>> all this and much more. 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors on c-span2. booktv, television for serious readers. >> and now from the international spy museum here in washington, d.c., retired cia operator kenneth daigler looks at u.s. intelligence efforts during the can revolutionary war and the role in defeating the british. from george washington's interests and the use of counterintelligence practices to an espionage network operated in new york city. this is just under an hour. >> good afternoon, and welcome to the international spy museum. my name is vince houghton, i'm the museum's historian and curator, and i would like to welcome you to another briefing. today's subject will be the american revolution and intelligence, and we'll joined by an exceptional author who i'll introduce, but before that say a couple words about the revolution itself and history

about intelligence. this is one subject that is vastly underrepresented in historical literature, the impact of intelligence on the revolution. most of us when we went through school and learned about the revolution, even at college level, don't delve into the importance of intelligence operations on the american revolution. and that's quite problematic because if you look at the strategic imbalance of the revolution, the advantages that the british had over the americans, by ignoring the intelligence aspect, you don't get the story about how the united states wins the war. the british had almost every advantage. they had a modern, professional army that had been battle tested whereas the colonists did not, they had a small continental army reinforced by the militia that could not be counted on when the battle began. the british had the greatest navy in the world. the americans didn't have a navy to speak of. we had pirates, essentially,

that we gave the ability to steal and pillage for their pay. most americans didn't actually support independence. less than half of continental americans supported independence. thousands fought for the british. and many of the others just wanted to be left t alone. that's not to mention the thousands of german and native americans that sided with the british cause. not to mention the fact that the british had the world's greatest economy. and the united states didn't really have one at the time. we had no central bank, and we had a very hard time raising money. so how did we win? it's not just that we wanted it more than they did. had a lot to do with the fact that we used intelligence better than the british did. that george washington, among others, was really good at utilizing the information that came in from a network of spies and a network of intelligence apparatus that he had set up during this time. and that's what our guest is going to talk about today. ken daigler holds a ba in

history from the center college of kentucky and a masters in history from the maxwell school at syracuse university. after he got his masters, he served in the united states marine corps in the late 1960s and quickly thereafter joined the cia. mr. daigler was a cia operations officer in the east asia decision of the national clandestine service all the way to 2003 when he finally roadway tired. -- retired. mr. daigler authored the founding fathers and black dispatches. both are available to the public on the cia's web site, so go check those out. their very fascinating -- they're very fascinating. and he's also written numerous articles in his true name as well as the p.k. rose pseudonym including articles about intelligence for the cia's studies of intelligence and the

association of former intelligence officers' journal. he is here to talk about his newest book, spies, patriots and traitors, and i'd like to introduce him now wherever he may be. he was -- there he is, all right. please join me and the international spy museum in welcoming ken daigler. [applause] >> thank you. okay. i want to start by telling you that when you write a book, the first thing you're supposed to do is have a business plan. now, i did it kind of backwards. i just wrote the book and assumed somebody would actually read it. here's the point i want to make. this is the cover of the book. it's a very distinctive cover. not my choice, it was the publisher's choice, and they were, obviously, absolutely correct about it. but my point is that i've just

come back from the beach as my tan indicates, and i thought, okay, i'm going to walk around the beach, and i'm going to take a look and see what teenagers are reading my book. [laughter] i got that tell you, i found not one single male or female teenager reading my book so, obviously, that's not my target office. the argument audience consists of people who are interested in the revolutionary war because as the introduction said, this is a brand new way of looking at the war. impacting events that we often accept through popular myth as to the way the revolution went on. the second audience are my fellow colleagues in the intelligence section because here a very interesting opportunity to learn from history. as we get into the revolutionary war, you find that all three of the key elements in the intelligence profession -- positive intelligence,

counterintelligence and covert action -- played a key role in the americans' ability to win. and because i'm dealing with something that's 250 years old, i had the latitude here of naming names, naming identities, naming sources of information, showing what the intelligence reports looked like, showing what the impact they had and talking about sources and methods, something i can't do, obviously, in my own background. why this is fascinating is because over history intelligence methods don't change. the fact that the culper ring left their parchment reports in a leather pouch under a rock in a long island cow pasture and the fact that today someone will leave an encrypted note on an obscure web site is actually the same technology in terms of communication and separation of

the individual reporting and the individual who is going to receive the information and use it. so there's a real learning experience here, i believe, in studying the revolutionary activities strictly from the point of view of being an intelligence officer. now, before i get into the book, i've been told by much more experienced officers that the first thing you're always asked is why did you write the book. okay. i'll tell you exactly why i started writing the book. i had retired from the agency and spent a little bit of time consulting with department of defense. and after about four or five years, you've really done all you can in terms of transferring what experience and capability you have to another organization. so i decided i'd retire again, and this time i'd actually retire and take up a lot of my own personal interests and to hobbies and what have you. and that worked for about two, two and a half weeks. [laughter] it all came to a conclusion when one saturday my wife, who is quite a good potter, had gone to

her studio to work, and i decided i was going to fix myself a lunch that was going to be a bit more than a ham sandwich. but, you know, i found the kitchen was very disorganized. i could not find what i wanted in terms of the ingredients, i couldn't find the plates and glasses i wanted, so i had some spare time, so i reorganized the kitchen. [laughter] yeah. that didn't work out too well. shortly thereafter, i went to work actually writing the book. [laughter] but the general sis of the book -- genesis of the book actually comes from over 20 years ago. in the mid 1990s, i was in a management position at the agency, and you've got to take this time frame into consideration now. this is the mid '90s, the cold war is over with. we've defeated the soviet empire. but the issue here is that now, hike we always do because we've -- like we always do because we've won, we're going to downsize because we don't have any other enemies out

there. everything's going to be peaceful and wonderful. so the orders came down from above from the senior management, budget's going to be cut, we're going to have to do more with less. that phrase normally strikes fear in the heart of any government employee. but the way we decided to do it at the agency was to increase our efforts with liaison, those friendly security and intelligence services throughout the world that we deal with. okay. first step was had to enlarge our facilities so we could hold more meetings with them. so for reasons that are esoteric to the job i was in, i had to create some new spaces for the liaison folks. luckily, i had technical architects and interior designers and others who could actually handle the hard lifting, and all i had to do was conceptualize a little bit. but i found out that one of the main issues was, well, the liaison services understood that

we had money compared to them to spend. we were very good technically. but, you know, we hadn't been in business that long, only since world war ii, and maybe we didn't quite understand how to handle the more sophisticated aspects of human intelligence. but we had to address this problem. so i did a little bit of research, and i ended up writing the pamphlet that you had mentioned, "the founding fathers of american intelligence," where we identified george washington as the key figure in the collection of positive or foreign intelligence, benjamin franklin as the key figure in terms of covert action, particularly propaganda, and john jay -- surprisingly enough -- as the key figure in terms of counterintelligence. wrote the pamphlet, it was kind of well received. we put out printer copies in the liaison rooms, and we named each room after one of these principal figures. over the years it's become institutionalized, and as was

mentioned, it is now on the web site and is actually a very popular download on the web site. and somewhat to my surprise, actually quoted in some history books on the revolution. so that, basically, is the way this all came about. now, as i said before, the key point behind this book is to look at the revolution from an intelligence point of view. i'm not a historian, i wouldn't claim to be, but i have got about 40 years in intelligence, so i can claim a little bit of expertise or at least knowledge in that area. so the key here is that as we go through the revolution starting in 1765 right through the evacuation of new york in 1783, the book chronicles who was involved in intelligence, the impact it had, the mistakes that were made and how it was done. when we first start -- well, rather than review the book for you, i think probably the better approach is to take a couple key

issues that probably everybody in this room knows about from your basic history on the american revolution. and i guess we've got to start with the one principle that always comes to mind when you talk about the revolution, and that, of course, is george washington. george washington was as chief of the continental army the key consumer for all intelligence during the revolution. his small battle staff was his analytical arm, but in addition to that he also functioned very much -- because of economies of scale, his relationship to the small number of troops he had actually -- he also functioned as one of the key intel managers who actually writes specific orders on trade craft to various and sundry spy rings. very unusual. you've got the chief consumer, you've got, in effect, the chief operations officer. and even though it was a rather small element then, the tensions that exist today were the same tensions that existed there.

the consumer wants the information right away. the operator wants to get it as quick as possible but protect the sources so that they have the capability to get the information once again. and you see that when you look at what washington did. washington ran an incredibly sophisticated operation when you consider who he was and all the other issues he had to deal with in terms of logistics, military strategy, leadership and the politics of the time. washington was an expert at what i would say is probably the most difficult aspect of intelligence, deception planning. deception planning allowed him on many occasions, all strategic, to completely fool the british commanders as to the size of his army and what he planned to do with it. yet for deception operation you need three key factors that are very hard to put together. number one, you've got to be able to control the information if it's coming out from your

side so that there is a steady stream only of what you want done. that means no leaking, it often means falsifying reporting to junior officers so that they can't inadvertently say what's going on. number two, you've got to have sources, double agents primarily or people who are friendly with the adversary to whom you can purposefully leak information so that you know the information is going to the adversary's command. and thirdly, and this is really a key that most people forget, you've got to have the sources within the enemy command to know that your message is not only getting there, but also that it's coming back, and you can reverberate it back in a way that makes the enemy truly believe they're making the decision and providing the validation for that information. pretty darn sophisticated for a guy who was busy with a lot of other stuff. so how did he get to learn this?

because, obviously, it's not something you just learn by thinking about it. well, if you go back to his early diaries, as early as 1753, you find that the first time he was sent to the ohio country by the royal governor of virginia to see what the french were doing can, he immediately started to hone his skills not only in e lissation and debriefing, but also in observation. one key point he makes in his journal from the fall of '53 is very fascinating. he was kept at a certain french fort until a commanding officer from the french forces would come and see him. and, obviously, they knew he was reporting. he was able to observe and have a good memory, so he wouldn't have to write it down, of what the fort looked like, the number of french soldiers, number of cannon, etc., but he could have no feel for those french forces that were outside the fort or the indian allies he had. so what did he do in his spare time? since it was exercise, he walked up and down the river bank and

counted all the canoes and extrapolated from there exactly what type of a force could be moved at any given time. you get to 1754 when he goes back out and actually involves himself in fighting with the french, and is you find he's able to use deserters not only in terms of very sophisticated debriefings, but also in terms of spreading disinformation and using them as propaganda value to encourage desertions from the enemy. and by the time you get to 1755 when he's ap unofficial -- an unofficial aide to general braddock, you find he's also learning about the military movements, of putting out advanced troops, but also the mistake braddock made which was he did not have any intelligence forward of his main attacking force. so 20 years before, in august of 1775, he takes over the army he's already starting to develop the intelligence experience. so it's not unusual that with

someone like him it has worked to his advantage. now, one of the things we need if you're going to start a revolution is you need political organization. and in 1765 with the stamp act, you started immediately to have small groups in all the coastal cities and some of the inland cities who decided that they were going to organize politically against the stamp act and that type of taxation. in the course of ten years, a group calling themselves the sons of liberty evolved into as sophisticated a united front organization as anything we've ever seen that we normally is associate with communist party type of organizations, either the soviet union or the chinese. what is fascinating about this is that in most american history texts you look at the sons of revolution, and you see a caricature of drunken people, maybe tar and feathering some

government administrator or riding him around on a log or dancing drunkerrenly around a liberty -- drunkenly around a liberty pole with a cap on top of that. well, let me tell you, it was a lot more sophisticated than that. starting in the mid 1760s, gentleman sam adams -- who gets a lot less credit for this than he deserves -- started to organize the individuals calling themselves sons of liberty all along the coast all the way from massachusetts down to charleston. by the time you get to the mid 1770s, this is an organization that has put its people in all the key political leadership; the provincial congresses, the committees of safety, the militia units and what have you. so you've got a united front organization that started out with a very broad idea that they were going to oppose taxation. and by the mid '70s, you've got an organization that has

decided they want political independence. an organization that cannot only put people in the street, often mobs, often much more sophisticated type of groups that can send a message, you got a propaganda element where the majority of the printers who in those days were actually the newspaper publishers, are members of of the sons of liberty and have established a courier route so that within weeks the same perspective on a political event or an opposition approach to the administration of the brits can come all the way from massachusetts down through southern colonies with exactly the same message, a very strong political fort force. political force. in addition, you've got a paramilitary force. by the time you get to about 1773, the british recognized that where they don't physically have military, they have virtually no control. and these paramilitary forces, these militia forces that have

been regroomed and politically led primarily by sons of liberty are, at this point, making sure that they take over the powder, they take over the arms from the various ministerial armaments in the colonies. by the time you get to '73 and '74, you've actually got these forces forming up. not engaging, but forming up to stop british forces from coming back to try and get these arms or to try to reoccupy a force fort. a fort. in and by the time you get to 1775, of course, you have concord and lexington. and what is fascinating about this is that the very final evolution of the united front group from an intention point of view is it becomes an intelligence organization, and that's exactly what happened. first with the committees of safety who were able to monitor exactly what the british were doing at their major installations and locations.

for example, thanks to the safety of committee in boston the militia and the sons of liberty knew exactly what route the british were going to take to get to concord because two months earlier they had monitored the two officers that general gauge had sent out to actually go down there. so all they had to find out then was the timing, and they were able to do that through a second organization they set up which, in theory, is the founding of the first american intelligence organization called the mechanics, a group led operationally by paul revere but more leadership wise by two other members, dr. joseph warren and dr. benjamin church. this organization actually was offensive and had penetration of general gauge's command. so by the time they got to lexington and concord, they not only knew what place was going to be attacked, when the movement started, but the exact

route that was going to be taken down there and, obviously, back which if you think about it, puts an entirely different light on why the british took so many casualties and why these diverse militia groups from all over central massachusetts were able to hone in as well as they were on the march going back. it's because they had advanced knowledge of it. i always say if you want to connect something to noted earn affair -- to modern affairs, let's look at what another former intelligence officer, vladimir putin, did recently in crimea. if you want to look and see how he was able to very effectively shut off the greater government of ukraine from crimea, all you've got to do is look at the way the sons of liberty did it, because it's exactly the same structure he worked over a period of time. and you'll find many other examples of that in the book. if you extrapolate, you see it's still going on today. now, i think the second thing

i'd like to talk about is a covert action campaign that we really don't give enough credit to. after the conflict actually started, the colonial forces actually found that they had very little in the way of logistics necessary to carry on a war. in the colonies there was virtually no capability to create gun powder. very little capability to create firearms, very little capability to create cannon or any type of heavy artillery. they found they needed that. how do you handle something like that if you're a revolutionary organization? you create a covert action campaign which is what was done with the assistance of france. like all good covert action campaigns, this starts on a dark and stormy night in december in 1775 at carpenters hall in philadelphia when benjamin

franklin, the held of a newly-created continental congress committee called the committee of secret correspondence, met with an individual traveling as a flemish merchant who in reality was a secret agent from the king of france. now, i'm talking december 1775. during the course of three nights, they discussed what help france would provide, and the americans, franklin, promised two things. he promised, number one, we will declare political independence from great britain. number two, he promised we'll defeat the british army. nevertheless, that's what he did promise. what was the result? the result was the creation of a company that was phenomenal called -- [inaudible] and company, led by an individual named pierre -- [inaudible] for those of you who are literary oriented, he wrote the

marriage of figaro which became quite well known as operas. but he actually was another secret agent operating for the king of france. under him he created a company that by 1778 had over 100 sailing ships that delivered hundreds of tons of gun powder, stacks of weapons, cannons, other military supplies for two years that allowed the continental army to exist. without these military supplies, it was really doubtful that washington would have been able to fight as long as he had. at bunker hill, for example, before the ships started rolling in, they had two shots per person. by the time you get to december of 1776, a very crucial time, they're down to about three shots per person, but a much smaller army, probably effective will of 3,000 people.

three people connected with that, interestingly enough, were, of course, benjamin franklin who at that point became the diplomatic head of the paris commission, the u.s.' first diplomatic session abroad over in paris, and, of course, bomarchet operating behind the scenes, and thirdly a gentleman named robert morris in philadelphia who was financier of the revolution. it was his job to get the money to repay the various loans. now, there is a very famous cartoon, political cartoon, and i think it was from "the chicago tribune", but i'm not absolutely sure. it had to do with world war i when blackjack pershing made the famous line, "lafayette, we are here," meaning we are returning the favor of what you helped us with in the revolution. and it's a beautiful drawing.

it has the american doughboys landing on the coast of france, and then up on the cliffs is a ghostly figure of lafayette. and the voice coming out of the american troops is "lafayette, we are here." a french historian told me that what lafayette should have responded was, yes, but did you bring your checkbooks? the reason that -- the reason for that is we never paid back any of the loan the french gave us in assistance against the british. interesting point to keep in mind when we get so concerned that other countries don't pay us back on the aid we give them. i want to tell you about probably what i think is the key point in the war where intelligence played such an important role. there's a couple points here, and if i have time, i'll try to

go into another one, but it was december of 1776. washington had just been swept out of new york be, he was pushed across new jersey. it's snowing, he's down to about maybe an army of 5,000 people, effective maybe 3,000. they've got no ammunition. these guys are marching literally barefoot through the snow. the enlistments are about to go up in january. this is the low point. washington actually is thinking at this point that if i can't do something, i'm going to take what troops i've got, and i'm going west to the alleghenies, and i'm going to conduct a protracted war from back there. god knows how that would have worked out. but then it turns all around because we all know what happened. we all know he decides to move across to delaware and to attract -- attack trenton and subsequently attack princeton, two major victories which turns the whole morale of the army

around, causes the colonies to resupply him with troops, causes some of his seasoned troops to actually sign on. and you start to see a few supplies coming in. it allows him to have a safe winter. why did that all happen? well, it all happened because of intelligence. it happened because he knew exactly the order of ballot, who was sitting in princeton -- battle. he knew it was colonel raul -- [inaudible] regiment who had fought all the way from long island through manhattan and through new jersey. he knew they were a battle-tested group. these were tough guys. but he also knew that they had been in constant combat now for about five months. he knew that the new jersey militia had basically had them surrounded at trenton, had been constantly picking away at 'em, had hindered any of their efforts to go out and get lo to gistics such as firewood -- lo logistics such as firewood, had

kept them on guard for all the time since they established their position at princeton. he also knew, and my belief, a lot about the colonel primarily from an individual named john honeyman, and there's some debate about whether the story is true. i happen to believe it is, and i explain that. honeyman knew raul and knew he was a strong prussian character who had no respect for the american soldier whatsoever. to the point that he refused to build fortifications around trenton. his famous quote is: if the americans are foolish enough to attack, we will repel them with our bayonets. he also drank a little bit which might have been one of the reasons that washington chose the particular time to attack that he did. not that the troops were drunk, because they weren't. although sometimes you'll hear

that they were. washington was able to have a great victory at a really crucial time because he truly understood the enemy and understood the weakness of the enemy. same thing actually is true with princeton as well. thanks to some crucial debriefing of deserters and his knowledge of the troops who were at princeton and the fact that a spy only referred to in official correspondence says a young gentleman was able to tell him the defensive positions around princeton and the one unguarded area that the british had not put up a defense in. okay. so washington was then able to take princeton, another victory, another bit of morale, a few more troops, some more enlistments. at a very crucial time in our history. and then he ends it all up with an excellent deception plan that causes the british to believe that his army is about four times bigger than it is. and this is a classic deception

plan. among other things, writing up false estimates of troop strength, leaving them at places where merchants who have torrey connections are traveling through and just happened to see them on a person's desk when that person is called out of the room. or taking the same troops, and as the british prisoners are being exchanged, having them take a route right past a troop concentration where troops with different flags are marched in circular to indicate that he has more than he has. or lighting up certain buildings to indicate occupancy that isn't there. all of which saves him in the crucial war period from december of '76 until well into the spring of '77. finally, let me say something about yorktown. i think we're all aware of yorktown and how important that was. what we seldom dwell on is that yorktown was made possible because of the strong deception plan that washington used for some nine months against the

british commander, general clinton, in new york making him believe that as the french forces and american forces were meeting above new york, that their intent was to attack new york city. which kept clinton from reenforcing cornwallis down in the tidewater area. and the book goes into some detail as to the exact resources he used, some of whom were his most valuable intelligence sources because there were individuals who the british had recruited for three and four years and actually used as couriers to carry their command instructions up to canada and down to the south. so he was willing to use some of his best collection capabilities at this point for the deception operation. and it was, obviously, extremely effective. but we never hear much about that. what we hear about is how cornwallis was defeated. and it was due primarily to the deception plan that kept clinton

believing that new york was the target until all of the american and most of the french forces had actually moved south of the city. and that the point it was too late because the french fleet had effectively blocked off the tidewater. now, i've got to also say a couple words about the two people that we always associate with sighing and the revolutionary war. i mean, if you know anything about the revolutionary war, if you read any book on it whether it's a biography or an actual book on the war, if you look under "spies," you're probably going to find two names, nathan hale, you're going to find benedict arnold. but the truth of of the matter is most of what we know about nathan hale is mostly myth. from an intelligence point of view, the one thing to know about nathan hale is that if you want to run a good intelligence

operation from selecting an agent to having an objective to how you train to how you do communication, you just do everything opposite than what was done with nathan hale. he was a very brave man, deserves a lot of respect for being willing to die for his country. but he was an incredibly poor choice for his job. i'll give you one prime example. this was a man who did not believe in telling a lie. [laughter] let me tell you, you don't want an intelligence agent behind enemy lines who is not willing to tell a lie, because it doesn't work out very well. and also with all his faults and how badly the operation was structured -- and i, frankly, blame washington for this in the book because he had the ultimate responsibility -- it turned out that the reason he was caught was not inherently because of the mistakes that were made, it's because the british had a better counterintelligence officer working against him.

an individual named robert rogers who some of you might remember as the head of rogers rangers in the french and indian war. second was benedict arnold. he's a very interesting figure because there are still people today who say, well, he was a hero at a certain given point, and we've got to give him some latitude. he was really harassed by the continental congress. the politics of this were really bad. he paid out of his own pocket and wasn't reimbursed, etc., and some of this is true, although that happened to many other people, and they did not become traitors. but when you analyze this strictly from an intelligence point of view, as i did in the book, you find that as opposed to this being a huge blow to the american cause, in reality it was probably one of the two biggest blunders that british intelligence made because they handled him so badly. his volunteering effort was

almost put aside for other things. he was not vetted before all because the officer handling, young major crane, was a staff -- andre, was a staff officer much more attuned to handling the social responsibilities of being a named to a commanding general. had benedict arnold been kept in place, the damage he could have done to the revolution at that point may not have changed the course of the war, but would definitely have changed the course of negotiations that led to the peace. so i honestly believe that just as you can look at the revolution from a political point of view or a leadership point of view or an economic point of view, i've actually red books that looked at it from a marxist point of view, that adding the intelligence overlay allows the individual to take a much better look at why things happened the way they did. another aspect that, frankly, i think has been to a large degree ignored except, perhaps, in four

or five back books since the 19. [applause] >> am i on? [inaudible conversations] all right. that's better. oh, yeah, that's better. okay. thank you, ken. now we'll have the opportunity to ask questions. after the question and answer period, you'll be in -- he'll be in the back signing books if you're interested. we have a pretty senate supply of these books -- significant supply of these books. we keep ordering them. but first, open it up for any questions. yes, ma'am. wait for the microphone, please. it's the way we'll pick it up on the camera. >> well, my question is actually not directly related to the book itself, but i'm just curious, as most people are, i'm sure, who are in the museum. we know most r -- most cia

agents are spies, but every now and then you hear somebody say, i retired from the cia. are they supposed to though that they worked for the cia? not everybody's a spy -- [laughter] so i don't know what the difference is. are we supposed to know or not? >> when you're on active duty, if you're an operations officer, your connection with the agency is not made public in most cases. but also there's, it's misconstrued. a spy is someone who has access to information of value. the cia officer seldom has that. normally a cia officer's job is to recruit and effectively manage and collect reporting from what you would call a spy, someone who actually has the access. so when the cia person refers to himself or herself as a spy, you have got to kind of wonder what they're thinking they did. i don't know. i'm sorry. that would be a whole course in

itself. [laughter] >> i just wonder when we went to world war ii and we helped the french against the nazi germany, do you think can that we felt indebted to the french on some level because of their help to us over the revolutionary war? >> i think we probably repaid that debt after world war i with the horrible bloodshed and the amount of money that we poured into it. i think at the point of world war ii it was simply the need for a strong allied presence to overcome a vastly superior german army at the time. >> thank you, ken, very much. you made only brief mention and, of course, this is a brief talk of robert culper jr., samuel

culper jr., true name robert townsend, and i've long wondered why at cia there's a statue of nathan hale and not one of robert townsend who was a great success? you also mentioned andre who was a fascinating man, i believe. i've written about him. and on his tomb at westminster abbey -- not westminster -- yeah, westminster, the king had a brilliant and lengthy, what do you call it? >> epitaph? >> yeah, epitaph. thank you. epitaph, which includes the phrase that he showed too much zeal. [laughter] which, of course, is what killed him. >> uh-huh. >> and what destroyed their chance to have arnold as a long-term asset. >> exactly, burton.

i agree with you. i often wondered why we had nathan hale there. there is a statue outside of the auditorium between the main building and the auditorium at cia headquarters of nathan hale. it's the type of statue that you see probably in 150, 175 places around the u.s. very heroic pose as an individual. truth of the matter is, we have no idea what nathan hale looked like. it's another part of the entire myth. but he was, i mean, he deserves credit because he was more than willing to die for his country while others budget. the culpers have got a renewed interest because of the amc series "turn" and a book that is a historical fiction book called "the secret six" that is able to lay out characterizations a little bit better news they are able to use a -- because they are able to use a fictional approach to it. >> the issue of spying on allied

powers has currently surfaced. i'm wondering, during the revolution were there espionage operations against the french, our allies? >> by the british in paris. the british did an excellent job of penetrating the french government and also penetrating extremely well our -- >> americans spying on the french. >> no. we were too busy, basically, hanging on. there was, however, one proven -- well, in paris the february. government -- french government obviously watched the three commissioners, the american commissioners very carefully, and there's reporting on that. but in the army itself one of the foreign contractors -- this is an interesting point -- they started a tradition that today people seem to think just started during one to have gulf wars which was to -- one of the gulf wars which was the hiring of contractors to serve in the u.s. army. the continental congress hired a lot of foreign military officers

in specialized fields like engineering and artillery because the expertise didn't exist in america. one of those officers, dekalb, actually was a french spy who while he died gal hasn'tly leading maryland troops, but he reported back privately his view of how the war was going to the french government. something that, say, a military attache would do who was attach today a foreign government. in my experience, the nationalists of various countries are always different. so consequently, it is always good for policy merricks to know what somebody -- policymakers to know what somebody else's agenda is. >> my understanding is that spying was not a very gentlemanly thing to do in the 18th century, and what's interesting about nathan hale is he was a gentleman. and i believe that his friends tried to talk him out of taking

on this mission, because it wasn't a very gentlemanly thing, to be a spy. and i wondered if you might talk about that a little bit and if george washington had any feelings about that. >> he did. that's a very good point. the first individual selected by colonel nolton and the rangers which the army claims to be the first military intelligence group which is the reason that their insignia has 1775 on it, that was the group that washington asked to select someone to go behind the enemy lines in new york. the first individual that nolton wanted to do this job refused for exactly the reason he said. he said, no, i'm a gentleman. and you're right, many of hale's friends did try to talk him out of accepting it, because it was not considered gentlemanly. the comment on washington is very interesting, it goes back to what burton was saying about the culper ring.

while the war was going on, washington was fairly generous with his money and even more generous with his advice on how this very complex espionage ring in new york was supposed to be run known as the culper ring. but right after the war was over with, and i make, i note in my book the absolute truth that after the war the infantrymen the intelligence agent is really considered in a much less friendly light than they are in the war. he writes very tellingly: now i am not sure that all the money i spent on culper ring was worthwhile. well, truth of the matter, it was. washington also was a gentleman. and and i'm not suggesting that townsend wasn't or anything like that, but you're right, that concept of it's beneath me to spy. i think, frankly, today it's still true.

>> now, this is directed toward the french. in the world wars, you think if we would and have cried out for french to help us, do you think the wars would have gone quicker and more swiftly? >> the french government was in a position where they were not adequately prepared to actually declare war on the british until after the battle of saratoga where the american forces proved that they were strong enough to defeat an army in the field. and it was really touch and go. i mean, we came so close in december of 1776 to totally dissipating as an army that it is remarkable. the fascinating aspect of saratoga is that historians estimate that 80 plus percent of the gun powder used by the american troops during the two

battles that comprised the saratoga campaign came from hot less and company. -- hotellez and company. that allowed benjamin franklin to use propaganda and other aspects, and at that point the french crown had actually turned over its armament by selling off its own armament for shipment to the u.s. to point that it was able to take on great britain along with spain. >> [inaudible] logical question, if i could jump in. you talked about the fact that since it's so long ago you have the luxury of talking about sources and methods, and you can use real names. on the other hand, being so long ago documentary evidence is problematic and certainly when you're talking about intelligence and how close to the vest that washington kept a lot of these spy rings, a lot of what i've heard about intelligence from this comes each after the war when washington is -- even after the war when washington is billing the continue meantal congress

for the amount of money out of pocket. how difficult was it to come up with the actual evidence for writing this book and, you know, something new? because the time in between finish. >> right. >> -- makes documents very difficult to come up with. >> the primary documents are often difficult not just because they're so old, but if you've ever tried to read the spelling from somebody who wrote in the 18th century, god help you. you really need glasses. but washington was very good about protecting sources and methods. however, occasionally he would slip n. the case of the culper ring, a lot of subsequent documents were found in the papers of certain individuals involved, some of his staff people. but also in the pension records because by the 1830s you found extensive pension records explaining what they did during the war and then justifications that involved officers' affirmations of their actions that allows you to look at it. there's one individual just

because this speaks to your point named david mclean, a fine kent, delaware, guy, who was one of washington's good intelligence officers not only on philadelphia, but he also went into stony point and did personal reconnaissance, eventually did a bayonet charge and took that place. he also was some other places. but his documents are really fascinating because this was a very disorganized guy. this was a guy who when he had a thought would take whatever piece of paper he had and would simply write down what he thought. so you'd have a bill for a horse dated one time, and on the back you'd have something written such as arnold is involved with the british, which he did write. but you'd have no idea when he wrote that, whether he wrote it before or after the fact because he had written it on the back of a piece of paper. it was a real challenge n. the case of general green where i have done original research, i

simply went through his 26 volumes of correspondence and then went back and looked at cincinnati and looked at their or correspondence. that's why it took 20 years, i think. [laughter] >> were the british, the military spies that were british, was there any other reason other than greed that they were spying for americans? >> well, we've got to be careful about who's a spy for the british because everybody was british until -- but, i mean, seriously, it's not fair to call someone who was loyal to crown a spy. very few examples of high-level spies within the american structure. benjamin church is the best example, and he was a nasty spy. he did it strictly for money. this is a guy i'd mentioned earlier who was one of the leaders of the mechanics, the first intelligence organization. well, what i didn't mention was

that general gauge actually had the first intelligence organization penetrated because he did have church reporting on it. but it put him in a very fascinating situation, because if he bothered to arrest all of the leaders of the mechanics, then the committee of safety and the sons of liberty would have just set up another group, and he wouldn't know who they were. so it was kind of a ci problem you constantly have, there's the devil you know versus the devil you don't know if you decide to arrest people as opposed to monitor what they're doing. >> after we were supplied by this french company for two years, did we find a way of making our own guns, or did that company still keep supplying us? >> after 1778 and the formal alliance with france, french warships could then escort, transport, bring military supplies in.

before then it had to be done covertly, clandestinely through harbor interests or often through caribbean islands or things like that. once the weight of the french military could come to play, it was an entirely different deal. but we never got to the point where we could produce gun powder or arms in any sizable number, and that goes through the war of 1812, for that matter. >> all right. well, please join me, again, in the international spy museum in thanking ken daigler for taking the time to talk about his book today, and he will be in the back signing it if you want to ask any further questions or purchase his book and have him sign it for you, he's available for that. so thank you again. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> booktv covers hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long, and here's a look at some of the events we'll be attending this week.