Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (68 page)

The KGB Washington station attempted to contact Tenney to inform
her of Bentley's defection and to arrange future meetings because she
had a chance to transfer to the State Department. Tenney had a scheduled meeting with Eva Getzov, a KGB courier, in early December 1945.
But the station feared that she might be under surveillance or had even
been turned by the FBI. As a security measure Joseph Katz shadowed
Tenney on her way to the meeting with Getzov. Station chief Gorsky reported: ""Muse" [Tenney] was supposed to have a meeting with "Adam"
[Getzov]. "Muse" was tailed by X [Katz]. When she exited from her building, Muse walked up to one of the cars parked in front of her building and
said something to the person sitting in it. At the meeting place X spotted
the same car with the same person in it. The car was parked so that the
entire meeting site could be surveyed from it. This place had never been
used before. X used a prearranged signal to warn Adam not to come to
the meeting. In the past Muse was very close to Myrna [Bentley]."56 Fearing that Tenney was under surveillance and might be cooperating with the
FBI, the KGB abandoned further efforts to contact her. In fact, she had
not been turned, and there is no record in FBI files that it had established surveillance on Tenney at that time.

But this abortive December meeting contributed to Tenney's later
partial collapse by leaving her feeling abandoned. After the OSS dissolved, she succeeded in transferring to the State Department and
worked in its Russian analytic section, but she was without any Soviet
contact. In any case, her tenure there was short. With Bentley's statements in hand, the FBI informed State Department security of Tenney's
Soviet ties, and she was quietly forced out in mid-1946. The State Department also revoked her passport. Realizing that she was under suspi cion but feeling abandoned by the Soviets, Tenney suffered a nervous
breakdown. Friends had her hospitalized briefly in January 1947, when
she started babbling about Soviet spies and being under FBI surveillance.
Noting her condition, the FBI thought that she might break if Bentley approached her. Unaware that Bentley had defected, Tenney told her in
early February 1947 that she had been out of touch with the Soviets for
some time, felt completely isolated, and hoped that Bentley was reestablishing contact. Tenney did not, however, show any sign she was disillusioned about the Soviet cause, and the FBI dropped any expectation she
might cooperate. Soon afterwards, in a formal interview with the Bureau,
Tenney denied any role in espionage. She admitted knowing Bentley but
under another name and only during 1942 and 1943, unaware that their
meeting just a few months earlier had been set up by and observed by
FBI agents. Tenney eventually recovered from her breakdown and invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1953. She then faded from public notice.57

KGB archives detail several husband-and-wife espionage teams. Occasionally, a wife like Ethel Rosenberg knew about her husband's activities
and provided assistance. Sometimes both spouses were fully operational
agents. But Julius and Bella Joseph were unusual in that both were
sources at the same agency, the OS S. A KGB New York station report in
1941 stated: "Sound [Gobs] reported on Julius J. Joseph.... As `Sound's'
report makes clear, Joseph and his wife have long shown interest in the
local fellowcountryman [Communist] movement and have been connected with the leading comrades and secret fellowcountryman organizations.... Henceforth "Cautious," and his wife is "Colleague." '158

At that point, Julius was an economist working for the Social Security
Board, not a high priority target. But in 1943 Zarubin reported: "A few
weeks ago "Colleague" [Bella Joseph] got a job with the "cabin" [OSS] in
the photo department as a stenographer. Photographs of localities, mil. installations, inventions, weaponry. Sound [Gobs] considers her a reliable
and able "fellowcountiyman" [Communist]. "Cautious" [Julius Joseph]
will soon be called up into the army. "Sound" suggested to him that "Colleague" arrange at the "cabin" for him to be taken in there." Initially,
Zarubin noted that Bella's effort to find a position for Julius at the OSS
was unsuccessful: "It didn't work out." But they kept at it. After Julius
was drafted, he was able to obtain a commission as an Army lieutenant, and in December Zarubin reported that Julius "hasn't gotten a job with
the "Cabin" yet, but on assignment from the "Cabin" he is working at the
library on questions pertaining to Japan's manpower reserves and has
promised to give us a copy of his report ."5J

There were, however, complications. The KGB New York station
chief noted in August 1943 that not only were his Communist ties an obstacle to Julius's getting a position at the OSS, but also "'the issue of "Colleague" [Bella Joseph] is even worse. She has gotten involved with another man and is asking "Cautious" [Julius Joseph] for a divorce. No
attempts at dissuasion by "Sound" [Gobs] have helped. "Colleague" plans
to move to California with her lover and, as a result, to quit her job in the
"Cabin's" [OSS's] film department."' Bella Joseph was still among Elizabeth Bentley's contacts on a list she turned over to the KGB Washington
station chief in October 1944, so presumably the Joseph marriage got
past this difficulty.60

In any event, Julius was able to convert his temporary detail to the
OS S into a permanent posting, and he spent the rest of the war there. By
1945 he was deputy chief of his division, which dealt with Japanese intelligence; he turned over material to the KGB and managed a small unit
of KGB sources at the OSS that included Helen Tenney and Donald
Wheeler. Bentley discussed the Josephs at length in her 1945 FBI deposition, and Julius appears in three Venona decryptions with the cover
name "Cautious." "Colleague" [Bella Joseph] also appears in one cable
deciphered by Venona, but NSA/FBI analysts were unable to identify the
cover name.6'

After the OSS dissolved, Julius Joseph went to work for UNRRA and
then directed the New York Committee for the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, a Popular Front group aligned with the CPUSA. Called to testify
about Bentley's allegations by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1953, he used the Fifth Amendment and accused the committee
of questioning him in order to "create unemployment and a blacklist for
loyal Americans ."62

Documents in Vassiliev's notebooks provide additional details about the
espionage careers of two librarians, one of whom worked for the OSS.
Philip and Mary Jane Keeney first came into prominence in 1937, when
Philip's firing by the president of the University of Montana in a case involving library censorship, union organizing, and radical activity elicited widespread protests. The Keeneys publicly denied Communist Party
membership, but while awaiting resolution of their court challenge to the
dismissal, they moved to California and joined a local Communist Party
club. Mary Jane's diary, later obtained by the FBI, had such entries as
this for 17 June 1939: "Get to Mill Valley at 2:00. C.P. Marin County
branch membership meeting from 2:00 to 6:oo P.M." Philip eventually
won reinstatement at the University of Montana but faced a hostile university president and a renewed effort to fire him. Through the efforts of
David Wahl (discussed in chapter 4), another concealed Communist librarian, the Library of Congress hired Philip in 1940. When President
Roosevelt created the Office of the Coordinator of Information (OCI),
much of its initial research staff was drawn from and housed at the Library of Congress; Philip moved from the OCI into the OSS. He shifted
to the Foreign Economic Administration in 1943 and then the Office of
the Secretary of War in December 1945 for an assignment with the U.S.
Army occupation authority in Japan as a librarian managing classified documents. Mary Jane, also a librarian, worked for the Board of Economic
Warfare and its successor, the FEA, during World War II; in 1946 she
transferred to the Department of State for assignments dealing with the
occupation of Germany and reparations but resigned in the same year.

A partially deciphered May 1942 KGB cable from Fitin in Moscow to
New York station chief Zarubin discussed infiltration of the OSS and
noted that Jacob Golos had met Philip Keeney, then an OSS librarian. In
response Zarubin noted that Keeney "is being entrusted to our agentura,"
an indication that his recruitment would be undertaken. The KGB, however, did not recruit Keeney in 1942. He and his wife, it turned out, were
already working for GRU. Sergey Kurnakov, a KGB agent, noted in a report in August 1944, "Keeney and his wife were signed on apparently by
the Neighbors [GRU] for work in 1940." David Wahl, the man who had
gotten Philip his position at the Library of Congress in 1940, was then also
a GRU agent and likely had recruited his friend.3

Through "a highly confidential source"-an FBI euphemism for a
surreptitious break-in-the Bureau obtained a copy of Mary Jane
Keeney's diaries from 1938 to 1945 and intercepted correspondence between Mary Jane and Philip. Written in a crude code, the material chronicled their transition from GRU to the KGB. One month before Kurnakov's August 1944 report about their GRU affiliations, the Keeneys had
dinner with someone identified in the diaries as Colonel Thomas. Thomas
"takes us to dinner and then discovers he came on a wild goose chase,"
in Mary Jane's words. Thomas was, the FBI determined, Mary Jane's
cover name in her diary for Kurnakov. The "wild goose chase" was Thomas's discovery that the Keeneys were already working for another
branch of Soviet intelligence.64

But it turned out that Thomas/Kurnakov was not wasting his time. At
some point in late 1944 the Keeneys lost touch with GRU. In a deciphered January 1945 cable the KGB New York station reported that
"Cerberus," a GRU agent, contacted Gregory Silvermaster, seeking to
reconnect with Soviet intelligence. Venona analysts could never identify
"Cerberus," but combining the information in the Venona decryptions
with additional information in KGB documents in Vassiliev's notebooks
is sufficient to identify him as Philip Keeney. The cable said "Cerberus"
worked in "`Peak's' department." At the time, Frank Coe, "Peak," was assistant administrator of the FEA, where Keeney worked. The cable went
on to state that since Fitin had recently "advised ... that Cerberus was a
probationer of the Neighbors [GRU]," Apresyan wanted permission to
let the GRU station chief know. Much of the remainder of the message
was not broken, but a fragment implies that if GRU had "lost contact with
him," the KGB might consider recruiting him, which is what happened.65

Undeterred by the GRU connection, Kurnakov had persisted in the
fall of 1944. In November Philip was in New York, preparing to leave for
Japan for his job with the occupation government. He wrote Mary Jane
several letters that made his intentions and loyalties clear. On zz November he noted, "Our friends, including Thomas, have made it clear
there is a job to do and it falls to my lot to do it." On 24 November he indicated that while in New York, he intended to see Kurnakov. On 29 November he proudly wrote that he had spent several hours "with Col.
Thomas which is a pass word to use in the higher circles." On 1 December: "Last night I had a long session with Col Thomas and I left with a terrible sense of responsibility."66

Philip Keeney had been recruited by the KGB but had not yet provided intelligence information when he went to Japan. Several letters to
his wife suggested that his work for Soviet Military Intelligence had not
been very productive. On z February 1946 he wrote to Mary Jane from
Tokyo: "I presume word from Col. Thomas will be reaching us both in
due course. I am certain we will be reached when something turns up
for us to do. I have the feeling, at any rate, that we are both on call now
which is more that I have felt for months past." And, two months later, he
reflected: "Probably, I might not have come to Japan, had it not been for
my serious confabs with Col. Thomas. Now that I am here it seems as if
I were repeating the long dry spell that twice occurred when we were
part of Joe B's [Joseph Bernstein's] plans. I should have followed Greg's
[Gregory Silvermaster's] advice and relaxed."67

The Keeneys' equanimity, however, did not survive the escalating investigations into Soviet espionage prompted by Bentley's and Gouzenko's
defections. Mary Jane sent a letter to Philip in Japan via a friend in March
1946 warning him to be careful what he wrote to such old acquaintances
as the Silvermasters. Their friends were afraid they were being wiretapped and their mail examined. She concluded: "Joe [Bernstein] told
me to be on the lookout as well as several others in New York. There is
no reason for alarm on your part or mine only it is well to remember that
it's better to be safe than sorry." Two months later she wrote that their old
GRU contact, Joseph Bernstein, was temporarily on ice: "Joe B. doesn't
expect to be back in the swim for a long long time. He says that the Canadian affair [Gouzenko] will have a very lingering effect ."68

The Keeneys' security problems began in 1947. The Army dismissed
Philip from his position in Japan on security grounds in June. Just a
month later, the KGB received a report from Washington that Mikhail
Vavilov, a Soviet diplomat and KGB co-optee, occasionally "meets with
other former agents of ours. ("Akra" [unidentified], "Cerberus" [Philip
Keeney] spouses)," indicating that Vavilov met both Keeneys as well as
the unidentified "Akra" and his or her spouse. But tainted by his firing,
Philip Keeney was in no position to help the KGB. There remained, however, Mary Jane. She had begun work as an editor in the Documents Control Division of the United Nations in June 1948. An August 1948 KGB
document said, "Cerberus's wife got a job in the UNO Secretariat. She is
of interest; her husband is not."69

The interest was short-lived. Philip Keeney, feeling the heat, decided
to leave the United States, but the State Department refused to issue
him a passport. Nonetheless, in 1949 he attempted to board a Polish ship,
stating he had been offered a job by a Czechoslovak university. Immigration officials, however, stopped him. Both Keeneys testified to the U.S.
House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1949. Philip answered
some questions but invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid discussing
his Communist ties. Mary Jane did not refuse to answer and denied Communist Party membership. At the same time, an FBI data slip that Judith Coplon had stolen from the justice Department reporting a source
telling the FBI that Mary Jane was "well known on the East Coast for
her Communist espionage activities" was entered into evidence in her
trial. Given this indication of FBI interest, the KGB dropped any thought
of using the Keeneys.70