Jeff Shear's History of "Cynthia," the World War II Spy
Part Four: Ecce Hoover
When Paul Fairly and Elizabeth Brousse were making their quasi-legal connections, in the fall and winter of 1940, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was taking charge of all intelligence operations in the Americas. Here's how it worked. Understanding Madame Brousse is the key to understanding Fairly, as well as the decisions that led to the Allied invasion of North Africa, known as Operation Torch. When you are finished with the comments for this entry, close the window to return to the blog.
Significantly for the future of Anglo-American relations, at least in the near-term, any references or concerns expressed by any of the executive agencies about foreign espionage were to be coordinated through the FBI, and its 44-year-old director, J. Edgar Hoover.
This presidential order succeeded in the creation of the Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference (IIC), which was chaired by Hoover and mediated by Berle, who was not only a thorn in Britain's ambitions, but became the IIC's last court of appeal. Indeed, Hoover often turned to Berle to mediate IIC's internal disputes.
Hoover presented no problem for Paul Fairly, at least not at first. The Navy was free to run its overseas operations. This did not mean, however, that ONI was to use its intelligence capabilities in the service of a wartime belligerent like Britain. First and foremost, the U.S., at this time, was determined to maintain its neutrality.
What is more, the quasi-official history of the British Security Coordination, the murky organization that represented England's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in the Americas, reports that "...ONI and G2...were opposed at that time to collaboration with the British," unless that information was passed to them through Hoover.
That would make Paul Fairly an increasingly puzzling figure. If he was in fact a naval officer working for ONI )which we will explore further). Because the fact remains, Fairly described himself to Brousse as an ONI officer. Which raises the logical question: what was he doing in bed, literally and figuratively, with Brousse?
Brousse returned to New York from her trip to Chile on the 11th of February 1941. Two important changes had occurred in her life. She had, first, informed her husband that she wanted a divorce; and, second, she had discovered that she was pregnant with Fairly's child and nearing the end of her third trimester. For a moment, her pregnancy will remain in the background, although it will figure in future espionage efforts with the Italian navy.
Brousse's arrival back in the states were made festive and strange through Paul Fairly's sense of drama. Rather than simply allowing Brousse's ship, the single-stack USS Santa Clara, to dock in New York, Fairly greeted her with what has been described as an "official" U.S. Naval launch, which then allowed the couple to speed through customs.
While the arrival of the Santa Clara in New York was chronicled by Brousse in her sketchy memoirs, the special nature of her disembarkation raise additional questions about Fairly. Why, for instance, would the U.S. Navy dispense and pay for an official vessel to escort the soon-to-be divorced wife of a minor British embassy official stationed in far off Santiago, Chile into the United States?
Stranger still, why would the Navy allow its vessels -- not to mention its officers -- to be used to escort a British embassy wife to New York's Lexington Hotel, where she would make connections with an official of a foreign intelligence service, working under the auspices of the FBI, and without J. Edgar Hoover's knowledge or approval? The answer is evident on its face: ONI was working with the British despite "the rules of the game" set down by Hoover, Berle and the IIC. And, though he didn't realize it yet, Hoover was being used by a section of British Intelligence he cultivated and may have actually named.
Part Five: A Rogues' Gallery
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