The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1934-02-19
rule OF FIVE
OLDEST CODE
USED BY SPIES
Bodily Defects And Aspirin
Are Stock-In-Trade OF
Secret Workers

PARIS, Feb. 10. (UP)-T h e
ideal spy has a glass eye, wooden
leg wig over his bald head, false
teeth. carries a ring Of keys and
a hollow cane.
Each of his defects is worth its
weigh in gold to a professional
spy, for behind the plate of his
artificial bridgeworl,, inside his
glass eye. rolled into his wooden
leg or his cane. ne may carry
maps and photographs, reports
and sketches.
A Russian spy, whose wig blew
off when he was being chased by
frontier guards. was found TO
have 5000 words written in MI
mute letters with India ink on his
bald pate. A headwash IN lemon
Juice and ne was ready for an
other message.
Aspirin is the base Of an lnvlSl-
bic ink which all Self-respectlng
spies use in their correspondence
But headaches are so common
among international travellers that
police and customs authorities
cannot prevent the buying or car
rying of aspirin.
In normal peacetime, however
spies go about their business Ike
commercial travellers. 1t is only
when general stats put difficulties
in their way that spies hollow out
their teeth or hide messages be
tween the Soles on their boots.
During the war. no spies were
more brilliant than the Frcncl
and British. the former on lan0
and the latter at sea. Three times
in the four years of hOStllltieS
British agents stole the German
secret code after it he'd been
changed. This prowess enabled
the TIA !at;on of the Hmmer-
mann letters which were largely
responsible for bringing the UNI
ted Suites into the war.
Carrier pigeons, toy balloons
and messengers were found to be
too slow for carrying information
across the lines in the war. The
French secret agents worked out
q mastery plan. Plowmen plowed
burrows or housewives laid out
their washing in the grass to dry
in such a way that airmen over
head could read the messages and
hasten back to report the news.
Clandestine wireless stations
were little used during the war
because wireless was not fully de-
velOped and because it was too
easy to trace the sputtering send
err. In peacetime, no selt-respectt-
ing spy gang is without its send
ing stations, but there is an I'M
ending war by police to curb clan
destine broadcasting.
French secret police have a post
in each of the principal cities,
where an operator sits all day and
nicht listening for illegal stations.
Every station in Europe is known,
and as soon as Morse is flashed on
an unaccustOmed wey2l"ngth,. to-
ward the source and within few
hours run down another gang.
The most famed os FrcncN
spies, Nine. Bettigny, recruited
an army of canine message car
riers. She had 10 friends raise
police dogs within invaded Bel
GUM behind the German lines.
These dors she trained to leap
the electric wires at the Dutch
frontier at night and find their
way to another agent in Holland.
At night they came back nome
Half of the dogs paid for this de-
votion with their lives.
Mati-Hari, Dutch dancing glrl
whom the French shot one dismal
dawn at Vincennes, used an un'
usual trick in sending news of the
departure of conveys from Mo,
rocco and Algeria, TO enable Ger
man submarines to lay in wait
and sink them off Spain. She ad'
dressed sheet music to a publish
er in Madrid.
The French were baffled unit
a French espionage officer was
curious and tried to play one
piece of music, intercepted in the
mails. 1t resulted in discordant
sounds which had no relation K
harmony.
Study disclosed that notes were
written into the scales without
respect to musical or tone value
but in such way that they might
just as well have been Arabic
characters. Police were able t.