Talk:History of Soviet espionage in the United States

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In the 1930's the CPUSA recruited several hundred persons among thousands of new employees hired by the federal government under the impact of the New Deal's rapid expansion of governmental programs. Federal regulations forbade partisan political activity by federal employees, and open membership in the Communist Party brought discharge. The CPUSA evaded the law by organizing caucuses of government employees that met in secret.

KGB operatives in the United States during World War II funneled information to Moscow through a handful of professional intelligence officers who sent reports to the Center and relayed orders and questions from the Center to agents in the field. Operations in America were led by experienced hands such as Vassili M. Zarubin (covername MAKSIM), who served as rezident in New York and later in Washington, and Iskhak A. Akhmerov (covernames MER and ALBERT), the senior illegal. Some Soviet case officers, however, were raw recruits recently brought into the services in order to fill out ranks depleted during Stalin's purges of the late 1930s.

[edit] Outline

Here is an outline of eight Soviet intelligence entities operating in the United States during the time in question (1921-1943).

Comintern
CPUSA; (although CPUSA membership was legal among certain people at certain times, membership among government employees and employees of government contractors involved in the war effort, or "defense contractors relating to National Security", to use post-1947 terminolgy, was clearly illegal.
CPUSA secret apparatus
KGB "legals", i.e. KGB agents registered in the United States on valid visas, operating under a Rezident and illegally engaged in espionage. {For the purpose of discussion on this page, KGB is used to encompass all pre-1954 predessessor names conducting foreign intelligence, Cheka or VChK (1917-22), the GPU (1922-23), the OGPU (1923-34), the NKVD (1934-41, 1941-43), the NKGB (1941, 1943-46), the MGB (1946-47, 1952-53), the KI (1947-52), the MVD (1953-54), and the KGB (1954-91)}
KGB "Illegals"; agents operating under "deep cover", maybe native born maybe immigrant, and operating under their own separate Rezident, (or "Station Chief", to use an analagous CIA term).
GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence (under its own Rezident).
Soviet Naval GRU, had a very small operation in the U.S. during World War II
GRU "Illegals", again, like KBG illegals, with its own Rezident.

Note on "Illegals": Illegals are parallel organizations set up independently from the two main intelligence organizations (KGB & GRU), under thier own separate station chief, or Rezident, for the contingent purpose should a break in diplomatic relations occur, and all legal operatives with valid passports are expelled, a parallel espionage organization remains in place. Also, they still may be engaged in highly secret ongoing activities, and their absolute highest concern is to avoid detection. They are "sleeper cells", to use a term recently popularized by American news organizations.Nobs01 17:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See also: V.I. Lenin, Terms of Admission into Communist International (July, 1921) "must everywhere build up a parallel illegal organisation"[1] Nobs01 28 June 2005 16:40 (UTC)

[edit] CPUSA

Is there a reference for the claim that membership in the CPUSA by goverment employees was "clearly illegal" prior to 1947? DJ Silverfish 19:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hatch Act of 1939; for pre-1939 period, while I've encountered numerous sources that say it was illegal, I've yet to put my finger on specific legislation. Still looking.Nobs01 19:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Hatch Act would not technically make membership illegal, only political activity on the job. It wasn't illegal to BE a member of the CP. People were fired for membership anyway, frequently teachers, and by local authorities. I do think you are overstating the illegality of the CP. It was a public organization by 1924. DJ Silverfish 19:43, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Membership in an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government was prohibited among federal employees, sources say. Yes, this needs clarification because several pieces of legislation had been passed. Still working on it.Nobs01 15:58, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, membership among naturalized citizens who swore an oath to bare "true faith and allegiance to the same" would be illegal. Nobs01 28 June 2005 16:28 (UTC)

[edit] KI

KI – Committee of Information of the Counsel of Ministers of the USSR organized following May 30, 1947 official decision. Temporarily brought MGB and military intelligence services under the same bureaucratic roof. This integration turned short-lived: following January 1949 government decision, military intelligence was returned under the roof of the Soviet Department of Defense. In its abridged form KI survived until early 1951.

[edit] General Ilichev

Anybody have biographical information on General Ilichev, head of GRU during WWII. nobs 20:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More right-wing garbage

This article is so riddled with out and out lies and nonsense it should be thrown out entirely. This is no better than "None Dare Call it Treason," the bible of the John Birch Society.

Just a few of the grosser errors and smears;

1)Many of these so-called communist front groups merely had Communists as members, along with many others who were not. That a group may have received donations from the Party does not mean it is controlled by the CP for any nefarious reasons, or under the control of the Comintern. The Lincoln Brigade, for instance, had 3,500 members in total, many of whom were not party members at all. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were pouring recruits and materiel into Spain on the Fascist side. Ford Motors and other American companies were selling materiel and weapons to both Germany and Italy with the full knowledge that it would be used in Spain. This article makes it appear that the Lincolns, and other Internationals, were alone in violating the neutrality agreement, when in fact the Fascist side was receiving open aid from around the world, including the US. The only countries that provided aid to the Repoublic of Spain were the USSR and Mexico.

Nobody has questioned that there existed non-communist volunteers in the Lincoln Brigades but to assert contrary to all relevant historical research that the Comintern was not organizing the "International Brigades" (of which the LB were merely one part) borders on delusion. This was part of the "aid to the Republic of Spain" from the USSR precisely because the USSR was manipulating the Comintern. Incidentally, whether fascist countries were supplying their favored side and whether this was in violation of any law, agreement, or treaty whatsoever has no bearing here but merely shows an emotional need for political equivalence.

2) The claim that 400 Americans spied for the Soviet Union is utter nonsense, and derives from the wholesale adoption of nearly every name in the VENONA transcripts as a spy. Using raw intelligence data in this fashion is a gross violation of basic common sense and historical accuracy. One could find themselves touted by the Soviets as a source merely for having answered a question at a cocktail party, or as in the case of journalist I.F. Stone, for having meetings with known soviet personnel in an attempt to get information from them!!

Being a Soviet source does not imply that the person "spied" and the 400 number has nothing to do with those individuals that researchers have not come to definitive conclusions about whether they were witting participants with Soviet intelligence either in espionage or "influence" and disinformation (in the case alluded to with Stone). Also, this is not "raw intelligence data"; the only thing that could be construed this way would be mere morsels of declassified information that exist as decrypts of which the relevant working papers are still not available but the conclusions of the counterintelligence agencies are sufficient to show notable accusation which is in fact picked up by researchers such as Haynes and Klehr, which you choose to attack on political terms without providing direct and substantial rebuttals in context to specific topics.

3) Again, the continued insistence that Alger Hiss was a known spy is garbage, VENONA does not support that claim, nor does any other source. The claim that Harry Dexter White was a spy is likewise idiotic. White was a die-hard capitalist and one of the founders of the World Bank. The link to Hoover's memo shows only how tenuous the charges were. All Hoover has done is to make a correlation between White's movements and the reports of a spy codenamed "Jurist" and concldued they were one and the same. The notion that Jurist may have been someone in White's office never seems to have occured to him.

We feel so concerned for the memory of Hiss that we choose instead to cast aspersions onto an unnamed staff member, probably in his naivete loyal to Hiss's case to the very end only to be slandered for the continuance of ancient partisan purposes.

Nobody should buy the "die-hard capitalist" song and dance routine prima facie because many participants in espionage and disinformation did so not as much for love of Mother Russia but for cold hard cash. In this case however it has always been evident that White influenced policies in ways which were quite favorable to the ends of the Soviet Union and evidence that he was involved with Soviet intelligence is rather not contested even by most critics of this interpretation of the material, rather it is held to be in perfect accordance with his "internationalism".

4)Thousands of Soviet military officers and technicians DID NOT enter the U.S. during WW2. For what possible reason would they have, particularly with the dire need for manpower on the Russian front? WE sent many of our men to the USSR, along with the Lend Lease materiel, not the other way round. Again, there is no evidence at all for the claim that "Soviet case officers waged a successful unrestrained espionage campaign against the United States, from 1942 to late 1945." What the hell does that even mean? Was there espionage? Yes, of course, largely concerning the A-Bomb. But it should be noted that the most succesful of those spies (and Julius Rosenberg was not among them) were a handful of scientists who were not recruited by the Soviets, but volunteered to provide the information.

You manage elsewhere to indulge in Radosh where it suits you but to grant little credence to his work which set out to prove the Rosenberg's innocence and irrelevance but in fact found quite the opposite. There is nothing factual here being seriously contested.

5) The claim that "At least fifteen Soviet agents penetrated the OSS, with the actual number more likely around twenty," is again silly. This number has lumped together all the known field agents who had a Party Background, all of whom were open about it, and assumed they all were spies, when indeed what they were was combat soldiers fighting in Europe. The reason they were recruited by the OSS is that they were Spanish War vets, had combat experience, and already knew many of those in the anti-Nazi underground, as the Resistence was largely communist. We needed them badly and they all served with great distinction. Oddly, and most telling, this article neglects to mention Carl Marzani, a high-ranking OSS official, A Spanish war vet and former member of the CP (1939-1941), Carl was the only such person to be imprisoned for denying Party membership. (see Carl's story in my book, Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition). Carl was never charged with espionage, and during the entire time he was working closely with Bill Donavan, the head of the OSS, he never heard from any Party official at all. Again, putting the question of wholesale Party involvement with espionage into question.

6)The notion that "Many party-linked espionage operations were exposed and neutralized by American counterintelligence in the late 1940s and 1950s," is again misleading to the point of being untrue. What spying went on occurred in the context of WW2, when, with our then ally the USSR bearing the brunt of the Nazi war effort, a number of Americans, probably no more than several dozen at most, engaged in what was largely industrial espionage. Tempering the claim that "Soviet agents sought to provide Moscow with a wide range of information on high-performance aircraft, battleships, cruisers, armor, navigation equipment, tank engines, and armaments from key U.S. defense contractors, including Northrop, Douglas, and Marietta," it should be noted that through the Lend Lease program the Pentagon was already providing much of this info to the Sovet Union. The notion that somehow the Soviets needed to spy in order to learn information concerning Operation Overlord (Normandy Landing) and the opening of a second front, or anything concerning a separate peace with Hitler is just fantasy. None of that was kept secret from the Soviets! Roosevelt himself kept Stalin abreast on all devlopements concerning the Normandy Landing, and there was never any idea of a separate peace raised anywhere in the US Gov't. As far spies in the the gov't went, there were no Party members or anyone with links to the Party uncovered after the war, with the sole exception of Carl Marzani, who had left the party in 1941.

7) the Soviet's first bomb was indeed a copy of one of ours, but what is not said here is that the Soviets were quite capable of developing an independent design of their own, and were well on the way. The technical information they lifted from us gave them only a year or so advantage in development. This was widely known at the time, as there were no real "secrets" to the A-Bomb as the theory was widely known to Nuclear scientists in both axis and allied nations.

The "theory" being "widely known" but development only succeeding in one country which shared the technology as well as one which happened to steal it.

8) The statement "The United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by direct or instigated activities of the Soviet Union," is again just plain wrong. The USSR played no role at all in the Greek Civil War -- it was Tito! Stalin had made an agreement with Churchill that England would have a free hand in Greece in exchange for Stalin's free hand in Romania and Bulgaria. The record is clear on this. Stalin played no role in Greece. The US took over from England after the war, and still Stalin stayed out. In fact, the Tito-Stalin split was over just this issue. Tito refused Stalin's directive to back off on Greece.

I ask any reader of this page to examine the veracity of stating that Stalin was in a position to give anyone a "free hand in Greece" and simultaneously declare the USSR has "no role" with respect to the civil war, which in the most favorable interpretation is pedantic to the extreme. The USSR did provide direct assistance but considered this particular conflict to be of little comparitive importance to its larger strategic objectives that was not itself worth the risk of confrontation when the UK and US were so apparently ready to respond forcefully. The only irony is that independence of action is insinuated on the part of the KKE's "struggle" whereas Tito, unquestionably their largest material ally, was abandoned by the vast majority of the leadership upon the whim of Stalin with lingering "Titoists" simply slaughtered.

9) Truman's Executive Order 9825 set off the worst civil liberities crisis in American History, the Red Scare, which trashed our Constitutional freedoms and ultimately destroyed the professional lives of thousands of Americans, sent hundreds to prison, and directly casued the deaths of dozens of others. That Truman denounced the "charges against Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and others," only showed that he finally showed some common sense. The charge that VENONA somehow cinched the case against these men is just a plain lie. If anything VENONA clears Hiss of the charges against him -- it is only the extremist idealogy of the authors of this article that keep them from admitting it, or even airing the arguments for Hiss's innocence.

Most of this and that elsewhere directly addressing espionage is insubstantial ad hominem in secondary topics which already have articles and with no particular substantion of specific claims. Undoubtedly you would wish a "History of Soviet espionage in the United States" to read entirely about the paucity of "twenty years of conspiracy" but fortunately there are many much more serious observors today.

10) Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, for some strange reason, appears as a God to these authors. They quote him as if he were Moses down from the mountain, as if just because Moynihan said it, we should all accept it. Why, I haven't the faintest idea. Of course, they quote a number of proved liars, such as Joe McCarthy and Hoover, with the same religious fervor. That they do so speaks to their extremist views, and their own essential dishonesty.

Moyhihan is rather notable and well respected figure whose conclusions are only attacked by those who cling to a perception of ideological interest in holding to their fairy tales about a bygone era. McCarthy and Hoover are certainly relevant to any rational discourse of the era without the simple effect of parsed quotations and caricaturing descriptions.

[edit] Forgot to sign-off

The above corrections to this article were posted by--Griffin FarielloGrifross 01:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] more

[edit] More left wing garbage!

Might as well call this "How I support the CPUSA!

"American policy dealing with this rapidly changing scene was often confused, naive, slow to respond, and contradictory".

Umm, No!! Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin airlift?! More success than failure if you ask me. If anything the soviets bumbling into afganistan and poland (after there revolution) was naive!

IDIOTS! So if that commie pinko who ranted a while back! (24.75.194.50 19:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Is this NPOV?

I don't know about you guys, but this looks a bit POV to me. Comments?

Gradually it became apparent that the objectives of World War II for which the United States and others made tremendous sacrifices were not fully realized, and there remained in the world a force presenting even greater dangers to world peace than the Nazi militarists and Japanese warlords. Consequently, the United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by direct or instigated activities of the Soviet Union. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DabMachine (talk • contribs) 17:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed follwing para for POV language "gradually became apparent", "had been widespread and pervasive", "more sophisticated and determined than": apparent to who, pervasive where, and in what way and how more so? The subsequent paragraphs to do not substantiate the paragraph's allegations.

During the 1950s, it gradually became apparent that the Soviet intelligence activities directed at the U.S. government and military/economic institutions had been widespread and pervasive, and that Soviet intelligence was much more sophisticated and determined than the prewar and wartime efforts of Nazi Germany and militarist Japan.

DJ Silverfish 21:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] military history

Does this not come under the military history wiki project?--SGGH 11:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] additions

User:Nobs01 was banned yet is adding the material I erased as an anonymous IP. The additions are not encylopedic, but complete paranoia. Let the person who added them come forward and defend them. TDC is defending a mountain of junk editing from an anonymous editor who edits exactly like the banned Nobs (an old friend of TDC, incidentally) Ruy Lopez 04:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that Nobs has edited the article, but you are more than welcome to file a checkuser. Secondly, all the material is cited and culled from reliable sources, so there is no justification to remove any of it. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The additions are complete nonsense, they are garbage. You didn't even make them, User:Nobs, who is banned, added them under an anonymous IP.

You say the material is cited and culled from reliable sources. How about this sentence - "Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as a agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence." Where is the citation for this addition? This is one of many uncited accusations. Even the ones that are cited are tenuous, disparate facts are stated which Nobs tries to add up to a certainty that so-and-so was a Russian spy. In Nobs's mind, every prominent Democrat, liberal and progressive from the Russian Revolution onward was a Russian spy. Ruy Lopez 18:38, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

As I said earlier, you have no evidence that Nobs is the one editing the article, so either verify this via checkuser, or leave it alone. If you were to go to the Earl Browder Article, there is a citation for this, and I have added it. Anything that you feel warrants a citation, please place a fact tag on it and I will find one. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 15:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You are the one who said it was all cited. These changes by Nobs, I mean, the anonymous editor, are uncited, not NPOV, are completely unencyclopedic etc. They violate a handful of Wikipedia policies. The "anonymous" editor has disappeared as well. Ruy Lopez 12:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Good job, Ruy Lopez. Abe Froman 13:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

No, not good job, this version of the article has 24 citations. If there are NPOV issues, bring them up here. If something specific needs another citation, add a ^{[citation needed]} tag. As is Ruy, this is a violation of your probation. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing fact tags is not right. Please respect them and add citations as requested. Abe Froman 23:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not remove any fact tags, you however removed most of the article. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 00:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "First Efforts" Passage

Passage as follows:

By the mid to late 1920s, there were three elements of Soviet power operating in the United States, despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations: the Comintern, military intelligence or GRU, and the forerunner of the KGB, the GPU. The Comintern was the dominant arm, though it was not unusual for officers and agents to switch from one service to another. During the 1920s, Soviet intelligence focused on military and industrial espionage in the United States, specifically aircraft and munitions industries, and penetrating the mainline federal government bureaucracies, such as the Department of State and War Department. A front organization was created in 1928 for the infiltration and placement of scientists into industry and government: the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT). Formal diplomatic recognition was granted to the USSR on 16 November 1933, a condition of which was a pledge to refrain "from interfering in any manner in the internal affairs of the United States." In fact, Soviet intelligence greatly expanded their US espionage efforts, now operated under "legal" cover through embassy and consulates. That same year, several Comintern affiliate organizations were established: the American League Against War and Fascism, followed by the American Youth Congress in 1934; the League of American Writers in 1935; and the National Negro Congress in 1936. In 1937 the American League Against War and Fascism changed its name to the American League for Peace and Democracy. Between 1937 and 1938 the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was established with numerous affiliates and sent hundreds of non-governmental combatants to Spain despite the League of Nations' Non-Intervention Committee ban on foreign "volunteers". In 1939, the American Congress for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom and numerous other Comintern affiliate organizations were created.

What are the sources for these allegations? Abe Froman 00:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Will the sources be added? The passage is unsupported at this time. Abe Froman 18:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Browder and Golos networks" passage

Passage as follows:

As in any target country, the Soviet NKVD (later MGB and KGB) and GRU ran parallel "legal" and "illegal" operations groups. "Legal" networks were run by Soviet case officers holding legal visas, usually working in diplomatic missions and official trade organizations. The operational station was called a "rezidency" headed by a station chief, or "rezident". The "illegal" networks were headed by an "illegal rezident", usually a Soviet national operating under deep cover with no apparent connection to Soviet organizations. Thus, if diplomatic relations are broken, an espionage organization remains in place, dispensing the the need to begin anew (which could take decades). One chief aim was the infiltration, placement, and subversion of American political life at all levels of society. Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as a agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence. .^[1]^[2]

What page numbers in the two books described in refs 7 and 8 contain these allegations? I find the claim hard to verify. Abe Froman 00:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

pg 217 in Special Tasks and page 42-44 in The Secret World of American Communism deals with Browder. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 01:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The passages in question, pg 42-44 [2] and pg 217 mention Browder's role in Asian, and eventually American CPUSA activities. It is silent on the other allegations contained in the passage. Are there additional sources that could anchor these claims? At this time, only the allegations about Bowlder in Asia and the American CPUSA are actually cited. Abe Froman 01:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Following today's edits, the citations in the Browder section still lack page numbers. These are large books, the citations should carry the page number(s) of the passage that supports the claim. Abe Froman 16:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Will the sources be added? The passage is unsupported at this time. Abe Froman 18:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Secret Apparatus" passage

What page numbers in refs 11 and 12 describe the allegations contained in the referenced passage? Ref 11 seems to be irrelevent, given it is 56 years old. Abe Froman 00:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)