Last of the Cold War Spies

by Roland Perry

  The IPR was run by an executive committee that included Owen Lattimore, Edward C. Carter, and Frederick Vanderbilt Field. All were alleged to have communist affiliations. Congressional testimony linked Lattimore, a John Hopkins University academic, to the same communist cell as Field. Lattimore denied these accusations (see Chapter 19). However, Luis Budenz testified that he was present when the U.S. Communist Party chairman in 1937 instructed Lattimore to influence American journalists into playing down Chinese communists as harmless agrarian reformers.6

  Straight, aware from the attacks that there was no substantial evidence of Lattimore’s KGB links, defended him, and so defended his own position and the Whitney Foundation’s investment in IPR. The New Republic became a vehicle for the defense, running articles critical of committees investigating Lattimore.

  One of McCarthy’s many targets was Straight’s close friend, Gustavo Duran, the husband of Bin’s sister, Bronte. He had been attacked since 1951, and matters were brought to a head when he faced the U.S. Civil Service Commission’s “Loyalty Board” hearings. They began in May 1954 and went on intermittently until January 1955. The main point of contention in Duran’s mercurial career centered on a vital three weeks in 1938, when he ran the Spanish Republicans’ Servicio de Investigacion Militar (SIM) in Madrid. It was created in 1937 as a counterespionage service but soon became an all-powerful political police force, able to make arrests without trial or investigation. SIM was immune to the authority of the minister of war. It had more than 6,000 agents and was in control of prisons and concentration camps. Duran appointed militant communists to all the important posts.

  The Loyalty Board accused him of a link to Soviet intelligence and also that he had been removed from his post in charge of SIM for making “numerous unauthorized appointments of Communists.” Duran denied the charge for four years, but now one further detail about his duties emerged. He had reported to the Spanish government’s National Intelligence Service. It had informed him on which experts’ advice to follow in making SIM appointments. Duran attempted to downplay this by saying they were “temporary.” But when pressed on who these “experts” were, Duran became evasive. He later gave a clue that they were probably linked to Soviet intelligence when he was asked to comment on his knowledge of twenty-five named persons. They included Alexander Orlov, a key Soviet intelligence officer directing the purge of communists who were not following the Stalinist line in Spain.

  Duran answered: “I was introduced to a member of the Russian Embassy whose name was Orlov by the then head of SIM, Mr. Sayagues. I never knew what Orlov’s first name was. I spoke with Orlov once or twice. I remember that he told me how necessary it was to organize an effective counter-espionage system in the Republican Army.”7 Orlov, then, was one of the “experts” instructing him on appointments in SIM.

  After his fifth and final hearing in January 1955, Duran was cleared of all charges and allowed to continue his career at the UN. Once more the grapeshot approach to investigation had missed Duran’s most important KGB intelligence link—his brother-in-law, Straight.

  Striganov asked Straight in October 1955 to receive at his home a delegation of Soviet writers, led by Boris Kampov-Polevoy, who was secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers, which was also under KGB control. Far from steering clear of Russian contacts, Straight now seemed to be encouraging them.

  An FBI agent reviewing his FBI file (accumulated from 1963 to 1975), probably in the early 1970s, raised the possibility that Straight was dissimulating. The agent also accused him of being naive for even questioning whether Striganov, Fried (a possible agent he met in Moscow in 1969), and others were connected with the KGB. Straight countered by clinging to his argument that if he could reach (KGB) intelligence experts with sound reasoning, that was enough for him.8 Straight made the wellworn, spurious claim that he was not passing on espionage but rather informing the Moscow Center in the interests of world peace.

  In general there was FBI and CIA concern about any contacts with Russians in the United States by American citizens. The FBI vaults were full of files on everyone from journalists to atomic scientists who had or might still have links. At this time American intelligence services were aware that the Soviets were—as ever—very keen to learn how the U.S. nuclear weapons program was progressing. Any information to do with policy, new programs, and developments was of vital interest. By 1955 the Russians were on a par with the United States in the nuclear arms race as both countries developed horrific thermonuclear weapons.

  Nancy Harriman had not yet obtained access to the money from her grandmother’s estate in 1955, and The New Republic did not quite belong to her husband. Straight’s name was still on the masthead as editor, but he had written a “farewell” editorial. It marked the fortieth anniversary issue in 1954. While doing research for this editorial, he fell out with Felix Frankfurter over the issue of freedom of speech. Straight had been for unconditional freedoms, whereas the Supreme Court judge had supported some restrictions in the 1950s.

  While in Europe for the summer of 1955 for his annual visit to Dartington, Straight took time off for a trip to Geneva for an East-West summit, which was meant to “identify sources of tension” between the Soviets and the West. Straight was there using The New Republic as his usual cover for his KGB work. His job was to report anything that would be useful to the Soviet side. He passed on analysis of the in-fighting in the U.S. camp just prior to the summit between John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, and Nelson Rockefeller, Eisenhower’s special assistant for Cold War strategy. Straight attended meetings of the cabinet, the National Security Council, and the Council on Foreign Economic Policy.

  The Geneva summit’s aim was to consider the problems that lay between the two superpowers. After that, the disagreements would be referred to the foreign ministers of participating nations for detailed discussions to see if any agreements could be worked out. Dulles was happy for this arrangement; Rockefeller saw problems. He had summed up the Russians and thought that Nikita Khrushchev, who had taken over as general secretary of the Communist Party after Stalin died in 1953, would bring a number of solid proposals for arms reductions to the summit table. The Soviet leader, always on the lookout for ways to outshine the United States in world opinion, would, Rockefeller believed, make his proposals public. Straight learned that Rockefeller feared the United States would be put on the defensive. If the United States was perceived to hesitate, much esteem might be lost. Straight observed that “he [Rockefeller] saw the meeting as theater and proposed to pre-empt the stage by a bold gesture that would capture the imagination of the world.”9

  It was Straight’s job to find what that gesture would be. But all he learned was that Rockefeller’s argument won over the Dulles plan. Rockefeller and his staff of six (including Nancy Hanks, whose biography Straight would later write) moved into a hotel in Lausanne, thirty miles from Geneva. Security was extra tight, but there was no safe in the rooms. The staff carried classified information in a metal satchel. Classified data that they wished to dispose of had to be flushed down the toilet.10 This meant that Straight had to be content with tidbits rather than documents to pass on to the Russians.

  After three days of preliminaries, Eisenhower told Soviet leaders that “the time had come to end the Cold War.” He handed them Rockefeller’s Open Skies Plan. Straight and his fellow Soviet spies had failed their leaders. Straight said that the Soviet side was stunned by the plan. Western diplomats and correspondents called it “fantastic” and “unprecedented”; Soviet journalists disappeared for several days.11

  But it mattered little. Although Rockefeller had won a public relations coup for Eisenhower, the plan later fizzled. One of its main concepts was a detailed plan for on-site inspection after agreed arms reductions or cessation of an arms buildup. This was fine for the United States. It had long-range, high-altitude aircraft to check on developments; the Soviets did not. There would be no “Open Skies” agreement for a long time yet.

 
; Vladimir Barkovsky was sent to Washington as the KGB’s chief-of-station at the beginning of the summer of 1956 in an effort to speed up its acquisition through espionage of U.S. developments in everything from military aircraft to biological weapons. Money was no object as the Soviet Union turned over 50 percent of its national income to defense, and espionage was allocated a sizable chunk of it. Barkovsky, who had served in the London embassy during the war, and in New York until the early 1950s, was one of the most experienced, hardworking, and demanding controls ever placed in the United States. His specialty had been nuclear weaponry, and he had done as much as possible in stealing U.S. atomic and hydrogen bomb secrets, which went some way to the Soviet Union’s creating their own major weapons of destruction. Now, as station-chief in the most important embassy outpost in the world, his responsibilities had increased.

  Barkovsky set out to cast a wide espionage net in the United States with hundreds of agents in Washington and dotted around the country in “strategic” cities and remote locations such as the Midwest—those close to major U.S. military centers. He admitted in our interviews that he recruited people everywhere, even attempting to reactivate agents long considered burnt-out cases. It was now more than a decade since the United States and Soviet Union had been allies, and the Cold War had become worse with no thaw in sight. Now the GRU—the Soviet military’s espionage arm—and the KGB wanted to know about every single U.S. development that indicated a threat or a turning point in policy, strategy, or tactics. Main highways, designed for quick military maneuvers, were being constructed throughout the United States. The KGB wanted to know everything about them, from the contractors commissioned to build them to the routes they would take. A military command and control bunker was planned for construction in Colorado. Barkovsky, who jokingly underplayed his role during WWII at the London embassy by describing his role as a “photographer,” now was in charge of a massive picture-gathering operation of his own. Within months, the new KGB chief-of-station had created the largest foreign espionage operation in peacetime. Barkovsky sent hundreds of agents into remote areas of the United States to create maps and take photographs.

  One of his more experienced agents called up for one such assignment was Straight.

  PART FOUR

  SPIES FROM THE PAST

  21

  CAREER CHANGE

  Straight turned forty in 1956, and the year proved to be one of change, at least in his professional life.

  He claimed to have assessed his options. He was modestly famous as an orator. Organizations such as the Americans for Democratic Action sought him as its chairman. But his connections to the Cambridge ring— particularly Burgess and Blunt—had ruined any chances of his ever entertaining a political career. Straight could not now go on with his easy life at The New Republic, which his brother Whitney had seen to by forcing him to stop financing the magazine from Trust 11 money. That left Straight no option but to sell it off and therefore end his own association with it as owner, editor and even eventually a sometime journalist.

  This was an accurate summary as far as it went without being the full story. Whitney argued that Straight’s handling of the magazine had to be stopped. Gil Harrison had finally paid for The New Republic, and Straight turned over full responsibility for the magazine to him. It was not difficult. Ever since the Henry Wallace campaign debacle, Straight faced the reality of the magazine’s leaving his family’s control, but he had stayed on through necessity. Now it was time to move on. But to what? He didn’t need money. That would always roll in from the trust. But it was nice to be occupied. And his only long-term true “employer,” the KGB, always had intriguing projects for him. It wanted him and made him feel useful. He was also locked in and obligated to carry out espionage.

  For the latest directive from Barkovsky, Straight needed a better cover than being a political journalist. If he snooped around the West in his allotted states—Wyoming and Nebraska—taking pictures and notes of every military establishment for research, troops, and training, he would invite suspicion. He could have claimed he was doing “local color” stories. But this would have looked strange after one or two articles from a man known for mixing in hot political circles around the power portals of Washington, D.C.

  Straight needed something more layered and creative as a cover. He hit on the idea of being a novelist. But what sort of novel would he write? First he surveyed the area.

  During the summer, he and the family vacationed at a ranch at Saddle-string, Wyoming. Straight became familiar with the region, first on horseback and by car, and then in the air in his Navion, which he flew over the Big Horn Mountains. He took a keen interest in the area’s history. He noted in his diary that the so-called Fetterman Massacre took place on the road to Sheridan in northern Wyoming, not far from the Montana border. Then it came to him: he would write a Western.

  Over time he had to justify this writing move, and his choice of genre, from his past inclinations. He decided to become an author.

  But not just any author. Straight was bound to tackle deeper subjects and needed a certain amount of solid background before he wrote. This meant, even with fiction, accessing locations and archives that the layperson might find difficult to get into. As long as authors or writers had the right story to explain why they needed to visit a certain location or to access an archive, they usually succeeded in obtaining the material they wanted. Straight, as a journalist, had useful experience in gaining information. Now as a would-be novelist, he would have similar access. It was a clever, even ingenious new screen as an excuse for wandering around his two target states. As ever, he felt compelled to deceive the family and justify his move into Western fiction writing. He told his parents that he was making a break from his past. Straight said he needed a new challenge and that it was coming in the form of a novel, which was beginning to take shape in his mind.

  But he was unconvincing. He had never dreamed of being a novelist as a teenager or youth. He had claimed that books and writers did not move his generation (except for the British economist John Maynard Keynes). There was no unpublished manuscript of his tucked away in a desk drawer at Dartington or a vault at Cambridge. In fact, creative writing had never challenged him. His horizons had been limited to considering a biography of English economist David Ricardo (1772–1823). Yet suddenly at 40, he had contrived to be a fiction author when until this point he had been consumed by hard-nosed, very political nonfiction journalism.

  The first reassertion of this alleged long-dormant urge came in the form of a Western novel—not quite Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid, but nevertheless a Western. It was a most unlikely genre for Straight to tackle. The story would be set in a ruined fort near Sheridan, the site of the Fetterman Massacre. The theme would be human responsibility. Straight had a further fascinating explanation for setting his first fiction effort in the remote West. The location came first, then the story; the characters and the themes were settled on the geography. The story emerged from true history with the characters who had actually lived out the action around the fort. Once the key people were discovered, Straight set them down on the landscape around which he wished to do his espionage work for Barkovsky.

  Straight was working part-time at The New Republic on the outside chance that liberal Adlai Stevenson should be elected U.S. president in the 1956 elections. In that eventuality, Straight planned to go back full time to make sure the magazine supported him. In the meantime he was researching his novel in the national archive. His claimed aim was to produce something that lasted as opposed to editorials he had written weekly for a decade.

  The book would recapitulate his experience on The New Republic. This meant that a lot of pent-up energy would flow into the novel, which he called Carrington. It was one of the more inventive espionage covers yet attempted.

  While this first novel was brewing, his deeper attitudes to the communist movement were being tested just after the Hungarian Uprising in Budapest in October 1956. An attempted overth
row of the ruling communist party was put down by an invasion of Russian tanks ordered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It demonstrated the brutal nature of the Kremlin regime in the true Stalinist tradition. Straight’s attitude was exposed the night after the election won by the incumbent, President Eisenhower, when he spent time with Cord Meyer and an acquaintance, Leo Cherne, who had just delivered supplies to Cardinal Mindzenty. Josef Mindzenty was the Catholic clergyman who personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary. He had been arrested by the communist government in 1948 for refusing to let Catholic schools be secularized. He was convicted of treason in 1949. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he was set free during the uprising. When the communist government regained control after the tanks rolled in, he sought asylum at the U.S. embassy in Budapest. Meyer said that Straight believed the U.S. government was covertly supporting Mindzenty and that this support seemed to have led to the uprising.1

  The Soviet line, as espoused by such agents of influence as Australian communist journalist Wilfred Burchett, was that Mindzenty was a CIA stooge and a traitor who should be surrendered by the Americans to the authorities. Straight had spent time with Meyer and his wife Mary on the last night of the uprising. Meyer had been listening to the last, desperate broadcasts from underground radio stations in Budapest. He was responsible for the CIA’s relationship with Radio Free Europe (RFE), hence his interest in the final broadcasts. A KGB disinformation program was created that charged RFE with inciting and provoking the uprising. The KGB used the Romanian Communist Party newspaper on November 3 to make the accusation, followed by Vasily Kuznetsov, the chief Soviet delegate at the UN, during a security council debate. It became official communist history in the Hungarian regime’s publication, The Counter-Revolutionary Forces in the October Events in Hungary.