"Sydney Reilly" — the heavyweight spy, the "James Bond" of his era — travelled to the Ottoman Empire by way of Germany.. First he moved to Germany by claiming he was travelling to France.. and from France he travelled to Germany quite normally, on a forged English passport.
And from Germany the English arranged a private plane for him, which flew him to the borders of the Ottoman Empire, and there he jumped by parachute, and headed at once to a private hideout, where he rested, and changed his clothes for the uniform of a German officer, and then he began his work immediately.
And "Sydney" completed his work to perfection.. not one week had passed before he was in the arms of the wife of the commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army, "Jamal Pasha".. in the latter's own bed.. and it seems they were a truly faithful couple.. because at that very same time.. "Jamal Pasha" was in Gaza, in the arms of the English spy "Sarah Aaronsohn" in Palestine.
And from "Jamal Pasha's" wife, "Sydney" obtained some of the latter's movements, and a great many useful secrets, and then he moved from her arms to the arms of Madame "Hayriye Talat", the wife of "Talaat Pasha".. likewise in the latter's bed, while he was in Berlin.. and from between her lips he also gathered dozens of the secrets she had learned from her husband.
These two were among the most dangerous Ottoman leaders of the time.. especially "Talaat".. he was one of three men who in practice effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire at that time.
And suddenly, new instructions reach "Sydney", so he disappears from the Ottoman Empire and becomes active in the heart of Germany, and he brings back extremely dangerous information, confirming the information of "Sarah", "Jamal Pasha's" mistress, about the chemical weapons that Germany was exporting to the Ottoman Empire.
After that, instructions reach him to travel to Russia, so he travels and makes contact with an old friend of his named "Alexander Grammatikov" on the first of April, 1918.. and this "Alexander" was a Russian student.. trying to bring down the state at that time at any price.. so "Sydney" recruits him.. and "Alexander" opens up an apartment belonging to one of his female relatives, in which he hides so as to carry on his espionage activities.
And instructions reach "Sydney" from England, amid the troubles of the Russian Revolution, to assassinate "Lenin", and to pin the deed on the Tsar's supporters, so that matters would flare up further and Russia would sink deeper and deeper into the swamp of civil war.
"Sydney" begins to draw up a plan.. and he makes contact with a general named "Boris Savinkov".. this was the Russian "Hisham Ashmawy".. and he had turned against the Russian state since the beginning of the October Revolution, in 1917.
"Sydney" studies the matter closely, and then he draws up a plan: to build a network in Russia, comprising a group of spies, among them "Savinkov" and "Lokhart".. and a new Russian sweetheart.. with whom he formed a romantic relationship.. named "Yelizaveta Otten".
Through this network he recruits a revolutionary girl, of Jewish origin, named "Fanny Kaplan".. and likewise in "Sydney's" arms.. and the love-struck girl agrees to assassinate "Lenin".
And on 30 August, 1918.. "Lenin" was addressing the workers in southern Russia, and when he finished his speech and while he was heading to his car amid his personal guards, "Fanny" called out to him, disguised as a simple working woman.. and when the guards stopped her, she gestured to him with a piece of paper, as if she wanted to submit a petition of grievance.
Of course, in front of all those workers, with all the hammer-and-sickle nonsense and "we are all comrades and all the same", it would not do for "Lenin" to treat a simple working woman in any way that smacked of condescension or arrogance, so he orders them to clear the way for her, so she approaches him.. and pulls a pistol from her clothes, and fires three bullets at him: one pierces only his coat.. one pierces his neck, and the third settles in his lung.
She is arrested, and they rush "Lenin" away and begin treating him.. and indeed he survives. What is striking is that the women with whom "Sydney" fell in love were never passing affairs — they truly loved him.. because "Fanny Kaplan" refuses to tell the authorities anything about him, and admits that it was her own decision and her own act alone.. and she accepts the death penalty with an open heart, in exchange for protecting "Sydney Reilly".
"Sydney" paid no attention at all to this story.. because he was busy plotting a coup against the Russian government with the help of the rest of the network's members. But unluckily for him the coup fails, and the officers involved in it are arrested, and they point to two names.. "Lokhart" and "Yelizaveta Otten".
The Russian authorities arrest "Lokhart".. and interrogate him, but he confesses nothing.. so they take him to the cell to confront "Fanny Kaplan".. but "Kaplan" pretends that she does not know him at all.. and utterly refuses to utter a single letter.. that might incriminate "Sydney", so the Russian authorities decide to do something else, something better.
They send "Sydney's" Russian sweetheart into her cell.. and the two women who love one man come face to face.. and each of them learns that she was in love with the same man, and that he had been with her at the same time as his relationship with the other.. and the confrontation escalates.. and it becomes a ferocious brawl, like a fight between two rabid cats, at the end of which "Yelizaveta" is dragged out of the cell, swearing the most solemn oaths that she would finish off "Sydney", the treacherous criminal for whom a hundred thousand deaths would not be enough...
And so, the stricken "Yelizaveta" signs a full confession.. they verify it and find all the addresses and names to be genuine.. and they arrest agents who indeed have information written in "Sydney's" own hand.. and after her confession, her punishment is lightened from death.. to only five years in prison.. and "Fanny Kaplan" is executed by firing squad.
And with "Yelizaveta's" confession, "Sydney's" name and picture led the Russian newspapers the next day as the prime suspect.. and every Russian security man was searching for him. But in truth no one finds him.. he had crossed the border and travelled to Berlin.. and English intelligence orders him to lie low and calm down a little.. and to live an ordinary life.
And there in Berlin.. he meets the love of his life, the blonde actress "Pepita Bobadilla".. and he spends with her the happiest days of his life, and he indeed marries her in 1923.
And suddenly a message comes back to English intelligence from "Lokhart".. that he has escaped with some of his comrades, and they are rebuilding the network.. and that they have obtained extremely useful information about the newly born Soviet Union, only recently formed, in 1922.. they send all this information to the English.. and England verifies the information and finds it genuinely accurate.. and for two whole years.. the network keeps supplying England with intelligence.. until London feels completely reassured.. so it orders "Sydney" to come out of hiding, and to set off in disguise to Russia to meet the members of the network in 1925.
And "Sydney Reilly" does indeed travel to carry out the mission. He sets off to Paris.. and there he meets a Finnish agent, one of the members of the network, who accompanies him from Paris to Russia.
"Sydney" travels.. but he never comes back.
The story was an intelligence trick by the Soviets.. with which they deceived the English for two whole years.. in order to send "Sydney" back to Russia.. and that is what actually happened.. and on his arrival "Sydney" is surprised by men of the Soviet counter-espionage bureau swarming all over him.. and they take him off to their headquarters.
And the interrogation of "Sydney Reilly" begins.. and the Soviets are taken aback by five hundred stories and tales and a whole film that he tells them.. all of them documented with evidence, and all of them contradicting one another.. and they are baffled by him, and then they are driven mad.. when they discover in his cell that he had written, on the cigarette papers he used to roll his tobacco, in a small notebook, precise information that he had extracted from them during the interrogation without their noticing, along with complete information about their interrogation methods and the names and ranks of the intelligence officers interrogating him.. so as to send it to English intelligence when he escaped from prison!
And the Soviets decide to execute "Sydney Reilly" in November, 1925.. and Soviet intelligence men, with a unit of the secret police and a battalion of the army, take him to a forest on the outskirts of Moscow, and they shoot him, and bring him back to the prison, and photograph him and shroud him.. and bury his body in a grave with no marker or name.
And the legend of "Sydney Reilly" comes to an end, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
But suddenly information reaches the Soviets.. that "Sydney Reilly" is hiding in a house in Ukraine, on the border, living an ordinary life as a dealer in ordinary goods. So Russian intelligence men set off to dig up his grave.. only to be met with an unpleasant black surprise.
That the grave is empty, with no body or remains in it.
They set off for this alleged house, and they find that its occupant had left it suddenly in a hurry, as though he were being pursued in some way, to the point that he did not take most of his belongings with him.. but at the same time he left nothing behind that might indicate his identity.
The Soviets thought it was a game by the English.. but suddenly.. they received a picture taken by one of the agents of a man who looked extremely similar to "Sydney Reilly", in a café in France.
And suddenly, too, a scandal erupts for the British Daily Mail newspaper, after it published a forged document, known as the "Zinoviev letter scandal", which was supposedly a letter addressed from "Grigory Zinoviev", head of the Communist International in Moscow, to the British Communist Party.. ordering it to carry out activities that stir up sedition.
And strangely, the editor of the Daily Mail at the time said that the one who handed him the letter was "Sydney Reilly" himself.
And then his wife "Pepita" steps in.. and says that "Reilly" did visit her, and spent some time with her, and left, and kept visiting her from time to time, until news of him was cut off and he disappeared in 1932.. more than six years after his execution.
No one knows where "Sydney" went.. there are strong rumours circulating.. that the Soviets arrested him a second time, alive this time, in fact.. and this time.. they appointed him an adviser to Soviet intelligence.. but no one knows the truth exactly on that score.
"Sydney" was not the only inspiration for the character of "James Bond".. there was also "Conrad O'Brien" and others.. and we will talk about them later.
And there is still more of the conversation to come.
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