Duško Popov

Dušan "Duško" Popov
Popov photographed in New York City in 1941.
Born	Dušan Popov (1912-07-10)10 July 1912 Titel, Austro-Hungary (present-day Serbia)
Died	10 August 1981(1981-08-10) (aged 69) Opio, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Nationality	Serbian
Other names	"Tricycle"
Alma mater	University of Belgrade University of Freiburg
Occupation	Intelligence officer
Spouse(s)	Jacqueline (1946–1961; divorced) Jill Jansen (1962–1981; his death)
Children	4
Parent(s)	Milorad Popov, Zora Popov
Espionage activity
Allegiance	Yugoslavia United Kingdom Nazi Germany
Service branch	VOA, MI6, Abwehr
Service years	1940–1945
Codename	Duško, Ivan, Tricycle, Scoot
Operations	World War II

Dušan "Duško" Popov, OBE (Serbian Cyrillic: Душан "Душко" Попов; 10 July 1912 – 10 August 1981) was a Serbian triple agent. During World War II he worked for the military intelligence and counterintelligence of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under the code name "Duško". He also worked for MI6 under the code name "Tricycle" and the German Abwehr under the code name "Ivan". Popov has been cited as an inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond.

Early life

Dušan "Duško" Popov was born to a Serb family in Titel, Austria-Hungary on 10 July 1912. His parents were Milorad and Zora Popov. He had an older brother named Ivan ("Ivo") and a younger brother named Vladan. The family was exceedingly wealthy and owed its fortune to Popov's paternal grandfather, Omer, a wealthy banker and industrialist who founded a number of factories, mines, and retail businesses. They hailed from the village of Karlovo (now Novo Miloševo). Records from as early as 1773 describe them as the most affluent family there. Popov's father expanded the family's business interests to include real estate dealings. When Popov was an infant, the family left Titel and permanently relocated to their summer residence in Dubrovnik, which was their home for much of the year. They also had a manor in Belgrade, where they spent the winter months.

Popov's childhood coincided with a series of monumental political changes in the Balkans. In November 1918, Austria-Hungary disintegrated into a number of smaller states, and its Balkan possessions were incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929). The newly established, Serb-led state was plagued by political infighting among its various constitutive ethnic groups, particularly Serbs and Croats, but also Hungarians and ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche). The young Popov and his family enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle and were far removed from the political turmoil in the country. They boasted a sizeable collection of villas and yachts, and were attended by servants, even on their travels. Duško and his brothers spent most of their formative years along the Adriatic coast, and were avid athletes and outdoorsmen.

Popov's father was insistent that his sons receive a quality education. Apart from his native Serbian, Popov was fluent in Italian, German and French by his teenage years. Between the ages of 12 and 16, he attended a lycée in Paris. In 1929, Popov's father enrolled him into Ewell Castle, a prestigious preparatory school in Surrey. Popov's stint at the school proved to be short lived. After only four months, he was expelled following an altercation with his headmaster. He had previously endured a caning at a teacher's hands after being caught smoking a cigarette. Another caning was adjudicated after Popov missed a detention, and so as to evade further corporal punishment, Popov grabbed the teacher's cane and snapped it in two before his classmates. Popov's father subsequently enrolled in him Lycée Hoche, a secondary institution in Versailles, which Popov attended for the following two years.

Initiation

At 18, Popov enrolled into the University of Belgrade, seeking an undergraduate in law. Over the next four years, he became a familiar figure in Belgrade's nightclub scene and earned the reputation of a ladies' man. In 1934, Popov enrolled in the University of Freiburg, intent on securing a doctorate in law. Germany had only recently come under the rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, but at the time, Popov paid little regard to politics. He had chosen Freiburg because it was relatively close to his native country and he was eager to improve his German-language skills. Germany was already the site of mass book burnings, concentration camps had been established and the systematic persecution of Jews had already commenced. As a foreign student, Popov was afforded certain privileges that were not extended to German citizens—he was under no pressure to join the Schutzstaffel (SS), had a mostly unimpeded ability to speak his mind, and did not have to curry favour with local Nazi Party functionaries to advance his career.

Popov began his studies at the University of Freiburg in the autumn of 1935, and in subsequent months, began showing greater interest in politics and voicing his opinions more vigorously. Around the same time, he befriend a fellow student, Johnny Jebsen, the son of a German shipping magnate. The two grew increasingly close, largely as a result of their raucous lifestyle and a shared interest in sports vehicles. Popov delivered speeches at the foreign students' club and wrote articles for the Belgrade daily Politika, ridiculing the Nazis. "Duško despised Nazism," biographer Larry Loftis writes, "and since he wasn't German, he believed he owed no allegiance to Hitler or the state." In the late summer of 1935, the Gestapo began harassing Popov, accusing him of being a communist. His movements were tracked by undercover agents and his acquaintances questioned. He was arrested and incarcerated without proceedings at the Freiburg prison as a dissident. He was then suddenly released and asked to leave the country within a day, which he did, taking a train to Switzerland. Since fall 1937, he practiced law in Dubrovnik with business attorney Jakšić.

When Jebsen approached him to work for the Abwehr, Popov informed Clement Hope, a passport control officer at the British legation in Yugoslavia. Hope enrolled Popov as a double agent with the codename Scoot (he was later known to his handler as Tricycle), and advised him to cooperate with Jebsen. Once accepted as a double agent, Popov moved to London. His international business activities in an import-export business provided cover for visits to neutral Portugal; its capital, Lisbon, was linked to the UK by a weekly civilian air service for most of the war. Popov used his cover position to report periodically to his Abwehr handlers in Portugal. Popov fed enough MI6-approved information to the Germans to keep them happy and unaware of his actions, and was well-paid for his services. The assignments given to him were of great value to the British in assessing enemy plans and thinking. His most important deception was convincing the Germans D-Day landings would be in Calais, not Normandy, and was able to report back to MI6 that they fell for this deception, which corroborated Bletchley Park's decryption of Lorenz cipher machine messages. Popov was famous for his playboy lifestyle, while carrying out perilous wartime missions for the British.

Allegations regarding Pearl Harbor

See also: Operation Bolivar

In 1941, Popov was dispatched to the United States by the Abwehr to establish a new German network. He was given ample funds and an intelligence questionnaire (a list of intelligence targets, later published as an appendix to J.C. Masterman's book The Double Cross System). Of the three typewritten pages of the questionnaire, one entire page was devoted to highly detailed questions about US defences at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. He made contact with the FBI and explained what he had been asked to do. During a televised interview, Duško Popov related having informed the FBI on 12 August 1941, of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. For whatever reason, either the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover did not report this fact to his superiors, or they, for reasons of their own, took no action in regard to this apparent German interest in Pearl Harbor. Hoover had a distrust for Popov considering the fact that he was indeed a double agent. MI6 had given the FBI in New York a notice that he would have been showing up. Popov himself has said Hoover was quite suspicious and distrustful of him and, according to author William "Mole" Wood, when Hoover discovered Popov had taken a woman from New York to Florida, he threatened to have him arrested under the Mann Act if he did not leave the US immediately.

Operation Fortitude

In 1944, Popov became a key part of the Operation Fortitude deception campaign. However, when his Abwehr intelligence handler, Johann "Johnny" Jebsen – who was also a double agent (code-named "Artist") and a close friend  – was arrested by the Gestapo in Lisbon, the British feared Popov had been compromised and ceased giving him critical information to pass along to the Nazis. Jebsen, who was of Danish descent, had been born in Germany. He and Popov became fast friends because of their mutual distaste for National Socialism while they were both studying law in Freiburg. In fact, it was Jebsen who had originally recruited Popov to join him in counter espionage in an attempt to bring about the downfall of the Third Reich. When it was later discovered that the Abwehr still regarded Popov as an asset, he was brought back into use by the British. Jebsen's death at the hands of the Nazis had a profound emotional impact on Popov.

Personal life

While in the USA, Popov was noted as a ladies' man. He lived an extravagant lifestyle and had an affair with the well-known French actress Simone Simon. He published his memoirs, Spy, Counterspy, in 1974. Popov has been cited as an inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond. Fleming's code number for James Bond was based on Popov's claim that every time he needed some advice he would call his uncle, Milivoj Popov, who lived at Miloša Velikog 46 in Belgrade (today Kneza Miloša 52), the phone number for his apartment being 26-007. Today that building is near former Embassy of United States in Serbia and the number is not listed in the telephone directory any more. Popov died in 1981, aged 69. He was survived by his second wife, Jill Jansen, and three sons.

See also

• Inspirations for James Bond
• Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge debate

References

Endnotes

Citations

Bibliography

Books

• Macintyre, Ben (2012). Double-Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-307-88877-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miller, Russell (2004). Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent. London: Random House. ISBN 978-1-84413-088-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Loftis, Larry (2016). Into the Lion's Mouth, the True Story of Duško Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-425281-81-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Web

• "The name's Tricycle, Agent Tricycle". BBC. 9 May 2002.
• "UK exposes secret agent's sex life". CNN. 8 May 2002.

External links

• Official website
• The National Archives