by Roland Perry
There was a subtle attempt to protect Straight’s own position:
Its preoccupation with political espionage may already have contributed to making the FBI less efficient in tracking down real spies and traitors. As early as 1938, at the trial of a German spy ring, the federal judge lamented the incompetence of the government’s detectives in permitting the chief spies to slip out of their sight and out of the country . . .
Then, borrowing from Lenin, the writer of this section concluded with the phrase “What Must Be Done” (often used in print by Straight) and called for the firing of J. Edgar Hoover. He suggested that the FBI should be “deprived of authority to investigate the non-criminal activities of American citizens.”
Hoover responded angrily by writing to the magazine and opening a file on Straight, Dorothy as the true “owner” of The New Republic, and some of its editors. Hoover had the magazine investigated, and this led to an FBI report to the criminal division of the Justice Department. It had to judge if prosecution were warranted against Editorial Publications Limited, The New Republic’s holding company, which was set up in Canada under the control of the family trust created in 1936 by Dorothy. Hoover wanted the magazine charged for failing to register “in compliance with the provisions of the Foreign Publications Act.” The Justice Department investigated and decided that “prosecution was not warranted.”12 Yet this incident showed the extent of Hoover’s thirst for revenge.
Undeterred, the magazine replied to Hoover’s letter with an article in the April 28 edition. The New Republic defended its original attack, citing Hoover’s remarks to a House hearing. It mentioned the FBI’s fingerprinting of employees at industrial plants “to ascertain whether these individuals have been engaged either in criminal or subversive activities.”13
A month later, in the May 26 edition, the magazine kept up the pressure on Hoover in an article, “The FBI and Its Money.” This questioned the big boost in the bureau’s budget and warned Hoover against the misuse of funds.
“We hope,” the article began, “that J. Edgar Hoover uses his sixteen millions to detect any potential crime and not for any other purposes.” It again went on to attack his card-indexing, wire-tapping, and “crack down” on minorities “holding unpopular beliefs.”
It was just the sort of defiance from his enemies among “pinkos and liberals” which brought out the worst in Hoover. The New Republic building and Straight’s Washington office were now under surveillance.
However, whether unaware or otherwise of the attention that he had drawn to himself, Straight was enjoying the change. The New Republic seemed to have given him a new lease on life. He wasn’t a journalist at heart, but he was satisfied if he could become the voice of the young New Dealers working for a progressive defense policy. At least this was part of his cover.
He wrote several articles in 1941 and thought that they were the best commentary on the defense program. In his inimitable style he pulled together the far-left New Dealers who had lost favor with Roosevelt and focused them on a socialist approach to defense.
Straight reveled in pointing out a “conspiracy” that General Electric (GE) had with (German group) I. G. Farben “to obstruct the production of an element needed in the manufacture of armaments.” GE dropped its advertising with the magazine. He attacked the War Department for opposing the creation of new defense plants. He penned another broadside at the Office of Production Management, listing its failures, industry by industry.14
Straight was getting the sort of public reaction at rallies and from irate recipients of criticism in reports, including one from Robert Patterson, the mild-mannered Secretary of the Army, that boosted his ego. It was the kind of nurturing he needed and had not had since his days in the Cambridge Union four years ago. His self-confidence was bubbling once more. Straight was starved of power aphrodisiacs, however minuscule in comparison to those in major corporations, or media outlets such as The New York Times, or in the White House. There, in the real fulcrum of world decision-making at a critical time, the president had majority opinion, that of countless minorities like the one Straight represented, and the vast international arena outside the United States to deal with in actuality. Yet it was the power of the presidency that really attracted him. There and only there he could appease the two demons of his secret affiliations and his public aspirations.
His political stirring at The New Republic was a beginning. He was already familiar with the workings of the president and the government. Straight worked assiduously on his contacts, usually within the hard-left and liberal spectrum. He considered they were enough—along with the sweep of world events—to allow him one day, in the not too distant future, to make a run for political office.
I’m not a journalist at heart, he told his family. He felt he could be a politician. Yet not just any politician.
The FBI file on Straight grew early in 1941 and included quotes from a February 15 article in the Saturday Evening Post called “Muddled Millions, Capitalist Angels of Left-Wing Propaganda.” This named The New Republic and The Nation as the two journals that had “given most aid and prestige to the Communists in the country.” The FBI estimated that the Straight family had subsidized The New Republic to the annual tune of $100,000.15
The report went on to add that “these communistically inclined publications [had] benefited from the Straight fortune to the extent of approximately $2,500,000.” The agent filing the report had simply multiplied the number of years—around twenty-six—since the magazine’s birth by $100,000 to arrive at the figure. This was the FBI at its feverish antiliberal best, but the report at the beginning of Straight’s file did—for the wrong reasons—draw further attention to Straight and Dorothy, whose name also headed the file. Hoover, in his wild lashing out, had yet to distinguish between Dorothy’s genuine liberalism and Straight’s KGB links. By coincidence, and Straight’s courage in letting anti-FBI attacks filter into The New Republic, Hoover had stumbled onto something far bigger than he would have dreamt. In effect, the opposing camps had underestimated each other. Each would discover this miscalculation in the next decade.
Despite the file, Straight was skipping away from Hoover’s watchers with alacrity while drawing himself further into KGB networks. In March, French politician and secret KGB agent Pierre Cot (six times minister of air and twice minister of commerce between the wars), who was in exile in the United States, made contact with Straight via Green. (Cot would continue his secret work in a few months’ time when taken over by Vasili Zarubin, the chief KGB resident in the United States. Zarubin reported to Moscow that he had signed on Cot as “agent DAEDALUS,” who in the mid-1990s would be verified as a KGB man through the Venona decrypts.)
Soon after, Cot linked Straight with a “Louis Dolivet” who stayed at Straight’s house in Alexandria for a night. Straight had first seen Dolivet, another Comintern/KGB man, in Paris in July 1937, on Straight’s last vacation with his girlfriend Herta Thiele. Blunt had suggested Straight attend a rally for the World Committee for the Relief of Victims of German Fascism, where Dolivet spoke passionately against Hitler. The committee was a front run by the German communist Willi Muenzenberg, the KGB’s pay-off man. Kim Philby had met him via the Cambridge network controls a few years earlier.
Straight claimed to be unaware that Dolivet was, like him, a KGB agent. He also made the spurious claim that had he known, he would “probably” have never introduced Dolivet to his sister Beatrice at an Overseas Press Club banquet in Washington. She was furthering her acting career but fell for Dolivet, who could see the advantages of marrying a rich, communist-leaning Straight. Apart from the money, he thought it would boost his chances of staying in the United States. They did marry a year later, although Dolivet—a Romanian whose real name was Ludovic Brecher—had trouble gaining citizenship. Dolivet had started a magazine in Europe, Free World. Thanks to Straight and his relationship with Beatrice, Dolivet received a big investment of $250,000 to start another front paper, United Nation
s World, designed to support—from a Soviet perspective—the idea of a United Nations.
Earlier Straight had managed to bluff the head of the federal government’s visa division, Ruth Shipley, into giving a Spanish-born communist, Gustavo Duran, a visa for the United States, where he and his wife Bronte (Bin Straight’s sister) wished to live. Duran had been a general on the republican side during the Spanish Civil War.
Straight had let the conservative Shipley know that he was the son of Willard, whom she admired as a great U.S. consul.16 When she examined Duran’s papers, she noticed he fought in Spain. She asked which side he was on.
Straight replied deceptively that he had been on the “right” side. Shipley, believing he meant “right-wing,” signed the papers. Straight also sponsored the entry of both Duran’s friend and comrade-in-arms, communists Gustave Regler, whom Straight later described to the FBI as a Trotskyite, and Stephen Spender.
The Durans moved into Old Westbury for a time, as did the Dolivets, who would later introduce Straight to actors Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. Over time Welles became “politically educated” by Dolivet.
“I was fascinated by him,” Welles remarked, “and very fond of him.”17 Dolivet worked on Welles, hoping he would develop his political instincts, which were hard left, although Welles never admitted being a communist as such. Dolivet thought he might have a promising future in public life.
“Oh, he had great plans,” Welles remarked. “He was going to organize it so that in fifteen years I would win the Nobel Prize (for peaceful political activism).”18
Dolivet soon had him making speeches at Free World dinners and functions and to politicians in Washington. Welles went on to address the Overseas Press Club and the Soviet-American Congress. The actor was willingly being used as a front for communist propaganda dressed up as liberal international thought.
Welles would later give serious consideration to a career as a senator, especially when his three other careers in film, radio, and theater faltered. In the meantime, he sharpened his ideas on paper in the Free World magazine, which was urging international cooperation through a UN organization.
This development came on the heels of Welles making Citizen Kane, which had caused Hoover to open a file on the actor at about the time the Straight dossier began in 1941. Kane had been loosely based on the life of right-wing newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. The film and the subsequent furor over its portrayal of the newspaper baron drew much comment in The New Republic, which supported it. The magazine included a piece on February 24 by a mysterious “Michael Sage” titled “Hearst over Hollywood.” (Straight denied it was written by him.) The article attacked Hearst’s efforts to stop distribution of the film. It was all grist for Hoover’s burgeoning files on Straight and Welles, two new bureau enemies.
Hitler made his first major military error of World War II when his army crossed the Russian border and headed east on June 22, 1941. The impact buoyed rather than depressed Straight, who claimed to have been “besieged by new found friends” now that the center of communist power—Russia—was united against (rather than being officially partners with) the Nazis. He picked up the tempo of speeches at rallies in many federal agencies organized by the United Federal Workers Union and demanded with even greater fervor that the United States enter the war.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese provided the stimulus needed by bombing Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt declared war on Japan and Germany. The United States—as the Russians and the British had long wanted— were in the fray. But Straight, the fierce advocate of fighting fascism, was not. Instead he decided to have a child, which would delay his entry into the services.
In December, Esmond Romilly, the radical nephew of Winston Churchill, was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the North Sea. Straight invited Romilly’s wife Decca to Old Westbury for New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Day they received a call from the White House. Churchill was there for secret talks with Roosevelt now that they were combining their fighting forces against the Germans, Italians, and Japanese. Churchill wanted to give his condolences to Decca in person. Straight and Bin drove her to see him. Mrs. Roosevelt met with Straight and told him she had been reading his articles in The New Republic. He found it an inspiring way to commence 1942.
Soon after Straight’s visit to the White House, he had mixed feelings about the return of his control Michael Green to Washington, D.C., for his second tour of the United States. Straight’s fears that he might be liquidated proved to be unfounded. Yet Green’s return was confirmation that Straight was still considered by the KGB to be one of them.
When they met, Straight told him about his plans to write a book after completing the building of a new home in Weynoke, Virginia, and overseeing the design of the garden. The book, his first, titled Let This Be the Last War, was inspired by the governments of twenty-six nations signing the Declaration of the United Nations early in 1942. It was no more than a statement of intent, yet Straight saw it as a vehicle for portraying a world free of war, from a Soviet perspective. Green was not impressed, but his agent was persuasive and because of his financial independence had more maneuverability than the control’s other spies. His privileged position meant he could put aside his work for The New Republic to indulge his intellectual aspirations. Green would have been frustrated by Straight’s whims, but there was little he could do, short of strong-arm tactics, to make him accede to his directives. Straight’s family trust money was being used to help many communist fronts in the United States. His connections and pull with, for instance, the visa and passport departments at State made him useful. Besides this, Green was aware that he came out of the Cambridge ring in England, which was regarded as “special” by the KGB Moscow Center.
Straight wrote during the summer after he and Bin had taken up residence at Weynoke. His book used the idea of a proposed United Nations to show how it should deal with the collapse of colonialism in a postwar world that would urgently need a worldwide policy of reconstruction. In effect, it was a communist blueprint for a postwar universe. In those secluded months of writing, Straight’s mind drifted back to his not-so-distant Cambridge days in developing a Marxist treatise. There was much groveling to Stalin, the ultimate reader, with quotes from the ever-sage and avuncular leader.
Stalin was alleged to have told British newspaper proprietor Lord Beaverbrook in Moscow that it was not enough to turn out arms for factories. He, meaning the British government, had to keep up and create the spirit that enabled people to arm themselves. There were mandatory bashes at capitalism, especially Western companies that prospered from arms production when they were about to fail through inefficiency. Straight also provided prayers for a coming communist China. He saw the deepening divide in that nation between landlords and peasants and between the Kuomintang and liberal China. His writing provided many bland homilies about a world government of sorts. Only when such a utopian government was operating could any country progress to increased democratic freedoms.19
The book was also a restless summer escape. Straight was struggling with a regurgitation of his Marxist training in the hope of giving it some meaning beyond his espionage work. He had been in contact intermittently with Green now for a five-year period (from 1937 to 1942), yet Straight was dissatisfied and still not reconciled to those two internal drives. On the one hand, he was under pressure not to let his Cambridge friends down. They had a pact, an Apostles’ creed that he felt compelled to adhere to. They believed they were on the correct path for proper Marxist historical development, and he was expected to assist them, or at the least not betray them. On the other hand, he wanted to fulfill his personal career ambitions. His burst into journalism had given him more than a taste for politics again. He thrived on the public rallies and the response from the crowd to rousing rhetoric. At Cambridge he had measured himself against the best minds in the union and felt he had stood taller than any of them in debate, argument, and management. In five years near the fulcrum of world power, Straight fe
lt superior in ideas, intellect, ambition, drive, and vision to most of those he had met in the corridors of government. On top of this, he had learned how to use his money to get doors open and things done for himself.
Yet the timing was not quite right to make a move into congress. He had to put thoughts of a political career on hold while there was a war. He felt inclined to join the armed forces and achieve something that would add to his platform for politics. It could also be a chance to break from Green. When they had first met, just a few months after Straight had completed Cambridge, he was an arrogant yet raw 21-year-old, much in awe of the secret world he had been led into by Burgess and Blunt. Green had been part of his continuing indoctrination and influence. But five years later, at age 26, Straight had bought, cajoled, and pushed his way through a far broader education in Washington. Green had reduced in size as Straight grew experienced and made contact with the best and brightest in U.S. government. If Straight wanted to achieve for the cause, he wished to do it on his terms.
During the lazy summer months of 1942, Straight doubled up with the book by sending off related articles to The New Republic. When isolated within the journal, these excerpts seemed academic and misplaced, especially when the magazine was involved in a more real ideological war with the FBI. The attacks by it on Hoover continued and irritated him; Hoover was not used to such persistent criticism, even from the liberal press.
Green snapped Straight out of his campus reverie at Old Westbury with a phone call in August. He asked for a meeting, which had to be secret. FBI surveillance was tight, particularly in New York, where the main Soviet activity was going on. Straight took the Long Island Railroad from Westbury to Jamaica Station, where he was picked up by Green.20
They decided against a restaurant meeting, although once they had evaded any possible watchers, it would have been safe, especially in an area where Straight and Green were unknown. Instead they drove around the suburbs of Queens for more than an hour. Straight could not recall the specifics of the discussions, but he passed him information—a “memorandum.” Straight claimed it was a summary of the arguments in his book. Green urged him to meet with KGB agent Earl Browder (code name RULEVOJ), the leader of the Communist Party of the USA, which in itself was a significant step. It meant drawing Straight into the broader secret world from which the Moscow Center had so far shielded him.21