HOUDINI THE SPY

British Spy? Or American?                                                                                                               (via spions.webs)

With all due respect to the authors of the well-written bio The Secret Life of Houdini, we have never bought their thesis that Harry Houdini was a spy for Britain. 

We contend the British would not enlist Harry as a spy for two important reasons: 

1. He was an undereducated, foreign-born American; and,
2. The British already had skilled, trusted, proven agents well-deployed.

We present, for the first time anywhere, a much more plausible scenario. It forms the backbone of our historical novel, HOUDINI UNBOUND: Espionage in Russia.

     Houdini at The Yar, becoming the most famous man in Russia                                                (via houdinihimself.com)

Houdini spent much of 1903 in Russia. Britain did not begin Continental intelligence operations until 1903, according to the historians of MI5 and MI6. But they already had trained agents in the field. 

Sidney Reilly, "Ace of Spies" - the model for James Bond

In Russia the British already employed their very best secret agent, Sidney Reilly, the “Ace of Spies.” He’s the model Ian Fleming used for James Bond. (Curiously, he and Houdini were born on the very same day!)

As we relate in detail in HOUDINI UNBOUND, Harry did have a unique position in Russia - he was effectively Court Conjuror to the Tsar during the summer and fall of 1903.

But the Brits had already placed their own secret agent in the Russian Court: Irishwoman Margaret Eager worked for six years in the Alexander Palace, as governess to the children of Nicholas and Alexandra.

               Margaret Eager, British spy, holding Grand Princess Anastasia      (via Alexander Palace Time Machine.com)

We contend that Harry did indeed work as a spy in Russia. But not for Britain. Harry provided information to the government of his beloved adopted homeland, the USA, and his beloved President, Theodore Roosevelt.

                                          A page from the Blue Code                                              (National Security Agency)

The proximate cause of Harry’s espionage career was the theft of the Blue Code from the U.S. Embassy in St. Petersburg. That eleven-hundred page book, officially entitled The Cipher of the Department of State, was stolen by the Russian spy pictured below, who managed to get a job at the Embassy as a copyist!

                 I.F. Manasevich-Manuilov, the Russian spy who stole the Blue Code

Theodore Roosevelt went ballistic upon learning of the theft of the codebook, and reassigned the Ambassador to Russia. He suddenly had no direct way to communicate with his diplomats abroad, and no spy service of any kind.

                       Houdini's contract to play St. Petersburg                  (via Notes to Houdini!!!)

Enter Harry Houdini. He went to the U.S. Consulate in Moscow to get a revised contract to perform in Russia notarized. And he told the diplomats that he was engaged to perform for the Tsar. According to eminent historians of the period, including Theodore Roosevelt's biographer Edmund Morris, this information was certainly relayed to the President. And it's highly probable that Harry was asked to report back anything he picked up during his stay in Russia.

In earlier posts, we've already presented evidence that Harry and Teddy Roosevelt knew each other. We have reason to believe they met as early as 1893, when Roosevelt was still mainly a buffalo hunter and teenaged Harry was playing the Midway at the Chicago World's Fair. We believe they met again during the 1896 Presidential campaign, after Harry's return from Nova Scotia, when Roosevelt was police commissioner of New York City.

More on Houdini in Russia in future posts.

RELATED:

THE MAN WHO HATED HOUDINI

HARRY HOUDINI & THEODORE ROOSEVELT


(Images via Google unless otherwise noted.)