Mousy Mata Hari

In Ankara's still winter air smoke belched from the chimneys of the Japanese Embassy. Ambassador Sho Kurihara and his staff were busy burning official papers. They had been nearly as surprised as everyone else in Ankara last week when Turkey suddenly broke off relations with Japan.

In view of all the Allied pressure that had been put on Turkey, Ankara's declaration of nonbelligerent war seemed rather little and late. But it had one important result: Turkey would no longer openly serve as a base for Axis spies.

When the Turks broke with Germany five months ago, parting was merely sweet sorrow since it is assumed the Japanese eagerly took over the Nazis' high-powered espionage system. Until then, cooperation had not been too good between the Axis partners. Ambassador Kurihara had had to spend lavishly to outbid the Germans for capable agents, useful information. He inherited Nazi contacts and even expanded their organization. In exchange, he relayed important information to the Germans--by diplomatic radio from the Japanese Embassy in Ankara to the Japanese Embassy in Berlin.

The most important branch of the spy network which Ambassador Kurihara took over had been organized by a German woman so elusive that there are only a few pictures of her in existence. This Mata Hari was a mousy ex-midwife named Paula Koch. Officially, Fraulein Koch ran the Nazi DNB news service in Adana, near Turkey's Syrian frontier. Actually, it was reported she ruled some 2,000 secret agents who roamed the Middle East and Africa as far west as Tripolitania. They sent her detailed reports on Allied shipping and troop movements.

Fraulein Koch's work throve on Arab dissatisfaction with the British. The Arabs prospered on Fraulein Koch's gold, radios and flashy cars. The Axis profited by her intelligence reports. .In Ankara it was whispered that the weekly British and U.S. planes from Cairo brought her almost as much information as they brought to the Allies.

Before Fraulein Koch left Turkey for Germany last August, she had time to make all arrangements with the Japanese Embassy. Perhaps to set up a new system of communications with Axis agents in the Middle East, Ambassador Kurihara last week asked for and got a seven-day postponement of his departure from Ankara.

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