World War II and Cold War Espionage Fact Check

[narrator] You don’t know their names. You’ve never seen their faces. Garbo, Tricycle, Treasure...

...Brutus and Bronx. British spies during the second world war. Their mission:

deceive Adolf Hitler to ensure the success of the DDAY landings in Normandy. [Max Hastings] The double agents, the wireless deception,

the false information fed to foreign diplomats, this was brilliantly handled. [narrator] A life in the shadows

that transformed these five agents into masters of deception. [Nigel West] His case officer thought he was the best actor in the world. [Garbo] I never like to give my opinion

unless I have strong reasons to justify my assurances. [narrator] This is the classified story of three men and two women you’ve never heard of.

Who changed the course of History. [narrator] Throughout the Second World War, Hitler's Germany continued to extend its influence.

[troops marching] [cars rumbling] Prague, Paris,

[troops marching] Copenhagen. Europe’s big cities fall one by one under the yoke of the Nazi army.

By November 1943, the Third Reich and its Führer reign supreme over fifteen countries. [troops marching]

Britain, the United States, and Canada join forces to liberate occupied Europe. They launch the operation Overlord.

Its goal: to land thousands of soldiers on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944, and push the Nazi army to the borders of Germany.

It’s risky. [gun loading] The enemy has been expecting a major attack somewhere along the Atlantic coast.

And victory isn’t assured against the powerful Reich army. [bomb exploding] [Max Hastings] The SS Panzer divisions, I would say,

were among the greatest fighting formations that the world has ever seen, and they had these brilliant tanks.

Of course, the allies had many more tanks, but the German tigers and panther tanks were superb. The German army, as an institution, I would say,

was... much better than the British and the Americans. [sub-machine gun fire] [narrator] So, how does one deal with the powerful army of the Third Reich?

How do the Allies ensure a successful landing in Normandy? [Winston Churchill] In wartime, truth is so precious that it should be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

[narrator] A bodyguard of lies. When he pronounces these words on December 1st, 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill has a very specific plan:

Hitler must be tricked. [dramatic music] [Max Hastings] Winston Churchill especially,

but also many of the allied commanders knew that if the Germans in the west were able to deploy their full strength in the first 24 or 48 hours after the invasion,

they could well have thrown the allies back into the sea. But, if they could distract, divert, slow, the Germans, then the operation could succeed.

[dramatic music] [Nigel West] Churchill wanted surprise. That was the only way

in which the invasion was going to be a success. [police car's sound] [dramatic music]

[narrator] The HM Treasury is one of many official buildings in London. In its basement, a bunker,

built discreetly in 1938: the war cabinet. Here, in 1943, the biggest deception campaign

in military history is conceived: Operation Bodyguard. At the head of the mission, the London Controlling Section,

an ultra-secret organization of high-ranking army and secret service personnel. They craft a crazy plan:

to make Hitler believe that several landings will take place at the end of the summer of ‘44. In Calais, in Norway,

in the south-west of France, and in the Mediterranean. Everywhere except the actual place of the landing: Normandy.

To give substance to the plan, the allies create a phantom army: the "First US Army Group", or FUSAG,

stationed in the South-East of England. At its head, a true general, George S. Patton,

well known by the Germans for his campaigns in North Africa and Sicily. [dramatic music stops]

[Nigel West] Germans expected him to play a major role in the landings. So publicly it was announced that he was going to command the First United States Army Group.

And the components of the first United States Army group were deployed in exactly where the Germans expected to see them. In the southeast of England.

In anticipation of embarking for the Pas-de-Calais. [narrator] The English film studios perfect the illusion of FUSAG: they create dozens of inflatable tanks and wooden boats,

truer-than-life decoys deployed to the south-east of England. [Nigel West] The deception plan was based on what Germans were predisposed to believe.

So, in anticipation of an invasion of the Pas de Calais, you would expect a concentration of troops in the southeast of England. How do you accomplish that?

There were reports in the newspapers of fights amongst American troops arguing over women in pubs and hotels in the southeast of England.

It actually never happened, but these were reports that were put into the newspapers. [motorbike riding]

[dramatic music] [narrator] With the first part of the lie in place, the misinformation campaign expands.

That duty falls to another ultra-secretive organization: the Twenty committee, or "Double Cross". Led by Sir John Cecil Masterman,

it brings together representatives of the London Controlling Section, British Secret Services and Allied armies. Its mission: using a network of double agents

to mislead intelligence services of the Reich. These spies, who gained the confidence of the Germans, actually worked for the allies.

Among them, three men and two women play crucial role in Operation Bodyguard. Their code names: Tricycle, Bronx,

Brutus, Garbo and Treasure. [Max Hastings] The double cross was by far the most important deception operation of the war

and the agents involved were absolutely critical. Everybody knew that if D-Day failed, then all sorts of things were possible,

whereas if D-Day succeeded, then the allies got ashore, then the war in the West was sooner or later decided.

[hopefull music] [airplane flying] [narrator] The National Archives of Kew, in the suburbs of London,

preserve all the details of this vast sham. [dramatic music] Some top-secret documents, now declassified,

reveal the crucial role these spies played in pulling off the largest military operation of the 20th century. [Tricycle] Dear Jorge, you are right to think

that I am an awful person to correspond with, but believe it or not, I could not find half an hour to write to you.

I am dropping you these few lines only to tell you that you should not worry so much about your sister. She regained her health completely

and nobody would believe that she was a very ill girl a few month ago. [clink on the bottom]

[crack and clink] [narrator] In this seemingly harmless letter, a double agent discreetly sends a message to his German "Spy Master".

Between the lines, he writes another text in invisible ink, made of diluted aspirin. [Keith Melton] Good spies, spies that want to live a long time,

don't want to have any proprietary spy craft equipment with them. Their safety is that they simply look like a normal citizen. So if they could access common household chemicals,

something they could buy from a pharmacy, then they could create an ink to use to communicate to their headquarters.

[narrator] Invisible ink is simple to make. Revealing it takes more effort. The German intelligence services developed a complex, two-step method.

First, they coated the letter with a chemical solution and let it dry for at least an hour. [pouring liquid]

Then, they coated the letter with another secret mix of chemicals. After the second solution dried the message would slowly reveal itself. [H. Keith Melton] The German loved this two-step formula.

And the reason for this was that, counterintelligence services, often in the postal system, developed broad techniques that they would use to test multiple letters.

They would make a cocktail of various reagents, take a small brush, paint it across the face of the envelope, to see if any hidden writing developed.

But with the two-part system, it would never ever expose the writing underneath. [narrator] This seemingly bland letter,

written eight months before D-Day, hides an invisible message, revealed in the transcripts. It is one of thousands kept in the National Archives,

pertaining to Operation Bodyguard. On the left, the cover letter. To the right, the secret writing.

[Tricycle] I have too much material to send you by letter and as nothing is extremely urgent, I will bring it with me in about three weeks.

[narrator] The secret text is signed with the codename, “IVAN”. For the British secret service, this is the double agent TRICYCLE. His real name: Dusko Popov.

A 30-year-old Serbian who studied law in Germany. [Nigel West] Dusko Popov, I thought before the invention of James Bond that he was James Bond.

He was suave, good looking. He had this ability to seduce women. He was a great womanizer.

He was a very amusing raconteur. He had a funny story for every occasion. He was a gambler and he was a party goer

and a wonderful playboy, but really very good company and very entertaining. You couldn't fail but adore Dusko.

[Mark Kelton] One would think that having high-profile activities, running around with women, partying, all of those things would increase the risk to an agent.

If you're looking for an agent, you're looking generally for the little grey man or woman, somebody who floats below the surface,

doesn't draw attention to themselves and does the job. In Popov's case, of course he wasn't that person. But interestingly, that sort of served him well.

Because, I think the Germans, number one, they weren't very curious about it. But number two, had they been curious, they would've thought, okay,

no reasonable intelligence service would ever accept a man like this as an agent. [steps on crushed stone]

[narrator] Marco Popov is the son of the agent Tricycle. Today he is the custodian of his father's archives and personal history.

[Marco Popov] Dusko after his studies in Belgrade went to take his doctorate in Freiburg in Germany. And there he met a German of Danish origins

called Johnny Jebsen. They both shared a nonchalant playboy style of life. Both had rich parents, enjoyed life,

enjoyed whatever they could in those days. And both were so pro freedom that they ostensibly showed their despise for the Hitlerian regime.

[narrator] A few years later, Dusko Popov learns that his friend Johnny is enlisted in the Abwehr, the German secret service, and wants to recruit him.

[Marco Popov] Dusko and Johnny were good tandem and they already without words knew what they could expect of each other. So, without saying it openly,

it was clear from the start to Dusko that Johnny could not have been working with the Abwehr intentionally without some subterfuge.

[narrator] Dusko Popov is convinced that Johnny secretly intends to become a double agent and share German intelligence with the Allies. In following is friend’s idea,

Dusko agrees to join the Abwehr. And, in 1940, Popov starts working for MI5 and moves to London.

The Germans suspect nothing. They have full confidence in the information he sends them. Undercover as a ministerial attaché for the Yugoslav government,

Popov travels regularly to Portugal where he meets Major Ludovico Von Karsthoff his German case master.

[indistinct chatter] [Marco Popov] He usually set up his meetings at the “Baccara” or roulette table in the casino in Estoril,

and they would point by putting the dices on the numbers, the day, the time, and the place of the appointment where an Abwehr car would pick him up.

He'd jump in the back seat and would then hide low in the car as they would come in to von Karsthoff's villa. [narrator] At each meeting, Von Karsthoff gives several questionnaires to Popov.

Documents that the spy can carry discreetly thanks to a surprising technology: the microdot. [H. Keith Melton] A micropunct or a microdot

is a photographic reduction typically of a page of text to a size that it is so small that it is unreadable without some additional form of optical magnification.

You can see that there's a dot there, but you can't see what's on it. This was one of the great developments during World War II. Because it was so small, he could keep it hidden,

and that way it wouldn't be detected when he crossed the border. The only way he could read it would be simply using a small microscope. [narrator] Once back in London,

the spy reads the questions asked by the Abwehr. Of course, he transmits these documents to the Double Cross Committee. Which provides the answers.

Tricycle’s playboy, socialite lifestyle provides the committee with the perfect cover to justify the origin of its information.

For months, the double agent performs a real balancing act between London and Portugal. The slightest misstep could expose him to the German secret services.

[Robert Wallace] The double agent in dealing with two handlers, is dealing with two professionals. Both professionals are always looking for indications

of whether or not that double agent is quote "loyal" to them, unquote, or not. And so, there would be, during the course of any double agent operation the double agent will have to face situations

where the other side is testing him. [Mark Kelton] The agent must be vigilant in all circumstances. And he frankly must develop stories to fit whatever he's doing.

So if he goes to meet the service that's actually controlling him, he has to have story to tell the other service, right? So by going to Portugal. "I go to Lisbon. Why am I in Lisbon?

I'm in Lisbon for a business reason," or some other reason, but he has to have a story to tell the other service. Any mistake he makes can have drastic consequences for him.

[narrator] Very quickly, Popov becomes one of Abwehr's favorite spies. But the double agent has no idea of the extent of the deception. [Nigel West] None of the agents knew that

they were part of a major deception campaign. Each believed that they were operating individually and independently. They didn't even know the real names of their own case officers,

who were supposedly frankly their best friends. [narrator] The Double Cross Committee keeps every agent somewhat in the dark. After devising the misinformation they want to feed to the Germans,

the Committee fragments it and distributes the seemingly unrelated pieces to the spymasters of the double agents. At the end of the chain,

the spies have no sense of the big picture. [Nigel West] The D-Day landings from an intelligence perspective is a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

You're not showing the picture on the lid of the jigsaw puzzle to your enemy. What you're giving him are the pieces of the puzzle.

And these pieces don't just fit together. They overlap, and that overlapping is called "source verification" and it means that one piece of information

authenticates the second piece of information. And you leave it to the enemy who reach the conclusion that they're already predisposed to believe.

[narrator] Little by little, a false History is written in parallel to the real one, in which the allied armies are more numerous, better equipped,

and ready to attack the Third Reich in different places. Spreading the deception requires double agents on the front line. One of them will push his commitment to the Allied cause to the extreme.

Code names: Garbo on the British side, Alaric on the German side. Juan Pujol Garcia, a Spaniard,

is one of the British crown’s best and most imaginative spies. His career begins in 1939, at the end of the Spanish Civil War. [applause]

Revolted by totalitarianism, he decides to take action against the Nazi ideology, as he relates in his memoirs published in 1986.

[Garbo] I yearned for justice. From the medley of tangled ideas and fantasies going around and around in my head, a plan slowly began to take shape.

I must do something, something practical; I must make my contribution to the good of humanity. [narrator] Tamara Kreisler is Agent Garbo's granddaughter,

and one of the heirs of her grandparents’ incredible story. [Tamara Kreisler] I don’t think that my grandfather and my grandmother decided to become spies.

I think it was more the circumstances that took them to this situation. They were very young, they were very enthisiastic they were dreamers.

They had suffered a lot because of the Spanish Civil War, so for them I don’t think it was just "let’s become spies" but it was like "we have to do something whatever but something, this is too...

we cannot let the world go this crazy way". [narrator] Juan Pujol Garcia and his wife Araceli tried to contact the allied secret services.

But the allies send the inexperienced young couple home. They then approach the German secret services with the aim of feeding them false information.

The Germans recruit them as early as 1941. Under the code name Alaric, Garcia begins to provide information, live from London.

Except that he has never set foot in the British capital. [Nigel West] He had managed to get as far as a village just outside Lisbon called Cascais.

And from there he pretended that he was already in England and that he had recruited a KLM civilian air crew who was traveling on a regular basis flying between England and Portugal,

and this was the explanation for why Alaric's letters were postmarked in Lisbon, because he said this courier

would deliver them to the mailbox in Lisbon. [scissors cutting paper] [narrator] With the aid of tour guides, maps

train schedules and some British newspapers, Alaric invents himself a whole life in England and sends dozens of letters to his German contact.

He and his wife push the trick even further: they pretend that Alaric has recruited other agents, making him the head of a network of spies

that exists only in their imagination. They actually created their own misinformation operation without ever hearing about the double cross committee.

[Tamara Kreisler] They were freelancer spies. I mean if you think about it who is a freelancer spy? It’s a pretty peculiar concept of being a freelancer spy.

[narrator] In April 1942, more than two years before D DAY, the English finally notice this prolific informant who earned the trust of the Germans.

Juan Pujol Garcia moves to London with his wife, and he joins the Double Cross network under the code name "Garbo". [Nigel West] The reason why he was code named Garbo

by the British Security Service was that his case officer thought he was the best actor in the world. He would, as we say, be able to sell snow to the Eskimos.

He was a brilliant actor and he had a unique style. He would take three pages to say something that you and I would say in 2 paragraphs. [narrator] Under the direction of his Spymaster Tomas Harris,

Garbo quickly expands his network of fictional informants creating 27 imaginary agents. [Robert Wallace] If I were interviewing Garbo

one of the questions I would say is: how did you keep all these things straight? I mean, keeping 27 agents in balance

and so they don't look suspicious to the Germans? That is a very disciplined element to have to deal with, day in and day out. A small mistake with one of his sub-agents

could really destroy the whole operation. [narrator] Thanks to constant vigilance, Garbo and Harris manage to maintain the ruse of all these imaginary informants.

Day after day, they perpetuate the disinformation business of Operation Bodyguard, alongside other double agents, real, this time.

[music from the 1940s] [Treasure] …Listening on the days agreed. I also mention that on my last visit to Bristol,

I noticed a considerable number of American soldiers and officers wearing a big black A. [narrator] These are the words of Nathalie Sergueiew, aka "Lily".

Born in Russia, raised in Paris, she offers her services to the Abwehr at the beginning of the war. Like Tricycle and Garbo, she's not a Nazi sympathizer

and intends to betray the Germans from the very beginning. As soon as the German secret services send her to London, she applies to MI5 to become a double agent.

From now on, her name is Solange for the Abwehr, And Treasure for the allies. But when she settles in England,

Treasure makes an unusual demand: she wants her dog Babs to travel with her. [violin playing]

[Nigel West] Lily Sergueiew was a very difficult woman. A very unusual woman. And one individual that she had

a long-term relationship was her dog, Babs. And she had no understanding even in the middle of the war that there were very strict quarantine controls in the United Kingdom

because the UK unlike the rest of Europe had never had rabies. So absolutely under no circumstances could Babs travel with her, until Babs had completed the 6-month quarantine.

So a big problem. But it was agreed that she would travel on her own and that Babs would go into quarantine in Gibraltar before following her.

[narrator] Treasure works hard for the Double Cross committee. When the Germans send her to describe the insignia of the soldiers she sees during her travels, the Committee tells her what to report.

[dramatic violin music] [Nigel West] The German intelligence service collected their information from a very limited number of sources.

But what they really needed was the Mark One eyeball for somebody to go into the local village and to see the shoulder flashes or the insignia on the troops

or the insignia on the tanks or on the vehicles. The mere observation of a single soldier with insignia in a particular place on a particular date

has the effect of authenticating a great deal of other information. [dramatic violin music] [narrator] For months, Treasure and others

pass thousands of small pieces of information to the Reich. And to make sure these lies are effective, the British secret service employs a brilliant tool:

the Blechley Park Decryption Center. [violin music escalates then stops] [narrator] Here, more than 8,000 people try to decrypt German messages.

The men of the Reich can keep no secrets from the agents of the British crown. [Nigel West] You can watch a message delivered by Garbo to Madrid

and you can follow the same message being delivered to Berlin. And then you can see the reaction in Berlin, sending a message perhaps a questionnaire

seeking more information on particular subjects to Madrid, which is then transmitted to Garbo in another hand cipher. The huge advantage of being able to monitor the enemy traffic

is that it was a guarantee that the enemy had been hooked completely and believed the information that they were receiving was authentic. [narrator] The intercepted messages leave no room for doubt:

the double agents have won the confidence of the Germans. In May 1944, a month before the landing, the Reich's secret services are convinced that the Allied troops

are concentrated mainly in the Dover region and on the East Coast. The Germans position their armies according to what they think they know, putting their three key divisions in the Calais area.

But here is the real position of the Allied troops: massively gathered a little further west, ready to attack the beaches of Normandy.

Now, to maintain the deception until the landing, the double agents intensify the urgency of their messages. [Bronx] Send 50 pounds fast. I need it for my dentist.

[dramatic music] [narrator] This telegram is sent on May 15th, 1944. Its sender: Elvira Josefina Concepcion de la Fuente Chaudoir.

Alias Agent Bronx. [indistinct excited voices] Daughter of a rich Peruvian diplomat,

she is known for her partying, seduction, and her love of playing bridge. An excellent cover for transmitting high-society gossip. This mundane telegraph hides a coded message for her case officer.

The sum of money actually denotes a specific geographical area, the target of an upcoming Allied attack. The Bay of Biscay, north of Spain.

The reference to her dentist denotes her level of certainty about the information. Finally, the urgency of her request

indicates when this attack will take place. On May 15th, 1944, the Abwehr’s decoded telegram reads: in a month, around June 15,

an attack will definitely take place in the Bay of Biscay. [T. Ryback] What you have in the Bay of Biscay, you have this SS panzer division,

a very consequential unit. And when this message comes through, the military keeps it there. So basically, you have this telegram coming through

that paralyzes a very consequential unit of the German military. A full SS panzer division sits in place waiting for an invasion that never comes.

[narrator] Operation Bodyguard continues to pay off. The landing is imminent, and the allies are confident. But suddenly, the unexpected happens.

Johnny Jebsen, Agent Tricycle’s best friend and member of the misinformation network, is arrested by the Gestapo.

[Nigel West] He was suspected rightly of having embezzled a large amount of money out of the Abwehr. The problem was: would he try and make a deal with the Gestapo?

Would he disclose the information that he knew? Would he compromise Dusko Popov? Juan Pujol, code named Garbo, was himself under threat

because it became clear that information about him had reached Jebsen. So all of this was in the balance when Jebsen was arrested

and that created a major crisis for the Double Cross committee. [narrator] The British Security Service holds its breath. Then, almost at the same time, another threat arises.

MAY 17th, 1944 19 DAYS TO DDAY [Mary Sherer] When she visited Lisbon she had fixed up a control sign with Kliemann

which she had not told us about on her return. She refused to divulge what the signal was. [narrator] This report is written by agent Mary Sherer,

Treasure’s case officer. She reveals that Treasure is threatening to tell her German contact everything. Why?

The death of her dog Babs crushed by a truck while in quarantine abroad. [Nigel West] Lily Sergueiew was interested in in only two things.

Herself and her dog. And in terms of motivation, she was extremely angry about the loss of her dog.

To the extent that it jeopardized her mission. There was a danger perceived by MI5 that she might tell the Germans

that actually she was operating a double game. [narrator] At the end of May 1944, Jebsen’s arrest and Treasure's threats

plunge the Double Cross committee into crisis. [phone rings] Operation Bodyguard teeters on failure.

But too late to call it off. The committee stops Tricycle’s activities, and prevents Treasure from writing her own reports.

They decide Garbo is too valuable to take out of service. On the night of June 5th to June 6th, 1944, just a few hours before the landing,

he transmits a message of paramount importance to the Germans. [Garbo] He wrote to me 3 days ago announcing the distribution of cold rations and vomit bags to the Third Canadian Division.

After the Third Canadian Division had left Americans came in. Rumours having reached him that the Third Canadian Division had embarked.

[sea water fizzing] [narrator] In this letter, Garbo announces the imminent landing in Normandy. It’s the truth,

the ultimate poker hand for Operation Bodyguard before D-day. [boats crash into the sea water] [Max Hastings] It was a brilliant stroke of MI5

to get Garbo to send a message on the night of D-Day saying the Allies are coming to increase Garbo's credibility.

[narrator] Thanks to this message, Garbo keeps the German secret service’s confidence. An indispensable ruse to maintain the deception

as the Allied ships leave the English coast for Normandy, the Nazi general staff still believes it is just a diversion. [dramatic music escalates]

[falling bombs whizzing] The morning of June 6th, 1944. The big day.

[bombs exploding] [splash] 8,000 warships moor off Normandy,

and 175,000 men storm the beaches. [gunfire] Meanwhile, in Germany, nobody seems alarmed. Not even Hitler.

[T. Ryback] Hitler was at the Berghof, which was his mountain retreat in the German Alps. And on the night of June 5th

he was actually watching movies with Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels left around two o’clock in the morning and then Hitler went to bed around three o’clock.

And no one was to disturb him. Hitler himself had anticipated that there would be an attack, but that it would be a diversion in anticipation of a much larger attack.

So when news of Normandy came, you didn’t want to wake him up for an attack that would prove to be a diversion.

Then you realize that in one of the most consequential moments, Hitler slept. [gunfire]

[narrator] On the beaches of Normandy, the fight rages. In the first 24 hours, more than 10,000 Allied soldiers are killed, wounded or missing.

But the German defences gradually fall. No reinforcements come to repel the allies. Jebsen and Treasure didn't compromise the operation after all.

[gunfire] On the evening of June 6th, the war is far from over. Allied armies must now advance into enemy territory.

[gunfire] [M. Hastings] What we have to remember is although in the eyes of the world, the fact the Allies got ashore on D-Day,

June 6th, this is the big day, success, triumph, victory. It was not that simple. The planners had always expected

that the key battle will be in the days and weeks that followed, and that if the Germans after D-Day were able to reinforce more quickly by land than the allies by sea,

the Germans could still win the battle. And so, a huge amount hinged on how quickly the Germans moved their armored divisions from the Pas-de-Calais.

[narrator] For now, the Germans believe Normandy is a diversionary ploy. They still expect a major attack in the Pas de Calais. But how long will they believe it?

[Nigel West] After the 6th of June 1944, you might think that the deception campaign would be over. But that was just the first half.

The second half was equally as important, and it was to maintain the fiction of the main invasion was due to take place at any moment in the Pas-de-Calais.

[narrator] As early as June 7th, all the agents still in the race send new reports to their German handlers. They cannot be more explicit. An attack in Calais is imminent.

[Garbo] From the report mentioned it is perfectly clear that the present attack is a large-scale operation but diversionary. I never like to give my opinion unless I have strong reasons

to justify my assurances. [Bronx] Only part of Allied force in Normandy operation, bulk remains here at present.

[Brutus] FUSAG was, as I reported, ready to attack at any moment, but it is obvious now that it will be a separate action. Hub. [narrator] This last message is sent by agent ‘Hub’, for ‘Huber’,

British codename: Brutus. As a former officer of the Polish Air Force, whose real name was Roman Garby-Czerniawsky,

he was recruited as a double agent two years earlier. As D-Day approaches, he becomes an essential player in the deception campaign.

[Nigel West] In 1944, he was attached as a liaison officer to Wentworth which was the supposed headquarters of the First United States Army Group, which first of all confirmed the existence of FUSAG

and secondly gave an opportunity for direct information to be passed to the Germans about the First United States Army group. [narrator] The day after June 6th,

Agent Brutus sends a barrage of messages to the Abwehr. His mission: make them believe that FUSAG, the fictional army he is a part of, is ready to land in Calais.

[Brutus] Still saw in Brentwood some soldiers of the 351st US Infantry Division. They were currently attached to the 121st US Corps and sent to Kent.

Northern regions of Harwich and around Ipswich seem to be prepared as staging areas for boarding. [violin music escalates and stops]

[narrator] Given the deluge of supporting information, the Germans feel confident. The lie endures for days, and even weeks.

[falling bombs whizzing] [Timothy Ryback] It took seven weeks for the Germans to finally tumble to the fact

that there was not going to be a second invasion, I mean even in July there were twice as many troops at the Pas-De-Calais than at Normandy.

Finally on the 27th of July, four panzer divisions are sent from the Pas de Calais down to Normandy, here we are you know, a month and a half after the initial invasion.

[gunfire] [M. Hastings] One of the many things that's extraordinary about Fortitude is the allies biggest hope

was they could just maintain uncertainty through D-Day and then they thought that if they were very lucky, they might maintain German uncertainty for a few days.

And what is incredible is that it persisted for weeks. The Germans went on and on leaving these forces here in the Pas de Calais, so Fortitude was as successful as the allies hoped at the beginning,

but far more successful than they had ever dared to hope in the days and weeks that followed. [explosion]

[narrator] At the end of July 1944, when Hitler finally gives the order to send reinforcements to Normandy, he’s too late.

The allies are already progressing through French territory. And on August 25th, they liberate Paris. [gunshot]

The fighting continues for many months. But the die is cast. Reich armies are sandwiched between Allied forces in the west and Russian forces in the east.

On April 30th, 1945, Soviet troops invade Berlin, and Hitler commits suicide in his bunker. A week later, on May 8th, Germany surrenders.

The Second World War is finally over in Europe. Still today, the landing of June 6th, 1944 ranks as one of the most remarkable military events of the 20th century.

But history has almost forgotten the extraordinary misinformation campaign that made it happen. [Nigel West] If the deception campaign had failed

or been disbelieved or even worse had been compromised, the consequences would have been absolutely enormous, and failure might have meant

that we'd be conducting this interview in German. [Hastings] The double agents sustain brilliantly confusion in German minds.

And the coordination, it was undoubtedly one of the great British success stories of the war. The double agents, the wireless deception,

the false information fed to foreign diplomats, all the rest of it, this was brilliantly handled. [dramatic music and pens scratching against the paper]

[narrator] At the end of the war, the double agents aren’t even aware of the central role they played. Most leave England and resume their normal lives.

[Nigel West] After the war these agents went back to a life of obscurity. Garbo ultimately went to live in Venezuela and was employed by Shell Oil as an interpreter and an English teacher,

ended up running a small bed and breakfast in Maracaibo. Tricycle Dusko Popov became a CIA agent, operated in the European Community

as the Director of the Iron and Steel and Coal Agreements. Brutus became a printer and operated a small print shop in the Fulham Road in London.

Lily Sergueiew married an American army officer she met in Paris and went to live with him in the United States. Bronx, Elvira De la Fuente, opened a couturier shop

just opposite one of the best hotels in the Riviera in Beaulieu-Sur-Mer. [narrator] For years, the story of these men and women in the shadows has remained highly classified.

But little by little, the veil of secrecy has lifted to reveal these spies who contributed so much to the success of this truly game-changing military operation.

[narrator] By the end of 1942, the Third Reich had extended its influence throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. But on November 8th, the British, American, and Canadian troops

land in North Africa and regain control of Morocco and Algeria. Once settled in Maghreb, the next step for the allied command is clear:

gain a foothold in southern Europe and weaken the Nazi army, already suffering heavy losses on the eastern front against the Russians. For this operation, codenamed HUSKY,

the Allies target a little island in the South of Italy: Sicily. Launch date: July 1943. The stakes are high.

If Operation Husky succeeds, it could turn the tide of the war, leading to victory for the allied forces. [Bailey] It was going to be the greatest,

the largest, amphibious operation in history. In other words, it was going to be the largest combined attempt by sea to land on an enemy country.

So, it was a huge enterprise. It was going to involve about 150,000 troops. Tens of thousands of aircraft.

Tens of thousands of vehicles. It was a huge operation. [narrator] But the allied headquarters face a major problem: the Germans anticipate an attack in the region

and have readied their defenses. [Kislenko] The German high command was absolutely convinced that the Allies were going to launch an attack

somewhere in the Mediterranean or Southern Europe after their campaign in North Africa. So the Germans focus on a couple of rather logical points.

First and foremost is Greece. Other places that the Germans thought it might happen are places like Sardinia, or Corsica.

And then of course Italy. But of course the question is, precisely which one are the Allies going to come at?

[narrator] For Operation Husky to succeed, the allies must force Hitler to move his troops. In great secrecy, Churchill assembles the London Controlling Section.

An ultra-secret organization of high-ranking army and British intelligence personnel. Their mission: to craft a diversion plan to convince the Germans

that the attacks will happen not in Sicily but in Greece and Sardinia. In Kew, a suburb of London, the National Archives has preserved the documents recounting this vast military plot.

In top-secret files, two names stand out: Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu, both members of the British intelligence services.

They concoct a plan worthy of the greatest spy movies. Its name: Operation Mincemeat. This document details Montagu and Cholmondeley's incredible scheme.

They want to drop into the sea a corpse dressed like a British officer who died in a plane crash. The body would carry confidential documents

suggesting an invasion in Sardinia and Greece. The goal: to let this false information fall into the hands of the Germans. [Kislenko] The whole idea of taking a corpse

and using it as a deception tool with such a massive plan behind it, the invasion of Southern Europe, is absolutely crazy, for sure. On a balance of probability, if you entertain this,

in 1942, ‘43, it seems ludicrous, it seems near insane. It's so insane that it's brilliant. And it's also really really cool.

It's got all the elements you could possibly imagine for a cool story: a dead body that's disguised, really interesting players, you know. It's a fantastically interesting story.

And there's no question in my mind that the plan that unfolds, the entire operation Mincemeat, stands as one of, if not the most important intelligence operations of World War II.

[narrator] Cholmondeley and Montagu work relentlessly to implement this crazy plan. Each detail must be carefully prepared.

[Robert Wallace] Creating a legendary agent as in the case of the Mincemeat represents a one-off type of operation for most intelligence services.

So in that sense, I don't believe there's any real template or any particular formula that one has to follow. You're almost, in every instance, making it up as you go along.

[narrator] The first step is finding the "ideal corpse". But there's one essential requirement: no-one should care about it. [Kislenko] The reason that British intelligence

needs a body that nobody cares about it is because there's too many loose ends. If you take a corpse that has family, or friends, or dies in a particularly public fashion, there are going to be lots of questions.

There are going to be people that want a funeral, there are going to be people that want to file for pension payments. There's all sorts of really mundane things in the long run,

that would throw the entire intelligence operation out of the way. There's also moral and ethical considerations, even in the midst of World War II,

people are worried about doing indignities to a body without permission. So they need a corpse that nobody cares about. It's a very sad, morbid occasion, but that's precisely what they needed.

No questions means a higher chance of success. [sea waves flowing] [narrator] Another requirement: the body must

pass as a man who drowned at sea after a plane crash. The condition of his skeleton, his lungs, the level of decomposition... Every detail matters in case the corpse gets autopsied.

[sea water and drums] They enlist the help of a coroner and a forensic pathologist. In these times of war, corpses are not necessarily lacking in London.

And yet, the search proves extremely difficult [pencil scratching against a paper] [pencil scratching against a paper]

[pencil scratching against a paper] According to Montagu's report, after 2 months of looking in vain, their luck finally turns.

The coroner and pathologist find a potentially interesting cadaver. [Montagu] On the 28th of January there had died at St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham, a laborer of no fixed abode.

His name was Glyndwr Michael and he was 34 years of age. Two days earlier he had taken phosphorous rat-poison. [narrator] The deceased is a young Welsh man

who lost his parents and apparently lived cut off from the world. No-one seems to care about his disappearance. Did he die from accidentally eating rat poison?

Was it suicide? Nobody knows. But for the forensic pathologist his means of death fits the storyline of Operation Mincemeat.

[Peter Speth] The rat poison did have the general effect that is known to occur, which is liver failure. Actually, the liver undergoes what is called necrosis,

which means death of the liver cells. Even under the best of circumstances, it is rather difficult to detect rat poison - phosphorous.

But if you now add to that the idea that the body will begin to undergo decomposition and putrefaction,

then it is highly unlikely to even think of rat poison or phosphorous. [narrator] For Cholmondely and Montaigu,

a death by rat poisoning provides a great opportunity. British intelligence feels confident: with a cause of death so hard to detect, the chances of the Germans to accept

the idea of a death by drowning would be even higher. The body of the homeless man is discreetly set aside, held at a temperature of 4 °C - 39 °F in the morgue of St. Pancras Hospital.

According to the pathologist at the time, the body would last for about 3 months. Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley must now construct the legend of this man, so that he can accomplish his post mortem mission.

First: Create a credible identity. [Bailey] They needed to convince the Germans that the courier they were going to use was a man who would be expected

to be holding documents like that. So they choose a major in the Royal Marines. And that's a reasonably senior rank,

the sort of person that you'd expect to be carrying documents like that. Another reason why they could choose a Royal Marines officer is that they could use a regular British army uniform.

You don't have to bring in a specialist tailor to measure a dead body. And therefore, if you do that, then you're putting your secrets at risk. Because how can you trust the tailor that you're bringing in

to keep the secrets that he's gonna be seeing? So here he is: a corpse who's a major with the Royal Marines, in his uniform

and finally with a name. The hero of Operation Mincemeat is Major William "Bill" Martin, born in Cardiff in 1907.

He just needs a face. [Arne Kislenko] Michael was 34 when he died, so they get a guy the same age group, and approximately the same physique,

in order to take a photograph, and it's one of their own, an MI5 officer who gives up his own photograph and his own identity temporarily,

wearing the same suit that the body is found in, in order to appear that it is the same guy. [narrator] But to be credible, the character must also have a story,

a private life, a personality… what spies call the 'legend' of Major Martin. Who was he?

How did he live? Who were his friends and what were his hobbies? What did he do on his final days in London

before leaving on his mission and crashing into the sea? Cholmondeley and Montague step into the shoes of their fictitious hero.

They plant clues in the pockets of his uniform: coins, an open pack of cigarettes, matches, a pair of keys, two bus tickets,

even a photo of Pam, his fictitious fiancée. He carries two used theatre tickets dated April 22nd, and a bill from the Naval and Military Club in London

where he stayed until April 23rd. This makes it possible to date his departure. Everything stops April 24th,

the day he's meant to fly... and crash. [Arne Kislenko] They have made Michael,

a Welsh vagrant who nobody knew and cared about, sadly, they make him a real person with an entire backstory, and that backstory is painstaking.

It's a very interesting moment where you see the mental acuity of the planners, and then you also really see how clever the operation is.

They put artefacts in his wallet and on his person that gives you a very rich tapestry. [narrator] The invented life of Major Martin is fully fleshed out.

Now Cholmondeley and Montagu move onto the next step of the plan: to determine the exact place to drop the body where the Germans will find it.

They know the spot: Huelva, in southwest Spain. [Bailey] Spain during the second world war was a neutral country. However, it was quite closely aligned with Nazi Germany.

Franco, who's in charge in Spain, had a quite close relationship with Hitler And the reason why the allies wanted to land documents in Spain, in this way, was that they felt very strongly that there was a high chance

that the Spanish will actually pass the documents that come into their possession, or copies of them, to the Germans. [Ryback] There was a man in Huelva named Adolf Klaus,

who was an excellent German spy and a committed Nazi. The Germans knew it but also the Brits knew it and they felt that if they could get this into the hands of Klaus,

it would end up in the right hands. [narrator] Huelva is on the route from Great Britain to North Africa. Major Martin's itinerary takes shape:

flying from London to Algiers, his plane will suffer a tragic fate off the Andalusian coast where Major Martin will drown near the beach.

Now, Cholmondely and Montaigu need to find the best way to drop the body into the sea. and most of all... in the perfect location

to assure it's found and brought to the Spanish coast. [Bailey] Several mechanisms were considered for how to deliver the body into the sea off the west coast of Spain.

One of these was to land it by, basically to drop the body from the air. But that was dismissed because the body would become damaged once it being dropped from a height into the water.

Another suggestion was to drop it by ship. But again, the danger there was that it might be seen. It could be seen by the shore.

Another idea was landing it by a sea plane, a flying boat. But in the end, the decision was taken to drop it from a submarine. A submarine could reach the coast quietly, unseen

and then it could just gently slip the body into the water and then leave without being seen as well. So, in the end, they settled on the submarine option.

[narrator] The submarine H.M.S SERAPH is due to leave Scotland on April 19th, 1943 for North Africa. It's a perfect schedule: providing Major Martin's last voyage

along with the documents he carries. Those crucial documents... The bait in an elaborate trap. The fictitious Major is supposedly flying to the Allied Headquarters in Algiers,

so he carries letters intended for officers stationed in North Africa. To justify sending them by special courier, the letters must be both personal and of the utmost importance.

[Mark Kelton] As with most intelligence operations, it's not the big failures that get you, it's the small ones. The people running this operation knew absolutely

that any detail that was checkable would be checked, and it had to fit with the story they were representing and had to be not only plausible but reasonable.

What can the Germans reasonably find out about a person who would be in Major Martin's position? Do the British have couriers like this?

Are there staff officers like this? Is there a reasonable plausibility that a person would be carrying these papers on a flight

and then somehow be killed? And that had to appear reasonable to them. [narrator] After many drafts, General Archibald Nye writes the first letter and signs it personally.

The recipient: his friend General Harold Alexander, stationed in Tunisia. [General Nye] It was agreed by the Chief Of Staff that the 5th Division should be reinforced by One Brigade Group

for the assault on the beach south of CAPE ARAXOS and that a similar reinforcement should be made for the 56th Division at Kalawata. Jumbo Wilson had proposed to select SICILY as cover target for HUSKY.

[Bailey] The first document is absolutely key, because it's in this document that the principal target is outlined as Greece.

That's the deception that the allies want to put over to the Germans. The letter is to suggest that the invasion, codename Husky, is actually going to Greece;

and that the Sicily operation, is actually a cover. Mentioning the word Husky in the operation is quite interesting because that suggests that they want the Germans to believe,

if they ever come across that codename Husky in other documents or through their own spies. That's a real operation, but in fact, it's going somewhere else.

It might seem risky to use the real codename in an operation, but actually, there's some thought behind that. [narrator] To complete the story, Major Martin carries two more letters.

[Bailey] The second letter is another important letter. It is written again by very senior British officer, Mountbatten, and it's a letter introducing Major Martin

to Admiral of the Fleet, Cunningham, who is a very senior naval officer in the Mediterranean. It is designed to convince the Germans

that this is a real man who is on a mission. But there's also one interesting element to the letter, which is also built into the deception, and that's the final line.

[Nye] Let me have him back, please, as soon as the assault is over. He might bring some sardines with him. They are 'on points' here!

[Arne Kislenko] The joke about sardines is, I think, one of the most risky but also the most brilliant little components. It's a reference to the fact that the British were in fact

possibly entertaining an attack on Sardinia, hence sardines. Where the brilliance comes in is that the British understood the Germans understood British humor,

so it's this kind of I know what you know what you know kind of thinking. [Ryback] It's interesting when you think about these guys sitting in London dreaming up these operations.

In some ways that's even deeper than just piling up military equipment to fake an operation, this one is the ability to think your way into the mind of the German military

and into Hitler himself. And to deliver those things that reinforce an instinct that ultimately was wrong.

[narrator] But Cholmondely and Montaigu have a problem: if the two letters are put in a simple envelope, in Major Martin's uniform pocket,

they could slip out and be lost after several days at sea. Losing the letters would jeopardize the entire operation. They decide to add a third letter

accompanied by a military pamphlet by Eisenhower. The pamphlet, too big for a simple envelope, justifies the use of a government briefcase.

[Bailey] The reason for the use of a briefcase was that they wanted the Germans to see it. They wanted it to be found.

They wanted the Spanish or whoever found the body to find this briefcase and realize they were documents in it. [narrator] To be sure the briefcase will not be lost

they attached it to Major Martin with a chain. This will also reinforce the importance of the documents. To simulate death by a plane crash,

our man is decked out with a life jacket and a rubber dinghy. With every detail of the plan in place, on April 15th, 1943, the prime minister Winston Churchill gives it the go-ahead.

[drums] [Arne Kislenko] The good news is that Winston Churchill is an aficionado of intelligence.

He thinks it's big, he thinks it's clever, he thinks it's going to work. And of course, he had hesitation, like any leader would, because as he famously said, anybody but a fool

would believe we were coming to Italy. But the Germans were foolish, so there's a possibility that they're going to actually buy it and move to Greece.

[narrator] Churchill has just one requirement: get approval on the American side from general Eisenhower, who grants an authorization two days later.

[telegram] Chief of Staff on behalf of General Eisenhower gives full approval MINCEMEAT. [narrator] Operation MINCEMEAT can commence.

[violin music] On April 17th, 1943, Cholmondeley and Montagu return to the morgue one last time.

According to official reports, the two men slip all the objects in Major Martin's pockets and attach his briefcase with the confidential documents.

[violin music] The corpse is then placed in a custom-made steel box. But for some, especially the forensic pathologist Dr. Peter Speth,

this scenario doesn't hold. Glyndwr Michael's cadaver has suffered too many temperature changes since his death 3 months prior.

[violin music] [Peter Speth] In my opinion, when Montagu went to the morgue on the 17th to get the body out of the freezer, I think what really happened was,

"Oh my god, we can't use this body. What are we going to do? He was just too badly decomposed." The stench would have been so overwhelming, so unbearable.

[bombs exploding] [narrator] For Dr Speth, there is no doubt: Glyndwr Michael never left London.

[explosion] At the last moment, Cholmondeley and Montagu might have replaced his body with the corpse of a young marine

who died a few days earlier in Scotland when the aircraft carrier HMS Dasher exploded. [Bailey] You only have Ewan Montagu's book

and the documents as a source and it's impossible to know if there was a switch. I do think you can understand why they would have preferred

the drowned body of a young British sailor. That would have been perfect. Certain things puzzle me a little bit about Martin's body using Glyndwr Michael.

I think there's room for speculation, and I think there's room for an open mind. And we have to remember that we're dealing with deception, and the deception may have continued after the war, for various reasons.

It's difficult to know. [Kislenko] Part of me says, yes, that's quite plausible, because of course the British government would want to keep that stuff secret.

Had you employed another body there are all sorts of moral, ethical, legal considerations that go into the calculation, so I understand why people believe that stuff.

And this is a world of conspiracies, many of them turn out to be true, so I suppose I get it. All that being said, the best evidence that we have,

from people that have spent a lot of time researching every component, is that it was in fact Glyndwr's body. So barring any release of government evidence from the British in particular,

we are sort of inclined to go with the official story which is super interesting. [narrator] We may never know who boarded

the submarine HMS Séraph in a sealed canister on April 19th at 6 o'clock. But whoever he is,

he carries with him all hope for Operation MINCEMEAT. [submarine going through the water] [violin music]

11 days later at 4:15am, Bill Jewell, the captain of the submarine, along with five officers who learn of the plan last minute, surface and come out on deck.

They're 1,500 meters off the coast of Huelva where they drop the corpse into the open sea. [seagulls]

Early in the morning, fishing for sardines like any other day, an Andalusian fisherman discovers the body of the English Royal Marine. [seagulls]

He brings him to the coast and hands him over to Spanish authorities. But things will not go according to plan. [Kislenko] The British plan had basically hoped that a Spanish fisherman,

or somebody in the water in Spain, would find the corpse, turn it over immediately to the Spanish military, or Spanish police, and it would end up, contents included, all of the documents, in German hands.

The problem is that the Spanish authorities refused to turn over the body, and refused to turn over the documents. [narrator] Even worse: the Spanish authorities

decide to conduct an autopsy: the first test of the British agents' elaborate scheme. [Peter Speth] According to Montagu, they were shocked and very concerned

when they found out that the body was transported by ferry up the river to Huelva, and that the medical examiner would perform an autopsy.

They were assuming, particularly because they made the body to appear to be a Catholic, that the body would simply be looked at, "Yeah, probably drowned,"

and then be buried. They had never counted on a forensic pathologist or medical examiner conducting an autopsy.

[Kislenko] It was a relatively thorough examination in the sense that they did exactly what most autopsies would do, they have questions but they come up with the answers.

One of them notes that it appears to have been further decomposed than a regular body would, even after four or five days in the ocean. Which is of course exactly

what the operation was designed to avoid in the first place. So there's this enormous tension while the British wait to see how this has been digested by Spanish authorities.

[narrator] As the Spanish doctors conduct the autopsy, some other details puzzle them. One is the position of the corpse's hairline.

It appears to be much further back than in the photograph discovered on the body. Will the doctors conclude that the body they are autopsying is not the man in the picture?

[Arne Kislenko] The Spanish doctor says well, you know, the receding of the hairline would be consistent with the attrition and movement of the skin on the scalp, in terms of the water

and the effects of the salt in the water in shaping the hairline. So, what the autopsy does is bring up legitimate questions, as opposed to an autopsy saying don't worry about it, everything's fine,

but at the same time providing answers. [narrator] Despite the questions raised by the autopsy, the Spanish authorities reach the conclusion the Allies had hoped for.

Officially, the man drowned at sea and his body remained immersed for 8 to 10 days before being found. [Ryback] I think there was a real incentive

to want to believe it, and to overlook some of the realities around it. I think had there been a thorough autopsy the results may have shown something very different, but this was all very rushed,

get it together, and get it up to Berlin and score a victory you know with the Führer. [narrator] On May 2nd, William Martin is buried in Huelva

in the presence of British army officials. But British intelligence now faces another unexpected move: instead of giving the briefcase with all the documents to the Germans

after the autopsy, the doctors give it to Spanish navy officials. [Arne Kislenko] The navy is far less to the Germans and Italians than is the army,

and there is a kind of sense of Spanish pride and sovereignty about it which you can understand. And not everybody in Spain was all that loyal to Franco,

let alone to the idea of Germans and Italians as overlords. There were quite a few people in Spain who were much fonder of the Allies than of the Axis powers.

[narrator] The Spanish navy refuses to give the British Major's briefcase to the Nazi officials. On the German side, the race begins to get their hands on the documents.

Adolph Klaus, the most active spy in Huelva, goes into action. But not one officer will open the envelopes for Agent Klaus. All he receives is a detailed list

of the documents and objects found on the body. For both sides, the Spanish loyalty to the British is a catastrophe. The briefcase leaves the small port of Huelva for Madrid

to be handed over to the British authorities. But the Reich agents don't give up and they finally get lucky. At least… that's what they believe.

On May 8th, 1943, pro-Nazi Spanish officers unseal the envelopes in Major Martin's briefcase. The operation is extremely delicate:

the British authorities cannot find out that the letters were opened by their enemies. Once opened, the letters are given to German agents

who have less than one hour to photograph them. [camera taking pictures] The Spanish officers carefully return the letters to their envelopes.

[narrator] They immediately send the photos to Berlin. The Fremde Heere, an intelligence organization of the Reich, is responsible for verifying their authenticity.

At the head of the investigation: Alexis Von Roenne, Hitler's favorite intelligence analyst. With his team, he scrupulously studies all the elements at his disposal.

But something doesn't add up. According to the Spanish forensic pathologist, the body spent 8 to 10 days in the water before being discovered on April 30th.

But in one of Major Martin's pockets is an invitation to a party at a London Cabaret Club dated April 27th. [Timothy Ryback] The British put this invitation

with the intention of just adding to his personal items, the Germans interpreted this as an event that he had actually intended, and did the math on it and said, this must have been one of the last things he did

before he left London, and then he shows up dead in Spain and they can't they can't square the condition of the body based on the autopsy report

with the fact that a couple days earlier he had been in a club in London. [narrator] For the Brits, the invitation was an unimportant detail. And now it's about to jeopardize the entire operation.

[Robert Wallace] In the Second World War counterintelligence services are very good and if a counterintelligence service suspects something, they will pull that string until they unravel everything they can.

[narrator] Alexis Von Roenne asks Spain for more information. The local Abwehr office replies that there is absolutely no doubt of the letters' authenticity.

But the Germans aren't convinced. Some of those closest to Hitler, like Goebbels, remain skeptical of this seemingly god-sent information.

Thankfully though, within the secretive powers of the Third Reich, only one man has the last word.

[Timothy Ryback] Ultimately it doesn't really matter what Goebbels or anyone else thinks it's what Hitler thinks

and when it ends up on Hitler's desk, he's convinced that it's the real thing. [Arne Kislenko] In a regime like the Nazis, failure is not really an option.

If you manage to upset somebody in the chain of command, especially Hitler, chances are you end up with a bullet in your head. So, no matter how intelligent and capable German intelligence can be,

it's horribly undermined by ideological and political concerns. So, all of this leads the Germans to hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe.

[narrator] The Führer himself is convinced that the allies are preparing an attack against Greece and Sardinia. But meanwhile, England has no idea

the Germans finally arrived at that conclusion. [phone rings] It's been days since surveillance teams have intercepted enemy communications.

And they found no messages about William Martin's letters. [Arne Kislenko] From the placement of the body in the sea up for the next few weeks there is real tension in London.

I would sort of characterize it as near panic, because everything could go possibly wrong with this enterprise. And it must have been agonizing, because there's pretty much dead silence

coming from either the Spanish or the Germans. So there's tension, there's confusion, and there's a lot of trepidation about what could go wrong.

And again, it's not because of the body per se, it's because there are invasion plans for Southern Europe which are at stake here, and many thousands of lives are involved,

so it's a big stakes game. [narrator] Finally, on May 14th, 1943, two weeks after the body was dropped in the sea,

the long-awaited signal finally arrives. [Cholmondeley] The German had information from an absolutely reliable source that large-scale Allied landings

were projected in the near future in both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. [narrator] The allies are relieved.

The ploy seems to have worked as planned. But the landing in Sicily is scheduled for July 10th, two months later. The lie has to endure.

So, the allied secret services take drastic steps to misinform and maintain the enemy's illusion. [Bailey] The British use quite a few double agents

or agents of their own, who are sending false information to Germany. For example, in the UK you have Agent Tricycle he sends the Germans fake observations of Allied movements in Scotland and the United Kingdom

to suggest that they're preparing for an invasion in Greece. In North Africa, there was also a fake army, an entire fake army. The 12th Army, with 12 divisions, it was invented. Completely fictional.

That was using things like fake tanks, inflatable tanks, inflatable trucks that could be seen from the air or from the spies who might think they looked genuine,

there were soldiers who were moving around, who of course were not really going to take part in an invasion, but were part of a fake division.

There were Greek currency, Greek newsletters, Greek guidebooks were issued among these troops, and were in circulation in North Africa to suggest that this fictional army

was actually destined for Greece. So a huge amount of effort was put into create a make-believe army that never actually existed.

[troops marching] [Kilslenko] The best way to view operation Mincemeat is to liken it to a jigsaw puzzle,

an enormously complicated jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces. One out of place could throw the entire picture down the tube. And in that sense, the intricacy, the complexity of this program,

from planning everything about the body all the way up to feeding into the German intelligence system is unbelievably risky. It is lunacy.

[typewriting] [narrator] From the start, the plan was crazy. But it works. In early summer,

Hitler orders 18,000 men from the 1st Panzer Division in France to head to Greece. They are joined by torpedo boats from Sicily.

And minefields are installed along the Greek coast. In Sardinia, the German's double their presence, and send ten more armed divisions to protect the Balkans.

The Führer's message to the allies is clear: we know about your plan to attack and you will not succeed. But the allies do attack where Hitler least expects it.

On July 10th, 1943, 160,000 men and 600 tanks arrive on Sicily's coast. [Bailey] When the invasion came,

the first lines of resistance that the Allies hit, many of them were Italian soldiers. And it became quite clear that these were second rate, second class soldiers.

And this, I think, is also evidence of the fact that the enemy, the Germans, the Italians, did not feel that a strong invasion was coming.

So they put troops in the front line there who weren't first class troops. [airplane moving on the ground] [narrator] The Allied assault doesn't worry the German military.

[airplane taking off] On the same day that the fighting is raging on the Sicilian beaches, 21 fighter planes leave the island to head to Sardinia.

[motors roaring] [Timothy Ryback] Hitler is absolutely convinced that the invasion will come on Greece or Sardinia

and even after the invasion has taken place, he sees this as a diversionary action, still waiting for the big attack to come in Greece.

[explosion] [narrator] After several weeks, the allies finally take the city of Messina, on August 17th, 1943,

ending the campaign in Sicily. For the Nazi empire, this breach signals the beginning of the end. During the following months, the allied forces will regain Italy

and, in 1944, will land in Normandy and Provence before ultimately invading Berlin in April 1945, where Hitler will commit suicide.

[Bailey] The campaign in Italy is key to the allies, because it draws German forces away from the Eastern front, and it draws Germans forces away from the Western front,

after the Allies land there in 1944. So, it soaks up enemy resources, and that's exactly what the Allies wanted to achieve.

[narrator] Today, seeing the full scale of the Allied forces to liberate Europe... operation Mincemeat seems like a small detail of World War II. And yet, the scheme, stranger than fiction,

is unprecedented in the history of intelligence. [Ryback] You could write a novel like this that wouldn't be credible, but the combination I think of the creativity

but also the insight and the luck all combined to make an astonishing operation and consequential outcome that I think one can really admit,

saved tens of thousands of lives. [Ryback] Mincemeat is an example f great ingenuity, inventiveness, and just the way that the human mind can work

and can think up the most extraordinary schemes. It is an operation that, I think, today when we look back on it, we might take it almost for granted,

but if you put yourself in the shoes of Cholmondeley and Montague at the beginning it's an amazing thing to have thought up. It's a fantastic success of creative thinking.

[Kislenko] These two men, at their core, are imaginative, gifted, creators. They're really no different than your Steven Spielberg or whoever else in today's world,

who are so creative to make the imagination run a little bit wild. [celebration] And they were blessed to have a team,

and that includes high political leaders like Eisenhower and Churchill, who, whether through desperation or confidence, decided to put it into play.

And it works magnificently. [narrator] Like a grain of sand in the Germans' well-oiled war machine, the plan crafted by Montagu and Cholmondeley

played a crucial role in the success of the Sicily invasion, and changed the course of the war. [Kislenko] There are so many things that go into World War II:

military, political thinking, economics... but yes, in a very real sense, this operation changes the nature of the war:

it allows the Allies to get a foothold into Italy, to throw out Mussolini, to make vulnerable the German defenses, it saves countless numbers of lives. And it puts Germany on the defensive even more than they already were.

So ironically, an unknown Welsh vagrant drunk who dies of rat poisoning becomes the most important man in World War II. Sure, I think there's some reason to suggest that's actually the case.

[narrator] Without having ever existed, Major Martin contributed to the fall of the Nazi empire. Today his body still rests in Huelva, Spain.

But the British government has added another name on the grave: [heroic music] Glyndwr Michael, who died at the age of 34.

"The man who never was" becomes the man he was at the start: a Welsh man who, without ever knowing it, saved thousands of allied lives after his death.

[Nikita Khrushchev speaking] [John Fitzgerald Kennedy speaking] [Nikita Khrushchev speaking]

[John Fitzgerald Kennedy speaking] [narrator] In the early 1960s, US president John F. Kennedy and Soviet Union Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev,

berate one another in their public speeches. [Nikita Khrushchev speaking] It's the height of the cold war

and the world is ideologically torn in half. In the West, the liberal block led by the US. In the East, the Soviet block headed by the powerful USSR.

Separated by an iron curtain, the two giants provoke each other with the threat of atomic weapons. Suddenly, in the heart of the Caribbean, a small soviet enclave

turns up the heat on the Cold War. It's name: Cuba. [J. F. Kennedy] Good Evening my fellow Citizens.

Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation

on that imprisoned island. [narrator] On October 22nd, 1962, President Kennedy declares

the immediate establishment of a naval blockade around the island to halt any new weapon deliveries. The news hits like a shockwave.

Will the two world powers attack each other, triggering World War III? [Arne Kislenko] If Khrushchev decided to ignore the naval quarantine,

there's every realistic expectation that we would have had war. And given the circumstances, in 1962, the chances that that would have escalated to a thermonuclear war very very high.

[Kennedy] And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not the victory of might...

[narrator] While the world holds its breath, President Kennedy remains remarkably calm. His secret: a fortuitous source of information,

located in the heart of soviet power. In Moscow. [John Fitzgerald Kennedy speaking]

[narrator] The key to averting nuclear war begins one summer night, when strangers meet on the Moskvoretsky bridge.

A man enjoying the view and two American interns, Eldon Ray Cox and Henry Lee Cobb, returning from the Bolchoï ballet.

[lighter clicks] The gentleman asks for a light and then approaches them with a more unusual request.

[Major] He says: "I have a package here and I want you to take it to a particular man." The man he identifies is the security officer

at the American Embassy in Moscow. "And I want you to take this package to him right away." [narrator] The man hands the students 2 envelopes.

Then he disappears into the night. [Major] Cox and Cobb are sitting there and saying what should we do? Well Cox says, I'm going to take it down.

Cobb's says, No, this is a setup. I want nothing to do with this. I'm going go back to my hotel room. So, they parted ways.

And then Cox took a taxi and he went to American embassy. [narrator] Here, at CIA headquarters, the most sensitive archives of American History are preserved.

Most are classified "top secret". But among the documents handed off by the mysterious man on the bridge were two identical, typewritten letters made public a few years ago.

Originally written in Russian, they were translated into English by the US Embassy. [Oleg Penkovsky] My dear Sir! It is your good friend who is turning to you,

a friend who has already become your soldier-warrior for the ideal of a truly free world to which your (and now my) President, government, and people are sacrificing so much effort.

I ask that you believe the sincerity of my thoughts. At the present time I have at my disposal very important materials on many subjects of exceptionnally great interest and importance to your government.

[narrator] The letters aren't signed. Who is this mystery man and what does he really want? Enclosed with the letters is a single photograph.

Still classified today, it gave the C.I.A. a lead to pursue his identity. [Major] When they open up the package in the American embassy, they find a photograph of a man in a military uniform with the head cut off

and an arrow that goes down and says, "I am" and in there also is the photograph of an American military officer that had been a military attache in Turkey.

[Randy Burkett] He knows that by having that picture we're going to be able to look back at the diplomatic record from the time, we'll be able to reach out to the army colonel

and we'll be able to figure out who's in the picture. It was a good ploy on his part. [drums]

[narrator] Thanks to the photograph and the students' descriptions, the CIA quickly tracks down the mysterious informant: Colonel Oleg Penkovsky.

During World War II, this brilliant soviet officer rose through the ranks of the Red Army. In 1949, he enrolled in the Military Diplomatic Academy,

where future agents are trained for the GRU, the Soviet Intelligence Agency. At just 30 years old, he is promoted to Colonel.

Then after starting his career in Turkey, he becomes Deputy Director of Coordination for Scientific Research at the Soviet Committee. His mission: to gather technical knowledge from countries in the West.

[Arne Kislenko] On paper, he most certainly is a poster boy, he's an emblem of the Soviet regime. His rise, you know, if you look at his resume,

is very consistent with many people in similar levels of military and intelligence. And in other facts, he's a kind of you know, a regular product.

He's a shining example of the Soviet system. So the initial reaction in particular from the CIA is that this guy has got to be a plant.

He's got to be in effect feeding disinformation, he's working for the KGB or the GRU, against us. It's too good to be true.

[narrator] Despite the risk of a trap, the CIA sends an intelligence officer to Moscow to contact Oleg Penkovsky. If the man's motivations are honest,

the West would have its first mole in the heart of Soviet power an opportunity impossible to let slip by. In the spring of 1961, the meeting finally happens.

The businessman and British M.I.6 contact, Greville Wynne, hosts a delegation of engineers and scientists in London. At the head of this small group is Oleg Penkovsky.

At the Mount Royal Hotel, Greville Wynne informs the Soviet Colonel: he's expected in Suite 360 by Western officers. [Randy Burkett] There are two CIA officers there,

Joe Bulik and George Kisevalter, George Kisevalter being kind of key because he was famous for his incredible Russian skills but also his way of connecting with Russians.

And then there was Shergy Shergold and Michael Stokes on MI6 side. So, he had four very experienced officers meeting with him. [narrator] The interrogation begins.

[David Major] In every human operation run by any intelligence service, you get a new source. Your first question is, is this man bonafide?

In other words, is he legitimate? Is he who he says he was? And is he doing it for the reason he says?

Or has he been sent as a deception operation to deceive us? In the business, we call this asset validation. So, they're going to start the process of a very thorough,

very friendly debriefing as to how he comes to be that he wants to be in the room with these four intelligence officers.

[narrator] During this first meeting, the officers learn that Colonel Penkovsky's rising career within the GRU has recently stalled.

His problems started four years earlier, in 1956. While on assignment in Turkey, he denounced the head of the GRU station in Istanbul for corruption.

But instead of listening to Penkovsky's complaints, Moscow buries the case and brings Penkovsky home. Soon after Penkovsky returned to Russia, the KGB launched an investigation on him.

And what they discovered jeopardized any chance for promotion. [Penkovsky] About a year ago I was called up by the Chief of the Personnel Directorate who questioned me about my father.

He said, "This is what you have declared your background to be and this is what we have found out about your father. You said your father simply died."

This is because my father was a White Officer. [narrator] The KGB discovered that Penkovsky's father had fought alongside the Tsar

against the Bolshevik revolutionaries in the late 1910s. It's a serious offense. [Randy Burkett] Had this come out earlier, he never would have ended up in the GRU.

Once it came out, in his KGB reinvestigation, they determined he and his family could never go overseas again. Penkovsky was coming up on 25 years of service

and he had this tainted White Russian background. He was going to get retired, he believed. He was never going to be promoted to General.

He was never going to be among those that really had access to the best that there was inside the Soviet Union. And so Penkovsky saw himself in this race against time,

that he had to build up such a credit within MI6 and CIA that when and if he got retired, and lost all of this access, that he would be able to eventually defect and have a good life.

[narrator] During the first meetings, the officers try to unravel Oleg Penkovsky's very intricate personality and complicated motivations.

[Arne Kislenko] Still today we have great questions about what Penkovsky's motivations were. Not every expert on Penkovsky would necessarily agree

what was the principal trigger. Oleg Penkovsky is a curious figure. He was profoundly arrogant.

He may have had delusions of grandeur of both his own importance, and where he could serve the Americans and the British. And we know from almost every account, especially his interrogators.

That one of his motivations became the idea that he was treated unfairly in the Soviet system. And there's no question that was accelerated

once Khrushchev became the official. He detested Khrushchev, he didn't like anything about the man, it's not well documented how well he knew Khrushchev, if at all,

but he came to the assumption that Khrushchev was reckless and dangerous in his behavior in foreign affairs, particularly. So, between those two things, there was this initiative, if you like,

or motivation, to betray. [Major] He's very concerned about Khrushchev, so he's very concerned about

what he's going to do with nuclear weapons. So he's very concerned about where his country is going. He sees himself as a patriot

and he says somebody needs to know what is happening in this country. [narrator] During his stay in London, Penkovsky holds a series of meetings with the CIA and MI6.