from the United States to the Allies appeared in the
Press; the Foreign Office thereupon instructed me to issue an official
_dementi_ on the subject. Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State,
however, informed me that, as a matter of fact, Rintelen, while
in England, had confessed himself to be an emissary of the German
Government. I then heard from Captain Boy-Ed that Rintelen, by
representing himself as empowered to purchase large stocks of raw
material for Germany in the United States, had obtained a considerable
advance from the Embassy's funds. This fact was one of the main
reasons for the American Government's request in December, 1915,
that Boy-Ed should be recalled. I was never able either in America
or Germany to discover the details of Rintelen's intrigues; he
himself never allowed anything to leak out about it at the Embassy,
and was unable to send any report on the subject to Germany, as
he was handed over to the United States by the British after the
American declaration of war and sentenced to some years' penal
servitude. The current story in the United States is that he was
proved to have been in touch with the Mexican General Huerta with
the object of bringing about war between the two Republics--an
offence of which the famous list of Mr. Bielaski makes no mention.
Further, he was supposed to have founded, in conjunction with a
member of Congress, and two individuals of evil reputation, a society
of workmen in Chicago, With the object of obtaining from Congress
an embargo on the export of arms--an undertaking which according
to the aforementioned report cost a great deal and proved entirely
valueless from the point of view of the German Government. It is not
known whether this undertaking brought Rintelen and his assistants
within the reach of the Sherman Act against conspiracies inciting
industrial disorders, or whether he had, in addition, made efforts
to bring about strikes in munition works. He was certainly suspected
of endeavoring to cause trouble among the dockers of New York, in
the hope of preventing or delaying the shipment of war material to
the Allies; but even Bielaski admitted before the Senate Committee
that there was no tangible evidence of this.

As a matter of fact, the real grounds of Rintelen's conviction were
apparently that he had prepared, through the agency of a certain
German chemist, domiciled in America, named Scheele, a number of
incendiary bombs, which were apparently to be secre