Only a Dozen Shot
“There have only been twelve spies shot since the beginning of the war, but hundreds are either in penal servitude for life or serving shorter sentences. The actual number was not known to the official who talked with me on this topic—with the distinct understanding that I should not mention his name or title. He is the acknowledged authority on the spy evil. Not far from where we sat, in a formidable cabinet which looked as if it held other interesting documents, the papers taken from von Papen were carefully locked.
“‘No woman spies have been shot in England and only one among the feminine lot—a bad lot—who are serving sentence could possibly lay claim to being a “beautiful lady” spy. This woman had all the hall-marks of the fiction and cinema character, charming in manner, well gowned, having plenty of money, traveling about luxuriously, and was finally nabbed with the incriminating papers on her. But the popular conception of the feminine secret agent rarely exists outside of sensational stories because only women without moral sense can take up this profession, and when a woman is devoid of moral sense she is sure to be devoid of the other qualities that might make her work efficacious.
“‘There are, of course, numberless men and women who would be spies if they had not been interned, and, among the 30,000 Germans who are at this moment so confined, there are doubtless several who treasure the belief that they would have been of inestimable use to their country; but as they will never get a chance to prove themselves wrong that poor solace is permitted them.
“‘We have,’ continued my informant, ’a great number of “cherished spies” with us. These are the spies who go about plying their profession and believing themselves the personification of that cleverness the Germans demand for this work. That is why we have dubbed them “Our Cherished Ones.” They are carefully watched. We let them go on doing bad work because it is much better to keep a bad spy doing bad work than it is to take him and perhaps have a spy who might do good work sent in his place.
“‘We would hate to lose our “cherished spies.” We don’t intend to!
“‘America has the job of the century. I wouldn’t know where to tell her to begin. Spies that were there and have left had plenty of time to lay their plans before the unrestricted submarine warfare began.
“‘With 8,000,000 Germans in America, what you have to find out is whether or not a German has been denationalized, a process that can only be gone through in Germany. It is not enough to know that he has been naturalized and that he claims to be a good citizen to your country. The fact that he has become a naturalized citizen does not free him from the call to fight for his own land. If he is denationalized as well as naturalized you are then safe, but not before. In England we had only a very small number who were found to be denationalized, a fairly negligible unit.
“‘I should say that the rush by foreigners immediately after the declaration of war in America was not because before they had been indifferent or hostile, but because they feared to be called upon to fight for their own countries. You will probably find that many of the Germans had been denationalized and were finishing up the process.’”