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Communist Party of the United States of America (view source)
Revision as of 20:56, March 20, 2007
, 20:56, March 20, 2007→Popular Front: add subsection ==Secret apparatus==
[[Whittaker Chambers]] testified that Sandor Goldberger AKA "Joseph Peters" and commonly wrote under the "Josef Peters" and commonly wrote under the name J. Peters, a Comintern apparatchik who worked in the Fourth Department, a Comitern functionary, headed the party’s underground secret apparatus from 1932 to 1937 and pioneered its role as an auxiliary to Soviet intelligence activities. [[Bernard Schuster]], Organizational Secretary of the New York District of the CPUSA was the operational recruiter and conduit for members of the CPUSA into the ranks of the secret apparatus, or "Group A line".
[[Whittaker Chambers]] testified that Sandor Goldberger AKA "Joseph Peters" and commonly wrote under the "Josef Peters" and commonly wrote under the name J. Peters, a Comintern apparatchik who worked in the Fourth Department, a Comitern functionary, headed the party’s underground secret apparatus from 1932 to 1937 and pioneered its role as an auxiliary to Soviet intelligence activities. [[Bernard Schuster]], Organizational Secretary of the New York District of the CPUSA was the operational recruiter and conduit for members of the CPUSA into the ranks of the secret apparatus, or "Group A line".
==Secret apparatus==
In the 1930s CPUSA membership became largely native-born, and more educated people joined, including many scientific and technically trained professionals. American Communists considered the '[[capitalist]]' corporations which employed them as morally illegitimate institutions. When Soviet intelligence officers approached and asked that the scientific secrets of these corporations be shared with the Soviet Union, few had moral objections.
Soviet intelligence agencies were able to use over 400 American [[citizen]]s during the 1930s and up to 1946. The CPUSA was not just a recruiting ground for Soviet intelligence, it functioned within Soviet espionage as an auxiliary organization. Earl Browder, with the active assistance of a dozen high-level CPUSA officials, and numerous rank-and-file members, supervised CPUSA cooperation with the OGPU and GRU. Browder was given personal credit for recruitment of eighteen agents in a 1946 OGPU memo.
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 [[Harold Ware|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, [[Greg Silvermaster|Nathan Gregory Silvermaster]] and [[Harry Dexter White]].
By the end of 1936 at least four mid-level [[State Department]] officials were delivering information to Soviet intelligence: Alger Hiss, 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. Chambers told how a tank design by C.W. Christie was procured, and was put into production in the Soviet Union as the Mark BT.
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 into his own household . They were also central to the NKVD's unsuccessful efforts to free the killer from a Mexican prison. In the late 1930s Soviet agents sought to provide Moscow with a wide range of information on high-performance aircraft, battleships, cruisers, armor, navigation equipment, tank engines, and armaments from key U.S. defense contractors, including [[Northrop Corporation|Northrop]], [[Douglas Aircraft Company|Douglas]], and [[Martin Marietta|Marietta]]. The operations were run by Soviet Case Officers working under the cover of Amtorg Trading Corporation, the Soviet Society of the Red Cross, TASS, Sovfil'meksporta and some other establishments.
By 1940 Soviet interest was focused on [[atomic energy]] and other scientific developments, with some emphasis also being given to infiltration of Trotskyite and White Russian activities.
After the [[German invasion of the Soviet Union]] on 22 June 1941, and American entry into the war in December, the USSR became a major recipient of American military aid. Thousands of Soviet military officers and technicians entered the U.S. Scores of Soviet intelligence officers were among those arriving in America. These Case Officers, with the assitance of American citizens, waged a successful unrestrained espionage campaign against the United States, from 1942 to late 1945.
General Secretary [[Josef Stalin]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU), 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]].
Soviet recruitment of sources within American intelligence agencies, particularly within the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS), the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency was impressive. The highest ranking recruit was [[Duncan Lee]], counsel to General William Donovan, OSS head. Lee, however, was extremely cautious and less productive than other OPGU sources, like [[Maurice Halperin]], or [[Donald Wheeler]], in the OSS Research and Analysis division. At least fifteen Soviet agents penetrated the OSS, with the actual number more likely around twenty.
The Soviets also developed about twenty sources within the U.S. State Department and other wartime foreign relations agencies. The two most senior Soviet operatives had been active in the 1930s, Alger Hiss and Laurence Duggan. A number of other Soviet infiltrators connections to American diplomacy have only been identified by code-names in the [[Venona project]] materials. Some of these identities have not been determined. Some most likely continued to operate in the post-war period. American counter-intelligence officials spent decades interviewing and examining the backgrounds of hundreds of American diplomatic personnel attempting to attach an identity to the code-name of many of these known operatives.
==Popular Front==
==Popular Front==