October 1940 - February 1941: Eavesdropping on the Big Apple

Zurich to New York: How Poor Is Budapest?

On October 11th, 1940, Major H.G. Scott, the Assistant Director of Military Intelligence wrote to T.A. Stone of the Department of External Affairs to inform the D.E.A. of a message from the Swiss Delegation in Zurich which was sent to certain financial institutions and companies in New York City. The contents of the transmission, which Canadian intelligence had intercepted, described economic difficulties being faced in Hungary, and contained a message for the New York businessmen from the Hungarian Delegation in Zurich. After detailing their undesirable financial situation, the Hungarian Delegation ended their message with “[we] hope you will appreciate our extremely difficult situation created by events outside our reach” (CDWI00199). The struggling European nation had neither fallen to Germany nor officially joined the Axis powers as of October 1940, and so news of its dire economic straits would have been very interesting to Canadian foreign policy makers. Could these poor economic conditions signal that Hungary would become desperate enough to join forces with Hitler and fascist Italy, whose power and influence in Europe seemed only to grow stronger throughout 1940?

The following day, on October 12th, Major Scott forwarded the Zurich to New York intercept to G.H. Lash, the Director of Public Information (CDWI00201), as well as Wilfrid Eggleston, Ottawa’s Chief Press Censor (CDWI00202). Both of these men made grateful replies to Military Intelligence (CDWI00206 and CDWI00204), reflecting on the intercepted message’s relevance to a recent news story written by the London correspondent of the United Press. G.H. Lash seemed to think that the desperate Hungarian message was an indication that the United Press had “got under the skin of Dr. Goebbels” (the man in charge of Nazi propaganda).

Because this intercept was forwarded so widely within the Canadian government, we can assume that it represented just one sign of the danger that could come as a result of Hungary’s desperation. And as it turned out, the Canadians were right to be keeping an eye on the situation in Hungary (by way of New York), because just over one month later, Hungary would officially join the Axis powers, becoming Canada’s enemy.

Five Intercepts en Français

On October 16th, 1940, Major Scott forwarded several more intercepted messages sent from Europe to New York City to T.A. Stone of the Department of External Affairs. These messages, the majority of which came from the government of Vichy France (or a national-colonial corporation), were mainly to do with French business interests in the Americas, particularly in South America (CDWI00205). The transmissions were destined for banks in New York City, still a global financial hub even if it hadn’t fully recovered from the last decade of economic depression. Through intercepting wireless communications destined for New York, the Canadian government could gain insight into the financial state of Vichy France. These intercepts represent an example of the Canadian military collecting economic intelligence on behalf of the Department of External Affairs, who were in a better position to understand the significance of and to use this information to Canada’s benefit in its international diplomacy.

An Italian Intercept

On October 17th, 1940, the Assistant Director of Military Intelligence, Major H.G. Scott, sent a letter to Captain E.S. Brand, the Director of Naval Intelligence, with an intercepted Italian wireless transmission enclosed. We can tell that this message was coming from New York City because of the letters indicating its sender on the top of the attachment. The message, seemingly destined for a recipient in Milan, Italy, mentioned a ship called “Varko”—which may have been Panamanian—trying to make port carrying “chemicals” of some sort (CDWI00207). When Military Intelligence forwarded this intercept to Naval Intelligence, did it turn the innocuous Varko into a target for the Allies in the Atlantic?

Japanese Consular Messages from New York and San Fransisco

On October 22nd, 1940, the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, O.D. Skelton, wrote to  Major H.G. Scott, A.D.M.I., inquiring about the origins of two intercepted Japanese messages that had been shared with the Department of External Affairs the previous week (see CDWI00200). Skelton had shared the intercepts with the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who found them very interesting, and wanted to know exactly who in New York and San Fransisco had sent these wireless telegrams to Japan (CDWI00212). On October 26th, Major Scott replied to Dr. Skelton’s query, saying while that Military Intelligence could not be sure of the senders of unsigned wireless messages, it could be inferred that these were Japanese diplomatic messages from Japan’s consulates in New York City and in San Fransisco, California (CDWI00213). In late 1940, the primary concern of Japanese diplomats in the United States at this time was estimating the likelihood of the U.S. going to war with Japan over control of the Pacific. We can see from these messages that Japanese estimates about U.S. readiness for war were accurate in October 1940. Interested readers are encouraged to take a look at the intercepted messages themselves in CDWI00200!

"Joachim von Ribbentrop welcoming Vyacheslav Molotov in Berlin," November 14, 1940. German Federal Archive. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1984-1206-523 / CC-BY-SA 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en.

Berlin to the German Consul in New York

On November 13th, 1940, Lieutenant-Colonel W.W. Murray, G.S.O. 1 Intelligence, wrote to T.A. Stone of the Department of External Affairs with a wireless message from Berlin to the German Consulate in New York City. Lieutenant-Colonel Murray made a point of telling Stone that the message had been intercepted by the Canadians at R.C.C.S. station Rockcliffe, which meant that the Canadians were able to read at least some German diplomatic messages (in whatever code the Germans used), and were actively intercepting enemy diplomatic traffic destined for the United States during this stage of the war. The message itself contained German propaganda messaging to be shared internationally regarding the success of a recent visit by the “Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs” to Berlin (CDWI00214). The German propaganda ministry was very active before and during the Second World War, attempting to control the global narrative of current situations in Germany and occupied Europe. This intercept is just one example of how the Canadian Department of External Affairs worked with Military Intelligence to keep the Canadian government abreast of global developments.

FOODCOMM, New York to Berlin

On February 7th, 1941, Lieutenant-Colonel Murray wrote again to T.A. Stone with an intercepted wireless transmission from New York City. This message was likely sent from an American charitable non-governmental organization based in New York, to a recipient staying in the Aldon Hotel in Berlin, Germany. This organization seemed to have members doing research on the ground in Europe about starvation in Nazi-occupied Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway. They were then creating reports and doing outreach among the American public to educate them about the “food problem” in war-torn Europe (CDWI00050). This would have been a very dangerous type of work, not only for the Americans’ colleague in Berlin, but also for those in New York, who were communicating with Berlin. If Canadian authorities were aware of these transmissions, American authorities certainly were as well: wireless communications in the U.S. were closely monitored even before the Americans declared war on Germany, and radio messages perceived as dangerous to the U.S. were stopped at their source by the F.B.I. We will see one example of the F.B.I. shutting down “illegal” radio communications with Germany on the following page of this briefing book.

Because New York City was such a hub of global finance and communication—and so geographically close to Ottawa—it made the perfect target for wireless communications interception, to gain intelligence on the activities of enemy and neutral countries around the world. From 1939 to 1941, the Canadians took responsibility for monitoring suspicious goings-on across the Americas, and this included intercepting certain consular and diplomatic messages going to or from the neutral United States. We also see from the diversity of the New York intercepts just how many languages the Canadians had to find people to translate as part of their signals intelligence mission during the Second World War. Wireless interception would be futile if messages were meaningless and unprocessed!