November 28, 2018 • 44 mins
Spies aren't just relegated to the Cold War and James Bond -- in fact, spycraft played a crucial role in the Revolutionary War. One of the government's most effective spies was so accomplished that, even in the modern day, their identity remains a mystery. Join the guys as they unravel the strange story of the enigmatic Agent 355.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our
compatriot Noel is on the road, but we'll be returning
at some point in the future. They call me Ben.
We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade.
Thanks for saving the show. As always, Paul, the most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know, Matt. Today we
(00:48):
are taking a journey back in time. Yes, time traveling again,
that's one of my favorite things to do. That's true,
that's true. And of course there's the great point that
people makes sometimes that we're all time travelers. Were just
moving in the toward the future. One second, per I
don't know. Second, yes, it's definitely at an even clip. Well,
(01:13):
you know what, this might be an episode, This might
be for another episode better suited to a different line
of thinking. But time is you know, it's all relative. Yeah, right,
as doctor who said, what was it? Timey whimy stuff?
Are you a doctor who fan? No? I totally thought
you were going to say Doctor Who, because that's that's
(01:35):
the first thing I did when someone told me about
it as a kid. It's a it's a great show,
and I have seen several episodes, and I'm not like,
you know who, a Doctor Who had I don't know
what the Huvian who Who enthusiasts Yep, all right, uh right,
and let us know what Doctor Who fans are called,
(01:57):
or what the self describe as our time travel today
takes us back to the beginning of the United States,
back to a time when it was the odds were
looking pretty dicey for the colonists, the would be Americans, right, Yeah,
they decided to buck the whole system and fight their controllers. Yeah.
(02:21):
They went the bold, bold move. They went rage against
the machine. Right. So this, uh, this is a story
that you and I stumbled on a long, long time
ago in a different episode. And it's surprised. I don't
know about you, Matt, but it's surprised the heck out
of me. Oh yeah. The the the fact that espionage
(02:44):
dates back this far and was as um complicated as
we're the story we're gonna talk about today, there was
astounding to me. Yeah, you hit it. You you hit
on the word of the day or a word of
the day. Espionage, right, Espionage is a tale as old
as time, or, in the case of this country, at
(03:05):
least as old as the state. Espionage actually predates the
uh Actually, colonial espionage predates the existence of the United States.
This sort of stuff occurred when the idea of what
we now call the US was nothing more than a
weird twinkle in the eyes of various founding fathers and
(03:28):
would be rulers of a new nation. Most of us
associate the concept of spies and spycraft with works of fiction, right,
you know, like, what are some of your favorites? Oh gosh, well,
I mean you have to go back to Double O seven,
I think the original at least for me, which is
weird because technically wouldn't he be the seventh one? Yeah, exactly, exactly,
(03:50):
but yeah, James Bond, right, oh yeah, And and characters
that you find in stories like Mission Impossible. I remember,
really cool some of the concepts in there. And then
if you go There's there were some Netflix shows back
in the day that were surrounding espionage around World War
Two that I found the most fascinating because of the
(04:11):
the technology they were dealing with at the time and
the stakes being so high as they were. I think
that's why I found that to be the most fascinating.
Although I can't tell you the name of the stakes
is it as T A K E. S Right, It
wasn't just a spy show featuring like these amazing ribbis
and t bones, stacks of them, just stacks of them,
(04:31):
and then also spine. I would watch that show. Yeah,
I know what you're I kind of know what you're
thinking about, if not the specific episode the trope, because
I really enjoyed the television show The Americans. Oh yeah,
which have you seen that? So that that show gets
lauded often for being a I don't know about an
(04:55):
entirely realistic depiction, but a pretty good depiction of how
deep cover sleeper agents would actually work. So we see
spycraft and espionage in all sorts of works of fiction.
But we also know that strange real life accusations of
spine pop up every so often in the news cycle,
(05:17):
and usually when they pop up, they disappear pretty quickly. Yeah,
like a diplomat will get in trouble, but it's just
some unnamed diplomat and then it goes away right right,
Or three hikers will get will get caught crossing the
border into Iran, three American hikers and then they'll be
arrested as spies. The DPRK accuses people of being spies
(05:40):
fairly often. Does it ever make you wonder if there
are spies caught internally within the United States, but we
just never hear anything about it. Oh, sure, they just
disappear basically, Like there's the case of Jonathan Pollard, an
American who spied for Israel and was and was caught.
I think he was sentenced to life in prison for
(06:03):
violating the Espionage Act, but later surprised he didn't have
to do that. I think it was after thirty years
of incarceration he was released on November two thousand and fifteen.
So some spies have been exposed and then serve their time,
(06:24):
or somehow not been killed and have been able to
continue living their lives, So it is possible to get
away with it. Your odds are not very good. They
were especially not that great in the Revolutionary War because
in the Revolutionary War on the colonial side, your odds
in general weren't spectacular. No, not at all. So the
(06:48):
Revolutionary War. We all kind of know what that is. Uh,
they call it, I think the War for American Independence
in other countries. But down here, this is the revolutionary War.
We're very, very self important about it, and I think
we've earned the right to be. The seeds of democracy
had already been planted in the colonies. People were already
(07:10):
thinking about becoming an independent country well before seventeen seventy six.
The war went from seventeen seventy six to seventeen eighty three,
ended by the Treaty of Paris. And when we look
back at this war and the nation created, it's incredibly
(07:32):
important to remember that the government that was put into place,
or I guess that existed on paper, was see like,
it seemed like a crazy thing. It seemed to be
an insane notion. How could you how could you rule
without a king? How close did George Washington come to
(07:53):
becoming the king? Right has been said that the the
presidency itself, the way it was created, was specifically to
prevent any one man from becoming king because of you know,
the way the way the country was set up, with
dividing powers up and not calling the president. Certain things
(08:14):
not referring to them in that way. Um, it was
it was an active move to move away from a monarchy,
right right. Again, that's the that's the official narrative. And
we have an old episode on the unofficial Narratives that
you can check out, but it's several years old now, right, Oh, yeah,
it's back in the day. So they wanted something different
(08:36):
that they did not want to practice resource extraction for
the benefit of the kingdom across the pond. They did
not want to pay taxes. They were very much against that,
and they knew that due to the huge stretch of
the Atlantic Ocean, even the world's most powerful naval force
(08:59):
wouldn't be able to uh, to win the war easily.
The problem was that even before the war actually broke out,
the U. S forces knew their odds of success were dangerously,
dangerously low. And the colonial leaders, even the really optimistic ones,
knew that if they were able to win independence, they
(09:20):
would be literally paying for it in blood. Yeah. And uh,
there's an historian, David McCullough who wrote a book called
seventeen seventies six which we would recommend. Um, the Americans
suffered terrible, just horrendous losses roughly twenty five thousand casualties
in all, or roughly about one percent of the entire
(09:41):
colonial population, which if you think about that in like
equivalent terms to today, that would be as though if
there was a modern war within the United States on
American soil that cost three million United States citizens lives.
That's the an intense thought. And as McCullough says, those
(10:03):
who have been with Washington and who knew what a
close call it was at the beginning, I thought the outcome,
the ultimate outcome of the Revolutionary War, was a little
short of a miracle, the kind of thing that makes
you say, for instance, hey, I'm not exactly a spiritual person,
but is this a coincidence or is this destiny? Because
so much stuff had to go right, Modern historians have
(10:27):
speculated that if the colonist hadn't caught a number of
key breaks, the rebellion might have been crushed. American colonies
would have remained under the rule of King George, and
the ringleaders would have been executed in horrific ways. The
people probably would have been um forced to pay a
punitive tax. It would have made the situation increasingly unsustainable.
(10:51):
But the war occurred, and as you know in the
Hamilton's musical that comes up whenever we do a recutionary
war episode. Uh, the there was this huge perception that
the US forces were outmanned and outgunned. I think it's outgunned, outmanned,
and I don't remember the next part. There's actually a
(11:11):
lyric in there, right, I don't know which song is that,
right hand man, right hand man, Oh man, I need
to listen. It's been almost a year since. I think
it's right hand soundtrack. Yeah, we'll have to listen to
it after this or Paul, Uh, do you want to
just play it low under the entire Yeah. So it
(11:34):
is true that the United Kingdom had certain advantages. Um,
it's not so much the number of people they had,
but it's the experience those people had and the organization
or disciplined that the British soldiers possessed. But in the
end it kind of was one of the things that
(11:56):
led to their downfall. Not necessarily would because of the
use of grilla tactics. Oh that's right, yes, were they
had Napoleonic warfare versus grilla tactics. Yeah, that's a good point.
Met At the height of the war. On the U
S side, around eighty thousand members of the Continental Army
(12:17):
or militia members were active in service. Oddly enough, on
the British side, there were only about fifty six thousand
British soldiers, but they were joined by thirty thousand German
mercenaries known as Hessians. And in Sleepy Hollow, the Johnny
(12:40):
Depp version of it, that's the Christopher Watkins characters a
Hessian at the very beginning, that's the Headless Horseman. It's
at the beginning of the movie. Right, you're saying it's
an allegory of some sort. I don't know, perhaps, or
perhaps Hessians were just seen as scary characters due to
(13:00):
their the role they played in this war. But the
would be Americans, which I guess we have to call
the colonists at this time, had some surprising advantages. Yeah. First,
the main one is that they're fighting in a place
that they know, they know the terrain, they know at
(13:21):
advantageous spots and and locations. Um, they're home, they're on
home turf, and they didn't have to mess with any
kind of real logistical things with supply chains, especially ones
that they would cross a major ocean like the Atlantic,
the way the British had to do in the Germans.
But second, they could easily in theory, replenish their ranks
if soldiers died because they could just get some more
(13:43):
people there. Now, those people wouldn't be trained necessarily or
even ready for battle in any way, but you could
put bodies on the front lines or whatever lines you
required something to put in front of the cannons. But yes,
it is You're absolutely right that supply chain problem was huge,
(14:04):
and supply chains there is still a huge problem in
modern warfare today. Yeah, logistics of warfare is probably I mean,
the biggest guns are important. But if you don't have
a good supply chain to not only feed people and
get supplies and other things that you need to your
the human beings that are there performing the work, you're
(14:26):
you're screwed. Yeah. And then on the colonists side, at
this time, there's a big question of finance. How how
on earth do we pay for this? Right? Yeah, and
we just talked about that in our live show. That
is true. That is true through the creation of the
first Central Bank. Thanks Hamilton's what a creative name. Uh
So they they there were people who said should we
(14:49):
abandon all hope. Is this a not only horrific endeavor
but ultimately a fruitless one. It was clear that the
war would be a clue thing, possibly losing conflict for
the Americans, with brutal consequences for anyone, not just for
anyone active in the rebellion, but anyone who wasn't an
(15:11):
active British loyalist. They would, they would, the population would
bear the punishment. Right, This thing didn't succeed, But unbeknownst
to most, the colonists still had a few tricks up
their sleeves. Oh yeah. One of the most important aspects
(15:32):
of the colonial military was this extensive spy network that
they had been building and were continuing to build. Uh.
It was. It was this huge apparatus that in its
own way, became as important as the weapons, the cannons
that the that the colonists had to fire at somebody,
because they had people on the inside everywhere. In fact,
(15:54):
this intelligence network was so stink and good that even today,
mysteries about this time and this network remain unsolved. Oh
you know what that sounds like. Time for a word
from our sponsor. That's exactly what it sounds like. Here's
(16:19):
where it gets crazy. So intelligence work is fundamentally American.
The creation of this nation is inseparable from the creation
of this nation's intelligence network. Military and civilian leaders of
the American Revolution didn't just use espionage, covert action, counterintelligence,
(16:43):
deception and cryptanalysis two offset the British Army's advantage. They
used it very well. They were very very good at it,
and the techniques they employed were pretty sophisticated even by
today's standards. And when the history book look back at
the things that the Americans did the heroes of the Revolution,
(17:06):
a lot of times they'll look over names like Agent
seven eleven, which is hilarious when they're talking about people
like John Bolton or George Washington or perhaps Patrick Henry Um.
But they should because as we're gonna as you're gonna
learn here, as we learned, they were as important or
integral to the effort as any of those big names
(17:29):
that we just mentioned, right right, Agent it's gonna crack
me up. And John Bolton different John, not not the
John who's currently uh serving in the US now correct,
He's not some ancient centuries old vampire. It was John Bolton.
Should be kind of cool. We're vampires in office, That's
(17:50):
what I say. Well, in the so, these guys were
part of something. Oh yes, sorry I was. I started
daydreaming Walter Midi style about vampires in office. I am
pretty on board with it. But um, you're right, Matt.
They were part of something that a lot of people
were unaware of, a spy ring called the Culper Ring.
(18:14):
And these people's identities were kept secret until well after
the war ended. In seventeen seventy eight, guy named Benjamin Talmadge,
a young American officer who was George Washington's new chief
of intelligence, organized this top secret network of spies. Several
(18:34):
of these people. It's important to note we're just otherwise
ordinary citizens, no military experience, no political ambitions per se.
Some of them. In fact, we're probably just the idle
rich who had meetings with specific people right who on
the surface were British loyalists, you know what I mean,
and probably had British representatives at their house, and they
(18:58):
talked about how best to keep down the peasants in
the filth absolutely, and and they were so secretive about
this that even Washington, the guy in charge of everybody,
the entire military, the country, that is being born. He said, no, no,
I don't even want to know who these people are.
Do not tell me. Oh yeah. It was a huge
deal to him that he not known and that as
(19:21):
few people knew as possible because they didn't want there
to be anyway that the ring might be compromised. So
for recruits, Tom Midge turns to people that he already knows,
people who he made friends with in his hometown on
Long Island. Because how do you trust somebody enough to
be a spy? Like building trust to get someone to
(19:44):
be a spy? It's no uh, it's no short order.
There's there's a lot of work you gotta put into that.
You're absolutely right, and even today there the process to
just work at the FBI or work at the CIA
involves exhaustive vetting. Also, we should point out that a
lot of a lot of those images of a quote
(20:05):
C I a spy get romanticized and fiction. Oftentimes a
spy is going to be a resident of a country
that you know, they already live in this country and
they just got turned one way or another into an
asset and then they're just years and I but there
are real you know, there are real James bonds out there.
(20:27):
They're just far fewer than you might think, right. So
this guy is looking to build some bonds, to build
some real spies, and he chooses a guy named Abraham
Woodhole to be his his agent, sort of his man
on the ground. But wood Hold, who was code named
(20:47):
Samuel Kolper Sr. Soon fell a foul of British counterintelligence
because he kept traveling to Manhattan and they were like,
what are you doing here? What's your bus? He's like,
I just really love the park talking about but he
(21:10):
so wood Hall has has some moves, he's got some moxie.
What's he do well? He he actually recruited a relative
who happened to be living with his sister in there
in her Manhattan boarding house. This guy was a dry
goods merchant. He was also a society reporter and his
name was Robert Townsend, but his real name was Samuel
(21:32):
Kulper Jr. Re name when he was walking around. So
his junior and senior at this point. So now they're
a family. It's now they're a family. So they need
some technology and they want to disguise their activities. They
have a couple of different methods and techniques. One of
(21:52):
the strangest is that they used a type of invisible
ink that was developed here in the States and could
only be you know, read under certain circumstances. They developed
a cipher so they would write encode and they were
quite good at this. They were quite accomplished. They were
not perfect, and we'll explore we'll explore the bumps in
(22:16):
the road they encounter, but for today's episode, we have
to focus on the most mysterious member of the Copra ring.
This Agent was a person or persons known only by
the code name Agent three fifty five. Better than seven eleven.
(22:41):
It is, It is much better than seven eleven. And
for comic book fans, if you've read Why the Last Man,
you will see there's there's an Agent three five in
the story and it comes from this real historical person.
So here's what here's what we know about Agent. Because
(23:02):
you're like, WHOA A is such a badass and Why
the Last Man? I can't believe there's a person really
like this. There may have been, we don't know. That's
the thing. There's no real historical consensus about who this
person was, what they really did, even uh, even what
happened to them. We just know that they were alive
(23:24):
and an active spy. Things got attributed to them. Yeah,
there we go. That's a more fair way to say it, Matt.
This person is so sketchy that two hundred years later
we have over two hundred years later, we have no
idea who they are, and maybe we never will, but
we do know the things that were attributed to them
were stunning and spectacular acts of spycraft. So how do
(23:50):
we know they're even real? That's that's square one, right.
We know that because there is one direct reference to
Agent three and any of the culport Ring letters or correspondencies.
It is a letter from Abraham Woodhull, Remember that's Culper
senior to George Washington when several spies have been exposed
(24:11):
and arrested, and what would hall describer has met one
who hath been ever serviceable to this correspondence? That's right her. Yeah.
Not only was Agent three one of the most accomplished
the mysterious of the Culper spies, but many experts today
believe Agent three fifty five may have been a woman
(24:31):
or even a group of women. And this is based
on the fact that the colpor Ring coding system. Uh
this this phrase or this number three fifty five actually
meant within their cipher, it meant lady. And there's not
much other proof than that she. Let's let's assume that
(24:52):
Agent three fifty five is indeed a woman. She worked
with the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War. You would
have been recruited by Woodhull rather than Talmudge. They're guessing
because of the way her reports coincided with British visits
(25:13):
to New York City. So the fact that they call
three fifty five, the fact that three means lady doesn't
just imply, you know, gender, It also implies social standing, right,
it means she probably had some kind of I don't know,
I don't know what you would call this um prominence. Yeah, affluent,
(25:36):
maybe socially connected. So she was likely living in New
York City. We know at some point Agent three had
contact with Major John andre and Benedict Arnold, one of
the only bad bends. Well there's Benito Mussolini. Yeah, there's
Benedict Arnold, There's Benjamin Bratt. That'll just show days. So
(26:03):
at it. I don't either. I just like the alliteration.
You know what, Matt, what if this is how we
find out. He's a terrible person. I know, because I'm like, yeah,
I really like this dude. Oh okay, yeah, we we will.
We are unsure about Benjamin Bratt. That is our official stats. Undecided, undecided.
Hang on, I'll ask Paul, Paul, do you know anything
(26:24):
about Benjamin Bratt. He's just shaking his head. Okay, he
looked up, He's like, what are they talking about? So
away from Benjamin Bratt back to Benedictonald, Major John Andre.
There's pretty solid speculation that three passed along the information
that exposed Benedict Arnold as a trader and led to
(26:47):
the arrest of Major John Andre, who was captured with
maps of West Point and a pass signed by Arnold
in his possession. So Benjamin Tom Midges memoirs reveal this
struggle to prevent the news of the major's capture from
reaching Benedict Donald, because as soon as Benedict here is
(27:09):
that someone's been exposed, he's gonna high tail it. Andre
confessed and then he was hanged. So around this time,
Abraham Woodhole's correspondence that's Colper Senior, indicates that Robert Townsend
and other colpor ring members fled New York city, they
went into hiding. Something went sours, something went south, something
(27:32):
was rotten in Denmark. Somebody knew, somebody knew too much. Um.
Well yeah. But then then after about two weeks, they
saw that there was some kind of decline in whatever
heat they were experiencing, uh, decline in Tampa's and they
returned yeah, which they probably shouldn't have done, because that's when,
(27:55):
you know, we said, there's that one direct reference to three.
That's when wood Hole had to inform Talmage about and
Washington about the arrest of quote several of our dear friends,
including one who has ever been serviceable to this correspondence,
which was as close as they would come to saying, Okay,
(28:16):
the jig is up exactly. Let's look at how that
occurred and then see if we can make any guesses
towards Agent three identity, which remains again unknown in the
modern day. And we'll get right back to that after
a word from our sponsor. So, Matt, what do we
(28:41):
know about the roundup of the suspected American spies. Well,
let's go back to Major John Andre. When the proverbial
trap closed on him, it triggered this whole other thing
around up of suspects who were living in British occupied territory,
And there was a pregnant female spy who was arrested
(29:05):
and questioned, but she refused to reveal any information of
her activities or even who the father of her child was.
So it's a double mystery wrapped in a burrito mystery
floating in a nice enigma sauce. So this spy was
held aboard a prison ship called the HMS Jersey. The
(29:28):
HMS Jersey was famous for being squalid and just a terrible, terrible,
terrible place, even in the realm of ship prisons. Yeah,
one of the last places you want to end up, right,
and the life expectancy in these prison ships was, um,
(29:50):
you're not saying there for years, Yeah, like several months.
The good news is you won't be that miserable for
that long because you die. Such good news. Infection in starvation, abuse, violence, terrible,
terrible place. But she remember she was pregnant. She actually
gave birth there. Yeah, she, according to this story, gave
(30:12):
birth to a boy. But she died aboard the ship.
And then the reports from the Coulport Ring decay significantly.
Even after Robert Townsend goes back to spying. There's a
lot of speculation concerning Robert Townsend and this expectant female
(30:34):
spy because according to letters from the towns and family
and the relatives and their loved ones, he was never
the same after this person passed away. He lived out
his days depressed, he never got married, He drank like
a thirsty fish. And this, coupled with you know, the
(30:54):
female spies pregnancy, and his activities leading up to and
during the arrest, caused some experts to spare gulate that
he was actually the father of this child and that
this spy, if she were Agent threeft, was his common
law wife. Yeah, and then there's a legend that when
the boy that was born ended up being named Robert
(31:17):
Townsend Jr. But a lot of academics kind of poo
poo this idea or they debunk it. Feel like it's
just sort of conveniently romantic, right, Yeah, it make it
would make for a great book. We do know that
once he had news of this roundup or this search
for spies, people who suspect Townsend did attempt to steal
(31:40):
a ton of money and high tail is skitaddle probably
with this person. If the story is true, one wonder
if it was just out of fear. Um, But who knows.
It's weird because you can go on the official CIA
website and you'll see arguments that imply they accept this claim.
M hm. So that's that's what we do know about
(32:03):
Agent three. There is, however, a tantalizing bit of extra
information in terms of this this kid's story. Oh yeah,
this this little boy who became a man. Robert Townsend Jr. Um.
He was a son of James Townsend and also a
(32:26):
brother of Robert Sr. He he became a lawyer, he
went into politics, and oddly enough, maybe not that oddly,
because we know who his mother is, right, Um. One
of his pet projects as a lawyer was the prison
Ship Martyrs Memorial Fund, which eventually became the prison Ship
Martyrs Monument at Fort Green Park in New York. Coincidence,
(32:49):
I mean, I think it just has more to do
with who his mom was, right, Not a prison ship.
Well we don't know that that was his mother. Oh
oh so okay, yeah, So there's a mystery, a footman,
(33:11):
a mystery that remains, and that leads us to what
we don't know about Agent three, which is literally anything
else any any stuff other than the wild guesses that
we've seen. The speculation from historians at one mentioned in
one letter one direct reference rather other than that, absolutely
(33:32):
nothing concrete is known about her other than when the
British leaders were in New York, information came to General
Washington and incredibly quick and prodigious rate. But when those
British leaders left town, the information slowed down to a trickle.
So yeah, probably lived in New York. But who is
Agent three? There? There are a couple of possibilities, and
(33:56):
maybe we can start with just some rough demographic stuff
and work a way up to specific names. One possibility
is that she was a well bred lady. What a
weird term. It just it means probably from a wealthy
family from New York, within the upper crusts of society,
and she was probably this family was probably a loyalist
(34:17):
family to the British, to the British government, and uh,
you just have to imagine. One of the reasons this
is a good possibility is because such a position would
have given her access to visiting officials just by having
a meeting, having a dinner, or having officers over for
any reason or another, especially if they're living in a
(34:39):
kind of lavishly in New York a social function. Yeah,
I'm gonna have a social function up here in New
York City. This is not how people talk in New
York City, I hope it is. Why it would be
such a delight merriment well that Lecks. Wouldn't it be
great if if everybody talked like if the early colonists
(35:04):
had like New York accents, like real, like creating New
York accents like full on tell the British to get
at a exactly, that'd be wonderful. Yeah, you know what,
I would be into that. So there's that. But that's
a that's a really good guestiment, isn't it. Demographic guests.
There's the other possibility that maybe she was agent three.
(35:28):
Again we're assuming three woman. There's this other possibility that
three was in one of these great houses of note
she was with a well bred family, to borrow that
terrible term, having constant contact with these officers, but not
as an equal, perhaps as a servant, a maid in
(35:49):
a house where British soldiers slept or were quartered or yes,
yes exactly. And from these guests, as we can go
to some specific names, you'll hear people such as Anna
Strong proposed as Agent three five. She was a known
(36:09):
member of the Coulper spy Ring and she was Abraham
Woodholes neighbor. She she had a cool These people all
have her specialties, right like crew cool stick was that
she would convey messages via the way she hung laundry
on her clothesline. That is so cool. It makes you
paranoid when you when you learn about how people signal things,
(36:32):
Everything is a sign, now, you know. I honestly, when
I see somebody bend over to tie their shoelaces, I know,
I know is that that is way too paranoid of me.
But I try not to stand around when they're doing that.
I get that sometimes and now I'm profiling. I'm basically
profiling people who have laces in their shoes. Dude. I
(36:53):
was driving by this dude the other day and he
just happened to bend like he liked, made eye contact
with me as I'm driving past. Then he bent down
to his backpack, and I did not like it one bit, Like,
what's happening? What would exchanges occurring here? What's the signal? YEA? Also,
I don't know, but it would always seem like it
(37:14):
would be so much fun to perpetrate those sorts of
spy activities. Oh, just randomly, just like in a park
walked by and have walked by and switch suitcases with someone,
or do that thing where they're you know, back to
back benches and you sit on one one side of
(37:35):
the bench and the other person sits on the other
side facing away from you. Oh, that's great, and then
just remark about the passers by to the other person quietly. Oh. Man,
it just seems it seems like it would be It
would be fun because personally, if I saw somebody doing
a suitcase handoff, I would be I would be mystified,
(37:56):
it would make my day. These were not suitcase handoff
times though, These were messages and laundry and disappearing ink times.
But there are other candidates for three five correct. One
would be Sarah Horton Townsend. This is Robert Townsend's cousin.
And there's also Elizabeth Brugan or Bruin, who helped American
prisoners on British prison ships. And it's just trying. These
(38:20):
ideas are just looking at placement location, like what is
this a possibility? I mean, really, all of these are
just kind of um not reaching out in the dark,
because we've got these tiny little pieces, right, these bread crumbs, Well,
they're built on the assumption that three being lady meant
either a female spy or a specific female spy. And
(38:44):
all you can extrapolate from that is, hey, who were
the female spies active with the Copra ring in the
TV show Turn Washington Spies? Is that the show your
thinking about? Here we go? We got there? In Turn?
Agent three fifty is actually a former slave of Anna
(39:06):
Strong who cantioned earlier. And that's that's that's it, that's
all we got. At this point, the cover up seems
to have been successful. More than two hundred years after
the Revolutionary War, we have no way of discerning the
true identity of Agent three fifty five. Is it possible
that someone out there knows? Is it possible that one
(39:29):
of our fellow listeners has passed this family secret down
the line for generations. Is there a reason why you
would want to continue to keep it secret. Is it
possible that somewhere in a long neglected attic or dusty tome,
future historians might discover a new clue to three identity.
(39:50):
For now, it is difficult to say, but one thing
is for sure. The identity of Agent three fifty five
was and remains the stuff they don't want you to know.
And at least in this case, America's forefathers proved more
than capable of keeping it that way. Wow, so we
have to say they did a good job. I mean,
(40:11):
I know we knocked we knocked the government a little
bit occasionally here in this show. Oh yeah, absolutely. By
the way, I'm I'm so silly. Turn is a whole
different thing that I was also watching. I keep watching
all these spycraft shows. Turn is about this kind of
stuff back in the Revolutionary War, which is a great
show in my opinion. But this other one was about
(40:33):
World War Two and I still can't remember. Yeah, wait, no,
let's let's let's figure this out. Let's let's guess some
um X company, um no, hotter culture. That's probably not
it either. Hogan's Heroes. Okay, that's what it was called.
It's great. It's a real hard hitting, hard hitting dark drama. There.
(40:57):
I honestly cannot remember what it is it was, so
it too is a BBC show. I want to say,
I believe how about this, how about we ask our
fellow conspiracy realists for some help. Let us know what
some of your favorite spy shows are. Let us know
how you think the Uh if you want to practice
some counter factual history, let us know what you think
(41:19):
would have happened to this continent had the United States
not emerged independent from the Revolutionary War. And yes, of course,
if you think the US is still under the control
of the United Kingdom, Uh, why and what what is
the evidence? We'd love to hear it. We also have
that episode about whether the UK still controls the u S,
(41:41):
which is a surprisingly prominent belief. Yeah, it really is.
And when will British Royalty finally bring about the moon Child?
I mean we've been waiting for a long time, and um,
I don't I'm just bring that moon Child on it's time. Yeah, yeah,
I and very pro moon child, you know what I mean? Yeah,
I would totally bow down to the moon truck kind
(42:02):
of like the species has peaked. You know, I'm sorry,
we're both talking about the same thing, right, Yeah? Yeah,
from the Invisibles, particularly cool the half human half our
god hybrid y Yeah, that comes through a mirror or something.
This sounds wild, but this is not even spoiling the invisibles.
(42:23):
It's chock full of that stuff, and we want to
thank you so much for diving into this history here
with what could have been. Well, I guess it's probably
not the most successful spy in US history because we
know they existed, and the most successful spies a ghosts.
Yeah right, Um, they're just traveling salespeople or something like that.
(42:45):
They're listening to this episode, if they will, thank you,
because you could have listened to so many other spy podcasts.
They have to listen to all of it. It's just
kind of it downloads. Okay, okay, well, still, we appreciate
your time. We hope that you enjoyed this episode, and
we want to hear from you. Those were not idle questions.
(43:06):
You can answer these questions on Instagram. You can find
us on Twitter. You can talk to us on Facebook.
We're big fans of our community page. Here's where it
gets crazy. But let's say you don't want to just
stick to the Internet. You want your physical voice to
leave an impression. We got you covered. Call us one
(43:28):
eight three three S T D W y t K. Yeah. Yeah,
it's Alpha Numerica. You just put that in there. Give
us a call you might get on the air, and
if you don't want to do any of those things whatsoever?
Right Paul Mission Control decond an email. You can find
him at conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our
compatriot Noel is on the road, but we'll be returning
at some point in the future. They call me Ben.
We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade.
Thanks for saving the show. As always, Paul, the most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know, Matt. Today we
(00:48):
are taking a journey back in time. Yes, time traveling again,
that's one of my favorite things to do. That's true,
that's true. And of course there's the great point that
people makes sometimes that we're all time travelers. Were just
moving in the toward the future. One second, per I
don't know. Second, yes, it's definitely at an even clip. Well,
(01:13):
you know what, this might be an episode, This might
be for another episode better suited to a different line
of thinking. But time is you know, it's all relative. Yeah, right,
as doctor who said, what was it? Timey whimy stuff?
Are you a doctor who fan? No? I totally thought
you were going to say Doctor Who, because that's that's
(01:35):
the first thing I did when someone told me about
it as a kid. It's a it's a great show,
and I have seen several episodes, and I'm not like,
you know who, a Doctor Who had I don't know
what the Huvian who Who enthusiasts Yep, all right, uh right,
and let us know what Doctor Who fans are called,
(01:57):
or what the self describe as our time travel today
takes us back to the beginning of the United States,
back to a time when it was the odds were
looking pretty dicey for the colonists, the would be Americans, right, Yeah,
they decided to buck the whole system and fight their controllers. Yeah.
(02:21):
They went the bold, bold move. They went rage against
the machine. Right. So this, uh, this is a story
that you and I stumbled on a long, long time
ago in a different episode. And it's surprised. I don't
know about you, Matt, but it's surprised the heck out
of me. Oh yeah. The the the fact that espionage
(02:44):
dates back this far and was as um complicated as
we're the story we're gonna talk about today, there was
astounding to me. Yeah, you hit it. You you hit
on the word of the day or a word of
the day. Espionage, right, Espionage is a tale as old
as time, or, in the case of this country, at
(03:05):
least as old as the state. Espionage actually predates the
uh Actually, colonial espionage predates the existence of the United States.
This sort of stuff occurred when the idea of what
we now call the US was nothing more than a
weird twinkle in the eyes of various founding fathers and
(03:28):
would be rulers of a new nation. Most of us
associate the concept of spies and spycraft with works of fiction, right,
you know, like, what are some of your favorites? Oh gosh, well,
I mean you have to go back to Double O seven,
I think the original at least for me, which is
weird because technically wouldn't he be the seventh one? Yeah, exactly, exactly,
(03:50):
but yeah, James Bond, right, oh yeah, And and characters
that you find in stories like Mission Impossible. I remember,
really cool some of the concepts in there. And then
if you go There's there were some Netflix shows back
in the day that were surrounding espionage around World War
Two that I found the most fascinating because of the
(04:11):
the technology they were dealing with at the time and
the stakes being so high as they were. I think
that's why I found that to be the most fascinating.
Although I can't tell you the name of the stakes
is it as T A K E. S Right, It
wasn't just a spy show featuring like these amazing ribbis
and t bones, stacks of them, just stacks of them,
(04:31):
and then also spine. I would watch that show. Yeah,
I know what you're I kind of know what you're
thinking about, if not the specific episode the trope, because
I really enjoyed the television show The Americans. Oh yeah,
which have you seen that? So that that show gets
lauded often for being a I don't know about an
(04:55):
entirely realistic depiction, but a pretty good depiction of how
deep cover sleeper agents would actually work. So we see
spycraft and espionage in all sorts of works of fiction.
But we also know that strange real life accusations of
spine pop up every so often in the news cycle,
(05:17):
and usually when they pop up, they disappear pretty quickly. Yeah,
like a diplomat will get in trouble, but it's just
some unnamed diplomat and then it goes away right right,
Or three hikers will get will get caught crossing the
border into Iran, three American hikers and then they'll be
arrested as spies. The DPRK accuses people of being spies
(05:40):
fairly often. Does it ever make you wonder if there
are spies caught internally within the United States, but we
just never hear anything about it. Oh, sure, they just
disappear basically, Like there's the case of Jonathan Pollard, an
American who spied for Israel and was and was caught.
I think he was sentenced to life in prison for
(06:03):
violating the Espionage Act, but later surprised he didn't have
to do that. I think it was after thirty years
of incarceration he was released on November two thousand and fifteen.
So some spies have been exposed and then serve their time,
(06:24):
or somehow not been killed and have been able to
continue living their lives, So it is possible to get
away with it. Your odds are not very good. They
were especially not that great in the Revolutionary War because
in the Revolutionary War on the colonial side, your odds
in general weren't spectacular. No, not at all. So the
(06:48):
Revolutionary War. We all kind of know what that is. Uh,
they call it, I think the War for American Independence
in other countries. But down here, this is the revolutionary War.
We're very, very self important about it, and I think
we've earned the right to be. The seeds of democracy
had already been planted in the colonies. People were already
(07:10):
thinking about becoming an independent country well before seventeen seventy six.
The war went from seventeen seventy six to seventeen eighty three,
ended by the Treaty of Paris. And when we look
back at this war and the nation created, it's incredibly
(07:32):
important to remember that the government that was put into place,
or I guess that existed on paper, was see like,
it seemed like a crazy thing. It seemed to be
an insane notion. How could you how could you rule
without a king? How close did George Washington come to
(07:53):
becoming the king? Right has been said that the the
presidency itself, the way it was created, was specifically to
prevent any one man from becoming king because of you know,
the way the way the country was set up, with
dividing powers up and not calling the president. Certain things
(08:14):
not referring to them in that way. Um, it was
it was an active move to move away from a monarchy,
right right. Again, that's the that's the official narrative. And
we have an old episode on the unofficial Narratives that
you can check out, but it's several years old now, right, Oh, yeah,
it's back in the day. So they wanted something different
(08:36):
that they did not want to practice resource extraction for
the benefit of the kingdom across the pond. They did
not want to pay taxes. They were very much against that,
and they knew that due to the huge stretch of
the Atlantic Ocean, even the world's most powerful naval force
(08:59):
wouldn't be able to uh, to win the war easily.
The problem was that even before the war actually broke out,
the U. S forces knew their odds of success were dangerously,
dangerously low. And the colonial leaders, even the really optimistic ones,
knew that if they were able to win independence, they
(09:20):
would be literally paying for it in blood. Yeah. And uh,
there's an historian, David McCullough who wrote a book called
seventeen seventies six which we would recommend. Um, the Americans
suffered terrible, just horrendous losses roughly twenty five thousand casualties
in all, or roughly about one percent of the entire
(09:41):
colonial population, which if you think about that in like
equivalent terms to today, that would be as though if
there was a modern war within the United States on
American soil that cost three million United States citizens lives.
That's the an intense thought. And as McCullough says, those
(10:03):
who have been with Washington and who knew what a
close call it was at the beginning, I thought the outcome,
the ultimate outcome of the Revolutionary War, was a little
short of a miracle, the kind of thing that makes
you say, for instance, hey, I'm not exactly a spiritual person,
but is this a coincidence or is this destiny? Because
so much stuff had to go right, Modern historians have
(10:27):
speculated that if the colonist hadn't caught a number of
key breaks, the rebellion might have been crushed. American colonies
would have remained under the rule of King George, and
the ringleaders would have been executed in horrific ways. The
people probably would have been um forced to pay a
punitive tax. It would have made the situation increasingly unsustainable.
(10:51):
But the war occurred, and as you know in the
Hamilton's musical that comes up whenever we do a recutionary
war episode. Uh, the there was this huge perception that
the US forces were outmanned and outgunned. I think it's outgunned, outmanned,
and I don't remember the next part. There's actually a
(11:11):
lyric in there, right, I don't know which song is that,
right hand man, right hand man, Oh man, I need
to listen. It's been almost a year since. I think
it's right hand soundtrack. Yeah, we'll have to listen to
it after this or Paul, Uh, do you want to
just play it low under the entire Yeah. So it
(11:34):
is true that the United Kingdom had certain advantages. Um,
it's not so much the number of people they had,
but it's the experience those people had and the organization
or disciplined that the British soldiers possessed. But in the
end it kind of was one of the things that
(11:56):
led to their downfall. Not necessarily would because of the
use of grilla tactics. Oh that's right, yes, were they
had Napoleonic warfare versus grilla tactics. Yeah, that's a good point.
Met At the height of the war. On the U
S side, around eighty thousand members of the Continental Army
(12:17):
or militia members were active in service. Oddly enough, on
the British side, there were only about fifty six thousand
British soldiers, but they were joined by thirty thousand German
mercenaries known as Hessians. And in Sleepy Hollow, the Johnny
(12:40):
Depp version of it, that's the Christopher Watkins characters a
Hessian at the very beginning, that's the Headless Horseman. It's
at the beginning of the movie. Right, you're saying it's
an allegory of some sort. I don't know, perhaps, or
perhaps Hessians were just seen as scary characters due to
(13:00):
their the role they played in this war. But the
would be Americans, which I guess we have to call
the colonists at this time, had some surprising advantages. Yeah. First,
the main one is that they're fighting in a place
that they know, they know the terrain, they know at
(13:21):
advantageous spots and and locations. Um, they're home, they're on
home turf, and they didn't have to mess with any
kind of real logistical things with supply chains, especially ones
that they would cross a major ocean like the Atlantic,
the way the British had to do in the Germans.
But second, they could easily in theory, replenish their ranks
if soldiers died because they could just get some more
(13:43):
people there. Now, those people wouldn't be trained necessarily or
even ready for battle in any way, but you could
put bodies on the front lines or whatever lines you
required something to put in front of the cannons. But yes,
it is You're absolutely right that supply chain problem was huge,
(14:04):
and supply chains there is still a huge problem in
modern warfare today. Yeah, logistics of warfare is probably I mean,
the biggest guns are important. But if you don't have
a good supply chain to not only feed people and
get supplies and other things that you need to your
the human beings that are there performing the work, you're
(14:26):
you're screwed. Yeah. And then on the colonists side, at
this time, there's a big question of finance. How how
on earth do we pay for this? Right? Yeah, and
we just talked about that in our live show. That
is true. That is true through the creation of the
first Central Bank. Thanks Hamilton's what a creative name. Uh
So they they there were people who said should we
(14:49):
abandon all hope. Is this a not only horrific endeavor
but ultimately a fruitless one. It was clear that the
war would be a clue thing, possibly losing conflict for
the Americans, with brutal consequences for anyone, not just for
anyone active in the rebellion, but anyone who wasn't an
(15:11):
active British loyalist. They would, they would, the population would
bear the punishment. Right, This thing didn't succeed, But unbeknownst
to most, the colonists still had a few tricks up
their sleeves. Oh yeah. One of the most important aspects
(15:32):
of the colonial military was this extensive spy network that
they had been building and were continuing to build. Uh.
It was. It was this huge apparatus that in its
own way, became as important as the weapons, the cannons
that the that the colonists had to fire at somebody,
because they had people on the inside everywhere. In fact,
(15:54):
this intelligence network was so stink and good that even today,
mysteries about this time and this network remain unsolved. Oh
you know what that sounds like. Time for a word
from our sponsor. That's exactly what it sounds like. Here's
(16:19):
where it gets crazy. So intelligence work is fundamentally American.
The creation of this nation is inseparable from the creation
of this nation's intelligence network. Military and civilian leaders of
the American Revolution didn't just use espionage, covert action, counterintelligence,
(16:43):
deception and cryptanalysis two offset the British Army's advantage. They
used it very well. They were very very good at it,
and the techniques they employed were pretty sophisticated even by
today's standards. And when the history book look back at
the things that the Americans did the heroes of the Revolution,
(17:06):
a lot of times they'll look over names like Agent
seven eleven, which is hilarious when they're talking about people
like John Bolton or George Washington or perhaps Patrick Henry Um.
But they should because as we're gonna as you're gonna
learn here, as we learned, they were as important or
integral to the effort as any of those big names
(17:29):
that we just mentioned, right right, Agent it's gonna crack
me up. And John Bolton different John, not not the
John who's currently uh serving in the US now correct,
He's not some ancient centuries old vampire. It was John Bolton.
Should be kind of cool. We're vampires in office, That's
(17:50):
what I say. Well, in the so, these guys were
part of something. Oh yes, sorry I was. I started
daydreaming Walter Midi style about vampires in office. I am
pretty on board with it. But um, you're right, Matt.
They were part of something that a lot of people
were unaware of, a spy ring called the Culper Ring.
(18:14):
And these people's identities were kept secret until well after
the war ended. In seventeen seventy eight, guy named Benjamin Talmadge,
a young American officer who was George Washington's new chief
of intelligence, organized this top secret network of spies. Several
(18:34):
of these people. It's important to note we're just otherwise
ordinary citizens, no military experience, no political ambitions per se.
Some of them. In fact, we're probably just the idle
rich who had meetings with specific people right who on
the surface were British loyalists, you know what I mean,
and probably had British representatives at their house, and they
(18:58):
talked about how best to keep down the peasants in
the filth absolutely, and and they were so secretive about
this that even Washington, the guy in charge of everybody,
the entire military, the country, that is being born. He said, no, no,
I don't even want to know who these people are.
Do not tell me. Oh yeah. It was a huge
deal to him that he not known and that as
(19:21):
few people knew as possible because they didn't want there
to be anyway that the ring might be compromised. So
for recruits, Tom Midge turns to people that he already knows,
people who he made friends with in his hometown on
Long Island. Because how do you trust somebody enough to
be a spy? Like building trust to get someone to
(19:44):
be a spy? It's no uh, it's no short order.
There's there's a lot of work you gotta put into that.
You're absolutely right, and even today there the process to
just work at the FBI or work at the CIA
involves exhaustive vetting. Also, we should point out that a
lot of a lot of those images of a quote
(20:05):
C I a spy get romanticized and fiction. Oftentimes a
spy is going to be a resident of a country
that you know, they already live in this country and
they just got turned one way or another into an
asset and then they're just years and I but there
are real you know, there are real James bonds out there.
(20:27):
They're just far fewer than you might think, right. So
this guy is looking to build some bonds, to build
some real spies, and he chooses a guy named Abraham
Woodhole to be his his agent, sort of his man
on the ground. But wood Hold, who was code named
(20:47):
Samuel Kolper Sr. Soon fell a foul of British counterintelligence
because he kept traveling to Manhattan and they were like,
what are you doing here? What's your bus? He's like,
I just really love the park talking about but he
(21:10):
so wood Hall has has some moves, he's got some moxie.
What's he do well? He he actually recruited a relative
who happened to be living with his sister in there
in her Manhattan boarding house. This guy was a dry
goods merchant. He was also a society reporter and his
name was Robert Townsend, but his real name was Samuel
(21:32):
Kulper Jr. Re name when he was walking around. So
his junior and senior at this point. So now they're
a family. It's now they're a family. So they need
some technology and they want to disguise their activities. They
have a couple of different methods and techniques. One of
(21:52):
the strangest is that they used a type of invisible
ink that was developed here in the States and could
only be you know, read under certain circumstances. They developed
a cipher so they would write encode and they were
quite good at this. They were quite accomplished. They were
not perfect, and we'll explore we'll explore the bumps in
(22:16):
the road they encounter, but for today's episode, we have
to focus on the most mysterious member of the Copra ring.
This Agent was a person or persons known only by
the code name Agent three fifty five. Better than seven eleven.
(22:41):
It is, It is much better than seven eleven. And
for comic book fans, if you've read Why the Last Man,
you will see there's there's an Agent three five in
the story and it comes from this real historical person.
So here's what here's what we know about Agent. Because
(23:02):
you're like, WHOA A is such a badass and Why
the Last Man? I can't believe there's a person really
like this. There may have been, we don't know. That's
the thing. There's no real historical consensus about who this
person was, what they really did, even uh, even what
happened to them. We just know that they were alive
(23:24):
and an active spy. Things got attributed to them. Yeah,
there we go. That's a more fair way to say it, Matt.
This person is so sketchy that two hundred years later
we have over two hundred years later, we have no
idea who they are, and maybe we never will, but
we do know the things that were attributed to them
were stunning and spectacular acts of spycraft. So how do
(23:50):
we know they're even real? That's that's square one, right.
We know that because there is one direct reference to
Agent three and any of the culport Ring letters or correspondencies.
It is a letter from Abraham Woodhull, Remember that's Culper
senior to George Washington when several spies have been exposed
(24:11):
and arrested, and what would hall describer has met one
who hath been ever serviceable to this correspondence? That's right her. Yeah.
Not only was Agent three one of the most accomplished
the mysterious of the Culper spies, but many experts today
believe Agent three fifty five may have been a woman
(24:31):
or even a group of women. And this is based
on the fact that the colpor Ring coding system. Uh
this this phrase or this number three fifty five actually
meant within their cipher, it meant lady. And there's not
much other proof than that she. Let's let's assume that
(24:52):
Agent three fifty five is indeed a woman. She worked
with the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War. You would
have been recruited by Woodhull rather than Talmudge. They're guessing
because of the way her reports coincided with British visits
(25:13):
to New York City. So the fact that they call
three fifty five, the fact that three means lady doesn't
just imply, you know, gender, It also implies social standing, right,
it means she probably had some kind of I don't know,
I don't know what you would call this um prominence. Yeah, affluent,
(25:36):
maybe socially connected. So she was likely living in New
York City. We know at some point Agent three had
contact with Major John andre and Benedict Arnold, one of
the only bad bends. Well there's Benito Mussolini. Yeah, there's
Benedict Arnold, There's Benjamin Bratt. That'll just show days. So
(26:03):
at it. I don't either. I just like the alliteration.
You know what, Matt, what if this is how we
find out. He's a terrible person. I know, because I'm like, yeah,
I really like this dude. Oh okay, yeah, we we will.
We are unsure about Benjamin Bratt. That is our official stats. Undecided, undecided.
Hang on, I'll ask Paul, Paul, do you know anything
(26:24):
about Benjamin Bratt. He's just shaking his head. Okay, he
looked up, He's like, what are they talking about? So
away from Benjamin Bratt back to Benedictonald, Major John Andre.
There's pretty solid speculation that three passed along the information
that exposed Benedict Arnold as a trader and led to
(26:47):
the arrest of Major John Andre, who was captured with
maps of West Point and a pass signed by Arnold
in his possession. So Benjamin Tom Midges memoirs reveal this
struggle to prevent the news of the major's capture from
reaching Benedict Donald, because as soon as Benedict here is
(27:09):
that someone's been exposed, he's gonna high tail it. Andre
confessed and then he was hanged. So around this time,
Abraham Woodhole's correspondence that's Colper Senior, indicates that Robert Townsend
and other colpor ring members fled New York city, they
went into hiding. Something went sours, something went south, something
(27:32):
was rotten in Denmark. Somebody knew, somebody knew too much. Um.
Well yeah. But then then after about two weeks, they
saw that there was some kind of decline in whatever
heat they were experiencing, uh, decline in Tampa's and they
returned yeah, which they probably shouldn't have done, because that's when,
(27:55):
you know, we said, there's that one direct reference to three.
That's when wood Hole had to inform Talmage about and
Washington about the arrest of quote several of our dear friends,
including one who has ever been serviceable to this correspondence,
which was as close as they would come to saying, Okay,
(28:16):
the jig is up exactly. Let's look at how that
occurred and then see if we can make any guesses
towards Agent three identity, which remains again unknown in the
modern day. And we'll get right back to that after
a word from our sponsor. So, Matt, what do we
(28:41):
know about the roundup of the suspected American spies. Well,
let's go back to Major John Andre. When the proverbial
trap closed on him, it triggered this whole other thing
around up of suspects who were living in British occupied territory,
And there was a pregnant female spy who was arrested
(29:05):
and questioned, but she refused to reveal any information of
her activities or even who the father of her child was.
So it's a double mystery wrapped in a burrito mystery
floating in a nice enigma sauce. So this spy was
held aboard a prison ship called the HMS Jersey. The
(29:28):
HMS Jersey was famous for being squalid and just a terrible, terrible,
terrible place, even in the realm of ship prisons. Yeah,
one of the last places you want to end up, right,
and the life expectancy in these prison ships was, um,
(29:50):
you're not saying there for years, Yeah, like several months.
The good news is you won't be that miserable for
that long because you die. Such good news. Infection in starvation, abuse, violence, terrible,
terrible place. But she remember she was pregnant. She actually
gave birth there. Yeah, she, according to this story, gave
(30:12):
birth to a boy. But she died aboard the ship.
And then the reports from the Coulport Ring decay significantly.
Even after Robert Townsend goes back to spying. There's a
lot of speculation concerning Robert Townsend and this expectant female
(30:34):
spy because according to letters from the towns and family
and the relatives and their loved ones, he was never
the same after this person passed away. He lived out
his days depressed, he never got married, He drank like
a thirsty fish. And this, coupled with you know, the
(30:54):
female spies pregnancy, and his activities leading up to and
during the arrest, caused some experts to spare gulate that
he was actually the father of this child and that
this spy, if she were Agent threeft, was his common
law wife. Yeah, and then there's a legend that when
the boy that was born ended up being named Robert
(31:17):
Townsend Jr. But a lot of academics kind of poo
poo this idea or they debunk it. Feel like it's
just sort of conveniently romantic, right, Yeah, it make it
would make for a great book. We do know that
once he had news of this roundup or this search
for spies, people who suspect Townsend did attempt to steal
(31:40):
a ton of money and high tail is skitaddle probably
with this person. If the story is true, one wonder
if it was just out of fear. Um, But who knows.
It's weird because you can go on the official CIA
website and you'll see arguments that imply they accept this claim.
M hm. So that's that's what we do know about
(32:03):
Agent three. There is, however, a tantalizing bit of extra
information in terms of this this kid's story. Oh yeah,
this this little boy who became a man. Robert Townsend Jr. Um.
He was a son of James Townsend and also a
(32:26):
brother of Robert Sr. He he became a lawyer, he
went into politics, and oddly enough, maybe not that oddly,
because we know who his mother is, right, Um. One
of his pet projects as a lawyer was the prison
Ship Martyrs Memorial Fund, which eventually became the prison Ship
Martyrs Monument at Fort Green Park in New York. Coincidence,
(32:49):
I mean, I think it just has more to do
with who his mom was, right, Not a prison ship.
Well we don't know that that was his mother. Oh
oh so okay, yeah, So there's a mystery, a footman,
(33:11):
a mystery that remains, and that leads us to what
we don't know about Agent three, which is literally anything
else any any stuff other than the wild guesses that
we've seen. The speculation from historians at one mentioned in
one letter one direct reference rather other than that, absolutely
(33:32):
nothing concrete is known about her other than when the
British leaders were in New York, information came to General
Washington and incredibly quick and prodigious rate. But when those
British leaders left town, the information slowed down to a trickle.
So yeah, probably lived in New York. But who is
Agent three? There? There are a couple of possibilities, and
(33:56):
maybe we can start with just some rough demographic stuff
and work a way up to specific names. One possibility
is that she was a well bred lady. What a
weird term. It just it means probably from a wealthy
family from New York, within the upper crusts of society,
and she was probably this family was probably a loyalist
(34:17):
family to the British, to the British government, and uh,
you just have to imagine. One of the reasons this
is a good possibility is because such a position would
have given her access to visiting officials just by having
a meeting, having a dinner, or having officers over for
any reason or another, especially if they're living in a
(34:39):
kind of lavishly in New York a social function. Yeah,
I'm gonna have a social function up here in New
York City. This is not how people talk in New
York City, I hope it is. Why it would be
such a delight merriment well that Lecks. Wouldn't it be
great if if everybody talked like if the early colonists
(35:04):
had like New York accents, like real, like creating New
York accents like full on tell the British to get
at a exactly, that'd be wonderful. Yeah, you know what,
I would be into that. So there's that. But that's
a that's a really good guestiment, isn't it. Demographic guests.
There's the other possibility that maybe she was agent three.
(35:28):
Again we're assuming three woman. There's this other possibility that
three was in one of these great houses of note
she was with a well bred family, to borrow that
terrible term, having constant contact with these officers, but not
as an equal, perhaps as a servant, a maid in
(35:49):
a house where British soldiers slept or were quartered or yes,
yes exactly. And from these guests, as we can go
to some specific names, you'll hear people such as Anna
Strong proposed as Agent three five. She was a known
(36:09):
member of the Coulper spy Ring and she was Abraham
Woodholes neighbor. She she had a cool These people all
have her specialties, right like crew cool stick was that
she would convey messages via the way she hung laundry
on her clothesline. That is so cool. It makes you
paranoid when you when you learn about how people signal things,
(36:32):
Everything is a sign, now, you know. I honestly, when
I see somebody bend over to tie their shoelaces, I know,
I know is that that is way too paranoid of me.
But I try not to stand around when they're doing that.
I get that sometimes and now I'm profiling. I'm basically
profiling people who have laces in their shoes. Dude. I
(36:53):
was driving by this dude the other day and he
just happened to bend like he liked, made eye contact
with me as I'm driving past. Then he bent down
to his backpack, and I did not like it one bit, Like,
what's happening? What would exchanges occurring here? What's the signal? YEA? Also,
I don't know, but it would always seem like it
(37:14):
would be so much fun to perpetrate those sorts of
spy activities. Oh, just randomly, just like in a park
walked by and have walked by and switch suitcases with someone,
or do that thing where they're you know, back to
back benches and you sit on one one side of
(37:35):
the bench and the other person sits on the other
side facing away from you. Oh, that's great, and then
just remark about the passers by to the other person quietly. Oh. Man,
it just seems it seems like it would be It
would be fun because personally, if I saw somebody doing
a suitcase handoff, I would be I would be mystified,
(37:56):
it would make my day. These were not suitcase handoff
times though, These were messages and laundry and disappearing ink times.
But there are other candidates for three five correct. One
would be Sarah Horton Townsend. This is Robert Townsend's cousin.
And there's also Elizabeth Brugan or Bruin, who helped American
prisoners on British prison ships. And it's just trying. These
(38:20):
ideas are just looking at placement location, like what is
this a possibility? I mean, really, all of these are
just kind of um not reaching out in the dark,
because we've got these tiny little pieces, right, these bread crumbs, Well,
they're built on the assumption that three being lady meant
either a female spy or a specific female spy. And
(38:44):
all you can extrapolate from that is, hey, who were
the female spies active with the Copra ring in the
TV show Turn Washington Spies? Is that the show your
thinking about? Here we go? We got there? In Turn?
Agent three fifty is actually a former slave of Anna
(39:06):
Strong who cantioned earlier. And that's that's that's it, that's
all we got. At this point, the cover up seems
to have been successful. More than two hundred years after
the Revolutionary War, we have no way of discerning the
true identity of Agent three fifty five. Is it possible
that someone out there knows? Is it possible that one
(39:29):
of our fellow listeners has passed this family secret down
the line for generations. Is there a reason why you
would want to continue to keep it secret. Is it
possible that somewhere in a long neglected attic or dusty tome,
future historians might discover a new clue to three identity.
(39:50):
For now, it is difficult to say, but one thing
is for sure. The identity of Agent three fifty five
was and remains the stuff they don't want you to know.
And at least in this case, America's forefathers proved more
than capable of keeping it that way. Wow, so we
have to say they did a good job. I mean,
(40:11):
I know we knocked we knocked the government a little
bit occasionally here in this show. Oh yeah, absolutely. By
the way, I'm I'm so silly. Turn is a whole
different thing that I was also watching. I keep watching
all these spycraft shows. Turn is about this kind of
stuff back in the Revolutionary War, which is a great
show in my opinion. But this other one was about
(40:33):
World War Two and I still can't remember. Yeah, wait, no,
let's let's let's figure this out. Let's let's guess some
um X company, um no, hotter culture. That's probably not
it either. Hogan's Heroes. Okay, that's what it was called.
It's great. It's a real hard hitting, hard hitting dark drama. There.
(40:57):
I honestly cannot remember what it is it was, so
it too is a BBC show. I want to say,
I believe how about this, how about we ask our
fellow conspiracy realists for some help. Let us know what
some of your favorite spy shows are. Let us know
how you think the Uh if you want to practice
some counter factual history, let us know what you think
(41:19):
would have happened to this continent had the United States
not emerged independent from the Revolutionary War. And yes, of course,
if you think the US is still under the control
of the United Kingdom, Uh, why and what what is
the evidence? We'd love to hear it. We also have
that episode about whether the UK still controls the u S,
(41:41):
which is a surprisingly prominent belief. Yeah, it really is.
And when will British Royalty finally bring about the moon Child?
I mean we've been waiting for a long time, and um,
I don't I'm just bring that moon Child on it's time. Yeah, yeah,
I and very pro moon child, you know what I mean? Yeah,
I would totally bow down to the moon truck kind
(42:02):
of like the species has peaked. You know, I'm sorry,
we're both talking about the same thing, right, Yeah? Yeah,
from the Invisibles, particularly cool the half human half our
god hybrid y Yeah, that comes through a mirror or something.
This sounds wild, but this is not even spoiling the invisibles.
(42:23):
It's chock full of that stuff, and we want to
thank you so much for diving into this history here
with what could have been. Well, I guess it's probably
not the most successful spy in US history because we
know they existed, and the most successful spies a ghosts.
Yeah right, Um, they're just traveling salespeople or something like that.
(42:45):
They're listening to this episode, if they will, thank you,
because you could have listened to so many other spy podcasts.
They have to listen to all of it. It's just
kind of it downloads. Okay, okay, well, still, we appreciate
your time. We hope that you enjoyed this episode, and
we want to hear from you. Those were not idle questions.
(43:06):
You can answer these questions on Instagram. You can find
us on Twitter. You can talk to us on Facebook.
We're big fans of our community page. Here's where it
gets crazy. But let's say you don't want to just
stick to the Internet. You want your physical voice to
leave an impression. We got you covered. Call us one
(43:28):
eight three three S T D W y t K. Yeah. Yeah,
it's Alpha Numerica. You just put that in there. Give
us a call you might get on the air, and
if you don't want to do any of those things whatsoever?
Right Paul Mission Control decond an email. You can find
him at conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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