Last of the Cold War Spies
Page 42
5. Andrew, His Majesty’s Service, p. 423.
6. J. Edgar Hoover’s reaction to Krivitsky is clear from his own memos and his notes in the margins of memos from FBI agents urging him to take action. See declassified FBI files 1940–1944, especially 100-59589; 100-26044; 100- 65-6807; 1001146-17; 100-11146-16; 100-11146-14; 100-11146-13; and 100-11146-5.
7. Straight, After Long Silence, especially the chapter “My Lies,” pp. 134ff.
8. The author’s research led him to believe that Alister Watson may have been recruited but that he did not pass on any intelligence. “He didn’t have the stomach for it,” was the assessment by one MI5 officer.
9. Straight, After Long Silence, pp. 144–145.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. From NSA analysis of Venona traffic by Robert Louis Benson, The 1944– 1945 New York and Washington-Moscow KGB Messages (1995). Also CIA sources on Michael Green.
14. Levine, Eyewitness.
15. Information supplied by a retired French intelligence operative.
16. Levine, Eyewitness, p. 196; see also testimony before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee Hearings, June 6 and 7, 1956.
17. U.S. National Archives, file 761, 62/09-2239.
18. New York Times, October 12, 1939.
19. The Louis Waldham files at the New York Public Library, Folder 2, November 25, 1939, from Immigration Director Houghteling of the Labor Department.
20. Costello, Mask of Treachery, p. 348.
21. Philby, My Silent War, p. 102.
22. The source for this is Peter Wright, Spycatcher. Chapman Pincher also covers this in Too Secret Too Long. His source, although unnamed at the time of the book’s publication, was Peter Wright.
23. The source for Liddell’s reaction is a former MI5 officer, who was informed by Arthur Martin. Martin reviewed the Krivitsky material when Philby was interrogated, and he sat in on the questioning of Philby.
24. Sources for the report by Jane Sissmore, née Archer, include Kim Philby, My Silent War, and Brooke-Shepherd, The Storm Petrels.
25. The source is the former MI5 officer cited above who was informed by Arthur Martin.
26. Ibid.
27. Borovik, The Philby Files, pp. 243–244.
28. Ibid., pp. 83, 122, 243–244, 275, 298.
CHAPTER 9: A DEFENSIVE MEASURE
1. Burgess’s visa dates taken from the U.S. National Archive, NA710.4111, Burgess, Guy 7-840.
2. Costello, Mask of Treachery, p. 271.
3. FBI interviews with Michael Straight, June 24, 1963.
4. Young, The Elmhirsts of Dartington, p. 343.
5. Ibid., p. 344.
6. Both the U.S. National Archives and the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York, have a record of a letter regarding Michael Straight being sent by Franklin Roosevelt to the State Department (NA111.24/131 1/2, July 29, FDR to State).
7. Newton, The Cambridge Spies, pp. 21–22.
8. Interview with former MI5 officer, December 2002.
9. Newton, The Cambridge Spies, pp. 21–22.
10. Interview with Wright, 1988. Rothschild told Wright that he had been chosen by Liddell to go to Washington to debrief Krivitsky again.
11. Interviews with Modin in 1993 and 1996; interviews with Vladimir Barkovsky, October 1996.
12. Flora Lewis, “Who Killed Krivitsky,” Washington Post, February 13, 1966.
13.Dallin, Soviet Intelligence, pp. 409–410.
14. FBI report to J. Edgar Hoover, February 14, 1941, file no. 100-11146-22.
15. Chambers, Witness, pp. 485–486.
16. Ibid.
17. Dallin, Soviet Intelligence. His desire to purchase a gun seems odd, considering that, according to Chambers, he already carried one. One explanation could be that he was forced to buy a weapon by his killers, who were setting up the “suicide.”
18. Newton, The Cambridge Spies, p. 24; Washington Star, February 11, 1941.
19. Ibid.
20. Dallin, Soviet Intelligence.
21. Ibid.
22. This is Waldman’s explanation of the lock.
23. FBI reports from file no. 100-11146; serials 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 28, 28, 29, 34, 43, 53.
24. Brooke-Shepherd, The Storm Petrels, pp. 176–177, and Newton, The Cambridge Spies, pp. 28ff. Italics added.
25. Ibid.
26. Via Internet—1: Cold War Spies and Espionage; 2: Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American response, and links; 3: Nova On-line, and links.
27. Borovik, The Philby Files, p. 122.
28. Newton, The Cambridge Spies, p. 30; see also Report no. 15 in the Senate Judiciary Files, U.S. National Archives, dated April 8, 1954, re: The Murder of General Walter Krivitsky in Washington, D.C.
29. Ibid.
30. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 140.
31. Ibid., p.143.
32. Interview with Modin, October 1996.
CHAPTER 10: NEW REPUBLIC, OLD WAYS
1. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 157.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Young, The Elmhirsts of Dartington, p. 236.
5.Straight, After Long Silence, p. 159.
6. Ibid.
7. New Republic, February 17, 1941.
8. Ibid.
9. Straight, After Long Silence, pp. 160–161.
10. Ibid., p. 166.
11. New Republic, April 28, 1941.
12. See FBI file no. 100-3476; also Hoover to his special agent in charge of investigating the New Republic, September 15, 1942, file no. 100-619296-26; also relevant are the FBI interviews with Michael Straight, June 24, 1963.
13. Ibid.
14. New Republic, May 26, 1941.
15. From Michael Straight’s FBI file. The article was by Benjamin Stolberg.
16. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 268.
17. Leaming, Orson Welles, p. 276.
18. Ibid.
19. Straight, Let This Be the Last War, p. 162; see especially the chapter titled “The Crisis of the War of Liberation.”
20. FBI file no. 100-619296; FBI interview with Michael Straight, June 24, 1963.
21. References to code names from Venona material at the NSA.
22. In 1945 Gayn would be arrested in the so-called Amerasia case. The Office of Naval Intelligence found hundreds of secret government documents strewn around the offices of Amerasia, a small pro-Maoist journal published by Philip Jaffe and partially funded by the Institute of Pacific Affairs. Gayn was never prosecuted. This led to speculation in intelligence circles that he was turned into a double agent. It would certainly explain Gayn’s position. No other journalist, not even Australia’s communist-supporting agent of influence Wilfred Burchett, had access to the highest echelons of power in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington during the 1950s. In 1963 the ubiquitous Gayn was said to have foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy. According to Richard Case Nagell, a U.S. military intelligence officer, a Soviet agent ordered him to eliminate Lee Harvey Oswald before he and two Cuban accomplices could carry out a plan to assassinate Kennedy. That Soviet agent, Nagell claimed, was either Gayn or Tracy Barnes, a CIA spy, who was Michael Straight’s cousin. These claims are explained in the book by U.S. journalist Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
23. Costello, Mask of Treachery, p. 477.
24. Ibid.
25. The FBI file on Michael Straight, 100-3644.
26. Harvey et al., The Secret World of American Communism, pp. 249–259. In the end, Browder found Josephine Treslow Adams, who started the link to the Roosevelts when she was commissioned to paint Eleanor in 1941. Adams claimed to Browder that she had personally intervened with the president to release Browder from prison, to which he had been sentenced in 1941 for using a false passport on his trips to the Soviet Union. Roosevelt had Browder released in May 1942—three years short of his full term. In mid-1943, messages flowed from Adams to Browder, which she claimed came originally fro
m her verbal communication with Roosevelt. They were sent to the Moscow Center and Stalin. The communications “coup” of supposedly having the president’s ear gained Browder some kudos. Later the “verbal” messages were found to have been concocted by the skillful Adams, who was diagnosed as mentally ill.
27. See Venona at NSA for May 1943.
28. Blum, The Price of Vision, pp. 347–358.
29. Edgar Snow, “Must the East Go Red?” Saturday Evening Post, May 12, 1945.
30. See Michael Straight’s FBI file.
31. See Klehr and Radosh, “Anatomy of a Fix,” New Republic, April 21, 1986; see also their updated book of 1996, The Amerasia Spy Case.
32. Interview with William Elmhirst, August 1997.
33. Sudoplatov, Sudoplatov, and Schecter, Special Tasks; see especially the chapter titled “Atomic Spies.”
34. Ibid., p. 189.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
CHAPTER 11: BLUNT’S ROYAL MISSION
1. Historian Hugh Trevor Roper recalled Blunt telling him in some detail about the assignment. See Times Literary Supplement, October 1945. There is also an account of Moorhead’s visit with Blunt in the Royal Archive, Royal Collections Department, Windsor, Berkshire.
2. Report on Nash in New York Times, June 10, 1946. She was arrested for gem theft at the Kronberg Castle after Blunt’s visit. She was inspired—with her friend Colonel Jack Durant, an army flyer—to act criminally when she realized the value of items and treasures at the castle.
3. Times Literary Supplement, October 1945.
4. Costello, Mask of Treachery, pp. 446–447.
5. Interview with Peter Wright, June 1988; and another MI5 source, June 1992; also interview with Modin, July 1993.
6. Ibid.
7. Blunt to British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, Times Literary Supplement, October 1945.
8. Information from British intelligence source, February 1997.
9. Times Literary Supplement, October 1945. This supports information from Modin, Wright, and two other British intelligence sources that Blunt read the letters and transcripts.
10. Information from John Costello, November 1994, and a British intelligence source, June 1996; see also Costello, Mask of Treachery, p. 446.
11. Sources include Modin and Wright. This is the assessment of several journalists, historians, and intelligence operatives in the United Kingdom and Russia.
12.Information from Modin, July 1993.
13. Interviews with Modin, July 1993 and October 1996. A further Russian source added some detail in an interview, August 1993.
14. Interviews with Modin, July 1993 and October 1996.
CHAPTER 12: POLITICAL PATH TO NOWHERE
1. Interview with Cord Meyer, October 1996.
2. Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 283; interview with Cord Meyer, October 1996.
3. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 200.
4. Ibid.
5. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 201.
6. FBI interview with Michael Straight, July 18, 1975; file no. 100-61927-10.
7. See Maria Elena de la Iglesia, ed., Dartington Hall School.
8. Interview with William Elmhirst, February 1997.
9. Sudoplatov, Sudoplatov, Schecter, Special Tasks; see especially the chapter titled “Atomic Spies.”
10. Ibid.
11. See New Republic editorials throughout 1946.
12. Schmidt, Henry A. Wallace, Quixotic Campaign 1948, p. 19.
CHAPTER 13: TRY OF THE TROJAN
1. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 204.
2. Ibid., pp. 221–222.
3. New Republic, December 16, 1946.
4. See all editions of New Republic, December 1946.
5. Ibid.
6. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 205.
7. Ibid.
8. New Republic, March 1947.
9. Straight, After Long Silence, pp. 206–207.
10. Dartington Hall visitor’s book signatures show Michael Straight’s arrival on April 7, 1947.
11. London Times, April 7 and 8, 1947.
12. White and Maze, Henry Wallace, pp. 246–247.
13. Chicago Sun, April 9, 1947.
14. Conservative Party Archives, London. Winston Churchill’s speeches, 1947.
15.Chicago Sun, April 12, 1947.
16. Schmidt, Henry A. Wallace.
17. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 209.
18. Ibid.
19. FBI interviews with Michael Straight, p. 14.
20. Ibid.
21. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 209.
22. White and Maze, Henry A. Wallace, p. 250.
23. Ibid., p. 251
24.Straight, After Long Silence, p. 210.
25. Ibid., p. 214.
26. Meyer, Facing Reality, pp. 51–55.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., p. 55.
29. Ibid.
30. Interview with Cord Meyer, October 1996. According to Meyer, Miler, and other CIA operatives, Straight believed that KGB defector Anatoli Golitsyn told the FBI (and the CIA) that he (Straight) was active as a KGB agent and that one of his missions was at the AVC.
31. White and Maze, Henry A. Wallace, p. 254.
32. Schmidt, Henry A. Wallace, p. 73.
CHAPTER 14: SIDESHOW SUFFERINGS
1. New Republic, January 21, 1948.
2. Schmidt, Henry A. Wallace.
3. New Republic, April 5, 1948.
4. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 231.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 229.
7. Ibid., p. 227.
8. “There Are Great Fears,” New Republic, March 22, 1948.
9. “Trial by Congress,” New Republic, August 16, 1948.
10. Information from Verne Newton, who spoke with Bin and Michael Straight and was in correspondence with Dr. Welderhall.
11. FBI interviews with Michael Straight, report of July 31, 1975.
12. Newton, The Cambridge Spies, pp. 220–221.
13. Meyer, Facing Realities, p. 55, and interview with Cord Meyer, October 1996.
14. Interview with Cord Meyer, October 1996.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. New Republic, May 2, 1949.
CHAPTER 15: BARKOVSKY AND THE BOMB SPIES
1. Interview with Barkovsky, October 1996.
2. Perry, The Fifth Man, pp. 116–117. The Barkovsky information provided the missing link in this revealing espionage scenario involving Oliphant (innocently), Rothschild, Blunt, and Barkovsky.
3. NKVD/KGB file, no. 13676, vol. 1. This reveals Maclean’s message.
4. Interview with Barkovsky, October 1996.
5. Physics Today, November 1996, p. 51.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Sudoplatov, Sudoplatov, Schecter, Special Tasks, p. 207.
9. Interview with Barkovsky, October 1996.
10. Oppenheimer, “A Letter from the Chief of Los Alamos,” New Republic, June 6, 1949; and Szilard, “America, Russia, and the Bomb,” New Republic, October 31, 1949.
11. Dartington Hall visitor’s book.
12. Michael Straight makes several references to his meeting with Burgess and Blunt in 1949 in After Long Silence.
13. Interview with a former senior operative in British intelligence, September 1996.
14. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 767.
CHAPTER 16: THE ANTI-COMMUNIST
1. From the HUAC hearing on legislation to outlaw un-American and subversive activities; see the complete transcript, including the written legal brief, pp. 2211–2225, March 21–23 and March 28, 1950.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid. Italics added.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.; and interview with William Elmhirst, March 1998.
12. HUAC hearing on legislation to out
law un-American and subversive activities.
13. New Republic, May 1, 1950.
14. New Republic, April 3 and 10, 1950.
15. Interview with Barkovsky, October 1996.
16. Copy of poem given to author by Diana Barnato-Walker during interviews, August 1999.
17. Interview with William Elmhirst, March 1998.
CHAPTER 17: THE KOREAN WAR SPIES
1. Interviews with Modin, October 1993; see also Modin’s book, My Five Cambridge Friends, pp. 181–184.
2. Ibid.
3. Interviews with Modin and other KGB sources, June 1993 and October 1996; see also the article by Roy Medvedev in the Washington Post, June 19, 1983.
4.Interviews with Modin, October 1993.
5. Straight, After Long Silence, pp. 249–251.
6. Sidney Hook, “The Incredible Story of Michael Straight,” Encounter, February 1983.
7. William Safire, “The Michael Straight,” New York Times, January 10, 1983.
8. Review by Raymond A. Scroth, America, May 1983.
9. Costello, Mask of Treachery, pp. 470–471.
CHAPTER 18: FAMILY FEUD
1. From interviews with family members, September 1997.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Private diary of Whitney; also interviews with family members, September 1997.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Interview with William Elmhirst, March 1997.
CHAPTER 19: A TAXING TIME
1. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 297.
2. Ibid., p. 262.
3. Ibid., p. 276.
4. Ibid., p. 277.
5. Ibid., p. 278.
6. Transcripts of hearings before the House Select Committee to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations, November and December 1952.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Straight, After Long Silence, pp. 283–284.
11. Ibid., p. 265.
12. Straight, Trial by Television, p. 71.
13. Ibid., p. 88.
CHAPTER 20: MORE MOSCOW CONNECTIONS
1. Straight, After Long Silence, p. 290.