To this information the memo added: “Communist affiliation with the American League was reflected in the membership and the leadership which installed Earl Browder [then head of the Communist Party] as vice-president and many Communist leaders on the Executive Board. Resolutions and manifestos of the League were printed in official communist publications and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports from confidential sources that the League is among those organizations which received financial assistance from the Amtorg Trading Corporation [a Soviet commercial outfit].”
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*15 Among the more famous cases thus pursued by Dies was that of Malcolm Cowley in the Office of Facts and Figures, who had, by the committee’s reckoning, been connected with no fewer than seventy-two Red fronts. Close behind in this unusual competition were Dies suspects Goodwin Watson, William Dodd, and Frederick Schuman, all then at the FCC and all with lengthy front records. (Cowley got fired; Watson, Dodd, and Schuman were among the employees whose salaries Congress tried to withhold via an appropriations attainder.)
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†16 Membership in a single designated front group, not to mention several dozen, would be among the indicators supposedly looked at in weighing employee security qualifications under the Truman loyalty program of 1947 and the follow-on Eisenhower program announced in 1953.
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*17 Of the nine McCarthy public cases, six involved considerations of this nature. The six were Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Philip Jessup, Owen Lattimore, Frederick Schuman, and Harlow Shapley. See Chapters 16 and 26.
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*18“Posed” being the operative word, as the two totalitarian systems would in fact cooperate at many levels.
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*19 Straight by his own account would break with Moscow—exactly when being less than clear—and under some psychological stress tell his story to the FBI, thereby incidentally exposing Blunt and leading to Blunt’s own halfway confession in England. Indicative of the way such things were often handled, while Straight’s information was obtained in 1963, it wasn’t until 1979 that the facts about the Blunt case were made public. In the meantime, Blunt enjoyed a swank career as director of the Courtauld Art Institute in London and keeper of the Queen’s pictures at Windsor Castle—all this plus the honor of a knighthood (revoked in 1979). Likewise, Straight’s own partial confession in a memoir—as distinct from his disclosures to the Bureau—didn’t occur until 1983.
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*20 On the other hand, there were people down the line in the Treasury and State Departments who did concentrate on China, though not in a beneficial manner.
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*21 These advices, whatever their merits from the strategic standpoint of Japan, were fully in keeping with Soviet global interests and Communist propaganda efforts of the era. Stalin and his minions were anxious to keep the Japanese armies pinned down as much as possible through their war with China, hence less available for an attack on Russia. Even better, from Stalin’s perspective, if Japan could be embroiled in head-on conflict with the United States. Such involvements could help ensure that the back door to a possible Russo-Japanese war was double-locked and bolted.
*21 As Eugene Lyons would put it in his seminal study The Red Decade:“While the invasion of China was under way, Moscow did not relax its efforts to obtain a nonaggression pact with Japan. But no stone was left unturned in the effort to force a Japanese-American conflict…The Soviet hope—quite justifiable from the angle of Russia’s own Realpolitik— was to get Japan and the United States at each other’s throats…”
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*22 However, Carter said, by the time he got to Washington for this confab, the modus vivendi danger had subsided. “Mr. White assured me,” said Carter, “that everything was going to be all right and that there was to be no sellout of China through Japan.”
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*23 A notable instance of this new policy line was the late-1942 decision of President Roosevelt to let Communist Party boss Earl Browder out of prison, where he had been serving a term for passport violations.
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†24 The three groups used by Dies to track the federal workers—the American League Peace and Democracy, the Washington Book Shop, and the Washington Committee for Democratic Action—were all on the Biddle list of suspect organizations.
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*25 As a memo drafted by Civil Service official Alfred Klein (November 3, 1943) explained it: “If in the course of the investigation witnesses say that a certain person is a Communist because he is associated with certain persons in a union known or said to be Communist, the investigator should not ask the applicant about his association with these particular individuals…. Do not ask any questions whatever involving the applicant’s sympathy with Loyalists in Spain…no reference should be made to any such organizations as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade or any other of the many Spanish relief groups…. Do not ask any question about membership in the Washington Book Shop…. Do not ask any questions regarding the type of reading matter read by the applicant. This includes especially the Daily Worker and all radical and liberal publications….”
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†26 A glimpse of how this policy came about would be provided a decade later by an Army security officer, Lt. Col. John Lansdale. He testified that, during the war, he was subject to pressure “from military superiors, from the White House and from every other place, because I dared to stop the commissioning of 15 or 20 undoubted Communists…. I was being vilified, reviewed, and re-reviewed by boards because of my efforts to get Communists out of the Army and being frustrated by the blind, naïve attitude of Mrs. Roosevelt and those around her in the White House….”
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*27 Based on later information, it appears McCloy himself was responsible for this edict, as an official Army statement describes it as “the McCloy order.” It was rescinded in 1946.
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*28 This was acknowledged in 1992 by Russia’s then-president, Boris Yeltsin.
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*29 In the event, both ends of this “exchange” (the quote marks are the FBI’s) worked strictly to the benefit of Moscow. Of the Americans allegedly detained by Kremlin order, only three would make it to the United States, and two of these were then tracked by the Bureau as contacts of Soviet operatives here—including the wife of Ovakimian’s successor as top “resident” in North America, and the wife of a State Department official himself identified as a Soviet asset. (Both wives were likewise identified by the Bureau as Soviet agents.) To judge by the FBI description, the State Department had sent one big apparatchik home to Moscow and got back two small ones for its trouble.
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*30 The Soviets, for their part, dubbed Valtin-Krebs “one of the most important agents” of the Nazis and wanted him summarily dealt with. People in the United States who knew his background gave no credence to such charges but were well aware that he was a thorn in the side of Moscow. In an appeal to the Attorney General, Max Eastman, George S. Counts, and Eugene Lyons—all former men of the left who had turned against the Kremlin—observed that, since Valtin’s arrest, “there has been only silence except in the Communist press, where his detention has been the occasion for frank rejoicing.” Luckily for Valtin-Krebs, protests of this nature succeeded in staving off his deportation.
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*31 Hagen was quite well connected, not only at OWI but elsewhere. A book he wrote featured an introduction by Elmer Davis, and through his friend, Joe Lash, Hagen developed a pen-pal relationship with Mrs. Roosevelt, who tried to help him with his passport troubles (as did Lauchlin Currie).
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*32 As set forth in FBI reports, three chief players in the United States promoting the Communist cause in Poland were Alexander Hertz; Professor Oscar Lange, a naturalized U.S. citizen of P
olish birth who according to the Bureau had links to OWI like those enjoyed by Hagen and Adamic; and Boleslaw “Bill” Gebert, who served on the national committee of the Communist Party USA and received airtime on OWI to express his views on global issues. (When the Communists took over Poland, Hertz, Lange, and Gebert would all go on the payroll of the Red regime there.)
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*33 As earlier noted, among the FCC staffers discussed at length in Congress were William Dodd, Frederick Schuman, and Goodwin Watson, the last named head of the Foreign Intelligence Broadcast Service for the Commission. All three had lengthy records of Communist-front affiliation. Dodd would later show up in Venona as a Soviet intelligence contact.
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*34 In both OWI and OSS, there were competing forces that opposed the pro-Communist factions, so descriptions in this chapter shouldn’t be taken as characterizing all employees of these units. It so happened, however, that in many crucial episodes the pro-Communist element held the upper hand.
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*35 As with Poland, the Yugoslav line adopted by the prevailing faction at OWI would draw a strong critique from Congress. Representative Lesinski would charge that the agency was broadcasting unabashedly pro-Tito propaganda, including false reports that Partisan forces had variously invaded Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, and Romania in their supposedly wide-ranging battle against the Nazis. Helen Lombard of the Washington Star likewise reported that scheduled pro-Mihailovich comments had been spiked by OWI officials.
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*36 Among the methods used in the Klugmann operation, as documented by Martin, were attributing military actions by the Mihailovich forces to the Tito brigades; use of briefing maps that suggested a massive Partisan presence in all sections of Yugoslavia; suppressing news of Nazi statements in which Mihailovich was named as an enemy of the Reich; and construing efforts by Mihailovich to neutralize Italian forces as proof of collaboration, while ignoring identical methods used by Tito.
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†37 On top of these encomia to Tito and denunciations of his anti-Communist foes, the Partisans were depicted as agents of progress, democracy, freedom, equal rights, and literary culture—all this while fighting a heroic guerrilla war against the Nazis. One report to London described these amazing exploits this way:
†37Partisan policy is…constructive rather than destructive…witness the rapidity with which throughout the liberated areas, factories, power stations and even railroads are working, while on the cultural side corresponding activity is shown, newspapers are produced, and schools, youth associations are set up, all needless to say, on strictly party lines. In particular a determined effort is being made to combat illiteracy. In all these activities an increasingly active part is being played by women whose emancipation is an important plank in the Partisan platform.
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*38 As to who was resisting the Nazis, said Farish, “the Partisans have always fought the Germans and are doing so now…. They are a more potent striking force at this time than they have been before…. Their present strength is given as 180,000 men.” This heroic resistance, he said, was owing to “a handful of men, betrayed and harassed by their own countrymen.” As for the treacherous people making things tough for valiant Tito, Farish added: “Whereas the Partisans have fought steadfastly against the Axis occupying forces, other Yugoslav groups have not done so…Mihailovich ordered his Chetniks to attack the Partisan forces…the Chetnik forces have been fighting with the Germans and Italians against the Partisans.”
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*39 These revelations have understandably given rise to the suspicion that Farish was himself a Communist, though other data suggest he was a credulous conduit for pro-Tito propaganda rather than a conscious agent. In June 1944, Farish would write another report of starkly different implication from that filed in October 1943, indicating that the first effort was the result of swallowing Tito and British disinformation, and perhaps some as well from KOLO.
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*40 As Poland had been the casus belli for England.
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†41 Kuomintang = National People’s Party.
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*42 Service himself was fully conscious of this linkage and would stress it in dispatches. In one report, for instance, he commented that “the parallel with Jugoslavia has been drawn before but is becoming more and more apt. It is as impractical to seek Chinese unity with the Kuomintang alone as it was to seek solution of these problems through Mihailovich and King Peter’s government in London, ignoring Tito.” And, even more explicit: “At present there exists in China a situation closely paralleling that which existed in Yugoslavia prior to Prime Minister Churchill’s declaration of support for Marshal Tito.”
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*43 The accuracy of this “reporting” may be gauged from the fact that the Chinese Communists Service was describing went on to establish a dictatorship that, gauged by the total number of people killed, would rank foremost in the history of such horrors. Their tactics included mass murder, torture, brainwashing, slave labor, death by famine, and denial of every possible form of personal freedom. There was substantial evidence as to the brutal nature of the Communist forces when Service’s words were written.
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*44“There seems to be no alternative for the Treasury,” Adler told White, “but to adopt a negative policy toward China. We should continue to send as little gold as possible to China. For such gold will not be effectively used in combating inflation…. We should be tough and tardy in making settle ment for U.S. Army expenditures in China. There is no need to have too delicate a conscience in this matter, as the Chinese swindle us right and left at every possible opportunity…. We should turn down Chinese requests for goods in civilian lend lease for the ostensible purpose of combating inflation…. We should maintain a fairly tight watch on Chinese funds in the United States.”
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†45 Service said that sections of the report “have been discussed with a prominent American-trained Chinese economist” who was undoubtedly Chi; in which event, Service was here supplying the U.S. government with the work product of both his Soviet agent housemates.
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*46 As Service would describe it: “I was living with Adler then…. One night we got to chewing the fat how we ought to do something, write a report, sum up the whole situation…. We both sat down, got all worked up, and that night…we each wrote out a base summary draft as a starting point. Then he took the two of them and hammered them into one, and I took that and re-wrote it, and we kicked it back and forth. Really it’s as much Adler as me. Both of us worked together on it.”
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*47“Mr. Secretary,” he said, “we have always taken the position we had no legal grounds for withholding the gold; that what we were doing was skating on thin ice and offering excuses and getting by with it as long as we could, and remember because I said we are getting away with it that you better get the President’s backing when the [Chinese] begin putting on the heat. It’s because, I said, we have no basis for it. We have been successful over two years in keeping them down to twenty seven million and we never understood why the Chinese didn’t take it in there [to FDR] and do what they are now doing. The whole thing is we had no basis for it.”
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*48 Variations on such techniques abounded. One small but suggestive episode occurred when Kung was in the United States conferring with Morgenthau on financial matters. On hand as Morgenthau aides were White and Adler, while attending as adviser to Kung was Chi Chao-ting. Thus, as in other cases noted, the comrades had both sides of this particular session covered. At one point, Chi and Adler engaged in a technical argument over some piece of business, as though each were speaking up strongly for the interests of his country. In fact, the interests of neither the United States nor Nationalist China w
ere represented in this bit of byplay, as the true masters of Soviet henchmen Chi and Adler were sitting thousands of miles away in Yenan and Moscow.
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†49 So evident was the lack of Communist fighting that even Theodore White, an admirer of the Yenan Reds, was constrained to note the point, commenting that it wasn’t the Reds “but the weary soldiers of the Central Government who took the shock, gnawed at the enemy, and died.”
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*50 According to this author: “Mao didn’t regard the Sino-Japanese war as a conflict in which all China would fight together against Japan. He did not see himself on the same side as Chiang at all…. The war was to him an opportunity to have Chiang destroyed by the Japanese…. Mao’s basic plan, there fore, was to preserve his forces and expand the sphere of the Chinese Reds…. Mao did not want the Red army to fight the invader at all. He ordered Red commanders to wait for Japanese troops to defeat the Nationalists, and then, as the Japanese swept on, to seize territories below the Japanese line…. He bombarded his military commanders with telegrams such as ‘Focus on creating base areas, not fighting battles.’…He said years later that his attitude had been, ‘The more land Japan took, the better.’”
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†51 A related point is that much of what Service reported was not what he himself had seen, or even professed to, but rather what he was told by others—especially journalists traveling in the region, who were overwhelmingly hostile to Chiang Kai-shek and favorable toward the Red insurgents. Two journalists whose observations about the alleged facts of Communist popularity with the peasants and staunch resistance to Japan got passed along by Service were Guenther Stein of the Christian Science Monitor and Israel Epstein, stringing for the New York Times. Both these “journalists,” as it happened, would be identified as Soviet agents (Stein as a member of the Sorge spy ring) and thus perhaps not the most impartial sources Service could have consulted.
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