The Secret History of the United States: Conspiracies, Cobwebs and Lies

By Peter Kross

Everyone likes a good mystery, be it based in fact or fiction. The history of the United States is full of mysterious facts that are not taught in school, and most people don’t know the untold stories surrounding many historical events. In The Secret History of the United States author Kross brings these little known stories to life. The book details conspiracy theories throughout our history, from the discovery of the continent to the founding of the nation to our modern day. The book also tells the stories of unexplained events in our history, as well as mysteries that have never been solved. The events covered in the book range from the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the Cold War, the assassinations of the 1960s, the Iraq war and the events leading up to 9-11. Among the subjects covered are the following: Was Christopher Columbus Jewish?; The plots to kidnap George Washington; Who was Agent 355?; John Wilkes Booth and the Confederate Secret Service; the Lindberg baby kidnapping; the plot to oust FDR; Flight 19; Who killed JFK?; Nixon and the mob, Watergate and the CIA, Iran-Contra, and the intelligence failures that led up to 9-11. These stories are fascinating accounts of the underside of our hidden history that will amaze and inform the reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781939149145

Peter Kross

Peter Kross is a native of the Bronx, New York. He has a BA in history from the University of Albuquerque. He is the author of nine previous non-fiction books, including Tales From Langley: The CIA from Truman to Obama, and The Vatican Conspiracy: Intrigue in St. Peter’s Square. He has also written for various military and history publications. He lives with his family in New Jersey.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Everyone likes a good mystery, be it fact or fiction. It is even better if it involves history, where the reader can put his own interpretation on the events being written about. The teaching of history in the public schools today, unfortunately, involves the copious use of dates, facts, and little else. It is not until the serious student of history picks a major in college that a good teacher will delve into a subject that makes one want to learn more about what is being taught.

There is more to the story of American history than is taught at the middle school, high school, and even college level. One can learn more from watching such networks as the History Channel, and the Military Channel and other cable shows where a much more detailed description of events is shown than on regular television.

The purpose of this book is to explain the underside of American history, one that was never taught in school, giving the reader information about events that he or she never knew existed. The scope of this book is divided into three, interconnected areas: unexplained events in American history, little known stories of the American drama, as well as conspiracy theories, not exclusive to just our own country. The material covered in the book begins with the story of the heritage of Christopher Columbus, delves into certain little known events of our war of independence, the Civil War, including certain aspects of the Lincoln assassination, the inter-war years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, numerous tales of the Cold War, the assassinations of the 1960s, and the set of circumstances that led up to the Iraq war and the events of 9-11. It is a tale of treachery, lies, and deceits, conducted by men who thought they knew more about what was good for the American people who elected them in the first place. If, after you’ve read this book, you come away with the thought, I never knew that happened, I’ve succeeded in telling the tale.

Peter Kross

North Brunswick, NJ

Chapter 1

Was Columbus Jewish?

So much has been written about the life and voyages of Christopher Columbus in the five hundred plus years since the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, as he was called, first discovered America (there is circumstantial evidence to the contrary, however that he was not the first one to discover America) and yet, there are few primary source documents left by him that tell the story of his life.

There is another side in the life of Columbus that has only recently come to the attention of scholars and historians that may profoundly alter the way the world looks at the great explorer—the possibility that Colombus was Jewish.

Columbus’s father, Domenico Colombo, lived in Genoa at the time of his son’s birth. Domenico was a wool weaver, not the explorer that his distinguished son would later become. His son was named Cristoforo, and was the first child born to Domenico and Susanna. A brother named Giovanni Bartolomeo died at a young age. He had another brother called Bartolomeo, who aided Christopher when he undertook his seafaring voyages. Another brother, named Giacomo, was born seventeen years after Christopher, and was called Diego by the Spaniards whom he came in contact with.

During his lifetime, Colombus went by various names, and he did all he could to hide his origins. He once said that, I am not the first Admiral of my family. Let them call me, then, by what name they will, for after all, David that wisest of kings, tended sheep and was later made King of Jerusalem, and I am the servant of Him Who raised David to that high estate. The David Colombus was referring to was King David of the Old Testament. Here Colombus, who was ostensibly Catholic, references a notable Jew of the Old Testament. Was this because he was actually Jewish?

The names he used during his lifetime were Cristoforo Colombo (possibly his baptismal name), his son Fernando called him Colonus, but nearly always Admiral. He was referred to by the Spaniards as Cristobal Colon, and his descendants went by that name. The Portugese called him Cristovao Colom, but he is known throughout American history as Christopher Columbus. When he set out on his voyages of discovery, Columbus called himself a representative of Christ, who would bring Christianity to the heathens whom he met on his voyages.

The author, Kirkpatrick Sale, who wrote a book called The Conquest of Paradise (written in 1990) wrote of Columbus’s origins that, For the trail that Colon left behind is so confused and incomplete, from his birthplace on, as to suggest more than mere carelessness, about fact and fiction on his part . . . The darkness there suggests rather that he was a man truly without a past that he could define, without a home, or roots, or family, without ever a sense, or love, of place. His early years are dark because, in a sense, they are empty.¹ The city of Genoa that young Christopher Columbus grew up in was a bustling, mercantile place, where the sea trade dominated all else. The docks were full of ships loading and off loading their cargos, where bankers financed lucrative deals with ship captains who gathered crews and set sail for places, known and unknown, in search of riches and undiscovered lands.

Christopher’s father was well off, but by no means rich. Christopher went to a guild school where he learned Latin, geography, and math. At some point in his education, Christopher began to be proficient in the art of cartography (the drawing of maps), learned to navigate by the stars, and became a good seaman.

In 1476, he joined a crew of a ship that was sailing from the Mediterranean for the Atlantic Ocean. The ship sailed under the watchful eye of the Genovese merchants and Columbus served on the Bechalla. Their route took them past the Strait of Gibraltar and then to Cape St. Vincent which was located at the southwestern tip of Portugal. There, they encountered a pirate flotilla and he got his first taste of combat.

At twenty-five, Christopher decided to remain in Portugal, and soon his brother Bartolomeo joined him in their new home. It was from here that Columbus would begin the next facet of his young life: that of a worldwide adventurer.

By 1476, Christopher and Bartolomeo would begin their own cartography business in Lisbon. They designed and drew up navigational charts for ship captains and other notables who were outfitting flotillas in search of new lands.

In 1477 Columbus joined an expedition that set sail into the open Atlantic. The trip was possibly a voyage to find a way to China or India but most accounts say that his ship wound up near Galway in Ireland where Columbus said he saw people with oriental looking appearances. It is believed that the people he saw were from Finland or Lapland. It was during this first trip that he came up with the idea of a land beyond the ocean, possibly the Indies or China. There are also accounts that say that the 1477 voyage arrived at the island of Tile, which might have been what we call Iceland today.

In 1478, Columbus, now back in Lisbon, met a man named Paolo di Nigri who worked for a businessman in Genoa. Di Nigri’s job was to buy thirty tons of sugar in Madeira, and soon Columbus signed on to be part of his crew. The trip was not entirely successful, as only a small percentage of the sugar was purchased. Soon thereafter he moved to the small island of Porto Santo where he would stay for the next two and a half years. While on Porto Santo, Columbus married a twenty-five-year-old woman named Dona Felipa Perestrello e Moniz. His new wife’s father, Bartolomeo Perestrello, who had passed away, was a seafarer who kept all the charts and navigational tools from his various voyages. His wife gave all his papers to Christopher who poured over them with relish. Columbus heard all the stories of seamen from the ships that passed by Porto Santo and he came to believe that there was a fabled place called Antilla (later called the Antilles). If there was such a place, then Columbus would be the one to find it. In time, Columbus found life in Portugal not to his liking and he moved to Spain with his son Diego, after the untimely death at thirty of his wife, hoping to find influential people who would financially aid him in his quest to discover new lands.

Father and son settled in the Spanish town of Huelva, where his late wife had relatives. He soon met a man who would become a mentor to him, Fray Antonio de Marchena. De Marchena knew a great deal about how to navigate by the stars, and was a noted astronomer and cosmographer. De Marchena told Columbus that there were indeed lands to the west and with luck, they’d both find them.

They soon met one of wealthiest men in the area, Don Luis de la Cerda, who had a large merchant fleet. Over time, Columbus described his thoughts that the world was round and asked de la Cerda if he would underwrite an expedition with him as captain. De la Cerda was a cautious man and before he would agree to the plan, he had to get permission from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Castile. Spain, at that time, was at war with the Moors, who ruled certain parts of Spain, allowing a small amount of religious and cultural freedom to the people whom they ruled. In 1486, Columbus and Marchena traveled to Cordoba to see the King and Queen but they were not in residence. In time, however, the monarchs learned of Columbus’s plans and ordered a commission of investigation to convene to study the idea. The group was headed by Father Fernando de Talavera, and members consisted of the best minds in their fields: lawyers, scholars, astronomers, and mapmakers.

While Columbus languished in Spain waiting for news from the Crown (it would take six years before he’d be given approval for the first voyage), Portugese sailors had made incredible finds of their own. Bartolomeu Diaz, in December 1488, returned in triumph to Lisbon with the news that he had successfully traveled due south, navigating the southern tip of Africa, and named it the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1491, Columbus asked for, and was granted, a meeting with Queen Isabella. He was tired of waiting, all those precious years lost which could not be made up. In an almost confrontational meeting with the Queen, Colombus made his demands upon her; if she gave him her permission for his voyage, he wanted the following: 1) to be called Admiral of the Ocean Sea, 2) to be appointed governor of all the lands he found, with all the power that came with it, 3) and to be given 10% of all the riches he discovered. Why Isabella agreed to Columbus’s outrageous demands is not known, but with the war against the Moors over, and peace at hand, the monarchs agreed to send him on his voyage to find India and China. The rest, as they say, is history.

But was Columbus Jewish and could he have been hiding his religious views all his life? It is believed that he was a Marrano, people who were Jews who converted to the Catholic faith but who secretly conducted their private lives as Jews. In 1350, Spain began to order those Jews living in that nation to convert to Christianity, and quietly, thousands reluctantly did so. In time at least 50, 000 Jews left Spain for other nations, like Morocco, Turkey, and Syria, among others. Those Marranos whose identities were publically revealed, were sometimes tortured, and publically humiliated before the local population.

Columbus left Spain on August 3, 1492, one day after the final expulsion of the Jews began (coincidence or not?). Writing in his journal of his leave taking from Spain, Columbus wrote, So, after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highness, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament, to the said regions of India. The Jews who did stay in Spain were called the Conversos, or the converted ones.

In his will, Columbus left one tenth of his wealth to the poor, as well as giving a certain amount of money to girls, which was part of Hebrew customs. He left an undisclosed amount of money to the cause of liberating the Holy Land, gave money to a Jewish person who lived in the Lisbon Jewish Quarter, and told his heirs to use a triangular signature made up of dots and letters, not unlike a Jewish prayer.

Columbus had along with him on his voyage a Jew named Luis de Torres, who also went by the Hebrew name Yousef Ben Ha Levy Haivri (Joseph the Son of Levy the Hebrew). De Torres served as his interpreter and was the first person of Jewish heritage to settle in what is now America. Like many other Jews, de Torres was a Converso but kept his heritage alive in secret. When Columbus and his party arrived in Cuba (thinking they were in Asia), Columbus dispatched de Torres and a sailor named Rodrigo de Jerez to explore the new land. Over the next days and weeks, both men traveled inland and were happily greeted by the local Indians they met.

When Columbus left the new world on January 4, 1493, de Torres and 38 other men stayed behind at the settlement they named La Navidad on the island of Hispaniola. However, tragedy struck the outpost and they were all killed in an Indian attack in retaliation for the Spaniards abducting some native women.

It has always been assumed that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella financed Columbus’s trip. However, it seems that might not be the case. The man who interceded in Columbus’s case before the monarchs was Luis de Santangel, a wealthy man of the court. It is estimated that de Santangel provided Columbus two million maravedis (currency of the time) to finance his three ships, Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Santangel held the position of treasurer of the Santa Hermandad, which was a local, civilian militia organization (he also worked for King Ferdinand).

Another person of note who looked into the possibility that Columbus was Jewish was Simon Wiesenthal, the noted Nazi hunter who successfully tracked down many Nazis, including Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Wiesenthal believed that both Columbus and Santangel were Jewish and he spent the decade of the 1970s and later, trying to prove that fact. Wiesenthal said that Columbus came from a line of baptized Jews, and there were a number of such families in Northern Italy who had the last name Colombo. While studying Columbus’s heritage, Wiesenthal found a reference in a book about Columbus in the Biblioteca Colombia, where Columbus wrote in the margin of a book a converted date for the year 1481 to the Jewish calendar, 5241. If Columbus was a Catholic, why would he have converted the date into the Hebrew calendar?

Columbus, it seems had an avid interest in the Old Testament and even made a reference that while on his voyages of discovery, he tried to find the lost gold mines of King Solomon. Solomon was supposed to have used the gold to build the temple in Jerusalem.

On February 3, 1500, Columbus reported that he had rediscovered those mines on the island of Hispaniola, suggesting that Hispaniola was none other than the legendary Ophir.

Wiesenthal believed that de Santangel was a Converso, and that Columbus was really looking for a homeland for the Jews who had been banished by the Spanish Inquisition.

Is it possible that Columbus was born in Spain, not in Genoa as the mainstream historians believe? In 1476, Columbus took part in a battle against the port of Genoa, his supposed hometown. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, The fact that in the battle (that took place on August 13, 1476), he fought on the Portugese side, against Genoa, shows him to be no Genoese patriot . . . One explanation . . . is that Columbus came from a Spanish-Jewish family, settled in Genoa.

Despite the fact that Columbus was supposed to have very little education, he spoke Spanish, and was a friend of influential Spanish Jews, one of whem was Diego de Deza, who arranged for him to meet the Spanish monarchs. Columbus also met with Abraham Senior and Isaac Abravanel, who were notable men at the Spanish court. In his book Pirates and The Lost Templar Fleet, author David Childress wrote that a number of seamen on board Columbus’s voyage to the new world were Jewish, including the ship’s doctor named Bernal, and Marco, a surgeon. A crewman named Abraham Zacuto gave Columbus detailed astronomical charts to plot their course.

Did Columbus use a fake Italian identity when he went before the Spanish monarchs, asking for their blessing (and financial aid) for his trips? If Columbus was indeed Jewish, the monarchs would never have dreamed of funding his voyages. If, on the other hand, he could convince them of his Italian-Christian roots, he’d have a much better chance of being granted special privileges by the monarchs.

Author David Childress wrote in his book Pirates & the Lost Templar Fleet that Columbus may have had a tenuous link to the secret organization called the Knights Templar. He said that the sails on Columbus’s three ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, had white and red crosses painted on the square sails, the same symbol that ships of the Templars used.

If it could be proven that Columbus was indeed a converted Jew, then the entire historical perspective of his life and times would have to seen in a new light.

Chapter 2

Ben Franklin: Patriot or Spy?

Benjamin Franklin was one of the most important leaders of the American Revolution. He was one of the founding fathers of the United States, as well as a famous inventor, who established the first lending library, published Poor Richard’s Almanac, and started the original American debating club.

But what is not widely known is that Benjamin Franklin was one of the most important spies for the Thirteen Colonies.

Franklin held many important positions in the early life of the United States. He served as the Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, Postmaster General of the colonies, and was the Colonial agent in London for Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Georgia. This position led Franklin into contact with many important people, not all of them English.

In 1775, Franklin returned home and resumed his active political life. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and became a member of the Second Continental Congress. In that year, he began his career as an intelligence agent. He headed the newly created Committee of Secret Correspondence which was set up by the Continental Congress.

The purpose of the Committee was to gather as much intelligence as possible from America’s friends in England and other countries in Europe, and find out how they might help the fledgling American rebellion.

One of the men Franklin met was a man named Julien Achard de Bonvouloir who proved to be a boon to the young colonies. Julien Achard de Bonvouloir told Franklin that he was a Flemish merchant who wanted to make an arms deal with the Americans. In reality, he was an agent of the French government, sent by French Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes.

In their private meetings, de Bonvouloir told Franklin that France secretly wanted to help the American cause, and it was his job to see how that could be done.

In return, Franklin told de Bonvouloir that the American army was bigger, and more well equipped than it really was. He did this to cement the ongoing hostilities between France and England that had been brewing for some time.

Following their meeting, the Committee of Secret Correspondence sent Silas Deane to Paris to act as their representative. It was Deane’s job to acquire the guns and military supplies for a 25,000-man army.

Deane wasn’t the first choice of the Committee to send to Paris. He didn’t speak the language, and was disliked by some of its members, including John Adams. Nevertheless, Deane arrived in Paris in July 1776, under the disguise of a businessman buying goods for the India Trade. Deane was told to contact an American named Dr. Edward Bancroft who lived in London, but was visiting Paris at the time. Bancroft was to be used as a secret agent by Deane.

When Deane arrived in Paris, he was immediately placed under surveillance by a British undercover agent by the name of Jacobus van Zandt, who at one time lived in New York, and went by the alias, George Lupton. Lupton even went so far as to enter Deane’s residence while he was out, trying to find any information that might be of use to the British (he found none).

But what neither Franklin nor Deane knew was that Dr. Bancroft was a double agent who worked for the British Secret Service.

Over time, Deane, and later Franklin, who came to Paris in September 1776 as head of the American diplomatic mission, told Bancroft all their plans to acquire French help. Upon his return to London, Dr. Bancroft reported Franklin’s secrets to Paul Wentworth, a highly placed member of the British Secret Service.

Paul Wentworth’s boss, and the man who took overall control of trying to stop Franklin’s undercover work, was William Eden, who was in charge of the British Secret Service. Eden recruited a number of Americans who were living in England, and who did not believe in the rebel cause, to spy on Franklin and his fellow commissioners. One of these men was Paul Wentworth. Wentworth, in turn, recruited Dr. Bancroft as a double agent.

Like Silas Deane, Paul Wentworth’s reputation at the Royal Palace wasn’t held in high regard. King George III accused both Wentworth and Dr. Bancroft of secretly making illegal profits in the London stock market and therefore, never took Wentworth’s intelligence reports seriously.

Benjamin Franklin left for France on October 29, 1776, on board the ship Reprisal, sailing from Philadelphia. Now settled in Paris, he could turn his attention to cementing the colonies’ ties with France and his own, covert role as a spymaster. He appointed Dr. Bancroft as Secretary of the American mission, and the man promptly took up residence in Franklin’s home in Paris.

In time, Dr. Bancroft was able to provide the British with a wealth of information, including the names of colonial agents in Europe, and the Caribbean. He went by the name Mr. Edwards, and kept Eden up to date on Franklin’s secret negotiations with the French monarch.

But Franklin was busy getting secret military help from France while at the same time, meeting with some members of the British opposition who were sympathetic to the American cause.

Franklin had his own agents and informers in Paris who regularly reported to him. He would turn over his information to Comte de Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister.

Besides being one of the ablest inventors in our history, it seems that Franklin was a master of disinformation while in Paris. He wrote propaganda pieces that made their way back to Germany, which sent a number of Hessian soldiers to fight alongside the British in the colonies. He forged a letter from a German prince to his commanding officer stating that he should leave his wounded and dying men on the battlefield, instead of bringing them back for medical help. He also wrote a fictitious article that he get published in a German paper describing the horrible deaths being inflicted on the Hessians by the native American Indians in the colonies.

While the British did not fully realize the extent of Franklin’s deceptions while in Paris, they did not take him lightly. When Franklin arrived in Paris on board the ship Reprisal, Lord Stormont, the British ambassador to Paris, sent a message home, making the following assessment of Franklin, I cannot but suspect that he comes charged with a secret Commission from the Congress, and as he is a subtle, artful Man, and void of all truth, he will, in that Case, use every means to deceive . . . He had the advantage of several intimate connections here, and stands high in the general opinion. In a word, my lord, I look upon him as a dangerous engine, and am very sorry that some English frigate did not meet with him by the way.²

Another person whom both Franklin and Deane used in their secret dealings was a successful playwright and author by the name of Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. De Beaumarchais wrote plays such as The Marriage of Figaro, and The Barber of Seville. He was also a successful watchmaker and was held in high regard in the French government. De Beaumarchais was asked by Foreign Minister Vergennes to aid Franklin and Deane in procuring military supplies for the American rebels. He established a secret front organization called Hortalez & Co., which bought the supplies for his American friends. Some of the funds came from both Spain and France. In return, the French received such supplies as grain, rice, and tobacco from American companies. In time, the British government learned of de Beaumarchais’s secret dealings but were unable to interfere with his business.

Silas Deane told Dr. Bancroft of his secret dealings with de Beaumarchais and the doctor reported back to London. At this stage of the game, Deane and Franklin still did not know that Dr. Bancroft was a double agent. The person whom Dr. Bancroft revealed Deane’s news about Hortalez & Co., was Paul Wentworth.

Franklin’s big diplomatic breakthrough came when the French government decided to sign a formal alliance with the Americans, under the tutelage of Franklin, Deane, and the other member of the commission, Arthur Lee.

The turning point as far as the French were concerned came with the American victory at Saratoga. After this important battle in which the British were badly defeated, the French decided to open an alliance with the Americans. After the American victory at Saratoga, Dr. Bancroft briefed King George III, saying that it was his opinion that France would now go ahead and make a formal alliance with the Americans. The King refused to take Dr. Bancroft’s views seriously, having already formed a negative opinion of him. The King knew all about Dr. Bancroft’s shady business dealings, and for that, and other reasons, decided not to heed his warning.

Many years later, some historians speculated that Franklin himself could have been a British spy. After all, Franklin was surrounded by British double agents while living in Paris. He had heard rumors that Dr. Bancroft was working for the British and commented, If I was sure, therefore that my valet de Place [Bancroft] was a spy, as probably he is, I think I should not discharge him for that, if in other respects I liked him.

If in fact, Franklin knew of Dr. Bancroft’s treachery, why didn’t he do something about it, instead of having him learn all of their most important, diplomatic secrets?

Franklin was a member of the Hell Fire Club, an English Satanic cult organization. While this in itself doesn’t condemn Franklin to the ranks of a British spy, it doesn’t bode well for the head of the American delegation to Paris who was supposed to foster American goodwill.

At the time, there were other distinguished Americans who had doubts about Franklin’s loyalty, including John Adams, Arthur Lee, and Ralph Izard, who served as an American representative in Europe. All three never had real proof of any treachery on Franklin’s behalf, only rumors and speculation. John Adams, who would later become our third president, called Franklin an old conjurer, and believed that Franklin was working hand-in-glove with Silas Deane in money making schemes.

In our recent history, a number of authors have written that all the available evidence points to Franklin’s complicity with the British. Cecil Curry, in his book Code Number 27: Ben Franklin Patriot or Spy, claims that Franklin was recruited into British intelligence by Lord de Despencer, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, via the Hell Fire Club. Some writers have alleged a connection between the Hell Fire Club and the British Secret Service, but nothing concrete has been proven. Franklin did indeed meet at certain times with Lord de Despencer during his routine travels to England.

Another question that has to be asked is if Franklin did know of Dr. Bancroft’s treason, did he in fact pass false information to him that would then be given to the British? I’m sure that possibility did not miss the devious mind of Franklin during that time period.

Ben Franklin was indeed one of the men most responsible for the founding of the young United States. He was erudite, brilliant, cunning, and a famous ladies man. What other secrets did he have in that keen mind that he kept from the world?

Chapter 3

Who Was Agent 355?

When George Washington took command of the infant American army after the Declaration of Independence was announced, he had little or no interest in the arcane world of espionage. He originally served as an officer in the British army during the French and Indian War and did nothing to really distinguish himself as a military commander. All that changed however, when the war started and intelligence was vital to ascertain the moves of the British. His first foray into the intelligence business began in July 1775, when he authorized $333.00 to be given to an unidentified person to head to Boston and find out what the British were doing. As the war progressed, however, Washington became this country’s first spymaster, overseeing a covert intelligence network called the Culper Ring that operated mostly in British controlled New York City and on Long Island.

The man whom Washington picked to head the Culper Ring was Major Benjamin Tallmadge. Tallmadge recruited a number of spies who infiltrated British New York and passed vital information to him (more about the Culper Ring in a following chapter). One of Tallmadge’s spies was a woman whom history has not named, but was referred to as 355. While we do not know her real identity, Agent 355 was instrumental in providing vital information to the Culpers, as well as aiding in the capture of Benedict Arnold after his treasonous plot to sell West Point to the British was uncovered.

One of Washington’s most effective members of the Culper Ring was a New York Quaker named Robert Townsend, who would become known as Culper Junior. Townsend did not like war, and he did not speak out in favor of the revolution, causing a number of rebels to think he was on the British side. He even went so far as to join a Tory (British loyalist) militia in New York. Tallmadge recruited Townsend and in time, he became one of the most effective spies in the city. Townsend wrote his messages in code, using what was then called sympatric stain inside sheets of ordinary paper, hidden from the casual viewer. The person who received the letters used a substance to reveal the coded messages, thus, keeping the prized information out of the hands of the British.

In order to make friends with the British, Townsend wrote articles in a Tory newspaper which was read daily by British officers who often complimented him on his work. One of the men who wrote for the same paper was Major John Andre, a British officer and what is more important, a spy for the Crown in New York. Townsend also operated a coffee shop in New York which was frequented by many important British officers

While we don’t know all of the circumstances, it seems that Robert Townsend and Agent 355 were more than just friends. It is believed by historians that Townsend and 355 had an affair (she became his common-law wife), which resulted in the birth of a son, Robert Townsend Junior. It is said that after the birth of the child, 355 was captured and possibly died on a British prison ship in New York harbor. There is only one real reference to the activities of 355 during the war and one coded message about her says, I intend to visit 727 [the code name the Culpers gave to New York City] before long and think by the assistance of a 355 [the code name for a woman devised by the Culpers] of my acquaintance, shall be able to outwit them all.

From this scant information one can deduce that 355 was already a practicing spy in New York by the time Robert Townsend met her. At one point during his role as a Culper spy, Robert Townsend began to take time off from his espionage work and his communications to both George Washington and the rest of the ring slackened considerably. No one knows why. Maybe he was worried about the fate of 355, or maybe there was some other, unexplained reason. During his lifetime, Townsend never revealed the identity of his common-law wife, even to his own family, or to the other members of the Culper Ring.

355 may have been from a wealthy, Tory family in New York who had access to the most important British military officers in the city. If she was a woman of high society, it would help to explain why she had so much success in her covert espionage activities, right under the noses of the British.

One important factor in the story of 355 is that after the defection of Benedict Arnold to the British in the West Point plot, she was soon thereafter arrested as a spy for the Americans. Could she possibly have played a role in the unmasking of Arnold?

From what little we know of her, 355 was on close terms with Major John Andre, the accomplice of Benedict Arnold in the West Point plot.

Major John Andre was the adjunct general to Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief in New York City. More to the point, he served as Clinton’s chief spy catcher in the city, and thus, was a perfect person of interest to 355. At one point, John Andre was a lover of Peggy Shippen, the young, beautiful woman who would eventually marry Benedict Arnold. In 1779, Major Andre began secretly corresponding with Benedict Arnold, who, by that time, had decided to change allegiances and join the British cause. In September 1780, Arnold, via Andre, arranged for the turnover of the important fort of West Point which overlooked the pivotal Hudson River, to the British. On September 24, 1780, after secretly meeting with Arnold, Andre was captured by highwaymen who turned out to be colonial partisans. In Andre’s possession were incriminating documents linking Arnold to the West Point plot. After a hasty trial, Andre was hung as a spy at Tappan, New York, despite pleas from Clinton that his life be spared.

One woman of the time who might fit the bill as possibly being the elusive 355 was Anna Strong who might have worked for the Culper Ring. From what little information there is on Anna Strong, we believe that she was born in 1740, and during the Revolution, lived in the small town of Setauket, Long Island (the home of another member of the Culper Ring, Abraham Woodhull). She married Selah Strong who was a judge on Long Island, who was said to have been captured by the British and jailed on a British prisoner-of-war ship in New York harbor.

Anna Strong was supposed to have worked closely with all the principal members of the Culper Ring, including Abraham Woodhull, and Robert Townsend. She performed the same covert tasks as the others, servicing dead drops at certain points on Long Island, watching out for British patrols, and keeping a keen ear to the ground.

Being a woman had certain advantages as far as a spy was concerned. British patrols constantly stopped and frisked most of the men who traveled between Long Island and New York City, looking for any contraband or other illegal goods on their persons. However, the ett of the day forbade them from searching women, making Anna Strong the perfect spy. It is thought Anna accompanied Abraham Woodhull on his