August 4, 2022
A black and white photograph of a man with a briefcase walking up a flight of stairs, his face hidden © iStockphoto.com/ands456
© iStockphoto.com/ands456

It sounds like a Hollywood movie, but for agent M it was real: during the Cold War he was a double agent for the AIVD, the CIA and the Stasi for 22 years. Associate professor of History of International Relations Eleni Braat and Ben de Jong (Leiden University) interviewed him repeatedly and recently published their official research in the International Journal for Intelligence and Counterintelligence and at The Conversation.

Recruitment
In the early 1960s, M was recruited by the Domestic Security Service (BVD), the predecessor of the AIVD. "His career with a multinational provided an excellent cover for his clandestine work, as he made many international trips," write Braat and De Jong. In 1967, he was recruited again in Israel, this time for the foreign department of the Stasi, the Hauptverwaltung (HVA). Thanks to this dual role, he was also noticed by the CIA and put to work.

Although he was an official agent of the HVA for twenty years and passed on information all those years, he always remained loyal to the West. "His primary loyalty was to the Dutch service and the CIA," say Braat and De Jong. "After seeing the evidence he provided us, we find his story about working against the Stasi to be credible."

Betrayal
In 1985, it seemed as if his double role had been discovered when he was dragged out of bed at four in the morning. "Still in his pyjamas, he was taken from the hiding place where he had been staying for debriefing sessions with his Stasi handlers, to a van with blacked-out windows that transported him to a prison under armed guard," write Braat and De Jong. A physically and mentally invasive interrogation followed, which ultimately turned out to be a test.

Nevertheless, M developed a close bond with his HVA supervisors, who showed him more appreciation than the BVD and CIA. They gave him presents and took him on trips – from the BVD he received "not even a pen". It was therefore hard for him to be abandoned by all three organizations after the fall of the GDR.

"It is clear that traumatic memories from that period continue to be a significant burden for him," say Braat and De Jong. "His former CIA handler, with whom M managed to get in touch again in recent years, advised him in an email: 'Let it go, man, let it go.' But this was clearly to no avail."

Truth
Although this research offers many new insights, Braat and De Jong emphasize how difficult it is to verify these kinds of personal stories. "It is difficult to get to the whole truth when it comes to the secretive world of espionage," they say. "But it is important to emphasize how rare it is for a former secret agent to open up and talk about his experiences on the record."

Not everything M told about his life can be found in the official documents he still has in his possession. The broad outlines are correct, but details remain difficult to prove. Nevertheless, such a story is very valuable for the research into intelligence services and espionage during the Cold War. "M gave us a truly unique insight into the secret workings of three different intelligence services," according to Braat and De Jong.