CIPHER DECIPHERED

The 1^st March seems to be a day exposed by the deciphering of cypher.

On the 1^st March 1917 the United States Government releases the unencrypted text of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public. An example of coded writing which became extremely performative when unencrypted.

Zimmermann

The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note) was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States. The proposal was intercepted by British intelligence. Revelation of the Telegram angered Americans and led in part to a United States declaration of war on Germany in April.

Bernstorff

The message came as a coded telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmerman, on 16th January 1917, to the German ambassador in Washington D.C., Johann von Bernstorff, at the height of World War I. On  19^th January, Bernstorff, per Zimmermann's request, forwarded the telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckart.

Echart

The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British cryptographers of Room 40. The portrayal of its contents in the American press on 1^st March, 1917 caused public outrage that contributed to the U.S.'s declaration of war against Germany and its allies on 6 April.

The Telegram Zimmermann's message was:

"We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavour in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace." Signed, ZIMMERMANN

Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German-British theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research (the Manhattan Project) to the USSR during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first fission weapons and later, the early models of the hydrogen bomb, the first fusion weapon.

When Fuchs returned to England as the first Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Harwell, he was confronted by intelligence officers as a result of the cracking of Soviet ciphers.

He was prosecuted by Sir Hartley Shawcross and was convicted on 1^st March 1950. After Fuchs’ confession and a trial lasting less than 90 minutes, Lord Goddard sentenced him to fourteen years' imprisonment, the maximum possible for passing military secrets to a friendly nation. In the infancy of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was nonetheless still classed as an ally, "a friendly nation". A week after his verdict, on 7th March, the Soviet Union issued a terse statement denying that Fuchs served as a Soviet spy. In December 1950 he was stripped of his British citizenship. Some claim that his confession was made to avoid the death penalty, but, according to at least one of his interrogators, he mistakenly believed that he would be allowed back to work at Harwell.
Here is part of a lecture given by Professor John P Wargo at Yale University – He touches on secrecy and on Klaus Fuchs about 11 minutes in to the lecture.