In the shadowy world of espionage, grim duels are forever under way but rarely surface except in spy fiction. Last week the world was treated to a real-life drama worthy of any thriller.
The hero was Electronics Expert Horst Schwirkmann, 36, who, as West Germany's leading fumigator of mechanical bugs, had for ten years been a roving sleuth seeking out such pests as illicit wiretaps on telephones of Bonn's missions behind the Iron Curtain. Schwirkmann's work load was understandably heavy in Moscow, where this year the U.S. embassy alone discovered 40 hidden Russian microphones. Schwirkmann ferreted out a covey of bugs in the West German embassy. He also designed the mission's bugproof "tank," a compartment big enough for a handful of embassy officials to sit down in and discuss business without fear of Soviet prying. Most infuriating of all to his faceless opponents, Schwirkmann devised a technique for discouraging would-be wiretappers with a smart electric shock.
Mustard in the Monastery. This month, in Moscow on an inspection visit and accredited as usual as a diplomatic "third secretary," Schwirkmann with four embassy friends decided to attend Sunday services at Zagorsk, the medieval Russian Orthodox monastery 42 miles from the capital. During the service Schwirkmann felt a blow on his left thigh, thought he had merely brushed against someone in the temple gloom, but then discovered a soaked spot on his left trouser leg. Afterward a bearded "guide," who introduced himself as an Orthodox seminarian, offered insistently to escort the party on a thorough tour of Zagorsk. The Germans declined.
Motoring back to Moscow, Schwirkmann complained of fatigue and piercing pains in his left leg. In the capital, a U.S. embassy doctor called on to treat Schwirkmann diagnosed severe acid burns and recommended that the victim be rushed to West Germany for hospital care. But the Intourist travel bureau reported falsely that all flights were booked up, and it took two days to fly Schwirkmann out to Bonn, where it was discovered that he had been sprayed with a liquid form of mustard gas. Last week he was in serious condition but recovering.
Losing a Rival. Why did the Russians do it? One guess: unable to endure Schwirkmann's electronic guile any longer, Russia's secret police hoped, by delaying his departure from Moscow, to force the West German's removal to a Russian hospital, where perhaps with truth serum he could be induced to spill his technical secrets. Or perhaps Moscow agents simply wanted Schwirkmann out of Russia for good. If so, they probably succeeded, for the word from Bonn last week was that from now on West Germany's ace bug expert would probably do his fumigating elsewhere.