POPOV, DUSAN (1912–1981). A key British double agent during
World War II, Dusan (“Dusko”) Popov was born in Dubrovnik,
Croatia, the son of a prosperous Dalmatian family. He studied at
Freiburg, then worked in Belgrade as a commercial lawyer. In 1940,
urged to perform an assignment for the Abwehr by a close university
friend, Johann Jebsen, Popov sought the advice of a Secret Intel-
ligence Service (SIS) officer attached to the British legation in the
Yugoslav capital. He instructed Popov to join the Abwehr as a double
agent. His initial code name of scout was changed to tricycle after
he recruited two other double agents, balloon and gelatine.
Brought to London, Popov began to reply to lengthy Abwehr ques-
tionnaires regarding coastal defenses and the location of antiaircraft
batteries, and he traveled to Lisbon twice in early 1941 to meet with
his German handler. Not only was he handsomely paid, causing him
to decline any compensation from the British, but the Abwehr selected
him for a key mission to the United States to establish a new network
following the fiasco of William G. Sebold and his spy ring. After
arriving in New York in mid-August, Popov contacted the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and presented the questionnaire given to
him by the Abwehr, which was concealed in the form of a microdot.
American atomic energy research and the military installations on the
island of Oahu were of particular interest. Yet his cooperation with the
FBI and the U.S. military was minimal, owing to Popov’s extravagant
lifestyle and clashing modus operandi. His reports increasingly meager
in content, Popov returned to Lisbon in October 1942 for new instruc-
tions from the Abwehr. He then reestablished himself in London,
building a new network headed by his elder brother Ivo (code name
dreadnought). For the remainder of the war, both men participated in
numerous deception schemes, which, relying heavily on supposed Yu-
goslav émigré circles, were designed to mislead the Nazi regime about
the planned Allied invasion of Europe.
In the immediate postwar period, Popov continued his relationship
with the SIS by working in Krefeld under commercial cover. But his
financial affairs grew murkier and led to a short prison sentence in
Marseilles in 1959. After working for a German cocoa firm in Cape
Town, he settled in Opio in the French Maritime Alps and wrote
his memoirs, Spy Counterspy (1974), which made a number of con-
troversial claims, especially regarding the FBI’s alleged negligence
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