Carl Ackerman: Journalist or Spy?

Carl Ackerman: Journalist or Spy?

In August 1920 Michael Collins granted a rare interview to the well-known American journalist, Carl W. Ackerman. Collins used the interview to publicly portray an uncompromising stance and publicly dismiss any offer of independence which fell short of a Republic. The interview was used by John Devoy, who was then involved in a feud with Eamon de Valera, to portray Collins as Ireland’s ‘fighting chief.’ It was a portrayal to which Collins privately objected, but one which would become increasingly prominent. [1] Ackerman was granted a second interview in April 1921 and Collins continued to play the extremist to de Valera’s moderate. It was certainly a considered strategy by Collins. He knew what Ackerman would and wouldn’t quote him on, and he calculated the effect that might have on public opinion at home and abroad. But was there more to Ackerman than what met Collins’ eye?

In a passing reference to the journalist Peter Hart has declared Ackerman ‘(a British spy)’.[2] If Ackerman truly fitted that description, it would mean that he succeeded in duping a man frequently lauded by numerous biographers as a master of intelligence. Was Ackerman a spy? And if so, was Collins aware that he that he was a spy? Who was fooling who?

Carl William Ackerman was born in Richmond Indiana in 1890, making him exactly the same age as Collins. He was educated in Earlham College and Columbia University from where he graduated with a B.Litt in 1913. He went to work for the United Press, first in Albany NY and Washington DC, but later in wartime Germany. During this time he published a text entitled Germany: The Next Republic? Considering Germany’s republican credentials during the last years of the Kaiser’s reign was a novel approach and it brought the young journalist to prominence. In August 1918 Ackerman was dispatched to Russia to report on the revolution then underway. On returning to the US in 1919 he gathered his travel notes and newspaper articles into a text which he published as Trailing the Bolsheviki: Twelve Thousand Miles with the Allies in Siberia. Ackerman came to dislike and fear communism and its potential to take root in the USA. His concern manifested itself in the publication of two articles in the Public Ledger in October 1919. The articles alleged a Bolshevik plot to spread communism on the global stage and rule with a ‘Universal Czar.’ In reality they were an English translation of a notorious antisemitic forgery entitled Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Where the original text had propagated a Jewish plot for global domination, Ackerman’s version removed all mention of Jews and substituted them with Bolsheviks. We cannot say whether the forgery was Ackerman’s work, or whether it had been provided to him by an un-named ‘prominent American diplomat’ who was cited as a source. Either way the text seemed to chime with Ackerman’s crusade against Communism and he certainly used it enthusiastically.[3]

By the time that Collins first met Ackerman the latter was chief of the Public Ledger’s foreign news service. However he would soon be forging a path in public relations and may have already had aspirations in that direction.[4] The interview with Collins (and other senior Sinn Féiners) was sought and arranged by the Dáil’s Director of Publicity, Desmond Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and Ackerman had been discussing the possibility of mediation between the British and Irish Governments for weeks and according to Ackerman’s private notes, Fitzgerald had already conceded that the conflict could be settled on the basis of a form of Irish independence which didn’t have to conform with the strict definition of a Republic. Griffith was looped in on the early stages of these discussions, but other senior Sinn members do not appear to have received the same briefings.[5]

The discussions between Fitzgerald and Ackerman resulted in a plan whereby Ackerman’s boss Colonel Edward Mandell House, a former advisor and diplomat in President Wilson’s administration, would attempt to mediate a solution to the Irish problem. Increased violence in Ireland prevented Fitzgerald from visiting House in London, but by the end of the month, Ackerman made his way to Dublin for a secretive meeting with Collins, arranged by Fitzgerald.[6]

Ackerman later reported some of the details of this meeting in the Public Ledger and whether by way of embellishment or accurate reportage, Ackerman couldn’t resist giving Collins the man of mystery persona which would soon be widely embraced by the British print media.

I was escorted to his private address in Dublin by an Irishman I had known for some time. The door was opened by a maid. We asked simply “Is he here?” We were shown to a back room on the third floor of a richly furnished old Georgian house and did not have to wait long until Mr Collins entered. After a formal introduction we sat down around a large square table.

“Did you bring those documents” Mr. Collins was asked.

“I did” he replied to his questioner and drew from a special pocket sewn in his coat a small envelope from which he scattered on the table before him several letters and papers.

“By the way” said Collins turning to me and smiling. “I see you published in the PUBLIC LEDGER the text of a letter purporting to be written from the United States which I never received.”

          He handed me the clipping from the PUBLIC LEDGER containing the text of the letters captured on William Barrie, confidential messenger sent to England by President de Valera last month with a report on the Republican convention. I glanced at the clipping and read the opening: “Dear Michael’-

“Did you get the letter?” I asked. Collins’ laugh was sufficient answer. He asked whether I had obtained photographic copies of the letters and when I acknowledged it he added “So did I.”[7]

Collins played the master-spy who clearly knew that Ackerman had contacts within British intelligence and that those contacts had given him intercepted letters. As was often the case with Collins, it is difficult to say whether this cloak and dagger persona was his creation, Ackerman’s creation, a collaboration between them, or a reality. Ackerman certainly sought stories of Collins’ adventures evading arrest in Dublin, but the ‘Big Fella’ would not be drawn, privately promising that ‘some day he would have a real story to tell.’[8] Ackerman’s presentation of Collins as a man of mystery and intrigue made its way into the Irish media, and within a few months similar presentations of Collins commonly appeared in British titles. Ackerman’s interview placed a Collins caricature in the public domain and other newspaper men seemed to seize upon it and perhaps exaggerate it. [9]

Ackerman’s report of his meeting with Collins ran under a headline which proclaimed;  ‘Sinn Fein Leader Uncompromising’ and a by-line  which elaborated; ‘Army Chief Won’t Deal With Premier Except as Authorized Agent of Republic.’ The article went on to quote Collins’ uncompromising stance on any solution which fell short of a Republic:

There will be no compromise and we will have no negotiations with an (sic) British Government, except as authorized representatives of the Irish Government … A Government which is carrying on as the Irish Republic is today cannot talk compromise. We may not see the realization of Ireland as a free nation but our children will…

Do you think the government wants to have an Irish settlement when Lloyd George speaks of fighting for five years and spending a million casualties to prevent Ireland from having a Republic? Lloyd George’s words are not peace offers but threats.

But what are his threats to a nation that has struggled for 750 years and borne tens of millions of casualties. If Lloyd George so decides there may be another million casualties, but at the end Ireland will be free; and it may happen that in his effort to destroy Ireland, he will find he has only destroyed the British Empire. [10]

When asked about the possibility of a settlement based on Dominion Status, Collins appeared equally unwavering and stated:

I see you think we have only to whittle our demand down to dominion home rule and we shall get it. This talk about dominion home rule is not promoted by England with a view to granting it to us, but merely with a view to getting rid of the republican movement. England will give us neither as a gift. The same effort that would get us dominion home rule will get us a republic.[11]

Collins was portraying himself as an extremist when history and hindsight tell us that he was willing to compromise. Meanwhile in America de Valera was at least promising that he could give the British some guarantees on defence.[12] If there was a difference between the two men’s positions it seems to have been a planned one as de Valera did not object to Collins giving further interviews when Hearst newspapers approached him in 1921.[13] But perhaps the most important things which Collins said during his interview with Ackerman were said off the record and were not published.

On the very same day Ackerman published his interview with Collins the Home Office’s Director of Intelligence, Basil H. Thomson wrote to Lloyd George from his office at Scotland Yard. Ackerman had reported his interview with Collins to Thomson, who outlined its content for the Prime Minister as follows:

Michael Collins divided his conversation between what might be published and what might not. The enclosed copy of the interview summarises the first part of his conversation, and, as you will see, it was quite uncompromising. After the interview proper he was much more accommodating. When told by the interviewer that an Irish Republic was impossible he said “No-one has ever defined a Republic.” The impression drawn by the interviewer was that if the Prime Minister were to make a public statement defining how far the Government were prepared to go, without using the words “Dominion Home Rule” or any other formula, the Sinn Feiners might be glad of an opportunity for climbing down.[14]

If Collins had wanted the British to view him as an extremist, Ackerman’s report may have thwarted that plan. But in reality Collins was well aware that Ackerman could quote anything he said back to the British Government.

Griffith had already advised Ackerman that Collins was ‘one of the mildest men in south Ireland’ and had surely advised Collins that the American journalist was attempting to mediate between the Governments.[15] Ackerman claimed that their meeting included a lengthy discussion about the possibility of mediation. According to him it was in that context that Collins checked and re-checked the recorded interview before its publication. Collins understood the value of the published word and Ackerman surmised that:

Mr Collins did not speak to me, but through me, to the citizens of his own country, England, and the United States because the interview was distributed throughout the English speaking world.[16]

Ackerman’s report back to Scotland Yard seems to have been largely ignored by Lloyd George, who was still under some political pressure from his Conservative coalition partners. Ackerman had done all he could by way of mediation, and Collins had utilised Ackerman to articulate both his public and private positions. The two men would not meet again until the Spring of 1921, but before then, any trust which may have existed between them seems to have been permanently eroded.

Writing about Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike in the Public Ledger in September 1920, Ackerman referred to strategical differences between Sinn Féin ‘moderates led by Arthur Griffiths (sic)’ and ‘Michael Collins and the extremists.’[17] Similar allegations were made on 30 September though the leaders of the allegedly opposing camps were not named. Collins was annoyed at Ackerman’s assertion and fired off a letter to the Gaelic American:

The article in the “Philadelphia Public Ledger” is quite obviously the work of an active and ardent English propagandist, whose business it is to make a case for his patrons. The Dublin correspondent of the “Philadelphia Public Ledger” is well known for his leanings in this regard. The statements are the statements of a man who sees things, not as they are, but as he would like them to be. They are the continuation of a campaign which dates from the Sinn Fein success at the Election of 1918. For months after that success the agents of England wrote and re-wrote that Sinn Fein was losing its hold on the Irish people. When the local elections of this year gave them a rude shock they consoled themselves by saying – Sinn Fein will rapidly decline now when the people see that its representatives cannot handle the local administration. The propagandists were again promptly given the lie, and now they have fallen back on alleged differences between the leaders…

Frantic efforts are being made to show that certain individuals called “Moderates” are making themselves distasteful to certain other individuals called “Extremists” and that these “Extremists” are in turn standing in the way of settlement. English propaganda will get its countless scores of journalists to write this up…[18]

Collins was clearly annoyed at Ackerman’s allegations of dissention in Republican ranks and was anxious to set the record straight. If there had ever been any trust between the two men, this was probably the point at which it vanished. Nonetheless, Collins was still engaged in a war which had to include a propaganda campaign.  Ackerman was a well-known and respected journalist who could generate substantial publicity in America. This is quite likely the primary reason why Collins granted him a second interview.

Ackerman’s second interview with Collins came right as the violence of the War of Independence was dramatically escalating in late March 1921. Collins again struck an uncompromising tone but this time he also sought to portray a position of military strength:

Collins says “we have got them beaten – practically so, and it is only a question of time until we shall have Ireland cleared of Crown forces.”

“The question is how long can you continue the fight” I asked.

Collins, smiling, confident and cheerful, retorted:

“We have been fighting for 750 years for Irish Independence and I see no reason why we cannot go on for a long time still, but seriously, we are going on until we win. That is the simplest answer to your question.” …

“When I saw you before I said that the same effort which would get us Dominion Home Rule would get us a Republic. I am still of that opinion and we have never had so many peace moves as we have had since last Autumn. [19]

Collins was playing the hardliner, but what was he saying in private? Once again, Ackerman reported the details of his Collins interview to his British contacts and once again, they briefed Lloyd George. It was noted that Ackerman had said:

… that there was a great change in the attitude of Michael Collins and Co. since last Autumn. Then, they were really ready to talk some kind of business, now, he said, they were not. They are confident they are winning, they believe they are going to get a Republic and they are quite irreconcilable. They are convinced they can keep it up longer than the British Government can. They say that in the Martial Law area they have got every able-bodied man in their army, or helping it. Ackerman estimates that the IRA has 23,000 men. [20]

Unlike the first time the men met, Collins was not giving Ackerman any trace of a mixed message. He wanted his optimism placed on public record, and privately, he also wanted Ackerman to be in no doubt as to his confidence in a military victory.

In reality Collins’ operations were coming under increasing pressure. He and Brugha were at loggerheads, de Valera wanted to pursue a different military strategy, and his office on Mespil Road had just been raided and a substantial quantity of his papers captured. [21] The confidence he now projected to Ackerman was likely to have been exaggerated. During the same visit Ackerman also met with de Valera to consider potential solutions to the Anglo-Irish conflict. De Valera showed some willingness to compromise and asked that Ackerman should not report such willingness to the British Government. Ackerman recorded the details of this meeting in his private papers, and duly dispatched them to Thomson. [22] This is clear evidence that the American journalist was duplicitous in his dealings with Sinn Féin and was more interested in assisting his Whitehall connections than his Irish ones. Yet de Valera’s request is clear evidence of Sinn Féin’s knowledge of those connections and of Ackerman’s feeding information to them. Griffith had also become suspicious of Ackerman and when the journalist showed up to interview him in Mountjoy he noted that ‘he [Griffith] was obviously not glad to see me. Why should I be favoured above his relatives and friends, unless I was serving some motive of Lloyd George.’ [23] It is highly unlikely that Griffith or any other senior Sinn Féin member trusted the American journalist.

According to Ackerman, there was a third meeting with Collins. It appears to have taken place in late April or early May 1921 and Ackerman later recalled:

After an hours conversation the kernel of Collins’ message was this: If Mr. Lloyd George wishes to make peace, all he has to do is to invite the Dáil to send an official and representative delegation of Irishmen to a peace conference.[24]

In 1922 Ackerman published three articles recalling his time in Ireland during the previous year. Ackerman claimed that this third meeting came after mid-April 1921. His personal notes of his time in London during 1921 are not comprehensive, but do not specifically record any third trip to Ireland. But in an article entitled Ireland from a Scotland Yard Notebook, Ackerman claimed that he returned to London and met with Lord Derby, Sir John Anderson, and Hamar Greenwood in the days immediately after his third meeting with Collins.[25] His personal notes recorded meetings with Derby on 2 May 1921, and with Anderson and Hamer Greenwood the following day. His record of the latter meeting is significant in terms of his interaction with Hamar Greenwood. As one of the British delegates who would later negotiate the Anglo-Irish Treaty, his understanding of Irish affairs and personalities was crucial to the outcome. He took advantage of his meeting with somebody who had met Collins to ask Ackerman his impression of the Irish leader. Ackerman’s private note of the meeting recorded his reply as; ‘I said I thought [there] could be settlement within the Empire.’[26] Ackerman had directly informed senior British officials of Collins’ willingness to negotiate before, but this exchange surely had some effect on how one of Britain’s treaty negotiators would view Collins.

The published articles seek to establish Ackerman as one of the major intermediaries between the combatant parties. They are almost certainly an exercise in self-aggrandisement, but when read in conjunction with his personal notes of the period, and his correspondence with senior British civil servants, they do not appear to be hugely embellished. His final assessment of Collins may have been written for an audience who had consumed romantic tales of the rebel leader’s heroic deeds, but in the summer of 1922, it was also free of the necessity to pay exaggerated tribute to a fallen leader:

Of all of the Irish ministers, it seemed to me that Collins had a better understanding of Lloyd George than any of the others. He played Mr. George’s game of bluff. Each time the Prime Minister denounced him as a ‘gunman,’ Collins retorted by asserting that Sinn Féin would never compromise, although I knew all the while, from Collins’s private remarks and attitude, that if he could obtain for Ireland control of finance, army, and courts, the name of the government would not be a handicap to peace.[27]

Carl Ackerman’s interactions with Collins were likely to have had some significance in informing the British government of the mindset of a man, of whom they knew very little. Ackerman opened up the possibility of Collins being less of a rabidly extreme gunman, and more of a politically practical moderate. It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which British officials and politicians took him seriously, but they were informed by him.

Hart’s bracketed and fleeting labelling of Ackerman as a spy, is probably a little overstated. Ackerman was first and foremost a journalist. He was also an intermediary between the British and Irish governments, albeit that he certainly told the former more than he did the latter. Even if we stretch credibility and label him a spy, we have to qualify that label with the fact that he was very poor at spying. Senior Sinn Féin figures were aware of his contacts in Whitehall and treated him accordingly. His interactions with many of the Sinn Féin leadership are certainly interesting and demand further study as they are perhaps pivotal in the establishment of a peace strategy. Sinn Féin used Ackerman as a conduit of communication with the British government. Collins used him in precisely the same way. Ackerman used Sinn Féin and Collins to ingratiate himself to powerful men in British government and intelligence, and to sell newspaper articles in the US and Britain. Had he known the tragedy that lay ahead of Collins, he may also have sought to establish himself as a biographer of one of the world’s most famous mystery men.  But it seems that he had annoyed his potential subject by alleging a split in Sinn Féin. He was not the first journalist to meet Collins. That distinction belonged to George Creel who met with Collins, Boland and others ahead of the publication of his book Ireland’s Fight for Freedom, in 1919.[28]  But had Ackerman established and maintained Collins’ trust he could have been the first journalist who was told that ‘real story’ to which the famous rebel had previously referred. Another American journalist, Hayden Talbot, would later claim that he gained that trust and was told that story. Whether or not his claims are credible has been the subject of some debate.[29]

1. Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins, Arrow Books, London, 1991, p 192. T. Ryle Dwyer, Michael Collins: The Man Who Won the War, Mercier Press, Cork, 2009, p204.
2. Peter Hart, Mick: The Real Michael Collins, Penguin Books, London, 2007, p 293. Brackets are Hart’s.
3. Ivan Kurilla, Editor’s Introduction to Carl Ackerman, Trailing the Bolsheviki: Twelve Thousand Miles with the Allies in Siberia, Slavica Publishers, Bloomington, 2020.
5. Westminster Archives, Lloyd George Papers, LG/F/46/9/8. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921, July 1920
6. Library of Congress (LOC), The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921, August 1920.
7. Evening Public Ledger, 26 August 1920.
8. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921, 23-25 August 1920.
9. Belfast Newsletter, 29 September 1920. Dublin Evening Telegraph, 17 September 1920. Nottingham and Midland Catholic News, 16 October 1920. Civil and Military Gazette, 22 October 1920. Hull Daily Mail, 11 October 1920. Dolan and Murphy, Michael Collins, p 213.
10. Evening Public Ledger, 26 August 1920.
11. See also; Dwyer p 166.
12. David McCullough, De Valera Volume I: Rise 1882-1932, Gill Books, Dublin, 2017, p 187.
13. University College Dublin Archives (UCDA), De Valera Papers, P150/1377.
14. Westminster Archives, Lloyd George Papers, LG/F/46/9/8.
15. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921, 14 July 1920.
16. Carl Ackerman, Ireland from a Scotland Yard Notebook, in Atlantic Monthly, April 1922.
17. Evening Public Ledger, 6 September 1920.
18. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921. Cork Examiner, 17 November 1920.
19. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921 (transcript of interview). See also; Freeman’s Journal, 22 April 1921. The interview originally appeared in the Public Ledger on 2 April and was also syndicated in several newspapers including the Morning Post of 26 April.
20. Westminster Archives, Lloyd George Papers, LG/F/90/1/41.
21. Dwyer, pp220-221.
22. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921, March 1921.
23. Carl Ackerman, Carl W. Ackerman, Janus Headed Ireland in Atlantic Monthly, June 1922.
24. Carl W. Ackerman, Janus Headed Ireland in Atlantic Monthly, June 1922.
25. Carl Ackerman, Ireland from a Scotland Yard Notebook, in Atlantic Monthly, April 1922.
26. LOC, The Papers of Carl W. Ackerman, London Notes 1920-1921, 3 May 1921. Text in brackets is my own.
27. Carl W. Ackerman, The Irish Education of Mr. Lloyd George in Atlantic Monthly, May 1922.
28. Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins, Arrow Books, London, p 109. Nottingham and Midland Catholic News, 25 October 1919.
29. Anne Dolan and William Murphy, Michael Collins: The Man and the Revolution, The Collins Press, Cork, 2018, p 229.