Talk:Harry Hopkins

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[edit] Hopkins a spy?

Someone has vandalized this page.

"Such critiques of Roosevelt and Hopkins as the notorious book, Verona Secrets, paint Hopkins as a Russian spy. No such allegation has been substantiated or proven." http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1610.html. It's pretty sad really.
[The above anonymous comment was added 19:15, 16 July 2005 from IP 24.5.145.42]

- What is sad is your reliance on stale history and offer of only opinion. Information is actually coming from the Soviet archives that Hopkins was in fact considered an "agent of influence" for the Soviets inside the U.S. Do you speak Russian? Have you read any of the recently declassified information contained in Moscow? Do you have contacts in the Eastern bloc with knowledge of WWII political secrets? Are you really satisified with the "authority" of a website on US history that looks to be more concerned with hosting google ads than with the facts of history.
[The above anonymous comment was added 01:47, 13 February 2006 from IP 24.52.166.132]

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Does the above writer know Russian? Obviously he is not concerned with the basic facts of history and has no evidence whatsover to back up his claims. No, the above is scurrilous demogoguery emanating historically from Hopkins' and FDR's political opponents among the America First crowd and others who were unenthusiastic about World War 2 and loathed the New Deal as "socialism". The Soviet Union was our ally in the biggest, most cataclysmic war in human history. In his capacity as FDR's chief foreign affairs advisor and emissary he worked to solidify and manage these alliances playing a role in facilitating military aid to these countries, not only Russia but to Britain through lend-lease in 1940-41 during the dark days of the Battle of Britain, a period when Russia had reverted to neutrality during the Stalin-Hitler pact. He also did yeoman work for the Chinese struggling against Imperial Japan.

Again, Russia was our ally who lost 25 million of their people. As allies we worked together, obviously with a certain level of common interests and aims necessary to any alliance, to defeat Adolf Hilter and Nazi Germany. Harry Hopkins was a great American and an individual of the highest order, one who was a reliable friend and ally (not agent, big difference) to all the Allied people fighting to defeat the Axis. If Russian, British and other Allied diplomats in Washington felt that Hopkins was a person who they could turn to get more munitions and supplies, to speed up the Anglo-American invasion of Europe, that only redounds to Hopkins' credit.

Note on Yalta: FDR and his team did try and get promises of democratic rights in Eastern Europe, however the two points that cannot be overemphasized is firstly that in February 1945 the war was still raging in both Europe and the Pacific, the latter venue-in the pre-nuclear period still-would require Russian intervention. Secondly, anything we supposedly gave up or were tepid in not enforcing involved ground the Russians had already liberated (or conquered) from the Germans at a great cost in blood. Thus at that point in time in 1945 there was next to nothing that we or we and Britain acting together could have done about it. Thus another classic cheap shot by reactionaries out to besmirch and overthrow the New Deal and FDR's legacy at all costs. Tom Cod

____________________________

The question is still being studied; Hopkins certainly had contact with Soviet intelligence in a diplomatic capacity. There is a problem however regarding identification of one source which basically is either Hopkins or one other person. The identification may never be made. Til, then, Hopkins enjoys the benefit of the doubt. Nobs01 19:28, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

The unidentified source is Zamestitel, which means "deputy" in Russian. Originally counterintellignece thought it to be Henry A. Wallace. At the Trident Conference the Soviets had a very high contact, Source No. 19 (Gorsky Memo), who reported on sensitive conversations between FDR & Churchill and a third high official. See Edward Mark, "Venona Source 19 and the Trident Conference of May 1943: Diplomacy or Espionage?", Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 2 (April 1998), pgs. 1-31. Nobs01 19:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Benefit of the doubt is including an unsubstantiated claim as fact? No wonder people are giving up here. Nevermind. Have at it. I should have known better than to even get involved.
[the above anonymous comment was added 19:46, 16 July 2005 by Wiki Tiki Tavi]

Please note, there is no judgement made within the article, neither should there be based on the evidence in question as it exists today. In fact, no discussion whatsoever of questioning Hopkins alligiances exists within the article, as rightly it should not, based upon existing evidence. The conduct of diplomacy, however, and foreign policy, is a wide open question, and can rightly be criticized. Particularly seeing Hopkins was in full posession of the knowledge that most Americans did not know, until Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published in 1974. Also, given numerous statements by Hopkins about Josef Stalin. Nobs01 19:59, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Venona transcipts New York 812 to Moscow, 29 May 1943. Agent "19", p.1, New York 812 to Moscow, 29 May 1943. Agent "19". p.2 nobs 21:35, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

_____________

Again, you miss the point. Hopkins's comments were made about our ally Russia while WW2 was still going on; Hopkins died before the Cold War got off the ground. He was the "go to guy" for tanks, planes and other material aid, not only for the Soviets but the British and Chinese as well. His function was not to bad mouth our allies in that context. What foreign policy do you think he and FDR should have followed? To support Germany's invasion of Russia, like the America First crowd largely did? Tom Cod 23:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC) _____________

Hopkins is one of the major figures of the 1933-45 period and this article, alas, says very little about what he accomplished either in domestic or foreign policy. I deleted the Soviet documents; they are say nothing about Hopkins and are not useful to someone using an encyclopedia. We need a long critical article, not mud-throwing about highly debatable and largely irrelevant issues. RJensen Rjensen 23:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Hopkins is certainly an extraordinarily interesting historical figure. As to whether or not he was a Soviet spy, there is much to consider on both sides of the argument.

On one hand, there is substantial evidence [1][2] from reliable sources supported by Soviet archives that Hopkins was a Soviet spy.

On the other hand, no less than Winston Churchill was effusive in his praise of Hopkins:

There he sat, slim, frail, ill, but absolutely glowing with refined comprehension of the Cause. It was to be the defeat, ruin, and slaughter of Hitler, to the exclusion of all other purposes, loyalties, or aims. In the history of the United States few brighter flames have burned.

Harry Hopkins always went to the root of the matter. I have been present at several great conferences, where twenty or more of the most important executive personages were gathered together. When the discussion flagged and all seemed baffled, it was on these occasions he would rap out the deadly question, "Surely, Mr. President, here is the point we have got to settle. Are we going to face it or not?" Faced it always was, and, being faced, was conquered. He was a true leader of men, and alike in ardour and in wisdom in times of crisis he has rarely been excelled. His love for the causes of the weak and poor was matched by his passion against tyranny, especially when tyranny was, for the time, triumphant."

Churchill's statement certainly seems persuasive. Obviously, Churchill never doubted Hopkins' allegiance. However, in fairness, I should admit that Churchill was characteristically effusive in his praise of political friends and foes, alike. Also, the above passage was written after Hopkins' death, which undoubtedly also contributed to the generosity of Churchill's praise. But Churchill wrote that passage when discussing the events of January, 1941, which was a time when Stalin's USSR was about as nearly allied with Hitler as the United States was with Great Britain, and Churchill certainly never had any illusions about the evil nature of Stalin. If Hopkins was a Soviet spy, then he certainly hid it extraordinarily well from one of the the day's most famously perceptive observers of world affairs.

The bottom line is that I don't truly know whether or not Hopkins was a Soviet spy. However, I disagree with Tom Cod and RJensen. The debate over whether or not Hopkins was a spy is a legitimate one, not a "cheap shot by reactionaries out to besmirch and overthrow the New Deal," and certainly not "irrelevant." Clearly the issue deserves mention in this article. NCdave 06:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

AIM is not a reliable source and the NYTimes review casts doubt on the veracity of the book. But it does say that the book calls Hopkins an agent, but not a "conscious" one. Whatever that means, it does not add credence to the claim that Hopkins was a spy In fact, it suggests the opposite. 74.185.165.188 14:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Both AIM and the NYT are reliable secondary sources. The NYT review of K.G.B. The Inside Story, By Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, says:

Before publication, much was made of the book's more startling revelations: the identification of John Cairncross, a former British Foreign Office employee, as the fifth member of a Soviet spy ring that included Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt (Mr. Cairncross has denied the allegation); new details of the assassinations of Leon Trotsky and the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg; the characterization of Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's closest and most trusted adviser, "as the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States," although he admittedly was "never a conscious Soviet agent." ...

[The book's] reading of the present makes too much common sense to disregard. "The greatest threat to the future of the K.G.B. is its own past," the authors conclude. "From its headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square it directed during the Stalinist era the greatest peacetime persecution and the largest concentration camps in European history. . . . The center's acute nervousness about revealing the contents of its archives demonstrates its awareness of the threat they pose."

Mr. Andrew and Mr. Gordievsky appear to have opened a window on those archives. ...

The issue of Hopkins' Soviet connections is a legitimate one, and obviously deserves mention in this article. NCdave (talk) 08:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This article appears to be biased.

Admittedly having arrived with a limited historical knowledge of Harry Hopkins, the WWII section of this article appears to be biased against the subject. For example, the statement that Hopkins "shunned the American position of free elections for Poland" seems wildly off-base. From what I have read, particularly in Churchill's account of WWII, Hopkin's did the best he could to press for a more inclusive Polish interim government with only lukewarm backing from the US administration.
[the above anonymous comment was added at 02:42, 12 January 2006 from IP 67.105.171.62]

Yes I tried to clean out the POV which has very little to do with anything Hopkins did --and put the emphasis back on what he in fact did do. He was one of the most powerful men in the world 1940-45 and we need to explain why. Rjensen 08:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I see that Rjensen who is mother-henning this page will not permit presentation of the substantial recently-discovered evidence that Harry Hopkins was an agent for the Soviet Union. I invite anyone interested in Harry Hopkins to read the book on Venona by Romerstein and Breindel, who lay out the evidence quite convincingly. It is hardly "wild speculation" that they engage in, and it is most inaccurate to portray them as "non-experts" in contrast to the legions of court historians that we have in this country.

This is from the dust jacket of their book: "Herbert Romerstein was head of the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the United States Information Agency from 1983 to 1989. He had previously served as a professional staff member for several congressional committees, including the House Intelligence Committee and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Now retired, Romerstein continues to write and lecture on the subject of Soviet espionage.

"Eric Breindel studied at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. Named senior vice president of News Corporation in 1997, he was also a syndicated columnist and the moderator of Fox News Watch, a weekly national public affairs television program. Previously, he had served more than a decade as editorial page editor of the New York Post and worked on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Breindel died in 1998 at the age of forty-two."

Those without the time to consult their book directly may read articles about it at http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/1/5/163140 and http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2000/november_2000_4.html. Root50 01:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The evidence that Hopkins was a Soviet "agent" has not been accepted by any reliable source. The false insinuation is that he betrayed his country. Actually his mission was to work very closely with Stalin and USSR to help USSR defeat Germany, He did a very good job. The "evidence" (p 214) is that a Soviet spy named Akhmerov had some minor bit og information that Hopkins heard from FDR. Did he get it from Hopkins?--unknown. Did he ever meet Hopkins: unknown. What did Hopkins tell Akhmerov--unknown. What did Akhmerov tell Hopkins: unknown. Conclusion: Hopkins betrayed his country and was acting under orders of Akhmerov! Well yes, many of the Soviets in USA were spies and Hopkins talked with many of them--that was his job. He talked to the ambassadors, generals, purchasing agents, to the staffs (many of them spies of course) and to Stalin himself--many times. Did he tell some Russian what FDR thought and said in private conversations with Churchill? Yes, that was Hopkins' job. Did that Russian tell Akhmerov? Very likely (it was Akhmerov's job to report what he heard third and fourth hand--spies do that.) Did Hopkins say anything improper--no one even claims that. Did he help Russia militarily (yes, that was American national policy in ww2). There is zero evidence that secret XYZ was passed from Hopkins to the USSR--what was the XYZ secret?? The key flaw in the book is that if spy Akhmerov passed along information that Hokins once had, them Hopkins must have told Akhmerov directly (but Akhmerov could have heard it from fellow Soviets)--and then jump to the astonishing conclusion that Akhmerov gave order to Hopkins. No Reussian ever claimed that. Putting wild insinuations it in Wiki violates our rules on reliable sources. Rjensen 01:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The only way to call my proposed section on Harry Hopkins "wild insinuations" is to thoroughly mischaracterize it, which is what Rjensen has done. Here, for the record, is how I describe what Romerstein and Breindel have to say, as opposed to the mishmash above:

Authors Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, in their 2000 book (see below, pp. 210-219) argue that Hopkins was an agent for the Soviet Union. Their evidence is, first, that Soviet KGB defector, Oleg Gordievsky, said that Hopkins was in regular communication with top Soviet covert operative, Iskhak Akhmerov, in New York City. This was more than just a "back channel" for communication between Roosevelt and Stalin because Hopkins had existing back channels at the Soviet embassy that he used, and Akhmerov's identity as an operative was not supposed to be known to the the U.S. government. Second, the Venona project decrypts reveal a report on a Washington discussion between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill by an "agent 19." Only Harry Hopkins among suspected Soviet agents would have been privy to that conversation. Third, former Communist Whittaker Chambers testified to Congress in 1948 about the formation of Communist "study groups" within the U.S. government from which espionage agents were recruited. One of those groups, led by Lee Pressman, was established within the Department of Agriculture in late 1933, and Hopkins was a member of that group. Fourth, his policies were strongly pro-Soviet, particularly in his work as head of the Lend Lease program in which he pushed for the supplying of highly-sensitive military equipment to the Soviet Union.

Yes, those are allegations, but I label them as such in the section heading. I think that they are certainly credible enough for the readers to be informed of them so they can come to their own conclusions. Actually, I now believe that the fourth point is not quite strong enough. Since I put it up I have read Major George Racey Jordan's From Major Jordan's Diaries and I found this excerpt with respect to the Lend Lease program that Hopkins ran. Major Jordan was the expediter of shipments to the Soviet Union, and Col. Anatoli Kotikov was his Soviet counterpart:

At this time I knew nothing whatever about the atomic bomb. The words "uranium" and "Manhattan Engineering District" were unknown to me. But I became aware that certain folders were being held to one side on Colonel Kotikov's desk for the accumulation of a very special chemical plant. In fact, this chemical plant was referred to by Colonel Kotikov as a "bomb powder" factory. By referring to my diary, and checking the items I now know went into the atomic energy plant, I am able to show the following records starting with the year 1942, while I was still at Newark. These materials, which are necessary for the creation of an atomic pile, moved to Russia in 1942:

Graphite: natural, flake, lump or chip, costing American taxpayers $812,437. Over thirteen million dollars' worth of aluminum tubes (used in the atomic pile to "cook" or transmute the uranium into plutonium), the exact amount being $13,041,152.* We sent 834,989 pounds of cadmium metal for rods to control the intensity of an atomic pile; the cost was $781, 472. The really secret material, thorium, finally showed up and started going through immediately. The amount during 1942 was 13,440 pounds at a cost of $22,848. [Note: On Jan. 30, 1943 we shipped an additional 11,912 pounds of thorium nitrate to Russia from Philadelphia on the S.S. John C. Fremont. It is significant that there were no shipments in 1944 and 1945, due undoubtedly to General [Leslie] Groves' vigilance. Regarding thorium the Smyth Report (p. 5) says: "The only natural elements which exhibit this property of emitting alpha and beta particles are (with a few minor exceptions) those of very high atomic numbers, such as uranium, thorium, radium, and actinium, i.e., those known to have the most complicated nuclear structures." (pp. 33-34) Root50 02:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There is now substantial evidence that Harry Hopkins was a Soviet spy. Even the Military Channel refers to him as such in a biography about WW2 USAAF General Allison, who dealt extensively with Hopkins during the war. And as noted above, there are now several books on the subject and accusations by ex-KGB agents verifying the charge.

The Wiki should include these charges in the WW2 section of Hopkins entry. Just as many Wiki articles include disputes about a subject. Rjensen seems intent on hiding this info on purely ideological grounds.
[the above anonymous comment was added at 19:50, 16 February 2007 from IP 68.32.26.39]

Harry Hopkins: Of course Hopkins was an agent of influence for the Soviets. He single handed won the war in Europe by getting Lend-Lease for Russia. But he wasn't a spy Russia needed no spies they had the nazi nuclear scientists already. Nuclear war was invented in Berlin.
John Hadley
[the above comment was added at 16:41, 19 June 2007 from IP 67.100.91.129]

Gentlemen, please sign your comments. It is very easy to do. At the end of your comments, simply type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~.

NCdave 06:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hopkins for President?

I wish the portion about Hopkins' supposedly vying for the presidency had some sort of citation; it seems to come out of nowhere. --Andersonblog 22:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)