The Pseudos

Passing out medals for bravery in the Mau Mau war last week, the British let the world know about a highly secret, highly successful operation performed by solitary white men infiltrating into the Mau Mau camps. The white volunteers (who call themselves the Pseudos) smear themselves black, wear tattered rags, and move in the company of a small group of former Mau Mau blacks.

Fellow workers in the Nairobi office of East African Railways were surprised to learn that quiet, spectacled Walter Gash, a timetable checker, had won an M.B.E. ( Member of the Order of the British Empire) for pioneering this kind of warfare. Linking up with Mau Mau gangs, but staying in the background ("My phony Kikuyu accent would have given me away"), Gash gathered intelligence information, then would suddenly fling aside his rags and open fire with a submachine gun. "It was a case of kill or be killed in the forest," said Gash. Another operator working with the Pseudos was William Baldwin, a young American on the Kenya police force, who had his U.S. passport lifted when Washington found out about his activities.

Mau Mau methods of killing (slow strangulation, chopping off limbs, burial alive) have not prevented many young Kenya-born white men from volunteering for infiltration work. Coached by defected Mau Mau in the fine points of native dress, carriage and habits, they have penetrated Mau Mau gatherings, captured supplies of arms and held attackers at bay until reinforcements arrived. Not all white infiltrators come through alive, for they live a double risk. A year ago 19-year-old Donald Bellingham was shot by British security forces who failed to see through his disguise.