A little espionage goes a long way

By Dr. Dennis Casey
AIA/HO
Kelly AFB, Texas

On early 1898, diplomatic relations between the United States and Spain regarding Cuba had become very sensitive. The harsh and inhuman treatment afforded many Cubans at the hands of Spanish General Valeriano Wyler and his troops inflamed public opinion in the United States.

The general, known in the press by the name “Butcher” Wyler, acquired his newly found and dubious fame from the use of concentration camps. Hundreds of Cubans died in the camps. As the Spanish government sought reconciliation with its angry colonial subjects, President William McKinley and his administration in Washington resisted rapidly rising and intensifying public pressure to take a firmer stand.

In order to stay current with developments in Cuba, Martin Hellings, who worked for the International Ocean Telegraph Company, was transferred to Key West to manage the company’s underwater cables running between Havana and Key West. Hellings agreed to work closely with Captain Charles Sigsbee, the commander of the battleship USS Maine, recently sent to Key West for possible deployment to Havana.

Hellings arranged with officers aboard the steamship Olivette (that regularly made trips between Havana and Key West and Tampa) to carry secret messages between Captain Sigsbee and the American Consul General in Havana. Hellings also arranged for Western Union employees working in the governor-general’s palace in Havana to forward all official Spanish communications to him and to the U.S. Navy.

The United States, with these arrangements, quickly found itself in receipt of all official telegrams coming from Madrid or Havana and being sent to locations throughout the Caribbean.

Jan. 25, 1898, the McKinley administration dispatched the USS Maine to Havana. Its unexpected arrival in Havana generated a cool reception by Spanish officials. Despite the tense atmosphere, no serious incident developed initially. Late in the evening on Feb. 15, Hellings learned that the USS Maine had exploded and was sinking in some forty feet of water in Havana harbor.

The explosion caused the death of 268 American sailors; all but two were enlisted seamen. The explosion occurred in the forward portion of the ship adjacent to the crew’s quarters. A U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry incorrectly concluded that the battleship had been destroyed by a submerged mine. The release of the report in March 1898 unleashed a significant ground swell of pro-war sentiment throughout the country and cries for ending Spanish rule of Cuba.

On April 19, 1898, Congress responded with a joint resolution directing the president to end the Spanish presence in Cuba. Three days later the U.S. Navy blockaded Cuban ports. The war was on!

One of the first steps taken by the United States had been to dispatch the American Asiatic Squadron to the Philippines. Commodore George Dewey received orders to destroy the Spanish fleet there.

The McKinley administration reasoned that once in American hands the Philippines could be used as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with Spain. Basic intelligence about the Philippines, however, was seriously deficient. Commodore Dewey wanted information about the naval defenses in Manila Bay and whether or not these posed a threat to the American fleet.

To acquire this knowledge, Dewey directed his aide, Ensign F.B. Upham, to pose as a civilian traveler and interview crews from ships arriving at Hong Kong from Manila. An unnamed American businessman in Manila also reported Spanish fleet movements to Dewey. From this speedily concocted intelligence effort, Dewey concluded that Manila was weakly defended and that the Spanish fleet was in a poor state of readiness. He decided to attack and sailed his squadron into Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. In just hours, the American Asiatic Squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet without losing a ship or a sailor.

During this period, the Spanish had been far from idle. Spanish Admiral Miguel de la Camara in Cadiz assembled a task force to the Philippines and lifted the blockade imposed by Dewey. Accordingly, a squadron of five cruisers and four destroyers, under Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, left the Cape Verde Islands and was reportedly steaming toward the Caribbean. Superior in arms and armament to anything the U.S. Navy had, concern surfaced in the United States that the Spanish fleet could easily bombard American cities along the Atlantic coast. But where was it? Keeping track of the fleet fell to the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Up to this point in time, the Office of Naval Intelligence had carried out its responsibilities by collecting openly available information. Espionage would now be necessary. Ensign Henry Ward went to Spain as a secret intelligence agent. William Buck, an American fencing champion who as a student had studied in Heidelbert, also went to Spain in the guise of a German physician on vacation.

Buck, equipped with false mustaches, hidden pistols, and other paraphernalia reportedly used by spies in the popular literature of the day, took to his new vocation with an infectious enthusiasm. The U.S. naval attaches joined in the effort with the Paris attache, Lt. William Sims, to create professional intelligence operations. Sims organized an intelligence network that stretched from the Canary Islands to Port Said and to several locations in the Mediterranean. Sims even had spies working in the Spanish Naval Depot in Cadiz.

The Spanish tried to run an intelligence organization during the war from Canada. Their rate of success fell far short of the results the Americans achieved. John Wilkie, a former Chicago newspaperman, and secret service agents closely monitored the Spanish intelligence effort. In Toronto, an American agent purposely placed in a hotel room next door to a Spanish agent, overheard the luckless Spaniard recruiting his first agent named George Downing. On his first mission, Downing was apprehended by the Secret Service.

Nearly a month before the USS Maine received orders to steam to Havana, the Army Intelligence chief, Maj. Arthur Wagner, asked the secretary of war to make available personnel who could go to Cuba to discover the whereabouts of the Spanish fleet. Just days after the sinking of the Maine, Andrew Rowan received orders from Wagner to go ashore and with the help of rebels, locate the Spanish fleet. Experienced in reconnaissance operations, Rowan entered Cuba in Oriente Province and met insurgent general Calixto Garcia Iniguez in the town of Bayamo two days after the war began.

Armed with maps and other information, Rowan returned to Washington to begin the process of working with the insurgents to coordinate land operations in Cuba against the Spaniards. The U.S. Army Signal Corps finally discovered the fleet.

After limping along in the Caribbean on very limited fuel from Curacao to Martinique, Admiral Cervera and his vessels had finally stopped in the Cuban port of Santiago. The American blockade concentrated around Havana and Cienfuegos on the western end of the island. This allowed the Spanish to enter the narrow entrance to Santiago undetected. When Admiral Cervera went ashore and telegraphed the Spanish governor of his location, an employee of the International Ocean Telegraph Company sent the message to Martin Hellings, 90 miles away in Key West.

The arrangement set up by Hellings worked well. For the balance of the war, President McKinley could review communications from the Spanish government, sometimes only minutes old, in the comfort of his war room on the second floor of the White House. Within hours of Admiral Cervera’s arrival in Santiago, the U.S. Navy blockaded the port. But news of the Spanish fleet had come from a Spanish source. Was it to be trusted? American forces were massed in Florida, including Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, and ready to be transported to Cuba. Not willing to take the risk of having transports caught on the open sea, the U.S. Army wanted to reassure themselves that the Spanish fleet would not be able to endanger the transports.

Lt. Victor Blue, an officer from the blockade near Santiago, stepped ashore to make a direct observation of the Spanish fleet reported to be at anchor in the harbor. With the aid of Cuban guerillas, he verified their presence. With this verification, the army transports held up in Tampa cleared port. Hours later, some 16,000 American soldiers landed a few miles east of the entrance to Santiago harbor. Not wishing to have the Americans capture the Spanish fleet in Santiago, the Spanish commander in Havana ordered Admiral Cervera to run the blockade.

On July 3, a two-hour running sea battle destroyed all six of the Spanish ships. Six weeks later the Spanish American War was over. Just a little espionage had contributed significantly to the outcome. The United States, fresh with victory, was now ready to step into a new century with new challenges and new responsibilities.