The FBI’s March Artifact of the Month was more than just a toy—it was a tool of espionage tradecraft.
The FBI’s March Artifact of the Month was more than just a toy—it was a tool of espionage tradecraft.
A German spy used this doll to smuggle secret photographs to Nazi Germany. The photos were reduced in size so that the film they were on was as small as the period at the end of a sentence. Spies hid this film, called a “microdot,” on the doll.
How did microphotography work? Spies would photograph espionage material with a camera. Then, through a special contraption of lenses, they would copy the image, reduce it in size, and imprint it on especially sensitized film.
The Germans concealed microdots on letters and other materials they could carry across borders or mail to dead letter boxes in Europe. (A dead letter box was a fake address that acted as a cutout between a spy and German intelligence headquarters.) Some couriers returning to Europe even hid microdots on their clothes or on dolls.
During World War II, the FBI’s Special Intelligence Service (SIS) investigated German espionage rings operating in the Western Hemisphere. One investigation in Mexico involved more than 50 main subjects who operated in three separate espionage rings under orders from Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne. These spies received reports from and transmitted messages to people in multiple countries.
In January 1946, the FBI provided the Mexican government with evidence from the case, and in July 1946, the Mexican secretary of foreign relations told the U.S. ambassador that 21 of the subjects in the case were scheduled for repatriation to Germany. Only 13 of those subjects were ultimately deported, for several skirted deportation by hiding or bribing Mexican officials.
To learn more about the investigation, visit http://ow.ly/igrW50yTlwL.
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