June 2009

Today in History:  June 28, 1971

Ellsberg indicted in Pentagon Papers

1971:  Daniel Ellsberg surrendered to the U.S. government to face charges for leaking the Pentagon Papers.
Ellsberg was part of the top-secret study of the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that showed that the American people had been deceived about the Vietnam War.
On June 13, 1971, the New York Times began publishing extracts that were embarrassing to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, but also to the Nixon administration, further damaging the war effort.  (Examiner, 28 Jun 09)

Today in History: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

On June 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg died in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison, after being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. The Rosenbergs were accused of passing on atomic secrets to the Soviets.

Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs were executed as spies in 1953

June 19, 1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. Julius was a member and eventually a leader in the Young Communist League (YCL). Ethel, two years older than Julius, was also a member of YCL, meeting her future husband there in 1936. The couple married in 1939, the same year Julius graduated from City College of New York with an electrical engineering degree. Julius joined the Army Signal Corps in 1940 and worked with radar equipment. Ethel was an actress and singer and also worked as a secretary.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were not the only spies arrested. They were the only ones executed. David Greenglass, Ethel's brother, was sentenced to 15 years and served 10. Harry Gold served 15 years and Morton Sobell served 11 years and 9 months. Klaus Fuchs, also a member of the group but residing in England, served 9 years of his 14 year sentence. The people involved had relayed information to Soviet Russia. They were accused of sending information to the enemy regarding the building of atomic bombs. The Rosenbergs' trial began on March 6, 1951 and they were convicted on March 29. Sentencing took place on April 5 . . . . According to Alexandre Feklisov, the Rosenbergs' handler, Julius was recruited by the KGB on Labor Day 1942 by spymaster Semyon Semenov. The ringleader was recalled to Moscow in 1944 and Feklisov took over the role.  Feklisov said he was given thousands of documents supplied by Julius Rosenberg. Classified reports, including a complete design of a proximity fuse, were passed to the Soviets. A complete drawing of a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star and secrets from Los Alamos filtered through to Russia. The couple was suspected of passing on vital information about the atomic bomb and US readiness for an atomic confrontation.  (Examiner, 19 Jun 09)

Klaus Fuchs: Wartime espionage in the heart of Flintshire

. . . . He says his research has shown one of the 20th century's most notorious Soviet agents leaked atomic weapons research from the top-secret munitions factory at Rhydymwyn.  Nuclear scientist and Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs was 'leaking like a sieve' during his time at the village's Valley Works, says Colin.  He believes his research into the base, which was originally set up to make chemical weapons, proves conclusively that Fuchs was supplying the Soviets with classified information.  . . . . "They are also providing an essential service for Flintshire and for Wales in ensuring that these priceless memories of the war effort on the Home Front are preserved for future generations."  Fuchs, a German-Jewish scientist, fled persecution by the Nazis and came to Britain in the 1930s.  He earned his PhD in Physics at the University of Bristol and in 1942, despite having been interned, was granted British citizenship and even signed the Official Secrets Act.   At Rhydymwyn he worked for a year on highly sensitive research into the manufacture of weapons-grade uranium, all the time passing those secrets to the Soviets.  After leaving Wales in 1943, Fuchs went to the USA to work on the Manhattan Project which ultimately led to the Hiroshima atomic bomb.  (Chester Chronicle, 19 Jun 09)

Italian newspaper reveals details behind Hitler’s plan to kill Pius XII

The Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire published an article on Tuesday revealing the details behind Hitler’s plan to kidnap or kill Pope Pius XII as a way of “punishing” the Italians for the arrest of Mussolini.
The paper reported information about the plan was revealed from a direct source in 1972, when the son of one of the German officials involved in the plan, Niki Freytag von Loringhoven, testified in Munich. The article in Avvenire featured new details about the Nazi plan.  According to Freytag von Loringhoven, a secret meeting was held in Venice on July 29 and 30, 1943 with Italy’s head of counter-espionage, General Cesare Ame, to inform him of Hitler’s intention to punish the Italians for arresting Mussolini by kidnapping or killing Pius XII or the king.   Among those present at the meeting were the German head of counter-espionage, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and two German colonels, Erwin von Lahousen and Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven (the father of Niki).  Upon returning to Rome, General Ame revealed the news in order to block Hitler’s plans.  (CNA, 18 Jun 09)

Watergate planner Hunt's FBI file released

Watergate break-in planner E. Howard Hunt sought a presidential pardon by saying he thought the infamous burglary had "executive authorization," according to FBI documents released two years after his death. He died without getting a pardon.  The FBI released 167 pages of Hunt's files following a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. Wednesday marks 37 years since police caught the burglars in the Washington break-in. The case ultimately made Hunt a household name and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Despite working as a CIA agent for more than two decades and his role in Watergate, Hunt's file is remarkably thin. As a CIA agent Hunt was involved in a U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 and the botched Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. He worked in China, Mexico, Japan and Spain, among other places.  But he became best known after he retired from the CIA. He became a consultant for the White House and one of the so-called White House "plumbers," a group that was set up to help stop government information leaks. Working for the White House he helped plan the break-in at the office of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate. It was Hunt who orchestrated the burglary: scouting the building with conspirator and former CIA agent James McCord, recruiting the burglars and strategizing how the men would enter the complex. (AP, 16 Jun 09)

Treason Most Foul – Jack Jones

Thirty years after Britain's notorious winter of discontent, it has become clear that the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government not only ended a long period of Labor rule but also defeated the Left's attempt, led from the trade unions, to transfigure British parliamentary democracy into a form of Soviet state.

The leading figure in this story was the general secretary of Britain's largest union, the Transport and General Workers Union, and chairman of the Trades Union Congress's international committee, Jack Jones. In 1977, more than half the respondents to a Gallup poll named him the most powerful man in Britain. Only half as many named the prime minister, James Callaghan.  Jones died only a few weeks ago at the age of 96 and, after a series of anodyne obituaries not speaking ill of the dead, the brief moratorium on his reputation was suitably ended by one of his KGB case officers, Oleg Gordievsky, the best-known surviving KGB defector to the British.  He confirmed this year that Jones was a Soviet agent.  "I was his last case officer, meeting him for the final time in 1984 at Fulham (six years after Jones's retirement), together with his wife, who had been a Comintern agent since the mid-1930s," Gordievsky wrote in April. "I handed out to him a small amount of cash. From 1981, I had had the pleasure of reading volumes of his files, which were kept in the British department of the KGB until 1986, when they were passed on to the archive."  The idea that Jones had a close collaborative relationship with the Soviet side in the Cold War will surprise and perhaps alarm many who recall how influential he was in British politics during his prime.  The Callaghan government came to depend on him to help keep it in office and arrange the incomes policy it thought would save its political bacon.   (Australian, 12 Jun 09)

Today in History - June 11

2001:  Timothy McVeigh was executed by injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs leaked atom bomb secrets from North Wales

Infamous Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs leaked information from a top secret North Wales munitions factory which carried out pioneering research into the atom bomb, a historian has discovered.  A local history project claims the nuclear scientist, jailed in 1950 for leaking atomic secrets to the Soviets during Stalin’s regime, must have been leaking secrets about the Valley works in Rhydymwyn outside Mold, which was used for manufacturing munitions, but also housed early research into the A-bomb.  German-born Fuchs, who was released in 1959 and went to East Germany and died in 1988, worked at the Rhydymwyn factory, where in the early forties it began exploring the manufacture of weapons-grade uranium.  Fuchs worked there for about a year before transferring in 1943 to America to work under Robert Oppenheimer for the Manhattan Project which developed the bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima.  Local historian Colin Barber believes notorious spy Fuchs must have been leaking A-bomb secrets “like a sieve.”. . . . Cadwyn Clwyd Project Officer Adam Bishop said: “It’s a fascinating story and Colin Barber and his team have unearthed some incredible and very important information.”  Mr Barber added: “Fuchs was a life-long Communist and considered it his duty to leak information to the Soviets, he felt they had a right to know about the research.”. . . . For tickets or further information about the Valley History Society go to www.rvsweb.org.uk     (Daily Post, 8 Jun 09)

Video: USS LIBERTY: Navy Vet Terry Halbardier Who Foiled Israeli Attack Honored

. . . . Terry Halbardier, whose bravery and ingenuity as a 23-year-old Navy seaman spelled the difference between the murder of 34 of the USS Liberty crew and the intended massacre of all 294.
The date was June 8, 1967; for the families of the 34 murdered and for the Liberty’s survivors and their families, it is a "date which will live in infamy" – like the date of an earlier surprise attack on the U.S. Navy.
The infamy is twofold: (1) the Liberty, a virtually defenseless intelligence collection platform prominently flying an American flag in international waters, came under deliberate attack by Israeli aircraft and three 60-ton Israeli torpedo boats off the coast of the Sinai on a cloudless June afternoon during the six-day Israeli-Arab war; and (2) President Lyndon Johnson called back carrier aircraft dispatched to defend the Liberty lest Israel be embarrassed – the start of an unconscionable cover-up, including top Navy brass, that persists to this day.
Given all they have been through, the Liberty survivors and other veterans – who joined Halbardier to celebrate his belated receipt of the Silver Star – can be forgiven for having doubted that this day would ever come. In the award ceremony at the Visalia, Calif., office of Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman pinned the Silver Star next to the Purple Heart that Halbardier found in his home mailbox three years ago.  (Global Arab Network, 7 Jun 09)

Today in History - June 4, 1984

Ex-intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to spying for Israel
On this day, June 4, in 1986, Jonathan Pollard pleaded guilty to espionage for selling top secret U.S. military intelligence to Israel.  Although the full extent of the information he handed away has never been revealed, the former Navy intelligence analyst sold enough classified documents to fill an office.  Pollard’s scheme was discovered when supervisors learned that he was removing enormous amounts of top secret material that was outside his purview. While he was being questioned, he took a break, called his wife and said their code word “cactus,” meaning that she should remove all documents from their home.  When his bosses let him go, Pollard and his wife sped to the Israeli Embassy, hoping to win refuge there. But the guards ordered the couple to leave, and the FBI arrested him.  Pollard admitted his guilt and received a life sentence. He is housed in a federal prison in North Carolina.  Israel denied that he was an Israeli spy until 1998, but now actively lobbies for his release  (Examiner, 3 Jun 09)

May 2009

The Rosenberg Archive: A Historical Timeline  (Cold War International History Project)

Pragmatic Judges May Also Be Principled Judges- Case of Schenck v. US

David Lewis Schaefer correctly castigates judicial "pragmatism" in "When It Comes to Judges, 'Pragmatic' Means Unprincipled" (op-ed, May 9) -- originating with longtime Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- which sometimes results in unwarranted judicial intrusions into the political process. However, he fails to mention the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court, written by Justice Holmes, in Schenck v. U.S. upholding the conviction of Charles T. Schenck for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. The Espionage Act made it a federal crime to obstruct the country's war effort.  Schenck was the general secretary of the Socialist Party, then headquartered in Philadelphia. The Socialist Party was opposed to the Conscription Act of May 1917, which enabled the government to draft men into military service. Schenck was responsible for distributing some 15,000 leaflets urging young men to resist the draft.  On appeal, Schenck argued that the leaflets were an expression of freedom of speech and thus protected by the First Amendment. Holmes answered as follows: "When a nation is at war many things that might be said in times of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no court could regard them as being protected by any constitutional right."  Holmes also noted: "The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre and causing a panic."  I suspect Abraham Lincoln would have agreed with this interpretation of judicial pragmatism.   (Wall Street Journal, 20 May 09)

John A. Walker Jr. arrested in U.S.S.R. spy ring bust

On this day, May 20, in 1985, the FBI arrested John A. Walker Jr. on charges that he was running one of the most destructive spy rings in United States history.  Walker, who was born in the District, joined the Navy in 1965 after he was arrested for burglary and offered the option of the military or jail time. He became a communications specialist, and within three years of enlisting, he walked over to the Soviet Embassy in D.C. and sold a card that helped the Russians decipher radio transmissions. Walker, who earned more than $1 million for his services, recruited other officials, including his son and older brother.  From 1968 to 1985, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than 200,000 classified messages, providing so much valuable information that some experts believe Walker tipped the balance of power to Russians.  But his scheme unraveled when he refused to pay his ex-wife alimony and she tipped off the FBI. Walker and his co-conspirators were convicted. All defendants, except his son, received life sentences. Walker was most recently housed at a federal prison in Missouri. He is 71.  (Examiner, 19 May 09)

Family of Spies: The John Walker Jr. Spy Case

Secrets, Cheap : John Anthony Walker  (US News, 19 Jan 03)

The adventures of 'Milton' - Nazi spy in Eretz Israel

Twelve years ago, a friend handed an envelope to Gad Shimron. At the time, Shimron was the Israeli daily Ma'ariv's correspondent in Germany, and he was occupied with tying up loose ends as the end of his stint in Germany loomed. He didn't bother looking at the contents of the envelope. It was only a few years ago that Shimron finally got around to looking inside the envelope, when he moved from one apartment to another. In the envelope, shimron discovered a historical treasure, which he incorporated into his new novel "The Templer's Lover from Emek Refa'im" (Matar) - which tells the story of a love affair between a Hadassah nursing school student and a Jerusalem German Colony native, which sparked uproar in the thirties and forties. The book combines fictional details with historical fact as Shimron exposes a historical event that has never before been published: the story of a spy for the Abwehr - a Nazi intelligence organization - who operated in Palestine while it was under a British mandate during World War II. The documents in the fateful envelope were apparently from this spy's operations dossier. The spy's code name was Milton. Shimron says that as far as he knows Milton was the only German intelligence agent working as a spy in the country during that time. (However, the Germans did parachute several agents into Wadi Kelt in order to provoke the Arab population into rebelling against the British rule. Some of them were caught.)  . . . . Who was "Milton"? Gad Shimron admits that he wasn't able to uncover the spy's true identity. He tried to find information about the man in the Wehrmacht archives but turned up nothing.  (Haaretz, 8 May 09)

Communist intelligence behind attack on exile Czech official-USTR

Some files of former Czechoslovak intelligence service agents contain indications that the intelligence could have been behind a fatal attack on former Slovak parliament head in exile Matus Cernak, Institute for Totalitarian Regimes Studies (USTR) head Pavel Zacek told CTK today.   The attack took place in Munich in May 1955. Cernak was killed in a blast after he opened a package containing explosive.  Apart from him, two other people died and 20 were injured in the explosion.  "Though the direct file on the operation against Cernak has not been preserved there are indications, for instance, in the files of various intelligence service agents that the intelligence participated in the attack against Cernak," Zacek said.  Previously, the attack was ascribed to the Czechoslovak state police StB that included the Czechoslovak intelligence service.  According to historians, the task force called Vlast (Homeland) operated within the intelligence whose tasks were murders and kidnappings of the traitors or former members of the StB, the Czechoslovak border guard, secret collaborators and refugees whom communist courts sentenced to death.  This was an elite squad within the Czechoslovak intelligence service, Zacek said.  Previously, he said that the squad agents first tried to lure the "traitors of the regime" into cooperation and at least discredit them in the event of failure . . . . The special task force was established in 1966. According to previous information, it ended its activities at the end of 1967 and the beginning of 1968 and its agents did not kill anyone . . . . The special task force planned, with the approval of the Soviet secret service, subversive operations on the territory of Austria, Germany, France and the Benelux.   (Ceske Noviny, 6 May 09)

April 2009

1977: Christopher Boyce, whose spying on the United States was later chronicled in the film “The Falcon and the Snowman,” was convicted for selling secrets to the Russians.

Crime History: Conviction in ‘Falcon and Snowman’ spy case

On this day, April 28, in 1977, Christopher Boyce, whose spying on the United States was later chronicled in the film “The Falcon and the Snowman,” was convicted for selling secrets to the Russians.  Boyce was 22 when his father, a former FBI agent, got him a job at a company that helped run America’s secret spy satellite system. Boyce gained access to the “black box” that held telex messages with CIA headquarters in Langley.  Boyce and his childhood chum Andrew Daulton Lee began selling intelligence to Soviet officials in Mexico City. Boyce, who was into falconry, was nicknamed The Falcon; Lee, a cocaine dealer, was The Snowman.  Their scheme ended after Lee was falsely arrested in Mexico on suspicion of killing a police officer. Lee, who was carrying secret microfilm, confessed to being a spy and implicated Boyce.  Boyce was sentenced to 40 years. He escaped from prison in 1980, carrying out 17 bank robberies before he was captured a year later.   (Examiner, 27 Apr 09)

Pancake Red Stone

Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev

. . . . . the man behind I.F. Stone's Weekly was neither patriot nor independent.  He was an agent for the Soviet Union.  "Charges about Stone's connections with the KGB have been swirling about for more than a decade, prompting cries of outrage among his passionate followers," write John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev in an excerpt of their new book, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, posted at Commentary magazine's website and linked by the Drudge Report. "Until now, the evidence was equivocal and subject to different interpretations. . . . Atop the Venona intercepts, numerous mid-century FBI informants, including the former managing editor of the Daily Worker, reported Stone as a onetime Communist Party member. KGB General Oleg Kalugin, who plied his trade as a press liaison at the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., conceded in the early 1990s that Stone had been his agent. "We had an agent -- a well known American journalist -- with a good reputation who severed his ties with us in 1956," he declared. "I myself convinced him to resume them. But after 1968, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia . . . he said he would never again take any money from us." Kalugin subsequently identified the unnamed agent as Izzy Stone. After an uproar by Stone's admirers in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, Kalugin vacillated as to how formal the arrangement with Stone actually was.

Who was I.F. Stone?

Once described as “the KGB's front man in American journalism,” I.F. Stone was a radical journalist known predominantly for his rants against the Vietnam and Korean Wars, and for his leftwing newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly.  Stone was born Isidor Feinstein in Philadelphia in 1907, to Jewish parents who had immigrated to the U.S. from Russia. This ancestral link to what would become the Soviet Union helped shape Stone’s journalistic pursuits, and in 1939, when his colleagues split from the pro-Soviet Left to form the Committee for Cultural Freedom, Stone and other holdovers drafted a campaign rebuking “the fantastic falsehood that the USSR and the totalitarian states are basically alike,” and extolling the communist stronghold for “steadily expanding democracy in every sphere.”   Even Stone’s biographer, Robert Cottrell, who normally treats Stone with compassion, has said: “There was something disingenuous in [Stone’s] willingness to suspend judgment or to refuse to criticize still more forcefully the terror that was being played out in Soviet Russia. . . . What could not be denied was that Stone, like many of his political and intellectual counterparts, continued to afford Russia and even Stalinist communism something of a double standard, fearing that to do otherwise would endanger . . . the very possibility of socialism.”   (Discover the Networks, 14 Feb 05)

CBS Notes John Edwards Influenced by Soviet-linked Marxist I.F. Stone

Talk about a jaw-dropper. The favorite book of an American presidential candidate was written by a radical journalist described in a Soviet document as an “agent of influence.”

CBS Evening News last night ran its weekly special, “Primary Questions: Character, Leadership and the Candidates.” Katie Couric’s question to the presidential candidates was, “If you were elected president, what is the one book-- other than the Bible-- you would think is essential to have along?”

John Edwards chose I.F. Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates,” because “he talks in a very thoughtful way about the challenges that are faced by men about character, about integrity, and about belief systems. And, uh, and the book – I’ve read it several times. It’s had an impact on me.”  (News Busters, 30 Jan 08)

'The Attack on I.F. Stone': An Exchange

Andrew Brown in his attempt to defend I.F. Stone has only succeeded in making the case that Stone was a KGB agent even clearer [NYR, October 8]. General Kalugin (KGB Retired) did not name his agent in his original discussion with Brown. Brown now reports that Kalugin identified that agent as I.F. Stone.

According to Brown, the news desk at the Independent asked him for "more on spying and less on Russian domestic troubles." He then reinterviewed Kalugin.  Brown wrote, "Mr. Kalugin said that at the end of the Second World War people would come in dozens to volunteer to work for the Soviets, especially in France and Italy. But it was also true that in the United States the KGB 'maintained very serious sources until the late-40s.'

"The crucial year was 1956. Krushchev's secret speech denouncing Stalinism (which leaked to the West and revealed the horrors of mass executions) revolted the whole world. After 1956, the intelligence service simply could not recruit people on ideological grounds. The invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was another almost mortal blow."

Brown then quoted Kalugin as saying: "We had an agent—a well-known American journalist—with a good reputation, who severed his ties with us after 1956. I myself convinced him to resume them. But in 1968, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia…he said he would never again take any money from us." (The Independent, Mar. 12, 1992)  (New York Review, 3 Dec 1992)

I.F. Stone, Soviet Agent—Case Closed

When new information about Americans who had cooperated with the Soviet KGB began to emerge in the 1990s, no individual case generated as much controversy as that of the journalist I.F. Stone, who had long been installed in the pantheon of left-wing heroes as a symbol of rectitude and a teller of truth to power before his death in 1989. Charges about Stone’s connections with the KGB have been swirling about for more than a decade, prompting cries of outrage among his passionate followers. Until now, the evidence was equivocal and subject to different interpretations. No longer.

In the early 1990s, one of us—Alexander Vassiliev, a former KGB officer turned Russian journalist—was given authorized access to the files of the SVR (the successor spy agency to the KGB in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union) to pursue research for a book that was eventually published in 1998 under the title The Haunted Wood.1 By the time of publication, Vassiliev, fearing retribution from hard-line Communists and nationalists angered by revelations of secrets, had moved permanently to Great Britain. He left his original notebooks, containing more than 1,100 pages of detailed notes and lengthy quotations, with friends in Moscow. They were filled with details about people and issues that did not fit the parameters of The Haunted Wood or whose significance Vassiliev did not then realize.  (Commentary Magazine, 24 Apr 09)

I.F. Stone: Soviet Spy

In my very first week of blogging, I wrote about the revered late left-wing journalist, I.F. Stone. Sure, Izzy charmed a lot of his supporters. But as I noted, he was most well known for being an apologist for Stalinism, and a journalist who at the time of the Korean War, perpetrated Soviet disinformation that the war was started by South Korea with the backing of the United States.  Until now, there has been only highly circumstantial evidence indicating that for several years Stone may have been a KGB agent. Now, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev in their soon to be published book, Spies:The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, present new evidence that indeed this was the case. Actual KGB files they examined, scrupulously copied from the originals by Vassiliev, offer us proof that from 1936 to 1938, Stone was in fact a Soviet agent. The chapter giving the data now appears on the website of Commentary magazine.  There is simply no more room for doubt. As the New York KGB station agent reported in May of 1936, “Relations with ‘Pancake’ [Stone's KGB name] have entered ‘the channel of normal operational work.’” For the next few years, the authors write, “Stone worked closely with the KGB” as a talent spotter and recruiter of other people for KGB work, including William A. Dodd, Jr., son of the US Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany. He also worked with the American Communist Victor Perlo, who while an economist at the War Production Group, led a Soviet espionage apparatus. Perlo compiled material for Stone that he could use in journalistic exposes beneficial to the Soviets.  (Pajamas Media, 22 Apr 09)

I.F. Stone Was No Spy

Today's news cycle brings "proof" that legendary journalist I.F. Stone was a Soviet spy. Stone's friend and Daily Beast contributor Eric Alterman dissects a decades-old tale that won't go away.

. . . .Conservatives have been trying to pin the “spy” label on the legendary independent scholar/journalist—and proto-blogger— I.F. Stone for nearly two decades. They began not long after his June 1989 death, seizing on an ambiguous statement from a cagey former KGB agent named Oleg Kalugin to a British journalist about their conversations together. Back then, Herbert Romerstein, an ex-staffer of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, insisted that Stone had been on the KGB payroll "for more than two decades.

. . . . Now Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, working with ex-KGB agent, Alexander Vassiliev, have entered the fray with an article in Commentary magazine, drawn from their new book, Spies. They agree that until now, “There was no firm evidence that Stone had agreed to cooperate with the KGB.” Nevertheless, they insist that long before these events took place, “from 1936 to 1939, I.F. Stone was a Soviet spy.”  (Daily Beast, 22 Apr 09)

Rosenberg May Have Enlisted Two Spies

Julius Rosenberg, who recruited his brother-in-law David Greenglass to steal atomic secrets, also enlisted a second spy to penetrate the Manhattan Project, the program that developed the atomic bomb during World War II, according to a new book by authorities on Soviet espionage.  The authors conclude that the spy nicknamed in decoded Soviet cables as Fogel or Persian was not the scientists Robert Oppenheimer or Philip Morrison, as some investigators have speculated, but Rosenberg’s recruit, Russell W. McNutt, a relatively obscure engineer who helped build the uranium processing plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that was part of the Manhattan Project.  Mr. McNutt, a graduate of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and a former assistant Manhattan borough engineer, died a year ago at 93. Though he had been identified as a Communist sympathizer, earlier American counterintelligence did not identify him as a member of the Rosenberg spy ring.  (New York Times, 18 Jan 09)

Today in History - April 17

1961: Some 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.

Today in History - April 5

1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death following their conviction in New York on charges of conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union; co-defendant Morton Sobell was sentenced to 30 years in prison. (He was released in 1969.)

March 2009

West Virginia Women Make History

The women of West Virginia have played important roles not only in the history of our beloved state, but also in the history of our great nation. Therefore, with March being celebrated as “Women’s History Month,” I want to acknowledge some great West Virginia women and their contributions.   In the days before West Virginia was officially a state, women like Anne Bailey and Betty Zane served as scouts and messengers, and, at times, participated in the fighting of the colonial Indian Wars and the American Revolution.   During the Civil War, Nancy Hart and Belle Boyd carried on espionage work for the Confederates. Another West Virginian, Nancy Hanks of Mineral County, married Thomas Lincoln, and had a baby boy she named Abraham, who served as our 16th President during the Civil War.  (HNN, 25 Mar 09)

Research reveals depth of Sweden-US Cold War relations

New research has shown that Sweden's relations with the United States ran more deeply during the Cold War than was previously known and the countries enjoyed a close military cooperation.  While outwardly neutral in the Cold War stand off between east and west, the US and the Soviet Union, Sweden's defence and security forces were crucial to the country's influence in Washington, Svenska Dagbladet reports.  "The military cooperation between the US and Sweden was of much greater significance that previously known," says the author of a new doctoral thesis, Jerker Widén at the Swedish National Defence College (Försvarshögskolan), to Svenska Dagbladet. Widén's thesis, entitled "Guardian, proxy, critic - Sweden's role in American security thinking 1961-1968", lays out Sweden's multiple role in the eyes of the US at the time, going further than previous studies which have mostly focused on diplomatic ties. Widén writes that the US saw Sweden as the guardian of the western world in northern Europe. Sweden was seen as a crucial military-industrial base that must be kept out of Soviet hands.  The US embassy in Stockholm was populated by CIA agents and military attachés when the Cold War and the Vietnam War were at their most intense in the 1960s. Diplomatic representation was in the minority, Widén reveals.  Despite the Stig Wennerström spy scandal (Wennerström was arrested in June 1963 for spying for the Russians) and strong criticism over the Vietnam War by the then prime minister Olof Palme, Sweden-US relations were deepened further. (Local, 17 Mar 09)

The dirty war on our doorstep - Maurice Dufour Story

Maurice Dufour was a Frenchman who worked for British intelligence and saved dozens of RAF pilots from the Nazis. His reward? He was taken to a secret chamber in London and tortured by de Gaulle’s security agents. And, as newly unearthed documents reveal, Britain simply mounted a massive cover-up. . . . Dufour’s story is one of betrayal and injustice that not only shamed the authorities in wartime London but threatened the success of the D-Day landings, and necessitated a conspiracy and cover-up that echoed up the corridors of power in Whitehall and Washington. The full shocking truth of this dark-side scandal has remained hidden until today. . . . By any stretch of the imagination he was a man of courage, a hero — and when he escaped to London, all Dufour desired was to return to France to fight the Nazis. Instead he found himself the central figure in what is probably the last dirty secret of the second world war, the facts laid bare in classified documents that have been tucked away from public scrutiny. Caught up in the scandal and actively involved in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and cover up torture and murder are some of the most colourful and respected names of Britain’s wartime Establishment — a top policeman, the world’s most famous pathologist, civil servants and politicians. And it tarnishes the very reputations of two key allied leaders, Winston Churchill and General Charles de Gaulle. . . . the scandal might still remain buried but for an indiscreet remark by a retired US wartime intelligence officer and a dogged trawl through piles of bureaucratic government files in London and Washington.  (Times Online, 15 Mar 09)

Arrested as a German spy – as he spoke Welsh in Scotland

His was the remarkable tale of the prisoner of war escapee arrested as a German spy – for speaking Welsh on his return to British soil. Such was the climate of fear in wartime Scotland that when Welsh-speaker William Roberts landed back in the UK his lack of English placed his life in danger. . . . William Roberts was a farm worker in Llanbrynmair, near Welshpool when, aged 21, he was called up to the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1940. Despite being a first language Welsh speaker with a poor grasp of English, he received just three weeks of English tuition before being sent to the frontline.  After being captured during the D-Day landings he was made a prisoner of war, during which time he learned a little bit of English, Polish, German and French. . . . His prison job gave him some freedom to move around the camp and one night he cut a hole in the fence and escaped. Despite being shot at and losing his big toe as a result of his injuries, he eventually found safe haven on a British ship which was headed to Scotland.  But when the ship docked he was faced with another ordeal when he was arrested as a spy because he responded better to the authorities when they asked him questions in German than in English.  (Wales Online, 16 Mar 09)

Spy network gave Washington victory

George Washington defeated the British empire, not with his "ragtag Army," but with his extensive network of spies.  That's according to Eugene Poteat, a retired senior CIA executive who began to research the history of espionage decades ago.  "Washington had his spies everywhere," said Poteat, who helped establish the International Spy Museum in Washington. "He set up the most effective intelligence operation this country has ever seen."  Poteat lives in McLean, but was in Fredericksburg Saturday to address a group keenly interested in the exploits of the father of our country.  He spoke to the Col. Fielding Lewis Chapter of the Virginia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, at the Fredericksburg Country Club.  Poteat told the 15 members that Washington was a "spymaster extraordinaire" whose first exposure to military intelligence--or lack thereof--went back to the French and Indian War.  More than 1,500 soldiers and officers in Washington's company were killed or wounded in an ambush because their opponents knew their every move.  "Washington learned a hard lesson that day," Poteat said. "Never again would he engage in battle without proper intelligence."  During the Revolutionary War, Washington's first foray into spying ended badly. A young teacher who stood over 6 feet tall, with flaming red hair, volunteered for spy duty, even though he hardly blended in a crowd.  "I've heard a lot of history discussed among this group today, so you know where this is going," Poteat said.  He added what many already knew: that Nathan Hale--whose only regret was that he had but one life to give for his country--was the volunteer who was caught and hanged by the British.  (Free Lance-Star, 16 Mar 09)

Double life of Witold Pilecki, the Auschwitz volunteer who uncovered Holocaust secrets

was perhaps the bravest act of espionage of the Second World War. After voluntarily being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp for 2½ years, and smuggling out its darkest secrets to the Allies, Witold Pilecki overcame a guard and, with two comrades, escaped almost certain death.  Now new details have emerged of the extraordinary tale of the Polish officer who hatched a plot with the country's resistance to be rounded up by the occupying Germans in September 1940 and sent to the most notorious Nazi extermination centre. At the time Auschwitz was predominantly a camp for captured resistance fighters, although Jews and anyone considered a threat to the Nazi regime were also being sent there.  Newly released documents from the Polish archives reveal how Mr. Pilecki, going under the false name Tomasz Serafinski, went about setting up an underground resistance group in the camp, recruiting its members and organizing it into a coherent movement. . . Mr. Pilecki's reports from the camp were channeled to the Allies via a courier system that the Polish Resistance operated throughout occupied Europe. By 1942 Mr. Pilecki's organization realized the existence of the gas chambers and he worked on several plans to liberate Auschwitz, including one in which the RAF would bomb the walls, or Free Polish paratroopers would fly in from Britain.  However, in 1943, realizing that the Allies had no plans to liberate the camp, he and two others escaped. The new documents include a Gestapo manhunt alert after his escape. Mr. Pilecki ensured that a full report on the camp reached London, and the resistance group he started in Auschwitz continued to feed information to Britain and the United States, confirming that the Nazis were bent on the extermination of the Jews. . .He was, however, caught by the Polish Communist regime. In a twist of fate, a Polish Jew administered the torture during his interrogation. Mr. Pilecki's wife was invited to visit and he told her that his time in Auschwitz was child's play by comparison. After a show trial he was given three death sentences and shot. The new material includes his charge sheet, which has 132 subsections, each listing a separate alleged crime. “From July 1945 to May 1947 the accused worked against the Polish state as a paid resident of an overseas intelligence agency,” one accusation reads. “The worst crime committed against the state was that he was acting in the interests of foreign imperialism, to which he has completely sold out through a prolonged period of work as a spy.” The implication is clear: Mr. Pilecki was providing information on the Soviet-backed regime that was finding its way to MI6. (Times Online, 12 Mar 09)

Times Archive: Inside Story-Fighting Auschwitz

Could Churchill have stopped 'bestial policy'?

The new evidence suggesting that Britain was aware of Witold Pilecki's plans to liberate Auschwitz will reignite the long-running debate over how much Winston Churchill knew about the death camp and whether he did enough to prevent the genocide taking place there.  There is little doubt that Churchill, in contrast to many of his contemporaries, was a staunch defender of the Jews and one of the few statesmen to grasp the enormity of the Holocaust.  As early as 1941 the code-breakers at Bletchley Park had furnished Churchill with ample evidence of the systematic mass murder of Jews. By 1942 he was condemning what he called “a bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination”. More specifically, he knew that a train containing 4,000 Jewish children had left Lyon for “somewhere in Poland”.  (Times Online, 12 Mar 09)

Declassified MI5 file shows Nazi spy almost changed course of war

A Nazi spy came within days of uncovering one of the Allies' most important missions and possibly changing the direction of the Second World War.   The story of a Portuguese wireless operator and the dramatic decision to pluck him from his vessel on the high seas to prevent him from betraying the position of a huge convoy bound for North Africa is revealed for the first time in a declassified MI5 file released by the National Archives.

Gastao de Freitas Ferraz was being paid by German intelligence to send coded messages about convoys to U-boat commanders and was on the tail of the Allied warships.  The convoy included the USS Augusta, an American light cruiser that was carrying no less a person than General George S. Patton. General Patton was at that time in command of Operation Torch, the planned invasion of French North Africa, which was aimed at destroying the Axis forces fighting the British there and improving naval control of the Mediterranean.  The Allies considered Operation Torch so important that they fed the Germans with false intelligence: their double agent Garbo told the Germans that the Allies were planning an attack in either northern France or Norway.

Ferraz, who had been transmitting encrypted messages from his fishing boat, Gil Eannes, in the Atlantic, unwittingly had it in his power to sink the Allies' plans by reporting the size and direction of the convoy. But unknown to the Germans, the messages were being intercepted and deciphered by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire. On August 9, 1942, MI5 was sent a “most secret” letter that referred to the “alleged un-neutral behavior” of a certain Portuguese wireless operator . . . With the fishing vessel getting closer to the Operation Torch convoy, the Foreign Office agreed, and the Admiralty sent out a secret signal to all relevant commands: “If the vessel is sighted West of 11 degrees West, she should be ordered not to use W/T [wireless transmission], de Freitas [Ferraz] should be removed and in order to ensure that no further use of W/T is made, an armed guard should be put on board.”  The warship HMS Duke of York duly intercepted Gil Eannes and Ferraz was detained and taken to Gibraltar. He was transferred to MI5's interrogation centre at Camp 020 in Ham, West London, where he confessed. After the war he was deported to Portugal.  (Times Online, 3 Mar 09)

British files reveal mission to nab Nazi spy

Newly released British intelligence files reveal how a Nazi spy was snatched from a boat on the high seas before he could warn Germany that an Allied convoy was steaming ahead to invade North Africa.  It was a little-known episode that changed the course of World War II.  Gastao de Freitas Ferraz, the radio operator on a Portuguese cod-fishing vessel, was secretly feeding Germany information about the movements of Allied ships in the North Atlantic.  The story of his capture, a week before the invasion by U.S. and British forces, is contained in previously secret documents from the MI5 security service released Tuesday by Britain's National Archives.

Cambridge University historian Christopher Andrew said the file "changes our understanding of British history" and offers new information on Britain's intelligence battle against the Nazis.  On Nov. 8, 1942, British and American troops under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in Morocco and Algeria, which were occupied by the troops from Germany and the pro-Nazi Vichy French regime.  The French forces were quickly overcome, but German troops under Gen. Erwin Rommel resisted and pushed the Allies back. After fierce armored desert battles lasting into 1943, the Germans were defeated. It was a turning point in the war that helped lay the groundwork for the D-Day invasion of 1944.  But all that might have changed if Freitas Ferraz had not been captured. . . Freitas Ferraz was deported to Portugal in 1945. In 1953, his name was included on a list of deportees who no longer needed to be banned from Britain for security reasons. In 1955, his file was marked closed.  (AP, 2 Mar 09)

Enigma machine helped Royal Navy to intercept German spy

The Enigma machine helped changed the course of the Second World War by allowing the Royal Navy to intercept a German spy about to run into an Allied invasion fleet heading for North Africa, according to newly released files.

British intelligence had been running a number of double agents who were telling the Germans that the Allies were planning to invade both France and Norway, diverting attention from the looming battle in North Africa.  "Operation Torch" followed closely on the heels on the battle of el-Alamein which allowed Churchill to declare that he had seen the "end of the beginning" of the war, as the Allies took control of the Mediterranean.  But the invasion and the carefully planned deception operation almost came to nothing, new files released by MI5 reveal.  A telegram of October 28 1942, 11 days before the invasion, noted that they had been closely watching the activities of the ostensibly neutral Portuguese fishing fleet off the banks of Newfoundland and had "reason to believe that one or more of these vessels carried German agents."   Referring to an intercepted message, decoded by Enigma, it added: "We have now obtained from the most secret sources, information which not only proves our suspicions but actually identifies the man concerned."  (Telegraph, 2 Mar 09)

February 2009

Medal of Honor Hero Recognized Decades Later

. . .Next he fought in the Spanish Civil War as a corporal in the socialist Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It was an American volunteer unit opposing Gen. Franco's fascist troops. In 1938, they were forced to flee into France. This led to his return to the United States.  Here he met and married his wife Mildred in Los Angeles in 1940. It wasn't long, though, before destiny called again. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Sept. 6, 1941, shortly before World War II, and quickly rose to staff sergeant. In 1942, just months after he enlisted, the Army opened a counterintelligence file with his name on it.  On May 18, 1943, an unidentified intelligence officer at Fort Benning, Ga. "deemed it advisable" to put Sergeant Carter under surveillance and start an investigation. The officer did so because Carter had been a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Allegedly, "while not necessarily communist," he had been "exposed to communism."  (Armed News Service, 25 Feb 09)

Spy hotel opens after £16m revamp

A 125-year-old London hotel, which was used as a temporary base by the British secret service during World War I, has reopened after a £16m revamp. The Royal Horseguards Hotel is connected to Whitehall by underground passages used during the war. Guests will now be offered guided tours of the building to learn about its secret past. (BBC, 26 Feb 09)

Slave in Jefferson Davis' home gave Union key secrets

William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.

Jackson was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a "piece of furniture" -- not a human, according to Ken Dagler, author of "Black Dispatches," which explores espionage by America's slaves.  "Because of his role as a menial servant, he simply was ignored," Dagler said. "So Jefferson Davis would hold conversations with military and Confederate civilian officials in his presence."  Dagler has written extensively on the issue for the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence.  In late 1861, Jackson fled across enemy lines and was immediately debriefed by Union soldiers. Dagler said Jackson provided information about supply routes and military strategy.  (CNN, 20 Feb 09)

Events commemorate unjust WWII Japanese detentions

. . . Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942, giving the government power to uproot entire innocent communities due to fears of "sabotage and espionage."  In 1988, President Reagan signed a law that apologized and paid $20,000 to each survivor.  "We have this shared history," said Bonnie Clark, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Denver who is excavating materials from a former internment camp. The artifacts will be displayed during the university's remembrance program.  (AP, 19 Feb 09)

Tales of the Tower #23

Members of the local U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary were put on submarine watch duty here during World War II atop a 71-foot concrete tower on Sunset Boulevard.  That little known fact is just coming to light, and not a moment too soon. The Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts is finishing a $1.3 million renovation of the tower and will open it to the public March 27.   -The U.S. Army built 15 of the reinforced concrete towers in New Jersey and Delaware to protect the strategic Delaware Bay against a German or Japanese invasion. The one here was called Fire Control Tower No. 23, with the name coming from artillery fire and not forest fires. The main purpose of the towers was to use the azimuth system to plot firing ranges against a foreign invasion fleet or air raid. The tower worked in conjunction with Battery 223, a large concrete bunker now on the beach that housed the artillery guns.  There never was an invasion, although after the war it was discovered the Germans had a plan to bottle up the mouth of the Delaware Bay to stop shipments of munitions and oil and to hurt the shipbuilding industry, Heinly said.  (Press of Atlantic City, 18 Feb 09)

Today in History February 11

1986 - Jewish dissident Anatoly Scharansky walks to freedom in Berlin after almost nine years in Soviet captivity on espionage charges.

Today in History - February 10

1962: The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.

Gary Powers Returns to U.S.

The exchange ended a crisis that began in May 1960, when Powers was shot down by the Soviets during a spying mission.  The U.S. military had developed the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s, in response to concerns about the Soviet Union's growing array of military technology. It took 88 days to build, according to Military.com.
But as Walter Cronkite notes, the situation resulted in a catch 22……(Finding Dulcinea, 10 Feb 09)

January 2009

Nazi find sheds light on Egypt's sensitive past

Nazi hunters urged Egypt on Friday to come clean about how much it knew about a fugitive dubbed "Dr. Death," who reportedly lived here for decades until he died in 1992. But Egypt has long kept a strict silence about former Nazis reported to have taken refuge on its soil.  The discovery of Aribert Heim's secret life throws light on how the Arab world took in members of the Nazi regime after World War II, said Efraim Zuroff, head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The region's role as a haven has gone little examined while researchers focused on the larger, better known influx of Nazis to Latin America.  A number of Nazis are believed to have been welcomed in the 1950s by the Egyptian regime of then-President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who was locked in an intense rivalry with Israel that erupted into wars in 1956 and 1967. Nasser enlisted some Nazis to train Egypt's military or produce anti-Israel propaganda _ and Israel feared they were involved in building a rocket program……..(AP, 6 Feb 08)

Today in History – January 23

On Jan. 23, 1968, North Korea seized the Navy intelligence ship USS Pueblo, charging its crew with being on a spying mission. (The crew was released 11 months later.)

North Korea Seizes U.S. Ship

The USS Pueblo was part of Operation Clickbeetle, an intelligence-gathering operation off the coast of North Korea. It began its mission on Jan. 11, 1968, positioning itself in international waters, over 12 miles off the coast of North Korea.  The Pueblo, a refurbished Army vessel originally built during World War II, was in poor condition. “The ship never should have left the port,” writes Ohio State University professor Mitchell Lerner. “Suffering from a vast array of technical problems, the Pueblo was barely capable of floating. The steering engine failed 180 times in 3 days.”  On Jan. 23, 1968, North Korea, claiming that the Pueblo “intruded into the territorial waters of the Republic and was carrying out hostile activities,” sent out a squad of torpedo boats to seize the ship. The Pueblo attempted to flee, but the rundown ship was easily caught and boarded. The crew tried to destroy intelligence data and other sensitive information, but the North Koreans fired on the ship—killing one sailor—and were able to seize valuable intelligence items……(Finding Dulcinea, 23 Jan 09)

Today in History - January 21

1950: Former State Department official Alger Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury. (Hiss, who always proclaimed his innocence, served less than four years in prison.)

Hiss Accused of Espionage, Convicted of Perjury

Alger Hiss, former State Department official and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, had been accused of being a communist by Time magazine editor Whittaker Chambers, himself a former communist.  Chambers first made the accusation on Aug. 3, 1948 before the House Un-American Activities Committee, claiming that Hiss had provided him with State Department documents when they were both part of the communist underground. Hiss denied the charges before HUAC, where he received hostile treatment from then-unknown Calif. Rep. Richard Nixon.  Hiss later sued Chambers for libel; while preparing for the libel lawsuit, Chambers told his lawyers that Hiss was not just a communist, but also a spy for the Soviet Union. As proof, he handed over a collection of typewritten copies of confidential government documents that Hiss had given him 10 years before. Later, he led authorities to his Maryland farm, where inside a pumpkin he had hidden strips of microfilm containing State Department documents that Hiss allegedly gave him…Hiss could not be charged with espionage because the statute of limitations had expired, so a federal grand jury charged him with perjury for lying to HUAC about his communist links. Prosecutors tracked down Hiss’ old typewriter and matched the typeface of the copied government documents to Hiss’ model of typewriter……(Finding Dulcinea, 21 Jan 09)

War Stories: The Pueblo Incident

Monday, January 26 at 3 p.m. ET, Fox Network 

FOX News examines the Pueblo incident — a story that has all the ingredients of a major Hollywood thriller: high-tech espionage, communist villains and — most-importantly — American military heroes captured and subjected to brutal torture for months on end. And when it was finally over, a brave crew that returned to their homeland only to receive less than a hero's welcome.  We'll take you inside an astonishing tale of miscalculation and mistakes that brought the United States to the brink of war. And it is the story of a staggering intelligence loss that compromised national security for nearly two decades…..(Fox, 16 Jan 09)

Washington's spy museum covers broad swath of espionage history

Espionage is called the second oldest profession in the world and it's no less thrilling and wild as the world's oldest profession, prostitution. For centuries, people have spied on each other, fascinated by the intrigue, deception and in modern times by the latest technical gadgetry used to uncover secrets. And naturally, after the end of the Cold War, stories of espionage and the objects used to spy during that historical era became an obvious subject for a museum. Just such a facility opened in the summer of 2002 in Washington, DC. Dedicated to highlighting the adventure and enigmatic past of the mysterious trade craft, the International Spy Museum attracts nearly 1 million visitors annually. It describes itself as the only public museum in the United States solely dedicated to espionage and the only one in the world providing a global perspective on the profession…..(DPA, 13 Jan 09)

Historians in Handcuffs

My quest has to do with the Hiss case, one of the most important trials of the twentieth century. Alger Hiss was indicted for perjury sixty years ago this month; the cold war he was indelibly identified with has been over for almost two decades. Yet I'm still being stonewalled in my requests. (Hiss's federal indictment related to charges that he had committed espionage for the Soviet Union in the 1930s; he was convicted in 1950 and imprisoned for forty-four months. He died in 1996, proclaiming his innocence to the end.)  My involvement began in the mid-1970s, after Hiss and a journalist named William A. Reuben had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents related to the case. Soon after the first government documents began arriving, I was hired to sort through the papers and make sense of them. The problem was that while the bureau eventually released nearly 50,000 pages on the case, many were severely censored with black marker, while countless others were withheld in their entirety. The result was that our attempts at understanding what the FBI did or didn't do to help secure Hiss's conviction were severely undermined. Our efforts continued through the 1980s and early 1990s. Then, in 1993, President Clinton directed all government agencies to comply with the spirit of the FOIA, declaring that "openness in government is essential to accountability and the Act has become an integral part of that process."

Encouraged, we filed a new suit to have the FBI release Hiss's entire file intact and without deletions. After years of delay, the first batches of unredacted documents began to trickle in, and for the first time a clear picture began to emerge of what the bureau was up to in the 1940s. The spigot was soon closed, however, with the onset of the Bush administration. Although I continue to receive documents (and the FBI has now said that the number of Hiss-related documents in its files approximates 500,000), those released over the past couple of years have contained more deletions than those that were made available in the 1970s……(Nation, 12 Jan 09)

Poland: Mass Grave Found

Construction workers in northern Poland have unearthed a World War II-era mass grave containing what are believed to be the bodies of 1,800 German men, women and children who disappeared during the Soviet Army’s march to Berlin. Poles digging at the site of a planned luxury hotel in Malbork — which was called Marienburg and was part of Germany during the war — excavated a bomb crater at the foot of a famous 13th-century Teutonic Knights fortress, the authorities said Monday. The workers found a small group of bodies in late October and halted digging to allow an investigation. After resuming work weeks later, they discovered hundreds more corpses……(AP, 12 Jan 09)

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