EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT BY THE SOVIET INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R000300090002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 119
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 25, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: July 1, 1954
• Content Type: REPORT

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FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Aid
COMMUNISM
EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST
MOVEMENT BY THE SOVIET INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
July 1954
Copy
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EXPLOITATION OF THE =NATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT
BY THE SOVIET INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Introduction ix
PART ONE. THE COMINTERN: A MODEL FOR SOVIET INTELLIGENCE
EMPLOYMENT OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES AND THWIR
AFFILIATES
Section I. Introduction 1
1. Master Plan for Exploitation 1
2, Progressively Closer Soviet Intelligence Domination of
Comintern 2
3. Direct Assumption of Control 3
4. Role of Foreign Section of the Central Committee, CPSU 3
Section II. Soviet Information Procurement via Comintern
Facilities 5
5. Information Acquired through Comintern Org Department
Activity
6. International Liaison Department (OMS): Its
Acquisition of Information 5
7. Information (or Intelligence) Department 6
8. Press Section 6
9. Intelligence Procured through Comintern Auxiliary
Organizations 6
10. Reporting Done by Special Comintern "Reps" and
Observers 7
11. Party Intelligence Apparats of the Comintern Period . ^ 7
12. Whittaker Chambers' "Special Apparatus" and Its Base ? 8
13. Silvermaster-Perlo Groups 9
14. Channeling of Comintern Information to Soviet
Intelligence Agencies 10
5
Section III. The Comintern: A Recruitment and Training Base
for Soviet Intelligence 11
15. Comintern Schools: Personnel Bases for Soviet IS 11
16. Clandestine Action Departments of the Comintern:
Recruitment Bases for Soviet Intelligence 12
17. Transfer from Comintern Org Department to a Soviet IS ^ 12
18. Recruitment from Comintern OMS 13
19. Comintern Auxiliary Organizations as Recruitment
Bases 13
20. International Brigade: Manpower for Soviet
Intelligence 13
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Section III. (continued)
21. Young Communist International (YCI)
22. International of Seamen and Harbor Workers (ISH)
23. Comintern Files: An Aid for Soviet IS Recruitment
24. Recruitment from Early Established Party Apparats
Section IV. Comintern Operational and Technical Support for
Soviet Intelligence
000
Page
14
15
15
16
17
25. Source of Documentation: The International Brigade
.
17
26. The ISH/OMS Passport Offices
17
27. Duplication of Comintern Delegates' Passports
17
28. Cover Provided by Comintern Auxiliary Organization
0 ? 0
18
29. Transfer of Comintern Cover Firms
18
30. Comintern Communications Support for Soviet
Intelligence
18
31. Provision of Meeting Places
19
32. Supply of Safe Houses
19
33. Sabotage Support: ISH Facilities and Personnel
19
34. Concluding Remarks about Soviet Intelligence Use of
Comintern
20
PART TWO. SOVIET INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES IN THE EXPLOITATION
OF TFIE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT DURING
WORLD WAR II AND THE POSTWAR FEEIOD
Section V. Methods of Soviet Control Over the Espionage
Potential
25
35. CPSU Controls Facilitate Intelligence Exploitation
000
25
36. Soviet Intelligence Role in the Development of
Illegal Apparats
25
37. Covert Liaison System for Foreign Communist Party
Control
25
38. Soviet Domination of the International Fronts: An
Aid to Soviet Espionage
25
39. More Discreet Use of the International Fronts by
Soviet Intelligence
26
40. Soviet Intelligence-Communist Party Liaison
26
41. Covert Liaison Work Allegedly Now Done by Soviet
State Security
27
42. Security Accorded to Clandestine Liaison with the
Parties
27
43. Party Liaison Agents
28
44. Statements of Defectors about Soviet Liaison Agents
40
28
45. Tasks of the Party Liaison Agent
29
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Section VI. (continued)
67. Front Organizations: Instruments for Information
Procurement 53
68. The International Front Organizations.: Their
Intelligence Import 54
a. World Federation of Trade Unions 54
b. The International Federation of Resistants,
Victims, and Prisoners of Fascism (FIR) 55
c. World Peace Movement 55
69. National Front Organizations: Their Uses for Soviet
Intelligence 56
a. Story of an American Communist Active in Front
Organizations
56
National Department for Work Among Scientists
and Technicians 56
The FAECT 56
Scherer's Connections with Other Front
Groups 57
b. "Scientific" Front Organizations
c. The Canadian Association of Scientific Workers
? ? ?
58
59
Section VII. The National Communist Parties and Their Auxiliary
Organizations as Soviet Recruitment and Training Bases 61
70. Soviet Recruitment in the Communist Parties:
Statements of Defectors 61
71. Front Organizations as Recruitment Bases 62
72. Study and Professional Groups 63
73. Talent Spotting 64
74. Vetting 65
75. The Approach 66
76. Test Period for Recruits for a Soviet Professional
Network 66
77. Soviet Security Precautions in the Employment of
Communists for Espionage 67
78. Present Restrictions and Security Precautions in the
Recruitment of Non-Orbit Party Members 68
79. Current Restrictions in Soviet IS Use of Front
Organization Members 69
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Section V. (continued)
46. Organization Secretary Posts Held by Party Liaison
Agents 30
47. Control Commission Posts Held by Party Liaison Agents ? 31
48. Communist Party Parliamentarians 31
49. Party Newspaper Jobs 32
50. Leader of the Party Underground Section 32
51. Secretary General Posts 33
52. Leading Positions in National Front Organizations 33
53. No Regular Pattern for Soviet IS Use of Party Posts . ? ? 34
54. Cut-Outs Between the Soviet Legal or Illegal Resident
Agents and the Party Liaison Agent 34
55. Financial Provisions for Party Liaison Agents 35
Section VI. The Communist Parties: Auxiliary Soviet Information
Procurement Agencies 37
56. Semiovert Methods of Information Procurement 37
57. Automatic Reporting of Information to Party 38
58. Specific Party Directives for Information Procurement ? 38
59. Information Procurement and Party Propaganda Closely
Correlated 39
6o. Party and Front Organization "Research" Sections 14-o
61. Worker Correspondents 4o
62. Communist Party Covert Methods of Information
Procurement 42
63. Illegal Apparats Formed as Required 42
64. Apparats Frequently of More Than One Level 43
65. General Characteristics of Party Intelligence Apparats ? 43
66. Intelligence Apparats of Various National Communist
Parties 44
a. Labour-Progressive Party of Canada 44
(1) Ottawa-Toronto Group 45
(2) Apparats Organized by Fred Rose 46
b. Wartime Apparat in California 48
c. Norwegian Communist Party 48
d. Pro-Cominform Communist Party of Trieste 49
e. Greek Communist Party 50
f. Philippine Communist Party 51
g. French Communist Party (Post-World War II) 51
h. Tudeh Party 53
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Section VIII. General Operational and Technical Support
Furnished by the Communist Parties 71
80. Provision of Documentation 71
81. Party Assistance in Cover Arrangements: Business
Cover 73
82. Front Organization Buildings as Meeting Places 73
83. Provision of Safe Houses and Other Accommodations 74
84. Party-Supplied Emergency Communications: Courier
Service 74
85. Emergency Communications: Communist Party Radio
Transmissions 75
86. Emergency Funds Supplied by a Communist Party 75
87. Communist Party Operational Support for Soviet
Intelligence 76
88. Party or Front Organization Support for Soviet Sabotage
Operations 77
89. Communist Party Support for Liquidation Mission 77
Section IX. Role of Satellite Intelligence Services Vis-a-vis
Non-Orbit Communist Parties 79
90. Satellite Contacts in Non-Orbit Parties 79
91. Mutual Assistance Between Non-Orbit Parties and
Satellite Intelligence Services 79
92. Satellite Services: Possible Indirect Soviet Intelli-
gence Channels to Non-Orbit Communist Parties OOOOOO 8o
93. Schools in the Satellites: Recruitment Bases for
Satellite Intelligence Services 81
Section X. Soviet Intelligence Financial Contributions to
Foreign Communist Parties 83
94. Factors Determining Soviet Intelligence Subsidization
of Parties 83
95. Soviet Financing of Foreign Communist Parties 83
96. Vague Sources of Income Listed in Party Finance
Reports 83
Section XI. Conclusions 85
APPENDICES.
A. The Soviet Intelligence Services 89
B. Early Established Party Apparats 93
C. The Comintern Schools 97
GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS
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Comintern organization, its national sections and international and
national affiliates, the Soviets have had a well-conceived plan for
effectively utilizing the entire body to promote their intelligence
work. This plan has been carried out--with modification--to the present.
Each of the secret organizational units of the Comintern served
Soviet espionage in multiple ways. In the main, however, the Comintern
and its subsidiary organizations supported Soviet intelligence effort in
three major aspects: (1) by serving as auxiliary information procure-
ment agencies, acquiring information through overt and covert penetra-
tion systems; (2) by serving as recruitment and training bases for op-
eratives who were eventually transferred to a professional Soviet net-
work; (3) as sources of technical and operational support, such as
documentation, safe houses and other facilities, operational informa-
tion, assistance in liquidations, sabotage missions, etc.
b. Post-Comintern Auxiliary Agencies for Soviet Intelligence
Services. Since the dissolution of the Comintern, the Soviet govern-
ment has had four major auxiliary agencies or instruments which it has
exploited for information procurement abroad: (a) the national (foreign)
Communist Parties; (b) the national Communist-front organizations; (c) the
international front organizations; and (d) the Satellite intelligence
services, with their similar--sometimes parallel--links to non-Orbit
Communist Parties and front organizations. Following the pattern of ex-
ploitation established during the Comintern period, these auxiliary
agencies have supported Soviet intelligence in the three principal
aspects outlined in the preceding paragraph. Modifications in the em-
ployment of foreign Communist personnel and facilities which have become
necessary, mostly because of Soviet security considerations, will be
discussed later.
c. The Role of the Soviet Intelligence Services as Liaison Channels
for Moscow Political Directives and Secret Funds. It is an established
fact that there was a close working relationship between the Comintern
and the Soviet intelligence services. After the dissolution of the
Comintern apparatus and the absorption of its clandestine communication
components by a Soviet intelligence service, the function of directing
and supporting the International Communist Movement was vested in the
Foreign Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU).2 Recent information shows that the Foreign Section
ana the Praesidium of the CPSU have been using the services of Soviet
State Security in order to conduct conspiratorial business with the
2 The subject of the international control mechanism developed by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union will be discussed in a separate
paper.
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INTRODUCTION
Support for the promotion of Soviet policy, as it was to be pro-
vided by Communists the world over, was envisioned by Bolshevik leaders
at an early date. In the Statutes and Conditions of Admission to the
Comintern, organizational provision for foreign Communist assistance
for the Soviet Union was made. Of particular significance to the Soviet
intelligence program, an indispensable tool for the furtherance of Soviet'
aims, were Lenin's stipulations that the affiliated Parties must combine
legal and illegal work, that units must be formed within each national
Party to carry out the secret or illegal duties, and that illegal sections
must have superior authority to the legal sections.
With Stalin's requirement, expressed in 1928, that the foreign
national Communist Parties for a time were to forego preparations for
world revolution and devote themselves to the defense of the one country
of Communism, the order of precedence for Party activity became: Illegal
work over the legal, with activity for a Soviet service having priority
over all else. The Soviet intelligence services have taken full advan-
tage of these postulates.
In accordance with Lenin's orders, there has always been a combina-
tion of legal and illegal work, and the two types of activity have been
closely correlated. Soviet and the supporting Communist Party intelli-
gence operations, for example, have been connected systematically with
the Soviet political and propaganda program.
In 1952 or 1953, Soviet State Security functionaries abroad received
a circular directive requesting them to collect information about points
of difference between the United States and Great Britain. An undeter-
mined amount of the product appears to have been used subsequently in
Soviet and Communist publications, which speak, for example, of the
"increasing obvious economic contradictions between them LThe United
States and Great Britaig, which in no small measure are linked with
America's tough line of restricting the trade of the West European
countries."1
a. The Comintern and Its Affiliates: Blueprints for Exploitation
of International Communism. Soviet exploitation of the international
Communist Movement for espionage purposes did not, therefore, evolve
haphazardly or incidentally. Based on their methods of utilizing the
1 For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, 29 May 1953, p. 2,
quoting an article from Pravda of 24 May 1953.
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It is not known exactly how or by whom the Party liaison agent
is selected. In one case the Party liaison agent of Soviet State Securi-
ty was not selected by the legal resident agent in the country of opera-
tion. There are many indications that selection is effected by an unde-
termined Soviet agency during a period of training the Party member has
previously had in the Soviet Union. Presently, in one known case, the
Party liaison agent is used to conduct all the necessary covert business
with Soviet State Security. He receives Soviet funds, instructions, and
intelligence requirements and also provides information from Party opera-
tives and/or Party intelligence apparats. He gives whatever operational
support he is in a position to supply, and spots and checks prospective
agents. When requested, however, the Party liaison agent, at least in
the past, has organized or utilized secret Party penetration apparats and
has directed these in operations against specific Soviet intelligence
targets.
Exposed cases of Communist Party penetration work carried out
for the Soviets have shown that the following Party positions are the
ones frequently held by a Party liaison agent: Organization Secretary
(on the national or regional level), Control Committee member, Party
parliamentarian, Party newswriter or editor, and Party underground chief.
There are at least two known cases where the Secretary General has been
a Party liaison agent, but generally a less elevated Party office appar-
ently is preferred. Also, a leading position in a front organization
may be held by a Communist who concurrently is active for this unit and
a Soviet intelligence service.
Recent Soviet defectors, as well as some who defected at a
much earlier date, have described the secrecy in which the post of Party
liaison agent (or contact, etc.) is held. Leon Trotsky, shortly before
his assassination, wrote:
"In every country where the local Communist Party
is affiliated to the Comintern, the Party's Central
Committee contains a responsible leader of the GPU.
Generally the fact of his being a representative of
the GPU is known only to the secretary of the Party
and to one or two members of the Central Committee."O+
e. Security Measures Now Observed in Liaison With the Non-Orbit
Parties. In at least one non-Orbit country, any information pertaining
to the covert contact with the local Communist Party is classified by
Soviet State Security as top-secret information. Only the chief legal
resident agent is knowledgeable of all facts relating to covert dealings
4 Gen. Leandro A. Sanchez Salazar and Julian Gorkin, Murder in Mexico,
p. 28.
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Communist Parties, e.g., transmit directives and funds, receive communi-
cations from the local Communist Party for transmission to Moscow, etc.
One knowledgeable source states that this liaison function was
exclusively charged to Soviet State Security in or about 1951, when
it was taken away from Soviet Military Intelligence. It is too early to
say whether or not this single, exclusive liaison channel to local Com-
munist Parties actually operates in every country at present. It is
possible that the Foreign Section of the Central Committee, CPSU, may
have parallel and special channels into the Communist Parties; therefore,
it is not known how many covert links there are at present for any given
Communist Party with Soviet services. Nevertheless, there is sufficient
evidence to show that Soviet State Security plays an important role as
a liaison channel for the CPSU, and is not only concerned with the intel-
ligence exploitation of Communist Parties but also with the conduct of
clandestine political business originally charged to the Comintern
apparatus.
d. Party Liaison Agents or Contacts. The Soviet legal resident
agents in non-Orbit countries have sometimes worked through highly
trusted Party members--to be called "Party liaison agents" indiscriminately
throughout this study for purposes of simplification--who simultaneously
are Communist Party (or national front organization) functionaries and
act as agents for Soviet intelligence in that they provide any assistance
possible for the Soviet service with which they have contact.3 These
may or may not have a formal affiliation with a Soviet intelligence
service. In the past, both major Soviet intelligence services have been
known to work through Party liaison agents in the employment of Party
personnel and facilities.
3 According to one defector, it is the policy of Soviet State Security to
keep an illegal resident agent out of any business which would involve
contact with the Communist Party. There are two principal reasons,
however, to believe that his statement may not be generally applicable:
(a) Another recent defector has related that presently there are spe-
cial secret Party cells in one Western country which are responsible
for giving any assistance possible to deep-cover Soviet agents. Obvi-
ously this indicates a covert contact between Party and Soviet profes-
sional intelligence personnel; (b) In the past, Party personnel perform-
ing secret work have had contact with Soviet illegal resident agents:
J. Peters of the underground section of the Communist Party of the
United States had direct contact for over a year with Hede Massing, pro-
fessional Soviet agent. Whittaker Chambers, who served as the Party
liaison agent even though he was on a Soviet payroll, had contact only
with illegal Soviet resident agents. It is probable that local condi-
tions and security considerations will be the determining factors in
permitting an illegal resident agent to maintain contact with Communist
Party elements.
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headquarters or in a Party newspaper or "research" office, constitutes
secret intelligence information. In some countries where the Party and
front organizations have reached mass proportions, automatic reporting
and worker correspondence systems involve great numbers of informants--
working at every level of the administrative, industrial, scientific,
and military organizations--who contribute quantities of information to
the Party. Any significant information culled from these "mass" reporting
systems becomes available to the Soviet intelligence services through
the Party liaison agents. Thus, the penetration of nearly every phase
of human endeavor which a Communist Party has been able to carry out in
any given country has been its most significant asset for Soviet intelli-
gence.
g. Communist Party Intelligence Apparats. At present it is not
known whether or not every non-Orbit Communist Party has formed an illegal
apparat capable of performing espionage. It is known that several national
Communist Parties have these--some of them are very loosely formed and
hinge largely on a few trusted, key Party functionaries, while others
are more professionally organized and operated.
Because of recent restrictions placed on the Soviet Intelli-
gence Services concerning the employment of Communist Party members as
sources for professional Soviet networks, it is probable that there will
be a greater tendency--wherever it is desired to utilize Party members
for Soviet intelligence--to use such persons as members of Party apparats
and contact them only through the Party liaison agent. In this way,
definite knowledge of Soviet interest in the intelligence target can
be restricted to one or two key Party functionaries.
h. Tightening of Regulations Concerning Use of Communists for
Soviet IS. The employment of Communist Party members as "sources" (agents)
for professional Soviet espionage networks has been considered by the
Soviet intelligence services under two aspects (a) whether the Communist
Party member has access to vital information, and (b) whether it is secure
to recruit him. The latter problem has become increasingly important
to the Soviet intelligence services as their espionage operations have
been exposed and as the alertness of the public and security services
to the Communist threat in the free world has been increased. The
practices of the Soviet intelligence services in employing Communist
Party members fluctuate therefore between need for information and need
for security.
Since at least the middle 1930's, Soviet agents have been in-
structed not to use Communist Party personnel and facilities. Tradi-
tionally, these directives have often been circumvented: Permission
has been sought from Moscow to use a well-placed Communist, or one who
had contacts in positionsto procure information, and the request has been
approved in Moscow--presumably because of the lack of alternative
sources.
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with the Party. Other State Security staff personnel in that country
are not even aware of the identity of the Party member serving as the
liaison agent. Particularly sensitive information procured by the
Party intelligence apparat in that country is apparently seen only by
the highest ranking Soviet State Security officer, and by no one else
on his staff. All enciphering and deciphering of messages sent to or
received from Moscow and relating to business with the local Party is
done by the chief legal resident agent himself. (See paragraph 78 for
further information concerning present security practices pertaining to
contact with and use of foreign Communist Parties.)
f. Ability to Penetrate: The Greatest Asset of the Auxiliary
Agencies. The Parties' and front organizations' most valuable asset
for Soviet intelligence has been their ability to effect overt or
covert penetration into points where there is vital information.
Covert penetrations may lead into: (a) governmental departments re-
sponsible for formulating policy--Alger Hiss and other Communist agents
in key positions in the United States government, it will be remembered,
were members of "special" Party apparats drawn from larger secret
Party groups in Washington; (b) military installations and ammunition
production plants--Prof. Raymond Boyer and others involved in Soviet
operations exposed by Igor Gouzenko in Canada were participants in
covert Party apparats contributing information pertaining to these
targets, and more recently Per Danielsen, Asbjoern Sunde, and other
Norwegian Communists have been members of secret Party apparats pene-
trating similar objectives; (c) industrial and scientific centers--
J. Peters, former chief of the underground section of the Communist
Party of the United States, had secret apparats in airplane factories,
naval construction plants, etc. There are many known cases of Party
penetration operations working against Soviet intelligence targets.
In addition to covert Party penetrations, a substantial amount
of information is collected by penetration carried out by semiovert
systems of information procurement: (1) the Party requires that all
members report automatically any information of interest to the Party;
this results in a large amount of reporting which is channeled to Party
headquarters through cell, district, and regional secretaries along
with other routine Party reports; much of this "automatic" reporting
may terminate in the Agit-Prop Secretary's Office; (2) the workers' or
people's correspondence system, constantly being expanded and now in use
by both the Parties and the front organizations, provides opportunity
for selected, qualified workers--Party members or sympathizers--who (at
least theoretically) have special aptitude for observation and who are
well informed about the Party's political policy, to report about activi-
ties in their places of employment.
These two systems of reporting sometimes result in the procure-
ment of information which, when assembled at Party or a front organization
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In the past, security precautions affecting the Communist
Party-Soviet Intelligence relationship have been variable: extremely
strict regulations have applied in countries where the Party was under
a certain amount of suppression or completely underground; less rigid
security measures have prevailed where the Communist Party has enjoyed
the same amount of freedom as that accorded to other political parties
in the country.
The defection of Igor Gouzenko, former code clerk in the Soviet
Embassy in Ottawa, the revelations about Soviet intelligence practices
made at the time of the Elizabeth Bentley defection, and the Alger Hiss
trials have all undoubtedly contributed to Soviet awareness for the need
of more secure methods in using foreign Communists.
It is possible that the reported transfer in 1951 of a large
part (and possibly all) of the responsibility for covert liaison with
the foreign Communist Parties from Soviet Military Intelligence to
Soviet State Security may have been prompted by security considerations.5
One source strongly believes that the transfer to Soviet State Security
of this function was worldwide in application. The transfer allegedly
took place due to the need for (1) skillful handling of the covert
contact with foreign Communist Parties and (2) "to increase the scope
and effectiveness" of foreign Communist Party activity. Implied in the
latter is very likely the intent to exploit more effectively the intel-
ligence potential of the foreign Communist Parties--particularly of their
underground or secret sections. In both 1952 and 1953--that is, after
the reported transfer of responsibility for covert liaison work to Soviet
State Security--there has been unprecedented emphasis on restrictions
concerning the contact with, and the use of, Communist Party personnel.
Recent information indicates that the employment of a Communist
Party member must be cleared with the Central Committee of the CPSU
in addition to the normal operational clearance to be granted by the
Soviet intelligence service. Presumably, the Foreign Section of the
Central Committee of the CPSU has the authority to issue such a clearance.
In important or especially sensitive cases, a higher authority in the
Central Committee may be responsible for issuing an operational clearance.
5 In at least one known instance, the transfer to Soviet State Security
of covert contact with the foreign Communist Parties had been effected
by the summer of 1951. It is possibly worth noting that this change
occurred shortly after the involvement of the Norwegian Communist
Party in the procurement of military and naval data for Soviet intel-
ligence officers became generally known through the Per Danielsen
case, exposed in April 1951.
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The employment of members of front organizations appears to be
less restricted. According to acceptable information, no special
clearance is needed from the Central Committee for their use. However,
the field operatives of a Soviet intelligence service will usually
weigh security risks involved in the recruitment of such individuals
against the significance of the information which may be obtained, and
will not overlook the fact.that membership in a Communist front
organization may make the prospective recruit suspect to local security
services.
In view of the current Soviet stress on security and constant
fear of hostile penetration, to which the Communist Parties are particu-
larly vulnerable, it may be that the Soviet intelligence services now
prefer that Communist Parties establish their own espionage apparats,
from which the Soviets can obtain the intelligence product. It should
be remembered, however, that the Soviets are practical operators, and
that the extent to which they will use Communists for their networks
will be determined in each case by the local political and operational
climate.
i. Front Organizations: Their General Uses for Soviet Intelligence.
Soviet intelligence exploitation of the International Communist Move-
ment includes utilization of the national and international front organi-
zations. Just as the Party itself is used as a means of performing
legal and illegal work, it is the practice of Communist fractions
controlling the front organizations to use these bodies for both legal
and illegal purposes.
j. Front Organizations: A Means of Penetration and Intelligence
Procurement. Some of the fronts appear to have been founded at Soviet
instigation as a means of infiltrating military and certain professional
groups (engineers, scientists, etc.).
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been an example of a front organization possibly founded at Soviet
direction (through the efforts of an American Communist who probably has
been a liaison agent and has had as one of its major
purposes the acquisition of data from persons in these professions. 25X1C3b1
While the primary purpose of the front organizations is to
serve as transmission belts for Soviet propaganda, an essential corollary
activity is the collection of information. The greater part of this is
undoubtedly used to support the political work carried out by these
organizations; nevertheless, a certain amount of it is known to come
within the category of intelligence information which is of value in
furthering Soviet and international Communist military, political, and
economic aims.
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For instance, at least one national affiliate of the World
Peace Council (WPC) allegedly has made detailed studies of Western
military preparations in one country; additionally, the WPC secretariat
requested daily submission of confidential political reports from a
national affiliate at the time of the Tenth Inter-American Conference;
the WPC was the reported sponsor of the Moscow Economic Conference and
was the recipient of answers to exhaustive questionnaires issued at
that time concerning business and industrial conditions in non-Orbit
countries. The WPC has instructed at least one of its affiliates to
collect biographic information on persons of professional and intellectual
groups. Specific intelligence roles of certain of the other international
fronts have not as yet been determined.
The Soviets are endeavoring to keep the international front
organizations free from implication in Soviet espionage, in order to
maintain the fiction of their political independence. Soviet intelli-
gence staff personnel reportedly are not assigned to the headquarters
of these organizations. However, during international conferences and
congresses they have attended under cover as Soviet newspaper or TASS
correspondents in order to debrief and develop unwitting foreign Com-
munist delegates. Besides exploitation of international fronts at the
times of congresses, Soviet State Security has agents placed within
offices of the national affiliates of these organizations, and within
secretariats of the internationals as well.
An excellent point for the control of information is afforded
by offices at the headquarters of the international fronts which prepare
detailed surveys or studies concerning activities in non-Orbit countries.
Such offices are set up either as central research bureaus, periodical
offices, economic sections, departments for relations with national
centers (as in the headquarters of the World Federation of Trade Unions),
etc. These offices performing analytical and synthetical research and
report writing are invariably under the control of a Soviet citizen
representing a Soviet national affiliate. It can be assumed that reports
compiled by these offices reach the interested headquarters of Soviet
State Security, the Foreign Section of the Central Committee, CPSU, or
any other customer in the Soviet Party-Government.
Front Organizations as Bases for Personnel. The front organi-
zations are also exploited as a means of indoctrinating and developing
for espionage purposes persons who are in influential positions or in
places where they have access to intelligence information. In this way
the Party and the Soviets are constantly replenishing their reservoir
of intelligence manpower.
A written directive allegedly was transmitted to Soviet State
Security staff personnel abroad in 1952 ordering that they refrain from
recruiting persons "whose progressive activities were known to counter-
intelligence." This obviously includes known sympathizers, as well
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as Party members, as potential recruits. Therefore in countries where
it is difficult for Communists to operate, an effort is probably made
for the immediate discovery of persons who are attracted to the front
associations, who have an aptitude for espionage, and who are ideologi-
cally sympathetic to Communism. Such persons are probably now isolated
at a very early stage from open front or Party activity and steered into
a secret "study group," or "professional" or "pro" group--or whatever
other name may be given to a secret Party cell whose function it is to
indoctrinate new members who will eventually be assigned to do covert or
illegal work.6
Secret "study groups" or secret Party cells thus form a second
step in the process of recruiting people from the front associations
and are organized by the Communist Parties to provide further ideological
instruction; the groups are observed constantly by experienced Party
leaders--sometimes by the Party liaison agents themselves--who prepare
reports about the psychological and ideological development of the
participants.
Some of these persons may remain in secret Party groups or
"apparats" and independently, or as members of a small team, provide
information to a Party liaison agent. Or, if required by a Soviet in-
telligence service, individuals recruited via a front organization and
secret Party cell or "study group" may be transferred to a Soviet pro-
fessional network and come under the direct control of a Soviet legal
or illegal resident agent.
1. Front Organization Propaganda: An Aid for Soviet IS. Propa-
ganda of the national and international fronts is often designed to
counteract and nullify national laws concerning the safeguarding of
classified information. For example, at every opportunity the World
Federation of Scientific Workers and its affiliates declare themselves
in favor of an extensive international exchange of scientists and
technicians and of the communication of discoveries and working methods
"for reasons of international peace."
In Canada, during the espionage trials of 1946, Prof. Raymond
Boyer admitted an the witness stand that his Communist sympathies hail
influenced him to divulge secret information about explosives to Fred
Rose (a Party liaison agent in the Labour-Progressive Party of Canada).
Boyer admitted activity in several front organizations, including the
Canadian Association of Scientific Workers, which he helped to establish.
6 Although occurring prior to 1952, this appeared to be taking place
in the Communist career of Herbert Philbrick, according to experiences
he has related in I Led Three Lives.
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Boyer stated that he felt it was "of tremendous importance that there
should be a. full exchange of information between Russia and Canada and
the United States and England."7 Thus, front organization propaganda
has constituted an indirect but appreciable aid to Soviet intelligence
by persuading scientists and other technical specialists that they con-
tribute most to world peace by violating oaths of secrecy.
m. Counterintelligence Work for Soviets: Possibly Done by Party
Apparats. In the Satellite areas, Soviet State Security recruitment
of Communists for counterintelligence purposes is apparently standard
procedure. One geographic desk in Soviet State Security has maintained
dossiers containing derogatory information on the highest Party leader-
ship (Politburo level), as well as an high government figures, in the
Satellite area concerned. It is also reliably reported that Soviet
State Security recruits agents in the headquarters of international
front organizations (generally located behind the Iron Curtain) in
order to report on Soviet and foreign personnel employed or active there.
In view of statements of recent defectors regarding restrictions
now prevailing concerning the use of Communist Party members in non-Orbit
countries, it seems unlikely that Soviet State Security--as a general
practice--presently recruits Party members in the free world as profes-
sional Soviet agents for counterintelligence work in their own countries.
There are many indications that Party security and counterintelligence
work is now being stepped up on a global basis (as a logical, concomitant
activity with the present united front policy) and that such activity is
sometimes under the supervision of a unit forming one branch of the Party's
intelligence apparat. Therefore, at the moment it seems probable that
much counterintelligence work performed for Soviet State Security by
Party operatives in non-Orbit countries is probably being done from
within a Party apparat. It is known that one prominent member of a
Party intelligence apparat has been directing work of this nature, and it
is very probable that the Soviets ultimately benefit from the results.
n. Soviet Funding of Foreign Communist Parties. In the past the
amount of Soviet financing of Party personnel involved in espionage de-
pended on the requirements of the individuals involved. For instance,
a note in Col. Zabotin's notebook concerning Sam Carr reads: "It is
necessary occasionally to help financially." Soviet funds for Party
intelligence work were apparently needed only in cases where personnel
performing such assignments were mostly or entirely dependent on the
Party for an income, or where they had to pay well-placed non-Party agents
for the supply of information or other form of support.
7 The Report of the Royal Commission, Ottawa, 1946, p. 4o8.
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Party members active in secret apparats in Washington prior to
and during World War II received U. S. Government salaries, and generally
no Soviet funds were furnished them. Indeed, when attempts were made
by the Soviet services to pay Party members in order to have stronger
control over them, American Party operatives working only for ideological
reasons were usually offended.
In the few known instances of recent transmittal of Soviet
funds to non-Orbit Communist Parties, the amounts have far exceeded those
which would be required for the exclusive financing of Party intelligence
activity; hence it is Obvious that the funds are intended for the Parties'
general program--propaganda, front organization work, etc.--as well as
the Parties' intelligence activities.
o. Satellite Intelligence Relations with Non-Orbit Communist
Parties. Knowledge of this subject is limited, but a few facts have been
uncovered. The Hungarian State Security Authority (AVH) has in a non-
Orbit Communist Party liaison agents whom it uses for talent spotting
and checking of prospective agents. It is believed that in this country
there are parallel liaison systems, with both a Soviet service and the
Hungarian AVE in touch with identical contacts in the non-Orbit Party.
It appears that the Polish Security Service (UB) may have used similarly
trusted contacts in another non-Orbit Communist Party.
p. Arrangements for Mutual Assistance. Between at least one Sat-
ellite Communist Party and one non-Orbit Communist Party (the Italian),
there is reportedly a permanent program for mutual assistance, whereby
the non-Orbit Party provides information for which it is reimbursed by
the Satellite Party. The entire program is stated to be under the
direction of an unspecified Soviet service--possibly Soviet State Se-
curity. Although there may be security deterrents to prevent the Soviets
from farming out to the Satellite Parties and intelligence services
general responsibility for funding non-Orbit Communist Parties, it seems
probable that Satellite services in some Western countries may have less
conspicuous contact with the local Communist Parties and therefore may
be used by the Soviets to transmit funds as well as directives to these
Parties.
q. Soviet IS Control over the Satellite Security and Intelligence
Services. It is well established that the highest authorities in any East
European Satellite security or intelligence service are the Soviet
"advisers," who are found at various levels of the headquarters of the
Satellite services and in some lower (regional) echelons as well. The
term "adviser" is a misnomer, since these Soviet officials actually con-
trol the structure and operations of the Satellite services to which they
are attached, thus keeping them subordinate to the Soviet Union. All
information gathered by a Satellite service, both internally and abroad,
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is made available to the Soviet intelligence services through the Soviet
advisers. Therefore, the Soviets have access to any intelligence infor-
mation obtained by a Satellite from its contacts within a non-Orbit Com-
munist Party.
r. Probable Employment of Non-Orbit Communist Parties against
Present Soviet Objectives. At the moment, the priority target of the
Soviet intelligence services is the war potential of the free world,
particularly that of the United States, with emphasis on air warfare
and technical and scientific developments. A directive dated June 1952
which was issued by the headquarters of a Soviet intelligence service
ordered that operations be mounted against the Security Service of a
non-Orbit country. In view of this directive, plus the fact that certain
non-Orbit Communist Parties have had, since approximately 1950, organi-
zational provision for counterintelligence activity, it seems possible
that a general emphasis now is also given to this phase of Soviet (and
Party) intelligence work.
Soviet intelli ence directives of 1 2
show that 25X1X7
Soviet State Security intelligence officers
were directed to refrain from recruiting known Communists or sympathizers
as agents. Greater numbers of Soviet illegal resident agents were to
be introduced and an intensified effort was to be made to 25X1X7
recruit agents among persons of executive status in government, politi-
cal, and other organizations who could supply valuable information.
In spite of these 1952 directives to Soviet intelligence
officers in view of the copious and consistent resort the
25X1X7
Soviets have made to foreign Communist Parties for assistance in the
past, it can be assumed that wherever security considerations permit, the
Soviets will utilize Communist Party and/or front organization facilities
and personnel (particularly secret members and sympathizers) to further
their intelligence effort. This study is intended to present a detailed
description of Soviet intelligence techniques which have been utilized in
the exploitation of Communist movements outside the Soviet Union.
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ba. va.LAY
PART ONE
THE COMINTERN: A MODEL FOR SOVIET
INTELLIGENCE EMPLOYMENT OF THE
COMMUNIST PARTIES AND THEIR AFFILIATES
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-0
L-Z0006000?000t191.600
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
(EC CI)
P RA ES IDIUM
SOVIET-CONTROLLED SECRETARIAT
ORG.
0. M S.
FINANCE
RECRUITMENT AND
TRAINING
RECRUITMENT FROM:
? COMINTERN SCHOOLS
? COMINTERN ORG. DEPT.
? COMINTERN INTERNATIONAL
LIAISON SERVICE (0.M.S.)
? COMINTERN AUXILIARY ORG'S.:
YOUNG COMMUNIST INTERNATUYCI.)
INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE (LB.)
INTERNATIONAL OF SEAMEN AND
HARBOR WORKERS (I.S.H3
TRANSFERRED TO:
? SOVIET MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
? SOVIET STATE SECURITY
(COMINTERN FILES A VETTING AID)
CP REPORTS TO
COMINTERN
INFORMATION PROCUREMENT
OVERT
COMINTERN IN-
FORMATION DEPT.
PRESS SECTION
AND ITS WORKER
CORRESPONDENTS
ORG., QM.S AND
SPECIAL REP'S
TO THE PARTIES
COVERT
COMINTERN AND
NATIONAL SEC-
TION SECRET
APPARATS
SOVIET I.S. TARGETS
SOVIET I.S. EXPLOITATION OF COMINTERN
GENERAL OPERATIONAL
SUPPORT
? DOCUMENTATION ?
FROM IB., I.S.H., 0.M.S.
? COVER ARRANGEMENTS ?
AUX. ORG'S.
? COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT ?
1.S.H. & O.M.S.
? SAFEHOUSES, MEETING
PLACES ? 0.M.S., I.S.H.
? SABOTAGE SUPPORT-
1.5.1-I.
0
CD
0
CDX
to
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SIAWAlf(AJAL.10.0 - U. 0. -MN
SECTION I. INTRODUCTION
1. Master Plan for Exploitation. The Comintern, created at Soviet
inspiration and under Soviet direction, established a pattern whereby the
Soviet intelligence services could profitably exploit the Comintern or-
ganization itself and, in a similar manner, all its affiliated national
sections (Communist Parties). Through preponderance of Soviet leadership
in governing bodies of the Comintern Soviet domination was imposed to an
ever increasing extent, until finally a Soviet intelligence service took
over immediate direction of controlling sections of Comintern headquarters 1
Loyalty to an international ideal implanted by Marxist-Leninist
teachings and strengthened by experience in an international revolutionary
movement made the most devout Communists willing and effective instruments
for Soviet agencies. Naturally, the most active and fanatic of these
operatives were in positions of leadership within their respective parties
and in the Comintern organization, where their services were always availa-
ble to the Soviets. An assignment for a Soviet intelligence service always
had priority over all else.
With the Soviets themselves--to an ever increasing degree--domi-
nating the headquarters apparatus of the Comintern, and with key positions
in each of the national sections under Comintern control (or under direct
Soviet intelligence control), the worldwide movement became a vast auxiliary
agency for the Soviet Party-Government. Having established undisputed
though camouflaged control over the entire international structure, the
Soviet intelligence services utilized the Comintern (and its national
sections) as (1) an auxiliary information procurement service acquiring
its product through both overt and covert methods; (2) a recruitment and
training base; (3) for general operational support (e.g., as a source of
documentation, of safe houses or other accommodations, for local assistance
1
This study is to deal primarily with.Comintern and national Communist
Party support--services and facilities--provided for Soviet intelligence.
At the risk of oversimplification, since the emphasis is on the exploita-
tion of the International Communist Movement, terminology for the Soviet
services will be reduced to the fewest number of terms, and that service
known variously as the State Political Directorate, Union State Political
Directorate, People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, etc., will be
referred to throughout as "Soviet State Security." For a complete listing
of the titles under which it has existed, see Appendix A. A summarized
description of the headquarters sections of Soviet Military Intelligence--
the other major boviet intelligence service--is also given in Appendix A.
essmosiimmow
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in sabotage, for emergency communications or funds, for liquidations, or
for any other missions undertaken by a Soviet intelligence service in
foreign countries).
2. Progressively Closer Soviet Intelligence Domination of Comintern.
Control over all Comintern activity was apparently maintained by the
Soviets in the Secretariat, which appears throughout its history to have
been headed by a Soviet national. For several years this position was
held by Soviet citizen Ossip Piatnitsky, who served as chief of three
departments of the Comintern engaged in clandestine work.
A former Comintern agent describing Comintern headquarters
procedure in the spring of 1926 writes of Piatnitsky's Secretariat:
"All activity in the Machavaya building revolves
around the secretariat of Piatnitsky. According
to the constitution of the Executive Committee,
it has only organizational and technical functions
to fulfill. It should be only an administrative
organ within the Comintern. Actually, however, its
activity profoundly influences the political func-
tions of the Executive Committee.
"Two or three times a week the diplomatic couriers
of the Narko-mindel deliver the reports of the
central committees of the various Comintern
parties and sections. Every report or document
arriving from abroad, even when it is addressed
to one of the national representatives, first is
routed through the secretariat. The same applies
to every outgoing letter or report. It is diffi-
cult to imagine a more complete control than that
exercised by the secretariat in regard to its
members and collaborators."2
Piatnitsky's close relations with Soviet intelligence directors are dis-
cussed in paragraph 17 of this Handbook.
The Executive Committee of the Comintern dispatched special
agents or representatives abroad, in addition to those sent out by the
Org Department and by the OMS (the International Liaison Department); all
these Comintern "reps" submitted independent reports about a national
section's leaders and theit activities, and actually directed the Parties
or national sections. Gerhart Eisler, for example, was a Comintern
2 Ypsilon, Pattern for World Revolution, pp. 108-109.
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representative (probably working directly under the Comintern's Executive
Committee) who during his assignment in the United States controlled
activities at the headquarters of the Party.. Defected American Communists
have described his absolute authority in matters of policy, for which
directing committees of the Party were normally responsible.
3. Direct Soviet Assumption of Control. In the 1930's, Stalin,
aware of strong opposition to his personal power, both among Comintern
and national section personnel, took concrete measures to eliminate it.
Elements of opposition to Stalin were accused of 'Trotskyism" and ousted
from Comintern and national section ranks.
Direct administration of Comintern units performing work mostly
of a clandestine nature was placed in the hands of Soviet State Security.
It is reported that in the summer of 1932 a high-ranking Soviet State
Security official, Trilisser, was placed in the Praesidium of the Comin-
tern's Executive Committee and that this Soviet agency took upon itself
the "protection" of the Comintern.
The Organization Department of the Comintern was transformed into
a Cadre Department, and under Soviet State Security supervision was
charged with collecting curricula vitae of all Communists in key places
in the national sections and in some of the auxiliary organizations.
Central Committees of the German, French, British, Czech, and American
Parties were ordered to establish similar cadre departments and to send
copies of their files to the central Cadre Department in Moscow.3
Immediate direction over the Comintern International Liaison
Department (OMS) does not appear to have been taken over outright until
1937, when Soviet State Security (actually GUGB, the successor of the
Foreign Section of the OGPU), consolidated its administrative hold over
the Comintern and took over the OMS.
4. Role of Foreign Section of the Central Committee, CPSU. The
role of the Foreign Section of the Central Committee of the CPSU, cur-
rently the organizational control point for the International Communpt
Movement, has not been clearly established for the Comintern Period.'
It is possible that it existed as the specific CPSU control instrument
over the Comintern, which was thoroughly dominated in its later period by
the CPSU, a fact definitely confirmed by several defectors.
3 Ypsilon, Pattern for World Revolution, p. 235.
4 A Study on the Foreign Section of the Central Committee, CPSU is presently
in preparation.
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?
SECTION II. SOVIET INFORMATION PROCUREMENT VIA COMINTERN FACILITIES
As in the case of the national Communist Parties (as will be shown
later) so with the Comintern, the ability of its operatives in countries
throughout the world to penetrate Soviet intelligence targets was probably
its most valuable form of assistance to the Soviet intelligence program.
Additionally, the Comintern provided communication channels so that in-
formation from these operatives could be dispatched to Moscow.
Comintern departments and affiliated organizations having as part
of their function the collection of intelligence information, which
inevitably became available at Comintern headquarters to the Soviets,
were the Comintern Organization (Org) Department, the International
Liaison Department (CMS), the Information (or Intelligence) Department,
the Press Section of the Agitation and Propaganda Department, and the
auxiliary organizations such as the Young Communist International, the
International of Seamen and Harbor Workers, and other international
bodies coming under the jurisdiction of the Comintern.
5. Information Acquired through Comintern Org Department Activity.
The functions of this department demanded that Comintern headquarters
personnel have an intimate knowledge of the activities of the national
sections and a good understanding of the key people in each of the
national sections. The Comintern Org Department was responsible for
ensuring that the structures of the national sections followed the
general principles developed in Comintern statutes. Org Department
personnel were required to study and evaluate pertinent reports from the
national sections, to supervise the creation of Communist fractions in
non-Communist organizations, the establishment of Communist cells in
factories, etc. Reports sent in by Org Department instructors in the
field, plus reports submitted by functionaries of the organization depart-
ments of the national sections provided the essential details. Additionally
(see paragraph 17), some Org Department instructors were required to
supply information pertaining not only to the national section itself,
but more within the purview of intelligence--such as political, economic,
and military information concerning the country in which the national
section was located.
6. International Liaison Department (OMS): Its Acquisition of
Information. According to statements made by Walter Krivitsky, OMS also
had representatives in the field who reported information to Comintern
headquarters. He has stated: "The OMS is the organization through which
the Comintern financed, disciplined, and maintained contact with Communist
Parties abroad... . It had its own secret courier system and its own
representatives on the Executive Committee of each Communist Party. These
representatives reported to Moscow the fullest details of the political
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SalaDal'EnAdiaagEgo-c-- fl P1 p.rrn*---
views, activities, and personal affairs of the senior executive officials
of the Communist Party they represented." Thus, although it would seem
that OMS and Org Department functions would have overlapped in this re-
spect, it is assumed that Krivitsky would have been thoroughly acquainted
with Comintern structure and responsibilities.- The facilities and other
assets of the OMB network operated by Hilaire Noulens in Shanghai and
not exposed at the time of his arrest were apparently absorbed by Soviet
State Security.
7. Information (or Intelligence) Department. This headquarters
department of the Comintern at first exclusively relied on overt
publi-
cations for its knowledge of foreign affairs. Then it began to use in-
telligence reports (political, economic, and military) covertly procured
by Org Department instructors in the field.
8. Press Section. By 1925 this Section had organized the Rabkor
or workers' correspondence system, according to which Communists employed
in factories, offices, mines, etc. sent in letters telling of their per-
sonal work experience and thereby illustrated the class struggle in the
story of an individual worker. Not only was information of intelligence
interest acquired in this way, but there was also acquired operational
information which indicated where penetrations could be established and
which identified potential agent personnel. The most competent of the
worker correspondents were eventually contacted by either a Comintern or
Soviet intelligence agent.
9. Intelligence Procured through Comintern Auxiliary Organizations.
Available information shows the Young Communist International (YCI) and
the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers (ISH) to have been relied
upon by Soviet intelligence services for penetration and information
procurement. The most precise information concerning YCI penetration
achievements to date was that provided by an American Communist defector,
Paul Crouch. This is related in paragraph 21.
ISH. The Seamen's Club (Interclubs) of the ISH functioned as
debriefing centers for many witting and unwitting informants. Organizers
1
Soviet State Security and security units of the various Communist Party
apparats continue the counterintelligence and security assignments which
were once the responsibility of Comintern Org and OMS Departments. The
Ponger-Verber case exposed in 1953 in Austria, revealed that Kurt Ponger
furnished reports for Soviet State Security concerning: (1) Skala, the
left-wing Communist theater in Vienna; (2) friction and conflict within
the Austrian Communist Party, dealing with old and new Party members,
persons who stayed with the Party, persons who left the Party, and par-
ticularly the interest of former concentration camp inmates in connec-
tion with the Party; and (3) friction between the Democratic Women's
Movement and the Austrian Communist Party.
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of the Interclubs were obliged to determine cargoes, ships, next ports of
call, etc., so that the ISH would have a complete chain of observation of
material from its point of origin (armament factory, chemical plant, etc.)
through all ports of call to its final destination. All this information,
noted by the Interclub organizer, was reported by him to the Interclub
secretary. These ISH officers were forbidden to "go out of their way to
get such information," according to Richard Krebs, a Communist defector and
onetime ISH functionary. ISH cooperated closely with OMS, and it is
likely that some of the information about ship itineraries was of value
for OMS courier work (which may have been utilized to some extent by the
Soviet intelligence services).
Richard Krebs has stated that ISH covert procurement of informa-
tion was directed mainly against offices of shipping lines, and that ISH
personnel performing this work were usually clerical workers, sometimes
women, in these offices.
From what Krebs has stated, the ISH, from its inception, appears
to have had Soviet intelligence personnel placed at its international
headquarters (the ISH Secretariat) and national headquarters level to
control and exploit all phases of its work. Michel Avatin, apparently a
Soviet State Security agent, appears to have controlled intelligence
activities from within the ISH Secretariat.
10. Reporting Done by Special Comintern "-.Reps" and Observers. In
addition to the Comintern organizations and representatives already men-
tioned as procuring intelligence information for Comintern headquarters,
special representatives were dispatched to foreign countries to observe
activity at Party headquarters and to report independently to the Execu-
tive Committee of the Comintern. Solomon Lozovski, for instance, who was
a member of the Comintern's Executive Committee, sent an agent, Boris
Reinstein, to the United States in 1922, to act as a Comintern delegate
to a secret conference of the American Communist Party (at Bridgeman,
Michigan); Reinstein was to report directly to Lozovski on the activities
of William Z. Foster and on what was happening in the American Party.2
11. Party Intelligence Apparats of the Comintern Period. According
to the Comintern Statutes and Conditions of Admission, as stated previ-
ously, there had to be set up within each national affiliate of the
Comintern units which would be responsible for illegal or secret work.
Throughout this study the term "underground section" will be used to
designate the entire secret or underground organization of a national
2
Benjamin Gitlow, The Whole of Their Lives, pp. 89-90.
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Communist Party. The term "illegal apparat" or, more frequently here,
"intelligence apparat" will be used in discussing the various units,
each of which has a specific task and is organized within a Party's under-
ground section.
In the 1920's, and possibly the early 1930's, Soviet intelligence
officials acted directly on the scene in supervising the establishment of
foreign Communist Party illegal apparats, since at this period foreign
Communists apparently were not considered sufficiently trained and expe-
rienced to set these up without Soviet guidance. In common with intelli-
gence apparats formed during a later period, they were directed by Party
functionaries who served as liaison agents in their respective Parties.
Also, in the early established Party apparats, as later, there was a
tendency to perform Party intelligence work on two levels, with one report-
ing information primarily of interest to the Party--for example, bits of
information which might be considered useful in forming the Party's labor
policy--while a more select group provided information which would be
classified as positive intelligence, such as reporting about military
installations and scientific developments, and would be of most interest
to the Soviet government rather than to the local Communist Party.
A summarized description of two of the earliest Party intelligence
apparats--the French and the German--is given in Appendix B.
12. Whittaker Chambers' "Special Apparatus" and Its Base. The Ware
Group, an underground Party apparat in Washington, D. C. consisting of
several secret Party cells ("study groups"), was composed of approximately
75 persons, almost all of whom were dues-paying secret members of the
Communist Party. All were under the close supervision of J. Peters, under-
ground chief of the American Communist Party in the 1930's. The Ware Group
conducted political instruction and discussion, recruited new members for
the Party underground, and placed secret Party members in government posi-
tions (both as a means of influencing government policy--particularly in
the fields of labor and welfare--and as a way of procuring information the
Party needed). The Ware Group's leading committee consisted of six prom-
inent government officials.
Using the Ware Group as a base, Peters and Chambers organized
the "special apparatus." Its productive sources (in addition to two or
three operatives who served as photographers or cut-outs) included: Alger
Hiss, then assistant to an Assistant Secretary of State; Henry Julian
Wadleigh, then an employee of the Trade Agreements Division of the State
Department; Harry Dexter White, Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury;
Vincent Reno, a mathematician at Aberdeen Proving Ground; and Abel Gross
(an alias) at the Bureau of Standards. Documents provided by this group
of prolific sources were microfilmed by two apparatus photographers who
worked in Washington and Baltimore. Since the activities and methods
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of this apparatus have been well related in Chambers' book, Witness,
further description will be omitted here.
13. Silvermaster-Perlo Groups. The details of these two Party in-
telligence apparats have become known through the defection of Elizabeth
Bentley. Like Whittaker Chambers, she was an open Party member who
dropped out of open Party work to carry out Soviet intelligence assign-
ments. While employed at the Italian Library of Information (1938-1939)
in New York City, she voluntarily contacted a Party officer, Ferruccio
Marini and offered to keep the Party informed about activities at the
Italian Library. Marini--probably one of Gobs' many talent spotters in
the Communist Party--introduced Miss Bentley to Jacob Gobs. The latter
not only performed intelligence work as a professional Soviet State
Security agent under cover of World Tourists, a Soviet State Security
business firm, but he also served as a member of the Control Commission
of the Communist Party of the United States.
After taking another position to procure data for Gobs, Miss
Bentley became an official of a newly organized Soviet cover firm, U.S.
Service and Shipping Corporation. Subsequently Gobs employed her
as a courier to contact secret Party apparats operating in Washington, D.C.
Some of the more productive sources in the Silvermaster-Perlo Groups, for
which Miss Bentley served as cut-out were:
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, employed at the Departments of
Agriculture, Labor, and Treasury, and by the Air Force.
Solomon Adler, of the Treasury Department.
Norman Bursler, of the Department of Justice.
Frank Coe, of the Treasury Department; the United States Embassy,
London; the Board of Economic Warfare; and the Foreign
Economic Administration.
Lauchlin Currie, Administrative Assistant to the President,
Foreign Economic Administration.
Bela Gold, employed at Department of Agriculture; Senate Sub-
committee on War Mobilization; and Office of Economic
Programs in Foreign Economic Administration.
Abraham George Silverman, Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Materiel
and Services, United States Air Forces.
Both of these American Communist Party groups--that contacted
by Chambers and that contacted by Miss Bentley--were successful in procur-
ing valuable intelligence information for the Soviets.
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14. Channeling of Comintern Information to Soviet Intelligence
Agencies. All information transmitted to Moscow through Comintern facili-
ties had to be channeled as discreetly as possible. The 1920's and early
1930's represented a period when the Soviets were forced by the extremely
poor economic conditions in Russia to establish diplomatic and trade
relations with the non-Communist world. Therefore, in order not to
embarrass the Soviet government, evidence of Moscow control over the
foreign Communist Parties was camouflaged.
Particularly, documents relating to illegal activity had to be
handled as securely as possible. Information from the Parties was sent
to Moscow by (1) Comintern agents and couriers, (2) Party leaders
traveling to Moscow or to Berlin, or (3) the Soviet diplomatic pouch.
In Berlin the Western European Bureau (WEB) of the Comintern served as
a collection point for a number of years, forwarding Comintern (or
national section) reporting to Moscow through the pouch facilities of the
Soviet Embassy. During the Comintern period, Communist seamen on certain
ships of the North German Lloyd and Hamburg-American Lines probably were
used both as Comintern and as Soviet intelligence couriers.
At Comintern headquarters all incoming reports were channeled
through the Org Department secretariat, where close control over all
documents was maintained. The Chief of the Org Department, as has been
stated, was a Soviet citizen and had direct contact with an official of
corresponding rank in each of the two major Soviet intelligence services.
Krivitsky has written:
"Every ten days the Chief of this Cadre Section
(Org Department) meets the chief of a corresponding
section of the OGPU and turns over to him the
material gathered by his agents. The OGPU then
uses this data as it sees fit... ."3
Richard Sorge's statements strongly indicate that the Org De-
partment Chief had equally close relations with the Director of Soviet
Military Intelligence (see paragraph 17).
3 Walter Krivitsky, In Stalin's Secret Service, p. 64.
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SECTION III. TBF UMINTERN: A RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING BASE
FOR SOVIET INTELLIGENCE
A second valuable contribution of the Comintern to the Soviet intel-
ligence services was its steady supply of trained, experienced under-
ground workers who could be transferred to a professional Soviet intelli-
gence network. Many of these operatives were culled from Comintern
training schools in the Soviet Union, while others were transferred from
a clandestine section of the Comintern, a Comintern front organization
or from one of the early illegal Party apparats, and therefore had al-
ready benefited from conspiratorial or military experience. Area knowl-
edge, plus acquaintance with persons in foreign countries willing to
cooperate with Communists or the Soviets, and knowledge of clandestine
techniques, illegal travel routes, hotels or inns not complying with
police regulations, etc., were obvious assets for a Soviet intelligence
agent. These were already in the possession of a Comintern agent at the
time of his transfer to a Soviet service.
15. Comintern Schools: Personnel Bases for Soviet IS. Comintern
schools were exploited by both major Soviet intelligence services as a
source of agent personnel. Constant watch was kept over them in order
to discover the most promising material. In the early period, some
sections of the Soviet intelligence services apparently relied exclusively
on Comintern schools for the training of their agents--for example, the
Special Duties Section of Soviet Military Intelligence which probably was
responsible for the organization of revolts, diversions, or strikes.
Later, Communists who appeared to have potentialities for espionage,
sabotage, or other conspiratorial activity included in the orbit of Soviet
intelligence were selected from Comintern schools and enrolled in a Soviet
intelligence school.
Krivitsky has mentioned a 6-month course conducted by Soviet
Military Intelligence for qualified graduates of the Lenin School.]- An-
other Soviet defector has mentioned an advanced military course also for
selected graduates of the Lenin School and given under the auspices of
the Special Duties Section of Soviet Military Intelligence. Here the
emphasis was on sabotage, and a graduate of this course was able to op-
erate on his own in foreign countries as a high-grade sabotage agent.
The courses of instruction given in Comintern schools--especially
the "practical" courses in street-fighting techniques, sabotage, espionage,
and other conspiratorial activity--and the systematic combination of these
-courses with ideological training, plus the advantageous location of these
1 Walter Krivitsky, In Stalin's Secret Service, p. 76.
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schools on Soviet terrain for convenient observation by Soviet intelli-
gence officers, made them extremely valuable personnel bases for Soviet
espionage networks.
16. Clandestine Action Departments of the Comintern: Recruitment
Bases for Soviet Intelligence. After Comintern Schools, the clandestine
action departments, particularly the Organization (Org) Department and
the International Liaison Department (OMS), probably were most useful in
supplying trained, experienced operatives who were eventually transferred
to a Soviet intelligence service.
17. Transfer from Comintern. OrE Department to a Soviet IS. Probably
the best known agent to have served with the Org Department of the Comin-
tern and later to have been transferred to a Soviet service was Richard
Sorge, originally a member of the German Communist Party. According to
his statement to Japanese authorities, his first Comintern assignment
outside of the Soviet Union was in the Scandinavian countries.
Sorge was sent there as a representative of the Comintern Org
Department to report on activities of the Communist Parties and their
political and economic problems. He was also to report as much as possible
on the political and economic situation and on any important military
issues which might arise in Scandinavia. At first Sorge, along with
other Party officialp, assumed a position of active leadership, but later--
when assigned to work in England--he was instructed to stay away from
Party activities and to report on the labor movement, the status of the
Communist Party, and political and economic conditions in Britain in
1929. The instructions to remain aloof from Party disputes enabled him
(again, according to his statement) to devote more attention to political
and economic intelligence work than had been possible in Scandinavia.
The steps leading to Sorge's recruitment and transfer to Soviet
Military Intelligence took place as follows (according to his admission):
Upon his return to Moscow after the Comintern assignment in England, Sorge
went to see Ossip Piatnitsky, Comintern Org Department Chief, with whom
he discussed his past activity and expressed the desire "to enlarge the
scope" of his work, which he believed he could not do as long as he re-
mained with the Comintern. It was apparently Sorge's wish to concentrate
entirely on positive intelligence and to be relieved of Communist Party
organization activity. Piatnitsky discussed the matter with Gen. Berzin,
Director of Soviet Military Intelligence, and a short time later Berzin
called Sorge for a detailed discussion of intelligence work in Asia. Sorge
was then (in the winter of 1929) transferred from the Comintern to Soviet
Military Intelligence.
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18. Recruitment from Comintern OMS. A competent agent transferred
from the Comintern OMS to a Soviet intelligence service, Robinson, was
allegedly :thief of the OMS for Western Europe from an unspecified date
to about 1940. About 1930 Robinson moved from Berlin to Paris, and
probably during that year began to carry out espionage--probably at first
procuring intelligence for the Comintern. His agents were recruited among
former Communist Party acquaintances.
By 1936, Soviet Military Intelligence was allegedly exploiting
Robinson and his net, and undoubtedly he had been used also by Soviet
State Security (actually the Foreign Section of the OGPU), which by 1936
had completely taken over control of the Comintern. It has also been
reported that Robinson was placed at the head of the intelligence
apparatus of the French Communist Party in 1930 upon orders of the Fourth
Department of the Red Army, and was thus used to funnel information to the
Soviets from an extensive Party apparatus. The details of his transfer
from Comintern work to the Soviet IS are not available.
19. Comintern Auxiliary Organizations as Recruitment Bases. Most
productive for this purpose (according to available information) were the
International Brigade, the Young Communist International (YCI), and the
International of Seamen and Harbor Workers (ISH). Possibly other affili-
ates of the Red International of Labor Unions also furnished agents for
a Soviet intelligence service. Ideologically and practically, experience
in these organizations helped condition Communists for clandestine work,
and Soviet intelligence agents, who inevitably held key positions in all
Comintern affiliates, were afforded a chance to observe Communist opera-
tives whom they considered promising for espionage.2
20. International Brigade: Manpower for Soviet Intelligence.
Alexander Foote's experience, well known through his book, Handbook for
Spies, relates the process by which he was recruited from the International
Brigade. A non-Communist volunteer, he had fought with the Brigade in
Spain and returned to England. There he was contacted by the Communist
Party and was recruited for secret (espionage) work on the Continent by
a functionary (not identified) at Party headquarters. Foote believed
that it was D.F. Springhall, National Organization Secretary of the British
Communist Party, who had "spotted" him.
2
Persons who come within this category are, for example, Ernst Wollweber
and Michel Avatin of the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers;
possibly, Solomon Lozovski of the Red International of Labor Unions
(Profintern); Percy Glading, a paid official of the League Against
Imperialism headquarters in London until 1937; and Agnes Smedley and
Irene Wiedemeyer of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers.
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Julian Gorkin has described how service in the International
Brigade helped to develop a Mexican Communist, David Siqueiros, so that
he was willing to organize a Mexican Communist Party apparat which would
effect the assassination of Trotsky for a Soviet service:
"The Civil War in Spain was an admirable school for
political terrorism. The GPU could choose its men,
its tools there. I do not doubt that Siqueiros was
inspired by a sincere idealism in Spain. But the
more or less disinterested combatant is soon con-
verted into the instrument of a political machine,
of a totalitarian machine, ruthlessly manipulated
from Moscow... . In Spain, Siqueiros really served
the USSR. Through ignorance--like all men with a
fixed idea, he was not very intelligent--through a
love of adventure, and through corruption, he be-
came an active agent of the GPU."3
21. Young Communist International (YCI). Information provided by
Paul Crouch, an American Communist defector who was formerly a member of
the Anti-Militarist Commission of the Young Communist International, in-
dicates that the YCI was a base of some importance in recruiting agents
for Soviet penetration of foreign military forces. Crouch states that
he was given "very detailed and specific directions" for infiltrating
Communists into the United States Amy.4
He has told of a meeting with Marshal Tukachevsky and other
Red Army officials in Moscow and of their instructions for YCI recruitment
and penetration work. Crouch has related that he was instrumental (as
a YCI officer) in recruiting a Communist soldier to infiltrate a U. S.
Army installation in Panama. The latter established civilian contacts
in that area, maintained correspondence through underground channels
established by the YCI, and served the period of his enlistment (as a
Soviet agent) without detection. Steps were taken, Crouch states, to
effect other Communist penetrations--as a service for the Soviets--using
YCI men in the U. S. Army.
Fred Rose and Sam Carr, who both became agents for the Soviets in
the Communist Party of Canada (the Labour-Progressive Party), were
attracted to Communism through the Young Communist League in Canada.
Rose was appointed National Secretary of that organization in 1929 and
3 Salazar and Gorkin, Murder in Mexico, p. 209.
Testimony of Paul Crouch. Hearings before the Committee on Un-American
Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-first Congress, First
Session, May 6, 1949. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1949.
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as such went to Moscow, where he was given a 6-month course of instruction
and served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist
International. It is quite possible that he, like Crouch, received
training in espionage, particularly, instructions for directing infiltra-
tion of the Canadian military forces, but to date evidence of this is not
available.
22. International of Seamen and Harbor Workers (ISH). Evidence
that this Comintern auxiliary organization furnished personnel for
Soviet Intelligence has been provided by Richard Krebs (see paragraph 9),
who was engaged in ISH Interclub work at Hamburg, Germany and later in
Copenhagen. According to his statement, he was not involved in clandestine
activity himself, although he could name ISH personnel who had either
secret Comintern or Soviet intelligence assignments.
One of the Communist functionaries whom Krebs discussed in some
detail, Hugo Marx, held unquestioned authority at the ISH Hamburg Inter-
club. Although Krebs states that he had no knowledge of Marx's specific
role, it is obvious (from his statements) that Marx controlled secret
couriers on certain German ships and that he was very probably a Soviet
intelligence agent. Krebs has related that on several occasions when he
tried to enlist various ISH personnel in overt ISH activity, he was told
to keep "hands off" certain persons, who were "Marx's men." Apparently
these were ISE members who had been recruited as couriers, informants,
etc. for Hugo Marx, whom Krebs always referred to as a GPU agent.
At a slightly later period, when Ernst Wollweber took over control
of ISH, he exploited that organization in wholesale fashion as a supply
of agents to carry out sabotage work--an activity a Soviet intelligence
service appeared to finance and direct (see paragraph 33).
23. Comintern Files: An Aid for Soviet IS Recruitment. Besides
serving as a source of personnel and as a training field for Communist
operatives who were eventually transferred to, or absorbed by, a Soviet
intelligence service, the Comintern served the Soviets as a highly
valued source of information about Communists and sympathizers on a
global basis. Statements by nearly every Soviet defector have indicated
how comprehensive Comintern headquarters files were and how frequently they
were referred to in vetting prospective agents, in searching for recruits,
etc. Detailed biographic records pertaining to Party members periodically
were compiled by each national section of the Comintern and, automatically,
copies of biographic reports were forwarded to Moscow for Comintern Org
Department (after 1932, Cadre Department) files. Here they were available
to both major Soviet Intelligence Services. Currently these files are
probably maintained by the Foreign Section of the Central Committee, CPSO,
which reportedly is responsible for activities of the foreign Communist
Parties.
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24. Recruitment from Early Established Party Apparats. Illegal
apparats performing secret work either for the advancement of the Party
program or for a Soviet intelligence service, but continuing to function
as integral parts of the national Party, served as bases of recruitment
and as training fields for Communist agents, who subsequently were trans-
ferred to a Soviet intelligence network and became paid, professional
agents. The Soviets thus acquired trained, ideologically motivated
agents already experienced in espionage techniques. The following are
agents who were thus drawn from an illegal Party apparat--the pre-World
War II German apparat.
Schulze-Boysen, Harro. About 1936, this German Communist first
came into contact with a Soviet intelligence service (probably Soviet
Military Intelligence) while acting as leader of a Party group
operating underground. An employee of the German Air Ministry, he
was at first only an occasional informant, supplying information
to the Soviets concerning German activities in Spain. His informa-
tion was passed to a secret apparat of the German Party and passed
by a Party courier to the Soviet Embassy in Berlin. Schulze-Boysen
allegedly was inactive from 1937 to the outbreak of hostilities in
1939 and then became the chief of the most important Soviet network
in Germany. He was arrested and executed in 1942.
Wenzel, Johann. Prior to his arrival in Belgium from Germany
in 1936, Wenzel had worked in a secret apparat of the German Party.
In Brussels he was recruited by Soviet Military Intelligence. An
expert radio operator, Wenzel was arrested while transmitting to
Moscow in June 1942 and was forced to "play back" to the Soviets.
He escaped captivity in November 1942 and disappeared.
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SECTION IV. COMINLERN OPERATIONAL AND TECHNICAL
SUPPORT FOR SOVIET INTELLIGENCE
25. Sources of Documentation: The International Brigade. In the
case of this Comintern auxiliary organization, it is known that it was
exploited as a source of genuine passports for Soviet State Security.
These were confiscated outright from Brigade volunteers in the Spanish
Civil War. These fighters were nearly always compelled to hand over their
passports to Soviet State Security agents upon their arrival in Spain.
They were told that this was done so that the passports would not be lost
in the fighting at the front. Attempting to recover their passports when
they wanted to return home, they were usually told that the passports had
been destroyed in a bombing incident. In this way hundreds of foreign
passports became the property of Soviet State Security.
26. The ISH/OMS Passport Offices. Passport offices located in
Copenhagen and in Hamburg were spoken of by Richard Krebs as if they were
ISH installations, although it seems possible that actually they were
under the administration of OMS. According to Krebs, the office at
Hamburg specialized in German passports--doctoring old ones by remoying
unwanted marks and substituting new pages. A supply of these was kept on
hand. The passport office in Copenhagen probably treated Danish passports
in a similar manner.
No specific instance in which any of these ISH/OMS passport
offices supplied documentation to a Soviet agent is known. According to
numerous reports, however, the former ISH officer Erik Aage Richard
Jensen, who was in charge of the ISH passport supply office in Copenhagen,
has had close connections with a Soviet intelligence service. It seems
probable that he was--as a Soviet agent--placed in charge of the Copenhagen
passport office to ensure its full utilization by the Soviets.
27. Duplication of Comintern Delegates' Passports. Benjamin Gitlow
has related that, on their arrival in Moscow, foreign Communists were
immediately taken to Comintern headquarters, where they were required to
hand over their passports to an OMS official. Gitlow writes:
"The passports collected were deposited in a huge
safe.. .and sent to the passport mill of the OGPU,
where copies were made of them for use by OGPU aqd
other Soviet government and Comintern agencies.
Often the Communists from abroad, without their
knowledge, received for their own use the forged
passports in place of the genuine ones."1
1
Benjamin Gitlow, The Whole of Their Lives, pp. 167-168.
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28. Cover Provided by Comintern Auxiliary Organizations. Business
and other types of cover arrangements were supplied to the Soviet Intel-
ligence Services by certain Comintern-dominated organizations. Probably
the most creditable evidence available to date is that of Walter Krivitsky
who, at some length, told of Stalin's decision to send concealed aid to
the Loyalist cause in Spain. Krivitsky was assigned to procure all arms
and munition purchased outside of the Soviet Union. Shipment of these
was to be handled by cover firms controlled by Soviet State Security.
Krivitsky states that with the aid of men from such organizations as the
Friends of the Soviet Union and the many Leagues for Peace and Democracy,
Soviet State Security within 10 days had a chain of import and export
firms established throughout several European countries. He asserted
that both State Security and Soviet Military Intelligence looked upon
certain members of these societies as "war reserves of civilian auxil-
iaries of the Soviet defense system."2
In the Far East, Comintern affiliates such as the All China
Labor Federation (a Far East Bureau subsidiary), the China League for
Civil Rights, and the Anti-War Congress served at least one Soviet agent,
Agnes Smedley, as cover activity (in addition to her role as a writer on
Far Eastern problems). Her home in Shanghai was used as a meeting place
for members of Richard Sorge's Soviet Military Intelligence net while he
was based in China. She met with Soviet agents and gave them instructions
for assignments.
29. Transfer of Comintern Cover Firms. All OMS field installations--
safe houses, businesses, etc.--probably were eventually liquidated or
transferred to a Soviet intelligence service. It is known, for instance,
that OMS operated in: Peking and Shanghai under cover of an import business
dealing in German and French wines, perfumes, expensive leather goods, and
other luxury articles. In 1938 the assets of this firm were transferred
to INU (Foreign Directorate) of Soviet State Security. In other areas
Soviet Military Intelligence appears to have been the organization which
took over OMS field installations.
30. Comintern Communications Support for Soviet IS. OMS and ISH
installations provided travel and communications facilities for Communist
and Comintern functionaries. Some Interclubs, because of their location,
specialized in serving as communications links for certain areas or coun-
tries. The Interclub at Danzig, for instance, served as the link with the
underground Polish Communist Party. The Interclub at Kiel performed a
similar task for underground Party work in Finland. The Interclub in
Oslo--probably because of the many Scandinavian ships sailing to South
America and the existence of Communist cells on these--specialized in
communications with Latin America.
2
Walter Krivitsky, In Stalin's Secret Service, p. 85.
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It is more than probable that these clandestine Comintern
courier routes and facilities, apparently controlled by a Soviet intel-
ligence official at every major OMS or ISH installation, were used--
wherever needed--by a Soviet intelligence service. Krebs named one
suspected Soviet intelligence agent whom he believed was using the Ham-
burg Interclub as a point of contact with couriers coming in on trans-
oceanic vessels. Information supplied by Paul Crouch shows that the
YCI had communication channels which serviced a Soviet intelligence
operation (see paragraph 21).
31. Provision of Meeting Places. A foreign installation of the
International Union of Revolutionary Writers served at least one Soviet
network by furnishing such facilities. The outlets of this organization
in Shanghai, first the Zeitgeist Bookstore and later the Shanghai branch
of International Publishers of New York (both operated by Irene Wiedemeyer)
were used as meeting places and mail drops by Soviet agents. Agnes
Smedley introduced Richard Sorge to his most valuable agent, Hozumi Ozaki,
in the Zeitgeist Bookstore.
32. Supply of Safe Houses. The Comintern OMS, responsible for
providing such facilities for Comintern personnel, probably was effective
in supplying them also--if only in emergency situations--for Soviet in-
telligence operatives. Unfortunately, there is not any evidence to sub-
stantiate this. It is known, as stated previously, that all assets of
the Far Eastern Bureau (of OMS) in Shanghai became the property of Soviet
State Security and, according to Richard Sorge, these assets (administered
by Hilaire Noulens) included safe houses and other accommodations.
33. Sabotage Support: ISH Facilities and Personnel. The Comintern
affiliate which performed the most effective sabotage against installations
of enemies of the Soviet Union was the ISH. As the time of the outbreak
of World War II drew near, ISH activity was focused progressively on
espionage and sabotage, particularly the latter. From Krebs' knowledge
and from information from other foreign sources, it appears that ISH work
during this period was closely controlled by persons probably acting as
agents of a Soviet intelligence service.
ISH sabotage came under the administration of three main ISH
staffs: materiel, training, and communications. There were several
sabotage sections, which were organized in various geographic areas. The
materiel department was responsible for the transporting of explosives
from one country to another. A seaman aboard the Westplein (of the
Millington Steamship Company), assisted by the wireless operator on that
ship, reportedly was in charge of the transporting of explosives. The
dominant role in all ISH sabotage work was filled by Ernst Wollweber, who
not only took charge of the training department but also supervised pro-
curement and transport of explosives and other sabotage material and
administered large sums of money allegedly supplied by the Soviets to
finance ISH sabotage efforts.
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Documents dated June 1941 which were found in German Security
Police files also reflect Ernst Wollweber's directing position in ISH
sabotage work, and at that date summarized ISE work as follows:
"Sabotage attempts on 16 German, 3 Italian, and
2 Japanese ships, which in two cases caused the
total loss of very valuable vessels, can be traced
to the activity of this Communist terror group,
which is spread all over Europe."
Three factors indicate Soviet control over ISH sabotage: (1)
Ernst Wollweber, ISH Chief during the years just prior to and up to 1941,
probably had been a Soviet agent on either a continuous or intermittent
basis since 1920, when Stalin is stated to have personally advised
Wollweber to take advantage of political opportunities offered him and
pointed out that under parliamentary immunity he would be able to do
better "organization" work for the Communist movement (Wollweber eventu-
ally did serve as Deputy to the Reichstag); also, several other ISH
officials have been reported by well-placed sources as having had Soviet
intelligence connections; (2) funds for ISH work reportedly were of
Soviet origin and made available to Wollweber through regular OMS and
ISH communication channels; (3) targets against which the ISA operated
were ships and maritime establishments of powers hostile to the Soviet
Union.
34. Concluding Remarks About Soviet Intelligence Use of Comintern.
Soviet leaders thus made provision in the Comintern's earliest statutes,
and developed through the years, the Comintern's capabilities for Soviet
espionage. With the tightening of control of power in the hands of one
Soviet leader, there was ever increasing centralization of authority
over any Soviet-dominated organization, and the Comintern, an essential
tool for Soviet world rule, came progressively under closer domination
of a Soviet service subservient to Stalin.
A pattern of exploitation can be seen to have existed in the
Comintern period whereby the chief contributions made by the interna-
tional movement fall into three main categories: (1) penetration of
Soviet intelligence targets, (2) a continuous supply of personnel for
the Soviet professional espionage services, and (3) operational and
technical assistance of the most diverse nature. These general aids
have been provided for the Soviet intelligence services up to the early
1950's by the Communist Parties and their affiliates.
The ability of the International Communist Movement to effect
penetration at points of Soviet intelligence interest is still its great-
est asset for the Soviet espionage program. The extent to which the
Soviet services can now rely upon the foreign Communist movements and
their affiliated organizations as bases for manpower and as sources for
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other forms of support for Soviet professional services, however, has
been considerably curtailed.
Because of exposed cases of Communist Party collaboration in
Soviet intelligence activity, there is now among security authorities in
Western countries an increasing awareness of the identity of Communist
Party and Soviet government subversive and revolutionary interests. The
Soviet services, therefore, have now placed restrictions on the use of
known Communist Party members and sympathizers as sources for profes-
sional networks, and contact with the foreign Communist Parties for any
clandestine purpose whatsoever must be most guardedly and discreetly
arranged. Bence, although future Soviet intelligence employment of the
International Communist Movement may be limited--possibly restricted to
use of secret Party elements only?nevertheless, the general plan for
exploitation of foreign Communist organizations, personnel, and other
facilities was laid out during the Comintern era. It should be noted,
in this regard, that need for information may often override security
considerations.
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PART 510
SOVIET INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES IN EXPLOITATION
OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT
DURING WORLD WAR II AND THE POSTWAR PERIOD
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Z eSeeleti -10d peAoiddv
LIAISON AGENTS IN THE NATIONAL COMMUNIST PARTY
WHO MAY BE.
ORGANIZATION SECRETARY
CONTROL COMMISSION MEMBER
PARTY PARLIAMENTARIAN
FRONT ORG. LEADER
PARTY NEWSWRITER
UNDERGROUND LEADER
SECRETARY GENERAL
OTHER KEY PARTY POSITION
RECRUITMENT AN DI
TRAINING
Porty liaison agent (or an assistant) does talent
spotting, vetting, approaching, testing.
RECRUITMENT PROCESSES.
? OPEN PARTY or ?FRONT ORG.
\kkfi11-
+
UNDERGROUND PARTY
Test period?indirect
contact with S.I.S.
"STUDY GROUP"
(SECRET PARTY CELL)
Thorough indoctrination,
may be given a few
test assignments.
SOVIET PROFESSIONAL NETWORK
Communist recruit comes under direc-
tion of a Soviet principal agent.
-----CUTOUT
or
DIRECT-O.
SOVIET
LEGAL OR ILLEGAL
RESIDENT AGENT
11111111111111111 I
11111111111111.11111
?,?'1iNFORM-410kpRdOU,13EMENT
OVERT
C.P SYSTEM OF
AUTOMATIC REPORT
INC TO PARTY
WORKER CORRES-
PONDENTS
FRONT ORGANIZA-
TION (SECRET OP
UNIT IN CONTROL)
COVERT
"STUDY GROUP"
(SECRET CELL)
"SPECIAL APPARAT"
SOVIET IS. TARGETS
DEFENSE INSTALLATIONS
MUNITIONS PLANTS
GOVERNMENT OFFICES
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH LABS, etc
,GENERAL OPERATIONAL
SUPPORT
? DOCUMENTATION
? SAFEHOUSES, MEETING PLACES,
CACHES, ETC.
? COVER ARRANGEMENTS
? EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
? EMERGENCY FUNDS
? OPERATIONAL INFORMATION
? LOCAL SUPPORT FOR:
SABOTAGE
LIQUIDATIONS
SOVIET IS. EXPLOITATION OF NON-ORBIT COMMUNIST PARTIES AND THEIR AFFILIATES
LZ/80/000Z aseeieu JOd peAoiddv
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SECTION V. METHODS OF SOVIET CONTROL OVER
THE ESPIONAGE POTENTIAL
35. CPSU Controls Facilitate Intelligence Exploitation. Controls
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union over the Comintern and its
affiliates, as stated previously, ensured exploitation of the interna-
tional movement for espionage and other clandestine purposes. To this
day, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has retained its organiza-
tional control over the world movement. The focal point of CPSU control
presently is in the Foreign Section of its Central Committee, and these
continued controls facilitate the direct acquisition of information
through the channels of the national Communist Parties and their affili-
ates, the Cominform and the international front organizations, and there-
by assist the Soviet intelligence program.
36. Soviet Intelligence Role in the Development of Illegal Apparats.
Largely through the comprehensive training program which was provided in
the Soviet Union for foreign Communists, the Comintern and Soviet Intel-
ligence jointly developed clandestine action units--underground sections,
illegal apparats, etc.--of the national Communist Parties. Several
defectors have testified that instructors at Comintern Schools were either
Soviet State Security or Red Army Intelligence officials.
It is known that in the Comintern era, Soviet intelligence of-
ficials sometimes directly intervened to create and develop in foreign
Communist Parties secret apparats which would perform espionage. From
exposed cases--such as the Canadian wartime cases and the postwar Danielsen
case in Norway--and other evidence) it is known that in the post-Comintern
period Soviet intelligence officers have acted similarly.
37. Covert Liaison System for Foreign Communist Party Control. No
significant change appears to have taken place in the Soviet intelligence
method of maintaining covert liaison with foreign Communist Parties.
There is evidence that the Soviet services still work through trusted
Communist Party members or Party "liaison agents" in utilizing Party
personnel and facilities. Some of these have held high offices in their
respective parties.
38. Soviet Domination of the International Fronts: An Aid to Soviet
Espionage. The Soviet Party-Government, including the intelligence services,
have access to information accumulating in the headquarters of these bodies.
Key positions at their headquarters are held by Soviet functionaries rep-
resenting the Soviet affiliates which manipulate the internationals. Al-
though these Soviet representatives reportedly are not affiliated with a
Soviet intelligence service, they automatically furnish the interested
Soviet agencies with information.
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w?';
In the case of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), for
example, its former Assistant Secretary General, a Soviet citizen, Serge
Rostovsky, was known to send registered packages every 3 days from Vienna
to the International Department of the Central Council of Trade Unions
(CCTU) of the Soviet Union in Moscow. There is little doubt that a
synthesis of trade union, industrial, and other reporting received by the
WFTU reaches an interested Soviet intelligence service by such channels.
Thus there is little need for the Soviet intelligence services to plant
their staff personnel in the headquarters of these organizations.
39. More Discreet Use of the International Fronts by Soviet Intel-
ligence. As opposed to its exploitation of the Comintern international
auxiliary organizations, immediate Soviet Intelligence employment of the
present international fronts proceeds in a more subtle and cautious manner.
Although there is an attempt for direct, albeit unwitting, contact with
foreign members of intelligence interest it is performed only during
congresses or conferences by Soviet intelligence officials under cover.
It has been reliably reported that during an international meeting of the
World Peace Council, Soviet State Security dispatched several staff officers
from Moscow under cover as Pravda and TASS correspondents in order to con-
tact and debrief certain foreign delegates on an unwitting basis. Obviously,
such relationships may gradually be turned into witting ones, and possibly
carried further by Soviet State Security personnel in the home country of
the foreign delegate upon his return. Thus, there is a more guarded use
of the international front organizations than in the Comintern period, when
Soviet intelligence staff personnel were permanently assigned to their
headquarters offices.
40. Soviet Intelligence-Communist Party Liaison. Both major Soviet
intelligence services--Soviet Military Intelligence, (now Soviet Armed
Forces Intelligence) and the organization which has been referred to during
much of its existence as Soviet State Security--have had in each foreign
country parallel systems of legal and illegal representation. The chief
legal representative (or resident agent or director) usually is found to
have diplomatic or other official cover. The illegal resident agent is
frequently not a citizen of the country in which he works and, formerly,
at least, was not a Soviet national. Also, the illegal resident agent
frequently does not reside in the country against which his net is working,
but lives in an adjacent country.
The illegal or legal resident agent in general must provide for
the financing of his network, and for an efficient communications system;
he must supervise the procurement of information, etc. He is usually
forbidden to search for and develop sources of information himself, but
for this important work must rely upon local assistants, either Communist
Party liaison agents or professional agents who assist in talent spotting.
1
See footnote 3, page xi.
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There is sufficient evidence at hand to establish definitely
that control of employment of local Communist Party personnel and facili-
ties for Soviet intelligence operations in each country outside the Iron
Curtain is maintained by the legal or illegal Soviet resident director,
who works through "liaison agents" or "liaison contacts" within each Party.2
Contact between the legal or illegal resident agent and the Party liaison
agent is made either directly or through intermediaries.
41. Covert Liaison Work Allegedly Now Done by Soviet State Security.
In the past, both major Soviet intelligence services have had secret con-
tact with the foreign Communist Parties and both have similarly exploited
their personnel and facilities. Information about current practice indi-
cates that Soviet State Security since 1951 has been responsible for covert
liaison with the Communist Parties and for financing and directing Party
illegal work of interest to the Soviet Union. Allegedly, liaison taken
out of the hands of Soviet Military Intelligence was assigned to Soviet
State Security rather than the Foreign Ministry (MID) because it "required
intelligence skills and techniques." Thus, it appears that the foreign
Communist Parties still are expected to perform intelligence work for the
Soviet Union and require direction for that work.
42. Security Accorded to Clandestine Liaison with the Parties.
Because of the very careful handling of the covert contact with the foreign
Communist Parties by Soviet intelligence representatives (especially in
certain non-Orbit areas), it is this aspect of the Soviet IS-Communist
Party relationship which has been most difficult to uncover. Thanks to
revelations made by Elizabeth Bentley, Whittaker Chambers, and other
defectors, it is now known approximately how it was done in the past.
More recently, through the exposure of the Per Danielsen case in Norway
and through statements made by Soviet intelligence defectors, data have
been obtained to illustrate how the covert liaison work is presently being
handled.
As stated previously, responsibility for covert liaison with the
non-Orbit Communist Parties was charged to Soviet Military Intelligence
from an undetermined date until 1951. Allegedly, the liaison work was
transferred to Soviet State Security at ?this time to "increase the scope
and effectiveness" of foreign Communist Party activity. A Soviet defector
has stated that any information pertaining to liaison work with a foreign
Communist Party now is classified as "top secret" and only the Chief Legal
Resident Agent of Soviet State Security has complete knowledge of it, using
2 For purposes of simplification, the term "Party liaison agent" will be
used throughout this study in referring to persons who simultaneously
are active as Party functionaries and as Soviet intelligence operatives--
regardless of whether their status in a Soviet service may have been
professional, as was that of Jacob Gobs in the U. S. Communist Party.
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subordinate State Security personnel only as occasional cut-outs, trans-
lators, or drivers to the rendezvous points. In line with Soviet policy
since World War II (according to the same defector), foeigners (non-
Soviets) are not entrusted with sensitive liaison work.-
In one country, the Chief Legal Resident Agent takes sole
responsibility for enciphering and deciphering any cable traffic with
Moscow about any aspect of the covert dealings with the local Communist
Party. He (or one of his assistants) meets with the Party liaison agent
two or three times a month--usually between 6:00 and 7:00 on Sunday
evenings. Meetings are brief, and generally take place outside the Soviet
official installation. The Party liaison agent is permitted to enter the
installation only when it is necessary that he be given an extensive
briefing.
Directives are transmitted to the Party liaison agent for
espionage work to be performed by the Communist Party, but care is taken
not to reveal to the Party any knowledge about activities of the Soviet
State Security professional network operating in the area. The Party
liaison agent is used not only to pass intelligence directives but also
to pass specific political directives. He also receives any secret funds
the Soviets supply to the Party for general Party activity.
43. Party Liaison Agents. From statements made by Communist and
Soviet defectors and from information which has been revealed through
exposed Soviet intelligence operations, it has become evident that in
every Communist Party, regardless of its program of political action,
there is one (or more) Party official who simultaneously carries out his
overt Party duties and acts as a functionary of a Soviet intelligence
service. The practice of exploiting Party positions as control points
from which a Soviet intelligence representative can assure full use of
the Party's personnel and other resources has been progressively confirmed
by information from recent Soviet and Satellite defectors.
44. Statements of Defectors about Soviet Liaison Agents. Some of
the statements which bear witness to this Soviet practice are reviewed
here. Walter Krivitsky, former Chief of Soviet State Security for Western
Europe, has written: "There is in the Central Committee of every Communistl.
Party in the world one member who holds a secret commission from the OGPU."
3 One source who has been very well placed thinks it possible that the
Malenkov regime may permit the use of non-Russians for sensitive work
for the sake of greater efficiency (and probably to make up for the
losses incurred by Soviet Intelligence through defections).
4
Krivitsky, In Stalin's Secret Service, p. 101.
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A statement made by Leon Trotsky testifying to the presence of
liaison agents ("representatives") in a national Communist Party has been
quoted in paragraph d. of the introduction to this Handbook.
Elizabeth Bentley wrote concerning Jacob Gobs: "Also he was
high up in Party circles, being one of the thrpe-man Central Control
Commission ... which keeps the Party in line."
She quoted Gobs as stating: "I am a member of the GPU. We
are responsible for doing intelligence work for the Soviet Union all over
the world. That man 5vakimian, a Russian engineer arrested by U, S.
authorities on charges of espionagg ... is my superior officer."'ID
Following his experience as an operative for Soviet Military
Intelligence, Alexander Foote observed: "In every Communist Party there
is one highly-placed official whose main task is to gather information
gleaned from Party members and fellow travelers and pass it on to the
resident director through the main cut-out, who is in close but secret
touch with him. It is this official who keeps an eye open for likely
and useful recruits and passes their names on to the cut-out ...
Foote also stated: "I contacted him iffumbert-Droz, at that
time a leading Swiss Communist officiaT on instructions from Moscow, who
wished him to form his own netwRrk and supply such information as he could
obtain just over the frontier."?
Thus there is substantial evidence, even in overt publications
provided by persons at one time strategically placed, that both major
Soviet intelligence services have designated (and have prdbably trained)
leading Party functionaries who perform a dual role, Party official and
Soviet intelligence representative, or liaison agent.
45. Tasks of the Party Liaison Agent. Once appointed as liaison
agent within a national Communist Party, this Soviet intelligence as-
sistant then performs whatever task is required by the service with which,
however loosely, he is affiliated. Over a period of time--when no service
is required--he may seem to have a "sleeper" status and perform no specific,
active duty for the Soviet service, but he is always available to discover
and recruit agents and to set up emergency intelligence networks for the
Soviets if necessary.
5 Elizabeth Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 113.
6
Ibid, p. 135.
7 Alexander Foote, Handbook for Spies, p. 65.
8 Ibid, p. 118.
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To date it appears that whatever a national Communist Party does
for a Soviet intelligence service is centered around these liaison agents
within the Party, and penetration work is carried out principally where
the Party is found auspiciously placed to work against a Soviet intelli-
gence target or where the Soviets wish duplicate apparats in operation--
the professional service and the Party apparat--so that information from
one can serve as a check against the intelligence product of the other.
A survey of Party liaison agents indicates that the Soviets
tend to use Party functionaries occupying the positions listed here (or,
more likely, maneuver their liaison agents into one of these posts):
Organization Secretary, Control Commission office, Party parliamentarian,
editor or writer on a Party periodical or newspaper, leader of the Party
underground section, and, in two instances, Secretary General. Leading
positions in national front organizations have also been exploited for
Soviet intelligence purposes.
46. Organization Secretary Posts Held by Party Liaison Agents. It
has been ascertained from documents taken from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa
by Igor Gouzenko, Soviet code clerk who defected in 1945, that Sam Carr,
National Organization Secretary of the Labour-Progressive Party (the
CP of Canada) was a liaison agent of Soviet Military Intelligence.
Carr supplied information on prospective agents (Communist and non-
Communist), directed illegal Party apparats which were functioning as
auxiliary Soviet intelligence nets, and procured false documentation and
performed other tasks facilitating Soviet operations in the Western Hemi-
sphere. Like several other Communist leaders, Carr attended the Lenin
School, and upon his return to Canada (in 1931) was appointed Organization
Secretary of the Labour-Progressive Party. For a brief time in 1938-1939
he was transferred to work as editor of a Party publication, The Clarion,
possibly for Soviet intelligence operational reasons, but returned to
organization work in 1939.
Douglas Frank Springhall of the British Communist Party, another
Party liaison agent, had a somewhat similar Party career. He attended
the Lenin School for an unknown period of time in 1929 and allegedly was
attached to the Soviet Navy following the session at the Lenin School.
He had a "political position" (not further defined) in the International
Brigade in Spain. He made several trips to the Soviet Union, one of them
in August-September 1939. In January 1940, he was elected National Organ-
izer of the British Communist Party. Three years later he was arrested
and convicted on charges of espionage.
Another Party organization worker who is known to have been
connected with Soviet espionage, Steve Nelson, is a district organizer of
the Communist Party of the United States.
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47. Control Commission Posts Held by Party Liaison Agents. Control
Commission places have been held by several known liaison agents. Jacob
Gobs of the Communist Party of the United States is stated by Elizabeth
Bentley to have taken advantage of his position on the Control Commission
to check reports against information in Party files before requesting
further checking in Moscow. Fred Rose and Just Lippe, members of the
Control Commission in their respective parties (Canadian and Norwegian),
also have been active in Soviet intelligence operations in those coun-
tries. Possibly affiliated with a Soviet intelligence service are present
Control Commission members Maria Bernetic and Giovanni Postogna of the
pro-Cominform Communist Party of Trieste.
48. Communist Party Parliamentarians. According to Section 4 of
Thesis 4 of the Second Congress of the Comintern:
"A Communist representative by decision of the
Central Committee, is bound to combine legal work
with illegal work. In countries where the Communist
delegate enjoys a certain inviolability, this must
be utilized by way of rendering assistance to the
illegal organizations and for the propaganda of the
Party."
The aspect of "a certain inviolability," which in some countries means
immunity from arrest, is of obvious advantage for a Party liaison agent.
Additionally, the Party functionary serving as representative to Parlia-
ment is exeedingly well placed to procure information most necessary to
the Soviet Union.
It is known that Hans Kippenberger of the pre-World War II
German Communist Party was not Only Communist representative in the
Reichstag, where for some time he was a member of the Committee for Mil-
itary Affairs, but was also a Party liaison agent who headed the German
Party's intelligence apparat and kept the Soviets informed of all the
latest discussions and appropriations made for the German armed forces.
Documentation brought out of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa by
Gouzenko proved that Fred Rose played a similar role. Rose was elected
to Parliament in August 1943 and re-elected in June 1945. The Report of
the Royal Commission states: "There had been a secret session of Par-
liament on November 25, 1944. It is apparent that Rose had reported to
his masters on this session."9
Fernand Grenier of the French Communist Party, frequently
reported as involved in Party and Soviet intelligence work, has been a
9 The Report of the Royal Commission, Ottawa, 1946, p. 121.
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Deputy to the French Chamber during most of the time since 1937. During
the course of his "legal" duties, he has undoubtedly kept the Party and
the Soviets informed of any confidential matters acted on by the Chamber.
49. Party Newspaper Jobs. Party writing or editorial positions in
several known cases have been exploited by Soviet intelligence. Louis
Budenz, who, before his defection, was managing editor of the Daily
Worker, has related that he was asked by a Soviet official to collect
information on the "enemies of the Soviet Union" among leftist or labor
ranks, and specifically among Trotskyites. Budenz was to note especially
those who did a great deal of traveling, particularly foreign travel. In
the words of Budenz:
"A newspaperman can make inquiries and get informa-
tion much more easily than most people. Seldom did
I make an engagement for secretive purposes only.
I would combine my private business with topics as
a proposed article, or the source material for a
series of features, or the address of a proposed
correspondent."1?
Sixten Rogeby, a Swedish Communist since the late 1920's, was
instrumental in putting Soviet intelligence officials in Sweden in con-
tact with an old Party friend, Ernst Andersson, a warrant officer in the
Swedish Navy. Andersson, from his final recruitment (in November 1949)
to the time of his arrest (in September 1951), successfully completed all
missions assigned to him by the Soviets.
Rogeby was sent to Moscow in the early part of 1947 as cor-
respondent of the Swedish Communist Party newspaper, Ny Dag. He was
there until the turn of 1948-1949 and allegedly had "Party instruction"
while there. Since returning to Sweden he appears to have devoted most
of his efforts to collecting military information under journalistic cover.
In another part of the world, Ohannes Aghabashian, editor of the
Armenian edition of the local Syro-Lebanese Communist Party publication,
appears to have acted over a long period of time as a Party liaison agent
in Syria and Lebanon.
50. Leader of the Party Underground Section. The leadership of the
Party's underground is a position likely to be occupied by a Party liaison
agent. J. Peters, head of the underground apparatus of the Communist
Party of the United States (like Kippenberger of the old German Communist
Party, Henri Robinson of the pre-World War II French Communist Party, and
undoubtedly others) appeared to have dual responsibilities: he directed
the Party's underground apparatus, but, as called upon, acted for a Soviet
service.
10 Louis Budenz, This is My Story, p. 258.
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Whenever there was a change of principal agent for Whittaker
Chambers' ring, Chambers was directed to report to Peters in the interim.
Peters always knew the identity of the new principal agent and arranged
for Chambers to contact him. Chambers has stated that Peters knew in
detail about several Soviet networks operating in the United States. It
seems unlikely that anyone not having a definite Soviet intelligence af-
filiation would have been so highly trusted.
51. Secretary General Posts. While in general the Soviets appear
to have avoided using the most prominent Party position to harbor their
liaison agents, there is evidence in at least two cases that this position
has not been completely overlooked for Soviet intelligence exploitation.
It is known that Earl Browder acted as a "spotter" and assisted Soviet
agents in whatever way he could while he was Secretary General of the
Communist Party of the United States. Previous to his tenure of this
Party office, he had served as a Soviet intelligence agent in the Far
East (where his mission allegedly resulted in a fiasco). Elizabeth
Bentley has described him--while he was Secretary General of the Com-
munist Party of the United States--as collaborating actively with Soviet
State Security.
There is mounting evidence that Vittorio Vidali, present Secre-
tary General of the pro-Cominform Communist Party of Trieste, is one of
those ultimately responsible for the Party's intelligence operations and
possibly has a Soviet IS tie. He has been known to intervene in the
Party's intelligence operations, the product of which is undoubtedly at
the disposal of the Soviet Union. His career--suspected Soviet State
Security service in Spain and Mexico, long period of training in the
Soviet Union, Soviet citizenship, etc.--certainly suggests Soviet intel-
ligence affiliation.
52. Leading Positions in National Front Organizations. Among
Communist-dominated organizations which have harbored a Party liaison
agent in one of their leading posts, from which point he could control
and exploit the organization for Soviet intelligence purposes, are: the
societies of friendship with the Soviet Union, national resistance and
partisan organizations, "peace" organizations, labor unions, and profes-
sional associations.
In a Western European country, the Communist Party official
heading the friendship-with-the-Soviet-Union society allegedly serves as
a liaison agent for a Soviet intelligence service and reports all infor-
mation about its members of Russian origin. Since nearly all Russian
Communists residing in that country belong to the society, they form a
large percentage of the membership. Reportedly the society has 10
"inspectors," who travel throughout the country recruiting new members
and carrying out propaganda missions. At least one of these "inspectors"
is known to the local authorities as a Soviet intelligence agent. Thus,
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with liaison agents placed within the leadership and professional agents
in other parts of the Society, the Soviets can exploit it successfully
as a source of information on persons of Russian origin living in that
country. It is well to recall here that Krivitsky and other Soviet
defectors have stated repeatedly that Soviet State Security has, through
various forms of persuasion, made every possible use of Russian emigres.
At least one front organization (a "professional" association)
appears to have been created at Soviet direction so that the liaison
agent--who has administered it from its earliest days--could direct
penetration work among scientists and other technicians.
53. No Regular Pattern for Soviet IS Use of Party Posts. The
Soviets do not seen to have a preference for any one of these Party
positions as a place for the liaison agent. As Gouzenko states, concern-
ing Soviet intelligence methods:
"They would not use just one method; they use a
combination of all methods. They are always saying
never to put all your aspirations and hopes on one
method. Combine methods. They say that life is
very complicated, so use everything possible."11
Doubtless because of the emphasis on counterespionage and security work
in the Party ControlCommissiaaand its maintenance of biographic reports
on every Party member, there appears to be a tendency for Soviet State
Security to exploit Control Commission posts for its Party liaison agents.
In the past, Soviet Military Intelligence seemed to prefer Party Parlia-
mentarian posts (for reasons already explained), Organization Secretary-
ships, and Party newswriting or editorial positions. There were exceptions
to these tendencies and there was probably no hard-and-fast, established
procedure.
An analysis of the careers of the Party liaison agents shows
that most of them have had (1) training in the Soviet Union--in either a
Comintern or Soviet intelligence school; (2) revolutionary or intelligence
experience in a foreign country; and (3) many years of experience as Com-
munist activists and leaders in their own Parties. The Party affiliation
of most of them dates back to the founding of their respective Parties.
54. Cut-Outs between the Soviet Legal or Illegal Resident Agents
and the Party Liaison Agent. The best documented case showing the use
of these cut-outs was exposed by the defecting code clerk, Igor Gouzenko,
who escaped from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa carrying papers relating
the story of Soviet intelligence operations in Canada. They show a secret
11 The Report of the Royal Commission, Ottawa, 1946, p. 53.
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Party member, Dr. Henry Harris, an optometrist in Toronto, sometimes
serving as a cut-out between Soviet intelligence officials and Sam Carr,
Organizer of the Labour-Progressive Party of Canada, who was simultane-
ously a Party liaison agent. Occasionally there was also direct contact
between Carr and Soviet officials.
Alexander Foote spoke of a woman whom he knew as "May" who
servea as a cut-out during World War II between him and Jules Humbert-
Droz, then a prominent leader of the Communist movement in Switzerland
and an operative for Soviet Military Intelligence. The Per Danielsen
case in Norway which was exposed in 1951 revealed that a person posing
as a Czech refugee in Oslo probably was being used upon occasion as a
cut-out between Just Lippe, one of the highest ranking members of the
Norwegian Communist Party and a Party liaison agent, and Soviet legal
resident agents in Oslo.
55. Financial Provisions for Party Liaison Agents. Unlike Soviet
agents who work as professionals for a Soviet intelligence service and
who are invariably obliged to accept payment from the Soviets, liaison
agents in a national Communist Party apparently have been under no such
compulsion. The Soviets apparently take into consideration the fact that
(1) these men (or women) are paid Party workers (or Parliamentarians) and
are not dependent on a salary from the Soviet service, and (2) the liaison
agents have been judged the most trustworthy, fanatically loyal Party
functionaries before they are designated to serve in this way. In Soviet
terminology (according to a notebook from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa)
they are nash, or, ours. The Soviets do not disregard the financial
status of their liaison agents entirely, however; they make sure these
individuals have an adequate supply of funds. A note with reference to
Sam Carr in Col. Zabotin's notebook reads: "Financially secure, but takes
money. It is necessary occasionally to help .1112
12 The Report of the Royal Commission, Ottawa, 1946, p. 104.
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SECTION VI. 'iliE COMMUNIST PARTIES: AUXILIARY
SOVIET INFORMATION PROCUREMENT AGENCIES
The overt, or more accurately the semiovert, and covert methods of in-
formation procurement by the Communist Parties will be discussed separately
here. The Party's standing regulation that Party members are automatically
obliged to report any information of interest to the Party has resulted--
especially in certain countries--in exhaustive collections of information
deposited in the files of Party headquarters and always available to the
Party liaison agents. The workers' correspondence system--utilized by both
the Parties and the front organizations, and based on the Rabkor system used
by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the Press Section of the
Comintern--has been a productive source of information up to the present time.
Covertly, the national Communist Parties have in general facilitated
intelligence procurement for the Soviets through two principal media:
(1) the front organizations, which (as previously stated) have been valu-
able as preliminary recruiting bases for Soviet intelligence and which
have also been utilized as a means of penetrating a variety of Soviet
targets; (2) illegal Party apparats--made up of persons drawn from the
open or secret memberships of the Party and from sympathizers recruited
from the front organizations or "study groups"--which have served as
penetration teams, sometimes working against several targets or focused
on one Soviet objective.
Although countless reports have stated that information was procured
by "Cominform agents," to date there is no confirmation that an intelli-
gence procurement unit exists within the Cominform organization. Rather,
all evidence to date indicates that information is procured through facil-
ities of the national Communist Parties or the national and international
front organizations, and that the Cominform may serve as a collection point
for certain types of intelligence information, possibly included in polit-
ical reports, which are then forwarded to the Foreign Section of the
Central Committee of the CPSU.
56. Semiovert Methods of Information Procurement. From a cursory
glance at these general methods of procuring information--automatic
reporting of information to the Party and workers' reporting of personal
experiences to Party publications--it would seem that they are completely
overt, but actually it is the confidential aspects of such reporting and
the covert penetrations revealed by those systems which are most valuable
for the Party (and Soviet) information procurement program. Actually, all
phases of information collection are tinged with illegality, just as in
all Party activity there is an overlapping and interpenetration of the
legal and illegal. Thus, it is reported that only a small portion of the
"take" from workers' correspondence allegedly gets into Party periodicals;
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much of it pertains to technical construction taking place in factories,
in shipyards, etc. and is not exploited for publication but is probably
picked up by the Party liaison agent, who is then responsible for trans-
mitting it to the Soviet IS with which he is in touch.
Illegality is also found in the techniques employed by these
systems of reporting. For instance, reports from factory cells channeled
to higher Party authorities sometimes bear coded indications of the source
which may be worded as "a confidential contact in the factory cell of
reports that ... ." Sometimes samples of component parts of
technical construction are stolen or borrowed from a factory, naval ship-
yard, etc. and are submitted with reports, so that the samples can be
examined at Party headquarters. When submitting information through the
open mails or over the phone, Party activists have used numbers to iden-
tify themselves. Thus it is not completely accurate to speak of these
systems of information procurement as overt, but in this discussion they
are distinguished from the Party's covert penetration methods of acquiring
intelligence information.
57. Automatic Reporting of Information to Party. Since every Com-
munist Party member is, by Party regulation, automatically an informant
for the Party, in countries where the Party's membership is large this
actually becomes a system of mass procurement of information. There are
large numbers of informants at every level of the administrative, politi-
cal, economic, social, and military agencies, and they contribute great
quantities of information.
Beginning on the lowest level, the worker who belongs to a
factory cell reports to his cell secretary about conditions in his factory:
grievances of the workers, their attitudes toward labor union leaders,
wages as compared with those of other workers, whether conditions are
favorable for a strike, etc. Workers of the white-collar variety keep
the Party posted on business conducted in government agencies, in offices
of industrial plants having military contracts, etc.
Much information is passed along the regular channels of the
open Party structure in the form of periodic statistical, organizational,
personnel, or labor reports made by the secretaries of the Party commit-
tees on the various territorial levels. Such periodic, routine reports
are funneled into the Organization or Cadre Department, or another office
of Party headquarters, and provide much basic data.
58. Specific Party Directives for Information Procurement: In
addition to reporting which Party members are expected to do automati-
cally as a normal part of their Party activity, special directives are
sometimes issued defining specific information which Party members must
contribute.
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Specific requests for information are also disseminated through
the national and international front organizations. Directives of this
nature have no restrictive character, but a moral obligation to extend 25X6A
information Drocurelnent to more confidential matters is implicit in the
directives.
Engineering
construction
In carrying out this directive, these unions
acquire information on naval construction as it was geared for wartime
requirements.
allegedly also worked to
al 25X6A
qv, MI VP n?
59. Information Procurement and Party Propaganda Closely Correlated.
The information contributed by Party members as part of the system of
automatic reporting is closely related to the Party's main agitation-
propaganda themes, which presently stress the "struggle for peace" and
"unity of action of the working class."
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The close correlation between intelligence and propaganda pro-
grams and the probable reliance on local Communist Parties for support
for both these activities is indicated in the statement of a high-ranking
Soviet intelligence defector, who remarked recently that the "main Soviet
intelligence and therefore propaganda strength" was in certain countries
where the penetration of vital communications media was more successful
and the local Communist Parties more trusted. In other words, in areas
from which there is the best flow of economic, industrial, technical, and
political intelligence, Soviet propagandists have the best supply of in-
formation--a supply which can be used as source material for day-to-day
propaganda items.
60. Party and Front Organization "Research" Sections. In each Com-
munist Party--and frequently in each mass organization--there is a unit
responsible for research and analysis of information the Party (or front
organization) collects. This office is sometimes located within the sec-
retariat of each organization. In one occupied area, for example, the
Partisans of Peace there synthesized, in the form of a "White Book,"
studies on Western war preparations made by Communists. The book alleg-
edly gives a detailed picture of the Allied occupation and of local mili-
tary installations. The published details reportedly are accurate, and
the book contains sketches and photos of military objectives in restricted
zones. It is to be taken for granted that all "studies" prepared by a
national Communist Party or front organization, are passed to the Soviets;
actually they may have been compiled as the result of a Soviet request
passed to the Party through the liaison agent.
61. Worker Correspondents. A cleverly devised system of information
procurement, and one formerly used only by the Comintern or by the national
Communist Parties, the worker correspondents system has become a practice
of the front organizations as well. The correspondents are not paid Party
workers, although reportedly they are reimbursed for expenses incurred in
their work; their activity is explained by the desire of the Communist
movement to free itself from "bourgeois" sources of information.
The networks of correspondents are generally connected with
central organs of the Communist (or a front organization) press. Each
correspondent, a confirmed Communist, reportedly is chosen upon the sug-
gestion of the local leaders of the Party. He must have (theoretically,
at least) special aptitude for observation and must keep himself informed
about problems related to the Party's political policy.
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The information collection program of the worker correspondents
is very broad in scope; in one country, for instance, correspondents are
instructed to report on demands for salary increases, working conditions,
job accidents and their causes, general operations of the factories, em-
ployee benefits, influence of non-Communists, and the prospects for a
united front. They must also report about activities of the municipal
assemblies, general demands of the people, rural problems, education, and
housing.
The worker correspondence system is known to have operated with
considerable success in France, where, between the years 1928 and 1932, a
Party leader (who was probably a liaison agent) received military infor-
mation through worker correspondents of L'Humanite, Midi, and other French
Communist publications. At an unspecified time during that period (1928-
1932) there were allegedly about 2,000 worker correspondents in the Seine
Department alone. Although L'Humanite published only a small portion of
the material from these correspondents, all of it was apparently screened
for intelligence leads, undoubtedly both by Party intelligence operatives
and by a Party liaison agent located either on the editorial staff or in
one of the other Party headquarters offices.
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) advocates the organ-
ization of worker correspondents on a professional basis. The sixth reso-
lution adopted by the Third World Trade Union Congress of the WFTU reads
in part:
"One of the main tasks of all the trade union or-
ganizations and the correspondents is to send reg-
ular information to the WFTU and its review, on the
position of the workers, on the main events in trade
union life, on the forms of the struggles of the
workers for their vital interests ... . Within the
framework of this task, the Congress recommends the
trade union organizations to set up networks of
correspondents (workers, peasants, intellectuals,
women and young people) for the review, 'World Trade
Union Movement,' to persuade all active trade union-
ists and workers to contribute effectively by supply-
ing news, studies, surveys, articles of an educational
nature, etc. for the constant improvement of the re-
view, and to make of it an increasingly useful weapon
for the active workers, for all the workers, at what-
ever level they may be in the trade union movement."1
1 Manifesto, Resolutions and Messages adopted by the Third World Trade
Union Congress, Vienna, October 10-21, 1953. (Supplement to World
Trade Union Movement Nos. 21 & 22, 1953.)
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Besides serving as material for a propaganda weapon, in view of Party and
Soviet IS practices in the past it is obvious that any information procured
through worker correspondent systems of the present will be exploited where-
ever possible for intelligence purposes. To what extent the Soviet IS is
now profiting from this system cannot at present be accurately gauged.
62. Communist Party Covert Methods of Information Procurement. As
previously stated, from the date of the founding of the Comintern each
national Communist Party was obliged to establiBh units responsible for
carrying out illegal work as one of the requirements for admission to
membership in the Comintern. Actually, each Party was to have a completely
organized secret or underground section, parallel to the open Party struc-
ture, which in case of necessity could take over the administration and
functions of the Party as a whole.
While the open structure of the Party still functions as a legal
entity, the underground Party works quietly in the background, developing
its structure for eventual assumption of control and performing the illegal,
covert work any revolutionary party must perform at all times.
In this study (as previously stated) we shall use the terminology
used in certain overt writings (Whittaker Chambers' Witness, for example)
and, in speaking of a Party's underground structure as a whole, we shall
use the term "underground section." In referring to the various component
subsections of the underground structure, we shall use the term "illegal
apparat," or, in the case of those apparats performing espionage, the term
"intelligence apparat."
63. Illegal Apparats Formed as Required. Adaptability of Communist
organization is probably nowhere in better evidence than in the underground
sections of the national Communist Parties. These have had a complete or-
ganizational setup on paper only, with the component units (illegal apparats)
coming to life only as there was definite need for them to perform specific
tasks. Thus, in the United States, for example, illegal apparats (of the
underground section of the Communist Party) have been activated (1) in key
industrial areas, to carry out Communist labor union activities or procure
industrial or technical information; (2) in places where there was oppor-
tunity to spread Communist propaganda (Hollywood and other film centers);
(3) in Washington, to infiltrate policymaking bureaus of the government for
the purpose of exerting Communist influence or procuring political informa-
tion; (4) near chemical or other research laboratories working on secret
developments, to obtain scientific information.
So well designed are the underground sections--and their several
illegal apparats--for collaboration with Soviet intelligence that it is
obvious their establishment (provided for by Bolshevik leaders through the
Comintern Statutes and Conditions of Admission) was made with the Soviet
intelligence program in view. The responsibilities of the Soviet intelli-
gence services are broader than those of most non-Orbit government, since
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they must covertly perform a variety of assignments which will support the
Soviet program for ultimate world domination. Secret or illegal sections
and apparats of the national Communist Parties have a definite obligation
to provide covert assistance to the espionage, sabotage, propaganda, and
other missions which the Soviet intelligence services perform.
Personnel for the illegal apparats are frequently drawn from a
Communist Party's secret membership; members and sympathizers drawn from
the front organizations frequently are found as participants in illegal--
including intelligence--apparats.
64. Apparats Frequently of More Than One Level. In some of the
national Communist Parties extensive illegal apparats have sometimes con-
sisted of more than one level, with the broader level functioning (often
disguised as a study group) so as to: (a) indoctrinate thoroughly persons
relatively new to the movement, and (b) infiltrate secret Party members
into key places in government departments, research centers, etc. These
tasks could be classified strictly as Communist Party work. These groups
are sometimes under the direction of experienced Party functionaries, who
prepare psychological or progress reports on the development of the newer
members. The reports undoubtedly become available to persons acting as
Party liaison agents. A small, more selective group is gradually recruited
from the broader apparat to perform more sensitive tasks--usually of most
interest to a Soviet service.
When an apparat has the definite function to procure intelligence,
this split-level nature sometimes is still noticeable. Here, the broader
level is found again to perform tasks which are primarily of Communist Party
interest. More often this is security or counterespionage work, while the
second level, usually a more compact unit, is found to procure positive
intelligence information.
65. General Characteristics of Party Intelligence Apparats. Before
any individual Party apparat is discussed, a few observations which are
applicable to many of them can be made:
a. There seems to be no standard plan for placing a Party intel-
ligence apparat within any specific open Party office, but in several
cases where their existence has become known they have been found
camouflaged within the Organization Secretariat, the Political Secre-
tariat (or sometimes within a Work Committee which may be the executive
unit for either an Organization or Political Secretariat), or within
the Control Commission. In other instances, they have apparently been
organized under the office of the leader of the entire underground
Party structure.
b. When a Party official supervises the work of the apparat, it
has been found that the functionary has at least county or district
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organizer rank. In at least five national Communist Parties, one or
more of the highest ranking Party officials, simultaneously acting
as Party liaison agent, has administered the Party intelligence
apparats.
c. Some of the Party apparats organized to carry out Soviet
espionage have existed as "sleeper" apparats, having no active duties
for a number of years, until the Soviet service responsible for their
establishment decided to activate them. This was the status of
Whittaker Chambers' apparat for a while.
d. Some apparats organized during or just after World War II
show signs of having been hastily organized and insecurely operated--
possibly due to Soviet urgent need for specific information. For
example, an apparat uncovered in England during World War II was
headed by the Party Organization Secretary, Douglas Frank Springhall.
Apparently without using cut-outs, he contacted secret Party members
in the British Air Ministry, Army, Intelligence Service, and other
government agencies, and, naturally, his operations were exposed.
e. Party intelligence apparats operating during World War II
were of two general types: (1) those which had been functioning
over a long period of time--such as the apparats based on the Ware
and Silvermaster groups in Washington, or (2) those which were quick-
ly organized to work against a Soviet priority target--such as the
one previously mentioned in England and the group operating under
David G. Lunan in Canada and directed by Lt. Col. Rogov. Close su-
pervision was given these groups by Soviet legal resident agents,
and directives from Moscow, taken out of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa
by Gouzenko, reveal irrefutable Soviet interest in them.
f. In at least two national Communist Parties, doormen or guards
at the Party headquarters building have participated in the intelli-
gence apparat by serving as cut-outs for Party intelligence apparat
leaders.
66. Intelligence Apparats of Various National Communist Parties.
a. Labour-Progressive Party of Canada. At least three apparats
made up exclusively of secret Party members or sympathizers were
uncovered at the time of the defection of Igor Gouzenko, code clerk
of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. Since the groups have been described
in detail in the published account of the trials,2 only a general out-
line of their composition and intelligence tasks will be given here.
2 The Report of the Royal Commission, Ottawa, 1946.
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(1) Ottawa-Toronto Group. This came under the ultimate
direction of Col. Zabotin, Soviet Military Intelligence legal
resident agent, who apparently was assisted by two other of-
ficial Soviet representatives in contacting this Party apparat.
Within the apparat there were apparently two participants who
at times had direct contact with the Soviets: Sam Carr, a
liaison agent in the Canadian Labour-Progressive Party, and
James Scotland Benning. Carr was the only member of the ap-
parat known openly as a Communist.
"T EON"
First Secy., Soviet
Embassy, Ottawa
COL. ZABOTIN
Legal Resident Agent
r- TOLTND? ?
I (Believed to be
member of
apparat)
L_
SAM CARR
Org. Secy., Labour-
Progressive Party
A
SURENSEN
Fig. 3. Ottawa-Toronto Wartime
"MARTIN"
TASS
Representative
J. S. BPNNING
ERIC ADAMS
4
KATHLFEN
WILLSHER
Party Intelligence Apparat
Benning, who began working for the Soviets at the end
of January 1943, was an employee of the Allied War Supplies
Corporation and provided information about war supplies. In
April 1945, he became joint Secretary of the Canadian Munitions
Assignment Committee.
Squadron Leader F. W. Poland, probably a sympathizer,
was an Administrative Intelligence Officer in the Royal Cana-
dian Air Force, Ottawa. He was responsible for Security Edu-
cation throughout the RCAF through the Command Intelligence
Service and for advising the Director of Intelligence on all
matters of security policy. Poland was also Secretary of the
Security Subcommittee of the Canadian Joint Intelligence Com-
mittee. At the time of Gouzenko's defection he had contributed
only maps of air force training schools, obviously a trial as-
signment, although it is probable he had done work for another
network--one operated by Soviet State Security.
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Eric Adams was for a time Technical Adviser to the
Wartime Requirements Board and later was head of the Statistics
and Research Section of the Foreign Exchange Control Board. He
provided detailed information about all industries, plans for
the future, and information about conferences.
Surensen had left Canada by the time of the trials; it
is not known what information he supplied.
Kathleen Willsher, an employee of the Office of the
High Commissioner of the United Kingdom, provided information
(through Eric Adams) about the activities of this office and
concerning relations between the United Kingdom and the United
States, the significance of the visits of prominent British
officials, etc. Her contact with Adams was made at the time of
secret cell meetings ("study group" meetings), although their
conversations about intelligence activities were held privately.
(2) Apparats Organized by Fred Rose. Two other Party in-
telligence apparats in Canada were organized by Fred Rose, Party
Organization Secretary for the Province of Quebec, member of the
Party's Control Commission, and Member of Parliament. One of
these, called the "Research Group" and located in Montreal, came
under the administration of David Gordon Lunan, a writer for the
Canadian Information Service, who was in direct touch with Lt.
Col. Rogov, a Soviet Military Intelligence legal resident agent.
Lunan acted as the contact with a group of secret Party members
who were participants in a secret cell of Communist scientists,
and directed the group as instructed by Lt. Col. Rogov. Lunan
also provided some political intelligence information.
Israel Halperin
("Bacon")
Lt. Col. Rogov ("Jan"
--0.1 D. G. Lunan ("Back"
Durnford Smith
("Badeau")
Fig. 4. "The Research Group"
Ned Mazerall
("Bagley")
Halperin told about the organization and characteristics
of Valcartier Explosive Establishment's Direction; Smith provided
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information about the Radio Laboratory of the National Research
Council; Mazerall was to provide models of developed radio sets,
photographs, and technical data, and was to describe the work of
the Radio Department of the National Research Council and its
future tasks.
Halperin, Smith, and Mazerall worked as a team and
objected to admitting new members for fear that it might jeop-
ardize them. Lunan and Smith had become acquainted with Fred
Rose in the front organization called the Quebec Committee for
Allied Victory.
Fred Rose had also organized an apparat called the
"Montreal Group," composed of secret Party members (or sympa-
thizers) who worked against a variety of Soviet intelligence
targets.
Maj. Sokolov, Chief
of Commercial Section
"Director Davie"
Auxiliary Group
Gini & Gala
"Davie 's"
Wife
"Gray"
Koudriavtzev, First
Sec. Soviet Embassy
"Leon"
Fred Rose
viGalya, a
housewife
Freda
"Green"
Fig. 5. "The Montreal Group"
"Professor"
"Gray" (Harold S. Gerson) was a geologist who was head
of a section of the Department of Munitions and Supply, Ottawa.
He supplied information about shells and cannons. "Green" (not
further identified) worked in the administrative office of a
tank plant in Montreal and gave details about the number of
tanks delivered to the Canadian Army. The "Professor" (Raymond
Boyer) was a noted chemist of McGill University who supplied
information about explosives and chemical plants. The auxiliary
group was concerned with photographic work; Gini had a photo-
laboratory and provided a place for the photographing of docu-
ments, plans, etc. Golia was a young artist who worked in a
photo studio.
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b. Wartime Apparat in California. A Party intelligence apparat
in operation in California during World War II consisted of several
subsections or groups, each of which worked as a team against specific
Soviet intelligence targets. Directors of the apparats were two Com-
munist Party officials, one of whom was then Alameda County Party Or-
ganizer; both were Comintern-trained operatives who have probably been
liaison agents for Soviet State Security in the Communist Party of the
United States for many years.
Liaison Agent in charge
of penetration group in
a Communist-controlled
trade union
Soviet legal
resident agent,
Soviet Consulate, S. Fran.
Party Liaison Agent,
a CPUSA County Organizer
CPUSA Member in charge
of several penetration
groups
Penetration group
working against
govt. employees
Penetration group
for entire Univ.
of California
Scientists at
University of
California Radia-
tion Laboratory
Fig. 6. CPUSA Apparat Active During World War II
c. Norwegian Communist Party. In late 1949 the Norwegian CP
reportedly had at least three apparats, each of which was to procure
military information, working respectively against the Royal Norwegian
Navy, Army, and Air Force. All were allegedly under the direction of
'Just Lippe, a member of the Control Commission of that Party and a
Party liaison agent. Available information pertains mostly to that
unit operating against the Navy from late 1949 to April 1951, whose
key member was Per Danielsen, a Communist Party member and son of a
Norwegian admiral.
In connection with operations of this unit, liaison with
Soviet legal resident agents was maintained by Lippe and Danielsen.
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The latter received guidance from both Lippe and the Soviet officials.
Clandestine meetings between Danielsen and Soviet officers were poorly
conceived, as the participants could easily be placed under surveil-
lance and identified. Security violations led to relatively quick
exposure.
Another Norwegian Party apparat, functioning under the im-
mediate leadership of Asbjoern Sunde, a Communist resistance leader
during World War II, was exposed by Norwegian Security Police in
early February 1954. An open Party member, Sunde had been in direct
contact with Soviet legal resident agents in Oslo since the end of
World War II. Whetner or not he, like Danielsen, also came under
the supervision of Lippe, is not known.
Sunde's apparat reportedly had penetration agents in the
Oslo police, in the Norwegian Army, and presumably in the Navy, since
his principal targets also seemed to be naval installations and ships,
harbors, and other coastal defenses, as well as MDAP assistance and
defense industries. Sunde was arrested in early February 1954, while
on his way to a meeting with a Soviet official.
d. Pro-Cominform Communist Party of Trieste. The intelligence
apparat of this Party is divided into two main divisions: (1) an
"Internal Section," which performs security and investigation work
and which is camouflaged within the Cadre Committee of the open Party;
and (2) an "External Section," which carries out positive intelligence
assignments and is located within the "Work Committee" (the executive
unit of the Political Committee) of the open Party. Administrators
of both sections are open Party officers under the ultimate direction
of Vittorio Vidali, Secretary General; they are assisted by other open
Party members in directing secret agents recruited mostly from front
organizations and from Yugoslav refugee groups.
Among targets of the External Section are: the Yugoslav Com-
munist Party; the Yugoslav Army; Yugoslav political and economic in-
stitutions; the pro-Tito (Babic) Communist Party in Zone A and all
pro-Tito activists in Trieste; activities of the Yugoslav Communist
Party in Zone B; military, political, economic, and cultural informa-
tion concerning Zone B; Yugoslav connections in Trieste and the con-
tacts which exist between Titoists in Zone B and British and Americans
in Trieste; and the identification of and background information on
all refugees living in Trieste.
The External Section relies upon a front organization, "The
Solidarity Committee with Victims of Tito-Fascist Terror," as a
recruitment base and for other operational support. The alleged
chief of the External Section is the titular head of the Solidarity
Committee, although he shows little interest in its overt activities.
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