WHEN SPIES WERE ALLIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1920, Page 12

WHEN SPIES WERE ALLIES.

WAR SECRETS PROM AMERICA, EASY DUPES. Now that the war is over the methods by which the machinations of the enemy agents were countered by the Secret Service men are being revealed. When America first entered the fray the Government were taking no risks, so every known enemy agent was quickly put under lock and key. But even this vigorous action did not stay the activities of the spies, and round-ups were frequent, with (lie result that the prisons and internment camps were becoming over-crowded. Then it was that some inspired genius of the Intelligence Office hit upon a scheme which not only did away at one state with the necessity of keeping in custody and feeding at the public expense hordes of spies, but converted this [hostile factor into an instrument of ntil- : itv for the Government.

This was nothing less than jiving'the enemy agents opportunities of acquiring such facts 1 as would show the German High Command what it was up against ;n fighting the U'.'.ited States. A BOLD STEP. : w<',Somehow the Germans had become convinced that the American soldiers were short of rifles and small arms generally; so the authorities determined upon a bold step. They permitted a dangerous spy to leave the ,camp where he was interned on suspicion, knowing it would not be long before he would be at his old game again. On gaining his liberty he made hi.t way to Philadelphia, and, as he believed the Government was convinced that, they hftd made a mistake in arresting him, ho felt that he might act with a more open bravado. This is exactly what the Secret Service expected him to do, and laid their plans accordingly? In less than a week after his release the spy presented himself at the office of the commandant of an arsenal in one of the, big seaport cities of the East, and introduced himself as a veteran of the Spanish war. "I have been rejected for disabilities in the present war," he said, "although I was more than anxious to act in some capacity for my country." , AT THE ARSENAL. The reason for his visit to the arsenal was to ask the assistance of a fellowofficer to tide over bis temporary financial embarrassment. The commandant of the arsenal, although the man was a stranger to him, had been apprised by ft telephone call as to his identity almost immediately after the spy had entered the oflice, and the man who telephoned this told the commandant to humor the man, and do everything in his power to show the immensity of the preparations which were going forward in the arsenal. So when his visitor casually asked him if there was any truth in the awful rumor that "we were short in small arms," he offered to take him round and show him what was being done. After some show of reluctance the invitation was accepted, and the ''spy was taken frcm department to department of the entire establishment, and shown such immense quantities of finished small arms and cartridges that, he must have felt his heart sink within him. Hog Island, where the fleets were being turned out, and which was at first so closely guarded Against spies, was an open resort to them in the end. Great care was taken to supply them with photographs portraying its various activities. Each vessel was photographed at various stages of its completion. DESPAIRING DISPATCHES. In this way the Hog Island activities became fixed in the mind of the. spy into whose hands the photographs were manipulated, so that his description of the inexhaustible resources and resourcefulness of the United States would undoubtedly fill the Teutons with despair. That the Germans were ynpres3ed by the stupendous resources which they thus found tt> lie at the command of the United States admits of no doubt. Even Marshal Hindenburg recently admitted in an interview that the reports of the gigantic means at the disposal of the United States, in addition to the actual presence in France of "so large an army, which America seemed to have stamped out of the ground," was the principal factor in convincing Germany of the utter hopelessness of success.