The Miernik Dossier

[1] World Research Organization: A specialized agency of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland. It carries out research on social questions (e.g., crime, discrimination, medical care, political organization) and publishes reports that take into careful account the sensitivities of its 101 member nations. WRO has a professional staff of 400, representing 71 nationalities. The Organization has always attracted large numbers of Intelligence operatives from a wide variety of countries. Employment by WRO is regarded as excellent “cover” because it provides diplomatic Immunity and, in the eyes of the host country, professional respectability. WRO is typically the base, rather than the target, of intelligence agents who are unwittingly employed by it.

[2] A Brazilian national of Polish-Russian birth who is believed to have contacts with Soviet intelligence. He travels frequently in Eastern Europe with the ostensible purpose of negotiating contracts for the purchase of goods manufactured in Western countries.

[3]”You shall abstain, shall abstain! /That is the eternal song.” (A quotation from Goethe’s Faust.)

[4] ”A11 men become brothers.” (From Schiller’s “An die Freude.”)

[5] A Czech prison, equivalent to the Russian Lubiyanka.

[6] This message was intercepted on 11 July in Buenos Aires in a routine check on correspondence addressed to a box number known to be used by Sasha Kirnov. After Christopher delivered his report in Khartoum (6 July) a round-robin cable was sent to all stations in the world, instructing them to give priority to intercepted letters bearing Egyptian postmarks. Christopher provided certain other helpful details, e.g., that the envelope was addressed in green ink in a large hand. It is conceded that the interception of this message was more a matter of luck than of efficiency. Once it was in our hands, decoding presented no problem because we knew, as a result of our agents alert work, the title of the book used to write the code. Without this information, a book code is, of course, indecipherable.

[7] The sources referred to here are Christopher’s reporting, particularly his discovery that Miernik was communicating with a third person through use of a book code; the reports by a Polish agent that a Pole was being sent into Africa under Soviet control; and the account by the Czech frontier guards officer relating the peculiar circumstances surrounding the border crossing by Zofia Miernik. Other scraps of information, seemingly minor, also aided in fastening suspicion on Miernik. In regard to Bentley, her correspondence with Soviet letter-drops under a cover name and her meeting in Cairo with a Russian intelligence officer were sufficient to remove any but the most marginal doubts about her role. Miernik’s presence in Vienna, and in West Germany at the time of the cyanide murders in Munich and Berlin, was given some weight, but we regarded it as unlikely that he had been used as an assassin.

[8] ”Do you know the country where the lemon trees bloom?” (Goethe)

[9] Intercepted radio traffic contained no reference to Miernik or the route of the Cadillac. It is assumed that Ahmed mounted the attack on his own initiative, possibly with the idea of kidnapping Prince Kalash, possibly as a means of demonstrating to Miernik the ALF’s capacity to carry out independent operations. All indications are that Ahmed was a somewhat dashing figure, intelligent and courageous, but difficult to control.

[10] The chief of the American station in Khartoum.