Transcript The Hidden War

The Hidden War
Apparatus
• The cold war is unique in that it was fought as
much within our borders as without
• Soviets set up underground “apparatuses”
– Formed in cities: New York, Washington DC, LA in
1920s and 1930s
– Operating in parallel often unbeknownst to one
another
– Russians believe in bulk
– Composite of American citizens and Soviet agents
– Working directly for Moscow
Apparatus
• “sleeper” apparatus, remained inactive, silent
– Refrain from any espionage until activated in time of
war, whenever other apparatuses were disabled or
when deemed necessary by the Soviets
• Members of underground indistinguishable from
man or woman beside you: blended in to people
• Not usually members of the (open) American
Communist Party (ACP)
• Actual members of Soviet underground, Comintern
Principles of Underground
1. Discipline- perform without question (military)
2. Never write anything about underground work
3. Separation from superiors- subordinates wait to
be called, unable to trace a superior down
4. Techniques of meeting:
a) ½ to 2 hours of walking around, through crowds,
subways, parks, in/out of buildings with more than
one entrance before meeting in order to shake a tail
b) Approach one another from opposite sides of the
street, then crossing only if no surveillance seen
c) If any hint of surveillance, then meeting aborted
5. Punctuality: being late = serious offense, subject
to severe discipline
Principles of Underground
6. Forgetting and not seeing- members were not to notice
street names, addresses of meetings & forget locations
7. Avoid any sign of recognition of fellow members, never
greet or offer any sign of recognition in a chance meeting
8. Pseudonyms- members would live by pseudonyms Bob,
Otto, Gretta, even with closest friends
9. Denial- if arrested, never confess guilt, always assert
innocence, deny charges & divulge nothing
10. Money- unlike open ACP members who lived Spartan
existence, underground members were to fit in with their
colleagues in government: well dressed, affluent
11. Alcoholic abstinence was a must
Underground
• Some apparatuses were “surveillance
units” tracking members of other
underground units to ensure compliance
& administer discipline
– “remember there are only two ways you can
leave us, you can be shot by them or you can
be shot by us.” COLONEL BORIS BYKOV TO WHITTAKER
CHAMBERS
• NKVD agents were not only executioners,
but also one of the largest groups of
victims. Most 1930s agency staff
(hundreds of thousands), including all
commanders, were executed
• NKVD Chief, Lavrentiy Beria, ordered the
execution of >22,000 Polish POWs
executed in Katyne Massacre in 1940
Misconception
• Unlike that portrayed in the spy
movies, underground work is
tedious labor to keep thrills from
happening. Chambers stated “I have
never known a good conspirator
who enjoyed conspiracy”8
Use of Liberals
• The Communist is not a liberal, but make full
use of the help they afford.
• While Communists make full use of liberals
and the help they afford and smile in their
face, in private they hold liberals in contempt3
Bela Kun
• Pseudonym J. Peters, head
underground of ACP
• Bolshevik, led the short-lived
Hungarian Revolution 1919
– Fiery reputation involved in a
number of duels
– Fought for Hungary in WWI,
captured by Russians 1916
– Became Communist 1917
– Fought for Red Army during Civil
War 1918
– Fluent in German, Russian, English
Bela Kun
• Returned to Hungary to establish HCP Nov 3, 1918.
Published slander against President
• Involved in violent demonstrations, Kun arrested for
treason by Hungarian police. He was saved when the
unpopular decrees of the Western allies undermined
the popularity of the Hungarian government
• Turned to Kun hoping he could influence Russian
support in rebelling against the allies
– Ironically prisoner dictated terms to keepers
– Demanded merger with Communists, formation of
Hungarian Soviet Republic
Bela Kun
• Hungarian Soviet Republic was second Communist
government in history
• After the pattern of Lenin, formed Red Army, secret
police, nationalized all private property
• Never very popular, Soviet Republic lasted only 133
days as West-backed Czechoslovakia and Romania
fought against them.
• Promised help from Russian Red Army never
materialized and Romanians took Budapest, crushed
Communists and handed control back to Social
Democratic Party.
• Kun was exiled then later served as Comintern
underground under pseudonym J. Peters
Bela Kun (J. Peters)
• In the late 1920-1930s he became head of
underground for entire ACP.
• He was a lurking figure of fate in the lives of millions
of Americans who did not know an “invisible
empire” existed7. He had men, American citizens,
placed in high levels in the State Department &
Treasury Department. Hollywood was a particularly
thriving underground in the 1930’s. J. Peters had
access to unlimited resources such as members
adept at securing fraudulent passports, birth
certificates and naturalization papers.
Residentura
• Soviet Embassy in New York,
San Francisco and
Washington DC
• Embassy official was member
of GRU
• Liaison between Moscow
and American Apparatuses
• J Peters succeeded by
• Col Boris Bykov until 1938
The Underground Function
1. Conduct espionage (acquire secret information)
– Russians obtained data on the Christie tank (technically
advanced design of American inventor Walter Christie)
by contact with a U. S. Army officer with sympathetic ties
with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). They had promised
to supply arms to IRA forces via submarine in exchange
for secret information regarding the tank’s design. After
obtaining the documents, the promise was never
fulfilled. Two Christie tanks without turrets were shipped
to the USSR under the guise of ‘farm tractors’ without
the prior approval of the U. S. Army or the State
Department. The design was incorporated in the highly
successful Soviet T-34 tank of World War II and
successive Russian tanks.
Russian Tanks Were Derived Using
Christie Suspension
Christie Tank
Successful T-34
The Underground Function
2. Influence Policy by infiltrating high-levels of government with
underground members
– Alger Hiss and Harold Ware organized one of the most extensive
fifth columns in history whose influence for evil was felt long after
he was dead. This included the crash of China, the Carthagian
mangling of Europe. Ware perceived during the agrarian crisis
before the stock market crash of 1929 that the time had come for
revolutionary organization among farmers. In the early 1920s Ware
went to the Soviet Union to develop collective farming after the
model of the Kuzbas colony. When he returned, the Soviets had
supplied him with $25,000 hidden in his belt. With these funds, he
set up the Bureau of Farm Research within the Department of
Agriculture. By 1935, the “Ware Group” was tightly organized with
an estimated 75 men working underground in various “New Deal”
agencies. The group had become too familiar with one another and
had to be split up and moved (see principles 3 and 8) where they
could not know one another. More importantly, there was a need to
infiltrate the State Department which was much more resistant to
the underground than the New Deal agencies which the
Communists could penetrate almost at will12.
Underground Functions
3. Intelligence – provide inside information of enemy’s
intensions & plans; early warning of next move.
– As an extension of the NKVD intelligence directorate
(GRU), the underground provided military intelligence for
the USSR
– Under the code name “Enormoz” Soviet atomic
intelligence obtained information about Allied work on
atomic weapons
– As early as Nov 1941, Lavrenti Beria, head of NKVD
received this from Klaus Fuchs a German physicist
working in the British program which later moved to US
– In March 1942, Beria presented the information to Stalin.
By March 1943, the Soviets engaged in their own program
under the direction of Igor Kurchatov
• Soviet embassy (Rezidentura) in New York City
was selected to gather intelligence on Manhattan
Project
– Soviets commissioned engineer Leonid Kvasnikov (ps.
“Anton”) as head of project Mar 1943 - Oct 1945
– His “inside” contacts were
• Donald MacLean
• William Weisband
Beginning of the Atomic Race
• Igor Kurchaov– Soviet Nuclear Physicist – head of Soviet
atomic bomb project “First Lightning”
• Klaus Fuchs
– At Los Alamos during the Manhattan
Project, had access to top secret
material, much of which he passed to the
Soviets. The Soviet atomic bomb project
was greatly aided by the information
given to them. When this was discovered
in 1948, Fuchs was tried and convicted in
Britain in the 1950s. Fuchs served 9 years
of a 14 year sentence. He then emigrated
to East Germany.
Use of Front Organizations
• The ACP made united fronts with any
organization that would tolerate it especially
the trade unions.
• ACP tried to turn economic unrest into
violence during the 1929 crash.
• Lenin encouraged Party members to penetrate
existing organizations and take them over.
Front Organizations
• When Communists join organizations they work fervently as they
maneuver into positions of influence. They are patient and abide
the time to achieve their end. Liberal organizations are
particularly vulnerable because the non-Communist and the
Communist are not easily distinguished. Front organizations
assist in the process of deception and provide a number of
important functions:
• 1. they promote objectives of value to Communists
• 2. they unite a professional group such as doctors, lawyers,
scientists or engineers
• 3. they mobilize the sympathies of a particular interest group
such as women, students, ethnic groups, youth, etc.
• 4. they collect money and serve to finance the party (e.g. the
movie industry was a big one in the 1930’s)
• 5. they provide a contact point for recruiting new members for
the Party
Mass Organizations
• mass organizations are fronts operating on an
international scale. They function to produce
and disseminate large volumes of propaganda,
provide popular support for Communist
foreign policy, dupe naive non-members into
supporting Party causes, and recruit and train
Party members.
J Edgar Hoover Criteria of Fronts
• 1. Does it espouse the cause of Soviet Russia and shift when
Party line shifts?
• 2. Does it feature as speakers known Party members or
sympathizers (fellow travelers)?
• 3. Does it sponsor causes, campaigns, literature, petitions or
other activity of the Party or known Party organizations?
• 4. Is it used as a sounding board or is it endorsed by known
Communist trade unions?
• 5. Does it have literature that follows the Party line or that is
published by the Communist press?
• 6. Does it receive favorable reviews in the Communist press?
• 7. Does it claim to be non-partisan yet engage in political
activities or consistently advocate causes favored by
Communists?
J Edgar Hoover Criteria of Fronts
• 8. Does it denounce American foreign policy while
lauding Communist foreign policy?
• 9. Does it refer to Communist countries as
democracies while complaining that the US is
imperialistic. Does it denounce monopoly-capital?
• 10. Have outstanding leaders openly renounced
affiliation with the organization?
• 11. Does it attract well-known, honest patriotic
liberals if it espouses liberal causes or does it
denounce well-known liberals?
• 12. Does it major in matters not directly related to
its primary purposes and objectives?14
The Changing Face of Protest
• American Peace Mobilization and Communist-led
organizations, including veterans of the Spanish Civil War,
opposed America’s involvement in World War II during
the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact……..
• but then turned
into hawks after
Germany invaded
the Soviet Union
during Operation
Barbarossa!
Why Would an American Become a
Communist?
• “It is the crisis that makes men communists and it
is the crisis that keeps men Communists.” The
growth of its membership is directly proportional
to the intensity of world crisis. The Economic
crisis of 1929 swept thousands into the
Communist party and the preludes of World War
II brought in millions more. Fully one third of the
voting population of France and Italy were
Communist supporters at the outset of the war.
It is in the name of the will to survive the crisis
that the Communist uses to justify the use of
terror and tyrrany6.
• the men and women in the Communist Party are
dedicated revolutionaries whose allegiance is not to
any country or people but to the Communist
International (Comintern). They are firm believers in
a cause whose faith moves them and only equal
faith can overcome them in the final conflict.1
There is great danger in underestimating the force of
faith that moves these revolutionaries. Among the
world’s mistaken ideas about Communists is the
notion that they are never swayed by simple human
feelings. The Communist is a new type of man (or
woman) in history: the thinking commando.
Calculating and cautious, they use the utmost care
and preparation to engage with swiftness and
surprise in striking2
American Complacency
• As Americans, we tend to give everyone the benefit of
the doubt. But then we are easily lulled into a false
sense of security when the problems of the world are
usually an ocean away. Just as the dawn of World War
II was preceded by clear warning signals that should
have sounded an alarm at Pearl Harbor, even so in
1948, the public was incredulous at the thought of
Communist spies within our government! What is
inconceivable is that this activity had been already
going on for more than 20 years and that certain
informers had placed the names of Americans acting a
spies for the Soviets into the hands of FDR’s
administrative staff (Adolf Berle) as early as 1938!!!
• With the cracking of the VENONA code in World War
II, intelligence was being collected daily on spies in US
Exposing the Underground
• The Communists are masters of deceit & defend themselves
primarily by discrediting their enemies
• These smear campaigns were highly successful and individuals
who were effective at revealing Soviet apparatus members
lost careers, suffered lawsuits and are unpopular even to this
day:
– Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc)
– J Edgar Hoover (FBI)
– Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nev)
• When the activities of the underground were widely
publicized in the late 40’s early 50’s, the media made popular
phrases such as “the Red Scare” “witch hunt” etc. The actions
of the House committee on Un-American Activities and others
were presented in less than favorable terms. President Truman
called the evidence produced on Alger Hiss a “Red herring”
Senator Joseph McCarthy
• Beginning 1950, Sen McCarthy
became the most public figure
revealing the presence of Soviet
underground in US govt
• Unfortunately, his reckless tactics
and inability to substantiate claims
led to his censure and public doubt
concerning the extent of the
problem.
• “McCarthyism” and “Red Scare”
were coined reflecting the growing
doubt. It may be his tactics did
more to harm the effort to expose
McCarthy vs Truman
• Communists than to help
• Accused members of FDR/Truman’s administration of aiding
Soviets calling it “twenty years of treason”
• Attacked George Marshall as being responsible for the loss of
China
• Faulted Truman for relieving MacArthur
• Smear campaign was intense:
accused McCarthy of lying about
his war record, receiving kickbacks from Pepsi-Cola, revising
his charges and figures and even
accused of being homosexual. He
was at odds with the media.
McCarthy Censured
• A close friend of the Kennedy family, McCarthy held
popular support among American Catholic voters
• Even though they were in opposite parties, John F.
Kennedy did not support the Senate proposal to censure
McCarthy. Remaining Democrats and ½ Republicans
voted to censure McCarthy (67 to 22) in 1954.
• He passed away in 1957 of alcoholic liver disease age 48.
Sen. Pat McCarran
• Powerful anti-Communist in Senate
• As chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, established the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
• loss of mainland China in 1949 was blamed by McCarran on
Soviet spies in the State Department
• 1950 formulated McCarran Internal Security Act
– Required Communist Party and other organizations promoting
totalitarianism to register with Attorney General
– Vetoed by Truman, however Congress passed bill, over-riding
veto
– Due to numerous hearings, delays and appeals, act was never
enforced, then declared unconstitutional in 1965, 1967
House Committee on Un-American
Activities
• Consisted of nine representatives responsible
for investigating subversive groups that attack
our constitutional government
• Became permanent in 1945
• Most effective members in the 1948
investigation into espionage suspect Alger Hiss
were Richard M. Nixon and
House Committee on Un-American
Activities
• In 1960’s HCUA lost effectiveness
• Came under fire from ACLU
• Activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman cofounders of Youth International Party (Yippies)
and involved in Chicago Eight conspiracy
• Showed contempt for HCUA and other US govt
institutions and publically made mockery of
proceedings
• HCUA disbanded after 1975
VENONA
• However, Venona was considered so secret
that the US Government was unwilling to
expose it by allowing it to be used as evidence
in any trial. In fact, even presidents Roosevelt
and Harry Truman were unaware of Venona;
when Hoover delivered intelligence reports
based on Venona data, the source of the
information was not named.
The Roosevelt Connection
• The same year the HCUA subpoenaed leaders of the American Youth Congress
consisting of a core from the Young Communist League. Eleanor Roosevelt was in
attendance at the hearings and afterward invited the subpoenaed witnesses to
stay at the White House while in Washington D.C.
• Joseph P. Lash, who later married Trude Lash, was one of the boarders at the
White House during the hearings. Another officer, Abbott Simon, staff member of
the CPUSA publication, Champion, slept for two weeks in Lincoln's bed during the
hearings.
• In the spring of 1941, the youth members of the congress, as guests of Mrs.
Roosevelt, attended a picnic on the White House lawn where they were
addressed by the President Roosevelt . When the President admonished them to
condemn not merely the Nazi regime but all dictatorships - he was booed by the
group. Soon afterwards, many of the same youth picketed the White House as
representatives of the American Peace Mobilization.
• A Venona decryption from May 1943 discloses contact with Trude was maintained
by Aleksej Sokirkin, First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. for
GRU. The decrypt proposes using Trude to process information on Eleanor
Roosevelt (Kapitansha).
Hollywood Ten
• 1947 HCUA held hearings on alleged involvement of
Hollywood with Communist propaganda and influence.
• Ten screen writers were “blacklisted” by the industry
for their involvement with the ACP and lost their jobs.
• 1950’s style protest>>>>>
• Eventually, some 300
artists including Charlie
Chaplin were boycotted by
the industry and had to
work elsewhere or under
pseudonyms.
The Undeniable Evidence
• Defectors came out of Communism largely because of disillusionment with
Stalin’s inhumane regime:
–
–
–
–
Elizabeth Bentley
Whittaker Chambers
Many, many others never made it to FBI because the GPU got to them first:
In 1938, the GPU cut down more deserters than any other time in history. The
deserter faced an uncertain dilemma that even if they exposed the conspiracy
that their testimony would never be believed.
– Communist agents were masters at making an assassination look like an
accidental death2
– Gen. Walter Krivitsky found shot through the head in a small hotel room in
Wash DC. Evidence was that he shot himself (a letter) but he was never one to
stay in small hotels. A few days before he told Chambers to “never under any
circumstances believe that he had committed suicide”. Thankfully he had
recently come to believe that Christian faith was a necessity.
• The other corroborating evidence was the breaking of the Soviet diplomatic
code (“Venona”)
Elizabeth Bentley
• While at Graduate school at
Columbia Univ in 1933 became
interested in Fascism
• Went to University of Florence to
study under Fascists, actually
turned to Communism
• Returned to NYC to join ACP 1935
• Volunteered to do espionage on
Fascist propaganda bureau in NYC
• NKVD agent Jacob Golos
(Golosenko) assigned to be her
contact and controller
Elizabeth Bentley
• Operated w/ name Umnitsa “clever person”
• Bentley thought she was working for ACP but when she realized it
was Soviet NKVD became disenchanted
• Became important go between residentura and Silvermaster group
in NYC & built strong apparat under Golos who became her lover.
• After Golos suffered massive heart attack & died, she determined
to carry on. Residentura wanted to have direct contact with her
apparat, but she knew the American contacts would not trust a
Soviet agent
• She was reassigned; despondent and angered she began drinking,
showing up drunk at her contact meetings. Her Soviet controller
advised her to emigrate to the Soviet Union but she wisely
declined.
• Fed up with being put down by NKVD controllers, suspecting she
might actually be killed she determined to defect in November
1945.
• In a series of debriefing interviews with the FBI
beginning November 7, 1945, Bentley implicated
close to 150 people in spying for the Soviet Union,
including 37 federal employees. The FBI already
suspected many of those she named.
• Soviet double agents in the OSS (now CIA)
promptly alerted Moscow, which immediately shut
down all contact with Bentley's people, just as the
FBI was beginning surveillance of them. Thus the
NKVD remained one step ahead of FBI and none of
those on Bentley’s list were successfully
prosecuted
Whittaker Chambers
• Provided the most detailed description
of the underground from 1928-1938
• Disillusioned by the Great Purge, broke
with the underground in 1938
• “ I perceived that the Communists were much
more firmly embedded in [the US] Government
than I had supposed, and that any attempt to
disclose or dislodge them was enormously
complicated by the political situation in which
they were parasitic. Every move against the
Communists was felt by the Liberals as a move
against themselves. If only for the sake of...[public
opinions of themselves], the liberals, to protect
their power, must seek as long as possible to
conceal from themselves and everybody else the
fact that the Government had been Communistpenetrated. Unlike the Liberals, the Communists
were fully aware of their superior tactical position,
and knew that they had only to shout their
innocence and cry: ‘Witch hunt!’ for the Liberals to
rally in all innocence to their defense.”13
• On the other hand, the Conservatives are too
preoccupied with preserving their affluence to
be willing to sacrifice what is necessary to
counter the revolution. The counterrevolutionary must be just as dedicated and
self-sacrificing as the Communist is to
revolution in order to succeed.
Chambers Testifies to HCUA
Speculation
• Does any of the following implicate FDR’s involvement in
conspiracy?:
– Eleanor Roosevelt’s open involvement of known Communist youth
organization
– Deliberate suppression of information regarding Communist spies
within US govt for over 10 years
– Giving away of Eastern Europe to Soviets at Yalta
– Recognition of USSR as legitimate in 1933
– Establishment of New Deal agencies which were easily penetrated
by Communists
– Provision of Lend-Lease to a government of treachery and deceit;
that actually was an Axis power at the outset of WWII
– His Vice President (Truman) carried on similar activities,
prevented victory in Korea by “containment” policies and the
firing of Gen MacArthur and veto and subsequent defusing of the
McCarran Internal Security Act?