CIA Ineptitude Reaches to Roots

According to a manuscript recently uncovered by the Library
of Congress, American Patriot Nathan Hale, patron saint of the CIA and
acknowledged by them as the first American to be executed for spying
for the United States, was in reality a bumbling amateur uncovered and
arrested on the first day of his "secret mission."

The British hanged Hale the next morning, Sept. 22, 1776, at an artillery
park near Dove Tavern,near what is now 66th Street
and Third Avenue in Manhattan. At this spot, Hale is reputed to have
uttered his famous line: "I
only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" —
probably a paraphrase of a line from a popular play by British writer
Joseph Addison.

"How could anyone on a secret mission be so stupid, or to use more
generous terms, so naive or so credulous, to be taken in by a perfect
stranger and then to disclose, the next day, the object of his mission
to several more perfect strangers?"  

from the AP