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CHURCH COMMITTEE REPORTS

PART Two
THE MIDDLE YEARS (1914-1939)
Sometime in 1915 the Japanese warship Asama went aground in
Turtle Bay in the Gulf of Lower California. The presence of this
vessel in that part of the world was not a total surprise as Japanese
fleet units had been previously sighted a few times in the area. Earlier
the Grand Admiral of Xippon had paid a visit to Mexico, expounding
a blood brother theme. "'hat appeared to be somewhat incredible
about this incident was that the formidable veterans of Tsushima
could be so inept as to allow this accident to happen. Indeed, it subsequently
became questionable that the event was an accident at all.
According to Sidney Mashbir, an intelligence officer destined to gain
fame with General Douglas ~facArthur'sAllied Translator and Interpreter
Section during 'VorId 'Var II, there were "unquestionable
proofs that whole companies of Japanese soldiers had traversed a
part of southern Arizona in 1916 during secret exercises, proceedings
that could only have been associated with the Asama's wallowing in
the mud the previous year."
As an intelligence officer in 1916 with the First Arizona
Infantry he had been detailed by that General Funston of
Aguinaldo fame on a mission to seek the truth of rumors
among Indians of Japanese columns present in northern
Sonora in Mexico. Mashbir, who later acted as a .spy for
America in Manchuria, tramped across the desert (which he
knew well enough to make nhe first map of it our Army
ever had). His knowledge of the desert told him that even
the Japanese, incredible marchers that they were, could not
have made the trip without violating Arizona territory to
the north for water. He made his estimate and headed for
the area he believed nhey would have to touch. There he
discovered Japanese ideographs written in charcoal upon
the rock walls of passes of the Tinajas Atlas Mountains.
They were, he estimated, the notes of column commanders
who had gone before to those who would follow. His own
Indian scouts told him that parties of fifty came ashore
at intervals and made the killing march.
Mashbir hastened to send a detailed report to Washington.
But in 1916, a General Staff that had no intelligence section
for receiving and assessing information, appended a comment
to the report that the ideograph "had no military value."
Even in retrospect, as he was telling the story, Mashbir's
mustachios bristled. The point completely missed by that commentator
was, of course, that any indication of Japanese
presence in Arizona or northern Mexico at that time had the
(75)
70-890 0 - 76 - 6
76
highest military implication. One can imagine how a similar
bit of information indicating the presence of Americans on
Hokkaido would have been treated by Tokyo intelligence
analysts at that time.1
Although war had been raging in Europe for two years when this
incident occurred, military intelligence was practically non-existent
in the United States. The Military Information Division had become
the ~econd section (G-2) of the new General Staff organization in
1903. However, because it had no champions among the army's leadership,
it was transferred to the War College in 1908 and fell under an
unappreciative and insensitive committee leadership within that institution
in 1910. Its forces and identity dwindled: when the United
States entered the world war, the new Chief of Staff, General Peyton
C. March, discovered his intelligence personnel consisted of two
officers and two clerks.2
Returning from Asian duty in 1915 where he had seen intelligence
service as organizer and head of the Philippines Military Information
Bureau, Major Ralph H. Van Deman came to the information branch
of the War College.
He was delighted but soon found reason to be appalled. He
discovered that reports had been coming in from all over a
warring world, gathered by conscientious military attaches
and from intelligence organizations of belligerents on both
sides, a treasure trove of information. But these priceless documents
had never left the War College building. Van Deman
found them in tall, dusty piles. In other piles were tele~rams
marked urgent filed by an information officer especially assi~
ned to General [John J.] Pershing, then engaged on the
Villa punitive expedition in the same regions of northern
Mexico that were giving so much concern to Washington.
These had never left the room where they had been filed.3
Van Deman attempted to correct this situation by appealing first
to the president of the Army War College, urging that the Military
Information Division be re-established but correspondence endorsing
this recommendation was ignored bv the Chief of Staff, General Hugh
Scott. Next, Van Deman sought the'relocation of the Division, naming
the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth as a
possible site. But shortly after Leavenworth endorsed the plan, officials
in Washington and London became aware of it and condemned
the action. General Scott quashed the proposal and almost did the same
for Van Deman's assi~ment. America would be at war before the
revival of the Military Information Division occurred.
I. Military Intelligence
The political balance of the Great Powers of Europe in 1914 constituted
a delicate Newtonian system: any weakening or strengthening
on the part of one resulted in a corresponding oscillation on the part
1 Allison Ind. A Short History 01 Espionage. New York, David McKay Company,
1963, pp. 131-132.
2 Peyton C. March. The Nation At War. New Yorl" Doubleday, Doran and
Company, 1932, p. 226.
• Ind, op. cit., p. 133.
77
of all the others. A jolt to the arrangements had the potential for unleashing-
aggressions of enormous magnitude. 'With three pistol shots
at Sarajevo, a match was flung into the powder-keg of European politics.
On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia and on France
two days later while simultaneously invading Belgium. Britain came
to war against the Kaiser on the next day. During the rest of the
month, President 'Wilson issued a series of neutrality proclamations
(38 Stat. 1999-2024). American intelligence activities, however, were
already underway in the war zone.
Colonel Richard H. 'Williams, a captain of coast artillery
when sent abroad ,vith the group of American military observers
in the summer of 1914, was one who not only experienced
some of the hazards of a spy inside the enemy's linesbeing
repeatedly bathed in chilling German suspicion-but
who also was destined to take part in striking and important-
and officially authenticated-secret service exploit of the
A.E.F. 'Williams observed the war for three years before becoming
another of its multitude of combatants. His first duty,
assisting Americans stranded in Europe, took him to Belgium
and he was there when the steel-tipped tide of Von Kluck's
and Von BUlow's armies inundated that land, after which he
was sent to Constantinople aboard the USS North Carolina
to serve as military atta.che under Ambassador Henry Morgenthau.
He was the only attache with the Turkish forces on
the Gallipoli peninsula and the only American who saw,
from the defender's side, the desperate landings and attacks of
the British and colonial troops of Sir Ian Hamilton.
After the British, ably commanded by Sir Charles Monro,
effected their masterly evacuation of the peninsula, Colonel
Williams accompanied a Bulgarian army to the Dobrudja
and watched Bulgars and Germans mopping up strong contingents
of Roumanians and Russians. In January 1917 the
War Department in Washington ordered its widely experienced
attache home.4
Random observers, however, were no substitute for a continuous and
mature military intelligence organization. As the war raged on in
Europe, Major Van Deman became increasingly worried over the
prospect of the United States entering the hostilities with virtually no
intelligence arrangements established. When, on April 6, 1917, a
declaration of war against Germany was effected (40 Stat. 1), Van
Deman met personally with the Chief of Staff to plead for an intelligence
unit. General Scott said no. The plea was again made, but to no
avail. With his third try, Van Deman was told to cease his efforts and
to not approach Secretary of War Newton D. Baker with the idea. Van
Deman circumvented this order. Shortly after his last meeting with
th~ Chief of Staff, he found himself escorting novelist Gertrude
Atherton on visits to training camps in the Washington area. Convincing
her of the perilousness of the intelligence situation, he asked
her to put his case before Baker. The next day he planted the same
4 Richard Wilmer Rowan with Robert G. Deindorfer. Secret SC1'vice: Thirtythree
Oenturies of Espionage, London, William Kimber, 1969, p. 569.
78
story with the District of Columbia police chief who was not only
Van Deman's friend but also breakfasted regularly with the Secretary
of War.
The dual attack brought results. By April 30, Baker was on
the phone instructing the president of the Army War College
to have Van Deman report to him at once. After an hour's
conversation, Baker told Van Deman that within forty-eight
hours an order would be on its way to the president of the
War College setting up a new intelligence section. By May 3,
Van Deman had his intelligence bureau and complete charge
of it. He also had been promoted from major to lieutenant
colonel.
From that time on, the )Iilitary Intelligence force had
grown by means of commissioning civilians in the Army
Reserve and by USe of volunteer investigators. Van Deman's
agents were soon scattered about the country, working under
cover among the nv,v in the Xorthwest and among the
enemy aliens in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. In
July, 1917, Van Deman had started a Plant Protection Section
which placed undercover operatives in defense plants.
By August, his men were so involved in investigating and
arresting civilians that Attorney General Gregory had to
complain to Baker, whereupon Baker had ordered Military
Intelligence agents report all enemy agents to the Justice
Department instead of pursuing investigations and causing
arrests.5
mtimately, Van Deman's ventures into civilian law enforcement
would cost him his intelligence leadership. In the spring of 1918, while
Congress was enacting the Sedition Act (40 Stat. 553) , Van Deman
i'ontinued to build his network of secret agents. spies, and volunteer
operatives. From the beginning of America's entry into the war, Van
Deman had utilized the senices of volunteer patriots eager to report
on their neighbors. Some of this information might have been reliable;
most of it was gossip and some amounted to lies and slurs.
While the American Protective League, an organization of voluntary
sleuths, had been established with the encouragement of the Justice
Department as an auxiliary informer-enforcement body, Van Deman
had eagerly utilized its services and nourished its development. Now
he cultivated a very select cadre of secret agents in the Midwest.
He was inclined to avoid going to the state councils of defense
[sub-national affiliates of the Federal Council of National
Defense which functioned as an administrative coordinating
body during the world war]. Too likely to be involved
5 Joan M. Jensen. The Price of Vigilance. Chicago, Rand McNally and Company,
1968; Jensen consistently places an extra letter in Van Deman's name..in
her book, misspelling it "Van Dieman," but there is no doubt as to the actual
identity of the person she is discussing. The error in spelling has been corrected
in the above quotation. Van Deman's effort to have the ;Uilitary Information
Division re-established as a separate structure with sufficient manpower and resources
to carry out the military intelligence function is also recounted in
Ind. op. cit., pp.176--180.
79
in politics, he thought. He had different men in mind: a
retired brigadier general in Minnesota, a retired army officer
in Nashville, Tennessee, members of the Volunteer Medical
Service Corps, American Federation of Labor informants,
groups of private detectives from mining and industry. An
agent of the Norfolk and Western Railway Company volunteered
to supply operatives. A Denver man promised to
obtain the services of detectives hired by mining and industrial
companies in Colorado. An agent for a railway in Virginia
promised to do the same. A lawyer from Kansas City
was to organize Missouri, another from Indianapolis was to
organize Indiana. Three attorneys from Kansas CIty, Kansas,
were to form the nucleus of a group for their state. And all of
these would be working entirely for the military.6
When Secretary of War Baker returned to Washington from a tour
in Europe, he learned of Van Deman's recruitment efforts and
promptly attempted to restrain the military sleuths. Van Deman was
ordered to overseas duty and Lieutenant Colonel Marlborough Churchill
was detailed to head the Military Intelligence Division. The immediate
spy network Van Deman was attempting to establish was abandoned
but other operating secret agent arrangements appear to have
remained in place.7 The effect of Baker's disciplinary action was that
of driving military intelligence underground. While there would be
greater caution in the arrest of civilians, surveillance remained active
and pervasive.
• Jensen, op. cit., p. 123.
7 Van Deman's interest in intelligence and concern for internal security remained
strong after he departed M.LD. He seemingly retained his ties to old volunteer
intelligence operatives and, when he retired from the Army in 1929, he was given
two civilian employees, filing cabinets, and working materials by the military to
start a private intelligence organization. He apparently built a huge store of files
on American left-wing political activists, ranging from responsible liberals to
avowed communists. These files were divided, the major portion being taken over
by Sixth Army headquarters which maintained them until 1968 when they were
sent to Fort Holabird in Maryland. In 1970, when the Army was under congressional
investigation for its political surveillance practices, the decision was made
to give up custody of the papers, to not subject them to the scrutiny of Army
historians as they were too politically sensitive materials, and to donate them,
instead, to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee which had, by prearrangement,
officially requested them. These papers are apparently still within the Subcommittee's
control.
The portion of Van Deman's files not taken over by the Army remained in California
at the San Diego Research Library, a private institution created in 1952
by three of Van Deman's closest associates: Major General George W. Fisher of
the California National Guard, Colonel Frank C. Forward, commander of intelli~
ence operations of the California Guard, and Alfred Loveland, a San Diego
businessman. The files were maintained and built upon until 1962. During this
time three California Governors utilized the files to check on the backgrounds of
prospective state appointees. In 1962, California Attorney General Stanley Mosk
seized the files on the grounds that they had been used "by unauthorized persons
for political purposes." After a threatened court suit by the San Diego Research
Library, the tiles were returned and were placed in a vault in the San Diego Trust
and Insurance Company, of which Colonel Forward was an officer. 'Yhen asked
in 1971 if the tiles were still in Sau Diego, Colonel Forward said yes but "I can't
tell you where." When asked who was iu charge of them, he responded: "I am not
at liberty to talk about that." See New York Times, July 9, 1971; also Ibid., September
7, 1971.
80
T~e son of a professor of sacred rhetoric at the Andover Theological
Semmary, Marlborough Churchill was born in 1878 at Andover, prepared
for college at Phillips Academy there, and was subsequently
graduated from Harvard in 1900. After teaching English at his alma
mat~r for one year, he obtained a commission as a second lieutenant of!
artillery and launched on a military career. Having sen-ed in various
artillery commands, Churchill became editor of the Field Artillery
.Journal (1914-1916) while also performing duties as inspector-instructor
of the national guard field artillery of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
the District of Columbia. From January, 1916, to June, 1917, he served
as a military observer with the French army in the field, next was detailed
to General Pershing's staff until February, 1918, when he became
acting chief of staff of the army artillery, First Army Division.
In ~fa'y, 1918, he returned to the United States and became assistant
chief of staff and director of the )Iilitary Intelligence Division, holding
that position until 1922. He retired from active duty in 1930 and
died in 1947. He appears to have had no intelligence experience before
assuming command of ~LI.D. and to have had no association with intelligence
operations after leaving the Division.
'While Churchill inherited and retained Van Deman's private spy
network and an official structure of regional domestic personnel, defense
plant operatives, overseas attaches and observers, the A.E.F.
intelligence structure and a variety of "special agents," his tenure of
office at M.I.D. did have its own unique aspects,8 General Peyton C.
March was brought back from France to become Chief of Staff in
March. 1918, and he effected certain changes in Army structure, Under
General Order No. 80 of August 26, 1918, a variety of organizational
refinements were made ,vithin the Army and certain units of the War
Department. One of these was the upgrading of the Military Intelligence
Division, "which had previously been a branch first of the 'War
Plans Division and later of the Executive Division, as a separate and
coordinate division of the General Staff.9 Also, because the Wilson
Administration was unwilling to impose wartime price controls and
organized labor retaliated with a series of crippling strikes, Federal
troops were pressed into duty to man facilities or maintain peace
where labor unrest prevailed. '''nen the Army became interested in
labor disturbances, Military Intelligence took to the field. A vast
counter-espionage network resulted and unions became suspicious of
Churchill's int~ntions.lO
Writing in the Journal of the United States Artillery for April,
1920, Churchill outlined functions which M.LD. had performed dur-
8 One of these special agents was Mrs. Arthur M. Blake, a newspaper correspondent
accredited to the New York Evening Post and the Baltimore Sun, who
was in the employ of Churchill, sending messages and observations out of Moscow
during the war with Jewish refugees fleeing across the border into Finland.
She later provided similar services while stationed in Japan, Sakhalin, and
Manchuria. See Ind. op cit., pp. 195-197.
• Otto L. Nelson. National Seoority ana the Genera! Staff. WashingtQn, Infantry
Journal Press, 1946, p. 232.
10 See Jensen, op, cit" PP, 276--277.
81
ing the war and armistice.ll Formally, General Orders 80 of August
26, 1918, had said that the ~Iilitary Intelligence Division
shall have cognizance and control of military intelligence,
both positive and negati,'e, and shall be in charge of an officer
designated as the director of military intelligence, who will
be an assistant to the Chief of Staff. He is also the chief military
censor. The duties of this division are to maintain estimates
revised daily of the military situation, the economic
situation. and of such other matters as the Chief of Staff may
direct, and to collect, collate, and disseminate military intelligence.
It will cooperate with the intelligence section of the
general staffs of allied countries in connection with military
intelligence; prepare instructions in military intdligence
work for the use of our forces; supervise the training of personnel
for intelligence ,vork; organize, direct, and coordinate
the intelligence service; supervise the duties of military attaches;
communicate direct with department intelligence
officers and intelligence officers at posts, camps, and stations,
and with commands in the field in matters relating to military
intelligence; obtain, reproduce, and issue maps; translate
foreign documents; disburse and account for intelligence
funds; cooperate with the censorship board and with intelligence
agencies of other departments of the Government.
By Churchill's own account, M.I.D. had responsibility for (1) retention
of combat intelligence experience information, (2) application
of combat intelligence historical information to training programs,
(3) awareness of combat intelligence developments in other armies,
(4) conducting internal service loyalty investigations (" ... if a state
of war makes such investigation necessary, we want it done by agencies
under our own control, and not be unsympathetic civilian bureaus."),
(5) detection of sabotage, graft, and fraud within the Army, (6)
foreign map collection, (7) preparation of terrain handbooks, (8)
supervision of in,formation collection by military attaches,12 (9) preservation
of the history and experiences of international duty expeditions,
13 (10) "initiating and sustaining the interest and knowledge of
11 See Marlborough Churchill. The Military Intelligence Division General
Journal of the United States Artillery, v. 52, April, 1920: 293-316.
12 "The information obtained by Attaches is of two kinds-general and technical.
The general information is suD-divided into military, ecanomic, political and
psychological information.... The technical information consists of all data
connected with scientific developments as they relate to the military profession.
In the large capitals, officers who have specialized in aviation and ordinance
are assigned as assistants in order that these matters may be handled properly.
As soon as such information is received, M.I.D. at once makes a distribution
which aims to place the information in the hands of the technical service or
the civil official who can best evaluate it and see that it is used." Churchill,
op. oit., pp. 301-302.
13 Examples of such expeditions offered by the author included General Leonard
Wood's administration of Cuba, the China Relief Expedition, the Military
Government of the Philippine Islands, the Siberian Expeditionary Force,
United .States forces at Archangel, duty at the Paris Peace Conference, General
Harry BandhoItz' mission to Hungary, and General James Harbord's mission
to Turkey.
82
officers in general in foreign languages, foreign countries and in the
currents of historical events which produce world situations," 14 (11)
determining the tactical intelligence duties of the Troop Subsection,15
(12) forecasting international and domestic security situations in
what was called a "normal product," 16 (13) making translations,I7
14 Churchill, op. cit., p. 299.
" According to the author, these duties included:
"1. Preparation of instructions for Intelligence work with troops and methods
to be used in Intelligence instruction in the Army. (Liaison with ·W.P.D. [War
Plans Division], U.,s.M.A. [United States )Iilitary Academy at West Point],
Air Service and Garrison Schools and with G-2 of Departments and troop units.)
"2. Preparation of Tables of Organization insofar as they concern Intelligence
work with troops, revision of General Orders, Army Regulations, etc., in·
sofar as they affect troop intelligence work. (Liaison with War Plans Division.)
"3. Consideration of questions pertaining to troop Intelligence work: (a) Ob·
servation, (b) Transmission of information, (c) Location of our own front lines,
(d) 'Listening in' both of enemy lines and of our own, (e) General subject of
Wireless Interceptions, (f) General subject of 'Trench Codes,' (g) Information
to be obtained from Flash and Sound Ranging Services, etc. (Liaison with Equipment
Branch, Operations Division and Artillery and Branch Information
Services.)
"4. Consideration of subject of tactical information to be obtained from and
furnished to Artillery Information Service. (Liaison with Artillery Information
Service.)
"5. General subject of Branch intelligence work. (Liaison with Air Service
Information Service.)
"6. General subject of aerial photographic interpretation.
"7. Consideration of needs for special tactical manuals, handbooks, maps, etc.,
for use of troops or in Intelligence training. (Liaison with Operations and War
Plans Division when necessary.) .
"8. Consideration of the general question of the use of 'false information' and
of the methods by which it should be used. (Liaison with Psychologic Section,
:\H2.)
"9. Intelligence personnel for duty with troops; utilization of trained personnel
now in the army and in civil life.
"10. The 'spotting' of new foreign tactical methods, devices, plans and projects.
"11. The maintenance of liaison with all American G.H.Q's. that may now or
hereafter be in existence.
"12. Study of foreign intelligence systems." Churchill, op. cit., pp. 302-303.
,. "This normal product, with the exception of map and terrain handbook
information, consists of:
"( a) The Current Estimate of the Strategic Situation.
"(b) The Situation Monographs.
"(c) The Weekly Summary and, in emergencies, The Daily Summary.
"(d) The Original Sources, or Supporting Data, upon which (a), (b), and
(c) are based.
" (e) The Weekly Survey of the United States.
"The [Current] Estimate of the [Strategic] Situation is arrived at by the correct
use of a 'check list' known as the 'Strategic Index' which guides not only
the officer who collates the information but also the officer or agent who collects
it. The Strategic Index is based upon the assumption previously stated that the
situation in any given country may be divided into four main factors: the combat
factor, the economic factor, the political factor and the psychologic factor. Each
of these factors is divided, subdivided and redivided until every point from
which constitute the supporting data upon which rest the summarized statements
is assigned a number which serves not only as an identification but also as a
convenient paragraph number when observers' reports are prepared and a page
number for the 'Situation Monographs' in which information is collated and
which constitute the supporting data upon which rest the summarized statements
of the 'Estimate of the Situation.' The method thus briefly outlined constitutes
83
(14) developing codes and ciphers,I8 and (15) various systematic
counterintelligence eftorts.19
To accomplish these duties, the Military Intelligence Division under
Churchill, in accordance with General Orders Xo. 80, was organized
what may be considered a system of philosophy applied to the gathering and
presentation of information." Churchill, op. cit., pp. 304-305.
17 Of the Translation Section (MI6), the author writes: "Theoretically, all
War Department translation is centralized in this section. As a practical necessity
many of the technical bureaus during the war maintained separate translation
sections. With the reduction of personnel and appropriations in other
bureaus, MI6 will more and more be called upon to serve the entire Army. During
the past year this section has translated sixty technical works in seven foreign
languages, all the 'suspect lists' furnished by the French and Italian intelligence
services, 1438 letters in thirty-one different languages, as well as 3562 citations
of American officers and men. In addition, thirty-eight foreign daily papers in
ten different languages from thirteen different countries are read and the important
parts extracted for the other sections of the division or for the Historical
Branch of the War Plans Division. The personnel of this section is competent
to translate nineteen foreign languages; and, by utilizing the servi~SI of
temporary personnel, seventeen additional languages can be translated. Thirty
nine Government offices habitually make use of the services of this section."
Churchill, op. cit., p. 307.
" "The Code and Cipher Section or 'MIS' was a war-time agency which it is
not practicable to continue in peace. It was secretly maintained after the ,var
until 1929 and was to become known as the American Black Chamber and will
be discussed later in this narrative. The work of this section concerned an important
field of endeavor which, before the war with Germany, was almost entirely
unknown to the War Department or to the Government of the United States as a
whole. Early in 1917 it was realized not only that secret means of communication
were essential to the successful prosecution of the war, but also that, in order
to combat the means employed by a skillful and crafty enemy, a War Department
agency was required in order to make an exhaustive stUdy of this complicated
subject and to put to practical use the results of such study. As finally
developed this section comprised five bureaus, as follows:
"The Shorthand Bureau-Organized in response to demands which came
chiefly through cooperation with the postal censorship because of the fact that it
was almost impossible for examiners to discriminate between unusual shorthand
systems and cipher, this bureau was in a few months able to tranScribe documents
written in some 300 shorthand systems in seven different languages.
"Secret Ink Bureau--By direct liaison with the French and British intelligence
services, this bureau built up a useful fund of knowledge covering this hitherto
little-known science which is at once so useful and so dangerous. Over fifty important
secret-ink spy letters were discovered which led to many arrests and prevented
much enemy activity. Prior to the lifting of the postal censorship an
average of over 2000 letters per week were tested for secret inks.
"Code Instruction BureaU-This bureau provided the necessary practical instruction
in codes and cipers given to prospective military attaches, their assistants
and clerks, and to officers and clerical personnel designated for duty in
similar work in the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Siberia.
"Code CompiZation Bureau-The 1915 War Department code soon fell into the
hands of the enemy, and this bureau was required to compile Military Intelligence
Code No.5 which succeeded it, as well as two geographical codes specifically
adapted to the sending of combat information from France. A casualty code
designed to save errors and time in connection with the reporting of battle
casualties was commenced in September, 1918. It was not published on account
of the signing of the armistice, but the work on it is complete and available for
future use.
"Communication Bureau-This bureau was the nerve center of a vast communication
system covering the habitable globe. By special wire connections and
a twenty-four hour service maintained by skillful and devoted operators excep-
(Continued)
84
into an Administrative Section and three branches as detailed below: 20
Milital'y Intelligence Division Administrati'IJe Section
(M.l. 1)
(a) Records, Accounts, and General Section.
(b) Interpreters and intelligence police sections.
(c) Publication (Daily Intelligence Summary, Weekly
Summary, Activities Report).
The Positive Branch
(a) Information Section (M.l. 2 Prepared the strategic
estimate which attempted to answer the questions, "\Yhat is
the situation today~" and "\Vhat will it be tomorrow~" by
analyzing the situation in each country under the military,
political, economic, and psychological headings.)
(b) Collection Section (M.l. 5 Administered the military
attache system.)
(c) Translation Section (M.I. 6).
(d) Code and Cipher Section (M.I. 8).
(Continued)
tionally fast and confidential communication was established with our forces
overseas and all important news centers at horne and abroad. Messages f!."Om
Paris were received and decoded within twenty minutes after sending; and the
average time necessary to communicate with Vladivostok and Archangel was
less than twenty-four hours. From September 1918 to May 1919 this bureau sent
and received 25.000 messages containing 1,300,000 words.
"The only remaining agency of MI8 is the present telegraph or code room which
functions as a part of the Administrative Section or MIll. To a limited extent it
operates as the Communication Bureau did during the war. [At this time the
American Black Chamber was operating secretly in New York City but Churchill
may not have known about its existence or activities.]"
Churchill, op. cit., pp. 307-309; also see Herbert O. Yardley. The American
Black Chamber. London, Faber and Faber, 1931, pp. 15-166.
,. The counter-intelligence section, titled the Negative Branch, was formally
organized by Colonel K. C. Masteller in August, 1918. Reduced in size and reorganized
after the war, the Negative Branch coooisted of the following three
sections by Churchill's description:
"The Forei.gn Influence Seotion ('1\'114) is the parent Section from which grew
the Negative Branch. As delimited by the diversion of specialties to other Sections.
the duty of this Section in general is the study of espionage and propaganda
directed against the United States or against its allies, and also the study of the
sentiments, publications and other actions of foreign language and revolutionary
groups both here and abroad, in so far as these matters have a bearing upon the
military situation. Individuals are not investigated.
"The News Section (MIlO) is a combination of a radio interception section and
a press summary section. In addition to the frontier stations, it maintains a
trans-oceanic interception station in Maine which enables the War Department
to follow promptly foreign events. Under the war-time organization of M.I.D.,
~f'IlO performed such censorship functions as were assigned the War Department.
"The Fraud Section (MIl3) originated in the Quartermaster Corps in the
Spring of 1918, when, at the request of the Quartermaster General, an officer of
~Iilitary Intelligence was detailed to organize a force to detect and prevent
fraud and graft in the purchase and handling of Quartermaster stores. On
.Tuly 13, 1918, this force was transferred to the Military Intelligence Division
and the scope of its duties enlarged to include the detection of any case of graft
or fraud in or connected with the Army. At the beginning this group constituted
a subsection of ~II3, but the work developed to such an extent that on September
24, 1918, it was made a separate section." Churchill, op. cit., pp. 313-314.
20 From Nelson, op. cit., pp. 264-265.
85
(e) Shorthand Bureau.
(f) Secret Ink Bureau.
(g) Code Instruction Bureau.
(h) Code Compilation Bureau.
(i) Communication Bureau.
(j) Combat Intelligence Instruction Section (M.I. 9).
The Geographic Branch (maps and military monographs of
all countries).
(a) May Section (M.L 7).
(b) Monograph and Handbook Section (M.L 9).
The Negative Bran<:h (collects and disseminates information
upon which may be based measures of prevention against
activities or influences tending to harm military efficiency
by methods other than armed force).
(a) Foreign Influence Section (M.L 4).
(b)Army Section (M.L 3).
(c ) News Section (M.L 10).
(d) Travel Section (M.I. 11).
(e) Fraud Section (M.I.13).
At the time of the signing of the Armistice in November, 1918,
M.LD. consisted of 282 officers, 29 noncommissioned officers, and 948
civilian employees.21 It is impossible to estimate how many thousands
of volunteer and secretly recruited private agents were assisting this
staff. By August, 1919, ~1.I.D. had been reduced to 88 officers and 143
civilians.22 Its forces would continue to wane during the next two
decades.
Paralleling this structure of M.I.D. was the intelligence section of
the General Staff of the American Expeditionary Forces under General
John J. Pershing. Created by General Orders No.8, of July 5,
1917, the General Staff was directed by General James G. Harbord,
Chief of Staff, who has commented:
The Intelligence Section dealt with a line of work in which
Americans were less experienced than in any other war activity.
America had never admittedly indulged in a secret service,
in espionage, or in developing the various sources of information
which furnish what comes under the general
designation of Military Intelligence. The Military and Naval
Attaches serving with our legations and embassies abroad,
while alert for information which might be of advantage to
the United States, were without funds for procuring such
matter, and were generally dependent upon military and
naval publications open to anyone who cared to obtain them.
Occasionally they were thrown a few crumbs in some foreign
capital, under the seal of confidence, and more, perhaps,
in the hope that some third power would be embarrassed,
than by the thought that any real use of them would be made
by the careless and sometimef' amusing Americans. Certainly
21 March, op. tnt., p. 226.
22 Nelson, op. cit., p. 265.
86
censorship was an unknown activity anywhere under the
American flag.
Intelligence services were highly developed by our Associates,
and by our enemies-especially had Germany before the
'Vorld ,Val' maintained a network that spread through many
countries. Our Intelligence Section endeavored to embody in
its organization the best that could be borrowed from French
and British sources. It was responsible for information on the
enemy order of battle; his war trade and economic resources;
recruiting and man power; strategical movements and plans.
The examination of prisoners of war, and of enemy documents,
situation maps from all sources, and information of
the theater of war immediately behind the enemy lines, all
were Intelligence. Compiling information from aerial photographs
and reconnaissances; the enemy wireless and
ciphers; signal communication; carrier pigeons; it disseminated
information on these and kindred subjects of military
interest. Counterespionage, regulation of passes for travel;
the preparation of maps of all kinds, surveys, and the personnel
and activity of the topographical engineers lay w'ithin its
jurisdiction. Its duties with regard to censorship were very
comprehensive, touching the censorship of the press, of correspondence
by mail, messenger and telegraph, as well as that
of official photographs and moving pictures. The visitor's
bureau, and the intelligence personnel, vehicles, and police,
besides a multiplicity of detail involved in these and kindred
matters, came under it.23
The man in charge of the A.E.F. intelligence organization was
)Iajor Dennis E. Nolan. born in 1872 at Akron, N.Y., of Irish immigrant
parents. A ,Vest Point graduate. he served in infantry and
cavalry units prior to general staff duty in 1903, seeing service in
Cuba, the Philippines, and Alaska. Arriving in France in .June, 1917,
he served as chief of intelligence operations until demobilization. He
was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1918 "for organizing
and administering the A.E.F. intelligence service" and also various
combat decorations. After the ,,,ar Nolan saw duty at the Army War
College and with the General Sta.if, becoming a deputy chief of staff in
1924. In 1926-1927 he ,,,as chief of the Army representation with the
preparatory commission on reduction and limitation of armamenfs
meeting at Geneva. He completed his military career as commander of
the Fifth Corps area (1927-1931) and Second Corps area (19311936),
retiring in 1936.
Nolan apparently had autonomy of command apart from M.l.D.,
although there seems to have been close cooperation in information exchange
and dissemination between the two organizations. It is very
likely that Nolan and Churchill were personally acquainted as both
men joined Pershing's staff in France in June, 1917.
According to Harbord, the A.E.F. intelligence unit was organized
into five sections with the following areas of supervisory responsibility
specified: 24 •
'" James G. Harbord. The American Army in France 1911-1919. Boston, Little.
Brown and Company, 1936, pp. 94---95.
'" From Ibid., pp. 584-585.
87
G-2
(a) Information
1. Enemy's order of battle; enemy organization.
Preparation of diagrams and statements showing distribution
of enemy's forces.
War trade and enemy's economic resources.
2. German recruiting and classes; man power.
Examination of prisoners and documents.
Information on German armament and equipment.
Translations.
3. Situation maps, except special maps made by G-3. Information
of theater of war behind enemy's front.
German lines of defense.
Strategical movements of enemy and plans.
Air reconnaissance and photographs.
4. Preparation and issue of periodical summary. Information
concerning railroads, bridges, canals and rivers.
Road and bridge maps and area books. Summary of
foreign communiques and wireless press.
5. Collation of information regarding enemy's artillery.
Preparation of daily and weekly summaries of enemy's
artillery activity.
Preparation of periodical diagrams showing enemy's
artillery grouping.
6. Enemy's wireless and ciphers.
Enemy's signal communications.
Policy regarding preparation and issue of ciphers and
trench codes.
Listening sets.
Policy as regards carrier pigeons.
Training of listening set of interpreters.
7. Dissemination of information.
Custody and issue of intelligence publications. Information
of theater of war (except portion immediately
in rear of enemy's front).
Intelligence Diary.
(b) Secret Service
1. Secret service in tactical zone and co-ordination with
War Department and with French, English and Belgian
system.
Atrocities and breaches of international law.
Counter-espionage; direction and policy.
Secret service personnel.
2. Dissemination of information from secret service sources.
Ciphers. selection and change of.
Examining of enemy's ciphers.
Intelligence and secret service accounts.
3. Counter-espionage; index of suspects; invisible inks
and codes.
Dissemination of information from English, French
and Belgian counter-espionage systems.
Control of civil population as affecting espional!e and
all correspondence with the missions on the subject.
88
Censorship as affecting counter-espionage.
Counter-espionage personnel.
Regulations regarding passes in the Zone of the
Armies.
(0) Topography
1. Preparation and issue of maps and charts; all lithograph
and photography in connection with map reproduction.
Survey and topographical work and topographical
instruction of engineer troops.
Topographical organization-Attached from engineers.
Experimental sound and flash ranging section-Liaison
with engineer troops.
(d) Censorship
1. Press correspondents.
Press ctlnsorship.
Ex~mination of U.S., British, French and other foreIgn
newspapers.
2. Compilation and revision of censorship regulations.
Issue of censor stamps.
Postal and telegraph censorship.
Breaches of postal and telegraph censorship rules.
Cooperation with Allied censorhips.
Control of censor personnel under A.C. of S. (G-2).
3. Official photographs and moving pictures.
Military attaches.
Press matters.
Visitors.
(e) Intelligence Corps
1. Policy with regard to the establishment of the intelligence
corps.
Records, appointments and promotions of intelligence
corps officers.
Intelligence police.
Intelligence corps, motor-cars.
Administration of intelligence corps.
Generally, the organization and structure of A.E.F. intelligence
operations may be characterized as follows: (1) combat intelligence
forces attached to ground troop units and whose primary responsibility
was to provide support to the operations of their immediate
command and forward findings to A.E.F. G-2 headquarters; 25 (2)
special support agencies, such as the air corps, signal corps, or artillery
intelligence, which provided relevant information to field com-
2ll Generally, on combat intelligence durin~ World War Y, see: Thomas R.
Gowenlock with Guy Murchie, Jr. Soldiers 01 Darkness. New York, Doubleday,
Doran and Company, 1937; Edwin E. Schwien. Oombat Intelligence: Its Acquisition
and Transmission. Washington, The Infantry Journal, 1936; and Shipley
Thomas. 8-2 In Action. Harrisburg, The Military Service Publishing Company,
1940.
89
manders and to A.E.F. G-2 headquarters; and (3) special agencies
directly subordinate to G-2, such as interpreters, cryptographers, and
secret service-counter-intelligence forces who supplied some rele,-ant
information to other special support agencies and to field commanders
but who also exercised some internal security and crime control powers
resulting in the collection and maintenance of derivative information
which was autonomously held by intelligence headquarters.26
These arrangements seem to have existed until the withdrawal of
troops from Europe and demobilization of the armed forces at the
end of the war.27
During the world war, the Signal Corps continued to be a major
supplier of intelligence support services, though it had little direct
responsibility for intelligence operations. In April, 1917, just prior to
the United States' declaration of war on Germany, the Signal Corps
consisted of 55 officers and 1,57'0 enlisted men of the Regular Army
forces.28 At the time of the Armistice, the strength of the Corps had
risen to 2,712 officers and 53.277 enlistees divided between the A.E.F.
and forces in the United States. Their organization at this peak
strength included 56 field signal battalions (10 Regular Army and 8
domestically stationed), 33 telegraph battalions (5 Regular Army
and 7 domestically stationed), 12 depot battalions (1 domestically
stationed), 6 training battalions (all domestically stationed), and 40
service companies (21 domestically stationed).29 The support provided
by the Corps for intelligence operations, though not exclusively
for these activities in every case, included communications facilities
and services,30 photographic assistance and products,31 meteorologic
information,32 and code compilation.33 These duties would remain as
basic intelligence support services provided by the Signal Corps until
surpassed by more specialized national security entities in the aftermath
of World War II.
II. Navril Intelligence
When war broke out on the Continent in August, 1914, the Office of
Naval Intelligence had immediate access to situational information
through the naval attache system be/Iun in 1882. These official observation
stations existed in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Rome,
Vienna, Madrid, and The Hague and gave the Navy a reason for a
less obtrusive presence amidst the hostilities than the Army's observer
arrangements.
.. See Ind, op. cit., PP. 181-184, 191-195; C. E. Russell. Adventures of the
D.O.I.: Department of Oriminal Investigation. New York, Doubleday, Page and
Company, 1925; -~. True Adventures of the Secret Service. New York, Doubleday,
Page and Company, 1923.
... For an academic overview of military intelligence organization and operations
during World War I see Walter C. Sweeney. 'Military Intelligence: A New
Weapon In War. New York, Frpderick A. Stokp~ Oompany, 1924.
.. United States Army. Signal Corps. Report of the OMef Signal Officer to the
Secretary of War: 1919. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1919, p. 23.
.. Ibid.. p. 543.
'" See Ibid., pp. 133-215, 303-338, 542.
Sl See Ibid., pp. 341-347.
so See Ibid., pp. 347-357.
.. See Ibid., pp. 53lh539.
90
No better work was done in the war than that conducted
and covered by the offices of some of our naval attaches. Their
work primarily of course was to acquire purely naval information;
secondarily, military, economical and political news
that could be of any benefit to America or her associates in the
war. In some cases, however. a great deal of the work \vas not
strictly either naval or military, though indirectly of vast
import to both branches. Affiliations were established \vith influential
men in the Country-men in government positions
or in business-and their sympathy for the Entente and
America encouraged, and in some cases enlisted-for in Spain
and the Northern neutral countries there was a strong tide
of pro-Germanism to fight. In collaboration with the Committee
on Public Information means \vere taken through the
channels of the newspapers, movies, etc., to influence public
opinion, and give it the Allies' point of view.
Among the most important things which came under the
jurisdiction of our Naval attaches \vere the investigation of
officers, cre\vs and passengers on ships bound for and coming
from America; the senders and receivers of cablegrams,
inspections of cargoes and shipments, and investigations of
firms suspected of trading with the enemy. l~nder the naval
attaches too, the coasts were closely watched for the detection
of enemy vessels or persons who might be giving aid or information
to them. In every foreign country to which an American
naval attache was accredited they carried on for the
Navy in line with her best traditions.31
In the spring of 1915, Congress established (38 Stat. 928 at 929) a
central administrative structure within the Navy with the creation of
the Chief of Naval Operations. Shortly after this office was establishecI.
the Office of Naval Intelligence was transferred to it and renamed
the Naval Intelligence Division. This heightened organizational
status provided Naval Intelligence with continuous access to the
higher levels of Navy administration and decision-making, extending
all the way to the Secretary, Josephus Daniels.3s Unlike Military Intelligence,
the naval counterpart seems to have enjoyed some degree of
acceptance with the officer corps and had various leaders, rather than
one champion, from the inception through the war years.
.. U.oS. Navy Department. Office of Naval Records and Library. U.S. Naval Intelligence
Before and During the War by Captain Edward McCauley, .Jr. Undated
typescript, pp. 1-2. This document is currently on file with, and was made available
for this stUdy by, the National Archives and Records Service; with regard
to the Committee on Public Information, see: George Creel. How We Advertised
America. New York and London, Harper and Brothers, 1920; James R. Mock.
Censorship 1917. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1941; --. and Cedric
Larson. Words That Won the War. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1939;
William Franklin Willoughby. Government Organization In War Time and After.
New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1919, pp. 33-39.
35 See, for example. E. David Cronon, ed. The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus
Daniels, 1913-1921. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1963, pp. 117, 209,
211-12, 246, and 293.
Seaton Schroeder, 1903-06.
Raymond P. Rodgers, 1906-09.
Charles E. Vreeland. 1909-09.
Templin M. Potts, 1909-12.
Thomas S. Rodgers, 1912-13.
Henry F. Bryan, 1913-14.
James H. Oliver. 1914-17.
Roger Welles, 1917-19.
Albert P. Niblack, 1919-20.
91
DIRECTORS OF ~AVAL INTELLIGENCE
T. B. M. Mason, 1882-85.
Raymond P. Rodgers, 1885-89.
Charles H. Davis, 1889-92.
French E. Chadwick. 1892-93.
Frederic Singer, 1893-96.
Richard Wainwright, 1896-97.
Richardson Clover, 1897-98.
John R. Bartlett, 1898-98.
Richardson Clover, 1898-19CO.
Charles D. Sigsbee, 1900-03.
At the time of American entry into the world war, Naval Intelligence
consisted of 18 clerks and 8 officers. With the Armistice, the
division counted 306 reservists, 18 clerks, and over 40 naval attaches
and assistant attaches. By July, 1920. this force was reduced to a staff
of 42. During the ,var years the division was organized into four sections:
administrative, intelligence (or incoming information), compiling
(or processing), and historical (or "by products").
In by-products, for instance, we include (1) the naval1ibrary;
(2) the dead files, which include war diaries of all ships and
stations and their correspondence during the war; (3) statistics;
and (4) international law questions and cases which
arose during the war. The compiling section works over a
good deal of information that comes in to put it in more useful
form. A monthly bulletin of confidential information on
naval progress is issued and this section also prepares monographs
of various kinds on various countries and subjects. All
information that is received is routed out to the various Government
departments to which it is considered it will be of
use. The State Department and Military Intelligence receive,
of course. practically all that we get of general value. Special
information we send to the various departments of the Government
such as the Department of Justice. The attitude of
the office is that it is its duty to collect and furnish information
but not necessarily to advise or suggest.36
By this, and other accounts. it would seem that Naval Intelligence
collected, maintained, and supplied raw data, but engaged in little
analysis of this material other than the most rudimentary assessments.
The intelligence product it offered was crude.
The information collection arrangements instituted by Naval Intelligence
reflected both ambition and sophistication.
The home work was divided under fifteen aids for information,
one of these aids being attached to the Admiral in
.. U.S. Navy Department. Division of Operations. The History /lind Aims of the
Office ot Naval Intelligmwe by Rear Admiral A. P. Niblack. Washington, U.S.
Govt. Print. Off., 1920, pp. 23-24. Copies of this study bear the marking "Not for
publication," indicating limited distribution; the copy utilized in this study was
supplied by the National Archives and Records Service.
70-890 0 - 76 - 7
92
command of each Naval District. Each aid had the supervision
of intelligence work in his district, but he worked, of
course, in conjunction with and under instructions from the
main office in 1Vashington. His duty included information
about all shipping and information necessary for its protection
against possible unfriendly acts of agents or sympathizrrs
of the Crntral Powers. He had to arrange for the
observation of the coast and to establish information services
for the report of any suspicious vessel or coast activities; to
discover the location and establishment. actual or proposed,
of bases for submarines, and to detect illegal radio stations,
or the location of enemy goods in storage. Under the Naval
aids came the duty of detecting and combatting espionage or
sabotage, incipient or actual, along the water fronts, in the
navy yards, or in the factories or works connected with the
yards. That included any investigations that were required
in connection with the naval personnel of the district. In
order to prevent damage to ships, guards were placed on every
ship entering the harbors of the United States and remained
on board until the ship cleared. In addition to this, all crews
were inspected in order to see that each member had his
proper identification papers, and suspicious members of a
crew or a passenger list were thoroughly searched, together
with their baggage. All cargoe..c; were inspected and manifests
checked in order to thwart any illegal shipments from
the Country, and to prevent bombs and incendiary devices
from being placed on ships. Later this work was taken over
by the Customs Division of the Treasury Department, a.nd
controlled by them, though the Navy continued the work WIth
them.aT
While the above account provides some indication of the tasks performed
by Naval Intelligence during the hostilities, "the specific
orders under which the office operates for war purposes is best given
in the instructions to naval attaches and others in regard to intelligence
duty, issued in 1917:"
(1) The fleets of foreign powers.
(2) The war material of foreign powers.
(3) The nautical personnel of foreign powers, and a general
record of the strength, organization, and distribution
of all foreign naval forces.
(4) The war resources of foreign powers.
(5) Doctrine of foreign powers. Foreign policies and relations.
(6) Characteristics of foreign naval officers of command
rank.
(7) Defenses and armaments of foreign ports.
(8) Time required for the mobilization of foreign navies
and the probable form and places of mobilization.
(9) The lines and means of water communication of foreign
countries and their facilities for transporting troops
overseas.
'" MacCauley, op. cit., pp. 2-3.
93
(10) The adaptability of foreign private-owned vessels to
-:ar purposes and the routes followed by regular steamer
lmes.
(11) The facilities for obtaining coal, fuel, oil. gasoline,
and supplies, and for having repairs made in all foreign
ports of the world.
(12) Climatic, sanitary, and other peculiarities of foreign
countries which can have a bearing upon naval operations.
(13) The facilities on foreign coasts for landing men and
supplies and means for supporting detached bodies of troops
in the interior.
(14) The canals and interior waterways of the United
States and foreign countries available for the passage of
torpedo boats and other naval craft.
(15) The collating and keeping up to date of data relating
to the inspection and assignment of merchant vessels under
United States registry and of such foreign private-owned
vessels as may be indicated.
(16) Through correspondence with owners, consulting
trade journals, and by any other practical means keeping
track of the status and location of different United States
merchant vessels listed as auxiliaries for war; of sales to other
lines; and of changes in trade routes or terminal ports which
may make necessary a change in the yard designated for war
preparation; and to report such changes in the list of ships.
to the department for its information, the information of the
General Board, and the Board of Inspection and Survey, in
order that a further inspection of particular ships may be
made, if necessary.38
Another dimension of Naval Intelligence operations was its secret
service facility.
In the Fall of 1916 a small branch office had been established
under cover in Sew York. Thus began what was to
prove one of the largest and most useful phases of the war
work of Naval Intelligence. The New York office was used
as a model for the others which it was later found necessary
to establish in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago,
Pittsburgh and San Francisco. These branch offices worked
directly under the control of ,Vashington, covering work
which could not properly be turned over to the aids for information.
Their work was of paramount importance and a
whole job in itself. To them fell the investigation and guarding
of plants 'having Xavy contracts. Over five thousand
plants were thus surveyed and protected and hundreds of
aliens and many active energy agents were removed and
thus prevented from fulfilling their missions. In a district
such as Pittsburgh for instance, with its large foreign population,
that work assumed such proportions that it became
necessary to establish our Pittsburgh office to handle it.39
It would also appear that some of these special undercover agents
served in overseas duty. One documented example is George F. Zim-
38 Niblack, op. cit., pp. 14-15.
.. MacCauley, op cit., p. 3.
94
mer, a Los Angeles attorney who, after secret service in the New
York and Washington districts, toured in the Middle East and on
the European Continent. For some portion of these duties he traveled
on credentials representing him as ,vorking for the United States Food
Administration "for the sole purpose of food relief." After the Armistice
he went on a photographIc mission, concentrating on conditions in
Europe and taking him into portions of Russia.40 It is not immediately
clear as to how many agents of this type Naval Intelligence sponsored
during and shortly after the war, but their number would
seem to be relatively few. 'Vith peace restored in the world, the attaches
on~e again assumed their stations in the territory of recent enemies,
reducing the necessity for roving sp~ial operatives.
I I I. Bureau of Investigation
Created on his own administrative authority in 1908 by Attorney
General Charles ,J. Bonaparte in the face of congressional opposition
for reasons of statutory obligations and practical need, the Bureau of
Investigation had virtually no intelligence mission until European
hostilities in the summer of 1914 precipitated a necessity for Federal
detection and pursuance of alleged violations of the neutrality laws,
t'nemy activities, disloyalty cases, the naturalization of enemy aliens,
the enforcement of the conscription, espionage, and sedition laws,
and surveillance of radicals. These duties evolved as vhe United States
moved from neutrality to a state of declared war and then, in the
aftermath of peace, found its domestic tranquility and security threatpned
by new ideologies and their practitioners. .
The Bureau's principal function during the war years was that of
investigation. During this period, agents had no direct statutory authorization
to carry weapons or to make general arrests. In the field,
they worked with and gathered information for the United States
Attorneys. Direction came from the Attorney General or the Bureau
chief. In the frenzy of the wartime spy mania, Washington often lost
its control over field operations so that agents and U.S. Attorneys, assisted
by cadres of volunteers from the American Protective League
and other similar patriotic auxiliaries, pursued suspects of disloyalty
on their own initiative and in their own manner. To the extent that
their investigative findings underwent analysis with a view toward
policy development, an intelligence function was served, but for the
most part this type of contribution appears to have been lost in the
emotionalism and zealotry of the moment.
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION LEADERSHIP, 1908-25
Attorneys General
Charles J. Bonaparte (1906-09)
George W. Wickersham (1909-13)
James C. McReynolds (1913-14)
Thomas W. Gregory (1914-19)
A. Mitchell Palmer (1919-21)
Harry M. Daugherty (1921-24)
Harland F. Stone (1924-25)
Bureau Chiefs
Stanley W. Finch (1908-12)
A. Bruce Biplaski (UH2-19)
William E. Allen (1919)
William J. Flynn (1919-21)
William J. Burns (1921-24)
J. Edgar Hoover (1924-
<0 See George F. Zimmer and Burke Boyce. K-7, Spies at War. New York,
D. Appleton-Century Company, 1934.
95
In 1915, the first full year of the war, the Bureau, in the words of
one sympathetic chronicler of its development and activities, consisted
of a "small and inept force of 219 agents" which "was totally unequipped
to deal with the clever espionage and sabotage ring of
World ,Val' I which was organized by German Ambassador Johann
von Bernstorff.41 Two years later, when America entered the hostilities,
the Bureau's agent force was increased from 300 to 400, "a puny
squad for policing more than 1,000,000 enemy aliens, protecting harbors
and war-industry zones barred to enemy aliens, aiding draft
boards and the Army in locating draft dodgers and deserters, and
carrying on the regular duties of investigating federal law violators."
42 This state of affairs was one of the reasons the Justice Department
welcomed the assistance of the American Protective League.
In many of its initial wartime activities, the Bureau was still
searchin,g- for a mission.
Early in 1917, the Bureau proclaimed that it was in charge
of spy-catching and the Department's representative called
it "the eyes and ears" of the Government.
However, the Army and Navy were the armed forces endangered
or advanced On the European battlefields by espionage
operations, and their own detectives necessarily had primary
control of stopping the movements of enemy spies and of war
materials and information useful to the enemy, everywhere in
the world, including the homefront. The military authorities
associated with their own agents the operatives of the State
Department, traditionally charged with responsibility for foreign
affairs.
The military departments seemed primarily to want the
help of the specialized forces of the Treasury, the War Trade
Board, and the Labor Department for cutting off the flow of
enemy spies, goods, and information; those of the Agriculture
and Interior Departments for safeguardin,'r production of
food and raw materials; and the local police departments
throughout America, as well as the Treasury detectives, for
protecting American war plants, waterfront installations, and
essential war shipping against sabotage and carelessness.
This attitude brought the Treasury police to the forefront.
The Treasury's agents possessed not only vast equipment immediately
convertible to wartime espionage in behalf of the
United States, but also the necessary experience. They possessed
the specific techniques that enabled them to find enemy
agents in ship's crews, among passengers, or stowed away; to
pick them up at any port in the world where they might embark
or drop off the sides of ships; to foil their mid-ocean signals
to German submarines.
Moreover, the Treasury's men knew how to discover, in the
immense quantities of shipments to our allies and to our neutrals,
the minute but vital goods addressed to neutral lands,
actually destined to reach the enemy. Treasury operatives had
the right training for uncovering the secret information trans-
41 Don Whitehead. The FBI story. New York, Pocket Books, 1958; first published
1956, p. 14.
.. llnlZ., p. 38.
96
mitted to the enemy in every medium-in ships' manifests and
mail, in passengers' and crews' papers, in phonograph records,
in photographic negatiYes, and in motion picture film. They
had the experience for the job of protecting the loaded vessels
in the harbors, the warehouses, and the entire waterfront.
The Justice Department police were invited to participate
in various advisory boards. But when invited by the Post Office
detectives, old hands at inspection of enemy mail, to sit
on an advisory board, the Justice police spoke with self deprecation;
perhaps after all, there was "no use in littering up the
board" with one of their men.43
'Vhat did evolve as a major wartime Bureau function, and one
having intelEgence implications in light of espionage (40 Stat. 217)
and sedition (40 Stat. 553) law, was the investigation and cataloging
of the political opinions, beliefs, and affiliations of the citizenry. This
Bureau activity also had a menacing aspect to it in terms of guaranteed
rights of speech and association; also, it did not come to public notice
until aftBr the Armistice.
The disclosure came as an indirect consequence of a political
quarrel betweBn ex-Congressman A. Mitchell Palmer (a
Pennsylvania lawyer and corporation director who became
Alien Property Custodian, and was soon to become Attorney
General 0,£ the United States) and United States Senator
Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania. Mr. Palmer had accused
the Senator of receiving political support from the brewers
and of being a tool for their anti-prohibition propaganda.
The attack was made while the war was still going on, and
Mr. Palmer added the charge that the American brewers
were pro-German and unpatriotic. The "dry" element in the
United States Senate promptly seized on the publicity thus
provided and pushed through a resolution to investigare
both charges, political propaganda and pro-Germanism. In
the course of the hearings dealing with pro-Germanism, the
investigating committee turned to A. Bruce Bielaski, wartime
chief of the Bureau of Investigation, and others connected
with the Bureau. They revealed the fact that the
Bureau had already been cataloging all kinds of persons
they suspected of being pro-German. They had found suspects
in all walks of American life. Among those of whose
"pro-Germanism" the public thus learned, were members
of the United States Senate, other important officials (e.g.,
William Jennings Bryan, President Wilson's first Secretary
of State, and Judge John F. Hylan, soon to become mayor of
New York City), and many persons and organizations not
connected with the Government (e.g., William Randolph
Hearst, his International News Service and various newspapers,
his New York American, and the Chicago Tribune) ;
Americans agitating for Irish independence (including edi-
"Max Lowenthal. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. New York, William
Sloane Associates, 1950, pp. 22-23; this highly critical account of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation contains the only detailed discussion of early operations
of the agency.
97
tors of the American Oatholic Weekly and the Freeman's
Journal) ; some of the foremost men in academic life; political
leaders such as Roger Sullivan of Chicago; and men of
prominence in the financial and business world.44
During the course of the congressional investigation, the Bureau's
offerings were found to abound 1vith factual inaccuracies and to have
resulted in wrong conclusions even when the facts were correct.45
The occasion did not instill much public confidence in the Bureau's
intelligence activities or product.
When confronted with a series of bombings directed against public
officials during late 1918 and 1919, the Bureau's analytical skills again
appeared to be deficient.
As in the case of the 1918 bombing, the Justice Department
detectives made a prompt announcement of who the
criminals in the 1919 cases were. The bombing jobs, they
said, were the work of radicals, whose purpose was the assassination
of Federal officials and the overthrow 0,£ the Government.
To support this deduction, they pointed out that
some of the bombs arrived at their destination shortly before
the first of May, 1919, and others shortly after that time, and
that May Day is the date traditionally chosen by some radicals
to celebrate their doctrines by parading. However, another
series of bombs was sent in June, posmg the question
how the detectives could attribute these new bomb attempts
to May Day radicalism.
The theory that the bombs were sent by radicals was
beset with further embarrassments. The Government officials
to whom the bombs were addressed included some men who
were hostile to radicalism, but prominent public men whom
the Bureau of Investigation suspected of being themselves
radicals, and unsympathetic with the program against the
radicals were included among the addressees. Indeed, some
of the men were targets of denunciation from Capitol Hill
as dangerous radicals. Critics who disagreed with the detectives'
conclusion asked why radicals with bombs should select
as victims the very men who might be their friends. Why,
in particular, should they seek to bomb ex-Senator Hardwick
of Georgia, who had asked the Senate to vote agoainst
the very wartIme sedition law under which the IWW [International
Workers or the World] leaders and other radicals
had been convicted?
A further difficulty arose out of the fact that some of the
bombs were sent to minor businessmen and to relatively
minor local officeholders, while most of the top Government
officials whose death would have been or particular importance
to revolutionaries were not included among the
potential victims selected by the bombers.46
.. Ibid., pp. 3~7.
.. See Ibid., Pp. 37-43.
co Ibid., pp. 68-69.
98
Radicalism captured the attention of the Bureau in the aftermath
of the world war. Preoccupation with the ideology, its leadership,
and organizations became so great that, on August 1, 1919, a General
Intelligence Division was established within the Bureau to devote
concentrated scrutiny to the subject.
There was, however, a difficulty with respect to the expendi:
ture of the money appropriated for the Bureau's use by
Congress. It specified that the appropriations were for the
"detection and prosecution of crimes." A provision for the
detection of seditious speech and writings, however, might
some day be passed, and the detectives concluded that preparation
would be useful, in the form of an advance job to
ascertain which individuals and organizations held beliefs
that were objectionable. ·With this information in hand, it
could go into action without delay, after Congress passed a
peacetime sedition law, similar to the wartime sedition laws
enacted in 1917 and 1918. The Bureau notified its agents on
August 12, 1919, eleven days after the creation of the
anti-radical Division, to engage in the broadest detection of
sedition and to secure "evidence which may be of use in
prosecutions ... under legislation ... which may hereafter
be enacted." 47
The new intelligence unit thus appears to have been created and
financed in anticipation of a valid statutory purpose and seems, as
well, to have engaged in investigations wherein the derivative information
was not gathered in pursuit of Federal prosecution(s).
Coincident with the creation of the new Division, the Bureau
selected J. Edgar Hoover as Division chief. He had joined
the Department of Justice two years earlier, shortly after
America entered the war, and shortly before Congress enacted
the wartime sedition law. He had been on duty at the
Justice Department during the entire war period, and obviously
he was in a position to obtain a view of the detective
activities against persons prosecuted or under surveillance
for their statements. He had also been in a position to note
the pre-eminence of the military detective services during the
war and the connotations of success attached to their names-Military
and Naval Intelligence Services. Besides, the new
unit at the Department of Justice was in the business of detecting
ideas. He called it an intelligence force, in substitution
for the names with which it started-"Radical Division"
and "Anti-Radical Division." Mr. Hoover avoided one action
of the War and Navy Intelligence agencies; their scope had
been narrowed by the qualifying prefixes in their titles. He
named his force the General Intelligence Division-GID.48
In 1920, when "one-third of the detective staff at Bureau headquarters
in Washington had been assigned to anti-radical matters, and
over one-half of the Bureau's field work had been diverted to tlw .
subject of radicalism, GID reported that "the work of the General
47 Ibid., p. 84.
.. Ibid., pp. 84-85.
99
Intelligence Division ... has now expanded to cover more general
intelligence work. including not only ultra-radical activities but also
to [sic1 the study of matters of an international nature, as well a8
economic and industrial disturbances incident thereto." 49 And as its
mission developed, so too did the GID's manner of operation and
techniques of inquiry.
The Bureau of Investigation faced and solved one problem
in the first ten days of the existence of Mr. Hoover's division,
the problem of the kind of data the detectives should send
to headquarters. They were going to receive material from
undercover informers, from neighbors, from personal enemies
of the persons under investigation. The detectives were going
to hear gossip about what people were said to have said or
were suspected of having done-information derived, in some
instances, from some unknown person who had told the Bureau's
agents or informers or the latter's informants. Some of
the information received might relate to people's personal
habits and life.
The Bureau's decision was that everything received by the
special agents and informers should be reported to headquarters;
the agents were specifically directed to send whatever
reached them, "of every nature." But they were warned
that not everything that they gathered could be used in trials
where men were accused of radicalism. Some items about personal
lives, however interesting to the detectives, might not
be regarded as relevant in court proceedings against alleged
radicals. Furthermore, despite the fact that the Bureau instructed
its agents to transmit to headquarters everything
that they picked up, "whether hearsay or otherwise," it
warned them that there was a difference between the sources
from which the GID was willing to receive accusations and
statements for its permanent dossiers and the evidence which
trial judges and tribunals would accept as reliable proof. In
judicial proceedings, the Bureau of Investigation informed
all its agents, there was an insistence on what it called "technical
proof," and judges would rule that the rumors and gossip
which the detectives were instructed to supply to GID
had "no value." 50
In order to assess the program and thinking of the radicals, it was
necessary to study the literature and writings of the ideologues. Gathering
such printed material became a major GID project and acquisitions
were made on a mass basis.
Detectives were sent to local radical publishing houses and
to take their books. In addition, they were to find every private
collection or library in the possession of any radical, and
to make the arrangements for obtaining them in their entirety.
Thus, when the GID discovered an obscure Italianborn
philosopher who had a unique collection of books on the
theory of anarchism, his lodgings were raided by the Bureau
.. Ibid., p. 85.
M Ibid., pp. 86-87.
100
and his valuable collection became one more involuntary contribution
to the hu~e and ever-growin~library of the GID.
Similar contributions came from others, among them the
anarchist philosophers who had retired to farms or elsewhere.
A number of them had, over the years, built up private libraries
in pursuit of their studies; these are discovered by the
General Intelligence Division, and it was soon able to report
that "three of the most complete libraries on anarchy were
seized." The Bureau took over the contents of a school library
which it discovered in a rural community of radicals. It also
obtained the library of a boys' club, and assured Congress
that the library was "in possession of this department...."
Catalogs of these acquisitions were prepared, including a
"catalog of the greatest library in the country which contains
anarchistic books."
In the search for literature, the Bureau sent many of its
men to join radical organizations, to attend radical meetings,
and to brin~ back whatever they could lay their hands on.
The book-seekers, and the raidin~ detectives tipped off by
them, were directed to find the places where specially valuable
books. pamphlets, and documents might be guarded
against possible burglary; they were to ransack desks, to tap
ceilings and walls; carpets and mattresses had to be ripped
up, and safes opened; everythin~ "han~in~ on the walls
should be gathered up"-so the official instructions to the
detectives read.51
In an attempt to improve upon the wartime surveillance records of
the Bureau, and to enhance the GID information store, Hoover created
a card file system containing "a census of every person and group
believed by his detectives to hold dangerous ideas."
The index also had separate cards for "publications," and
:for "special conditions"-a phrase the meaning of which has
never been made clear. In addition, Mr. Hoover's index separately
assembled all radical matters pertaining to each city
in which there were radicals. Each card recorded full details
about its subject-material re~arded by the detectives as revealing
each man's seditious ideas, and data needed to enable
the Government's espiona~e service to find him quickly when
he was wanted for shadowing or for arrest. The Intelligence
Division reported that its task was complicated by reason of
"the fact that one of the main characteristics of the radicals
in the United States is found in their migratory nature."
The GID assured Congress that Mr. Hoover had a group of
experts "especially trained for the purpose." This training
program was directed to makin~ them "well informed upon
the general movements in the territory over which they have
supervision;" they were also trained to manage and develop
the intricate index; and they had to keep up with its fabulous
growth. The first disclosure by the GID showed 100,000
radicals on the index; the next, a few months later, 200,000;
Ii1 Ibid., pp. 87-88.
101
the third, a year later, 450,000. Within the first two and onehalf
years of indexing, the General Intelligence Division had
approximately half a million persons cataloged, inventoried.
and secretly recorded in Government records as dangerous
men and women.
A considerably older unit of the Department of Justice,
its Bureau of Criminal Identification, had long maintained
an index of actual criminals. In 1923, after several years of
trying, the Bureau of Investigation took over the older bureau
and the 750,000-name index it had developed in the course of
a quarter of a century. 'Vhether the two indices v.ere merged
or kept separate has not been announced. Hence, when Mr.
Hoover stated in 1926 that his Bureau's index contained
1,500,000 names. it is not clear whether this was the total for
both indices or for one only.52
Also, in addition to indexing radicals, GID prepared biographical
profiles of certain of them deemed to be of special importance.
The writing up of lives and careers proceeded rapidly, so
that within three and one-half months of the GID's existence
its biographical writers had written "a more or less complete
history of over 60,000 radically inclined individuals," according
to the official information supplied the Senate. Included
were biographies of persons "showing any connection with an
ultra-radical body or movement," in particular "authors, publishers,
editors, etc."
Rigorous secrecy has been imposed on the list of names of
newspapermen, authors, printers, editors, and publishers who
were made the subjects of GID's biographical section. How
many additional biographies have been written since the middle
of November 1919, who were the GID's first or later biographers,
how they were trained so promptly, and how they
managed to write 60,000 biographies in 100 days-these questions
nave never been answered.53
Besides all of this activity, the General Intelligence Division prepared
and circulated a special weekly intelligence report.
For this purpose, the Division first "engaged in the collection,
examination, and assimilation of all information received
from the field force or from other sources." On the basis
of such preparation, it drafted a report, every week, on the
state of radicalism in America that week. Only top echelon
people in the Government of the United States were allowed
to see these secret reports: their names could not be disclosed,
nor could the GID describe them to Congress any more
revealingly than to say that they were "such officials as by the
nature of their duties are entitled to the information." Every
copy that left the closely guarded Washington headquarters
of GID left only "under nroper protection." Congress was infonned
that the weekly GID bulletin covered three classes of
.. Ibid., pp. 90-91.
50 Ibid., p. 91.
lD2
facts: First, "the entire field of national and international operations;"
second, "the latest authoritative statements or definitions
of tactics, programs, principles or platforms of
organizations or movements;" and third, "a bird's eye view
of all situations at home or abroad which will keep the officials
properly informed." 54
Such were the Bureau of Investigation's efforts at intelligence operations
and the generation of an intelligence product during 'Vorld
War I and the years immediately following. As a consequence of both
presidential and public displeasure with Attorney General Harry M.
Daugherty, new leadership came to the Justice Department in 1924;
Harlan F. Stone became Attorney General and J. Edgar Hoover assumed
the leadership of the Bureau of Investigation. Official concern
with radicals diminished when a more conscientious effort at responsible
law enforcement was made by Stone in his attempt to instill
public confidence in the agency which Daugherty had sullied and
which had to deal ,vith the bold advances of organized crime and the
gangsterism brought on by National Prohibition.
ITT. American Protective Lea[!ue
The understaffed nature of the Federal intelligence institutions and
mounting fears of internal subversion, disloyalty, and espionage conspiracies
among the American public during the world war prompted
an extraordinary development in intelligence practices: the cultivation
of a private organization to provide supplementary assistance to government
agencies having responsibilities for the detection surveillance,
and capture of individuals thought to be a threat to the nation's
security.•Just before the eruption of hostilities in Europe, the Bureau
of Investigation had fostered an informer network in efforts to combat
white slave traffic.
In 1912, Bureau Chief A. Bruce Bielaski directed his
agents to ask waiters, socialites, and members of various
organizations to eavesdrop on private conversations and to
forward tips to Bureau offices if their suspicions were aroused.
Many prosecutions had resulted from these tips. From using
volunteers against organized vice to using them against conspiracy
to commit espionage and sabotage was an easy
transition.55
What made the espionage-sabotage detection arrangement unique
was its private organization character: it functioned as an institution
in parallel to the Federal intelligence agencies. Called the American
Protective V~ague, the group was a product of the efforts of Chicago
advertisin!! executive Albert M. Brig!!s and two other wealthy businessmen,
Victor Elting and Charles D. Frey.56 In late 1916, Briggs
became conrerned about the inadequate strength and equipment of the
Bureau of Investigation and subsequently urged Bureau Chief Bielaski
and Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory to establish an auxil-
.. Ibid., p. 92.
Ii5 Jensen, op. cit., p. 19.
M For the authorized, but unreliable, history of the League see Emerson Hough.
The Web. Chicago, The Reilly and Lee Company, 1919.
103
iary force to assist in pursuing security risks. As presented to the
.Justice Department, Briggs' proposal gave the following details.
Its Purpose: A volunteer organization to aid the Bureau
of Investigation of the Department of ,Justice.
The Object: To 'york with and under the diredion of the
Chief of the Bureau of Investigation, of the Department of
.Justice, or such attorney or persons as he may direct, rendering
such serYice as may be required from time to time.
)fembership: This organization is to be composed of citizens
of good moral character who shall volunteer their service
and who may be acceptable to your Department.
Construction: It is proposed that national headquarters
be established either in ·Washington. or perhaps, Chicago, because
of its geographical location, and that branch organizations
be established in such cities as your Department may
direct.
Finances: It is proposed that headquarters organization
and branch organizations shall finance themselves either by
outside subscriptions or by its members.
Control: It is proposed that each unit of this organization
shall be under the control of the Government but will report
to and be under the diredion of the nearest Department of
Justice headquarters.57
Approval of the idea was given on ~Iarch 20, 1917, and cities with
high alien populations were targeted as organization centers for the
A.P.L. "Notices went out the same day to Bureau agents across the
country announcing that Briggs was forming 'a volunteer committee
or organization of citizens for the purpose of co-operating with the
department in securing information of activities of agents of foreign
governments or persons unfriendly to this Government, for the protection
of public property, etc.' "58 The group would supply information
upon request and at its ow'n volition, was to operate in a confidential
manner, and could exercise no arrest power "except after
consultation with the Federal authorities," according to Bielaski's
notices.
APL organizing activities proceeded with great speed and
amazing secrecy, in view of the method of recruiting and the
numbers of indivicluaJs involved, during the first war months.
Not until September, 1917, did miniscule newspaper notices
acknowledge publicly the existence of the league; Justice
Department requests to publishers for cooperation in retaining
APL anonymity achieved results. In midsummer, 1917,
the league numbered 90,000 members or~anized in 600 locals.
By war's end 350,000 APL agents staffed 1,400 local units
across the country. By January, 1918, every Federal attorney
had an APL local at his disposaL From a free taxi service in
Chicago, the APL developed swiftly into a nationwide
apparatus.59
61 Jensen, op. cit., pp. 22-23.
liB Ibid., pp, 24--25.
6. Harold M. Hyman. To Try Men's Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History.
Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1959, p. 273.
104
'With the national office in Washington, League locals received
instructions through State directors, who also functioned as internal
inspectors general for the organizations, and directly from headqual'ters.
60 Out of the capital command post flowed circular instructions
to locals, manuals of operation, assignments to investigations,
and the League's weekly journal, the Spy Gla.ss. Funding appears to
have been entirely private, deriving from contributions and membership
fees.
At the local level, organization followed a military pattern with
ranks, badges, and sworn oaths of loyalty. Large. factories and
businesses with many League members in their employ became sel£contained
divisions with a pyramid-structured leadership.61 But, while
the A.P.L. was a mass membership group, recruitment was selective
and class conscious.
'Vith great acuity the league directors searched among the
upper social, economic, and political crnst of cach community
for local chiefs and members. Bankers, businessmen, mayors,
police chiefs, postmasters, ministers, attorneys, newspaper
editors, officers of religious, charitable, fraternal, and
patriotic societies, factoryowners and foremen, YMCA
workers and chamber of commerce leaders, insurance company
executives, and teachers were favored sources of league
personnel. Such men possessed means and leisure to devote to
APL work, and opened their professional, business, and
official records for APL use. Many were also members of
draft boards, war-bond sale committees, food- and~uel··
rationing units, and state defense councils, affording the
league illicit access to information denied even to commissioned
government investigators.62
The intelligence mission which most often inspired Leaguers to
probe privileged files and otherwise private depositories of personal
information was its responsibility as primary loyalty investigator for
the civil and military services.
When the war started no adequate mechanism existed for
security clearances. The APL, with Gregory's permission,
assumed this task. APL instruction manuals and special issues
of the Spy Gla.rJ8 offered neophyte APL investigators advice
on how to make character investigations. One such article
suggested that the final success or failure of American arms
would depend upon the quality of officer leadership. Every
applicant for a military commission, every civil servant with
more than clerical responsibilities, all welfare group officials
who were to do overseas work, rated loyalty investigations.
The APL newspaper warned leaguers that a loyalty inquiry
implied no guilt, and that unjustified innuendos of disloyalty
might ruin a career and a life. A confidential APL manual
warned that "no two cases are exactly alike for the reason
that no two men are exactly alike." The pamphlet advised
all APL loyalty testers to examine a substantial cross section
of the subject's ancestors in enemy countries, his social, po-
.. See Jensen, op. cit., pp. 130-134.
61 See Ibid., pp. 25-26.
.. Hyman, op. cit., p. 275.
105
liticaI, and church affiliations, his attitude toward the Lusitania
sinking and the rape of Belgium, what he had said
about war bonds, draft dodgers, and the Espionage Act. Had
he purchased enough bonds, dug victory gardens, and appeared
at patriotic rallies? Did neighbors recall untoward
statements he might have made, did he own stock in enemyheld
corporations, was his labor union respectable? But caution
was the watchword in loyalty-hunting, and the manual
pleaded for objectivity and fullness in reporting. Officials
would normally put full credence in the decision of the
loyalty investigator; API. reports received almost complete
acceptance in Washington. Thus the API. agents became
the judge, the jury, and sometimes the executioner in the lives
of many who knew nothing of its existence.63
The League became active in other Federal policy areas apart from
loyalty investigation, including capturing suspicious immigrants,64
enforcing liquor and vice control around military cantonments,65
investigating the background of certain passport applicants,66 and
probing the qualifications of persons applying for American
citizenship.67
Aside from the Bureau of Investigation, the League's other great
champion and supporter was Colonel Ralph Van Deman and the Military
Intelligence Division of the War Department. Van Deman had
sought League assistance shortly after it was established.68 Later,
M.LD. crushed efforts to create a competitor to the A.P.L. and directed
that field personnel use only League assistance in civilian investigations.
69 In the matter of policing war material production plants under
strike, the League and Military Intelligence worked closely to control
labor unrest.70
Eventually, both Justice and War would sour on the zealous antics
of the A.P.L., trampling personnel sanctities, privacy, and civil liberties.
Badges, which bore the legend "Secret 'Service" for a time,
were flaunted as official authority to do about anything the bearers
wantBd to do; Treasury Secretary Mc~~ doo protested that they gave
the public the impression that their holders were agents from his Department,
a viewpoint which Lea~uers did little to discourage.71
A.P.L. raiders made arrests without proper authorization and many
carried firearms on their mis.<:ions. In an effort to assist the .rustice
Department, some League locals even tapped and tampered with telegraph
and telephone lines. 72
Even when APL'ers contented themselves with investigations,
the result was wholesale abuse of civil liberties and invasions
of privacy. An investigation typically began with a
request forwarded from API. headqurrrters in 'WIl:,hington
to the city chief, who assigned the caSe to one of his opera-
03 Ibid., pp. 276-277.
.. Jensen, op, cit., p. 127.
85 Ibid., p. 135; Hyman, op. cit., pp. 276, 180-185.
.. Jensen, op. cit., pp. 178-179.
ff1 Ibid., p. 243.
68 Ibid., p. 86.
.. Ibid., p. 122.
70 Ibid., PP. 276, 279--280, 286.
'11 Ibid., pp. 48-49.
.. Ibid., PP. 149--150.
106
tives. Once the operative received this request, he had numerous
investigative weapons from which to choose. Membership
in the APL provided each operative with an entree to
the records of banks and other financial institutions; of real
estate transactions, medical records, and, inevitably~ legal
records. Any material ordinarily considered confidential by
private firms or corporations could be made available to
operatives. Even institutions customarily regarded as repositories
of confidence and trust compromised their standards.
Bishop Theodore Henderson helped to spread the APL
throughout the Methodist Church, with the result that Methodist
ministers could often be approached for information
about members of their congregations. Liaison was also established
with Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant churches. The
Maryland Casualty Company of Baltimore asked its agents
throughout the country to join the League so that insurance
information was readily available. Private detective agencies
would check old records and disclose their contents. Antilabor
and nativistic groups opened their secret files to the
APL.73
Official interest in the services of the A.P.L. waned with the arrival
of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in the spring of 1919. The
death knell sounded with the arrival of the Republicans two years
later. Still the old ties were not easily broken.
As late as 1924 Military Intelligence officers were being instructed
to maintain friendly relations with former APL
members as well as other counterradical groups who might
be called upon in time of trouble. Counterespionage investigations
had been discontinued, but questionnaires were being
sent out to collect information on domestic affairs. A few men
in the Military Intelligence realized that the MID's roving
activities among the civilian population had ~ven them an
"evil reputation" that they must live down by scrupulously
avoiding civilian investigations in the future. One book on
Military Intelligence, published in 1924, alarmed some officers
because it told how the secret service of the general staff
had operated far beyond military limits. But 1924 marked the
end of anti-radical activity for both the War Department
and the Justice Departmenf.74
No agency of the Federal government would ever again attempt
to cultivate so ambitious and visible an intelligence auxiliary as the
American Protective League.75 •
'l3 Ibid., p. 148.
.. Ibid., p. 288.
mNevertheless, there are private intelligence organizations in existence today
which, as part of an anti-communist program, maintain vast files on the political
activities of their fellow Americans: prominent among these groups are the
American Security Council and the Church League of America. See: Harold
C. Relyea. Hawks Nest: The American Security Council. The Nation, v. 214,
January 24, 1972: 113-117; George Thayer. The Farther Shores of Politics. New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp. 256--262; Wallace Turner. Anti-Communist.
Council Prepares A Voting 'Index' on Congress. New York Times, August 17,
1970; William W. Turner. Power On The Right. Berkeley, Ramparts Press, 1971,
pp. 134-140, 199-215.
107
V. Other' Factor'8
In addition to the War, Navy, and .Justice Department intelligence
organizations, there were also various Federal investigative agencies
which, during and immediately after the war, engaged in activities
bearing upon the intelligence function but not clearly resulting in an
intelligence product.
By authority of its organic act (22 Stat. 403) of 1883, the Civil
Service Commission was empowered, indeed, required, to make investigations
in the enforcement of its rules. Trained personnel, however,
were not immediatdy available for this task.
·Without a staff of investigators. the Civil Service Commission
couldn't make any personal investigations to determine
the character or fitness of the job applicants. The
Commissioners had to rely on questionnaires filled out by the
job-hunters and vouchers certifying they were of "good moral
character."
In 1913, however, Congress for the first time allowed [38
Stat. 465] the Commission to hire investigators. To get
trained men, the Commission tapped the Postal Inspection
Service for four investigators who concentrated mainly on
charges of misconduct.
In 1917, President Wilson made the first stab at the type
of investigation that occupies most of the time of the Civil
Service Commission's sleuths today. He issued an order requiring
the commission to investigate the experience, fitness,
character, success and adaptability of applicants for the job
of postmast€r where the incumbent was not to be reappointed.
For the first time, the investigators were to look behind the
answers on questionnaires and make personal investigations
into the background of the job-seekers.76
It was also in 1917 that the Chief Executive, by confidential directi
ve, instructed the Commission to
... remove any employee when ... the retention of such
employee would be inimical to the public welfare by reasons
of his conduct, sympathies, or utterances, or because of other
reasons growing out of the war. Such removal may be made
without other formality than that the reasons f;lhall be made a
matter of confidential record, subject, however, to inspection
by the Civil Service Commission.
Commenting on the Commission's operationalization of this authority,
one expert in this policy a,rea has said:
The Civil Service Commission assumed the power to refuse all
applications for employment "if there was a reasonable belief
that ... [this] appointment was inimical to the public interest
owing to ... lack of loyalty." Its agents conducted 135 loyalty
investigations in 1917, and 2,537 more in 1918. In the latter
year 660 applicants were debarred from federal employment
for questionable loyalty, a tiny percentage of the total of federal
workers. But there were many agencies not under com-
18 Miriam Ottenberg. The Federal Investigators. Englewood Cliffs, PrenticeHall,
1962, pp. 232-233.
70-890 0 - 76 - 8
108
mission control, and thousands of loyalty investigations were
conducted by other internal security agencies. Despairing of
slow civil service recuiting practices. federal departments employed
tens of thousands of workers outside civil service procedures,
with the result that the established loyalty regulations
were only partially effedive in their coverage.77
This type of investigation virtually ceased with the end of the war.
The Commission did, however, continue its inquiries into the fitness
and character of certain new applicants, such as those seeking postmaster
positions, and loyalty-security checks would not ent€r consideration
again until warfare once more engulfed Europe.78
The new kind of investigative work prompted the Commission
to establish a separate Division of Investigation and Review
in 1920. The following year, the President ordered the
Civil Service Commission to investigate postmasters for reappointment
as well as for their original appointment.
Law enforcement officers were the next to come under the
personal scrutiny of the Civil Service Commission's investigators.
'When Congress, in 1927, brought all positions in the
Bureau of Prohibition into the classified civil service, the
Commission decided the prohibition enforcers should be investigated
because of the special temptations that came their
way. To carry out this chore, the Commission hastily recruited
and trained 40 investigators. .
In two years, the investigators completed more than 3,000
investigations into the background of Bureau of Prohibition
employees. The results were startling. About 40 per cent of
those investigated-including many already working for the
Bureau of Prohibition-had records which showed them unfit
for Federal service.
The Commission, with the blessing of Congress, decided it
had better take a look into the background of other law enforcement
officers. It doubled its investigative staff and started
making personal investigatiom of customs inspectors and border
patrolmen.
By 1939, the Commission's investigative program required
investigations of the character and fitness of job applicants
wherever practicable. Since its sights were set higher than its
funds, however, it could only use its authority to check on the
background of those going into key positions.
Up to this time, the question of loyalty to the Government
had been recognized as something to consider, but it hadn't
played a major part in investigations. Congress and the Commission
had been more concerned with cleaning up political
favoritism in Federal Jobs and rooting out criminal elements
and grafters.79
77 Hyman, op cit., p. 269; the portion of the President's confidential directive
quoted above appears in Ibid., pp. 268-269.
'" The most ambitious loyalty·security program was established after World
War II; see Eleanor Bontecou. The Federal Loyalty-Security Program. Ithaca,
Cornell Univesrity Press, 1953.
79 Ottenberg, op. cit., pp. 233-234.
109
On the eve of World War II, the Civil Service Commission had
both the techniques and available loyalty-security files to again screen
Federal employees. The files could have been scrutinized by other government
agencies in pursuit of an intelligence objective or utilized by
the Commission itself to contribute to an intelligence product. It
would seem quite apparent, in any regard, that the Commission's investigative
files had a potential for intelligence matters.
The Post Office Department, temporarily established in 1789 (1
Stat. 70) and given Cabinet status in 1872 (17 Stat. 283), also developed
the potential for providing an intelligence product with regard
to both criminal detection and internal security matters. Investigations
on behalf of this agency trace their origins to the pre-Federal era
when Benjamin Franklin, appointed Postmaster General by the Continental
Congress, created the position of "surveyor of the Post Offiee,"
the predecessor to modern postal inspectors. When Congress
created (21 Stat. 177) the Chief Post Office Inspector position in
1880, a force of ninety men were ready for investigative duties within
the department.so Prior to World War I, the inspectors cooperated
with the Treasury and Justice Departments in preventing frauds
against the government, robberies of mail, and other crimes within
the Federal purview and postal service jurisdiction. During the war,
inspectors assisted the military and naval authorities and the Justice
Department in monitoring foreign mail traffic and identifying espionage
networks. To the extent that an information store was maintained
on these criminal and security matters, such materials would
seem to have a potential for contributing to an intelligence product.
As in the case of the Civil Service Commission, these holdings could
have been examined by other government agencies in pursuit of an
intelligence objective or utilized by the Post Office Department itself
for such purpose.
From the earliest days of the Republic, special care had been taken
to protect American diplomatic communications through the use of
codes and ciphers, the creation of secure facilities, and qualification
tests for all persons entrusted with such communiques.
It took the twentieth century, however, with its international
stresses, its hot and cold wars, to propel the State Department
into establishing a security force. In 19116, Secretary
of State Robert Lansing created a Bureau of Secret
Intelligence headed by a Chief Special Agent. It was such a
hush-hush outfit that the Chief Special Agent drew his operating
funds from a confidential account and 'even paid his
agents by personal check.
The Chief Special Agent's job was to advise the Secretary
of State on matters of intelligence and security. By 1921, his
staff amounted to 25 men.
One of the first problems of these special agents involved
passports and visas. Beginning in 1914, European nations
began demanding proof of identity. The United States had
previously issued passports on request but most people didn't
.. See IbW., 310-313; of related interest, see: E. J. Kabn, Jr. Fraud. New York,
Harper and Row, 1973; P. H. Woodward. The Secret Service of the Post Office
Department. Hartford, Connecticut, Winter and Company, 1886.
110
bother to get them. With the outbreak of World War I,
United States missions abroad were authorized to issue
emergency passports but by the end of In8, Congress passed
a law [40 Stat. 559J requiring every departing American to
have a passport from the State Depar1:Jment and every alien
to show a passport from his homeland and a visa from one
of our consular offices before he could enter this country.
The Chief Special Agent's force started sorting out American
Communists seeking passports for trips to Moscow and
Soviet agents using fraudulent passports. Through the 1920's
and 1930's, the State Department investigators uncovered
passport frauds world-wide in scope and involving chains
of subversive agents on four continents. The investigators
pinned down the Soviet use of American passports taken
from American volunteers in the Spanish civil war, exposed
several elaborate passport frauds to supply traveling Communists
and thwarted at least two Nazi espionage plots centering
on the use of American passports.
With the outbreak of World War II, the Chief Special
Agent's office was expanded to cope with the problem of interning
and exchanging diplomatic officials of enemy powers
and screening Americans-or those claiming American citizenship-
after they were expatriated from enemy controlled
areas.81
Granted authority (12 Stat. 713 at 726) in 1863 to appoint not more
than three revenue agents, the Treasury Department, by the time of
American entry into World War T. had a variety of investigative
arms, each with a potential for contributing to the intelligence effort.
In addition to the Customs Division, the Secret Service gathered information
pursuant to its mission of protecting the President, conducted
security investigations of government and war production
facilities, made loyalty checks on the employees of some agencies,
cooperated with the Food Administration and War Trade Board in
uncovering violations of the Food and Fuel Control Act (40 Stat.
276). and uncovered fraudulent activities in connection with war
risk insurance. Often during the war years the Secret Service and
Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation duplicated each other's
efforts and quarreled over jurisdictions.B2 Treasury Secretary McAdoo
also vigorously protested the use of the "Secret Service" referent on
American Protective League badges and documents, arguing that
the Attorney General should halt this practice by his auxiliary allies.
In his disputes with Justice over these various matters, Secretary
McAdoo had proposed the creation of a central intelligence agency to
coordinate the various intelligence activities and operations occurring
during the war.B3
Additional wartime taxes and controls on the production of distilled
spirits and intoxicating liquors also added to the Treasury Department's
surveillance duties.
81 Ottenberg, Of). mt., pp. 26-27.
.. See .Jensen, op. cit., pp. 40-41, 91-93, 95-97.
.. See ibid., pp. 40-41, 54, 95-96.
111
Internal Revenue's Intelligence Division started out more
as a weapon against corruption within the service than crime
without. Early in 1919, Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Daniel C. Roper, who later became Secretary of Commerce,
began to hear sordid complaints that some of his tax-collecting
employees were taking bribes Or extorting money from
taxpayers. Mr. Roper had previously served as First Assistant
Postmaster General and knew the work of the postal
inspectors in ferreting out dishonest employees as well as
mail fraud. He wanted a similar unit in Internal Revenue,
and he wanted to man it with postal inspectors.
On July 1, 1919, six postal inspectors were transferred to
the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Their assignment: to investigate
serious violations of revenue laws through collusion,
conspiracy, extortion, bribary or any other manipulation
aimed at defrauding the government of taxes.84
During the war the Justice Department bore the responsibility of
controlling aliens and alien property. The Bureau of Immigration
and Naturalization (then located in the Department of Labor) apparently
had no investigators, as such, of its own and seems to have utilized
agents from the .Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation
to monitor espionage suspects entering the United States as aliens.
The Secret Service also was active in alien surveillance.
Within the .Justice Department there was established, under the authority
of the Trading With the Enemy Act (40 Stat. 415), an Office
of Alien Property Custodian which was to receive, administer, and
account for money and property within the United States belonging
to a declared enemy or ally of such enemy.85 A. Mitchell Palmer held
the Custodian's position until he became Attorney General in 1919 and
Francis P. Garvan took over the duties of the office. The unit had its
own investigation bureau, created shortly after the agency was established,
which lasted until 1921. As noted with other investigative
bOllies, the Office of Alien Property Custodian had a potential for contributing
to an intelligence product, but it is not known to what
extent, if any, such actually occurred.
There is also evidence of some type of intelligence activity on the
part of the Federal government with regard to foreign trade. After
the United States formally entered the war, the President, in August,
1917, created the Exports Administrative Board, which replaced the
Exports Licenses Division of the Commerce Department, to administer
and execute the laws relating to the licensing of exports. The
Board had a War Trade Intelligence Section which apparently did
some investigative work. In October, 1917, the War Trade Board was
created (E.O. 2729-A), succeeding the Exports Administrative Board.
Three days after this entity came into being, a War Trade Intelligence
Bureau was established to replace the vYar Trade Intelligence Section
of the E.A.B. The duties of the Bureau were to determine the enemy
or non-enemy status or affiliations of persons trading with any individual
or firm in the United States, to supply the Enemy Trade Bureau
.. Ottenberg, op. cit., p. 252.
85 See Willoughby. op. cit. pp. 319-327.
112
with information concerning applicants for licenses to trade with the
enemy, and to act as a clearinghouse for war trade intelligence for the
United States and its allies.86 Once again, the intelligence potential
for such an inyestigatin body is recognized, but its actual contribution
to an intelligence product cannot be determined. In May of 1919
the Intelligence Bureau was absorbed by the Enemy Trade Bureau
and a month later the entire 'War Trade Board was transferred to the
State Department.
VI. Red Scare
In the closing weeks of 'Vorld 'Var I, fears of revolutionaries,
anarchitsts, Bolsheviks, radicals and communists began to mount in
America. A series of bombings aimed at public officials, labor unrest,
remnants of "'artime hysteria and xenophobia, and zealous government
investigators eager to prove their worth in ferreting out the
despoilers of democracy contributed to the frenzyY Reflective of this
mood. Congress, in late 1918, enacted (40 Stat. 1012) legislation designed
to exclude and expel from the United States certain aliens
belonging to anarchistic groups or otherwise found to be in sympathy
with the tenets of anarchism. The opening paragraph of the
statute stipulated,
That aliens who are anarchists; aliens who believe in or
advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government
of the United States or of all forms of law; aliens who
disbelieve in or are opposed to all organized government;
aliens who advocate or teach the assassination of public officials;
aliens who advocate or teach the unlawful destruction
of property; aliens who are members of or affiliated with
any organization that entertains a belief in, teaches, or advocates
the overthrow by force or violence of the Government
of the United States or of all forms of law, or that entertains
or teaches disbelief in or opposition to all organized government,
or that advocates the duty, necessity, or propriety of
the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers,
either of specific individuals or of officers generally, of the
Government of the United States or of any other organized
government, because of his or their official character, or that
advocates or teaches the unlawful destruction of property
shall be excluded from admission into the United States.
Although this law was not a criminal statute, did not outlaw specified
beliefs and actions, and contained no authority for prosecution, it
soon became a punitve device in the hands of the new Attorney General,
Alexander Mitchell Palmer. A former Democratic Member of
the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania (1909-1915) and
recently the Alien Property Custodian (1917-1919), Palmer came to
the 'Vilson Cabinet as the country's chief legal officer in March, 1919.
.. See Ibid., pp. 128-143.
87 On the mood of the country at this time, see Murray B. Levin. Political
Hysteria In America. New York, Basic Books, 1971; for a concise history of
this episode, see Robert K. ~Iurray. The Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria.
Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1955.
113
He rode the tide of prevailing sentiment and launched an attack upon
radicals of all persuasion, perhaps in an effort to marshal public
opinion in an e\'entua] bid for the 'White House.
The atmosphere which prevailed after 'Yorld 'Yar I was
sllch that anti-radicalism and xenophobia became inseparably
fused. Thus. the deportation statute was made to order
for an Attorney General who combined with his own person
an overdose of the spirit of the times and a will to propel
himself into the limelight as the very model of a modern
anti-radical.
The anti-radicalism of that period was not much ado about
nothing. Rather, it was muoh too much ado about something:
a gross over-reaction. For a host of Americans, a real
problem had assumed fictional proportions.
Radical violence existed. Its advocates were, for the most
part, members of the Industrial 'Workers of the '\Vorld, Bolsheviks,
or members of one wing of the anarchist movementthe
other wing being pacifist. The hopes to which the revolutionary
radicals geared their actions were wildly unrealistic.
There was no danger of their overthrowing the Government.
But there was danger of their causing an intolerable destruction
of life and property.ss
The wonder of the episode is that the intelligence agencies failed
so badly in conveying the reality of the situation; the truth of the
experience is that accurate intelJigence was not sought and political
expedience otherwise, ruled the day. Palmer gave the Bureau of
Investigation the primary investigative/enforcement mission. The
other intelligence units were either incapable or unwilling to temper,
qualify, or modify the assault which manifested itself in raids,
harassments, arrests, and expulsions from the land.
The Labor Department had jurisdiction over the deportation
statute. Secretary of Labor [William B.] Wilson was
responsible for deciding which bodies, by reason of their
beliefs and practices, so clearly fitted the terms of the statute
that membership in them would be sufficient basis for an
alien's being deported. He named the Communist Party; and
the Department's Solicitor, called upon to make a decision
when the Secretary was absent, named the Communist Labor
Party-a decision which Mr. Wilson reversed some months
later. These two parties were the prime targets of Palmer's
"Red raids."
Arrest warrants had to be issued by Labor; but .Justice,
in a cooperating capacity, could request their issuance-and
did so in wholesale lots. After arrests were made, the evidence
was turned over to the Secretary of Labor. The Assistant
Secretary, Louis B. Post, had the task of evaluating the
evidence to determine whether or not it justified, in individual
cases, the signing of deportation orders.
.. Overstreet, op. cit., p. 41.
114
These details may seem academic. But one factor which led,
in the end, to Congressional hearings and an aroused public
interest was a collision between the Attorney General's policy
of mass arrests and Post's policy of judging cases on an
individual basis-and cancelling a host of warrants.89
The first raids on alleged anarchists and radicals occurred in
November, 1919, but it was in January the following year when
massive dragnet operations began in earnest. In spite of Post's cautious
administration, it has been estimated that more than 4,000 suspected
alien radicals were imprisoned during the winter of 1919-1920 and
eventually the deportation of "a wretched few hundred aliens, who
never had the opportunity to plead their innocence and whose guilt
the government never proved." 90
And what were the techniques of the Bureau of Investigation in
pursuing the radical quarry? Tactics utilized included reliance on
undercover informants to identify and locate suspects,91 keeping State
and local authorities ignorant of moves against suspects so that
Federal supremacy in this area of arrests would be assured,92 and
engaging in the physical entrapment of suspects.
The radicals seemed so numerous that GID [Hoover's
General Intelligence Division] decided to try to herd big
groups of them into meeting halls on the nights assigned for
raiding their membership. The way this was done in the case
of the Communists was revealed in the secret instructions to
the Bureau's special agents from its headquarters dated
December 27, 1919 in a document which the Bureau's agents,
were required to produce in ... [a] ... Boston trial. It
read:
"If possible, you should arrange with your undercover
informants to have meetings of the Communist Party and
Communist Labor Party held on the night set.
"I have been informed by some of the Bureau officers that
such arrangements will be made. This, of course, would
facilitate the making of arrest." 93
Other practices included night raids to facilitate obtaining confessions
and to discourage interference by counsel,94 coordination of
all raids from Washington by communications with intelligence chief
Hoover,95 simultaneous arrest of all suspects, whether at the target
meeting halls or in their homes,96 and a heirarchy of arrest locations.
The places where the largest hauls might be expected were
the meeting rooms of the radical organizations. Next in im-
89 Ibid., pp. 42--43; for his own account of these matters see Louis F. Post. The
Deportations Delirium of Nineteen-Twenty. Chicago, Charles H. Kerr and
Company, 1923.
go Hyman, op. cit., p. 320.
9' See Lowenthal, op. cit., pp. 149, 153.
'" See Ibid., p. 149.
p~ Ibid .
.. See Ibid., pp. 156, 161. 9. See Ibid., p. 156.
.. See Ibid., p. 157.
115
portance were the choral societies and the schools for foreignborn
adults. Here the Bureau's agents picked up both teachers
and students~ including those on their way to class, and others
on the street suspected of having that destination.
Next in importance were small shops operated by suspected
radicals, in which the police picked up the customers as \vell
as the businessmen-this was the case at an East St. Louis
tailor's shop, where men were standing about in the evening
hours, chatting with the proprietor. In some exceptional
cases, customers were left behind; thus, when a barber was
arrested in his Bridgeport, Conn., place of business, and the
raiders were in too bIg a hurry to let him get his overcoat and
to permit him to make his premises secure, they did not bother
to wait for the half-shaved customer in the chair.
Other places for arresting customers in considerable numbers
were restaurants, cafes, bowling alleys, billiard and pool
parlors, social rooms for playing checkers and other games,
and similar points of resort. In cases where concerts or lectures,
no matter on what subject, were being given at halls
frequented by radicals, the raiders arrested everyone present.
97
The campaign became so enthusiastic that American citizens who
had spent the war period overseas were seized,98 raiders engaged in
violence, the destruction of radical's presses, threatened suspects at
gunpoint, and made incarcerations without arrest warrants.99 Those
Imprisoned were harassed, coerced, and otherwise forced into confessions
of guilt which were frequently thrown out by Assistant Secretary
Post or rejected by the courts.too Similarly, the Bureau delayed
and denied bail to jailed suspects or demanded exorbitant bonding.1Ol
All in all, the episode demonstrated a shameless disregard for
human rights on the part of the Justice Department, evoked a contemptuous
attitude toward the Bureau of Investigation on the part of
both Congress and the public, and undoubtedly contributed in some
degree to the failure of the Democrats to retain control of the White
House in 1920. Better intelligence and/or the proper use of available
intelligence might have averted the fiasco. But politics was in ascension
and intelligence activities were in decline in the aftermath of the
war. What was to follow was the further disintegration of the Justice
Department under Harry Daugherty, the Teapot Dome scandal,
crime wars, and the decomposition of the intelligence structure.
VII. AmemanBlm::k Ohamber
Not everyone within the Federal intelligence community, however,
succumbed to the pronouncements of idyllic world peace in the aftermath
of the European conflagration which witnessed the collapse of
97 Ibid., pp. 157-158.
O. See Ibid., pp. 159-160.
.. See Ibid., pp. 161-168, 185-198.
100 See Ibid., pp. 209-223.
101 See Ibid., pp. 223--237.
116
the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, the Romanov empires.102 For some with
intelligence responsibilties, the war had brought their organizations
into full flower and provided an opportunity to scrutinize the intelligence
capabilities of both ally and enemy. Thus, there was an unwillingness
to return to prewar intelligence infancy. And it was this climate
of opinion which fostered the creation of the secret cryptanalysis
structure which came to be known as the American Black Chamber.
Born in April 1889, in Worthington, Indiana, Herbert O. Yardley
had wanted to become a criminal lawyer but, after learning the skills
of a telegraph operator, he came to the State Department in 1913 and,
imbued with a strong sense of history and penchant for deciphering
masked communications, he soon discovered that existing American
codes could be easily broken.,o3 Having attempted, with little effect,
to encourage improvements in the diplomatic codes, Yardley obtained
a commission in the Army at the time of United States entry
into world hostilities and went to work for Ralph Van Deman and the
Military Intelligence Division.,o4 Within the War Department he
organized and directed the Cryptographic Bureau which eventually became
MI-8.105 In August, 1918, he sailed for England where he studied
British cryptographic and decoding methods and then went on to
Paris to assist the American delegation to the peace conference.106 In
April, 1919, Yardley returned to the United States for the scaling
down of Military Intelligence for peacetime conditions.
After several conferences with responsible officials of the
State, War and Navy Departments, we decided to demobilize
the Shorthand Subsection; demobilize the Secret-Ink Subsection,
transfer the Code Compilation Subsection to the Signal
Corps (. . . Anny regulations required the Signal Corps to
compile codes) ; and restore Military Intelligence Communications
to the Adjutant-General of the Army.
This, then, left only the Code and Cipher Solution Section.
My estimate for an efficient Cipher Bureau called for one
hundred thousand dollars per annum. The State Department
agreed to turn over to Military Intelligence forty thousand
dollars per annum out of special funds, provided the
Navy Department was entirely excluded, for they refused to
share their secrets with the Navy. This left a deficit of sixty
thousand dollars, which Military Intelligence managed to obtain
from Congress after taking some of the leaders into their
confidence. I was told that there was a joker in the Depart-
100 The "lust" for world peace was apparent in the organization of the League
of Nations and the treaties resulting from the Washington armament conference
of 1921-1922. It reached its zenith in 1928 with the curious Kellogg-Briand Pact
which outlawed war. Simultaneous with these developments were embittering
encroachments and manipulations of the economics and politics of the recently
defeated central powers by certain victors in the world war. ambitions of empire
by the Japanese in the Pacific, and the rise of totalitarian regimes in both Europe
and Asia.
103 See David Kahn. The Oode Breakers, Revised Edition. New York, New
American Library, 1973, pp. 167-168; Herbert O. Yardley. The American Black
Chamber. London, Faber and Faber, 1931, pp. 3-11.
10< See Yardley, op. cit., pp. 11-15.
106 See Kahn, op. cit., pp. 168-172; Yardley, op. cit., pp. 15-16, 22-23.
1()8 See Kahn, op. cit., p. 172; Yardley, op. cit., pp. 160-166.
117
ment of State special funds: they could not legally be expended
within the District of Columbia.
Since it seemed that we could not remain in the District of
Columbia I was commissioned to go back to New York and
find a suitable place where the famous American Black
Chamber could bury itself from the prying eyes of foreign
governments.107
On the first of October, the unit set up initial ope,rations at 3 East
38th Street in Manhattan, a former town house owned by T. Suffern
Tailer, a New York society figure and political leader.
It stayed there little more than a year, however, before
moving to new quarters in a four-story brownstone at 141
East 37th Stre.et, just east of Lexington Avenue. It occupied
half of the ornate, divided structure, whose high ceilings did
little to relieve the claustrophobic construction of its twelvefoot-
wide rooms. Yardley's apartment was on the top floor.
All external connection with the government was cut. Rent,
heat, office supplies, light, Yardley's salary of $7,500 a year,
and the salaries of his staff were paid from secret funds.
Though the office was a branch of the Military Intelligence
Division, War Department payments did not begin until
June 30,1921.108
All employees were relegated to civilian status. The mission: "We
were to read the secret code and cipher diplomatic telegrams of foreign
governments-by such means as we could. If we were caught, it
would be just too bad!" 109 Materials first came to the unit in the form
of documents held by the State Department,nO Japanese secret codes
were of special interest.lll Durin,<:(' the \Vashin<rton armltment conference
of 1921-1922, the unit made over five thousand decipherments and
translations.l12 According to Yardley's own reminiscences:
We solved over forty-five thousand cryptograms from 1917
to 1929, and at one time or another we broke the codes of
Argentine, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, England,
France, Germany, .Japan, Liberia, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Panama, Peru, Russia, San Salvador, Santo Domingo,
Soviet Union and Spain.
We also made preliminary analyses of the codes of many
other governments. This we did because we never knew at
what moment a crisis would arise which would require quick
solution of a particular government's diplomatic telegrams.
Our personnel was limited and we could not hope to read the
telegrams of all nations. But we drew up plans for an offensive,
in the form of code analyses, even though we anticipated
no crisis. We never knew at what moment to expect a telephone
call or an urgent letter demanding a prompt solution
1111 Yardley, ap. cit., pp. 166-167.
",. Kahn, op cit., p. 173.
lOll Yardley, op cit.. p. 167.
110 See Ibid., p. 168.
111 See Ibid., pp. 174-225: also see Kahn, ap. cit., pp. 173-176.
ill Yardley, ap. cit., p. 225; also see Ibid., pp. 199--225 and Kahn, op cit., pp. 176177.
118
of messages which we had never dreamed would interest the
Department of State.ll3
By the late 1920's, the Black Chamber had gained access to diplomatic
telegraph traffic through cooperative arrangements with the
Western Union Telegraph Company and the Postal Telegraph
CompanyP4
In 1929, with the arrival of the ne,,- administration, Yardley, upon
hearing Herbert Hoover's first presidential address to the nation,
sensed a high moralism had gripped government leadership, a moralism
which would not tolerate the continuance of the Black Chamber.
Shortly after the new Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, took
office, a series of important code messages, deciphered by the Black
Chamber, ,,-as forwarded to acquaint the Secretary ,vith the existence
and activities of the cryptanalysis operation. The reaction was the one
anticipated by Yardley.ll5
[Stimson] was shocked to learn of the existence of the
Black Chamber, and totally disapproved of it. He regarded
it as a low, snooping activity, a sneaking, spying, keyholepeering
kind of dirty business, a violation of the principle of
mutual trust upon which he conducted both his personal
affairs and his foreign policy. All of this it is, and Stimson
rejected the view that such means justified even patriotic
ends. He held to the conviction that his country should do
what is right, and, as he said later, "Gentlemen do not read
each other's mail." In an act of pure moral courage, Stimson,
affirming principle over expediency, withdrew all State Department
funds from the support of the Black Chamber.
Since these constituted its major income, their loss shuttered
the office. Hoover's speech had warned Yardley that an appeal
would be fruitless. There was nothing to do but close up
shop. An unexpended $6,666.66 and the organization's files
reverted to the Signal Corps, where William Friedman had
charge of cryptology. The staff quickly dispersed (none went
to the Army) , and when the books were closed on October 31,
1929. the American Black Chamber had perished. It had cost
the State Department $230,404 and the 'Val' Department $98,808.49-
just under a third of a million dollars for a decade of
cryptanalysis.116
Yardley could not find work in Washington and returned to his family
home in Worthington where the Depression quickly devoured his
existing resources. Out of financial desperation, he set about writing
the story of the Black Chamber, serializing portions of the account in
the Saturday Eveninq Post and then producing a book for BobbsMerrill
in .June 1931. Though the volume was an instant success, it was
denounced by both the State and War Departments. In all, it sold
17,931 copies in America and appeared in -French, Swedish, an unauthorized
Chinese version, and in Japanese. In the Land of the Ris-
113 Yardley, op. cit., p. 235.
11< Kahn, op. cit., p. 177.
115 See Yardley, ap. Git., pp. 262-263.
116 Kahn, op. cit., pp. 178-179.
119
ing Sun the book quadrupled American sales with 33,119 copies sold
amidst much outrage oyer its revelations. Yardley was already at work
on a second expose entitled Japanese Diplomatic Secrets, an account
utilizing Japanese diplomatic cables transmitted during the 1921-1922
naval disarmanent conference, when the State Department learned of
his efforts and, subsequently, "United States marshals seized the manuscript
on February 20, 1933, at the office of The Macmillan Company,
to whom Yardley had submitted it after Bobbs-)ferrill had declined
it, on the grounds that it violated a statute prohibiting agents of the
United States government from appropriating secret documents." 117
Yardley next turned his attention to writing fiction, at "'hich he
proved moderately successful, and some real estate speculation in
Queens, Kew York. In 1938 he was hired by Chiang Kai-shek at about
$10,000 a year to solve the messages of the Japanese who were then
invading China. Two years later he returned to the United States
where he made a brief effort at being a ,Vashington resturanteur, attempted
to establish a cryptanalytic bureau in Canada though Stimson
and/or the British forced the reluctant Canadian government to dispense
with his services, and then served as an enforcement officer in
the food division of the Office of Price Administration until the end of
,Vorld ,Var II. After the war he turned to his old card playing talent
and offered instruction in poker. Out of this experience came another
book, The Education of a Poker Player, which appeared in 1957. A
year later, in August, he died of a stroke at his Silver Spring, Maryland,
home,11s
VIII. Intelligerwe at Twilight
,Vhile the period between the two world wars was largely one of
dormancy or disintegration with regard to Federal intelligence activities
and operations, there were certain exceptions to this situation,
developments which, due to a few outstanding personalities and/or
monumental events, marked the continued, but slow, evolution and
advancement of intelligence capabilities.
In 1920, Marine Corps Commandant John A. Lejeune overhauled
the headquarters staff in a manner emulating the Army's general staff
reorganization of 1903 and the Navy's central administrative structure
of 1915 when the Chief of Naval Operations position came into
existence. Within the Operations and Training Division, which was
one of seven administrative entities reporting directly to the Commandant,
an intelligence section was instituted.ll9 Little is known
about the resources or activities of this unit but it appears to have
developed combat intelligence products for the Corps and to have
cooperated with Naval Intelligence in preparing war plans and strategic
information.
One of the Marine officers who was concerned with such
planning during the early 1920s was Major (later Lieutenant.
117 Ibid., p. 181.
118 Ibid., pp. 181-183.
l.1lI Generally, see: U.S. Marine Corps. Headquarters. Historical Division.•l
Brief History Of Headquarters Marine Corps Staff OrglMtization by Kenneth ~'.
Condit, John H. Johnstone, and Ella W. Nargele. Washington, Historical DivisiOlIo
Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1971, pp. 12-15; Robert Debs Heinl, Jr.
Soldiers ot the Sea. Annapolis, United States Naval Institute, 1962, pp. 253-2!f!'>
120
Colonel) Earl H. Ellis. Like many other military officers,
Ellis was cognizant of the Japanese threat in the Pacific. In
1920, the Office of Naval Intelligence prepared a study concerning
the possibility of a transpacific war against Japan,
and various agencies within the Navy Department were
directed to implement the study with plans of their own. The
Marine Corps contributed to what ultimately became known
as the "Orange Plan," and Ellis made a major contribution
to that portion of the plan which dealt with advanced base
operations. The document he wrote, Operation Plan 712
(Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia). was approved
by the Commandant on 23 ,Tuly 1921.
In his ~wJ'iting, Ellis pointed out:
"... it will be necessary for us to project our fleet
and landing forces across the Pacific and wage war
in Japanese waters. To effect this requires that we
have sufficient bases to support the fleet, both during
its projection and afterwards.
To effect [an amphibious landing] in the face of
enemy resistance requires careful training and preparation
to say the least; and this along Marine lines.
It is not enough that the troops be skilled infantrymen
or artillerymen of high morale; they must be
skilled watermen and jungle-men who know it can
be done--Marines with Marine training.l2O
Though the observations of Earl Ellis were prophetic, he never lived
to realize their actuality for he was to become a martyr to the intelligence
cause he served so well. A Kansas farm boy born in 1880, Ellis
joined the :Marine Corps at the turn of the century and sufficiently distinguished
himself that he received a commission before American
entry into 1Vorld1Yar I, advanced to major during the conflict and won
four decorations as well. Closely associated with Lejeune since 1914,
Ellis was brought to Washington when his superior assumed command
of the Corps in 1920. He was apparently put to immediate work on
Orange Plan studies which consumed so much of his time and energy
that he was rarely seen outside of his office and eventually fell ill
shortly after completing his paper. During his recovery, his views
drew harsh criticism from the peace proponents and disarmament advocates
of the hour.
Discharged after three months' hospitalization, he returned
to duty. Two weeks later, with considerable casualness,
he asked for 90 days leave "to visit France, Belgium and
Germany."
There were two curious circumstances connected with his
request for leave. In the first place the request was approved
by the Secretary of the Navy the same day it was received.
120 U.S. Marine C<Jrps. Headquarters. Historical Division..4 Concise History of
the United Sta.tes Ma.rine Oorps 1775-1969 by William D. Parker. Washington,
Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1970, p. 46; also see Heinl,
op. cit., pp. 255-257.
121
Returned the following day, the letter set an all-time record
for prompt handling of official correspondence.
The second oddity was noticed by Gen Lejeune's secretary.
Prior to his departure, Ellis called at the Commandant's
office to say goodbye. During the apparently normal conversation
between the two officers, the secretary noticed Ellis pass a
sealed envelope to the General. \Vithout comment, Lejeune
unobtrusively slipped it into his desk drawer.
Having said his goodbyes, LtCol Ellis walked out of the
front door of Marine Corps headquarters-and vanished.l2l
Ellis was never seen in Europe. No communication was received
from him for almost a year. When his official leave expired and an
inquiry was made as to how he was to be carried on the muster roll,
the Adjutant Inspector ordered "Continue to carryon leave." Finally
a friend received a cryptic cablegram from Ellis who was in Sydney,
Australia. He had been treated for a kidney infection there and was
enroute to Japan. Some six weeks later he was in the Philippines where
he sent a classified and coded dispatch to Marine Corps Headquarters
inquiring about the extension of his leave. The response, sent "Top
Priority," was a single sentence: "Leave extension granted for period
six months."
In mid-August, the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokohama, Japan, was
asked to attend to a desperately ill American at the Grand Hotel. The
man was Ellis, again suffering from nephritis. He identified himself,
indicating he was a Marine officer touring the Orient on leave. Two
weeks later he was released, only to be admitted the following week
with the same acute condition. Believing him to be an alcoholic, Navy
medical authorities gave Ellis the choice of returning to the United
States by the next transport or by Mail Steamer to facilitate his recuperation.
Ellis chose the latter, wired his American bank for a
thousand dollars on October 4, received the money two days later, and
vanished that night from his hospital bed.
Nothing was heard about Ellis for six months. Then, on May 23, 1923,
the State Department received the following from the American Embassy
in Tokyo: "I am informed by the Governor General of Japanese
South Sea Islands that E. H. Ellis, representative of Hughes Trading
Company, #2 Rector Street, New York City, holder of Department
passport No. 4249, died at Korol', Caroline Islands on May 12th. Remains
and effects in possession of Japanese Government awaiting
instructions."
As a matter of standard procedure, the State Department
checked with the Hughes Trading Company. By a strange
coincidence, the company's president turned out to be a retired
Marine colonel. From him, State was surprised to learn that
E. H. Ellis was not a commercial traveller at all. He was, in
fact, a Marine Corps officer on an intelligence mission. At that
point, a lot of Washington telephones began ringing, followed
by a noticeable increase in Pacific cable traffic.122
121 P. N. Pierce. The Unsolved Mystery of Pete Ellis. MariM Corps Gazett,e,
v. 46, February, 1962: 36-37. This is the most complete account of the Ellis case
to date and the material which follows is taken from this story.
122 Ibid., p. 38.
122
In many regards, the phones are still ringing, in need of someone
to answer. Badgered by reporters, Lejeune reinforced his claim of innocence
regarding Ellis's activities by finally claiming that the officer
had been AWOL for some time; he apparently could not bring himself
to use the contents of the sealed envelope which Ellis had given
him-supposedly an undated letter of resignation, which the Commandant
burned.
From various piecemeal sources it would appear that Ellis was, indeed,
on an intelligence mission, surveying Japanese held islands in
the Pacific, probably with a view to gathering as much information to
support the Orange Plan suppositions regarding Japanese strategic
power as he could observe. It would also seem that Ellis did not have a
credible cover posing as a trader, had too much unaccounted for money
with him, and was given to drinking bouts during which he very likely
dropped his guard. In any event, the Japanese were aware of his real
identity and mission in their territory. Confirmation of his true purposes
for being in the Pacific has yet to be made through documentation
and records. And, of course, the manner of Ellis's death, the reason
for his remains being cremated, and the loss of his personal effects all
still remain a mystery.123
The Army and the Navy continued their less daring attache arrangements
during the period between the wars, though there was reluctance
on the part of the United States armed services to appoint air attaches
during most of these years.124 There were various tribulations which
intelligence operatives faced at this time due to the prevailing disarmament
fervor and the inability of defense leaders to appreciate the intelligence
product when it was available. Captain Ellis M. Zacharias
was a career Navy officer who went to Japan in 1920 to study the culture
and language of the country and to report on strategic developments
coming to his attention as wel1. 'Within the Office of Naval Intelligence,
however, the whole Far East Section
. . . occupied just one room, holding one officer and one
stenographer. ONI itself comprised a handful of officers and
a few yeomen, filing the occasional reports of naval attaches
about naval appropriations of the countries to which they
were attached, a few notes on vessels building or projected,
most of them clipped from local newspapers, and descriptions
of parties given in honor of some visiting American
celebrity. The last-named usually represented the most illuminating
and comprehensive of these so-called intelligence
reports.125
After three years and six months in Japan, Zacharias returned to
Washington filled \vith trepidation and information regarding the
plans and activities of imperialist Japan. However, his greeting at
ONI was not enthusiastic.
123 See Ibid., pp. 39-40.
12< Alfred Vagts. The Military Attache. Princeton, Princeton University Press,
1967, p. 67. This account surveys the growth and development of the military
attache system in international politics, tracing its evolution from the 17th
Century to the modern diplomatic period.
125 Ellis M. Zacharias. Secret Misswns: The Story 01 an Intelligence Officer.
New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1946, pp. 2()-21.
123
The director listE'ned to my report with gpntlC'manl,V boredom
and evident condescension and then snddenlv closed the discussion
"without any indication of a follow-{lp job for me. I
soon found out that no one had given it the slightest thonght.
lt was not in the routine. I had spent thr('e years studying a
forbidding language. penetrating the mind of a strange people,
gathering data of vital importancE', participating in secret
missions-and now it was my turn for sea duty. To put it
bluntly, I ,,'as to forget all extraneous matters and refit myself
into the general routine of a naval care('r. I went to the Far
East Section of Naval Intel1igence, but there. too, I found but
yawning indifference and complacency, regardless of the hostile
attitudes then displayed by the Japanese in their vitriolic
press. My reports were gratifyingly acknowledged but completely
overlooked. I was concerned and frustrated, a state of
mind which was hardly conducive to ingratiating myself to
my superiors, but I could not arouse them to the dangers of
the day.126
While in Japan, Zacharias and his col1eagues had also experienced
this indifference to intelligence operations and products in the limitation
of their resources and number.
The limited means at our disposal prevented us from observing
the Japanese in their administration of the mandated
islands. Neither did we have means or men to find out Japanese
intentions and aggressive plans beyond what we could
pick up in the open market of peacetime intel1igence. Captain
Watson was concerned about these mandated islands, where
the Japanese were reliably reported to be going about merrily
violating the mandate which prohibited their fortification.
The few reports which reached us from these Pacific islands
indicated feverish activities: merchantmen discharging material
obviously designed for the building of gun emplacements,
bunkers, and underground passages; naval vessels calling at
those islands and delivering heavy-caliber coast guns and
other equipment-all contraband according to the provisions
of the mandate. Although greatly concerned, 1Vatson could
not obtain permission to establish an effective cheek on these
activities or to ascertain the accuracy of the numerous reports
coming to his ears.127
Concern over the fortification of the mandated islands had also
apparently prompted the mission of Earl Ellis, whom Zacharias and
his colleagues scrutinized, but lost, in Yokohama.128 Ironically, when
the islands were seized during 1Vorld War II, "we discovered that it
was their weakness rather than strength that the Japanese were so
anxious to conceal." 129
Before his second tour of duty in Japan, Zacharias, in 1926, gained
acquaintence with the Navy's cryptanalytic organization.
UlO Ibid., pp. 71-72.
1.21 Ibid., PP. 40-41.
128 See Ibid., PP. 42-48.
"'" Ibid., p. 48.
'7r\_RQn 0 • 76 - 9
124
My days were spent in study and work among people with
whom security had become second nature. Hours went by
without any of us saying a word, just sitting in front of piles
of indexed sheets on which a mumbo jumbo of figures or
letters was displaced in chaotic disorder, trying to solve the
puzzle bit by bit like fitting together the pipces of a jigsaw
puzzle, vVe were just a few then in Room 2646, young people
who gave ourselves to cryptography with the "ame ascetic
devotion with which young men enter a monastery. It was
known to everyone that the se~recy of our 'work would prevent
the ordinary recognition accorded to other accomplishments.
It was then that I first learned that intelligpnce work, like
virtue, is its own reward.13o
Zacharias had a second tour of duty in .Japan, monitored and deciphered
Japanese Navy radio messages from a station in Shanghai,
headed the Far East Section of ONI at the time of the outbreak of war
in Europe, became the director of Naval Intelligence in 1942, saw combat
duty, was assigned to the Office of \Var Information at the time
of the Japanese surrender, and retired from active duty in 1946 as a
rear admiral. An author and lecturer on intelligence operations, he
died in 1961.
Military Intelligence also had its professional problems during this
period too, as was graphically demonstrated during the Bonus March.
In the summer of 1932, President Hoover faced one of the most
trying problems imaginable, the presence in the nation's capital
of thousands of needy veterans who were determined to
force the immediate payment of the soldiers' bonus. From
every part of the country, by almost every conceivable means
of transportation, veterans flocked to Washington to demand
that Congress relieve, by a flood of cash, the economic paralysis
which had settled over the United States. Reminiscent of
the followers of Coxey 40 years before, the veterans seized
trains in East St. Louis and Baltimore and took temporary
possession of the Pennsylvania Railroad yard at Cleveland.
Their presence in Washington was described as a "supreme
escape gesture." 131
Although the House passed a bill allocating the funds sought by
the marchers, the President let it be known he would not approve the
measure. The legislation failed in the Senate and Congress, shortly
thereafter, adjourned. Before leaving \Vashington, however, the Legislative
Branch, at the Chief Executive's urging, provided $100,000 to
transport the veterans home. Still they came to the capital and tracing
their advance was Military Intelligence which had sent the following
request, in secret code, to all Corps Area commanders: "With reference
to any movement of veteran bonus marchers to Washington originating
or passing through your corps area, it is desired that a brief
radio report in secret code be made to War Department indicating
presence, if any, of communistic elements and names of leaders of
known communistic leanings."
130 Ibid., p. 89.
131 Bennett ~Iilton Rich. The Presidents and Civil Disordm'. Washington, The
Brookings Institution, 1941, pp. 167-168.
125
Most of the replies to this were reasonably sane, if not too
astute, Ninth Corps Area for example, could not discover
when the Oregon contingent left Portland, a fact that was
reported in the local newspapers. It did correctly evaluate the
political complexion of Royal W. Robertson's Californians,
pointing out not only the absence of Communist activity, but
also that its leader was "firm in stand that [Communists] will
not be tolerated." In neighboring Eighth Corps, however, an
almost undiluted paranoia prevailed. The intelligence reports
emanating from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, are simply incredible,
and lend verisimilitude to at least the last proviso of
the army legend that the brainy go to the engineers, the brave
to the infantry, the deaf to the artillery, and the stupin to
intelligence. In any event, the Texas-based intelligence
experts convinced themselves that the Californians were dangerous
Communists (with a leader named Royal P. Robinson)
and that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was financing the whole
movement. In case Washington didn't know what it was,
Colonel James Totten told them:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture Corporation is known to
be 100 per cent Jewish as to controlling personnel, and
that high officers of this company are in politics. An unconfirmed
rumor circulated many months ago, stated that
agents of U.S.S.R. had contacted motion picture mmpanies
in California, and contributed to some of them
with a view to inserting propaganda and support of
U.S.S.R. policies.
Other reports spoke of machine guns in the hands of bonus
marchers, forged discharges available for fifty cents from
"any pawn broker in Chicago" (this from an officer in Philadelphia),
while another report, early in July, claimed that
[Bonus Army leader Walter W.] Waters had the "assistance
of gunmen from New York and Washington ... [and] that
the first blood shed by the Bonus Army in Washington is to
be the signal for a communist uprising in all large cities." 132
Of course, there was blood shed in Washington that summer, but
not necessarily due to the ineptitude of Military Intelligence. The
communist uprising? Some marchers took advantage of the congressional
funds made available for their return home. But it was estimated
that some 11,000 persons located at 24 separate camps in the
capital remained behind. As a result of disturbances in and around
Federal buildings undergoing demolition and a brief riot which followed
one eviction scene where one veteran was killed at the scene
and another fatally wounded, Federal troops, requested by the District
of Columbia government, were brought into the city. A tank
platoon and a cavalry squadron, together with an infantry battalion,
were called into action. About 500 troops were located in the District
with another 1,000 held in reserve at nearby military installations.
132 Roger Daniels. The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression. Westport,
Connecticut. Greenwood Publishing" Company, 1971, pp. 159-160; also see
Donald J. Lisio. The President and Protest: Hoover, C01lspiracy, and the Bonus
Riot. Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1974, pp. 87-109.
126
C?n the afternoon of July 28, these forces, under the command of
General Douglas MacArthur, advanced on the Pennsylvania Avenue
encampment of the veterans.
The cava~ry led the way, followed by tanks, machine gunners,
and mfantry, all headed toward the "fort" of the B.E.F.
[B?nus Expeditionary Force], a skeletonized building at
ThIrd Street. After a half hour's wait the troops donned gas
masks and in a few minutes of tear gas bombing completely
clear:ed the "f~rt.". The troops were deployed in such a
faslllon as to drlYe the ~larchers away from the business area
and toward the encampment at Anacostia. This was accomplished
without the troops firing a shot although, apparently,
there was a considerable display of swinging cavalry sabres
and prodding bayonets.m
After a brier halt at the edge of the Anacostia encampment or the
veterans, the troops moved into the shacktown and, throughout the
night, completed its destruction. 'Without any shelter, penniless, and
unwanted, the veterans fled the District, reportedly "aghast at the
failure of their confident prediction that no soldier would move into
action against them." 134
There were, or course, higher plateaus or Army intelligence during
this time, the pinnacles being held by William F. Friedman and his
Signal Corps colleagues who broke the intricate and sophisticated
.Japanese cipher known to Americans as the "purple" code. Born in
Russia in 1891, Friedman emigrated to the United States with his
parents the following year. He matriculated as one of ten honor students
in a class of 300 at Pittsburgh Central High School in 1909 and
received an undergraduate degree in genetics from Cornell University
in 1914. Through an interest in the authorship of the plays or
William Shakespeare and related literary questions, Friedman became
a skilled cryptologist. During 1917 and 1918 he taught cryptanalysis
to Army officers and produced some writing on the subject.
In 1921 Friedman and his ",ife, also a skilled cryptologist, entered
into a six-month contract with the Signal Corps and continued the
relationship as civil servants on the War Department payroll until
1922 when he became Chief Cryptanalyst and head of the Code and
Cipher Compilation Section, Research and Development Division,
Office of the Chief Signal Officer.
Meanwhile, the Army had been studying its divided cryptologic
operation and, shortly berore the State Department
withdrew support ror Yardley's bureau, had decided to integrate
both cryptographic and cryptanalytic runctions in
the Signal Corps. The closing or the Black Chamber eased
the transition, and on May 10, 1929. cryptologic responsibility
devolved upon the Chief Signal Officer. To better meet these
new responsibilities, the Signal Corps established a Signal
Intelligence Service in its 'Yar Plans and Training Division,
with Friedman as director. Its officially stated mission was
to prepare the Army's codes and ciphers, to intercept and
133 Rich, op. cit., p. 172.
,.... New York Times, July 29,1932: 1.
127
solvc enemy communications in war, and in peace to do the
training and research-a vague enough term-necessary to
become immediately operational at the outbreak of war. To
carry out the~e dut!es, Friedman hired thrre junior cryptanalysts,
all m theIr early twenties. at $2,000 a year-the
first of the second generation of American cryptologists. They
were Frank Rowlett, a Virginian, and Solomon Kullback and
Abraham Sinkov. close friends who had taught together in
New York City high schools before coming to Washington
and who both received their Ph. D.'s in mathematics a few
years later. It was the beginning of an expansion that led to
the PURPLE solution. the triumphs of World 'War II, and
the massive cryptologic organization of today. At his death
on November 2, 1969, he was widely regarded as the greatest
cryptologist that science had ever seen.135
The breaking of the complicated "purple" code was part of a continous
effort by the Army and Navy to decipher and monitor Japanese
communications. Largely under the immediate leadership of
Friedman since its creation sometime in 1936, the project had been
dubbed MAGIC.
The cipher machine that Americans knew as PURPLE
bore the resounding official .Japanese title of 97-shiki a-bun
In-ji-ki. This meant Alphabetical Typewriter '97, the '97 an
abbreviation for the year 2597 of the Japanese calendar, which
corresponds to 1937. The Japanese usually referred to it simply
as "the machine" or as "J," the name given it by the
Imperial Japanese Navy, which had adapted it from the
German Enigma cipher machine and then had lent it to the
Foreign Ministry, which, in turn, had further modified it.
Its operating parts were housed in a drawer-sized box between
two big black electrically operated Underwood typewriters,
which were connected to it by 26 wires plugged into a
row of sockets called a plugboard. To encipher a message, the
cipher clerk would consult the YU GO book of machine keys,
plug in the wire connections according to the key for the day,
turn the four disks in the box so the numbers on their edges
were those directed by the YU GO, and type out the plaintext.
His machine would record the plaintext while the other,
getting the electrical impulses after the coding box had
twisted them through devious paths, would print out the ciphertext.
Deciphering was the same, though the machine irritatingly
printed the plaintext in the five-letter groups of
the ciphertext input.
The Alphabetical Typewriter worked on roman letters, not
kata kana. Hence it could encipher English as well as 1'0maji-
and also roman-letter codetexts.... Since the machine
could not encipher numerals or punctuation, the code clerk
first transformed them into three-letter codewords, given in a
small code list, and enciphered these. The receiving clerk
136 Kahn, op. oit., pp. 191-192.
128
would restore the punctuation, paragraphing, and so on, when
typing up a finished copy of the decode.
The coding wheels and plugboards produced a cipher of
great difficulty. The more a cipher deviates from the simple
form in ~\Yhich one ciphertext letter invariably replaces the
same plaintext letter, the harder it is to break. A cipher might
replace a given plaintext letter by five different ciphertext
letters in rotation, for example. But the Alphabetical Typewriter
produced a substitution series hundreds of thousands
of letters long. Its coding wheels, stepping a space-or two,
or three, Or four-after every letter or so, did not return to
their original positions to re-create the same series of paths,
and hence the same sequence of substitutes, until hundreds
of thousands of letters had been enciphered. The task of the
cryptanalysts consisted primarily of reconstructing the wiring
and switches of the coding wheels-a task made more
burdensome by the daily change of plugboard connections.
Once this ,vas done, the cryptanalyst still had to determine
the starting position at the coding wheels for each day's
messages. But this was a comparatinly simple secondary
job.136
The first complete solution of a "purple" communique was made in
August, 1940.137 By the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, decoded
Japanese messages were circulating at the highest levels of the Federal
government. Though this decipherment advantage was not sufficient,
in itself, to prevent the surprise bombing of Hawaii and simultaneous
aggression against American Pacific outposts, the ability
to decode .Japanese communications served military and naval strategists
well during the war.
But there was another war, of sorts, fought within the United States
prior to the outbreak of hostilities once again in Europe and also in
Asia. This was the war against organized crime. A variety of law
enforcement agencies were involved in the Federal government's attack
upon the lawless and various intelligence developments occurred
during this effort.
With the arriveI of Harlan F. Stone at the Justice Department as
the new Attorney General in March, 1924, the General Intelligence
Division of the Bureau of Investigation began to be phased out of
existence. But the interests of G.LD. did not fail to continue to receive
attention upon its demise if only because the unit's leader, J. Edgar
Hoover, ultimately became, on December 10, 1924, the head of the
entire Bureau. Other intelligence resources which were developed at
this time included special capabilities with regard to the identification
of kidnappers and their victims and a fingerprint data bank.
On July 1, 1936 the Bureau had on file 6,094,916 fingerprint
records, consisting of 5,571,995 criminal records and 522,921
personal identification, Civil Service, and miscellaneous
non-criminal records. On that date, 9,904 law-enforcement
officials and agencies throughout the United States and foreign
countries were contributing 4,700 fingerprint cards daily.
136 Ibid., pp. 21-22.
137 Ibid., p. 25.
129
Six months later, that is, on December 31, 1936, the number
of fingerprint records had increased to 6,682,609; and the
number of contributing agencies, to 10,229.138
Not only did this elementary intelligence information prove useful
in the necessity of establishing a basic positive identification of certain
individuals, but it also provided a basis for information exchange
between the Bureau and sub-national law enforcement agencies as well
as a relationship bebyeen the Bureau and international or foreign
law enforcement units.
The Bureau also established a technical laboratory during the latter
part of 1932. While the facility is largely concerned with the application
of scientific techniques to criminal evidence, certain aspects of its
program might be viewed as having a potential for contributing to an
intelligence product.139
Increased responsibilities with regard to taxation, narcotics control,
and National Prohibition during this period brought about various
intelligence function developments within the units of the Treasury
Department.
Most of the other federal crime-control agencies are in the
habit of filing identification material on a comparatively
small scale. The Secret Service maintains an identification file
of single fingerprints of all known makers of counterfeit
money and their associates arrested since 1928. The names of
these offenders and their aliases are arranged alphabetically
for convenient reference. The Service also maintains an identification
file of regular fingerprints of persons arrested and
convicted for counterfeiting, which also contains the photographs
and previous criminal records of such offenders. The
Enforcement Division of the Alcohol Tax Unit operates an
elaborate filing and cross-reference system for identification
and dassification purposes. An identification file is maintained
in the Bureau of Narcotics. Included are the fingerprints,
photographs, and criminal records of persons arrested
for violation of the federal narcotics laws. The field offices of
the Customs Agency Service, including the Customs Patrol,
maintain identification files of individuals and also indexes
of various known smuggling vessels.140
With regard to its special mission of protecting the President, the
Secret Service continued, during this time, to "exercise, in general, a
tactful but effective surveillance over all those who come into contact
with the Chief Executive." 141
The United States Coast Guard, created (38 Stat. 800) in 1915 by
combining the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service,
had a single intelligence officer attached to the Commandant's staff
until prohibition era duties prompted the creation of intelligence units
within field offices. The first such intelligence group was established in
138 Arthur C. Millspaugh. Crime Control By The National Government. Washington,
The Brookings Institution, 1937, p. 90; also see Whitehead, op. cit., pp.
154-166.
131> See Millspaugh, op. cit., pp. 94-96; Whitehead, op. cit., pp. 166-178.
UQ Millspaugh, op. cit., pp. 92-93.
1U Ibid., p. 116.
130
the New York office in 1930 with San Francisco, Mobile, and Boston
being favored ,,,ith intelligence personnel during the next four years.
In 1936 the Coast Guard not only obtained (48 Stat. 1820) general
criminal law-enforcement powers, but also created an Intelligence
Division at its 'Washington headquarters.l42
The purpose of these special intelligence field units was largely to
monitor radio communications between ships hoyering outside the 12mile
limit laden with illegal liquor and distilled spirits and their landbased
accomplices.
The operation was directed from clandestine shore radio
stations, but since the smugglers were aware that the radio
messages could be intercepted, they communicated the time
'and place of rendezvous between speedboats and supply
vessels by way of complex codes. Obviously, if the Coast
Guard could break the ever-changing codes ina hurry, it
could catch up with the liquor-laden speedboats much more
effectively than through a blind search of the coast line.
By the spring of 1927, an enormous number of code
messages had accnmulated on the desk of the one-man intelligence
office at Coast Guard headquarters. The secret communications
had been intercepted on both the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts and the volume was increasing daily. At that
point,an expert cryptanalyst, Mrs. Elizabeth SmIth Friedman,
was brought into the Coast Guard to solve the hundreds
of messages on file. Within two months, she had reduced the
mass of coded messages from unknown to known. It was then
that the Coast Guard decided to launch an intelligence service
based on fast translation of whatever secret messages fell into
its hands.143
The Coast Guard's expert was the wife of William F. Friedman,
the man who directed the MAGIC task force destined to break the
Japanese "purple" code. As a consequence of her efforts, the Coast
Guard, prior to World War II, maintained an intelligence staff of
investigators 'and cryptanalysts which did not exceed 40 individuals
during the 1930s.144
And within the Bureau of Internal Revenue there was the Intelligence
Unit which one contemporary account described, saying:
The Intelligence Unit is located in the immediate office of
the Commissioner of Internal Revenne. At the end of 1936 the
Unit consisted of thrpe divisions: (l) the Perponnel. Enrollment,
and Records Divisions; (2) the Fraud Division; and
(3) the Field Districts. The district were fifteen in number;
and the field force on June 30, 1936 numbered 196 men.
In addition to the investigl1tion of violations of internal
revenue laws, the Intelligence Unit is concerned with serious
infractions of disciplinary rules or regulations on the part of
officials and employees of the Bureau of Internal Revenue;
and, when directed by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Unit
investigates alleged irregularities by officials and employees
]c. See Ottenberg, op. cit., pp. 136-137.
'" Ibid., p. 136.
". Ibid.• p. 137.
131
of other branches of the Treasury Department, In addition,
a large part of the "'ork of the l- nit relates to investigations
of applicants for positions in the Bureau and in certain other
branches of the Department, To the Unit is also assigned the
investigation of applicants for admission to practice before
the Treasury Department as attorneys and agents, and the investigation
of charges against enrolled attorneys and
agcnts.145
These were the intelligence forces engaged in warfare against organized
crime, racketeers, and gangsterism. But a larger scale and
far more ominous warfare was in the offering as the 1930s spent themselves
and international politics witnessed the arrival of totalitarianism
in Europe and Asia. Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in
1933 and in six years led that nation in rearmament, a fanatic belief
in racial supremacy, dictatorial government, and a territorial expansion
which included portions of Czechoslovakia, all of Austria, and
threatened the Polish corridor and the Saar region. Japan, in the
meantime, had colonized Manchuria (renamed Manchukuo) and
Korea and continued to pressure the Chine.-'ie for more territory as
troops spilled southward toward the Nanyang peninsula. While these
developments occurred, the United States espoused and continued to
maintain an official policy of strict neutrality with regard to diplomatic
entanglement and 'brewing overseas hostilities. However, this
position of international neutrality did not mean that the United
States would not prepare for its own defense or fail to take steps to
maintain its own domestic well-being during the period of crisis. If
conscientious intelligence personnel were not alerted to the gravity
of the world situation prior to the outbreak of war in Europe, then
they soon became so informed when, one week later, on September 8,
1939, President Roosevelt declared (54 Stat. 2643) a condition of
"limited" national emergency, thereby making certain extraordinary
powers available to the Chief Executive and "limited" only in the
sense that neither the defense of the country nor its internal economy
would be placed upon a war footing,146 It was a time of watching and
waiting.
1.. Millspaugh, op. cit., pp. 205-206.
,.. Such a proclamation had apparently been contemplated in late 1937 at the
time Japanese aircraft bombed the American gunboat Panay on the Yangtze
River in China. The desire was to seize Japanese assets and investments in the
United States and to extract payment for damages. The idea for a national
emergency proclamation on the matter was outlines by Herman Oliphant, a
Treasury Department legal expert and close personal assistant to Treasury
Secretary Henry Morgenthau who was also involved in developing the plan.
Although a memorandum on the scheme reached President Roosevelt's desk, he
did not implement it and there is no evidence to indicate it was consulted on the
occasion of preparing the 1939 proclamation. Oliphant died in January, 1939.
See John Morton Blum. Roosevelt wnd Morgenthau. Boston, Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1970, pp. 225-230.
For a list of statutory powers granted under a proclamation of national
l"mergency at this time see Frank Murphy. Executive Powers Under National
ErnergetUJy. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1939. (76th Congress, 2d session.
Senate. Document No. 133) : on the evolution and use of emergency powers generally,
see U.S. Congress. Senate. Special Committee on National Emergencies
and Delegated Emergency Powers. A Brief History of Emergency Powers in the
United States by Harold C. Relyea. Committee print, 93rd Congress, 2d session.
Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1974.

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