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In the 1930's the CPUSA recruited several hundred persons among thousands of new employees hired by the federal government under the impact of the New Deal's rapid expansion of governmental programs. Federal regulations forbade partisan political activity by federal employees, and open membership in the Communist Party brought discharge. The CPUSA evaded the law by organizing caucuses of government employees that met in secret.
KGB operatives in the United States during World War II funneled information to Moscow through a handful of professional intelligence officers who sent reports to the Center and relayed orders and questions from the Center to agents in the field. Operations in America were led by experienced hands such as Vassili M. Zarubin (covername MAKSIM), who served as rezident in New York and later in Washington, and Iskhak A. Akhmerov (covernames MER and ALBERT), the senior illegal. Some Soviet case officers, however, were raw recruits recently brought into the services in order to fill out ranks depleted during Stalin's purges of the late 1930s.
Here is an outline of eight Soviet intelligence entities operating in the United States during the time in question (1921-1943).
Note on "Illegals": Illegals are parallel organizations set up independently from the two main intelligence organizations (KGB & GRU), under thier own separate station chief, or Rezident, for the contingent purpose should a break in diplomatic relations occur, and all legal operatives with valid passports are expelled, a parallel espionage organization remains in place. Also, they still may be engaged in highly secret ongoing activities, and their absolute highest concern is to avoid detection. They are " sleeper cells", to use a term recently popularized by American news organizations. Nobs01 17:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Is there a reference for the claim that membership in the CPUSA by goverment employees was "clearly illegal" prior to 1947? DJ Silverfish 19:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The Hatch Act would not technically make membership illegal, only political activity on the job. It wasn't illegal to BE a member of the CP. People were fired for membership anyway, frequently teachers, and by local authorities. I do think you are overstating the illegality of the CP. It was a public organization by 1924. DJ Silverfish 19:43, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
KI – Committee of Information of the Counsel of Ministers of the USSR organized following May 30, 1947 official decision. Temporarily brought MGB and military intelligence services under the same bureaucratic roof. This integration turned short-lived: following January 1949 government decision, military intelligence was returned under the roof of the Soviet Department of Defense. In its abridged form KI survived until early 1951.
Anybody have biographical information on General Ilichev, head of GRU during WWII. nobs 20:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
This article is so riddled with out and out lies and nonsense it should be thrown out entirely. This is no better than "None Dare Call it Treason," the bible of the John Birch Society.
Just a few of the grosser errors and smears;
1)Many of these so-called communist front groups merely had Communists as members, along with many others who were not. That a group may have received donations from the Party does not mean it is controlled by the CP for any nefarious reasons, or under the control of the Comintern. The Lincoln Brigade, for instance, had 3,500 members in total, many of whom were not party members at all. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were pouring recruits and materiel into Spain on the Fascist side. Ford Motors and other American companies were selling materiel and weapons to both Germany and Italy with the full knowledge that it would be used in Spain. This article makes it appear that the Lincolns, and other Internationals, were alone in violating the neutrality agreement, when in fact the Fascist side was receiving open aid from around the world, including the US. The only countries that provided aid to the Repoublic of Spain were the USSR and Mexico.
2) The claim that 400 Americans spied for the Soviet Union is utter nonsense, and derives from the wholesale adoption of nearly every name in the VENONA transcripts as a spy. Using raw intelligence data in this fashion is a gross violation of basic common sense and historical accuracy. One could find themselves touted by the Soviets as a source merely for having answered a question at a cocktail party, or as in the case of journalist I.F. Stone, for having meetings with known soviet personnel in an attempt to get information from them!!
3) Again, the continued insistence that Alger Hiss was a known spy is garbage, VENONA does not support that claim, nor does any other source. The claim that Harry Dexter White was a spy is likewise idiotic. White was a die-hard capitalist and one of the founders of the World Bank. The link to Hoover's memo shows only how tenuous the charges were. All Hoover has done is to make a correlation between White's movements and the reports of a spy codenamed "Jurist" and concldued they were one and the same. The notion that Jurist may have been someone in White's office never seems to have occured to him.
4)Thousands of Soviet military officers and technicians DID NOT enter the U.S. during WW2. For what possible reason would they have, particularly with the dire need for manpower on the Russian front? WE sent many of our men to the USSR, along with the Lend Lease materiel, not the other way round. Again, there is no evidence at all for the claim that "Soviet case officers waged a successful unrestrained espionage campaign against the United States, from 1942 to late 1945." What the hell does that even mean? Was there espionage? Yes, of course, largely concerning the A-Bomb. But it should be noted that the most succesful of those spies (and Julius Rosenberg was not among them) were a handful of scientists who were not recruited by the Soviets, but volunteered to provide the information.
5) The claim that "At least fifteen Soviet agents penetrated the OSS, with the actual number more likely around twenty," is again silly. This number has lumped together all the known field agents who had a Party Background, all of whom were open about it, and assumed they all were spies, when indeed what they were was combat soldiers fighting in Europe. The reason they were recruited by the OSS is that they were Spanish War vets, had combat experience, and already knew many of those in the anti-Nazi underground, as the Resistence was largely communist. We needed them badly and they all served with great distinction. Oddly, and most telling, this article neglects to mention Carl Marzani, a high-ranking OSS official, A Spanish war vet and former member of the CP (1939-1941), Carl was the only such person to be imprisoned for denying Party membership. (see Carl's story in my book, Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition). Carl was never charged with espionage, and during the entire time he was working closely with Bill Donavan, the head of the OSS, he never heard from any Party official at all. Again, putting the question of wholesale Party involvement with espionage into question.
6)The notion that "Many party-linked espionage operations were exposed and neutralized by American counterintelligence in the late 1940s and 1950s," is again misleading to the point of being untrue. What spying went on occurred in the context of WW2, when, with our then ally the USSR bearing the brunt of the Nazi war effort, a number of Americans, probably no more than several dozen at most, engaged in what was largely industrial espionage. Tempering the claim that "Soviet agents sought to provide Moscow with a wide range of information on high-performance aircraft, battleships, cruisers, armor, navigation equipment, tank engines, and armaments from key U.S. defense contractors, including Northrop, Douglas, and Marietta," it should be noted that through the Lend Lease program the Pentagon was already providing much of this info to the Sovet Union. The notion that somehow the Soviets needed to spy in order to learn information concerning Operation Overlord (Normandy Landing) and the opening of a second front, or anything concerning a separate peace with Hitler is just fantasy. None of that was kept secret from the Soviets! Roosevelt himself kept Stalin abreast on all devlopements concerning the Normandy Landing, and there was never any idea of a separate peace raised anywhere in the US Gov't. As far spies in the the gov't went, there were no Party members or anyone with links to the Party uncovered after the war, with the sole exception of Carl Marzani, who had left the party in 1941.
7) the Soviet's first bomb was indeed a copy of one of ours, but what is not said here is that the Soviets were quite capable of developing an independent design of their own, and were well on the way. The technical information they lifted from us gave them only a year or so advantage in development. This was widely known at the time, as there were no real "secrets" to the A-Bomb as the theory was widely known to Nuclear scientists in both axis and allied nations.
8) The statement "The United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by direct or instigated activities of the Soviet Union," is again just plain wrong. The USSR played no role at all in the Greek Civil War -- it was Tito! Stalin had made an agreement with Churchill that England would have a free hand in Greece in exchange for Stalin's free hand in Romania and Bulgaria. The record is clear on this. Stalin played no role in Greece. The US took over from England after the war, and still Stalin stayed out. In fact, the Tito-Stalin split was over just this issue. Tito refused Stalin's directive to back off on Greece.
9) Truman's Executive Order 9825 set off the worst civil liberities crisis in American History, the Red Scare, which trashed our Constitutional freedoms and ultimately destroyed the professional lives of thousands of Americans, sent hundreds to prison, and directly casued the deaths of dozens of others. That Truman denounced the "charges against Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and others," only showed that he finally showed some common sense. The charge that VENONA somehow cinched the case against these men is just a plain lie. If anything VENONA clears Hiss of the charges against him -- it is only the extremist idealogy of the authors of this article that keep them from admitting it, or even airing the arguments for Hiss's innocence.
10) Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, for some strange reason, appears as a God to these authors. They quote him as if he were Moses down from the mountain, as if just because Moynihan said it, we should all accept it. Why, I haven't the faintest idea. Of course, they quote a number of proved liars, such as Joe McCarthy and Hoover, with the same religious fervor. That they do so speaks to their extremist views, and their own essential dishonesty.
The above corrections to this article were posted by--Griffin Fariello Grifross 01:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Might as well call this "How I support the CPUSA!
"American policy dealing with this rapidly changing scene was often confused, naive, slow to respond, and contradictory".
Umm, No!! Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin airlift?! More success than failure if you ask me. If anything the soviets bumbling into afganistan and poland (after there revolution) was naive!
IDIOTS! So if that commie pinko who ranted a while back! ( 24.75.194.50 19:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC))
I don't know about you guys, but this looks a bit POV to me. Comments?
Gradually it became apparent that the objectives of World War II for which the United States and others made tremendous sacrifices were not fully realized, and there remained in the world a force presenting even greater dangers to world peace than the Nazi militarists and Japanese warlords. Consequently, the United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by direct or instigated activities of the Soviet Union. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DabMachine ( talk • contribs) 17:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
During the 1950s, it gradually became apparent that the Soviet intelligence activities directed at the U.S. government and military/economic institutions had been widespread and pervasive, and that Soviet intelligence was much more sophisticated and determined than the prewar and wartime efforts of Nazi Germany and militarist Japan.
DJ Silverfish 21:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Does this not come under the military history wiki project?-- SGGH 11:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Nobs01 was banned yet is adding the material I erased as an anonymous IP. The additions are not encylopedic, but complete paranoia. Let the person who added them come forward and defend them. TDC is defending a mountain of junk editing from an anonymous editor who edits exactly like the banned Nobs (an old friend of TDC, incidentally) Ruy Lopez 04:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Passage as follows:
By the mid to late 1920s, there were three elements of Soviet power operating in the United States, despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations: the Comintern, military intelligence or GRU, and the forerunner of the KGB, the GPU. The Comintern was the dominant arm, though it was not unusual for officers and agents to switch from one service to another.
During the 1920s, Soviet intelligence focused on military and industrial espionage in the United States, specifically aircraft and munitions industries, and penetrating the mainline federal government bureaucracies, such as the Department of State and War Department. A front organization was created in 1928 for the infiltration and placement of scientists into industry and government: the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT).
Formal diplomatic recognition was granted to the USSR on 16 November 1933, a condition of which was a pledge to refrain "from interfering in any manner in the internal affairs of the United States." In fact, Soviet intelligence greatly expanded their US espionage efforts, now operated under "legal" cover through embassy and consulates. That same year, several Comintern affiliate organizations were established: the American League Against War and Fascism, followed by the American Youth Congress in 1934; the League of American Writers in 1935; and the National Negro Congress in 1936. In 1937 the American League Against War and Fascism changed its name to the American League for Peace and Democracy. Between 1937 and 1938 the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was established with numerous affiliates and sent hundreds of non-governmental combatants to Spain despite the League of Nations' Non-Intervention Committee ban on foreign "volunteers". In 1939, the American Congress for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom and numerous other Comintern affiliate organizations were created.
What are the sources for these allegations? Abe Froman 00:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Passage as follows:
As in any target country, the Soviet NKVD (later MGB and KGB) and GRU ran parallel "legal" and "illegal" operations groups. "Legal" networks were run by Soviet case officers holding legal visas, usually working in diplomatic missions and official trade organizations. The operational station was called a "rezidency" headed by a station chief, or "rezident". The "illegal" networks were headed by an "illegal rezident", usually a Soviet national operating under deep cover with no apparent connection to Soviet organizations. Thus, if diplomatic relations are broken, an espionage organization remains in place, dispensing the the need to begin anew (which could take decades).
One chief aim was the infiltration, placement, and subversion of American political life at all levels of society. Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as a agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence. . [1] [2]
What page numbers in the two books described in refs 7 and 8 contain these allegations? I find the claim hard to verify. Abe Froman 00:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
References
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What page numbers in refs 11 and 12 describe the allegations contained in the referenced passage? Ref 11 seems to be irrelevent, given it is 56 years old. Abe Froman 00:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What page numbers in refs 14 and 15 describe the allegations contained therein? Abe Froman 00:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yet another ref in ref 16 that has no page number. Just an offline book. On which page does the book referenced refer to the allegations in the passage? Abe Froman 00:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a single reference. What is the authority for this passage? Abe Froman 00:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a single reference. What is the authority for this passage? Abe Froman 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What page numbers in refs 18, 19, and 21 refer to this alleged network? I find the claims impossible to verify. Abe Froman 00:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Much of this entire article (particularly the Silvermaster section) has decayed to a McCarthy era "Stalin's agents under every bed" sort of paranoia. What appears to look like authoritative source citations are actually mutual cross citations to ALLEGATIONS, which sound plausible because they are PARTIALLY based on actual facts.
One example is the whole Elizabeth Bentley (she was the courrier for the Silvermaster Group) Occupation Currency plates thing. Her story eventually became that on direct orders from Moscow, Harry Dexter White ("the least productive member" of Whittaker Chamber's earlier group as described in Chambers' own words) turned over Currency samples—which, by Bentley's telling then were shipped to Moscow, found to be impossible to counterfit, shipped back to the States (a physical round trip of at least 4 weeks if all transportation connections worked perfectly, & totally ignoring any time for Russian currency experts to even inspect the alleged samples)—and then the actual plates were demanded... and (by Bentley's telling) White dutifully complied because he was such a Soviet automoton.
Only problem... the events (Occupation Currency printing plates were in fact turned over to the Soviets after a lengthy "public" internal debate) happened in 1944, Bentley's initial 1948 testimony said nothing of the plates, & by 1954 she richly embellished the story to "White following Moscow's orders..." Why did she not mention the 1944 events (the plates were in fact turned over to the Russians, but made good by the German treasury, not the US Treasury) in her 1948 testimony? Why was her memory "better" 10 years after the fact, but worse 4 years after the fact?
The citations from the Schecter "Sacred Secrets" book, are again, seemingly plausible on the surface. But when you read the book, often when "facts" are cited, the bibliographical reference is "Soviet Intelligence Archives." That smells to be of manufactured references.
This is the first time I've seen the Pavlov "Operation Snow" story told such that White's purpose was to place & protect Soviet sources... the telling of Pavlov's meeting with White (White was known to be trying to expand his knowledge of the China-Japanese-Soviet situation (remember that war started in 1931)) was that Pavlov (on instructions of Stalin & Beria) COMMANDED White to protect Soviet Eastern borders by provoking Japan to attack Pearl Harbor! It's certainly a great made-for-master-conspiracy-theorists image, but reality is far more mundane. By late 1941 Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor were well underway & clearly were not & could not have been influenced by a monetary policy wonk in the Treasury (at this point, White was influential, but had not been promoted to Assistant Secretary of Treasury... that promotion didn't happen until 1944 to help with the Bretton Woods conference). DEddy 02:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a single reference. What is the authority for this passage? Abe Froman 00:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What page number in Moynihan's report is referenced? The report runs into hundreds of pages. Abe Froman 00:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I have banned Ruy Lopez from editing the article for 5 days for disruptive editing, but that is just the start of the problems.
First off, while the anon may or may not have been Nobs, reverting the article was just wrong. The version reverted to is patently inferior in style alone, and while the supposed Nobs version doesn't source the Golos section very well, reverting removed 7 sources from the Silvermaster section. Next we have TDC, who is also on parole and may be blocked for reverting an article more than once per day, and has already used up his one revert for today.
Abe, try placing {{fact}} at places you want better citations for. Adding {{unreferenced}} even once to an article with 20 or more references just plain looks bad; adding it multiple times verges on disrupting wikipedia to make a point. Be selective.
Please discuss disputed information on the talk page. If version A and B are both defective, the answer is not to flip back and forth between them, but to collaborate on version C, D or E. If I read this right, one of the concerns is that the "Nobs" version takes citations for A, D, F, H, and M and weaves them into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP. I certainly don't know this field, but I know it is possible to fix this, and no version of the article is so good that it should be the basis for a blind reversion rather than repair. Note that Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources states "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source." That means that while you might describe the contents of a Venona transcript, for example, you can not interpret it or say what it means. You must find a reliable secondary source that you can quote. If different historians have differing views about what a particular set of documents means, report them both. If no reliable secondary source agrees with your personal view of the meaning of a document, then you are out of luck.
Try and explain your concerns; that specific passages aren't cited; that specific statements are an editor's conclusion rather than reportage of third party sources; and so on. I can't say enough that reverting is bad—not only is it disrespectful of other editor's good faith efforts that are simply destoyed, it fixes in amber other mistakes and deficiencies. If there are specific problems, fix them individually, after talking about it here. If necessary, ask for a third opinion or RFC to get some more outside opinion. Thatcher131 01:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Quick question... Why does this article finish in the 1950's? I know of a few cases of KGB agents in the FBI going right into the 1990's. Can I add that material, or there some reason why I shouldn't? Lord Seabhcán of Baloney 23:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The fact tagged sections stood for nearly a week, then were reverted. TDC replaced them, without the requested refs. This is not how Wikipedia works. Either support the material with verifiable refs, or let it die a deserving death. This is not the place to discuss specific fact tags, see above in this talk page for the individual passages being challenged. Abe Froman 21:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
The quote about Truman being "willfully obtuse" to Communism's dangers is referenced as coming from Moynihan. This is incorrect. The "obtuse" sentence rehashes, tendentiously I think, the work of two academics quoted in Moynihan's report. The Moynihan report does not call Truman "obtuse," that is the POV spin given by a Wikipedia editor. [3] Attributing this quote to Moynihan is incorrect because Moynihan never said it. The sentence should be removed or reworked to attribute it properly. The academics in question are Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957 (Washington, D.C.: National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), vii-viii. Abe Froman 18:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
There isn't an article for US espionage in the Soviet Union/Russia? Hires an editor ( talk) 20:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
This article reads like a piece of trash. The Earl Browder allegations are perhaps the finest example of what it is that merits this article a NPOV warning until this is rewritten in a neutral and objective style.
Take a look:
Although a variety of evidence has been added to the debate since his conviction, the question of Hiss's guilt or innocence remains controversial.[2]
Looking at the whole article, every other line or every other paragraph is written in this sloppy manner. Was this stuff written by a 16-year-old Cold War buff? An agenda-driven member of the John Birch Society?
Seeing how all of this was already brought up back in 2006, I strongly support simply removing this BS already to the extent that it can't be counterbalanced. When will the citations be forthcoming? 166.217.146.168 ( talk) 13:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Why no mention of this key figure in 1930s Soviet espionage in the USA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.16.252.154 ( talk) 19:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
network of agents and sources included two key figures at the Department of Treasury, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and Harry Dexter White. This needs to be rewritten. White was clearly a key figure at Treasury, Silvermaster was most certainly not. White was at Treasury from 1935 until approx 1946. Silvermaster did 6 months at Treasury, July 1944 until January 1945. DEddy ( talk) 02:45, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Although Russia is the main successor of the Soviet Union, Soviet Union is the Soviet Union, Russia is Russia, How about split this article into " Soviet Union espionage in the United States" and " Russian espionage in the United States"?-- MacArthur1945 ( talk) 07:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
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In the 1930's the CPUSA recruited several hundred persons among thousands of new employees hired by the federal government under the impact of the New Deal's rapid expansion of governmental programs. Federal regulations forbade partisan political activity by federal employees, and open membership in the Communist Party brought discharge. The CPUSA evaded the law by organizing caucuses of government employees that met in secret.
KGB operatives in the United States during World War II funneled information to Moscow through a handful of professional intelligence officers who sent reports to the Center and relayed orders and questions from the Center to agents in the field. Operations in America were led by experienced hands such as Vassili M. Zarubin (covername MAKSIM), who served as rezident in New York and later in Washington, and Iskhak A. Akhmerov (covernames MER and ALBERT), the senior illegal. Some Soviet case officers, however, were raw recruits recently brought into the services in order to fill out ranks depleted during Stalin's purges of the late 1930s.
Here is an outline of eight Soviet intelligence entities operating in the United States during the time in question (1921-1943).
Note on "Illegals": Illegals are parallel organizations set up independently from the two main intelligence organizations (KGB & GRU), under thier own separate station chief, or Rezident, for the contingent purpose should a break in diplomatic relations occur, and all legal operatives with valid passports are expelled, a parallel espionage organization remains in place. Also, they still may be engaged in highly secret ongoing activities, and their absolute highest concern is to avoid detection. They are " sleeper cells", to use a term recently popularized by American news organizations. Nobs01 17:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Is there a reference for the claim that membership in the CPUSA by goverment employees was "clearly illegal" prior to 1947? DJ Silverfish 19:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The Hatch Act would not technically make membership illegal, only political activity on the job. It wasn't illegal to BE a member of the CP. People were fired for membership anyway, frequently teachers, and by local authorities. I do think you are overstating the illegality of the CP. It was a public organization by 1924. DJ Silverfish 19:43, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
KI – Committee of Information of the Counsel of Ministers of the USSR organized following May 30, 1947 official decision. Temporarily brought MGB and military intelligence services under the same bureaucratic roof. This integration turned short-lived: following January 1949 government decision, military intelligence was returned under the roof of the Soviet Department of Defense. In its abridged form KI survived until early 1951.
Anybody have biographical information on General Ilichev, head of GRU during WWII. nobs 20:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
This article is so riddled with out and out lies and nonsense it should be thrown out entirely. This is no better than "None Dare Call it Treason," the bible of the John Birch Society.
Just a few of the grosser errors and smears;
1)Many of these so-called communist front groups merely had Communists as members, along with many others who were not. That a group may have received donations from the Party does not mean it is controlled by the CP for any nefarious reasons, or under the control of the Comintern. The Lincoln Brigade, for instance, had 3,500 members in total, many of whom were not party members at all. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were pouring recruits and materiel into Spain on the Fascist side. Ford Motors and other American companies were selling materiel and weapons to both Germany and Italy with the full knowledge that it would be used in Spain. This article makes it appear that the Lincolns, and other Internationals, were alone in violating the neutrality agreement, when in fact the Fascist side was receiving open aid from around the world, including the US. The only countries that provided aid to the Repoublic of Spain were the USSR and Mexico.
2) The claim that 400 Americans spied for the Soviet Union is utter nonsense, and derives from the wholesale adoption of nearly every name in the VENONA transcripts as a spy. Using raw intelligence data in this fashion is a gross violation of basic common sense and historical accuracy. One could find themselves touted by the Soviets as a source merely for having answered a question at a cocktail party, or as in the case of journalist I.F. Stone, for having meetings with known soviet personnel in an attempt to get information from them!!
3) Again, the continued insistence that Alger Hiss was a known spy is garbage, VENONA does not support that claim, nor does any other source. The claim that Harry Dexter White was a spy is likewise idiotic. White was a die-hard capitalist and one of the founders of the World Bank. The link to Hoover's memo shows only how tenuous the charges were. All Hoover has done is to make a correlation between White's movements and the reports of a spy codenamed "Jurist" and concldued they were one and the same. The notion that Jurist may have been someone in White's office never seems to have occured to him.
4)Thousands of Soviet military officers and technicians DID NOT enter the U.S. during WW2. For what possible reason would they have, particularly with the dire need for manpower on the Russian front? WE sent many of our men to the USSR, along with the Lend Lease materiel, not the other way round. Again, there is no evidence at all for the claim that "Soviet case officers waged a successful unrestrained espionage campaign against the United States, from 1942 to late 1945." What the hell does that even mean? Was there espionage? Yes, of course, largely concerning the A-Bomb. But it should be noted that the most succesful of those spies (and Julius Rosenberg was not among them) were a handful of scientists who were not recruited by the Soviets, but volunteered to provide the information.
5) The claim that "At least fifteen Soviet agents penetrated the OSS, with the actual number more likely around twenty," is again silly. This number has lumped together all the known field agents who had a Party Background, all of whom were open about it, and assumed they all were spies, when indeed what they were was combat soldiers fighting in Europe. The reason they were recruited by the OSS is that they were Spanish War vets, had combat experience, and already knew many of those in the anti-Nazi underground, as the Resistence was largely communist. We needed them badly and they all served with great distinction. Oddly, and most telling, this article neglects to mention Carl Marzani, a high-ranking OSS official, A Spanish war vet and former member of the CP (1939-1941), Carl was the only such person to be imprisoned for denying Party membership. (see Carl's story in my book, Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition). Carl was never charged with espionage, and during the entire time he was working closely with Bill Donavan, the head of the OSS, he never heard from any Party official at all. Again, putting the question of wholesale Party involvement with espionage into question.
6)The notion that "Many party-linked espionage operations were exposed and neutralized by American counterintelligence in the late 1940s and 1950s," is again misleading to the point of being untrue. What spying went on occurred in the context of WW2, when, with our then ally the USSR bearing the brunt of the Nazi war effort, a number of Americans, probably no more than several dozen at most, engaged in what was largely industrial espionage. Tempering the claim that "Soviet agents sought to provide Moscow with a wide range of information on high-performance aircraft, battleships, cruisers, armor, navigation equipment, tank engines, and armaments from key U.S. defense contractors, including Northrop, Douglas, and Marietta," it should be noted that through the Lend Lease program the Pentagon was already providing much of this info to the Sovet Union. The notion that somehow the Soviets needed to spy in order to learn information concerning Operation Overlord (Normandy Landing) and the opening of a second front, or anything concerning a separate peace with Hitler is just fantasy. None of that was kept secret from the Soviets! Roosevelt himself kept Stalin abreast on all devlopements concerning the Normandy Landing, and there was never any idea of a separate peace raised anywhere in the US Gov't. As far spies in the the gov't went, there were no Party members or anyone with links to the Party uncovered after the war, with the sole exception of Carl Marzani, who had left the party in 1941.
7) the Soviet's first bomb was indeed a copy of one of ours, but what is not said here is that the Soviets were quite capable of developing an independent design of their own, and were well on the way. The technical information they lifted from us gave them only a year or so advantage in development. This was widely known at the time, as there were no real "secrets" to the A-Bomb as the theory was widely known to Nuclear scientists in both axis and allied nations.
8) The statement "The United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by direct or instigated activities of the Soviet Union," is again just plain wrong. The USSR played no role at all in the Greek Civil War -- it was Tito! Stalin had made an agreement with Churchill that England would have a free hand in Greece in exchange for Stalin's free hand in Romania and Bulgaria. The record is clear on this. Stalin played no role in Greece. The US took over from England after the war, and still Stalin stayed out. In fact, the Tito-Stalin split was over just this issue. Tito refused Stalin's directive to back off on Greece.
9) Truman's Executive Order 9825 set off the worst civil liberities crisis in American History, the Red Scare, which trashed our Constitutional freedoms and ultimately destroyed the professional lives of thousands of Americans, sent hundreds to prison, and directly casued the deaths of dozens of others. That Truman denounced the "charges against Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and others," only showed that he finally showed some common sense. The charge that VENONA somehow cinched the case against these men is just a plain lie. If anything VENONA clears Hiss of the charges against him -- it is only the extremist idealogy of the authors of this article that keep them from admitting it, or even airing the arguments for Hiss's innocence.
10) Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, for some strange reason, appears as a God to these authors. They quote him as if he were Moses down from the mountain, as if just because Moynihan said it, we should all accept it. Why, I haven't the faintest idea. Of course, they quote a number of proved liars, such as Joe McCarthy and Hoover, with the same religious fervor. That they do so speaks to their extremist views, and their own essential dishonesty.
The above corrections to this article were posted by--Griffin Fariello Grifross 01:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Might as well call this "How I support the CPUSA!
"American policy dealing with this rapidly changing scene was often confused, naive, slow to respond, and contradictory".
Umm, No!! Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin airlift?! More success than failure if you ask me. If anything the soviets bumbling into afganistan and poland (after there revolution) was naive!
IDIOTS! So if that commie pinko who ranted a while back! ( 24.75.194.50 19:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC))
I don't know about you guys, but this looks a bit POV to me. Comments?
Gradually it became apparent that the objectives of World War II for which the United States and others made tremendous sacrifices were not fully realized, and there remained in the world a force presenting even greater dangers to world peace than the Nazi militarists and Japanese warlords. Consequently, the United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by direct or instigated activities of the Soviet Union. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DabMachine ( talk • contribs) 17:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
During the 1950s, it gradually became apparent that the Soviet intelligence activities directed at the U.S. government and military/economic institutions had been widespread and pervasive, and that Soviet intelligence was much more sophisticated and determined than the prewar and wartime efforts of Nazi Germany and militarist Japan.
DJ Silverfish 21:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Does this not come under the military history wiki project?-- SGGH 11:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Nobs01 was banned yet is adding the material I erased as an anonymous IP. The additions are not encylopedic, but complete paranoia. Let the person who added them come forward and defend them. TDC is defending a mountain of junk editing from an anonymous editor who edits exactly like the banned Nobs (an old friend of TDC, incidentally) Ruy Lopez 04:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Passage as follows:
By the mid to late 1920s, there were three elements of Soviet power operating in the United States, despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations: the Comintern, military intelligence or GRU, and the forerunner of the KGB, the GPU. The Comintern was the dominant arm, though it was not unusual for officers and agents to switch from one service to another.
During the 1920s, Soviet intelligence focused on military and industrial espionage in the United States, specifically aircraft and munitions industries, and penetrating the mainline federal government bureaucracies, such as the Department of State and War Department. A front organization was created in 1928 for the infiltration and placement of scientists into industry and government: the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT).
Formal diplomatic recognition was granted to the USSR on 16 November 1933, a condition of which was a pledge to refrain "from interfering in any manner in the internal affairs of the United States." In fact, Soviet intelligence greatly expanded their US espionage efforts, now operated under "legal" cover through embassy and consulates. That same year, several Comintern affiliate organizations were established: the American League Against War and Fascism, followed by the American Youth Congress in 1934; the League of American Writers in 1935; and the National Negro Congress in 1936. In 1937 the American League Against War and Fascism changed its name to the American League for Peace and Democracy. Between 1937 and 1938 the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was established with numerous affiliates and sent hundreds of non-governmental combatants to Spain despite the League of Nations' Non-Intervention Committee ban on foreign "volunteers". In 1939, the American Congress for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom and numerous other Comintern affiliate organizations were created.
What are the sources for these allegations? Abe Froman 00:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Passage as follows:
As in any target country, the Soviet NKVD (later MGB and KGB) and GRU ran parallel "legal" and "illegal" operations groups. "Legal" networks were run by Soviet case officers holding legal visas, usually working in diplomatic missions and official trade organizations. The operational station was called a "rezidency" headed by a station chief, or "rezident". The "illegal" networks were headed by an "illegal rezident", usually a Soviet national operating under deep cover with no apparent connection to Soviet organizations. Thus, if diplomatic relations are broken, an espionage organization remains in place, dispensing the the need to begin anew (which could take decades).
One chief aim was the infiltration, placement, and subversion of American political life at all levels of society. Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as a agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence. . [1] [2]
What page numbers in the two books described in refs 7 and 8 contain these allegations? I find the claim hard to verify. Abe Froman 00:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
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What page numbers in refs 11 and 12 describe the allegations contained in the referenced passage? Ref 11 seems to be irrelevent, given it is 56 years old. Abe Froman 00:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What page numbers in refs 14 and 15 describe the allegations contained therein? Abe Froman 00:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yet another ref in ref 16 that has no page number. Just an offline book. On which page does the book referenced refer to the allegations in the passage? Abe Froman 00:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a single reference. What is the authority for this passage? Abe Froman 00:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a single reference. What is the authority for this passage? Abe Froman 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What page numbers in refs 18, 19, and 21 refer to this alleged network? I find the claims impossible to verify. Abe Froman 00:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Much of this entire article (particularly the Silvermaster section) has decayed to a McCarthy era "Stalin's agents under every bed" sort of paranoia. What appears to look like authoritative source citations are actually mutual cross citations to ALLEGATIONS, which sound plausible because they are PARTIALLY based on actual facts.
One example is the whole Elizabeth Bentley (she was the courrier for the Silvermaster Group) Occupation Currency plates thing. Her story eventually became that on direct orders from Moscow, Harry Dexter White ("the least productive member" of Whittaker Chamber's earlier group as described in Chambers' own words) turned over Currency samples—which, by Bentley's telling then were shipped to Moscow, found to be impossible to counterfit, shipped back to the States (a physical round trip of at least 4 weeks if all transportation connections worked perfectly, & totally ignoring any time for Russian currency experts to even inspect the alleged samples)—and then the actual plates were demanded... and (by Bentley's telling) White dutifully complied because he was such a Soviet automoton.
Only problem... the events (Occupation Currency printing plates were in fact turned over to the Soviets after a lengthy "public" internal debate) happened in 1944, Bentley's initial 1948 testimony said nothing of the plates, & by 1954 she richly embellished the story to "White following Moscow's orders..." Why did she not mention the 1944 events (the plates were in fact turned over to the Russians, but made good by the German treasury, not the US Treasury) in her 1948 testimony? Why was her memory "better" 10 years after the fact, but worse 4 years after the fact?
The citations from the Schecter "Sacred Secrets" book, are again, seemingly plausible on the surface. But when you read the book, often when "facts" are cited, the bibliographical reference is "Soviet Intelligence Archives." That smells to be of manufactured references.
This is the first time I've seen the Pavlov "Operation Snow" story told such that White's purpose was to place & protect Soviet sources... the telling of Pavlov's meeting with White (White was known to be trying to expand his knowledge of the China-Japanese-Soviet situation (remember that war started in 1931)) was that Pavlov (on instructions of Stalin & Beria) COMMANDED White to protect Soviet Eastern borders by provoking Japan to attack Pearl Harbor! It's certainly a great made-for-master-conspiracy-theorists image, but reality is far more mundane. By late 1941 Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor were well underway & clearly were not & could not have been influenced by a monetary policy wonk in the Treasury (at this point, White was influential, but had not been promoted to Assistant Secretary of Treasury... that promotion didn't happen until 1944 to help with the Bretton Woods conference). DEddy 02:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a single reference. What is the authority for this passage? Abe Froman 00:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What page number in Moynihan's report is referenced? The report runs into hundreds of pages. Abe Froman 00:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I have banned Ruy Lopez from editing the article for 5 days for disruptive editing, but that is just the start of the problems.
First off, while the anon may or may not have been Nobs, reverting the article was just wrong. The version reverted to is patently inferior in style alone, and while the supposed Nobs version doesn't source the Golos section very well, reverting removed 7 sources from the Silvermaster section. Next we have TDC, who is also on parole and may be blocked for reverting an article more than once per day, and has already used up his one revert for today.
Abe, try placing {{fact}} at places you want better citations for. Adding {{unreferenced}} even once to an article with 20 or more references just plain looks bad; adding it multiple times verges on disrupting wikipedia to make a point. Be selective.
Please discuss disputed information on the talk page. If version A and B are both defective, the answer is not to flip back and forth between them, but to collaborate on version C, D or E. If I read this right, one of the concerns is that the "Nobs" version takes citations for A, D, F, H, and M and weaves them into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP. I certainly don't know this field, but I know it is possible to fix this, and no version of the article is so good that it should be the basis for a blind reversion rather than repair. Note that Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources states "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source." That means that while you might describe the contents of a Venona transcript, for example, you can not interpret it or say what it means. You must find a reliable secondary source that you can quote. If different historians have differing views about what a particular set of documents means, report them both. If no reliable secondary source agrees with your personal view of the meaning of a document, then you are out of luck.
Try and explain your concerns; that specific passages aren't cited; that specific statements are an editor's conclusion rather than reportage of third party sources; and so on. I can't say enough that reverting is bad—not only is it disrespectful of other editor's good faith efforts that are simply destoyed, it fixes in amber other mistakes and deficiencies. If there are specific problems, fix them individually, after talking about it here. If necessary, ask for a third opinion or RFC to get some more outside opinion. Thatcher131 01:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Quick question... Why does this article finish in the 1950's? I know of a few cases of KGB agents in the FBI going right into the 1990's. Can I add that material, or there some reason why I shouldn't? Lord Seabhcán of Baloney 23:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The fact tagged sections stood for nearly a week, then were reverted. TDC replaced them, without the requested refs. This is not how Wikipedia works. Either support the material with verifiable refs, or let it die a deserving death. This is not the place to discuss specific fact tags, see above in this talk page for the individual passages being challenged. Abe Froman 21:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
The quote about Truman being "willfully obtuse" to Communism's dangers is referenced as coming from Moynihan. This is incorrect. The "obtuse" sentence rehashes, tendentiously I think, the work of two academics quoted in Moynihan's report. The Moynihan report does not call Truman "obtuse," that is the POV spin given by a Wikipedia editor. [3] Attributing this quote to Moynihan is incorrect because Moynihan never said it. The sentence should be removed or reworked to attribute it properly. The academics in question are Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957 (Washington, D.C.: National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), vii-viii. Abe Froman 18:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
There isn't an article for US espionage in the Soviet Union/Russia? Hires an editor ( talk) 20:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
This article reads like a piece of trash. The Earl Browder allegations are perhaps the finest example of what it is that merits this article a NPOV warning until this is rewritten in a neutral and objective style.
Take a look:
Although a variety of evidence has been added to the debate since his conviction, the question of Hiss's guilt or innocence remains controversial.[2]
Looking at the whole article, every other line or every other paragraph is written in this sloppy manner. Was this stuff written by a 16-year-old Cold War buff? An agenda-driven member of the John Birch Society?
Seeing how all of this was already brought up back in 2006, I strongly support simply removing this BS already to the extent that it can't be counterbalanced. When will the citations be forthcoming? 166.217.146.168 ( talk) 13:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Why no mention of this key figure in 1930s Soviet espionage in the USA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.16.252.154 ( talk) 19:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
network of agents and sources included two key figures at the Department of Treasury, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and Harry Dexter White. This needs to be rewritten. White was clearly a key figure at Treasury, Silvermaster was most certainly not. White was at Treasury from 1935 until approx 1946. Silvermaster did 6 months at Treasury, July 1944 until January 1945. DEddy ( talk) 02:45, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Although Russia is the main successor of the Soviet Union, Soviet Union is the Soviet Union, Russia is Russia, How about split this article into " Soviet Union espionage in the United States" and " Russian espionage in the United States"?-- MacArthur1945 ( talk) 07:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)