A movie provides cover for Harrison’s mission

Soldiers from the 115th Infantry Division. Courtesy of portraitsofwar.com. Marguerite Harrison’s mission for the Military Intelligence Division had the full support of her editors at the Baltimore Sun, who provided cover for her operation. Harrison traveled with newspaper credentials to France under the pretext that she would write feature stories and show a movie the …

Did a love affair spark Harrison’s espionage career?

Albert Ritchie Marguerite Harrison struggled to explain her decision to become a spy. She later recalled she was seized with restlessness and a desire to witness events unfolding in Europe at the end of World War I. Some historians have described her as a distraught widow who joined the intelligence service to forget her grief. …

“Hoping that I may be of real service

Dec. 2, 1918---The signing of the armistice treaty and a flu outbreak in Baltimore were temporary setbacks to Marguerite Harrison’s quest to become a spy. With the end of fighting in Europe, Marguerite feared she had lost her chance to become a spy. But Military Intelligence Division Director Marlborough Churchill had other ideas. He wanted …

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Journalist spies lifted veil on Soviet Russia, 1920-21

The uneasy relationship between the American news media and American spy agencies can be traced to the early twentieth century, when the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division dispatched agents posing as journalists to Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution. This article explores three of those cases from 1920-21: Baltimore news reporter Marguerite Harrison, who was America’s …