Francis Walsingham sets up a secret network to prevent the assassination of Monarch Elizabeth I. He stationed up to 53 spies in Britain and 18 of his operatives abroad. His late 16th-century method continues to be used around the world today. , ciphers, double agents, and triple agents, plus blackmail, forgery, and torture. Walsingham also used not only cryptanalysts, but also specialists who could open and reseal letters unnoticed.
Walsingham was ruthless. In 1586, when Mary Queen of Scots uncovered the Babington Conspiracy, which indicated that she had authorized the murder of Queen Elizabeth in order to take her place on the throne, Walsingham refused to have her cousin Mary executed. I was dissatisfied with that. So he invents a scary story and eventually persuades Elizabeth to have Mary beheaded.
Walsingham is an unknown hero in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. He had a good spy in Rome and in 1587 confirmed that King Philip II of Spain was planning a naval invasion of England. With Walsingham’s intelligence, Francis Drake attacked Cadiz, sinking 37 ships and decisively delaying the Armada by a year. This gave Walsingham time to set up spies in the house of the Duke of Santa Cruz, the Spanish admiral, and help strengthen the English militia. Meanwhile, he gave the Spaniards false information about English ports and tides. Philip II greeted Walsingham’s death with the words “Good news for the Spaniards”. This was a brilliant adjective from a possible enemy as a spymaster.
The US Secret Intelligence Service was founded by Abraham Lincoln to combat financial crime. Paper money and coins were produced by individual banks in each state, and Lincoln was convinced the economy was in trouble after being advised that one-third of the money in circulation during his presidency was counterfeit. Was. USSS closed 200 of his counterfeit factories in the first year. It is ironic that Abraham Lincoln agreed to the formation of the USSS on April 14, 1865, given that the USSS chapters developed as bodyguards for American presidents. That day was the same day he was assassinated.
Over the next 36 years, two more presidents, James A. Garfield and William McKinley, were also killed while in office. McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, resented the imposition of his agent as his protector. The restless president, nicknamed “The Lion,” loved to escape the White House and hike and bike in Rock Creek Park.
However, the danger increased. Starting in 1917, threatening the president was a felony, and protection was extended to the first family. Margaret, the only child of President Harry S. Truman, wrote of her family’s relationship with the agents who followed them, “often hectic but never hostile.” .
The Secret Service currently has two divisions.uniformed division defends whites
The Capitol, the Vice President’s official residence, and 170 foreign embassies. The Department of Special Agents not only protects presidents, vice presidents and visiting heads of state, but also tackles counterfeiting and other financial crimes, just as Abraham Lincoln intended in his last days.
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