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Line 45: − ==Silvermaster network==+ − :''Main article: [[Silvermaster group]]'' − The [[United States Treasury]] hosted nearly a dozen Soviet sources, including one of the most important, [[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 years old NKVD officer, approached White and attempted to secure his assistance to influence U.S. policy with towards Japan. White agreed to assist Soviet intelligence in any way he could. The principle 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 [[Greg Silvermaster|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. − − Silvermaster denied any links with agents of a foreign power and appealed to Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson to overrule the security officials. Harry Dexter White contacted Patterson and told him suspicions about Silvermaster were baseless. [[Lauchlin Currie]], a presidential aide who also cooperated with Soviet intelligence, personally phoned Patterson and urged a reconsideration of Silvermaster’s case. Patterson accepted these highly placed sources and overruled military [[counterintelligence]]. This decision facilitated the work of one of the most productive Soviet espionage rings, and provided substance for the postwar partisan charge that high officials in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations aided Soviet espionage against the United States. − − Stalin publicly disbanded the Comintern in 1943. A Moscow OGPU message to all stations on 12 September 1943 detailed instructions for handling intelligence sources within the CPUSA after the disestablishment of the Comintern. − − In late 1944 two senior OGPU officers, Stephan Apresyan of the New York ''rezidentura'', and Vladimir Pravdin, a OGPU officer working out of Washington D.C., sent cables to Moscow criticizing each other’s performance, but also disagreeing over OGPU tactics. Apresyan denounced Pravdin for believing that “without the help of the ... secret appartus we are completely powerless.” Apresyan argued that “it is ... untrue that without ... Browder we are ‘powerless.’” While “we shall have to have recourse to the ... secret appartus ... they ought not to be the one and only base especially if you take into account the fact that in the event of ... [[Thomas Dewey]]’s being elected President, this source may dry up.” Apresyan lost that particular argument. Thomas Dewey was not elected in 1944, and the OGPU was able to continue to use the CPUSA as an auxiliary, but the reprieve ended in 1945. − − Many of the OGPU’s sources in this period regarded themselves to be under CPUSA as well as Soviet direction. In early 1945, [[Ishkak Akhmerov]], the KGB illegal officer, sent a long cable to Moscow discussing the Silvermaster group. Akhmerov noted that “it is doubtful whether ... the OGPU could get the same results as ... Silvermaster.” He told Moscow that “it costs ... Silvermaster great pains to keep ... [the American sources] in line. ... Silvermaster being their leader in the CPUSA line helps him give them orders”, and added, “that our ... OGPU officers would not manage to work with the same success under the CPUSA flag.” The productivity of the secret apparatus networks supervised by Akhmerov is illustrated by OGPU records of the numbers of reels of [[microfilm]] of United States Government documents delivered to Moscow via Akhmerov: 59 roles in 1942, 211 in 1943, 600 in 1944, and 1,896 in 1945. − − In the 1930s and early 1940s there was only limited “compartmentalization” between the CPUSA and Soviet espionage. The organizational blending of these different aspects of the Communist movement allowed the Soviet Union to maximize its return on the assets it possessed. But after World War II when American authorities belatedly paid attention, and the FBI began an aggressive investigation, the vulnerability of this arrangement also became clear. An organization as large as the CPUSA had too many areas of weakness. Many party-linked espionage operations were exposed and neutralized by American counterintelligence in the late 1940s and 1950s. And the CPUSA itself became tainted with disloyalty. − − In August 1945 [[Elizabeth Bentley]] turned herself in to the government. Afterward, the Soviets quickly closed down the networks with which she had contact and recalled to Moscow those OGPU officers whom Bentley could identify. Shortly after Bentley’s defection came [[Igor Gouzenko]], a GRU cipher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Canada who disclosed information about Soviet espionage both in Canada and the U.S and Soviet codes. − − The first [[Soviet atomic bomb project|Soviet atomic bomb]] in 1949 was a virtual carbon copy of “[[Fat Man]],” the implosion-type plutonium weapon the United States dropped on Nagasaki four years earlier.
Communist Party of the United States of America (view source)
Revision as of 20:32, June 5, 2009
, 20:32, June 5, 2009→Silvermaster network
In the late 1930s Soviet agents sought to provide Moscow with a wide range of information on innovative weapons. After 1942 Soviet interest was focused on [[atomic energy]] and other scientific developments.
In the late 1930s Soviet agents sought to provide Moscow with a wide range of information on innovative weapons. After 1942 Soviet interest was focused on [[atomic energy]] and other scientific developments.
* see also [[Silvermaster group]]
==Popular Front==
==Popular Front==