Ignace Reiss (pseudonym Ignace Poretsky). Although they under-
went intense interrogations and were kept under close surveillance,
the couple managed to return to the United States in 1939, largely
because of the adverse publicity that would have otherwise resulted.
Massing resumed his teaching career, first at Columbia University
and then at Rutgers University until 1967. In the immediate postwar
years, he also cooperated with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion regarding his knowledge of the Soviet espionage apparatus and
testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Massing later separated from his wife and retired in Germany. He
died on 30 April 1979 in Tübingen.MASSON, ROGER (1894–1967). The controversial head of Swiss
military intelligence during World War II, Roger Masson held the
rank of colonel brigadier. Beginning in 1939 and aided by close
ties to Bureau Ha, a private intelligence service established by Hans
Hausamann, Masson’s small operation proved exceptionally well
informed. One of Masson’s principal concerns involved the possibil-
ity of a Nazi invasion and annexation of Switzerland. Through an
intermediary, he arranged a clandestine meeting with Walter Schel-
lenberg, head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, on 8 September
1942 in Landshut, just across the German frontier. Masson’s initial
objective was not to exchange information but to reassure top Ger-
man officials of his country’s strict neutrality and determination to
resist any foreign aggressor. Because he was so impressed by Schel-
lenberg’s cultivated manner, three additional meetings—all held in
Switzerland—took place during the following 13 months and even
included the commander in chief of the Swiss army, Henri Grisan.
Several additional matters, such as releasing a Swiss consular agent
held in German custody, were also discussed.
Other Swiss army and intelligence officers took sharp issue with
Masson’s private channel to Berlin, and he became the object of two
official investigations during the war. Criticized for placing exces-
sive trust in Schellenberg and allowing his adjutant, Hans Wilhelm
Eggen, to enter the country despite an immigration ban, Masson
claimed that Nazi Germany had abandoned its hostile designs toward
Switzerland as a result. Yet when the public learned of this secret
connection through an unauthorized interview with the London Daily
MASSON, ROGER • 287