6. The Spanish Fabulist Recruits Himself as a Double Spy
The Nazis had wanted Juan Pujol Garcia to report to them from Britain, but instead, he went to Lisbon, Portugal. From there, he simply invented reports about Britain, using content culled from public sources such as newspaper articles, travel guides, and books. He used his active imagination to add color, then sent the reports to his German handlers as if he was writing from Britain. The Germans believed him, and begged for more. So Kiam Pujol made up fictional sub-agents and cited them as sources for more made-up reports. The British, who were intercepting and decoding secret German messages, realized that somebody was hoaxing the Germans. When they discovered it was Juan Pujol, they belatedly accepted his offer of services, gave him the codename GARBO, and sent him to Britain.
In Britain, intelligence agents built upon Juan Pujol’s “network”. They transformed it into an elaborate deception operation that carefully fed the Germans massive amounts of often true but useless information, mixed in with half-truths and falsities. The volume of reports from Juan Pujol and his growing “network” of “sub-agents” led German intelligence to view him as their most successful spy in Britain. It was all building up to D-Day, and that was when British intelligence cashed in on that trust. The goal was to convince the Germans that the Normandy landings were just the first in a series of planned invasions, with an even bigger landing planned for the Pas de Calais.