Yale Alumnus Nathan Hale: Proto-Spook

Nathan Hale; alumnus of Yale University and one of the First U.S. Intelligence Operatives

Photo by Wally Gobetz. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

In front of Phillips Academy, in Andover Massuchusetts -- the prep school attended by future president George H. W. Bush in 1948 – there stands a statue of a dignified, determined, and very young man. The statue was executed in 1913 by Bela Pratt, the assistant to renowned Gilded Age sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and is a copy of an identical statue that stands in front of Connecticut Hall at Yale University (also attended by George H.W. Bush), and also in front of CIA headquarters (formerly headed by George H.W. Bush).

The status is of Nathan Hale, who – along with three other Yale alumni – was a member of 'The Culper Ring'. Formed at the orders of General George Washington during the Revolutionary War, the spy cell was given the task of infiltrating New York City, which was at that time under the control of the British. The Ring conducted successful covert operations from its formation right through until the close of the war, but not without setbacks, the most famous of which was the 1776 capture and subsequent hanging by the British of ring-member Nathan Hale when he was caught in possession of drawings of their fortifications.

But they also had successes, in a war that is said by some to have depended more on spying than any previous. These include their detection of a British attempt to circulate counterfeit Continental dollars and the foiling of a bid to ambush a French landing at Rhode Island. This latter exploit is thought by many to have protected the budding Franco-American alliance from collapsing at a particularly sensitive time.

For an early intelligence cell, the Culper Ring, directed by Benjamin Tallmadge – another Yale alumnus -- employed quite sophisticated methods, including a numerical substitution codes, among others; invisible ink composed of cobalt chloride, glycerine and water; dead drops; and aliases. Tallmadge was a major in the dragoons who acted as the ring's manager in American-held Connecticut, and making sure that the New York operatives' intelligence got safely back to General Washington at headquarters. The cell's information got passed through to Tallmadge via their cell leader Abraham Woodhull who transmitted their reports through the freebooting whaleboatman Caleb Brewster. New York cell members, in addition to Hale, were the merchant Robert Townsend, tavern-keeper Austin Roe

Unusually for spies of the day, all members of the Culper Ring were said to have acted out of complete patriotism. Before leaving on his mission Hale reportedly told a fellow officer: "I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary award; I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious." This same held true for all members of the ring, althought it is noted that – as good students of commerce – they were not averse to having their expenses covered.

Ever since that time, Yale University – also infamous for being the home of the secret fraternity 'Skull and Bones' – has been well-known for its many links with the intelligence community and covert activities. In 1993, Sigmund Diamond, in his book 'Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community, 1945-1955' focused on Harvard and Yale, outlining the deep links between those institutions and the CIA.

Even without research such as Diamond's, it's hard not to conclude that Yale remains the pre-eminent academic proving ground for the intelligence community, just as it was in the days of Nathan Hale. The following are only some of the more celebrated Yale-intelligence community links that have been documented over the years:

Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress, poet, author and Yale graduate/Skull and Bones member (1915) said to have recruited many of his Yale contacts for the OSS.

Wilmarth Lewis and historian Sherman Kent were both charter members of Wild Bill Donovan's Office of Strategic Services (the OSS, forerunner of the CIA) developing its Research and Analysis (R&A) branch. In his book "Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961, Robin W. Winks named more than 40 other Yale professors, including latter-day Kennedy adviser Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who worked for OSS during the war.

Yale's Norman Holmes Pearson served as the head of X-2, OSS's counterintelligence branch.

James Jesus Angleton, the CIA's famed and mysterious chief of counterintelligence, graduated Yale in 1941.

Yale graduate Walter Pforzheimer served as the CIA's first legislative counsel. Under then-CIA chief Walter Bedell Smith, who said "Pforzheimer speaks for me on Capitol Hill, and I stand behind whatever he says." Pforzheimer built the agency's Historical Intelligence Collection, said to be the largest professional intelligence collection in the world.

Richard M. Bissell, Yale 1932, was CIA director of plans during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

George H.W. Bush, former U.S. president and director of Central Intelligence from 1976 to 1977 graduated Yale as a 'Bonesman' in 1948.

Porter Goss, named CIA head in 2004 by President George W. Bush, was recruited into the CIA in his junior year at Yale (1959) after being tapped to join 'the Book and Snake', another Yale secret society, and spent at least 10 years working for the agency's clandestine arm, the Directorate of Operations.

William Bundy, former deputy assistant director of the CIA and liaison to the State Department during the Bay of Pigs invasion, both a Yale grad and Bonesman (1939).

CIA director pro-Iraq War cheerleader and CNN pundit James Woolsey, CIA director 1993-1995 graduated from Yale in 1968, and was also a Rhodes Scholar 1963-1965 .

As late as February 2004, Richard Levin, president of Yale University, served on the White House Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was charged with conducting "a thorough review of the way our Nation collects, analyzes, and disseminates intelligence information related to weapons of mass destruction."

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