Bela Gold

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Bela Gold, also Bill Gold, (30 January 1915 – 14 April 2012), was a Hungarian-born American businessman and professor.

Biography

Born in Kolozsvár (then Austria-Hungary, now Romania: Cluj-Napoca), he was the son of Esther (b. 1891) and Leo Gold (b. 1890), and had a brother, William Gold (born 1921). His father was a dry goods salesman, and the family had emigrated to the U.S. in 1920.[1] He married Sonia Steinman Gold in 1938.

In the early 40s, he began work at the Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization, and Sonya worked in government as well, for a time for Harry Dexter White.[2]

The Golds were spied upon by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for a time in the 1940s.[3][4] The Golds came to testify at the House Unamerican Activities Committee because of the accusations of Elizabeth Bentley. The Golds denied working with the Soviets and denied they were members of the communist party.[2] Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev wrote a book published in 2009 claiming that the Golds were recruited to give information to Soviet agents.[5] Some of their work has been debated by other historians.[6][7]

After the war, Bill Gold went to the University of Pittsburgh and became a professor. He later became a research director at Case Western Reserve University, and eventually a professor at Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University). He also worked on the National Research Council and wrote several books.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1930 US Census for Bronx, New York
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, Alexander Vassiliev (2009). Spies: the rise and fall of the KGB in America. Yale University Press. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-300-12390-6. Retrieved 2011-03-20. 
  3. ↑ FBI (1940s). "The Education and Research Institute, FBI Silvermaster files". education-research.org. Retrieved 2011-03-20.  One of these volumes contains surveillance reports of J Edgar Hoover's FBI on the Golds.
  4. ↑ FBI (21 October 1946). "Underground Soviet Espionage (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government". education-research.org. Retrieved 2011-03-20.  This is a 350+ page file describing allegations against the Golds (and many other people) by Elizabeth Bentley (code name Gregory). It also contains FBI reports from their spying on the Golds. The two reports on the Golds were written by FBI agent Lambert G Zander.
  5. ↑ Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev, "Spies...", 2009. Haynes et al cite two major sources, the Venona files (decrypted Soviet transmissions of the 1940s) as well as the notes taken by Alexander Vassiliev, a former KGB agent, while examining old Soviet archives. Vassiliev's notebooks are available online at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars - Gold is mentioned in Yellow Notebook Number 2, page 63, White Notebook Number 1, page 6, and White Notebook Number 3, pg 78, and elsewhere within the notebooks.
  6. ↑ Svetlana Chervonnaya's documentstalk.com analyzes Vassiliev's notebooks
  7. ↑ See also the article on Alger Hiss for a discussion of Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev's work.
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