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'''Noel Field''' worked in the Western European Division of the United States [[Department of State]] in the 1930s. His early history---a [[Quaker]] with [[Communist]] sympathies who rose steadily in the world of American diplomacy---offers an informative window on its era. But it does not hint at the explosion to come, in postwar Eastern Europe, for which Field unwittingly would serve as the detonator. Before it was over, investigations, trials, and executions removed key members of the ruling Communist Parties in all Eastern European states. The crime in each case was having worked with Noel Field, the notorious American spymaster. Though the pattern of victims of these purges was not uniform, they tended to remove Communists who had remained underground in Europe in favor of Moscow-based agents who returned to their native lands behind the [[Red Army]]. How the [[Cold War]] would have developed if these individuals had remained in office will never be known.
'''Noel Field''' was a [[United States]] government official and a [[USSR|Soviet]] agent,<ref>[http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=8544389&CATLN=6&accessmethod=5&j=1 Noel Haviland Field], Records of the Security Service, The National Archives (United Kingdom)</ref> who defected to the East bloc in 1948.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805121,00.html Peripatetics: Vanishing Act]," ''Time'', October 24, 1949</ref>
==Department of State==
During the 1930s, Field served in the [[Department of State]], at the Western European Desk. At a 1935 dinner at Field's home, [[Alger Hiss]] argued with [[OGPU]] recruiter [[Hede Massing]] that Field should work with Hiss' [[GRU]] group, rather than Massing's OGPU group, according to Massing.<ref>Hede Massing, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=cogGAQAAIAAJ&pgis=1 This Deception]'' (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1951), p. 335. Massing's account is corroborated by Czech archives. Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation: Revelations of Karel Kaplan, June 29, 1977, [http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000028650/0000028650_0015.gif p. 5] (CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room)</ref> According to [[Hede Massing|Massing]], [[Alger Hiss]] also asked Field to use his connections to help Hiss get into the [[State Department]].<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Be2GAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage]'' (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003), ISBN 159403088X, p. 150; G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FvR4HBTiYzAC Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy]'' (Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 228</ref>
In a 1936 memorandum, found in the [[NKVD]] archives by former [[KGB]] agent [http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=31935 Alexander Vassiliev], [[Hede Massing|Massing]] complains to [[Moscow]] that [[Field]] (whom she refers to by his code name "Ernst")<ref>R.C.S. Trahair, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=VNSMrps8mpcC Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations]'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) ISBN 0313319553, p. 76</ref> "was approached by Alger Hiss" (Massing uses his real name), who "informed him that he is a Communist" with "ties to an organization working for the Sov. Union" —a serious breach of discipline. (A Moscow Center annotation identifies "A. Hiss" as the GRU agent designated by the code name "Jurist.")<ref>Alexander Vassiliev, ''Yellow Notebook #2'', [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Yellow_Notebook_No.2_Original.pdf Original] p. 3; [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Yellow_Notebook_No.2_Transcribed.pdf Transcribed] p. 4; [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Yellow_Notebook_No.2_Translated.pdf Translated] p. 4; cf. Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=LgPgAAAAMAAJ The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era]'', (New York: Random House, 1999), ISBN 0375755365, p. 6; John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=qCAVQ_cdomcC Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), ISBN 0300123906, pp. 6-7</ref> As a result, noted [[Boris Bazarov]], [[OGPU]] "illegal" station chief for the [[United States]], Field "and Hiss [Bazarov also used Hiss's real name] have been openly identified"<ref>Thomas Powers, "[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/118 The Plot Thickens]," ''The New York Review of Books'', Vol. 47, No 8 (May 11, 2000)</ref> as [[USSR|Soviet]] agents.<ref>Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=LgPgAAAAMAAJ The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era]'', (New York: Random House, 1999), ISBN 0375755365, p. 7; Thomas Powers, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=6ZS4Y7gmT84C Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda]'' (New York: New York Review of Books, 2004) ISBN 1590170989, p. 89; G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FvR4HBTiYzAC Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy]'' (Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 228</ref>
In 1939, [[Alger Hiss]] transferred to become personal aide to Stanley Hornbeck, political adviser to the [[State Department]]'s Far Eastern Division. As his replacement, Hiss urged Francis Sayre to hire Field, despite his lack of experience.<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YRyoAAAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case]'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978) ISBN 0394495462, pp. 349-350</ref> Due to the fact that Field had been identified to the State Department as a member of various [[Communist|Red]] front groups starting in 1926, and as a [[Communist Party]] member the previous year,<ref>FBI Report: Whittaker Chambers, Internal Security—C, September 5, 1948 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 1)</ref> he did not get the appointment.
That year, [[Comintern]] courier [[Whittaker Chambers]] told Assistant [[Secretary of State]] for Administration (in charge of security) Adolf Berle<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=pNwEyL1b6XQC Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials That Shaped American Politics]'' (Cambridge University Press, 2006), ISBN 0521857384, p. 105</ref> of an underground apparatus of the [[Communist Party]] for employees of the [[Federal government]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] While [[Whittaker Chambers|Chambers]] talked, Berle took notes. Under the heading “Underground Espionage Agent,” he listed several identifications, including the following:
{{cquote|West European Div’n—Field—still in—
(Levine says he is out went to I.E.O.<br>
Then in committee for Repatriation<br>
His leader was [[Hede Massing|Hedda Gompertz]]<ref>[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page100.html Adolf Berle’s Notes on his Meeting with Whittaker Chambers], John Earl Haynes, Historical Writings</ref>}}
==Office of Strategic Services and Defection==
During [[World War II]], Field served in the [[Office of Strategic Services]], precursor of the [[CIA]].<ref>Richard Harris Smith, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=uLo2YmmNEUQC OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency]'' (Globe Pequot, 2005), ISBN 1592287298, p. 193-194</ref> In 1948, he defected to [[Communist]] [[Czechoslovakia]]. That year, [[Anatoly Gorsky]], chief of Soviet intelligence in the U.S. during World War II, would author an internal [[KI|Soviet secret police]] memorandum, entitled "Failures in the USA (1938-48)," listing 43 Soviet sources and intelligence officers likely to have been identified to U.S. authorities. Included on the list, under the heading, "'Karl’s' ([[Whittaker Chambers]]'s) group," was "'Ernst'—Noel Field, former employee of the State Department."<ref>Alexander Vassiliev, ''Black Notebook'', [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Black%20Notebook%20Original.pdf Original] pp. 39-40; [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Black%20Notebook%20Transcribed.pdf Transcribed] pp. 77-78; [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Black%20Notebook%20Translated1.pdf Translated] p. 77-78; cf. Ronald Bachman and Harold Leich (tr.), with John Earl Haynes, [http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-hoac&month=0503&week=b&msg=ycrsVT7M1e2L9EECiLFskg&user=&pw= Alexander Vassiliev's Notes on Anatoly Gorsky's December 1948 Memo on Compromised American Sources and Networks], History of American Communism (H-HOAC) Discussion Network, March 14, 2005; David Lowenthal with Svetlana A. Chervonnaya, [http://hnn.us/articles/11581.html Gorsky Report: Dec 23, 1949], History News Network (George Mason University), May 2, 2005</ref>
Field told the Czech [[secret police]] that he had been a Communist underground agent in the [[State Department]] during the mid-thirties, according to official records published in 1990 by Karel Kaplan, former archivist of the Central Committee of the Czech [[Communist Party]].<ref>Karel Kaplan, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=x3s6sBZw-YkC&pg=PA19&dq=%22noel+field%22&sig=d7XE7yhraGkrz6k4AP0ljIqXEvY#PPA19,M1, Report on the Murder of the General Secretary]'' (London: I.B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 1990), ISBN 1-85043-211-2, pp. 19-25</ref> A 1955 Czechoslovak secret police reinvestigation (obtained in 2000 by Czech [[human rights]] activist Karel Skrabek) confirms this story.<ref>Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors]'' (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2001), ISBN 0895262258, p. 133</ref> Field would end up in Communist [[Hungary]], where in 1954 he would repeat to Hungarian secret police that he had been a Soviet agent.<ref>Transcripts: September 23, 1954; September 29, 1954. Noel Field file, Archives, Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior, quoted in Mária Schmidt, ''[http://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/museum/about_us/curriculum_vitae.html Behind the Scenes of the Showtrials of Central-Eastern Europe]'', Budapest 1993 (uncorrected manuscript), cited in Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors]'' (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2001), ISBN 0895262258, p. 135; Mária Schmidt, “Noel Field—The American Communist at the Center of Stalin’s East European Purge: From the Hungarian Archives,” ''American Communist History'' 3, no. 2 (December 2004); Mária Schmidt, "The Hiss Dossier: A Historian's Report," ''The New Republic'', November 8, 1993, pp. 17-20</ref>
The transcripts also record Field saying that he turned over<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, "[http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/15/opinion/hiss-case-smoking-gun.html?pagewanted=all Hiss Case 'Smoking Gun'?]" October 15, 1993</ref> [[State Department]] documents to [[Hede Massing]] in the 1930s. In other statements Field twice said that although Hiss knew that Field “was a [[Communist]],” he strongly supported Field at the State Department and even tried to help him obtain a job as a State Department adviser in the [[Philippines]] in 1940.<ref>Ethan Klingsberg, "Case Closed on Alger Hiss?" ''The Nation'', November 8, 1993</ref> The dossier likewise records a statement by Field that he briefly visited Hiss in 1939 in [[America]], where they agreed that if either's cover was ever blown, he would communicate to the other indirectly.<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, “Hiss: Guilty as Charged,” ''Commentary'', April 1993; Sam Tanenhaus, "New Reasons to Doubt Hiss," ''Wall Street Journal'', November 18, 1993</ref> Shortly before his [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/arts/hermann-field-wartime-prisoner-and-novelist-90.html death in 2001], Field's brother Hermann said the dossier was accurate; Field confirmed to him, said his brother, that [http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-diplo&month=0506&week=d&msg=TtrUE8GbtON64EPU7AQOzA&user=&pw= he had been a spy].
==Background==
Field's early history---a [[Quaker]] with [[Communist]] sympathies who rose steadily in the world of American diplomacy---offers an informative window on its era. But it does not hint at the explosion to come, in postwar Eastern Europe, for which Field unwittingly would serve as the detonator. Before it was over, investigations, trials, and executions removed key members of the ruling Communist Parties in all Eastern European states. The crime in each case was having worked with Noel Field, the notorious American spymaster. Though the pattern of victims of these purges was not uniform, they tended to remove Communists who had remained underground in Europe in favor of Moscow-based agents who returned to their native lands behind the [[Red Army]]. How the [[Cold War]] would have developed if these individuals had remained in office will never be known.
During his years at State, Field certainly harbored sympathies for the [[USSR]]. [[Hede Massing]], a former Soviet agent turned informer, told US authorities that when she attempted to recruit him for one Soviet spy network (the [[OGPU]]), that he already worked another (the [[GRU]]). But two of Field's handlers defected, raising doubts within Soviet intelligence about Field's own role that Field, seeking to re-establish his bonafides, spent many years seeking to assuage. Field left his position at the [[Department of State]] and joined the a [[League of Nations]] program in Geneva, Switzerland. In October 1940 Field resigned his position in Geneva and went to work for the Unitarian Service Committee in Marseilles. Field used this position to serve as a courier for the underground German Communist party and convey messages to and from Hungarian, Polish, Bulgarian and Yugoslav communist party organizations as he traveled Europe ostensibly on refugee business. During the war years, Field, based in Switzerland, continued to work on behalf of refugees, including a substantial number of Communist resistance fighters who would, after the war, assume positions of power in Eastern Europe. Field served [[Allen Dulles]], then of the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] and later [[CIA]] chief, as liaison to Communist resistance fighters when they were needed for OSS operations.
During his years at State, Field certainly harbored sympathies for the [[USSR]]. [[Hede Massing]], a former Soviet agent turned informer, told US authorities that when she attempted to recruit him for one Soviet spy network (the [[OGPU]]), that he already worked another (the [[GRU]]). But two of Field's handlers defected, raising doubts within Soviet intelligence about Field's own role that Field, seeking to re-establish his bonafides, spent many years seeking to assuage. Field left his position at the [[Department of State]] and joined the a [[League of Nations]] program in Geneva, Switzerland. In October 1940 Field resigned his position in Geneva and went to work for the Unitarian Service Committee in Marseilles. Field used this position to serve as a courier for the underground German Communist party and convey messages to and from Hungarian, Polish, Bulgarian and Yugoslav communist party organizations as he traveled Europe ostensibly on refugee business. During the war years, Field, based in Switzerland, continued to work on behalf of refugees, including a substantial number of Communist resistance fighters who would, after the war, assume positions of power in Eastern Europe. Field served [[Allen Dulles]], then of the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] and later [[CIA]] chief, as liaison to Communist resistance fighters when they were needed for OSS operations.
== Sources ==
== Sources ==
{{reflist}}
*Noel Field, "Hitching Our Wagon to a Star". Mainstream, January 1961
*Noel Field, "Hitching Our Wagon to a Star". Mainstream, January 1961
*Hermann Field and Kate Field, Trapped in the Cold War The Ordeal of an American Family. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1999.
*Hermann Field and Kate Field, Trapped in the Cold War The Ordeal of an American Family. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1999.