Comrade Haldane Is Too Busy to Go on Holiday

by Gavan Tredoux

  61.See Regler (1959), p. 297. Regler was obviously a true believer.

  62.MI5 Personal File, Hans Kahle, National Archives, KV 2-1562/5a and b.

  63.See Krivitsky (1939), pp. 72, 87, 92, 95–96, 198, 298. For full details on Orlov, now confirmed by multiple sources, see Payne (2004), pp. 134–135.

  64.Richardson (1982), pp. 174–175.

  65.Walter Greenhalgh interview, Imperial War Museum, reel 5, 10′15″ onward.

  66.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/42.

  67.H. J. Muller, letter to J. Kemeny, October 17, 1963. Cited in Carlson (1981), p. 240.

  68.His real name was Arnold Reisky, a Jewish journalist. Richardson (1982), p. 190. See also http://www.alba-valb.org/volunteers/arnold-reid.

  69.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 99–116, 126–127.

  70.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/38A.

  71.Wiener (1956), pp. 206–207.

  72.Krivitsky (1939), p. 87.

  73.Payne (2004), p. 228.

  74.Haldane (1938b), p. 180.

  75.Haldane (1938b), pp. 180–181.

  76.Haldane (1938b), pp. 164–166.

  77.Haldane (1938b), p. 49.

  78.Haldane (1938b), p. 26.

  79.Haldane (1938b), pp. 199–200.

  80.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/71A.

  81.Haldane (1938b), p. 11.

  82.Spender in Crossman (1949), pp. 258–259.

  83.Haldane (1939b).

  84.Charlotte Haldane (1949), p. 124, introduced some confusion about the dates of this trip, referring only to the invitation as towards the “end of 1937.” Baxell (2014), p. 303, wrongly places it in October to November 1937, when Charlotte was definitely in Britain. She arrived sometime in late January 1938 and left “three weeks” later; see Adamson (1998), p. 119, and the Western Daily Press (February 14, 1938), p. 11.

  85.Mitchison (1979), p. 185.

  86.July 21, 1938, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/87B.

  87.November 13, 1938, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/103A.

  88.Fred Copeman interview, 1978, Imperial War Museum, Oral History Sound Archive, item 794, reel 10, 23′04″ onward.

  89.This was published the following year in Haldane (1940e).

  90.Haldane (1938f), p. 24.

  91.Haldane (1939b).

  92.Haldane (1938d).

  93.Maynard Smith (2004).

  94.Lerner (1938).

  95.Quoted in van Heijenoort (1985), p. 151.

  96.Haldane (1940e), pp. xi–xii.

  97.For a gentle introduction to this area, see Peter Smith (2013).

  98.Feferman (2000), pp. 371–372.

  99.J. B. S. Haldane, letter to Dona Torr, November 3, 1938, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/101A.

  4. STALINOPHILIA

  1.February 14, 1938, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/68A.

  2.Haldane (1946a), p. 116.

  3.Haldane (1946a), p. 97.

  4.Haldane (1946a), p. 135.

  5.Haldane (1946a), p. 144.

  6.Haldane (1946a), p. 189.

  7.Haldane (1946a), p. 178.

  8.Haldane (1947a), p. 230.

  9.Haldane (1947b), p. 43.

  10.Haldane (1947b), p. 48.

  11.Haldane (1947b), p. 206.

  12.Haldane (1947b), p. 209.

  13.Haldane (1940b), p. 108.

  14.Haldane (1947b), p. 226.

  15.Haldane (1947b), p. 52.

  16.Haldane (1947a), pp. 120–121.

  17.Haldane (1947b), p. 57.

  18.Haldane (1947b), pp. 114–115.

  19.Haldane (1947a), pp. 84–86.

  20.Haldane (1947a), pp. 128–129.

  21.Haldane (1947b), p. 15.

  22.Haldane (1946a) p. 211.

  23.Haldane (1946a), p. 218.

  24.Haldane (1946a), pp. 219–220.

  25.Haldane (1938e).

  26.Haldane (1946a), pp. 229–231.

  27.Haldane (1946a), pp. 224–225.

  28.Haldane (1940b), p. 241.

  29.Haldane (1946a), p. 38.

  30.See Adams (1990).

  31.See the translations of Koltsov’s eugenics articles in Babkov (2013).

  32.There is some uncertainty about the exact date that Stalin banned IQ testing or, less formally, transmitted the idea that performing tests would not be welcome.

  33.Babkov (2013), p. 476.

  34.Fisher (1930).

  35.See Birstein (2001), p. 204, and Babkov (2013), p. 647.

  36.Circa December 22, 1936.

  37.June 23, 1937. The letter is quoted in Soyfer (2003), p. 8, from a copy of the letter supplied to Soyfer by J. Lederberg, who was a close friend of Haldane’s in later life.

  38.Haldane (1937b).

  39.After serving in Spain, Muller briefly went back to Moscow in September 1937 to collect his things and leave for the West; Carlson (1981), pp. 242–244.

  40.Charlotte Haldane (1949), p. 318.

  41.Popovsky (1984), p. 75, citing a private conversation with Timofeev-Ressovsky. As it happened, Timofeev-Ressovsky remained in Berlin through the Second World War, and after the Soviet occupation of Germany was “liberated” and shipped back to the Gulag anyway.

  42.Soyfer (1994), pp. 108–109.

  43.Soyfer (2001).

  44.Soyfer (1994), pp. 130–131.

  45.Haldane to Vavilov, May 4, 1939. Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/5/1/14.

  46.See, for example, Joravsky (1970), pp. 1–17.

  47.Medvedev and Medvedev (2003), pp. 199–205.

  5. WAR ON ONE FRONT

  1.Haldane (1938b), p. 249.

  2.From the script for the BBC talk “A Banned Broadcast” (1934). The talk was not transmitted but was reprinted in Haldane (1946a), p. 19, where Haldane states that it was also printed in the Daily Herald on November 3, 1934.

  3.Haldane (1938b), pp. 223–224.

  4.Graham (1993), pp. 52–53.

  5.Haldane (1938b), pp. 206–207.

  6.Hyde (1950), p. 92. See below for more on Alan Nunn May.

  7.Moorhouse (2014).

  8.For a contrary opinion, see Medvedev and Medvedev (2003).

  9.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 178–180.

  10.Hyde (1950), p. 69.

  11.J. B. S. Haldane, “Is There a Russian Enigma?” Quotations here and below are reproduced from Haldane’s handwritten manuscript; see Appendix 2 and Haldane (1939d).

  12.Daily Worker, November 30, 1939.

  13.Gollancz (1941).

  14.There are notes in Haldane’s MI5 file that he received various payments during 1939, including 110 pounds from a “Miss Howard,” who frequently sent money to the communists, and some unspecified amount from the American heiress Harriet Shaw Weaver, who had paid 340 pounds in total to communist recipients. MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/22 (summary).

  15.Hyde (1950), p. 71.

  16.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/17-18 (summary).

  17.See MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/summary for more details on all these meetings, and more.

  18.Haldane (1941b).

  19.Hyde (1950), pp. 92–94.

  20.See, for example, the collected material related to the Convention in the Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 4/19/10.

  21.Or so she told Ronald Clark. See Clark (1968), p. 183.

  6. IVOR MONTAGU AND THE X GROUP

  1.Sic. The correct spelling is Ewen.

  2.Wright (1987), p. 186.

  3.Costello (1988), p. 526, briefly referred to Wright’s information about Haldane.

  4.West (1999).

  5.Haynes and Klehr (1999).

  6.Brown (2005), p. 184.

  7.For example, Cochran and Harpending (2010), supplementary online m
aterials on Haldane, which elevated Haldane to the head of the X Group. See http://the10000yearexplosion.com/jbs-haldanes/.

  8.Semion Dawidowicz Kremer (1900–1991), born in Gomel in Russia, had already been identified as an agent in 1940 by the Soviet defector General Walter Krivitsky. See https://vault.fbi.gov/rosenberg-case/klaus-fuchs/klaus-fuchs-part-62-of. Kremer arrived in England in 1937, but MI5 could not determine his date of departure. Klaus Fuchs knew him as “Alexander.” He seems to have returned home in 1942, and to have served from 1943 onward in the Soviet Army, rising to general and Hero of the Soviet Union. He retired in 1956, and died at Odessa in 1991. See also http://www.yadvashem.org/research/research-projects/soldiers/simon-kremer.

  9.That is, this part could not be decoded.

  10.MI5 noted that Montagu was living in Watford at the time.

  11.Not too much weight should be assigned to this. See the remarks below about their remarkable failure to make sense of Montagu.

  12.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/204. The file contains a clipping of Haldane (1946b).

  13.The UK.

  14.The British.

  15.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 178–179.

  16.Clark (1968), pp. 164–165.

  17.Siebe Gorman was bombed out in May 1941, after which it was relocated to Chessington in Surrey.

  18.There are many mentions of Kahle set in this period in Lynton (1995), written by a fellow internee and admirer (Max-Otto Ludwig Loewenstein, a.k.a. “Mark Lynton”). As Lynton’s work includes glaring and gross inaccuracies, it is difficult to judge the many novel claims it contains, e.g., that Kahle fought as a mercenary for Sun Yat Sen and was decorated with the Pour le Mérite in 1918 (he is not in the list of awardees at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Pour_le_M%C3%A9rite_(military_class)_recipients#K).

  19.Hemingway to Kahle, 1940, quoted in McLellan (2004), p. 35.

  20.Baxell (2014), pp. 422–423.

  21.Warren and Benson (1954), p. 302.

  22.Clark (1968), pp. 152–161.

  23.National Archives ADM 178/313.

  24.National Archives AIR 20/4168.

  25.See Haldane to Kahle, November 14, 1940. Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 1/5/3/55.

  26.Charlotte reported that she could not turn Kahle out when she returned because his wife was expecting a child. If the child survived it would have been Kahle’s second. Charlotte Haldane (1949), p. 254.

  27.Kahle (1943, 1944a, 1944b, 1945). Several million Soviet soldiers were easily encircled and captured as a result of Stalin’s military bungling.

  28.See, for example, Kahle to Haldane, March 11, 1943, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/33.

  29.Werner (1991), pp. 242–243, 246, 262, 312–313. “Ruth Werner” was her married name in later years after she fled back to East Germany. Her sources of information included her well-placed economist father, Robert René Kuczynski (1876–1947), himself a communist of long standing.

  30.Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev (2009), p. 154.

  31.Robert Chadwell Williams (1987).

  32.Hansard, House of Commons Debates, April 26, 1948, vol. 450, cols. 18–19, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1948/apr/26/scientific-committees-professor-haldane#column_19.

  33.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/274.

  34.Quoted in Clark (1968), p. 212.

  35.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/318ab.

  36.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/318ab.

  37.December 8, 1951, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/319b.

  38.See Andrew and Gordievsky (1990), pp. 317–318, for more on Pontecorvo’s espionage.

  39.Charlotte Haldane (1949), p. 185.

  40.April 4, 1950, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/276a.

  41.April 7, 1950, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives KV 2-1832/309a.

  42.MI5 case note, quoted in Andrew (2009), p. 381.

  43.See Andrew and Mitrokhin (2005).

  7. THE FATE OF VAVILOV

  1.Charlotte incorrectly recalled sailing on the Windsor Castle; Charlotte Haldane (1949), p. 192.

  2.This letter is cited by Clark (1968), p. 197, without naming the recipient, who is vaguely stated to have been “in Scotland.” It may have been Hermann Muller, who was based in Edinburgh at the time.

  3.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 195–196.

  4.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 198–240.

  5.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 254–267.

  6.Proposal for Foreign Membership, Royal Society Archives, EC/1942/24. The proposers were H. H. Dale, A. V. Hill, Thomas R. Merton, O. T. Jones, E. J. Russell, J. B. S. Haldane, W. H. Pearsall, H. Munro Fox, J. Herbert Parsons, C. M. Wenyon, C. R. Harington, S. P. Bedson, E. F. Armstrong, I. M. Heilbron, P. M. S. Blackett, A. M. Tyndall, J. E. Lennard-Jones, L. J. Mordell, H. T. Tizard, and A. C. Egerton.

  7.Haldane (1942).

  8.Haldane (1947b), p. 212.

  9.Haldane (1947b), pp. 224.

  10.Haldane (1947b), pp. 225–226.

  11.Darlington and Harland (1945).

  12.Haldane (1947a), p. 151.

  13.Haldane (1948), p. 875.

  14.As told by Fillipovsky to Mark Popovsky in 1968. See Popovsky (1984), p. 150.

  15.Birstein (2001), pp. 236–237.

  16.Mitchison (1974), p. 17.

  17.Quoted by Clark (1968), p. 199. I have not been able to trace the manuscript of this letter, which Clark does not date.

  18.See Paget (1920).

  19.See the correspondence from the secretary of the Royal Society in the Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE/4/22/2/52,65,85.

  20.Birstein (2001), pp. 225, 401.

  21.Joravsky (1970), pp. 317–328.

  22.Birstein (2001), p. 298.

  23.Charlotte Haldane (1949), pp. 42–45.

  24.Haldane to Lina Stern, February 9, 1942, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/2/4/164. A letter attached to this one has been misclassified and is actually to a different “Professor Stern.”

  25.Ro’i (2010).

  26.Rapaport (1991), pp. 234–253.

  27.Abakumov was under Beria’s direction. He was executed in 1954, supposedly for treason.

  28.Gordon (1951).

  29.Gordon to Haldane, September 24, 1951; Haldane to Gordon, September 27, 1951, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/2/2/71. Jerzy Konorski (1903–1973), a neurophysiologist and critic of Pavlov, had been under sustained attack for several years in the state press.

  8. EXPERIMENTS IN THE REVIVAL OF ORGANISMS

  1.Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 4/4/20.

  2.Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940), directed by D. I. Yashin (Moscow: Techfilm Studio). The film is freely available at https://archive.org/details/Experime1940.

  3.“Notes and News,” The Lancet 240 (6213) (September 26, 1942), pp. 382–384.

  4.Time magazine, Monday, November 22, 1943.

  5.See Soyfer (1994), pp. 161–162. Lysenko was responsible for the disaster.

  6.The patent application was dated November 29, 1928. On December 15, 1934, the patent was issued as USSR patent no. 35976.

  7.See Konstantinov and Alexi-Meskishvili (2000).

  8.See Bryukhonenko et al. (1929) and Fernan-Perez (1929).

  9.Probert and Melrose (1960).

  10.See “Experiments in Resuscitation” (1937).

  11.Gerya and Yankovsky (1976–1977); Lanovenko, Yankovsky, and Lyavinetz (1976); Lanovenko, and Yankovsky (1972); and Lanovenko and Yankovsky (1973).

  12.Negovsky (1995).

  13.Krementsov (2009).

  14.“Shaw Feels ‘Tempted’ to Have Head Cut Off,” New York Times, March 17, 1929, p. 5. Quoted in Krementsov (2009).

  15.See Krementsov (2009) for a rapid survey.

  16.K
ing (1997) has extensively documented this phenomenon.

  17.Even so, the population could hardly keep pace, and would preemptively scratch out photographs of the liquidated in their own copies of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

  9. IT IS YOUR PARTY DUTY, COMRADE!

  1.Hogben to Haldane, November 17, 1943, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/25.

  2.Haldane to Hogben, November 22, 1943, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/26.

  3.Hogben to Haldane, November 29, 1943, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/27.

  4.Haldane to Hogben, undated, circa December 1943, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/28.

  5.This and following Woolf quotations are taken from Woolf to Haldane, December 15, 1943, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/75.

  6.Fisher (1925).

  7.Haldane to Woolf, December 21, 1943, and January 12, 1944, Haldane Papers, University College London, HALDANE 5/1/1/76 to 5/1/1/78.

  8.See Woolf and Waterhouse (1945) and Woolf (1947).

  9.Haldane (1945).

  10.Emile Burns, February 7, 1945, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/181a.

  11.September 8, 1946, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/204b.

  12.October 28, 1946, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/208b.

  13.This sort of argument was quietly dropped after the USSR acquired nuclear weapons in 1949.

  14.March 4, 1947, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/215a.

  15.Haldane (1947b), p. 241.

  16.Haldane (1947b), p. 238.

  17.Haldane (1946a), pp. 224–225.

  18.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/226a.

  19.Our Correspondent, “Intellectuals and Propaganda,” The Times (London), August 28, 1948, p. 3.

  20.September 11, 1948, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/249a.

  21.Solzhenitsyn (1968), p. 388.

  22.Mary (Jones?) to Kitty Cornforth, October 13, 1947, MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/226a. Kitty Cornforth was James Klugmann’s sister and had married Maurice Cornforth. All of them were Communist Party stalwarts. “Mary (Jones?)” could not be traced.

  23.MI5 Personal File, J. B. S. Haldane, National Archives, KV 2-1832/241b.

  24.October 24, 1952, MI5 Personal File, Otto Katz, National Archives, KV 2-1384/458B.