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39 chapter three Surveillance On March 3, 1917, two days after word of the Zimmermann note’s interception reached the press, the New York Times hailed Mexico’s apparent rejection of an anti-American alliance with Germany, but warned its readers that the country and its president , Venustiano Carranza, “will still bear watching from this side of the border.”1 Attitudes of this sort, along with suspicions of Mexican intrigue, persisted throughout the war era in the United States due to reports of a considerable German presence in Mexico. As wartime fears of enemy spies and saboteurs undermining the war effort gripped the public, American intelligence not only conducted operations in Mexico but also kept close track of Mexicans and Mexican Americans domestically.2 The Tejano community found itself a prime target for surveillance because of its proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border and the pervasive unease with all things Mexican. In Texas, as in many other parts of the country, concerns over the possibility of GermanMexican collusion often bordered on hysteria. Throughout the war, intelligence agencies received countless tips implicating Mexicanorigin individuals in nefarious activity of one form or another. To say that many of these leads—particularly those alleging the most serious crimes—were fruitless would be to make an understatement . The isolated cases of disloyalty that emanated from the barrios , though, were more than enough to validate the anxieties of the most fretful citizens and public officials. Inevitably, the unique relationship between Mexico and the United States ensured that these cases would receive extra attention from American intelligence. I To be sure, the Wilson administration’s concern with foreign subversives was not unfounded. Germany had targeted the United States in several of its plots since the eruption of hostilities in Europe. To hinder the flow of matériel to the Allies, German agents had in July 1916 bombed the Erie Railroad docks in New Jersey, destroying thirty-four boxcars loaded with ammunition. They had also set ablaze the Kingsland munitions factory near New York Harbor several months later. chapter three 40 These efforts, however, were sometimes downright clumsy. In one case, a German consul carelessly misplaced a briefcase containing compromising evidence of espionage on a Third Avenue elevated traininNewYorkCity.Despiteitssuccesselsewhere,Germanintrigue in the United States, in the words of historians D. Clayton James and Anne Sharp Wells, was “[m]ore annoying than substantial.”3 AstheZimmermannnotefiascomadeclear,italsotoalargeextent involved Mexico, whose president welcomed a German alliance to counter American aggression. Always looking to obstruct the shipment of American manpower and supplies to Europe, the German government coveted Mexico as a base from which to wage a campaign of espionage and sabotage against the United States. Germany also hoped to produce a second Mexican-American war by fomenting anti-Americanism among the country’s various revolutionary factions and coordinating armed provocations and raids along the border. Fortunately for the Germans, the punitive expedition had made Carranza more receptive to overtures from their country, from which the so-called First Chief hoped to obtain financial and military aid in case of a war with the United States. With the Mexican president suddenly more amenable to its needs, the German secret service in 1917 moved its headquarters to Mexico and launched a series of covert activities against the United States.4 The American government took countermeasures against the German threat south of the border, albeit with mixed results. Under the direction of the military attaché, five different American secret services—the State Department, the army, the navy, the Department of the Treasury, and the Justice Department—conducted intelligence activities in Mexico. With the assistance of French and especially British intelligence, American officials were able to learn the identity and movements of most of the German secret service’s agents, in large part due to Britain’s interception of several German telegrams and the joint Allied effort at deciphering German secret codes. The Americans also attempted to dislodge German businesses from Mexico, a less productive endeavor impeded not only by the Germans’ skill for camouflaging their activities but also by American business interests. As two-thirds of German business’s sales in Mexico were based on U.S. goods, American businessmen pressured their government to resist interfering with the free flow of commerce and to regard their German counterparts down south as “harmless.”5 Mexican intrigue was no less a focus for the intelligence community back home. The U.S. government’s surveillance team for domestic matters included...

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