If I may jump ahead of my narrative a trifle and continue with financial matters, this system suited us admirably for a year or so, and a number of innocent American firms were unwitting paymasters for the network. In 1942, however, things became a trifle more difficult. By this time we had been told by the Centre that America was the only place through which we could be financed and that it was not the slightest good thinking in terms of Great Britain, Sweden, or China. (I had never seriously contemplated the proposal to use the last country. It was complicated enough trying to deal with America- the imagination boggles at the proposition of trying from Switzerland to cope adequately with the black market in Chungking.)
In 1942 the American security authorities decided that the financial arrangements for the transfer of currency abroad must be tightened up, as at that time they gave admirable loopholes through which it would be possible to finance an enemy espionage network in the United States. As a result, as a first and simple measure, it was enacted that in future banks were to inform the United States Treasury of all details regarding large cash deposits. This, not unnaturally, rather disrupted our system of financing the network as it prevented the current procedure. The Centre informed me of the new regulations and asked me to devise a new scheme. As usual they were singularly uninspired. I then delved into the dim twilight world of the local black bourse and discovered that there were a large number of individuals who had friends in America who were prepared to take the place of my well-established firms and quite certain that their relatives would not question a sudden windfall of a few thousand dollars to the credit of their relative in Switzerland. As a result I substituted individuals for firms and the whole procedure went on as merrily as before; the only difference being that instead of benefiting firms of repute, the profits of these transactions went into the pockets of the shadier members of the black-currency underworld.
The whole procedure, though simple in essence, was made immensely more complicated as I had to provide explanations to all and sundry for my desire to transfer these large sums and also the reason why I had them. It would be as tedious as it would be difficult for me to remember the variety of lies that I told to cover up these deals. I think that, on the whole, they did good, for they enhanced my reputation as an eccentric millionaire- as only a millionaire would do deals at such a ruinous rate of exchange. The rate I got was based not on the rate for a check on New York but on the rate of a dollar bill- and as any traveller abroad knows who goes to a "free market," there is the world of difference between the two. A short and cursory study today of the exchange boards of the money-changers in, for example, Tangier will show the difference.
I also had to explain how I knew that the transaction had gone through. In fact, I was of course always told by the Centre that they had paid the money into the bank in New York and I could, and did, then so inform the company or individual concerned through my Swiss friend. I naturally could not tell them I had heard over my secret transmitter that the deal was completed. As a result I used to inform them that, before the war broke out, I had envisaged such a possibility and had arranged a plain language code with my agents by whom they would inform me when a deal was through. All cables were scrutinised by the Swiss and British censorships, and after Pearl Harbour by the Americans as well, so that it was out of the question to say that I had heard through normal channels. Quite often I heard from Moscow before the intermediary in Switzerland had been informed. This did not matter usually; I could laugh it off on the cover story of my plain language code. On several occasions, however, Moscow told me that the money had been paid and it proved that this statement was merely a pious hope. The Centre had told their resident director in America to do the necessary but it had not been done. In most cases this was due to pressure of work at the American end intermingled with sheer incompetence. On at least one occasion- as I learnt when I was in Moscow- the money had been embezzled by the courier, who had "gone private" with the ten thousand dollars; to my intense embarrassment as I had assured my Swiss contact - as the Centre had assured me- that the money had been paid over.
The speed of the transactions varied. Moscow told me that they could guarantee to do the whole thing from start to finish in ten days- given the requisite names. Sometimes it took a great deal less, often a great deal longer, and the longer it took the more my grey hairs grew. The financing of a Russian espionage network in wartime in the face of currency and exchange regulations was no joke, and I take a great deal of credit to myself that despite my original, pardonable ignorance of international finance and the black bourse and the lack of ideas from Moscow, I was able to keep the whole organisation solvent until my arrest.
As I have said, at this time I was seeing Rado only about twice a month in the normal course of events. It had been the original intention of the Centre to keep Rado's and my networks entirely separate once his communications were established. The idea had been that we should gradually draw apart during those spring months of 1941 and become two entirely independent organisations, as had been the position with his and Sonia's networks before the fall of France. Despite this desire on the part of the Centre to keep us apart, they had instructed Rado to arrange a place of conspiracy for me and for his principal cut-outs so that if ever anything happened to him I could step into his shoes. In point of fact the invasion of Russia put an end once and for all to any idea of separating our two organisations. The volume of traffic and the complexity of the work made it more and more imperative that we work closely in contact- and we continued to do so until the end.
In the early part of June 1942 I received instructions from the Centre to meet Rado at least twice a week and take the burden of some of the transmission work of his organisation. Rado was not a trained operator and even if he had been he had not a transmitter under his hand. From the time of receipt of information by him to its despatch over the air some twenty-four hours was liable to elapse. I, on the other hand, could encipher and send off my information in the course of one evening, as I had the set on the premises. As a result, for urgent information the Centre began to rely on me as the vehicle- though of course Rado still was the focal point for its collection.
The messages I sent to Moscow early in June had an ominous sound, and it appeared to me that if they were true the era of perpetual peace between Russia and Germany, which had been so loudly announced by Ribbentrop and Molotov less than two years ago, was rapidly coming to an end. Most of the information on this subject came from Lucy and from his source Werther in the German high command. Werther reported wholesale troop movements to the East, and unless the whole thing was an elaborate strategic bluff the information could mean only one thing- that Germany was about to unleash an attack in the East - if the information was true. At that time the Centre was deeply suspicious of Lucy. His information was regarded as too factual and too exact and Moscow suspected that the original source of it was the Abwehr, who were building up a source for use for deception purposes later. The Centre could not understand why the cut-out Taylor could not reveal the identity of his source and were constantly telling Rado to warn Taylor that the source was tainted.
Despite the Werther information and other news coming in from other sources on German troop movements, Rado himself remained firmly optimistic and refused to believe that Germany had any intention of invading Russia. He thought the whole thing was part of the German "war of nerves" to obtain further political and economic advantages from the Soviet Union, and once these were obtained the whole scare would die down.