23. Popov Pops Into America
The Abwehr was pleased with Popov’s reports. Although some of his handlers grew suspicious, they kept mum. For one, an assignment to German military intelligence in Portugal was a cushy gig compared to less attractive ones, such as a posting on the Eastern Front. For another, many in the Abwehr, from its chief Wilhelm Canaris on down to lower officials such as Johnny Jebsen, disliked the Nazis and did what they could to sabotage them.
The Abwehr sent Popov to America in 1941, furnishing him with a small fortune and tasking him with gathering intelligence on the country’s defenses. The information sought included an extensive list of questions about Pearl Harbor, in which Germany’s Japanese allies were keenly interested. The British worked with the FBI to handle Popov while in the US, but J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men lacked the vision and finesse of their British counterparts. Instead of using Popov as a double agent in deception operation to suss out German intentions and feed them misleading information, Hoover simply wanted to use him to catch German spies.