Archibald was soon in Germany and began sending back cable dispatches to a syndicate of papers, the principal ones of which were the New York Times, Tribune, and World. His dispatches, however, were so blatantly pro-German and had so much more propaganda than news in them that these papers quickly became dissatisfied. For example, the Times cut out of one of his dispatches a large section of fulsome eulogy of the German Government. Imagine their astonishment the next morning to receive a telephone call from Captain Boy-Ed, the Naval Attaché of the German Embassy with offices in New York. Captain Boy-Ed demanded the reason for the omission of these paragraphs. The Times naturally demanded Captain Boy-Ed’s source of information that such paragraphs existed. It soon developed that Boy-Ed was receiving direct from Germany duplicates of all the material that Archibald was cabling for publication. As soon as the American newspapers understood this situation they declined to proceed further. In the same spirit and simultaneously the Wheeler Syndicate “fired” Mr. Archibald by cable and wrote him a stinging letter from which the following two paragraphs may be quoted:
Perhaps because of the nature of your stuff, at any rate, we have to face the veiled insinuation that you are in the pay of the German and Austrian Governments. In this connection, we have been told that the German and Austrian Ambassadors to this country have received in skeleton form the several wireless dispatches you sent to us addressed care the Times. We think you should know this, and also know that, with the nature of your dispatches such as they were, we dared not allow ourselves, by continuing the service, to be laid open to the charge that we were in the employ of the German and Austrian Governments. So we had to terminate the service.
We have instructed the Times not to accept any more wireless dispatches from you, and the wireless company has been notified that no dispatches will be accepted. We regret exceedingly the situation, but it is one that has arisen solely from the fact that you have sent over your personal pro-German opinions instead of the battlefront news you assured us that you would furnish us.
Nothing daunted by these rebuffs, Archibald continued his exploits as “war correspondent,” interspersing his labours at the front with voyages back to the United States, ostensibly to deliver lectures. The true character of his movements stands revealed in a letter Archibald received from Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, a few days before he embarked on the voyage from New York which was to be his last. This letter was written from Bernstorff’s summer home at Cedarhurst, Long Island, on the 19th of August, 1915, and reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Archibald:
I send you herewith the two letters of recommendation asked for and hope that they will be useful to you. I learn with pleasure that you wish once again to return to Germany and Austria as you have interceded for our concerns here so courageously and successfully.
With best compliments,
Yours very sincerely,
Bernstorff.
One of these letters was as follows: