(2 of 2)
Hidden Dangers. Considering the number of spies on the job, the competition for tangible results must be fierce. After all, how many secrets are left? Yet West Germany, as the linchpin of the Western alliance, continues to provide fertile ground for espionage. Some 200,000 U.S. soldiers and airmen are stationed there, backed by an array of tactical nuclear weapons. In addition to military secrets, the average spy in West Germany sends back inside information on government policymaking, back-room politicking and the latest rumors on the diplomatic circuit. If he suffers the humiliation of getting caught by one of West Germany's outnumbered and slow-moving counterespionage agents, he has little to fear. The chances are that after a few years in jail, he will be exchanged for a captured Western agent and will return to a comfortable life as a national hero.
That may well be the fate of Guillaume, the biggest spy caught in West Germany since World War II. West German officials reckon that Guillaume apparently had an unusually sophisticated mission: to serve as a warning from the East German regime that there are hidden dangers in detente. According to this reasoning, the East Germans have achieved the international recognition they want from détente, but now refuse to open their country to more contacts with the West. Thus, by embarrassing Brandt, the East Germans hope to discredit Ostpolitik in Bonn and reduce the pressure for internal change.
The Nollau caper suggests that some right-wing West Germans, with their own political reasons for wanting to discredit Brandt's successors, have decided that spy hysteria can be as useful to them as it is to the Communists.