Page 115 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Summer 2014

Dark Invasion — 1915: Germany’s Secret War and the
Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America

Howard Blum. New York: HarperCollins; 2014. 491 pages. ISBN: 978-0-06-23075-5.
Review by COL (Ret) Warner “Rocky” D. Farr, MD, MPH

o, I imagine you think that homeland security started after objective. What to Tunney at first looked like pure attempts
S 9/11? Except for those posters of mounted Apache warriors at sabotage of ships and other war materials in New York’s
captioned, “Homeland Security: fighting terrorism since 1492” harbor soon deepened into more deception, as he discovered
(http://www.magicprose.com/guide/index that the enemy’s plan was far more complex and dangerous
.html)! The other American government than he suspected. It ranged from plots such as that of a Har-
group with previous homeland defense vard professor who murdered his wife, escaped with a new
experience turns out to be the New York identity to become yet another college professor, ultimately
City Police Department (NYPD) and the bombed the U.S. Capitol, and nearly killing JP Morgan (whose
“bad guys” that they chased were from financiering was saving the Allies) to gadgets such as a clever
Imperial Germany during World War I. chemical cigar firebomb that sunk numerous transport ships
set by non-German, anti- British, Irish allies. Cigar bombs with
This book is a true-life tale of Imperial delayed fuses were placed in ships bound for Europe. A rudder
German espionage, its terror campaign bomb was designed, also with a delayed fuse, to destroy ship-
on American soil during World War I, ping. Another operative arrived, by way of the trans-Siberian
and the NYPD inspector who helped un- railroad, fresh from the German Military Veterinary Academy
cover the plot. The “neutral” United States became a staunch with a suitcase of ganders, anthrax, and meningitis. He ulti-
trading partner of the Allies early in World War I, all led by mately staged a largely unknown anthrax attack designed to
industrialist JP Morgan because selling equipment for war was kill horses and that appeared also to have killed quite a few
good for business. Because of that Anglo American trade, the people. Horses, a valuable commodity in the war, were poi-
Germans implemented a secret plan to strike back at America. soned by German agents. Germany also plotted with Mexican
A team of saboteurs was deployed to devise a series of “mys- nationals to open a front against the United States. The ulti-
terious accidents” using explosives and biological weapons to mate goal was a war by Germany and Mexico to separate the
bring down vital targets such as ships, factories, livestock, and southwestern United States.
even captains of industry, such as Morgan.
Although many books are coming out to mark the 100th an-
Inspector Tom Tunney was the head of the NYPD’s Bomb Squad niversary of the start of World War I, Dark Invasion covers
and was subsequently assigned the new and difficult mission a niche that has largely been ignored: the covert operations
of stopping these foreign agents in a country still at peace and of Germany against the United States before 1917. Despite
without any real national laws on secrecy or acts of espionage. having the largest spy network in the world, 1914 Imperial
In 1915, the United States lacked any federal law enforcement Germany had only one agent in the United States at the start
organization. J Edgar Hoover’s FBI was more than a decade of the war. Through a crash course of recruiting, the German
from creation. The duty to investigate and combat German clan- government cobbled together a network remarkably able to
destine activity fell on local law enforcement agencies. Because create havoc well beyond their weight class during the next
most of the illegal activities focused on the port areas of New 2 years. One of the first German agent leaders was Captain
York and New Jersey, the NYPD became the law enforcement Franz von Papen of the Imperial German Navy. He ultimately
organization destined to battle the German spy network. Tunney became Chancellor of Germany directly before Adolph Hitler
assembled a team of operatives, and the Irish cop hunted for the and later, during World War II, ambassador to Austria and
conspirators among a New York City population of more than 8 then Turkey. During his World War I activities in America,
million, a majority of them of German extraction. he was accused of planning the mining of American railroads
and of plotting to blow up the Welland Canal, which connects
German ambassador Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff Lake Ontario to Lake Erie.
(who left Germany for good when Hitler took power in 1933)
was the point man for a vast intelligence organization known This early homeland security work is remarkable, especially
as Abteilung IIIB. The organization recruited and trained given the jurisdictional limitations that faced the NYPD, the
agents, male and female, across Europe. It then expanded op- unhelpfulness of the federal government, and a disinterest on
erations to America. It was critical that America be kept out of the part of President Wilson. Wilson was made well aware of
the war and that the Allies be prevented from receiving ship- the intelligence regarding the German spy network, but he did
ments of American munitions, arms, and food. Von Bernstorff not appear to factor it into any of his decisions. Eventually,
was called back to Berlin and directed to recruit and develop the totality of these actions (especially the plot with Mexico)
a network of intelligence agents in America. He was autho- would lead Wilson to abandon neutrality and bring America
rized to use any means necessary to accomplish this sabotage into the war.

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