Agnes M. Driscoll: documents on FBI suspicions of the cryptographic and feminist icon

Abstract

ABSTRACT Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records drawing on the interrogation of the German spy Ignatz T. Griebl indicate that Agnes M. Driscoll, the cryptographic and feminist icon buried at Arlington National Cemetery, sold a US Navy code machine to the Nazi foreign intelligence service in 1937. The Bureau started an investigation but dropped it prior to the Nazi spy trial that took place in New York in 1938. Since the Germans declared it was their intention of pass the code machine secrets to Japan, this may have had significant repercussions. The reasons why the FBI abandoned its investigation remain unclear. There may have been, in Navy circles, some compassion for Driscoll, as she had been seriously injured in an automobile accident in the autumn of 1937. A cover-up may also have occurred in order to protect the reputation of America’s cryptographers, or to hide the fact that US intelligence ran a deception operation via Driscoll. There is no available explanation of why Driscoll was allowed to continue her career into the era of the National Security Agency. Two FBI documents are appended to the article.