Duško Popov
Dušan "Duško" Popov | |
|---|---|
| Born | Dušan Popov 10 July 1912 |
| Died | Error: Need valid birth date (second date): year, month, day |
| Nationality | Serbian[1] |
| Other names | Tricycle |
| Espionage activity | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom  |
| Service branch | MI5 |
| Codename | Ivan |
| Codename | Tricycle |
| Codename | Scoot |
| Operations | World War II |
Dušan "Duško" Popov OBE (Serbian Cyrillic: Душан "Душко" Попов; 10 July 1912 -10 August 1981) was a Yugoslav double agent working for MI5 during World War II under the code name "Tricycle" and the Abwehr under the code name "Ivan".[2]
Origins of Tricycle
Popov was born in 10 July 1912 in Titel, Austro-Hungary (now Serbia), to a wealthy Serbian family. He had an older brother, Ivo – also a double agent during World War II – and a younger brother, Vladan. The Popov family moved to Dubrovnik (now in Croatia) when Dusko was very young.
He spoke fluent German and had many highly placed German friends, but secretly despised the Nazis after earlier unpleasant brushes with them during his university years in Freiburg.[3] When a university friend, Johann Jebsen, approached him to work for the Abwehr, he informed Clement Hope, passport control officer at the British legation in Yugoslavia. Hope enrolled Popov as a double agent with the codename Skoot (he was later known to his handler as Tricycle) and advised to cooperate with Jebsen.[4]
When accepted as a double agent, Popov came to live in London. His international business activities in an import-export business provided cover for visits to neutral Portugal, which was linked to the United Kingdom by a weekly civil air service for most of the war. Popov fed enough MI5-approved information to the Germans to keep them happy and unaware of his actions,[5] 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.[5]
Popov is famous for the playboy lifestyle he lived while carrying out perilous wartime missions for the British.[6]
Allegations regarding Pearl Harbor
In 1941, Popov was dispatched to the United States by the Abwehr to establish a new German network.[7] 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 U.S. 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, Dusko Popov related having informed the FBI on August 12, 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,[8] 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. MI5 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 U.S. immediately.
Operation Fortitude
In 1944, Popov became a key part of the Operation Fortitude deception campaign. However, when his German intelligence handler, Johann Jebsen – who was also a double agent (code-named "Artist") and a close friend of Popov's from before the war – was arrested, the British feared Popov had been betrayed and ceased giving him critical information to pass along. Some time later, however, with no indication that Popov was now distrusted, he was brought back into use.
Personal life
Popov was noted as a ladies' man – while in the US, he lived an extravagant lifestyle and had an affair with the well-known actress Simone Simon.[9][10] He published his memoirs Spy, Counterspy in 1974.
Popov died in 1981, aged 68. He was survived by his wife and three sons.
See also
References
- ^ Doerries, pp. 141.
- ^ Russell 2004, pp. 1.
- ^ St. Louis, Regis; Landon, Robert (2007). Portugal, p.144. Lonely Planet. ISBN 1-74059-918-7.
- ^ Nigel West, ‘Popov, Dusan (1912–1981)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008
- ^ a b Howard, Michael Eliot (1995). Strategic Deception in the Second World War, p.16. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31293-3.
- ^ The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5.
- ^ nationalarchives.gov.uk - Dusko Popov - Record Summary
- ^ Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri (2007). The FBI: A History, p.110. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11914-3.
- ^ BBC & 9 May 2002.
- ^ CNN & 8 May 2002.
Bibliography
Books
- Miller, Russell (2004). Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-21023-1.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Doerries, Reinhard R. (2009). Hitler's Intelligence Chief: Walter Schellenberg. New York: Enigma Books. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-929631-77-3.
{{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
- nationalarchives.gov.uk - Dusko Popov - Record Summary
- IMDb Plot summary for True Bond
- Dusko Popov, Real Life James Bond, Ran Afoul of the FBI
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