I also learned that they knew of the plan of escape for the Hamels and Bolli, since they had deciphered some of the Centre's messages to Rado which mentioned it. As a result they had moved the three from Geneva, and they, too, were now in the Bois Marmet prison. They had been monitoring both Rado's and my transmissions for a long time and were now busy deciphering all Rado's back traffic to see if it would give them any new lines.
My time in prison was not unpleasant. For the first time in years I was able to relax completely, and I settled down to what I imagined would be a long stay as I did not believe it likely that I would be released until the end of the war, by which time all my usefulness to the Centre would be over. Life in any prison is much the same, and enough books have been written about it without my adding to the number. I was allowed to wear my own clothes and buy anything I wanted from outside, including one hot meal a day, wine, tobacco, etc., so I did not do badly. I also had transferred to the prison all my store of tinned food, of which I had accumulated about enough to last me for a year if I had ever been forced to go into hiding. Also, imagining that my stay was going to be a long one, I gave up my flat, and the prison authorities obligingly stored all my personal effects. I was thus able to settle down to a peaceful period of eating and reading, and the days merged imperceptibly one into the other. My cell was not uncomfortable though hardly up to the standard of my flat. My principal complaint at first was the noise of the other inmates pacing their cells. Bois Marmet being a remand prison, most of the prisoners were awaiting trial and not yet accustomed to prison life. Later I was transferred to a "political" cell in the women's block which was a haven of peace and quiet.
After the last schnapps party the Swiss police apparently gave me up as a bad job, for I was not bothered again and was left in peace to consume my stock of food and work my way gradually through the prison library.
Early in September 1944, after I had been in prison for ten months, I was visited by a certain Captain Blazer of the Swiss Army Legal Branch. He stated that the federal police had completed their case against me and the rest of the network (by this time they had also arrested Cissie, Lucy, and Taylor) and had handed the case over to the military for the latter to take any action they thought fit. He added that there was no evidence that I had worked against Swiss interests and that therefore I could be released on bail pending trial before a military tribunal if I would first of all sign a statement admitting that I had been working as a Soviet agent. This I refused to do until I could consult my lawyer, whereupon Blazer produced the article in the military code stating that persons detained for espionage or offenses against the neutrality laws were not entitled to legal aid until the case against them had been completed. The police had given me the same answer, though in this case I was given chapter and verse.
I had unfortunately to decline the offer, as it is one of the rules of the Centre that an arrested agent must never admit that he has been working for the Soviet Union. However, a day or so later Blazer came to visit me and said that he was desolated that a person who had worked against the only potential enemy of Switzerland, meaning of course Germany, should stay in prison. He suggested therefore that I sign a statement saying that I had been working for "one of the United Nations" and leave out all mention of the Soviet Union. This I agreed to, and after signing the statement and a check for two thousand francs for my bail I was released on September 8, 1944.
I went straight to a Lausanne hotel and sat down to think things out. Obviously it was impossible for me to do anything till I was certain that the Swiss police really had finished with me and that I was not under surveillance. After a week or so I was certain that at any rate for the moment I was not being shadowed and so started a tour of the various places of conspiracy in the hope of picking up contact again with Cissie, Pakbo, or Jean Beauchamp. I knew all their addresses of course, but for obvious reasons was not going to visit them there in case they were themselves being watched.
The first person I met was Jean. He told me that Rado had never been found by the police and that he and his wife had left Switzerland clandestinely for Paris only a few days before. Rado had told Jean that he would at once contact the Soviet military attaché in Paris and arrange for a courier to be sent to contact him (Jean) in order to re-establish communication and finance the network. Finances were in a very parlous state- far worse even than when I had been arrested. Among other debts, Rado owed the Swiss Communist Party some seventy- five thousand Swiss francs of which twelve thousand were owed to the Geneva branch. Most of this had been borrowed from third parties and they were pressing for repayment, which put the whole Party in a very difficult position.
I also picked up Pakbo at his place of conspiracy. He had never been arrested, though he said that the police were suspicious of him (presumably as a result of some clue left by Rado in his papers which the police seized at Hamel's flat). He believed that the reason he had not been pulled in for questioning was that the police had no concrete evidence. He had seen Rado only twice since the latter had gone into hiding the year before, but had maintained contact with him through Jean Beauchamp.
Pakbo said that his sources were still capable of producing information and he was anxious to get things going again. He was not in the least satisfied with Rado. The latter had gone off cheerfully saying that he would send a courier and money, but had quite omitted to settle any place of conspiracy or to arrange any passwords or recognition signs. In fact he felt that Rado's departure had been dictated more by panic rather than any desire to re-establish the network. Pakbo's personal position was not too easy. He had incurred heavy debts in keeping his sources alive during the time I was in prison and needed money urgently.
He told me one rather amusing incident which shows the ramifications that a spy network may produce. After my arrest Rado, still in hiding, wished to get a message to the Centre suggesting a possible new line of communication. He consulted Pakbo, who said that he might be able to get a message sent to Moscow through the medium of one of the Allies. Despite the reprimand Rado I had received when he suggested taking refuge with the British, he thought this was an excellent plan. He therefore gave Pakbo a message in his cipher, asking if it could be sent on. Through one of his contacts, possibly Salter, Pakbo had the message given to the Chinese military attaché in Berne who re-enciphered it in his diplomatic code and despatched it to Chungking with a request that the Wai Chiao Pu (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) hand it on to the Russian Embassy for onward transmission to Moscow. I learnt when I was in Moscow that the message had arrived. The Centre were furious, for they knew that Rado's code was compromised by that time, and they made no reply. What the Chinese thought about the whole thing will unfortunately never be known.
Finally one night Cissie herself came to our place of conspiracy and all the threads were picked up again. She had been arrested in May of that year together with her daughter Tamara and a former German minister, Paul Boetcher, with whom she was living. At the same time they had arrested Lucy and the cut-out Taylor. Cissie told me that until her arrest she had not known that I had been arrested and had thought that I had merely broken contact with Rado when the latter was compromised and went into hiding, and she had hoped that one day I could contact her at our place of conspiracy. She had kept open her channels of communication with Lucy despite the arrests, and all her other sources were also ready and willing to begin functioning again as soon as there was a new resident director and a channel of communication- and of course the necessary funds. This lack of funds had made Cissie commit a cardinal mistake, one which Moscow was later to regard with the gravest suspicion.