Oct

19

Benjamin Franklin

October 19, 2022 |

nobody asked me but…the greatest writer, diplomat and scientist and a man completely indispensable to the birth of America was Benjamin Franklin. I am reading Walter Isaacson's excellent bio of Franklin and it is mind-blowing in so many ways, such as how Franklin dealt with spies at Passy by being honest and good. How long will it be until he is painted and toppled?

From: Spies, Patriots, and Traitors, Review by Amb. (ret.) Edward Marks

More questionable is the characterization of Benjamin Franklin’s activities in France as “intelligence” operations rather than diplomacy. Just because Franklin’s work was often “secret” and just because he was the target of British intelligence does not mean that Franklin himself was a “spy” or intelligence operator. He was an accredited diplomat pursing bilateral negotiations with his official host.

The chapter on Franklin, in fact, is one of the best as it re-interprets a story we all thought we knew. The British were all over the American mission to Paris, surrounding it with spies and observers, but more important inserting an agent, American-born Dr. Edward Bancroft, on to Franklin’s staff. In fact, the British were fully informed of everything the Americans were doing, to the point of receiving full and complete copies of the most secret communications. As the author quotes from another historian, "Franklin’s embassy at Passy, it now appears, was almost a branch office of the British Secret Service."

But this is where the story becomes even more educational. Despite this fully successful intelligence operation against Franklin, he was completely successful in his diplomatic mission.

The book: Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War

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