History of Soviet espionage in the United States
Encyclopedia
Since the late 1920s, the Soviet Union
, through its OGPU and NKVD
intelligence services, used Russians
and foreign-born nationals as well as Communist, and people of American origin to perform espionage
activities in the United States
. These various espionage networks eventually succeeded in penetrating various U.S. government agencies, transmitting classified or confidential information to Moscow
, while influencing U.S. government officials to support policies favorable to the Soviet Union.
focused on military and industrial espionage in the United States, specifically in the aircraft and munitions industries, and penetrating the mainline federal government bureaucracies, such as the Department of State and War Department
. These efforts had mixed results. A front organization
was created by a NKVD
agent in 1928 for the infiltration and placement of scientists into industry and government: the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT). "The FAECT never attracted enough followers to make an impact in labor conditions, but it served the progressive cause in other ways."
, General Secretary
of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as an agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence.
Browder later stated that "by the mid-thirties, the Party was not putting its principal emphasis on recruiting members." Left unstated was his intent to use party members for espionage work, where suitable. Browder advocated the use of a United Front involving other members of the left, both to strengthen advocacy of pro-Soviet policy and to enlarge the pool of potential recruits for espionage work. The illegal residency of NKVD
in the US was established in 1934 by the former Berlin
resident Boris Bazarov
. In 1935, NKVD
agent Iskhak Akhmerov
entered the US with false identity papers to assist Bazarov in the collection of useful intelligence, and operated without interruption until 1939, when he left the US. Akhmerov's wife, an American who worked for Soviet intelligence, was Helen Lowry
(Elza Akhmerova), the niece of CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder. Recent information from Soviet archives have revealed that Browder's younger sister Marguerite worked until 1938 as an NKVD operative in Europe. She discontinued this work only when Browder himself requested her release from duty, fearful that her work would compromise his position as General Secretary.
In the 1930s, the chief Soviet espionage organization operating in the U.S. became the GRU
. J. Peters
, headed the secret apparatus that supplied internal government documents from the Ware group
to the GRU. Browder assisted Peters in building a network of operatives in the Roosevelt administration
. This group included Alger Hiss
, John Abt
, and Lee Pressman
. Courier for the group at the time was Whittaker Chambers
. Browder oversaw the efforts of Jacob Golos
and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bentley
, whose network of agents and sources included two key figures at the Department of Treasury, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster
and Harry Dexter White
.
One early Soviet spy ring was headed by Jacob Golos
. Jake Golos (birth name Jacob Golosenko, Tasin, Rasin or Raisen) was a Ukrainian
-born Bolshevik
revolutionary and Soviet secret police
(NKVD) operative in the USSR. He was also a longtime senior official of the CPUSA involved in covert work and cooperation with Soviet intelligence agencies. He took over an existing network of agents and intelligence sources from Earl Browder. Golos' controller was the head of the NKVD's American desk, Gaik Ovakimian
, also known as "The Puppetmaster", who would later serve a key role in the assassination
of Leon Trotsky
. Golos was the "main pillar" of the NKVD intelligence network. He had worked with Soviet intelligence from the mid 1930s, and probably earlier. He was not merely a CPUSA official assisting the NKVD (an agent or “probationer” in Soviet intelligence parlance) but held official rank in the NKVD, and claimed to be an oldtime Chekist.
Golos established a company called World Tourists with money from Earl Browder, the General Secretary. The firm, which posed as a travel agency, was used to facilitate international travel to and from the United States by Soviet agents and CPUSA members. World Tourists was also involved in manufacturing fake passports, as Browder used such a false passport on covert trips to the Soviet Union in 1936. At World Tourist, Golos frequently met Bernard Schuster, an NKVD agent (code name ECHO and DICK) and Communist Party functionary who carried out background investigations for Golos as part of the vetting
process of agent candidates. In March 1940, Golos pled guilty to being an unregistered foreign agent
, paid a $500 fine, and served probation in lieu of a four-month prison sentence.
Soviet intelligence did not like Golos' refusal to allow Soviet contact with his sources (a measure implemented by Golos to protect himself and to ensure his continued retention by the NKVD). The NKVD suspected Golos of Trotskyism
and tried to lure him to Moscow, where he could be arrested, but the US government got to him first. But even then, he did not reveal his agent network. After Browder went to prison in 1940, Golos took over running Browder's agents. In 1941, Golos set up a commercial forwarding enterprise, called the US Shipping and Service Corporation, with Elizabeth Bentley
, his lover, as one of its officers.
Sometime in November 1943, Golos met in New York City
with key figures of the Perlo group
, a group working in several government departments and agencies in Washington, D.C.
The group was already in the service of Browder. Later that same month, after a series of heart attacks over the previous two years, Golos died in bed in Bentley's arms. Bentley then took over his operations (thus the reference in the decrypts to him as a “former” colleague).
, assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Sayre; Julian Wadleigh
, economist in the Trade Agreements Section; Laurence Duggan
, Latin American division; and Noel Field
, West European division. Whittaker Chambers
later testified that the plans for a tank design with a revolutionary new suspension
invented by J. Walter Christie
(then being tested in the U.S.A.) were procured and put into production in the Soviet Union as the Mark BT, later developed into the famous Soviet T-34
tank.
In 1993, experts from the Library of Congress traveled to Moscow to copy previously secret archives of Communist Party USA (CPUSA) records, sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping by party organizers. The records provide an irrefutable record of Soviet intelligence and cooperation provided by those in the radical left in the United States from the 1920s through the 1940s. Some documents revealed that the CPUSA was actively involved in secretly recruiting party members from African-American groups and rural farm workers. The records contained further evidence that Soviet sympathizers had indeed infiltrated the State Department, beginning in the 1930s. Included were letters from two U.S. ambassadors in Europe to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
and a senior State Department official. Thanks to an official in the State department sympathetic to the Party, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviet intelligence.
In the late 1930s and 1940 the OGPU, known as the Political Directorate, used the U.S. as one of several staging areas for multiple OGPU plots to murder exiled Soviet leader Leon Trotsky
, then living in Mexico City
. It was American Communists who infiltrated Trotsky’s killer, Ramón Mercader
, into his own household. They were also central to the NKVD's unsuccessful efforts to free the killer from a Mexican prison.
and Myra
) were indicted on espionage charges by the FBI in 1957, all three were later convicted and served prison terms. The Zlatovskis remained in Paris
, France
, where the laws did not allow their extradition to the United States for espionage. Robert Soblen
was sentenced to life in prison for his espionage work at Sandia National Laboratories
, but jumped bail and escaped to Israel
. After being expelled from that country, he later committed suicide
in Great Britain
while awaiting extradition back to the United States.
by Emerson Radio
, including a complete proximity fuse (reportedly the same fuse design that was later installed on Soviet anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Francis Gary Powers's U-2
in 1960). Thousands of documents from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA) were photocopied or stolen, including a complete set of design and production drawings for Lockheed Aircraft's new P-80 Shooting Star
fighter jet.
directed Soviet intelligence officers to collect information in four main areas. Pavel Fitin
, the 34-year-old chief of the KGB First Directorate, was directed to seek American intelligence concerning Hitler's plans for the war in Russia; secret war aims of London and Washington, particularly with regard to planning for Operation Overlord
, the second front in Europe; any indications the Western Allies might be willing to make a separate peace with Hitler; and American scientific and technological progress, particularly in the development of an atomic weapon.
and his superior, Harry Dexter White
, assistant secretary of the treasury and the second most influential official in the department. In Late May 1941 Vitaly Pavlov, a 25 year-old NKVD officer, approached White and attempted to secure his assistance to influence U.S. policy towards Japan
. White agreed to assist Soviet intelligence in any way he could. The principal function of White was to aid in the infiltration and placement of Soviet operatives within the government, and protecting sources. When security concerns arose around Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, White protected him in his sensitive position at the Board of Economic Warfare
. White likewise was a purveyor of information and resources to assist Soviet aims, and agreed to press for release of German occupation currency plates to the Soviet Union. The Soviets later used the plates to print unrestricted sums of money to exchange for U.S. and Allied hard goods.
In August 1945 Elizabeth Bentley
, fearful of assassination by the Soviet MGB, turned herself in to the government. She implicated many agents and sources in the Golos
and Silvermaster
spy networks, and was the first to accuse Harry Dexter White
of acting on behalf of Soviet interests in releasing occupation plates to Moscow, later confirmed by Soviet archives and former KGB officers.
's Executive Order 9835
of 22 March 1947 tightened protections against subversive infiltration of the US Government, defining disloyalty as membership on a list of subversive organizations maintained by the Attorney General
. However Truman was opposed to the McCarran Internal Security Act
of 1950, calling it a "Mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step towards totalitarianism".
Soviet successes in obtaining information on U.S. defense readiness and atomic bomb stockpiles are thought to have led directly to Stalin's decision to blockade Berlin
in 1948-1949 and to acquiesce in Kim Il Sung's invasion of South Korea
in 1950.
and GRU
(Russia's political and military intelligence agencies, respectively) are operating against the U.S. in a much more active manner than they were during even the hottest days of the Cold War
" according to former GRU Colonel Stanislav Lunev
. From the end of 1980s, KGB and later SVR began to create "a second echelon" of "auxiliary agents in addition to our main weapons, Illegals and special agents", according to former SVR officer Kouzminov. These agents are legal immigrants , including scientists and other professionals. Another SVR officer who defected to Britain
in 1996 described details about several thousand of Russian agents and intelligence officers, some of them "illegals" who live under deep cover abroad Recently caught Russian high-profile agents in US are Aldrich Hazen Ames, Harold James Nicholson
, Earl Edwin Pitts
, Robert Philip Hanssen and George Trofimoff
. In June 2010, an alleged SVR spy network called the Illegals Program
by the US Department of Justice was revealed when 10 suspects who had been living long-term in the US were arrested.
According to Yuri Shvets
, a former KGB agent “In the days of the Soviet Union, the number of spies was limited because they had to be based at the foreign ministry, the trade mission or the news agencies like Tass. Right now, virtually every successful private company in Russia is being used as a cover for Russian intelligence operations.” For example, close connections of SVR with Russian gas company Gazprom
and oil company LUKoil
have been reported.
Although every Russian company abroad may be a front organization
of SVR or GRU
(and in fact some of them have been organized by SVR') the most famous of them is Russian aviation
company Aeroflot
. In the past, this company conducted forcible "evacuations" of Soviet citizens from foreign countries back to the USSR. People whose loyalty was questioned were drugged and delivered unconsciousness by Aeroflot planes, assisted by the company KGB
personnel, according to former GRU
officer Victor Suvorov. In 1980s and 1990s, specimens of deadly bacteria and viruses stolen from Western laboratories were delivered by Aeroflot to support Russian program of biological weapons
. This delivery channel encoded VOLNA ("wave") meant "delivering the material via an international flight of the Aeroflot airline in the pilots' cabin, where one of the pilots was a KGB officer". At least two SVR agents died, presumably from the transported pathogens.
When businessman Nikolai Glushkov
was appointed as a top manager of Aeroflot in 1996, he found that the airline company worked as a "cash cow to support international spying operations": 3,000 people out of the total workforce of 14,000 in Aeroflot were FSB
, SVR
, or GRU
officers. All proceeds from ticket sales were distributed to 352 foreign bank accounts that could not be controlled by the Aeroflot administration. Glushkov closed all these accounts and channeled the money to an accounting center called Andava in Switzerland
. He also sent a bill and wrote a letter to SVR
director Yevgeni Primakov and FSB director Mikhail Barsukov
asking them to pay salaries of their intelligence officers in Aeroflot in 1996. Glushkov has been imprisoned since 2000 on charges of illegally channeling money through Andava. Since 2004 the company is controlled by Viktor Ivanov, a high-ranking FSB
official who is a close associate of Vladimir Putin
.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, through its OGPU and NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
intelligence services, used Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
and foreign-born nationals as well as Communist, and people of American origin to perform espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
activities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. These various espionage networks eventually succeeded in penetrating various U.S. government agencies, transmitting classified or confidential information to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, while influencing U.S. government officials to support policies favorable to the Soviet Union.
First efforts
During the 1920s Soviet intelligenceChronology of Soviet secret police agencies
There was a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police after the Russian Revolution, created by Vladimir Lenin's decree on December 20, 1917, was called "Cheka"...
focused on military and industrial espionage in the United States, specifically in the aircraft and munitions industries, and penetrating the mainline federal government bureaucracies, such as the Department of State and War Department
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
. These efforts had mixed results. A front organization
Front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
was created by a NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
agent in 1928 for the infiltration and placement of scientists into industry and government: the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT). "The FAECT never attracted enough followers to make an impact in labor conditions, but it served the progressive cause in other ways."
Browder and Golos networks
One chief aim was the infiltration, placement, and subversion of American political life at all levels of society. Earl BrowderEarl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
, General Secretary
General Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as an agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence.
Browder later stated that "by the mid-thirties, the Party was not putting its principal emphasis on recruiting members." Left unstated was his intent to use party members for espionage work, where suitable. Browder advocated the use of a United Front involving other members of the left, both to strengthen advocacy of pro-Soviet policy and to enlarge the pool of potential recruits for espionage work. The illegal residency of NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
in the US was established in 1934 by the former Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
resident Boris Bazarov
Boris Bazarov
Boris Bazarov was a Soviet secret police officer who served as the chief illegal rezident in New York City from 1935 until 1937.-Early years:...
. In 1935, NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
agent Iskhak Akhmerov
Iskhak Akhmerov
Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov was a Soviet spy of Tatar ethnicity who joined the Bolshevik Party in 1919. Akhmerov attended the Communist University of Toilers of the East and the First State University, where he graduated from the School of International Relations in 1930...
entered the US with false identity papers to assist Bazarov in the collection of useful intelligence, and operated without interruption until 1939, when he left the US. Akhmerov's wife, an American who worked for Soviet intelligence, was Helen Lowry
Helen Lowry
Elza Akhmerova, also Elsa Akhmerova was an American citizen, born Helen Lowry. She was a niece of Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States . Died of leukemia...
(Elza Akhmerova), the niece of CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder. Recent information from Soviet archives have revealed that Browder's younger sister Marguerite worked until 1938 as an NKVD operative in Europe. She discontinued this work only when Browder himself requested her release from duty, fearful that her work would compromise his position as General Secretary.
In the 1930s, the chief Soviet espionage organization operating in the U.S. became the GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
. J. Peters
J. Peters
J. Peters was the most commonly known pseudonym of a man who last went by the name "Alexander Stevens" in 1949. Peters was an ethnic Jewish journalist and political activist who was a leading figure of the Hungarian language section of the Communist Party USA in the 1920s and 1930s...
, headed the secret apparatus that supplied internal government documents from the Ware group
Harold Ware
Harold Maskell "Hal" Ware was an American Marxist regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture....
to the GRU. Browder assisted Peters in building a network of operatives in the Roosevelt administration
Roosevelt Administration
There have been two Presidents of the United States with the surname "Roosevelt":*Theodore Roosevelt Administration, the 26th President of the United States, 1901 - 1909*Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration, the 32nd President of the United States, 1933 - 1945...
. This group included Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...
, John Abt
John Abt
John Jacob Abt was an American lawyer and politician. He spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA ....
, and Lee Pressman
Lee Pressman
Lee Pressman was a labor attorney and a US government functionary publicly exposed in 1948 for having been a spy for the Soviet foreign intelligence network during the middle 1930s...
. Courier for the group at the time was Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
. Browder oversaw the efforts of Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos, , was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary of ethnic Jewish heritage who became a secret police operative on behalf of the USSR in the United States...
and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. In 1945 she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence and became an informer for the U.S. She exposed two networks of spies, ultimately naming over 80 Americans who had engaged in espionage for...
, whose network of agents and sources included two key figures at the Department of Treasury, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster
Greg Silvermaster
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster , an economist with the United States War Production Board during World War II, was the head of a large ring of Communist spies in the U.S. government...
and Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White was an American economist, and senior U.S. Treasury department official, participating in the Bretton Woods conference...
.
One early Soviet spy ring was headed by Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos, , was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary of ethnic Jewish heritage who became a secret police operative on behalf of the USSR in the United States...
. Jake Golos (birth name Jacob Golosenko, Tasin, Rasin or Raisen) was a Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
-born Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
revolutionary and Soviet secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
(NKVD) operative in the USSR. He was also a longtime senior official of the CPUSA involved in covert work and cooperation with Soviet intelligence agencies. He took over an existing network of agents and intelligence sources from Earl Browder. Golos' controller was the head of the NKVD's American desk, Gaik Ovakimian
Gaik Ovakimian
Haik Badalovich Ovakimian , Major General, USSR , better known as "the puppetmaster" in intelligence circles, was a leading Soviet NKVD spy in the United States....
, also known as "The Puppetmaster", who would later serve a key role in the assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
. Golos was the "main pillar" of the NKVD intelligence network. He had worked with Soviet intelligence from the mid 1930s, and probably earlier. He was not merely a CPUSA official assisting the NKVD (an agent or “probationer” in Soviet intelligence parlance) but held official rank in the NKVD, and claimed to be an oldtime Chekist.
Golos established a company called World Tourists with money from Earl Browder, the General Secretary. The firm, which posed as a travel agency, was used to facilitate international travel to and from the United States by Soviet agents and CPUSA members. World Tourists was also involved in manufacturing fake passports, as Browder used such a false passport on covert trips to the Soviet Union in 1936. At World Tourist, Golos frequently met Bernard Schuster, an NKVD agent (code name ECHO and DICK) and Communist Party functionary who carried out background investigations for Golos as part of the vetting
Vetting
Vetting is a process of examination and evaluation, generally referring to performing a background check on someone before offering him or her employment, conferring an award, etc...
process of agent candidates. In March 1940, Golos pled guilty to being an unregistered foreign agent
Foreign Agents Registration Act
The Foreign Agents Registration Act is a United States law passed in 1938 requiring that agents representing the interests of foreign powers be properly identified to the American public. The act was passed in response to German propaganda in the lead-up to World War II...
, paid a $500 fine, and served probation in lieu of a four-month prison sentence.
Soviet intelligence did not like Golos' refusal to allow Soviet contact with his sources (a measure implemented by Golos to protect himself and to ensure his continued retention by the NKVD). The NKVD suspected Golos of Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
and tried to lure him to Moscow, where he could be arrested, but the US government got to him first. But even then, he did not reveal his agent network. After Browder went to prison in 1940, Golos took over running Browder's agents. In 1941, Golos set up a commercial forwarding enterprise, called the US Shipping and Service Corporation, with Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. In 1945 she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence and became an informer for the U.S. She exposed two networks of spies, ultimately naming over 80 Americans who had engaged in espionage for...
, his lover, as one of its officers.
Sometime in November 1943, Golos met in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with key figures of the Perlo group
Perlo group
Headed by Victor Perlo, the Perlo group is the name given to a group of Americans who provided information which was given to Soviet intelligence agencies; it was active during the World War II period, until the entire group was exposed to the FBI by the defection of Elizabeth Bentley...
, a group working in several government departments and agencies in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The group was already in the service of Browder. Later that same month, after a series of heart attacks over the previous two years, Golos died in bed in Bentley's arms. Bentley then took over his operations (thus the reference in the decrypts to him as a “former” colleague).
Secret apparatus
By the end of 1936 at least four mid-level State Department officials were delivering information to Soviet intelligence: Alger HissAlger Hiss
Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...
, assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Sayre; Julian Wadleigh
Julian Wadleigh
Henry Julian Wadleigh , was an American economist and the United States Department of State official in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a key witness in the Alger Hiss trials.-Biography:...
, economist in the Trade Agreements Section; Laurence Duggan
Laurence Duggan
Laurence Duggan , was head of the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II. In 1948, Duggan fell to his death from the window of his office in New York, ten days after being questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about whether he had had contacts...
, Latin American division; and Noel Field
Noel Field
Noel Field , was an American citizen. While employed at the United States Department of State in the 1930s, he was a Soviet spy...
, West European division. Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
later testified that the plans for a tank design with a revolutionary new suspension
Christie suspension
The Christie suspension is a suspension system developed by American engineer Walter Christie for his tank designs. It allowed considerably longer movement than conventional leaf spring systems then in common use, which allowed his tanks to have considerably greater cross-country speed and a lower...
invented by J. Walter Christie
J. Walter Christie
John Walter Christie was an American engineer and inventor. He is best known for developing the Christie suspension system used in a number of World War II-era tank designs, most notably the Soviet BT and T-34 series, and the British Covenanter and Crusader Cruiser tanks, as well as the Comet...
(then being tested in the U.S.A.) were procured and put into production in the Soviet Union as the Mark BT, later developed into the famous Soviet T-34
T-34
The T-34 was a Soviet medium tank produced from 1940 to 1958. Although its armour and armament were surpassed by later tanks of the era, it has been often credited as the most effective, efficient and influential design of World War II...
tank.
In 1993, experts from the Library of Congress traveled to Moscow to copy previously secret archives of Communist Party USA (CPUSA) records, sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping by party organizers. The records provide an irrefutable record of Soviet intelligence and cooperation provided by those in the radical left in the United States from the 1920s through the 1940s. Some documents revealed that the CPUSA was actively involved in secretly recruiting party members from African-American groups and rural farm workers. The records contained further evidence that Soviet sympathizers had indeed infiltrated the State Department, beginning in the 1930s. Included were letters from two U.S. ambassadors in Europe to President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
and a senior State Department official. Thanks to an official in the State department sympathetic to the Party, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviet intelligence.
In the late 1930s and 1940 the OGPU, known as the Political Directorate, used the U.S. as one of several staging areas for multiple OGPU plots to murder exiled Soviet leader Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, then living in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. It was American Communists who infiltrated Trotsky’s killer, Ramón Mercader
Ramón Mercader
Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río Hernández was a Spanish communist who became famous as the murderer of Russian Communist ideologist Leon Trotsky in 1940, in Mexico...
, into his own household. They were also central to the NKVD's unsuccessful efforts to free the killer from a Mexican prison.
Soble spy ring
Jacob Albam and the Sobles (JackJack Soble
Jack Soble Jack Soble (birth name:Abromas Sobolevicius, sometimes used Abraham Sobolevicius or Adolph Senin) Jack Soble (birth name:Abromas Sobolevicius, sometimes used Abraham Sobolevicius or Adolph Senin) (born May 15, 1903 in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania - ?, but possibly (1897-1974) was a Jewish...
and Myra
Myra Soble
Myra Soble together with her husband Jack Soble was tried and jailed for her involvement in the Soble spy ring.Myra Soble , was born on March 18, 1904, in Nikloaev, Ukraine, Russia. She was the wife of Jack Soble. Myra and Jack were married on November 24, 1927, in Moscow...
) were indicted on espionage charges by the FBI in 1957, all three were later convicted and served prison terms. The Zlatovskis remained in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where the laws did not allow their extradition to the United States for espionage. Robert Soblen
Robert Soblen
Dr. Robert Soblen , was a prominent member of the pro-Trotsky Left Opposition in Germany in the 1930s. He moved to the United States in 1941 with his brother Jack Soble, and was arrested in 1960 as a Soviet spy. Convicted and sentenced to life in prison, he fled the U.S...
was sentenced to life in prison for his espionage work at Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories
The Sandia National Laboratories, managed and operated by the Sandia Corporation , are two major United States Department of Energy research and development national laboratories....
, but jumped bail and escaped to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. After being expelled from that country, he later committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
while awaiting extradition back to the United States.
Wartime espionage
During the war, Soviet espionage agents obtained classified reports on electronic advances in radio-beacon artillery fusesFuse (explosives)
In an explosive, pyrotechnic device or military munition, a fuse is the part of the device that initiates function. In common usage, the word fuse is used indiscriminately...
by Emerson Radio
Emerson Radio
Emerson Radio Corporation was founded in 1948. It is one of the United States’ largest volume consumer electronics distributors and has a recognized trademark in continuous use since 1912...
, including a complete proximity fuse (reportedly the same fuse design that was later installed on Soviet anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Francis Gary Powers's U-2
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...
in 1960). Thousands of documents from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958 the agency was dissolved, and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and...
(NACA) were photocopied or stolen, including a complete set of design and production drawings for Lockheed Aircraft's new P-80 Shooting Star
P-80 Shooting Star
The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces. Designed in 1943 as a response to the German Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter, and delivered in just 143 days from the start of the design process, production models were flying but...
fighter jet.
Atomic bomb secrets
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
directed Soviet intelligence officers to collect information in four main areas. Pavel Fitin
Pavel Fitin
Lieutenant General Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was a Soviet intelligence officer and was the director of Soviet intelligence during World War II, identified in the Venona cables under the code name "Viktor."- Education :Fitin graduated from a program in agricultural...
, the 34-year-old chief of the KGB First Directorate, was directed to seek American intelligence concerning Hitler's plans for the war in Russia; secret war aims of London and Washington, particularly with regard to planning for Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings...
, the second front in Europe; any indications the Western Allies might be willing to make a separate peace with Hitler; and American scientific and technological progress, particularly in the development of an atomic weapon.
The Silvermaster spy ring
The United States Treasury Department was successfully penetrated by nearly a dozen Soviet agents or information sources, including Harold GlasserHarold Glasser
Harold Glasser , was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration 'throughout its whole life' and he had a 'predominant voice' in determining which countries should receive aid...
and his superior, Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White was an American economist, and senior U.S. Treasury department official, participating in the Bretton Woods conference...
, assistant secretary of the treasury and the second most influential official in the department. In Late May 1941 Vitaly Pavlov, a 25 year-old NKVD officer, approached White and attempted to secure his assistance to influence U.S. policy towards Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
. White agreed to assist Soviet intelligence in any way he could. The principal function of White was to aid in the infiltration and placement of Soviet operatives within the government, and protecting sources. When security concerns arose around Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, White protected him in his sensitive position at the Board of Economic Warfare
Board of Economic Warfare
The Office of Administrator of Export Control was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940 . Brigadier General Russell Lamont Maxwell, United States Army, headed up this military entity...
. White likewise was a purveyor of information and resources to assist Soviet aims, and agreed to press for release of German occupation currency plates to the Soviet Union. The Soviets later used the plates to print unrestricted sums of money to exchange for U.S. and Allied hard goods.
In August 1945 Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. In 1945 she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence and became an informer for the U.S. She exposed two networks of spies, ultimately naming over 80 Americans who had engaged in espionage for...
, fearful of assassination by the Soviet MGB, turned herself in to the government. She implicated many agents and sources in the Golos
Golos
Golos may refer to the following:* Jacob Golos, a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet secret police operative in the USSR* Golos, a Russian 1982 psychological drama set in Russia...
and Silvermaster
FBI Silvermaster File
The FBI’s Silvermaster file is a 162-volume compendium of some 26,000 pages of documents relating to the Bureau’s investigation of Communist penetration of the Federal government during the Cold War....
spy networks, and was the first to accuse Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White was an American economist, and senior U.S. Treasury department official, participating in the Bretton Woods conference...
of acting on behalf of Soviet interests in releasing occupation plates to Moscow, later confirmed by Soviet archives and former KGB officers.
Aftermath
President Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's Executive Order 9835
Executive Order 9835
President Harry S. Truman signed United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as the "Loyalty Order", on March 21, 1947. The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government...
of 22 March 1947 tightened protections against subversive infiltration of the US Government, defining disloyalty as membership on a list of subversive organizations maintained by the Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
. However Truman was opposed to the McCarran Internal Security Act
McCarran Internal Security Act
The Internal Security Act of 1950, , also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act or the McCarran Act, after Senator Pat McCarran , is a United States federal law of the McCarthy era. It was passed over President Harry Truman's veto...
of 1950, calling it a "Mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step towards totalitarianism".
Soviet successes in obtaining information on U.S. defense readiness and atomic bomb stockpiles are thought to have led directly to Stalin's decision to blockade Berlin
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...
in 1948-1949 and to acquiesce in Kim Il Sung's invasion of South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
in 1950.
Post-Soviet period
"SVRForeign Intelligence Service (Russia)
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is Russia's primary external intelligence agency. The SVR is the successor of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB since December 1991...
and GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
(Russia's political and military intelligence agencies, respectively) are operating against the U.S. in a much more active manner than they were during even the hottest days of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
" according to former GRU Colonel Stanislav Lunev
Stanislav Lunev
Stanislav Lunev is a former Soviet military officer, the highest-ranking GRU officer to defect from Russia to the United States.He was born in the family of a Soviet Army officer...
. From the end of 1980s, KGB and later SVR began to create "a second echelon" of "auxiliary agents in addition to our main weapons, Illegals and special agents", according to former SVR officer Kouzminov. These agents are legal immigrants , including scientists and other professionals. Another SVR officer who defected to Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1996 described details about several thousand of Russian agents and intelligence officers, some of them "illegals" who live under deep cover abroad Recently caught Russian high-profile agents in US are Aldrich Hazen Ames, Harold James Nicholson
Harold James Nicholson
For the English diplomat, author, diarist and politician, see Harold Nicolson.Harold James Nicholson is a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and a twice-convicted spy for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service...
, Earl Edwin Pitts
Earl Edwin Pitts
Earl Edwin Pitts is a former FBI special agent who, in 1996, was arrested at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Pitts was charged with several offenses, including spying for the Soviet Union and Russia...
, Robert Philip Hanssen and George Trofimoff
George Trofimoff
George Trofimoff was the highest ranking US military officer ever charged with, and convicted of, espionage by the United States. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 27, 2001.- Background :...
. In June 2010, an alleged SVR spy network called the Illegals Program
Illegals Program
The Illegals Program, as it was called by the United States Department of Justice, was a network of Russian sleeper agents under non-official cover whose investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation culminated in the arrest of ten agents and a prisoner swap between Russia and the United...
by the US Department of Justice was revealed when 10 suspects who had been living long-term in the US were arrested.
According to Yuri Shvets
Yuri Shvets
Yuri B. Shvets was a Major in the KGB during the years 1980-1990. From April 1985 to 1987 he worked in the Washington Rezidentura of the KGB....
, a former KGB agent “In the days of the Soviet Union, the number of spies was limited because they had to be based at the foreign ministry, the trade mission or the news agencies like Tass. Right now, virtually every successful private company in Russia is being used as a cover for Russian intelligence operations.” For example, close connections of SVR with Russian gas company Gazprom
Gazprom
Open Joint Stock Company Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Its headquarters are in Cheryomushki District, South-Western Administrative Okrug, Moscow...
and oil company LUKoil
LUKoil
Lukoil/LUKoil ; ) is Russia's second largest oil company and its second largest producer of oil. In 2009, the company produced 97.615 million tons of oil; ....
have been reported.
Although every Russian company abroad may be a front organization
Front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
of SVR or GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
(and in fact some of them have been organized by SVR') the most famous of them is Russian aviation
Aviation
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
company Aeroflot
Aeroflot
OJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines , commonly known as Aeroflot , is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation, based on passengers carried per year...
. In the past, this company conducted forcible "evacuations" of Soviet citizens from foreign countries back to the USSR. People whose loyalty was questioned were drugged and delivered unconsciousness by Aeroflot planes, assisted by the company KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
personnel, according to former GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
officer Victor Suvorov. In 1980s and 1990s, specimens of deadly bacteria and viruses stolen from Western laboratories were delivered by Aeroflot to support Russian program of biological weapons
Soviet program of biological weapons
The Soviet Union began a biological weapons program in the 1920s despite the fact that the USSR was a signatory to the 1925 Geneva Convention, which banned both chemical and biological weapons...
. This delivery channel encoded VOLNA ("wave") meant "delivering the material via an international flight of the Aeroflot airline in the pilots' cabin, where one of the pilots was a KGB officer". At least two SVR agents died, presumably from the transported pathogens.
When businessman Nikolai Glushkov
Nikolai Glushkov
Nikolay Glushkov is a former Deputy Director-General of Aeroflot and a former Finance Manager of AvtoVAZ.Glushkov had been AvtoVAZ's Finance Chief until he left his job in autumn 1995 and was appointed as Deputy General Director of Aeroflot on request from Yevgeny Shaposhnikov in February...
was appointed as a top manager of Aeroflot in 1996, he found that the airline company worked as a "cash cow to support international spying operations": 3,000 people out of the total workforce of 14,000 in Aeroflot were FSB
FSB (Russia)
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet Committee of State Security . Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and...
, SVR
SVR
- Meteorology :*SVR, the SAME code for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning- Technology :* Super Video Recording, a videocassette technology by Grundig, based upon the Philips Video Cassette Recording format* System V Release* SVR Technologies : , India....
, or GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
officers. All proceeds from ticket sales were distributed to 352 foreign bank accounts that could not be controlled by the Aeroflot administration. Glushkov closed all these accounts and channeled the money to an accounting center called Andava in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. He also sent a bill and wrote a letter to SVR
SVR
- Meteorology :*SVR, the SAME code for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning- Technology :* Super Video Recording, a videocassette technology by Grundig, based upon the Philips Video Cassette Recording format* System V Release* SVR Technologies : , India....
director Yevgeni Primakov and FSB director Mikhail Barsukov
Mikhail Barsukov
Mikhail Ivanovich Barsukov is a former Russian intelligence and government official...
asking them to pay salaries of their intelligence officers in Aeroflot in 1996. Glushkov has been imprisoned since 2000 on charges of illegally channeling money through Andava. Since 2004 the company is controlled by Viktor Ivanov, a high-ranking FSB
FSB (Russia)
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet Committee of State Security . Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and...
official who is a close associate of Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
.
See also
- List of Soviet agents in the United States
- List of Americans in the Venona papers
- Active measuresActive measuresActive Measures were a form of political warfare conducted by the Soviet security services to influence the course of world events, "in addition to collecting intelligence and producing politically correct assessment of it". Active measures ranged "from media manipulations to special actions...
- Ware groupHarold WareHarold Maskell "Hal" Ware was an American Marxist regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture....
- Golos spy ringGolosGolos may refer to the following:* Jacob Golos, a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet secret police operative in the USSR* Golos, a Russian 1982 psychological drama set in Russia...
- Silvermaster spy ringFBI Silvermaster FileThe FBI’s Silvermaster file is a 162-volume compendium of some 26,000 pages of documents relating to the Bureau’s investigation of Communist penetration of the Federal government during the Cold War....
- Perlo groupPerlo groupHeaded by Victor Perlo, the Perlo group is the name given to a group of Americans who provided information which was given to Soviet intelligence agencies; it was active during the World War II period, until the entire group was exposed to the FBI by the defection of Elizabeth Bentley...
- Whittaker ChambersWhittaker ChambersWhittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
- Alger HissAlger HissAlger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...
- Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
- Pavel SudoplatovPavel SudoplatovLieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...
- Lev VasilevskyLev VasilevskyLev Vasilevsky, also known as Leonid A. Tarasov, was the KGB Mexico City Illegal Resident during much of the period of the Manhattan Project. In 1943, Moscow Center of KGB intelligence activities in North America, decided all contacts with J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the...
- AmerasiaAmerasiaAmerasia was a journal of Far Eastern affairs best known for the 1940s "Amerasia Affair" in which several of its staff and their contacts were suspected of espionage and charged with unauthorized possession of government documents.-Publication:...
- Farewell DossierFarewell DossierThe Farewell dossier was the collection of documents that Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB defector , gathered and gave to the French DST in 1981–82, during the Cold War....
- Venona projectVenona projectThe VENONA project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States and United Kingdom intelligence agencies involving cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the majority during World War II...
- United States government security breachesUnited States government security breachesThis page is a timeline of published security lapses in the United States government. These lapses are frequently referenced in congressional and non-governmental oversight...
- American espionage in the Soviet UnionAmerican espionage in the Soviet Union-American and Soviet Espionage:Throughout the Cold War, acts of espionage, or spying, became prevalent as tension between the United States and Soviet Union increased. The KGB, Soviet military group, made use of espionage primarily at the American Embassy in the Soviet Union...
- Espionage Act of 1917Espionage Act of 1917The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...
External links
- For new evidence on Soviet espionage in the United States, see former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev's Notebooks From the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)
- V.I. Lenin, Terms of Admission into Communist International, (July 1920) First published 1921, The Second Congress of the Communist International, Verbatum Report, Communist International, Petrograd
- Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. CI Reader: American Revolution into the New MillenniumA Counterintelligence Reader Volume 3, Chapter 1: Cold War Counterintelligence. PDF file. office of the Director of Central Intelligence. Retrieved June 21, 2005.
- Proyect, Louis. Harvey Klehr's "The Secret World of American Communism". Published online May 25, 2002. Retrieved June 21, 2005.
- 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)
- The Hanford Site, Historic docs, Section 8 - Site Security
- Discouraged, Disillusioned and Duped, Eyewitness account of the era
- Razvedka, Intelligence Information and the Process of Decision Making: Turning Points of the Early Period of the Cold War (1944–1953) http://usatruth.by.ru/c2.files/holodnajavojna9.htm (In Russian).
- Interview with Ralph De Toladano
- History of Russian foreign intelligence in North America (Russian), Official site of Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is Russia's primary external intelligence agency. The SVR is the successor of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB since December 1991...
- Film: The KGB Connections: An Investigation Into Soviet Operations in North America, 1982, Public domain: Online.
- Whittaker Chambers | Witness in the Alger Hiss Case, Anti-Communist, ex-Communist, Spy, Editor, Journalist, Intellectual, Writer, Translator, Poet
Further reading
- John Earl HaynesJohn Earl HaynesJohn Earl Haynes is an American historian who is a specialist in 20th century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress...
, Harvey KlehrHarvey KlehrHarvey E. Klehr is a professor of politics and history at Emory University; he is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America ....
, and Alexander VassilievAlexander VassilievAlexander Vassiliev is a Russian journalist, writer, and espionage historian living in London. A former officer in the Soviet Committee for State Security , Vassiliev is known for his two books based upon KGB archival documents: Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, co-authored with John...
, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (New Haven: Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 2009) - John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press
- Allen WeinsteinAllen WeinsteinAllen Weinstein is an American historian, educator, and federal official who has served in several different offices. He served as the Archivist of the United States from February 16, 2005 until his resignation on December 19, 2008...
and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America--the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999)