BS#3 - Academia's Secret Agents
In times of war, researchers are an essential asset to a nation, not just for their own development but also to spy on the enemy's moves.
Hello again from Berlin, the city of spies!
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and climate change worsens, science gains in global political importance. Researchers bring us the necessary insights and possible solutions that (at least in some countries) directly influence political decision-making. While such an impact on a global scale has largely been unseen in history, it has always been there.
Today, we are at war against a virus, we are at war against pollution. We fight against terrorism using advanced technologies, we fight against cyberattacks from foreign countries… with highly trained experts working on solving the problems at hand. Yet, researchers have always been an essential asset to the nation. Not just for academic or technical pursuits but also in-person espionage!
Because evidence is sparse and hard to come by, speculations are intense. Nonetheless, this is what I want to talk about today because, again, there seems to be a large cliff between popular perception and reality.
Please consider subscribing if you are interested in the history of science, how we have built and can improve our cognitive tools, and if you are curious about the nature of intelligence.
War In Europe
“The laws of the universe can be proven by mathematical deduction. But the plans of the enemy must and can only be uncovered by spies. ... The enlightened leader and the wise general will be using his most intelligent in his army as spies …” from the last pages of Sunzi’s ‘The Art of War’.
In 1587, under the rule of queen Elisabeth I, Francis Walsingham build an international network composed of agents and cryptographists. They were able to uncover a series of conspiracies against the queen. They even proved the involvement of the queen of Scottland, Maria Stuart in a murder plot against Elisabeth which lead to her execution.
At that time in history, the countries of Europe were having a bit of a rough patch as it was enduring several wars in the misery of religious and political reconstruction. The printing press was now quite common and worked so well that both propaganda, as well as educational information, could spread more quickly and broadly, and even across borders without losing parts in translation. So much so that the English philosopher Francis Bacon, often credited with developing the scientific method, wrote in 1620 in his Instauratio Magna:
“printing, gunpowder, and the nautical compass . . . have altered the face and state of the world: first, in literary matters; second, in warfare; third, in navigation,”
Science wasn’t the solitary pursuit it had been the millennia before and by now the research community had enough time to grow and establish some structures. Structures, that would come to be useful for espionage.
René Descartes’ Hidden Life
In 1596 then, born into this Europe, René Descartes served the military letting behind the more hedonistic pleasures of a young gentleman’s early life. Yet, besides being a soldier for some time during his youth, it is unclear in what position he helped in the Thirty Year War later on. While the obvious guess would be for him to have worked as an engineer not as a soldier due to his delicate health yet great intellectual capabilities, his life - clouded by intense secrecy - tells a different story. In fact, in his biography about the thinker, the philosopher and member of the Royal Society A. C. Grayling suggests that
"Descartes was a spy."
Descartes took his motto from Ovid: A life lived hidden is a life lived well. While he did gain quite some popularity for his intellect, with his views embraced by contemporary intellectuals, compared to the impact of his works today, which were mostly only published after his death, many men of his time did not know more about him than he knew for absolute certainty in general: That he existed or, as he reasoned in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum.” (I think, therefore I am).
“For ... twenty years, he wandered about all over Holland, never settling for long in any one place, a silent recluse in obscure villages, country hotels and out-of-the-way corners of great cities [corresponding with leading intellects in Europe only through an old friend,] Father Mersenne, who alone knew the secret at any time of Descartes’ address.” [E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics, p. 44]
In an analysis from Paolo Rossini, we can see just how major his influence in these correspondences was. He was one of the centres of the long-distance intellectual social network of his time called the Republic of Letters. - While he was writing that much, he did not rest or settle down. Or let people know of his temporary residence. His status and skills as an important thinker of his time allowed him to travel without arousing too much suspicion and to gain access to events few others had. He went to great lengths to be undetected at many major happenings. - Uninvited, he apparently snuck into the cathedral where the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, was held in 1619. Descartes turned up in Bohemia at the time of the Palatinate crisis and in Paris at the time of the Rosicrucian scare with which it is rumoured he was associated with.
“He visited courts and armies around Europe, concentrating on the most politically important places while writing very little about what he was doing there (even though he wrote in so much detail about more trivial matters).” [Military History]
And we already know there were wide networks of agents. In 1624 for example again, as the first minister under the rule of the French King Ludwig XIII, Kardinal Richelieu created another wide network of agents and informants. One of those being his confessor, Père Joseph. In a complex conspiracy, he eventually led to the fall of Albrecht von Wallenstein, commander of the opposing Habsburger in the Thirty Year War.
Considering this pervasive culture of spies, Descartes travel behaviour alone may already make modern spy hunters suspicious. Without necessarily desiring to change the narrative around Descartes or claim this idea to be a fact - indeed I do not want to sully his legacy - we can find a lot more of interesting circumstantial evidence around his finances, his skills, his connections, and beliefs, or the fact that he was eventually effectively banished from France because of his known activities in favour of the Habsburg interest.
“Many intellectuals and clerics at this period engaged in intelligence activity because they were well fitted for the task by their command of languages, especially of the universal language Latin, and the fact that they corresponded widely and travelled more than any other class apart from aristocrats and merchants (but these latter did not have nearly as good access to political circles as scholars and clerics did).” [A. C. Grayling, Descartes: The Life and Times of a Genius]
Spies are usually trained experts in one certain field and often times strategic economic strengths in production, manufacture, infrastructure, or research are essential. So it has been the case repeatedly that spies are recruited from science and technology academia.
Eventually, he was even officially accused of espionage during his lifetime by enemies in the United Provinces.
Final Remarks
In the past, when I thought about René Descartes, I thought about his work on geometry and mathematics in general. I thought about deduction, on the boundaries of knowledge and popular anecdotes. Not for one second would the possibility of him being a spy (and again, there is no conclusive evidence) or of the existence of large networks of agents in the sciences have come to my mind. This only happened after I took a much closer look at his and other scientists history.
We usually don’t think about espionage in our everyday life, unless a new exciting spy movie gets out. Consciousness has certainly been growing again in the recent two decades, with connected technology everywhere and users feeling like they are being robbed of their data online. But even with that, we don’t really think of scientists, engineers or philosophers when picturing spies. Instead, we imagine stoic men with a license to kill, or companies and agencies peaking through your laptop’s camera.
Knowledge is often said to be power. It becomes power over others when they do not own the same information. This makes research in secrecy and espionage of other scientists projects so incredibly valuable for large organizations, countries and individuals alike. And that is why this modern struggle is something I plan to bring more light to in the future. I would also love to tell more stories about scientists and their relation to the military. About political efforts to keep their work secret, like with Enigma or the development of the atomic bomb in WWII (although with a twist).
So please subscribe, like and share this letter, if you want me to elaborate, or if you are simply interested in the history and future of science in general!
(A note: I am terribly sorry for possibly offending the ghost of Descartes with this text and the image I crudely photoshopped. Please, forgive my sins for I am just a curious student trying to have a laugh.)