Even after the president's testimony that the telegram was genuine, newspaper editors and some senators simply refused to believe it. - Arthur Herman

With a commander in chief handing out a general license to hunt for spies, it's not surprising Americans responded.

"Of course Your Excellency will deny this story," Hale blurted out. Zimmermann turned to him. "I cannot deny it," he replied glumly; "it is true."23

The only thing that could save the revolution, Lenin wrote in 1913, would be a war between Austria and Russia. "But it's scarcely likely that Franz Josef and Nikolasha [Lenin's nickname for the czar he despised] would grant us this pleasure."41