Rarely does one encounter a book from a renowned university press more flawed than the recent book by historian Mark Stout. As an intelligence history buff with World War I specialization, I was truly excited when I saw the title of this new book. After all, so much new information has come to light in recent years with declassified files of the Bureau of Investigation (BI), Military Intelligence Division (MID), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the State Department, Justice Department, and Treasury Department. Recent works by Beverly Gage, Robert Koenig, Howard Blum, Bill Mills, my own work (including recent books written with Charles H. Harris III) and others have revisited the Neutrality Period of World War I (1914-1917), modified our understanding of the influence of the Mexican Revolution on national security, reframed the missions and roles of the Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service, and military intelligence agencies leading up to, during, and after the First World War.
Stout set out to tell the story of how modern American intelligence organizations and operations can be traced to World War I. He defined modern intelligence as a “process involving the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information about the outside world intended to enable better decision-making.” (5) The “outside world” evidently excludes domestic intelligence gathering and counterintelligence. This limitation of the analytical framework is obvious when taking a quick glimpse at the archival sources used for the book: State Department, Military agencies, and no Justice Department files.
This analytical limitation causes Stout to ignore or dismiss the roles of the Bureau of Investigation and the many intelligence and counterintelligence operations during the Mexican Revolution and the Neutrality Period (1914-1917). The BI operated in Mexico, Cuba, Central America, cooperated with intelligence agencies of Canada, Great Britain, and Mexico before and during the American participation in the World War. Many of the military intelligence developed before the American declaration of war in April 1917 came from the Bureau of Investigation. Stout’s exclusion of more than half of the archival record on intelligence between 1914 and 1918 causes him to inflate the role of the State Department’s Bureau of Secret Intelligence which started in the summer of 1916, was underfunded, and functioned in unison with the Bureau of Investigation under an agreement defining areas of responsibility.
Although Stout lists an extensive bibliography of secondary sources, it is apparent that his research is dated. Almost all the books he consulted are from the 1990s and before. Recent works on his topic are missing. This skewed reading of the historiography leads to outdated descriptions of events, such as the Punitive Expedition of 1916, the Black Tom explosion of 1916, and the Franz Rintelen mission to the U.S. in 1915, which reminded me strongly of Barbara Tuchman’s 1956 book, The Zimmermann Telegram, which, however, is not listed as a source.
In summary, this book contains some good research on military intelligence during World War I but in no way can it claim to describe the “Foundations of American Intelligence” during World War I. For that, Stout would have to revise his understanding and limited definition of intelligence, absorb the latest published research on the topic, and study the extensive declassified Bureau of Investigation file. Alternatively, the book title could focus on operational military intelligence during World War I, which is what the book describes.
Mark Stout, World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2023).