Apfel, Pedro and Bach

When U.S. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles caused an international incident by accusing Chile of harboring Axis agents (TIME, Oct. 19), he did so with full documentary evidence. That evidence was made public last week by the Montevideo Inter-American Emergency Committee for Political Defense of the Hemisphere. The story:

Plot. Long before Pearl Harbor a secret radio station was installed under the direction of German Shipping Representative Frederick von Schultz Hausmann in Valparaiso, Chile. Communications were established between Nazi spy headquarters in Hamburg and a far-flung and intricate network of German spies and saboteurs in the Western Hemisphere.

U.S. Federal Communications Commission radio monitors spotted the secret station. Its complicated coded and transposed messages were intercepted and turned over to the U.S. experts, who broke the code. From then on, officials in Washington followed carefully the work of Nazi spies in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and even in the U.S.

Pursuit. It was not easy. Sensing danger, Nazi spymasters in Hamburg had named all their agents in the Americas with nicknames. Intercepted messages referred to "Bach," to "Pedro," to "Apfel." But patiently, month after month, the cryptic messages were studied and compared, the machinations of the spies uncovered. It was found that "Bach" was Ludwig von Bohlen, Air Attache to the Santiago German Embassy. A woman, one Isabel Pederit, was found to be the spy-ring expert, charged with developing letters written in secret inks. These came to her from all over the Americas, and the information they contained was forwarded to Hamburg by radio. Japanese Military Attache Naruo Tesima turned out to be connected with the organization.

The Nazi spies accomplished much: they told Hamburg of the arrivals and departures of merchant ships, their cargoes and destinations (at least one ship so betrayed was sunk); they reported the construction of U.S. military bases and other defense activities in Latin America; they revealed defense secrets of the Latin American countries. In addition to spying, the Nazi agents plotted sabotage, attempted to bribe Latin American diplomats and to place agents in the U.S.

Exposure. When, after a year's patient work, the picture was clear and complete, Washington acted. On June 30, 1942 U.S. Ambassador to Chile Claude G. Bowers presented a 20-page memorandum to the Chilean Government which suggested politely that the existence of such a spy network was not only a violation of Chilean sovereign rights as a neutral but a menace to the entire Western Hemisphere.

It was more than three months later when Sumner Welles, tired of waiting for the Chileans to take effective action, made his now famous Boston speech, which caused Chile's President Rios to postpone a visit to Washington, then to change his Cabinet.

Action. Only last week was this Nazi spy ring cracked. A dozen Axis agents were ordered expelled. But there were indications that by no means all of the German agents active in the hemisphere had been caught.

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