“Suddenly last June, a Federal grand jury in New York City hoisted the curtain on ‘America’s most significant spy prosecution since the [First] World War’ by indicting 18 persons for participating in a conspiracy to steal U.S. defense secrets for Germany… Among the specific secrets wanted by the spy ring”:
• Designs of American warships, airplanes and anti-aircraft guns
• U.S. Army mobilization plans for the Eastern Seaboard
• Coastal artillery defenses in the Panama Canal Zone
“As the New York spy trial was thus getting under way, news dispatches from the Panama Canal Zone added fuel to the nation’s ‘spy scare’. In a Cristobal jail were held four persons, one a woman, on charges of violating the law against photographing strategic gun emplacements. All were German.”
