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the world again’ and that anti-Communist activities would ‘qualify him for an exalted position within the Greater German Reich’. It was ‘thought unlikely’, however, that he was ‘tied up with any organised underground Neo-Nazi movement’, nor was there ‘reason to believe’ that he was ‘in touch with any other Intelligence organisations’. This being the case, and giving him the cover name ‘Subaltern’, it was decided to recruit the Austrian, who ‘agreed to work for us but refused to take any direct payment’. He was instructed to look out for potential defectors and also report on the military situation in the Soviet Zone. SIS was especially interested in a ‘high-level defector’ who might stay behind for some time to ‘acquire documents or specific information’. While Subaltern, whose contacts were mainly ‘ladies of easy virtues who are in touch with Russians’, identified a number of low-level possible defectors, it was quickly realised that finding any high-level candidates would be ‘a slow and wearying undertaking dependent upon circumstances which are very often against us (i.e. frequent postings, non-fraternization orders etc.)’. In the meantime, therefore, he was told to concentrate on collecting information about Soviet troops and military matters ‘until such time as we think that a high-level defector would need his undivided attention’. During early 1948 Subaltern produced a few military reports for the Vienna station. ‘We still hope however’, they reported to London in May, ‘that his female contacts will one day produce the desired defector.’

A report reviewing work in Austria in the very late 1940s suggests that the Subaltern operation produced no significant result during those years. Indeed the officer who took over as head of station in April 1949 admitted that they had ‘not made satisfactory progress’ in penetrating Communism in Austria. Although he did ‘not wish to make excuses’, he asserted that they were ‘constantly handicapped by the fact that the Austrians simply do not enjoy intelligence activity’. This was partly due ‘to the Austrian temperament, which is not naturally adventurous’, and partly due to their desire to emulate Switzerland ‘and adopt an attitude of sunny neutrality towards the contending great powers’. He reviewed the possibilities for an Unofficial Assistant ‘moving in the right circles’ to begin penetrating Communist organisations and reported that two had already ‘posed as Fellow Travellers’ but ‘without the faintest possibility of reaching’ active Communist sources. Another possibility was finding a willing member of the Austrian socialist party, the SPD. Although the party was ‘the enemy of communism’ it ‘inevitably’ had ‘a certain fluidity with that organisation’. Then there was the possibility of ‘planting a man ourselves’. One idea was to find ‘a young student who needs a little financial help to continue his University studies and who would be willing, in return, to join the communists and work for us’. But this would be ‘a very long term project’. The ‘only way of working oneself quickly into the inner circles of the communists’ would be to join them ‘as a traitor from some other organisation’, but he recognised that it was ‘virtually impossible’ to find a leading member of, say, the SPD who was ‘willing to ruin his political career and be an object of extreme contumely among his friends, simply in order to get intelligence for us’. Whatever tactics were adopted for the work on Austrian Communism, he observed that there was competition with the Americans for likely agents, and they were ‘paying enormous sums as retainers’.

The difficult and unrewarding effort which SIS had to mount in Eastern Europe is well illustrated by the experience of postwar Bulgaria where Tony Brooks, an exceptionally brave and able officer who had served with SOE in France during the war, was sent to Sofia as head of station in May 1947. His posting began badly with an unpleasant journey out, during which he, accompanied by two female secretaries, spent five days in the train between Paris and Sofia, including