George Washington, Spymaster: Chapters 5–6

For words that did not have a number code, Tallmadge gave his agents a cipher.

As Washington shrewdly noted, the invisible ink would not only make “communications less exposed to detection” but also would “relieve the fears” of agents carrying the innocent-looking messages.

Washington had suffered from dental problems for many years and eventually had all of his teeth pulled. He wore a denture, made from one of his own teeth, a cow’s tooth, and hippopotamus ivory; metal springs held the denture in his mouth.

Washington wanted an ink that was more complicated, an ink that could not be read merely by heating the paper or by coating it with an ordinary chemical. And he got what he wanted, from an unexpected source: Sir James Jay, a British doctor who lived in London and dabbled in chemistry.

As he described it, his ink “would elude the generally known means of detection, and yet could be rendered visible by a suitable counterpart.”

“I am lost!” Taylor cried and swallowed the silver ball. A doctor gave him a strong drug called an emetic, which made him vomit up the ball.

But the rash Arnold saw a chance to strike a crucial blow.

In which a wise man from Philadelphia goes to Paris and outfoxes spies of two nations.

He became a partner of spymaster George Washington by serving as a covert operations manager.

In mid-1775 someone in Bermuda, a British colony off the coast of North Carolina, reported that the royal arsenal at St. George’s Island, Bermuda, was full of gunpowder and had no guards around it.

Since both Franklin and Washington believed that an alliance with France could assure victory in the war, Franklin decided to meet with Bonvouloir.

Besides running covert operations, including dirty tricks known as sabotage, Franklin’s work would include gathering intelligence, sending out counterintelligence agents to hunt for moles and British spies, and using propaganda against England.

Besides running covert operations, including dirty tricks known as sabotage, Franklin’s work would include gathering intelligence, sending out counterintelligence agents to hunt for moles and British spies, and using propaganda against England.

The other two men on the diplomatic commission were Deane and Arthur Lee, who, as a lawyer in London, had spied, at great risk, for the Patriots.

Arthur Lee became suspicious, but while he was pointing a finger at Bancroft, Franklin learned from his agents in London that Lee’s own private secretary was a British spy! To Franklin, Lee was “jealous, suspicious, malignant, and quarrelsome.”