Juan Pujol García sold the Third Reich a hallucination to hide D-Day
By Vera Kessler ·
Nazi intelligence officers were deceived by a sprawling network of imaginary spies and curated falsehoods while MI5 case officer Thomas Harris plotted to keep the lie hidden.
Juan Pujol García spent the Second World War selling a hallucination to the Third Reich. He was a man of many names—Garbo, Bovril, Immortal—and a singular purpose: to convince the German military intelligence, the Abwehr, that the Allied invasion of Europe would happen somewhere other than Normandy. He did this by inventing a sprawling network of imaginary sub-agents, a ghost army of spies that existed only in his reports and in the minds of his handlers.
Garbo, Bovril, Immortal
The catalogue entry for file KV 2/4199 in the UK National Archives describes Pujol as the "celebrated wartime MI5 double cross agent." To the British, he was a vital asset in a high-stakes game of strategic deception. To the Germans, who codenamed him Alaric, he was a prized source of intelligence. The public record establishes that Pujol operated a fictitious network, known to the Germans as "Arabal," which allowed him to funnel disinformation into the heart of the Nazi war machine.
According to the file's catalogue description, KV 2/4199 documents the steady development of the GARBO sub-agent network. This was not a static lie but a curated, evolving narrative. The record notes that the file contains "schemes to convey disinformation to the enemy," suggesting a meticulous process of drafting falsehoods that were plausible enough to be believed by professional intelligence officers. The state does not simply lie in these operations; it constructs an entire alternative reality, brick by brick, until the target accepts the fiction as the only available truth.
Defections and Contingency Plans
The brilliance of a double agent is always balanced by the terror of exposure. For Pujol, the danger peaked after the D-Day landings. The catalogue entry for KV 2/4199 reveals that the security of the GARBO network was threatened by "defections from Abwehr ranks." When German agents flipped to the Allies, they brought with them the internal records of the Abwehr, potentially exposing the gaps and contradictions in Pujol's fabricated reports.
In response to this vulnerability, the record identifies a specific figure: Thomas Harris. As the case officer, Harris was responsible for the asset's survival and the mission's integrity. The catalogue describes how Harris drew up "various ingenious contingency plans" in readiness for the moment the Germans might realize they had been played. These plans were not merely administrative; they were survival strategies designed to protect a man who had spent years living a lie. The phrase "ingenious contingency plans" suggests a level of desperation and creativity common to intelligence work, where the goal is to stay one step ahead of the inevitable discovery.
Letters and WT
While KV 2/4199 provides the overview of the operation and its risks, other records in the National Archives hold the raw material of the deception. Catalogue entries for files KV 2/63, KV 2/64, KV 2/65, KV 2/66, and KV 2/67 all describe "copies of communications by letter and WT with Germans." These documents—the letters and the wireless telegraphy (WT) transmissions—were the primary vehicles for the "British deception material."
These files represent the actual intersection of the lie and the recipient. Every letter sent by Pujol, every burst of coded radio traffic, was a calculated move in a larger strategic play. The fact that the Security Service maintained separate files for these communications underscores the volume of material required to sustain a fake network. To keep the Abwehr convinced, the British had to produce a constant stream of "intelligence," ensuring that the noise of the fiction drowned out the signal of the truth.
Related files on Pujol exist in other archives, including several references in the UK National Archives under KV 2/4200, KV 2/4201, and KV 2/4206, though their specific contents are not detailed here. The existence of such a wide array of files—stretching from the tactical communications of the 1940s to the personal files of the Security Service—shows the enduring interest in a man who managed to trick one of the most feared intelligence services in history.
The records for Juan Pujol García remain categorized within the Personal (PF Series) Files of the Security Service, specifically under the heading of World War II Double Agent Operations.