JFK CASE: FBI REPORT ON DR. ARMAND HAMMER AND FAMILY.

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00389267
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: September 12, 2023
• Document Release Date: June 30, 2023
• Case Number: F-2021-02184
• Publication Date: August 1, 1972

Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267.
CENTRAL INTELUGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
RELEASE IN FULL 1998
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO
DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR
RELEASE OF CIA INFORMATION
iu; !'
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Assistant to the 'President for
National Security Affairs
SUBJECT: Dr. Armand Hammer and Family
,l. The Central Intelligence Bulletin of 20 July 1972
reported that Occidental Petroleum Corporation's highly
touted "agreement" with the Soviet Union may be less than
meets the eye. Barron's Financial Weekly of 24 July 1972
states that the announcement brought the small investor.
back into the market and added three quarters of, a billion
dollars in value to Occidental's securities. The common
stock soared from 10 1/4 to 18 1/4. The financial community
is skeptical about_the_worth of the agreement. Dr. Hammer
was quoted in .the 31 July 1972 issue of Newsweek as saying,
"It is a firm agreement in that we have agreed to a number
of concrete ideas. But we may fall apart in the final
negotiations."
2. The Department of State has learned that the nego-
tiations were conducted personally by Armand Hammer and a
�
small staff operating from Occidental's London office. It
has also been reported that the home office in Los Angeles
has no information beyond that reported in the press. Ac-
cording to a KGB defector, the Soviets-can manipulate such
a corporation thus changing the fortunes of large numbers
of unsuspecting U.S. investors. Since Soviet economic acts
are not without political objectives, the announcement of
the agreement on the eve of Secretary Petersonts arrival,, in
Moscow is not regarded to have been a coincidence. In view
of the above, I enclose for your information a summary of
the Soviet intelligence relationship with the Hammer family
over the past fifty years.
TI1TS cT17111 rC4
APP E'D 17:2D11.'ISY
ON a g
1 Vii.;:��i.";:_1 NOi IC
SENSITIVE 4,:1rI.1IGE* , SOURCES
AND. METH INVOLVED
Si
ner
� EXr:IirT FRO.. iiEt:7111-1. .CIASSITIC.tnri
:::-ITLGjarz.-
�r...:(1).(3 ( Lc-..a or mote)
tj
A rov f Irector
(etilzaa roiIe, inaert da or erent)
pproved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
-
3. A copy of this memorandum has been sent to.Secre-
taries Rogers, Shultz,.Laird and Peterson.
Richard Helms
Director
Attachment: As stated
2
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
(
-31 July 197-2
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: DR. ARMAND HAMMER
1. On 19 July 1972, Dr. Armand Hammer, Chairman of
the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, announced in London
the signing ()fa wide-ranging five year technical assist-
ance agreement with the Soviet Union. Hammer said that�
the 'agreement would specifically include natural gas,
crude oil, agricultural fertilizers and chemicals, metal
treating and plating, the design and construction of hotels,
and the utilization of solid wastes.
2. Armand Hammer and his brothers �Viktor and Harry
(now deceased) are the sons of Dr. Julius Hammer who emi-
grated with his parents to the U.S. from Russia in the
1870's. Julius-Hammer, a wealthy physician, was active
in leftist politics and was one of the founders of the
Communist Party in the United States. Armand Hammer was
named by his father for the arm and hammer emblem of one
of the Communist Party predecessor organizations. In 1920
Dr. Julius Hammer was sentenced to five years in Sing Sing
Prison for performing an illegal abortion on a Russian
woman whose husband was a Soviet attache in Washington in
World War I.
3. Interest in the Hammer family by various investi-
gative agencies of the U.S. Government started as early as
1921. In that year the Department of Justice advised the
British that Armand Hammer was carrying messages to the
�
Soviet Union for Ludwig C.A.K. Martens, head of the Soviet
trade mission and self-styled Soviet Ambassador to the U.S.,
who had been deported because of espionage activities in
January 1920. Hammer was searched when his ship reached
NOT
SENSITI CE SOURCES
ZaDoet1HODS1i/VE,
CL FLED BY
EXEN. FROM carz:Rm.
SCDETtLE D. IF:7' r4 I .=_.)j �-r:
� szo), it:
possible to determine
(ualess impossitle. insert eute or es:eot)
:
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
�
Southhampton. A film depicting the expulsion of Martens
from the U.S. was found in his possession. It had been
prepared by the American Society for Technical Aid to
Russia for propaganda use.
4. In 1922, Armand Hammer was joined in the Soviet
Union by his brother, Viktor, and in 1923 by his father,
Julius, paroled from prison. The Hammers, who spoke
Russian, were ideally placed to participate in and benefit
from the New Economic Program (NEP) period. The story of
how Armand Hammer made an early fortune after he had nego-
tiated a trade agreement with V. I. Lenin in 1922, his
pencil factory, the asbestos mine concession and his repre-
sentation of U.S. and other Western firms in the U.S.S.R.,
has received wide publicity. Most articles also detail
how he and his brother Viktor brought home a fortune in
czarist antiques and paintings and opened the Hammer Galleries
in New York. There is another side to the coin.
S. 1922 was the beginning of the NEP in the Soviet
Union. Faced with economic disaster, Lenin found himself
forced to turn to the capitalist countries for technology,
raw materials and foodstuffs, and for the capital to develop
Soviet industry. However, since Communist economic dogma
is never without political objective, Lenin entrusted a
significant part of the administration of this new program
to Felix Dzerzhinski, the head of the OGPU. A former
Soviet intelligence officer (KGB) who had access to the
extensive OGPU files related to the NEP period has stated
that Lenin personally ordered Dzerzhinski to exploit Soviet
ties to Western capitalists for the purpose of recruiting
them on a broad base and forcing them to cooperate with
Soviet intelligence through economic or personal blackmail.
The KGB officer stated that a reciuitment of Viktor
Hammer had been made in the 1920's by means of a staged ar-
rest. As a result, Viktor signed a document agreeing to
cooperate with the Soviet intelligence services. General
Alexander Orlov of the NKVDiand the highest ranking member
of the Soviet Security Services to defect to the West has
stated that Armand Hammer was considered to be "in the bag."
2
r*
�����
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
� Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
-
In the mid-1920's General Orlov was deputy and then chief
of the Economic Department (EKO) of the OGPU and, as such,
was intimately concerned with intelligence implications of
Soviet foreign trade and the foreign trade concessions in
the U.S.S.R.
6. In 1927, the police in London raided a Soviet
trading firm called Arcos Limited and found espionage docu-
mentation proving that Arcos was an important channel of
communication to the United States for clandestine intelli-
gence work and Communist Party business. The nature of the
material found was such as to cause the British Government
to break diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. This
in turn led thb-New York City police to raid the Moness
Chemical Company in New York. They found a collection of
secret documents revealing the activities of a clandestine
Soviet network in the United States. Both the Arcos docu-
ments and the Moness documents showed that these firms were
receiving considerable amounts of money from Dr. Julius
Hammer in Moscow. During the Arcos raid, Dr. Julius Hammer's
name and cryptonym were seized before the Soviet code clerk
could destroy them.
7. The Allied American Corporation (AAC) known formerly
as Allied Drug and Chemical Corporation, Was a firm in
which Dr. Julius Hammer had acquired a controlling interest
during World War I. The aforementioned Ludwig Martens was
reportedly a large stockholder. AAC was the instrument via
which the Hammer family handled its concessions in the U.S.S.R.
and also represented foreign concerns there. The pencil
factory operated under the name of A. Hammer Pencil Factory.
AAC also controlled a bank in Estonia which was reported to
be both funded by the Soviets and used as a conduit for
clandestine Soviet funding. Headquartered in New York, AAC -
had branches in London, Berlin, Riga, Moscow, and Paris. In
November 1929, Armand Hammer had transferred most of his Moscow
operation over to the Soviet Government and moved his activities
to the Paris office of AAC. A source of known reliability has
stated that Armand Hammer had the job of paying Soviet propa-
ganda agents in France under the cover of commercial trans-
actions from 1929 until his departure for New York in 1934.
He also is reported to have made a considerable profit by
3
cv;
�
.01
.4.1 i II ti
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11_C00389267.
'
buying at a discount Soviet Government three-year notes
from Western businessmen who despaired of ever getting
paid. AAC disappeared from view after Armand Hammer's
return to New York and the activities of the family were
reflected in other corporate activities.
8. Another U.S. informant had considerable contact
with Dr. Julius Hammer in Moscow during the winter of
1932-33. He was informed by Himmer that both Hammer and
his two sons were working for the. GPU (a predecessor orga-
nization of the KGB). The informant was associated with
the CPU at the time. This information was later corroborated
by a second source who was in Moscow during this period
and was being-Tecruited at that time by Genrich G. Yagoda,
the then head of the CPU. Hammer reiterated to this source
that he and his sons were associated with the GPU.
9. Joseph Samuel Finger alleged he had served as
intermediary in Moscow when Armand Hammer demanded that the
Soviets reimburse him for $75,000 expended for Party work in
New York during 1920. Finger stated that he was successful
and named the recipients of the original expenditure who
included William Z. Foster, long-time head of the CPUSA. In
March 1952, Armand Hammer was questioned with regard to the
$75,000. He explained it away by saying it was a finders fee
for making available to the Soviet Government machinery ordered
by the czarist government and stored in a Brooklyn warehouse.
Armand Hammer denied that he had ever engaged in any intelli-
gence activity with the Soviets.
10. An ex-KGB officer has stated that an attempt was to
be made by a KGB officer to reactivate Viktor Hammer in the
1950's. The source indicated that to his knowledge this effort
failed. When interviewed, Viktor acknowledged that he knew
the KGB case officer but stated that he continued the relation-
ship so as to establish a viable channel to his Moscow-born
son, Armand Viktorovich Hammer, who chose to remain a Soviet
citizen. The son, Armand Viktorovich Hammer, has been identi-
fied by two ex-KGB officers as a staff officer of the KGB.
When Armand Viktorovich Hammer visited the U.S. in 1968, he
alleged that the purpose of his visit was to investigate the
assassination of President Kennedy and to determine whether
it was a conspiracy. He has visited his father in 1960, 1968,
and 1972.
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267 ,
11. According to a high-level KGB defector, the
Soviet Government has made a policy decision to return
to Leninist economic principles and views this new era
of increasing contacts with the West as a sort of second
NEP. There are firm indications that the Soviet leadership
has ordered the exchanges exploited by the KGB in accordance
with the same Leninist instructions to Dzerzhinski which
prevailed in the 1920's. The KGB has been redeployed and
is ready. Senior and experienced KGB officers have been
positioned in strategic spots. One such officer is Mikhail
I. Bruk. In 1958, Bruk was active among Americans in Mos-
cow as Chief, Protocol Branch, English Language Section,
International Division, Soviet Ministry of Health. In
reality, Bruk vas a KGB officer whose job was to spot, as-
sess, and recruit Americans visiting the U.S.S.R. Inter-
restingly enough, Bruk is a close friend of Armand Viktoro-
vich Hammer. Mikhail I. Bruk is now in the United States
in his new role as an official .of the Moscow Chamber of -
Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce appears to be a focal
point for the new Soviet effort. Yevgeniy P. Pitovranov,
who became Deputy Chairman of the Chamber in 1967, is a
Lieutenant General of the KGB. He engineered the kidnap-
ping of the Chief of the West German internal security
service, Otto John. It has been reported that Pitovranov
plays the role in the new NEP that Felix Dzerzhinski did
previously.
Approved for Release: 2023/05/11 C00389267