THE FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR WHO THOUGHT FDR A COMINTERN AGENT!

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100050101-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 1, 1998
• Sequence Number: 101
• Publication Date: January 8, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

Lifts the Curtain on a Peculiar
FOIAb3b
The FBI Deputy Direc.,or Who Thought FDR A Cominte.+:i Agent!
On December IS . xve m published an interview
with Harold A. R. Philby who fled to Moscow in 1963
after several decades as a double-agent planted by the
Soviet secret service in British intelligence. A trans-
lation filled a full page of the New York Times Dec.
19. Philby worked closely with the FBI and the
CIA. The most fascinating part of the interview for
Americans was his recollections of D. Milton Ladd,
who until his 1'htirement in 1954 was a deputy director
of the FBI. Philby said Ladd made "an indelible im-
pression" because "this astonishingly dense personage
tried to convince me in all seriousness that Franklin
Roosevelt was a Comintern agent."
A /~ L .(~iJ ib r C: Y. Wi ~L'v g~7~1ters
ch ~ ry :. r\iL 1~ 1~lai\4\rY.7
This will not surprise those aware of the rightist
paranoia prevalent in the FBI. I recall that during
World War II, I published in the newspaper PM a
series exposing the kind of loyalty interrogations to-
which Federal employes were even then being sub-
jected by the FBI. Employes were asked whether they
had ever entertained Negroes or subscribed to liberal
publications like The Nation. The year after Ladd
retired, he and Stanley J. Tracey, another retired as-
sistant to J. Edgar Hoover, founded a free public li-
brary in Washington to provide information - about
subversive groups and individuals. This was the
height of McCarthyism (J. Edgar Hoover was himself
a great admirer of McCarthy). It is easy to imagine
the kind of information this library provided.
While liberal connections were grounds for sus-
picion, Fascist sympathies seemed to be a recommen.
What Soviet Youth Finds ?Inspir:..b in the USA
"Freedom of speech and of the press is, first of all,
freedom for criticism. Nobody has ever forbidden praise
of the Government. If in the [Soviet] Constitution
there are articles about freedom of speech and of the
press, then have the patience: to listen to criticism. In
what kinds of countries'.is it forbidden to criticize the
government and protest against its actions? Perhaps
in capitalist countries? No. We know that in bour-
geois countries Communist parties exist whose purpose
it is to undermine the capitalist .system. In the USA
the Communist party was suppressed. However, the
Supreme Court declared that the suppression was un-
constitutional and restored the Communist party to its
full rights."
-Vladimir I. Bukovsky, in a Soviet court last Sept.
1, where he was sentenced to 3 years in prison for or-
ganizing a street demonstration to protest the arrest
of the editors of an underground literary magazine.
(Text in New York Times Dec. 27.)
dation. Philby says he rose in British intelligence and
won the confidence of men like Ladd in the FBI and
Allen Dulles in the CIA by his success in posing as a
Fascist sympathizer. He was decorated by Franco dur-
ing the Spanish Civil War and enjoyed warm relations
with Hitler's Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop. Philby
was an active member in the pro-Nazi Anglo.German
Friendship Society. This past seems to have convinced
his colleagues in both Britain and America. that Philby
was a dependable fellow.
Philby seems to be a bit of a liberal; for he told a
London Sunday Times writer that he deplored' the ,
Sinyavsky-Daniel trial as "a regrettable reversion to the
old spirit." But -that, of course, was not published in
Ixvestia.
.;ye-Wit ess Account: How We "Pacify" Them and Brutalize Ourselves
1 Bed, South *iehlent EiRfle file. vmla still bar.ring -
in the ruins. Frightened baby chicks chirped frantically in
search of their mothers. From the charred entry of one
of the buildings, a middle-aged peasant woman tentatively
poked her head, then emerged with a puzzled-looking little
boy. Quickly another much older looking woman followed
her and then several more children.
"Hey you, get over there," a tow-headed Marine, barely
20, shouted at the women and children. Slowly they padded
silently where he pointed. American jet bombers demolished
this.village with tons of bombs and napalm. The Commu-
nist troops had stolen away before dawn. Only the women
and children were left.
'?We should have killed them all," said the young Marine,
jabbing his M16 rifle in the direction of the crowd of women,
and children. "There's eight Marine bodies lying on the
landing zone across the rice paddles."
let them die." Wordlessly another Marine extended his
canteen and filled the man's cup.
Communist troops, firing from entrenchments on the tree
line in front of the village, killed or wounded an entire
Marine platoon on Thursday as it advanced across the rice
paddies. It was not until Friday, right after the air strikes,
that Marines dared enter the village.
Marines counted the spoils-two malaria-ridden men,
blindfolded and shaking, held on suspicion, and several
"captured" weapons, all of them rusted. As night fell
women and children started crying. The intelligence ser-
geant asked what was wrong, and the interpreter reported
they were "starving."
"-Won't anyone feed these people?" the Sergeant asked.
An oWcer, assigned to both calling in air strikes and di-
recting civil affairs, said he'd see what he could do. "First
I annihilate them and then I rehabilitate them," he said,
laughing as his joke own
J ended a tin can and pleaded for water. "Don't rive hini -Donald Kirk in the Washington Star Dec. 31. (Abr.)
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