Double Cross in Cairo by Nigel West Page B

alternative and much more satisfactory address given to and apparently accepted by them. It would seem that the Abwehr have failed oncemore, through incompetence and/or dishonesty to take their fair share in the task of maintaining the probability of the CHEESE saga.
    5. At this juncture the London comment is pertinent – have all these successive frustrations of the enemy’s attempts to pay CHEESE been entirely the fault of the Abwehr? And – a question which has been of even greater interest to Special Section – will the Abwehr ever be capable of delivering money to CHEESE without more active assistance from us than they have hitherto received? In this connection it is felt that due emphasis should be given to certain aspects of the problem in Egypt, described in the following paragraph:
    6. The necessity for giving absolute priority to operational considerations has been explained in Paragraph 1 above. The practical result of this has been the acceptance as an axiom that, for the sake of avoiding any possible prejudice to current operational schemes CHEESE and his story must be kept to a maximum extent free from the possibly fatal touch of such physical reality as, for example, is involved in contact with the enemy in the shape of his agents or couriers. Passivity has therefore been the keynote of all plans hitherto framed for the reception of the money; action has been confined to the making of such local arrangements as were necessary, and then merely inviting the Abwehr to do their duty – which they have systematically failed to do. The possibility that (notwithstanding the operational considerations involved) this policy may have been mistaken, is now demonstrated in the mounting danger which faces CHEESE as his impecuniousness continues without relief.
    7. A certain timidity, therefore, occasioned by operational considerations of high importance, has been the first factor tending to hamper Special Section’s schemes for guiding Abwehr money into CHEESE’S pocket. A second restricting influence has arisen from the difficulty – possibly not quite fully appreciated in London – of working in a neutral country withwhose police and security authorities it is impossible to cooperate in matters ever approaching the degree of secrecy which attaches to CHEESE . The raid in December 1942 on the flat at which CHEESE was at that time expecting to receive money, is a case in point. This raid was not staged: it was due mainly to the fact that the premises and personalities chosen for the reception of the money erred perhaps too much on the side of verisimilitude – with the result that the Egyptian authorities (whom security considerations make it most undesirable to warn) did their duty with an embarrassing violence which could only be counteracted – after the event – by most devious methods.
    8. The execution of the five Aleppo spies in August 1942 was deliberately advanced by CHEESE as an excuse for withdrawal from a plan for reception of money in Aleppo which had been necessarily improvised at short notice, in response to a snap request from the enemy. In justice to itself, Special Section may be allowed here to point out that considerable difficulties are involved in making such arrangements at a distance of some 600 miles through the agency of the local Defence Security Officer, in territory under French administration. This was a time, moreover, when Special Section was still suffering from growing pains accentuated by the always present difficulty of the lack (then particularly acute) of suitable officers for the handling of this type of work. It may be mentioned also that operational considerations applied at this time with a force which made it impossible (according to the CHEESE policy hitherto accepted as standard) to run any risk whatsoever of his reliability being exposed to danger. It was at this period that he was being nursed for the important part he was to play