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Espionage in the American Tradition
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11386 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1986 |
3,009 Words |
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Edward F. Sayle
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Recent efforts by CIA Director William J. Casey to sound an alarm about the danger to the nation stemming from a rash of disclosures of "intelligence sources and methods" have provoked considerable public controversy.
To the working press, Casey's warning is viewed as having a "chilling effect"-a threat not only to the journalists' livelihood but to the First Amendment as well. Casey, on the other hand, asserts that he is not threatening anyone; he is merely reminding them of his responsibility to protect such information as mandated by law and sustained by the U.S. Supreme Court as recently as 1985. Amidst it all is the recurring theme that Casey's efforts are unprecedented and that the intelligence establishment he heads is an un-American anomaly.
Missing from the debate is a public understanding of the origins and development of intelligence in the United States. There is even apocrypha to the effect that General William J. Donovan, sitting high in the clouds, cast down a lightning bolt to create U.S. intelligence-the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that he directed during World War II.
Organizing a revolution
To trace the roots of American intelligence, it is necessary to slip back in time to the founding of the nation, a time when the American colonists were fighting for rights they perceived had been denied them by George III and his Parliament. It was a time when the colonists were driven to establish Committees of Correspondence to network their views and intentions and Committees of Safety to implement them. In North Carolina, one group was less obscure about its purpose: the Committee of Secrecy, War, and Intelligence.
Such committees were expected to gather information about British intentions, then do something to thwart them. About four months before the opening skirmishes at Lexington and Concord, for example, Boston's Committee of Safety learned that General Gage, the British commander, intended to seize munitions stored at Fort William and Mary in New Hampshire. A young silversmith, Paul Revere, agreed to carry the intelligence report to patriots there. His mission was successful.
Led by Major John Sullivan, a force of 400 men dressed in civilian clothing, but really New Hampshire militiamen, carried off 100 barrels of gunpowder before the arrival of the British forces. The gunpowder was put to good use-American forces needed it during their retreat from Bunker Hill.
Revere was a member of a secret group known as the Mechanics, made up of Boston artisans (or "mechanics," as such craftsmen were called), who conducted intelligence operations against the British for the Committee of Safety, and his famous midnight ride was the result of one of its intelligence successes. In April 1775, the committee learned the British had assembled a special detachment made up of some 800 to 1,000 grenadiers, light infantry, and marines. The cover story given out by the British was that the detachment was to encamp on the Commons and learn new military exercises. Agents of the committee learned from a woman who "quartered" with a British regiment that the troops were going to Concord that night on a special mission. A local gunsmith obtained further details from a British sergeant major quartered in his
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