T.A. Bisson

This article is part of the Venona series.

CPUSA

Board of Economic Warfare

Institute of Pacific Relations

Amerasia

Edit this box

Thomas Arthur Bisson was an Asia specialist working in the World War II Board of Economic Warfare (BEW) and later the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). He was an American citizen who as a Soviet spy reported to the New York GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) in 1943. Bisson was a founding editorial board member of Amerasia and China Today.

Bisson supplied the GRU in 1943 through Joseph Bernstein confidential BEW reports including a joint British-American evaluation of the military situation on the Soviet-German front, as well as reports on American strength in the China theatre of operations, a report by the Chineses embassy in Washington D.C. on trade between Chinese nationals in Japan and Chinese mainland industrialists, a report by an American consul on conditions in Vladivostok, a report on Chiang Kai-shek's war with the CCP, and internal United States government discussions regarding direct contact with Maoist forces to arrange establishment of air bases in territories fallen under their control.

His code name in GRU intelligence reports and the Venona files is "Arthur".

Further reading

• T.A. Bisson, American Policy in the Far East, 1931-1941, Institute of Pacific Relations

Source

• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press