Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC: Agent Garbo: The Strange Tale of the Man Who Saved D-Day
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous historians. Welcome to our classic episode. For this week,
- 0:06Speaker 1: we have been going through a bit of a phase
- 0:10Speaker 1: with tradecraft and spying and World War Two and all
- 0:14Speaker 1: those off off camera shenanigans, backstage shenanigans that determined the
- 0:20Speaker 1: course of history. Max, Is it fair to am I like?
- 0:27Speaker 1: Am I alone in this between you, me and Nola?
- 0:30Speaker 1: Am I the only guy who's obsessed with spies in
- 0:33Speaker 1: World War Two?
- 0:34Speaker 2: No? It's awesome. I mean, especially the story.
- 0:35Speaker 3: I mean this is literally where the idea James Bond
- 0:39Speaker 3: came from. I mean, this is what fleming. Fleming worked
- 0:43Speaker 3: in intelligence in World War Two. This is where our fictionalized,
- 0:47Speaker 3: you know, obsessive view of spies come from. Is this
- 0:52Speaker 3: era and the things they were doing?
- 0:54Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, well said, We're going to meet a guy
- 0:57Speaker 1: named Juan Pougeot originally volunteered to spy for the British
- 1:03Speaker 1: during World War Two and they didn't take him seriously.
- 1:08Speaker 1: In today's classic episode, we are exploring the story of
- 1:12Speaker 1: one of the most successful double agents in modern history.
- 1:17Speaker 1: We can't wait for you to hear it. As a
- 1:19Speaker 1: matter of fact, why delay here?
- 1:21Speaker 2: It goes?
- 1:25Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
- 1:52Speaker 2: So it's no.
- 1:53Speaker 1: Secret that here on Ridiculous History we often explore the
- 1:58Speaker 1: stories of con artists who make their way through the
- 2:01Speaker 1: world via subterfuge and deception. We often talk about this
- 2:07Speaker 1: in a villainous sense. We talked about malicious con artists,
- 2:12Speaker 1: you know, liars, fraudsters, things of that nature. But today
- 2:17Speaker 1: we're talking about a good sort of con, a con
- 2:21Speaker 1: for the greater benefit of humanity. We're talking about one
- 2:28Speaker 1: of the most well known and most successful spies of
- 2:34Speaker 1: World War Two. Oh also, I'm Ben Ben.
- 2:37Speaker 2: You are Ben, If that's your real name, I have
- 2:41Speaker 2: many names. My name is Noel with the one and
- 2:45Speaker 2: only Noel. Well, I'm gonna go by Noel the Firestarter
- 2:48Speaker 2: Brown today in honor of Keith Flint harp, Yeah, Keith Flint,
- 2:54Speaker 2: the Twisted Firestarter, And that is Casey as our super producer,
- 2:59Speaker 2: Casey Pegrin. In the fact, that's the.
- 3:01Speaker 4: One A little short aside my first concert ever nineteen
- 3:04Speaker 4: ninety eight, the Tabernacle Atlanta, Georgia Prodigy Meat Beat Manifesto.
- 3:10Speaker 4: As the opener was.
- 3:11Speaker 2: How was the show?
- 3:12Speaker 4: It was great. You know, you never really know what
- 3:15Speaker 4: to expect from like an electronics show. Sometimes it's just
- 3:18Speaker 4: dudes stand behind a laptop, but they really really put
- 3:22Speaker 4: everything into that performance. They had the dancers, which was
- 3:25Speaker 4: Keith's primary role, and there was like a pit and
- 3:29Speaker 4: it was really intense, and it was a little scary
- 3:30Speaker 4: as like a fourteen year old or whatever.
- 3:32Speaker 2: Oh man, I bet you were almost afraid you were
- 3:34Speaker 2: gonna get like steamrolled.
- 3:35Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there were a lot of big
- 3:38Speaker 4: dudes there.
- 3:38Speaker 2: Well that's the thing too with Keith and the Prodigy,
- 3:41Speaker 2: and like his vocals were almost more like punk rock,
- 3:43Speaker 2: shouty kind of stuff, and that was a time in
- 3:46Speaker 2: the nineties where techno there was a pit It was
- 3:50Speaker 2: almost more of like a punk rock aesthetic where if
- 3:52Speaker 2: you know the iconic fire Starter video where he's kind
- 3:55Speaker 2: of like mugging into the camera and he's all pierced up,
- 3:58Speaker 2: and it was like, we'd never seen a dude like
- 4:00Speaker 2: that in the States at that point, short of like
- 4:03Speaker 2: the sex Pistols or something like that. And so he's
- 4:05Speaker 2: a very iconic looking guy, and his vocal style was
- 4:09Speaker 2: absolutely copied and even parodied because it became such an
- 4:13Speaker 2: iconic part of like the sound of like nineties electronic.
- 4:16Speaker 1: It was percussive, almost so like his vocals were in
- 4:19Speaker 1: almost an instrument of punctuation or percussion. Speaking of iconic.
- 4:24Speaker 1: Before we get today's show, we do have an announcement
- 4:27Speaker 1: that will make will make rough sense, but will make
- 4:31Speaker 1: even more sense if you are a member of our
- 4:34Speaker 1: community page Ridiculous Historians. So, in a previous episode, folks,
- 4:40Speaker 1: Nolan and I had kicked around the idea of a
- 4:44Speaker 1: T shirt with Casey's face audit and Casey, will you
- 4:50Speaker 1: know we're all actually friends even when we're not on
- 4:53Speaker 1: the air. So we asked Casey. He was cool with it,
- 4:57Speaker 1: and we got a hard man man.
- 5:00Speaker 2: It was a hard man.
- 5:00Speaker 1: It was a hard man. And now we have an announcement.
- 5:04Speaker 1: We had taken a break earlier today and Casey, you
- 5:09Speaker 1: you said that you would be comfortable with us having
- 5:14Speaker 1: having a photo of you on a T shirt, but
- 5:16Speaker 1: only a very particular kind of photo. Now, I don't
- 5:20Speaker 1: know if we should spoil the surprise just yet, but
- 5:24Speaker 1: tune in later because we have we have something very
- 5:26Speaker 1: special coming up for all our fans of Casey on
- 5:29Speaker 1: the Case.
- 5:30Speaker 4: Yeah, we can just say that we're going to tie
- 5:32Speaker 4: up a loose end from earlier in the show's history.
- 5:35Speaker 4: If you've been listening for a while, there were certain
- 5:38Speaker 4: things that were promised earlierly on and that will maybe
- 5:41Speaker 4: come to fruition now.
- 5:43Speaker 2: I love it.
- 5:43Speaker 1: I love how this this feels like subterfuge. It feels
- 5:46Speaker 1: like we're talking in spycraft, right, it really does.
- 5:49Speaker 2: Ben And way to bring it back around to the
- 5:51Speaker 2: actual topic of today's show, a well, which you set
- 5:54Speaker 2: up a very famous gentleman who wasn't at the time
- 5:57Speaker 2: famous for much of anything. He was kind of waff
- 6:00Speaker 2: lay in his life, in his career, in his prospects.
- 6:03Speaker 2: I think he ran kind of a third rate motel
- 6:05Speaker 2: in Spain. A man whose last name you may know
- 6:09Speaker 2: poujol One poujol Garcia. Yeah, born in nineteen twelve on
- 6:15Speaker 2: Valentine's Day. Fun fact, he was one of those people
- 6:19Speaker 2: who's sort of like a compass, swinging and searching for
- 6:22Speaker 2: true north. As you said, Noel, he he ran a motel.
- 6:27Speaker 1: I believe he ran a movie theater as well. For
- 6:30Speaker 1: a while, it was going job to job. He didn't
- 6:35Speaker 1: feel like the academy or higher education was his particular
- 6:41Speaker 1: bag of beans. But he lived in Spain, and in
- 6:45Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one he did his six months of compulsory
- 6:49Speaker 1: military service in Spain, and he hated working for the military,
- 6:55Speaker 1: which would come in handy later. He hated everything about it.
- 7:00Speaker 1: He specifically said, did you see this quote? He specifically
- 7:03Speaker 1: said that he lacked the essential qualities of loyalty, generosity,
- 7:08Speaker 1: and honor necessary to be a good member of the military.
- 7:12Speaker 2: Yeah, but something that he did have in spades was
- 7:15Speaker 2: a vibrant imagination and an ability to kind of almost
- 7:20Speaker 2: just sink into the background and be simultaneously able to
- 7:25Speaker 2: convince people of things and also be completely innocuous and unnoticed.
- 7:30Speaker 2: Just a super important skill to have if you are
- 7:32Speaker 2: to be a spy. Let alone, what Pougeol became just
- 7:36Speaker 2: one of the most famous double agents in the history
- 7:39Speaker 2: of military affairs, right right?
- 7:42Speaker 1: But how how did this guy who was a relatively
- 7:45Speaker 1: unhappy manager of things and a relatively dissatisfied member of society,
- 7:52Speaker 1: how did he move from mediocrity to excellence? Also, I
- 7:58Speaker 1: want to say, do we ment I think we mentioned
- 8:00Speaker 1: this earlier on the show in a previous episode. You
- 8:04Speaker 1: hit on the crucial definition of an effective spy. Nol
- 8:08Speaker 1: An effective spy is not James Bond. In fact, if
- 8:12Speaker 1: you think about it, James Bond is a terrible, terrible,
- 8:15Speaker 1: terrible spy. He's drunk all the time, he uses his
- 8:19Speaker 1: real name. He is super flashy, you know what I mean.
- 8:24Speaker 1: A real spy is the guy who's in the corner
- 8:26Speaker 1: or the lady who's in the corner like ten meters
- 8:29Speaker 1: away from James Bond taking notes. You know, this guy
- 8:33Speaker 1: was not James Bond. This guy was not James Bond.
- 8:36Speaker 1: And let's look at how he became so successful. Let's
- 8:40Speaker 1: go back to the nineteen thirties. In nineteen thirty six,
- 8:46Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War begins. He is managing a poultry farm.
- 8:52Speaker 1: His sister's fiance is captured by the Republican forces, and
- 8:56Speaker 1: then his sister and his mother are arrested their charge
- 9:01Speaker 1: with being counter revolutionaries, and he gets called up for
- 9:04Speaker 1: service on the Republican side of the war. But because
- 9:08Speaker 1: the Republican government treated his family so poorly, he says,
- 9:12Speaker 1: I'm going to skip out, and he hides at his
- 9:14Speaker 1: girlfriend's house and then he's discovered and a police raid.
- 9:19Speaker 2: He goes to jail for a week.
- 9:20Speaker 1: He's freed via a resistance group, and then he hides
- 9:25Speaker 1: with them until he can make some false ideas really
- 9:28Speaker 1: that show him to be too old to be in
- 9:30Speaker 1: the army. And so he goes back to managing another
- 9:33Speaker 1: poultry farm, but this one's under control of the Republican government,
- 9:38Speaker 1: and the inefficiency of the farm and the inefficiency of
- 9:42Speaker 1: the government, according to his life story, makes him hate
- 9:46Speaker 1: Communism even more than you already hated it.
- 9:48Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. And then he ends up in
- 9:52Speaker 2: said third rate motel in Madrid, which was ever so
- 9:56Speaker 2: ironically named The Majestic Fantastic Mental Floss. Article goes through
- 10:01Speaker 2: some of this history of this fascinating man. So he
- 10:06Speaker 2: hates Communism. At this point, he is not living his
- 10:10Speaker 2: best life. He is depressed. He is just kind of
- 10:14Speaker 2: you know, Spain is just crumbling around him with this
- 10:17Speaker 2: civil war that they were doing. They were going so
- 10:19Speaker 2: far as to like turning bull rings into theaters, I
- 10:23Speaker 2: guess for like public executions. It was not a happy
- 10:26Speaker 2: place to be. So he's already learned to kind of
- 10:28Speaker 2: keep his head down and blend into the background and
- 10:30Speaker 2: be as innocuous as possible as not to you know,
- 10:32Speaker 2: catch a bullet because he also he doesn't sympathize with
- 10:35Speaker 2: either either side of this conflict. He hates the communists
- 10:38Speaker 2: and he also hates the fascists.
- 10:40Speaker 1: Right because he rejoined that Republican side using these false papers,
- 10:44Speaker 1: and he intended to get out of the area they
- 10:46Speaker 1: controlled to Dessert and he deserts to the nationalist side
- 10:51Speaker 1: of the conflict, and then they treat him like garbage too,
- 10:54Speaker 1: so he says, you know what, I hate it hate
- 10:58Speaker 1: the communists, I hate the fascist And then he is
- 11:02Speaker 1: learning increasingly to try to keep his head down.
- 11:06Speaker 2: So through his post at this hotel and through the
- 11:10Speaker 2: just the ramshackle nature of Spain during the Civil War,
- 11:14Speaker 2: he ends up becoming kind of successful at helping people
- 11:19Speaker 2: procure things. He meets two pro Franco princesses who are
- 11:24Speaker 2: aging and they really want to get their hands on
- 11:26Speaker 2: some scotch, so he decides, okay, I'm going to smuggle
- 11:30Speaker 2: in some scotch from over the border in Portugal, and
- 11:33Speaker 2: he's able to get papers. He doesn't have a passport
- 11:36Speaker 2: at the time, and does this job for these princesses
- 11:41Speaker 2: and that gives him the papers that he needs to
- 11:43Speaker 2: then leave the country.
- 11:46Speaker 1: So he leaves the country. But there's terrible timing involved,
- 11:51Speaker 1: because just a few weeks earlier, in September of nineteen
- 11:55Speaker 1: thirty nine, England had declared war on Germany and German
- 12:00Speaker 1: forces led by Adolf Hitler were starting to eat up Europe.
- 12:05Speaker 1: The word about the concentration camps had had leaked to
- 12:10Speaker 1: the public, and Pujol found himself trapped. He found himself trapped,
- 12:17Speaker 1: and he found himself incensed, livid. He wrote about this
- 12:22Speaker 1: later in a book called Operation Garbo, which came out
- 12:25Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five.
- 12:26Speaker 2: And we have a quote, yeah, and this is from
- 12:28Speaker 2: that Mental Floss article that we highly recommend you checking out.
- 12:30Speaker 2: He says, my humanist convictions would not allow me to
- 12:33Speaker 2: turn a blind eye to the enormous suffering that was
- 12:35Speaker 2: being unleashed by this psychopath Hitler, and he decided he
- 12:40Speaker 2: wanted to do something about it. This is so this
- 12:43Speaker 2: is so great because he had limited military training, he
- 12:46Speaker 2: wasn't very good at it, and he hated it. He
- 12:48Speaker 2: basically defected. And then now he's like running booze for
- 12:51Speaker 2: aged you know, princesses, and all of a sudden, he
- 12:56Speaker 2: like he hears his calling.
- 12:58Speaker 1: Yeah, his compass that was swinging wildly finds it's true
- 13:02Speaker 1: North and this is the part that always cracks me up.
- 13:07Speaker 1: In January of nineteen forty one, he strolls into the
- 13:11Speaker 1: British embassy. He mosy's in and he's he says, hey,
- 13:16Speaker 1: you guys.
- 13:17Speaker 2: Want to like a do you want like a spy
- 13:19Speaker 2: or something like?
- 13:20Speaker 1: Can? I I'm interested in contributing to the effort, but
- 13:24Speaker 1: I don't think the militaries for me. And then they
- 13:27Speaker 1: say you can't just walk in here and say make
- 13:31Speaker 1: me a spy. What are your qualifications? Do you know
- 13:34Speaker 1: anything about spying? Do you hold an important government position?
- 13:38Speaker 1: Can you do anything? What do you bring to the
- 13:40Speaker 1: table other than your desire to be sneaky?
- 13:42Speaker 2: Yeah, the Brits aren't exactly known for their like willingness
- 13:46Speaker 2: to just kind of like riff and just go with
- 13:49Speaker 2: it and roll with it. Right now. They want some
- 13:51Speaker 2: They want some bona fides from this guy. They want
- 13:53Speaker 2: to be able to vet him and prove that he
- 13:55Speaker 2: actually is what he says he is and can do
- 13:57Speaker 2: what he says he can do. So they send him
- 14:00Speaker 2: a packing. So he's like, okay, okay, I know what
- 14:03Speaker 2: my endgame has. My endgame is to help out the Brits,
- 14:06Speaker 2: but they don't need me right now because I am
- 14:08Speaker 2: nothing to them. What am I? So he decides to
- 14:11Speaker 2: do the most insane thing, the most insane turn about.
- 14:15Speaker 2: I am going to make myself indispensable and an asset
- 14:19Speaker 2: to the Germans, the enemy of my friend or my
- 14:23Speaker 2: perceived friend, and the folks who I want to be
- 14:25Speaker 2: aligned with. So he goes to the Germans. They're a
- 14:28Speaker 2: little bit more willing to kind of like take what
- 14:31Speaker 2: they can get and install various spies of various pedigrees,
- 14:36Speaker 2: and so they more or less take him at his word.
- 14:39Speaker 2: And what's his cover story? Ben Oh?
- 14:42Speaker 1: So he literally calls the German embassy and his cover
- 14:47Speaker 1: story is a list of absolute bs. He is winging it,
- 14:56Speaker 1: he's improvising, you know, I love good improvisation. And he
- 15:00Speaker 1: meets a guy with a.
- 15:02Speaker 2: Code name Federico.
- 15:15Speaker 1: So he meets this guy and this is total, this
- 15:18Speaker 1: is total, straight out of the movies kind of spy stuff. Right,
- 15:21Speaker 1: He's told this, there will be this guy Federico in
- 15:25Speaker 1: a light suit holding a raincoat in the back of
- 15:27Speaker 1: a cafe. This guy's trained to spot frauds and Prujol says,
- 15:34Speaker 1: first off, let me tell you this, and he starts
- 15:37Speaker 1: talking about how much he loves Hitler. He's very, very
- 15:39Speaker 1: pro Nazi, he loves their whole thing. And then he
- 15:43Speaker 1: starts saying that he is friends with a ton of diplomats,
- 15:48Speaker 1: a ton of VIPs, very influential people. This impresses his
- 15:53Speaker 1: contact that he meets, and he gets his callback, as
- 15:56Speaker 1: you would phrase it in the world of auditions. He
- 15:58Speaker 1: gets his He gets his call back. But there's one
- 16:01Speaker 1: problem with these diplomats, isn't there No.
- 16:03Speaker 2: We're all bogus. That's true. They're not real, and neither
- 16:08Speaker 2: are the reports that he is giving them what he
- 16:10Speaker 2: refers to as chicken feed, little bits and bobs of
- 16:13Speaker 2: military supposed military intelligence, like the movement of troops and
- 16:17Speaker 2: battalions throughout England, et cetera. And he cobbles together these
- 16:24Speaker 2: facts that I guess he did. He just make them
- 16:27Speaker 2: up off the top of his head. Yes, yeah, but
- 16:29Speaker 2: he makes them up so they sound so convincing that
- 16:31Speaker 2: even the Brits start thinking they have a mole because
- 16:36Speaker 2: someone is like leaking this even though they're vague and
- 16:39Speaker 2: not real. How did he do that? Ben I'm a
- 16:41Speaker 2: little I'm a little foggy on how this happened, because
- 16:43Speaker 2: apparently the Brits caught wind of some of this intelligence
- 16:46Speaker 2: that was being leaked to the Germans, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
- 16:49Speaker 2: We've got to put a cap on this leak that
- 16:51Speaker 2: we have, right, Okay, So here's how it happens.
- 17:00Speaker 1: The contact that he meets says, look, we don't need
- 17:05Speaker 1: any more Nazi spies in Spain. We need someone to
- 17:09Speaker 1: go abroad. And the guy's like, cool, I've got a passport.
- 17:12Speaker 1: He says, go to Lisbon, get an exit visa. And
- 17:16Speaker 1: he goes to Lisbon. Looks like a dead end, looks
- 17:18Speaker 1: like he can't get the document. He needs a diplomatic visa,
- 17:23Speaker 1: but he befriends a guy in Portugal who is able
- 17:29Speaker 1: to help him get this visa. Well, he steals the
- 17:33Speaker 1: visa essentially by help him get the visa. He befriends
- 17:36Speaker 1: the guy and steals it, and then he forges this document.
- 17:41Speaker 1: He comes back to Spain, he shows his contact Federico,
- 17:46Speaker 1: and the guy is impressed, so he says, all right,
- 17:48Speaker 1: I'll give you this stuff you need. I'll give you
- 17:51Speaker 1: invisible ink. I'll give you the codes we use. Here's
- 17:54Speaker 1: three grand and here's your code name. Arabell so ben
- 17:59Speaker 1: I was looking desperate.
- 18:00Speaker 2: I'm like, surely he had some real intel that he
- 18:03Speaker 2: was using to make these reports that he was delivering
- 18:06Speaker 2: to the Germans seem more believable. But no, it just
- 18:09Speaker 2: turns out he was just so good at crafting what
- 18:11Speaker 2: sounded like realistic intel that even the Brits were concerned
- 18:17Speaker 2: that they had somebody funneling information to the Germans. And
- 18:21Speaker 2: there's an amazing interview with author Stephen Talti, who wrote
- 18:25Speaker 2: a book entitled Agent Garbo with a brilliant, eccentric secret
- 18:28Speaker 2: agent who tricked Hitler and saved D Day, And he
- 18:30Speaker 2: describes the British response to what they perceived as a
- 18:35Speaker 2: very real threat in terms of information being funneled to
- 18:38Speaker 2: the Germans. He says the British were terrified. They were like,
- 18:41Speaker 2: someone is sneak past our lines and someone is in
- 18:43Speaker 2: the heart of the beast reporting on us. Because Poujol's
- 18:46Speaker 2: reports were so believable, even to the people in the
- 18:49Speaker 2: country that he was supposed to be spying on. Yeah.
- 18:52Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a great article in Big Think Dot com
- 18:56Speaker 1: about this story as well. The article is Juan Poujol
- 18:59Speaker 1: gar the WW two double agent who secretly controlled the war.
- 19:04Speaker 1: I know it sounds like a hyperbolic claim, but here's
- 19:08Speaker 1: what happened.
- 19:08Speaker 2: He did fool everybody.
- 19:10Speaker 1: He said, okay, I will go to London, so his
- 19:15Speaker 1: German spymasters think he is in London. But as as
- 19:19Speaker 1: we mentioned, he has never been to London. He doesn't
- 19:23Speaker 1: speak English, and he just starts making stuff up using
- 19:27Speaker 1: a tour guide, using publicly available information from newsreels, and
- 19:33Speaker 1: then he also starts making a spy network in London. Again,
- 19:38Speaker 1: he's still in Portugal. He's making a spy network in
- 19:41Speaker 1: London with people who do not exist. And these reports
- 19:45Speaker 1: sound so realistic that they fool the British. They fool
- 19:49Speaker 1: the British intelligence services, and the British launch a man
- 19:54Speaker 1: hunt to find this mysterious arabell. Yeah, they've given him
- 20:00Speaker 1: his name the Germans. The Germans answered Prairie right, yes,
- 20:05Speaker 1: and what a wily fox this poujol was. Now, he
- 20:09Speaker 1: didn't get everything right. The reports weren't perfect, but at
- 20:15Speaker 1: the time the British were panicking because there were supposed
- 20:17Speaker 1: to be no Axis spies in Britain, and there was
- 20:22Speaker 1: one huge trick that made the British believe in his
- 20:26Speaker 1: value as a spy. He invented an entirely fictional armada,
- 20:32Speaker 1: a British armada in Malta, and based on the reports
- 20:36Speaker 1: of this again fictitious armada, the Axis powers spent a
- 20:41Speaker 1: ton of time and money trying to find them. They
- 20:44Speaker 1: responded in full force. They got there. There was nothing there,
- 20:49Speaker 1: of course, and they continued to still trust his information.
- 20:53Speaker 1: So finally, finally, finally, finally, in nineteen forty two, based
- 20:58Speaker 1: primarily on that story of the armada, he was able
- 21:02Speaker 1: to convince the British to hire him.
- 21:04Speaker 2: Do you think he was like, Hey, remember me, I'm back.
- 21:08Speaker 2: I've got something for you. I think it will make
- 21:10Speaker 2: you want me. Please want me the British. No, but
- 21:14Speaker 2: he they do want him. Boy, do they ever want him?
- 21:17Speaker 2: He is the Not only is he the Germans answered prayers,
- 21:19Speaker 2: He's actually their worst nightmare. It turns out he is
- 21:21Speaker 2: the the British is answered prayers, and he is handed
- 21:25Speaker 2: over to the Security Service for handling. Let's say there
- 21:30Speaker 2: he is. He's assigned an officer by the name of
- 21:32Speaker 2: tama Are Tommy Harris who speaks Spanish, because again this
- 21:36Speaker 2: is mind blowing to me. He doesn't speak English. No,
- 21:38Speaker 2: he does not speak English. And then what followed was
- 21:43Speaker 2: a partnership between the two men who were very well matched.
- 21:48Speaker 2: And there's a really great article on the history of
- 21:52Speaker 2: m I five m I five dot gov dot UK
- 21:54Speaker 2: slash Agentcarbos, the whole, the whole deal there, and they
- 21:58Speaker 2: really compliment each other, and they had this give and
- 22:02Speaker 2: take relationship that allowed them to be synergistically effective. I mean,
- 22:06Speaker 2: really really an incredible pairing of these two guys. Yeah.
- 22:10Speaker 1: Absolutely, And it's strange to look back, with the benefit
- 22:15Speaker 1: of all this stuff being declassified later and see just
- 22:18Speaker 1: how extraordinarily ambitious and ballsy this stuff was. He eventually
- 22:24Speaker 1: he invented twenty seven fictional subagents, and he would assign
- 22:29Speaker 1: various reports to these people, so it would rarely be
- 22:34Speaker 1: him finding out something directly, would rarely be Arabell. Arabell
- 22:39Speaker 1: became a spymaster as far as the Nazis were concerned,
- 22:42Speaker 1: but his reports were mixed up in a very clever way.
- 22:47Speaker 1: Sometimes it would be stuff that was true but didn't
- 22:49Speaker 1: matter at all. You know what, I mean like, oh,
- 22:51Speaker 1: they're paving some road in London or whatever. Sometimes it
- 22:57Speaker 1: would be incredibly false stuff. Something is wrong, or it's
- 23:01Speaker 1: in a different location or the numbers are different. Sometimes
- 23:04Speaker 1: it would be real stuff that was very valuable, and
- 23:08Speaker 1: that stuff just never made it to Germany on time,
- 23:12Speaker 1: and it's say like, oh, okay, a two week old
- 23:14Speaker 1: report says in a week this will happen.
- 23:18Speaker 2: Well, because of having real access to I five into
- 23:21Speaker 2: all of this information obviously upped his game in terms
- 23:24Speaker 2: of double agent nests. Right before he was succeeding just
- 23:27Speaker 2: by his own you know, moxie. Right now he's actually
- 23:31Speaker 2: got the real goods to weave in some of those
- 23:34Speaker 2: real true facts and make the Germans really believe he
- 23:36Speaker 2: was still on their side.
- 23:38Speaker 1: So here's a cool example of that. He gave Germany
- 23:42Speaker 1: accurate intel on Allied forces landing in North Africa. And
- 23:47Speaker 1: the letter is poostmarked before the landing, but timed to
- 23:52Speaker 1: arrive after the landing. And so instead of getting irritated
- 23:57Speaker 1: with the guy, the Nazis up apologize. They say this
- 24:02Speaker 1: is great information and it's our bad that we didn't act.
- 24:05Speaker 1: Curse the post office.
- 24:09Speaker 2: Use stamps dot com instead.
- 24:11Speaker 1: Yes, Stamps dot com. That's our commercial for Stamps dot com.
- 24:16Speaker 1: So what happens next, Like, how is he able to
- 24:19Speaker 1: successfully keep this rigorm role going?
- 24:22Speaker 2: That's a really good question. Man. Before we go there,
- 24:24Speaker 2: I want to backtrack, ever so slightly, just to show
- 24:26Speaker 2: the Kahones, the true cohones of our boy Pujol. When
- 24:30Speaker 2: he went to the Germans and gave them this BS
- 24:32Speaker 2: cover story, it was all stuff they totally could have
- 24:36Speaker 2: verified or or you know, shot down. They just didn't
- 24:40Speaker 2: do their homework basically right because they had access to
- 24:43Speaker 2: Portugal or to Lisbon and they just didn't do it
- 24:45Speaker 2: for whatever reason. They were so thirsty for what he
- 24:48Speaker 2: had to offer because he did such a good job
- 24:50Speaker 2: of like you know, doing kind of a upclose magic
- 24:53Speaker 2: kind of misdirection right, So that is incredible. He could
- 24:57Speaker 2: have died instantly. They would have put him in a
- 24:59Speaker 2: concentration camp lickety split if they had found out that
- 25:02Speaker 2: he was he was trying to play them. So, yes,
- 25:05Speaker 2: how do they maintain this subterfuge? Ben? As he has
- 25:08Speaker 2: now been gifted with the assistance of the Brits, he
- 25:13Speaker 2: they are still they are like upping their game. They've
- 25:16Speaker 2: got three hundred and fifteen documents they've sent back to
- 25:20Speaker 2: the Germans, some of which are peppered with real information,
- 25:23Speaker 2: but too late, fake information that makes them think that
- 25:26Speaker 2: they're actually getting some help. How does this kind of
- 25:29Speaker 2: come to critical mass?
- 25:30Speaker 1: Ben Well, he kept escalating his stunts, his cons. We
- 25:40Speaker 1: mentioned his imaginary spies. They included traveling salesman, a waiter
- 25:44Speaker 1: who lives in a cave, a retired Welsh seamen, an
- 25:49Speaker 1: Indian poet, someone with OCD, a radio mechanic. These folks
- 25:55Speaker 1: filed expense reports and some earned salaries. They were their
- 26:00Speaker 1: expenses were paid, and their salaries were paid by the
- 26:03Speaker 1: Nazi Party. By nineteen forty three, he has become one
- 26:08Speaker 1: of their favorite people, one of Germany's favorite people as
- 26:11Speaker 1: far as spycraft is concerned. The spy ring that Abwer
- 26:14Speaker 1: sends him new cipher's new vials of disappearing inc. And
- 26:19Speaker 1: this just makes it easier for MI five to crack codes.
- 26:22Speaker 1: The Nazis in one memo, compare him to an army
- 26:27Speaker 1: of forty five thousand men. He's that valuable, and he
- 26:31Speaker 1: decides to cook up his biggest lie yet is this
- 26:36Speaker 1: Operation Fortitude?
- 26:37Speaker 2: Ben that you're talking about this is this is Operation
- 26:39Speaker 2: Fortitude lay it honestly. Yeah, so we've got January nineteen
- 26:42Speaker 2: forty four. The Germans believed that the Allies were getting
- 26:48Speaker 2: ready for a large scale European invasion, and they passed
- 26:51Speaker 2: this information on to Poujol and they asked him to
- 26:56Speaker 2: help keep them abreast of any developments in the new information.
- 27:00Speaker 2: So this gave Poujol what he needed to really turn
- 27:06Speaker 2: the tables and give the Allies the upper hand big time.
- 27:11Speaker 1: Right, So, under the code name Overlord, British and American
- 27:16Speaker 1: forces planned to invade occupied Europe.
- 27:19Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Germans were right. They thought they knew
- 27:22Speaker 2: what was going on, and they were absolutely correct. So
- 27:24Speaker 2: how is Pujol able to give what would seem like
- 27:27Speaker 2: the upper handed Germany for Germany and flip it back
- 27:30Speaker 2: around and make D Day a guaranteed success? Right?
- 27:34Speaker 1: Oh, we have to mention his code name was Arabelle
- 27:38Speaker 1: to the Nazis, but he add a code name to
- 27:41Speaker 1: the British once they hired him. Mister It was Agent Garbo,
- 27:45Speaker 1: named after Greta Garbo because they thought he was such
- 27:48Speaker 1: a good actor.
- 27:49Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will tell you if you see he's
- 27:51Speaker 2: got some pictures that are really funny. Headshot They always
- 27:55Speaker 2: look like headshots. He's dressed in like a German military garb,
- 27:59Speaker 2: and he's just doing this real actors type grin and
- 28:02Speaker 2: it really looks like somebody wearing a costume preparing to
- 28:06Speaker 2: go into a role.
- 28:07Speaker 1: And then you see his passport pictures and he looks
- 28:09Speaker 1: almost like a different person exactly. He's a little disheveled.
- 28:12Speaker 1: But yes, so Agent Garbo, as he is known in
- 28:16Speaker 1: the Allied Forces and the Allied intelligence networks. He has
- 28:20Speaker 1: a crucial role to play. The German high command needs
- 28:24Speaker 1: to be misled about the location of the landings. They
- 28:30Speaker 1: decide on the actual point of attack the beaches at Normandy,
- 28:34Speaker 1: and their next move is to persuade German forces that
- 28:37Speaker 1: the invasion force would be much much further north right,
- 28:42Speaker 1: confirming what Hitler had originally thought was going to be
- 28:46Speaker 1: the most likely point of contact. Garbo's agents would report
- 28:51Speaker 1: authoritatively that the Normandy landings were themselves a ruse and
- 28:56Speaker 1: there was a much bigger attack to come. So on
- 28:59Speaker 1: June ninth, he sends a key memo.
- 29:02Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just happened to be on a super
- 29:04Speaker 2: crucial day when Hitler and his cronies, his toadies, his
- 29:09Speaker 2: military high command were trying to decide whether Normandy was
- 29:13Speaker 2: the real deal or whether it was some kind of subterfuge.
- 29:16Speaker 2: And they were trying to plan the movement of their
- 29:20Speaker 2: troops and where they wanted to send the bulk of them.
- 29:23Speaker 2: They had some in Belgium, they had some in France,
- 29:26Speaker 2: and they were trying to decide whether they should divert
- 29:28Speaker 2: them down to Normandy and completely head off this invasion.
- 29:33Speaker 2: Pujol sent this telegram saying, no, this is fake. Seriously,
- 29:38Speaker 2: you are wasting your time. Don't use those resources at Normandy.
- 29:42Speaker 2: Send them elsewhere, because this is what's really happening. And
- 29:45Speaker 2: at the time those forces were already on the move.
- 29:49Speaker 2: So this was a clutch decision on the Germans. And
- 29:52Speaker 2: a telegram received right at the exact right time. If
- 29:55Speaker 2: it had been a little later would have been too late,
- 29:57Speaker 2: right they would they would not have rediverted the I imagine,
- 30:00Speaker 2: because it would have been taken too long. Time was
- 30:03Speaker 2: of the essence. They made their bed, they were going
- 30:05Speaker 2: to lie in it. But it was this crucial time
- 30:07Speaker 2: where a change of plan.
- 30:09Speaker 1: Was possible, right m H and the Panzer divisions were
- 30:13Speaker 1: already moving toward Normandy, but Adolf Hitler sent in order
- 30:19Speaker 1: based on this telegram and turned them around, sending them
- 30:22Speaker 1: instead to the northern point of contact, Pas de Calais.
- 30:27Speaker 1: In this lie was so effective that through July and
- 30:32Speaker 1: August of that year, the Nazi forces kept two armored
- 30:36Speaker 1: divisions and nineteenth infantry divisions in that northern point in
- 30:41Speaker 1: anticipation of an imminent invasion. So you would think after
- 30:53Speaker 1: D Day, you would imagine that after all this stuff
- 30:56Speaker 1: goes down and this house of cards collapses, that arabelaka
- 31:01Speaker 1: Garbo's reputation would be ruined amongst the German intelligence circles. However,
- 31:08Speaker 1: that was not the case. In fact, he won a
- 31:10Speaker 1: very prestigious award, prestigious, if we would say it in
- 31:14Speaker 1: the British way from the Germans, but from the Germans. Yeah, yeah,
- 31:17Speaker 1: oh was it? He got the Iron Cross. The Iron
- 31:21Speaker 1: Cross was rendered for his extraordinary services to Germany. And
- 31:26Speaker 1: the thing is this had to be approved by Adolf
- 31:30Speaker 1: Hitler himself, so he was notified he had been awarded
- 31:33Speaker 1: the Iron Cross. And then he and Harris said, you know,
- 31:39Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's such an honor. Truly unworthy,
- 31:44Speaker 1: but I'll take it.
- 31:45Speaker 2: And this is such a like, oh, it's like a
- 31:48Speaker 2: total fu type thing where they collaborated on this message
- 31:51Speaker 2: together Pugel and Harris. Harris was not known to the
- 31:54Speaker 2: Germans office. Pujel was exclusively their point of contact, and
- 31:58Speaker 2: they talked about offering humble thanks, humble thanks, such an honor.
- 32:04Speaker 2: Oh stop, let's keep going now, No, yeah, totally. And
- 32:08Speaker 2: yet Pujol remained unexposed to the Germans. But by September
- 32:12Speaker 2: of forty four, there have been a few close calls
- 32:15Speaker 2: that you know of Pujehl potentially being exposed unmasked to
- 32:19Speaker 2: the Nazis. Didn't happen, but the British security services like,
- 32:23Speaker 2: we're going to take extra care to make sure that
- 32:25Speaker 2: you are guarded against any potential retribution from the Germans.
- 32:29Speaker 2: But that didn't even ultimately prove to be necessary because
- 32:32Speaker 2: the war ended, and they even were hoping that his
- 32:36Speaker 2: background would allow him to get into post war Nazi
- 32:39Speaker 2: Germany and continue to do some good work.
- 32:42Speaker 1: As you said, he feared reprisal from Nazi survivors. The
- 32:49Speaker 1: Nazis never realized at this point that they had been
- 32:52Speaker 1: fooled and as Agent Garbo. He received an MBE from
- 32:57Speaker 1: the King on the fifth of November nineteen forty four,
- 33:01Speaker 1: the most Excellent Order of the British Empire. So he
- 33:05Speaker 1: is one of the few, if not the only, person
- 33:08Speaker 1: to receive prestigious awards from both Germany and the Allies.
- 33:12Speaker 1: That is most excellent. Here's an even cooler thing. I
- 33:16Speaker 1: feel like this is the ultimate bragging rate. What do
- 33:19Speaker 1: you do when you're the spy's pulled off everything? When
- 33:22Speaker 1: you do one last one last con, one big job,
- 33:24Speaker 1: one last one big job, one last ice. With the
- 33:29Speaker 1: help of m I five, Prujol travels to Angola and
- 33:33Speaker 1: fakes his death in nineteen forty nine.
- 33:35Speaker 2: Yeah for the ultimate cover. He died the ultimate protection
- 33:38Speaker 2: against the Germans. He dies of malaria.
- 33:41Speaker 1: He also moves to Venezuela and he starts managing a
- 33:45Speaker 1: story again. He runs a bookstore and gift shop.
- 33:48Speaker 2: That's all he ever wan and it's quiet life of
- 33:52Speaker 2: a shopkeeper.
- 33:54Speaker 1: Eventually, though, Thomas Harris is remember him his friend Anthony Blunt,
- 33:59Speaker 1: who turned out to be a Soviet spy right who
- 34:01Speaker 1: penetrated in My five. Eventually, this Anthony Blunt guy says
- 34:05Speaker 1: that he met Garbo and knew him as either Joan
- 34:09Speaker 1: or Jose Garcia, and people started searching for this guy.
- 34:14Speaker 1: And a British politician named Rupert Allison was interested in
- 34:19Speaker 1: the case of Garbo, and everyone he talked to did
- 34:22Speaker 1: not know Garbo's real name. That's how high the secrecy was.
- 34:27Speaker 1: The Soviet spy Blunt gives him that lead on a
- 34:31Speaker 1: Jose Garcia, and the guy is still searching. He eventually
- 34:35Speaker 1: hires a research assistant to get this call every j
- 34:39Speaker 1: Garcia in the Barcelona phone book, and eventually they get
- 34:43Speaker 1: in contact with Pajol's nephew, and then Rupert Allison finally
- 34:48Speaker 1: meets Pajol in New Orleans in nineteen eighty four, and
- 34:54Speaker 1: then Alison's like, dude, you're awesome. Thanks by the way,
- 34:58Speaker 1: thanks for d Day, thanks for all the cool stuff
- 35:01Speaker 1: he did. Will you go hang out with Prince Philip
- 35:03Speaker 1: because he'd love.
- 35:04Speaker 2: To meet you. He goes, okay, yeah, we'll go. What
- 35:08Speaker 2: do they do? Where do they hang? They have some tea?
- 35:10Speaker 1: We don't know, We just knew it was a quote
- 35:13Speaker 1: unusually long audience. Oh wow, So if you know Prince Philip,
- 35:17Speaker 1: who was probably like, tell me your wall stories.
- 35:20Speaker 2: Yes, please, I want to hear those.
- 35:22Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 35:22Speaker 2: And then he died in Caracas in nineteen eighty eight,
- 35:25Speaker 2: where he lived pretty anonymously, like I said, the quiet
- 35:29Speaker 2: life of a ShopKeep who happened to be one of
- 35:32Speaker 2: the most badass and outlandish and effective double asians in
- 35:38Speaker 2: the history of spycraft. It's certainly the one we know about, right,
- 35:42Speaker 2: Definitely no James Bond, Bravado and this guy. He was
- 35:45Speaker 2: simultaneously brazen and perfectly measured in the way he did.
- 35:50Speaker 2: He pulled this stuff off because you have to have
- 35:52Speaker 2: some kind of throwing caution to the wind kind of
- 35:57Speaker 2: attitude to even attempt some of this stuff. But you
- 35:59Speaker 2: can't just you can't be reckless, right, He had to
- 36:01Speaker 2: like kind of have a system and stick to it
- 36:04Speaker 2: and have some discipline, you know, I mean, really really
- 36:07Speaker 2: interesting character.
- 36:08Speaker 1: Some of his fictional subagents also met their end. Agent
- 36:12Speaker 1: one retired in nineteen forty three, Agent six died, so
- 36:18Speaker 1: he followed up on their lives as well.
- 36:20Speaker 2: Dude, some of these fictional agents had richer lives than
- 36:23Speaker 2: I have had. So, I mean, this is very very precise,
- 36:28Speaker 2: detail oriented stuff with this guy who's building these fictional Universes.
- 36:32Speaker 2: I mean, it's world building. It his finest what this
- 36:34Speaker 2: guy's doing.
- 36:35Speaker 1: And if you'd like to read more about Juan Prujol Garcia,
- 36:38Speaker 1: there is the book we mentioned Garbo. There's also a
- 36:43Speaker 1: great article on Badass of Theweek dot com, which I
- 36:46Speaker 1: think is cool. If you're ever listening to one of
- 36:48Speaker 1: our pure podcasts, Behind the Bastards, which is an excellent show,
- 36:52Speaker 1: and you're feeling down about life in general, then you
- 36:55Speaker 1: can find out about some historic good guys on Badass
- 36:58Speaker 1: of the Week dot com.
- 37:00Speaker 2: And it's funny you think of this guy as a badass,
- 37:01Speaker 2: and he certainly was. But a good spy probably doesn't
- 37:04Speaker 2: have to kill very often, right, a good spy you
- 37:06Speaker 2: only have to kill if you're either an assassin or
- 37:09Speaker 2: your cover is blown right, right, And he didn't kill it. Well,
- 37:13Speaker 2: he is responsible for death, absolutely, but you don't hear
- 37:15Speaker 2: any stories of him having to have, you know, slipped
- 37:17Speaker 2: someone a poisoned dart or something like that, or a
- 37:19Speaker 2: little no no no.
- 37:21Speaker 1: He's a way better spy than James Bond.
- 37:24Speaker 5: I agree. I agree, James Bond is kind of a hack, yeah,
- 37:29Speaker 5: when you think about it. So hopefully we don't get
- 37:33Speaker 5: too much hate mail about that. I will admit I
- 37:35Speaker 5: do enjoy the films.
- 37:36Speaker 2: I do, and they're all on Netflix now, by the way,
- 37:38Speaker 2: or even even like the Timothy Dalton ones, and like
- 37:40Speaker 2: the Roger all of them. I don't really want to
- 37:42Speaker 2: dig back in. You know what else is on streaming? Now?
- 37:45Speaker 2: What's that? This is a recommendation, I guess if we're
- 37:48Speaker 2: doing that, I think we wrapped up with the show.
- 37:50Speaker 2: On Amazon Prime, you can find this insane cash of
- 37:56Speaker 2: terrible eighties B movies. Oh yeah, and all of these
- 37:59Speaker 2: genres like sword and sorcery, kind of slasher type genre movies, thrillers,
- 38:04Speaker 2: spy thrillers. But they're like the C level ones. They're
- 38:07Speaker 2: the ones that were like, so you had your Cone
- 38:08Speaker 2: in the Barbarian, which is a big hit. Then you
- 38:10Speaker 2: have this whole pile of like kind of copycat movies
- 38:13Speaker 2: that are very entertaining and they do not age well,
- 38:17Speaker 2: but they're a lot of fun if you want to
- 38:18Speaker 2: dig in on Amazon Prime.
- 38:20Speaker 1: I have a comic book recommendation. Hoay, I may have
- 38:23Speaker 1: said this before. As a matter of fact, I bet
- 38:25Speaker 1: I have, But I want to put the word out
- 38:27Speaker 1: there because I just reread it.
- 38:29Speaker 2: There is a.
- 38:29Speaker 1: Comic series called Uber and its follow up is Uber Invasion.
- 38:34Speaker 1: It's an historical account of World War Two if a
- 38:40Speaker 1: specific type of superpower were discovered. I don't want to
- 38:44Speaker 1: say any more than that. I don't want to spoil it.
- 38:47Speaker 1: It's amazing.
- 38:48Speaker 2: You should.
- 38:49Speaker 1: You should check it out if you are at all
- 38:51Speaker 1: interested in good graphic novels. It is ongoing, so at
- 38:55Speaker 1: this point, I don't know how it ends either. I
- 38:57Speaker 1: would love to hear your opinion about it. You could
- 39:01Speaker 1: tell us about this. You could tell us about some
- 39:02Speaker 1: of your favorite spy stories on our Instagram, on our Facebook,
- 39:07Speaker 1: on Twitter, on Facebook, we highly recommend you check out
- 39:12Speaker 1: your fellow listener's opinions on our community page Ridiculous Historians.
- 39:18Speaker 1: You can follow us to believe we're a ridiculous history
- 39:20Speaker 1: show on Instagram.
- 39:21Speaker 2: That's right, Ridiculous History show on Instagram. And I am
- 39:23Speaker 2: personally at Embryonic Insider if you feel like hanging out with.
- 39:26Speaker 1: Me, and I am at Ben Bolin if you feel
- 39:30Speaker 1: like seeing some weird stuff, no spoilers.
- 39:33Speaker 2: Wow, you're really that's a good teas man. That's a
- 39:36Speaker 2: good teas I don't think you'll be let down either
- 39:39Speaker 2: Ben gets up to some shenanigans. Let me tell you.
- 39:41Speaker 2: If you don't wan to see that stuff, he can
- 39:43Speaker 2: send us an email ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. Thanks
- 39:46Speaker 2: to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Yeah, thanks to
- 39:49Speaker 2: Casey Pegram who composed our hearts. The theme of our Hearts,
- 39:53Speaker 2: that's what he composed. Me. If that's his real name,
- 39:55Speaker 2: I think it possibly might not be, but I am
- 39:57Speaker 2: going to respect his privacy.
- 39:59Speaker 1: Yes, yes, what if his real name is just a
- 40:02Speaker 1: clever switcheroo of the letters. What if his real name
- 40:05Speaker 1: is like pacey Kegrim.
- 40:06Speaker 2: I like that.
- 40:07Speaker 1: That's pretty fun And thanks to our research associate Gabe.
- 40:11Speaker 1: Thanks to Thanks to you, Noel. This has been an
- 40:13Speaker 1: absolute pleasure. And now I'm going to spend the afternoon
- 40:17Speaker 1: figuring out what our core spy nicknames would be. Will
- 40:21Speaker 1: you be sure and let me know, Ben, You let
- 40:23Speaker 1: me know if you've got one, Hey, let us know
- 40:24Speaker 1: if you've got one.
- 40:26Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
- 40:36Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
- 40:39Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.