Author Mimic

The life of a spy has been romanticized by American films and literature to being a high stakes action filled lifestyle. The reality this is the farthest from the truth a person can get. There are very few instances which come to mind, that are anywhere near this public idea of espionage. However we did have one mole in the CIA who performed above and beyond what I had ever asked of him. His codename was Mr. Adams and he was a mole posing as one of the higher up officials in the CIA’s Western German office. Through him we were able to learn much of what the CIA was planning in terms of the Eastern Block. I remember reading one of his reports where he actually had crawled through a ventilation system to gain access to some private documents belonging to one of his superiors. Although we appreciated his enthusiasm in our Berlin headquarters, we could not have him taking such risks. Mr. Adams never attempted anything quite so drastic up until we had to cut ties with him when he was ordered to return to the states.

Another instance which comes to mind centers on a female operative who worked in Western German Counter Intelligence, transcribing debriefings of enemy operatives. We gave her the code name of Minerva, her information allowed those of us behind the Iron Curtain to root out several moles in our offices and in a few cases feed them information which led to the arrests of certain people in Western Germany under the suspicion of espionage. Of course those westerners who were arrested had nothing to do with Eastern Germany, but the misdirection caused a bit of necessary chaos in the Western State, which allowed for the extraction of several key operatives who were facing possible arrests for actually committing crimes of espionage.

Personally I never faced any very exciting moments while working as the East German Spymaster. I had always worked behind the scenes directing operations but never actually participating, which I believe is in no small part one of the reasons the Westerners could not identify me.

There was one incident shortly after the East German Intelligence service was created where I had to put myself at risk. At the time I was a simple radio personality, I was asked to cross into Western Germany in order to obtain a set of documents that would aid the then new born Stasi program to flourish. My orders were to meet a person in a café in the Western section of Berlin and await my contact: I Was not given a codename, nor was I informed as to what my contact would look like. I waited in the café for 30 minutes before a man in a dark suit came to my table. He told me that the drop had been aborted and that I was to leave immediately. I paid for my unfinished coffee and left the building. I did my best to blend into the crowd, but I was untrained for anything like this. I was beginning to panic and was sure I was being followed. I was stopped only once by a passing police officer, who thought I was in trouble. I stammered out an assurance that I was fine, and made my way to the border. I crossed and was safely back in the Eastern Quarter. I learned after I rose to my position, that there was in fact noone tailing me and that the drop had been aborted because the agent who was meant to gather the documents had been captured in his attempt. It is because of the terror which filled my mind, that I ensured that all of my agents were highly trained and capable of rising under pressure.