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Russia. The
nation caught spying plays its part of the game by making no effort
to extricate its unfortunate agent. There was a great deal of talk
about "international spy rings" when the Switzes were first
arrested. At least eight other people, including a Rumanian by the name
of Bercowitz and a Polish medical student called Moses Salman, were arrested.
French agents dropped fascinating hints about a rival spy known
as La Belle Sophie who secreted an entire French machine gun of the
latest type among her lingerie. As the weeks passed French police
appeared to pay little attention to Bercowitz, Salman or La Belle
Sophie but concentrated almost entirely on the Switzes. As soon as they
were arrested the U. S. Consul, Robert D. Murphy, hurried to their aid,
announced that he was convinced that they were being well treated and
withdrew. U. S. Embassy officials said no visit to the Switzes was
contemplated since they had not asked Embassy aid. The Switzes may not
be U. S. spies but U. S. officials in Paris were behaving suspiciously
as if they were. The films produced last week were interesting. They
came from Geneva, where a Swiss citizen, asked to deliver them in
France, had handed them instead to the French consulate. Brought to
Paris, they were developed in a police darkroom and showed a most
complicated grillwork of dots, holes, and cross-hatchings, another
section of topographical contours, and incidentally a great many
fingerprints of Robert Switz. The two blonde hairs were in the
wrapping.
Admitting that he had handled the films, Robert Switz insisted that they
had just been handed to him by a stranger in a cafe who asked him to
make a package of them.
The Switzes were grilled from 3 p. m. until midnight, when the
prosecutor announced they had given him the names of an alleged spy
ring which he described as the "greatest since the World War." More he
would not say.
*In U. S. Navy codes used during the War, Greenwich Mean Time
was all important. Several codes were used in each message. Translators had to
have the exact time a message was sent to know with which
code to begin translating.
