The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-02-14
Vast Spy Industry
 Working In Europe
timated Half Million People Employed in Espionage, But Less Than 300 Arrested Last Year

photos and descriptions of most of which enable the secret service to trail them; an exchange of infor- nation between police of various countries has not made the spy's path any easier. Yet spying goes on.
 French secret police cfficiaIs ad-
 init that espionage has reached it's greatest proportions in history. Be- fore the war, there was little dis erect, almost polite espionage go- ing on but it was confined to keep ing general tab on new arms, new warships, and, if occasion present. ed, acquiring a naval code here or there.
 Since the war, no self-respecting government is without its army of spies. They are legion and they swarm everywhere. Certain French nationalist newspapers declared that half the foreign workmen en- gagged in building the French from tier Qualifications were foreign spies. This was never officially de- nied.
 Commercial and economic spy ing has been added to the military and naval espionage of other days. The steel and chemical industries are particularly bothered by es- pionage; even Paris dressmakers have had to adopt a system of passports for authentic buyers to prevent spying and piracy of mod els.
 Spy Documnets Seized
 When French police broke up the International Syndicate, they found that this group had ramifi- cations in the United States, Eng land, Finland, Germany, Russia and Japan. Experts have worked for weeks to tabulate seized corre- spondence and documents, most of which had to be translated, and they still have months of work ahead of them.
 This syndicate is typical of the present-day spy gangs. It worked for a number of governments and industrial groups but was under no single flag. It's field marshal was a woman, Lydia Stahl, Russian born, American educated, master of arts at Columbia university, Cos- mopolitan-mannered and bejewel- ed.
 Police accuse two other Ameri- cans, Robert Gordon Switz and his wife, Marjory Talley Switz, of be- ing major lieutenants. He was an aviator who had quit flying; she was just out of Vassar. Yet Paris police proclaimed her the most skilled of espionage workers, able to throw off the best French de- tectives as she dashed through with double entrances, leaving police at one door as she sped through another no her way to secret meeting.
 In the same syndicate were Bull gas and German, Films and Rus sians, French and Japanese. The included the official of the ministry of navy charged with using the secret naval code for The flags of the na- tions in that syndicate would look like d rainbow.
 Had Wireless Station
 The rounding up of this syndi- cate is a tribute to police efficiency. One member of the syndicate re- ceived postcard from someone in a separate Finnish syndicate. From that postcard, police worked up their case. The notifications in- cluded a laboratory for copying and enlarging documents, a wire less plant for clandestine sending, a Hove nest" where the woman field marshal and her code-trans- lating lover lived under the same roof.
 These arc the major spies: Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other capitals are rampant with minor spies. They serve you your cof- fee in the cafes and read your mail over your shoulder. They make up beds In cosmopolitan hotels as ser wants, and piece together torn cor you have thrown into waste baskets. They enter your house as a cook or servant and go through your affairs at ease. They write voluminous reports about you and slip away under darkness To deliver them to some master mind and receive, in exchange. some bright new roubles or marks pr francs or dollars. From the maze of knowledge thus accumu- lated, some central bureau finally evolves the information that you ike salt on your cheese.