Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (58 page)

In 1942 Silvermaster won a transfer from the Farm Security Admin istration (a place of no interest to the KGB) to the Board of Economic
Warfare. But no sooner had Silvermaster arrived than Army security officers objected, citing evidence that he was a secret Communist. Silvermaster submitted a lengthy rebuttal to the allegations in which he denied any participation in Communist activity and passed a copy of his
statement to the KGB New York station. Additionally, his new boss at the
BEW met with General George Strong, chief of Army G-2, and attempted to placate him, but Strong adamantly demanded that Silvermaster be removed from any position with access to sensitive information.
Silvermaster then appealed to Robert Patterson, assistant secretary of
war. Jacob Golos sent a report to Moscow about what happened next:

"A large number of people was dismayed by `Pal's' [Silvermaster's] dismissal.
The head of the Farm Security Administration, Baldwin-`P's' former superior-was very angry. Currie called Assistant Secretary of War Patterson to
protest. He told Patterson that `P' did not follow the `Party line,' that `P.' had
supported general military efforts long before the attack on the Sov. Union,
and that his position had not abruptly changed after zz June 1941. Patterson
replied that this changed things to a considerable degree and asked him to
produce documentary evidence. Currie said that he did not have any written
evidence but that he had spoken to `P.' on numerous occasions and is confident about his views. Currie subsequently spoke with Baldwin, and the latter
agreed with him in this matter, saying that he might be able to find some
memoranda corroborating Currie's point of view. A Treasury Department official, White, called Patterson to protest the actions being taken against `P."'

Calvin "Beanie" Baldwin, Silvermaster's former superior at the Farm
Security Administration, was a secret Communist. Harry White, like
Currie, was a KGB source delivering information via the Silvermaster
network. Patterson deferred to the highly placed Currie and White, overruled Army G-2, and thus enabled Silvermaster to expand his espionage
activities, becoming a source in his own right as well as managing a network of sources.131

Silvermaster's problems, however, were not over. In 1943 the FBI
opened an independent investigation. Again Currie rushed to the rescue.
Two FBI agents interviewed him, and again Currie assured the investigators that suspicions about Silvermaster were misplaced. The KGB New
York station followed the matter closely; Vasily Zarubin, station chief, reported to Moscow: "`At the demand of Attorney General Biddle, the
"Hut" [FBI] has resumed his investigation. "Page" [Currie] was recently
visited by two "Hut" agents: they wanted to find out whether "Pal" [Sil vermaster] was a fellowcountiyman [Communist]. "Page" supposedly
replied that he had known "Pal" for a long time and that the latter did not
belong to a fellowcountiyman organization. We are following the progress
of this matter and will report on the results."' A few weeks later Zarubin
reported that Currie's work was paying off: "`One of our telegrams reported to you that the investigation of "Pal's" [Silvermaster's] case had
been resumed on the demand of Attorney General Biddle. Recently a
message came in from "Pal" saying that "Page" [Currie] had made every
effort to close his case: when "Pal's" case was submitted for consideration by the committee of five under "Captain" [Roosevelt], he managed
to sway most of the committee members in favor of dropping the investigation. He doesn't know the committee's final decision, but "Page" believes that the investigation will be terminated."' Currie was right. With
an influential presidential aide vouching for Silvermaster, the FBI decided to drop the matter.132

In her 1945 FBI deposition Bentley explained that her removal as liaison with the Silvermaster group by the fall of 1944 was the KGB's first
step in its intentions to take direct control, split the group into more manageable units, and establish direct agent ties with such valuable sources
as Lauchlin Currie. KGB cables confirm her story and carry it into 1945
as Silvermaster fought to retain control of the extraordinarily large network he had created. In regard to Currie in particular, a Moscow Center
report in January 1945 noted Silvermaster's attempt to stave off direct
KGB contact: "`Robert [Silvermaster] doesn't consider the recruitment
of "Page" [Currie] feasible ("Robert" bases his view on the fact that
"Page" isn't ready to become a fellowcountryman [Communist])."'
Moscow Center, however, told the KGB New York station it wasn't buying that argument, insisting: "`We believe that it is inadvisable to give up
on him [Currie], because even sporadic contact with him is highly useful
to us."' Roosevelt's death and Currie's discharge from the White House
delayed the matter, but in October 1945 that "recruitment conversation"
with Currie took place, and "after some hesitation, he agreed to cooperate and gave several informational materials .11133

The KGB had finally achieved direct contact and formally recruited
Lauchlin Currie. While he was no longer a White House aide and did
not have direct access to sensitive government information, he knew a
great deal and might once again become a key figure in Washington. But
no sooner had he been recruited than Elizabeth Bentley defected. A
Moscow Center cable on 23 November 1945 ordered the KGB New York
station to "break off contact" with thirteen high-value agents known to her; one was "Page"/Currie. There is no indication that the KGB ever
reestablished contact.134

Another member of the Silvermaster network was steered to it on the
recommendation of Henry Ware. While Bela Gold was not quite as lucky
in avoiding public scrutiny as Ware, he did manage to outlive a brief spate
of notoriety. Illustrating the adage that American life provides for improbable second acts, Gold found remarkable academic success as an expert on technology transfer. His first career in covertly transferring information from the United States to the Soviet Union, like that of so many
others, began in Communist student groups in New York.

Bela Gold was born in 1915 in Kolozsvar, Hungary, and came to the
United States with his parents when he was four years old. He graduated
from New York University with a degree in industrial engineering and
then went to study economics at Columbia University, where he encountered Ware. Along with his wife, Sonia Steinman Gold, whom he
married in 1938, Gold, who sometimes anglicized his name as Bill or
William, moved to Washington in the early 1940s to work for the Senate
Subcommittee on War Mobilization and then for the Agriculture Department and the Foreign Economic Administration. Sonia also held government research positions and served for a time as Harry Dexter White's
assistant.

The Golds established ties with an underground CPUSA unit led by
Henry Collins, whose members included Edward Fitzgerald. Later Fitzgerald became a leading figure in the Perlo espionage group. Evaluating
Bela Gold, whom he had known as a member of Collins's CPUSA cell,
Fitzgerald told the KGB:

"When he and his wife worked in my group, he struck me as an excellent
worker. He is extremely engaging and gives the impression of being exceptionally educated. His political views are for the most part correct, though in my
opinion they are a little bit formalist. He is not as good at judging people....
Gold always expressed willingness to receive assignments. However, after some
time it became obvious that he could not manage the work. He would usually
look for various excuses. These incidents became more and more frequent....

He left my group to work on a senate committee. I contacted him, and he
told me that he had established a connection with another group.... I explained to him that I did not have any directives about his leaving for another
group and pointed out to him that another group could not, in that case, have recruited him for work. He told me that this matter had been settled by a
higher authority.... It was easy to see that he was talking about a group that
was higher up than the Central Committee; he also alluded to this group's international connections.... When I turned to NY for advice, I was told not to
bring this matter up and to avoid it.-135

Gold's new group did indeed have international connections. Following
Henry Ware's recommendation, the KGB had assigned Jacob Golos to
evaluate the Golds and gave them cover names: Bela was "Acorn" and
Sonia was "Zhenya." Vasily Zarubin noted that Silvermaster "`got in touch
with him [Gold] and his wife"' and obtained "`good information from
them and considers them to be valuable people."' Another KGB report
indicates that Silvermaster first recruited Sonia in 1943 and then Bela. 136

Cables in 1944 and 1945 describe the Golds as "conscientious and
disciplined," and in special recognition of Sonia's productivity, the KGB
gave her a $500 bonus in late 1945. (She had obtained reports on American loans to China and negotiations with French leader Charles de
Gaulle.) When the KGB got direct control of the Silvermaster network,
one of its priorities was to get direct access to the Golds and separate
them from Silvermaster. But the KGB New York station noted: "It costs
Robert [Silvermaster] great pains to keep the couple and other probationers [agents] in check and to get good work out of them. Being their
leader in the fellowcountiymanly [CPUSA] line Robert has the opportunity to give them orders. In Albert's [Akhmerov] opinion our workers
would hardly manage to work with the same success under the fellowcountiymanly flag." By the fall of 1945 the Golds' productivity had declined. Sonia went on maternity leave, and with the war over, the Foreign
Economic Administration, where Bela worked, was slated for abolition.
An attempt to find him a position at the State Department came to nothing. George Silverman offered his KGB contact the opinion in October
1945 that Bela Gold no longer had "`any major opportunities and will not
be able to provide us with important information.' "137

It was all over, in any event. While Elizabeth Bentley had not dealt
with the Golds directly, Silvermaster had discussed them and delivered
their espionage product to her. Moscow cut ties with both Golds. The
FBI interviewed them, but they both denied passing along information.
Both testified to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in
1948 and denied Communist Party membership and any cooperation
with Soviet intelligence. The evidence from KGB documents in Vassiliev's
notebooks, as well as deciphered KGB cables of the Venona project,
shows that both provided perjured testimony.138

Possibly because they denied Bentley's charges and did not invoke
the Fifth Amendment, unlike most of their comrades, Bela and Sonia
Gold were able to escape relatively unscathed from the 1948 House
Committee on Un-American Activities hearings. After leaving government service, Bela secured a teaching position at the University of Pittsburgh business school and embarked on a career as a professor, and memories of Bentley's charges and his testimony faded away. By 1981 he was
director of research in industrial economics at Case Western Reserve and
a member of the Committee on Computer-Aided Manufacturing of the
National Research Council. He authored several books and numerous
scholarly articles, lectured around the world, and received grants from
the Ford Foundation. His career ended as the Fletcher Jones Professor
of Technology and Management at Claremont Graduate School.

All of the other members of the Silvermaster network who worked for
the federal government and were identified by Bentley appear in documents in Vassiliev's notebooks, ranging from Silvermaster's chief assistant, Ludwig Ullmann, to such figures as Solomon Adler, David Weintraub, George Perazich, Frank Coe, Norman Bursler, and Irving Kaplan.
Additionally, virtually all of the singleton agents whom Bentley named
also make at least cameo appearances, including William Remington and
Willard Park. One of the main challenges to Bentley's veracity came from
William Taylor, a Treasury Department official working on international
financial questions who sued the Washington Daily News in 1954 for libel
for reporting Bentley's statement that he was part of an espionage ring.
Not wanting the expense of a trial, the newspaper settled out of court
and withdrew its statements about Taylor. Bentley never retracted her
charges. Taylor's lawyers prepared a wide-ranging study that assailed
Bentley as a fraud and circulated it to the press. Despite the FBI's preparing a memo that replied point-by-point to Taylor's claims and that supported Bentley's credibility, numerous historians have accepted Taylor's
claims and his legal victory as demonstrating that Bentley's charges were
false. Taylor, however, was identified in KGB documents as a source codenamed "Odysseus," reporting to the KGB through Silvermaster's apparatus, just as Bentley said. Likewise, William Remington, an economist
with the War Production Board and Commerce Department, convicted
of perjury in 1953 for denying Bentley's charges and later murdered in
prison, was depicted by some historians as innocent of espionage. Zaru bin identified him in a report as a source who "`provided information on
war-production matters"' with the cover name "Fedya."139

Zarubin's September 1944 report evaluated other members of the
Silvermaster group as well. Ludwig Ullmann, who worked for the Army
Air Force and held officer's rank, "`obtains information himself, maintains communication with `Peak' [Frank Coe] and `Aileron' [George Silverman] and, in addition, photographs materials ... and he is privy to all
of the group's business."' Zarubin noted that while some were aware of
the group's relationship to the KGB, others were not as clear about for
whom they were stealing information. Coe, Harry White's assistant, had
"`provided many valuable materials,"' but, according to Silvermaster,
"`believes he is working for the Helmsman [Browder]."' George Silverman, "`a tested and reliable fellowcountryman [Communist],"' likewise
"`doesn't know that he is working for us."' By 1945, after the group was
broken into smaller units reporting directly to Iskhak Akhmerov, Vladimir
Pravdin, and Joseph Katz, that illusion, to the extent it still existed,
ended.140