Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (63 page)

In addition to OSS's newness, explosive growth (by 1944 it included
fourteen thousand personnel), and lack of institutional structure, General Donovan's immediate focus-defeating Nazism-assisted Soviet infiltration. He once remarked to an aide, "I'd put Stalin on the OSS payroll if I thought it would help us defeat Hitler." Researchers have
identified Communists in the Russian, Spanish, Balkan, Hungarian, and
Latin American divisions of the OSS's Research and Analysis Branch and
its operational Japanese, Korean, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Indonesian, and German divisions. In the midst of World War II, with Hitler the
main enemy, General Donovan's attitude was a sensible one, but it was
also fraught with risk. While the arrangement allowed the OSS to make
use of Communists, it also allowed Communists to make use of the OSS.2

Elizabeth Bentley publicly identified several Soviet sources in the
OSS in 1948, and the Venona decryptions confirmed her testimony. In addition to adding considerable detail to those revelations, KGB documents
in Vassiliev's notebooks identify four previously unknown sources.

Two previously unidentified Soviet sources came to the OSS via the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War and the American Communist Party. In the fall of 1941 Donovan, then just organizing the OSS,
asked Milton Wolff, last commander of the Abraham Lincoln battalion
and head of its veterans' organization, to recommend some of his comrades. Donovan wanted to use these men as OSS operatives with the antiNazi resistance in Europe. While Communists had held aloof from the
anti-Nazi resistance in German-occupied nations during the Nazi-Soviet
Pact, once Germany attacked the USSR in June 1941, they quickly joined
the resistance, and Donovan believed that the Lincoln battalion veterans
would be able to work well with Communists in the anti-Nazi underground. After receiving permission from the CPUSA, Wolff recommended a number of International Brigades veterans who became OSS
officers, including Irving Goff, William Aalto, Milton Felsen, Michael
Jiminez, Vincent Lossowski, and Alfred Tanz. Later Wolff joined the OSS
as well.3

In a 1944 report KGB station chief Vasily Zarubin referred to the
OSS's obtaining men through the Communist Party and noted that the
KGB had recruited several of Wolff's choices for Soviet intelligence work
inside the OSS: "Our agent "Tyazh" departed for the "shore" [North
Africa] with communications instructions, a call sign, and a cipher. He
arrived on the "shore," but contact was not established with him....
"Amigo" was recruited, but his special assignment was canceled at the
last minute. Later he left with Amer. troops and had a password and communications instructions. "4

In addition to Zarubin's comment, "Tyazh" and "Amigo" appeared
only once more in the notebooks. In neither instance was a real name
given, but in "Amigo's" case, the information provided is sufficient to
make a positive identification. In a lengthy November 1944 report on his
tenure as an officer of the KGB New York station Semen Semenov wrote:
"`On instructions from the station I carried out the recruitment of
"Amigo." At the time, on the "Cabin" [OSS] line, he was supposed to
leave to perform special work in Africa and then in Italy. The work was
general training of an agent, teaching him ciphers, establishing passwords
for contact, and so forth. In 1943 he transferred from the U.S. to Britain,
where people were supposed to establish contact with him. By education
"Amigo" is a lawyer, and he was in Spain."'5

These details fit Alfred Tanz, who joined the CPUSA in 1935 and
served with the Lincoln battalion in the Spanish Civil War. International
Brigades records contain a 1937 memo written in Russian and labeled
"top secret" that identifies Tanz as a "reliable" comrade and a candidate
for undefined "organizational-technical work." After Wolff's recommendation, Tanz joined the OSS, which sent him to Great Britain, and he was
among the OSS troops dropped into France in preparation for the June
1944 Normandy invasion. Tanz was also the only lawyer among the Lincoln battalion veterans recruited for the OSS. In addition, in February
1943, shortly after he joined the OSS, the Comintern received a vetting
inquiry from the KGB asking for a report on Tanz's background. The
Comintern replied that he had been an active Communist since 1935 and
served in the International Brigades.'

Although it is not as positive, the one additional mention of "Tyazh"
very strongly suggests he was Irving Goff. A KGB evaluation of the work
of Duncan Lee, a senior OSS officer and KGB source, noted: "`In September 1944 he gave Myrna [Bentley] a list of employees which supposedly the OSS security division has and who, according to the division's
information, hand info. over to us. `Izra' and `Tyazh' are listed among
them."' "Izra" was Donald Wheeler, who was among the twenty-six OSS
personnel on the list that Lee handed over to Bentley (also in Vassiliev's
notebooks). The list included only three veterans of the Lincoln battalion: Irving Goff, Manuel T. Jiminez, and Michael A. Jiminez. Of the
three, only Goff is known to have served in North Africa with the OSS.
"Tyazh," who Zarubin had said had "departed for the "shore" [North
Africa]," is most likely Irving Goff.'

Later in the war senior OSS officers suspected that Goff, then running an OSS radio network assisting anti-Nazi resistance forces in Italy,
had allowed Italian Communists to use it for political work in preparation
for the postwar struggle for political dominance. After World War II Goff
became a full-time organizer for the CPUSA, heading the party in
Louisiana and serving as a senior officer of its New York organization.'

Akhmerov cabled Moscow in March 1939 that Gerald Graze (discussed
in chapter 4) had nominated both his older brother Cyril and his younger
brother Stanley for recruitment. Both were members of the CPUSA;
Cyril, a junior high school teacher, was "`a highly developed Marxist-is
completely devoted to Communism."' Stanley, born in 1918 and a recent graduate of CCNY, was "`devoted to our cause, but for now he is a little
bit young to handle responsible assignments."' There is no indication that
the KGB ever approached Cyril, who, nonetheless, achieved some notoriety in the 1950s. A long-time chairman of the Academic Freedom Committee of the Communist-dominated Teachers Union in New York, he
was fired by the school board in 1953 for refusing to answer questions
about whether he was a Communist.9

In an odd bit of timing, on the same day that Cyril appeared before a
Senate subcommittee investigating Communist activity in the schools, his
younger brother Stanley, whom he had tutored in communism, testified
before another Senate subcommittee looking into Communist connections
of American employees of the United Nations. Both showed up at the same
federal building in New York, and both took the Fifth Amendment. While
Cyril refused to discuss his Communist affiliations, however, the key question Stanley refused to answer was far more serious. When asked "Have you
ever in the past engaged in espionage against the United States," he invoked his right to silence on the grounds of self-incrimination. Stanley had
never been publicly accused of espionage by anyone, nor had the justice
Department undertaken any prosecution. But, as he told a KGB officer
three years later, since "certain people from Myrna's [Bentley's] group knew
about him and could testify against him," he decided that denying espionage under oath risked a perjury indictment, and it was less hazardous to
invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer. Stanley Graze's prudence was understandable, but, in fact, there was no usable evidence
against him. Elizabeth Bentley had not identified him to the FBI, nor had
others in the Perlo network cooperated with authorities. Neither had he
been identified in the Venona deciyptions. All the government had were
suspicions. They were well-founded.10

Stanley Graze had been active in the Communist movement as a college student at CCNY. He did graduate work in economics at Columbia
and held several research positions before moving to Washington in 1943
to take a job as an economist in the Tool Division of the War Production
Board. Both he and his wife were members of the underground CPUSA
group run by Victor Perlo and, by Perlo's accounting, provided government documents to the party unit. His brother Gerald was already working in Washington and was a KGB agent of some years' standing. Gerald
also told Akhmerov that Stanley handed material to Victor Perlo. On
Akhmerov's initiative, Gerald questioned Stanley about rumors of "sabotage" of Soviet Lend-Lease equipment orders by WPB officials."

Stanley Graze was drafted in 1943 and served overseas as an Army officer and was, consequently, out of reach of the KGB until mid-1945,
when he obtained a post in the Russian Division of the OSS. He immediately became an active espionage source via Victor Perlo. (Stanley
Graze's relationship as a source with Victor Perlo thus was in 1943, before
Perlo was in liaison with Elizabeth Bentley, and in 1945, after the KGB
had replaced Bentley with one of its own agents. Consequently Bentley
had not heard of him and did not identify him as a member of the Perlo
apparatus when she went to the FBI in 1945.) In August 1945 the KGB
New York station informed Moscow that the OSS was sending him to
London, where, among other assignments, he would be monitoring the
activities of Arcos (the USSR's trading agency in London) and Amtorg,
gaining information about Soviet transport; the USSR's machine-building,
metallurgy, chemical, and rubber industries; and Soviet foreign policy, as
well as collecting information on Vlasov's Army, an anti-Soviet force of
Russians and Ukrainians backed by the Nazis. Even before he left for
London, the KGB New York station reported that Stanley (referred to
by his CPUSA party name, "Stan," and his new KGB cover name, "Dan")
had provided several valuable items:

"While looking through `Cabin's' [OSS's] files on Soviet railway transport, `Stan'
found a detailed report on the Baikal-Amur mainline, dated October 1943, and
issued by the commander of the Amur naval flotilla, junior Captain Brakhtman.
It is impossible to determine how the report got there, but judging from its
contents, Captain Brakhtman had been used unwittingly. In the same file,
`Stan' saw a photo of a tunnel under the Amur river that was taken by a certain
Major Nelson, who had supposedly been assigned to the R.A. [Red Army] as an
expert on tanks." ... Stan gave a description of the work of the Russian division
of "Cabin," along with descriptions of the people working there.12

Once in London, Graze would be out of touch with Perlo and would
need another contact to deliver his material. Several memos about establishing contact with him in London detail KGB tradecraft and illustrate the practical difficulties of establishing liaison. The KGB New York
station reported the arrangement made at the U.S. end: "In the middle
of August, Dan [Graze] left for London. He and "Raid" [Perlo] agreed on
secret meeting conditions. Every Sunday, beginning on September 2nd,
D. will arrive for the meeting at 20.oo and wait 10-15 min. by the exit of
the metro station `Regent Park.' He will be holding the magazine `John
Bull.' Our man: `Didn't I meet you at Vick's restaurant at Connecticut
Avenue?'-'Yes, Vick himself introduced you.' Afterwards, the operational officer should produce the price tag that was sent to C. [Center],
and Dan should show his exact duplicate." In addition, the New York sta tion sent a photograph to Moscow to be forwarded to the London officer
who would make the contact.13

It wasn't until the third Sunday in September that a KGB officer,
Michael Korneev, was able to attempt the rendezvous. His report read:

"When I arrived at the agreed-upon time at the exit of the `Regent's Park'
Tube station, I noticed an American officer in uniform standing by the exit
who looked the same age as `Dan' [Graze]; however, he did not have the aforementioned magazine John Bull.' Walking past him as the clock struck 8, I also
noticed that the officer looked at his watch. When I got to the corner, I turned
back and walked down the opposite side of the street. Meanwhile, the officer
had taken from his pocket some kind of book or magazine. I crossed the street
and walked up to the Tube station. It turned out that he was holding some
kind of book. It was seven minutes past eight, and there was nothing left for
me to do but to try to talk to this officer. I started my conversation as follows:

ME: Do you have a light?

Him: Yes, please.

ME: Thank you.... Women, they're never on time, are they.... I take it
you're also waiting for your girlfriend?

Him: No, I'm waiting for a friend.

ME: Been out of the States long?

Him: No, not too long ....

ME: I've been to the USA, too. It made quite an impression on me.

Him: Were you there a long time ago?

ME: Oh, it was relatively long ago, in 1939.

Him: Where did you go when you were there?

ME: NY. It's quite different from London. I liked NY, with its big buildings
and restaurants. It's a lively, cheerful city. I spent a lot of time in restaurants
there. I especially liked this one restaurant there called "Nick's."

Him: The one on Connecticut Avenue.

ME: Oh yes. Come to think of it, you look sort of familiar. Didn't we meet
there?

HIM: That's right-Vick himself introduced us.

When he had spoken his password, I became confident that he was indeed
"Dan." We shook hands and continued talking, and "Dan" invited me to go
back to his apartment. Just then, a policeman walked by us, and so for the sake
of appearances, I gladly took him up on his offer. When we had gone a bit further from the station, D. said that I had given him the password incorrectly I
explained to him why this had happened and repeated my password as it was
stipulated, adding that I had a small card for him. (The cards were identical.
They are enclosed.)