Changes

These disinformation sites work together to create a "left-wing echo chamber," citing one another, repeating the same assertions until they make their way into the mainstream press. For example, in March 2005, Chervonna posted on the H-HOAC Web site an attempt to discredit the [[Gorsky memo]] as containing "[http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-hoac&month=0503&week=c&msg=czBexT36qyqr0oCHBC%2b8sQ&user=&pw= nonsense" (a term she repeated four times)]. The following month, Kissiloff (citing Chervonnaya) posted on AlgerHiss.com a version of this piece&mdash;dropping the claims of "nonsense," but adding an assertion that the date on the document, "(Dec. '48)," was "An [sic] [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/gorskylist.html probable mistake in the dating] (read: 1949), either Alexander Vassiliev's or Gorsky's." The next month, Chervonnaya posted on the HNN Web site a nearly verbatim copy of this version&mdash;but with "probable mistake" now upgraded to "[http://hnn.us/articles/11581.html Obvious mistake]." She then ([http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/little-chocolate-house-stories-colonel-bykov citing Kissiloff]) [http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/chambers-whittaker-april-1-1901-july-9-1961 repeated this] [http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/currie-lauchlin-bernard-1902-1993 claim] ''[http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/mirage ad] [http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/budenz-louis-francis-1891-1972 nauseam]'' on DocumentsTalk.com. In June 2009, this claim made its way from the Internet into print&mdash;naturally, [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/guttenplan in ''The Nation'']. By the following month it had found its way into the pages of London's venerable ''Times Literary Supplement'', in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/Subscriber_Archive/History_Archive/article6770834.ece a review] by Amy Knight, who "approaches the politically charged Hiss-Chambers Case [http://wcinbooks.whittakerchambers.org/2009/08/amy-knight-how-cold-war-began.html on the side of Alger Hiss]" and "has never found a source on Soviet intelligence she trusts."<ref>Jamie Glazov, [http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36268 Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America], FrontPageMagazine.com, September 11, 2009</ref> As Haynes and Klehr observe:

These disinformation sites work together to create a "left-wing echo chamber," citing one another, repeating the same assertions until they make their way into the mainstream press. For example, in March 2005, Chervonna posted on the H-HOAC Web site an attempt to discredit the [[Gorsky memo]] as containing "[http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-hoac&month=0503&week=c&msg=czBexT36qyqr0oCHBC%2b8sQ&user=&pw= nonsense" (a term she repeated four times)]. The following month, Kissiloff (citing Chervonnaya) posted on AlgerHiss.com a version of this piece&mdash;dropping the claims of "nonsense," but adding an assertion that the date on the document, "(Dec. '48)," was "An [sic] [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/gorskylist.html probable mistake in the dating] (read: 1949), either Alexander Vassiliev's or Gorsky's." The next month, Chervonnaya posted on the HNN Web site a nearly verbatim copy of this version&mdash;but with "probable mistake" now upgraded to "[http://hnn.us/articles/11581.html Obvious mistake]." She then ([http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/little-chocolate-house-stories-colonel-bykov citing Kissiloff]) [http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/chambers-whittaker-april-1-1901-july-9-1961 repeated this] [http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/currie-lauchlin-bernard-1902-1993 claim] ''[http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/mirage ad] [http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/budenz-louis-francis-1891-1972 nauseam]'' on DocumentsTalk.com. In June 2009, this claim made its way from the Internet into print&mdash;naturally, [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/guttenplan in ''The Nation'']. By the following month it had found its way into the pages of London's venerable ''Times Literary Supplement'', in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/Subscriber_Archive/History_Archive/article6770834.ece a review] by Amy Knight, who "approaches the politically charged Hiss-Chambers Case [http://wcinbooks.whittakerchambers.org/2009/08/amy-knight-how-cold-war-began.html on the side of Alger Hiss]" and "has never found a source on Soviet intelligence she trusts."<ref>Jamie Glazov, [http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36268 Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America], FrontPageMagazine.com, September 11, 2009</ref> As Haynes and Klehr observe:

{{cquote|[Knight] insists that the former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev misdated the memo and that it is part of a 1949 report. It isn’t. It is a stand-alone document signed by Gorsky and dated December 1948, as the notebooks show. There is no evidence that the dating is incorrect. But why would Knight have preferred it if the document had been dated 1949 rather than 1948? Because she could then put forth a fantasy to explain away the identification of Hiss. Gorsky, she claims without a shred of evidence, was making it up.... [W]hy would Gorsky have written a memo exaggerating the damage done to Soviet intelligence by adding to the lists of those exposed by defectors the names of people who were not Soviet sources? It is difficult enough to be the bearer of truthful bad news to one’s superiors, but to make up bad news is an act of bureaucratic near-suicide.

{{cquote|[Knight] insists that the former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev misdated the memo and that it is part of a 1949 report. It isn’t. It is a stand-alone document signed by Gorsky and dated December 1948, as the notebooks show. There is no evidence that the dating is incorrect. But why would Knight have preferred it if the document had been dated 1949 rather than 1948? Because she could then put forth a fantasy to explain away the identification of Hiss. Gorsky, she claims without a shred of evidence, was making it up.... [W]hy would Gorsky have written a memo exaggerating the damage done to Soviet intelligence by adding to the lists of those exposed by defectors the names of people who were not Soviet sources? It is difficult enough to be the bearer of truthful bad news to one’s superiors, but to make up bad news is an act of bureaucratic near-suicide.

But there is more. Although Knight conceals it from TLS readers, two other senior KI officers, Piotr Fedotov and Konstantin Kukin, in a report (also dated December 1948) to the chairman of the KI, wrote about “our former agents who were betrayed by Chambers (A. Hiss, D. Hiss, Wadleigh, Pigman, Reno)”. Does anyone really believe that three senior Soviet intelligence officers in reports to their agency’s chief identified Soviet agents from American newspaper stories rather than agency records? Additionally, another KGB memo, one from 1950, noted that the Soviet GRU agent “Leonard”, identified as a senior State Department official, had just been convicted. The only senior American diplomat convicted of an espionage-related crime in 1950 [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731654.ece was Alger Hiss].<ref>For a more detailed reply, see John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page73.html Comment on Amy Knight’s review of Spies in the Times Literary Supplement]</ref>}}

But there is more. Although Knight conceals it from TLS readers, two other senior KI officers, Piotr Fedotov and Konstantin Kukin, in a report (also dated December 1948) to the chairman of the KI, wrote about “our former agents who were betrayed by Chambers (A. Hiss, D. Hiss, Wadleigh, Pigman, Reno)”. Does anyone really believe that three senior Soviet intelligence officers in reports to their agency’s chief identified Soviet agents from American newspaper stories rather than agency records? Additionally, another KGB memo, one from 1950, noted that the Soviet GRU agent “Leonard”, identified as a senior State Department official, had just been convicted. The only senior American diplomat convicted of an espionage-related crime in 1950 [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page73.html was Alger Hiss].

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====''Nation'' personnel====