Author discusses role of archeologist spies during WWII

Susan H. Allen
Robert Barker/University Photography
Author Susan H. Allen tells of archaeologist-spies on campus Nov. 13.

A small group of American archeologists who served as undercover spies during World War II were inspired by patriotic duty and their compassion for the people of Greece, whose culture and history they revered, author Susan Allen said Nov. 13 on campus.

Discussing her recent book “Classical Spies: American Archaeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece,” Allen, a visiting scholar in classics at Brown University, said her journey in telling the spies’ story began with one of her former professors and neighbor, Jack Caskey. He told her a war story about orchestrating the daring escape of a young woman working as a double agent in Turkey. As Allen became more curious, Caskey suddenly clammed up and vowed never to speak again of his war experiences.

Caskey, Allen said, had also mentored John Evander Coleman, Cornell professor of classics emeritus.

“I’d never heard anything about American archeologists who were spies, because nothing had ever been published,” Allen explained.

She began her investigation by seeking testimony from Caskey’s wife, who led Allen to a woman named Clio, a member of the enigmatic group of archeologist spies during the war. Clio stood as the gateway to the truth for Allen, but she, like Caskey, displayed tremendous hesitancy and resistance to revealing her story.

“Clio’s album was full of treasures,” Allen said. “As I asked her questions, I whipped out a pencil and paper to take notes. She said ‘this is my story; I’m going to take it to the grave.’”

It took 10 years to write her book, Allen remarked, but it took six years to gain Clio’s trust. Allen said this was a reflection of how seriously the American archeologists regarded the oaths to secrecy they took during the war.

All told, the spies engaged in 27 field missions between May 1942 and 1946, led by a Princeton graduate named Rodney Young. Young recruited many colleagues with whom he had studied at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, during the 1930s. These scholars worked with the Office of Strategic Services’ Secret Intelligence for Greece, collecting economic, political and military information. As a number of them discovered, their work was exceedingly dangerous.

“By June 1942, it was realized by the American army that archeology as a cover, if you were caught, was tantamount to being placed in front of a firing squad,” said Allen.

The lecture was co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Initiative of the Cornell Institute for European Studies, the Department of Classics, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies.

Robert Johnson ’17 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.

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