ABSTRACT
Dr Cecil Henry Coggins is one of a small but distinguished group of medically qualified secret agents whose double-life has recently been described by Eugene G Laforet (Journal of the American Medical Association, 1980 243 1653). Although posted to the obstetrical department of the United States Naval Dispensary, Long Beach, California, in 1933 at the age of 31 years, he was soon picking up clandestine radio transmissions from Japanese fishing boats and by 1941, had been transferred to the staff of C-in-C Pacific Fleet as Chief of Counterespionage. Later in the war, he was in charge of a special unit responsible for psychological warfare and research. Coggins was a splendid choice for, as Laforet points out, ‘the intellectual processes by which a physician collects, evaluates and synthesises information to arrive at a diagnosis are identical, he [Coggins] believes, to those employed in intelligence work.’ This is borne out by the career of Dr Charles Dent, later professor of human metabolism at University College Hospital Medical School and a fellow of the Royal Society who, before qualification in 1944, worked in the censorship department where his chemical knowledge was used in the detection of secret enemy messages.
