Stalin's Daughter

by Rosemary Sullivan

  whose sincere intimidations and sincere feelings to collaborate with his organization—“choose yourself right now: either a labor camp or deep heart confession and guaranteed liberty” . . . How much blood have they spilt me and finally had a nerve to say: “We have a failure that we could succeed in coming true and convincing your US instigators that you’re a harem-scarem stool pigeon of KGB.” . . .

  I was dishonorable to play these merely doggish tricks in order to blacken and discredit intentionally such bona fide people as Mr. Krimsky and let alone a most high-skilled journalist, but not a CIA agent and so on.12

  Kurpel spoke intimately of her life and of her children. He described meeting Katya, who’d “grown thin and has a well-built figure.” He suggested that Svetlana write to the White House on Joseph’s behalf. He said he was trying to emigrate. Could she help? He had seventeenth-century icons to exchange for hard currency.

  Who was this terrifying man? His ranting letter was absurd and sinister. Panicked, she wrote to George Krimsky. In early May, she received a reply on the letterhead of the Associated Press in Nicosia, Cyprus. George Krimsky wrote back:

  MAY 2, 1977

  Dear Mrs. Peters,

  It was a great pleasure to hear from you again. I must confess I have felt a bit guilty for not writing. . . . Frankly, I didn’t have much news for you. I felt that, under the circumstances, it was best to “let the dust settle” regarding your son.

  Yes, Alexander Kurpel was the one who introduced me to Joseph, and I will tell you what I know about him. First, let me caution you to be very wary of establishing any contact with him. Although I have no proof about his motives, he is a very questionable character, and I regret ever having met him. I do not believe Joseph is served well by him, as you correctly surmised in your letter.

  In my opinion Kurpel is quite mixed up and/or is working for the KGB. As to the former I have no doubt; as to the latter, much circumstantial evidence points in this direction but, of course, one seldom can be sure.

  Kurpel . . . introduced me to Joseph in the spring of 1975. . . . Your son was rightly suspicious of him because of the young man’s loose tongue and his rather unbelievable and conflicting tales. He is also, I might add, an admitted homosexual and extremely effeminate in appearance and actions. I mention this because we both know what that means in the USSR, and it raises questions as to how and why such a person can operate as openly and widely as this fellow did (does) without problems from authorities.

  Joseph and I decided to meet privately, without Kurpel’s knowledge, to discuss his situation but somehow Kurpel seemed to know this. He was very upset. . . .

  After I returned from the US in October 1975, . . . I was unable to see Joseph. As a matter of fact I never saw him again, except briefly in front of his apartment when he refused to talk with me. It was obvious that he was under tight surveillance; Joseph signaled to me silently that he was being watched and did not want to see me. . . .

  There were two themes always put forth by Kurpel in his reports to me about your son: (1) How dejected and embittered Joseph was . . . ; and (2) how if only his mother could be informed of this, Joseph could somehow be helped.

  I strongly suspected (paranoia?) a trap was being prepared for you, possibly to reap some propaganda windfall. (“Traitor Svetlana tries to get son to defect”), and perhaps I would also be a victim (“Journalist-CIA man in league with Traitor Svetlana to get son to defect”). . . .

  Kurpel always had an almost morbid fascination with your history. He knows your birthday and follows any news of you that he can find, over VOA, snippets he comes across in the western press etc. His access to information most Soviet citizens are not privy to always amazed me.

  Krimsky believed that Kurpel was behind his expulsion from Moscow. The Soviets didn’t mention Joseph’s effort to defect and the role that Kurpel had played as a reason for Krimsky’s expulsion. “Why?” Krimsky asked Svetlana. “I can only think that the reason was to allow this fellow to continue operating freely and not be exposed in a formal manner by being named as a conspirator in the official press.”

  Krimsky added in caps:

  HOWEVER, IF THEY COULD GET YOU TO INITIATE SOME MOVE TO HELP JOSEPH, THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO CLAIM THAT YOU LAUNCHED A CAMPAIGN TO HELP THIS LOYAL SOVIET CITIZEN WHO HAS DENOUNCED HIS MOTHER’S TRAITOROUS ACTIVITIES TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY HE LOVES.

  Do you get my point? I doubt they will raise this issue unless they can show you are trying to get Joseph to leave.

  Now this puts you in a very difficult position. Naturally, you have Joseph’s best interests at heart. They are undoubtedly hoping that your renewed concern over Joseph’s situation (sparked by Kurpel’s letter) will prompt you to act. This is a decision only you can make, but, again, I would be very cautious.

  Although I have no way of knowing, I guess that Joseph is probably nervous but physically alright. I think he believes his tentative campaign to see you had backfired before it could really get started.13

  What would Svetlana have noted from Krimsky’s letter? The most important thing was that Joseph had initiated the effort to contact her. He missed her and longed to see her as much as she longed to see him. The next thing was that Krimsky believed Kurpel was a tool of the KGB. His March letter had been a provocation. She had been right to remain silent. Any response from her would have harmed Joseph irreparably. The final thing was that Kurpel was exceedingly dangerous. His obsession with her was worse than creepy. One can imagine Svetlana’s disgust and fear.

  The KGB was still up to the same old dirty tricks, but who in the West would believe it would go to such lengths to get at the Traitor Svetlana after almost a decade? Non-Soviets did not understand! She was Stalin’s daughter. Like Kurpel, the KGB was obsessed with her. She was a living symbol of the failure of the Soviet system and the KGB was determined to make her pay.

  After Svetlana received George Krimsky’s letter, her first impulse was to protect Joseph from Kurpel by writing to his father, Grigori Morozov, who was now an eminent professor of international law. He was also high up in the Party, close to Georgy Arbatov, a Russian political scientist known in the United States as a spokesman for Soviet policies in the Cold War standoff. Grigori could shield their son. Knowing that her letter would, of course, be read, she wrote to him via the Soviet Embassy, to assure him that she wasn’t trying to lure Joseph to the West.

  Her ex-husband had grounds for being angry with Svetlana. When she defected in 1967, his pending three-year assignment at the United Nations had been canceled. But he was kind and genuinely fond of her. He was also very anxious for their son. He wrote back immediately, mailing his letter in New York, where he’d stopped en route to Moscow after attending a conference in Mexico.

  NYC: 6-29-77

  Dear Svetlana,

  I have received your letter. I want to tell you frankly I was overjoyed; it has clarified a very serious situation, created by people, who, without any authority from you, have been using your name in their own purposes.

  Characters, whom you call “bastards,” have already done a lot to confuse Joseph and to mess up his life here—and I have been very worried about that; he is just as dear to me as he is to you.

  I am in total agreement with you that a trip to the USA at the present time is impossible for Joe for many reasons—including those which you have mentioned. I must say that I am glad, that in a very complicated situation, which real provocateurs have created for him, he showed himself being mature enough a person. Your letter to me has helped him a lot and he is in agreement with [our] opinion, which I could call yours and mine.

  Right before my leaving Moscow for Mexico, after I have received your letter, one of those “bastards” already mentioned, tried to approach Joe again—as if on your behalf. And not only Joe, but he tried also to approach Katherine the same way. He tried to arrange that she would go with him to meet one of the most important dissidents, one of the most outspoken anti-soviets. Katherine has just thrown that f
ellow out, without much talking with him.

  I am convinced that all these activities are being performed by people who would do anything possible to create a “noisy” affair, especially when it is sensational enough to attract the foreign press. Now I am convinced that you were really worried about Joe, who could easily have become the object of these provocations; those characters would love to use Joe and Kate—and your name—for their own purposes. It is just unbelievable how far human meanness can go. . . .

  Finally, let me tell you . . . I was glad to hear from you. There have been many difficult things during all these years, but I do not want to dwell on that. There have been good things in the past too, and your letter, your worry about Joe, has reminded me about that very strongly.

  Thank you so much for Olga’s photograph. I have passed it to Joe. . . .

  Take care,

  Gregory14

  Svetlana felt extraordinary relief that Joseph was safe. Her ex-husband had given her his own address, which meant that he was inviting her to contact him for news about Joseph and Katya. Svetlana thought that one day Grigori might possibly be permitted to visit the United States on some scientific mission, and she might be able to see him again. In fact, however, their correspondence ended here. Though she wrote to him several times, she never received another letter.

  She immediately wrote to George Kennan, sending him both Alexander Kurpel’s screed and Grigori Morozov’s response, and Kennan replied with an affectionate letter. He concluded that Kurpel’s delusional letter was too clumsy to be a direct KGB provocation.

  The impression I derive from the document is that the author is a seriously unstable person whose head has been turned, and whose imagination has been over-fired by exposure to the weird atmosphere of deception and counter-deception prevailing today between—or rather, among—the dissidents, the KGB, the foreign journalists, and probably a few unwise lower-ranking diplomats, and who, in addition to that, wants to make himself important by inserting himself into the affairs of important people. . . . I am delighted that you spotted all this and decided to have nothing to do with him. . . .

  I continue to think of you with deep affection and concern. . . . When you give careful thought to your problems, and do not act impulsively, your insight and your judgments are first-rate—none better. . . .

  Affectionate greetings from us both,

  George K.15

  But Svetlana was not sure Kurpel could be so easily dismissed. She knew the KGB better than George Kennan did.

  In a book called Last Interview, published in 2013, the Russian journalists Ana Petrovna and Mikhail Leshynsky included an earlier interview with Joseph Alliluyev in which they asked him about his attempt to join his mother in America in the mid-1970s. Joseph explained: “I went through a difficult time; there was a failing in my personal life, things weren’t coming together at work. All of a sudden it occurred to me that the only way out was to go to my mother, to connect with my only dear relative. No such thing, as I now understand, to my luck, ended up being possible.”16

  It wasn’t his bad luck but rather Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, who frustrated his longing to join his mother. In an undated memo to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, found by Petrovna and Leshynsky in the Party archive, Andropov wrote:

  In a letter that we intercepted, Joseph Alliluev [sic] complains about his loneliness after the divorce from his wife, about how he misses his mother, wants to see her. It is established that he has intentions to go abroad. In the past years, Joseph Alliluev developed irritation, lost interest in social life, abuses alcoholic beverages. It seems rational for the Ministry of Health of the USSR to offer him more attention as a young doctor and for the Soviet Ministry of the USSR to exchange his apartment for a better one.17

  The tone of benevolent concern is hardly convincing. Joseph had been very frightened when he realized the KGB had intercepted his letter to his mother and recorded his contacts with foreigners. He had warned Krimsky, “This all has to stop,” or he’d end up practicing medicine in Siberia. For Andropov to have instigated such an upgrade in his circumstances, he must have made it very clear that he had no intention of defecting. But the tragedy of the secret police’s interference in family life is caught in his reference to his mother as “my only dear relative,” whose consolation he had needed and been denied for years, especially when his life was dissolving.

  Svetlana could take comfort in the fact that she’d not been responsible for destroying her son’s peace. Now she began to reassess her life in America. It had been ten years since she’d arrived, but sometimes it felt like forever. She’d come through a terrible psychological crisis and felt she was back to herself. She’d begun work on a book that would take the form of a notebook—moments from a human life that would be like talking to oneself. The strange blending of her Russian past and her American present would provide its texture.

  That spring of 1977, Donald Jameson from the CIA phoned to say that it was now time for her to think about applying for American citizenship. In 1978 she would have completed the ten-year “quarantine” required for applicants who had once been members of the Communist Party. She began the slow process of filing the necessary documents and getting fingerprinted at the local police station in Carlsbad. That fall she wrote to Jamie to say she was ready, but she wanted the conferral of her citizenship to be more than a symbolic gesture. She’d decided she would become an American citizen in Princeton among people who cared for her. One of the kindest letters of support came from George Kennan. In September 1977, he wrote reassuringly:

  I think I understand some of your difficulties as well as anyone could; but my own basic faith in you—in your decency and sincerity—and concern for you in your strange and, to most people, incomprehensible Odyssey has never been shaken. Your friendship and understanding have also meant a great deal to me, and have been a source of strength to me in the more difficult moments. It will always be so.18

  In January, she headed back across the continent with Olga, their belongings in tow. She would take the Oath of Allegiance in a New Jersey courtroom, among her friends.

  Chapter 28

  Lana Peters, American Citizen

  An iconic shot of “Generalissimo” Stalin, taken c. 1920.

  (Keystone/Stringer)

  When Svetlana arrived in Princeton in January 1978, she found a perfect house to rent. She’d become adept at finding houses. At 154 Mercer Street, she was close to downtown and across from a large park, Marquand Park, which made the area feel almost like country. The house was a modest semidetached affair with two bedrooms. On the living room wall, she hung the decorative straw plate that Joan Kennan had sent from Tonga, and on the other walls she tacked up seven-year-old Olga’s colorful drawings. She moved in her battered furniture, her books and archive of letters, and Olga’s toys. She mowed the lawn and planted flowers and vegetables. Life could begin again.

  On June 18, Svetlana filed her application for American citizenship. It amused her that it happened to be Father’s Day. She could imagine her father’s reaction. He would have killed her. She thought her mother would have approved.

  Around this time, she found a letter in her Palmer Square post office box addressed care of Princeton University with a return address in Sweden. The letter was from Alexander Kurpel. She felt a sudden cold shudder at seeing the name. The man was now in Sweden! How had he managed to get out of the USSR? She thought the KGB must have sent him on some mission. She put the letter, unopened, back in the mail marked Return to Sender and worried. Was it a coincidence that he had just happened to write when she was applying for her citizenship?

  She wrote to George Kennan. “I would not be surprised that Soviets already know about it [her citizenship application] and will use Alex Kurpel and his possible writings abroad to present me in some unpleasant way—the mission that was ten years ago given to Victor Louis. . . . Anyway, they love to put pressure on me.” She asked Kennan, who was then lecturing in Sw
eden, to keep a lookout for anything about Kurpel in the Swedish newspapers, and worried that the man would try to come to Princeton to meet her. She protested: “What a game I have to play, my God, and why!?”1

  Understandably, she was concerned about her examination under oath, which was the next stage in her naturalization. It was to take place on September 29. Kennan wrote a reference on her behalf to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

  I have no hesitation in saying that I find Mrs. Peters in every way fitted, and indeed outstandingly fitted, for American citizenship. . . . She has never wavered, since her arrival here, in her desire and resolve to become a citizen as soon as the normal procedures permitted. During all this time, she has lived quietly and with dignity here, has avoided publicity and controversy, and has done all in her power to assure that her presence here should not prove a burden or an embarrassment to the United States government.2

  Was this really what she had been doing—trying to avoid being a burden or an embarrassment to the US government? Why should she be an embarrassment? But in any case, she was grateful for Kennan’s support.

  When she asked Millie Harford, her old friend from Stuart School, to drive her to Newark and serve as one of her references, Millie replied that she was afraid to drive, that she was a terrible driver. But Svetlana could be very persuasive. They headed up the highway to Newark and were soon lost on the complex turnpikes leading into the city. Svetlana suddenly said, “Millie, we’re going over the bridge. That’s New York!” Millie made a turn on the on-ramp and headed back, the cars honking, as Svetlana rolled down the window and leaned out, shouting, “Excuse us! We’re peasants from the country.” Millie thought this was wonderful. “There must have been angels driving the car.”3 Somehow they made it to Newark without a police escort.