After these efforts in the summer of 1943 Lorenz and Laura faded out of the story. I ascertained after my release that they were still living in their villa and for all I know may still be doing so. When in Moscow I was told that an N.K.V.D. man was being sent to Switzerland who would have, inter alia, the task of interviewing them. I can only hope that they enjoyed it and are still in a position to enjoy their handsome villa and their luxurious mode of life. I somehow think it unlikely that they are still in the net in the espionage sense of the word. If they returned to Russia the net would be more likely to have a literal rather than literary connotation with a strong flavour of labour camp about it.
I informed Moscow of this visit by Lorenz and Laura, and they replied that I must at once move and set up somewhere else in Switzerland. Easier said than done, as at that time I was again in constant radio touch with the Centre and to find another place and to get police permission to move there would take a very long time.
The reason for my daily contact with the Centre was that I was ordered to renew my contact with Rado. He also had been having Abwehr trouble and was anticipating more. In his case it had been partially sheer bad luck. One day in a restaurant he had come face to face with a former Soviet agent who before the war had gone over to the Germans. The agent recognised him and after this Rado believed that he was being watched by the Abwehr. He said that he thought that Margarete Bolli ("Rosie") was being watched also, and he had therefore taken her transmitter away for the moment. He gave no reason for Rosie's having fallen under suspicion and it was only later that I learnt that he had been committing one of the major espionage sins of mixing business with pleasure and had been having an affair with Rosie and that she had been in the restaurant with him when he was spotted.
Another cause for disquiet was that, during the time I had severed contact with Rado, two persons had gone to see Cissie (Rachel Duebendorfer, one of Rado's principal cut-outs), stating that they came from me, and had given both my real and my cover name, Jim. The latter meant nothing to Cissie as she did not know it and anyway we had never met- though we knew of each other's existence. She refused to have anything to do with them and stated that she had never heard of anybody called Foote, and "Jim" conveyed less than nothing to her. I can only assume that this was yet another attempt by the Abwehr to get into the network. Cissie was an old hand at the game, so they may have got her name as a result of interrogations of other captured agents elsewhere.
The Abwehr were not slow to take advantage of the lead given them by the accidental encounter of the traitor Soviet spy with Rado. They decided that Rosie was probably easier game and so concentrated their efforts on her. A handsome blond Aryan Abwehr agent, one Hans Peters, was put on the job. He managed "accidentally" to scrape an acquaintance with the girl and the acquaintance quickly ripened into friendship and more. Time lay heavy on her hands during the day, as she had nothing to do save transmit several nights a week, so she was not averse to having an attentive youth at her beck and call. He was able to take her out and give her a good time; and the Abwehr were not averse to paying for it.
In view of the recognition of Rado and the Cissie incident, Rado and I agreed to limit our contact to the minimum and meet only under cover of darkness. He also contacted the Swiss Communist Party and asked them to have hiding places ready for us if it became necessary for the organisation to go underground. From this time, the end of September, things moved swiftly forward to a crisis.
THE "DOCTORS" DECIDE
The position then, at the end of September 1943, in the "cold war" between the Abwehr and ourselves showed a marked improvement in the Abwehr's score. They had made appreciable progress in their investigations into the network. They knew my name and address and that I was running a network and a transmitter in Lausanne. They knew Rado's name and address and had an agent well in with one of his organisation. They knew that Cissie had something to do with the network. They did not know of any connection between Rado and me.
So far emphasis has been laid on German activities against us and little or nothing has been said as regards the Swiss, who after all were somewhat concerned, because though the organisation was not directed against Swiss interests we were to some extent abusing Swiss hospitality by our activities. Also, as a last resort, if kidnapping and strong-arm methods failed, the Abwehr could always tip off the Swiss and have us arrested by the Bupo, which would at least liquidate a portion of the network. This was not, however, necessary, as the Swiss had not been inactive.
The Swiss had an efficient monitoring system and it subsequently transpired that they, like the Germans, had been monitoring our traffic for some time. Their original information, however, came from a casual source - or so I was told by the Swiss police after my arrest.
At some time, it must have been a year or so previously, one of the wireless staff at the Geneva airport had been casually twiddling the tuning dial of his set. No planes were due in and he had no signals to listen to and was looking for something on the short wave with which to lighten his boredom. Suddenly he picked up a strong signal transmitting in Morse but in code and using amateur procedure. This intrigued him as all amateur radio transmissions had been forbidden in Switzerland since the outbreak of war, and anyway an amateur transmitting five-figure groups was somewhat more than unusual. He noted the call sign and frequency and reported the matter to his superiors, and the report finally filtered through to the Bupo and the army.
The station was monitored and in due course by D.F. they discovered that it was located in Geneva. In the course of their investigations they came across another set, also working from the town and using a similar procedure. These sets were, of course, those of Bolli and Hamel. At that time the Swiss police were under the impression that these were either British transmissions or possibly a local Communist network working into Germany. It seems likely that at the same time they also picked up my transmissions from Lausanne and monitored them as well.
Exactly why the Swiss took no action for a period of at least a year, and only started offensive action against these sets in the autumn of 1943, I do not know. It is possible that they were hoping to get enough traffic to enable them to break the cipher, or it may be that they were unwilling to take action against sets which they thought were being worked by the Allies. Indeed they might never have taken action against them unless pressure had been brought to bear by the Abwehr, who could and may have given them the facts. The only people who can answer that question are the Swiss police and the Swiss General Staff. The fact remains that it was not till the autumn that any serious action was taken- and this speedily proved successful.
Mobile D.F. vans were ordered into action but it was not easy to locate the exact whereabouts of the two Geneva transmitters, as they were in a built-up area (which was the precise reason why they had been put there by us). When the vans had pinpointed the two transmitters to a comparatively small area, another technique was brought into play, one which was originated, I believe, by the Germans and used with much success to locate Allied transmitters working in occupied countries. During the time that the sets were on the air they cut off the current from each house in succession. When on pulling the switch the set went off the air they were certain that they had identified the house in which it was located. This they did, in turn, with both Bolli's and Hamel's transmitters.