Perlo group

Last updated

Headed by Victor Perlo, the Perlo group is the name given to a group of Americans who provided information which was given to Soviet intelligence agencies; it was active during the World War II period, until the entire group was exposed to the FBI by the defection of Elizabeth Bentley. [1]

Contents

It had sources on the War Production Board, the Senate La Follette Subcommittee on Civil Liberties, and in the United States Department of Treasury.[ citation needed ]

Evidence

Account of Elizabeth Bentley

On July 31, 1948, Elizabeth Bentley testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC):

MISS BENTLEY: I had one other group that I handled, and I had every reason to believe there were other groups also.
MR. STRIPLING: What was the other group that you handled?
MISS BENTLEY: We called it the Perlo group. It was actually an ex-Communist Party unit that I believe had been set up in Washington in the early thirties, and I gather, from what the members of the group told me, that they had been in a minor way collecting information for some years but not in an organized fashion. [2]

Much useful additional information on the activities of the Perlo group was given by the Venona project. The first Venona transcript referencing the Perlo group gives the names of all the members in clear text, as code names had not yet been assigned.[ citation needed ]

Bentley advised that Jacob Golos informed her he had made contact with a group in Washington, D.C. through Earl Browder. After the death of Golos in 1943, two meetings were arranged with this group in 1944. The first meeting was arranged by Browder and was held in early 1944. The meetings were held in the apartment of John Abt in New York City and Bentley was introduced to four individuals identified as Victor Perlo, Charles Kramer, Harry Magdoff and Edward Fitzgerald.[ citation needed ]

Account of Whittaker Chambers

On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers testified before HUAC:

MR. CHAMBERS: The apparatus was organized with a leading group of seven men, each of whom was a leader of the cell.
MR. STRIPLING: Could you name the seven individuals ?
MR. CHAMBERS: The head of the group as I have said was at first Nathan Witt. Other members of the group were Lee Pressman, Alger Hiss, Donald Hiss, Victor Perlo, Charles Kramer...
MR. STRIPLING: When Miss Bentley testified before the committee last Saturday, Mr. Chambers, she mentioned the name of Victor Perlo as being the head of an espionage group. You have named Victor Perlo as a member of the apparatus.
MR. CHAMBERS: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: At that time do you know whether or not Victor Perlo was employed in the Government?
MR. CHAMBERS: I believe at that time Victor Perlo was employed by the Brookings Institution.
MR. MUNDT: I think we read his employment record into the record of the hearing while Miss Bentley was testifying, did we not?
MR. STRIPLING: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have his employment history here. It is already in the record.
MR. MUNDT: He was employed with the Government several times?
MR. STRIPLING: That is true, and was with the Brookings Institution, also. [2]

In his memoir (1952), Chambers recalled:

A crisis, he (J. Peters) said, had developed in the (Harold Ware) Group (following Ware's accidental death). Victor Perlo believed that he should succeed Ware as Group leader. He was being stubborn and surly about it. All the other members of the leadership believed that Nathan Witt was Ware's natural heir. A deadlock had resulted, for, though the rest might easily have outvoted Perlo, they did not wish to risk trouble in the Group by alienating him. Peters was also for Witt. So was I. But Peters did not wish to use his authority to act against any member of the Group in favor of another member. Peters asked me if I would come in and, since my personal authority was high with the Group, give my reasons why I was for Witt.
I went in. I said that we must first of all treat the problem that had arisen as Communists, without personalities, and bearing in mind the peculiar nature of underground work and its unusual requirements, especially in the personal character of leadership. I asked Perlo's pardon for observing that he was a tense and nervous man, and that his very belief in his own qualifications for leadership, while perhaps quite justified, would actually be a handicap so long as it was not shared by the rest of the Group. Of course, we Communists did not believe in any mystical rightness of majorities over minorities, but we did believe in practical solutions to practical problems. Witt was acknowledged to be quiet, firm and solid. He had the confidence of all the members of the Group except Perlo. Therefore, I was for Witt.
Perlo, of course, was unconvinced, but he agreed to abide by discipline. Thereafter, he would scarcely speak to me. Later, according to Elizabeth Bentley, he rose to the leadership he coveted in her espionage group. [3]

Account in Venona

The Perlo group fits into the Venona project information when transcript # 687 of 13 May 1944 is examined. Iskhak Akhmerov in New York City personally prepared a report to MGB headquarters in Moscow advising that some unspecified action had been taken regarding Elizabeth Bentley in accordance with instructions of Earl Browder. Akhmerov then made reference to winter and also to Harry Magdoff. This latter reference was then followed by a statement that in Bentley's opinion "they" are reliable. It was also mentioned that no one had interested himself in their possibilities.[ citation needed ]

The name Golovin was mentioned, and it was then reported that Victor Perlo, Charles Kramer, Edward Fitzgerald and Harry Magdoff would take turns coming to New York every two weeks. Akhmerov said Kramer and Fitzgerald knew Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, whose cover name was later changed to "Robert".[ citation needed ]

Records in KGB Archives

Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev in Haunted Wood,[ citation needed ] a book written from an examination of KGB Archives in Moscow, report the KGB credits the Perlo group members with having sent, among other items, the following 1945 U.S. Government documents to Moscow:

February

March

April

June

August

October

Members

Victor Perlo headed the Perlo group. Perlo was originally allegedly a member of the Ware group before World War II. After receiving a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University in 1933, Perlo worked at a number of New Deal government agencies among a group of economists known as "Harry Hopkins' bright young men." The group worked, among other things, for creation and implementation of the WPA jobs program, and helped push through unemployment compensation, the Wagner National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and Social Security. During World War II, Perlo served in several capacities, working first as chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board, then in the Office of Price Administration, and later for the Treasury Department. Perlo left the government in 1947. Perlo also worked for the Brookings Institution and wrote American Imperialism. Perlo's code name in Soviet intelligence was "Eck" and "Raid" appearing in Venona project as "Raider".[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Dexter White</span> American economist and spy (1892–1948)

Harry Dexter White was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World War II. He was later accused of espionage by passing information to the Soviet Union.

Victor Perlo was an American Marxist economist, government functionary, and a longtime member of the governing National Committee of the Communist Party USA.

Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, an economist with the United States War Production Board (WPB) during World War II, was the head of a large ring of Communist spies in the U.S. government. It is from him that the FBI Silvermaster File, documenting the Bureau's investigation into Communist penetration of the Federal government during the 1930s and 1940s, takes its name. His wife, Helen and stepson, Anatole Volkov, were members of his ring.

Harold Glasser was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) 'throughout its whole life' and he had a 'predominant voice' in determining which countries should receive aid. Glasser was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies during World War II and worked closely with Harry Dexter White. His code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona files is "Ruble".

Charles Kramer, originally Charles Krevisky was a 20th-Century American economist who worked for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his brain trust. Among other contributions, he wrote the original idea for the Point Four Program. He also worked for several congressional committees and hired Lyndon B. Johnson for his first Federal job. Kramer was alleged a Soviet spy as member of the Ware Group, but no charges were brought against him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Bentley</span> Cold War Soviet spy

Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American NKVD spymaster, who was recruited from within the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). She served the Soviet Union as the primary handler of multiple highly placed moles within both the United States Federal Government and the Office of Strategic Services from 1938 to 1945. After being rendered bereft by the 1943 death of her lover, NKVD New York City station chief Jacob Golos, a heartbroken Bentley defected by contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and debriefing about her own espionage activities.

Edward Joseph Fitzgerald was an American who worked for the War Production Board during World War II and was an adviser to Senator Claude Pepper. He was alleged to have been a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies. Fitzgerald's name in Venona project decrypt 588 New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, was sent in the clear to Moscow by Soviet Case Officer Iskhak Akhmerov reporting on Elizabeth Bentley's meeting with Perlo group.

As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals, as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the United States, forming various spy rings. Particularly during the 1940s, some of these espionage networks had contact with various U.S. government agencies. These Soviet espionage networks illegally transmitted confidential information to Moscow, such as information on the development of the atomic bomb. Soviet spies also participated in propaganda and disinformation operations, known as active measures, and attempted to sabotage diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and its allies.

John Jacob Abt was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Group" as alleged by Whittaker Chambers.

Irving Kaplan was an official of the United States government, accused of involvement in Soviet espionage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Price (alleged spy)</span> American who spied for the Soviet Union

Mary Wolfe Price (1909–1980) was an American who was accused of being a spy for the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Magdoff</span> American economist

Harry Samuel Magdoff was a prominent American socialist commentator. He held several administrative positions in government during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and later became co-editor of the Marxist publication Monthly Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iskhak Akhmerov</span>

Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov (1901–1976) was a highly decorated OGPU/NKVD (KGB) Soviet security officer, best known to historians for his role in KGB operations in the United States 1942–1945. His name appears in the Venona decryptions over fifty times, often as signatory, and on his return to the Soviet Union in 1945/46, he rose to deputy chief of the KGB's 'illegal' intelligence section.

Harry Magdoff was accused by a number of authors as having been complicit in Soviet espionage activity during his time in US government. He was accused of passing information to Soviet intelligence networks in the United States, primarily through what the FBI called the "Perlo Group." Magdoff was never indicted, but after the end of the Cold War, a number of scholars have inspected declassified documents from U.S. and Soviet archives. They cite these documents to support the claim that Magdoff was involved in espionage. Other authors have taken issue with some of the broader interpretations of such materials which implicate many Americans in espionage for the Soviet Union, and the allegation that Harry Magdoff was an information source for the Soviets is disputed by several academics and historians asserting that Magdoff probably had no malicious intentions and committed no crimes.

Alexander Koral was an American member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) who headed a network of spies for Soviet intelligence during World War II called the "Art" or "Berg" group. Koral's wife, Helen Koral, also was involved with the group.

Elza Akhmerova, also Elsa Akhmerova was an American citizen, born Helen Lowry. She is a niece of Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). She died of leukemia.

The Silvermaster File of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation is a 162-volume compendium totalling 26,000 pages of documents relating to the FBI's investigation of GRU and NKVD moles inside the U.S. federal government both before and during the Cold War.

Allan Robert Rosenberg was a 20th-century American labor lawyer and civil servant, accused as a Soviet spy by Elizabeth Bentley and listed under Party name "Roy, code names "Roza" in the VENONA Papers and code name "Sid" in the Vasilliev Papers; he also defended Dr. Benjamin Spock.

References

  1. ↑ Clever Girl: Elizabeth Bentley, the Spy Who Ushered in the McCarthy Era , Lauren Kessler, Harper Collins, 2009.
  2. 1 2 "Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government". Archives.org (originally U.S. Government Printing Office). October 22, 1948. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  3. ↑ Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House. pp. 799 (total). LCCN   52005149.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.