GEORGE (AGENT 711) WASHINGTON, AND OTHERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170109-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 109
• Publication Date: April 13, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170109-6
ARTICLE APPEND
ON PAGE
,Tack Anderson'i
George (Agent/711) Washington, and Others
The full history of the United States,
given the secretiveness of government
officials, has never been told. Many of
the nation's most fascinating historical
documents are still classified, under lock
Another document is an agency his-
torian's chronicle of President Frank-
lin Pierce's opposition to a 19th-century
Bay of Pigs operation. When he was in-
augurated in 1853, "Pierce hoped-like
many Americans-that the Cuban peo-'
ple would revolt and, like Texas, seek
admission to the Union as a state,
[though] political reality dictated other-
wise:' the researcher wrote. "Acquisi-
tion of Cuba from Spain, he decided,
tnustbebypeaceable3means ifatall-" j
The secret document continues "One
problem facing Pierce was a filibuster-
irig expedition against Cuba by his old
Wartime colleague, Brig. Gen. John An-
thony Quitman. Quitman, working with
a Cuban junta, sought to 'free Cuba.'
Pierce opted to disclose intelligence to
Quitman in an effort to discourage the
move." An unclassified Pierce biogra-
phy discloses that Quitman was shown
the intelligence report on Cuban forti-
fications, "realized that he could not
succeed, and quit."
Other material in the CIA library in-
cludes an account of secret codes and
ciphers used in the Revolutionary War.
Presumably the codes are not still in
use at the Pentagon, but the spy agency
keeps them locked up anyway.
John Jay, who would become the
first chief justice of the United States,
was the rebels' chief of counterintelli-
gence: As such, the secret research
shows, he "devised a code which used a
dictionary as a code book, and a simple
substitution chart for names and words
not in the dictionary."
Another prominent Founding Father,
Robert Morris, devised a different code.
He was a member of both the Committee
of Secret Correspondence (foreign intel-
ligence) - and the Secret Committee
(covert procurement) of the Continental
Congress. Morris' code was to be used In
communicating with the commander in
chief, George Washington, also known as
`711:' One example is a message from
Abraham Woodhull. ("722") to 711;
"Dgpeu Beyocpu [Jonas Hawkins] agree-
able to 28 [recruitment] ..."
The secret history reports that .Tames
Lovell, who was the Secret Committee's
cryptographer for communications with
its agents abroad, was arrested and im-
prisoned by the British as a suspected
spy after the Battle of Bunker Hill. The
nonpareil cryptographer of the Revolu-
tion, however, was Charles Dumas, who
operated at the Hague. His code, the CIA
researcher notes, "was. pronounced un-
breakable by the British, who intercept
ed some of his dispatches."
One vignette the CIA evidently fears
the Soviets might use to undermine
Franco-American relations concerns
the Marquis de Lafayette's self-con-
difficulty with secret codes. In
fessed
the postscript of a message to the
comte d'Estaing, the young nobleman
wrote: "I beg you to excuse the awk-
wardness and the bad construction of
my ciphers; I am very new at this busi-"
ness, and I fear I- have made 'them as
unintelligible to you as they would be
to My Lord Howe.'
c3980,ua1feds..a+e.tglao. ?, ~, i
in an unusual library-the "Historical In-
telligence Collection," maintained by the
Central Intelligence Agency.
The hoary documents, some of which
date back nearly 200 years, are availa-
ble to properly cleared researchers
who want to dress up their learned re-
ports. But not. a whisper of this classi-
fied history is released to the public. It
appears only in "Studies in Intelli-
gence," a secret in-house CIA journal
published on an irregular basis. -
There's a lingering suspicion that
many of the documents in the collec-
tion are copies of publicly available ma-
terial in the National Archives. But the
CIA still won't let anyone look at the
stuff without security clearance.
Lifting the agency's -veil of secrecy a
millimeter or two, a CIA spokesman ac-
knowledged that the library does exist.
But he absolutely refused to let my as-
sociate Dale Van Atta see any of the
memorabilia in the collection. Nor
would t e official permit an interview
with the curator or anyone connected
with the library.
Mw Wurdit9o the 's observe
secrecy can best be illustrated by citing
examples of the library's material, which
I obtained from unofficial sources. ,
One- choice item is a note dated May
27, 1793, from thenSecretary of State
Thomas Jefferson to -a fellow Virginian,
James Madison, who was serving in the
House . of Representatives.- Jefferson
wanted to recruit a spy to operate in the
Frenclrowned territory of Louisiana.
"We want an intelligent and prudent
native," he wrote, "who will go to reside
in New Orleans as a secret correspond-
ent for 1,000 dollars a year. He might do
a little business, merely to cover his real
office. Do point out such a one." .
Jefferson then added a telling`obsei+
vation on the residents of his native
state. "Virginia," he wrote, "ought to
offer more loungers equal to this, and
ready for it, than any other state."
THE WASHINGTON POST
13 April 1980
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170109-6