| The history of the microdot.
Vadim Antonovich Shelkov THE HISTORY OF THE «MICRODOTS» (Continued. Beginning in No. 4, 1999) Before and during World War II, microphotography was most actively used by the German secret services. And it is not only that it was in Germany that they were brought to such a perfect state that practical application did not cause difficulties for the performers. As is well known, the main flow of information sent by the Germans through the open postal channel during the First World War was in secret writing. After Germany's defeat, some intelligence agencies quickly extricated themselves from the post-war chaos. The need for information was enormous — from general political news and sociological research to economic reviews, scientific articles, instructions and technical descriptions. The successful collection of materials was facilitated by the fact that after the First World War, new German colonies and settlements were added to those already existing around the world. The German secret services had a wide choice of candidates for recruitment from a wide variety of social strata. All that was left was to work out channels for transmitting information through third countries. The future admiral and head of German military intelligence Wilhelm Franz Canaris (Admiral V. Canaris (1887-1945) was appointed head of German military intelligence on 31.12.34) (1883-1945) sent his first agents to Latin America during the First World War (interestingly, V. Canaris himself was in Spain for two years as an employee of German naval intelligence before 1917), and it was there that they achieved the greatest influence. Later, having become the head of the Abwehr, he retained his extensive connections. In 1927, a certain V. Lankovsky, his first agent in the USA, left for America. Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris The information came both through the so-called “legal” residencies (the first Abwehr residency in Latin America appeared in May 1939), located under the “roof of official missions, and from illegal agents. In this case, the postal channel through Lisbon and other neutral territories was used. Then the information went to the headquarters of naval intelligence in Hamburg. In the complex intelligence system created by V. Canaris, the most interesting for us is the “Geheimsache” department, which was responsible for the development and production of secret writing, false documents and microphotographs. German intelligence widely used microfilm to transmit information. All the prerequisites were there: high-quality portable 35 mm cameras Leica, Contax and especially Exakta (The single-lens reflex camera Exakta appeared in 1936 under the name Kine-Exakta and became the ancestor of the family of high-end cameras of the same name), true perfection in its kind. In addition, accessories for macro photography and reproduction were produced in Germany (the famous Minox was as if specially created for spies. But still, Leica was more popular with German agents). In 1925-1937, on the initiative of the «Geheimsache» in Germany, work began on improving microdots — the highest achievement in the field of microfilming. Now it is hardly possible to restore the exact chronology and names of all the creators of the microdot as a means of storing and transmitting information (unfortunately, most of the information available at present refers to various confessions and recollections of people who encountered microfilming and microdots strictly within the framework of their operational activities, or generally knew about them by hearsay). Almost all later proposals are based on the initial research of E. Goldberg in 1906, most successfully generalized and developed by him in the late 20s. At the end of the 1930s, specialists from Agfa, one of the world's leading manufacturers of photographic materials, developed high-resolution HR photographic plates for astrophysics and spectrography, also known as Agfa-Mikrat-Platten. The Zeiss-Ikon company, where the director at one time was the creator of “real” microdots E. Goldberg, carried out work to simplify the process of obtaining micro images. It released a portable reproduction camera for making ultra-microfilms from A4 originals (photos 1 and 2). The image size on a 4 mm wide film was only 2 mm!
Photo 1. Zeiss camera for ultra-microfilming on 4 mm film. View of the front panel. The lens and threaded sockets for installing the tripod legs are visible.
Photo 2. Zeiss ultra-microfilming camera. Side cover removed. The interlens shutter drive and film rewind were carried out using a cable. Scale ruler in inches. On November 18, 1937, Hans Ammann-Brass (Photo 3), a graduate of the Berlin Higher Technical School, a Swiss by origin, was given the task by the Abwehr to improve the technology for producing microdots. The technical note set the task of creating a device for producing microdots with a reduction ratio of up to 1:750.
Photo 3. Hans Ammann-Brass, Swiss optical engineer, creator of the German apparatus for producing “microdots” during World War II H. Ammann-Brass worked for the small firm Askania Werke AG, which manufactured portable movie cameras. He was well acquainted with the works of Dancer and Goldberg. According to him, a small device resembling Goldberg's optical bench was developed at Askania, which made it possible to reduce the original by 450x and 750x using perfect optics. The prototype of the device, costing 500 Reichsmarks, was manufactured exactly one year later, on November 18. H. Ammann-Brass demonstrated his creation to representatives of the Abwehr (in 1954, a feature film was even released in which the actor playing V. Canaris performed some manipulations with a similar device), including the prominent specialist in photographic emulsions, Heinrich Beck. Like E. Goldberg, H. Ammann-Brass used glass plates as a base for a colloidal emulsion. The fixed but undeveloped image was cut out from the general layer of emulsion using a special cutter. Unlike E. Goldberg, H. Amman-Brass used a contrast mask with geometric figures to facilitate focusing, rather than an additional eyepiece with a mirror. During the research, H. Amman-Brass and his colleagues came to the following conclusions:
In this regard, it should be noted that, contrary to popular belief, Minox and Leica cameras are not suitable for the direct production of microdots. Even the sometimes mentioned surrogate method of sequential double reshooting of the original onto fine-grained positive material does not solve this problem due to a significant loss of resolution.
Scheme for producing a microdot using the method of H. Amman-Brass The original, for example, in A4 format was photographed on 35 mm film using a high-quality Leica, Contax, Exacta camera using macro lenses and other reproduction devices. The exposed film was developed, and the resulting negative was projected using the H. Amman-Brass apparatus onto a piece of special photographic material with a fine-grained emulsion. A colloidal emulsion was used as a light-sensitive layer in accordance with the recommendations of E. Goldberg. (After the appearance of particularly fine-grained emulsions of the HR type, they began to be preferred, since they were much more convenient to work with (the resolution reached 1000 lines/mm). No exact information confirming that the Germans had such emulsions at their disposal during the war was found. But for solving the problems facing German intelligence at that time, a reduction factor of 1:200 was quite sufficient. To produce such microdots, it was possible to get by with ordinary microfilm and use a simplified manufacturing technology). A special low-voltage lamp with a point filament from the German company Osram was used for projection. With the outbreak of war, H. Amman-Brass returned to his homeland in Zurich and, as far as is known, acquainted the Swiss secret services with his work carried out in Germany, as well as other achievements of the Germans in the field of microphotography. Meanwhile, the war was approaching. V. Canaris increasingly sent his agents trained to work with microdots abroad. After the war, it became clear that many German embassies in Latin America had well-equipped photo labs, a kind of microdot factory. An equally important link was the use of microdots for communication between the Center and the agent. They were sent instructions, assignments, and even personal letters. In the case of a well-established mail channel, microdots became an exceptionally reliable and cheap means of communication, and in the specific conditions of South America in the 1930s, it was simply ideal (photos 4-6).
Photo 4. A cover passport for a Latin American country, seized from a German agent in the early 1940s.
Photo 5. Microfilm strip under passport cover.
Photo 6. Enlarged photograph from microfilm frames containing instructions to the agent. The use of microdots to communicate with agents during the war encountered significant difficulties: it became increasingly difficult to deliver regular mail, which covered microdots, to their destinations. Germany found itself increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. The fighting became increasingly fierce. In 1943-44, the war reached a turning point, and German agents in South America began to rely more on short-wave radio communications, as they were more efficient, reached their targets faster, but were also more dangerous to use: many agents failed as a result of their radio stations being tracked. Microdot in the hands of the Allies. There were also fables. Despite the end of the First World War, British counterintelligence did not stop its work against the Germans. To combat the expanding German agent network in the 1930s, the British Security Coordination Committee (BSC) was created, headed by the experienced counterintelligence officer William Stevenson. The British organized active counteraction to the communication channels of German agents in the New World. For these purposes, they created a residency in the Bermuda Islands, a kind of transit base for the flow of transport from America to Europe, to control the said correspondence. In fact, it was inspected — perusal. According to the memoirs of W. Stevenson himself, the baggage and cargo of Pan-American flights were carefully examined while the plane was refueling and the crew was having fun at the yacht club. British counterintelligence agents were frantically examining mail and baggage, and passengers heard one apology after another due to forced delays for one reason or another. The most skilled masters of perlustration were naturally the girls who worked for the British counterintelligence MI-5. At that time, a business trip to Bermuda was considered quite prestigious. But they had to work with 200x microscopes, examining all the suspicious dots and blots in the opened envelopes. There was even a nickname for microdots, duff, since they were looked for like raisins in a pudding (plum duff). Of course, it is pointless to look for a needle in a haystack, a microdot, in the general flow of correspondence in the free search mode. Therefore, the British (BSC) disclosed to the FBI information about the microdot as a means of communication for German agents and methods of its production on special devices. In response, the FBI informed its British colleagues about suspicious subscribers and correspondents: whose specific correspondence it would be advisable to take under control. For obvious reasons, the FBI, at the request of the British, took appropriate security measures to avoid revealing the source of the information and to prevent the Germans from guessing that their secret had been discovered. And if W. Stevenson diligently maintained secrecy, then FBI Director E. Hoover (1895-1972) acted in a very original way, but in full accordance with his character: on September 3, 1941, he reported in writing to President F. Roosevelt about the discovery by his employees of a new means of communication used by German agents:
The following was a description of two microphotographs found on the letterhead of the Eastern Telegraph Company of the United States.
Not satisfied with this, E. Hoover, apparently wanting to establish himself more firmly in the eyes of the president, writes three weeks later:
Indeed, there were many talented engineers in the United States who were familiar with the work of E. Goldberg. One of them was Edward Kaprelian (photo 7), a mechanical engineer, developer of optical devices and physical instruments, who worked for a long time as an expert in the field of optical systems. There is information that E. Kaprelian actually developed, on assignment from the FBI, a device for producing microdots on HR series photographic plates with a resolution of 1000 lines/mm (Fig. 1). But his achievement apparently remained on paper until the very end of World War II.
Photo 7. Edward K. Kaprelian is an American specialist in the field of microphotography.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of E. Kaprelian’s device for producing microdots, developed by him on assignment from the FBI in 1942. As for the American intelligence services in general, they had little to boast about in the area of technical intelligence during the period between the two world wars. FBI Director E. Hoover, a stubborn and strong-willed man, like other police chiefs, had a deep distrust of scientists and engineers, professional experts, whom he contemptuously called “eggheads.” Despite E. Hoover's efforts to bring American intelligence and counterintelligence under his control, President Franklin Roosevelt founded an independent intelligence service, the OSS (the first director of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, was the talented lawyer William Donovan, who was nicknamed Wild Bill behind his back), the predecessor of the modern CIA. However, the FBI was not particularly willing to share its information with its new intelligence colleagues. It turned out that the OSS took up European affairs and the Far East, paying significant attention to analytical work, while the FBI reserved Central and South America for itself, using primarily police methods: personal connections and informants. Unlike the British MI5, the FBI did not bother itself with scientific research and technical expertise. And if we take into account the disdainful attitude of the head of the Central American department of the FBI towards his European colleagues – “eggheads and intellectuals”, then we can assume that OSS analysts did not play any important role in revealing the secrets of German microdots. The information simply did not reach them. After World War II, the story described acquired additional details. To understand what really happened, we will cite the memoirs of Captain Herbert Wichman, an employee of the AST department of the Abwehr. During the war, he was directly involved in sending German agents to Central and South America. Much later, on March 15, 1983, in his letter to the American historian Leslie Raath, he described the discovery of a German microdot by the British:
But that wasn’t the end of it. Six months after the end of World War II, ordinary Americans were introduced to the microdot” in an article in the popular magazine Reader’s Digest in April 1946, which was signed by the FBI chief E. Hoover himself. The title spoke for itself: “The Tricks of Enemy Spies.” Since this publication, the microdot” has become a favorite spy tool in numerous films and novels. There are several versions of how this article came to be: the antagonism between E. Hoover and his English colleague W. Stevenson, who was called “the fearless one,” the desire to refocus public attention from defeated Germany to the new enemy – the USSR, and, finally, the FBI’s claims to the US Congress for appropriate appropriations. The article reported that in January 1940, someone named Jenkins, apparently an agent previously planted in a German intelligence school, reported on a new method of communication for agents using “little dots.” Microphotography specialists who analyzed the agent’s testimony advised carefully checking all suspicious correspondence in search of the ill-fated “dots.” And so in August 1941, a Balkan tourist was detained, “who turned out to be a German agent.” An envelope was found in his luggage. On it, by its characteristic flashing, a dot was detected, which, when magnified 200 times, turned out to be a spy report. In the pockets of the stunned agent were 4 telegraph forms with 11 microdots! And under the stamp on the envelope, a microfilm with 25 frames was pasted – a reproduction of 25 A4 documents! During interrogation, the «tourist» confirmed the first agent's report and said that he had also been trained at a similar intelligence school. The article then went on to describe a method for producing microdots, which consisted of a whole series of absurdities, the main one being the mention of Professor Zapp» (It seems that he was referring to Walter Zapp, the creator of the «Minox» (see also the magazine «Special Technology», No. 4-5, 1998). He was never a professor and did not develop equipment for producing microdots. Since his name was associated with the famous «spy» camera, the author (or authors) of the article apparently decided that mentioning the name of a talented engineer would make it more persuasive), who supervised the training. We will not bore you with a list of everything that was written in the famous note by the FBI director. Let's just say that before it had even appeared, people familiar with microphotography in general and the history of the «microdot» in particular responded with a series of very caustic articles, including one in the authoritative journal American Photography.» It is interesting that real history is sometimes much more surprising than the boldest fiction. The agent mentioned above, in whose luggage the “first” “microdot” was found, actually existed and his name was Dusko Popov. He worked not only for the Germans, but also for the British and the Americans… (there is a double agent, but what happens in this case?) In his memoirs, he depicts the events described above somewhat differently. The agent really was familiar with microdots.” Upon arrival in the States, he himself handed over the ill-fated telegraph form to the FBI agents and literally poked their noses into the place where the “microdot” was hidden. When they examined the find with the help of a small microscope, one of the counterintelligence agents exclaimed: “Amazing!.. With this, I myself will go to Washington to see Hoover. I'm sure he'll find this amusing…». But the story doesn't end there. The «Microdot» contained not only information on military production and deliveries to Great Britain, but also a questionnaire on the defense system of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, the very same one with the attack on which the war began for the United States. Combined with the testimony that this questionnaire was compiled by the leading German expert on Japan, Baron Gronau, the information took on a sinister tone. But the ways of the secret services and their leaders are inscrutable. FBI Director E. Hoover apparently did not report the full contents of the discovered “microdot” to President F. Roosevelt. In any case, all documents in one form or another that spoke of E. Hoover’s guilt mysteriously disappeared.
“Microdot” for Niels Bohr When talking about the Allied work in the field of microphotography before World War II, it is worth mentioning the creation of high-resolution photo emulsions. In the 1930s, the creation of new geodetic equipment and sights was on the agenda. High-precision masks were required for the manufacture of precision scales, especially for bomb sights. The work was carried out in the Kodak laboratories in Rochester, USA and Harrow, England under the direction of Mees (C.E.K.Mees) and Stevens (G.W.W.Stevens). According to Stevens, these photographic materials, like the German Agfa-Mikrat-Platten photographic plates, allowed the original to be reduced by 300 times. However, the Allies were clearly lagging behind in the production of high-quality optics. One of the most striking examples of the Allies' use of microphotography during the war was associated with attempts to rescue the famous physicist N. Bohr from German-occupied Denmark. The British tried to establish contact with him and communicate an escape plan in a letter written by his British colleagues. In his autobiography, the already known to us W. Stevenson noted that the letter written by James Chadwick was filmed on microfilm and camouflaged in a bunch of keys. In it, Chadwick invited Bohr to England, hinting at the desirability of the Danish physicist's participation in solving a certain special problem» (he meant the Allies' work on creating atomic weapons). Unfortunately, as usual, W. Stevenson fogged things up and it is impossible to establish from his comments whether a real «microdot» or very small microfilms were used. But another source contains more specific information. Margaret Gowing, a witness to the events mentioned, and always distinguished by her accuracy when working with historical facts, writes in her book «Britain and Atomic Energy in 1939-45»:
By the way, when N. Bor returned to his homeland after the war, the pipe was still there. It should be noted that at that time the British already had sufficient experience in using microphotographs with high reduction ratios. The Kodak company developed the Airgraph airmail microfilming system at the request of the British Post Office. Ordinary letters were reduced in size by 250 times and became 100 times lighter. On May 13, 1941, the first airmail in the form of microfilms, containing 50,000 letters, was delivered to British troops in Africa. As for the American intelligence services, there is very little evidence of their use of microfilm during the war. The Americans were more prepared in the field of radio communications, not special photography. However, in the OSS archives from 1944 there is a reference mentioning Kodalith film with a removable layer for making microfilms. At the same time, we must not forget about the famous “matchbox camera Kodak-X with a lens using the Tessar optical scheme. The device was mainly designed for object photography from a distance of 2 — 10 m. Simple, reliable and easy to use, with a fixed focus, it fully met the needs of agents and detectives who carried out covert filming. Soon after the Kodak-X was introduced, a collapsible tripod was released for it, somewhat reminiscent of the four-legged tripod for the Minox. But unlike the latter, a lens for macro photography and reproduction was mounted in the tripod head. Under the Sky of Palestine And what about the “father” of the microdot – E. Goldberg, who moved to British Mandate Palestine in 1937? In essence, he worked on assignments for the Allies, repairing their optical instruments with precision scales at his small firm in Tel Aviv. As is known, the Israelis have always actively used the knowledge of European immigrants. In his new location, on assignment from the Israeli secret services, E. Goldberg tried to reproduce his 1925 experiments in making microdots, but at first, due to the lack of high-quality reagents, he was dogged by failures. Interestingly, he carried out this work in secret from the allies. According to Goldberg's daughter, he still managed to create a device for making microdots. However, the reduction factor, apparently, did not exceed 100 — 200. Running ahead (in the post-war period), we note that the Israeli intelligence service Mossad used very original containers for storing and transporting microdots: small vials with some harmless liquid. In case of danger, the microdot could simply be swallowed along with the contents of the vial. And if under normal conditions, having dropped it on the floor, it is almost impossible to find, then this time safety was absolutely guaranteed.
Intelligence never rests World War II was over. Former allies were increasingly looking like enemies. W. Churchill's famous speech, delivered in 1946 at Westminster College when he was awarded an academic degree, is considered to be the statement that heralded the beginning of a new, «cold» war. At the beginning of his speech, the former British Prime Minister modestly noted:
But, as time has shown, statements by a politician of such a scale, even a retired one, have very serious consequences. And one cannot help but notice a certain internal connection with the article that appeared in the same year by FBI chief E. Hoover about the treachery of enemy spies. This article can well be taken as the beginning of the processing of «public opinion». Taxpayers had to be convinced of the need for special operations, including technical ones, against the new enemy.
But we will tell about this page of the history of operational microphotography in the next issue of our magazine. |
