ALL THE BRAINS I CAN BORROW - WOODROW WILSON AND INTELLIGENCE GATHERING IN MEXICO, 1913-15

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• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05460705
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• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2018
• Case Number: F-2017-02625
• Publication Date: December 1, 2007

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STUDIES IN
INTELLIGENCE
Journal of the America Intelligence Professional
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Intelligence in Another Era
"All the Brains I Can Borrow": Woodrow
Wilson and Intelligence Gathering
in Mexico, 1913-15
Mark E. Be nbow
GC
Wilson's efforts to cobble
together information
about Mexico's
revolution illustrate
some of the difficulties
presidents faced when
gathering intelligence
before a more formal
intelligence-gathering
structure was
established.
99
A mere two weeks before Woo-
drow Wilson became president
of the United States, Mexico's
Gen. Victoriano Huerta over-
threw his country's elected
president, Francisco Madero,
who would later be assassi-
nated. Wilson was concerned
because he feared that foreign
policy issues might prove a dis-
traction from the domestic
reform measures he wanted to
pass through Congress. In fact,
during the period 1913-15,
Mexico was one of Wilson's
main foreign policy concerns,
and after June 1914 it was sec-
ond only to the war in Europe.1
Throughout this period, Wil-
son struggled not only with
forming a policy toward Mexico
but more fundamentally with
learning what was happening
in Mexico's revolution. Wilson
did not believe he could trust
his usually primary source of
' The title is drawn from Woodrow Wilson,
"Remarks to the National Press Club,"
20 March 1914 in Arthur Link, ed., The
Papers of Woodrow Wilson. (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979)
29:363. Hereafter referred to as PWW fol-
lowed by volume and page numbers. The
full quote reads, "I not only use all the
brains I have, but all I can borrow."
information, the Department of
State. Instead of relying on dip-
lomatic reporting, Wilson cob-
bled together a network of
formal and informal sources to
observe and report on events.
In the process, Wilson's efforts
illustrate some of the difficul-
ties presidents faced when
gathering intelligence for poli-
cymaking before a more formal
intelligence-gathering struc-
ture was established with the
Coordinator of Information in
1941.2
Confronted with the revolu-
tion in a neighboring country,
Wilson had to judge numerous
parties in an ever-changing
political and military situation
as each faction vied for support
inside Mexico and from the
United States. In this paper, I
will examine the types of intel-
ligence Wilson used to evaluate
events in Mexico, their limita-
tions and their strengths, and
how Wilson identified and dealt
2 The office was created by Franklin
Roosevelt in July 1941. Headed by Will-
iam J. Donovan, it was a civilian office
attached to the White House. It was suc-
ceeded by the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) in 1942.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the
author. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US gov-
ernment endorsement of an article's factual statements and interpretations.
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Woodrow Wilson's Intelligence System
President Wilson considered any information coming from the
embassy in Mexico City to be tainted.
with bias among his sources. I
will also examine how Wilson
evaluated the information from
his various informants. In
short, how did Wilson, as a con-
sumer of intelligence, deal with
the issues normally presented
to intelligence collectors and
analysts?
Of the numerous types of
intelligence, or "INTs," as they
are recognized by the Intelli-
gence Community today, some,
such as MASINT (Measure-
ment And Signatures Intelli-
gence) rely on technology that
did not exist in 1913 while oth-
ers, IMINT (Imagery Intelli-
gence) and SIGINT (Signals
Intelligence) were of limited use
during the crisis in Mexico.
SIGINT was used for counterin-
telligence purposes during this
period, and it would be useful
again later, in 1916 during Per-
shing's intervention to catch
Pancho Villa, but it was of lit-
tle value in supporting the
political analysis Wilson needed
during 1913-15. The other
major INTs, HUMINT (Human
Intelligence) and OSINT (Open
Source Intelligence) both played
important roles in Wilson's
informal intelligence network.
But how useful were these
types of sources, and how reli-
able did they prove to be for
Wilson? 3
HUMINT was Wilson's most
valuable source. Traditionally,
presidents before Wilson
received their information
about overseas events through
the State Department. This
took the form of reports from
ambassadors, ministers, and
consuls. Consuls were often US
citizens already living over-
seas, usually for business pur-
poses, rather than foreign
service professionals. Consuls
received stipends, official titles,
and reported on events in their
3 Today, IMINT commonly brings to mind
satellite photography, but it also includes
ground photography, which was well
within 1913 technological capabilities.
However, it was normally used by the
War Department for tactical planning in
which Wilson did not engage.
President Wilson (seated) with his pri-
vate secretary, Joseph Tumulty, a key
gatekeeper in passing information to
the president. (0 Bettmann/CORBIS)
regions and promoted US busi-
nesses in their area.
Cables sent by US diplomats
in Mexico City and by consuls
around the country were
received in the State Depart-
ment, then located in the Exec-
utive Office Building next to
the White House. In the depart-
ment they would be hand-car-
ried to the geographical
divisions within the building
and to the Division of Informa-
tion, a predecessor of the cur-
rent Bureau of Intelligence and
Research. If judged to be of suf-
ficient importance, a cable
could then be forwarded to the
secretary of state or to an
undersecretary, or even to the
president.4
The many conflicting perspec-
tives flowing into Washington
from US representatives in
Mexico during the crisis only
clouded the president's view of
events there. The ambassador
and the consuls all had their
own interpretations of what
was happening. Some praised
Huerta. Others lauded the revo-
lutionaries, known as the "Con-
stitutionalists." As a result,
President Wilson came to dis-
trust much of the diplomatic
reporting from Mexico. But he
especially distrusted the
reports of his ambassador.
The US ambassador in Mex-
ico City, Henry Lane Wilson,
was a conservative Republican
4 The United States maintained approxi-
mately 20 consulates in Mexico during this
period.
14
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Woodrow Wilson's Intelligence System
and an appointee of Wilson's
predecessor, William Howard
Taft. Ambassador Wilson
strongly advocated US recogni-
tion of the Huerta government.
He also actively assisted the
plotters who overthrew Presi-
dent Madero in February 1913.
Wilson's "Confidential
Men"
Just three days after Presi-
dent Wilson was inaugurated
on 4 March 1913, the New York
World published a front page
story revealing Ambassador
Wilson's role in Huerta's coup.
The World was the president's
strongest supporter in the press
and it was the newspaper he
most trusted. The World's
report reinforced the presi-
dent's decision to delay recogni-
tion of Huerta's government,
despite the ambassador's stren-
uous lobbying. Also as a result
of the World's reports, Presi-
dent Wilson considered any
information coming from the
US embassy in Mexico to be
tainted. 5
Presented with conflicting
information and distrustful of
State reporting, Wilson looked
for more reliable sources. First
he turned to a reporter, Will-
iam Bayard Hale, who had been
5 In retrospect, the World's reporting on
Ambassador Wilson's activities was accu-
rate, notwithstanding his denials. Com-
pare New York World, 7-9 March 1913
with Alan Knight's discussion of events in
The Mexican Revolution, Volume I, Porfir-
ians, Liberals and Peasants (Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press, 1986), 484-90.
Hale confirmed Woodrow Wilson's worst fears.. .[the coup lead-
er] acted only because he had the active support of US Ambas-
sador Wilson.
an Episcopalian priest. Hale
wrote for the progressive jour-
nal World's Work and had writ-
ten Wilson's campaign
biography in 1912. Hale would
become the first of several
reporters, or "confidential men,"
picked to go to Mexico to get the
"exact facts." The president
asked Hale to "tour" the Latin
American states�even though
he spoke no Spanish�"ostensi-
bly on your own hook" and
report "just what is going on
down there." 6
Hale reached Mexico City on
24 May, accompanied by
rumors that he was there to
investigate the New York
World's reports. Hale denied
the rumors and claimed that he
was only there to research a
series of magazine articles.
President Wilson also issued a
statement denying that Hale
was investigating Ambassador
Wilson's role in the coup. The
type of information Hale
reported to the president indi-
Woodrow Wilson to William Bayard
Hale, 19 April 1913, PWW 27:335. Unbe-
knownst to Wilson, Hale was employed by
the Japanese government in an effort to
influence American press coverage of
Japan. (Jessie Lyon, "Diplomatic Rela-
tions Between the United States, Mexico,
and Japan: 1913-1917," (Ph.D. disserta-
tion, Claremont College, 1975],6-7,19.)
This relationship did not appear to have
affected Hale's reporting on Mexico, how-
ever. See Larry Hill, Emissaries to a Revo-
lution: Woodrow Wilson's Executive
Agents in Mexico. (Baton Rouge: Louisi-
ana State University Press, 1973), 25-26.
cated that he probably did seek
information about Ambassador
Wilson's role in the February
1913 coup, but the president
also sought information on
Huerta's legitimacy.
Hale sent his first report to
the President Wilson on 18
June 1913. His conclusions con-
firmed Wilson's worst fears.
President Madero was over-
thrown in a coup begun by
those opposed to his reforms.
The coup would have failed if
Gen. Huerta, Madero's own
commander, had not betrayed
him. To make matters worse,
Huerta acted only because he
had the active support of
Ambassador Wilson. Hale's
report indicated that the offi-
cial US representative, in fact,
The US ambassador to Mexico, Henry
Lane Wilson. (0 CORBIS)
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The ambassador sought to undermine the Wilson administra-
tion's policy by trying to create the specter of armed intervention.
had engaged in a plot against
an elected government and was
directly responsible for the
coup's success. As Hale wrote,
There was not a moment dur-
ing [the coup] when it would
not have been possible to end
the distressing situation [and]
put a stop to this unnecessary
bloodshed by a stern warning
from the American embassy to
the traitorous army officers
that the United States would
countenance no methods but
peaceful constitutional ones....
President Madero was not
betrayed and arrested by his
officers until it had been
asserted that the American
ambassador had no objection.
Hale concluded that "thou-
sands 'of Mexicans believe that
the Ambassador acted on
instructions from Washington
and looked upon his retention
under the new American Presi-
dent as a mark of approval,
blaming the United States for
the chaos into which [Mexico]
has fallen."
Hale also revealed how the
ambassador sought to under-
mine the Wilson administra-
tion's policy by trying to create
the specter of armed interven-
tion by suggesting that Wil-
7 A Report by William Bayard Hale,
18 June 1913, PWW 27:536-552. Hale's
sources included American businessmen
in Mexico City, members of the Mexican
government, and several members of the
US embassy staff. Not all of his sources
were identified. See Hill, 25-29.
son's policies would inevitably
lead to a war in Mexico. More-
over, Hale reported, Ambassa-
dor Wilson was noisily
attacking President Wilson's
administration calling it "a
pack of vicious fools." As for
Huerta, Hale described him as
"an ape-like old man.., said to
subsist on alcohol"8 and inter-
ested in holding power only for
the abuses the position allowed
him to inflict.9
Suspecting what the reporter
was doing, Ambassador Wilson
attacked Hales' reports in
embassy cables to Washington.
Falling back on the tactic he
used against Madero in his
messages to the Taft adminis-
tration, the ambassador
attacked his adversary's
[Hale's] sanity: "His mind
appears to me to be unevenly
balanced." Furthermore, the
ambassador continued, while
"some" [like Hale] were trying
to describe Madero as "a mar-
tyr to democratic ideals," the
former Mexican president had
actually been corrupt and
robbed his own government,
There is no direct evidence of the reac-
tion William Jennings Bryan, Wilson's
secretary of state and a dedicated prohibi-
tionist, might have had to this line. Hale
may have aimed his statement at the sec-
retary, knowing it would influence his
view of Huerta.
9 William Bayard Hale to Ben Davis, 15
July 1913, PWW, Series 2; cable from Wil-
liam Bayard Hale, 15 July 1913, PWW,
Series 2; Hale, "Memoranda on Affairs in
Mexico," 9 July 1913, PWW 28:31.
emptying the country's trea-
sury. The ambassador con-
cluded one of his messages by
claiming that "all of the true
and secret history of [Madero's]
brief rule in Mexico and prior
thereto is known to no one but
to
On the basis of Hale's reports,
President Wilson recalled
Ambassador Wilson in mid-July
1913 to confer with him and
Secretary of State Bryan. The
ambassador arrived in Wash-
ington ready to personally lobby
the administration to extend
formal recognition to Huerta's
regime. Wilson and Bryan lis-
tened for an hour to the man
the president once called "that
unspeakable person." As he
spoke, Ambassador Wilson real-
ized that his audience was only
giving him cursory attention,
and he resigned soon after the
meeting. His resignation left
Nelson O'Shaughnessy as the
US representative in charge at
the embassy. However,
O'Shaughnessy was also on
friendly terms with Huerta,
and his reporting remained
tainted in the president's esti-
mation, although Wilson con-
sidered him "honest," if
somewhat biased."
,9 Henry Lane Wilson to Woodrow Wilson,
1 July 1913, WWP, Series 2.
"Woodrow Wilson to Cleveland Hoadley
Dodge, 21 July 1913, PWW 28:58; Wood-
row Wilson to Ellen Axson Wilson, 25 July
1913, PWW 28:85; Henry Lane Wilson,
Diplomatic Episodes in Mexico and Chile
(New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1927),
312-14; Wilson to Bryan, 3 July 1913,
PWW 28:22.
16
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Hale remained in Mexico,
reporting first from Mexico City
and then from Constitutional-
ist territory in northern Mex-
ico, until January 1914.
Hale had been joined in
August 1913 by John Lind, a
former governor of Minnesota
and member of the US House of
Representatives. Like Hale,
Lind spoke no Spanish and car-
ried strong Protestant, anti-
Catholic prejudices into the
overwhelmingly Catholic Mex-
ico. Unlike Hale, however, Lind
was empowered to negotiate
with Mexican officials. Wilson
had instructed Lind to press
Huerta's government for "an
immediate cessation of fighting
throughout Mexico," an "early
and free election" in which all
parties could participate, a
promise from Huerta not to be a
candidate, and an agreement by
all parties to respect the results
of the election. In return, the
United States promised to rec-
ognize the newly elected gov-
ernment. The Huerta regime
met with Lind but refused to
accede to Wilson's demands.',
Lind left Mexico City for the
port of Veracruz, where he con-
13 Instructions to John Lind, 4 August
1913, PWW 28:110-111; see also a copy of
Lind's instructions with edits in Wilson's
hand, Ray S. Baker Papers, LC. Lind's
instructions were leaked to the press,
apparently from within the State Depart-
ment, and appeared in print before Lind
arrived in Mexico. See The New York
Times, 5 August 1913. Reporters at the
time had easy access to State Department
offices and often freely read cables from
overseas; Hill, 90-93.
The material Wilson received was a blend of analysis and raw
data. His representatives not only told him what they had learned
but also included their judgments and recommendations.
tinued to gather information
and report to Washington. Lind
sent his reports to Wilson via
official cable channels. His
reports were a mixture of
HUMINT and OSINT. Lind's
data came from human sources,
including some who did not
wish to be identified, and from
the Mexican press. Lind also
met with diplomats of other
countries anxious to pass their
impressions of Mexico to Wash-
ington.
Lind was prone to trying to
influence policy by suggesting
courses of action; seeking to
direct, in addition to informing.
In the spring of 1914, Lind
urged Wilson to intervene mili-
tarily in Veracruz, assuring
Wilson that US troops would be
greeted as liberators. Wilson
usually disregarded such sug-
gestions and concentrated on
the information his agents
reported.
Veracruz proved to be an
exception, however. Wilson
accepted Lind's judgment that
"To dispose of the present regu-
lar army will be an easy task. If
the officers in command 'break
ranks' and say 'shoo' they will
scatter and never be heard of
again except as inmates of jails
and almshouses," and the presi-
dent authorized an occupation
of Veracruz. When Mexican
civilians resisted the occupa-
tion, which resulted in the
deaths of 19 Americans and
several hundred Mexicans, Wil-
son was shocked. After that
experience, he viewed such
analysis more skeptically, and
Lind's influence was sharply
curtailed. 13
Other Sources
Wilson's other "confidential
men" were openly known to be
US representatives, despite
some like Hale, who acted
under a thin cover story. They
all solicited information from
official and unofficial sources
alike, meeting with Mexican
government officials and revo-
lutionary leaders as well as
with unofficial supporters and
opponents of the Huerta
regime. The material they sent
to Wilson was a blend of analy-
sis and raw data. His represen-
tatives not only told him what
they had learned but also
included their judgments and
sometimes recommendations
for action.
Wilson did not rely solely on
his confidential men. He also
'3 John Lind to the Secretary of State, 4
November 1913, Lind Papers, Reel 2; Lind
to Bryan, 24 February 1914, PWW 29:287.
An official count was never made of Mexi-
can casualties. Under the hot Veracruz
sun, both sides disposed of the dead as
quickly as possible. The Americans piled
Mexican dead in public squares near the
docks, and burned them. Robert E. Quirk,
An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and
the Occupation of Veracruz (New York:
Norton, 1967), 53.
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Wilson used all his sources to search for consistent elements in a
plethora of information to eliminate his own uncertainties.
sought information from busi-
nessmen and friends with con-
tacts in Mexico. He read
unsolicited reports from people
trying to influence his policies.
He received a flood of mail from
many unofficially credentialed,
self-credentialed, and non-cre-
dentialed representatives, all
aimed at garnering Wilson's
support for the Mexican leader
of their choice. Potentially use-
ful material flooded the White
House mail room along with a
profusion of crank mail. The
president's secretary, Joseph
Tumulty, sorted through it all
and forwarded a large represen-
tative sample to Wilson.14
Wilson's Analytical Method
Wilson used all these sources
to search for consistent ele-
ments in a plethora of informa-
tion to eliminate his own
uncertainties about which Mex-
14 Some of the crank mail can still be found
in Wilson's papers with his notes on them.
These provide the best evidence that he had
perused some of the letters himself. It is
likely Tumulty gave him selected material
as entertainment as well as to improve the
president's perspective on Mexico. See for
example, Sidney A. Witherbee to Wilson,
10 November 1913; Witherbee to Wilson,
14 November 1913, both in WWP Series 4,
Case 95. Witherbee, who may have been an
entrepreneur with interests in the country,
tried unsuccessfully to convince Secretary
of State Bryan to send him to Mexico to kill
Huerta. There were also warnings to the
president about a conspiracy by the pope,
protestants, Masons, or Jews, depending on
the writer's personal prejudices.
ican revolutionary faction to
support. He believed that pieces
of truth would fit together as a
whole. The trick was to tease
the facts from the propaganda
and lies in a rudimentary form
of content analysis. As he noted
in early 1915,
Things that are not so do not
match. If you hear enough of
them, you see there is no pat-
tern whatever; it is a crazy
quilt, whereas the truth always
matches, piece by piece, with
other parts of the truth. No
man can lie consistently, and
he cannot lie about everything
if he talks to you too long. I
would guarantee that if enough
liars talked to you, you would
get the truth; because the parts
that they did not invent would
match each other, and the parts
that they did invent would not
match one another. Talk long
enough, therefore, and see the
connections clearly enough,
and you can patch together the
case as a whole. I had some-
what that experience about
Mexico, and that was about the
only way in which I learned
anything that was true about
it, for there had been vivid
imaginations and many spe-
cial interests which depicted
things as they wished me to
believe them to be.15
This sorting of information for
consistency applied to the press
as well as to the mail Wilson
15 Woodrow Wilson, "An Address to the
United States Chamber of Commerce," 3
February 1915, PWW 32:180. Emphasis
in the original.
received. He distrusted much of
the Washington press corps. As
he wrote to a friend in Septem-
ber 1913,
Do not believe anything you
read in the papers. If you read
the papers I see, they are utterly
untrustworthy.... Read the edi-
torial page and you will know
what you will Tind in the news
columns. For unless they are
grossly careless the two always
support each other. Their lying
is shameless and colossal! 16
Wilson held the press of Will-
iam Randolph Hearst in partic-
ular contempt. The Hearst
papers were among the loud-
est of those trying to influence
Wilson's Mexico policy, with
the New York American and
the San Francisco Examiner
leading the way. These papers
regularly brandished lurid
headlines to discredit the Con-
stitutionalists, accusing them
of a wide range of atrocities,
including murder, looting and
rape. At one point, Hearst's
New York American published
photos of children playing on a
beach in British Honduras�
photos that had originally
appeared in the New York Tri-
bune in 1912�with a caption
falsely claiming they were chil-
dren in Mexico lined up to be
shot by revolutionaries, "proof
of an almost unbelievable state
of barbarity." Wilson ignored
such reports. He had little use
for Hearst, but the stories con-
taminated the public debate
and so may have influenced
16 Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert, 21 Sep-
tember 1913, PWW 28:311.
18
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reports Wilson received from
other sources.17
Throughout the crisis, the
notable exception to Wilson's
attitude toward the press
remained the New York World.
Wilson wrote to the World's
publisher, Ralph Pulitzer, in
1914,
Let me say that every day I
open the editorial page of the
World expecting to find what I
do, a real vision of things as
they are.
Wilson also held the Spring-
field (Massachusetts) Republi-
can in high regard. Secretary
Tumulty pasted together long
sheets with selected editorials
and stories from other newspa-
pers for Wilson's reading. But,
while Wilson discounted much
of the press coverage on Mex-
ico, a small group of reporters�
perceived to be accurate�were
called to Washington for per-
sonal interviews with Wilson.
In this select group was World
reporter John Reed, who met
Wilson in 1914 to give the pres-
ident his first hand impres-
sions. Reed emphasized the
revolution as a justified fight
against powerful landowners
and a corrupt Catholic Church,
and he painted Pancho Villa in
a very positive light. Wilson
told his ambassador to Britain
'7 New York American, 22 December
1913: 2. The original photo appeared in
the New York Tribune, 1 September 1912,
section 2. Details of this hoax appeared in
Ferdinand Lundberg, Imperial Hearst: A
Social Biography. (New York: Equinox
Cooperative Press, 1936), 221.
Wilson did not trust reporting from businessmen with interests in
Mexico because of their biases.
to read Reed's articles on Mex-
ico because he "had it right." 18
Much less reliable as sources
for Wilson were American busi-
nessmen who tended to back
whichever faction posed the
least threat to their property or
whichever faction their busi-
ness rivals opposed. For exam-
ple, American mine owners, the
dominant US business in Mex-
ico, generally favored Pancho
Villa because he controlled
much of the area in which US-
owned mines were located and
he had promised to protect the
mines so long as their owners
advanced him large "loans."
The Phelps-Dodge Corpora-
tion, headed by Wilson's good
friend from Princeton, Cleve-
land Dodge, however, favored
Venustiano Carranza, head of
the Constitutionalists, as did
Samuel Gompers and the
American Federation of Labor.
American oil interests also pre-
ferred Carranza, who con-
trolled many of the oil-
producing areas in northeast
Mexico. They also hoped to ben-
'8 Wilson to Ralph Pulitzer, 2 March 1914,
quoted in Arthur Link, Woodrow Wilson:
The New Freedom (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1956), 83-84. Wilson also
seemed to have liked the New York
Evening Post. See James D. Startt, Wood-
row Wilson and the Press (New York: Pal-
grave-MacMillan, 2004), 17. Wilson to
Walter H. Page, 18 May 1914, PWW 30:42.
Jerry W. Knudson, "John Reed: A Reporter
in Revolutionary Mexico." Journalism His-
tory 29, 2 (Summer 2003): 60-61.
efit if Carranza ousted Huerta,
who had the backing of rival
British oil companies. The
expatriate American business
community in Mexico City sup-
ported Huerta, but Wilson
largely ignored them because
he did not trust anyone who
supported Huerta. No signifi-
cant international business
group supported another con-
testant for power, Emiliano
Zapata, most likely because he
controlled a region in which
there was no significant US
business interest.19
Although Wilson did not trust
reporting from businessmen
with interests in Mexico
because of their biases, he did
Venustiano Carranza, the leader of
the Constitutionalists. (C) Bett-
mann/CORBIS)
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Wilson had a strict view of his cabinet's role, and he expected
its members to stay within the well-defined bounds of their de-
partments.
read some of the reports busi-
nessmen sent to him or to his
cabinet members, particularly
if they came from men with ties
to political allies or to Prince-
ton.
One Princetonian business-
man, John Silliman, actually
enlisted as a representative. Sil-
liman happened to be vice con-
sul in Coahuila and had known
Carranza before the revolution.
Unfortunately for Wilson, his
old colleague was a less-than-
perfect choice. Silliman was
timid and spoke Spanish so
poorly that Carranza never took
him seriously. Some of Car-
ranza's staff began calling the
envoy "silly man." In at least
one case, Carranza made Silli-
man read one of Wilson's mes-
sages in Spanish to embarrass
him. Nonetheless, Wilson kept
him in his position, not wanting
to humiliate him with a recall.
Wilson judged that Silliman was
doing a capable job just passing
messages back and forth. The
12 William K. Meyers, "Pancho Villa and
the Multinationals: United States Mining
Interests in Villista Mexico, 1913-1915,"
Journal of Latin American Studies, 23
(1991):347; Robert L. Daniel, "The Friend-
ship of Woodrow Wilson and Cleveland H.
Dodge," Mid-America 43 (1961):190-91;
Gregg Andrews, Shoulder to Shoulder.?
The American Federation of Labor, The
United States, and the Mexican Revolu-
tion, 1910-1924 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1991), 34; Samuel
Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor:
An Autobiography (New York: Augustus
M. Kelly, 1967) 2: 311-13.
State Department, however, did
send a translator to work with
him.20
The US military was notably
absent from Wilson's list of
intelligence collectors. Their
role, in the president's mind,
was to plan the tactical details
of the military operations they
were ordered to undertake.
An important exception was
Gen. Hugh Scott, commander of
the Army's Southern Depart-
ment. Wilson consulted Scott,
but only about Villa and Car-
ranza, especially since Scott
had met Villa several times.
Wilson chose not to tap Scott's
superior, Secretary of War
Lindley Garrison, an officer the
president did not know well.
Garrison was chosen for the
cabinet position only because
Wilson's secretary, Tumulty,
knew Garrison from service in
the New Jersey state govern-
ment. Garrison turned out to be
a vocal hawk favoring military
intervention in cabinet meet-
ings, basing his comments and
reports on information he
received from officers stationed
along the US-Mexican border.
Garrison soon realized, how-
ever, that Wilson did not often
take his advice on foreign pol-
20 Hill, 210-14. Silliman was promoted to
full consul in 1914; Mexican Herald, Mex-
ico City and Veracruz, 28 April 1914: 1;12
May 1914: 1; 13 May 1914: 1.
icy questions. The secretary of
war, like the generals he man-
aged, was consigned to tactical
and administrative issues on
Mexico. 21
Another exception was Secre-
tary of the Navy Josephus
Daniels, who was a member of
Wilson's inner circle. 22 Wilson
knew him well and because
Daniels, unlike Garrison, was
not an interventionist, Wilson
trusted his judgment. In addi-
tion, because the United States
maintained a naval presence in
Mexican ports, a practice begun
by President Taft, Daniels was
getting information from navy
officers on the scene. 23
Wilson had a strict view of his
cabinet's role, and he expected
its members to stay within the
well-defined bounds of their
departments. Thus, in keeping
diplomatic and strategic initia-
tives in his office, even mem-
bers Wilson trusted were
isolated from decisionmaking
on Mexico�and thus of no
intelligence value to the presi-
dent. For example, he com-
plained to his fiance, Edith
Galt, that his son-in-law, Secre-
tary of the Treasury William
McAdoo, was trying to influ-
21 Robert Lansing to Woodrow Wilson, 31
August 1915, PWW 34:385; Wilson to
Lansing, 31 August 1915, PWW 34:388;
Richard D. Challener, Admirals, Generals
and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1914
(Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1973).
22 Daniels had been a leader in Wilson's
1912 presidential election campaign.
" Wilson to Mrs. Galt, 23 June 1915,
PWW 33:446.
20
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Woodrow Wilson's Intelligence System
ence his Mexican policies,
which were, in the president's
words, "none of his business."
Only Secretary of State Bryan
and, to a lesser extent, Daniels
advised Wilson on Mexico.
Bryan was included because US
policy toward Mexico was in his
portfolio of duties.
IMINT and SIGINT, Lesser
Players
Types of intelligence other
than HUMINT and OSINT had
only minor roles in informing
Wilson's policies. IMINT was
limited to ground photography
used as tactical intelligence for
the military.24 In preparation
for possible armed intervention
in 1914, the US Navy sent offic-
ers into Mexico to photograph
bridges and railways. One
Marine officer even passed him-
self off as a US businessman
writing a guide book for Mexico
City and received a tour of the
Mexican Presidential Palace
and its defenses. These mis-
sions played no role in White
House decisions. 25
24 Aerial photography was possible and
was under development in Europe, but it
was not used in Mexico. For a history of
its development, see Terrence J. Finne-
gan, Shooting the Front: Allied Aerial
Reconnaissance and Photographic Inter-
pretation on the Western Front�World
War I (Washington, DC: National Defense
Intelligence College Press, 2006).
25 Legendary Marine officer Smedley Butler
played the businessman in Mexico City. In
effect, he was an early non-official cover officer.
The ground photographs of the areas around
Tampico and Veracruz are in the Office of Naval
Intelligence files, Lot 2428, Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division.
SIGINT play an important part, but it was largely a counterintel-
ligence tool, used to monitor the activities of foreign intelligence
services in the United States.
SIGINT played an important
part, but it was largely a coun-
terintelligence tool, used to
monitor the activities of foreign
intelligence services in the
United States. It was limited at
the time to tapping telephone
lines and telegraph cables, and
intercepting wireless radio com-
munications. SIGINT, in con-
trast to Wilson's HUMINT and
OSINT, came mostly through
official channels, rather than
through the informal ones Wil-
son had established.
SIGINT turned out to be espe-
cially useful in the spring of
1915 in preventing Huerta's
return to Mexico from exile in
Spain, to which he had fled in
July 1914. The Germans, eager
to embroil the United States in
a war with Mexico, courted
Huerta. In February 1915, a
German naval officer, Captain
Franz von Rintelen, visited
Huerta in Spain and offered to
back him in a counterrevolu-
tion. Encouraged by fighting
then underway between Villa
and Carranza, Huerta agreed to
consider the idea and went to
New York, landing on 12 April
1915. His reception by a crowd
of Mexican supporters bol-
stered the former dictator's
plans. He was greeted by
admirers everywhere he went.
The atmosphere, at least in the
exile community, seemed to
favor his return. 26
Treasury Secretary William
McAdoo's men tapped German
and Austrian diplomatic tele-
phones in Washington and New
26 George J. Rausch, Jr., "The Exile and
Death of Victoriano Huerta," Hispanic
American Historical Review 42
(1962):134-35.; Franz Rintelen von
Kleist, The Dark Invader: Wartime Remi-
niscences of a German Naval Intelligence
Officer (London: Lovat Dickson, 1933),
175-77. Captain Rintelen claims to have
walked up to Huerta in a New York hotel
lobby and introduced himself, but his
self-aggrandizing memoirs are mislead-
ing. It is more likely he met Huerta in
Spain while arranging passage to the
United States.
Gen. Victoriano Huerta
(center) on his arrival
in New York City.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
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Because Wilson insisted on concrete information before acting,
he was frustrated by the lack of definitive information.
York and relayed the reports to
Wilson. These reports focused
more on the activities of Ger-
man and Austrian diplomats
and their possible complicity in
sabotage in the United States
than they did on Mexico, but
they did include information
about German plotting in Mex-
ico."
By 24 June 1915, mistakenly
thinking he had shaken pursu-
ers, Huerta boarded a train in
New York bound for San Fran-
cisco, switching later to one for
El Paso. At the same time,
Villa's representative in Wash-
ington reported to the Wilson
administration that numerous
former Huertista officers were
on their way to El Paso from
places of exile in the United
States. The next day, United
States marshals arrested
Huerta as he stepped from his
train in Newman, Texas, only a
few miles from the border. Sup-
porters waiting in a car to drive
him across the border were also
arrested. 28
" Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmerman
Telegram (New York: Dell Publishing,
1963), 77-80; Rausch, 134-37; Henry
Landau, The Enemy Within: The Inside
Story of German Sabotage in America
(New York: G. Putnam's Sons, 1937), 48-
49.
Rausch, 138-39; New York World, 28
June 1915: 1; Henry Thayer Mahoney and
Marjorie Locke Mahoney, Espionage in
Mexico: The Twentieth Century (San Fran-
cisco: Austin & Winfield, 1997), 96-99.
Officials in El Paso kept Presi-
dent Wilson informed through
frequent cables. Zach Lamar
Cobb, the US customs collector
there, had built a small intelli-
gence network of his own,
including railroad employees.
These sources reported
Huerta's movements, which
Cobb relayed to Washington.
Cobb also organized the group
that arrested Huerta. Once
Huerta was arrested, Wilson
ordered the Justice Depart-
ment to detained him and keep
him from returning to Mexico,
orders the department followed
until Huerta's death in custody
from complications of alcohol-
ism.29
SIGINT thus provided "action-
able" information about
Huerta's plotting just as Hale's
HUMINT had given the presi-
dent the information he needed
to dismiss a US ambassador.
Wilson's other sources provided
less definitive information.
Some reports improved his
awareness of key issues, most
notably land reform. However,
much of the reporting simply
made him cautious in choosing
one factional leader over
another. In his notes to Secre-
tary of State Bryan, Wilson
29 John F. Chalkley, "Zach Lamar Cobb,"
Southwestern Studies No. 103 (El Paso:
Texas Western Press, 1998), 29-34; Wil-
son to Rudolp Forster, 28 June 1915 and
Wilson to William Bauchop Wilson, 5 July
1915, PWW 33,456,473.
demonstrated a willingness to
recognize whichever revolution-
ary faction could demonstrate
that it had gained Mexican pub-
lic support.
Wishing for More
Information
However, until late 1915 the
information Wilson was receiv-
ing could not help him come to
a conclusion. For example, Wil-
son once complained that US
consuls reporting from Mexico
"sent me only a small batch of
'flimsies' [telegrams printed on
very thin paper] and they con-
tained nothing but multiplied
details�and very small details
at that�of the chaos that is
Mexico."
In all likelihood, Wilson's
ambivalence was also influ-
enced by the efforts of those
vying for power in Mexico. The
Mexicans were well aware of
Wilson's actions and each politi-
cal and military faction did its
best to influence his interpreta-
tion of events, through lobby-
ing, personal contacts, and in
the US press. Huerta had con-
siderable support in the United
States, especially among busi-
ness leaders, but Wilson's nega-
tive opinion of Huerta was
firmly set. Carranza and Villa,
however, both had fairly sophis-
ticated public relations cam-
paigns aimed at the United
States and the White House.
Carranza had a press office in
New York and Washington DC,
which issued regular releases to
reporters and to members of
22
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Woodrow Wilson's Intelligence System
Congress. Villa encouraged
reporters, like Reed, who gave
him favorable coverage, and his
military train included a press
car in which reporters could
sleep and eat. He also allowed
them to use the Mexican tele-
graph system, often free of
charge, to contact newspapers
at home.
Because Wilson insisted on
concrete information before act-
ing, he was frustrated by the
lack of definitive reporting. As
he would tell Edith Galt, "The
fact is, I never have had any
patience with 'ifs' and conjec-
tural cases. My mind insists
always upon waiting until
something actually does hap-
pen and then discussing what is
to be done about that." 30
Wilson's frustration with the
lack of actionable intelligence is
neither hard to understand not
uncommon to presidents, as
they and other policymakers
often expect and demand more
from intelligence than it can
deliver.31 To be fair to Wilson's
sources, it was not until 1915
that any faction in Mexico
30 Wilson to Mrs. Galt, 17 August 1915,
PWW 34:231; Quoted in Robert W.
Tucker, "An Inner Circle of One," The
National Interest 51 (1998): 25; See Revo-
lution by Headline and Mark T. Gilder-
hus, Diplomacy and Revolution: U.S.-
Mexican Relations under Wilson and Car-
ranza. (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1977), 6.
3' See Richard Betts, Enemies of Intelli-
gence: Knowledge and Power in American
National Security (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2007) and a review of
the book in this issue by Nicholas Duj-
movic.
In the end, Wilson's system produced mixed results, with more
problems than would be acceptable in a pro fessionalized system.
gained enough dominance to
legitimately earn US recogni-
tion.
Lack of definitive judgments
on Wilson's part reflected the
lack of a stable reality on the
ground. By late summer 1915,
however, it was clear that Car-
ranza led the most powerful
revolutionary faction, and, in
October 1915, Wilson extended
recognition to Carranza's gov-
ernment.
An Assessment of Wilson's
System
In the end, Wilson's system
produced mixed results, with
more problems than would be
acceptable in a professional-
ized system. Wilson received a
lot of good information, particu-
larly from American reporters
in Mexico and from the US con-
suls who had built personal ties
to Mexico's revolutionary lead-
ers. Wilson did trust some offi-
cial State Department
reporting, but only from sources
that seemed to him to be accu-
rate.
The informality of Wilson's
system made his method cum-
bersome, but, possibly worse,
his approach to assessing the
reliability of reports by deter-
mining its consistency with
other facts was itself unreli-
able. As future intelligence fail-
ures would demonstrate,
Wilson was wrong to believe
that only the truth could be
consistent. Falsehoods we now
know can also seem logical and
factually consistent if key con-
tradictory information remains
unknown, ignored, or analyzed
on the basis of faulty assump-
tions.
Fortunately for Wilson, his
initial assumption that
Huerta's government lacked
popular support relative to the
Constitutionalist revolutionar-
ies was based on accurate infor-
mation�including the New
York World's reporting�and so
provided a firm foundation for
judging later information. The
quality of the World's reporting
helped Wilson. In hindsight it
appears to have been accurate
in comparison to other major
US newspapers, the Hearst
chain in particular. Had Wil-
son based his judgments on the
reporting of Ambassador Wil-
son or on the Hearst newspa-
pers, his system would have
served only to reinforce errone-
ous assumptions. 32
Wilson tapped sources that
were diverse, decentralized,
and with different kinds of
expertise. Because of this vari-
ety, no one source could domi-
nate Wilson's thinking and he
was able to avoid the traps of
groupthink. Because Wilson's
policies were still forming, he
also heard different viewpoints
about the Mexican factions,
32 Hill, 189-92,212-15.
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Woodrow Wilson's Intelligence System
Wilson learned from his efforts to understand events in Mexico,
including the lesson that foreign information had to come from
more places than the usual State Department channels.
although he did ignore most of
Huerta's supporters. The end
result of this information flow
may have been chaotic, but it
gave Wilson a wide range of
opinions and information.
Wilson was also sensitive to
the proclivity of his sources to
suggest policy. Although he
sometimes took that advice�
as he did Lind's urging to
occupy Veracruz in early
1914�in general, Wilson dis-
missed the policy suggestions
of his reporters.
After World War I ended, Wil-
son took another approach to
gathering intelligence and cre-
ated a new organization, the
Inquiry, to pull together infor-
mation and provide analysis on
the issues raised at the Ver-
sailles Peace Conference. The
Inquiry consisted of area
experts�including members of
the military, academics, and
reporters�who knew the differ-
ent regions and populations
affected by the war.
In establishing the Inquiry,
Wilson elected to use a more
formal structure of intelligence
collection and analytic exper-
tise than he had employed in
trying to understand Mexico.
The Inquiry was disbanded
immediately after the Ver-
sailles conference ended, but it
demonstrated that Wilson had
learned from his efforts to
understand events in Mexico,
including the lesson that for-
eign information had to come
from more places than the
usual State Department chan-
nels.33
3, See Lawrence E. Glefand, "The
Inquiry": American Preparations for
Peace, 1917-1919 (Westport, CT: Green-
wood Press Reprint, 1976).
24
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Woodrow Wilson's Intelligence System
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