Secret World by Christopher Andrew

Author:Christopher Andrew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2018-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Part of the Zimmermann telegram as decrypted by Room 40. Because ‘Arizona’ did not appear in the German naval codebook, it had to be split into phonetic syllables.

Recent research by Dr Dan Larsen shows that Lloyd George almost sabotaged Hall’s plan to exploit the Zimmermann telegram by warning Page that his diplomatic correspondence with Washington was known to the British. In February 1917, Page went to 10 Downing Street to deliver a lengthy message from Washington, containing a number of questions. Before Page had time to put the questions, Lloyd George interrupted him with a long speech that ‘answered every question [Page] had prepared to ask him’ – leaving the ambassador somewhat bewildered. When Page later returned to Downing Street with another message from Wilson, Lloyd George could not resist the temptation to show off again, and said he had already seen Wilson’s message. The Prime Minister claimed that the message had leaked in Washington. Page wrote in a draft report to Wilson: ‘[Lloyd George] knows that news of your instructions to me got out at Washington somehow and was telegraphed here by someone in the British Embassy or in the British spy service. Although this implies a compliment to their [spy] service, he is afraid that other persons also may hear of it.’ Since Page now knew that the British had broken German codes, the obvious implication was that they had broken US codes as well.150 Page, however, was a passionate Anglophile and believed Hall was ‘a clear case of genius’. Aware of the damage Lloyd George’s revelation that Britain had intercepted his communications with the President would do to British–American relations, perhaps even to the prospect of the United States entering the war, Page suppressed it. He never sent his report to the President, crossed out the text, and placed the document in his personal files, where it remained undiscovered for almost a century.151 The most likely explanation for Lloyd George’s extraordinary indiscretion is unfamiliarity with intelligence. Until he became Prime Minister, he had probably never seen intercepts and may well have been uncertain how they were obtained. He understood less about SIGINT on taking office than, among other British political leaders, Lord Burghley, Oliver Cromwell, Walpole, Pitt the Elder and Pitt the Younger.

Lloyd George seems never to have been consulted about the use to be made of the Zimmermann telegram. His Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, who had got to know Hall and Room 40 as First Lord of the Admiralty in the previous Cabinet, overrode Lord Hardinge’s objections to passing the telegram to the US government. ‘I think Captain Hall may be left to clinch this problem’, he told the PUS. ‘He knows the ropes better than anyone.’ Lengthy discussions followed at the US embassy between Hall, Bell and Page. The ambassador insisted that if the Foreign Secretary would personally present him with a copy of the telegram, the impact on the President would be greatly heightened. Balfour’s patrician calm was rarely ruffled. But, when he received

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