Latest / Ridiculous History / Agent Garbo: The Strange Tale of the Man Who Saved D-Day

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Agent Garbo: The Strange Tale of the Man Who Saved D-Day · Ridiculous History

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