Charis's spy problem.

Everyone on Safehold knows that Charis has incredibly good spies. There's a good chance that everyone knows Charis is spending less and less on espionage--either by attending meetings of the upper and lower houses, or reading their reports, or other legal means. No matter how the Church pursues the spies, they can't catch them. Almost no matter how the Church tries to insert spies into Charis they fail. Whoever's task it is to counter Charis's spying efforts--I wonder what he makes of these facts?

~Tonto

Why would spies be covered under the public national budget? If anything, they'd be paid out of private or black funds that aren't accounted for, or at least easy to make disappear off the books. Similarly, their operations may be driven primarily by ideology - as the Sisters of Saint Khody/Helmcleaver have proven - and thus effectively has no public budget.

A secret service is just that – secret. I'd be absolutely astonished if Charis gave any intentional indication that these existed.

I suppose that the attitude typified by Henry Stimson's comment "Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail" might have had some support at one time, but I'd be equally surprised if it was in force after the CoG's shenanigans.

What makes you think that Charis is spending "less and less" on espionage?

I'm sure that even the members of the inner circle know that it's their job to playact as if they need more money...and those that aren't "know" that they do!

I believe any discrepancy that comes up will be attributed to the greater contribution of the seijin network.

Peter2 wrote:A secret service is just that – secret. I'd be absolutely astonished if Charis gave any intentional indication that these existed.

I suppose that the attitude typified by Henry Stimson's comment "Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail" might have had some support at one time, but I'd be equally surprised if it was in force after the CoG's shenanigans.

Though I've read claims that Stinson's primary objection was that the codebreaking department was located within, and under the control of, the US State Department. Almost what you might now term an optics issue.

You had the same dept operating diplomats who were trying to build trust also also being the ones breaking and reading the other side's private diplomatic correspondence. If that got out it could conceivably harm their ability to preform the primary role as diplomats.

The claim is then that the problem wasn't so much that the Gentlemen (aka State Dept) gave up code breaking, as that it that nobody else assumed responsibility; so the capability largely withered away.

Anyway /tangent.

Cahleb, besides being king, has lots of subsidiary titles that mean lands and a fortune of his own, to pay for the Black side of his govt. Not to mention he personally owns Silverlode Island and every scrap of the huge pile of silver and gold beginning to come out of it. No one is going to believe he has any difficulty finding 'hidden' money for a prime war tool like his 'spy network.'

Jonathan_S wrote:

Peter2 wrote:A secret service is just that – secret. I'd be absolutely astonished if Charis gave any intentional indication that these existed.

I suppose that the attitude typified by Henry Stimson's comment "Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail" might have had some support at one time, but I'd be equally surprised if it was in force after the CoG's shenanigans.

Though I've read claims that Stinson's primary objection was that the codebreaking department was located within, and under the control of, the US State Department. Almost what you might now term an optics issue.

You had the same dept operating diplomats who were trying to build trust also also being the ones breaking and reading the other side's private diplomatic correspondence. If that got out it could conceivably harm their ability to preform the primary role as diplomats.

The claim is then that the problem wasn't so much that the Gentlemen (aka State Dept) gave up code breaking, as that it that nobody else assumed responsibility; so the capability largely withered away.

Anyway /tangent.

Not quite, at the time most of the U.S. government code braking was conducted by the U.S. Army. One of the best books about this was Yardley's The American Black Chamber.

Randomiser wrote:Cahleb, besides being king, has lots of subsidiary titles that mean lands and a fortune of his own, to pay for the Black side of his govt. Not to mention he personally owns Silverlode Island and every scrap of the huge pile of silver and gold beginning to come out of it. No one is going to believe he has any difficulty finding 'hidden' money for a prime war tool like his 'spy network.'

Very true, Caleb probably has oodles of loose cash to fund black projects. Plus what kind of funds are going to Baron Seamount and Duke Delfrek.

saber964 wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Though I've read claims that Stinson's primary objection was that the codebreaking department was located within, and under the control of, the US State Department. Almost what you might now term an optics issue.

You had the same dept operating diplomats who were trying to build trust also also being the ones breaking and reading the other side's private diplomatic correspondence. If that got out it could conceivably harm their ability to preform the primary role as diplomats.

The claim is then that the problem wasn't so much that the Gentlemen (aka State Dept) gave up code breaking, as that it that nobody else assumed responsibility; so the capability largely withered away.

Anyway /tangent.

Not quite, at the time most of the U.S. government code braking was conducted by the U.S. Army. One of the best books about this was Yardley's The American Black Chamber.

Looks like I misremembered slightly. The code breaking was done, as you say, by the Black Chamber, which wasn't part of the State Dept. But, at least according to Wikipedia, it was partially funded by State. In 1929 the new Sec State Henry Stimson pulled the State part of the funding. The Army declined to fund the entire organization and the Black Chamber closed down.