Velvalee Dickinson
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on behalf of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Known as the "Doll
Doll
A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...
Woman", she used her business in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to send information on U.S. Naval
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
forces to contacts in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
via steganographic messages
Steganography
Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity...
. She was finally caught when one of her contacts in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
moved and her messages were returned.
History
Born as Velvalee Malvena Blucher in Sacramento, CaliforniaSacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
to Otto and Elizabeth Blucher (aka Blueher), she graduated from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1918, but did not receive her Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree until January 1937, allegedly because she had not returned books owned by the university.
In the late 1920s to mid-1930s, Dickinson was employed in a brokerage company in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
owned by her future husband, Lee T. Dickinson. Shortly after marriage, Dickinson worked as a social worker in the area until 1937. During this time, she was a member of the local Japan-American Society and during one of those years, her annual membership fee had been paid for by an attache of the Japanese consulate in San Francisco. The FBI would later also determine that she had made frequent visits to the consulate, attended important social gatherings at which Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
members and other high Japanese government officials were present, and entertained many Japanese people in her home.
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
employee. On December 31, 1937, she began operating her own doll shop, first at her residence at 680 Madison Ave, then later at a separate store at 714 Madison Avenue, where she would operate for several years until she moved the store down the block to 718 Madison Avenue in October 1941. The Dickinson doll shop catered to affluent collectors
Collectible
A collectable or collectible is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector . There are numerous types of collectables and terms to denote those types. An antique is a collectable that is old...
throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and overseas interested in obtaining foreign, regional, and antique
Antiques
An antique is an old collectible item. It is collected or desirable because of its age , beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features...
dolls. Lee Dickinson assisted his wife's business by handling the accounting until his death on March 29, 1943.
Case
In February 1942, a letter was brought to the attention of the FBI, intercepted by wartime censors. The letter, supposedly from a woman in Portland, OregonPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
to a correspondent in Buenos Aires, discussed a "wonderful doll hospital" and noted that the writer had sent the correspondent "three Old English dolls" for repairs. The letter also mentioned references to "fish nets" and "balloons". FBI cryptographers examined the letter, concluding that the "dolls" in question were likely three warships and the "doll hospital" was a West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
-based shipyard where repairs were made, while the "fishing nets" and "balloons" passed information about coastal defense
Coastal defence and fortification
Coastal defence , Coastal defense and Coastal fortification are measures taken to provide protection against attack by military and naval forces at or near the shoreline...
s and other critical information on the West Coast.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
address, a Señora Inés López de Molinali at 2563 O'Higgins Street, were sent. However, the letters were returned to sender, due to "address unknown"; these letters were in turn handed over to the FBI. The people whose names had appeared on the envelope as senders stated that while the letters contained information that was correct to their personal lives and hobbies, and that the signatures on stated letters resembled theirs, all four vehemently denied that they had sent any of the letters to the Argentine address.
One of the letters, supposedly sent by a Mary Wallace of Springfield, Ohio
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...
, did indicate her home address - 1808 E High Street - but had been postmarked in New York, a place she had never been. The letter, primarily discussing dolls, contained references to a "Mr. Shaw, who had been ill but would be back to work soon." The letter corresponded to information that the destroyer USS Shaw
USS Shaw (DD-373)
USS Shaw , a Mahan-class destroyer, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for Captain John Shaw, a Naval officer. Commissioned in 1936, she was plagued by construction deficiencies and was not fully operational until 1938...
, which had been damaged in the Pearl Harbor attack, completed repairs on the West Coast and was soon to rejoin the Pacific Fleet.
Another letter, given to the FBI in August of that year, was said to be written by a woman in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in South-Central Colorado, in the southern portion of the state. It is situated on Fountain Creek and is located south of the Colorado...
, was postmarked from Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. That letter, written in February, referenced seven small dolls which the writer stated would be altered to look as though they were "sevel real Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
dolls", designed to mimic a family of parents, grandparents and three children. The FBI determined that the letter was written shortly after a convoy of ships had arrived at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
The Mare Island Naval Shipyard was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located 25 miles northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates the peninsula shipyard from the main portion of the...
in Vallejo. The letter contained certain details about the ships, that if made public, would have been detrimental to the war effort.
The same woman also gave the FBI a letter returned to her by the Post Office
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
earlier that month. The second letter, from May, and postmarked from Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, discussed the acquisition of a "Siamese Temple Dancer" doll. A portion of the letter read:
"...[I]t had been damaged, that is tore in the middle. But it is now repaired and I like it very much. I could not get a mate for this Siam dancer, so I am redressing just a small plain ordinary doll into a second Siam doll ..."http://fbi.edgesuite.net/libref/historic/famcases/dickinson/dickinson.htm
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
warship
Warship
A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...
, it had been damaged, that is torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
ed in the middle. But it is now repaired ... [t]hey could not get a mate for this so a plain ordinary warship is being converted into a second aircraft carrier ..." The information matched damage done to the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga
USS Saratoga (CV-3)
USS Saratoga was the second aircraft carrier of the United States Navy and the fifth ship to bear her name. She was commissioned one month earlier than her sister and class leader, , which is the third actually commissioned after and Saratoga...
, which had seen repairs in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility is a United States Navy shipyard covering 179 acres on Puget Sound at Bremerton, Washington...
before being transferred to the Naval Base
Naval Station San Diego
Naval Base San Diego is the largest base of the United States Navy on the west coast of the United States, in San Diego, California. Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, consisting of 54 ships and over 120 tenant commands. The base is composed of 13 piers stretched...
at San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
.
A third letter, handed to the FBI by a woman in Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
and bearing a postmark from Seattle made reference to a "German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
bisque
Bisque (pottery)
Bisque porcelain is unglazed, white ceramic ware Examples include bisque dolls.Bisque also refers to "pottery that has been fired but not yet glazed...
doll, dressed in a hula grass skirt", sent to Seattle for repairs that would be completed sometime around the first week of February. Naval authorities confirmed to the FBI that a ship damaged at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
was in Puget Sound for repairs and would be completed around the time stated in the letter.
A forensics
Questioned document examination
Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...
examination of all letters concerned confirmed that the signatures were forgeries
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
, based on copies of the original signatures. The examination also indicated that while different typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
s were used to compose the letters, the typing characteristics
Questioned document examination
Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...
indicated that the letters were composed by a single individual. The conclusion reached by the examiners was that the letters contained codetext conveying information on the US Navy's ships and their location, condition, repair and status, with emphasis on ships damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Investigation
The Colorado Springs woman pointed the FBI in the direction of Dickinson, the New York doll shop owner. She believed that Dickinson had forged her signature on one of the letters in vengeanceRevenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
, because the woman had been late in paying for some dolls that she had purchased from the Dickinson shop. Based on investigations with Wallace and the other woman involved, all agreed in their suspicion that Dickinson was the suspect; additionally, all four women had at one time corresponded with Dickinson regarding doll collecting. Typewritten letters between Dickinson and the women involved were identified by the FBI as having been used in the "Springfield" letter.
An investigation into Dickinson's background indicated her involvement with Japanese organizations while living in San Francisco, as well as that after moving to New York, she had visited the Nippon Club and the Japanese Institute in New York, become a friend of the Japanese Consul General and was an acquaintance of Ichiro Yokoyama, the Japanese Naval Attaché in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Further investigation of the Dickinsons' activities from January to June 1942 (the time frame in which the letters were sent) revealed that the couple had visited those areas, staying in hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s near the cities in question. The FBI was also able to determine that typewriters owned and made available to guests were used to compose the letters sent to Argentina. Continuing investigations disclosed that Dickinson had borrowed money from banks and business associates in New York up until 1941; however, in 1943, she was reported to have had in her possession a large amount of $100 bills, four of which were traced to Japanese official sources that had received the money prior to the war.
Based on the results of the investigation, FBI agents arrested Dickinson on January 21, 1944 in the bank vault
Bank vault
A bank vault is a secure space where money, valuables, records, and documents can be stored. It is intended to protect their contents from theft, unauthorized use, fire, natural disasters, and other threats, just like a safe...
where she kept her safe deposit box
Safe deposit box
A safe deposit box or wrongly referred to as a safety deposit box is an individually-secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices or other institutions...
. The box contained $13,000, eventually traced to Japanese sources. A portion of the money had been in the hands of a Captain Yuzo Ishikawa of the Japanese Naval Inspector's Office in New York before being transferred to Dickinson.
Dickinson told the agents that the money in the safe deposit box had come from insurance companies, a savings account and her doll business, but in a subsequent interview, she claimed that she had found the money hidden in her husband's bed at the time of his death. She claimed that her husband had not told her the source of the money, but she believed that it could have come from the Japanese consulate in New York City.
Trial
On February 11, 1944, she was indicted by a Federal Grand JuryGrand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for violation of the censorship statutes, conviction of which could result in a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine. She pleaded not guilty and was held in lieu of $25,000 bail. A continuing investigation by the FBI resulted in a second indictment on May 5, this time on charges of violating espionage statutes
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...
, the Trading with the Enemy Act
Trading with the Enemy Act
The Trading with the Enemy Act, sometimes abbreviated as TWEA, is a United States federal law, , enacted in 1917 to restrict trade with countries hostile to the United States. The law gives the President the power to oversee or restrict any and all trade between the U.S. and its enemies in times of...
, and the censorship statutes, conviction of which carried the death penalty. She pled not guilty and was released on the same bail.
On July 28, 1944, a plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
was made between the U.S. Attorney's Office and Dickinson in which the espionage and Trade Act indictments were dismissed and she pled guilty to the censorship violation and agreed to furnish information in her possession concerning Japanese intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
activities.
After pleading guilty, she admitted that she had typed the five forged letters addressed to Argentina, using correspondence with her customers to forge their signatures.
She claimed the information compiled in her letters was from asking innocent and unsuspecting citizens in Seattle and San Francisco near the location of the Navy yards there, as well as some details from personal observation. She stated that the letters transmitted information about ships damaged at Pearl Harbor and that the names of the dolls corresponded to a list that explained the type of ships involved. She furthermore stated that the code to be used in the letters, instructions for use of the code, and $25,000 in $100 bills had been passed to her husband by Yokoyama around November 26, 1941, in her doll store at 718 Madison Avenue for the purpose of supplying information to the Japanese. She repeated her claims that the money had been hidden in her husband's bed until his death.
However, an investigation by the FBI refuted those claims, disclosing that while Dickinson had been a friend of Yokoyama, her husband had never met him. It was also learned that a physical examination
Physical examination
Physical examination or clinical examination is the process by which a doctor investigates the body of a patient for signs of disease. It generally follows the taking of the medical history — an account of the symptoms as experienced by the patient...
done on him at the time indicated that his mental faculties were impaired
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
at the time of the supposed payment. Both a nurse and a maid employed by the Dickinsons at the time emphatically stated that no money had ever been concealed there.
Velvalee Dickinson appeared in court for sentencing on August 14, 1944. Upon sentencing, the court commented:
"It is hard to believe that some people do not realize that our country is engaged in a life and death struggle. Any help given to the enemy means the death of American boys who are fighting for our national security. You, as a natural-born citizen, having a University education, and selling out to the Japanese, were certainly engaged in espionage. I think that you have been given every consideration by the Government. The indictment to which you have pleaded guilty is a serious matter. It borders close to treason. I, therefore, sentence you to the maximum penalty provided by the law, which is ten years and $10,000 fine." http://fbi.edgesuite.net/libref/historic/famcases/dickinson/dickinson.htmStill maintaining her innocence and claiming that her husband had been the Japanese spy, Dickinson was imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institution for Women (now the Alderson Federal Prison Camp
Alderson Federal Prison Camp
Alderson Federal Prison Camp, also known as Federal Prison Camp, Alderson or FPC Alderson, is a Federal Bureau of Prisons minimum security prison for women in the United States in unincorporated Monroe County and Summers County in West Virginia...
) in Alderson, West Virginia
Alderson, West Virginia
Alderson, a town in the US State of West Virginia, is split geographically by the Greenbrier River, with portions in both Greenbrier and Monroe Counties. Although split physically by the river, the town functions as one entity, including that of town government...
. She was released with conditions on April 23, 1951.
External references
- FBI History - Velvalee Dickinson, the "Doll Woman"
- La signora delle bambole - da "Le più grandi spie del mondo" Document is in Italian; GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
translation is available here - 50 Years Ago - July 1944 from Usenet