Spying in America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War

15. Spy Hysteria Between the World Wars

123 Spy Hysteria between the World Wars Palmer, do not let this country see red! President Woodrow Wilson to his attorney general, Mitchell Palmer, at a cabinet meeting in April 1920. Quoted by Morison, Oxford History of the American People During World War I, the US government combated subversion at home by launching an ambitious propaganda campaign to alert its citizens about the dangers of foreign spies. The warning of British poet Rudyard Kipling—“The Hun is at the gate!”—became the watchword of the day. Various states went beyond the federal government’s propaganda campaign to enact legislation banning German books and teaching the German language. Although the majority of German American citizens supported the war against the kaiser, some Americans viewed them with suspicion, if not downright hostility. Prejudice against German Americans set an unfortunate precedent that has continued until the present. During the next war, Japanese were interned in camps; in the early days of the Cold War, anyone remotely suspected of pro-Soviet communist leanings was persecuted; and soon after the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, more than 700 violent incidents against Americans of Middle Eastern descent occurred.1 15 124 Espionage during the World Wars, 1914–45 The hysterical fear of German Americans ended after the kaiser’s defeat, but suspicion of foreigners was still fueled by the inflation, unemployment, and labor unrest that afflicted the nation after World War I. Immigrants willing to work for meager wages that were high by standards in their native countries became scapegoats for the economic woes of American-born laborers. A small minority of new immigrants had also fallen under the spell of the anarchism and communism that were spreading throughout Europe. In the midst of World War I Russia had undergone a tumultuous revolution that was to set the course of twentieth-century history. Emboldened by their victory, the new communist rulers noisily insisted their movement was international in scope and would inevitably spread, by violence and subversion if necessary, beyond Russia to Europe and even to the shores of America. Meanwhile, anarchists had spread their influence in the American labor movement. The economic downturn in America provided fertile ground for communists and anarchists. Their more radical brethren advocated the violent overthrow of the government and fomented unrest through riots and labor strikes. In 1919 letter bombs were mailed to thirty-six prominent American industrialists and political leaders, though only one reached its target and caused slight injuries. The new attorney general, Mitchell Palmer, exploited America’s edgy mood by inflaming spy mania throughout the country. A Pennsylvania Quaker, Palmer had his eye on the White House and decided to boost his presidential hopes by cracking down on the “Red menace” of Soviet communism . Palmer himself had been the victim of an anarchist assassination attempt. In the twilight hours of June 2, 1919, a thunderous blast shattered his elegant home on Washington’s fashionable Embassy Row. The bungling terrorist failed to assassinate Palmer but accidentally blew himself up when he stumbled at the doorway.2 Palmer exploited this bombing to launch his crusade against radicals of all stripes. He immediately established a General Intelligence Division within the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation specifically to root out radicals and named as its head an ambitious young lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover. Other agencies like the military’s Office of Naval Intelligence and the army’s Military Intelligence Division joined the crusade in hopes of reversing the cutbacks in their budgets and personnel after World War I. Spy Hysteria between the World Wars 125 All the agencies bumped into each other in their feverish rush to penetrate labor unions, the Socialist Party, the leftist Industrial Workers of the World, and even the American Jewish Congress, among others.3 At the dawn of the new decade, on January 2, 1920, Hoover’s undercover agents arranged mass meetings of the radical groups they had infiltrated across the nation, and the Bureau of Investigation rounded up thousands of alleged subversives as they convened in thirty-three American cities. These “Palmer Raids” were conducted without warrants or any form of due process . Citizens without any radical connections were illegally held in detention , and in some cases were even denied food. Almost all were soon released, and only a few were deported as undesirable aliens. Palmer, who initially had been hailed as a hero, was condemned once the truth...