SECOND SESSION: INTELLIGENCE IN THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000201000004-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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SECOND SESSION
Intelligence In the War of Independence
Intelligence tradition in America has its roots with the people, with the many local
organizations established to thwart and spy on the British. In Boston, for example, a group
known as the "Mechanics" provided thorough coverage of British intentions and one of them,
Paul Revere, made his famous "early warning" ride as a result of some of that intelligence.
There were committees of correspondence to network colonial efforts to resist the British;
there were committees of observation, inspection, intelligence to spy on them. There were
committees to detect conspiracies and "intestine enemies."
The Continental Congress, working at the time without a formal intelligence structure,
orchestrated the Bermuda Gunpowder Plot, a smash-and-grab operation to capture gunpowder
stores in Bermuda. The only problem was they failed to notify General Washington, who also
had his eyes on the gunpowder there. When the ship sent by Washington arrived, the
gunpowder was already gone and his men ran into a British hornet's nest. This failure in
intelligence coordination was not lost on either the Congress or the angry General Washington.
Foreign Intelligence
From the founding of our nation, the conduct of foreign intelligence has been a function of
the executive power, more familiarly the President and Commander-in-Chief. But, before the
ratification of the Constitution and the creation of the presidency, the executive power was
embodied in the Congress as a whole.
It was the Continental Congress, exercising the executive function, that delegated the
authority for foreign intelligence activities to subordinate committees, just as it was the
Congress that invested George Washington, as its military Commander-in-Chief, with the
authority to conduct intelligence within his sphere of operations. Thus, it is from the Congress
that stem many of the traditions and precedents of the American intelligence service.
The nation's first foreign intelligence efforts were conducted by one such subordinate body
of the Congress. Covert procurement was conducted by another. These bodies were the first to
wrestle with the problems of confidentiality and secrecy.
The first of these, the Secret Committee, was created by resolution of the Congress on
September 18, 1775, for the procurement of arms and ammunition. The committee was given
wide powers and large sums of money for the covert procurement effort, and was charged with
the distribution of military supplies and the sale of gunpowder to privateers. It kept its
transactions secret, and even destroyed many of its records to assure the confidentiality of its
work.
The Congress, mindful of the broad authority it had surrendered to the Secret Committee,
appointed some of its most influential and responsible members to it. Thomas Willing,
Benjamin Franklin, Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Silas Deane, John Dickinson, John Langdon,
Thomas McKean and Samuel Ward were appointed initially. Shortly, Robert Morris was
appointed to replace his business partner, Willing. Subsequent assignments to the Secret
Committee reflected the same type of individual - respected, practical men with experience in
foreign trade and banking. Later this would cause charges, some perhaps with foundation (and
decidedly true with Silas Deane) that the members of the Committee had enriched themselves
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in the clandestine procurement operation. But, the Congress cannot be faulted for its selection.
Three of the men would be signatories of the Declaration of Independence, five would be
members of the Constitutional Convention, two would become governors of their states, two
would serve abroad as US ministers, one proposed George Washington for Commander-in-
Chief, one would have the honor of administering the oath of office to the first president of the
United States, and one would serve as the first President Pro Tempore of the US Senate.
The establishment of the Committee also served the important role of regularizing prior
secret contracts for arms and gunpowder negotiated by Robert Morris and Silas Deane without
the formal sanction of Congress. It also afforded the air of legitimacy to the Bermuda
Gunpowder Plot of the preceeding month, hatched by Franklin and Morris.
The Committee, ordinarily meeting during the evening, maintained close relationship with
the Board of War and the Committee of Secret Correspondence. They exported goods in
exchange for arms, ammunition and the other necessities of war. They employed secret agents,
sometimes in tandem with the Committee of Secret Correspondence, abroad as well as within
the colonies.
The Committee gathered intelligence about secret Tory ammunition stores and arranged to
seize them. It borrowed and lent arms and ammunition in transactions with the several
colonies. It made purchases through intermediaries, "fronts," to mask the United
Colonies/States as the true purchaser. It arranged, with and without the permission of the host
country involved, for American supply ships to fly foreign flags to protect themselves from the
British fleet. One particularly important agent of the Secret Committee worked closely with the
Spanish governors of Louisiana, who readily gave money to the Americans from their secret
service funds and were not hesitant to authorize the use of the Spanish flag. (In one critical
operation, supply ships to relieve Forts Pitt and Wheeling sailed up the Mississippi under silent
British guns because the ships flew the Spanish flag.)
Later, once the need for clandestinity lessened, the Committee was renamed the
Committee of Commerce/Commercial Committee.
Committee of Secret Correspondence
To meet its need for foreign intelligence and secret diplomacy, the Second Continental
Congress, by resolution of November 23, 1775, created the Committee of Secret
Correspondence:
"RESOLVED, That a committee of five be appointed for the sole purpose of
corresponding with our friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world, and that
they lay their correspondence before Congress when directed.
"RESOLVED, That this Congress will make provision to defray all such expenses as they
may arise by carrying on such correspondence, and for the payment of such agents as the said
Committee may send on this service."
Thus was created America's first foreign intelligence directorate.
Elected to this important body of the Congress were:
John Dickinson of Delaware, later to be President of the Supreme Councils of both
Philadelphia and Delaware and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
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Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, later to be a member of the committee to draft the
Declaration of Independence, of which he was a signatory, first US Minister to France and a
member of the Constitutional Convention.
Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, father and grandfather of future Presidents, a signatory of
both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, a member of the
Virginia Convention to ratify the US Constitution and the Governor of Virginia.
John Jay of New York, later to become President of the Continental Congress, US Minister
to Spain, Acting Secretary of State until the appointment of the first Secretary, Chief Justice of
the US Supreme Court and Governor of New York.
Thomas Johnson of Maryland, who though appointed would be unable to serve, and would
be replaced by Robert Morris. Later Morris would be a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, a member of the US Constitutional Convention and a member of the US
Senate.
With the appointment of Morris, in January 1776, three of the five members of the
Committee of Secret Correspondence were at the same time members of the Secret
Committee. (In October 1776, Richard Henry Lee, John Witherspoon and William Hooper
were added to the Committee. Besides other distinguished service to their nation, the three
new members of the Committee were all signers of the Declaration of Independence, as were
three later appointees: William Whipple, Thomas Heyward and Philip Livingston. William
Churchill Houston, another subsequent member of the Committee, would a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention.)
The realities of the intelligence profession were not be lost on one man who served on the
Committee during the Revolutionary War period and, in fact, provided its only continuity and
served as its last chairman. He was James Lovell, a teacher by profession, who was arrested by
the British after the Battle of Bunker Hill on charges of spying. (He had served as an agent of
the Committee of Safety before the battle, and incriminating documents had been found by the
British on the body of Joseph Warren, the chairman of that committee, who was slain in the
battle.) Lovell was taken as a prisoner to Canada where he remained until exchanged in 1776.
After his release, he was elected to Congress.
The remaining member of the Committee during the War of Independence was Robert
Livingston, who in 1781 would be elected the first Secretary of the Department of Foreign
Affairs, forerunner of the US Department of State.
To implement its foreign intelligence charter, the Committee turned to Americans and
friends of America abroad. On November 30, 1775, the day after its founding, the Committee
appointed Dr. Arthur Lee as its first secret agent abroad. Dr. Lee, the colonial agent for both
Virginia and Massachusetts in London, had already been providing Congress with intelligence,
and was an obvious choice.
In a letter from the Committee of the same day, Lee was notified of his appointment and
was advised: "An intercourse should be kept up, for it is considered of the utmost consequence
to the cause of Liberty that the Committee be kept informed of developments in Europe." Lee
was told that he should forward any information concerning European affairs he might think
useful to the Congress.
The following day, the Committee of Secret Correspondence was assigned yet another task.
By resolution of that date, the Congress instructed the Committee "to use all of their endeavors
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to find out and engage in the service of the united colonies skilful engineers not exceeding four,
on the best terms they can and that the said Committee be authorized to assure such able and
skilful engineers as will engage in this service, that they will receive such pay and appointments
as shall be equal to what they received in former service." The charter was now expanded to
recruit foreign engineers, and before long the responsibility would include arranging for foreign
military advisors as well.
It took the Congress almost two weeks after the founding of the Committee of Secret
Correspondence to appropriate funds for its operations. But, on December 11, 1775, the
Congress resolved that $3,000 be drawn on the treasurer in favor of the Committee. Absent
from the resolution was the usual phrase "and they be accountable."
The following day, the Committee forwarded two hundred pounds to Arthur Lee for his use
in finding out the "disposition of foreign powers towards us," adding, "We need not hint that
great circumspection and impenetrable security are necessary." Lee was told the Congress
relied on his "zeal and ability," and assured him it was ready to compensate him for
"whatever trouble and expence compliance with their desire may occasion." He was told that if
he found' it necessary to send dispatches by express boat, the Congress had agreed to honor any
agreement he might make with the ship's captain. "We can only add that we continue firm in
our resolution to defend ourselves, notwithstanding the big threats of the [British] Ministry."
The Committee had already settled on a second agent abroad by the time it addressed this
second letter to Lee, for in it was instruction to correspond with C.W.F. Dumas at The Hague,
through a letter drop, the address of a Rotterdam merchant.
A week later, on December 13, 1775, the Committee addressed its formal letter of
appointment to Charles W.F. Dumas, a Swiss journalist at The Hague who was known to be
"without question" devoted to the American cause. He was asked in the letter, written by his
old friend and correspondent Benjamin Franklin, to serve in a "confidential and informal
capacity" and was instructed to respond through a mail drop of Robert and Cornelius Stephens
of Statia [St. Eustatia] Island. The letter also told Dumas that Thomas Story, the courier of the
letter, would brief him on the modus operandi to be employed in the operation. Dumas
accepted the assignment, and for the sum of 200 Louis d'ors a year, he carried on a voluminous
correspondence with the Committee at home and with other American agents on the Continent
and in England. For most of his communications, Dumas created a unique cipher, "pronounced
almost unbreakable by cryptographers," which would not be the case with Lee's letters. (We
now know that the latter were intercepted and deciphered regularly by the British.)
That same month, December 1775, Thomas Story departed for France, Holland and
England, in service to the Committee of Secret Correspondence. He carried both dispatches
and verbal instructions to be communicated to the agents. Throughout his service to the
Committee he was under instruction to destroy his pouches if threatened with capture.
The third secret agent to be employed by the Committee, based on the insistence of Dr.
Franklin, was Dr. Edward Bancroft, an American then residing in London. Unfortunately, it
was not until some ninety years after his death that it was determined that Bancroft was also a
principal agent of the British Secret Service.
There were, of course, others - both famous and infamous - who ultimately became agents
of the Committee, but these were the first.
During its first month of operation, the Committee met clandestinely with a French agent
who had arrived in Philadelphia under the cover of being a Flemish merchant. Through him,
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word was sent to France of the need for engineers, and from him the Committee received
veiled encouragement for the dispatch of secret representatives to France.
On January 26, less than two months after its creation, the Committee returned to the
Congress for more funds. The Congress resolved that the treasurers draw $7,000 in favor of the
Committee.
In February, 1776, the Committee became involved in its first covert action, the plan to
acquire Canada as a 14th colony. It met with a French-Canadian, already an American agent,
who reported that the clergy and gentry of Canada might be brought over to the American
cause, and "would be follow'd by all of Canada." On the basis of these findings of the
Committee of Secret Correspondence, the Congress moved immediately, resolving that a
committee of three, two of them members of Congress, proceed to Canada "there to pursue
such instructions as shall be given them by Congress." Named that day to the Canadian team
were Dr. Franklin (who spoke French), Samuel Chase (to explain that the Congress really was
not as anti-Catholic as its actions appeared) and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a leading
Maryland Catholic (to argue the point.)
That was not all. The Congress further resolved secretly that Charles Carroll "be requested
to prevail on Mr. John Carroll to accompany the committee to Canada to assist them in such
matters as they think useful." Although addressing John Carroll as "Mr.," it was not lost on the
Congress that Father John Carroll, S.J. (later to become the first Catholic bishop of the United
States and the founder of Georgetown University) would be invaluable in dealing with the
French Catholic audience in Canada. With the mention of his name, it became dear why the
resolution specifically provided for non-congressional representation on the team.
For over a month, the Congress drafted, discussed and amended the instructions to be
issued to the delegation. At mid-point in their review, February 26, 1776, in obvious support of
the covert action mission to Canada, the Congress, in a secret resolution, authorized that
"Monsr. Mesplat, Printer, be engaged to go to Canada and there set up his press and carry on
the printing business, and the Congress engage to defray the expenses of transporting him, his
family and printing utensils to Canada, and will moreover pay him the sum of 200 dollars."
In sum, the final instructions would have the team urge the Canadians to set up a
government separate from the Crown and to assure them "... it is our earnest desire to adopt
them into our union, as a sister colony." They were also to instruct the Canadians in the
procedures for establishing committees of observation and inspection and committees of safety,
the colonists' way of gaining intelligence on the British, rooting out British sympathizers and
forming militia. Fluery Mesplat, the printer, was "to establish a free press ... for the frequent
publication of such pieces as may be of service to the cause of the United Colonies." And,
should the Canadian venture go awry, the Congress authorized the team "to receive into our
pay all those who have adhered to us, and shall wish to leave the country, and to render every
assistance in their power to such of them as cannot be provided for in that way ...
The Congress knew that the operation would be costly. On May 16, for example, when the
Secret Committee reported that one of its ships had arrived with "a quantity of cash," the
Congress directed that the money be sent to the mission in Canada "with all convenient
despatch." That same month the Congress resolved that an agent or agents be appointed to
procure $100,000 "hard money" and transmit it to Dr. Franklin and the others.
But then things fell apart. First, the finding of the Committee of Secret Correspondence had
been based on inadequate intelligence - there was no widespread sympathy in Canada to align
with the Americans. Second, the Catholic bishop of Quebec threatened to excommunicate
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anyone meeting or assisting Father Carroll. Third, the team found the American military forces
had abused the Canadians, had given worthless receipts for property and goods they had seized
and had alienated Canadians who previously had been our friends. After only two weeks, Dr.
Franklin and Father Carroll began the long journey home.
(The covert action printer, Mesplat, was picked up by the British and questioned, but
released for lack of evidence. He established the first French-language press in Canada and
Quebec's first newspapers, one of which, the Montreal Gazette, is still published today. It is
probably this nation's longest-running covert action operation, but I suspect that somewhere
along the way we lost control of it.)
In May 1776, the Committee of Secret Correspondence met its first test of protection of
sources and methods. Although the Committee was a creature of and subordinate to the
Congress, it was placed in the position of insisting on the secrecy and confidentiality of its
operations from the Congress as a whole. The Committee members recognized that the more
widely a secret is held, the more poorly it is kept. The Committee's reluctance to disseminate
such sensitive information to the Congress as a whole is all the more noteworthy in the light of
the strict injunction of secrecy under which the Congress operated.
On November 9, 1775, less than three weeks before the Congress had created the
Committee, the Congress resolved:
"That every member of this Congress considers himself under the ties of virtue, honour, and
the love of his country, not to divulge, directly or indirectly, any manner or thing agitated or
debated in Congress, before the same shall have been determined, without the leave of the
Congress; nor any matter or thing determined in Congress, which a majority of the Congress
shall order to be kept secret. And that if any member shall violate this agreement, he shall be
expelled this Congress, and deemed an enemy of the liberties of America, and liable to be
treated as such; and that every member signify his consent to this agreement by signing the
same."
[The resolution passed unanimously, but in the milling about attending the signing one
member failed to sign; More of this later. Actually, in retrospect, the loyalties of all but two of
those elected to Congress were admirably sound, only one member of the First Continental
Congress, John Zubly of Georgia, has been identified as a British agent, and only one member
of the Second Continental Congress, John Sullivan of New Hampshire, is known to have been
on the payroll, not of the British, but of the French. (He sold the minutes of secret sessions of
the Congress from which the French Minister was excluded, that is, the transactions recorded
in the Secret Journals.)]
Yet, despite this strong pledge by the members of the Continental Congress, the Committee
held to the need for secrecy. When it was called on by resolution of May 10, 1776, to "lay their
proceedings before Congress," the Congress as a whole authorized "withholding the names of
the persons they have employed, or with whom they have corresponded." And, even then, the
Committee's report was handled securely. The Secret Journals of Congress reflect that on May
20, 1776, "The proceedings of the Committee of Secret Correspondence which were laid before
Congress, were this day read under the injunction of secresy."
The effectiveness of the Committee's security is measured in this letter written by John
Adams to Samuel Chase only two months later, July 1776, and months after the Committee had
recruited its initial agents abroad and had dispatched one to France: "Your suggestion last fall
to send Ambassadors to France with conditional instructions, was murdered; ending in a
Committee of Secret Correspondence that came to nothing."
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There is one recorded instance, too, where the Committee refused to share intelligence with
the Congress. Thomas Story, its courier, had returned to Philadelphia with a report from Dr.
Arthur Lee. Lee, as a result of his meetings with the French agent Beaumarchais, reported
favorably on the prospects of secret French aid. Franklin and Morris agreed: "Considering the
nature and importance of it, we agree in opinion, that it is our indispensable duty to keep it a
secret even from Congress ... We find, by fatal experience, the Congress consists of too many
members to keep secrets."
(Yet, it leaked. A week later, Richard Henry Lee, a member of both the Committee of
Secret Correspondence and the Secret Committee, returned to Philadelphia and was briefed on
the good news from his older brother. He subscribed in writing to the Franklin-Morris decision.
A few weeks later, Morris received a letter from John Jay, then chasing down British spies and
sympathizers. Jay passed on word that he had heard the good news from a friend of Richard
Henry Lee, and expressed the wish that "the Secret Committee would communicate no other
intelligence to the Congress at large than what may be necessary to promote the common weal,
not gratify the curiosity of individuals." Recall that I mentioned that one member of the
Continental Congress, unbeknownst to the others, had failed to sign the secrecy oath; it was the
glib Richard Henry Lee.)
As I noted earlier, there was an interlocking membership of the Secret Committee and the
Committee of Secret Correspondence. This is particularly evident in a secret resolution of June
6, 1776, in which the Secret Committee was instructed to fit out two fast sailing ships loaded
with provisions for Bermuda, and the Committee of Secret Correspondence was directed "to
take such measures as they may think proper of those vessels, to discover the state of those
islands and the disposition of their inhabitants . . ." The primary mission of the venture, to
collect intelligence, is confirmed by a subsequent action of the Congress. On July 9th, it voted
to entrust the Committee of Secret Correspondence with $10,000 for the purchase of two
vessels, "they to be accountable." Thus, the intelligence directorate was given its own "navy,"
distinct from the vessels of the American Navy controlled by the Marine Committee, and the
secret trading ships operated by the Secret Committee. Later, in September 1776, in support of
the. operation in France, Congress directed the Marine Committee to deliver over to the
Committee of Secret Correspondence two Continental cruisers "to perform such voyages as
they shall think necessary for the service of the states." Later, the mission in France contracted
for fast merchant ships to convey its dispatches and operated privateers to harass the enemy.
(John Paul Jones, for example, commanded a French ship with a predominantly French crew,
under the direction of the ship's namesake, Dr. Benjamin Franklin - not the US Navy.)
In September 1776, the Congress elected Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane and Thomas Jefferson
to serve as its commissioners, albeit secret ones, to France. Thomas Jefferson would not accept
the assignment, and Dr. Arthur Lee - still operating in England - was elected in Jefferson's
stead. (We'll return to their activities in France in a moment.)
The Committee went overt on April 17, 1777, when the Congress renamed it the Committee
of Foreign Affairs. That same day, it elected Thomas Paine, a skilled theoretician and
propagandist, as the Committee's secretary. (He would be dismissed later for divulging secret
information from the records of the Committee of Secret Correspondence in his
pseudononymous "Common Sense" columns. The Congress even passed a blatantly false
resolution to discredit the factual information he had released without permission.) The secret
phase of the war ended; France and Spain entered the war as allies and overt diplomacy took
priority. We will explore this further in our next session.
The Congress had other intelligence-related committees as well. One was named, aptly, the
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Committee on Spies. Established in June 1778, its charter was "to consider what is proper to be
done with persons giving intelligence to the enemy, or supplying them with provisions." Its
proposal, adopted by the Congress, imposed the death sentence on those "who shall be found
lurking as spies in or about fortifications or encampments of the armies of the United States."
From this grew the nation's first espionage act. Other committees were appointed from time to
time to examine intercepted mail; sometimes they published the content to embarrass the
enemy, but at other times they kept the intelligence gathered from the letters a strategic secret.
In July 1776, the Congress addressed the problem of counterintelligence with the appointment
of the Committee on a Conspiracy to investigate a plot to free enemy prisoners and "other evil
designs."
In Europe, Dr. Arthur Lee's negotiations with Beaumarchais led to approval by the French
Crown of secret aid to the Americans. Arms were declared surplus, transferred to a trading
firm operated by Beaumarchais, then sold to the Americans on credit. Army officers ostensibly
would leave the French service, and then contract to serve the Americans in North America;
yet, in truth, they either did not leave the French military or were assured of return to duty once
the mission to America was concluded.
In the light of contemporary events, the French operation is worth study. Initially, Louis
XVI authorized one million livres, and Spain was convinced to match it. Some was sent as cash
to the Americans, the remainder was used by Beaumarchais for the cover venture. As he
explained it to the King, Beaumarchais would buy gunpowder from the Crown at four and six
sols a pound, then sell it to the Americans at twenty sols a pound. The profits of the venture,
the "residuals" for want of a better expression, would constitute an escalating fund for assisting
the Americans in other ways. France, Lee reported to the Committee of Secret
Correspondence, desired the whole affair to appear as a commercial transaction to maintain
the appearance of French neutrality. On the face of it, tobacco or other produce would be
shipped from America to France as payment; in truth only promissory notes (credits) were
involved. When Deane, Franklin and Lee were on the scene, the pretext even involved meeting
with the tobacco trust which, they reported untruthfully back to Congress, would advance
money for the articles of war on condition the Americans agreed to ship tobacco in return. A
few messages later, the three admitted they had lied to Congress about the matter and knew it
to be only a cover story; their deceptive message had been a feeble attempt at secrecy.
(What did France expect in return? Simply put it had two goals: one, sweet revenge against
the British; and, two, the riches of all the American trade which before the war had gone to
England.)
Eventually, France provided 90 percent of our gunpowder, the bulk of our cannon and
weapons and the engineers, officers and advisors needed to turn minutemen into soldiers. Its
decision to enter the war formally with troops and ships was indispensable to American victory.
The Paris team launched a stream of successful operations. An escape and evasion route
was established in Britain to aid American prisoners-in-war to reach France. Franklin's printing
press turned out black propaganda, counterfeit passports and all the documentation
requirements of the intelligence business. Privateers were outfitted for raids on British ships
and vulnerable ports. There even were proposals that guns be sent be sent to the Carribean to
stir up trouble among the natives against the British, and to send priests and guns to Ireland for
the same purpose. Through it all, Congress was supplied with intelligence from the courts of
Europe, and even the personal household of George III, and several secret alliances were
negotiated successfully. One of their agents in Britain even obtained a list of British intelligence
assets in New York. On the other hand, another agent, following some successful fire-bombings
of British naval facilities, was hanged.
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But the operation was flawed. Franklin rebelled at simple security practices and suffered for
it - recall that his secretary, Dr. Bancroft, was a British agent. Deane's greed permitted the
British to corrupt him; Although Deane died in disgrace while in voluntary exile in Europe, the
full extent of his treason did not become evident until British records of the war were released
in the middle of the next century. A messenger recruited to deliver pouches to a ship captain
for transmittal to Congress swapped pouches; Months later the Congress got a pouch full of
blank paper, the British got the real pouch. The papers of an American agent visiting Germany
were taken surreptitiously, copied by the British and returned. An innocent American aide
working for the Paris delegation was condemned as having been recruited by the British - yet
British records show the recruitment attempt was rejected. The cantankerous Dr. Lee saw spies
everywhere and, in truth, he was correct but for all the wrong reasons.
In Europe, as in the Congress, the secret phase of the war ended with a treaty of alliance
with France and Dr. Franklin's appointment as US Minister to France. It must be said,
however, that Franklin continued to dabble in covert action, secret diplomacy and intrigue.
Mitay Intelligence
There was another aspect to the intelligence war, the military intelligence activities of the
commander in the field, George Washington.
He, too, had an intelligence background, As Washington noted in his Journals, in 1753 he
had served as an "intelligencer" in a crucial mission for the Crown. At that time, reports had
been received that Royal territorial claims were being ignored by the French as they edged
down into Pennsylvania and the Ohio. His Majesty's Government directed the Lieutenant
Governor of Virginia to send an agent to see if the French were, indeed, building forts on
British soil. George Washington, a young militia officer, was chosen for the task.
His orders were to enter the wilderness, attempt to locate such forts and gather
clandestinely as much intelligence as possible. Further, he should contact the French to
establish their intentions. The pretest for contact was to be delivery of a polite warning that the
French evacuate. Washington did as he was ordered, locating and returning with a far more
detailed description of Fort LeBoeuf and its troop strength than anticipated - The French had
permitted him to wander around the fort while they considered the British demand. He also
carried the French rebuff to the eviction notice.
Things haven't changed. On Washington's return to Williamsburg he was given twenty-four
hours to submit a written account of the two-month mission. With that, Washington received
new orders. He was to enlist a force, return to the area and build a fort. If anyone attempted to
obstruct, Washington was authorized to "restrain ... make prisoners of, or kill and destroy
them."
The confrontation resulted in a minor victory: five French dead and twenty prisoners. It also
brought derision from his British superiors, who believed Washington a success as an
intelligencer, but a failure as a military officer. In his forced march back to Williamsburg from
the scene of the victory he had abandoned his cannon and yielded to pressure from his Indian
allies to turn the French prisoners over to them for predictable disposal. Washington's military
action also lit the fuse of the French and Indian War.
Between the wars, Washington made up for his deficiencies. The titles of his military library
at Mount Vernon reflect a keen interest in the latest European military strategy and, yes, the
use of intelligence and deception in military operations.
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As America entered the struggle for its freedom, Washington proved more than adept at
employing a wide range of intelligence techniques.
He created light horse units for such assignments as reconnaissance, capturing prisoners for
interrogation, harassment and diversionary operations. He made full use of sources behind
enemy lines - a combination of secret patriots, stay-behinds and dispatched agents. Washington
also established a system for debriefing travelers and refugees crossing into American-
controlled territory with information concerning denied areas. He even appointed an
intelligence officer to serve as Commissary of Prisoners, both to obtain information from
captured British personnel and to enter the British camp under flag of truce ostensibly to
determine the conditions of Americans held there.
Most of all, Washington was a good manager of intelligence. He insisted, for example, that
the terms of employment of a prospective agent be committed to precise written terms,
including compensation. Repeatedly, he instructed his commanders that all such financial
commitments would be based solely on productivity of the agent and the value of the agent's
intelligence.
He also insisted that instructions to agents be precise and that intelligence reports from his
subordinates and agents be just as detailed. Washington preferred that intelligence reports be
delivered in writing, recognizing the build-in distortion of information conveyed verbally
through intermediaries. He made it clear in his instructions that there was some degree of
latitude for agent opinion, but not to the disregard of the details on which he desired to make
decisions. An example of this is found in his note to. Mattias Ogden, one of his intelligence
officers, on April 2, 1782:
"... It is my earnest wish that you would impress upon the persons in whom you seem to
place confidence, urging them to be pointed, regular and accurate in all their communications.
No service can be greater than this, if it is well performed, these with an account of the nature
and progress of their [the enemy's] public works is of infinite more consequence than all the
chit-chat of the Streets and the idle conjecture of the inhabitants."
Washington was known to berate agents an subordinates alike for failing to expedite
intelligence reporting, and made frequent use of "expresses" (dedicated couriers) for
transmission of the data. To lessen the threat should the couriers be captured or recruited by
the enemy, he insisted that they not know the contents of the pouches and that as much of the
contents as possible be in cipher or "sympathetic stain," that is, invisible ink - unless he
intended the pouches, with spurious information to tantalize the enemy - to be captured.
There can be little doubt where Washington stood on security breaches; he ordered the lash
for such compromises. Nor did he leave any doubts on the obligations of secrecy. In a letter to
Governor Patrick Henry of Virginia, February 24, 1777, he advocated:
"... It will naturally occur to you, Sir, that there are some secrets, on the keeping of which
so depends, oftentimes, the salvation of an Army; Secrets which cannot, at least ought not to, be
intrusted to paper; nay, which none but the Commander in Chief of that time, should be
acquainted with."
Recognizing that the enemy had penetrated his camps - even his personal bodyguards and
ceremonial fife and drum corps were found to be corrupted by the British - he urged that
Orders of the Day not be as complete as would be consistent with good military practice. And,
in recognition of his obligation to those men and women who risked their lives in the secret
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war, his journals noted:
"The names of persons who are employed within the Enemy's lines or who may fall within
their power cannot be inserted."
Even after the war, the identities of some of his secret agents remained protected. Many
who could not make such public admission and, even then, were stigmatized in their home
communities as treasonous and could never return. Washington recognized the need for such
continuing secrecy. In a letter to a friend in 1788 he commented:
"Many circumstances will unavoidably be misconceived and misrepresented.
Notwithstanding most of the Papers which may properly be determined official are preserved;
yet the knowledge of innumerable things, of a most delicate and secret nature, is confined to
the perishable remembrance of some few of the present generation."
Washington gained the unquestioning trust of his agents. One such agent, for example, was
jailed for treason and local patriot authorities initiated action to seize his home and lands. The
man had to stand mute to avoid jeopardizing his operation. In another case, three agents faced
the death penalty for holding intercourse with the enemy, but remained silent. In the first case,
extralegal means were employed to protect the man, his property and the secret; in the second
instance, Washington intervened quietly with Governor Livingston to save their lives:
"I hope you will put a stop to the prosecution ... You must be well convinced that it is
indispensably necessary to make use of such means to procure intelligence. The persons
employed must bear suspicion of being inimical; and it is not in their power to assert their
innocence, because it would get abroad and destroy the confidence which the enemy puts in
them."
Although Washington often appointed subordinates to positions which implied control of
military intelligence, actually he never surrendered that control. He remained the manager of
intelligence, providing written instructions of a textbook nature on how to best manage the
recruitment and operation of agents and double agents, the interception of enemy
communications, the use of secret writing and concealment devices, and how the information
collected should be best organized for decision making. Washington also called for and
received the first intelligence estimate, interestingly compiled in answer to a list of key
intelligence questions.
Washington was perhaps our first stategist to call for collection of intelligence in minute
detail to permit a decision-making mosaic. He repeatedly instructed his officers of that
purpose. Note this letter of October 6, 1778, to William Alexander (Lord Stirling):
"As we are often obliged to reason on the designs of the enemy, from the appearances
which come under our observation and the information of our spies, we cannot be too attentive
to those things which may afford us new light. Every minutiae should have a place in our
collection, for things of a seemingly trifling nature when conjoined with others of a more
serious case may lead to very valuable conclusions . . " (On hearing of this instruction, one
DDCI told me: "And, US intelligence has been collecting minutia ever since!)
Washington was no purist when it came to seeking the intelligence he needed. Take, for
example, a note to the Rev. Alexander McWorter, a Continental Army chaplain, of October 12,
1778:
"There are now under sentence of death ... a Farnsworth and Blair convicted of being spies
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for the enemy. - - It is hardly to be doubted but that these unfortunate men are acquainted with
many facts representing the enemy's affairs, and their intentions, which we have not been able
to bring them to acknowledge.
"Besides the opportunity of affording them the benefit of your profession, it may in the
conduct of a man of sense answer another valuable purpose. And while it serves to prepare
them for the other world, it will naturally lead to the intelligence we want in your inquiries into
the condition of their spiritual concerns.
"You will therefore be pleased to take charge of this matter upon yourself, and when you
have collected in the course of your attendance such information as they can give, you will
transmit the whole to me."
If the opportunity presented itself to tighten the screws, Washington's evidence this instruction of March 24, 1779, to Brigadier General Edward Handvas clear,
"Both of the persons apprehended by you come I think under the denomination of spies,
perhaps by holding this idea up to them strongly, and threatening them with the consequences
except they confess, something material may be got out of them ... Do you think they might be
kept and used as Guides, if they were to be told, that instant death would be the certain
consequence of treachery."
Washington was willing to try irregular intelligence activities, directing attempts to kidnap
Prince William Henry - the future William IV - and to carry off "the greatest of all traitors,"
Benedict Arnold. Washington ordered that the Prince, if captured, be offered no insult or
injury and be treated "with all the deference due his
insisted that capture attempts be abandoned if there great was any" danger ofdkilinca, g the defector:
"My aim is to make a public example of him, and this should be strongly who are employed to bring him off." Both abduction efforts failed. impressed upon those
Washington was not opposed to seeking revenge. After the British captured and executed
Captain Nathan Hale, General Washington's intentions were stated most clearly in a letter by
his aide, Tench Tilghman, to William Duer:
"The General is determined if he can bring some in his hands under the denomination of
spies, to execute them. General Howe hanged a Captain of ours belonging to Knowlton's
Rangers who went into New York to make discoveries. I don't see why we should not make
retaliation."
He recognized the need for "cover," apparently valid reasons for his agents to transit the
battlelines, and frequently mentioned the specific cover he wished an agent to employ.
Although Washington wrote that he would not be severe with productive agents who used such
cover mechanisms for personal enrichment, he was decidedly unforgiving with his own
intelligence officers who attempted to ply profitable sidelines: "I do not mean to protect or
countenance them in any manner of trade, should they attempt to carry it on."
Washington could also tell a lie, elegantly.
One of Washington's officers, Major General William Heath, once noted.
"The strategems of war are almost infinite, but all have the same object, namely to deceive
- to hold up the appearance of something which is not intended, while under this mask some
important object is secured."
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He was speaking, of course, of General Washington's expertise in deception operations, the
force multiplier that saved his army frequently and enabled the victory over the British at
Yorktown.
One of Washington's earlier deceptions relied on the commitment of the intermediaries,
the conduit to the British, to American principles. His forces outside Philadelphia were vastly
outnumbered, and a British offensive could potentially destroy Washington's army. Aware that
the populace was, indeed, offended by the British practice of quartering troops in private
homes, he employed the offense to advantage. How it worked was simple. An officer would
bring a soldier or two to a house and tell the dweller that the soldiers would be quartered in the
home. The soldiers would then leave, remarking that they would be back later. And so it went,
from house to house, up one road and down another. The complaints of the citizens reached
the British as intended. A few fast calculations, and the British cancelled the offensive.
His grandest deception was at Yorktown or, more precisely, during the months before the
battle. As he wrote to Noah Webster seven years after the victory.
"It was determined by me, nearly twelve months before hand, at all hazards, to give out, and
cause to be believed by the highest military as well as civil officers, that New York was the
destined place of attack . . . It was never in contemplation to attack New York .. .
"That much trouble was taken and finesse used to misguide and bewilder Sir Henry Clinton
in regard to the real object, by fictitious communications, as well as by making deceptive
provision of ovens, forage and boats, in the neighborhood, is certain; Nor were less pains taken
to deceive our own army, for I had always conceived, where the imposition does not completely
take place at home, it would never sufficiently succeed abroad."
And, that is how he did it. Loose-talk by officers discussing the New York attack in detail,
blatant reconnaissance missions along roads to New York, a scapegoat courier and his "vital"
papers about plans for the attack captured by the British, the construction of bread ovens on
the shore opposite the city, stockpiles of forage and the assembly of boats on the New Jersey
shore, double agents feeding the British what they expected to hear, troops encamped and
drilling near New York City.
The plan worked. The British Commander-in-Chief, Clinton, panicked. He denuded
Cornwallis' forces at Yorktown of both men and equipment to reinforce New York. Clinton
dug in for the attack, and rejected valid intelligence indicating Washington's move would be
southward. The dispute provoked between Clinton and Cornwallis destroyed the effective
management of the British Army in North America. Meanwhile, at Yorktown, Lafayette was
launching deception operations of his own to compensate for his limited force, one hundred
men. These, too, were successful, convincing Cornwallis to dig in instead of escaping by sea or
marching out of the swampy enclave.
Other circumstances were working on our side as well. The King's Printer in New York, an
American agent, acquired the British Navy signal code, which was promptly conveyed to the
French fleet at Haiti. A "bottle-drop" used by Cornwallis to communicate with Clinton in New
York, was "serviced" by the Americans and the messages deciphered by James Lovell.
The American forces were boarding boats at the mouth of the Elk before Clinton accepted
that he had been fooled. He mounted a diversionary operation into Connecticut in an effort to
draw the American forces back, but without success. When British reinforcements finally
reached Yorktown, the battle had been over for a month.
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Perhaps the greatest tribute to Washington's genius in the operation came from Henry
"Light Horse Harry" Lee, who noted:
"Sir Henry Clinton seems.to have been so thoroughly persuaded that New York was the
sole object of Washington, as to adhere to this conviction until he was assured that the van
division of the allied army had actually passed the Delaware . . . Never was a military
commander more completely deceived, whether we regard Sir Henry Clinton's perception of
his enemy's design, or the measures adopted with the view of frustrating that design when
discovered."
Perhaps Washington's response to Lee's accolades would be much the same as the advice
he earlier gave to one of his officers, Col. Elias Dayton:
"The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged - All
that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon
Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprises of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally
defeated, however well planned & promising of a favourable issue."
Nam This lecture contains copyrighted material, both of the lecturer and others, and is
intended solely for student use. It should not be reproduced or cited in publication.
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