7. The Emergence of a Triple Spy
Dusko Popov’s experience in Germany did not improve his opinion of the Nazis, and when WWII broke out, he was primed and eager to pay them back if the opportunity presented itself. It presented itself when his friend Jebsen, whose family’s business needed favors from Popov’s, informed him in 1940 that he had joined Germany’s military spy agency, the Abwehr. Popov passed that information to a contact in the British embassy named Clement Hope, along with the observation that Jebsen was not that fond of the Nazis. Jebsen sought to recruit Popov as an Abwehr spy, and when he passed that on the British, they recruited him as an MI6 agent and urged him to play along with the Germans and join the Abwehr.
Popov was given the codename Ivan by his German handlers, while the British codenamed him Tricycle because he was in charge of three double agents. Popov eventually turned Jebsen, and recruited his German recruiter into British intelligence as a double agent. Popov also fed information to his native Yugoslavia’s intelligence, which made him a triple agent. He moved to London, and his family’s business activities gave him cover to travel back and forth to neutral Portugal. There, Popov met his Abwehr contacts and fed them information provided to him by the British service that ranged from harmless truths to half-truths, to outright lies.