by Paul Preston
Now, after the May events, Orlov made the elimination of Nin his prime objective and the task was made easier because of the POUM’s role during those events. Nin became the object of what was known as a liter operation. A liter (letter) file was a letter-coded file opened on a person scheduled for assassination who was given a codename. In the case of Nin, this was ‘Assistant’, a reference perhaps to his one-time work with Trotsky. The file was designated with the letter ‘A’ for such operations where ‘A’ stood for an ‘active measure’ (aktivka or direct action, that is assassination). It was presumably no coincidence, if the Communist Minister Jesús Hernández is to be believed, that, on the day following the murder of Nin, a cable sent to Moscow read ‘A.N. business resolved by procedure A.’85
Orlov’s plan was based on two carefully choreographed ‘discoveries’. The first involved a bookshop in Girona belonging to a Falangist called José Roca Falgueras. Roca was part of a fifth-column network run out of a small hotel in the town by its owner, Cosme Dalmau Mora. The network had been discovered by the police but kept under observation rather than shut down. One day in May, an elegantly dressed man went into Roca’s shop, leaving some money and a message for Dalmau. He asked if he could leave a suitcase that he would pick up some days later. The next day, there was a police raid and the suitcase was found to contain an incriminating collection of technical documents about bomb-making together with plans to assassinate key Republican figures. All were apparently sealed with the stamp of the POUM Military Committee.86
The second discovery was initially genuine but was doctored by Orlov to ‘demonstrate’ the collaboration of the POUM with the Falange. The principal element was a detailed map of Madrid seized when the Brigadas Especiales, led by David Vázquez Baldominos and Fernando Valentí Fernández, broke up a large fifth-columnist network, with the help of Alberto Castilla Olavarría, a paid double agent. Castilla was a Basque of right-wing ideas. The fact that he had taken refuge in the Peruvian Embassy gave him the plausibility to infiltrate the fifth column. He became the liaison between the four Falangist groups that made up the substantial network known as the ‘Organización Golfin-Corujo’ run by the architect Francisco Javier Fernández Golfin. When the organization was dismantled thanks to Castilla’s information, Fernández Golfin had in his possession a street plan of Madrid on which his brother Manuel had drawn details and positions of military installations. This map was part of the group’s plans to facilitate the rebel entry into the capital.87
Well over one hundred Falangists were arrested by Vázquez Baldominos’s squad, although only twenty-seven were tried. Their confessions would play a key part in the complex plot being hatched by Orlov, although it is unlikely that Vázquez Baldominos was party to what Orlov did with the street map. Orlov’s elaborate scheme was outlined in a report sent to Moscow on 23 May 1937:
Taking into consideration that this case, in connection with which the overwhelming majority have pleaded guilty, has produced a great impression on military and government circles, and that it is firmly documented and based on the incontrovertible confessions of defendants, I have decided to use the significance and the indisputable facts of the case to implicate the POUM leadership (whose [possible] connections we are looking into while conducting investigations). We have, therefore, composed the enclosed document, which indicates the co-operation of the POUM leadership with the Spanish Falange organization – and, through it, with Franco and Germany. We will encipher the contents of the document using Franco’s cipher, which we have at our disposal, and will write it on the reverse side of the plan of the location of our weapons emplacements in Casa del Campo, which was taken from the Falangist organization. This document has passed through five people: all the five Fascists who have admitted passing the document to each other for dispatch to Franco. On another seized document we will write in invisible ink a few lines of some insignificant content. It will be from this document that, in cooperation with the Spaniards, we shall begin to scrutinize the document for cryptographic writing. We shall experiment with several processes for treating these papers. A special chemical will develop these few words or lines, then we will begin to test all the other documents with this developer and thus expose the letter we have composed compromising the POUM leadership. The Spanish chief of counter-intelligence department [Vázquez Baldominos] will leave immediately for Valencia where the cipher department of the War Ministry will decipher the letter. The cipher department, according to our information, has the necessary code at its disposal. But if the department cannot decipher the letter for some reason, then we will ‘spend a couple of days’ and decipher it ourselves. We expect this affair to be very effective in exposing the role POUM has played in the Barcelona uprising. The exposure of direct contact between one of its leaders and Franco must contribute to the government adopting a number of administrative measures against the Spanish Trotskyites to discredit POUM as a German–Francoist spy organization.88
According to a police report of late October 1937, the captured document was first examined by the then Director General of Security, Wenceslao Carrillo, by General Miaja and by the recently promoted General Vicente Rojo. At this stage, the damning reverse side of the document had not been ‘discovered’ since it had not yet been added. Its later ‘discovery’ was attributed to its being in invisible ink.89 The police report spoke appreciatively of the invaluable technical help received from foreign (Russian) experts who were given free access to the captured documentation in the office of the Brigada Especial and then allowed to take it back to their own Embassy. Orlov reported to Moscow that the faking of the actual document was carried out by Grigulevich. Valentí told his post-war Francoist interrogators that Grigulevich had had the map for some time. On returning it to the Brigada Especial, he suggested to Vázquez Baldominos that it be chemically tested for messages in invisible ink.
The police report explained how the Russian technicians also supplied the necessary chemical reagents and the electrical plate to heat the document. When the map was heated, there appeared on the reverse a message in code. At this point, Vázquez Baldominos was sent for. Unable to decipher the message, he and Valentí, accompanied by two of the foreign technicians (Orlov and Grigulevich?), took the document to Valencia to the newly appointed Director General of Security, Colonel Ortega. They struggled for nearly eighteen hours in Ortega’s office in a vain attempt to decipher the message. Finally, military codebreakers, using a Francoist codebook, were able to interpret the message. All concerned then went to the Russian Embassy in Valencia to draw up a report.90
The definitive ‘text’ of the coded message stated that one of the members of the Fernández Golfín organization had met ‘N., the leader of the POUM, who had offered his forces which would constitute crucial support for the victory of the Nationalists’. There was also a letter to Franco outlining the services of the POUM in terms of espionage, sabotage and the provocation of anti-Republican disorder. The message in itself was as implausible as the idea that Nin would use ‘N’ as his codename. Six months later, in January 1938, an analysis of the message by two calligraphic experts reported that it could not have been written by any member of the network and was a forgery.91 Now, the report drawn up in the Russian Embassy presented the story of the Fernández Golfín network and the document at face value. It concluded with a recommendation that the POUM be ‘extirpated’. Dated 1 June 1937, copies were sent by the counter-espionage service of Vázquez Baldominos’s office of the Madrid police to Zugazagoitia and Ortega.92
Vázquez Baldominos, Valentí and the Brigada Especial returned to Madrid. Six days later, Ortega sent an order for Valentí and seven members of his Brigada Especial, including Jacinto Rosell Coloma and Andrés Urresola Ochoa, to report to him in Valencia. According to another of the JSU members in the Brigada Especial, Javier Jiménez Martín, the squad was led by ‘a Brazilian named José’: ‘José was someone who we thought was Russian. He spoke Russian and you could really see that he was the almig
hty power in the organization.’ There can be no doubt that the ‘Brazilian named José’ was Grigulevich.93 In Valencia, they were ordered by Ortega to go to Barcelona and arrest Andreu Nin. Ortega later admitted that, throughout, he had been following instructions from Orlov.94 Since Zugazagoitia had never trusted Ortega because he was a Communist and incompetent, he had appointed the Civil Governor of Almería, the Socialist Gabriel Morón Díaz, as Inspector and deputy Director General of Security to watch over Ortega. However, on the day of Nin’s arrest, Ortega had got Morón out of the way by sending him to Ciudad Real on a pretext. On 15 June, Valentí and his men, accompanied by Grigulevich, went to Barcelona. On 16 June, Nin, and later that day the other members of the POUM executive, were arrested by local police commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Burillo.95
The POUM newspaper, La Batalla, had been banned on 28 May. Now the POUM itself was declared illegal and the POUM militia disbanded. The procedure was justified by a communiqué stating that the DGS had seized from POUM HQ ‘cyphers, telegrams, codes, documents concerning money and arms purchases and smuggling, and with incriminating documents showing that the POUM leadership, namely Andrés Nin, was mixed up in espionage’. Orlov himself reported to Moscow that the Madrid police considered the falsified document ‘absolutely genuine in its double aspects’ – that is to say, both regarding the original Falangist plans for rebel occupation of Madrid and the additions in invisible ink.96 The Catalan President Lluís Companys and his head of propaganda, Jaume Miravitlles, in contrast, thought that the idea of Nin as a fascist spy was absurd and deeply damaging to the Republic. They wrote a letter to the Valencia government to this effect. When Ortega tried to convince Miravitlles by showing him the doctored street map, he burst out laughing saying that it was the first time in history that a spy had signed an incriminating document with his own name.97
Nin was taken first to Valencia and then transferred to Madrid.98 There then arose the problem of how to obey Ortega’s order that Nin be kept isolated during his interrogation and in a place suitable for a prisoner of his category. All possible places of confinement in the capital were already occupied by the fifth columnists arrested in the Golfín case. He was kept in the offices of the Brigada Especial until ‘one of the senior foreign technicians’, no doubt Orlov, offered to hold him in a house at Alcalá de Henares. Vázquez Baldominos accepted Orlov’s offer and proposed that several of his agents guard him. Orlov brushed aside the idea as likely to attract unwanted attention and offered to take responsibility for Nin’s safety. On 17 June, Vázquez Baldominos signed the order for Nin’s transfer to the house and for just two agents to be posted. Orlov undertook to supply their rations.99
Before being transferred to Alcalá de Henares, Nin was questioned in Madrid four times by Jacinto Rosell as secretary of the Brigada Especial on 18, 19 (twice) and 21 June. Nothing about Rosell’s questions or Nin’s answers in the transcript signed by Nin and published by the POUM itself suggests anything other than a legally conducted interrogation without torture. The often unreliable Jesús Hernández claimed that Nin was tortured and interrogated by Orlov and others for several days, in an effort to make him sign a ‘confession’ of his links with the fifth column. This is highly unlikely; a confession was needed as the basis for a trial and, for that, Nin would have to be seen to be in good physical shape and testify that he had not been tortured. On 21 June, on the orders of Ortega, Vázquez Baldominos sent Rosell and other members of the Brigada Especial to Valencia to collect other POUM prisoners, including Andrade, and escort them to Madrid. At that point, Nin was transferred to Alcalá de Henares.100 Because Nin had not confessed, there was little prospect of the desired show trial. Thus Orlov took the decision to eliminate him. A charade was choreographed at the house. On 22 June, between 9.30 and 10.00 p.m., in a heavy rainstorm, some men in military uniform arrived headed by a ‘captain’ and a ‘lieutenant’ who spoke Spanish with a heavy foreign accent. They presented orders for Nin’s hand-over with the forged signatures of Vázquez Baldominos and Miaja. Allegedly, Vázquez Baldominos’s agents resisted but were overpowered, tied up and gagged and, in the struggle, the intruders dropped incriminating ‘evidence’, including banknotes from rebel Spain and German documents. The agents later stated that the ‘captain’ spoke in a friendly way to Nin and called him ‘comrade’. When Vázquez Baldominos began to investigate these events, Orlov could not be contacted.101
It is impossible to say whether the struggle took place or was merely reported as having done so, since it may be that there were members of the Brigada Especial whose loyalty was to Orlov rather than to Vázquez Baldominos. What is certain is that a car containing Orlov, Grigulevich, an NKVD driver, a German NKVD agent and two Spaniards had arrived. Between them, they could have knocked out the two guards, seized Nin and left the incriminating documents. What is not in doubt is that Nin was taken away and shot near the main road halfway between Alcalá de Henares and Perales de Tajuña.102
The impulse for the elimination of Nin came from the Russians and not from the Republican authorities. On the basis simply of Orlov’s mendacious statements to the FBI after his defection, the American historian Stanley Payne has claimed that ‘Stalin issued a handwritten order, which remains in the KGB archives, that Nin be killed.’103 This is highly unlikely. Nevertheless, as has been seen, Nin had been made the target of a liter operation. Moreover, once Nin had refused to sign a false confession, Orlov was not about to have him simply released, even if he had not been tortured. Orlov made oblique reference to what happened in his report about ‘operation NIKOLAI’ sent to Moscow on 24 July 1937. This report describes, ‘in the characteristically cryptic terms he used for liter operations’, the seizing of Nin from the house and his murder. As well as revealing that Grigulevich forged the documents used to incriminate Nin, it underlines the participation in the operation of Orlov himself. Grigulevich’s police credentials, as a member of the Brigada Especial, facilitated the passage through controls on the roads.104
There is a relevant note in Orlov’s files allegedly written by Grigulevich. Transliterated into English, it refers to ‘N. from Alcala de Enares in the direction of Perane de Tahunia, half way, 100 metres from the road, in the field. [Present were] BOM, SCHWED, JUZIK, two Spaniards. Pierre’s driver VICTOR.’ This means that the scene of the crime and where Nin was buried was between Alcalá de Henares and Perales de Tajuña. The executioners were thus Orlov (Schwed), Grigulevich (Juzik), the German NKVD agent Erich Tacke (BOM), the two unidentified Spaniards and Victor Nezhinsky, an NKVD agent. ‘Pierre’ was Naum Eitingon, head of the NKVD sub-station in Barcelona, and not, as has been suggested, Ernö Gerö.105
Shortly after the disappearance of Nin, Negrín was visited by Orlov, who had been introduced to him many months before as ‘Blackstone’. Orlov claimed to have come to report on the success of his men in establishing what had happened to Nin. He based his version of Nin being kidnapped by Falangists disguised as International Brigaders on incriminating documents allegedly dropped by them and by Nin himself. Orlov asked Negrín if this was enough proof for him to drop the formal investigation. When Negrín said that it was up to the judicial authorities, Orlov asked him if he was convinced personally. Orlov was mortified to be told by the Premier that the story was so neat as to resemble a cheap detective story. Furiously, he shouted that Negrín had insulted the Soviet Union, at which point he was invited to leave. Some hours later, Negrín was visited by the Soviet Chargé d’Affaires, Sergei Marchenko, who said that he had heard of the disagreeable incident of that morning and had come to express his apologies. He offered to have Orlov punished and, when Negrín replied that the incident was closed, said that Orlov was no longer on the Embassy staff.106
When first questioned by Zugazagoitia about what had happened to Nin, Ortega rather gave the game away, saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find him dead or alive.’ Zugazagoitia responded that he was not interested in the corpse of Nin and wanted him found alive. Later the same day, questio
ned further by the Minister, Ortega claimed that Nin was an agent of the Gestapo whose agents had taken him so that he could not be interrogated by the Republic’s security services. When Zugazagoitia asked how he knew this, Ortega said it was simply something that had crossed his mind. The Minister immediately told Negrín of his suspicions that Ortega was involved in foul play concerning Nin. Negrín told him to get reports about what exactly had happened. According to Fernando Valentí, Vidarte and Zugazagoitia himself, the latter demanded a report from Vázquez Baldominos, who produced two drafts. In the first ‘official’ document, he examined three possibilities – that Nin had been kidnapped by Falangists, by Gestapo agents or by the POUM. In the second, secret, report for Zugazagoitia only, he expressed his opinion that the disappearance of Nin was nothing to do with the Gestapo or the Falange but was rather the result of the conflict between the POUM and the PCE encouraged by the various Russians who were operating in the DGS. It is likely that Vázquez Baldominos reached this conclusion after he was unable to locate Grigulevich or Orlov to discuss the case with them. Grigulevich had already returned to Russia. At this point, Vázquez Baldominos thought that Nin was still alive.107
The forged documents were published in a book by the non-existent ‘Max Rieger’, with a preface by José Bergamín demanding the immediate execution without trial of the arrested men. ‘Max Rieger’ was the collective pseudonym of the French Communist journalist Georges Soria, the recently arrived Comintern delegate, the Bulgarian Stoyan Minev, alias Boris Stepanov, and the Spanish Communist intellectual Wenceslao Roces.108 This Comintern version was recited parrot-fashion by Ortega when he was questioned by Zugazagoitia’s under-secretary, Juan-Simeón Vidarte. The incredulous Vidarte responded: ‘Listen, Colonel, are you an idiot or do you think I am?’ Jesús Hernández also claimed to have laughed when Orlov had explained his scheme for framing Nin. When Negrín informed Azaña of Orlov’s version, the President responded that it was all too neat. In fact, on 29 June, Prieto had already told Azaña about the kidnapping of Nin and shared his conviction that Ortega was both an idiot and a Communist.109
