by Arno Baker
In early June Barnave returned to Paris after several weeks in Moscow to research a series of articles on events since Stalin’s passing, painting a rosy picture of Lavrenti Beria and his team of “technicians.” The journalist met with Savigny and handed him a top secret proposal from Beria to begin talks with the United States on the normalization of Berlin and East Germany. The ultimate goal was the orderly withdrawal of all World War II armies of occupation and the neutralization of Germany and central Europe.
An immediate meeting with the Americans was requested: the issue couldn‘t wait. Among many points on the agenda Beria was suggesting that Eisenhower make a series of grand gestures among them the granting of clemency to the Rosenbergs. This would be presented as a major conciliatory move toward improving relations with Moscow. The USSR would then immediately respond by freeing tens of thousands of political and ordinary prisoners from the Gulag as a prelude to the evacuation of East Berlin. That initial unilateral step would be followed by similar steps in East and West Berlin turning the old capital into a neutral and demilitarized city.
The same principle would be gradually extended to the rest of Soviet held territory in Eastern Europe as long as American military presence was also proportionately reduced in the west. To do all this Beria needed tangible proof of western accommodation and flexibility so that the Presidium (renamed the Politburo) could easily agree to his massive liberalization programs. Savigny relayed the message through Castelli to the CIA chief of station in Paris for transmission to Allen Dulles.
The hopeful reply that Barnave transmitted in code by radio directly to Beria’s office was:
“The Americans have agreed to examine the proposal. I expect a reply in a matter of days.”
But suddenly the situation changed dramatically when thousands of East Berlin workers went on strike on June 16, 1953. The CIA had inspired the workers with a veiled promise of support that emboldened the unhappy East Berliners to organize massive protests. Riots broke out just as Eisenhower was examining the final request for clemency by the lawyers of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Hundreds of strikers were killed and hundreds more were summarily executed by Walther Ulbricht‘s GDR regime; the repression was particularly brutal and made the American position even more uncompromising.
To Allen Dulles and his top CIA analysts it was clear that after the Berlin massacres, Beria didn’t really control the situation and that negotiations with him should be interrupted until he managed to consolidate his power. Too many expectations had been created and impatience with the harsh conditions in the East had reached intolerable heights. The proletariat was ready to descend into the streets against the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic!
XXX
At the White House, President Eisenhower held a meeting in his private study with Attorney General Herbert Brownell, J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles. Ike was examining a document,
“One more request for executive clemency! So now I must go through the whole process one more time, correct Herbert? No wonder Harry Truman made sure he wouldn’t have to deal with this one. It’s a damn messy business I wish I could avoid as well!”
Brownell was ready with the information Eisenhower wanted to review.
“Yes Mr. President. I have also brought the entire file with me...”
“Hang on to the file, Herbert, we already went over all that several times. Just give me a one page summary. I know what the issue is all about and I will also ask your formal recommendations, gentlemen. You go first Allen.”
The younger Dulles brother with his crumpled and deceptively studious air of a college professor, cleared his throat and as if he were about to give a lecture,
“Clemency cuts two ways, Mr. President. Worldwide it will be seen as a sign of magnanimity that will reflect positively on this country’s prestige and on your personal image. But on the negative side it will also be seen as proof of weakness: ‘Eisenhower is going ‘soft’ on Communism.’ ‘First he gets out of Korea, then he pardons the spies!‘ That type of reaction. If we get nothing in return from the Rosenbergs then executive clemency extended to both would be a politically disastrous exercise. The best scenario would be for husband and wife to repent and cooperate especially in the appeal to world Jewry. Julius, as some of the transcripts of his prison conversations indicate, may be the loose link, he’s almost certain to break given more time. Ethel is tougher, far more ideological and she seems to have found her role and a sense of purpose in remaining firm and stoic to the end. If Julius caves in and signs the appeal to the Jews of the world in favor of the United States then we could delay the execution indefinitely without commuting the sentence, if that’s legally possible.”
Eisenhower made no comments. He sternly looked past Dulles to the next man,
“Mr. Hoover?”
“Mr. President, I have already recommended in writing that clemency be considered for Ethel Rosenberg. It will be seen as a plus for the United States government to show its magnanimity towards a woman who is the mother of two young boys. Clearly everyone agrees that she played a very minor role in the case, at best. If Julius refuses to cooperate I would then recommend his execution. I had also recommended the same for Morton Sobell as you know. My conclusions have not changed since the trial on that issue: I firmly believe Ethel Rosenberg should be given a commutation of sentence to 30 years for her support role in the conspiracy to commit espionage. Such selective clemency would be good politics and help the country’s image and that of its President worldwide.”
Eisenhower nodded and seemed to be reacting positively to Hoover’s arguments. He kept on making the rounds asking for recommendations,
“Mr. Attorney General?”
“Mr. President, what we really have here is not just a couple who engaged in espionage for ideological reasons but also for the considerable amounts of money they received from the Russians. Tens of thousands of dollars may not seem like much in the scheme of things but even that modest sum was sufficient to fuel a whole network of highly trained technological spies besides Julius Rosenberg and David Greenglass, of that we are absolutely certain. And all this was happening while our young men were dying in Korea and still are, as Judge Kaufman said at sentencing, thanks in part to the actions of those two!
Look at the record, Mr. President, both of them were heavily engaged in their work for the Russians, with Julius running dozens of agents. All of them were American citizens; all top scientists working on highly sensitive defense related aircraft technologies; each one was getting paid handsomely for the secrets he was passing along to the Soviets. The Rosenbergs were busy divvying up thousands of dollars at a clip as they played their role as paymasters every time they received and passed along documents vital to our security. Others may be encouraged to follow suit if the penalties are too lenient. My recommendation is clearly in favor of capital punishment for both of them. They did it for the money, that’s what really happened. I think they must pay the ultimate price.”
After a moment of silence, Eisenhower stood up. He remained unsmiling and uncommunicative but seemed to have made up his mind however he also refused to tip his hand,
“Well, thank you gentlemen. This is a terrible case to have to rule on. Herbert on second thought please let me have a look at the entire file once more, after all. I will go over it diligently and decide this afternoon. Allen please stay with me, I need to have a private word.”
As they walked out Hoover whispered to Brownell in the hall,
“I think they’ll both get the hot seat. You wanna bet?”
“I‘d never bet on something like that with you Edgar! The odds on you being right are just too unfavorable.”
Eisenhower wanted to clear up a detail with Allen Dulles,
“Allen, did we have a direct hand in the East Berlin unrest?”
“No Mr. President, we did not but some of our agents may have inadvertently contributed to the fierceness of the clashes.”
“So they were spontan
eous, or at least in part. It seems to me that power in Moscow is up for grabs, does Beria still firmly control the Politburo as far as you know?”
“We can’t be absolutely sure. He at least claims he does but now with this East Berlin business...he doesn’t appear as firmly entrenched as we thought.”
“So the clemency request that he made for the Rosenbergs may be a sham?”
“Yes. It’s very possible, Mr. President. He may no longer be able to deliver if the Politburo turns against him and forces him take the blame for Berlin.”
“From your tone of voice I they might even eject Beria, if we go ahead and execute the Rosenbergs?”
Dulles fiddled with his pipe then looked straight at Ike and said,
“He may very well go the way of the purges… Mr. President. The situation is that volatile. On top of everything else we have intelligence about a secret police vs. party split in the Politburo that is going on right now...how it will be resolved is open to question. The party leaders are fearful of being under the iron fist of the secret police as it was under Stalin and they want to avoid that at all costs. Whichever way it is resolved it will certainly be brutal.”
“What do we gain by dealing with Beria and playing along with his schemes?”
“His hold on the country seems uncertain. He has hinted that he would seek to “clean out” the Politburo of all the hard line Stalinists, possibly retaining only Malenkov and Kaganovich. Molotov would also remain if he plays along. All the others who were very shaky under Stalin: Mikoyan, Khrushchev, Bulganin would probably be ejected and executed. We have detailed studies of each one of the members and from those profiles we conclude that most of them would be purged by Beria.”
“I‘m sure they also sense that is what Beria has in store for them.”
“Precisely, our analysis gives Beria as the big loser in the short run. If he can hold on past the East Berlin crisis then he may be able to implement enough reforms to gain the people’s confidence and even their allegiance. But from the point of view of the endangered majority, he must go very quickly.”
“A cornered majority may be very dangerous. Thank you, Allen.”
Dulles felt that his answers had just sealed the fate of the Rosenbergs.
They were both executed on Friday, June 19, 1953 just after 8 p.m.
On Sunday, June 21, Lucien Barnave was climbing up the steps of the Paris Opéra metro station. He had been following the Rosenberg execution on the wire services at the offices of the Agence Havas and was horrified at what he felt could be the final nail in Lavrenti Beria’s coffin. The execution had taken place at Sing Sing while Barnave was traveling by train from Moscow to East Berlin. He got the news on Saturday morning from the papers on the Kurfürstendamm in West Berlin. Just two days before in Moscow, Beria was insisting that Barnave would become his official liaison to the western press and move his residence to the soviet capital. He’d be allowed to have dual French and Soviet citizenship. But Lucien wanted desperately to avoid being trapped in Russia. He knew the danger of being identified with a dictatorial regime given to violent changes and bloody vendettas.
The execution of the Rosenberg couple suddenly made Beria look weak and without credibility overseas. He had made vociferous claims to his colleagues that he could easily prevent their death in the electric chair and that his secret intervention would no doubt add to the bruised prestige of the USSR following Stalin‘s death. But Barnave knew that Beria‘s enemies in the Politburo were convinced that he had failed and had probably already condemned him in private. Would they go so far as to liquidate the man and his group?
From Berlin he hurried back to Paris where he arrived on Sunday, June 21. He immediately hammered out a 40 page single spaced report on what he had heard and seen during the secret talks and his private assessment of Beria’s current situation in the power structure. He made two carbon copies besides the original and early on Monday morning he mailed one copy to a post office box in Versailles. A second carbon was hidden in a column inside his apartment and the original he would deliver to Savigny that afternoon at a rendezvous at the Grand Café de l’Opéra on the corner of the boulevard des Italiens. Barnave now felt secure in handing over the secret report of the February meeting to Savigny and thought it was urgent to let the Americans know what was going on behind the scenes in Moscow. Bidault asked for a document for the secret archives of the Quai d’Orsay should it become necessary to pressure either the United States or the USSR during the months ahead.
Savigny had confirmed the minister’s request during a phone conversation with Barnave from Tegel airport in Berlin to his apartment in Paris.
“That gift you mentioned some time ago is now most welcome, the original edition the Marquis de Custine?”
“Of course when will you need it?”
“Monday would be fine.”
“Where do we meet?”
“Same as last time. About 1700 hours?”
“Perfect, I will be there.”
As he reached the top of the steps in the metro station leading to the Place de l’Opéra, Barnave felt a sudden painful sting in the back of his neck as if he had been bitten by a large insect or stabbed by a pointed object. He dismissed the thought because there were rarely any mosquitoes in the polluted air of downtown Paris even in late June.
Then, as he continued to rush halfway up the ramp he suddenly stopped and brought his left hand to the spot on the back of his neck where he could feel an itchy and rapidly swelling welt. After a few more steps up holding onto the ramp with his right hand he stopped again. He was feeling dizzy and understood that he had been injected with a very powerful poison.
He attempted to protect his briefcase but any strength was suddenly drained from his head and indeed his entire body. As he slid to the floor everything became clear in his mind. A woman stopped to look at him and asked if he was sick. He mumbled a few words that later on she vaguely remembered as “Poison Mosc…” as he attempted to repeat them over and over again until he suddenly stopped and he began blinking uncontrollably. Someone finally got the stationmaster. A gendarme came running down the steps followed by a metro employee who had already called an ambulance. But the paralysis of the nervous system was reaching its final phase and in a few minutes it would be too late. Barnave could no longer speak and his eyelids were fluttering helplessly.
During the commotion a man with black leather gloves who was seen helping Barnave quickly emptied the contents of the briefcase into a canvas bag and hurried up the steps and into the place de l‘Opéra. Some bystanders later claimed they did see a man with black gloves and a canvas bag getting into a grey Renault 4CV. The small crowd paid no attention to him and concentrated on the man on the floor who was in tremendous pain, still struggling and trying to hang on to the banister. Finally he let go just as a voice announced that the ambulance had arrived. Again he attempted desperately to speak but some blood trickled from the side of his mouth and his heart stopped. By the time the medics ran down the steps with a stretcher, the journalist was already dead.
When Barnave failed to show up Savigny was annoyed but still figured that he could have been delayed by traffic. He never imagined that the body wrapped in a blue sheet being loaded into the ambulance could be that of Lucien! After 45 minutes he returned to his office where he was preparing his files for an important mission to Hanoi that turned out to be one of the developments of the meetings with Eisenhower and the Pentagon. The plan was to increase the French war effort against the Viet Minh and seek a decisive victory in the field. The discussions indicated how the American generals were impatient with the overcautious French commander General Salan demanding that he be replaced with a much more aggressive leader. Savigny’s mission was to report on political intelligence from Hanoi and Chinese influence on the border.
Bidault wanted to wrap up the Barnave episode before Savigny left for Indochina. The minister had asked for a detailed report on the Beria situation. An hour later while he was st
ill assuming that the journalist had simply missed his rendezvous, Savigny was contacted by a DST inspector who told him that Barnave was dead and that the body had been immediately moved to the Val de Grace military hospital. The pathologists’ initial impression was that he had probably been poisoned with a compound made of curare and another lethal substance yet to be identified, “Enough to kill ten men and as many horses!” No trace of the report was found in Lucien’s briefcase.
The French cabinet had resigned in May but as was often the case in the IVth Republic, Bidault remained as foreign minister in the new government led by Joseph Laniel, a conservative nationalist who declared that his government was committed to winning the war against Ho Chi Minh. The new cabinet took office on June 28 and confirmed Savigny’s mission to Indochina with renewed urgency barely allowing him a few days‘ rest.
At first he became alarmed by Barnave’s violent demise and went searching in the journalist’s apartment 22 rue Delambre to see if any copies had been left around. The man lived alone, his estranged wife and their teenage son lived with her parents in Versailles. In the company of the DST inspector Savigny crossed the police tape and inspected the victim’s three bedroom home and private office but found nothing of interest.
Even though Barnave was a stickler for detail and kept impeccable records of everything he wrote and researched, there wasn’t a trace of the report Savigny was looking for. No one thought about the post office box in Versailles registered in his young son’s name: Sylvain Michaud. The search was dropped and the family was given Barnave’s possessions and they inherited the old apartment as well.