Tricycle (spy)
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Tricycle was the codename of both Dušan "Duško" Popov (Душан Попов) (1912 Titel, Serbia - 1981 Opio, Alpes-Maritimes, France) and the spy network with which he was involved. According to the National Enquirer[1], author Ian Fleming patterned James Bond after him.
Fleming worked in British naval intelligence during World War II and was detailed to trail the charismatic spy, who was eventually recruited to work as a double agent for the British. Popov was a young, wealthy Yugoslav businessman, who managed to continue a playboy existence while carrying out perilous wartime missions for the United Kingdom.
Signed up as a spy by anti-Hitler Abwehr agents early in the war, Popov, according to their plan, immediately offered his services to the United Kingdom. He was accepted as a double agent (codenamed Tricycle) and came to live in London. His international business activities provided cover for visits to neutral Portugal, which was linked to the United Kingdom by a weekly civil air service for most of the war. There Popov fed enough MI5-approved information to the Germans to keep them happy, and was well paid for his services. The assignments they gave him were of great value to the British in assessing enemy plans and thinking.
In 1941 Popov was dispatched to the United States by the Abwehr, apparently to gather information, but secretly to transmit to the Americans the fact that the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor. He made contact with the FBI and explained what he had been asked to do. For whatever reason, the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover took no action. Hoover disliked him and, according to author William ("Mole") Wood, found out that Popov had taken a woman from New York to Florida and threatened to have him arrested under the Mann Act if he did not leave the country immediately.
In 1944 Popov became a key part of the Operation Fortitude deception campaign. However his usefulness was compromised when his German intelligence handler (who was also a double agent and knew of Popov's control by the British) was arrested. Fearing that he was betrayed, Popov was no longer given critical information to pass along. However after time passed and no indication of any distrust of Popov was discernable he was brought back into use.
Popov was a noted ladies' man - while in the US he lived an extravagant lifestyle and dated a well-known actress, Simone Simon. (It is even alleged his name "Tricycle" originated from his penchant for menages à trois. In truth, his earlier codename Scout was changed to Tricycle when he appointed two sub agents ("Balloon" and "Gelatine"), thus acting as the three wheels of a tricycle.) Popov was a worthy predecessor to the fictional spy James Bond. He stayed at the best hotels, ate at top restaurants, visited smart casinos, and was a bon vivant.
Popov died in 1981 aged 69, leaving behind a widow and three sons.
Duško Popov published his memoirs "Spy, Counterspy" in 1974.
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[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- BBC about Agent Tricycle
- CNN about real-life version of James Bond
- (Serbian) Boris Popov, Duško Popov’s son
[edit] Further reading
- Nigel West, Seven Spies Who Changed the World. London: Secker & Warburg, 1991 (hard cover). London: Mandarin, 1992 (paperback).
- Russell Miller, Codename Tricycle: The Playboy Double-Agent, Pimlico, 2005
