saying that he had been captured by the Russians on the
East front and sent to Siberia, that from Siberia he had escaped
to China and from there he had gradually worked his way back to
America and thence to Spain.

Of course, without any definite information on the subject it is
impossible to say exactly what he was doing in Spain. But I am
sure that it is far more likely he had landed from a German
submarine on the coast of Spain and that he was posing as an
American mining engineer for a particular purpose.

I told certain people in Spain about Bode and of his intention to
visit the mining districts of Spain where numbers of men are
employed. Bode must have suspected that I had given information
about him, for Hall and I received several postcards of a
threatening character, evidently from him.

My cables to and from the State Department passed through our
legation at Copenhagen, and, of course, if the Germans knew our
cipher these messages were read by them. On special occasions I
made use of a super-cipher the key to which I kept in a safe in
my bedroom and which only one secretary could use. The files of
cipher cables sent and received were kept in a large safe in the
Embassy. But before leaving Germany, knowing the Germans as I
did, and particularly what they had done in other countries and
to other diplomats, knowing how easy it would be for them to
burglarise the safe after we left, when the Spaniards and Dutch
were out of the building at night, I tossed all these despatches
as well as the code books into a big furnace fire. Commander
Gherardi and Secretary Hugh Wilson stood by and personally saw
that the last scrap was burned. Of course, copies of all the
cables are in the State Department.

German spies are adepts at opening bags, steaming letters--all
the old tricks. The easiest way to baffle them is to write
nothing that cannot be published to the world.

For a long time after the beginning of war I was too busy to
write the weekly report of official gossip usually sent home by
diplomats. I suppose the Germans searched our courier bags for
such a report vainly. Anyway, its absence finally got on the
nerves of Zimmermann so much that one day he blurted out, "Don't
you ever write reports to your Government?"

Sealed letters are opened by spies as follows:

[Illustration]

by inserting a pencil or small round object in the envelope,
steamed a little, if necessary; the envelope is opened at the end