The intercom plot

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Intercom Conspiracy ( English original title The Intercom Conspiracy ) is a political thriller or spy novel by Eric Ambler from 1969, which was first published in German in 1971. The framework story takes place in 1968. The heads of the military intelligence services of two small NATO countries are offended by the condescending treatment by their US allies. In revenge and in order to improve their future pensions , they launch official secrets to the Geneva magazine Intercom , whose unsuspecting publisher unintentionally finds himself in the role of a whistleblower and gets caught between the fronts of various secret services. A historian who happened upon the background of the conspiracy and wants to publish his findings disappears without a trace.

action

The colonels Jost and fire are directors of the intelligence services of two unnamed small NATO countries, but due to geographical descriptions as Norway and Denmark or the Netherlands or Belgium could be interpreted. Both were active in underground movements as partisans against the German occupation during World War II and met in 1953 at a NATO conference near Paris . What connects them more and more in the course of their acquaintance is their aversion to the USA, as they were treated as potential opponents rather than allies during a scandal at the French NATO conference. Their anger was and still is fueled by the fact that they are ordered by regulations to show sympathy for the United States .

From the scandal - they were mistaken for camouflaged reporters in uniform by an American lieutenant - they came to the conclusion that secret services, regardless of which side, have one common enemy: journalists . Only these are able to see through the game of the services: That the other side's own secrets have generally long been known, but that appearances must be preserved to the public and politicians in order to underline one's own importance and the existence of the services to secure. All secret services are afraid of that

... little boy who saw through the emperor's new clothes, who saw the emperor naked .

The intercom plot

At a London meeting in 1964, it became clear to them that, due to the political developments in the Cold War in NATO, they would only play the role of village policeman . They are no more sympathetic to the Russians than to the Americans; Both colonels know that the secret services of both great powers operate unabashedly on the territory of the two small NATO members. At a meeting at a London club , Brand suggests that their future pension funds be topped up through their own intelligence operation. This is not about the launch of game material , but about real information that is presumably already known internally, but whose publication would be embarrassing for the respective side.

In 1965, Jost and Brand meet again in Rome . Jost found out about a forger scandal in the press . A Mexican forger had reproduced valuable old postage stamps, including stamps and overprints, and offered these goods, which were worthless in themselves, on the collectors' market. In order to plug the unpopular source, the US Treasury bought his workshop from the forger and got him to sign a commitment to refrain from counterfeiting in the future. Brand and Jost decide to use this modus operandi as a model for their operation.

The hour of the conspirators strikes when the American Brigadier General a. D. Luther B. Novak dies of a heart attack in Geneva at the age of 62 . Novak maintained the weekly newspaper Intercom there . Intercom is the mouthpiece of Novak's Intercom Foundation , an anti-communist foundation whose right-wing extremist views have already led to conflicts with the CIA and the US State Department. The foundation is financed by three millionaires who fight world communism and produce documentaries, radio and television programs "and illegible, but expensive-looking books and pamphlets ". The foundation also maintains a research institute , at which anti-communist studies are carried out, which leads Brand to ask what is meant by this.

Brand and Jost decide to buy Intercom . Brand reached out to Novak's daughter, the magazine's heir, through an intermediary and offered $ 10,000. The Intercom Publishing Enterprises AG simply consists of an office and some inventory. The magazine is published by Theodore Carter, a 55-year-old Canadian . He gets his articles from so-called paper mills, which are financed by governments, emigre organizations or separatist movements and which produce false information as well as falsified documents. Carter lives in Geneva with his 23-year-old daughter Valerie and is considered a heavy drinker without being an alcoholic . Brand doubts whether he is actually an anti-communist. Jost and Brand know that Carter will come into the line of fire of foreign intelligence services during their operation, but they accept this. They can't warn Carter because their plan would then be exposed.

Brand creates a cover identity as Arnold Bloch from Munich , who claims to be active in the arms trade for West German and French companies . His office is just a mailbox company . Jost also got himself a legend and appeared to Carter in Geneva as the Hamburg businessman Werner Siepen, who can only be reached via a post office box . The managing director of Intercom is the lawyer Dr. Martin Bruchner, also major in the reserve of the Swiss Army . The Schwob bank is responsible for handling transactions .

Brand-Bloch and Jost-Siepen are now launching so-called SESAM bulletins via Intercom ; in itself harmless messages such as B. Inadequate flight capabilities of the new NATO fighter aircraft FG 115 or the lack of operational readiness of Russian missiles . As expected, Intercom publisher Carter is soon haunted by dubious visitors whom he ironically refers to as bogus men . They obviously belong to the CIA like the alleged journalists Mr. Goodman and Mr. Rich or the KGB , like the Austrian Emil Strommin, the alleged French Madame Coursaux, the French Pierre Morin or the West German tailor.

Shortly thereafter, Bloch's Munich office was broken into; the local criminal police investigated, but could never reach Bloch. Initial offers to take over Intercom are also made for $ 50,000 . Brand-Bloch, this sum is set too low; from Stuttgart he sends a telegram to Geneva asking for a sale price of at least $ 500,000.

Because of his position as major in the reserve, Dr. Bruchner that the SESAM bulletins must have come from Bloch. It is clear to him that this information must have slipped through security gaps in NATO and the Warsaw Pact , while Carter realizes that Bloch does not sell weapons, but only secrets as calculated indiscretion - actually only silence should be sold. Carter therefore suspects that the break-in into Bloch's Munich office was carried out by the West German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), but that the client behind it was the CIA.

Carter is kidnapped by Morin and Schneider and put under pressure, but he can only admit that he gets all the information from Bloch. The agents let him go, but warn him to notify the Swiss security authorities. Finally, Carter discovers burglars in his apartment who he takes in the dark to be Schneider and Morin. The strangers put a nerve agent on him and Carter passes out. When he comes to, he drinks plenty of whiskey . When he sees Goodman and Rich enter his house shortly afterwards, he flees in a panic and causes a traffic accident . He passed out and was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Here he is first questioned by Inspector Vauban, and finally by the psychiatrist Dr. Loriol. After initial doubts, he begins to believe Carter's seemingly adventurous portrayal. The editor is now utterly desperate. He sees only one way out: he wants to fight back via intercom and constructs a CIA-KGB conspiracy for this purpose. Carter drafts an article entitled "CIA gangsters found new allies" in which he completely exaggerates his encounter with agents on both sides. In addition, references to the ominous death circumstances of the Vice President of the Federal Intelligence Service Horst Wendland and the West German Admiral Hermann Lüdke , who was responsible for NATO logistics in Brussels , are indicated ( Lüdke affair ).

In fact, Carter publishes the article, whereupon he is promptly arrested by the Swiss authorities and his office is searched. The publication draws the attention of the Western European press to the case, which in turn means that investigating authorities have to deal with the affair, which creates some confusion as Carter mixed actual events with fiction.

Immediately after Carter's arrest, Dr. Bruchner launched a new offer for intercom that Brand-Bloch immediately accepted. The purchase sum of two million Swiss francs is to be paid into the numbered account of a Basel correspondent at a Lebanese bank. The unknown new owner has Intercom stop appearing immediately. The magazine was finally liquidated three weeks later. Bloch disappears without a trace, the buyers of the magazine remain unknown, as the Swiss security authorities and the processing bank Schwob have no interest in clarifying the background, which is particularly criticized by the West German press.

The framework story: The Disappearance of Charles Latimer Lewinson

Ambler has prefixed the actual plot with a pseudorealistic introduction, signed by himself, in which the whole plot is presented as an unfinished book manuscript by the former thriller writer and now historian Charles Latimer Lewinson. The main plot is repeatedly interrupted by excerpts from the manuscript that Carter has. But Latimer has disappeared without a trace.

Since the book has already been announced by the London publisher, Carter sets out to search for the missing person on Intercom's behalf. To round off his research, Latimer wanted to fly from Geneva to Brussels to interview a NATO official. In Latimer's files, Carter found a reference to the fact that the latter suspected four organizations of having bought Intercom . What is certain is that Latimer never arrived in Brussels, but never boarded the plane for which he had a ticket. He was last seen alive in Ferney-Voltaire at the Swiss border crossing into France.

Carter flies to Mallorca , where Latimer apparently had contacts with Jost. Carter meets Jost, whom he immediately recognizes as Werner Siepen. Jost-Siepen, however, claims to be just Siepen and not to know a Jost. However, he admits to have contact with Brand. Carter learns that Latimer stumbled upon the affair by chance: Jost is a property neighbor of Latimer on Mallorca. Jost admits that while talking to Latimer he inadvertently committed an indiscretion that Latimer could conclude that Jost is involved in the intercom affair. Latimer wanted to make this connection public in his book.

Jost-Siepen makes no secret of the fact that the meanwhile seriously ill with cancer Brand, who was an explosives expert in the underground movement , saw Latimer's research as an existential threat. From Jost-Siepen's hints, Carter concludes that Brand could be responsible for Latimer's disappearance and that his body may be under the meter-thick concrete of a motorway construction site somewhere in France or Belgium .

However, Jost-Siepen does not know who bought Intercom either . He personally suspects that the buyer was the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which received the funds from the CIA.

Work history

Ambler was allegedly inspired by the case of the Belgian-Mexican postage stamp forger Raul Charles de Thuin, who caused a sensation in the mid-1960s. De Thuin had perfectly forged antique stamps and thrown them on the international market. In order to prevent future forgeries from falling prices, the American Philatic Society bought both the remaining stamps and the printing blocks from de Thuin in December 1966.

Original work titles were To Kill a Giant and The Giantkillers , which should characterize the clumsiness and awkwardness of the CIA and KGB. Although the 1960s were a high point of espionage literature , The Intercom Conspiracy remained Ambler's only novel on the East-West conflict.

Film adaptations

literature

  • Eric Ambler: The Intercom plot , Zurich (Diogenes) 1971, 2nd edition 1978. ISBN 3-257-20538-4
  • Stefan Howald: Eric Ambler. Eine Biographie , Zurich (Diogenes Verlag AG) 2002. ISBN 3-257-06325-3
  • Chapter: From the mid-30s to the mid-70s: Eric Ambler's anti-heroes in the terror worlds of the 20th century , in: Hans-Peter Schwarz : Fantastic Reality. The 20th Century in the Mirror of Political Thriller , Munich (DVA), pp. 61–91. ISBN 978-3-421-05875-1

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The intercom plot, p. 46
  2. ^ The intercom plot, p. 64
  3. ^ The intercom plot, pp. 93ff
  4. ^ The intercom plot, p. 107
  5. ^ The intercom plot, p. 159
  6. ↑ The Intercom Plot, p. 167
  7. ↑ The Intercom Plot, p. 171
  8. ↑ The Intercom Plot, pp. 191f.
  9. ↑ The Intercom Plot, p. 259
  10. ^ The intercom plot, p. 277
  11. ^ Howald, p. 389.
  12. ↑ Schwarz, p. 90