SINCE THIS BOOK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED, new information has become available affecting the cryptographic problem of the telegram, though not its historical and political circumstances, which stand as described.
A hitherto classified Signal Corps bulletin, “The Zimmermann Telegram of January 16, 1917 and Its Cryptographic Background” by William F. Friedman and Charles J. Mendelsohn (War Department, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Washington, GPO, 1938) was declassified in 1965. Its primary author as Chief Cryptanalyst for the War Department, 1921–47, was the man responsible for breaking the Japanese code in 1941 and is America’s leading figure in cryptography. At the time of writing I knew of the existence of the bulletin, but despite application to Mr. Friedman, who remained kind but close-mouthed, I was unable to examine it or learn its gist. It now appears to modify my account by disclosing that a second German code, No. 0075, was involved in the telegram, with implications as regards decoding which are analyzed in a forthcoming book, The Codebreakers, by David Kahn, former president of the New York Cipher Society. The chief conclusion drawn from the new evidence is that decryptment of the message was accomplished to a greater degree by “solving” than by the help of a German code book or copy of the code in Room 40’s possession.
While venturing no dispute, I have retained in the following pages the stories suggesting a code copied by Szek or captured from Wassmuss because some measure of truth may yet lie buried in them and because the second story in particular was based on Admiral Hall’s own affidavit, as follows: “The German cipher book covering this system of ciphering is in our possession, it having been captured by the British authorities in the luggage of a German consul named Wasmuss [sic] who was stationed at Shiraz while Wasmuss was engaged in an endeavor to cut a British oil pipe line.” Friedman and Mendelsohn, reasonably enough, doubt that a diplomatic code book would have been entrusted to an agent like Wassmuss on his hazardous mission. Other new evidence, however, while supporting that doubt, now appears to confirm the story of a captured code book from the Persian Gulf.
Mr. C. J. Edmonds, who was Acting British Vice-Consul at Bushire on the Persian Gulf in 1915, was moved by the first appearance of this book to publish his own firsthand account of what took place there (“The Persian Gulf Prelude to the Zimmermann Telegram,” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, January, 1960). He relates that Wassmuss’ escape inspired the British staff at Bushire, including himself, to stage a thoroughly illegal arrest of the German Consul, Dr. Helmuth Listemann, and that among his effects, “wrapped up in several pairs of long woolen underpants,” were found “two ‘dictionary’ cyphers.” Mr. Edmonds writes that the interception of Wassmuss and raid on Listemann were “a single operation in two parts,” adding that, while the first was given publicity, the second “for obvious reasons” was not. Herein may lie the explanation of Admiral Hall’s affidavit. Since the arrest of Listemann was illegal he may have preferred to pass over it in silence and ascribe the finding of the cipher book, or books, to Wassmuss’ luggage instead. As we now know from the many recent accounts of World War II espionage, the truth often does not get into the record while the cover story does.
Progress in filming and classifying the German Foreign Office Archives captured after World War II has made possible a number of scholarly studies, since this book was written, on the German-Japanese peace negotiations of 1915–16 and the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare of January, 1917. Among these are Gerhard Ritter’s Die Tragödie der Staatskunst: Bethmann Hollweg als Kriegskanzler 1914–17 (Munich, 1964); a French study of the captured documents by Andre Scherer and Jacques Grunewald, L’Allemagne et les problemes de la paix; Vol. I, Des Origines à la declaration de la guerre sous-marine à outrance, Août 1914–31—Janvier 1917 (Paris, 1962); and an article by Professor Frank W. Iklè, “Japanese-German Peace Negotiations During World War I,” American Historical Review, October, 1965. These add to, but do not essentially alter, what was known at the time I wrote.
The role of a minor official in the German Foreign Office, Legation Counselor von Kemnitz (first name unknown), as originator of the idea for the telegram has recently been confirmed by a German investigator, Dr. Friedrich Katz, in his Deutschland, Diaz und die mexikanische Revolution; die Deutsche Politik in Mexiko, 1870–1920 (Berlin, 1964). His researches have been made available to American readers by Professor Arthur S. Link in the fifth volume of his life of Wilson published in 1965. Although unmentioned by Dr. Katz, von Kemnitz’ role was first disclosed by Professor Moritz J. Bonn as reported in the German press in October, 1918, and subsequently referred to by von Kemnitz himself when he was candidate of the German People’s Party for election to the Reichstag in 1920. I did not include this rather shadowy figure in my account since the responsibility was in any case Zimmermann’s and since there was too little information on von Kemnitz to bring him into focus, and what there was was uncertain. He was variously described as a Far Eastern and a Latin-American specialist in the Foreign Office, a confusion which apparently persists because Dr. Katz calls him the one and Professor Link the other.
Dr. Katz makes the further point worth mentioning, that Zimmermann’s proposal was warmly endorsed by the ultimate authority in Germany at the time, as shown by the fact that the renewed offer of alliance, after the fiasco of the telegram, was brought to Mexico and presented to Carranza by a representative of the Supreme Command.
BARBARA W. TUCHMAN
May, 1966