WOMEN SPIES

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 129, 4 January 1939, Page 3

WOMEN SPIES

AGAIN IN THE NEWS t UNCEASING ESPIONAGE VARIED ' SECRET WORK \ STRANGER THAN FICTION The woman spy so often .in romantic fiction is 110 meie invention of the novelist, but a very real person, and has again tome into prominence in the espionage trial recently ended in the ’United States.

She operates in peace as well as war, and among the 18 persons charged by the United States Government, were two Women. They were Airs. Jessie Jordan, a beauty specialist of Dundee, and Miss Johanna Hoffman, a beauty specialist 011 the German luxury liner Europa.

111 espionage and counter-espionage the woman agent fills an important role, and her services have often been of inestimable value to. the country that employs her. Early this year it) was disclosed at a spy trial in England that the British Intelligence Office had employed a girl, for seven years to outwit a ring of Soviet spies operating from A\ oolwich Arsenal.

This ease overlapped another intriguing English espionage incident; that of the “Officer in the Tower”. 111 this instance it. lias even been suggested that the officer, Lieutenant Rail!ie ' Stewart, now living a private life, was used for counter-espionage against- a mysterious German woman known as ALarie Louise.

Such happenings show that the woman spy is just as active 111 peace as in war. A new generation of Alatu Haris. Allle. Doktors, and Louse do Bettignies lias grown up to carry on tlio clangorous work of subversive, diplomacy. With nations now settling their territorial arguments by diplomatic coups based on bluff j cbe services of efficient women secret service agents must be at a premium in this strange game of out-baffling' the bluffer. Airs. Jessie Jordan, the Englishwoman cited in tne American . spytrial, lias already been sentenced tor spying to four years’ imprisonment by the British Government. In the circumstances it seems highly probable that- her arrest, last May, at a hairdresser’s salon in Dundee, was the beginning of the uninasicing of a network of German agents, operating in Europe, America, and 111 the Ear. East.

If this is so. it would not. be the first, time that the British Intelligence Department has helped to ieveal espionage in a friendly country During the war, English agents were aware t-liat Mata Hari was a spy long before she was arrested and shot at Vincennes rifle range in 191 <•

Woman’s Influence. So completely, however, can a clever woman agent influence important people, that Alata Hari went free for years, and even counted among her lovers an important official of the French Foreign Office. She compromised so many Xrencli Alinisters that nobody dared raise a linger against her.

Mrs. Jordan’s excuse for spying, when she was on trial last .May, was that she had' married a German who had died of wounds received during the war, and that since then she had no longer been able to take nationality seriously. There may be some significance in the fact that both women cited in the American spy trial were in beauty salons. Johanna Hoffman is described as an attractive young girl of 26. She would no doubt have to be smart and vivacious in order to hold dev n a job in the beauty salon of the Jturopa. Messages are always difficult to pass in espionage work; ordinary channels of communication are- out of the question. So it- is just possible that -Mrs. Jordan and Johanna' Hoffman were units in an organisation that was, and perhaps still is, using hairdressers and beauty salons as communication agents. Coded notes carried in the 'hair could he passed very efficiently. Secret Messages. In this variety of secret service work, carrying messages, women have proved themselves more capable than men. Louise dc Bettignies, the lovely

war. wlicn “Juliana,a young Italian woman spy. toll asleep in a mil—way carriage where shejiad been talking Austrian to Austrian soidieis. In her dream she started talking in l.tal-.. inn. * _ x - It was a had moment for Juliana; hut . she fought her way out of the railway carriage into, the corridor; then she drew a revolver,and shot 'unway to one of the doors'and l jumped out of the moving train, fci’ie sus.ivedj ■esossped. ami is now said to he the ’happy '.laiHrnor of .-a live 'Fascisti ham- 1 bllKTi.: ' !.. "O." •• • ' ■ .iWioinL'.n:! spiesmnsctd mostly to rg-akee nun talk'. ! iiPi'rhaps there is something in the e'rtfca thatd when a wopian stops taJikttig'rti’ man ijs taken SO 'Hindi by surpris'hHie justddta loose iDlft overt thing.’ V Sometimes, Ifcwovor, male secret-agents are used m decoy 4tcsfmni. , ji The Uail'io Stewart. Ollicer-in-thc- __ Tower, ease 1- may iiavo bcenjjin this* 'class, some cxpsits~f a mm