Alva D. Blake

Biography

Alva D. Blake could freeze time—literally. Billing himself as “Keeno, King of the Robots,” the vaudeville journeyman turned himself into living statuary for an hour-and-twenty-seven-minute world record, picking up spare change at county fairs and department-store grand openings. The gimmick made him a footnote in theatrical trivia; what followed made him a footnote in naval history. By 1941 the act had gone cold and Blake’s pockets were empty. In Los Angeles he befriended the chauffeur of a supposed “language student,” Lieutenant Commander Itaru Tachibana, an undercover operative for the Imperial Japanese Navy. When the chauffeur waved five crisp thousand-dollar bills under Blake’s nose in exchange for classified fleet data, the broke performer blinked—then sprinted to the Los Angeles FBI field office. Patriotism, not profit, he insisted; he would dangle bait, record the bite, and yank the hook. For weeks Blake played double agent, feeding Tachibana carefully salted nonsense while ONI and the FBI listened in. Mid-operation he almost toppled the house of cards—one indiscreet conversation with a female acquaintance risked exposing the entire sting. Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton, then a key intelligence officer, cornered Blake, delivered a blistering lecture on national security, and quietly guaranteed the woman’s silence by promising to mail her husband the tape of her pillow talk if she breathed a word. Chastened, Blake completed the second dead-drop of forged intelligence. Tachibana scooped up the package—and walked straight into the arms of waiting agents. The spy who had come to America to study English left in handcuffs, his network collapsed, and the man who once stood motionless for history’s longest robot routine had moved just enough to help alter the prelude to Pearl Harbor.