There' were several clever men who worked among the American sailors in bars also, winning their confidence by buying them drinks, ind then eventually try to get them to the habit of talking disparage ingly of their officers and the service. Finally men who were thought to have arrived at the right frame of mind were shown cartoons and post jesrds, pamphlets and brochures, attacking American "Imperialism," individual American officials and wealthy nien and enlarging upon the jeaploitation of the poor by the rich. The most active agent in this field was Jameson, the American an archist who was the head of Borodin's printing office, but Moussin of the Consulate, a Communist Party agent, with the usual] Tass news service card, trained and employed 2 number of Russian girls who were instructed to do such work among. suilors and marines ashore. Jameson used to assemble his likely disciples in an upstairs room over the Palermo Bar to instruct them in subversive doctrine.
Another agent who specialized in' work among American sailors was 'a young man named John Vekler, who had emigrated. from Latvia. during the great war and had been subsequently employed on _boats trunspor American arms and supplies to Russia. He knew Aimerien and knew how to talk with men of the sailor class so, witl an inexhaustible supply of pocket money for drinks and small loans, he had no difficulty in making friends and getting a hearing. This man was sent from Moscow! for this work and arrived with all the credentials of x German correspondent for a radical German journal. For some reason this is a favourite camouflage for nearly all] non-Russian agents sent out bs Moscow, and Germany is made responsible for a great deal more than the Germans are aware of.
Searching for Inform:
The Russian girls who frequented the bars and dance halls were also Instructed to be on the lookout for men or officers who happened to get very drunk, to get them to go to sleep on the premises and then to search their clothes for letters and note books. Most of the material leaned in this way would seem inconsequential as isolated informa tion, but when one is ce-ordinating the facts collected by a big: intelligence service, such matter often fits in, establishing information from other sources or suggesting new lines of investigation.
We knew a great deal, instance, about supplies for the [American ships and the number of men on them from a man in charge! of stores whose memoranda were copied while he slept. As another illustration I may mention that Gslen's radio man once got quits 1 lot of information for us from the scribblings inthe pocket of an American radio man. These were! procured by one of the girls who, for some reason could let us have them for two hours only. It is no exaggeration to say that such scraps of information taken from supposedly irresponsible men and appearing at first glance to be value, often furnished us with more real information about American naval doings than the bast efforts of Galen's regular intel Tigence service.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.