Frederick Vanden Heuvel

• World War I
• World War II

Count Frederick Vanden Heuvel CMG
Chief of Rome Station for the Secret Intelligence Service

Count Frederick "Fanny" Vanden Heuvel was a British count of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy who became an intelligence officer during both world wars. It was either during or shortly after World War I when Vanden Heuvel was first hired by Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart to gather intelligence for him. Around 1929, Vanden Heuvel became a member of the newly established Vansittart's Private Detective Agency – an entity established and co-operated by Vansittart and Claude Dansey to gather intelligence in Europe. In 1936, the Private Detective Agency was merged into the Z Organisation, an intelligence agency established by Dansey and Stewart Menzies to operate entirely independently of the Passport Control Office network of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Vanden Heuvel was hired into the Z Organisation, where he was given the designation Z-1. ^{[1] [2]}

Vanden Heuvel also maintained a legitimate business venture as the director of Eno's Fruit Salts, and later the Beecham Group. ^[3] His business interests allowed him to obtain information from the pharmaceutical industry and the opiumregie, and his high-ranking membership in the Catholic Church allowed him access to the vast intelligence networks that had sprung up in the orbit of the Vatican City before and during World War II. ^{[4] [1]}

When World War II broke out, the Z Organisation was merged into the SIS. ^[4]

In 1940, Vanden Heuvel took over the Switzerland station for the Secret Intelligence Service, running stations in Zurich, Geneva, and Bern. He was here under the cover of the British Foreign Office as a consular officer stationed in Geneva, and occasionally worked undercover as the assistant press Attaché in Bern. In Bern, he became fast friends with Allen Dulles after the OSS officer was stationed in the city in 1942. ^{[5] [6]}

During the Cold War, Vanden Heuvel remained in the SIS until his retirement age, and worked with Wilfred Hindle, the author of Portrait of a Newspaper and Foreign Correspondent . ^{[7] [4]}

In 1946, Vanden Heuvel participated in the creation of the company that would eventually become Pergamon Press ^[8]

References

1. Read, Anthony; Fisher, David (1985). Colonel Z: The Secret Life of a Master of Spies. Internet Archive. New York, N.Y. : Viking. pp. 174, 191, 231, 238–239, 241, 318–319, 321. ISBN   978-0-670-22979-6.
2. Dorril, Stephen (April 2015). ""Russia Accuses Fleet Street": Journalists and MI6 during the Cold War". The International Journal of Press/Politics. 20 (2): 204–227. doi:10.1177/1940161214560268. ISSN   1940-1612.
3. Read, Anthony; Fisher, David (1981). Operation Lucy: Most Secret Spy Ring of the Second World War. Internet Archive. New York : Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. pp. 25, 65, 88, 110, 112, 182, 219. ISBN   978-0-698-11079-3.
4. West, Nigel. HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF BRITISH INTELLIGENCE. pp. 417, 448.
5. West, Nigel (2007-11-12). Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN   979-8-216-24001-3.
6. "OSS Spymaster Allen Dulles". Warfare History Network. 2023-12-15. Retrieved 2026-01-09.
7. "W.H. HINDLE DIES; A JOURNALIST, 63; British Writer and Editor Headed U.N. Unit Till '64". nytimes.com. The New York Times. June 1, 1967.
8. "The emergence of Pergamon Press" (PDF). THE GEOCHEMICAL NEWS. NUMBER 114. Geochemical Society: European Association of Geochemistry. January 2003. p. 20.