could have been involved.

So MI5 was on to something but they hadn't quite got to the bottom of it. It's clear from the communications sent to Twomey that GHQ authorised the passport scheme. Who was the IRA informant? Maybe a disaffected or laid off officer? Gussfeldt was a Soviet spy and was involved with military espionage in America. Whether she was going to work with the IRA in Britain or not is not clear. Was ‘James' the ‘German agent'? There are so many threads to this story: Helen Crawford, Donnelly, the ‘German agent', etc.

After a few months detention Kate Gussfeldt was deported back to Germany.

Notes

Abbreviations used in footnotes

Adjt: adjutant

AG: adjutant general

CS: chief of staff

DI: Director of Intelligence

MD: Minister of Defence

MTUCDA: Moss Twomey Papers University College Dublin Archives

OC: officer commanding

QMG: quartermaster general

I
NTRODUCTION

1
CS to OC No. 3 Area Britain, 24 February 1924 [1927], in MTUCDA P69/48 (242).

2
Friedman, W and Callimahos, L.
Military Cryptanalytics
(originally published by the National Security Agency, re-published by Aegean Park Press, Laguna Hills, 1985), Part 1, Vol. 1, p. 12.

3
‘The National Security Agency',
Wikipedia,
reviewed 1 May 2008.

4
S to Mr Jones, 10 November 1926, in MTUCDA P69/183 (173–4); chairman to An Timthire, 3 February 1927, in MTUCDA P69/183 (121–2 and 123–5).

5
JB to Mr Brown, 26 November 1926, in MTUCDA P69/183 (168–9); [JB] to Mr Browne
[sic]
26 December 1926 [the date marked on the letter is ‘26 November' but this appears to be in error], in MTUCDA P69/183 (155, 156); chairman to Mr Jones, 3 February 1927, in MTUCDA P69/183 (115, 116–18).

6
Hanley, B.,
The IRA, 1926–1936
(Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2002), p. 193.

7
Adjt Dundalk batt to director of intelligence, 11 [August] 1927, in MTUCDA P69/196 (105).

8
Merriam –
Webster on Line,
entry titled ‘call house', reviewed 2 May 2008.

9
CS to OC Scotland, 24 February 1924 [1927], in MTUCDA P69/48 (296).

10
1st Staff Officer [Offaly] to CS, 5 December 1923 [1926], in MTUCDA P69/41 (248).

11
Hanley,
The IRA, 1926–1936
, p
.
200.

C
HAPTER
1: T
HE
IRA' S C
OMMUNICATIONS
S
ECURITY

1
Definitions of some cryptographic terms may be found at the end of this chapter.

2
The American Cryptogram Association may be contacted through their website
http://www.cryptogram.org
.

3
D'Imperio, M.,
The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma
(National Security Agency, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, 1978)

4
Kahn, D.,
The Codebreakers
(The Macmillan Company, New York, 1967).

5
Pelling, N.,
The Curse of the Voynich
(Compelling Press, Surbiton, Surrey, 2006).

6
C/S to [no name], No. 84, 16 June 1927, in MTUCDA P69/48(3).

7
Friedman, W.F. and Callimahos, L.D.,
Military Cryptanalytics Part I Volume 1
, p. 12.

8
Suetonius Tranquillus, G.,
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars
(Gutenberg.org document 6400, 2006); (1) Gaius Julius Caesar, para. LVI.

9
[no name] to H.S., Ref S/83, 2 June 1927, in MTUCDA P69/48(12).

10
Chief of staff to OC South Dublin batt. C:12, 5 April 1927, in MTUCDA P69/ 48(78).

11
M.D. to H.S., 23 June 1927, in MTUCDA P69/48(1).

12
Smith to Browne, 2 December 1926, in MTUCDA P69/183(165).

13
H.S. to M.D., 20 June 1924 (1927), in MTUCDA P69/48(2).

14
M to D/Intelligence, A/155, 26 December 1927, in MTUCDA P69/196(14).

15
To C/S, 20 May 1923 (1926), in P69/47(174).

16
J.B. to Mr Brown, Despatch No. 5, 26 November 1926, in MTUCDA P69/ 183(168).

17
To George, Ref. MD 10, 2 May 1927, in MTUCDA P69/148(75).

18
OC No. 3 Area, Britain to adj. general GHQ, 4 October 1926, in MTUCDA P69/ 171(3).

19
To adjt. No.3. Area Britain, 16 November 1926, MTUCDA P69/47(58).

20
Chief of staff to OC South Dublin batt. C:12, 5 April 1927, in MTUCDA P69/ 48(78).

21
Internet website
http://www.gutenberg.org
.

22
Web 1T 5-gram Version 1
, Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania, 2006.

23
LS for D/Intelligence to C/S, 5/5/26, in MTUCDA P69/44(66).

24
‘Pages from a Communications Log Book', in MTUCDA P69/195.

25
D/I to C/S, 6/2/25, in MTUCDA P69/137(13).

26
Chairman Army Council to An Timthire, 2 March 1927 in MTUCDA P69/ 183 (88).

27
Chairman of Army Council to An Timthire, 24 February 1927 in MTUCDA P69/ 183 (106).

28
To Mr Jones, 14 December 1926 in MTUCDA P69/183(161).

29
Jude Patterson to James Gillogly, private message, 26 November 2007.

30
Chairman to An Timthire, 6 May 1927, in MTUCDA P69/183(56).

31
C/S to D/Intelligence, CD/7, 4 May 1923 (1926), in MTUCDA P69/44(62).

32
Communications logbook entries, undated, in MTUCDA P69/195.

33
Kahn,
The Codebreakers,
pp. 145–9.

34
Dodgson, C. L. (as Lewis Carroll), ‘The Alphabet-Cipher', in
The Complete Works of
Lewis Carroll
(Modern Library, New York, 1936), pp. 1283–4.

35
Kahn,
The Codebreakers,
pp. 216ff.

36
Ibid.,
pp. 77–8.

37
C/S to D/Intelligence, CD/7, 4 May 1923 (1926) in MTUCDA P69/44(62).

38
To QMG, F/A 52, 3 Deire Foghmhair 1925, in MTUCDA P69/208(6).

39
See Chapter 11 for a more complete exposition of the context of this message.

40
D/I to C/S, 6/2/25, in MTUCDA P69/137(13).

41
Callimahos, Lambros D.,
Traffic Analysis and the Zendian Problem
(National Security Agency, 1959. Reprinted by Aegean Park Press, 1989).

C
HAPTER
2: T
HE
IRA'S
SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATIONS

1
Earl Long was a populist politician from Louisiana and brother of the well-known Huey Long. The above quote is a paraphrase, the full version being: don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything
you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink.
Wikipedia
website, ‘Earl Long', reviewed 27 February 2008.
Brainyquote.com,
‘Earl Long quotes', 8 May 2008.

2
Director of Intelligence to IO Waterford, 27 May 1924 [1927], in MTUCDA P69/ 196 (163).

3
An Timthire to [unaddressed], 18 March 1927, in MTUCDA P69/183 (80).