Doctor kristie is at the Georgia Institute of technology where she teaches courses in the history of science, not see germany into the history of espionage. Prior to georgia tech, she was a professor at Michigan State university, chancellor scholar at the Alexander Foundation and lecturer at harvard university. Shes written numerous books including her most recent publication prisoners, letters and spies the stories of invisible ink. Her other books are surviving the swastika of Scientific Research in it because germany, science unde under socialism, et germany in comparative perspective from east German Foreign intelligence and seduced by secret in spite of this by technical world. In addition she is the author of over 30 articles. Her awards include fellowships from the institute for advanced study in princeton, fulbright as well as grant from the National Science foundation and the humboldt foundation. She received her bachelors in history from Oberlin College and her masters and phd in the history of science from harvard. Please welcome doctor kristie on secret writing into the world of International Intrigue. [applause] thanks so much for the lovely invitation to this distinguished group of international travelers. I hope to take you on a little tour of International Tour of history starting with ancient greece and all the way up to the present. What i would like to d do is stt off i get a lot of questions about how i got interested. Its seduced by secret secret if the spy attack world spy capital. I had one chapter on the east ministry. I was sitting in the archive and they gave me a pile of files and you get really tired when you see dust lying on your face and think why am i not finding what im looking for . I want those secret of secret writing and then i was turning the files and i came across this file and as a seasoned historians sometimes those are the most interesting ones. And i opened it up and my mouth dropped open. I thought this is exactly what i was looking for. It was stamped top secret by the secret Police Intelligence agency and its foreign intelligence department. I was super excited and my heart started racing and i was getting hot and i felt like a kid that stole a candy bar because i thought im not supposed to be seeing this. Agencies never want you to see their sources and methods and this was the key method throughout the cold war. He didnt exist anymore. Thats why we could look at their files. However he didnt want me to look at a lot of things because intelligence professionals knew that people not only share material, but they often use the same sorts of methods and this turned out to be true. So, at the same time i hide the file and i thought they must have made a mistake. Maybe it was a bureaucratic lapse and they arent going to give it to me. Ive put him in order to get it copied. Just in case i copied the whole file by hand it took a couple of hours to do this because i thought i might not get it and i wanted to burn it into my brain and then at the end of the day he hands me a copy. I waited for the whole afternoon but maybe i will learn the material better that way by copying it out. And then i erased the archive was up when they beat any building within steps that echo. So i raced down the steps with my sandals and i could hear the echo and i thought maybe they are coming back to get the file. Mission accomplished i had the file. So that was in the chapte that n that book. But then the reason i got interested in the secret writing which of course isnt limited to the cold war, its not limited to the cia. So i was teaching a class on espionage and technology and i could give a lecture on secret writing. So i went to the library of the night before. Not a good idea. And there was nothing on the topics of it is a bad idea when you wait until the last minute to prepare your lecture and i ended up doing an exercise and improvised and told him stories and that was the end of the 50 minutes, thank goodness. Then i thought well why isnt there anything written about this topic . Im going to jump ahead a little bit. So there is a book on cryptography. But there was nothing on in invisible ink and im going to define the terms of the public because it can turn the confusion about cryptography ciphers and secret writing. They are not the same thing. Often times they would say you wrote a book on secret writing. No it isnt about that. So im going to use this return button to go back to an earlier slide. So then i decided there isnt a book it seems pretty important i will write a book. It wasnt actually that easy because aside from the fact there must be reasons of the history written in invisible ink that i havent been able to read so i always wonder what i missed because it was so successful a historian hasnt dug it out but i was pretty amazed by what i did find and it was Intriguing Research and was able to find for me because my books were on the 20th century not see germany which is a dark topic and other work topics. And i had a blast i could go back to ancient greece and the light of the mediterranean and finding out what the ancient greeks knew about secret writing but of course i wanted to figure out also as a historian i couldnt write a bunch of stories and put it together. To put it together. That isnt a book quite yet. How important is that if there hadnt been a book yet and People Associated with lemon juice and candles how important was it . And i found out actually it was very important and the fact that it was important is despite the 20th century they didnt want you to see the files. But in addition, the British Comedy m. I. Five ca, the quicker that the fbi declassified a lot of material from both world wars and it was fascinating. It was filled with secret writing. So what i decided to do is id assigned this book dont like my title and the publisher that its the University Press scare you off. Off. The popular book. But i tried to do is tell the story of secret writing from ancient times to modern times from ancient rome to the nsa surveillance using stories. So today i will only be able to tell you a few stories but its chockfull of stories about how people used it and i decided that that was the most fun and engaging way to present the story. So thats the way the book is set up. Today im going to give you some highlights through pictures. And i should warn you i should race through the first 300 years or more than that because i want to get to one that actually things really start taking off and happening during world war i. So i promised that i would tell you a little bit about definitions. Ive got a handout for you. And i will show you the handout right here. So there is a big word. Dont be scared away by this. I only was it a couple of times in the book but its kind of the companion to the word cryptography. And you probably all know cryptography is about the codes. Welcome this is about it in writing. When you think of a dinosaur stegosaurus hiding something underneath. But it hasnt gone the way of the dinosaur yet. Its some of it is by way of definition. I will go back to a few slides. So as a historian some of the questions did it change the course of history . Sometimes it did. Was it a childs toy or was it Serious Business . Is Serious Business but its also fun and i wanted to tell you this biography of a special kind of secret communication. It is an impact on history and secret communications. And its illuminating to help understand for example the nsa and mail surveillance today because of the 20th century, it was in essence the same rationale for doing what the nsa does today when it intercepts email. So let me go ahead here. Ive told you most of the stuff here. So heres the big brother cryptography and little sister and here is the unwritten. I look at them as big brother and little sister because theyve gotten all of the attention whereas the secret inc. Has gotten less attention. Or hardly any. So this is your handout. My publisher has a talented designer and one of them had some famous practitioners and you could take them home with you. Like George Washington was enamored with sympathetic ink. So i will tell you a little bit about some of the famous practitioners as we go further along. And then here in invisible ink only a small part of it is about ink so im not going to go to any technical treatise about the inks. In the bodily fluids like saliva and semen and i will get back to this story later. You we want to know when people started using lemon juice that i was going to tell you today. So there is more to the story. The ancient greeks you might think it was then that it wasnt so im teasing you a little bit on that. But im starting with the ancient greeks because often times we can trace a lot of things back to the ancient greeks and i just love this painting here. He kept the western civilization alive, so to make a long story short. Somebody wrote a message warning of the persian invasion of greece. They then wrote it on a tablet and covered with wax and gave it to the king and he thought what is this blank tablet. Shes a disgrace to the wax off and then they were warned of the invasion so they could read how then and that is why the western civilizations kept it alive. Of course that might sound a little chauvinistic to us that some people might have paid for the persian civilization kept alive so that is the instance of how it really changed the course of history because the greeks had a bigger influence in history because of that. This is really important, ill e back to it later, and a love. So ovid wrote a famous passage, i think its one of the first ones that really used, you know, described invisible ink in the sense of an invisible substance that you can make visible. He used a plant thats a milky, glute now substance, and you can put ashes on it, and you can read the message. So i tell these stories in more detail in the book. So now id like to turn to the renaissance. So the book is organized chronologically so you can chart the impact on history. So giovanni is one of my favorite characters in history here on the left. He looks a bit like a a magician there, but he wrote a lot of books on scientific topics and cryptography and only one chapter on invisible writing, and its the only thing you can find from the early period. But i just loved that, the cover eut i just loved that, the cover looks like a magician, and it captures the magical aspect of secret writing. And then i wont dwell on this. We did a video. This is my friend, jason lye, a color chemist, and dell a port said if you use alum and vinegar and you write on an egg, you know, they dont check eggs the youre in prison. So i tried reproducing it, and it doesnt work. Its gone down in history for 300 years, and my color chemist expert says it shouldnt work, and it doesnt work, but people have said it works because they havent tried it. [laughter] i have a contest going if you want to try it, there are more details in the video and on the web site about using alum and vinegar on an egg to write a secret message. I have a contest going. No one has won yet. It was on the radio and everything, and no one has come up with the winning answer. [laughter] so this is, im going to just skip ahead to francis [inaudible] spyhaaser and queen spymaster and Queen Elizabeth. During the early modern period when there was a conflict between the protestants and catholics, who would seize power, one of the first spymasters the world has ever known. I love these portraits, he looks so satanic in that portrait, doesnt he . [laughter] he was actually a pretty evil spymaster, he was ruthless. And youll see why in a few minutes. Queen elizabeth, i love this portrait. Im going to show you this side so you can look at it more carefully. This is called the rainbow portrait. Do you notice anything interesting about the robe . Ive got withen different answers in the gotten different answers in the past. You might not be able to see it way back there, but there are eyes and ears on the robe. So what do they signify . Listening and watching, right. They need to see things and they need to hear things. So i just think that so telling. And not many people know how much spying went on in the early modern period. And, actually, as someone who has worked in the 20th century and nazi germany and these topics that i thought were pretty gruesome, you know, i didnt know history was so gruesome until i started learning about the tudor period and Queen Elizabeth and mary queen of scots. There were a lot of people who died because of poor secret communication during this period. One of them was mary queen of scots. I dont know how many people know this story . Well, you can learn more about it in the book. Ill just tell you that her life depended on good secret communication. She was, at the end of her life, Queen Elizabeth had her kind of exiled in these remote castles with moots so she to smooths so she moats. So here she is her head being cut off, and her only friend in the end was her poor little dog who sat between her head, her decapitated head and shoulders. Its pretty gruesome. More details, narrative details in the book. Other people were more successful, and, of course, she used okay. She used codes and ciphers and secret ink, but it was very primitive secret ink using alum, so but some people were more successful. For example, john gerard, the jesuit priest, he escaped the tower of london using orange juice as a secret writing substance. And this is one of the most ten daring escapes ever in history. Not many people escaped the dreaded tower of london. So thats the good news. Now i want to skip ahead to the revolutionary war in america. I mentioned early on that George Washington was enamored of invisible ink. He called it sympathetic stain related to its also called sympathetic ink, there are various words and terms for the concept in the word. So this is one of my favorite paintings of George Washington. I saw it in francis tavern in new york city and had to have it for the book. Here you can see it bigger. Its not, you know, its very dark, but thats George Washington looking at his war plans, you know . On the map. So i just love that. But, you know, ill the tell you that ill tell you that it played a big role in helping him win the revolutionary war, secret writing. Because his spy ring, the culper ring, could moon candidate secret communicate secretly between new york and the mainland, and if they hadnt communicated secretly, the enemy would know what their plans are, right . So you have to communicate secretly. My contribution to this whole issue of the revolutionary war and spies is that this is james jay. Does that the jay name ring a bell . Hes the older brother of one of the founding fathers, john jay, and he was a doctor, a medical doctor, and he developed a secret ink for his brother, john jay. And i finally found this i couldnt find a portrait of him. They all describe him as this odious man, and i thought, what is he, ugly . Ive got to see what he looks like. So i finally found this portrait at the end, right before the book was going to be published. So here is james jay. So he was central in providing George Washington with secret ink. And i tell the whole story in the book, but that doesnt have a happy ending, because he never got paid, and he kept petitioning congress to get paid, and in the end he never got paid even though they said he did a Great Service for the revolution their war. [laughter] [inaudible] so this is, so, obviously, you know, as historians and other curious seem want to know, well, what kind of ink did George Washington use . Was it lemon use . No, it wasnt lemon juice because he found something that was imperiyous to heat, and it can just be heated up, so you want something more secure. So this man on the left in the 1930s was also curious. He was both a medical doctor, and he was also a photographer at the prestigious Huntington Library this california. And in california. And he had a lot of modern equipment in the 1930s, and im really jealous because he could actually deface be these letters deface these letters and pieces of paper. If i walked into the library of congress and said can i borrow George Washingtons letter, i want to put some chemicals on it, do you think theyd give it to me . [laughter] no. But he was allowed to do that. Actually what happened was john jays biographer was writing a biography, and he had the papers, and back then they didnt have them in archives and things, they were just in personal possession. So he let him have em so he could deface the paper like this and find out, experiment and find out what kind of secret ink it was. And ill also leave that to the book so you can find out what kind of secret ink it was. I cant tell you all my secrets. [laughter] im going to skip through this because i want to concentrate on the spies, but secret ink was also used for magical purposes. So i went to germ and retrace germany and retraced these steps here the find out more about that. So now im going to jump to the 20th century and world war i, because this is when it all starts happening. And im right on schedule here. So this is a chemistry set my friend jason, who you saw in the previous slide, got at a flea market. And i think you mentioned you had a gilbert chemistry craft. So there was chem craft and gilbert, they were rivals. So he got this chemistry set, and you could do magic in secret ink experiment did you do secret ink experiments . Oh, you did . You have a long interest in this subject. [laughter] [inaudible] yeah. So in any case, so that was a little pamphlet, a delightful little pamphlet made. It was actually very, you know, to the our own 21st century ears, some of the things i say are very, you know, we wouldnt write them today. So, but in any case, you know, they you say you can do these fn invisible ink experiments at home and all the color changes, and the color changes are truly magical. I mean, its really a great way the get budding scientists interested in science. But this chemistry set that jason found also had a little cobalt fluoride in it so we could experiment a little with it. But in some sets this is how invisible ink piggybacked into the 20th century. But this is a totally different world than this world, this spy world. So now im going to jump right into International Intrigue and the 20th century when it really starts happening. And i would say it would be no exaggeration to say that more happened during world war i for secret writing than the previous 300 years. And i dont want you to think that 300 years were sleepy years. They were lively years, its just that people didnt develop more sophisticated things to use, so cryptography, the big brother, had already developed really much more sophisticated cryptography already in the renaissance during Queen Elizabeths period. But, you know, invisible ink, it didnt, it didnt have to develop something more sophisticated, because if its not there and you dont know its there, if you dont suspect its there, then why do can you need some fancy, you know, formula to do it . Well, ill tell you why people finally learned you did need something fancier because peoples lives depended on it. I can tell you a little story now. This is carl f. Muller. He has a worried look on his face. Why do you think he might have a worried look on his face . Might die. Hes going to die . [laughter] thats a good guess. So you would have a worried look on your face if this happened to you. Well, carl muller, well, his okay, his german came was karl with a k, britishized to call muller, and here he is, he has a worried look on his face. Nancy was right, he budget going to he wasnt going to, he got shot this the tower of london in the tower of london. [laughter] okay. Here. You get the idea. [laughter] thats my only audio effect here. So he was shot at the tower of london. I told you about his successful escape. He wasnt successful at all. And he was shot at the tower of london. Youll never guess why. I mean, obviously, it has something to do with secret writing, but you would never guess. A german guy, the germans, when we think of germans we think of great science, great chemistry, they must be really sophisticated, they have spies with the best chemistry they could have. They wouldnt use anything primitive like orange juice or lemon juice. Well, guess what that is . Have you ever seen 100yearold lemon . [laughter] thats what a 100yearold lemon looks like. So i found this lemon in the archives, actually, this britain, in the u. K. So when i was researching the book and, you know, its always lots of fun when you find Something Weird like that in the archives. So, you know, i opened up the box, and i thought, god, what is this thing . I thought thats a 100yearold lemon, because this happened about 100 years ago today. So this was actually evidence collected for the case of karl huller. And that muller. And thats why he had to go to the tower of london and face the firing squad. Im going to briefly read you again, this, the book has lots of stories, so, you know, im giving you kind of a quick tour through everything, but everythings illustrated with stories. And i think this is, i call these people lemon juice spies, because he wasnt the only one who died in the tower of london because he used lemon juice for invisible ink. By the time Karl Frederick muller faced the firing squad at the tower of london, he was calm. It was six a. M. On june 23rd, 1915, and he shook hands individually with all eight members of the firing party at the miniature rifle range telling them that he understood they were performing their duty. So i wont go into the gruesome details, but the night before his execution the 58yearold baltic german whose german name was karl miller was a nervous wreck. He sobbed through the night asking for his wife and children. By the time the british had arrested the tall hand in a frock coat, he seemed to have a perpetually worried look on his long, gaunt face. So n thats the beginnings of e story of karl muller. Het because its hard to believe these people died because they used lemon juice. I mean, thats kids stuff, right . [laughter] so, obviously, people started learning, the germans learned like, god, were losing all these agents, wed better improve our secret ink. And so then you begin to have thats why i call it the secret ink war, a seesaw war between the germans and the brits during world war i. But in addition, you know, they found this stuff, but the reason they found it, and youll be interested in this because i know everyones following the nsa and Edward Snowden stories. They used the equivalent of what we call metadata these days. They used cover addresses then. So they would watch certain addresses because they suspected someone might be a spy or whatever. So theyd put that address under surveillance and monitor all the mail, and thats how they found out about muller and other german spies. And so it was part of british postal censorship. I dont want you to get confused with the word censorship because really what they were doing when it comes to secret communication was mail interception or mail surveillance, what youre familiar with today. So it wasnt electronic, but youll see how wide ranging it was. I was just amazed. So its really akin to what the nsa does with our email. And that during world war i you had, you know, a lot of new science, forensic chemistry developed. This guy was brought in to exam the nib with lemon juice on it. I have some exciting news, and i havent told this yet in any presentation because i just got this information a couple of weeks ago from from someone who listened to a Radio Program i was on, and he, within hours of the radio show, he wrote me an email, and he said i just heard you on npr, and my father was head of the secret ink in the u. S. For a historian thats like gold. Wow, i dont believe it, you know . Within hours of thats what we dream of. Thats why i love to do these events. If anyone knows anyone who knows anyone [laughter] so, but i was doubly excited whenn5e he said i have pictures too. He made me wait for these pictures. These pictures, actually, theyre really fresh. He just sent them a couple of days ago. I thought is this guy for real . Is he hasnt sent me these pictures yet. So he said now i have pictures of dr. Stanley collins. You dont know who he is, but he wasnt just important for britain, he was the chief technical officer at the british postal censorship office, and really the reason he and he was, like, renowned in secret ink circles. But hes a totally invisible man. I mean, im obsessive about my research, and i couldnt find anything public photos of him, there were no bitch wares of him in the newspaper no obituaries of him in the newspaper, he wrote no public articles, so there was nothing. I was beginning to think i wonder if this is the guys real name. I saw the guys name in the file, so it was likely his real name. The other guy i showed you, you know, he was a public analyst, so he published books and papers, and i could get a nice obituary. Everything was there. Stanley collinsc was the invisible man. And, of course, being curious, i was like what does this guy look like . Is he for real . He said he had pictures of the famous but he was famous just in secret circles, dr. Stanley winter collins, 18821954. And i did find an obituary finally, an obscure journal called the journal of the royal chemical society, the obituary was this long. It was six lines. You know, it said he worked as a chief technical officer for british censorship, and he got all these awards. He got the mbe, he got, you know, the norwegian award, he got like three major awards, but they were all in secret intelligence circles, so he wasnt publicly famous, he was privately famous. But the way i heard about him was through herbert yardly also in his book called the black chamber discusses him. And he wrote a tellall book in 1931, and it was as explosive in 1931 as Edward Snowden does today because he worked in codes and ciphers, and revealed a lot of secrets. Of course, the government was very upset and angry with him. So he mentioned Stanley Collins because Stanley Collins came to america to help america build up their secret ink unit because we had nothing like that. We didnt know anything about it. We sat at the feet of the british, and they taught us everything. So here he is. [laughter] with his pipe in hand. So he was legendary in the secret world. This is the first picture ever shown publicly of dr. Stanley w. Collins. So here he is. This is during the second world war. He worked both in world war i and world war ii. History really does repeat itself, because the same story really repeats itself in world war ii. He worked for censorship in world war i, chief technical officer as chemist. There he is with his pipe. And he does look nice. He was described as friendly, and hed tell stories about german spies and illustrate his lectures with ton stories. So he does with fun stories. So he does, you know, regale the people in america, and they adored him, obviously. So this was cliff and judy pearces party in 1944. So the pictures from world war ii, not from world war i when he was a younger man. So on your left youve got stanley that picture was taken from that picture there, so hes on the left. And then on the extreme right is dr. Charles enrique dent who was also from british censorship. He worked in bermuda, and ill be getting to that when i get to the world war ii slides. And he was also instrumental in capturing lots of german spies, and he helped america also a lot in helping americans learn about secret ink and secret writing and intercepting messages. So i think its fitting that they frank, you know, the two americans that they flank, you know, the two americans. David pearce, the guy who emailed me, thats his father, clifford pearce, right here, this young, handsome man. And then it turns out his father was head of the whole technical Censorship Department in the u. S. , and then thats dr. Brion who was head of the secret ink section. And here we have dr. S collins and dealt, the two british people and dent, the two british people. They, obviously, they worked a lot together, and they were very success successful in capturing german spies. So this is september 1944. So as you can imagine, i was thrilled to get this photograph. So there were a lot of women who helped intercept messages also starting in britain. And this is mabel elliot. She was an unsung woman hero. There was nothing written about her in her lifetime. I found an obituary of her, and she helped uncover spies, and she was promoted from, you know, assistant censor to, you know, head censor, and she organized 3,000 women who worked for british censorship in world war i. And here she is here. So you can hide secret writing a lot of different places. I told you where the ancient greeks hid them. The germans and the british were very ingenious about concealing their secret writing. One german spy concealed it on his sheet music, but british censorship got him too. But he didnt die. So now that ive told you about all these deaths and gruesome things happening and serious stuff, i thought id turn to something a little lighter. This is mansfield coupling, and his name will be significant when you see the next slide. He was head of mi6, mi6 on the right and mansfield coupling there, and he want cumming, and he wanted to find a secret ink, something you could use that maybe was immediately around you but not lemon juice, and he wanted to find something that also wasnt detectable using iodine vapors. So he was really excited when one of his staff said, well, semen works really well as a secret ink. And, but i entitled the section stinky ink, because when its bottled, its kind of stink i can. As you can imagine, you had to have a fresh operation each time you used it, and the guy that developed it got teased so much, he had to leave the office and go somewhere else. [laughter] so thats a lighter story there. So this is just an example of, you know, revealing ink. This is called brittanias trident, so they put different reagents or chemical developers to develop the ink. Now, this is really important. I already told you a little about censors and how theyre similar to what the nsa is doing today with mail surveillance. This was also jawdropping. There are a lot of jawdropping moments doing this work, i think. But, so is this is the british perception of their work about postal censorship which is the equivalent of mail interception or mail surveillance. This is what a journalist said in 1920 looking back to world war i. He said the following the great importance of postal censorship lay in the grip it gave us over practically the whole of the worlds correspondence. The grip it gave us over racketically the whole of the worlds correspondence practically the whole of the worlds correspondence. This was in 1920. That was a hundred years ago, a hundred years before the worldwide web and electronic surveillance. They did it all manually. Well, what was the secret to their success . They were an imperial power, and they had censorships office dotting all their empires. So you had censorship offices in india, in australia, in new zealand, in the caribbean, especially in bermuda, in the middle east, everywhere. So, and they were monitoring all the mail from all these places in their empire. So while these days, you know, americas a superpower, you know . Theyre an empire. We can surveil the whole globe through electronic surveillance. They did it in world war i. I mean, it was remarkable. So in a sense, theyre our heirs. This is where we got this stuff. And i mentioned and theres a lot more about the relationship between british and american spying, but we really sat at their feet, because the british were very experienced. You saw way back in the renaissance, they have a lot of experience in spying and secret communication. Thats where we learned our stuff. So i just was amazed when i saw that quote. Not just saw the quote, when i saw the files in the arkansas kentuckys. Because, you know archives. Because, you know, there was a dizzying array of letters that were, you know, stamped british censorship, and it would be off in some colony somewhere. You know, the tentacles extended all over the world. And bermuda was particularly important. Thats where they caught a lot of spies ill get to that in a few slides. So just again during world war i and world war ii, they concealed secret ink in clothing, socks, shoe laces, medicine, tooth toothpaste, soap, sheet music. This is a handkerchief, thats from a later period, but they did that. So now i want to get to a few cases, i wont go into the details, just to give you a taste of some of the colorful spies. So george vaux bacon was an american journalist, and he was coopted to work for the German Secret Service during world war i. As you can see, that didnt have a happy end either [laughter] because i show his mug shot from atlantis, i thought that would interest you, federal penitentiary down in grant park. And that says u. S. Ful george vaux bacon, he looks so naive, and here he looks like a hardened criminal. Ill show you his its called a [speaking in native tongue] back then, in world war i, you know, you measured people to identify them. I mean, you didnt do the traditional kind of identifying characteristics we think of today. Is you measured them so you measured them, and these are all sorts of characteristics about them. I think somewhere it says he has a hairy chest as well. [laughter] anyway, thats his card from the atlanta federal penitentiary. And he hid i wont tell you the whole story, but he had secret ink in his socks, so he would wring them out, and it was a very low concentration because the germans had learned, you know . And so it was less easy to detect. But nevertheless, they got him also because of mail surveillance. And then they could use the secret writing for evidence. And thats an interesting case. But the good news on bacon is he only got a couple years. He was very young, and the judge thought, you know, he got duped to working for the germans, and he put bad about put felt bad about putting such a young man in jail for a long time. So that had a happy end. He wasnt shot anywhere. Turning to another colorful spy, i call her the consumer hand mata hari. I finally found a picture of her too right here, circled, the woman among the men. She was often described as this glamorous blond and this and that. Turned out she was a very bright woman. She was a little overweight and a hour teen addict. She wasnt quite the glamorous picture they wrote. [laughter] so people have this mythologized view of women spies during world war i. But she was the First AmericanSuccess Story in catching a spy, and she impregnated her scarf with invisible ink. And you could wring it out and use it. So these are good methods, because you only used a small amount of substance. And it was a long, convoluted story how they got her, and you can read the details in the book. So now id like to jump ahead to world war world war ii, and as a historian, im just amazed. I would sometimes get confused because the stories are so similar. So, you know, they had buried their hatchet, the british and the germans, and then they were at it again in world war ii, and they started their secret communication war and their secret ink war again, and it also started off by using primitive secret ink, and then they learned, and then they got better at it. In the time, of course, they even got more sophisticated. The germans developed the microdot, something hoover secret communication espionage. Hoover really thought secret communication was super important, and it is. No secret communication, no spying. You have to be able to communicate. Thats why people want to intercept your communications, what your plans are. Remember ancient greece . You know . They knew the persians were going to invade so they could i mean, thats always the, every country dreams of that, getting warning of attack like pearl harbor, 9 11. Thats why we have so much money invested in our intelligence agencies, is to prevent future attacks. I dont think you can, but people catch you off guard. But in any case, so the rationale was the same here. So you have a similar story. Censorship is back in business again. Much more refined and were bett. In this time the british were also based in bermuda. Thats a flying boat. The reason they were based in bear with knew da is the mail, for example, from new york city, europe had to go via bermuda, so it was a refueling stop. Theyd stop there, theyd unload the plane with all the mail, and theyd take it to the princess hotel, a fancy hotel. And in the basement they had an outfit for secret ink. And its an amazing story, they caught lots of german spies that way because the women supposedly with their sixth sense actually, theres more to this sixth sense. Lets see oh, here. So by world war ii the british, not only did women have a sixth sense, they had wellturned ankles as well. [laughter] so this was back then. I guess you could say that and not get in trouble. And the british, again, taught america all we know, knew about this stuff. And so, of course, america was reluctant to go into the censorship business. As you know, its against our whole tradition. Even our discussions today of civil liberties. These discussions dont happen in every country. And these discussions have a long history. And weve actually relaxed our attitude a lot. So during world war ii, guess who they named as head of the office of u. S. Censorship . A newspaper man. Doesnt seem like, you know, the right fit, but it was back then because they knew hed keep an eye on transgressions, right . So this is what they said they said mail censorship was a criminal offense in peacetime, unamerican at any time, a vital necessity in wartime. And this is part of my thesis with the book, is youll see all these stories ive told you people start using secret communication a lot in wartime. Its end is bl then. Acceptable then. Youd say, okay, well relax our attitudes towards civil liberty. You know, its a criminal offense in peacetime to read other peoples mails, but in wartime well allow it. These previous wars lasted four years, world war i, world war ii. So they would ratchet up censorships. There were over 14,000 crepe sores in world war ii. A lot of people. After world war ii was over, there were hardly any. So two world wars, short wars. If politicians are listening to this, you should heed the warning of history. So two world wars, four years each. Censorship was acceptable. Mail surveillance was acceptable for those four years, and then it was over. Then we get to the cold war, a much longer war, and youll be astonished to see what happened there. Then we get to the war on terror, right . That was a really long war. Thats why as far as im concerned, we went as far as we did with the nsa surveillance, because were kind of in this hazy period of war, and, you know, the borders between war and peace arent clear. It was a lot earlier, easier to demarcate in the 20th century. The war was over, and it wasnt acceptable. So the u. S. Office of censorship turned over 4,600 messages to the fbi to examine be for secret to examine for secret writing. And the u. S. Censors found 120 letters with secret writing on it, and the british found 219. Of course, they had an earlier start. So the total tally was 339. I mean, thats actually a good rate. It is a needle in a haystack job. If you get 339, thats a lot. And they caught a lot of spies. Ill showcase a couple of them. So this is Charles Enrique dent who i showed earlier when he was younger when he had more hair with dr. Stanley collins. So he was the head of the bermuda station, and he had a lot of success in catching german spies. Here they are again. Thats an older picture from 44. So im just showing this not for you to read everything, but just to show you that, you know, the fbi was on the rampage against nazi spies, and, you know, they celebrated their successes. Unlike the british, the british wanted to keep everything secret. They didnt want the stuff to get in the newspapers because then people would know, you know, about the methods and also the british wanted to turn their agents into Double Agents. So you dont want a caught agent to get in the newspaper because you dont want the enemy to know you have him. Whereas we were much more straightforward. We caught them. Hoover wanted to send them right to jail. So the last country here has a secret ink letter right here, and you dont have to read it, its just yeah, the red says troops, you know, are coming to new york next week. So thats the secret writing uncovered these chilling messages. So here is one of the nazi spies just to give you an example of someone that dent caught because of the bermuda traffic. And he was based in new york city, Kurt Frederick ludwig. And so this is one of his mug shots here on the left. He was a nazi spy, and he used pyramidon, has anyone heard of that . Its a headache remedy. Used in world war ii, it was probably as common as aspirin. And it was a common headache remedy. So often times people used dualuse secret writing. In other words, a medicine that could be both used for a headache and for secret writing because then when the fbi knocks on your door, no, thats just headache of course, when you find the toothpicks, you know, what are you writing here or even the letters themselves. I was amazed how many letters he wrote, i saw them in the files, because hard actually, you should try at home to write secret messages invisibly for long periods of time. My lines go he wrote reams of letters in invisible ink. And he also did some time in the atlanta federal penitentiary. Here are some mug shots. He started at the atlanta federal penitentiary, but he was such a pain and apparently such a nationalistic kind of nazi spy that they sent him to alcatraz. [laughter] you can tell what kind of prisoner he was. So heres some pictures of him. You know, he looks really indignant, you know . So there on the bottom and then they outfitted him, got new glasses and got some fillings in jail and stuff. So they fixed him up. And there towards the end of its fun, towards the end of his stay he looks like a bookkeeper, doesnt he . He actually ended up being a book keeper in new york at a library after he was released in the 1950s. Im going to read you one passage. Five more minutes . [inaudible] so the fbi followed him, you know, when they got on his trail, and it was actually the british that gave them the tip, the fbi the tip. And i tell the whole story here. Vphey followed him, and, you know, let me just find thatu passage. Thought i had it. Flagged here. Oh, well. I guess i dont have it. But just to make a long story short, so they were following him, he got out ott a gas station, and he said why are you following me . Were not following you. Yes, you are. He got back in the car, and they ended up arresting him, but i thought it was a funny scene, you know, that he knew he was being followed, and he gets out and confronts the fbi. But they did eventually catch him. [laughter] so those are his mugc shots. I wont have time to go into the mysteries of microdot, but this was a fascinating mystery to unravel. I mentioned that the germans started using something called the microdot which is, basically, you reduce a photographic reduction of a secret message. As i mentioned, it takes a long time to write, like, secret messages by hand. So, you know, if you had a lot to write, you could type it up and reduce it to something the size of a period at the end of the sentence. And thats what hoover called, j. Edgar hoover called the unleashed masterpiece of espionage. There are lots of myths unraveled in the book, but this is the playboy spy who was a double or triple agent, and he brought some questionnaires on pearl harbor to the u. S. , and some people thought that we missed a warning of attack on pearl harbor, and this message was hidden in a hydrodot. Concern microdot. The nazis secret ink in a tooth story, this guy doesnt he look like he has a tooth ache . [laughter] this is a fun story. I wont tell the whole story, save it to say that he secreted secret ink in a mow hour, and he was a double molar, and he was a double agent when he landed in britain in a parachute. He denied he had any secret writing like that, and one day he was in the cafeteria, and, you know, the cap to the tooth popped out and so did the little baggy with the secret ink, and the british found out he had secreted secret ink in his tooth. Bizarre stories. So im going to start wrapping up here. So cold war, i mentioned mail interception. Can you believe it . It happened again during the cold war. And, of course, this was a much longer war, but there was a little different outcome in this story. So the east bloc was hutch more successful at much more successful at catching spies using postal interception than the u. S. Was. Its really a key counterintelligence method. The u. S. Wanted to use postal interception in 1952. They launched a program called h. T. Lingual. It was quickly nipped in the bud. Of course, it was seen unconstitutional, blah, blah, blah, so it was nipped in the bud. We actually, the u. S. Didnt catch that many spies by interceptioning secret communication because they werent allowed to. So thats something to ponder when you think about the pros and cons of secret communication in a democratic society. So the final chapter of the book, it goes out, its called hiding in porn sites, it goes up to the present. And the reason its called hiding in porn sites is that the modern version of secret ink is whats called digital steg nothing my. In other words, you can hide a message in a image, i can email you a after the, and i can have ash in a photograph, and i can have a secret message in it. So investigators thought that alqaeda was doing this, right . So they spent hours, if days, examining emails. And, actually, they thought they were this pornographic sites, so the investigators were allowed to look at pornography during work, and for ten years they found nothing. And then [laughter] they didnt find it by poring over pornographic sites, they actually found the german [speaking in native tongue] which is like the fbi caught these terrorists in germany, and they confiscated all their materials including a travel drive, and they found a pornographic movie on it, and it hid chilling messages in the travel drive in a movie. So thats what that is. But the movie was called kick ass. So just returning here, you know, i hope that this story has shed some light on our current discussions about snowdens revelations about the National Security agency. But i also want the give you a little background why spy agencies feel the need they need to intercept secret communications or any communications at all. And these days we do have the whole globe covered, you know, electronic surveillance covers the whole globe. I mean, a hundred years ago the british did it all manually. We have the globe covered because of the nature of the technology and our mastery of it. And so, again, as ive said several times and i just want to drive this point home, you know, during wartime, you know, espionage and secret writing and mail interception is usually, was usually considered acceptable because it was a method for winning the war and catching spies. And be then usually in peacetime there was a contraction of these methods which we find offensive in general but were willing to relax our ideals during wartime. And the cold war was an extended war, as is the war on terror. And there are really few checks on this. It really began to get out of control in secrecy before snowden, several other whistleblowers like drake, spoke up about it and shook up the world. So my final piece of advice . Spooked by the nsa . Try communicating the Old Fashioned way. Laugh. [laughter] [applause] thank you so much [inaudible] yeah, right here. Excellent presentation, thank you, and i think this is a topic, you know, most of us didnt know a whole lot about it. But im just curious, in your research did you find the chinese or the muslims, are they doing anything . It was all british who were oh, no, no, no. Thats a good question. Of course, i couldnt cover everything in the course of 50 minutes, but early in the book i do look at chinese, and i tried to investigate india. The chinese used some really interesting methods. So they used something called luan, so they would roll up a ball of wax, and you could hide it in weird places like your rectum [laughter] its all true. And so then, ywmwn know, youd have to, i guess, get it out and everything. [laughter] so they used whats called luan. And they actually also used alum, that sub stands i mentionedbc that mary queen of scots used. So im kind of interested, i mean, there was a lot of trade among various places. So the chinese, ive uncovered in the islamic world oh, now i have to give away the lemon story, i wanted you to have to read something i didnt tell you. But the arabs, well, the arabs as many of you might know, you know, really cryptology began with the arabs. Cryptology, cryptography, frequency analysis. And they also made, you know, a little contribution to secret writing, invisible writing. And this is another weird thing i found, was that they used what they called calkontin, and they gave you a recipe for getting this paste with sort of black lemon, and if you wrote it on someones head, it was kind of like the scalp story, you know . Hair would supposedly start growing where you wrote the message. I really cant figure out why it would work, but men who are going bald would like that kind of ink if hairs going to start growing where the message is. [laughter] yeah. I did find it among the chi niece. Indians, i mean, the cam masseur that has things about messages, but ill gladly post a blog. But, you know, i couldnt find a lot about india. Except later on when they were associated with the british. It was a fascinating movie called the house on 92nd street. And this did not have nothing to do with any material thing and how a german spy ring penetrated the atomic bomb secrets in lossal hose. And los alamos. And it was through memory. They planted a spy who could run blindfolded like 20 games of chez at one time chess at one time, and this was true. The tbi was involved the fbi was involved. And they finally got him, but it was, but he already had gotten the secret out. Well, so the house on 92nd street actually is in my book also, and ive watched the movie. Thats another remember i showed you that fbi comic strip . That movie was part of its propaganda effort to show how great they were at catching spies, and the movie ends up being, you know, a conglomeration of different cases. Because i saw it, and i thought, well, its supposed to be about siebold, but they bring in different aspects of different cases. When hoover says the microdot was the masterpiece he writes for reeders digest, and readers digest, and you have to unravel fact and fiction. They were really expert at, you know, doing this because, you know, it reads like a good story and a plausible story. But half the stuff in that house on 92nd street is made up or its mixing up different cases. So it included, i didnt mention it in the but its in my book, william siebold, who used microdots as well. He turns out to work as a double agent for the fbi. Maybe you remember that part. I think thats featured in that film. So he was one of our few Double Agents, william siebold, and he used the microdot, and, you know, he helped expose a spy ring of 33 people in new york. But unlike the british, the british kept their secret, Double Agents secret until long after the war, until the 1970s. But, of course, hoover wanted to show, you know, what a big success this was. So it was plastered all over the newspapers already when it happened, and then, you know, a book was written right after the war about a passport to treason about this guy, william siebold. So thats a fascinating movie, but half of its false. [laughter] if you want the real story, i tell the real story in the [inaudible] im glad you, how did you hear about it or know about it . I saw it way back in the 70s or maybe even 60s, and one of the main characters was a held, one of the head of the organization oh, due cane, because that was part of the dew cane spy ring. Mr. Christopher. Oh, there is no mr. Christopher. A woman posing as a man. Yeah. Well, anyways, you might want to see whats fact and fiction. Yeah, i saw it on dvd, the movie. Vz like, wow, this looks great, ill learn what happened, and then i looked at the facts,nr and i looked at the movie, and thats not true. Thats what they did, they would put things together and make it a good story ask make them look good too. Question . These are good questions. Ill take more. Do we have in i in the in back . Well, i have one. What was your very favorite story . When you were researching the book . Oh. Well, i showed the i mean, you know, it depends on my mood, but i showed the one in the tooth, the nazi spy and the tooth, that was fun, that story. [laughter] oh, another one, oh, thats right. So, by the way, in addition to the book being, you know, its stories, so its popular history, its not like, you know, academic history. So i also have an an appendix at the end with fun experiments you can try at home. So one of my favorite stories is about a guy who, a prisoner in wadsworth prison in britain who knew that you could use oatmeal to write secret messages, and also in that video we also use oatmeal to write secret messages, and you can develop with iodine drops from your kitchen medicine cabinet. So this guy went to mi5 and says, he thought he could get an Early Release by telling them this way prisoners might be communicating using their breakfast oatmeal. But he didnt get an Early Release, and they started adding milk to the oatmeal, because then its not invisible anymore. [laughter] i have one. Okay. So a couple of questions. I think yeah. Did they use animals or birds at any time . Yeah. Because i know in india during the modern times their stories that messages were sent through pigeons, you know . Oh, yeah. Especially the love stories. Love stories. Yea. Well, yeah, pigeons [inaudible] pigeons were used a lot during world war i, and i toyed with the thought of whether i should include pigeons. It sounds comprehensive, my book, but it wasnt as but people used pigeons a lot during world war i. And they would put messages on their feet, you know, and the pigeon, homing pigeons know where to go, and they would get it, and they were used a lot in world war ii and probably into world war ii. And then dead animals, yeah, i didnt tell you the story about the dead rabbit in ancient greece, did i . But they did, there are lots of stories about dead animals. This was really gross. So they would i wont tell you the details. Safe to say some guy was mad at someone else, so he had to tell someone something in a mission, so he split the belly of a hare, rabbit, and put the message in his belly and sent him off with a messenger. Of course; it also took days or weeks to get there. I can only imagine the stench the rabbit emitted by the time it got but they dont tell you. I guess maybe to them it didnt stink. [laughter] so, yeah, they used animals, both pigeons and dead animals like rabbits. We have a question up here. [inaudible conversations] well, thank you for your presentation, but i was just saying id like to learn how to do this, but i really dont have any secrets that are worth hiding. Find something that i could do. Where in our government is it taught . Is it the fbi at quantico . Does the military teach people how to do it . Secret writing . Yeah. All the agencies have technical i mean, the cia has a technical division, and they have an sw sw is the spies term for secret writing, invisible ink, and its called secret writing. So the cia does that in their technical division, and i got a Little Information about that. And every spy agency has a technical division, and theyll teach seem. For example teach people. For example, the stasi would have their technical officers work with agents with secret writing and thain them how to use it train them how to use it. You could even write little notes in your notebook. You say you dont have secrets, but you might want to write your secret thoughts in a notebook. So you might not want to use high security ink although i could set you up if you want to. [laughter] and, again, the appendix has things you can use that, you know, your husband or whatever might not be able to find out about. [inaudible] [laughter] so do all fbi agents and our secret service agents, do they all know how to do it . Is it part of the training . Okay, so the fbi also uses secret ink. In fact, i had put in a foia request to get some material on secret ink, and i used a lot of the files and stuff from the fbi, and i actually got some stuff from, actually, the crypt logical nsa of all places, museum had a whole fbi handbook. I think they made a bureaucratic lapse when i got a copy of that. So i had a whole manual from world war ii, and it had the call number for an fbi file, and so i put in a foia request for it, and i waited for over a year. Finally, they tell me, oh, they have to, right now another agency says, you know, their names in it, and so i had to file an appeal. Who knows if ill ever get it. I mean, the books long written. So the fbi definitely has a group. However, i mentioned at the group, i mean, its not that secret writings obsolete. You can always use it. Especially if youre in prison, you cant use fancy computers and things because you dont get to have one, so you might have to use one of the bodily fluids or orange juice or lemon juice, whatever. But these days one of the predominant ways to communicate is through digital, whats called digital steg nothing my and other methods of hidden writing, and its done electronically. People communicate the same way we always communicate, right . It might be, could be conspicuous or inconspicuous if you send a letter. I heard jimmy carter saying he just sends letters to people because he doesnt want the nsa reading his mail. [laughter] but in general, and also the cia used, used a lot of electronic communication during the cold war as well. And so they used first transmissions, for instance, so you could, you know, send something to someone, and it transmitted so quickly, it would be hard to sewer sent. So there are sewer sent. So there are different ways to communicate, not just in writing, so you can communicate electronically. But you can also communicate i mean, there was someone with, interesting, i was talking to in the group. And also think of Edward Snowden, what he did. Thats what he spent a lot of time doing, and obviously hes very good at doing it because they cant find where he is, and so hes been writing to everyone, and they havent cracked his communications, right . So and i want to get set up with a better encryption in my email as well. [laughter] is there another question in the audience . Okay. Well, kristie, on behalf of the international club, thank you so much. Weve learned a lot, and i can tell you that she has a some books near the Registration Desk if you are at all interested, and let me present you with a token oh. Gift. Thank you very much for the invitation. Now, do i open it in front of everyone or later . [laughter] well, you can if you want. [laughter] yeah. Maybe its a new secret ink method, right . I dont think so. Well, as you know, im very curious, so i have to open this right away. [laughter] okay. Oops. Thats all right. [inaudible conversations] it is hidden here. What could this be . Its a passport cover oh, thank you right. Just what i needed for the next adventure. Again, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. [applause] im allowed to have a glass of wine now. [inaudible conversations] up next on booktv, after words, with guest host tucker carlson, editorinchief of the daily caller. This week senator Rick Santorum and his new book, blue collar conservatives. In the it he argue in it he argues that the working class in america has been abandoned by both parties and that solutions to their problems are largely conservative in nature. The program is about an hour. Folks that understand the value and importance of work and responsibility and people who understand the importance of family and faith and belief in freedom and limited government. You say those are conservative Republican Voters and in many cases they are not. A lot of them arent voting at all because they dont want to see either party talking to them about the concerns they have in trying to create an opportunity for them to live the American Dream and you look at the democratic part party and they k about these voters a lot and in fact talking of how y