Catalogue description BALLOON: British. BALLOON was one of a group of MI5 Double Agents (most of them...

BALLOON: British. BALLOON was one of a group of MI5 Double Agents (most of them Yugoslavs), closely associated with TRICYCLE and in some cases recruited by him. In 1935 BALLOON, then a young army officer, was court martialled for financial irregularities and forced to resign his commission. He became successively a civil defence training officer and businessman with a specialised interest in the arms trade. Although notionally recruited by TRICYCLE for the Abwehr, on the basis of the supposed alienating effects of his British Army experience, BALLOON was in fact recruited as a Double Agent by MI5 in 1941 and run as such until 1944. In this capacity he developed a remarkable ability to elicit sensitive (usually military) intelligence from his wide range of contacts. Some of the resultant material was sent to the Abwehr on BALLOON's own account; most, however, provided the basis of reports sent by TRICYCLE