STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE [Vol. 16 No. 1, Special Edition 1972]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78T03194A000300010012-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 84
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 23, 2004
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: January 1, 1972
• Content Type: IS

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STUDIES
in
INTELLIGENCE
VOL. 16 NO. 1 SPECIAL EDITION
1972
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
ARCHNAL RECORD
PLEASE RETURN TO
AGENCY ARCHIVES,
N2 1464
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CONTENTS
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Elegant Writing in the Clandestine Services .................
RICHARD T. PUDERBAUGFI
In which it appears things aren't getting any better.
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The John Richard Hawke Case ............................. 9
LAWRENCE R. HOUSTON
More from the legal annals.
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Leon Trotsky, Dupe of the NKVD .......................... 15
RITA T. KRONENBITTER
How the Soviets destroyed the Fourth International.
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The Summit Conference of 1960: An Intelligence Officer's View 63
SIERMAN KENT
Assignment: Paris
II
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In which it appears things
aren't getting any better
ELEGANT WRITING IN THE CLANDESTINE SERVICES
Richard T. Puderbaugh
How I came to be designated CWH/WW (Chief Word Watcher,
Western Hemisphere) was that a certain Senior Officer called me into
his office the other day and showed me a paper from one of the stations,
which spoke of giving an operation "short shift."* My God, he said,
who ever heard of a short shift? I knew what he meant, so I didn't
make the mistake of mentioning Volkswagens, 1970 petticoats or the
Redskins. The Senior Officer went on with his denunciation, and ended
up by asking me "Don't they know what `shrift' means?"
It is a good question. How many people do know? It is one of those
terms everybody knows about and thinks he can define, and one which
should really lead people inexorably to the dictionary. But it doesn't,
not even those people who know how to spell it. I didn't say these
things to the Senior Officer, because he is more senior than I am, and
has a quick temper.
Anyway, in that conversation, the Senior Officer appointed me
Official Word Watcher for the Division, by I don't know what
authority, and charged me with the following duties:
To collect from all CS communications outstanding examples of
elegant writing, and to report upon my research at opportune
times so that our writers may be edified and instructed thereby.
As soon as my appointment became known, I had a great deal of help
from other headquarters personnel, but I will acknowledge that help
specifically only if the danger of lynching becomes clear, and I need
help (or company).
Here, then, is my first report. I should like to begin it by listing some
of the most elegant words we have in our correspondence, words which
I urge one and all to use at every opportunity. I should like to see the
day when not a single page of our prose escapes the use of at least one
of these words. I especially urge our writers to try new uses for all these
words, and not be bound by such things as tense, gender, number or
*Author's Note: In this essay, examples of elegant writing have been taken from
official CS communications. The names of originating stations and officers, as well MORI/HRP
as cryptonyms and other indicators, have been changed to protect the guilty.
from pg.
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mode. Caveat, for example, is in the Latin imperative mode, but that
is much too restrictive, and we have quite properly used this word as
a noun for some time now. Imagine my delight when I observed
recently the first attempt that I know of to use it, as is, in the present
indicative. When you consider that we have long since expanded its
original sense of "warning" to include the sense of "conditions" or
"provisos," you can understand why the word is so important to us.
I can right here remark that I should caveat some of the remarks I am
about to make in this essay, and you will not have the slightest idea
what I mean, but it sounds distinguished and important, and that
is what matters.
Here is the list:
caveat
rationale
thrust
interface (used as a noun and a verb)
dichotomy
lacuna*
forthcoming (in the sense of "candid")
profile (can be either high or low)
silhouette (can be either high or low)
options
life-style
posture
rapport
Rapport is an especially fine word, but so far we have used it only
as a noun. Perhaps we should offer a prize to the officer who first
devises a successful sentence using rapport as a verb, although we
may have been beaten to the punch on this one by the folk-rock ex-
pression "to rap." Even employing "rapport" as a noun, nevertheless,
we can do great things. Note the following excerpt from a field report:
"We hope it does not reach the extreme where the agent fails to
establish a working rapport, or worse, and thus destroys . . ."
The mind boggles at the thought of anything being worse than a
working rapport, and yet here is an officer who does not want the agent
to fail to establish exactly that. Like the character in the play who
suddenly discovered that he had been speaking prose all his life, this
writer is probably unaware that he has constructed a litotes there. A
*1'lural is lacunae. This is really a keen word, which has only recently appeared.
Used judiciously, it should be OK at least through 1973.
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litotes affirms something by denying the contrary, as in "he is not
without charm." The device can also be stretched to refute something
by negating the denial of the contrary, as in "he denied that he was
not unwilling to go," . . . and so on, into total opacity. It is one
way to make a reader really study your prose. Still with me?
Try this one:
"Subject: Refutal of rumors regarding a coup."
To take words from other languages or disciplines, and use them in
new and clever ways to confound the pedestrian mind, is a noble
thing, but how much more magnificent it is to take a legitimate word
from our own language and by the change of one phoneme devise a
new word, which nobody ever heard of before, but whose meaning
everybody will immediately perceive! The roots of this particular
treasure seem to be in the words refuse and refute, but I noted that the
inventor did not arrange a reciprocal loan of suffixes and speak of
such things as "Ilanoi's refusation to make peace." There is something
not quite right about that one. Sort of low class, perhaps. It is possible,
of course, that the word rebut was bobbing around in the crucible
which produced refutal, but in that direction lies paranoia, and we
will venture no farther.
It seems to me that refutal deserves at least as high a place in our
lexicon as normalcy, which, as you may know, was invented by Warren
G. Harding, who didn't realize he was inventing anything. He would
have made a good operations officer. Indeed, I think that the authen-
ticity of these inventions has to be based to a great extent upon the
fact that when they are first uttered their inventors are unconscious
of bringing something new into the world.
I don't know whether the innocence of the inventors has any bearing
on the acceptability of words to modern dictionaries. I doubt it.
Modern dictionaries will accept anything anybody says, because if
somebody says something it becomes usage, and usage is king! There
is one grumpy headquarters officer who dislikes this modern trend,
and says that the Oxford of 1912 is the only authoritative dictionary
of the English language. He is a troublemaker, who will one day be
dealt with by Division Authorities. Ile is the one who brought to
me the following:
"Subject: Easement of the Threat of a Coup."
I had to point out to him that Webster's New World Dictionary says
there is such a meaning to casement, in addition to the legal use
pertaining to land titles, so that settles that. Ile also has to accept
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the fact, for instance, that chaise longue has now become chaise lounge
in this country, by authority of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and
that lingerie means ladies' drawers and shifts and things of that
nature, and if he and the French don't like it then they can damn well
lump it.
What should we do about the shall/will problem? My own inclina-
tion is to let it lie, because the shall/will rule was an artificial thing,
anyway, set up in a very elegant epoch of the English language, to
tone up the speech of His Majesty's subjects. It is a difficult thing to
master, and I think we are doing well enough without it, although you
have to admit that nothing dresses up a sentence quite so much as an
unexpected "shall" where a "will" really belongs. That is to say that
we should pay no attention to the rule, but should just put in a shall
at any time a sentence needs to be toned up a bit.
Another problem which I'm inclined to de-emphasize is the one
which the New Yorker calls "The Omnipotent Whom." There is no
doubt about it, whom sounds much more literate and polished than
plain old everyday who, but I think we have this factor under good
control. I n fact, I have ceased collecting samples, after nearly filling
a notebook, because everyone is doing so well. I shall cite just two
fairly typical examples:
"/,P DH.U M, whom we note is currently in Paris
"Vorward the document to whomever may have an interest in
the matter."
If there is anything that dresses up our prose even more than the
shall/will or who/whom pilasters, it is the mixed metaphor. If your
metaphor gives a clear picture, you should be ashamed of yourself.
We don't do as well as we should on metaphors, in fact, and we must
work on them a bit harder. We have much to learn from the State
Department in this respect, as witness the following sample from
State traffic:
If the government of Graustark does not box itself in by
wrapping the national flag around the training area . . ."
Try to construct a mental picture from the Ozymandian blueprint,
and despair! The same State Department expert also spoke of "a
certain rustling of sabers," which shows that he is made of champion-
ship material. I would quarrel mildly in one sense, however. If the
sabers are, in truth, made of something that rustles, he should correct
and extend his borrowing from Poe, and make the rustling uncertain,
as well as sad, and perhaps silken. Unless, of course, the writer meant
to imply that there was a kind of military Bad Bart who was going
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around stealing great numbers of sabers from the corrals of nice folks
in white hats.
But a fig for the State Department! We have our own experts, and
I defy any other agency to produce anything to equal the following:
"The result of the medical checkup was that the agent, has
diabetes."
"His bank allotee is forwarded under separate cover."
"The negative reaction to this device was its (attaboy!) lack of
sufficient range. It was tested singularly and in pairs."
"He is not temperamentally geared to write in subtilities, but
does produce good hardhitting yellow journalism in the style of
a poor man's Westbrook Pegler."
The last sentence may be one of the best of the decade. I don't say
that because of his reference to "hardhitting" journalism, either, even
though that term does limn a picture of an energetic, up-and-at-'em
CIA officer playing Wagnerian themes on the mighty Wurlitzer he has
constructed from his local (sob) stable of assets. It's good, but you
can't give very high marks for it, because when you come right down
to it, our operations have never to my knowledge produced a
single paragraph that wasn't hardhitting. Where that sentence achieves
greatness is in calling attention to one of the characteristics of the late
columnist which has been too long overlooked-that is, the fact that
only the rich could afford the real Westbrook Pegler.
But there is more. If one lifts the phrase "temperamentally geared"
out of the stream and contemplates it carefully, one cannot help but
be impressed with the subtility of the thing. I know a number of people
in this agency who I think are temperamentally geared. I steer clear
of them. They can't do you any good.
"In view of the serious flap potential, which, if discovered by
the host government, could have lead to a worsening of
relations . . ."
We need not dwell upon the construction which hypothesizes the
damage that might be done if the government discovers the flap
potential of an operation. We all know that, surely. Who among us
would ever want a host government to find out how risky an operation
he was mounting? We must always keep our host government reas-
sured that our clandestine operations in their countries have also no
flap potential at all. But let us press on to the rest of that sentence,
whose enigmatic wording led my mind into an almost psychedelic
whirl, with images of "some lead is red, and some reds are led," and
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when the machinery finally clanked to a halt, here is what came out
of the printer:
Wherever your writing may lead, Sir,
You may rest assured I shall read, Sir;
Rut if, when I've read,
You insist I've been lead,
Then I surely shall sea read, indeed, Sir.
You can have that, if you want it.
Perhaps there is something about lead that attracts the man-
Freudian associations with bullets or poison or pollution. It would
not be the first time our prose implied more than it said. Notice the
gothic scene evoked by the following:
we will continue to keep this asset tabled, and will call on
him for spot reporting when necessary."
If all our Operations Officers were as skilled at writing as this man,
the Green Beret case would never have hit the headlines. There is no
"terminated with extreme prejudice" blooper here to provoke the news
media into soaring flights of fancy. No, the untutored mind would
receive that sentence as meaning that the matter was being held in
abeyance, as in the parliamentary term "to table a motion,'' whereas
those of us in the know immediately perceive that this officer is
describing a bit of standard tradecraft, whereby we strap a man to a
deal table and belabor him with interfaces and rapports and
dichotomies until he by god comes up with a spot report.
"So successful was Fulano's re-immergence as a crusading
journalist that
A number of our stations have in the past produced or supported
underground newspapers, but this must be the first one of record
whose clandestine journalism was done under water. Eat your heart
out, M I-fi!
"Fulano appears to be in excellent financial straits."
"Subject and his wife, Josephine, nee unknown
"Ile (lid it in a fit of peak."*
"I Ie easily looses his head."
"Ile attempted to illicit the information."
"The rightist candidate, who won a pleurality of votes .?'
*Fit of peak is known to the medical profession as "Pike's Syndrome." In Asia, it
is called "Norky's Complaint."
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"The agent demonstrated an excellent operational posture."
". . . like operating in a vacuum tube."
"The national liveration movement
"Incendiary fires will be set."
"Several methods of modus operandi are being contemplated."
The author of that last sentence could have added immeasurably to
its charm by pointing out that incendiary fires can be put out with
wet water; but he did at least clarify things a bit the following week
by explaining "By large incendiary fires, the agent may be referring
to one of the petroleum storage areas
One of the prize words in my collection is the invention of a State
Department officer, whom we really ought to try to identify and re-
cruit. The word is fragile and beautiful, and it is with some hesitation
that I offer it up on our rather brutal altar, for I fear that we will
over-use it and cause it to wilt and fade before its time. I have no right
to keep it, however, and present it herewith with a fervent exhortation
to one and all to use it tenderly so that it will last for at least six
months to a year. Here it is:
dichotomization
If that doesn't bring a lump to your throat, nothing will. There is
more, but I. cannot go on. I trust you will all keep your passive voice
active. It must never be allowed to be wondered why our communica-
tions are not being written with more thrust and rationale. Go forth
and write, and may the Lord have rapport upon you.
*The OK operational posture for 1970-72, in case you didn't know, is forward-
leaning. We have in the past been through postures of defense, agonizing re-appraisal,
benevolent neutrality and the like, but then came that luminous moment when an
unknown genius suggested that we should all be forward-leaning. Thousands of our
patriotic, conscientious headquarters staff members were thereupon transformed into
human gnomons, who can be observed every morning shortly before 8:30, inclined
dutifully in the direction of Langley, and at about 5:00 p.m. pointed just as dutifully
toward home.
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CONFIDENTIAL
No Foreign Dissem
THE JOHN RICHARD HAWKE CASE
In the late spring of 1965, a pilot named John Richard Hawk(,,, an
English ex-RAF ace, was flying a B 26 on his way from Arizona
through Canada to Portugal. How much he knew about the legalities
of his flight we will probably never know, but as a pilot he certainly
knew that a B-26 properly configured is an excellent ground support
military aircraft and particularly valuable in an insurgency situation.
It was also hard to believe that he was not aware of Portugal's
troubles with insurgency in its African colonies, and that these were
particularly touchy problems for the United States. At the very least,
therefore, he must have known he was not in a routine situation. He
later admitted he had no export license for the plane.
Coming near the Washington area, his instruments indicated a
sudden loss of oil pressure. Accordingly, he made for National Airport
by the most direct line, which took him through the restricted area
around The White House. When he landed, therefore, he was im-
mediately ordered to report for questioning by Government agents.
Ile explained the emergency, and when the technicians had checked
and corroborated the oil leak, he was released with an oral warning.
It seemed to him that he got off extremely easy, and it appeared as if
someone was protecting his mission.
All of this became important later in the trial in the Federal Court
in Buffalo, New York. As the Government developed the case, it
appeared that in November 1964 Lucien Bernard, President of Luber
Inc., S.A., Geneva, Switzerland, got in touch with Henri de Marian de
Montmarin, a French aircraft broker who had handled many large
transactions in various parts of the world. Bernard asked Montmarin
if he could find B-26 aircraft. One of Montmarin's many acquaintances
in the business was Gregory R. Board, President of Aero Associates,
Tucson, Arizona, who had access to a large number of surplus B---26s.
Montmarin, Luber Inc., and Aero Associates entered into a series of
agreements to overhaul and modify the B-26s so they could obtain
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air worthiness certificates MORI/HRP
and be capable of transatlantic passage. They arranged with one from pg.
09-13
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CONFIDENTIAL Hawke Case
W. W. Roderick of Winnipeg, Canada, to represent Aero Associates
in Canada as purchaser of the B-26s and then to arrange for the
transit of 20 aircraft and spare parts to Portugal without Canada's
customs' attention. The Canadian intermediary was essential as
Canada was the only country for which an export license from the
Department of State was not required whereas for Portugal one
most certainly was.
John Hawke was a friend of Board's and agreed to ferry the aircraft.
Beginning on May 29, 1965 and continuing to August 18, 1965,
Hawke ferried seven of the B--26s through various U.S. ports of exit
to St. John's, Newfoundland, and then to Portugal. During this time,
CIA received four intelligence reports from a variety of intelligence
sources. On 9 June 1965 a report came from
stating that the Portuguese government had purchased 20
13-26 aircraft in the United States and that the planes were then to be
flown from Texas via Canada and Switzerland to Portugal. The second
report on 7 July 1965 from the same source stated that four or five
13-26 aircraft had been delivered to Tancos Air Base by 1 July. These
two reports were disseminated on a priority basis to the normal
intelligence community members on 8 July. Concurrently, a sensitive
domestic source familiar with Board's Aero Associates outfit provided
information on the same transaction. It so happened that this report
was disseminated internally to the Office of General Counsel, which
recognized the legal as apart from the political implications, and
requested additional distribution to the Bureau of Customs, FAA,
Department of the Treasury, and the FBI. We also assured that the
Bureau of Munitions Control, Department of State, had access to the
reports. Finally, another domestic source informed CIA that a pilot,
.John Hawke, and a mechanic, Keat Griggers, were installing long-
range gasoline tanks in B--26 aircraft at Rochester, New York. This
information was relayed to the FBI on 23 June 1965.
The Bureau of Customs subsequently conducted an investigation.
On September 16, 1965, Hawke and Montmarin were arrested in
Miami, Florida, on charges of conspiracy to violate Federal laws on
exportation of arms, ammunition, and implements of war. Gregory
Board, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Australian origin, fled the country
to avoid prosecution and returned to his native land where he
renounced his U.S. citizenship.
On October 8, 1965, the Grand Jury in Buffalo, New York, returned
a true bill against Hawke, Montmarin, Roderick, Board, Griggers,
and Aero Associates. Subsequently, the charges against all but
Hawke, Montmarin, and Board were dropped, and as Board was
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Hawke Case CONFIDENTIAL
outside the jurisdiction only Hawke and Montmarin ultimately stood
trail on the charges.
Hawke retained a Florida lawyer named Edwin Marger, who, at a
meeting with the Department of State in September, said he had
proof that Hawke was working for the Central Intelligence Agency
while flying the aircraft to Portugal and, therefore, did not require
or seek any export licenses. A most careful investigation was made to
assure that no component or person purporting to speak for the
Agency had ever given any reason for Marger and Hawke to make
these allegations, and no possible basis for such a claim could be
found. This was reported to the Department of State and the Internal
Security Division, Department of Justice.
The trial began on September 20, 1966, with a second lawyer,
Edward Brodsky, representing Montmarin. Mr. Marger's first move
was to request the court to issue a number of subpoenas, particularly
one for Mr. Helms as Director of Central Intelligence and Richard
Bissell, formerly Deputy Director for Plans. It had been anticipated
by us that Marger would probably try to bring in the Director and
CIA files, and we had worked it out with the U.S. Attorney that he
would argue the question on the grounds of public denials of CIA
involvement which had been made in the Senate and the United
Nations.
The court heard the arguments of counsel, and over the U.S.
Attorney's motion to quash ordered the subpoena for Mr. Helms and
the pertinent Agency files to issue. Defense counsel agreed, however,
to permit me as General Counsel to appear in Mr. Helms' stead. The
court declined the subpoena for Mr. Bissell on the grounds that he
had left the Agency long before the questioned flights.
We had considerable discussion as to how to respond to the
subpoena, as it was possible that we could enter a claim of executive
privilege based on security, but this might result :in the dismissal of the
criminal charges and might also be taken as an admission that we
were involved. Moreover, the documents in question were the four
reports described above, which would obviously be counter to the
interest of the defendants, and, if we could protect the sensitive
sources involved, would, if anything, help the Government's case. We
decided, therefore, to respond to the subpoena.
The case by this time had attracted considerable public attention
and had become a matter of charges and countercharges and denials
in the United Nations. Accordingly, the Department of State requested
that I explain the situation in detail to .Ambassador Goldberg, who was
then representing the United States in the United Nations. He went
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CONFIDENTIAL Hawke Case
into the matter with me very carefully and at the end expressed his
satisfaction with the basis for his denials in the United Nations and
encouraged us to pursue the matter in court.
On October 7, 1966, I appeared as a witness for the defense. Mr.
P/Iarger asked me if I had brought the CIA files on Hawke. I replied
that I had Agency documents having to do with the flying of B--26s
to Portugal. Marger then asked if I had the documents in the
courtroom, and I said I had. At that time, as we had previously
arranged, Mr. John T. Curtin, the U.S. Attorney handling the
prosecution, requested an inspection of the documents in camera, that
is, in the judge's chambers., He explained to the court that, while the
body of the documents could be revealed, indications on the
documents as to their sources as well as other sensitive CIA markings
should not be disclosed. He further said that excision of the sensitive
information would not impair the text of the documents in any way.
He argued that the in camera inspection would demonstrate this to
the judge. The judge agreed, and brought Mr. Curtin and me into his
chambers. The judge concluded that the excision requested for
security reasons would not alter the substance of the documents and
ruled that they could be admitted in sterilized form. He then called in
Marger and Brodsky and with a stenographer making a verbatim
record explained that he had reviewed the documents brought by 1\/Ir.
Houston and was ruling in favor of their admissibility, but that he
would permit only photostatic copies of the originals, with certain
sensitive markings removed, to be put in evidence. He repeated to
defense counsel that all factual matters contained in the originals
would be present in the copies. He then sealed the originals and the
stenographic transcript and said they would be kept in his safe
against a possible need for them in case of appeal.
Court proceedings were reopened before the jury, and Marger began
pursuing the line that the Agency had had knowledge of the planned
flights as early as May 23, 1965. I explained how the reports had come
in as unevaluated raw information and we had seen to it that the
proper dissemination was made to Government agencies with jurisdic-
tion to take action. Despite this explanation of the reports, Marger
introduced one into the record, apparently thinking he could somehow
establish CIA's sponsorship. JIt is interesting that Brodsky, counsel
for Montmarin, who was not pursuing the theory of Agency involve-
ment, objected strongly and repeatedly to Marger's attempts to in-
troduce the CIA documents. Shortly after this exchange, the court
was adjourned for the weekend.
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Hawke Case CONFIDENTIAL
As an interesting sideline, Hawke then asked the court's permission
to leave the country for the weekend as he had a contract to ferry an
airplane to England. The court granted such permission, and as a
matter of fact when I flew up from Washington to Buffalo on Monday
morning, I met Hawke in the airport waiting for his luggage. Since he
looked somewhat forlorn I gave him a ride to the courthouse in my
taxi. He turned out to be a pleasant and interesting young man.
On October 1.1, 1966, Marger continued to examine me. He
repeatedly attempted to impeach my testimony, but since l was his
witness this only drew down on him the anger of the judge. Ile then
tried unsuccessfully to secure a ruling that I was a hostile witness. On
cross-examination, Curtin questioned me and for the first time gave
an opportunity for a specific direct denial of any Agency involvement
in the entire affair. This completed my appearance, and the defense
rested its case.
The jury acquitted both Hawke and Montmarin, but according to
one of the jurors, they did not believe there was any Agency involve-
ment. They based their acquittal on the fact that the major culprit,
Board, had duped these two defendants and was not before them on
trial and they saw no reason, therefore, to hold Hawke and Montmarin
criminally guilty. The local papers and wire services by and large also
accepted my denial of involvement. So to this extent we came out
fairly well from the trial. However, without being able to prove it, I
am -convinced that Board told Hawke a detailed story of what he
.claimed were his relations with the Agency and its support, probably
so Hawke would take a lower salary as there would be less hazard in
the operation. This is one reason why Hawke really believed that
CIA had intervened to keep him from serious trouble when he violated
The White House air space on his approach to National Airport, and
this in turn gave credence to Board's claims.
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SECRET
No Foreign Dissem
How the Soviets destroyed
the Fourth International
LEON TROTSKY, DUPE OF THE NKVD
Rita T. Kronenbitter
"All they know about my movements is what they learn from the
newspapers." -Trotsky, 1932
It is generally agreed among students of the Soviet secret services
that the principal aim of the OGPU and its sequel, the NK.VD,
through most of the 1930's was the destruction of Leon Trotsky, his
family, his aides, and other promoters of the Fourth International.
Within Russia, where Trotskyism never had a chance to evolve into a
broad underground political organization, the movement was essen-
tially imaginary, a provocation designed to serve the regime as a
cardinal pretext for purges of real or potential opponents. The secret
services were under orders to prove that the individuals and groups
singled out for extinction were guilty of Trotskyism so that they could
be accused as wreckers, saboteurs, spies, and assassins. Abroad, where
Trotsky's theories of opposition to Stalinism attracted enough of a
following to develop his Fourth International, with factions of ad-
herents in many Western countries, the purpose of Soviet teams and
agents was to neutralize or discredit the movement and, above all, to
kill the leader and his important assistants. The campaign against
Trotsky and his movement began with the OGPU and was successfully
concluded, at home and abroad, by the NKVD. For operations abroad
Stalin's services resorted at first to the use of penetration and
provocation agents, spotters or fingermen, then to mobile teams
for abductions and assassinations.
The early 1930's were favorable years for the growth of Trotskyism,
the movement which eventually formulated the platform of the
Fourth International. Leftist oppositionists adhering to it condemned
Stalin's doctrine of "socialism in one country" as a betrayal of the
ideal of world revolution as expounded by Trotsky. Disaffected com-
munists everywhere formed new parties to follow Trotsky's theory and
propaganda. By 1936, when he moved to Mexico, the movement in
Europe was at its peak. From his exile Trotsky channelled his ideas
and instructions to the office of his son, Leon Sedov, in Paris. The
latter's Bulletin of Opposition, which published the writings, conveyed
MORI/HRP
from pg.
15-61
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SECRET Trotsky, Dupe
his ideological guidance to their followers everywhere. Public and
underground party organs in France, Germany, England, the Low
Countries, and elsewhere reproduced what Trotsky wrote in the
Bulletin. The Secretariat of the Fourth International, located in Paris,
also received Trotsky's guidance through Sedov's office. It was pat-
terned upon the organization of Lenin's party before the October
Revolution. It had its conferences and congresses, and it maintained
iul hoc control committees to deal with organizational disputes and
accusations of disloyalty. Unlike all other major Russian conspiratorial
organizations, however, it never created a counterintelligence depart-
ment to watch over the security of the movement and to prevent
hostile penetrations. The members of the International Secretariat
were Western Europeans, convinced Marxist-Leninists, theoreticians
rather than aggressive conspirators, hardly more than dilettantes in
leftist politics. Because they were perennially engaged in polemics
with the pro-Stalinist communist press, the NKVI) had no need to
pay serious attention to them. The agents of the N K V D did of course
manipulate individual leaders to promote internal friction and the
,plintering of the party, but the Soviet services concentrated on
attacks upon Trotsky himself, his son, and the important aides who
served as the channel of communication between the leader and the
:movement.
The wide array of international assets of the Soviet secret services
were under one central control and direction. Perhaps its "order of
battle" will never he fully revealed. Trotsky himself, however, adds
tidirectly to the understanding of how the NKV I) agents operated
in his and his assistants' headquarters. He failed to realize the dangers
until the latter years of his exile, when it was too late. His
grotesque naivete made it possible for spies to insinuate themselves
permanently and profusely into his full confidence and friendship, and
eventually into his home.
Trotsky, his son Leon Sedov, and other leading comrades abroad
were frequently warned about NKVD agents in their midst. His
gullibility in dealing with people around him and the failure of the
Fourth International to act by setting up some office to counter hostile
espionage stand out as an enigma in Trotsky's life and work. One of
the principal characters in staging the October Revolution, he organ-
ized the Red Army and its military and counterintelligence compo-
nents. I n the period of civil war he worked in unison with Dzerzhinslci's
secret service at the capital, while the armed forces under his com-
mand cooperated closely with the provincial Chekas. His entire adult
life in the conspiratorial underground had been a rehearsal for revolu-
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Trotsky, Dupe SECRET
tionary counterintelligence. The bulky folders of his correspondence of
1917 to 1921 include many messages which reveal his dominant posi-
tion in starting the Soviet secret services. Ile recruited and placed in
the Red Army political commissars as adjuncts or staffers of the
military intelligence units. In addition, he commandeered Cheka
representatives for joint operations with the political commissars
and the Red Army intelligence staffs. His messages to Lenin,
Dzerzhinski, and others are replete with instructions and requests
relating to intelligence against counterrevolutionaries. His wires show
that he used effectively his military intelligence, the commissars, and
the Cheka agents "on loan" to him from Dzerzhinski. Lenin and
Uzerzhinski likewise consulted him on intelligence matters, both
foreign and domestic. In many ways Trotsky set the pattern for the
early practices of the Soviet secret services. Ile prescribed the role of
the Cheka area leaders attached to the Revolutionary War Councils
at the front and gave and carried out recommendations on purges and
summary courts. Ile stipulated the requirements in recruiting Cheka
leaders and teams for intelligence assignments against counterrevolu-
tionaries and for Bolshevik propaganda. His field messages to the
Politburo dealt with the uses of codes, security of communications,
methods of suppressing hostile rumors, and the role of the press in
misleading foreign governments and organizations.
Throughout the civil war Trotsky was in close contact with
Dzerzhinski, for whose organization and leadership of the Cheka he
continued to express profuse admiration, even in his writings in exile.
He never expressed antagonism to the Cheka's successor services. In
fact, when an allegedly disenchanted agent, Yacov Blumkin, visited
him in Turkey, Trotsky urged him to remain in his OGPU service for
the good of the "workers' state." His references to the Soviet secret
services and the security of revolutionary movements proved) that
Trotsky strongly believed in and supported the Cheka's successor
services (although not the extent to which they were under Stalin's
personal control).
In contrast to his past conspiratorial and intelligence activities,
Trotsky in exile, although abundantly warned about NKVD penetra-
tions of his offices and the Fourth International, failed to organize any
form of offensive or defensive intelligence service. He insisted on the
use of code names in communications and repeatedly admonished the
Secretariat in Paris that the secrecy of his correspondence was
imperative. Further, he was concerned about his own safety. He
traveled incognito during his exile; and wherever he stayed for any
length of time, he sought and obtained secure quarters, with guards.
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SECRET Trotsky, Dupe
But for the security of his revolutionary movement, which, he fully
realized, was the paramount target of Stalin's services, he was
incapable of organizing even a rudimentary form of counterintelligence.
Various writers have expressed surprise over Trotsky's failure to
devote serious effort to counterintelligence as a matter of personal
and organizational security. Important French and German followers
had urged him to do so. He was engrossed in his doctrine of world
revolution and the attacks on Stalin's personal regime; but like so
many other revolutionary leaders before him, he had no interest in
collecting information on the plans and operations of hostile agents.
With the exception of news items from the press recording the GPU-
NKVD assassinations of his aides, we have no evidence that he
received reports on the Soviet services that were working against
him and his movement.
The utter disregard of counterintelligence techniques, in which
Trotsky was proficient in the pre-revolutionary and civil war years,
may be interpreted in several ways. Milovan Djilas wrote about
Trotsky as "an excellent speaker and skilled polemicist, a man of
exceptional intelligence, deficient in only one quality; a sense of
reality." 1 Many others described him as conceited and arrogant,
refusing to comply with well-wishing followers who were concerned
about security. Summing up Trotsky's striving "to rally the under-
world of Europe to the overthrow of Stalin," Winston Churchill
described Trotsky's conspiratorial audacity and demoniac energy.2
The same characterization was drawn by John Gunther, who inter-
viewed Trotsky at Prinkipo in Turkey. His description gave the
essence of the movement's structure in 1932, which remained about
the same until Trotsky's death:
A Trotsky movement has grown up throughout most of Europe.
In each country there is a nucleus of Trotskyist agitators. They
take orders from Prinkipo direct. There is a sort of communication
between the various groups, through their publications and mani-
festos but mostly through private letters. The various central
committees are linked to an international headquarters in Berlin
(in Paris, after Hitler's take-over).3
Its confidential communications with occasional uses of couriers,
safe accommodation addresses, and code names for correspondents
gave Trotsky's movement the semblance of an intelligence service.
I The New Class, London, 1957, p. 50.
2 Great Contemporaries. Chapter on Leon Trotsky, Putnam, New York, 1937.
_' "'Trotsky at Elba" in Harpers Magazine, April 1932.
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But contrary to the voluminous pro-Stalinist writings which depicted
the movement as a vast international espionage system aiming at the
destruction of the Soviet Union,4 neither Trotsky nor any of his leading
followers maintained any intelligence establishment.
Moreover, Trotsky was an easy prey for the Soviet services on other
scores. Although he gradually realized that the GPU was under the
absolute control of Stalin, he trusted its known agents in the Siberian
exile of 1928, and in Turkey in 1929, when he feared his life was en-
dangered only by the exiled Czarist officers. Depending on the GPU
in the consular offices at Istanbul, he used them and their diplomatic
pouch for correspondence with comrades in Russia, informing them
about the oppositionist growth abroad. Thus, his first years of exile
in Turkey were as fully covered by the GPU as his year in Siberian
exile at Alma Ata. Although he realized that his mail was being
tampered with and that important letters to comrades in Russia were
being stolen, he took no precautions in Turkey or later in Norway.
Naively assuming that his son's name would not be known to the GPU,
he signed much of his correspondence with "Leon Sedov." He curiously
underestimated the Soviet secret services. In 1932 he wrote that the
GPU knew of his movements only what they learned from the
newspapers .5
Another vulnerability of Trotsky was inherent in the composition
of his political movement. The Trotskyites of the 1930's were pre-
dominantly former CP members, Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks,
leftist laborites, Spartacus Youth groups, and similar extreme radicals.
Their unifying slogans focused on the negation of Stalinism, while
with regard to their positive ideal, world revolution, their varied
ideological background divided them in all efforts. Such differences
and personal aspirations and jealousies of national Trotskyite leaders
opened for the GPU many doors into the movements Even in the
early 1930's Trotsky discovered that his devout correspondents, com-
4 Example: Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn, The Great Conspiracy. Little, Brown
and Co., Boston, 1946. Whole chapters of this volume of grotesque falsehoods deal
with Trotsky's "espionage" aimed at the destruction of the Soviet Union. The book
contains an extensive bibliography in support of the allegations about Trotsky's spy
system, which has now been exploded by the Soviet leadership itself in the XXth and
XXIIth Party Congresses.
5 See John Dewey, The Case of Leon Trotsky, Seeker and Warburg, London, 1937,
p. 551.
6 Examples: In Austria, with a sizeable membership, the Trotskyites split into three
factions as a result of GPU manipulations. The same thing happened in Germany and
Czechoslovakia.
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SECRET Trotsky, Dupe
rades Melev and Senin,7 were responsible for the movement's disrup-
tion in Germany; but according to his own statements he refused to
believe that the two were GPU spies.
The fact, that the movement attracted mostly defectors from the
CP's was a boon for GPU penetration agents. Especially when entire
groups rebelled against Stalin's regime and the Comintern, as hap-
pened in several instances of bickering among German communist
factions, GPU agents were invariably among them.8
Trotsky's vulnerability is obvious in much of his personal cor-
respondence. In contrast with his internationalist appeal, he appears
to have been partial to Jews, especially the leftist Zionists from
Russia. His letters to the Palestinian comrades confirm this impression.
lie paid no heed to the warnings from non-Jewish comrades in Berlin
and Paris; yet all his aides who were subsequently discovered as
GPU-NKVD penetration agents were of that category. There is no
record in his or Sedov's files indicating that Jewish or Zionist com-
rades were investigated when joining the movement, whereas appli-
cants of other racial stock were subject to suspicion as possible
provocateurs.
individual defections from his ranks back to Stalinism and assassina-
tions of his aides made Trotsky realize, belatedly, the throughness of
NKVD penetrations. The writings of his last two years show that he
sensed how the enemy was closing in on him. To every report on the
liquidation of his followers he would add some marginal note to the
effect that he himself would be the next victim. Warnings from loyal
comrades and others also increased; but the GPU methods of
planned confusion, promoted by agents in his own entourage, made it
impossible for Trotsky to tell which threats were genuine and which
were hoaxes.
The GPU-NKVD resorted to a great variety of schemes for the
penetration and destruction of the adversary. The methods employed
can be traced with some clarity by examining individual agent and
team operations, as deduced from Trotsky's own files and some
ex post facto data from other sources.
S1roilov's Provocation: The Downfall of Trotsky
The incident which served as overt justification for depriving
Trotsky of all offices, including his Party membership, and for his
I "Senin" was the pseudonym used in correspondence for Jack Soble. " V1elev" has
not been identified, but may have been the name used for Soble's brother, Robert
Scblen, although the latter was usually known as "Well". Their roles are amplified
below.
8 l'. G., the Soble (Sobolevicius) brothers, Melev, and Olberg, discussed later.
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Trotsky, Dupe SECRET
arrest and exile to Siberia in 1928, was an act of GPU provocation.
There is no record to show the date when the secret service was first
ordered to keep Trotsky under surveillance. One can gather from his
own writings that the campaign against him began in early October
1923 when a scapegoat was needed for the fiasco of the communist
uprising in Germany. That abortive attempt was attributed to the
rightists in the Party, and Trotsky was at the time being denounced
as the author of rightist deviation. Recriminations began in the
Politburo while rumors were circulated among the public that Trotsky
was not a true Bolshevik. Comintern representatives to the Fifth
Congress in July 1924 came as his admirers but were speedily aligned
against him by a slogan about bolshevizing all communist parties
abroad. Foreign Comintern delegates who persisted as Trotsky's
friends were expelled from the Party? This period marked the begin-
ning of Trotsky's downgrading. When Lenin died, Trotsky was taking
a rest cure in the Caucasus. Stalin, not wanting him at the funeral,
telephoned that he would arrive too late, although in fact the funeral
was delayed for several days.
By May 1925 Trotsky was out as the War Commissar. Ile became
deputy to Dzerzhinski, an inferior post in the Council for State Econ-
omy. The decisive contest with Stalin began in the summer of 1926
when a Joint Opposition was formed and started sending emissaries
to the provinces. These steps were taken sub rosa, but Stalin knew
every move ahead of time, and GPU ruffians were dispatched promptly
to disrupt all oppositionist gatherings.10
By this time the GPU had initiated constant surveillance over
Trotsky and his leading followers. The Joint Opposition was forced
underground, with meetings in workers' homes, suburban tenements,
cemeteries, and forests. Its tenets called for a return to Lenin's
doctrine of revolution not in one country but throughout the world.
In the Politburo the opposition constituted a regular faction. Efforts
were made to compromise, but Stalin attacked when Max Eastman
published Lenin's "last will" in the New York Times. Trotsky was
blamed for giving the document to his capitalist friend, Eastman.
He counterattacked by calling Stalin the "gravedigger of the
revolution." The net result was Trotsky's expulsion from the
Politburo.
9 Alfred Rosmer, V. Delagarde and P. Monatte of France and A. Bordiga of Italy.
Bordiga formed the first oppositionist group abroad, the "Comitato d'Intesa" of
Naples.
10 Extensive accounts are given in Edward Hallett Carr, Socialism in One Country.
Macmillan Co., New York, 1964, Vol. III, Part I, p. 273 ff.
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The Joint Opposition responded with more virulent underground
activity. It prepared a political platform for publication. Stalin of
course knew all about it. Stroilov, a GPU agent posing as an op-
positionist and working as an underground organizer of young anti-
Stalinists, reported daily about the preparation of the platform to
his chief, Yagoda. Stroilov had been a secret agent since the Cheka
period and was assigned as a penetration of Trotsky's group. The
opportunity now presented itself for a classic provocation, such as
had been practiced by the Okhrana when agents set up printshops and
provided paper and ink for revolutionary leaflets as a method of
incriminating and apprehending subversive groups. Because the
oppositionists could no longer have anything printed openly, Stroilov
now supplied a mimeograph, paper, and ink. When the platform was
printed and ready for distribution, the GPU arrested the whole group
of participating oppositionists.
In this operation Stalin went a step beyond the usual Okhrana
practice in setting up printshops for revolutionaries. When Yagoda
reported to him the history of his agent, Stroilov, among the
'llrotskyists, Stalin ordered, according to Alexander Orlov,11 "Now
make Stroilov into a Wrangel officer." Stroilov, the Cheka's agent
in the civil war, could not have been an officer of Wrangel, but that
was immaterial. The GPU produced documentary evidence that the
"former White Guard officer" was collaborating with Trotsky's
conspirators to destroy the "workers' state".
Trotsky was absent from Moscow when his underground "print-
shop" was liquidated, but all the blame for the offense was on him
and other leaders of the Joint Opposition. His papers and his testimony
before the Dewey Commission allege that he knew nothing about who
did the printing of the platform. He obviously accepted the GPU
version that a former officer of General Wrangel worked among his
young followers responsible for the publication.12 He did not know
that the GPU itself documented the agent as a former White
Guardist. Such a status for the "oppositionist" Stroilov made the
incrimination more serious and despicable in the eyes of the public.
It marked Trotsky as working with the White Guards to overthrow
the Soviet government. Such evidence was enough for Pravda to
refuse to publish his explanations or any other articles. Expulsion and
exile to Siberia followed within months.
11 The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes. Random House, New York, 1953, pp. 311-312.
12 Dewey, op. cit., pp. 26, 325, 333.
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Yacov Blumkin
As already stated, the GPU was in full control of Trotsky's
correspondence with oppositionist comrades in Russia. That control
began with his exile to Alma Ata. The physical conditions of this
exile were pleasant. He and his family were not even under house
arrest. They were accorded full freedom of movement within Alma
Ata and an unrestricted supply of Party and other literature. There
was no ban on correspondence by mail or wire. The GPU agents
attached to the household were ostensibly concerned only with his
safety and comfort. Trotsky himself duly informed the leading com-
rades among the oppositionists about his status, so that they felt
free and safe in expressing their political views and ambitions in the
exchange of correspondence. The fatal consequences of this fallacy
became obvious years later in the great purge trials, executions, and
suicides of 1936-1937.
For the same ostensible purpose of protection, GPU agents ac-
companied Trotsky to his exile in Turkey. He insisted on having as
his personal bodyguards two persons of his own choice. In communica-
tions with GPU chief Fokin in Istanbul he named two of his loyal
friends, former secretaries who had been with him at Alma Ata. The
two were promised, but they never came. According to Trotsky they
disappeared without a trace.13 Those assigned to Trotsky's household
were subsequently dismissed by him after he signed a receipt for $2,000
allowed as subsistence money from the Soviet government.14
The overt GPU agents dismissed from Trotsky's household were
promptly replaced by two different types of informants: teams from
the Soviet consulate to keep the residence villa on Prinkipo Island
under covert surveillance, and individual penetration agents engaged
by the GPU from among the Left Opposition in Germany. The
former, in addition to watching the coming and going of visitors,
made occasional forays to steal Trotsky's documents and, on one
occasion, to set the place on fire. The individual GPU agents, always
under cover as loyal followers, took turns as residents in the household.
One of these, Sobolevicius, because of his more complex activities in
the GPU program to destroy the movement, will be discussed subse-
ts The two were Poznansky and Sermuk, both of whom were shot, according to
Natalia Sedova's account.
14 The sum given Trotsky by the GPU in Istanbul was disputed by Mrs. 'Trotsky
(Natalia Sedova) in her accounts to Victor Serge (Vie el Mort de Trotsky. Amiot-
Dumont, Paris, 1951, p. 201). She wrote that the amount was $5,000. On the other
hand, Stalin's propaganda machine claimed that Trotsky got away with millions of
dollars of Soviet money.
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quently. Another one was Jacob Frank, the initial organizer of the
Left Opposition in Germany, who was probably converted back to
Stalinism by the time Trotsky arrived in Turkey. He was the first
GPU agent to stay at Prinkipo Island for five months as a fully trusted
friend and enthusiastic comrade. It can be assumed that the GPU
knew everything about the exile's messages and secret projects,
especially his anxious efforts to obtain visas for moving to Germany
and, when that failed, to England. Sure that his correspondence with
several influential friends who would help him obtain that permission
would not be known, he was surprised when the GPU itself informed
him that all his efforts would be in vain. He could not understand how
the GPU could know about his confidential requests. Mrs. Trotsky
described how Trotsky learned that Frank was a GPU informer only
after the latter returned to Berlin to take part in the campaign of
splintering the groups of German and Jewish oppositionists.15
1+'rank was in Trotsky's home at the time of Yacov Blumkin's
visits, in 1929, so that the GPU had a double source on the exile's
activities and the performance of its own agent. Trotsky's writings
and statements regarding Blumkin are contradictory on several points.
For instance, he stated before the Dewey Commission that Blumkin
was a member of the Left Opposition, whereas in his letters to fol-
lowers in Paris he insisted Blumkin was never a member. (The true
allegiance of this important GPU. agent could hardly be deduced from
the Soviet statements giving the reasons for his execution without
trial.) Equally unconvincing are Trotsky's writings about his meetings
with Blumkin, whom he used as courier to Moscow. Trotsky's liberal
propaganda exploitation of the execution of Blumkin also offers no
clue about who controlled the agent.
One not too irrational deduction would be that Blumkin came to
Trotsky upon GPU instructions. The Soviet story, proven completely
false, called Blumkin the head of Trotsky's bodyguard at Prinkipo.16
As confirmed by Trotsky's followers visiting at the time in Turkey,
and also by Mrs. Trotsky, there were only two visits of Blumkin to
Trotsky's villa, after he met Trotsky's son, Sedov, "by chance" on
a. street in Istanbul. Trotsky, apprehensive at first, was persuaded by
r' See I)eutscher's Prophet Outcast. Oxford, London, 1963, p. 25.
16 This story was repeated in Sayers and Kahn, op. cit., p. 212. The two authors quote
out of context a string of biographic data on Blumkin, truths and half-truths to fit
into their package of disinformation on the case.
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Trotsky, Dupe SECRET
his son and consented to see his old protege,17 although he knew that
Yacov was currently the chief counterespionage agent for the GPU
in the Orient. Without explaining the reason for the roundabout
route, Blumkin told Trotsky that he was on his way from Persia back
to Moscow. According to Trotsky, he expressed disaffection with
Stalin's regime and spoke of the dangers to Trotsky, insisting that
he should be protected by at least twenty bodyguards in and around
the villa. Then Blumkin volunteered to serve as Trotsky's courier
for deliveries of communications to Moscow. Trotsky was eager to
use this opportunity. He gave Blumkin the names and. addresses of
leading followers and a letter containing plans of the Left Opposition
in the fight against Stalin.'8 Trotsky may also have given Blumkin
oral instructions of a conspiratorial nature. Whatever the messages
about secret projects may have been, the GPU knew it all anyway from
its agent, Frank, who was staying in the Prinkipo villa.
There are differing versions of Blumkin's doom upon his return to
Moscow. Some maintain that he delivered the letter to Karl Radek,
who had by then recanted, who had deserted the oppositionists,
and who took the letter to Stalin. Blumkin was arrested. He confessed
and was executed forthwith. Another Soviet story was that after
seeing Radek, he realized that he was betrayed and therefore gave
himself up as a traitor, asking to be shot without delay. Stalin, accord-
ing to this legend, complied by telling Menzhinskiy to carry out
Blumkin's request. According to still other stories, Blumkin did not
confess, so a mistress was engaged to learn from him about the
oppositionists whom he was still required to meet on behalf of Trotsky.
The woman failed, but within a month he was arrested and executed
anyway.19 In view of the fact that all details about Blumkin must have
been already known to the GPU from agent Frank's reports, such ef-
forts to trap the man would appear superfluous.
17 Blumkin, as a young Social Revolutionary terrorist in 1918, participated in the
murder of the German Ambassador Count Mirbach and engaged in other assassination
attempts in Kiev. When caught, Trotsky protected him and saved him from imprison-
ment and possible execution. Thereafter, Blumkin served as a Cheka agent with
Trotsky's Red Army units and finally the GPU. According to Trotsky's and his wife's
description, this Jewish "activist" was adventurous, intelligent, poetical, and a writer
on French military strategy. Mrs. Trotsky's version in Serge, op. cit., p. 204.
18 Deutscher, op. cit., p. 87, states that in addition Trotsky arranged with Blumkin
for shipping anti-Stalin literature to Russia with the help of Turkish smugglers. While
Trotsky habitually made and saved a copy of every letter lie wrote, his files contain no
carbon of the letter lie entrusted to Blumkin.
19 Orlov's account, op. cit., pp. 192-193.
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What probably happened was that the GPU had Blumkin under
arrest as soon as he arrived in Moscow, whether his visit to Trotsky
had been a GPU assignment or not. His execution marked the
beginning of the liquidation of active or potential Trotskyists, and
killing a GPU agent was consistent with the policy of subsequent
Stalinist purges. By 1929 all Trotsky's friends and associates were
under suspicion; many of them were in prison and exile. Blumkin
owed his life and his outstanding career in the Cheka and the GPU to
his protector Trotsky. If he was disgruntled with the regime and had
actually expressed himself to that effect to both Menzhinskiy, chief
of the GPLJ, and Trilisser, chief of the GPU Foreign Section, as
Trotsky stated in his letter, he was slated for elimination in the first
place. Thus, if the GPU purposely sent him to Trotsky with offers to
be his courier, it was an act of provocation against the exile and in the
meantime a way of incriminating one of the key counterespionage
agents scheduled for extinction. This GPU-NKVD technique of
getting rid of secret agents no longer useful because of dubious
allegiance or because continued service entailed possible exposures
was particularly obvious in some other cases, such as that of Valentine
Olberg, discussed below.
The Brothers Sobolevicius: Jack Soble and Dr. Robert Soblen 20
Immediately upon his arrival in Turkey, Trotsky made it known
that he wanted to leave because there were no Marxists or oppositionist
sympathizers. Claiming that he needed medical treatment, he made
strenuous efforts to obtain a German visa. In reality, he wanted
Germany as a base for political propaganda. The Left Opposition
there, more numerous than anywhere else, constituted the most
promising beginnings for a Fourth International. Among the followers
in Berlin and Leipzig were leading communists who refused to comply
with Stalinist policy. As repeated requests for a visa proved fruitless,
Trotsky blamed the misfortune on a pact agreed upon by Stalin and
Mueller with regard to the Left Opposition.
As a summary of the reams of correspondence with the comrades in
Germany would indicate, Trotsky placed too much confidence in those
who were of Russian Jewish origin. The leaders of his movement in
:' The two Jewish brothers from Lithuania were also known under the Russified
:;urnames Sobolevich, Sobolev, Sobel, and Soble. As GPU penetration agents in the
'Trotskyist movement, the older one was known as Roman Well (at times signing his
letters to Trotsky as R. Schmidt); the younger as A. Senin. In the United States,
continuing as Soviet agents, they went under the names Dr. Robert Soblen and Jack
noble, respectively. We shall use the latter names, which are more familiar in the
United States.
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Germany were predominantly Jewish anyway, but many of them had
Austrian and German backgrounds. None of these were uncovered as
GPU agents, whereas the Russian Jews in whom Trotsky had an
apparently unqualified confidence betrayed him almost invariably.
The GPU obviously knew and took advantage of his weakness in this
respect. It recruited penetration agents before they joined the Left
Opposition or after they had been active in it and inserted them into
Trotsky's home and his movement. The Sobolevicius brothers, whose
operational names among the Trotskyists were Roman Well, and A.
Senin, were Trotsky's most constant correspondents. They were also
occasional visitors in Turkey from 1929 to 1932. He probably never
realized that they were brothers and remained ignorant of their team-
work for the GPU. Praising each other as devoted comrades and
confirming each other's false information, in order to confuse Trotsky
and make him disown loyal supporters, they wrecked all efforts toward
a unified Left Opposition.2'
As a first step to ingratiate himself with Trotsky and join the
movement, Jack Soble wrote a brief biography of himself. He began
with a short account of the Jewish Left Opposition, its strength and
loyalty. Regardless of some appearances to the contrary, he wrote,
their devotion was given to Trotsky only. For instance, Soble's own
wife Myra, a Soviet citizen employed with the Soviet Trade Mission
in Berlin, was in reality an ardent oppositionist, her whole heart with
Trotsky. Equally devoted were many other Russian Jewish comrades
living in Germany. Therefore, Sobie reasoned, Trotsky should rely
upon this group of Jewish comrades in the promotion of the inter-
national Left Opposition. Prompted by this letter, Trotsky wrote
an article for the Clarte, a Jewish leftist organ. Soble replied with
profuse thanks and said that the readers were "all joining Trotsky's
movement."
Soble's persistent efforts to ingratiate himself with Trotsky con-
tinued throughout 1930. Among the hundreds of letters Trotsky
wrote to dozens of leading followers in Berlin there is no indication of
inquiries about the man's true loyalty, his income or political activities,
just as there was no inquiry about Robert Soblen (Roman Well). No
one was disturbed that Soble's wife Myra continued in Soviet employ,
especially after Soble intimated that such employment was good cover
for secret participation in the Trotskyite group. And no one ever
21 The elder brother, Robert Soblen (Roman Well), was editor of Arbeiter Zeitung
in 1927, then Bolschevistische Binheit, extreme leftist organs in Leipzig. "A. Senin"
returned from Russia to Germany in 1929 to resume his job as correspondent for the
Zeitung, which he had held previously.
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inquired about the purposes of the travels of the Soble couple to
Riga and Russia.
The GPU was obviously responsible for Soble's campaign through
1930 to become Trotsky's most trusted representative in Germany.
The Soviet service handled him either directly or through his wife.
Ile himself claims that the GPU did not recruit him until 1931, al-
legedly through blackmail; his wife was kept hostage in Russia.
His testimony to that effect 22 was a self-serving exculpation, for
there is no indication in Soble's correspondence of the period to show
that his wife ever went to Russia alone. From his letters one can deduce
that Soble began his work as a penetration agent among the
Trotskyists in late 1929. His wife served as the CPU case officer or
go-between and possibly also coordinator of Robert Soblen's corre-
spondence with Trotsky. In 1931 Soble's assignment was markedly
changed or intensified, and his letters to Trotsky became more lengthy
and more frequent. They took on the form of intelligence reports
about the movement: its rapid growth, its prospects, and assessments
of the reliability of its leaders.
Early in 1931 the GPU assignment for Soble and his brother Soblen,
as is evident from their letters, concentrated on the disruption of the
unified Trotskyist movement in Germany.23 Soble's letters first
started with accusations against such individual leaders as Landtag
deputies Landau and Urbahns, both actually Trotsky's loyal sup-
porters. In a confidential manner they were now depicted as
saboteurs. Robert Soblen's letters in roundabout fashion confirmed
everything Jack Soble had written about the bad faith and treachery
of Landau and Urbahns. Trotsky was convinced, and in the end he
was obliged to recommend the expulsion of Landau and Urbahns
from the movement.24 A similar game was repeated with regard to
other German leaders. The result was disunity, the breaking up of
groups, and the expulsion of one opposition leader after another.
To split Landau's group from the movement the brothers not
only wrote accusations to Trotsky and Sedov, they incited Landau
22 Soble's and Jack Lotto's New York Journal-American article of 10-20 November
1957, as published by the U.S. Senate Internal Security Committee, Part 87, November
21, 1957, pp. 4875-4889.
:' In 1930 there were some twenty Trotskyist factions in Germany. These German
and Jewish groups began to unify through joint conferences of leaders, such as the
Prussian Landtag deputies Kurt Landau, Otto Seipold, Urbahns, and others. It
appeared by the end of 1930 that unity, in a single political party, was finally in sight.
24 An earlier expulsion of Landau's group from the movement was effected in
December 1929 as a result of calumnies from another GPU agent, Jacob Frank.
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against Trotsky as well. False reports and hostile notes began flowing
into Landau's office. A set of documents "from Trotsky's personal
file" revealed that the latter was "a vicious schemer who was
resorting to dirty GPU methods." For this bit of disinformation Soble
engaged a certain Melev, also a GPU man, to visit Landau's office
with him. The pair defended Trotsky in such a way as to incense the
parliamentarian still further. Landau and his influential group broke
with Trotsky forever. To deepen the cleavage, Soble wrote to the
International Secretariat in Paris about his and Melev's visit with
Landau, who threatened to expose "Trotsky's dirty game." This
letter was filled with pious expressions "for solidarity and against
fractionalization so prevalent in the German Left Opposition." 2
The game continued after the expulsion of Landau's group.
Calumnies against other leading followers were so planted as to incite
one side against the other, at first only in Germany, then in Paris. A
group of Landiag deputies including Otto Seipold deserted en masse,
as did Pierre Naville, when Soble and Soblen initiated rumors through
the party press that they were traitors who had turned back to
Stalinism. The comrades did not realize until 1933 that Soble, Soblen
and a few others were the troublemakers, but even then none suspected
them as GPU agents.
Most of Soble's letters in 1931-1932 are obvious copies of what he
was submitting to the GPU. His exaggeration in describing the
oppositionist growth in glowing terms served his purpose with regard
to either recipient. In one report he wrote that in Berlin alone
Trotsky's party had 50,000 members. Giving such a high figure to the
GPU, he impressed his bosses about his own importance in pursuing
the target, while at the other end Trotsky was deluded into false
optimism.
Why did Trotsky fail to detect Soble's and Soblen's treachery?
When at the end of 1932 the two broke all contact with the Left
Opposition, he was convinced that they had only reverted to
Stalinism27 He could have detected Soble's falsehoods merely by
scrutinizing the volumes of correspondence exaggerating the strength
of the German movement, but he trusted him more than scores of
other activists reporting truthfully on the same groups. The contra-
a Dated 1 June 1931 and signed by "Senin" and Melev. See also Note 7 above.
ss Some of the letters show his inadvertence in copying, such as copying some line
or passage twice or apparently missing a line when rewriting from the original.
27 Trotsky was on a lecture tour in Copenhagen in December 1932, where he
accused Senin of capitulating to the enemy, with these words: "You will one day re-
gret what you are doing. I never want to see you again." U.S. Senate, op. cit., p. 4876.
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dictions in Soble's financial status, alleged extreme privation and
sudden affluence at about the same time, were ignored. His trips to
Lithuania and his wife's continued employment with the Soviets
should all have caused suspicion. While "in Lithuania," Soble gave
the address of Leopold Prasch in Berlin for forwarding mail; no one
ever inquired about the identity of Prasch. Upon returning "from
L,ithuania," Soble was suddenly well-off. Without asking for consent,
lie wrote from Berlin that he was coming to Turkey for a visit with
Trotsky. His sojourn lasted nearly three months. The Agent's channel
of reporting from Trotsky's household or during the journeys is not
known, but by his own word his communications were regular and
direct to Moscow.28 Trotsky should have been alerted by the question-
naires about his activities in expanding the movement abroad. These
comprised a good portion of Soble's reports. But trust and confidence
were boundless.
Soble's teamwork with his brother Robert Soblen explains at least
in part the success of the game. Soblen wrote even more often than
Soble, for he had more inquiries about the movement and its leaders
and about Trotsky's channels into Russia. All these questions were
ostensibly intended to find ways to ship oppositionist literature.
As editor of the leftist newspapers, Soblen was also the top leader
of the Trotskyist groups in Saxony and thus well qualified to produce
"proof" in support of Soble's allegations about traitors. While the
brothers coordinated the stories, Soblen seldom and Soble never
mentioned the other's name, and there was never a suggestion of their
blood relationship. The triangular correspondence that developed in
1931 meant that Soble's reports to Trotsky were duly but indirectly
confirmed by Soblen, while Trotsky's replies and instructions to Soblen
were passed on to Soble as well. Soblen often added postscripts about
his unbounded loyalty to Trotsky, asserting, "I cannot play a double
game."
Trotsky's son Sedov, in Paris during 1932, began to suspect Soble
and Soblen as the comrades responsible for the campaigns against
individual oppositionist leaders. He reasoned that Landau and
other top comrades were excluded because they were Austrian and
German rather than Russian Jews. For this reason Sedov prevented
Soblen's selection as delegate to a conference in Paris. Expressing his
hurt to Trotsky, Soblen stated that he wanted to resign but decided
instead to stay and transfer all future reporting on the German
Socialist Party to Comrade Soble. Later Trotsky wrote that the
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internecine strife among his German followers was caused not by
Austrian or German but by Russian Jewish comrades.
Trotsky never inquired about the finances of Soble or Soblen.
When Trotsky's house burnt down in Turkey, Soblen immediately
offered help, although he himself and his paper were supposedly very
hard up. He wrote of an offer of assistance from a comrade in Saxony,
a strong workingman who could go to Turkey at once to help
guard the household. Trotsky should not worry about expenses;
Soblen and Soble could pay for the comrade's trip and maintenance.
Soblen repeated the offer several times, but Trotsky failed to reply,
perhaps because Soble wrote about the same time that he had no money
for postage.
Soble left the Trotskyist movement in December 1932, Soblen the
following month. Trotsky's total ignorance about their teamwork
could be seen in his letter to Soblen after the break with Soble. He
pleaded for Soblen's continued solidarity and a renewal of steady
correspondence. Yet both brothers publicly proclaimed themselves
as Stalinists and disappeared from the scene, apparently upon GPU
orders.
In a letter to Raymond Molinier and the International Secretariat
Trotsky demanded Robert Soblen's immediate expulsion from the
movement on the grounds that "he had been caught flagrante delicto
placing obstacles to the progress of the German Left Opposition."
Why the brothers were instructed to reveal themselves as Stalinists
and thus terminate their extremely successful work in the Trotskyist
movement remained unknown even after they were exposed as GPU-
NKVD agents. As "Senin"-Soble wrote in the American press in
November 1957, the Kremlin considered his penetration job well done.
Even then Soble made no mention of the work of his brother
"Well"-Dr. Soblen. They both returned to Russia to prepare for
more important espionage tasks in the United States,20
Valentin Olberg
Valentin Olberg received more publicity in the Soviet press than
any other GPU-NKVD agent engaged in operations at home and
abroad. The publicity was of course accorded only when he faced
the tribunal posing as a remorseful terrorist and as state witness
20 See reproduction of the article "How I Spied on U.S. for the Reds," U.S. Senate,
op. cit., pp. 4875 to 4889. Dr. Soblen was condemned in the U.S. but fled to Israel in
1962, where he was denied refuge. During a return trip to America, via England, he
made two attempts on his own life, the second one successful, in London. See Deutscher,
op. cit., p. 25.
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against the Trotskyists. His success as a penetration agent was not
as great as that of the Sobolevicius brothers. Yet Trotsky and Sedov,
ignoring urgent warnings that Olberg was obviously a GPU man,
granted him access to facts that fitted into the web of disinformation
required for the prosecution in the first purge trial, in 1936. As his
project to become Trotsky's secretary failed, his assignment became
more varied. Operating as a journalist, he excelled in provocation.
('laced by the NKVD as a college history professor (without
academic qualifications), he fingered for trial and execution suspected
Trotskyites among the staff and student body. Finally, to render the
NKVD his fullest measure of service, he posed before the tribunal as
a self-confessed conspirator sent by Trotsky and Sedov to kill Stalin.
This perjury enhanced the prosecution, and Olberg went free after
the trial, as did several other agents with the same task. Assurance of
freedom had been given them before they testified, but after the
death sentences were pronounced, the NKVD had no further use
for Olherg; he and the other agents were executed with the rest of
the victims.
Olberg's GPU assignment in Germany began not later than 1927,
when he came to Berlin to serve with the Inprekor (a Comintern
publication front: International Press Correspondence). As his first
letters to Trotsky in Turkey indicated, he had left that agency in
Uecemher 1929, ostensibly because he opposed Stalinism- On the other
hand, he insisted that he had been an oppositionist for the previous
five years and that he had joined Trotsky's movement in Berlin at
the time of his arrival, in 1927. His very first letter to Trotsky,
containing such inconsistencies, was an offer or request for a position
as his secretary. He listed his professional, linguistical, and ideological
qualifications. A few paragraphs described his background: a Latvian
Jew by birth; a five years' record in the oppositionist movement,
beginning in Latvia; associations with Anton Grylewicz, a leading
Trotskyist in Germany; and an experienced writer with the
INPREKOR. Describing himself humbly in subsequent letters,
Olberg expressed great pride in being able as a young man to
participate in the Left Opposition. Each letter noted his achievements
and eagerness to learn more, so that he could be of greater use to
Trotsky.
Impressed by the obviously very promising young comrade and in
urgent need of a qualified secretary, Trotsky wrote to his friend and
publisher I ranz Pfemfert in Berlin to interview Olberg and render
his opinion. The latter's prompt reply was completely negative and
replete with observations that Olberg was probably a GPU agent.
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Instead of a formal interview, the young man was invited to the home
of the Pfemfert couple to meet three other leading Trotskyists: Max
Shachtman from America, Pierre Naville from France, and Landtag
deputy Kurt Landau. While the leaders were in conference, Pfemfert's
wife, Anna Ramm, herself a Russian or Latvian, casually questioned
Olbcrg. She found him evasive and false about his origin and occupa-
tion. She recognized in him the young man who in the past used to
frequent the publishing offices to purchase large quantities of opposi-
tionist literature, for delivery to Inprekor. Pfemfert and the other
leaders were alarmed by Olberg's indiscreet questions regarding con-
fidential matters of the opposition's leadership, organization and
strength by countries, methods of communication, and the like. Their
consensus was that he could not possibly be anything but a GPU
agent. The Pfemferts, Shachtman, and Landau wrote to Trotsky
separately, all in that vein, warning him to have nothing further to
do with Olberg. Pfemfert's letter added:
. . . The cuckoo knows that the comrades are childishly naive
and trustful. We must not underestimate Stalin's horde which
would stop at nothing in order to place a spy among our ranks,
even if it is for nothing more than having our addresses and
information about our work.
. . Olberg has not been proven in any way, and he is a hysterical,
overbearing, and tactless type. Thus, Comrade L. T., I am. sorry
to tear up your possible hope of getting a Latvian comrade, but I
consider it my duty as a comrade and revolutionary to state
what I see.
Do not take this lightly: Have nothing to do with Olberg. In
24 hours he would become an unbearable burden and, more
probably, he would try to insinuate himself into activities so as
to gather reports useful to the GPU.
The urgent warnings from the oppositionist leaders in Germany,
France, and the United States impressed Trotsky enough to prevent
his accepting Olberg as secretary but not enough to end the corre-
spondence with him. The contents of his letters to the "young
comrade" became to a large extent operational, telling Olberg every-
thing he asked for. Both Trotsky and his son Sedov, after May 1930,
were supplying the Latvian with names and addresses of leading
followers in Russia, the Baltic countries, and elsewhere. Trotsky's
letters in no instance indicated doubts in the loyalty of the man or his
wife, who also joined the movement. When the letters got "lost," as
Olberg alleged, or when other incidents occurred that would have
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alerted almost anyone else, Trotsky wrote about his concern but kept
up the same trustful communication, for somehow Olberg was always
able to explain things promptly and convincingly. The mail, he wrote,
was received and delivered to such and such a comrade. As a result,
the comrade in question became suspect, just as Olberg intended. Or
the discrepancies were caused by the miserable financial circumstances
among the followers. Trotsky was apparently satisfied with the ex-
planations. He sent him 98 pieces of correspondence in 1931, a volume
equal to that addressed to Soble.
Olberg's role in the latter months of his association with Trotsky
resembled that of Soble in other ways as well. He became an intelli-
gence reporter on the movement, but his elaborate reports look like
doctored copies of what he was submitting to the GPU boss. Into his
longhand copying crept omissions and repetitions of lines and passages,
similar to the oddities in Soble's papers for Trotsky.
Olherg never failed to weave lengthy questionnaires into the re-
ports. He asked hundreds of questions about the movement, the
couriers, the methods of shipping Trotsky's tracts to Russia, the
addresses of confidants by countries, the mails expedited. Above all,
he had made constant requests for new instructions. In a letter stating
that he had no address for communicating with Arkhangelsk, Olberg
confirmed the receipt of eight names and addresses of comrades in
Russia. For reasons not known, he repeated this confirmation in an
identical letter. Perhaps the copy had been intended for the GPU.
Olberg's correspondence and all record of him ended in March
1931. Trotsky apparently made no note about this termination. Ile
did not mention, as he did in the case of the Sobolevicius brothers,
that Olberg capitulated to Stalinism. In Trotsky's statements to the
Dewey commission, however, it is noted that Olberg returned to
Russia and soon thereafter went to Czechoslovakia, where the GPU
launched a campaign to expel Trotskyist emigres, especially their
German leader Anton Grylewicz, as agents of the Gestapo.
In 1935 Olberg was again recalled to the Soviet Union to serve as a
provocateur against the Trotskyists at the Gorky Pedagogical In-
stitute. He was supplied with Honduran citizenship 3D The Consul
:a Honduran citizenship was arranged by the Soviets for other emigres to the
United States. See the case of Richard H. Abrey (Ryszard Henryk Abramovicz) before
the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearings, Part 50, 1957, p. 3047 ff. David
Yulievich Dallin, author of Soviet Espionage (who in 1941 married Lilia Estrinanie
Ginsberg, discussed below), also came to the United States with a Honduran passport,
issued in Berlin on 1 July 1933. Dallin at the time was a Soviet citizen and as late as
1939 he contributed writings to Het Volk which were favorable to Stalin. None of the
holders of Honduran passports ever saw that country.
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General of that country, Lucas Parades, stationed in Berlin, made
the arrangements when visiting Prague, where an intermediary named
Benda delivered the documents. Before the purge tribunal Olberg
testified in 1936 that Sedov supplied him with the Honduran passport
and 13,000 Czech crowns for the purchase of citizenship, so that he
could go to Russia to kill Stalin.31
In Moscow Olberg was first assigned to the GPU political depart-
ment, which was then under the direction of Molchanov.32 In the
drive to suppress Trotskyist tendencies in Soviet universities the latter
assigned him, as an expert, to act under cover as a history professor
at the Gorky Institute. However, both the academic staff and the
local CP secretary, Yelin, who controlled it, found Olberg unqualified
to teach history or anything else. In the interview he gave contradic-
tory responses; he was not a Party member, as required of all the
staff; he had no record of Party education, or of any previous
employment. He was not even a Soviet citizen but a Latvian who had
entered the USSR with a Honduran passport. The Institute's rejection
was immediately overruled, however, by Molchanov and his boss,
Yezhov. Olberg became a historian overnight, while all those who
objected, and an even larger number of "Trotskyists" whom he
reported, were executed.33
In addition to Olberg, the NKVD provided the prosecution with two
other agents, Fritz David and Berman Yurin. All were shot within
24 hours of the verdict. Because he was the only one whose proof of
personal contact with Trotsky, Sedov, and the movement abroad
was well documented, Olberg served as the most important witness for
prosecutor Vishinsky. The Honduran passport and the money, which
he claimed to have obtained from Sedov, with instructions to go to
Moscow to kill Stalin, were most direct proofs of his complicity 'which
he fully admitted and elaborated upon in conformity with NKVD
instructions. For this reason Olberg, the "would-be assassin hired by
Trotsky to kill Stalin," received the greatest publicity in the Soviet
press.34 The proceedings of the Dewey commission in Mexico exposed
31 Trotsky-Sedov files belie such allegations by claiming that the Honduran citizen-
ship and funds were obviously supplied by the GPU.
32 Probably Georgiy Aleksandrovich, appointed in November 1935, and reportedly
shot in the third Moscow trial.
33 With the exception of comments on the spurious Honduran citizenship and pass-
port, Trotsky's records contain no information on the above incidents. The story on
Olberg's placement and role at the Gorky Institute is given in detail by Orlov, op. cit.,
Chapter IV.
34 Sayers and Kahn, op. cit., p. 284 ff., give the Soviet version of Olberg as
Trotsky's terrorist.
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the complex fabrication of the agent's testimony,35 but Trotsky's
depositions about him again attested to an irrational lack of security.
1,'tienne ss and Lilia: a1 Mark Zborovsky and Lilia Dallin
Much is known about the involvement of this pair of alleged
Trotskyists in the NKVD's maze of operations in France, but many
facts best known to the Soviets have yet to be revealed. The papers of
Trotsky and Sedov, who were ignorant of their true allegiance, contain
dozens of folders about them. Among these are documents accusing
the two as Stalin's spies and warnings from European comrades
against them, though these contained more suspicion than concrete
proof. Trotsky preferred not to believe them and, instead of investi-
gating, drew Etienne and Lilia ever closer into his confidence. After
Sedov's death the two co-workers replaced him for several years in
publishing the Bulletin of Opposition, the organ for disseminating
ideological guidance to the groups of followers around the world.
'Irotskyy urgently needed researchers for his endless tracts and polemics.
Above all, he could hardly communicate with the Paris Secretariat of
the International without trusted go-betweens and the accommodation
addresses they provided. He knew that Etienne and Lilia were well
qualified to assume such assorted responsibilities and, as expressed
in many of his notes, he was sure of their unfailing loyalty.
Although he told only a small part of his story, Etienne himself
eventually confessed that he was the principal Soviet penetration
:5 John Dewey, Not Guilty. Harper and Brothers, New York, 1938. Chapter XIII.
:u Etienne's original name was Mordka Zborowski (Sborowski, Zborofski and
Zborwsky); his GPU-NKVD code name was Mark. Born in Uman, Russia, in 1908,
he lived in Poland after he was 11 years old and had been a member of Socialist
Zionist groups and the CP since boyhood. From 1928 to 1937 he attended the Univer-
sities of Rouen and Paris, majoring in sociology and anthropology. For immigration to
the United States he obtained an affidavit from Harry Liverman, allegedly a native
of Uman, who claimed to have known the Zborowski family. It was discovered, how-
ever, that Liverman's affidavit contained falsehoods similar to those he made in
affidavits for others, including (see below) Lilia Ginsberg's brother Raphael and her
subsequent husband David J. Dallin. When these affidavits were submitted to the
immigration authorities, it was found that Liverman was in correspondence with a
Maurice Stern, a suspect Soviet agent. Another 1941 affidavit for Zborowski stated
that he had a brother and sister in Moscow, while on other occasions he asserted he had
no relatives in Russia.
:n Lilia's original name was Lola Ginsberg. She was born in Liepaja, Latvia, in 1898,
and lived there until 1914, then studied law in Moscow. In 1923, she emigrated to
Berlin where she married Comrade Estrin. The couple professed to be Mensheviks,
then Leninists and Left Oppositionists. In 1933 they moved to Paris. In 1939 she still
claimed Soviet citizenship and had apparently encountered no difficulty in extending
her Soviet passport annually.
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agent in the Trotskyite movement.38 Lilia never confessed anything of
the sort and was never effectively challenged about it. Trotsky's files,
on the other hand, threw much light on the role of the two.. The
"Siamese twins," as Lilia referred to herself and Etienne, were "in-
separable, neither undertaking anything without doing it together."
In their weekly letter to Mexico, between Sedov's death in February
1938 and Trotsky's death, they were forever whitewashing each other.
Shrewd and inventive, conspiratorial, and hard working, they never
defended themselves directly by denying charges with arguments and
alibis. Instead they casually put in a good word for each other, thus
producing indirect and convincing evidence of loyalty and diverting
suspicion toward the accusers themselves.
The services of Etienne and Lilia at the center of Trotskyite activi-
ties stretched across a period of six years, 1934 to 1940. During this
time the GPU-NKVD teams abroad killed several of Trotsky's
organization aides, while these two, the most important to Trotsky
and Sedov, remained unharmed. The archive contains no indication
that Soviet agents ever kept them under surveillance or threatened
them; yet the pair invariably mentioned the dangers to themselves
when other prominent comrades were reported abducted or murdered.
The records on Etienne show that his university studies in France
extended over ten years but give no indication of adequate employment
or other income for himself and family. It is possible therefore that the
Soviet services kept him on the payroll throughout the period. In 1930
he became secretary of the Russian emigre Union of Returnees 39
in which he had served as a spotter and recruiter of emigres to
repatriate. First he associated with the French oppositionists; then he
concentrated on the small Russian Section of the Fourth International,
headed by Leon Sedov, whom he met in 1934. He promptly professed
ardent anti-Stalinism and assiduously cultivated the new friendship.
Sedov introduced him to Lilia Estrin, secretary to Boris Nikola,evsky
at the International Institute of Social History. Continuing as secre-
tary for the Union of Returnees even after that office was exposed as
Soviet-subsidized, Etienne did odd jobs for Lilia and made himself
indispensable to Sedov by helping in the shop where the Bulletin was
published. After 1935 he was available to Sedov at all times but was
never paid for his work. His friendship, loyalty to the cause, and
se U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary, Hearings, March 2, 1956.
au The Union of Returnees was established in its French name as the Bureau de
l'Union de Repatriement des Russes, at 12 rue de Buci in Paris. It was known among
the Russian emigres simply as the Vozvrashchentsi, a welfare-type organization de-
signed to help unfortunate emigres to return to the USSR. It was an NKVI) cover.
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exceptional ability gained him the absolute confidence first of Sedov,
and then of Trotsky. His NKVD case officer, to whom he said he
reported daily, was in the Soviet mission in the rue de Grenelle.40
Etienne's true allegiance was plainly suspect because of his con-
tinued affiliation with the Soviet-controlled Union and the vague
sources of his income.41 As for Lilia, her political past and other
circumstances could similarly have provided ample grounds for suspi-
cion. Admitting that she had been a Menshevik revolutionary, then a
Leninist, she professed Trotskyism while she lived with her husband in
Berlin; yet neither name appears anywhere on the rosters of Trotsky
followers. The annual extension of her Soviet passport and her un-
explained trips to Russia, although she was publicly known as a
prominent aide of Sedov and Trotsky, was the most obvious cause
for doubt.42
Lilia's name first appeared among Trotsky's records in a letter
from Sedov to his father, who was then in Honefoss, Norway, and
asking for a Russian secretary. Sedov wrote that the "Menshevik
typist" was willing to come for a month or six weeks, providing she
could stay in Trotsky's household and was paid 1200 to 1500 francs
plus room and board. Assuring his father of her skill, he mentioned a
string of security problems in hiring Lilia. Her joining the household
would alert the Deuxieme Bureau and she would probably talk, thus
creating the risk of blowing the entire Trotsky system. If hired, she
should have no access to the archive and political matters. Lilia was
not hired for the temporary job, but this episode marked the beginning
of her permanent affiliation with Sedov. She obtained a full-time job
with Boris Nikolaevsky's Institute. She and her husband lived in an
apartment full of unemployed relatives, including her brother, Dr.
40 According to his admission before the U.S. Senate, Etienne reported to the
Soviets daily. As secretary he was daily in the office of the Union of Returnees, but
there is no record of the frequency of his contacts with the Soviets, except that Orlov
wrote that Etienne constantly visited the Soviet mission. If Etienne did not ex-
aggerate in his story to the Senate (which is also possible, for his testimony reads as
if he were proud of his job), his transmission of daily reports could have been in part
through some go-between among the Vozvrashchentsi officials.
41 He married Rivka (Regina) Levi in 1938. She came to Paris with her parents,
from Lodz, but they moved on to Palestine. As a Stalinist herself she knew of her
husband's services for the NKVD. Their only child, George, was born in Paris.
42 In 1939, when stopping in New York on her way to visit Trotsky, she still
claimed Soviet citizenship. Victor Serge, one of her accusers, said she had made
mysterious trips to Russia. In her letters to Trotsky she stated that her absences from
Paris were only for vacations, but her dossier shows that she came to Paris in 1933
directly from Moscow, not from Berlin as she claimed in response to the accusations
in Paris.
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Ralph Ginsberg, and his wife, who used the name of Dr. Fanny
Trachtenberg (or Tranchenka, as she was known to the Russian
emigres). The two doctors had no license to practice in France, and
Lilia's wages of 1500 francs a month was for years the only overt
income in the household.
Once established in Sedov's home office, Lilia wrote an average of
two or three letters a week to Trotsky and his secretary, Sara ''Veber.
She described herself as a human dynamo, capable of working on two
full-time jobs, seven days a week, without respite or vacation. This
self-praise, not unwarranted, served the purpose of making herself
indispensable from the Trotsky-Sedov standpoint. "I work like an
ox," she wrote to Mrs. Trotsky, "from early morning to late into the
night, and I am content. My job (with the Institute) is interesting.
After it, I work for the Bulletin and other (Trotskyite) matters which
keep me up until one o'clock at night. At seven in the morning I am
up again . . . I need no Sundays, no respite. I am a dynamic person,
I need action."
Lilia's voluntary and unpaid work in Sedov's establishment began
in 1935, gradually, first as proofreader for the Russian Bulletin, then
as research worker for Trotsky's writings and also Sedov's secretary
handling correspondence with Trotsky and the leaders of various
groups of followers in Europe and America. Her particular interest
was in Russian Jewish groups in Paris. She "knew everybody," includ-
ing such NKVD agents as Jack Soble and Robert Soblen (the
brothers Sobolevicius).
When he introduced Lilia to Etienne in his Bulletin's printshop,
Sedov did not know that they knew each other, for Etienne had
already done some odd jobs for the Institute. The two developed a
close friendship when Etienne began contributing articles for the
Bulletin.43 They became a team which met regularly to manage the
Russian Section of the Fourth International. Sedov issued directives as
instructed by his father; Lilia attended to secretarial work, research
and communications; and Etienne was the go-between in organizing
groups of followers. Lilia and Etienne worked with great zeal in collect-
ing testimonies of various Trotskyist leaders needed for the presenta-
tion to the Dewey Commission in Mexico.
Etienne and Lilia perfected their teamwork for the NKVD,
especially when, as this cooperation developed, rumors started cir-
culating about their disloyalty. Several European leaders in the
movement accused them as Soviet spies, but the fingers pointed to
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one at a time, and they "cleared" each other. Etienne was instructed
to investigate the gossip against Lilia; he proved her innocent. Lilia
in turn exonerated Etienne so convincingly that Sedov thereafter
confided in him more than in anyone else in his circle of comrades.
He let Etienne keep the key to his mailbox. Letters got lost and
addresses had to be changed-but Etienne kept the key.
In November, 1936, Sedov made an agreement with Boris
N ikolaevsky for the transfer of a portion of Trotsky's files to the
Institute for safekeeping. Fifteen cases were delivered in secrecy,
with only Lilia and Etienne knowing about the transaction. The
following night burglars used a blowtorch to break into the cellar.
They took no valuables, only Trotsky's files. The investigating police
concluded that it was obviously a GPU job. But who could have
informed them about the delivery to the Institute? The police wanted
to question Etienne and Lilia, but Sedov vouched for them as being
absolutely above all suspicion. Rumors circulated among the com-
rades that Lilia was involved. In defense against one of the accusers,
Victor Serge, she wrote to Trotsky that she feared she was being
accused because she had separated the more important documents
from the boxes to take them to her home for sorting. On the other hand,
Sedov stated that the more important documents were taken by
Etienne to his home, for safekeeping. Etienne was obviously appre-
hensive that the police might uncover him as the culprit; Jeanne
Martin, Sedov's mistress, pleading with Etienne to appear in court,
felt it necessary to assure him that no question about the burglary
would be raised. In 1956 he admitted that he took part in the
burglary.44
After Sedov's death Etienne and Lilia handled most of Trotky's
correspondence for Europe. They were a transmission belt for com-
rnunications with the Fourth International in Paris, the leaders of
oppositionist groups in various countries, Soviet defectors, and other
figures of importance to the movement, as well as the Paris courts.
'I'heY knew who suspected them of disloyalty and when and how to
counteract. They wrote many skillful letters to Trotsky and his wife.
Ktienne's mail was businesslike; they showed him as a dependable
:;ucce3sor to Sedov in managing the affairs of the movement, and they
complimented Lilia unstintingly for her sacrifices. The letters of
l:,ilia, many addressed to Mrs. Trotsky, were replete with sympathy,
adulation for the family, and unlimited devotion to the cause. Be-
tween the lines, she seldom failed to insert piously worded barbs against
' U.S. Senate, Judiciary Committee Hearings, March 2, 1956. Exhibit No. 14,
p. 131 ff.
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Jeanne Martin, the late Sedov's mistress, who openly talked about Lilia
and Etienne as traitors. The reports against other accusers were
filled with countercharges aimed at several genuine followers. Their
letters, based on ostensible investigations of who the NKVD agents
might be, were usually signed jointly: E. or Et. for Etienne; Lola,
L., Lil., Paulsen, or P. for Lilia.
For some months, March to June of 1938, Trotsky seemed somewhat
sceptical about the pair's sincerity. It was not only the shock of his
son's sudden death that made him stop corresponding with them.
Jeanne Martin wrote numerous letters about her conviction that
Sedov did not die from natural causes. The distressed widow voiced
anger against Lilia and Etienne for refusing to make statements for
the court then conducting the inquest into Sedov's death. Trotsky,
after a period of silence, demanded an explanation. Lilia responded
with a flood of letters containing endless condolences and chatter
about Sedov's goodness, but always in such a way as to portray her
own fine character and devotion. In response to Jeanne's accusations,
Lilia and Etienne engaged a number of other comrades to write that
Jeanne was a nervous wreck, irresponsible and full of hate without
cause. Thus they succeeded in convincing Trotsky that they had been
unjustly maligned and that the accusations against them had been
inspired by one source only, the NKVD. Their efficient editing of the
Bulletin prompted him to write a rare letter of praise.
Trotsky's affirmation of absolute confidence in Etienne and Lilia
came at a time when rumors about the two being Soviet agents were
most persistent. Talk circulated that Ilenk Sneevliet (Maring), the
Dutch oppositionist leader, referred to Etienne as that "filthy Polish
Jew spying for the GPU." Victor Serge told several comrades of his
suspicion of both Etienne and Lilia. The pair informed Trotsky about
the gossip before anyone else could. The reply was that comrade
Etienne must take the initiative in setting up a commission, in
concurrence with the International Secretariat, to put a stop to such
calumnies. Trotsky wrote to Etienne: "Take most energetic initiative
to push the accusers to the wall as soon as possible."
The rumor that the pair were Soviet spies helped them finally in
gaining greater prestige and the absolute confidence of Trotsky.
Replacing a commission, Etienne himself undertook the investigation
to prove that he was no spy and that Lilia was innocent.
In this fantastic paradox the two interviewed a number of comrades
and prepared a lengthy statement of the results. The reports of the
"investigation" satisfied Trotsky as conclusive evidence that Etienne
and Lilia were innocent victims of the troublemakers spreading; false
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rumors on behalf of the NKVD. His subsequent letters contained
frequent praise for the pair. He instructed them that his future mail
would be intended for both, regardless of the name in the address.
Even if he was not in charge of correspondence, Etienne was perform-
ing the important tasks. The "investigation" moved Trotsky to take
still other measures. He broke relations with Jeanne Martin, the most
persistent accuser of the pair. From the NKVD standpoint this break
was a major victory, for it meant a split between the Secretariat and
the French Section of the Fourth International. Jeanne's first husband,
Raymond Molinier, and his brother Henri happened to be the key
figures in the Secretariat and the French Section. Trotsky's break with
Jeanne estranged the Moliniers and the majority of other French fol-
lowers, but his decision was irrevocable.45 Lilia and Etienne had
convinced him, after a long campaign, that Jeanne and the "French
clique" were working with the enemies.
From then on Trotsky wrote more letters of commendation for
Etienne. In response to Lilia's offers, he invited her to visit him in
Mexico in May 1939.
NK VD Surveillance and Ambush.--Death of the Son
After the first great purge trial in Moscow Trotsky's son Leon
Sedov was under constant surveillance in France. It was not enough
for the NKVD to have Etienne in the young comrade's entourage;
the separate surveillance team it set up was to follow the quarry and
his associates in all their movements.
Considerable information on the organization of this surveillance
came to light indirectly, from the interrogation of suspects in the
I eiss murder case by the Examining Tribunal in Paris during
January 1938.46 Sergei Efron, posing as a political refugee in the
Soviet-subsidized Union of Returnees, where Etienne served as secre-
tary, organized the surveillance team and designated Dmitry Smiren-
sky 47 as its leader. The latter was recruiting agents as early as 1935,
ostensibly for innocuous jobs but obviously as a matter of testing. All
15 Note, however, that according to Deutscher, Trotsky's break with Molinier and
their subsequent feud dated from Molinier's establishment of his dissident news-
paper, La Commune, in 1935, op. cit., p. 295-7. At that time, Trotsky, was in Norway.
Ill Ignace Reiss, an important NKVD defector who tried to affiliate himself with
the Left Opposition and Sedov, was murdered by an NKVD assassination team at
Chablandes near Lausanne. The Paris court acted upon a request from the Swiss
Government for the extradition of Lydia Grozovskaya, her husband at the Soviet
mission in Paris, and a number of other suspect accomplices.
'17, Smirensky also used the names of Frenchman Maurice Rollin and Czech Vaclav
Chadek.
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agents, however, had to be approved by Efron, who met the prospects
in the home of another Soviet contact named Pozniakov. Pierre
Ducomet, a photographer and detective, and Renate Steiner were
hired in that way in 1935. In 1936 the surveillance team settled in a
Paris apartment at 28 rue Lacretelle, opposite the building in which
Sedov lived. The team of three- -Smirensky, Ducomet, and Steiner-
was joined by two officers from the Union of Returnees, Pierre
Schwarzenberg and Vadim Kondratiev. There were still others whose
true names the testimonies failed to produce.
The surveillance agents, as it turned out, formed a support group
for the NKVD mobile team and in fact several among them "gradu-
ated" to become operatives in the team. Thus, for instance, Renate
Steiner was sent on an urgent assignment in 1936 to go with Efron
and Smirensky to Antibes in southern France. She had no knowledge
of what the hurried mission might be but was told upon arrival to ob-
tain room and board in Villa Marie Pension near Juan les Pins. After
registering she was given a full description of a couple at the pension
whom she was to keep under constant surveillance. She reported to
Smirensky daily. Renate struck up a personal acquaintance with the
couple and learned from them that they were Leon Sedov and his
mistress Jeanne Martin. Being of Russian Jewish descent herself, she
developed a close friendship and spent most of the time with the
vacationing couple. Sedov's letters, never expressing any suspicion,
described the new friend as a "pleasant, young, timid and insignificant
female."
The intense surveillance by Renate may have been intended as a
preliminary to an attempt on Sedov's life,48 but more likely the girl
substituted for Etienne and other watchers in Paris who could not
join the couple while vacationing.
Steiner was detailed to another team dispatched from rue Lacretelle
to Mulhouse in January 1937. This time the purpose was not merely
surveillance. It appears that the girl was intended as a decoy: a friend
who happened to be in town, and who would again find a chance
for a friendly meeting, and who would finally lure the quarry to the
mobile team. Efron was preparing for Sedov's assassination. The num-
ber of agents in this gang has not been recorded, but Renate's
testimony in court showed that Efron was in charge and that she was
in Smirensky's team with another agent called "Bob." The three had
lodgings in different hotels and received instructions on shifts for
covering railway station arrivals. She was then told that Sedov was
48 According to Isaac Deutscher, Sedov stated that Steiner had urged him with
strange persistence to go with her on sailing trips. Op. cit., pp. 389-390.
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expected in Mulhouse. Her first job was to observe his company, the
lodging taken, and other particulars. Smirensky would tell her what
to do next.
Sedov handled the preparations for the Mulhouse trip with con-
siderable secrecy; 49 yet the NKVD could have learned about it from
several sources, not only from Etienne but also from a number of "lost"
letters containing that information. Efron's group, therefore, was
ready well in advance. It had waited in Mulhouse for four days when
the leader suddenly left, then called everyone back to Paris. Sedov
must have learned something about the danger in Mulhouse and
decided not to go. After his death both Lilia and Etienne wrote to
Trotsky that he cancelled the trip on account of illness, but other
records show that he was in good health then.
It was at this time that Sedov finally realized he was under
constant surveillance. He knew that the occupant of the building
across the street was Smirensky with his crowd of "White Guards,"
but he learned this fact only after they murdered Reiss. Even then,
as the records show, he took no precautions. He observed in his notes
of mid-1937 that he was no longer followed. As was learned later,
the NKVD had diverted all its assets in France to the hunt for Reiss.
Leon Sedov's health through the year prior to his death was
described in two diametrically different versions. According to Lilia
and Etienne, who wrote after his death, he was constantly ill. Etienne
explained that Sedov could not travel to Mulhouse and then to
Reims 50 because of illness, and meetings with the Dutch Trotskyist
leader Henk Sneevliet and Reiss had to be postponed for the same
reason. Lilia confirmed all that (but only after Sedov could no longer
dispute her) by writing repeatedly that Sedov was sick all the time
in 1937. On the other hand, Sedov never complained about his health
but wrote that he was vacationing---at the time of his malady, accord-
ing to Etienne. Others wrote about Sedov's sturdy nature in carrying
'y The trip was for the purpose of seeing a Swiss lawyer in a suit which Trotsky was
instituting against several pro-Stalinist newspapers for calumny and public defamation.
=11 Sedov intended to go to Reims to meet Ignace Reiss and Henk Sneevliet. Etienne
handled the correspondence between Sneevliet and Sedov; by delaying the mail or
purposely misinterpreting Sneevliet's requests he succeeded in wrecking several plans
fora rendezvous. Tired of waiting, Sedov decided to do a little vacationing with his mis-
tress, Jeanne Martin. Sneevliet, not knowing that Etienne had kept his cable instead
of delivering it to Sedov, went to Reims, together with Victor Serge. The mobile
KKVD team killed Reiss at Chablandes before his scheduled departure for Reims.
`rho fact that Sneevliet took Serge with him to Reims was used by Etienne and Lilia
as a major argument in convincing Trotsky that the two were in collusion with the
K KVD.
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on under immense strain and in privation. Only Klement once men-
tioned that Sedov had headaches from overwork and the realization
of the danger to his life. That note, however, was intended to impress
Trotsky with the need to remove his son to Mexico and safety; it
did not imply that Sedov was sick. Sedov's mistress, Jeanne Martin,
who lived and vacationed with him, never mentioned any illness of
Sedov in her letters. Sedov himself wrote that he was enjoying excel-
lent health and was not inclined toward despair, despite the persecu-
tion. If death should come suddenly, as he put it, responsibility for it
would be lodged in Stalin's camp.
As stated in Jeanne Martin's testimony at the inquests, Sedov fell
ill on 15 January of what the doctors diagnosed as appendicitis but
was well again by 20 January. Abdominal pains recurred on 8 Feb-
ruary; by noon of the following day Jeanne, Lilia, and her sister-in-law,
Dr. Trachtenberg (Tranchenka) decided to take him to the Mirabeau
Clinic, a small Russian hospital owned and directed by Boris
Zhirmunsky.51 As he was taken by the ambulance, arranged for by
Etienne, Lilia allegedly went for the money needed for hospitaliza-
tion52 She returned to meet Etienne in front of the building in rue
Lacretelle---where the NKVD surveillance team was watching.
Etienne's version in the notes for Trotsky differed in some details.
Ile wrote that Dr. Trachtenberg arranged for the Mirabeau Clinic
with Dr. Adolf Simkov because "there were no Russians in that
hospital and Sedov was registered there under the name of Monsieur
Martin in order to hide his identity."
Etienne and Lilia would have been contradicted in their explanations
that the clinic was chosen because it had no Russian personnel, or in
their defense of individuals suspected of implication in what happened,
if other comrades in Paris had known what they were writing to
Trotsky. Zhirmunsky came from Russia in 1928 with ample funds to
open a hospital in Paris and live in luxurious apartments, maintained
separately for himself, his wife, and his daughter. He was considered
a Bolshevik sympathizer, but Lilia protested against such assertions
from the police, assuring Trotsky that the doctor was apolitical.
Dr. Simkov, who held a medical degree from Geneva, became medical
director of the clinic in 1931. He was originally from Kiev. Lilia
maintained at length that Simkov too was apolitical, despite the fact
51 Described in Battalla of 26 January 1937 as a Socialist with Stalinist learnings.
52 In her accounts to Trotsky, Lilia did not mention where she got the money.
Sedov knew Lilia and her large unemployed family had no money, but she assured
him not to worry about it. As on other occasions, Lilia was able to produce cash in
emergencies.
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that he kept active membership in the Mechnikov Medical Society,
a group deserted by all Russian doctors of non-Jewish origin because
of its pro-Soviet orientation. Dr. Faum Trachtenberg (Fanny
Tranchenka), without a license to practice, still maintained working
relations with the clinic and initially took care of Sedov as a friend of
Lilia's. Among the nurses there was only one Russian, Helena
Eismond, nee Rogina, of Leningrad. She took care of the patient
more often than any other nurse. The surgeon who operated on Sedov
twice was Dr. Marcel Thalheimer, the only one of the medics at the
clinic not listed as of Russian origin.
Keeping Sedov in the hospital as Monsieur Martin was Etienne's
and Lilia's idea. They wrote to Trotsky that not even the doctors,
except Faum Trachtenberg, knew the true identity at first. She did
tell 1)r. Simkov, but even he allegedly did not know that the patient
was registered as M. Martin. Etienne and Lilia wrote that the surgeon,
Dr. Marcel Thalheimer, was told in order to impress him when the
second operation was decided upon as a desperate chance to save the
patient. The key followers in the International, among them close
friends of Trotsky and Sedov, were to be told nothing except that
Sedov was temporarily away from home. The incognito and the
selection of the "non-Russian" clinic, Lilia and Etienne wrote Trotsky,
were measures to protect Sedov from the NKVD. In reality, of course,
it would have been much safer if the hospital had been French, and
the doctors, and for that matter the public, had been told the patient's
identity.
Ktienne's and Lilia's presentations to Trotsky insisted that death
came of natural causes as a result of post-operational complications.
They received full support in this version from medical and autopsy
statements. Only Jeanne Martin persisted in her accusations of foul
play. On the basis of her appeals, seconded by French comrades,
especially lawyers Jean Rous and Gerard Rosenthal, Trotsky de-
manded and obtained a grant for two inquests after the original
post-mortem investigation and statements.
The first operation on Sedov was performed successfully on 9 Feb-
ruary. It was described as "removal of an intestinal occlusion." For
four days the patient felt well, and recovery was normal according to
all statements of doctors and visitors, Jeanne, Lilia, and Etienne. He
joked and engaged in discussions of political matters. The abrupt
change, which the doctors could not explain, occurred during the night
of 13- 14 February. No one was with the patient to know what
happened. Of the visitors, Jeanne had spent more time with the patient
than anyone else; she said that Sedov felt well in the evening before
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the relapse. Lilia, too, saw the patient daily, while Etienne made
frequent trips to the clinic for talks with him and Lilia together.
Upon seeing the patient in the morning after the relapse, Dr.
Thalheimer was unable to explain the abrupt crisis. Ile was of the
opinion that there could be a case of "auto intoxication," but did not
rule out other possibilities 53 A second operation was decided upon as
offering a slim chance of survival, but the patient died the
following day.
The medical doctors, in unison but by individual depositions, cor-
roborated the theme that death came from natural causes. The court
accepted the staff's statements, which were unanimous on the
following points:
Sedov's identity became known to the personnel only after
his death.
No person other than those introduced by Mme. Martin, who
was known as the patient's wife, contacted Sedov in the hospital.
(This was obviously false, but Lilia and Etienne refused to testify
or reveal to the court that they had visited the patient daily.)
No incident, visit, or event supported the supposition that
death could have come from causes other than those resulting
from illness and the two surgical operations.
Finally, none of the persons assigned to keep watch over Mr.
Sedov could be considered from a political viewpoint, because
none of them indicated any political interest or activity.
In their letters to Trotsky, Lilia and Etienne assured him of the
staff's veracity, stating repeatedly that there could have been no agent
who harmed the patient. It was at this stage that Lilia wrote of Sedov's
constant illness through 1937, implying thereby that he was too de-
bilitated to convalesce, particularly after the second operation. In the
same reassuring letters Lilia invariably included hostile remarks
against Jeanne Martin, the "neurasthenic with her lunatic imagination
about foul play . . . who sees the GPU everywhere."
Despite the court's acceptance of the medical and laboratory de-
positions, the widowed mistress remained convinced that Sedov was
murdered by the NKVD. Demanding additional inquests, she begged
in vain both Etienne and Lilia to appear before the examining judge
53 Jeanne Martin insisted at the inquest that Dr. Thalheimer stated such an opinion
to her immediately after seeing the patient. Thalheimer, however, denied at the in-
quest that he ever mentioned the possibility of poisoning. His and all other doctors'
replies to the investigators were unaminous in that the death came as a consequence of
post-operational complications.
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to make statements and to answer questions. At Jeanne's prodding,
Trotsky submitted appeals for additional inquests. These were
granted, but all further investigation turned out to be a recapitulation
of the first one, which ruled out all other possibilities except death
from natural causes.
Jeanne undertook considerable investigation on her own. Before
the fatal relapse she had insisted upon the removal of the Russian
nurse, Helena Eismond, because in his delirious state after the first
operation the patient spoke Russian and the nurse induced him to
keep on talking in that language. The clinic refused to remove the
woman from attendance.
I n general, the establishment was hostile to Jeanne's probing. She
challenged the clinic's version of what had happened during the fatal
night. A story was formulated that in the middle of the night, un-
attended, Sedov jumped out of bed, ran to the adjoining room, picked
up an orange, peeled and ate it, then fell on a bed in that room,
where he was picked up and carried back to his room. Questioning
the nurses and inspecting the adjoining rooms where Sedov had al-
legedly roamed, Jeanne spoke to the patient in the room where Sedov
had supposedly stopped for the orange, had eaten it, and had
thrown the peels on the floor. The patient said that he had seen nothing
of the kind but had rung for the nurse when he saw the door left ajar.
She was told further that Sedov must have gone through several
rooms before he collapsed. She was particularly interested in ques-
tioning the man in the adjoining room, and another young man
occupying a second bed in that same room whom she had noticed in
passing during Sedov's stay. But the two had left, and the clinic would
not reveal their identities or why or when they were admitted to
occupy the three-bed room next to Sedov's. She was therefore suspi-
cious not only of poisoning but of manhandling which might have
caused the death. In her statements she recalled that on 14 February,
when she visited Sedov, he uttered certain words that she dismissed
at the time, for he was too weak to be allowed to talk. He said: "You
know what they did to me last night." Jeanne began to think later
about what Sedov wanted to tell her. She would have asked him but
never had a chance to do so.
In her statements asking for a third inquest, Jeanne posed many
questions for determining whether criminal action was the cause of
death. In her first three statements, for the second inquest, she gave
reasons explaining who should be questioned and along what lines with
regard to possible poisoning. Her set of thirteen questions concerned
the two autopsies. Did these include examination of the nervous
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system and a search for possible lesions caused by chemical substances
introduced by mouth or injection? What were the causes of a purple
patch that she had observed on the abdomen of the patient before
he died? Were searches made of the spots on the body where injec-
tions had been administered, and were those marks of injections at
the spots usually used for medical injections? Were there traces of
any mass of microbes injected? In this set of queries, Jeanne repeated
that Sedov had always been of sound health. None of her professionally
worded questions was answered specifically but rather in a summary
manner which took into account the medical depositions and labora-
tory reports denying all traces of poisoning.
Trotsky protested the report of this inquest to Judge Pagenel by
stating that the examiners had followed the "line of least resistance"
in attributing death to natural causes. He explained to the judge the
NKVD methods of poisoning and summed up his long request for
still further investigation by writing that Sedov's illness and surgery
offered the NKVD extremely favorable chances for intervention.
Trotsky's letters for the examining judge insisted that the assump-
tion of natural death must be dropped, for "the organizers of the
crime were GPU agents, pseudo-officials of the Soviet mission in Paris.
The executioners were agents engaged from among White Russian
emigres. . . . The GPU could not fail in placing its agents in a
Russian clinic or in the immediate vicinity of that clinic." The court
did not respond to Trotsky's appeal but reopened the case in answer
to Jeanne Martin's pleading, which contained contentions more specific
than Trotsky's general accusations. She claimed that former investi-
gations had been inadequate and that the clinic's stories about what
happened that night were contradictory and at best only guess work
about what the patient did before he was found by the nurses on duty.
She asked why the two patients in the next room were never ques-
tioned, and why the director of the clinic, Dr. Zhirmunsky, refused to
reveal their names, so that they too could be questioned. Jeanne
insisted that the two young patients next to Sedov's room be identified
and the clinic's records examined as to the nature of their illness,
when they registered, and when they left the institution. She stated
in the appeal that she had seen the clinic's register for all persons
coming and going, and now she wanted that book examined as well.
Moreover, she again demanded an inquiry about the drugs admin-
istered to Sedov, as recorded by the nurses. Since she knew that Sedov
the night before his relapse was still too weak to walk, she suggested
that he could not have left the bed without someone's support or
without some administered stimulant.
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The last inquest took place in November, but it turned out to be a
mere formality. Only Drs. Simkov and Thalheimer were called upon
for their comments. Neither Dr. Trachtenberg nor Zhirmunsky was
questioned this time. The two doctors denied all of Jeanne Martin's
assertions and refused to reply to her numerous allegations. Some of
the questions they evaded on the grounds of customary professional
privilege. As for the repeated requests that the names of the patients
in the room adjoining Sedov's be revealed, Zhirmunsky took the same
position for everything about the registrations in the clinic was sup-
posedly confidential. The judge did not grant the request.
After the failure of the inquest in November, Jeanne started a
campaign to round up witnesses whose testimonials would make it
necessary to open the case again. She engaged for the purpose her
former husband Raymond Molinier, his brother Henri, and several
other comrades. Etienne and Lilia, who could have served as key
witnesses, refused to cooperate to bring about another investigation
even when Trotsky, in response to Jeanne's appeals, urged them to
prepare statements. All that Jeanne asked them to do was to write
clown for the judge whatever they knew in connection with the
hospitalization. The pair told Trotsky why they refused to cooperate.
Lilia's letter explained their reasons: It would be foolhardy for them
to go before any police examiners, for their mixing into the case
would lead to their expulsion from France. After all, their association
with Sedov had been clandestine. She repeated her previous assertions
that she could contribute nothing to clear up the case, and "Etienne
had nothing to tell the judge, not a word!"
Thus no further investigation took place, although Judge Pagenel
was willing to comply with Jeanne's and Trotsky's requests. At this
time dissension among the Trotskyists in Paris was at its peak because
of rumors of betrayal. Among those whom Lilia and Etienne named in
letters to Trotsky as the troublemakers on behalf of the NKVD,
Jeanne and the Molinier brothers were now included with Henk
Sneevliet and Victor Serge. Lilia's portrayal of Jeanne in her efforts
to reopen the inquest became vicious but contradictory: Jeanne was
insane but intelligent and shrewd, lying and selfish, confused yet
scheming, so that only the NKVD could profit from her meddling.
Although Trotsky was a bit skeptical about Etienne and Lilia in
early 1938, by the end of that year the pair had fully convinced him of
their unflinching loyalty. He instructed them to break all contact with
Jeanne, for he himself wanted no more to do with the Moliniers.
This decision also meant that he accepted the verdict of the inquest
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about the natural causes of his son's death, as interpreted for him
by Lilia and Etienne. He wrote to them:
Dear Comrades:
I completely agree with your decision not to respond to the
invitation of Mme. Jeanne Molinier (Martin) concerning your
depositions before the investigating judge.
At one time we proposed to Mme. Molinier that she act
jointly with our commission .m She refused and formed her own
commission composed of Leon's enemies. That commission
naturally did nothing. It was nothing but an empty demonstration
against the organization and memory of Leon 55
Mme. Jeanne Molinier attempted to transmit my docu-
ments to one of Leon's slanderers, all because of political interests
on behalf of Raymond Molinier's clique . . .
Trotsky accepted the version that his son died of natural causes as
a result of post-operational complications because NKVD agent
Etienne and his assistant Lilia were more convincing than his son's
widow and the loyal French comrades around her. Working full-time
as a team, they were able to cater to Trotsky's arrogant belief that
he controlled the French followers. His term "the Molinier clique"
and his disavowal stemmed entirely from the impressions he got from
the pair's communications. Thus, he accepted the path of least
resistance himself, not because he perhaps believed in his son's
natural death but because the "French clique" insisted on the
opposite line.
Lilia's Trip to Mexico
Lilia Estrin may have had nothing to do with the NKVD prepara-
tions for the culminating event in the anti-Trotsky operations, the
murder in Mexico City. Yet wittingly or unwittingly she played a
role that was useful in directing action teams or individuals. Because
of strict compartmentation, her close partner and NKVD agent,
Etienne, was probably as ignorant as she was of the intricacies of the
54 This was the commission for taking custody of Leon Sedov's files. Jeanne
objected to the inclusion of Etienne and Lilia as members of that commission be-
cause she never trusted the two.
,15 Described as such by Etienne's and Lilia's letters to Trotsky, who by now
(February, 1939) accepted the pair's version of everything concerning the Secretariat.
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long range plans. As a replacement for Rudolf Klement,56 he was
responsible for the physical requirements of the Fourth International,
which was assembled for a world conference in Paris. He arranged
for the lodgings of delegates and observers, among them Sylvia Agelof,
interpreter from the United States, and her fiance, "Jacques Mor-
nard" (Jacson, Ramon Mercader). At the time Lilia acted in unison
with Etienne concerning everything in the International, so that she
too met the delegates, including "Mornard" and Sylvia.
Lilia first proposed going to Mexico in May 1938, to take dictation
for Trotsky's book on Stalin. She would use the vacation due her from
the Institute of Social History. Stopping in New York for a week, she
would speed to Mexico to have some six or seven weeks for intensive
work. She did not explain where she was getting money for the trip
and she asked for no remuneration.
Trotsky apparently did not accept Lilia's first offer, for there was
no further correspondence about it. But Lilia kept on writing to Mrs.
Trotsky and the secretary, Sara Weber. The letters were ingratiating,
reminiscing about the goodness of the late Sedov and about her own
and Etienne's amicable relations with him. They always contained
"clever but poisonous remarks" about Jeanne Martin and others who
accused her and Etienne of treason. The transparent purpose of
several letters was to get an invitation from Trotsky for a visit to
Mexico. In a letter of October 1938 she indicated her plan to visit New
'f'ork. At that time she still carried a Soviet passport but was trying
to secure a different one. The following February she was in possession
of a "usable" passport. She wrote Mrs. Trotsky an optimistic note
that Paulsen (her code name) would begin the trip on 20 April and
would stay in New York for four or five weeks before visiting Mexico
for some urgent talks. The Mexican visa, she stated, should be easier
to obtain in New York than in Paris.
Trotsky's invitation in reply to Lilia's many proposals for a visit
came only in March 1939. By then, as a series of his commending
letters indicates, he was sure of Etienne's and Lilia's unbounded
loyalty. As for the secretarial work for him, he had already acquired
a Fanny Yanovich. Both Lilia and Etienne made persistent inquiries
Rudolf Klement, a young German comrade, was Trotsky's secretary in Turkey
during 1930 to 1932. He then organized the German Trotskyists, and in 1938 he was
scheduled for election as Secretary General of the Fouth International, the post
Etienne allegedly sought to attain. On 20 July 1938 Klement was kidnapped. A head-
less body fished out of the River Seine some three weeks later was believed to be his.
His code names in the movement were Frederick, Adolf, and Camille. For data attrib-
uting his death to the N KV D see Deutscher, op. cit., p. 407.
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about her identity, but Trotsky never explained to them who "Fanny"
was, nor does the archive reveal her identity.
Lilia left Paris on 19 April, and Etienne corresponded with her in
New York. Both wrote to Trotsky requesting assistance in providing
her with a Mexican visa. The mediator in the case was Jean Van
Heijenoort, Trotsky's Dutch secretary. In answer to his cable Etienne
wired from Paris that Lilia was "of Russian origin, no other nationality
acquired." A visa of two months' validity was obtained, and Lilia
took the bus from New York to Monterey on 24 May, for arrival in
Mexico City on 29 May.
Trotsky apparently had no urgent discussions with Lilia. The two
talked about the transfer of Trotsky's grandson Seva (Vsevolod
Volkov) from Paris to Mexico. Lilia took notes regarding Trotsky's
book on Stalin: its revision, editing, and translation into French.
There were also talks about the organization of an inner secret circle
of Russian Trotskyists in Paris as proposed by Etienne a year earlier.
In conference with Lilia, Trotsky brought up a letter he received
in January 1939. It was an earnest warning against an NKVD agent
among Trotsky's top aides, the most urgent and meaningful of all
such notices. The letter clearly pointed to Etienne as a spy and
traitor. It was not signed. It had come in duplicate, one copy in an
envelope for Mrs. Trotsky, as insurance against NKVD intercepts.
The writer introduced himself as a Russian Jew in New York and
relative of General Henry Samoilovich Lushkov, NKVD chief for the
Far East, who had defected to Japan 57 He wrote that he had been
visiting Japan, where Lushkov had told him that Trotsky had in the
center of his organization a dangerous provocateur. The accurate
and verifiable information about the top NKVD leadership and
other data in the letter must have impressed Trotsky with the validity
of the source and his information. It described Etienne's association
with Trotsky's son and his reporting from Paris, reporting which
earned decorations for several NKVD officials. It solved the riddle
of Trotsky's stolen documents by stating that "Mark" did the job
for delivery to Moscow. The writer's version was so thorough and
definite that it allowed no doubt that Etienne was "Mark." It ex-
pressed Lushkov's amazement on noting that Trotsky's loyal comrades
in Paris had failed to observe "Mark's" constant contact with the
Soviet Embassy.
57 General Alexander Orlov, another defector in 1938, admitted the authorship of
this letter before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. See Hearings, February
14 and 15, 1957, Part 51. The letter was dated 27 December 1938.
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Orlov's warning letter was actually an urgent appeal that
Trotsky take heed for his safety. It read: "Believe no one, male or
female, coming to you from that provocateur." The letter asked
Trotsky to acknowledge its receipt by inserting a notice in the Socialist
Appeal, with the wording that "Stein's letter was received by the
editor." 58 Trotsky responded with the advertisement: "Mr. Stein, I
insist that you immediately go to the Socialist Appeal for a talk with
Comrade Martin," but no one came .-59 Orlov testified in 1957 that he
went to that office; but when he took a side glance at Comrade
Martin, he lost confidence and left. He tried instead to reach Trotsky
by telephone but got only the secretary; wary that the caller might
be just another persistent newspaperman, Trotsky would not come to
the telephone.
Trotsky's presentation of the letter to Lilia in order to question
her or to discuss it appears irrational, the negation of elementary
security precaution. For almost a year prior to their meeting he had
been receiving accusations of treason committed by both Lilia and
Etienne. Whether he wanted to use the letter as a test to find how she
would respond to the contents or whether he wanted, in his proud and
arrogant way, to show that he was flooded with such warning notes,
we do not know, since he made none of his usual records about this
confrontation. He obviously disregarded the writer's specific request
that he trust no one, male or female, coming from Etienne. (Questioned
as Mrs. Dallin in 1956, Lilia testified that she felt uncomfortable when
Trotsky showed her the letter because "the details were very un-
pleasant." She told him that the letter could be nothing else but "a
dirty job of the NKVD who wanted to deprive Trotsky of his few
dependable collaborators in France.") eD
It was logical for Lilia to argue that the warning letter was an
NKVD hoax. Another such ridiculous note, also unsigned, stated at
the same time that a woman (meaning Lilia) was coming for a visit to
poison him. There were many previous warnings of the same type,
some genuine though general, others more specific but obviously
spurious. Arguing that the false warnings resulted from a common
NKVD practice designed to confuse the opponent, and pointing to
the preposterous accusation that she had any evil intention, she
satisfied Trotsky about the loyalty of both Etienne and herself.
Ibid.
Hearings, op. cit.
'r' See Hearings, op. cit., 2 March 1956. Also Deutscher, op. cit., p. 410. Note, however,
shat in his book on Soviet Espionage David J. Dallin, Lilia's second husband, made
no reference to this incident or, for that matter, to any NKVD operations in Trotsky's
movement.
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It is obvious from Trotsky's correspondence that Lilia's visit
strengthened the pair's position. He no longer had any doubts about
their genuine loyalty and paid no heed when Lilia reported how
certain European comrades had renewed allegations about her
treachery. After June Lilia actually assumed a role secondary to that
of Etienne, but remained the principal correspondent for matters
relating to the Russian Section of the Fourth International, and was
responsible for the Bulletin's publication. She informed Trotsky that
she had become the assistant of her friend Etienne; and Trotsky,
pleased with the arrangement, again congratulated the pair for their
wonderful work. In one instance Trotsky was obviously elated with
Etienne's performance. Ile sent him an autographed picture of himself,
and Etienne dutifully thanked him:
Dear Lev Davidovich:
I am very grateful for the photograph sent to me. Your
attention moves me deeply. If fate throws me to the country
neighboring to yours, I shall do what I can to express to you
personally my sincere devotion.
Hearty greetings to you and Natalia Ivanovna.
Assault and Assassination--The Death of the Father
In one of his last written accounts describing the assault that the
NKVD staged upon his villa at Coyoacan, Mexico City, Trotsky
said: "I know that Stalin often admitted that my deportation abroad
was his great error. Only a terroristic act could correct that mistake."
Despite the international assets and capabilities of the execution
teams, the plans for the final assault materialized slowly. Many
operatives had priority jobs in Europe. For a year they concentrated
on the leftist oppositionists in Spain, where "the bestial GPU,"
according to Trotsky, staged a purge en masse as a sequel to the purge
trials in Moscow. From Spain individual agents started moving to
Mexico, and this exodus was the beginning of the flow of warnings
from loyal Trotskyists.
In January 1938 a man posing as a left oppositionist comrade came
to Trotsky's house with a message from a political follower. It was
evidently a rather amateurish effort, but the comrade came prepared
to kill. The message was discovered to be spurious, a device to gain
entry. The stranger was searched and disarmed. As a result of this
first scare American and Mexican friends and President Cardenas in
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particular, arranged for the safety of the exile by placing day and
night guards. The walls around the residence were fortified, and an
alarm system was installed. The refuge became a virtual fortress under
the protection of the Mexican state and President Cardenas personally.
Trotsky's records of more than two years after January 1938
mentioned no physical threat to his life but noted the mounting
propaganda against him. Stalinist-oriented newspapers persisted with
editorials and articles by leading communists who demanded that the
Cardenas government expel the exile, the traitor to the proletariat.
As if conditioning the public for the event, Stalinist newspapers
intensified the agitation during the weeks before the commando
attack took place. The Mexican comrades, led by NKVD agents,
had to be given "moral justification" for Trotsky's liquidation. This
intensified campaign was conducted by the "overt friends of the
N I(VI) agents" whose sudden concentration in Mexico City came to
the attention of the non-Communist press.
As described by Trotsky himself, the armed attack on his villa
started at four a.m. on 24 May 1940. It was a thoroughly professional
operation. Having worked intensively and late the evening before,
Trotsky had taken pills and was fast asleep when the firing woke him.
lie thought at first that the natives were celebrating some holiday,
but then noticed that bullets were spraying into the bedroom. His
wife pulled him off the bed, and both crawled close to the wall.
Crossfire was cutting through the windows and doors. Altogether some
200 shots poured into their bedroom alone. Their grandson Seva in
the adjoining bedroom was screaming for Grandpa. The attackers had
deposited two incendiary bombs there, but the boy escaped in the
darkness. Mrs. Trotsky ran into his room, put out the fire, saw the
empty bed riddled with bullets and thought that the boy had been
kidnapped. Actually he had found safety in the guard's quarters.
Before the attackers left, one of them rushed into Trotsky's room to
spray more bullets into the rumpled bedding.
The attack was over in twenty minutes. All the assailants then
rushed from the compound. The only casualty appeared to be Seva,
with a bullet wound in his toe. The inside guards joining the household
in the patio were dazed, not knowing what had happened to the
guards outside the walls. These were discovered, disarmed, and tied
up. They said that minutes before four o'clock twenty men in police
and army uniforms surprised and overpowered them without firing a
shot. One of the attackers, a "major," went to the gate. Another spoke
to Robert Sheldon Harte, a young American, who was on night duty.
[larte opened the gate, and the attackers rushed in. They surprised
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and disarmed the inside guards. They placed machine guns at various
points facing Trotsky's bedroom.
It was not immediately realized that Robert Sheldon Hart(., was
missing. Trotsky was convinced that the young comrade had been
abducted; but Colonel Salazar, the chief of the secret police who was
at the compound within half an hour of the assault, had a strong
suspicion that Harte too was an NKVD agents
The disappearance of Harte, whose body was exhumed about a
month after the assault, lent temporary support to the Stalinists, who
suddenly developed a propaganda story to the effect that the Trot-
skyists themselves had staged the attack, in which no one was hurt.
The Central Committee of the Mexican Communist Party issued two
announcements about Harte's participation in the assault, implying
thereby that the whole affair was executed on behalf of Trotskyist
propaganda to smear the Communist Party. Even before the corpse
was found, Trotsky wrote protests to President Cardenas requesting
the release of several of his domestic servants whom the police sus-
pected of complicity. In a letter of protest he wrote that the GPU used
David Alfaro Siqueiros and Vincente Lombardo Toledano, and he
urged that both of them be questioned about their complicity. The
police followed Trotsky's lead by arresting several participants in
the assault. As soon as Siqueiros' name was mentioned in the press,
however, he disappeared; and the Mexican CP disowned him overnight
as well as some other CP leaders. Their names were suddenly included
among those published as Trotskyists and traitors.
Trotsky wrote in considerable detail about how the GPU manipu-
lated the Mexican CP in order to cover the organizers of the assault.
Several top leaders whose names had long been deleted from the
Party records suddenly had to be proclaimed traitors in the Stalinist
press. The purpose of the campaign (developed by the NKVD, ac-
cording to Trotsky) was to divert all blame from the CP and to
provide a basis for the rumors that Trotskyists themselves had
staged the assault.
David Siqueiros was arrested in a hideout on 4 October 1940. He
did not deny participation in the assault, but he insisted that the
Mexican CP had nothing to do with it. He defended himself with a
story that he wanted to produce a "psychological shock" in protest
61 Although the Mexican police refused to abandon the notion of ]larte's complicity
with the GPU, Trotsky was probably right in his conviction of man's innocence.
Two days after his abduction, Harte was murdered and secretly buried. The body was
found lying on a bed which, as the police found, had been purchased by the wife of the
Mexican artist David Siqueiros, who was eventually tried for leading the assault.
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against Trotsky's presence in Mexico but that he had not wanted to
kill him. He was released on bail and disappeared from Mexico for
several years 62
Trotsky was assassinated on 20 August 1940. His widow's reminis-
cences of the event became part of Victor Serge's book, Vie et Mort de
Trotsky 83 She also prepared an account for the Trotskyists' Bulletin.
Trotsky's English secretary, Joseph Hansen, issued a statement to
the press on the morning after the fatal attack by "Frank Jacson."
He said that Trotsky, at the moment in the hospital with only a slim
chance to live, had predicted this blow from Stalin since the assault of
24 May, but no one could know the planned manner or timing of the
assassination. Hansen stated that Trotsky had known Jacson for some
six months. The young man, who had been a member of the Trotskyist
movement in France 64 and the United States, was reputedly a
financially generous sympathizer. Visiting as the fiance of comrade
Sylvia Agelof, he gained Trotsky's confidence. No one ever questioned
his loyalty, so that there never was the slightest suspicion that he
could be an NKVD agent. On the other hand, describing the
character and behavior of the man, Hansen wrote:
The record of Jacson is sinister. He was in Paris when Trotsky's
former secretary, Rudolf Klement, disappeared and was murdered
by the GPU . . . Jacson's entry to the house in Coyoacan was,
without a doubt, engineered a long time ago. It is possible that
he was the leader in the assault of 24 May. Maybe it was he who
62 According to L.A.S. Salazar, Murder in Mexico, London, 1950, pp. 76-77,
Siqueiros led the assaulting gang, but under the orders of the "French Jew"
(allegedly Jacques Mornard-Jacson-Mercader), who was friendly with Sheldon Harte
and talked him into opening the gate to the compound. While Trotsky and the house-
hold defended Harte as innocent, Salazar upheld the possibility that the NKVD
placed him in Trotsky's household as a spotter who was subsequently converted to
Trotsky's ideals. Thus, Salazar continued, it is possible that the attack lay so heavily
on Harte's conscience that the gang considered it safest to finish him. As for the
famous painter Siquerios, Salazar quoted him from an interview of 23 April 1947 as
saying: "I must state that I consider my participation in the armed attack at
Coyoacan as one of the most honorable acts of my life."
63 Amiot-Dumont, Paris, 1951.
64 Jacson, as Mornard, was constantly with Sylvia Agelof, who attended as an
American observer and interpreter the Fourth International's congress in Paris during
September 1938. However, Lilia and Etienne, reporting to Trotsky about that con-
gress and the participants, failed to mention Sylvia or Mornard. Etienne, as pre-
viously mentioned, played an important administrative role at the congress; he
arranged for the housing of delegates and other essentials.
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talked Robert Sheldon Harte into opening the gate to the killers
that night. To keep Jacson's identity secret, Harte had to die.
This explains why Jacson had to leave for the United States
immediately after the May assault. He needed protection in case
his name should be mentioned in the investigation. During the
last weeks, when things quieted down, he returned to Mexico as
ordered by the GPU to finish the job.
There is no doubt that the GPU had a firm hold on Jacson. It
is possible that they would denounce him in France for the
murder of Klement or the murder of Harte. It is possible they
would have killed him after he failed as leader of the assault in
May. While he was struggling with the guards (after he killed
Trotsky) he cried out several times: "They are keeping my
mother in prison!" . . .
The crime of Mornard-Jacson-Mercader, described by many authors
in detail, does not differ in the essentials from Hansen's narrative.
Jacson came to Trotsky's home at 5:30 p.m. The two met on the patio.
Jacson had written an article and asked Trotsky to read it and give
him his opinion about it. Without saying anything to his secretaries,
Trotsky took Jacson to his study. The details of how the blow with
the mountaineering pick was struck and of the short struggle that
followed, as described by various writers, are mostly conjectures,
although probably correct. No one else was in the study. Hansen wrote:
"The first sign that something happened were the terrible screams and
noise of struggle." Two of the nearest guards left their posts and ran
to the dining room next to the study. They saw Trotsky leaving his
office with blood streaming down his face. One of the guards jumped
at the assassin, who held a pistol in his hand. The other attended to
Trotsky on the floor.
Hansen's statement to the press appeared incomprehensible on
certain points. How could he have suddenly realized, along with others
in Trotsky's household, that Jacson, under no suspicion before, was
implicated in Klement's abduction and murder? And how could it
have occurred to Hansen that Jacson's past record was sinister if
there had been no reports to that effect? If there had been grounds
for suspicion, why were Trotsky and his aides so credulous as not to
check up on the new follower? Trotsky's papers contain no record of
a refusal to associate with Jacson, as they did in many other cases
where such a refusal was based on ideological differences. As was true
throughout the long series of atrocities committed by the GPU on
the Trotskyists, the realization had come too late.
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Mrs. Trotsky's story in Victor Serge's book es tells of times when
she and her husband were disturbed by suspicion about Jacson. They
did not trust him, but they failed to act. They were puzzled about his
financial resources and strangely vague accounts of his big business
deals. They were mystified by his sudden departure to New York after
the assault in May. Upon his return they observed a strange change
in his conduct; he was sullen, restless, excitable, absent-minded, and
inconsistent. A former "vulgar bon vivant," he was now unable to
conceal his obvious anxiety. His behavior toward his mistress Sylvia,
of whose loyalty the Trotskys had no doubt, worried them; and they
were confounded by his actions and remarks. Jacson once said to
llansen, who was supervising the fortification of the wall around the
compound: "Why all this construction? You know that you can do
nothing against the GPU!" On an outing with two of Trotsky's aides
he once swerved his Buick toward a precipice, exclaiming: "This way
and everything would be over!" Mrs. Trotsky was worried to see
Jacson alone with her husband, who once shouted: "Who is this
wealthy patron, anyway? We must investigate!" Trotsky realized
that Jacson had no ideological acumen or capability as a writer. After
one session with him in the study, which turned out to be a rehearsal
for the slaying, Trotsky spoke to his wife: "Jacson showed me his
paper. It is worthless, confused and trite. . . . I don't like it. Who is
this youth? We must investigate!"66
They never did investigate, however. They continued to accept
Jacson as the "husband" of Sylvia. When an American aide recom?
mended that Jacson be investigated, Trotsky actually protested
against it.67 It was Trotsky's nature not to do what others recom-
mended; so it may have been the American's recommendation to
investigate that deterred him from doing what he wanted to do him-
self. His conceit, expressed in the past in not following the advice of
proven supporters to take security measures by breaking with such
N KV D spies as the Soholevicius brothers, Olberg and Etienne, all
but ruined his political movement. His obstinate refusal to investigate
Jacson, as prompted by others and obviously by his own premonition,
destroyed him. The Mexican Government, as other host governments
had done before, provided him with elaborate safety precautions. His
life might well have been spared, despite the malevolent NKVD
designs, if he had been endowed with a sense of humility and under-
standing, if he had listened to friendly and tested comrades.
'~5 Op. cit., Chapter V: The Assassins," p. 317 ff.
fb Ibid.
67 i bid.
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Jacson's story about his motive for murder, as given to the
Mexican police, exhibited the traditional NKVD trademark. Even
in its wording, his rationale was identical with the text of what
"Frederick" (Klement) allegedly wrote to Trotsky. He was another
"disillusioned follower" who found in Trotsky nothing but a lackey
of capitalism, an ally of Hitler and the Gestapo, a fiendish enemy of
the proletariat. Victor Serge, analyzing the content and form of the
killer's statement, traced its origins to the Soviet secret service. Apart
from being a killer's justification, the statement was to serve as another
propaganda blow against Trotskyism, now dead and never again to
be a serious danger to the Soviet state.
This account of how the NKVD killed Trotsky reveals both the
ruthless tenacity and skill of the Soviet service and Trotsky's own
gullibility, arrogance, and waywardness. It is clear that the men in
Moscow who drew up the blueprint for his murder understood his
weaknesses and used them. If we compare Trotsky's death with
Stalin's, we are immediately struck by the contrast between the two
men. Trotsky trusted naively; Stalin, not at all. Trotsky was caught
up in his cause and forgot himself. Stalin subordinated his cause to
himself. Trotsky wanted to understand and persuade his enemies.
Stalin killed his, or those his paranoia told him were his foes. The
tactician defeated the theoretician--the pick killed the dream.
In the last analysis, then, it was not only Trotsky's defects of
character that destroyed him but also his strength. His heedlessness
was not scatterbrained; it was a single-minded devotion to his goal,
an intensity of purpose that made him impatient with clutters of facts,
like rocks in his path. Both Stalin and Trotsky were the enemies of
freedom, but it is nonetheless true that the better man lost.
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No Foreign Dissem
THE SUMMIT CONFERENCE OF 1960:
AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER'S VIEW
There was to be a gathering "at the Summit"--so the world learned
late in 1959.? The Four, President Eisenhower, Prime Minister
Macmillan, President de Gaulle, and Chairman Khrushchev were to
come face to face and take up the major problems which troubled
the relations between their states. General de Gaulle would be the
host; the Elysee palace in Paris would be the place; and Monday,
16 May, would be the day when the principals would meet for their
first discussion.
In the past, the Directors of Central Intelligence had offered as a
matter of course the Agency's support to US delegations participating
in high-level international conferences. On this occasion, Mr. Allen
Dulles came forward again, and the President accepted. I received
the honor of heading the Agency's liaison on the spot.
For the benefit of the few uninitiated, the words "intelligence
support" meant that the Agency would gather itself to keep the
President and his principal lieutenants up to the minute on significant
world developments. It also meant that the Agency with the coopera-
tion of the community would stand ready to service special
requirements.
In actual practice this sort of enterprise involved a few simple
administrative decisions such as the designation of an officer at
Headquarters to round up all-source intelligence that was relevant
and worthy of transmittal and to put it on the wire. He was to be
Huntington Sheldon (the Director of OCI), with Thomas Patton
assisting. In the larger sense it involved everyone in the Agency who
was in a position to contribute anything to the success of the
delegation. And finally in the narrower sense again, it involved the
little group in Paris-in this case, three professionals and two
MORI/HRP
from pg.
63-79
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SECRET Summit 1960
secretaries.2 One of them was to call at 7:30 a.m. at the President's
place of business, meet with a presidential aide, deliver the material,
comment on it orally if such seemed appropriate, and then ask if the
Agency could help with any specific intelligence problems that he
had in mind.
The "material" of the last sentence consisted in large part of what
Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Patton sent from Headquarters. It was dis-
patched so as to start coming into the Paris commo shack early in the
morning. In addition, there might be special messages from overseas
stations which were alert to serve directly should need arise. There
was also the highly important material from the FBIS, which its
London office forwarded. This consisted of relevant worldwide
coverage, including the texts of broadcasts from the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe which the BBC had monitored, plus the FBIS's
expert quantitative analysis of Moscow's foreign and domestic news-
casts. Lastly, there was that morning's Paris press and radio news.
Some of this material needed no editing at all, some of it a good
deal. But none of it could be relayed to the President and his advisers
in the exact form in which we received it. Hence at a minimum it
had to be retyped. Before we gave a copy to the ladies, however, we
did the obvious rearranging, striving for what we felt to be a rational
order. Thus for example, if an FBIS item further illuminated something
from more sensitive material, we would put the two together; we
would put up front items which we knew would be of highest local
interest; we would add captions and take other small editorial
liberties.
The performance of exactly these duties in a foreign capital was
new to all five of us. So as to learn the trade in advance of the
['resident's arrival, we met in Paris on Thursday, 12 May. Next
morning we undertook our first dress rehearsal. And a good thing,
too, for had it been for keeps it would have been a disaster. We ar-
rived at the Chancery at about 5:30 a.m.; the full decrypted text was
not available for another thirty minutes. Moreover, it had arrived in
a This was a larger force than normal, probably because four of the five were
already in Europe. Robert Matteson, a member of the Board of National Estimates
was on TDY to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Since that Conference
suspended operations for the duration of the Summit, Matteson and the two ladies,
Mrs. Ann Mann and Miss Susan Rowe, who were also on duty in Geneva, could he
spared. The second professional, John Whitman of the ONE Staff, was on an overseas
assignment with the analysts in
(In case anyone refers to this article for planning intelligence support for another
conference, let him realize that there was no fat on this T/O. We all worked long hours
and could indeed have kept still another sister fully occupied.)
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a sequence which forbade the final typing of any part until we had it
all. Ours was a firsthand and woeful realization of what I had heard
from predecessors in this sort of mission (notably from Osborn Webb
in London, whom I'd seen on my way through and who was even then
in mild shock from a recent experience in the role). What was clear was
that Mr. Sheldon's people would have to start sending earlier, that they
would have to alter the ordering of items within the message, and
most importantly for us, at least, that we would have to be at the
office by 3:30 a.m. if we were to make our 7:30 a.m. delivery time.
Next morning there we were. Everything worked, including a
simulated delivery from. the Chancery down in the Place de la
Concorde to the Residence on the Avenue d' Lena not far from the
old Trocadero, which would be Mr. Eisenhower's White llouse
abroad. We were in business.
I should explain to the reader who does not know Paris that there
is no good way to get from the Chancery to the Residence. All
practicable ways are likely to necessitate the transit of the ten acres
of traffic bedlam which staggeringly belie the name Concorde. Once a
driver had navigated it, he still had before him the fiercely competitive
array of speedsters and trucks down the Quai of the Seine's right bank
until he could fight free up the hill to his destination. One should
allow twenty to thirty minutes for the trip taken in relatively peaceful
hours and almost any amount of time during what the French call the
"hours of affluence."
As to the delegation which President Eisenhower led, it was
formidable. Counted as official members thereof were: Mr. Herter,
the Secretary of State; Mr. Merchant, the Undersecretary of State
for Political Affairs; Mr. Kohler, the Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs, and Brigadier General Goodpaster, the Staff Secre-
tary to the President. Senior advisers were: Mr. Gates, the Secretary
of Defense, Mr. Bohlen, the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State,
Mr. Achilles, the Counsellor of the State Department, and Ambassa-
dors Houghton (France), Thompson (USSR), and Whitney (UK).
There was also Mr. Haggerty, the press secretary to the President.
Parenthetically, Mr. Gates had not been among those of the first list,
but was added when one heard that Khrushchev was fetching along
his own Minister of Defense, Marshal Malinovski.3 Back in Washing-
3 1 mention the "why" of Mr. Gates' attendance because an important observer
in Paris picked up from a French source who had gotten it from a Soviet source that
Malinovski went to Paris when the Russians heard that Mr. Gates would be there.
The report of the observer is a matter of official record. The evidence of its incorrect-
ness is, however, impeccable.
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ton the principal officers of the executive branch were Vice President
Nixon, acting Secretary of State Douglas Dillon, and acting Secretary
of Defense James Douglas; with all due respect--the second team.
Mr. Eisenhower arrived at Orly at 9:30 Sunday morning on
15 May and went straight to Ambassador Houghton's residence. From
that moment until well into Monday, that was where the principal
business of the US delegation focused. To be sure, Mr. Ilerter had
received rights to Ambassador Houghton's own office in the Chancery
and other visitors got office or desk space there while the regular
embassy staff doubled up. I mention this to make clear that the
delegation which used the Chancery but seldom was not absent be-
cause of any inhospitality. Its members had to be close to the chief
and no one in his right mind would have taken up his station in the
Chancery unless he had a personal helicopter at standby.
Needless to say, Mr. Dulles's little group was not in the Residence.
We had ample office space I laccess to an auto
and driver, and supposedly, I, at least, had been identified with the
Secret Service men who controlled the entrance to the Residence. My
first delivery of the mail had been set for 11:30 Sunday morning. I
arrived in good time, made it through the security barriers, met
General Goodpaster, and delivered the package with some oral com-
ments. Although he could scarcely have had time to be aware of the
international pulse as it throbbed in Paris, I nevertheless inquired if
he had any special problems which we of the Agency could help him
with. Of course he had one; so had the President and every other
knowledgeable and sensible human except Nikita Sergeivitch and a
handful of his Russian colleagues. They did not have it for they alone
had the answer. The question in essence was the central one about the
probable Soviet stance at the morrow's meeting. More explicitly,
General Goodpaster asked for our thoughts regarding Soviet objectives
in their recent exploitation of the U 2 incident and what we thought
Khrushchev thought he could likely get from the Summit conference.
Just in case the answers to these questions seem, in hindsight, to
have been obvious, they were not. Surely no student of international
affairs would have put the chances of Khrushchev's permitting the
conference to be a productive exercise as better than say 10 to 20 per-
cent, but by the same token no such student would have put the
chances at zero. If Khrushchev was not going to play at all, why had
he talked the way he did between his announcement of the shoot-
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down of the U-2 and 15 May, a matter of a week and a half?' Why
was he in Paris at all? In fact, why had he got there two days early,
on Saturday, 14 May? There were plenty of things in Khrushchev's
plans, and one could and did estimate that a precipitate breakup of
the conference would by no means further them all. For example,
such a course would not necessarily assure further friction among the
western allies-in fact there were significant odds that it would. have
a unifying effect-nor could it be counted upon to further Soviet aims
related to Berlin, the GDR, and the wide area of disarmament.
These and other considerations had occupied the US intelligence
4 On 5 May Khrushchev opened the first session of a meeting of the Supreme Soviet.
In his remarks he let go at the U-2 intrusion, calling it a direct provocation, and
threatening retaliation. However, at the end of his speech he tempered the blast refer-
ring to his commitment to the Leninist principle of peaceful coexistence and to his
intention to spare no effort at the Paris meeting to reach agreement.
Again, on 7 May on two occasions, one in his remarks to the adjourning Supreme
Soviet and the other at an impromptu press conference, he came down hard on the
"espionage" aspects of the flight and the Soviet government's sense of outrage, but
said nothing to indicate that the USSR was not going through with the meeting in
Paris.
A few days later, 10 May, our government received the Soviet official protest which
was couched without reference to the Summit. On 11 May at an exhibit of the wreck-
age of the U-2 aircraft in Moscow, Khrushchev again spoke with some violence, but
noted only his government's intention to take the issue before the U.N. Security
Council and, in the event of U.S. obstruction, to the General Assembly. Nothing was
said of Paris. The next day Tass glossed these remarks in such a way as to assure that
the Soviet government felt that the Summit conference should take place as planned.
In retrospect it may be that Khrushchev himself had chosen to play the incident in
relatively low key. Not so his more militant colleagues, among whom would have been
the Soviet military led by the Defense Minister, Marshal Malinovski. The overflight--
especially its predecessor flights, which the US government in its statement of 7 May
said had been going on for four years--were a profound professional affront to them in
the way they reflected the shortcomings of Soviet Air Defense. To this historian it
seems probable that sometime in the week following 5 May, the hard liners triumphed
over Khrushchev's personal preference. Witness to their victory (if such was really
the case) may have been the decision to put Marshal Malinovski on the Paris-bound
delegation and the drafting of the harsh statement which Khrushchev carried with him
to use in Paris. More about this statement later on.
Some added substance is given to the above hypothesis in the memorandum of
conversation (which took place in 1969) between Khrushchev and A. McGehee
Harvey (Life, 18 Dec. 1970, p. 48B). According to Dr. Harvey, Khrushchev in speak-
ing of the U-2 incident said, "Things (i.e., his ideas about having `our two countries
live together peacefully and compete economically not militarily'), were going well
until one event happened. From the time Gary Powers was shot down in a U--2 over the
Soviet Union, I was no longer in full control." Maybe I am reading too much into this,
but one cannot escape the striking difference between Khrushchev's posture of, say,
5 May and that of 14 May when he arrived in Paris with the famous document in his
pocket. This much of a change of mind usually occurs with a deal of outside help.
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community for days, and General Goodpaster, if not Mr. Eisenhower
himself, had read two memos prepared by the Board of National
Estimates which our Director had sent to the White House. What
General Goodpaster meant that morning was a desire for any further
lucubration on the matter.
We arranged that I would call again at 5:30 p.m. Sunday and in
his absence leave the day's news with his colleague, Major John
Eisenhower or with their secretary Miss Alice Boyce. The delivery
after that one would be Monday morning at 7:30.
I returned to the Chancery with the requirement, which Whitman
took in hand. Matteson and I, with Whitman, went over it amending
it, here and there ("picking at it" would be the author's phrase).
Then rather than pass it on our own cognizance, I cabled it to Head-
quarters, telling of its point of origin and soliciting speedy comment.
By that hour and largely unanticipated by the President and his
close advisers-not to mention their CIA liaison man-Khrushchev
had made something of a surprise move, which as it turned out, cast
the Summit into oblivion. He had initiated a meeting with de Gaulle
(the fact of the meeting was no secret) for 11:00 a.m. that very Sunday,
and at just about the moment I was taking note of General Good-
paster's intelligence requirement, Khrushchev was formally apprising
de Gaulle of the Soviet government's attitude towards the U-2
incident and the next day's meeting of the Four. He did more than
this, he left with de Gaulle an aide memoire in French 5 which ran to
upwards of a dozen pages.
With this piece of business done, he went on later in the day
(4:30 p.m.) to a meeting which he had arranged with Prime Minister
Macmillan, whom he favored with a reading of the same text. He
left no aide memoire behind this time.
When later queried as to why he had omitted the President on this
round of visits, he replied that the President had not indicated a desire
to see him. This was, of course, a piece of diplomatic evasiveness, for
the French and British official record will show that neither de Gaulle
nor Macmillan had "indicated an interest" and that Khrushchev had
himself initiated both visits. In short, the omission of Mr. Eisenhower
from his calling list was a part of the Soviet Summit strategy.
There are probably some unimportant details about these meetings
as yet undivulged by the French and British governments; there is
nothing secret about Khrushchev's message. He delivered it for the
s U.S. Senate, Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Events Relating to the
Summit Conference, 28 June 1960 (Report No. 1761, p. 14).
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third time at Monday's meeting of the Four at the Elysee 6 and gave
it to the press.
You can read all of it on page 15 of the New York Times for 17 May
1960. What de Gaulle had seen and what Macmillan had heard on
Sunday is one of those pieces of classical communist prose which leaves
us children of the western tradition not only uncomprehending of the
art form but unaware of any group in the world other than dutiful
members of the CPSU to whom it would communicate clearly and
forcefully. In its web of lusterless invective and tedious repetition the
more important of its two central points is pretty well obscured. The
first point comes through all right; it was that the Soviet government
was outraged at the U-2 intrusion. The second and more notable
matter lumbered into view in mid-course and was to the effect that
Khrushchev would not discuss the substantive issues of the Summit's
agenda until the President of the United States undertook three ac-
tions; condemn the provocative act which Khrushchev's aide memoire
ascribed to the US Air Force; guarantee that the US would refrain
from such acts in the future; and punish the individuals responsible
for the U-2 operation.
Sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. that Sunday the French
foreign secretary reached a ranking member of the US delegation by
phone, informing him that the French government had in hand a
highly important document which it wished to pass to the President.
One of our bilingual senior career officers hastened to the Quai D'orsay
and received the document--which was, of course, the aide memoire
which Khrushchev had just left with the President of the French
Republic. There was a delay while the Quai sought out a xerox
machine that would work and it was 2:00 p.m. before the officer
reached Mr. Eisenhower in the Residence. What he had was a dozen or
so pages of French which he speedily read aloud in English. In such a
fashion did the President learn what the Soviet position was and that
it was unlikely to change before the Monday meeting.
While these momentous events were going on, Mr. Dulles' liaison
with the delegation, wholly unwitting, fell to preparing the intelligence
6 What he read on Monday was the 2600 or so words which he had communicated
to the French and British plus a last 400 words which he had husbanded as a sort of
dessert. This is the passage in which he canceled his invitation to Mr. Eisenhower to
visit the Soviet Union. One may be fairly certain that it was prepared as an integral
part of the long blast but withheld from de Gaulle and Macmillan, lest Mr. Eisen-
hower, learning of it from them would choose to stay away from the Monday meeting.
If this had happened, then Khrushchev would have denied himself a forum which
he eagerly sought. As it was, Mr. Macmillan, on Monday, made a determined but
fruitless effort to get Khrushchev to delete it from his hand-out to the press.
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materials which were to be delivered to General Goodpaster at 5:30
that afternoon. At the Residence a great busyness engulfed the delega-
tion. The President had a meeting at 2:30 p.m. with de Gaulle,
Macmillan, and Chancellor Adenauer (who was there as a highly
concerned chief of government, but of course not a formal participant)
and then another at 6:00 p.m. at the Elysee with de Gaulle and
Macmillan alone. Those of the President's advisers not attending the
meetings were discussing the situation, what courses they would
recommend to the President, and the text of the statement he should
be prepared to make at the next day's meeting.
The fundamental question was exactly what Khrushchev intended
and what he would settle for. Did he really intend to break up the
meeting unless he got satisfaction on all three of his points or would
he accept something less? Of one thing everyone was certain and that
was that if Khrushchev himself were to call in the press or leak to it,
or if any of those witting of the content of his statement let it leak,
then any glimmer of hope of salvaging anything would instantly dis-
appear. The publication of the detail of the ultimatum would almost
certainly make a Khrushchevian retreat from the letter of it impossible.
Just as certain was Mr. Eisenhower's unwillingness to yield anything
on Khrushchev's first and third points (the repudiation and punish-
ment points) and his willingness merely to restate the US position
with respect to the second: namely, that the U-2 flights had been
suspended and would not be resumed.
In these circumstances all those privy to the matters at hand
dropped into a deep and impenetrable silence. Within a few hours of
Khrushchev's visit to de Gaulle that Sunday morning, small groups
of confidential advisers to the French, British, and American chiefs
had seen the document or knew its content; a bit later Chancellor
Adenauer and his intimates learned about it. This would make at
least twenty-maybe as many as fifty---non-Soviet men and women,
and if you count the Russians in Paris and back in Moscow, the figure
would be much higher. For almost twenty-four hours not so much as a
syllable nor a hint of a syllable seems to have leaked from this inner
group. The how and why of this remarkable achievement of security
is worth a moment's consideration.
Look first at the Russians. It is highly likely that in their calcu-
lations they had pretty-well counted on the President's refusal to
accept the three points of their ultimatum. In short, they were pre-
pared for a breakup of the Summit but wanted it to take place in a
way which, inter alia, would maximize the global impact of the posi-
tion that they were taking. This was that of a peace-loving people
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outraged by the American provocative violation of their national
sovereignty. Khrushchev's long statement, which in its full text
ended with the personal affront to Mr. Eisenhower (the abrupt and
public withdrawal of the invitation to visit the Soviet Union), would
clearly have its maximum impact throughout the world if launched
from the august forum of the Four. It would also permit Khrushchev
to show his fellow countrymen how he personally was settling his
private score with the President. (Khrushchev's important enemies
at home, thoroughly upset by the meeting at Camp David, had been
pointing to the U-2 incident as characteristic of the true attitude of
President Eisenhower and cutting away at Khrushchev for having
been the dupe of American perfidy.) Thus, having decided to come to
Paris at all, the Soviets had compelling reasons to guard the state-
ment themselves and hope that those to whom they communicated
it would do the same.
Within the American delegation there was a full awareness that
although the odds favoring any kind of substantive discussion at the
Summit were short indeed, they would drop to zero with a premature
revelation of the Soviet position. If the Khrushchev statement should
hit the Monday morning press, the President would find it impossible
to come to the meeting scheduled for 11:00 a.m. But so long as there
was hope to salvage something, the Americans chose to cling to it.
They were a very close-lipped group. Without intending to derogate
their abilities to keep a secret, let me observe that they had going for
them the fact that the day was Sunday and that, for the most part,
they were closely secluded within the security of the Residence. Any
need that one of them might have felt to enlarge the circle of the
witting could not have been done casually. It would have taken. some
quite purposeful doing.
One cannot escape the suspicion that within the American delegation
there was operative still another factor which made the secret the
easier to keep. This was that the delegation could have subconsciously
come to consider itself the self-contained exemplar of the executive
branch, if not a representative slice of the US Government. There is
at least one slug on an outgoing cable from Paris that tends to bear
out the hypothesis: the original text was addressed to the "Under
Secretary [of State]," the "Under" is crossed out and supplanted by the
word "Acting." In these circumstances who was there back in
Washington who had a compelling need to know?
I suspect, obviously without knowing, that some, at least, of these
same forces were operable upon the French and British officials privy
to the inside story. Mr. Macmillan's passionate concern to have the
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meeting and his faith in it as a touchstone to peace would surely have
dampened any British urge to talk out of school. Chancellor Adenauer
and his associates were as silent as those more intimately concerned?
And so a graveyard secrecy enveloped all these doings of great
importance and enveloped them totally well into Monday.
At least one member of the American delegation worried over the
decision to confine the news to the little circle in Paris. Mr. Gates
began to be concerned about the possible military implications of a
breakup of the Summit in the atmosphere of Khrushchev's bellig-
erency. Some time later, he owned that the thought of the Pearl Harbor
attack, coming as it had in the middle of negotiations, had crossed his
minds Early in the evening, after hearing Mr. Macmillan brief the
President on his session with Khrushchev and getting Mr. Macmillan's
gloomy forecast for the morrow, he went back to his hotel, picked up
his White House phone and talked directly to the Acting Secretary of
Defense, James Douglas. He told Mr. Douglas that he felt that the
prudent thing to do was to have the Armed Forces assume some alert
basis which, in his judgment, would include notifying the Headquarters
of the principal commands and communications and intelligence facili-
ties. How much of the substantive background of his concern he
communicated is not known, but, at a guess, it was probably de
minimis. From other sources it is clear that he spoke in deepest
confidence and urged that his message be rigorously held within the
need-to-know category.
having made the call, he returned to the Residence and immediately
reported his action to the President who approved it. He also
informed Mr. Herter. In Washington, meanwhile, Mr. Douglas con-
ferred with General Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and together they decided the technical meaning which they would
apply to Mr. Gates's oral instruction. They checked out the techni-
Shortly after the breakup of the Conference there was a rumor that someone
in the German delegation had talked to the German press. If he did, there is no trace
in the major German newspapers for Monday, 16 May. I am inclined to doubt the
rumor, although 1 was enough concerned at the time to ask for (and get) a full canvas
of press utterances for the critical day. Adenauer himself is reported to have said to
someone "Khrushchev seems to be in a bad mood" and this piece of very mild news
reached the press. See The Washington Post, 16 May 1960, p. 1.
a See Report of the ISenatel Committee on Foreign Relations, already cited, p. 132.
"Senator Wiley. `When it was decided to have the alert---[you] had in mind, did you
not know what the condition of this country was at the time of Pearl Harbor . . . '?'
Secretary Gates. 'I certainly did.'
Senator Wiley. 'During negotiations?'
Secretary Gates. '1 did, indeed!' "
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calities of their decision with Mr. Gates9 and at about nine p.m. local
time sent forth the word.
Mr. Gates's request for a passing of the message on a strict
need-to-know basis may have been observed to the letter. But a good
many people had to be involved willy nilly, and the need-to-know
injunction got several interpretations.
On the one hand, within the Pentagon itself, it was so well
observed that no formal notice was passed to the Watch Committee
and its National Indications Center. This sort of omission is something
to which we in intelligence are highly sensitive, and with justification.
We know that an operational order of this sort when carried out, is
bound to light up lights in, say, the Soviet watch mechanism and
consequently find its resonances in the change of posture of Soviet
strike and defense forces. Once this change in their posture begins to
take place, our own Watch mechanism picks tip the indicators, and
not knowing the first cause, innocently passes the warning word to
our own operations people. What happens from there on can be serious;
usually it is not, but as far as our calling is concerned, the thing which
had already taken place was a small nightmare of unprofessionalism.
In the case at issue, our own Watch did not have long to wait to
get the news in unclassified form. For the exemplary security within
the Pentagon did not hold throughout the land. The alert caused
ripples at SAC and ADC bases which could not be concealed, if indeed
the commanders tried. The base commander at Lowry AFB, for ex-
ample, in his search for two missing pilots got in touch with the local
police who in turn went to a Denver TV station asking that the follow-
ing be put on the air as a "military order": "All fighter pilots F-101
and fighter pilots F-102---attention Captain Singleton and Lieutenant
Griffin. Code 3 alert. Ilotcake one and IIotcake six scramble at
Lowry immediately." 10 The TV station obliged and, if you can believe
it, in these very words. The Captain and the Lieutenant were not
alone in getting the message, nor for that matter were they lonesome
in the scramble. A vast number of nervous fellow citizens got it that
night on the radio and TV and scrambled, and next morning even more
got it in the press." It was still front page news for the morning
papers of Tuesday, 17 May. The Watch Committee had been well
served--if a bit late.
6 There is some confusion as to the chronology of Mr. Gates's activities and the
written record will do little to abate it. What I have written above is based upon the
testimony of Mr. Gates himself.
to The Washington Post, 17 May 1960, p. 1.
11 See inter alia, The Washington Post, 16 May 1960, p. 1.
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Some twelve hours after Mr. Gates's message and almost coinci-
dental with the gathering of the Four at the Elysee, Mr. Herter re-
quested that a short and pessimistic prognosis be sent to the Acting
Secretary, Mr. Dillon. This message was destined to a wider, but still
closely circumscribed, audience.
Such were the guarded snippets of news communicated to Wash-
ington of possible thunder on the left. Perhaps I flatter myself, but
who should be in a much better position to feel the effect of the
miraculously tight security than Mr. Dulles's man in Paris? There
he was well within a mile of the action and part of a group con-
tinuously tapped into the multiform resources of the world's best
intelligence service, and he might just as well have been eyeless in Gaza.
For the balance of the day, while the American delegation went
about its pressing business, while the President and Secretary Herter
had meetings with the other western heads, Matteson, Whitman, the
ladies, and I were back in the all but tenantless Chancery putting
together the late Sunday afternoon package. We had not yet had
Washington's comment on our memo of the morning, nor had we any
other information which dealt with the heart of the President's
problem. When 1 arrived at the Residence at 5:30 p.m., neither Gen-
eral Goodpaster nor Major Eisenhower was present. I left the material
with Miss Boyce, who, if she knew what was going on, confined
herself to an amiable "thank you." And so back to the Chancery to
lock up and have a last confab with the stalwarts of commo.
Monday, 16 May--Summit Day began as we had planned it,
well before 4:00 a.m. There was the cable of general news from
Mr. Sheldon and a few other items in the special category, a few cables
frorn stations in Europe, the FBIS material, and a full set of the
morning's Parisian newspapers. There was also the answer to General
Goodpaster's request. The Office of National Estimates with the aid
of knowledgeable analysts from other Agency components had gone
over our draft, and Mr. Dulles had come to the office to study,
discuss, and amend it before dispatch. It added little to the substance
of previous estimates, but its last paragraph, particularly its last
sentence for which Mr. Dulles was personally responsible, saved a
bit at least of intelligence's bacon. The paragraph was of the "much-
will depend" breed. In this case much would depend upon what
Khrushchev learned from his preliminary soundings in Paris. The last
sentence noted that those on the spot would be in a better position to
draw conclusions than those afar. As you have seen, indeed they
were and indeed they had drawn some pretty sound conclusions.
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With all the materials in hand I made for my 7:30 appointment,
and once again found General Goodpaster and Major Eisenhower
away from their office. Miss Boyce, of course, remained the soul of
discretion and I left the premises as innocent as at the moment of
arrival, When time permitted, General Goodpaster went through
the package, and I am grateful that in our subsequent meetings he
politely refrained from teasing about the scuttle of dubious coals I
had delivered to Newcastle.
Thirty minutes later-- I learned the big news- then some twenty
hours old--in the Chancery's front yard from a foreign service officer
who had spent most of Sunday with his chief and others of the
delegation. Then inside the building, I received a much fuller account
from a friend who had been even closer to the center of things. I
hurried to our office, almost as embarrassed at the realization of my
failure as I was unhinged by the news and sent off an "Op-Im, Eyes
Only" to Mr. Dulles. Long after, I discovered that even so the Director
of Central Intelligence was probably the first official in Washington
to receive word on the events of Sunday and how the prospects for
Monday's meeting were very decidedly on the glum side.
Our luck improved that Monday, as I had chance encounters which
Sunday's manning pattern of the Chancery and the role of the
Residence had denied me.
According to a prior agreement of the principals, the first meeting
of the Four was to take place at the Elysee at 11:00 a.m. Monday.
It was to be a session devoted to procedural matters. As is all too well
known, this is as far as the conference got. Khrushchev took the floor
and read his statement with its three conditions, he concluded with
the final uncivil paragraphs in which he withdrew the invitation to
Mr. Eisenhower to visit the USSR. The President followed with a
much shorter statement in which he reiterated an American position
which both he and Secretary Herter had already made with respect to
U2 flights: "In point of fact these flights were suspended after the
recent incident and are not to be resumed . . ." he said. On Khrush-
chev's other two points he had no words. These two statements opened
a free discussion (three languages were used which required double
translations) which finally ended with Khrushchev reminding all that
the meeting just about to conclude was not the beginning of the
Summit, but merely a preliminary on procedural matters. The
adjournment was officially clocked at ten minutes before 2:00 p.m.
Shortly thereafter I had the good fortune to meet an officer who had
been present at the debriefing of the President and a bit later
Matteson and I encountered someone who had been at the Elysee.
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Our message to Mr. Dulles was short to be sure, but it hit almost all
of the main points and I trust beat the press. (The Soviets released
the full Khrushchev statement soon after the meeting.) Such were the
minor grandeurs of Monday after the miseries of the Sabbath.
As I have gone along, I have tried to imply a lesson or two for
intelligence in the experiences of this intelligence officer. There is
left the matter of grasping the most important one firmly and giving
it a bit of gratuitous pointing-up.
Here it is. Any international conference where our President heads
the US delegation is highly likely to include all his top echelon
experts and advisers in the relevant area of foreign affairs. In such
circumstances there will probably develop the subconscious feeling
which I have ascribed to the Summit that the requirement to keep
Washington informed is not all that urgent. After all, the normal
information cables written from the site of lower level conferences are
written in the hope that they will be read by the Secretary in Foggy
Bottom or the President in the White House. When these two are in
the next room, a lot of the motivation to inform home base will have
evaporated. To follow on: if, as in the case in Paris, the price of a
leak was the sure and sudden foundering of the whole enterprise,
those on the inside would be scrupulous in their observance of the
need-to-know principle. It is my confident estimate that if General
Goodpaster had perceived a problem whose solution could be forwarded
by an appeal to intelligence, he would have summoned his liaison and
told all that was necessary to service the requirement. In this particu-
lar case the problem was one in which intelligence was far less well
informed than the policy officers on the spot. Before intelligence
could be expected to produce any useful wisdom on the matter, it
would first have to be filled in by the very people it was supposed
to enlighten. The built-in deterrent to such a procedure should be
obvious to even the most incorrigible intelligence devotee, a fortiori
when you pause to think that the President had right there in the
Residence two of our country's reigning sovietologists (Bohlen and
Thompson), and another half dozen wise and experienced general-
purpose advisers. Why would he go beyond them for an estimate of
Khrushchev's real rock bottom position?
No matter the delegation's esteem for intelligence; when it came to
making this sort of intelligence estimate, its members were quite
naturally their own intelligence officers. Furthermore, they knew full
well that if perchance intelligence through some arcane source had
achieved a full and confirmed view of Khrushchev's intentions, they
could count on intelligence to give without prompting.
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Some future intelligence officer at another Summit may not have the
misfortune to have the big events played out on a Sunday, when his
opportunities for informal talk are materially reduced. But suppose
this future event is scheduled for the middle of the week and the
intelligence officer does become privy to the inner secret. It may be
that his informant in telling him will at the same time bind him riot to
communicate a word of it beyond the premises. I can only say that I
am happy that I was spared this situation.
Epilog:
Among the lessons of the Paris meeting was one which at first
glance seems of a lesser order. In fact, however, it bears on a prickly-
and ever-present-intelligence problem: the care and handling of
raw intelligence.
Among the many security men of four nations deployed to guard the
persons of the Four, was a small group inside the Elysee palace itself.
These men waited in an antechamber outside the conference room.
Their duties involved the security of the room and, as well, escort
service to the principals as the latter walked (still within the building)
to their cars. When the meeting broke up, the Russian delegation,
escorted by General de Gaulle and the Russian security men, left first.
Soon after their departure, Mr. Eisenhower and Mr. Macmillan came
out of the conference room into the antechamber to await General
de Gaulle's return. It was at this moment that one of the security men
clearly heard Mr. Eisenhower make a remark not easily forgotten. It
was "I don't care, my hands are clean, my soul is pure." General
de Gaulle had returned from escorting the Russians to the door just
in time to overhear it. It was speedily put into French and the
General "nodded full agreement."
Our witness was a well-trained officer, and when his immediate
duties were done he reported them in a memo to his superior and
gave appropriate emphasis to the President's utterance.
The document not only does credit to the accuracy of his ear, but
also to that of the President. For what the latter said was not
something of his own composition nor was it remotely related to the
status of his own hands and soul. Rather was it a direct quote from
none other than Khrushchev himself who had proclaimed it a few
minutes back to the other three in an emotional passage. He was in
the process of resisting de Gaulle's and Macmillan's effort to salvage
the Conference and driving on to reexpress his and his government's
sense of outrage at the U 2 reconnaissance. Part of the passage went:
"If there had been no incident we would have come here in friendship
and in the best possible atmosphere . . . Our rocket shot the thing
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down. Is this good friendship? God is my witness that I come with
clean hands and a pure soul."
What is the lesson? Clearly the witness was not at fault; be did his
assigned job (the security detail) flawlessly: nothing ill befell Mr.
Kisenhower, and furthermore he volunteered a very interesting and
informative report about what he saw and heard in these few moments
in the presence. There was no way that he could possibly have known
that Mr. Eisenhower was quoting Khrushchev unless he had also
heard what one fancies must have been Mr. Eisenhower's introductory
words. These-- if uttered--had been said before our witness had tuned
in. The witness did no speculating about what such remarks might
have been, and a good thing too, for there was only the slightest
chance that he would have been on the right track. Anything of this
Fort that he might have added on his own cognizance would have
deepened the fog. So one important lesson that our witness had
already learned and one that needs no special mention here is the rule
that says when you are reporting, report your observations as
exactly as you can, and if you feel compelled to interpolate your own
speculations, be sure to label them as such.
The larger lesson is of course the very familiar one about "raw
intelligence" and its dissemination to the wrong people. Generally
speaking the wrong people are consumers, and the more highly placed,
the wronger. The right people, those dark figures who enjoy the jus
primae noctis over intelligence reporting, are in the first instance the
"reports officers." It is probably because one of them held this memo
up or confined its distribution to narrow limits that its colorful,
quotable, and grossly erroneous message did not go forward and on
into the fan. Not that we do not know the rules about raw intel-
ligence, but it is good for all of us to have their rationale spelled out
in a case such as this.
Play "suppose" for a minute. Suppose that Khrushchev had used
a, paraphrase of one of his intemperate remarks like "we will bury
you." Suppose our witness had caught this one as he had caught the
original--out of context---and reported it as if Mr. Eisenhower were
addressing it to his British colleague. Then suppose there were a leak
to an irresponsible newsman who worked for an irresponsible daily.
Can you not see the headline: "Eisenhower swats British"? The lead
sentence would have struck forth: "Today President Eisenhower told
Prime Minister Macmillan `we will bury you.' The two were emerging
from the Summit's conference room when Mr. Eisenhower. flushed and
clearly in a somewhat emotional state, was heard to remark to his
British opposite number . . ."
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A new legend would have been born--and a mighty disconcerting
one for us and our cousins. No matter what the denials and explana-
tions, the story would lurk on at the friction points of our special
relationship, where it would do no good whatever.
Far out? Really not too far-Let us remember that dissemination of
raw intelligence done in good faith has upon occasion brought us to
grief. Our consumers who continuously ask for raw intelligence ought
to understand that our reluctance is principally in everyone's
interest--their's included.
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No Foreign Dissem
A Comment on "A Note on KGB Style"*
The central thesis of this essay is intriguing. It is true that major
intelligence services, and especially those engaged in collecting foreign
intelligence abroad, develop distinctive styles and that the style of
each has a deep influence upon its personnel and its capabilities.
The writer's assessment of the style of the Soviet State Security
Service, the KGB, gains clarity, however, at the expense of omitting
certain complicating but essential facts. The essay has a monodimen-
sional quality because the Second Chief Directorate (SCD), the
KGB's domestic security and counterintelligence component, has been
ignored. The style of the Second Chief Directorate is important, of
course, because it is actually the primordial element of the service.
Furthermore, the style of the SCD is more ruthless and cynical than
are any of the qualities that this article attributes to the service as a
whole. This fact results largely from the coercive, underhanded, and
repugnant methods that the SCD has used in the past and that it
keeps on using. Despite a strong effort in recent years to polish the
image of the KGB at home, so that Soviet citizens will see its officers
as their stalwart defenders, the continuing persecution of intellectuals
and dissidents, the persistent use of sexual entrapment against
foreigners, and the arbitrary use of duress have not been wholly
concealed. Many Soviet citizens continue to hate and fear the KGB.
The CPUSSR and the KGB can argue until they are blue in the face
that there is no morality but Communist morality, but the reaction of
Russians approached by the KGB often ranges from evasiveness to
revulsion. Even the Soviet man has a non-Marxian conscience. KGB
officers know how they are seen; and though the cynical may take
pleasure in their power over others, the less corrupted are disturbed.
Most defectors from KGB ranks have expressed distaste if not disgust.
The author of "A Note on KGB Style" considers that although that
style ". . . is in many ways admirably suited to running operations,
it appears to have limitations in the way it makes use of the product
of its operations and in evaluating whether the operations are really
worthwhile." He considers the younger officers ". . . less dedicated
to fulfilling the obligations of the Party and the State." The record,
however, suggests that KGB officers are loyal and dedicated, that they
show genuine analytic skill in evaluating their operations, that they
have scored major successes, that they use both agents of influence and
disinformation (to cite only two strata) with subtlety that the present
MORI/HRP
from pg.
81-82
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SECRET Comment
generation of Sovietologists, diplomats and political leaders just refuse
to face up to. The simple word "Kombinazia," for example, has no
real analogue in the English "Combination." Our appreciation of its
significance to understanding large-scale Soviet and Bloc deception is
primative and inadequate. It goes without saying that we need more
information about the KGB. Presumably we always shall. But it is
dangerous to suggest, on the basis of our inadequate and superficial
information, that the service is anything less than hard-driving and
by its own standards, successful.
Both the communications and filing systems are described as some-
what primitive. Whether or not volume of traffic is a good indicator
for the effectiveness of the commo system used by the KGB, which
makes widespread use of TDY trips and oral messages, their methods
of storing and retrieving information have been much affected by
modern equipment. Like other Bloc services, the KGB has reportedly
invested heavily in computers.
In his discussion of KGB training the author says, "In the course of
their education the students learn two or three foreign languages
well. . . ." The well is relative, of course. Even so, it is unusual for
anyone past childhood to learn another language well, especially one
written in a different alphabet. When Soviet intelligence defectors are
debriefed about the skills of former colleagues, they usually describe
them as knowing no foreign language well or knowing one. The officer
who knows two or three well seems to be an exception.
The strength of the KGB and its special character or style result
from several characteristics, but one of these is more important than
the rest. It is the fact, which the author of this essay has noted at its
conclusion, that this service is part of Soviet society as a whole and
shares the quality of that society. Its compartmentation and vertical
structure are characteristic of the government that it serves. Its
subtlety and ruthlessness, its contempt for the rights of individuals,
are among the sources of its effectiveness. No counterintelligence
service in a non-communist country can match the advantages which
the KGI3 exploits as the henchman of a dictatorial state. In no other
service, therefore, are the employees at all levels subjected to the same
corruption of the human spirit. It is basically this fact which has
created and maintains the style of the KGB.
82 SECRET
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Approved For Release 2004/12/20 : CIA-RDP78TO3194A000300010012-9