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Frederick Vanderbilt Field (view source)
Revision as of 21:54, October 11, 2007
, 21:54, October 11, 2007Used with permision and much appreciation of the author Mark LaRochelle.
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'''Frederick Vanderbilt Field''' (April 13, 1905 – February 1, 2000) was active in the [[communist]] movement through most of his adult life. Field served as Executive Secretary of the [[American Peace Mobilization]]. He was later arrested for refusing to reveal names. His mother, Lila Vanderbilt Sloane Field, was a direct descendant of [[Cornelius Vanderbilt]].
'''Frederick Vanderbilt Field''' (April 13, 1905 – February 1, 2000) was an American millionaire<ref>Craig Thomson, “America's Millionaire Communist,” ''The Saturday Evening Post'', September 9, 1950</ref> and great-great-grandson of railroad tycoon [[Cornelius Vanderbilt|Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt]]<ref>Anthony Summers, "[http://www.rd.com/content/marilyn-monroe Bombshell]", ''Reader's Digest'', October 2006</ref> who claimed to have been a member of the [[Communist Party]].<ref>Kai Bird and Svetlana Chervonnaya, “[http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su07/ales-bird.html The Mystery of Ales],” ''The American Scholar'', Summer 2007</ref> According to files of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]<ref>FBI Report: Institute of Pacific Relations, Internal Security - C, November 4, 1944 ([http://Ultra-Secret.info/PDFs/IPR01.pdf FBI file: Institute of Pacific Relations, Section 1], PDF pp. 45-46)</ref> (FBI), he was also:
* founder and Editorial Board Chairman of ''[[Amerasia]]'', whose editor, Philip Jaffe, pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to embezzle, steal and purloin" government property after [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS) and [[FBI]] investigators found hundreds of government documents -- many labeled "secret," "top secret," or "confidential" -- in the magazine's offices.<ref>Harvey Klehr and Ronald Radosh, ''The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism'' (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996) ISBN 0-8078-2245-0, p. 131</ref>
* guest editor of (and weekly columnist in) the ''[[Daily Worker]]'', the official newspaper of the Communist Party
* assistant editor of ''[[New Masses]]'', identified by one scholar as the "semi-official spokesman of Communist letters"<ref>James Burkhart Gilbert, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=xrSLRSqKgxUC&pg=PA88&sig=ibruDZ1tFl85qBg4QQK6abd8T90#PPA106,M1 Writers and Partisans: A History of Literary Radicalism in America]'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992) ISBN 0231082541, p. 106</ref>
* Executive Vice-President of the Council for Pan American Democracy, which [[John Dewey]]'s Committee for Cultural Freedom alleged in April 1940 was under "outright communist control"<ref>Eugene Lyons, ''The Red Decade: The Stalinist Penetration of America'' (Indianapolis: The Bobbs Merill Company, 1941), p. 376</ref>
* provisional secretary of the Board of Directors for the Jefferson School for Social Science, which was, according to [[Harry Magdoff]]'s magazine, "sponsored by the Communist Party"<ref>John J. Simon, "[http://www.monthlyreview.org/nfte1099.htm Notes from the Editors]," ''Monthly Review'', Volume 51, Number 5 (October 1999)</ref>
* executive secretary of [[American Peace Mobilization]] (APM), designated a [[Glossary_of_espionage_terms#Fronts_and_cutouts|Communist front]] group by [[United States Attorney General]] [[Tom C. Clark]] on the [[Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations]] for 1948, as directed by [[President Truman]]’s [[Executive Order 9835]], and which, according to Field himself, "came into existence through Communist Party initiative." <ref>Frederick Vanderbilt Field, ''From Right to Left: An Autobiography'' (Westport, Conn.: L. Hill, 1983) ISBN 978-1859845271, p.186</ref>
* co-Chairman of the Citizens Nonpartisan Committee for the Election of Ben Davis, Jr., Communist Party candidate for New York City Council
* secretary of the Research Committee of the [[Institute for Pacific Relations]] (IPR)
* executive secretary of the American Council of the IPR.
==Communist roots==
Field also served as secretary of the bail fund of the [[Civil Rights Congress]], another organization designated a Communist front by the attorney general.<ref>Enid Nemy, "[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0D9163EF934A35751C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/N/Nemy,%20Enid Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Wealthy Leftist, Dies at 94]," ''[[The New York Times]]'', February 7, 2000</ref> According to [[Georgetown University]] Professor [[Carroll Quigley]], Field was also an officer of what Quigley alleged was a "Communist-front organization, the Trade Union Services, Incorporated, of New York City." <ref>Carroll Quigley, ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'' (New York: Macmillan Company, 1966) ISBN 0-945001-10-X, p. 944</ref>
After education at [[Harvard University]] and a year at the [[London School of Economics]]<ref>Robert Sherrill, “[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E0DB173BF935A25753C1A965948260 A Life Devoted to a Lost Cause],” ''The New York Times'', October 16, 1983</ref> where he came under the influence of [[socialist]] [[Harold Laski]],<ref>Enid Nemy, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0D9163EF934A35751C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/N/Nemy,%20Enid Op. cit.],''</ref> he joined the [[Socialist Party of America]] of [[Norman Thomas]] in 1928.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811650,00.html Life of an Angel]," ''Time,'' January 9, 1950</ref> By age 30, he had "evolved into a thoroughgoing Communist."<ref>Robert Sherrill, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E0DB173BF935A25753C1A965948260 Op. cit.]''</ref>
==Stalinist==
Field "slavishly followed the party line."<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811650,00.html Life of an Angel]," ''Op. cit.''</ref> "[Soviet dictator Josef] [[Stalin]] was infallible," he wrote. "[A]ll my Communist surroundings told me so. So was [American Communist Party Secretary [[Earl Browder|Earl] Browder]], although on a lower level of sanctity, and so were the other CP [Communist Party] leaders."<ref>Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC&pg=PP1&dq=the+venona+secrets&sig=YjqLS-EKVnkl7tqP2RGUa0fKiUk#PPA57,M1 The Venona Secrets]'' (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2001) ISBN 0895262258, p. 57</ref> At a time when other erstwhile loyal friends of the Soviet Union were becoming disillusioned by [[Stalin]]'s [[Great Purge]], Field defended the bloody Moscow [[show trials]], saying, "because Comrade Stalin says so, we have to believe the trials are just."<ref>Robert Sherrill, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E0DB173BF935A25753C1A965948260 Op. cit.]''</ref>
A year out of college, Field joined IPR, which he described as "a bourgeois research-educational organization" funded by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations and some of the biggest corporations in the U.S., which he claimed subsidized his publication of proposals "as anticapitalistic as the articles he wrote in later decades for ''The New Masses'' and ''The Daily Worker''."<ref>''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E0DB173BF935A25753C1A965948260 Ibid.]''</ref> He wrote a memo cautioning [[Owen Lattimore]], editor of the IPR quarterly ''Pacific Affairs'', with regard to a certain article, "the analysis is a straight [[Marxism|Marxist]] one and . . . should not be altered."<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,822192-1,00.html Absent-Minded Professor?]" ''Time'', March 10, 1952</ref> In his role at IPR, Field "took no pay; he was, in fact, one of the institute's most generous contributors."<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811650,00.html Life of an Angel]," ''Op. cit.''</ref> He also "supported Communist causes in the 1930's, 40's and 50's,"<ref>Enid Nemy, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0D9163EF934A35751C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/N/Nemy,%20Enid Op. cit.]''</ref> while Russian files add that he was "generously donating money to several organizations close to" the Soviets.<ref>Bird and Chervonnaya, ''[http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su07/ales-bird.html Op. cit.]''</ref> Quigley alleged that Field served as "the chief link between the Communists and the Institute of Pacific Relations in 1928-1947." <ref>Carroll Quigley, ''Op. cit.''</ref> He served as a Trustee of IPR, along with [[Alger Hiss]], among others, until 1947.<ref>Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Security Laws, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, ''Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments'', (Washington: U S Government Printing Office, 1954), pp. 8-10</ref> Andrew Avery, ''Chicago Journal of Commerce'' (July 1, 1946), reported that Field attended the 1945 [[United Nations]] founding conference in San Francisco as an IPR representative, and also as a writer for the ''Daily Worker.''<ref>[http://education-research.org/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/IPR03_Folder/IPR03_page4.pdf FBI Report: Southern California Division, American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, June 13, 1947, p. 3] (FBI file: Institute of Pacific Relations, Section 3, PDF p. 4)</ref> The presiding officer was Secretary General Alger Hiss.<ref>[http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/who.html Who was Alger Hiss?] The Alger Hiss Story: Search for the Truth</ref>
==''Amerasia''==
In the mid-1930s he was on the editorial board of ''[[The New Masses]]''. He set up the journal ''[[Amerasia]]'' in 1937; its purpose being conceived as a vehicle for criticism of Japanese attacks in China<ref>Rudolf V. A. Janssens, ''"What Future for Japan?": U.S. Wartime Planning for the Postwar Era, 1942-1945'', p. 78.</ref> He was later attacked, in the Cold War period, as a [[communist]].
In 1940 Field became executive secretary of APM, a position for which he had been recruited by [[Earl Browder|Browder]] himself. “Some time before the APM was formally organized,” wrote Field, “Earl Browder asked me if I would accept the executive secretaryship if it were offered me.”<ref>Frederick Vanderbilt Field, ''Op. cit.''</ref> At APM, Field emerged as a committed pacifist, demanding that the United States stay out of the war in Europe -– at least while the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] lasted.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,790078,00.html “Picketers Picketed,” ''Time'', June 2, 1941]</ref> But on June 20, 1941, Field suddenly called off the organization's “peace picketing” of the White House,<ref>“White House Pickets Stop At 1,029 Hours,” ''Washington Post'', June 22, 1941</ref> reversing himself to demand immediate U.S. war on Germany.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,849366,00.html "Purely for Peace," ''Time'', July 14, 1941]</ref> The following day, Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
==Lauchlin Currie and infiltration of military intelligence==
According to the [[United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security|McCarran Committee]]'s ''IPR Report'', Lattimore, along with President [[Franklin Roosevelt]]'s Administrative Assistant [[Lauchlin Currie]] (identified in the [[Venona]] decrypts as the Soviets' White House source code-named "Page")<ref>Robert J. Hanyok,
[http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00043.pdf ''Eavesdropping on Hell: Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust'', 1939-1945] (Washington, DC: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 2005, 2nd Ed.), p. 119 (PDF page 124)</ref>, tried in 1942 to get Field a commission in military intelligence,<ref>M. Stanton Evans, "[http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=455 McCarthyism: Waging the Cold War in America]," ''Human Events'', May 30, 1997</ref> but, unlike [[Duncan Lee]] (Venona code name "Koch"), [[Maurice Halperin]] ("Hare"), [[Julius Joseph]] ("Cautious")<ref>Lee, Halperin and Joseph are identified in Venona decrypt [http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/08_Jun_1943_m7_p1.gif 880 KGB New York to Moscow, 8 June 1943, p. 1]</ref>, [[Carl Marzani]], [[Franz Leopold Neumann]] ("Ruff")<ref>"[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page53.html Alexander Vassiliev’s Own Translation of his Notes on Anatoly Gorsky’s December 1948 Memo on Compromised American Sources and Networks]," October 2005</ref>, [[Helen Tenney]] ("Muse"), and [[Donald Wheeler]] ("Izra") -- all of whom got into the OSS -- Field was rejected as a security risk.<ref>Enid Nemy, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0D9163EF934A35751C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/N/Nemy,%20Enid Op. cit.]''</ref>
In November 1945, former Soviet spy [[Elizabeth Bentley]] told FBI investigators that she had attended a conference in Field's home earlier that year.<ref>FBI Report: [http://Ultra-Secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page242.pdf Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government], October 21, 1946 (Silvermaster file, Vol. 82), p. 221</ref> Also present, she alleged, were Browder, John Hazard Reynolds, head of the United States Service and Shipping Corporation (a [[Comintern]] front organization for Soviet espionage activities)<ref>Lauren Kessler, ''Clever Girl: Elizabeth Bentley, the Spy Who Ushered in the McCarthy Era'' (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) ISBN 0060959738, p. 77</ref> and [[Rae Elson|"Ray" Elson]] (Identified in the "Gorsky memo" under the cover name "Irma")<ref>Alexander Vassiliev, ''[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page53.html Op. cit.]''</ref>
==Senate Internal Security Subcommittee investigation==
In 1950, [[Louis Budenz]], former managing editor of the ''Daily Worker'', testified before the [[Tydings Committee]] to personal knowledge that Field was a Soviet espionage agent.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812297,00.html Of Cells & Onionskins]," ''Time'', May 1, 1950</ref> Questioned about this, Field refused to answer on grounds of potential self-incrimination.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812381,00.html In the Dark]," ''Time'' May 8, 1950</ref> The following year, former Soviet spy [[Whittaker Chambers]] testified before the [[United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security|McCarran Committee]] that [[NKVD]] "handler" [[J. Peters]] told him in 1937 that Field was a member of the Communist underground.<ref>Romerstein and Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC&pg=PP1&dq=the+venona+secrets&sig=YjqLS-EKVnkl7tqP2RGUa0fKiUk#PPA434,M1 Op. cit.]'', p. 433</ref> Herbert Romerstein, former head of the office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the [[United States Information Agency]], and the late Eric Breindel placed Field in the [[GRU]] ''apparat'', alleging that he "was an agent of Soviet miliary intelligence."<ref>''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC&pg=PP1&dq=the+venona+secrets&sig=YjqLS-EKVnkl7tqP2RGUa0fKiUk#PPA57,M1 Ibid.]'', p. 57</ref> Bird and Chervonnaya disagree: "Documents show that he was in contact with various Soviet representatives in the United States beginning in early 1935. Some of these interactions may be described as 'active measures' on behalf of the Soviet Union. Still, what we know does not prove that Field was a full-blown Soviet agent.<ref>Bird and Chervonnaya, ''[http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su07/ales-bird.html Op. cit.]''</ref>
==Conviction==
As secretary of the CRC bail fund, Field refused to reveal who had put up bond for eight Communist Party officials who had jumped bail and disappeared after being indicted by the [[Harry Truman|Truman]] administration [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] for violations of the [[Smith Act]]. Convicted of contempt of court, he served two months of a 90-day sentence<ref>Enid Nemy, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0D9163EF934A35751C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/N/Nemy,%20Enid Op. cit.]''</ref> in federal prison at Ashland, Kentucky in 1951.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,822192-1,00.html Absent-Minded Professor?]" ''Op. cit.''</ref> He was at the time "a registered foreign agent, as a lobbyist for [[People's Republic of China|Communist China]]."<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,889072,00.html?promoid=googlep The Angel]," ''Time'', July 16, 1951</ref>
A prominent figure in the [[FBI Silvermaster File|Silvermaster files]] detailing widespread communist and Soviet efforts to penetrate and illegally influence the US government.
His mother, [[Lila Vanderbilt Sloane Field]], was a direct descendant of [[Cornelius Vanderbilt]].
==Further reading==
==Further reading==
* Frederick Vanderbilt Field, ''From Right to Left: An Autobiography'' (Westport, Conn.: L. Hill, 1983). vii, 321p.
*[[FBI Silvermaster File]]
*Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness'' (New York: Random House, 1952), 382;
*Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness'' (New York: Random House, 1952), 382;
*Scheidt to Director, 31 January 1947, [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/silversm.htm FBI Silvermaster file] (FBI file 65-56402), serial 1976
*Scheidt to Director, 31 January 1947, [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/silversm.htm FBI Silvermaster file] (FBI file 65-56402), serial 1976
*Alexander Vassiliev, ''Untitled Notes on Anatoly Gorsky’s December 1948 Memo on the Failed American Networks'' (2003)
*Alexander Vassiliev, ''Untitled Notes on Anatoly Gorsky’s December 1948 Memo on the Failed American Networks'' (2003)
==References==
==Notes==
<references/>
<references/>
==External links==
==External link==
*[http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=455 McCarthyism: Waging the Cold War in America], by M. Stanton Evans, ''Human Events'', 05/30/1997. Updated 05/08/2003.
*[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811650,00.html?promoid=googlep Life of an Angel] ''[[Time magazine]]'' article, January 9, 1950.
*[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0D9163EF934A35751C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/N/Nemy,%20Enid Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Wealthy Leftist, Dies at 94], Obituary from ''[[The New York Times]]'', Enid Nemy, February 7, 2000.
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[[Category:KGB Agents and Sources]]
[[Category:KGB Agents and Sources]]