The specific targets of her early intelligence work included the Italian and Japanese embassies. Italy, under Mussolini, had signed the Pact of Steel with Germany in May 1939; the question of whether Italy would formally enter the war on Germany’s side, and when, was a matter of live strategic interest to French intelligence. Japan’s posture in the Pacific had implications for British imperial holdings in Asia and for the complex question of American involvement.
At embassy parties and diplomatic receptions, Baker socialized with officials from both countries, drawing out information through the specific social mechanics available to a person of her celebrity. Officials who wanted to appear important in front of a world-famous entertainer sometimes said things they should not have said. She wrote what she learned on her hands and forearms, in notes hidden beneath her sleeves, and later transcribed them onto paper that she pinned to the inside of her undergarments.
The methods were simple. Their simplicity was part of their effectiveness. There was nothing sophisticated to intercept or decode at the moment of transmission; the information was written on her body or on small notes concealed in clothing. The assumption — which turned out to be correct — was that border guards and checkpoint officials would not search a world-famous star with the thoroughness that might have revealed these concealments. She later said, with characteristic directness, that no one would dare search her.
This calculus held throughout her intelligence career. The celebrity that she had built over fifteen years in Paris, and that she might otherwise have regarded purely as a professional achievement, turned out to have a second function that none of her Folies Bergère audiences could have anticipated.