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s u b v e r s i v e w o r d s Prince Albert. As might be expected, references to them were foregrounded but letters that the editors considered to show weakness – for instance correspondence with her half-sister Feodora and cousin-inlaw Queen Maria of Portugal that included discussions of womanly dilemmas such as pregnancy – were eliminated. Victoria’s foreign connections, revealed in correspondence with her Saxe-Coburg uncle Leopold I, King of the Belgians and one of the most powerful influences on her in her early life and reign, were played down. Tactless remarks about the Irish needing another war to teach them a lesson, the ‘utter nullity’ of an emperor, and the awfulness of the French were removed. Esher softened the image of the assertive Queen clashing with her foreign secretary, Palmerston, and the disparaging way she and Albert wrote about him. Esher wished to present Victoria (backed by Albert) as fully in control of her ministers. He idealised the early years of her reign, when ministers were careful not only to keep the sovereign informed but also to ask her advice ‘before final decisions were reached in Cabinet upon all questions of substance’. It was, he said, ‘a system of Government which was brought almost to perfection in the middle of the last century’. Yvonne Ward has had the perceptiveness to present in a new light what at first sight might seem a well-trodden subject, deploying her own knowledge and archival research to make a fascinating read by reediting the editors. And, as far as I know, she is the first historian to emphasise the effect of Victoria’s successive pregnancies on Albert’s rise to power and influence. To order this book for £13.59, see the Literary Review bookshop on page 58 a l a n j u dd Joining the Microdots Prisoners, Lovers & Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda By Kristie Macrakis (Yale University Press 377pp £18.99) Secret-ink detectors: spot check Invisible ink or secret writing (SW, as it is known in the trade) has probably been used since not long after mankind learned to communicate in writing. Often viewed as the poor relation of its sophisticated sibling cryptography, it nonetheless thrived in the 20th century. Perhaps, with the recent decline of written communication, it will die out. Who, after all, sends letters in these days of texts and tweets and whatever? From the spy’s point of view (spies are overwhelmingly the users of SW) there’s always safety in numbers and to be one of the dwindling band of letter-writers might attract attention. But, as Kristie Macrakis indicates in this comprehensive history, SW is already quietly mutating into digital image-hiding. She traces its origins to the ancient Greeks and Persians, with a nod in the direction of the Chinese. Much early SW was, strictly speaking, simply hidden messaging rather than writing concealed within writing. Messages might be inscribed on pigs’ bladders or leaves or hidden within earrings or bridles – or even inscribed on the shaven heads of servants who were then sent across the warring lines (presumably only with non-urgent messages, given the time taken to grow hair and the uncertainty of the servant’s arrival). But the Greeks also used ink hidden beneath gypsum and the simple book method – lightly dotting selected letters in a manuscript to form a message. Basic though that is, it functioned successfully in varying forms for two thousand years. Until the 16th century SW evolved piecemeal, with alum, gallnuts and lemons as popular means of concealment. Its deployment, though probably more frequent than we appreciate, was intermittent and advances were patchy. In the 16th century, however, Giambattista della Porta – scientist, playwright, cryptographer and all-round Renaissance man – assembled a unique compendium of SW methods (including an egg recipe that Macrakis has conscientiously tried – and failed – to reproduce). Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, was almost certainly familiar with della Porta’s work, acquiring a sophisticated understanding of SW and cryptography. Although the politics of Tudor survival gave them a more central and enduring role at the heart of government, both benefited during the 17th century from the early flowering of scientific method. Cryptography was seen as the more sophisticated field, SW more magical and mysterious, but leading scientific figures were involved in the latter. Robert Boyle is not usually included in the pantheon of secret communicators but he coined the phrase ‘invisible ink’ and experimented successfully with various forms of it, including urine, blood and arsenic. He concealed much of his work for, as he put it, ‘the good of mankind’. Macrakis details SW’s role in the American War of Independence and George Washington’s enthusiasm for it; it would have been interesting to see as much on its deployment in the Napoleonic Wars, though it ’s possible Literary Review | j u n e 2 0 1 4 10
page 13
s u b v e r s i v e w o r d s the records don’t exist. With the First World War, however, SW came of age: ‘It is probably no exaggeration to say that more happened in the development of secret ink during World War I than during the previous three hundred years,’ Macrakis writes. Again, the combination of political demand and organised scientific endeavour produced a great leap forward. As usual in wartime espionage, it was much harder to communicate secrets across or around the front lines than to discover them in the first place. Professors of chemistry were involved on both sides, with predictable improvements, though there were oddities on the fringes, such as MI6’s experiment with human semen. It worked, in so far as it couldn’t be revealed by iodine vapour, but when bottled the smell wasn’t too good. Although Macrakis reports this episode faithfully enough, it ’s pretty clear from the original source that the experiment wasn’t taken very seriously. ‘Every man his own stylo’ was the slogan in the MI6 head office. Rather more serious, at least for those involved, June 14 20/5/14 3:31 pm Page 1 was the fate of a handful of German spies whose lemon-based SW recipes gave them away: they were shot by Scots Guards firing squads in the Tower of London’s Miniature Rifle Range. The Germans began the Second World War using the same SW techniques they had used in the First World War, but again the energy of war wrought improvements on all sides. The Germans developed the microdot, which can contain a great deal of information in a very small space and can be hidden in texts, punctuation, beneath tooth fillings and in clothing and a hundred other places. Fortunately, the technique was soon discovered through British double agents and the 1,200-strong censorship operation run by MI5 in Bermuda began identifying SW in letters, which led, when shared with the FBI, to the destruction of significant German espionage and sabotage operations in North and South America. Macrakis’s account of British and US censorship operations is a reminder of a relatively little-known aspect of the intelligence war. The scale of the US operation was awesome; 14,462 censors opening a million overseas letters a day, of which about 4,600 were passed to the FBI as suspicious, and of those about 400 contained important messages or used SW. And this by a country whose secretary of war at the time once declared as policy that gentlemen shouldn’t read other people’s mail. Although aspects of Kristie Macrakis’s style are mildly irritating – I lost count of the number of secret messages described as ‘chilling’ and was not sure that ‘scary’ was quite the word for Mithridates’s sixfigure massacres – her enthusiasm and appetite for her subject are infectious. She has produced a useful contribution to intelligence history, concluding with references to contemporary techniques such as DNA microdots in bacteria, unlocked by antibiotics, and some simple traditional SW recipes for the curious or the desperately secret. Conceivably, there might even be a microdot in it. To order this book for £18.99, see the Literary Review bookshop on page 58 P R I Z E C R O S S W O R D ACROSS 1 Cool about wearing tartan (6) 1 9 12 14 19 2 3 15 11 13 7 4 5 10 6 20 16 17 8 18 4 Rapper in a Poe poem (5) 9 One with equal billing divorced Shakespearian character (7) 10 Wilde’s award (5) 11 Popular teaching might be a feminine trait (9) 12 Bite one biting back (4) 13 Calling exchange (5) 16 Egyptian deity with one sibling (4) 19 Killing with amusement after slow start (9) 21 Aristocratic gold coin almost left (5) 22 Stable parent adopts depressed playwright (7) 23 Poem, say, in cathedral city (5) 24 Criticised in the queue? (6) 21 22 23 24 This month Penguin kindly sponsors the prize crossword with five copies of Laurie Lee’s RedSkyatSunrise, his celebrated and marvellously compelling autobiographical trilogy. It comprises CiderwithRosie, AsI WalkedOutOneMidsummerMorningand AMomentofWar. June marks the centenary of Laurie Lee’s birth. Send your entries to 44 Lexington Street, London, W1F 0LW by 18 June. May’s winners, who will each receive a copy of SimplyEnglish, are: Peter Barber in Charlbury, C M Chadwick in London, Angela Hales in Maidstone, D A Prince in Kirby Muxloe, and Philip Spinks in Stratford-upon-Avon. Solution to the May puzzle – ACROSS: 4 Parish, 7 Toledo, 8 Tortoise, 9 Spur, 10 Moral 12 Tull, 18 Amdram, 19 Detail, 20 Tome, 23 Sable, 27 Root, 28 Liegeman, 29 Jethro, 30 Intern. DOWN: 1 Oomph, 2 Rearm, 3 Motor, 4 Peril, 5 Roost, 6 Sisal, 11 Oval, 13 Upas, 14 Lily, 15 Cant, 16 Edam, 17 Deal, 21 Orion, 22 Eagle, 23 Simon, 24 Banjo, 25 Erato, 26 Board. DOWN 1 Container vessel (6) 2 Mentioned Texas location to Jane (6) 3 Terrorist organisation intelligence upset Middle East native (5) 5 In Act One, I prepared poisonous plant (7) 6 Geometrician I clued cryptically (6) 7 Was indebted, say, to fall in lines (3,2,6) 8 To some extent, siren attracts Grantorto's victim in TheFaerieQueene (5) 13 Label a record of Philippine tongue (7) 14 Separate digression (5) 15 Calmer version of Proust (6) 17 Vegetable shoot (6) 18 Cunning as Kate’s daughter (6) 20 Two rivers in the country (5) j u n e 2 0 1 4 | Literary Review 11

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s u b v e r s i v e w o r d s the records don’t exist. With the First World War, however, SW came of age: ‘It is probably no exaggeration to say that more happened in the development of secret ink during World War I than during the previous three hundred years,’ Macrakis writes. Again, the combination of political demand and organised scientific endeavour produced a great leap forward. As usual in wartime espionage, it was much harder to communicate secrets across or around the front lines than to discover them in the first place. Professors of chemistry were involved on both sides, with predictable improvements, though there were oddities on the fringes, such as MI6’s experiment with human semen. It worked, in so far as it couldn’t be revealed by iodine vapour, but when bottled the smell wasn’t too good. Although Macrakis reports this episode faithfully enough, it ’s pretty clear from the original source that the experiment wasn’t taken very seriously. ‘Every man his own stylo’ was the slogan in the MI6 head office. Rather more serious, at least for those involved,

June 14 20/5/14 3:31 pm Page 1

was the fate of a handful of German spies whose lemon-based SW recipes gave them away: they were shot by Scots Guards firing squads in the Tower of London’s Miniature Rifle Range.

The Germans began the Second World War using the same SW techniques they had used in the First World War, but again the energy of war wrought improvements on all sides. The Germans developed the microdot, which can contain a great deal of information in a very small space and can be hidden in texts, punctuation, beneath tooth fillings and in clothing and a hundred other places. Fortunately, the technique was soon discovered through British double agents and the 1,200-strong censorship operation run by MI5 in Bermuda began identifying SW in letters, which led, when shared with the FBI, to the destruction of significant German espionage and sabotage operations in North and South America. Macrakis’s account of British and US censorship operations is a reminder of a relatively little-known aspect of the intelligence war. The scale of the US operation was awesome; 14,462 censors opening a million overseas letters a day, of which about 4,600 were passed to the FBI as suspicious, and of those about 400 contained important messages or used SW. And this by a country whose secretary of war at the time once declared as policy that gentlemen shouldn’t read other people’s mail.

Although aspects of Kristie Macrakis’s style are mildly irritating – I lost count of the number of secret messages described as ‘chilling’ and was not sure that ‘scary’ was quite the word for Mithridates’s sixfigure massacres – her enthusiasm and appetite for her subject are infectious. She has produced a useful contribution to intelligence history, concluding with references to contemporary techniques such as DNA microdots in bacteria, unlocked by antibiotics, and some simple traditional SW recipes for the curious or the desperately secret. Conceivably, there might even be a microdot in it. To order this book for £18.99, see the Literary Review bookshop on page 58

P R I Z E C R O S S W O R D ACROSS 1 Cool about wearing tartan (6)

1

9

12

14

19

2

3

15

11

13

7

4 5

10

6

20

16 17

8

18

4 Rapper in a Poe poem (5) 9 One with equal billing divorced

Shakespearian character (7) 10 Wilde’s award (5) 11 Popular teaching might be a feminine trait (9) 12 Bite one biting back (4) 13 Calling exchange (5) 16 Egyptian deity with one sibling (4) 19 Killing with amusement after slow start (9) 21 Aristocratic gold coin almost left (5) 22 Stable parent adopts depressed playwright (7) 23 Poem, say, in cathedral city (5) 24 Criticised in the queue? (6)

21

22

23

24

This month Penguin kindly sponsors the prize crossword with five copies of Laurie Lee’s RedSkyatSunrise, his celebrated and marvellously compelling autobiographical trilogy. It comprises CiderwithRosie, AsI WalkedOutOneMidsummerMorningand AMomentofWar. June marks the centenary of Laurie Lee’s birth. Send your entries to 44 Lexington Street, London, W1F 0LW by 18 June. May’s winners, who will each receive a copy of SimplyEnglish, are: Peter Barber in Charlbury, C M Chadwick in London, Angela Hales in Maidstone, D A Prince in Kirby Muxloe, and Philip Spinks in Stratford-upon-Avon. Solution to the May puzzle – ACROSS: 4 Parish, 7 Toledo, 8 Tortoise, 9 Spur, 10 Moral 12 Tull, 18 Amdram, 19 Detail, 20 Tome, 23 Sable, 27 Root, 28 Liegeman, 29 Jethro, 30 Intern. DOWN: 1 Oomph, 2 Rearm, 3 Motor, 4 Peril, 5 Roost, 6 Sisal, 11 Oval, 13 Upas, 14 Lily, 15 Cant, 16 Edam, 17 Deal, 21 Orion, 22 Eagle, 23 Simon, 24 Banjo, 25 Erato, 26 Board.

DOWN

1 Container vessel (6) 2 Mentioned Texas location to Jane (6) 3 Terrorist organisation intelligence upset

Middle East native (5) 5 In Act One, I prepared poisonous plant (7) 6 Geometrician I clued cryptically (6) 7 Was indebted, say, to fall in lines (3,2,6) 8 To some extent, siren attracts Grantorto's victim in TheFaerieQueene (5) 13 Label a record of Philippine tongue (7) 14 Separate digression (5) 15 Calmer version of Proust (6) 17 Vegetable shoot (6) 18 Cunning as Kate’s daughter (6) 20 Two rivers in the country (5)

j u n e 2 0 1 4 | Literary Review 11

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