A Biography Of An “American Traitor”
BOOK REVIEW: American Traitor, General James Wilkinson’s Betrayal of the Republic and Escape from Justice
By Howard W. Cox / Georgetown University Press
Reviewed by Cipher Brief Expert Robert J. Eatinger, Jr.
THE REVIEWER: Robert Eatinger is a former Senior Deputy General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency and a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps with 30 years of combined active and reserve service. He is now in private law practice.
REVIEW — First-time author Howard W. Cox delivers a well-researched biography of Brigadier General James Wilkinson, the commanding general of the U.S. Army, who was a spy for Spain. The book spotlights the political and personal intrigue, spycraft, and abuses of power that enabled a traitorous, corrupt, militarily incompetent, and combat allergic officer to serve as commanding general of the United States Army under each of our first four presidents. A former assistant inspector general for investigations at the CIA, Cox tells us, “this biography is the first examination of Wilkinson’s life to focus on the inability and unwillingness of the federal government to investigate criminal misconduct committed by a senior federal official.”
Wilkinson’s story is expertly woven into the significant military, international, and political events during and immediately after the founding of the United States. American Traitor is rich with historical details from the Revolutionary War through the War of 1812 but is not a dry academic read. Cox not only writes to inform how history and Wilkinson shaped each other, he writes to entertain the reader, including phrases like, “perhaps suffering the effects of too much alcohol.”
Cox also draws on his experience as a former U.S. Army judge advocate, federal prosecutor, and Senate staff counsel to ensure the reader appreciates Wilkinson’s rise in the Army occurred in a time with legal regimes much different than those we know today and when the three independent branches of America’s newly established government were trying to determine the scope of their respective authorities. In the context of telling Wilkinson’s story, Cox informs us of Congress’s earliest debates whether it had authority to investigate the conduct of executive or military officers. We learn how the House came to hold its first “oversight” hearing and how that led the President to the earliest formulations of what we know today as executive privilege. Cox also talks about the lawyers who played significant roles in the investigations or courts-martial of Wilkinson, some of whom will leave their own imprint on America’s legal history.
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How could a spy for Spain be the commanding general of the U.S. Army? Cox describes for readers the tradecraft Wilkinson used to conceal his espionage activities and cover stories he created to explain the exorbitant payments he received. For reasons he explains in his book that I will not reveal — but think Stasi files — Cox is able to reveal some of Wilkinson’s actual reporting to his Spanish handlers as well as their assessments of him.
Cox’s analysis of why Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison promoted or permitted Wilkinson to serve as the Army’s senior officer, often citing their own words, does not flatter our early Presidents. Distressingly, Cox reports these Presidents were aware of reports that Wilkinson was likely a spy for the Spanish but disregarded them because the information was inconvenient for their political purposes. Thomas Jefferson comes off worst because he did not simply ignore Wilkinson’s espionage and incompetence, he aggressively defended Wilkinson and twisted the processes designed to bring a person to justice to do the opposite for Wilkinson.
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American Traitor explores the motives that allowed and covered up governmental failures of a magnitude we assume (or at least hope) could not happen today. But two centuries of time have not eliminated the underpinnings of these motives. Intense competition between political parties for governing power remains as intense in 2023 as it was in 1789. This biography is therefore a cautionary tale that even in this country, political leaders can turn a blind eye to governmental corruption and willingly risk our national security to keep themselves or their party in power.
American Traitor is awarded a prestigious four out of four trench coats.
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