On Thu, 3 Apr 2008, kujebak wrote:
> This ain't just bad humor. This is like putting a turban
> bomb on Mohammed:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/24f325
>
> So much for Swedish booze in my martinis.
There is a Cimrman story related to it (the website shows a map of Mexico
expanded at the USA's expense):
In 1917, a newly nominated external affairs minister of the Imperial
Germany, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a coded telegram to Mexico, inviting
Mexicans to attack the USA from the south and try to acquire some of the
territories, so that USA would stay away from the European war. With some
chutzpah, Zimmermann used the diplomatic channels of the then-neutral USA.
The Germans did not know that the British had broken their code, and the
British had a big problem, how to let the Merkins know, without giving
away their knowledge of the code, or the fact that they had monitored US
diplomatic channels. So, they staged an ambush of the messenger who
carried the telegram personally from Wa****ngton, to make it look more
cloak-and-dagger-like. Instrumental in this operation was also Emanuel
Viktor Voska, an industrialist and friend of Prof. Masaryk. (Voska died in
1960 in CSR, seriously ill after 10 years in Communist prison.)
So, this telegram prompted USA to enter the European war, and the rest is
history.
[Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram, ISBN 0-345-32425-0]
Cheers, Slavek(ZVK)
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