| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler. The Archaeologist Was a Spy: Sylvanus G. Morley and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2003. Pp. xiv, 450. $32.50.
Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler have written a story—part biography and part institutional history—that goes beyond what the reader might expect and treats significant matters in a gripping manner. The authors use Sylvanus Morley's career as a starting point to look at the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the intelligence story in the United States in the first three decades of the twentieth century.	1
In addition to Morley, Harris and Sadler sketch partial careers of a score or more agents in the World War I and postwar eras, particularly instant ONI agents who served in the Gulf of Mexico, Central America, and Mexican areas. In fact, Morley recruited several archaeologists and numerous other people to serve as agents or subagents during 1917–1918. Morley, Charles Alexander Sheldon, a businessman, and the anthropologist Herbert Joseph Spinden worked together in the ONI for several years. Other colleague-archaeologists William Hubbs Mechley and John Alden Mason were discharged quickly for talking about their work. Morley's closest associate was the young artist and cartographer John Held, Jr. Held, the creator of the first "flapper" cartoon images, became one of the most prominent U.S. artists during the 1920s and early 1930s.	2
The authors repeatedly call Morley the best U.S. ONI spy (or the best spy) in World War I (pp. xiii, 38, 315). While their thorough presentation of Morley's work over several years demonstrates that he was a diligent and productive agent, there is little of a comparative nature to sustain this superlative. Morley, various friends, acquaintances, and other scholars (mostly archaeologists) were tapped to watch for activity that might lead to resupplying German U-boats along the Mexican and isthmian coasts. When Morley found suitable personnel, he also established subagents to monitor German efforts to build radio stations.	. . .

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