Changing History: Messages altered and delayed
Sometimes, the Communications Revolution works for good. Sometimes, for bad. Three historical examples: 1. The Ems Telegram. 2. The Zimmermann Telegram. 3. The Hunter Biden laptop. The Ems Telegram brought on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The Zimmermann Telegram made U.S. entry into World War I virtually inevitable. The hiding of the Hunter Biden laptop for over nine months by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ/FBI) may have changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Recall, on July 13, 1870, the vacation of Prussian King Wilhelm I was interrupted at Bad Ems by the French Ambassador who asked that the King never again sponsor a Hohenzollern Prince to occupy the throne of Spain. King Wilhelm I politely said he could not possibly bind future Prussian Kings to such a promise. After the French ambassador left in a huff, the King ordered that a memo of the incident be wired to Chancellor Bismarck in Berlin. Bismarck, wanting to lure France into a war with Prussia, removed the King’s conciliatory language. Bismarck altered the Ems Telegram so it caused such a furor in Paris that the French declared war on Prussia which France promptly lost, to include the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Two decades later, the smoldering, emotional fuse lit by the Ems Telegram would burst into the flames of World War I.
Recall, on January 16, 1917, German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a wireless message to Germany’s ambassador in Mexico City stating Germany would resume unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917. Should that trigger the U.S. to enter the war against Germany, Germany would help Mexico invade the United States to recapture Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Unknown to the Germans and to the U.S., British intelligence was intercepting both German and American wireless and cable traffic and routinely decoded Germany’s most secret messages.
British Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral William Hall, had two problems: The Germans must not know their codes were being broken lest the Germans change their codes. An offended President Wilson might become even more adamant in his refusal to join the Allied war effort. So, for weeks, Admiral Hall sat on the Zimmerman Telegram until he figured out a clever ruse to put the Zimmermann Telegram on President Wilson’s desk, leaving Wilson with little choice but to ask for a declaration of war vs. Germany.
In December 2019, the DOJ/FBI took possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Even though the device contained "primary source" evidence that Hunter, his uncle, and his father, were engaged in a criminal influence peddling conspiracy netting them millions of dollars, the DOJ/FBI sat on the evidence.
On October 14, 2020, (20 days before Election Day) The New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story. But the story was immediately shot down by the DOJ/FBI and the MSM, claiming the laptop was a Russian plant. Subsequent examinations proved the contents of the laptop to be exclusively the work product of Hunter Biden. Did the sequestering of the laptop and the subsequent calling its contents Russian propaganda impact the outcome of the 2020 presidential election? We report. You decide.
Suggested reading: The Ems Telegram, by Otto von Bismarck, Kindle Edition, 2013. The Zimmermann Telegram, by Barbara W. Tuchman, 1957. "Big Tech is in the tank for Biden, Democrats," by Miranda Devine, New York Post, October 14, 2020. Laptop from Hell by Miranda Devine, Simon & Schuster, November 30, 2021.
©2022. William Hamilton.
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