4 Notable Black Intelligence Operatives
By Jamie Bisher
J. Edward Felton
German Agent, US East Coast - J. Edward Felton was recruited in 1915 by German intelligence in Baltimore. He was a foreman for North German Lloyd shipping company, which had been idled for several months by the war in Europe—the US was still neutral. He allegedly assembled a 10-12 man crew of unemployed stevedores, and led them on biological sabotage missions in Baltimore, New York, Norfolk and Newport News, injecting anthrax and glanders virus into horses bound for the British Army.
William Gleaves
British Intelligence Agent, Mexico - William Gleaves, a black Canadian, was one of the most successful double agents of WWI. He was assigned to the British Legation in Mexico City, and penetrated the lethal German military intelligence network in Mexico and became a trusted agent of the infamous Kurt Jahnke. Gleaves accompanied German Lieutenant Lothar Witzke to the Sonora-Arizona border to rendezvous with saboteurs who were planning to conduct terrorist bombings throughout the southwestern US in early 1918. Witzke was arrested in Nogales and eventually sentenced to death. The bombing campaign fizzled.
Dr. Jesse Mosley
Mexican Intelligence Officer, Texas Borderlands - Dr. Mosley served in the intelligence service of the Mexican Constitutionalist Army of First Chief Venustiano Carranza in 1916. He was a respected physician who abruptly left his successful, 18 year old practice in Tampico for a high-risk venture into intelligence under General Pablo Gonzalez. When arrested near Laredo, Texas after trying to persuade several black US soldiers to desert, Mosley was carrying “seditious propaganda,” maps and his commission as a carrancísta major. Mosley was soon released, then murdered a few days later, presumably by a US Justice Department agent.
Major Charles Young
US Army, Northern Mexico - Major Young (West Point class of 1889) had extensive experience as a tactical intelligence officer on the US western frontier, in Haiti and Liberia when he was appointed a squadron commander in the 10th US Cavalry in 1916. He applied his expertise to hunting down remnants of General Pancho Villa’s army in the deserts and mountains of northern Mexico.
Copyright 2022, Jamie Bisher.