Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters — John Shaqi
Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb PlottersTunney, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph)
History
Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters
Tunney, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- Germany
#2. In order to accomplish better results in connection with
D-Case #343, and to shorten the stay of the informing agent at
the place of meeting, it has been decided to discontinue the
former practice of dining with this agent prior to receiving
his report. It will also be made a rule to refrain from working
on other matters until the informant in this case has been
fully heard; and all data taken down in shorthand. (11-11-15)
#3. Beginning with November 28th, 1915, all operations
designated as D-Cases will be handled exclusively by the Secret
Service Division, the Headquarters of which will not be at
the Central Office, as heretofore. This change will result in
discontinuing utilizing operatives or employees attached to the
Central Office, Division for Special Detail and Pier Division.
On the other hand, great
Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
In the same way he disguised his meeting places. In his instructions to
the Secret Service Division we find this:
“Operatives of the S. S. Division when receiving instructions
from me or through the medium of my secretary as to designating
meeting places will understand that such instructions must be
translated as follows:
“_For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight)._
“A street number in Manhattan named over the telephone means
that the meeting will take place 5 blocks further uptown than
the street mentioned.
“Pennsylvania R. R. Station means Grand Central Depot.
“Kaiserhof means General Post Office, in front of P. O. Box 840.
“Hotel Ansonia means café in Hotel Manhattan (basement).
“Hotel Belmont means at the bar in Pabst’s Columbus Circle.
“Brooklyn Bridge means bar in Unter den Linden.”
Each week he rearranged this code, so that anyone who thought that
cutting in on a telephone call meant knowing where Koenig was bound
was not likely to find him there. The man knew his German New York,
and had numerous convenient meeting places where he could meet an
agent and converse undisturbed, such as a German hotel at Third Avenue
and 42d Street, or a German bar at Broadway and 110th Street, or a
lodging house at South and Whitehall Streets, near the lower tip of
the island, or a saloon connected with a Turkish bath in Harlem. He
not only made it almost impossible to trace him by tapping his own
wire, but his operatives were instructed to call him from pay-station
telephones in locations where there was not one chance in a million
of identifying the person who had called. Fuchs, of course, was the
one-millionth chance, but Fuchs was no longer obeying Koenig’s orders,
was persistent, and careless. Altogether Koenig had built up a system
of caution on paper which almost beat the game, and which enabled him
to conduct a large volume of business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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