Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (109 page)

6. Information from "Muse," 14 December 1944, KGB file 40935, v.i, p. 99,
Alexander Vassiliev, Yellow Notebook #4 [2007 English Translation], trans. Steven
Shabad (1993-96), 39; Hayden Peake to John Haynes, 27 April 2006.

1. Anatoly Gorsky, "Failures in the USA (1938-48)," December 1948, KGB
file 43173, v.2c, PP. 49-55, Alexander Vassiliev, Black Notebook [2007 English Translation], trans. Philip Redko (1993-96), 77-79.

2. Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America-The Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999).

3. Hiss to Volkogonov, 3 August 1992, and Volkogonov to Lowenthal, 14 October 1992, reproduced in Alger Hiss and Dimitri Volkogonov, "In Re: Alger Hiss,"
Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 33.

4. Kobalzdze to Lowenthal, 30 September 1992, evidence entered into Alexander Vassiliev vs. Frank Cass & Co, HQ o1Xo3222, the High Court of Justice in London, Queen's Bench Division.

i. The two most thorough studies of the Hiss-Chambers case are Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Random House, 1997), and Sam
Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1997).
For a summary, see "The Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers Case," chapter 4 in John
Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials That
Shaped American Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2oo6).

2. Alger Hiss and Dimitri Volkogonov, In Re: Alger Hiss," Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 33. Serge Schmemann, "Russian
General Retreats on Hiss," New York Times, 17 December 1992. Remarks to the
same effect in Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Moscow), 24 November 1992, p. 4. On 11 No vember 1992, Volkogonov told the researcher Herbert Romerstein that the GRU
archives on foreign intelligence were closed and he had not searched them for material on Hiss. Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2000),
140.

3. "Nikolay" letter, 3 October 1934, KGB file 36857, v.i, p. 14, Alexander Vassiliev, Yellow Notebook #2 [2007 English Translation], trans. Philip Redko (1993-
96),2.

4. Hede Massing, This Deception (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1951);
Veronica Anne Wilson, "Red Masquerades: Gender and Political Subversion during
the Cold War, 1945-1963" (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 2002).

5. Maria Schmidt, "Noel Field-The American Communist at the Center of
Stalin's East European Purge: From the Hungarian Archives," American Communist
History 3, no. 2 (December 2004): 228-29. Schmidt's findings in the Hungarian
archives were corroborated by Bernd-Rainer Barth and Werner Schweizer, assisted
by Thomas Grimm, Der Fall Noel Field: Schliisselfigur der Schauprozesse in Osten-
ropa (Berlin: BasisDruck, 2005-7), Arte Edition, 2 vols.

6. While Hiss denied participation in the Ware group, in addition to Chambers's
testimony, a fellow member of the group, Nathaniel Weyl, later broke with the CPUSA
and affirmed his and Hiss's membership. Nathaniel Weyl, "I Was in a Communist Unit
with Hiss," U. S. News and World Report, 9 January 1953; Nathaniel Weyl, Encounters
with Communism (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2004). Chambers provided a detailed account
of his covert work in his testimony at the two Hiss perjury trials and in his memoir:
Whittaker Chambers, Witness (New York: Random House, 1952).

7. Note from "Redhead" appended to a KGB New York letter, 26 April 1936,
KGB file 36857, v.1, p. 23 and reverse, Vassiliev, Yellow #2, 4.

8. "Nord" to Center, 26 April 1936, KGB file 36857, v.1, pp. 21-22, Vassiliev,
Yellow #2, 4-5. Emphasis in original. That "Jurist" was a GRU cover name is supported by Chambers's memory that Boris Bykov, the GRU officer who oversaw
Chambers's network, referred to Hiss as "Der Advokat," a German word that can
be translated as jurist, advocate, or lawyer. Chambers, Witness, 414-15.

9. Center to KGB New York, 3 May 1936, KGB file 36857, v.1, p. 24, Vassiliev,
Yellow #2, 5.

1o. "Jung" to Center, 18 May 1936, KGB file 36857, v.1, p. 25, Vassiliev, Yellow
#2, 5-6.

ii. Massing, This Deception, 164-78; Chambers, Witness, 29-30, 381-82.

12. Noel Field, "Hitching Our Wagon to a Star," Mainstream, January 1861;
Schmidt, "Noel Field," 243-45.

13. Noel Field statement of 23 September 1954, Noel Field material, Hungarian Historical Institute Archive, cited in Schmidt, "Noel Field," 229-30.

14. KGB New York report, 18 February 1938, KGB file 58380, v.1, p. 51, Alexander Vassiliev, White Notebook #3 [2007 English Translation], trans. Steven Shabad
(1993-96), 116. Solomon Adler was a Treasury Department official and secret Communist active in the party's Washington underground. Although he is not known to
have assisted Soviet espionage in the 1930s, he was among those identified by Whit taker Chambers to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle in September 1939 as
covert Communists who were espionage risks. He was an active KGB source in
World War II. "Jung" to Center, 28 June 1938, KGB file 58380 ("Nigel"), v.1, pp. 7374, Vassiliev, White #3, 118.

15. "Jung" to Center, 31 July 1938, KGB file 58380, v.i, p. 83, Vassiliev, White
#3, 119.

16. "Nord" to Center, 28 November 1936; "Nord" letter, 29 November 1936,
KGB file 36857, v.1, pp. 49, 51, Vassiliev, Yellow #2, 9-10.

17. KGB New York to Center, 14 September 1938, KGB file 35112, v.5, p. 72,
Alexander Vassiliev, Black Notebook [2007 English Translation], trans. Philip Redko
(1993-96), 152.

18. "List of people who, according to "Raid's" information," 15 March 1945,
KGB file 45100, v.1, p. g1, Vassiliev, White #3, 78.

ig. Chambers, Witness, 336, 429-30.

20. "Ruble" biography, December 1944, KGB file 43072, v.1, p. 50, Vassiliev, White
#3, 48. Vassiliev's notes indicate that the original autobiography was handwritten in English and was located in KGB file 43072, v.1, p. 53, but that his notes were taken from
a Russian translation found at pp. 49-50. Karl [Whittaker Chambers], "The Faking of
Americans," unpublished essay (Herbert Solow Papers, Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, Stanford, CA., 1938); Chambers, Witness,
336, 429-30. The English names "Carl" and "Karl" are spelled identically in Cyrillic
Russian, and under most Cyrillic Russian to Latin English transliteration systems are
rendered "Karl" when transliterated into the Latin alphabet.

21. Chambers, Witness, 44-48, 55, 365; John W. Berresford, "The Grand Jury
in the Hiss-Chambers Case," American Communist History 7, no. i (June 2008): 27.
In interviews with historian Allen Weinstein in 1975 Lieber confirmed that he had
been a Communist, participated in the underground and assisted Chambers in the
work of his apparatus, knew Josef Peters and Boris Bykov, and had on their instructions attempted to locate Chambers after his defection. Weinstein, Perjury, gg, 11114, 130-31, 138n, 280-81. After the first edition of Perjury appeared in 1978, Lieber
partially repudiated his statements to Weinstein. Lieber never publicly admitted
party membership, although he acknowledged his closeness to the Communist movement in his interviews with Weinstein, but when he fled to Communist Poland in
1954, he filled out forms showing that he had joined the CPUSA in 1929 (he also
joined the Polish Communist Party). Maxim Lieber file, IPN BU 1218/8738, Insty-
tut Pami(~ci Narodowej [Institute of National Remembrance]. The authors thank
vVlodzimierz Bat6g and Leszek Gluchowski for their assistance in locating and reviewing the Lieber file.

22. "Vadim" report to Moscow Center, 18 December 1944; Moscow Center to
"Vadim," 22 December 1944; information repeated in Moscow Center report, 2
March 1951, KGB file 43072, v.1, pp. 25-26, 46, Vassiliev, White #3, 46, 65. Chambers, Witness, 48; Hope Hale Davis, Great Day Corning: A Memoir of the 1930s
(South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1994), g8. Josef Peters, a man of many pseudonyms, was also known as Peter, J. Peters, Joseph Peters, Alexander Stevens, Sandor Goldberger, Silver, Isidore Boorstein, Steve, Steve Lapin, and Steve Miller.

23. The Russian translation of Glasser's autobiography rendered Paul in Russian
as "Paul"' when transliterated from Cyrillic, with "' " a transliteration convention
for the Russian Cyrillic alphabetic soft sign. Similarly Gorsky's "Pol" in Cyrillic is
transliterated as "Pol"' with a soft sign.

24. 1111954, Felix Inslerman, photographer for Chambers's GRU network, told
the FBI and testified to a congressional committee that in 1938 Chambers had given
him a letter that he delivered to their Soviet contacts warning of exposure if he was
harassed. Inslerman copied portions of the letter and gave copies to both the FBI and
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. Felix Inslerman testimony, 20 February 1954, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Subversion and Espionage in Defense Establishments and Industry (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1954-55), pt. 2, gg8-iiio.

25. "Vladimir" to Moscow Center, 25 December 1948, KGB file 43173, v4,
p. 479; P. Fedotov and K. Kukin report to KI chairman, December 1948, KGB file
43173, v.2c, p. 203, Vassiliev, Black, 73. One Hiss defender has advanced the claim
that "Karl"/Robert Tselnis was Robert Zelms. There is no evidence for this assertion. Nicholas Dozenberg, a former mid-level CPUSA official, set up business covers for GRU in Europe and Asia in the 1930s. Imprisoned in the United States on a
false passport charge, he confessed and in 1948 wrote that he "had recommended for
employment with Soviet military intelligence in foreign countries ... Robert Zelms,
Z-e-l-m-s, alias Elmston." A 1944 FBI report noted that Zelms had been arrested in
Austria in 1936 for Communist activities and had last been seen in Moscow in 1939.
A British M16 memo regarding an international trading company operating in Asia
and Europe and secretly controlled by Soviet intelligence also placed him in Europe
in the period 1930-36. Statement of Nicholas Dozenberg, 4 October 1948, U.S.
House Committee on Un-American Activities, Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., '951), 3541; "Comintern Apparatus Summary Report," 15 December 1944, serial 3702, p. 189, FBI Comintern
Apparatus file 100-203581; Memo to J. A. Cimperman, replying to a letter of 13 January 1949, British Public Records Office, files KV2 /1go2 and KV2/1655, transcription at www.garethjones.org. There is nothing connecting Zelms to GRU activities
in Washington in the mid- to late 1930s or anytime in the 1940s.

26. A. Gorsky, "Failures in the USA (1938-48)," December 1948, KGB file
43173, v.2c, p. 49, Vassiliev, Black, 77.

27. Elizabeth Bentley, FBI Deposition, 3o November 1945, serial 220, pp. 52,
55-57, FBI Silvermaster file 65-56402 (cited hereafter as Deposition 1945); 'M.'s
contacts; list obtained by Vadim," October 1944, KGB file 70545, p. 152, Alexander
Vassiliev, White Notebook #2 [2007 English Translation], trans. Steven Shabad
(1993-96), io.

28. Venona 195 KGB Moscow to New York, 3 March 1945.

29. Venona 23o KGB San Francisco to Moscow, 4 May 1945; Venona 235-36
KGB San Francisco to Moscow, 5 May 1945; Venona 259 KGB San Francisco to
Moscow, 13 May 1945; Venona 312 KGB San Francisco to Moscow, 8 June 1945.

30. Venona 1822 KGB Washington to Moscow, 30 March 1945. The text used here is John Schindler's 2002 translation. John R. Schindler, "Hiss in VENONA: The
Continuing Controversy," paper presented at Symposium on Cryptologic History,
Laural, MD, zoos, http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page6i.html.

31. The most thorough examination of Venona 1822, the 30 March 1945 cable,
is Eduard Mark, "Who Was `Venona's `Ales'? Ciyptanalysis and the Hiss Case," Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003).

32. Hiss was indicted for perjury in 1948 for denying supplying State Department documents to Chambers (the statute of limitations precluded an espionage
charge). The initial trial ended in a hung jury but with a majority for conviction. A
unanimous jury in a second trial convicted Hiss on 21 January igso. An appeals court
affirmed conviction, and the Supreme Court denied appeal in March igsi. A 1952
petition for retrial was similarly rejected by district, appellate, and supreme courts.
After serving his prison sentence, Hiss was released and later asked to have his license
to practice law restored. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1975 readmitted Hiss to the practice of law, citing his blameless life since prison but adding
that "nothing we have said here should be construed as detracting one iota from the
fact that ... we consider him to be guilty as charged." In 1978 Hiss submitted a detailed writ asking that his conviction be overturned. A federal district court in 1982
ruled, "the jury verdict rendered in ig5o was amply supported by the evidence ...
and nothing presented in these papers ... places that verdict under any cloud." An
appeals court and the Supreme Court also rejected Hiss's writ. Weinstein, Perjury,
499-502.

33. The defense experts had far more samples of Hiss family typed material to
examine than did the prosecution experts. For obvious reasons, the defense did not
bring this up at the trial.

34 Weinstein, Pejury, 154; "List of people who, according to "Raid's" infor
mation," is March 1945, KGB file 45100, v.1, p. 91, Vassiliev, White #3, 78.

35. Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers, 519;Weinstein, Perjury, 321-22.

36. Weinstein, Perjury, 99, 111-14, 130-31, 134, 138n, 171, 204, 273, 280-81,
286, 288, 339, 362, 381, 434, 466.

37. Fitin to Merkulov, 25 April 1945, KGB file 43072, v.1, pp. 96-97, Vassiliev,
White #3, 58; Bentley, Deposition 1945, 105.

38. "Vadim" to Moscow Center, 5 March 1945, KGB file 43173, v.i, p. 88, Vassiliev, Black, 50.

39. "Grew Says World Must Bar Anarchy," New York Times, 4 March 1945;
"State Department Radio Show Gives `Oaks' Plan in Plain Talk," Washington Star,
4 March 1945.