This is CBSI in the World. I'm John Boucher with Neil Langto. His book is The Approaching

Storm, Roosevelt, Wilson, Adams, and their clash over America's future. Three voices, all

looking to progressivism in the wave of Trevor, a form in American government. But now

they deal with the crisis in Europe, the Zimmerman Telegram. The revelation of it pushes

everyone towards, we must do something. What was the Zimmerman Telegram, Neil? Well, Zimmerman

Telegram was one of the strangest episodes of this of this time. In early 1917, when there's

all kinds of decision making being made in Germany, particularly about the Umherstrick

and submarine warfare, the decision we're going to go forward, someone cooks up this

scheme or kind of resurrects a scheme that will offer Germany, will offer almost a ladder

to Mexico saying, if you guys tie up American forces on the borders or if war comes with

America and Germany and you guys type forces on the border, American forces on the border

will give you the chance to re-acquire territory that was taken from you during the Mexican

War, parts of say Arizona and New Mexico and things like that. It was a, as I said, a crazy scheme,

but the message was sent from Berlin and the British intercepted. The British were intercepting

a lot of cars, a lot of cars, bonds at this time with Americans did not know. The British sat

out for a while but eventually turned it over to the Americans and then the Americans in Wilson

were informed of it in late February. It was a scheme that had no basis in reality because

Mexico at this time was a country that was so unstable. Certainly we're in no position to

wage any kind of successful war with the United States. Even some of the higher-ups in Germany

later on who didn't stop to it or claim they didn't know this message was going to go over,

said this was the most idiotic thing ever. But it did succeed in angering large segments

of the American population for a while anyway, convinced Wilson again that the Germans were not

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