Amy Elizabeth “Betty” Thorpe.
Wars are not won by respectable methods — Betty Thorpe Pack, Codename CYNTHIA
Betty Thorpe Pack was a remarkable woman who sought out and led an exciting life. She used her beauty, charm, and intelligence to spy for the British and American intelligence services during World War II. She is known for her use of the “honey trap” or “honey pot” operational practice, seducing whatever targets could provide her with the information she needed.
She was born Amy Elizabeth Thorpe in 1910 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to United States Marine Corps Colonel George C. Thorpe and Minnesota state senator and socialite Cora Wells. She went by the nickname “Betty”. She grew up in a privileged and adventurous environment, traveling around the world and learning several languages. She spoke French fluently.
In 1929, her father resigned his post and the family moved to Washington, DC where her father begin law school. When she stepped into the social scene of Washington, DC she was a picture of elegance and refinement. She possessed a captivating charm and sensuality that attracted men towards her. She was introduced to the high society of Washington, DC. New York City, and Newport, RI where she had numerous romantic affairs, some of them with foreign diplomats.
Espionage Career
On April 29, 1930, she married Arthur Pack, who was a second secretary at the British embassy in Washington, DC. She was pregnant at the time of the marriage. The child, a boy, was born in England on October 2, 1930, and put in a foster home. In 1931, Arthur and Betty traveled to Chile where Arthur was reassigned to the British Embassy. On the brink of the Spanish Civil War, Arthur was reassigned to Madrid. It was here that she immersed herself into covert activities.
She played a crucial role in ensuring the safety of rebel Nationalists by aiding their smuggling operations. In addition, she was responsible for delivering Red Cross supplies to Franco’s troops and orchestrating the evacuation of the British Embassy staff from northern Spain using a destroyer. She also involved herself in diplomatic matters. However, her activities came to a halt when she was accused of being a Republican spy by a woman seemingly driven by jealousy, leading to her Nationalist allies turning against her.
Betty went to Poland in 1937, when her husband was assigned to the British embassy in Warsaw. Arthur had a stroke shortly after arrival and Betty took him back to England to recover. She then returned to Warsaw with her daughter and began working as a spy for British Intelligence
She had a long-term affair with a Polish diplomat named Antoni Lubienski, who gave her access to documents of the Polish Black Chamber which helped the Allies to crack the German Enigma code. The Polish Black Chamber was a secret cryptologic organization was part of the Polish General Staff’s Cipher Bureau (Biuro Szyfrów), which was responsible for breaking the codes and ciphers of various countries, especially Nazi Germany. She left Poland in 1938, after her activities were discovered by the Polish Foreign Minister.
She divorced Arthur in 1939 and moved to Washington, DC where she worked for the British Security Coordination (BSC), which was set up in New York City in 1940 by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). She was given the codename CYNTHIA by spymaster William Stephenson, head of the BSC, who ran Britain’s World War II intelligence activities in the Western Hemisphere. Stephenson was one of the most decorated and influential spies of the war, and some people consider him to be one of the real-life inspirations for James Bond. She later also worked for the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and helped to establish contacts with the French Resistance.
She targeted the Vichy French and Italian embassies in Washington, DC for the BSC. She obtained and copied the codebooks for fascist Italy, allowing Britain’s Royal Navy to defeat the Italians at the Battle of Cape Matapan. After two failed attempts, she then also managed to steal the Vichy French naval codes from a locked safe in the Vichy French embassy with the help of her lover, Charles Brousse, a French diplomat. The information t from the intercepted Vichy messages helped Britain and America to invade Vichy North Africa successfully in November 1942 in Operation Torch.
She had aspirations to serve in France as an agent for either the OSS or Britain. However, she was too well known in the espionage community by that time. This led her to be given minimal significant tasks for the remainder of the war. She had the opportunity to spend an hour with President Franklin Roosevelt, during which they enjoyed martinis together, and she regaled him with tales of her exploits.
It has been reported that she later reflected on her years of sexual activity during the war:
“Ashamed? Not in the least, my superiors told me that the results of my work saved thousands of British and American lives…. It involved me in situations from which ‘respectable’ women draw back — but mine was total commitment. Wars are not won by respectable methods”.
Legacy
Betty retired from spying after World War II. She married her French lover, Charles Brousse and moved with him to a medieval castle in France. She no longer worked for the British or the American intelligence services and lived a quiet life until her death.
She passed away on December 1, 1963, at the age of 53. Her contributions were so significant that her Time magazine obituary quoted Sir William Stephenson saying that she was “the greatest unsung heroine of the war”.
The full story of her World War II activities cannot yet be known. Although The National Archives of the United Kingdom has a collection of records of the British intelligence and security services from World War II, many files, especially those covering sensitive material, have been destroyed or retained by the security services themselves and have not been accessioned by The National Archives or have been heavily redacted. Despite this, her contributions to the war effort remain undeniable and continue to be recognized by historians and scholars alike.
She was a remarkable spy whose methods and contributions played a crucial role in the Allied victory during World War II.
Resources
International Spy Museum
SpyMuseum.org
The Intrepid Society
Intrepid-Society.org
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