“…Colonel Ralph Van Deman assisted in cover-up with General John J. Pershing
In March 1916, General John J. Pershing, the father of U.S. military intelligence who commanded U.S. forces in World War I, led a punitive expedition into Mexico targeting Francisco “Pancho” Villa, a revolutionary who wanted to redistribute land and wealth and expel predatory U.S. corporations from Mexico.
Before the expedition was launched, Villa had led an attack on Columbus, New Mexico—the first foreign attack on American soil since the War of 1812.[1]
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The Pershing expedition was a watershed in the history of U.S. intelligence that epitomized its colonial origins.
Office of Strategic Services (OSS-CIA precursor) founder William “Wild Bill” Donovan participated in the expedition with the new army intelligence branch, which made use of novel techniques in aerial reconnaissance, communications and photographic mapping, and benefited from the disbursement of a special fund of $20,000 by Pershing to pay for the work of Mexican and Apache scouts and spies.[2]
According to intelligence historian Mark Stout, author of the book World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence, the Pershing expedition was further “notable for an audacious and ethically aggressive attempt to assassinate Pancho Villa” by infiltrating spies into his camp and then poisoning his coffee.[3]
Stout wrote that this latter effort used spies, not uniformed personnel, and was in turn kept secret and plausibly denied, hence giving it the “hallmarks of an American covert action.”[4]…”