Last of the Cold War Spies (16 page)

Moscow and Green continued to be let down. Green complained to the center that he talked long and hard with Straight every week but that he was making no headway. Straight seemed to Green and the center to be concerned about stealing classified documents. Straight maintained that he no longer received ambassadorial reports, and he continued to draw on published material for his claimed three or four economic reports passed to Green.
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Straight’s claim covers up his capacity to access sensitive documents and take notes from them. There had to be more than three or four documents, given the number of meetings he had had with Green and other controls. But the key is not the actual documents but rather the information and analysis he passed on to his controls from them. Much like Burgess, he developed analytic and writing skills that allowed him to interpret secret data for Kremlin consumption. It was a Straight specialty.

In June 1938 Joe Alsop arranged a lunch meeting between Straight and Roosevelt’s speechwriter, Tom Corcoran, who made a persuasive case for
Straight’s contributing to congressman Maury Maverick’s fight for reelection in San Antonio, Texas. He had won office in 1934 and was a true-blue New Deal liberal. Bankers and businessmen wanted Maverick out. He was one of many New Dealers they were going to destroy. Could Straight help?

Yes, he could, to the tune of $10,000—equivalent today to about $300,000—which was a sizable donation for a political campaign. In return Straight was to observe the campaign and be offered a job working for Corcoran, assisting him in political speeches for Roosevelt. Straight agreed. Once again, he had used his money to purchase a position for the cause. He had completed his main assignment at State, and because he had not pleased Green with his harvest from it, Moscow Center decided that there might be better pickings by being on the president’s staff. He would have an office in the Department of Interior and easy access to the White House, which placed him at the hub of events politically. This appealed to Green and created a hope that he might still deliver useful documents.

Straight flew to San Antonio in mid-June, followed Maverick’s campaign, and took shots with his trusty Leica of the old Mexican town within the city that the congressman had restored. People began to show Straight undue deference; he didn’t know why. A reporter, whom Maverick was bribing to write favorable articles, later took Straight aside and asked him what it was like to work for the FBI. Maverick had spread the word that Straight was employed by J. Edgar Hoover and had been sent to make sure that the election was not stolen by Maverick’s opponent, a local radio announcer backed by the top end of town.

Straight took the joke; he had no choice, but he was mortified. He certainly could do without the FBI paying him any attention, which it would do on the off chance it was mislead into believing he was an imposter. Maverick lost the election, but Straight’s $10,000 investment was not a losing proposition. He had bought a few friends and a place near the top of the political table.

Straight became known in the bureaucracy as a liberal with communist sympathies. Despite directives from Moscow, he was sought out for assistance by communist agents from local rings, who were not aware that he was a deep-cover KGB spy. One was Zalmond David Franklin, a former member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade that fought in Spain. Franklin gave him a list of written questions about Roosevelt’s cabinet
appointments and some political matters. Straight declined to cooperate without explaining why to the unsuspecting comrade:
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he was servant to a deeper cause with a direct line to Moscow Center and the Kremlin.

Another seeker of help was the Czech-born agent Solomon Aaron Lichinsky—alias Solomon Adler—who according to Straight, looked like a ski instructor or storm trooper with “stiff blond hair.”
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Adler was a member of the local communist ring inside the Treasury Department, run by Silvermaster. He had no idea of Straight’s secret work.

Adler saw him as a likely recruit. He told Straight to lay low and that he would be recontacted.
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Straight took a summer break from the State Department through August to spend time with Dorothy, who was staying in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Bin. He returned to his desk in September. His report on Hitler’s rearmament was well received inside the department. Comments were attached to it from the secretary, Cordell Hull, who thought it “splendid,” and Dean Acheson, who praised it. Alger Hiss worked on the floor below. Apparently defying Moscow directives, he called Straight down for a chat about the points he had raised. Unmindful of Green’s worry about the closeness of Hiss, Straight found it pleasing that he was being encouraged by his Soviet masters and also patted on the back by those in his workplace. His boss, Feis, however, was not as impressed as Hiss. He offered no new assignments to reward his charge’s initiative. A paid position did come up in the office, and Feis offered it to Straight with little enthusiasm.
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It was turned down.

Straight gave Green documents in mid-September and waited for a firm offer from Corcoran for a role as an unpaid assistant speechwriter. It came a week later. At the passing of further intelligence at an October meeting, Straight told his control of his successful move to the Department of Interior and the White House, claiming in his autobiography that he deceived Green by saying he would be working for Harold Ickes, then interior secretary. The implication was that Ickes would be secretary of war and that Straight would then move with him.

Despite the lack of good espionage material coming from him, the center saw Straight as a long-term agent who had to be drawn in gradually and, it seemed from the correspondence between Green and the
center, painstakingly. There was no thought of shutting him down, a point that became apparent in late 1938 when Blunt wrote to him asking for funds for refugees from the Spanish Civil War. Green was upset. He asked Moscow to order Blunt to cease this sort of contact. It once more brought Straight into the spotlight on both sides of the Atlantic as an open communist supporter.

W
alter Krivitsky and his family were grateful for the police guard given by France’s socialist minister for the interior, M. Dormoy, when they stayed next door to a police station at Paris’s Hotel des Academies in the Rue St. Peres. Yet two attempts by Stalin’s assassins to trap Krivitsky within thirteen months convinced him that he should defect to the United States. One attempt was at the Marseilles railway station at midnight when the family was returning to Paris. They spotted the hit squad waiting for them and managed to flee the scene. Later in Paris the family was lunching at a cafe off the Place de la Bastille when their police guard became suspicious of three men in a vehicle. The family was bundled out a rear exit.
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Both times Krivitsky had noticed the broad, plump figure of Hans Bruesse, his former chauffeur while stationed in The Hague. The small-eyed, childish-looking Bruesse was a fearsome, cold-blooded operator whose talents ran from expert lock-picking to efficient killing. Bruesse was frequently at the Krivitsky’s homes in The Hague and in Paris. Both men knew each other’s foibles and habits. For this reason, Bruesse was able to track Krivitsky, and Krivitsky was able to elude him.

Constant police protection and the daily threat put enormous strains on the family, as did the fact that the KGB had increased its violent attacks in general against Soviet émigrés in France. The United States was
inviting, but it did not prove so on the family’s arrival in New York aboard the
SS Normandie
on November 10, 1938. Labor officials, who at that time controlled the immigration service, debated whether to deport them. The U.S. ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, who was briefly back in Washington for talks with Roosevelt on the European crisis, intervened and secured a 120-day visitor’s pass for Krivitsky. (Bullitt had been instrumental in attaining proper travel documents for him in France when he decided to leave.)
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New York was Krivitsky’s base, and the family took several weeks orientating themselves to both the language and the concrete jungle. It was a culture shock, yet the city’s strong Jewish influence was attractive. Krivitsky decided to write for a living. He would tell his story about working as a Soviet agent in Europe and the world dangers posed by Stalin and his henchmen. He saw book publishers and magazines but received only lukewarm responses. Very few in the media realized the true situation in Russia, nor the mayhem caused by Stalin’s purges and hit squads. There was more concern in Jewish New York about the rise of fascism, with its direct attack on Judaism. Communist Russia had its pogroms, and anti Jewish elements fostered by Stalin at his most paranoid were always dangerous, but the Nazis were public about their thuggish hate for Jews.

Krivitsky began writing a series of articles for the
Saturday Evening Post
with
Chicago Daily News
journalist Isaac Don Levine as his ghost writer. The only important individual in the U.S. government with any clout to sit up and take notice was a career State Department man, Loy Henderson. He had just returned (in October 1938) from a tour of duty in Moscow and was annoyed to find the indifference in Washington toward what was happening in Russia. Henderson had been monitoring communism since before the revolution and had sat in on the recent show trials. This long experience had made him a hard-liner when it came to Stalin. Henderson read Krivitsky’s initial articles, then he contacted Don Levine, who tried to arrange a meeting with Krivitsky and Henderson. Krivitsky was reluctant. His own knowledge of Soviet espionage and information from fellow émigrés made him sure that Washington was riddled with Soviet agents. Anything he said would be reported back to Moscow.

Don Levine and Krivitsky’s lawyer, Louis Waldman, reminded him that his visa expired in March. His cooperation with Henderson might help his citizenship application. Krivitsky then agreed to a meeting in
room 385 on the State Department’s eastern corridor on January 10, 1939.

Henderson and Edward Page, another hard-liner at State, listened in amazement to Krivitsky’s revelations. They outlined the purges and even Hitler’s desire to form a pact with Stalin.

Henderson was pleased. He suggested that further cooperation with the State Department’s passport division—run by Shipley—would help secure Krivitsky’s U.S. citizenship. Later, on January 10, Krivitsky met with Shipley, and he gave her a wealth of information on Soviet illegals—agents who had entered the country using false or forged passports.
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The data were so valuable that Shipley asked him to return the next day.

Henderson encouraged Krivitsky to write more penetrating articles about Soviet Russia and Stalin, but Krivitsky was cautious. He knew he could still be a target for the KGB led by the murderous Nikolai Yezhov, who would be under pressure to eliminate all deserters from the Soviet cause. Confirmation of his fears came on March 7, 1939, when he was dining near Times Square with Lenin biographer David Schub, the editor of a New York Jewish daily.
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They had just ordered their meals when three men came in and sat at the nearest table. Krivitsky recognized Sergei Basoff, an experienced Soviet agent, and got up to leave. Basoff followed him to the cashier’s desk, where Krivitsky turned and confronted him.

“Are you here to assassinate me?” Krivitsky challenged him.

“No, no, I’m not. I’m here unofficially,” Basoff replied.

“You just happen to turn up at this restaurant . . . ?”

“All I want is a friendly chat.”

Krivitsky knew enough about that kind of approach. It was a pretext to murder. He hurried out with Schub and along to the nearby offices of
The New York Times
. Basoff and his companions followed, but Krivitsky managed to escape in busy Time Square.

This shock caused Krivitsky to follow up on Henderson’s encouragement to expose Stalinism. In April, a series of articles—at the considerable sum of $5,000 a piece—commenced in the
Saturday Evening Post
in an attempt to alert the United States to the menace of “Stalin’s Secret Service.” They lacked specifics, but Krivitsky said he would “withhold total exposure” until the State Department granted him residential status.
Later, he bargained with the House Committee on Un-American Activities in order to stop his deportation.

The articles were a good introduction to Stalin’s worldwide espionage net and did go as far as exposing the Soviet Trade Mission, Amtorg, as a front or cover for the KGB.

“Stalin’s Secret Service has agents planted in all institutions, governmental and industrial,” Krivitsky claimed. “The armed services have them too.”

The exposé revealed communist assassinations in Spain and Stalin’s desire for a pact with Hitler. The latter revelation was derided.

The British Foreign Office (with Guy Burgess putting out the press release) remarked: “On the whole we do not consider that these would-be hair-raising revelations of Stalin’s alleged desire for rapprochement with Germany are worth taking seriously.”
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The FBI’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, was furious. Krivitsky had said that Soviet agents were slipping into the United States on forged passports. He had the affront to write that they were flouting American law by using rolls of counterfeit money. Even worse, from Hoover’s viewpoint, Krivitsky alleged that right under the nose of the bureau, Russian communist hit men from the KGB were moving around in small squads murdering American communists in order to keep the local movement under Soviet control. It was too much for Hoover. He had spent the last decade cultivating the line that because of the patriotic work of the FBI, the United States was free of such atrocities and foreign influence.
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Hoover and others put pressure on the Labor Department to arrest and deport Krivitsky. However, some at State, such as Henderson, wanted to debrief him further. They supported him; Ruth Shipley extended his visa. Hoover saw the whole affair as a conspiracy led by the hated State Department, the FBI’s arch rival, to undermine his power and the image of the FBI.

Yet even he was momentarily silenced a few months later, on August 23, 1939, when Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov signed the Sino-Soviet Friendship Pact, which shook the world. The important factor in terms of the politico/military/intelligence worlds was that now the Nazis and the Soviets were united against all others, and their intelligence services would share secrets. Antifascist, left-wing sympathizers in the United Kingdom and the United States for the first time
had to reassess their allegiances to Stalin. Everything now done for communism and mother Russia was also a direct service to Hitler.

Krivitsky, once viewed as a paranoid anticommunist troublemaker, was suddenly a prophet. His chances of becoming a U.S. citizen and making a life in his adopted country had increased. If he succeeded in settling in the West, he would disclose more of the deeper secrets he held. They would endanger key Western agents working for the KGB, including Straight and all those in the Cambridge ring.

Straight enjoyed his time with the Roosevelt speechwriting team of Corcoran and Ben Cohen (who was counsel for the National Power Policy Committee), which produced speeches for the president, the cabinet, and the liberal leaders of congress. Once more, Straight had access to a wide range of documents and people when preparing research for speeches. He passed on his analysis to Green when he came to Washington in June and September 1938.
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The Kremlin was being patient in dealing with a young spy for whom it had high regard and hopes, as they were with many agents, who were in place close to the center of power in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Stalin was obsessed with knowing in advance what his opposite numbers in the key world powers were thinking and planning. Over the period of his dictatorship, this intelligence was a key to his and the Soviet Union’s survival. It gave him an edge in negotiation, strategy, and tactics in dealing with his “enemies” and “friends,” depending on the state-of-play.

The Sino-Soviet alliance of August 1939 was an excellent cover for many communist agents to pretend to break from communism. French, British, and American agents entering intelligence areas in their countries as war broke out on September 1 would cite the pact as a reason for breaking their links. The major rings of Soviet agents, almost to a man, did not and could not break away. There was confusion, discussion, and then counseling from their controls, who had some explaining to do.

Stalin’s move (for it was he rather than Hitler who sued for a peace, which he had wanted ever since the German dictator took power in 1933) was presented as a ploy. It was designed to feign the appearance of appeasement, which would in the end defeat fascism. How controls
reconciled this with intelligence gathering being passed to Hitler’s agents was tricky. But in a well-prepared plan, the Moscow Center managed to convince their agents they should maintain their belief in Stalin and that they were not forsaking their ideals. The pact was portrayed as temporary and expedient for the eventual dominance of world communism. The expert indoctrination of Stalin’s most effective espionage network—the Cambridge ring—in the early 1930s by the urbane and intellectual Comintern representatives, such as Maly, had paid off.

Not one of them had a serious thought about stopping their work for Stalin, although Burgess blustered about it, and Blunt was at first distraught about projected consequences. Apart from these two, the ring’s key agents included Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, and John Cairncross. Then there was Victor Rothschild—Lord Rothschild, as he had become in 1937. He was still not technically an agent reporting directly to a control, but he was vital for his access to key research institutes and for his connections. They allowed him to place others in key positions within the British scientific, diplomatic, and intelligence community when war broke out.