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Summary: Searching for German Submarine Bases
Review: During the First World War, the German submarine forces were a serious threat to allied victory. If the Germans had been able to construct a secret base in some remote corner of Central America, the potential damage to shipping would have been immense. How to ensure that this did not happen before satellite reconnaissance and computerized communications monitoring? One answer the Office of Navel Intelligence devised was to recruit archaeologists who were tramping around the jungles and rivers as part of their academic pursuits. One of the most productive archaeologist/spies was Sylvanus Griswold Morely, M.A. Harvard, who spent most of the war years journeying through the Central American jungles and rivers in search of ancient ruins and preparing detailed reports on the potential for German exploitation of the remote sites. This book describes his travels in Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Sylvanus was accompanied by cartoonist John Held who prepared detailed maps of their excursions. The book includes some samples of Held's excellent cartography. Charles Harris and Louis Sadler also discuss other academic recruits to naval intelligence and their contributions in Central America. This is a real niche in the history of American military intelligence and will appeal to those interested in one of the lesser-known war efforts. The appendices contain copies of actual reports submitted by Morely and the book contains copies of pages from the notes taken by the agents as they endured "ticks, mosquitoes, fleas, sand flies, saddle-sores, seasickness, bar-running, indifferent grub, and sometimes no grub at all, rock hard beds, infamous hostelries and even earthquakes."
Rating:
Summary: Searching for German Submarine Bases
Review: During the First World War, the German submarine forces were a serious threat to allied victory. If the Germans had been able to construct a secret base in some remote corner of Central America, the potential damage to shipping would have been immense. How to ensure that this did not happen before satellite reconnaissance and computerized communications monitoring? One answer the Office of Navel Intelligence devised was to recruit archaeologists who were tramping around the jungles and rivers as part of their academic pursuits. One of the most productive archaeologist/spies was Sylvanus Griswold Morely, M.A. Harvard, who spent most of the war years journeying through the Central American jungles and rivers in search of ancient ruins and preparing detailed reports on the potential for German exploitation of the remote sites. This book describes his travels in Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Sylvanus was accompanied by cartoonist John Held who prepared detailed maps of their excursions. The book includes some samples of Held's excellent cartography. Charles Harris and Louis Sadler also discuss other academic recruits to naval intelligence and their contributions in Central America. This is a real niche in the history of American military intelligence and will appeal to those interested in one of the lesser-known war efforts. The appendices contain copies of actual reports submitted by Morely and the book contains copies of pages from the notes taken by the agents as they endured "ticks, mosquitoes, fleas, sand flies, saddle-sores, seasickness, bar-running, indifferent grub, and sometimes no grub at all, rock hard beds, infamous hostelries and even earthquakes."
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Summary: Spymaster extraordinaire
Review: Other reviews tell you accurately what this book is about. If you're looking for a spy, chase, suspense, thriller, or murder account, this isn't it, despite the flashy cover. Instead, this is primarily an unabashedly pro-American history report on a World War I sidelight, intended for those interested in the development of American intelligence services. If you are into Maya archaeology, this book will remind you that Morley (author of the pioneering: The Ancient Maya, 1946) was a very impressive hyperactive fellow. For what it is-a dry academic piece with flashes of patriotism-this is an informative book. It substantially expands on a two-year episode in the fuller picture of Morley's adventurous career depicted by his biographer, R. L. Brunhouse (1971, Sylvanus G. Morley). Harris and Sadler's focus is really on the development of the Office of Naval Intelligence, using Morley as its central figure, I think, because he left uniquely complete diaries of this period (and throughout his life). The authors delve deeply into old ONI files and look at other academic spies, and at sub-agents recruited by Morley and his stumbling handlers, and what befell them. (They build on their previous book on clandestine activities in Mexico: The Border and the Revolution). Because extensive extracts from Morley's diaries and his 32 espionage reports are included, there's a great deal of entertaining local color on the 1917 state of radio, shipping, ports, earthquakes, diplomacy, Central American politics, etc. If you know this area you may enjoy these details of how it used to be. There is very little, however, on Morley's archaeological discoveries and publications during these years. Morley may indeed have been America's greatest WW I spy in terms of his successful assessment of the submarine threat, but he turned up no German spies while Black Listing a few German companies in Central America. Harris and Sadler leave the reader with no way to evaluate their claim that Morley was the "greatest," because they don't compare his accomplishments to other theaters of the war, or services beyond ONI. Nor do they follow up their own references to German propagandists and activists in Mexico who might actually have been threats. Another theme that briefly emerges, only to be dismissed with an editorial huff, is that of the propriety of archaeologists, or field scientists in general, becoming spies in foreign lands. Such activities, when they become known later, bring all their innocent fellow scientists in the field into suspicion, disrepute, and actual danger in the eyes of foreigners and officials who control their access. This is in addition to the common peasant suspicion that people like Morley walking around with compass and tape are really "looking for gold, or working for the government to take the farm away."
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