Cloak and Founders

THE History Channel recently gave us Washington the Warrior; thanks to Alexander Rose, we now have Washington the Spymaster. This fascinating and carefully crafted book shows us a side of the Father of Our Country that hero-worshipers since Reverend Weems never imagined and the almost forgotten covert side of the Revolutionary War. We see George Washington advising his agents about invisible ink and encryption pads; brushing letters with a chemical wash to expose secret messages; wondering whether one of his spies might be a double agent; and trying to arrange an exchange of captured spies with the British, asifina scene from a Hollywood espionage thriller.

Is it so surprising? Alex Rose reminds us that Washington started his military career in secret ops, working as the equivalent of an intelligence officer during the French and Indian War. As supreme commander in the American Revolution, he understood that-in the words of his

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.

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THE History Channel recently gave us Washington the Warrior; thanks to Alexander Rose, we now have Washington the Spymaster. This fascinating and carefully crafted book shows us a side of the Father of Our Country that hero-worshipers since Reverend Weems never imagined and the almost forgotten covert side of the Revolutionary War. We see George Washington advising his agents about invisible ink and encryption pads; brushing letters with a chemical wash to expose secret messages; wondering whether one of his spies might be a double agent; and trying to arrange an exchange of captured spies with the British, asifina scene from a Hollywood espionage thriller.

Is it so surprising? Alex Rose reminds us that Washington started his military career in secret ops, working as the equivalent of an intelligence officer during the French and Indian War. As supreme commander in the American Revolution, he understood that-in the words of his

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.