Velvalee Dickinson

Velvalee Dickinson (also the Doll Lady,<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" /> Doll Woman,<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> Catherine Dickinson, and Catherine Stefanis; October 12, 1893Template:Spaced en dash1980) was an American professional doll-collector-turned-spy for Imperial Japan during World War II. She was caught by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but concerns over reasonable doubt led to conviction on lesser charges.

After Template:Age in decimal years of federal imprisonment in West Virginia, she was conditionally released, and took work at St. Vincent's Hospital with the assistance of Eunice Kennedy.

Personal life

Velvalee Malvena Blücher<ref name="1951 Singer" /> was born on October 12, 1893 in Sacramento, California to Otto Blücher and Elizabeth Bottons<ref name="2007 Social Security Administration" /> (respectively born in West Virginia and Kentucky).<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /> She graduated from the Berkeley, California girls' school, Snell Seminary, in 1913.<ref name="1944-07-29 Sacramento Union" />

Dickinson earned her Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University in 1917 or 1918, but did not receive her diploma until January 1937 because of unreturned school library books.<ref name="2020-05-24 Daily News" /><ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> Twice divorced, her third husband was San Francisco broker Lee Taylor Dickinson. By August 1944, she weighed Template:Convert,<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> with a height under Template:Convert.<ref name="1951 Singer" />

Career and society

Dickinson had previously worked for the California Fruit Growers Association and as a bank clerk; both of her employers "gave excellent reports of her."<ref name="1951 Singer" />

She worked at her husband's brokerage firm from 1928–1935.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> That business attracted many Japanese clients, which led Dickinson to join the San Francisco Japan–American Society (SFJAS); when "shady dealings" killed the Dickinson firm, and they were ejected from the SFJAS, an attaché of the Japanese consulate stepped in to pay their dues and have them reinstated.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /><ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> Dickinson frequently visited that consulate; she socialized with Imperial Japanese Navy sailors and government officials, there and at her home.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" />

File:Velvalee Dickinson's NYC doll shop.jpg

Velvalee Dickinson's NYC doll shop at 718 Madison Avenue

Template:OSM Location map After moving to New York City (NYC) in autumn 1937, Dickinson sold dolls at Bloomingdale's for that Christmas and holiday season<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> before going into business for herself in 1938.<ref name="1951 Singer" /> First working out of her home at 680 Madison Avenue, and then a storefront at 714 Madison Avenue, Dickinson moved her shop into 718 Madison Avenue in October 1941. There, she sold to "wealthy doll collectors and hobbyists interested in obtaining foreign, regional, and antique dolls." Lee Dickinson handled her accounting until his death on March 29, 1943 from cardiovascular disease.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> The Velvalee Malvena Dickinson Doll Store<ref name="2015-06-08 Gizmodo" /> stocked dolls from 18–19th century Paris, 19th century American pioneers, and native children's wooden idols from the Dutch Gold Coast.<ref name="1951 Singer" /> Dolls ranged in price from Template:US dollar–750 (equivalent to about $Template:Inflation–Template:Inflation in Template:Inflation/year).<ref name="1951 Singer" /><ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /> With movie stars among her customers,<ref name="1951 Singer" /> Dickinson advertised both her shop and services in House Beautiful and Town & Country.<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" />

Espionage

In NYC, Dickinson's spending outstripped the income from her shop. She especially spent on phonograph records, to the extent that a source would later tell authorities that they were Template:Sic for their boss. Dickinson also traveled to California annually, joined the Japan Society, often visited the Nippon Club,<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> and befriended the NYC Japanese Consul General and Ichiro Yokoyama.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> By 1941, Dickinson was taking out loans to cover her spending.<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" />

According to the St. Louis Sunday Morning, a "well-dressed Japanese" man briefly visited Dickinson's doll shop on November 26, 1941, and gave her "a small, compact bundle":<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" />Template:Blockquote

In early 1942, she and her husband traveled to Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, and other cities on the West Coast of the United States. While there, one or both of them observed and made notes on United States Naval (USN) activity. Then, using the typewriters provided at their Pacific hotels, coded letters about US ships were written and mailed to an address in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The correspondence was written and signed as though they had come from Dickinson's contacts in the world of doll collecting (even including one woman's return-address), however five of these letters were returned to the US undelivered.<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" />

The returned letters were given to the United States Post Office Department, who turned them over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" />

Letters

File:USS Saratoga (CV-3) and a destroyer underway, circa in 1942 (80-G-K-460) (cropped to Saratoga).jpg

Saratoga in 1942

The first letter to attract the FBI's attention was brought to them in February 1942<ref name="2001-09-11 Boston Globe" /><ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> from Portland, Oregon. This letter discussed a "wonderful doll hospital" and referred to "fish nets"; the FBI equated the former to a US Navy shipyard, while the latter referred to anti-submarine nets that protected ports.<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" />

In August 1942, another letter was returned to the woman in Portland; this one was dated May 1942—written soon after Template:USS left the Puget Sound for San Diego:<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" />

Template:Quote

Template:QuoteTemplate:Paragraph break

File:USS Shaw (DD-373) with temporary bow (cropped).jpg

Shaw at Mare Island Naval Shipyard (Template:Circa)

Another letter, dated January 27, 1942,<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> was mailed to "Señora Inez Lopez de Molinali" at 2563 O'Higgins in Buenos Aires. It bore a March 1 postmark of Grand Central Station<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /> and the return address of Mary Elizabeth Wallace, a doll-collecting woman in Springfield, Ohio, to whom it was returned in June. Some information in the letter was correctly specific to Wallace (an ill nephew and a lecture she had given); the rest was not, though, including its typewritten nature<ref name="1963-02-24 Springfield News-Sun" /> and a forged signature. Wallace decided it was a tasteless joke, mocking her for her doll-collecting. She gave it to her postmaster, who forwarded it to the FBI.<ref name="1951 Singer" /> Among other coded language,<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> this letter referred to a cancelled trip to Louisville, apparently an admission to collecting no information on Template:USS.<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /> It also provided an update on a "Mr. Shaw", who had been sick, but was recovering and would soon return to work; Template:USS had been damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor, arrived in San Francisco shortly before the letter was mailed, and was soon returning to USPACFLT.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> When interviewed by the FBI, Wallace told them about visiting Dickinson's store,<ref name="1951 Singer" /> and confirmed sharing the personal information that had gone into the letter.<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /> When she gave them all of her correspondence with fellow doll collectors, the agency was able to match one of her other letters from Velvalee Dickinson.<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" />

File:USS Honolulu (CL-48) off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard on 26 October 1942 (19-N-36362) (cropped).jpg

Honolulu in October 1942

A third letter, written to Señora de Molinali, was returned to a Spokane, Washington widow in summer 1942, postmarked from Seattle. Again amidst some accurate personal information, the letter referred to "an old German bisque doll dressed in a hula grass skirt",<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /> then in a doll hospital,<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> which she expected would be "repaired by the first week in February." This referred to Template:USS,<ref name="1967/1996 Khan" /> which was at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for repairs when the letter was written.<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" /><ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> Aside from her children, the Spokane widow could only think of one person who knew the personal information in the letter: Velvalee Dickinson, whom she had met in Seattle.<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" />

In August 1942, an Oakland, California-postmarked letter was given to the FBI, and analysis showed that its contents (about warships in San Francisco for repair) "would have been of tremendous value" to the Axis.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> Another, written with the name and return-address of a Colorado Springs doll collector who had corresponded and transacted with Dickinson, was intercepted by the FBI and found to be about a Navy cruiser ("a Siamese temple doll").<ref name="1944-08-20 Sunday Star" />

Investigation

Typewriting analysis determined that the same typist wrote all five letters (though used different typewriters). FBI agents found connections to Dickinson from all the women whose signatures had been forged on the returned letters, and two of the women remembered "arguing with Ms. Dickinson about price or payment", leading to suspicions that she had used their names out of spite. The FBI was further able to match the letters to the typewriters used, and learned that by 1943, Dickinson was flush with United States one-hundred-dollar bills (after needing to borrow money only two years earlier).<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" />

Her suspicions raised by law-enforcement agents casing her shop, Dickinson left New York for Portland, Oregon where she planned to meet with a former Imperial Japanese Navy officer—possibly then fleeing to Mexico for extraction by submarine. Followed by police and FBI, when she arrived in Portland via Philadelphia, her contact's place of work—a Chinese restaurant—was closed. She anxiously returned to New York City several weeks later, still surveilled by federal agents.<ref name="1951 Singer" /> On January 21, 1944, FBI agents ambushed Dickinson while she opened a safe deposit box in her Manhattan bank. Two-thirds of the Template:US dollar found in her box<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" /> was traced back to currency withdrawn by the Empire of Japan prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" />

The bureau coordinated with Elizebeth Smith Friedman in their further analysis of the letters after Dickinson's arrest.<ref name="1997 Nash" /><ref name="2017 Fagone" /> She confirmed the use of an open code,<ref name="2017 Fagone" /> as well as its use to relay information about warships in the United States Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT).<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" /> She also noted that Señora Inez' street number was different on each of the envelopes, suggesting that they weren't intended to actually be delivered, but instead be recognized and intercepted en route by an Axis operative.<ref name="2017 Fagone" />

Prosecution

Dickinson initially claimed that the money was from insurance, savings, and her doll store, but later told the FBI that she found it in her husband's bed when he was dying. Dickinson alleged that her husband did not disclose the money's source, though she conceded it could have been the NYC Japanese Consul. Three weeks after her arrest, Dickinson was indicted by a federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for violation of censorship statutes. She pled not-guilty and was held on bail of Template:US dollar. A second federal indictment was handed down on May 5 on charges of violating espionage statutes, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and censorship statutes. Dickinson again pled not-guilty and her bail was continued.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" /> She was the first American woman to face possible capital punishment for espionage.<ref name="2001-09-11 Boston Globe" />

When the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, James B. M. McNally, was presiding over Dickinson's case, he had a 98% conviction rate. Dickinson, then being called "The War's Number 1 Woman Spy", was scheduled for trial on June 6, 1944, but it was postponed due to domestic fervor over the Normandy landings.<ref name="2016-03-02 Smithsonian" />

Because prosecutors were unsure of a conviction—Dickinson laid the bulk of the blame upon her dead husband—Dickinson was allowed to plead guilty to only the censorship-violation charges,<ref name="2013-04-26 NYT" /> providing she Template:Nowrap information in her possession concerning Japanese intelligence activities." With her guilty plea, Dickinson explained how she combined the questioning of unwitting civilians about the nearby warships in Bremerton Navy Yard and Mare Island Navy Yard with her own personal observations. Dickinson explained that Japanese Naval Attaché Ichiro Yokoyama had given Lee Dickinson the Japanese instructions and Template:US dollar inside her doll store in November 1941. The FBI disbelieved these claims because (a) evidence showed that Velvalee Dickinson, not her husband, was already familiar with Yokoyama; (b) Lee Dickerson's doctor attested that he was mentally impaired at the time of the hand-off; and (c) Mr. Dickinson's nurse and maid agreed that there had been no money hidden in his deathbed.<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" />

Judge Shackelford Miller Jr. sentenced Dickinson on August 14 to ten years imprisonment and a fine of Template:US dollar.<ref name="1944-08-15 Courier-Post" /><ref name="1944-09-03 Post-Dispatch" /> On April 23, 1951, after only Template:Age in decimal years, she was conditionally released from the West Virginia Federal Correctional Institution for Women "to the supervision of the Federal Court system".<ref name="FBI: Dickinson" />

Post-incarceration

File:Eunice Kennedy Shriver (cropped).JPG

Kennedy (1952)

Dickinson became friends with Eunice Kennedy in 1950 while imprisoned in West Virginia. Kennedy helped Dickinson (going by the given name "Catherine") secure a job at St. Vincent's Hospital in 1951. Years later, Kennedy employed her as an administrative assistant at Cape Cod; Ethel Kennedy called Dickinson "a remarkable secretary".<ref name="2018-04 Eunice" /> In November 1961, the Social Security Administration registered Dickinson's name as Catherine Stefanis (Social Security number 129129144).<ref name="2007 Social Security Administration" /> In 1963, Kennedy tried to secure Dickinson a job at the 1964 New York World's Fair, though Eileen McNamara could not determine whether she was successful.<ref name="2018-04 Eunice" />

The FBI could only prove Dickinson's espionage took place after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but documents released in the 1960s show that the agency suspected she was already providing intelligence that was gathered via the wives of Naval officers.<ref name="2001-09-11 Boston Globe" /> In September 2001, the FBI was refusing to release its Dickinson files because it was unproven that she had died, and any release would be a privacy violation; she would have been Template:Age in decimal years old.<ref name="2001-09-11 Boston Globe" /> In 2018, the Decatur, Illinois Herald & Review reported that Dickinson died in 1980.<ref name="2018-12-24 Herald & Review" />

Further reading

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External links

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