Laurence Duggan

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For other people called Laurence Duggan, see Laurence Duggan (disambiguation)

Laurence Duggan was head of the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II. He fell to his death on December 20, 1948, from the 16th floor of a building in Manhattan.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Venona Version 2 Other Versions of the Story 3 Venona 4 Reference

[edit] Venona Version

Duggan was recruited by journalist Hede Massing as a Soviet spy since the mid 1930's. Duggan told the FBI that Henry Collins of the Ware group had also tried to recruit him. Duggan was a close friend of Noel Field of the State Department. The GRU had also tried to recruit him through Frederick Field.

Duggan provided the NKVD (Soviet intelligence) with confidential diplomatic cables, including from American Ambassador William Bullitt. He later served with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

According to Boris Bazarov, Duggan told his Soviet handlers: "The only thing which kept him at his hateful job in the State Department where he did not get out of his tuxedo for two weeks, every night attending a reception, was the idea of being useful for our cause."

Five days after the indictment of Alger Hiss (15 December 1948) by a grand jury, Duggan jumped to his death from the 16th floor of a building in midtown Manhattan. Duggan's code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona files is "Frank".

[edit] Other Versions of the Story

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Some people insist that he was innocent, and merely a victim of the Red Scare, more specifically, McCarthyism. These people state that he was not a spy, and resisted attempts to recruit him. They say that he did not jump to his death, but either that he was pushed, or tripped on his untied shoelaces. As evidence for this not-suicide version, they cite the fact that he was still wearing his glasses, and most suicidal people take their glasses off before the act.

[edit] Venona

Laurence Duggan is referenced, as "Frank" in the following Venona project decryptions:

• 1025, 1035–1936, KGB New York to Moscow, 30 June 1943
• 380 KGB New York to Moscow, 20 March 1944
• 744, 746 KGB New York to Moscow, 24 May 1944
• 916 KGB New York to Moscow, 17 June 1944
• 1015 KGB New York to Moscow, to Victor [Fitin], 22 July 1944
• 1114 KGB New York to Moscow, 4 August 1944
• 1251 KGB New York to Moscow, 2 September 1944
• 1613 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 November 1944
• 1636 KGB New York to Moscow, 21 November 1944

[edit] Reference

• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press: More Info