The Spy from Skibbereen

The Cold War was rather frightening. Leaflets advised what to do in the event of a nuclear strike. Ham-class minesweepers patrolled our inshore waters. RAF Bomber Command had nuclear-armed Vulcan bombers on standby on airfields around East Anglia. 

Under the Radar is a thriller by James Hamilton-Preston that captures the time rather well. His frontispiece conjures up Dr Strangelove, except it’s true and unfortunately a language still spoken by some in powerful positions in the United States.

West Germany and Austria felt very vulnerable. They had the reassurance that NATO members would stand by them, but would they? Many Germans bought houses in Ireland as a bolt-hole or a holiday home until needed permanently. Switzerland, of course, had been neutral in two World Wars and was invulnerable, so no worries.  But it’s best to be prepared for all eventualities and this man was in charge of top-secret operations for Switzerland’s military intelligence force in the 1970s.

He died earlier this year so kindness is appropriate. He was a patriot, albeit a right wing one. His remit was so top-secret that his masters were unaware of his “initiatives” as he called them. He sent an agent to spy on an Austrian military exercise, one that Swiss representatives were observing by invitation. The captured agent was given a suspended sentence and sent home. He recruited a secret army of Swiss operatives and trained them in weaponry, bombing and assassination to repel a Soviet invasion. This wasn’t such a bad idea as today there is a substantial army of Swiss reservists who keep their guns under their beds. Another brainwave was to buy Liss Ard near Skibbereen in West Cork. It would be the headquarters for a Swiss government in exile and he prepared the basement of one of the houses on the estate to receive the Swiss gold reserves. His obituary in The Telegraph picks up the story:

After news of this emerged, Bachmann was obliged to retire in 1980. An official investigation criticised P-26 as an illegal paramilitary programme, operating as a clandestine, parallel structure within the Swiss security network, and lacking governmental authorisation or control. When Bachmann’s secret army was finally dismantled, its war chest – gold worth six million Swiss francs – was donated to the Red Cross. But he always insisted that it served a vital function. “How vital,” Bachmann told the reporters who sought him out, “I cannot tell you.”

Bachmann liked Skibbereen. He retired there with his wife, rented out holiday cottages and ran a riding school. If the Cold War had hotted-up Col Bachmann would have been a hero; a William Tell, a Swiss mole who came in from the cold. As it was he was a popular figure in Skibbereen hostelries although old habits die hard – he eschewed being photographed.

I’m grateful to my West Cork correspondent, maker of the renowned Auld Cratur Marmalade, for bringing Colonel Bachmann’s obituary to my attention and for sharing his observations.

“He is celebrated in these parts for being a very decent employer, paying above-average wages and insisting that newly-weds of his acquaintance should not waste money on flowers but help themselves to the flowers growing in the gorgeous Liss Ard gardens. He is also remembered for his public-spirit, having had a pub built on the beach at Tragumna, the pub being aptly named after the Skibbereen Eagle newspaper, in honour of its heroic but largely forgotten editor Fred Potter.”