by Noel Behn
Nosovitsky’s link to the New York Police Department, which would be long running, initially began on September 16, 1920. After pulling to a stop halfway between the J. P. Morgan and Company office building and the U.S. Assay Building, a horse-drawn wagon loaded with iron sash weights exploded. The destruction was catastrophic. Thirty people were dead and three hundred injured. Not content that the U.S. Secret Service, the New York Police Department, and the Burns International Detective Agency were all assigned to catch the culprit, Henry Marsh tried to convince a reluctant Nosovitsky to undertake an independent investigation of radical elements that might have been responsible. The crime didn’t strike the Doctor, as Nosovitsky was known, as a Communist-type operation. Marsh explained that there was a large sum of money available for such an undertaking and brought Nosovitsky to Colonel Arthur Woods, a former chief of the New York Police Department and a nephew by marriage of J. P. Morgan, Jr. After the Doctor expressed his views, Woods had him go to Washington and talk with J. Edgar Hoover, still a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general.
According to Nosovitsky, Hoover conceded that the bombing had probably not been done on orders from the Communist party, but since he strongly suspected that a criminally inclined individual Red probably set off the explosion, he wanted what Woods wanted: for the Doctor to penetrate Communist circles, seeking the mad bomber. Back in New York, Woods paid Nosovitsky five thousand dollars to undertake the assignment.
The crime was never solved, but Marsh was pleased with the Doctor’s input. So much so that he activated his dream: an International Investigation Bureau to combat worldwide communism—run by Nosovitsky. The estimated operational cost, several hundred thousand a year, was to be raised by Marsh and his friends. Nosovitsky took what would prove a permanent leave of absence from the British secret service and made himself available to the grand scheme. His first assignment for Marsh took place in Europe. When he reported finding no great Red conspiracy, funds for the International Investigation Bureau dried up.
Henry Marsh came up with another cash partner in his war on communism: Colonel Arthur Woods. Woods and Marsh commissioned Nosovitsky to go to Mexico and assess the extent to which the Communist movement had taken control of the government of President Obregón. The contracted price for the assignment was twenty-five thousand dollars, which Nosovitsky dearly needed.
Nosovitsky arrived in Mexico well aware that Marsh and Woods, bona fide Red-phobics, wanted validation of a pervasive Bolshevik conspiracy, which he quickly found did not exist. On gingerly suggesting that the peril might not be as grave as suspected, Nosovitsky was warned by Marsh that he was expected to deliver the incriminating facts. The Doctor set about creating a Red menace for Marsh’s palate. He enlisted the aid of Linn A. E. Gale, an expatriate U.S. Communist who had fled to Mexico to avoid the American draft, in composing a report to Zinovyev, an official of the Third International in Moscow, which supposedly outlined Communist activities in Mexico. To further authenticate the fabricated report, he managed to have it signed by both the national and international secretaries of the Mexican Communist party.
The second step in Nosovitsky’s strategy was to introduce a motion at the Mexican Labor party convention held in Pachuca that asked that the organization embrace the principles of the Communist party. The proposal was rejected, but the resourceful Nosovitsky now wrote up another report, again with the help of Gale, in which the offer to the convention was detailed—and, without Gale’s awareness, was altered to feed on Marsh’s fears.
Returning to New York, Nosovitsky presented Marsh and Woods with copies of the two spurious reports allegedly sent to Zinovyev in Moscow. They were gratified, and Nosovitsky received fifteen thousand dollars from Woods’s paymaster. Marsh, on reflection, wanted more conclusive documentation to prove the existence of a die-hard body of Communists capable of overthrowing Mexico’s current regime and establishing a Soviet form of government.
Nosovitsky sat down and composed a totally fictitious constitution for the nonexistent Red Army of Mexico, the official title for which was The Constitution of the Red Army of Mexico. Marsh and Woods seemed to be pleased. Nosovitsky accompanied them to Washington, where the two superpatriots gave the documents to high government officials in hopes of delaying U.S. recognition of the Obregón government. It was the end of March 1921, and Nosovitsky would later claim that among those who saw the material were J. Edgar Hoover and the secretary of state. Questions began to arise over the authenticity of the Red Army papers, particularly at the State Department. Nosovitsky’s final payment of ten thousand dollars was refused him on the charges that he had boondoggled.
The relationship between J. Edgar Hoover and Jacob Nosovitsky is intriguing. The immaculate Russian stated that they first met when he was returning to America with information concerning the Soviet paymaster for England, information Hoover took from him and examined in New York Harbor. Hoover contradicted this, maintaining that they had been introduced socially and never had professional dealings. How and where could such a social encounter have occurred? Through Woods and Marsh? Nosovitsky claimed that at Woods’s request he went to see Hoover in Washington regarding the Wall Street bombing. Woods and Marsh were the types of people Hoover would cotton to later in his career. Had Hoover met with Nosovitsky as a result of the bombing, and wouldn’t that constitute official business? Or was it that they never met on the matter?
If Hoover had no professional ties to Nosovitsky, who had not been with the Justice Department since 1918, what was J. Edgar doing shielding him from State Department personnel in 1920 and 1921? W. L. Hurley of State had alluded to this in his December 6, 1920, letter to Hoover by suggesting he wasn’t being given the facts regarding Nosovitsky. Hoover acknowledged the oversight but seemed to have done little else to fill Hurley in on Nosovitsky, with whom he still claimed to have no official connection.
On March 27, 1921, Nosovitsky, under the alias of Dr. Joseph Anderson, was refused reentry into the United States at the Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, border crossing. On the twenty-seventh, and again on the twenty-eighth, Nosovitsky wired J. Edgar Hoover to please contact the local U.S. consul and get him out of the country. He was let in on the twenty-ninth, but the American consul officials seized documents he was carrying, along with two photographs. Once in Laredo, Texas, Nosovitsky asked a local Bureau of Investigation agent to pick up the Colt automatic pistol he had left at the customs office before entering Mexico and send it to J. Edgar Hoover in Washington.
A series of communications between Hoover and Nosovitsky indicates that the two may have met on the Russian’s return to America. The strongest evidence that their relationship was also professional is seen in an April 12, 1921, letter J. Edgar wrote to W. L. Hurley. In it Hoover asked that the State Department return to Joseph Anderson—Nosovitsky’s alias during the Mexican trip—the documents and photographs they had taken “in order that the same may be placed in our confidential files.”
Hoover, like most everyone else who crossed Jacob Nosovitsky’s path, was to pay handsomely for the privilege. J. Edgar’s turn came eleven months later, in a March 6, 1922, letter from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, informing Hoover that the company was negotiating with Dr. Nosovitsky, who wished to handle their tires and who had already given them a first order of $1,786.95. Nosovitsky had also assured the company that Hoover would provide them a personal reference, which was why Firestone enclosed an envelope. The company also wondered if Hoover would comment on the doctor’s integrity and, if possible, Nosovitsky’s ability to handle the financial end of the transaction.
A handwritten letter from Nosovitsky to J. Edgar Hoover, received five days later, on March 11, shed more light on the matter:
Dear Mr. Hoover,
In order to provide a living for my family and remain in New York I opened a Automobile Supply Store and I am making very good. I have invested all the cash I could get in my store, but it is very difficult to conduct a business without having credit from the Rubbe
r Manufacturers, therefore I have applied to the Firestone and United Rubber companies for a little credit. The above mentioned companies require some references about my character. Not having any influential friends who could help me, I have taken the liberty to refer to you as the person who will testify as to my honesty.
I shall never forget the favor you are doing me and shall always do my best to serve you when the time comes.
I Remain Your Faithful
Jacob Nosovitsky
P.S. I am coming to Washington about March 15th. Can I see you and talk over certain matters?
Nosovitsky had written the letter to Hoover on stationery that bore the printed letterhead of the
National Tire Company
High Grade Tire
wholesale—retail
3166 Broadway
126th Street
New York City
That same day Hoover responded to Nosovitsky:
Dr. Jacob Nosovitsky,
Apartment A,
520 West 188th Street
New York City
Dear Doctor,
I received your letter, and was indeed glad to hear from you. I had hoped to see you in New York upon my last visit, but it seems that I missed you, and you missed me, which was most unfortunate.
I am very much interested in your contemplated enterprise of engaging in opening an automobile supply concern, and needless to say I wish you the very best success in this matter.
I received a communication from the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company requesting information concerning your reliability and integrity. I hesitated answering that communication until I received word from you, for I did not want anything in writing of the character, not knowing what our radical friends might be up to. I am, however, today writing to the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company advising them of my knowledge of you.
I anticipate being in New York at a very early date, and I shall then, of course, make another effort to see you.
With the very best regards, I remain,
Sincerely Yours
Hoover’s letter to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in behalf of Nosovitsky, also written on March 11, reads in part, “While I have no knowledge of his financial standing, I have known him personally, and I have always found his integrity above suspicion, and have considered him thoroughly honest. It’s impossible, as I have stated, to advise as to his financial standing, and whether he is able to handle an amount of the size indicated by you, as our relations have never involved any pecuniary element.”
Hoover seems not to have been concerned that Nosovitsky might show his letter to a third person—a letter that contained a reference to a possible official and secret operation. In a letter to Republic Rubber dated March 22, 1922, Hoover provided the same endorsement of Dr. Nosovitsky he had given Firestone. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company wrote J. Edgar on March 28. In addition to the polite request for an endorsement, Goodyear let drop that “Dr. Nosovitsky in the course of conversation mentioned that his wife is a very wealthy woman, worth about one quarter of a million. Will you please advise if you know this is the case.”
Hoover responded to Goodyear on March 31, 1922. He again said he had no information regarding the good doctor’s financial standing, made no mention of a wealthy wife, and went on to say he had always found “his integrity above suspicion, and have considered him thoroughly honest.” On April 10, he told essentially the same thing to a representative of R. G. Dun and Company, which had been hired by several of the tire companies to obtain a broader assessment of Dr. Nosovitsky’s financial standing. By now the other shoe had dropped.
In the first week of April, Nosovitsky began to sell off, in bulk, his stock of tires and accessories. On April 10, he confronted his creditors with news that he had disposed of all the goods that had come from them and was unable to account for any of the proceeds, other than to say he gambled some of them away.
It was May 1, 1922, when J. Edgar Hoover’s boss, William J. Burns, director of the Bureau of Investigation, received a letter from an attorney, John Warren Hill, who accused Nosovitsky of obtaining credit under false colors and selling off the merchandise he did not own. Hill asserted creditors had been warned by Nosovitsky not to charge him with a crime because he was currently investigating the Wall Street bomb explosion for Arthur Woods and further claimed he had once worked for the Justice Department. Another pertinent question was whether Nosovitsky actually knew J. Edgar Hoover, or had he forged letters of commendation that bore Hoover’s name?
Burns answered Hill the following day, confirming that Nosovitsky worked at Justice back in 1917 and 1918 and had once been employed by Colonel Woods regarding the Wall Street bombing but that the relationship had terminated in the spring of 1921. Mr. Hoover was talked to and explained that Nosovitsky had been introduced to him through a mutual friend in 1919, and though they had visited one another from time to time in New York, their relationship was strictly personal, and at no time was there any official Justice Department business transacted between them. Hoover confirmed having written commendations as to Nosovitsky’s character but not to his financial status. Characterwise, Hoover had found nothing derogatory concerning the Doctor and said that until this occurrence, “Nosovitsky had always given indications of being thoroughly reliable.”
An apparently cordial correspondence continued between Hoover and Nosovitsky at least until September 1, 1922,7 at which time Hoover wrote to the Doctor, who was in Ward K of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital with an unspecified malady, saying in part, “I expect to be in New York at a very early date, and will, of course, make an effort to get in touch with you.”
Dr. Jacob Nosovitsky cut an imposing figure. Tall, slender, and suave, he had a penchant for well-tailored three-piece suits, in the upper left pocket of which he kept a miniature German-type pistol.8 His keen eyes were greenish gray and seemed to change color with his moods, his nose was long, his shoulders broad, his hands powerful. He tended to boast, but his manner in the main was deferential. He was known to frequent racetracks, horse rooms, as well as an occasional burlesque house, and was believed to have a wife in Canada whom he visited on occasion.
Nosovitsky’s list of aliases now included, or soon would include, Jack Nosovitsky, Jacob J. Nosovitsky, J. J. Nosovitsky, L. Lanier Winslow, Esq., L.L., N-100, Jake, Jack, Doc, the Doc, J. J. Nosow, J. J. Nossow, John Jacob Naso, Jake Naso, Harry Sanders, J. J. Nasan, Dr. J. J. Brinkman, Dr. J. J. Saunders, Dr. Jacob Anderson, Dr. James Anderson, J. J. Anderson, Nosan Anderson, Nasan Anderson, Mr. Williams, George Merrill, McDonald or McConnel, J. J. Shanely, and Mr. Greenbergh.
Testifying during his 1932 trial for extortion, Gaston Means swore that he had paid the one hundred thousand dollars given him by Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean to a man named Jorgenson. Another alias for Nosovitsky, who acknowledged knowing Means, was John Jacob Jorgenson.
Max Sherwood, né Schlansky,9 head of the Eagle Detective Agency in New York City, was also the guiding light behind the Eagle Industrial Association, an organization to promote private detective agencies whose prime customers were companies that wanted strikes thwarted and unions kept from organizing their work forces. Nosovitsky’s skills were just what Sherwood needed. In the fall of 1924, the Eagle Association printed up copies of Nosovitsky’s fraudulent Mexican documents, including his Red Army manifesto, and under the new title, “Red Rule Hangs over Mexico,” sent it out as an industry come-on to businessmen across America.
Sometime between 1916 and 1932, Nosovitsky married Rebecca Colinian at Cornwall, Ontario. No information could be found concerning the divorce, but on January 8, 1924, at Montreal, in a traditional Jewish ceremony he took a second wife, Esther Levine. Later in the year, under the aliases of Jacob and Estelle Nosow, Nosovitsky and Esther were employed by Max Sherwood’s Eagle Detective Agency.10
Whether William Randolph Hearst himself heard of the “Red Rule Hangs over Mexico” piece and asked Nosovitsky to undertake certain investigations regarding Communist a
ctivities in the United States and other countries—as Nosovitsky would claim and could be the case—or whether Nosovitsky sought out Hearst reporter Victor Watts in an attempt to wreak revenge on Colonel Woods for refusing to pay the balance of his Mexican-operation fee is debatable. But after contact was made with the Hearst chain, Watts most likely tried to persuade Nosovitsky to write a far broader account of his activities than a simple recounting of the dealings with Woods.
On July 30, 1925, Nosovitsky called on Hoover again—at the Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C.—to get a recommendation attesting that he was qualified to take on an assignment Hearst was offering. It appeared that J. Edgar had finally had his fill of the Doctor. His handwritten notation on the report carrying the request reads, “We will under no condition recommend him, first because it is contrary to policy and second he is not worth it.”11 Because of this initial connection with the Hearst operation, Nosovitsky agreed to write a series of stories for its papers, a fact that would soon become obvious to J. Edgar Hoover.12
On Sunday, September 20, 1925, the first of eleven autobiographical articles, entitled “Confessions of an International Spy,” appeared in Hearst’s New York American and other of the chain’s publications. Dr. Nosovitsky described at great length his relationship with high-ranking Communists as well as with Marsh and Woods. Hoover was mentioned, but sparingly, and the matter of J. Edgar’s letters to the rubber companies was excluded. Nosovitsky detailed many of his forgeries, including the so-called Constitution of the Red Army, and generally had a good time in print. Hearst personnel verified most everything he said, where it could be verified. The primary layers in the drama, including J. Edgar Hoover, seemed not to have been available for comment. The series constituted the highest public praise Dr. Nosovitsky was ever to receive—and, apparently, the zenith of his financial status.
Assistant attorney general of the United States William J. Donovan’s turn to get acquainted with Dr. Nosovitsky came nearly a year later. Among those making the introduction was J. Edgar Hoover, now the director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation.13