Donald Downes was a writer recruited to do work for the OSS in the early 1940s. He was part of a group of such people, pulled from academia, science, writers, artists, civilians who were trained by the OSS to put to use their civilian talents to creating intelligence to help in the WW II fight against the Axis powers. The book, Book and Dagger by Elyse Graham tells their many stories.
Spain, Portugal, Sweden were among several neutral countries during the war. That didn't mean they didn't at different times favor the Axis powers, particularly Spain. Breaking codes was a part of each side's efforts. The cracking of the Enigma's machine code is perhaps the moat famous, based on the work done at Bletchley Park and Alan Turing's efforts.
But there were other encryptions that needed decoding. Mr. Downes tells us of being assigned the job of getting the encryption codes from the neutral countries of Alphonia, Betonia, Gammonia, and the Vichy embassies in Washington, D.C. so that their cables could be read.
The first three of those embassy countries I never heard of, and have had trouble finding anything about them. My guess is they were autonomous parts of Spain during WW II because Ms. Graham explains a caper through Mr. Downes of safe cracking the Spanish embassy in Washington, D.C.
Note:
ChapGPT is worth something. Asking about where these countries might be I got the following response:
The countries Alphonia, Betonia, and Gammonia are not actual nations in history. These names are fictional and were used in a historical context, specifically during World War II as part of a diplomatic strategy.
During the 1940s, these names were used in a fake diplomatic scenario to obscure the identities of real nations in documents related to espionage and intelligence. They were featured in a famous example from the history of World War II and espionage involving British intelligence.
One notable instance is the use of these names in a fake diplomatic map created by British Intelligence during WWII. The map was used to confuse German spies and to test the abilities of enemy agents in recognizing false country names. These fictional nations were not real, and the whole exercise was meant to throw off potential spies.
Thus, Alphonia, Betonia, and Gammonia were simply created for intelligence purposes and did not exist as real places.
Mr. Downes tells us there was a coding machine in the Alphonia's safe. From the planted secretary who was working for the OSS, it was known that it was impossible to read the numbers on the safe's dial as the attaché twisted the dial. He twisted the dial too fast and the numbers were too small.How to get in? Mr. Downes knew a guy, a retired NYC bomb squad detective who was now a doing counterintelligence work for the Army. Major "Fuse" knew a guy too, G.B. "Sadie" Cohen, a fellow who ran locksmith shop on West Broadway in lower Manhattan who was more than adept at getting into safes he wasn't supposed to. When "Sadie" wasn't in Sing Sing prison he helped the NYC police do things in exchange for forgiving some of Sadie's criminal activities that might change his address back to Sing Sing.
Sadie didn't crack safes himself anymore, (at least not in NYC) but he acted as a safe cracking consultant, much like Sherlock Holmes was a Consulting Detective. Major "Fuse's" recommendation to Mr. Downes was to get "Sadie," He had already opened safes at the Japanese Consulate and got into the German Secret Service, the Bund's safe. He was the guy. "There's nothing Sadie can't open."
Mr. Downes writes that on the way down to Sadie's shop on West Broadway, under the "el", Major "Fuse" explained the qualities of using "Sadie' and the special arrangement that kept him out of Sing
When I read this part I was intrigued as to which "el" [NYC elevated subway line] might the shop be near. The 6th Avenue El was already demolished in 1938. The shop had to be near the 9th Avenue El just as that El was being dismantled.
Mr. Downes tells us:
"Sadie Cohen's long narrow shop looked more like a junk head. Half-way back was a little office partitioned off from the rest by glass, broken, patched and rebroken.
Sadie sat at his ancient roll-top desk filing a key. He was a little pot-bellied Jew with curly hair on which his battered derby sat like a chicken on its nest."
The Major made the introductions.
"Val, lootenant, how's bombs? Vat can I do for you." (Mr. Downes perfectly captures English with a strong Yiddish accent.)
The Major let Mr. Downes describe the job. Sadie took notes on the back of an envelope. Sadie gives his assessment.
"Ven de boss comes dat gaddamit safe von't open. De boss vill telephone the Vashington agency of Vilton Safe Company and de Vilton Safe Company vill send me, G.B. Cohen, to repair it—dat if you ask 'em to. Having repaired it I vill know the combinations and vile I am doing it I vill also break de lock on the inside key door and repairing it. I vill see vat dat key is like and ve vill also have key.
"Dat night ven you vant to borrow from dat safe, I vill also come to Vahington to be handy if something don't go so vell."
That break-in is a complete success, and is repeated two more times over the next months when the codes change.
All of which goes to show you, if the Watergate burglars had used Sadie, President Richard Nixon would have not had to resign in his second term.
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