By Paul Redmond
At the end of the Cold War there was a great deal of publicity about a major spy in NATO whose codename according to media reports was “Topaz”. Apparently many Western services had some information on this alleged spy for the East Germans in the NATO organization somewhere.
As a result the security organization of NATO, which I recall was headed by an American, perhaps a foreign service officer set up an effort to figure out who the spy was. The FBI, in the form of a middle grade special agent, was represented at NATO security, as were representatives from the counterintelligence/ internal security organizations of the NATO members such as MI five. CIA was not involved in this effort.
I by chance happened to be present when the FBI representative on the NATO security committee visited a CIA station and rather haughtily informed the COS that he quote would be one of the first to know unquote when the NATO security committee identified the spy.
Somewhat later a superb CIA station chief and an outstanding young lady case officer obtained a massive amount of material from the HVA files, including thousands and thousands of cards and a much smaller batch of miscellaneous documents. This data has incorrectly been referred to as quote STASI files unquote which eventually came into the possession of the Gauck commission.
Those files were largely from the East German internal security service. The West German codename for the data which we obtained and processed and eventually passed to them was ROSENHOLZ. This massive goldmine of bureaucratic records from the HVA, the East German external intelligence service run by the legend, Misha Wolfe, was largely useless unless organized and analyzed.
CIC working with the EUR division, particularly with the brilliant Shirley Arends did the following. First, under the superb organizational drive of Reggie, a senior CIC secretary, who had many friends and contacts among the ranks of CIA secretaries, we set up a very large group of secretaries who wanted to work overtime. They transcribed into a computer the data on the many thousands of cards. That required real estate which we were able to obtain through the truly wonderful Executive Director Leo Hazelwood who stopped work on an area being remodeled in the Headquarters building, had it petitioned off and set up with many computer workstations. We then needed software which was designed by a very, very young CIA employee to collate the data which contained individually true names of HVA assets, and in other categories of cards, payment fiscal data, job position, etc.
The collated data from the thousands of cards, with some help from the miscellaneous documents led to the identification of Topaz as one Reine Rupp a German civilian employee of NATO. The collated data also identified by name five individuals who in effect were part of an apparat to support Rupp especially in time of hostilities. They were, as I recall, a radio operator in Belgium and several couriers. Rupp’s wife, a British national, was also a full member of the espionage apparat.
I note here that I have simply used the word collated. That is misleading. Once the data on the cards was run through the superb computer program, two or three candidates for each HVA asset emerged, which required more human analysis. That was done by the great Lucinda Webb and another outstanding young lady analyst. Their work enabled the identification of the Rupp apparat with virtual certainty.
The next step in this counterintelligence operation, as it related to Topaz, was to invite Dr. Dirk Doerrenberg, head of counterespionage of the BfV, and a senior officer from MI five from London (as Rupp’s wife was a Brit) to a meeting at CIA headquarters to provide them with our findings regarding the Rupps. The meeting was also eventually attended by MI six’s Washington station commander.
It was quite an occasion. The two superb analysts and I presented each of the British and German visitors with a notebook containing our findings. They were stunning, particularly to our BfV friend. Rupp’s wife had been his secretary when he was serving as the German representative to NATO Security, and she was the current secretary to the NATO committee’s trying to identify Topaz, presumably taking notes of their meetings.
The next step involved the representatives from the European services going home, digesting our revelations and thinking about how to wrap up Rupp, his wife, and the support apparat. All the while treating the information is extremely sensitive as CIA had sources still in place to protect. There would be no, repeat, no inclusion of the Belgian security service who were notoriously feckless, unreliable, and generally useless.
After a brief period Dirk and the British returned for another session at CIA headquarters to discuss next operational steps. In short, the British weren’t terribly excited about Rupp’s wife and we more or less agreed to will belay any concrete plans regarding her and concentrate on Rupp. As he and his family were resident in Brussels, the BfV decided they would have to wait until he came into Germany to arrest him when he crossed the border.
All of this deliberation in the Federal Republic of Germany took forever and I, not being particularly patient, was constantly on their case to get with it. Dirk, who became a very good friend to the extent you can have a friend in another intelligence service, finally shut me up by saying quote “Paul, it is all your fault. You Americans after the war deliberately broke up our government geographically placing the Ministry of Justice in Karlsruhe, many, many miles from the capital in Bonn and my office in Koln. I cannot talk about this over the phone and have to drive back and forth down there to the talk to the lawyers endlessly about how to set this up for prosecution.”
Eventually the Germans got approval to arrest Rupp when he came into Germany. Rupp’s first trip into Germany was during the summer when he took, as I recall, two children camping in what had been East Germany. Somehow BFA surveillance lost him and he got into the former East Germany where they had no chance of finding him as they, understandably, had no local assets on the ground.
Eventually, from coverage of Rupp’s connections in Germany, they learned of his planned travel to the Federal Republic. Accordingly they were able to cover him and arrest him on German soil.
Some sidelights. As a matter of trying to do good government and simple courtesy, we informed the head of NATO security, a State Department officer, a bit ahead of time and he agreed not to inform anyone else. We of course learned immediately that he got in his car and found the head (Secretary General??) of NATO to tell him. (At least he apparently did not use the phone.)
Another amusing incident: I was sitting in the office of the COS when his phone rang and it was Dirk looking for me. (The context is the Germans were more than a little chagrined that we had identified their spy and not them.) Dirk said, quote “Paul,” laughing very loudly, “you missed vun. He is a (local) employee of your embassy sitting right downstairs from where you are….and people are on their way to the embassy to arrest him.”
The COS then had the interesting task of inviting the State Department security officer up to the office to tell them one of the embassy’s employees was going to be arrested by the Germans for espionage in a very few minutes. I recall that individual was I think a brother or some sort of relative of Rupp’s. I do not remember whether we ever got around to bothered to find out how we had missed him.
In addition, in what I view as a wonderful compliment, Dirk invited me to sit with him in his office at BfV headquarter while he orchestrated/directed by the minute the surveillance and arrest of Rupp in Germany. Regrettably, I know hardly any German. I would note in this context the British and the Germans were an absolute delight to work with. They are professionals and understand the need for source protection.
Sequel: cannot remember what happened to Rupp. Do not think he suffered much time if any in jail. Nothing as I recall happened to the wife. Little if anything was found in subsequent examination of his home in Brussels. He had clearly burned in the yard a lot of papers when HVA his code name became well known to the public.
Fun note: the HVA codename, TOPAZ, we learned from sources subsequently, was given Rupp by the HVA based on the title of the very popular Leon Uris novel of the same name which, according to Wikipedia, was published in 1967– which gives you a rough idea how long Rupp worked for them.