Parochial Spy

Though few daily newspaper readers have ever heard of it, one of the world's most respected news services is a tiny organization called Agence Europe. The nine men who gathered in Luxembourg's Hotel Brasseur cafe to herald the service's tenth anniversary last week constitute the entire staff. Ever since they were hired, they have surveyed the same un-romantic-sounding beat: Europe's Common Market. But by their authoritative reporting of the political and economic experiments that are changing Europe, they have made the daily blue-green bulletins of Agence Europe required reading for a blue-chip list of more than 2,000 subscribers from Iceland to Japan.

Loyal Lady. In its brief, parochial career, Agence Europe has won itself a reputation for feats of espionage that would do credit to the CIA or Britain's M15. Headed since its foundation by grey-haired Emanuele Gazzo, onetime Genoa bureau chief for Italy's Ansa News Agency, Agence Europe has been unwrapping secrets almost from birth. Far ahead of official release, it reported on the original formation of the Common Market and Euratom, the Common Market countries' joint nuclear-development agency.

Since then, working out of its own bureaus in Luxembourg and Brussels, and through a Pan-European chain of correspondents, Agence Europe has continued to pry into Common Market affairs with uncommon energy. One Market official in Luxembourg complains that every time he opens his desk drawer, "out pops an Agence Europe spy." To foil Gazzo and his men, the European bureaucracy runs security checks on its own typists and secretaries, once hired a female acquaintance of Gazzo's as a counterspy. The scheme fell through when the lady loyally peached. When Britain's Common Market mission moved to Brussels two years ago, its members were so upset upon learning that Agence Europe was quartered in the same building that a delegate ordered the premises searched for concealed mikes.

Absolutely Accurate. How Agence Europe surmounts such obstacles remains a trade secret. Common Market officials guess that Gazzo, a skilled diplomat in his own right, probably gathers much of his information by playing on national and professional rivalries--he might trick a Dutch agricultural expert into indiscretion, for example, by baiting him with antagonistic views from a German or French colleague. However Gazzo and his men do it, there is no doubt that they dig out the news. "This report is still highly confidential," said a Common Market man to a reporter from Copenhagen. "I could not possibly let you even have a glimpse of it. However, if you want to know all about it, read Agence Europe. It's absolutely accurate on the subject." While all Europe tried to guess what raw materials Britain wanted removed from the tariff list as a condition of membership, Agence Europe named every one.

This stellar performance has earned Emanuele Gazzo and Agence Europe wide acceptance in the world's most important financial circles, and in foreign offices from Foggy Bottom to Moscow.

Subscribers have long since mastered the art of interpreting Agence Europe's careful language. Says Gazzo: "A story that begins with the words, 'Europe thinks it knows,' means that we're sure, but we're not allowed to say so."

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