It was in fact a message the British decoded—the Zimmermann telegram—that (along with Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare) helped bring the United States into World War I. German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann sent an internal coded message to Germany’s minister to Mexico, instructing him to offer the president of Mexico the territories of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico if Mexico would ally with the German cause and invade its northern neighbor. The British broke the message in January 1917; the United States was appalled; America, as George Fabyan had foreseen, went to
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