Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (88 page)

At their first meeting in June 1938 Dodd's first question was whether
her paramour had been arrested. Reassured that he was alive and working in Moscow, she complained that she had not heard from him in more
than a year and was anxious to learn whether their marriage was still a
possibility or if she should go ahead and marry her American fiance, Alfred Stern. Even if they did tie the knot, "`she does not think her marriage
would get in the way of her work with us, although she is not altogether
sure what she should do."' A letter from Vinogradov duly arrived; he had
not yet been executed, and the letter was dictated by the KGB. Martha
happily wrote back, lamenting their sidetracked love and informing him
that she had finally gotten married; she and her new husband hoped to
travel to the USSR in the late summer and meet him, the man who
"`meant more to me in my life than anybody else."' Her persistent requests to Soviet diplomat Konstantin Umansky for assistance in getting a
visa produced some concern and a decision to deny her permission to
enter the USSR, but she eventually was talked out of her planned visit.6

With all these distractions out of the way, the New York station anticipated using Dodd to get contacts within the State Department. One
potential target was the former American ambassador to Spain, Claude
Bowers, an old friend of Martha's father. But it quickly became apparent
to the KGB that Martha was not always very realistic about her opportunities. In December 1938 the New York station sent a letter to Moscow
that her circumstances had dramatically changed: "Since becoming the
wife of a millionaire, Liza [Martha Dodd] has experienced significant
changes in her lifestyle; she lives in a luxurious apartment on 57th Street
in New York, has two servants, a chauffeur, and a personal secretary." (Alfred Stern, born in 1897, was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and
Harvard. In 1921 he married Marion Rosenwald, daughter of the head of
the Sears Roebuck mail order firm, and directed the Rosenwald Foundation for a decade. After divorcing his wife in 1936, he obtained a $1
million settlement.) Martha's ambitions, moreover, had expanded: "'She
is very excited about her plan to travel to Moscow as the wife of the American ambassador. According to her, her husband is ready to give 50 thou sand dollars to the Democratic Party fund if that post is promised to him.
He hasn't heard anything concrete yet. He is currently seeking a means
of getting to President Roosevelt through Wall Street. We already wrote
to you that so far, his chances are very low.'"

Most of Martha's energies went into editing her father's diaries, about
his tenure as ambassador, for publication and writing her own account of
her Berlin years, Through Embassy Eyes. Although there are few references to her in KGB documents recorded in Vassiliev's notebooks from
1938 to 1941, she impressed the KGB with her prowess; one memo evaluating "`agents working on diplomatic and political intelligence"' complained that as of 1 January 1939, most agents "`were of low value. Only
two agents were very valuable"'-namely, Martha Dodd and Abraham
Glasser. That September, Moscow instructed Ovakimyan that one of its
priorities was ensuring the election of a New Deal supporter. To that end,
it told him "`to gather compromising materials"' on FDR's opponents to
discredit them. Martha was one of three agents suggested for this task,
along with her brother and Congressman Samuel Dickstein.'

Notwithstanding Moscow's appraisal of her value, Martha was deactivated late in 1939 as part of the reduction-in-force occasioned by the
withdrawal of many KGB officers from the United States. By August
1941, however, the KGB had resumed contact with her through Zalmond
Franklin, one of the New York station's American couriers. It was undoubtedly a surreal experience for the former Lincoln Brigade soldier,
who wrote one lengthy report about a meeting with Martha on 24 September. Under instructions to determine her attitude toward her previous handlers, several of whom had been shot as traitors, he heard a detailed account of her trysts with Vinogradov and her appeals to Stalin to
allow them to marry, which he concluded might have been part of a plot
by Vinogradov to flee the Soviet Union. Franklin gave a detailed account
of Martha's musings about her attraction to Russians:

"MARTHA: I don't know. There's something about them (with glowing
eyes). Maybe it's because I have such a hot-blooded nature. I react easily.

ME: Sometimes we must discipline ourselves. It's undesirable for people
who have our kind of relationship to allow emotions to interfere in the relationship.

MARTHA: Why? What's wrong with that?

ME: It can be demoralizing. The work can suffer. The relationship will suffer because it becomes too intimate. People in love talk too much, especially in
bed.

MARTHA: Yes, I suppose so.

Martha mentioned again that if we didn't permit Alfred to join the party,
there would be a divorce. It seems to me that M. is ready to divorce him as it
is. Her apparent excessive preoccupation with sex may reflect a stormy sex life.
(If the reader is more than 40 years old, he should skip the following section.)
Alfred is more than 40 years old. He isn't old, but he isn't young, either-a
middle-aged man. A middle-aged man `isn't what he was.' It may be that Alfred can't satisfy Martha. I firmly believe that if she is unable to go to the
USSR, she will be disappointed, if for no other than sexual reasons.""

One week later Franklin and Dodd met again, and he "`bluntly and
frankly"' inquired "`if her sexual relationship with her husband was satisfactory,"' given her previous comments about the possibility of divorce. Although she did not feel "'the wild love she felt for Boris Vinogradov,"' she
assured Franklin that she "'loved her husband very much."' That launched
her on a disquisition about her life in Berlin that left Franklin agape:

"Seemingly, she spent most [of] her time in bed. In addition to the Russian or
Russians, she slept with a full blown fascist-General Ernest Udet, second in
command (next to Goering) of the German air force; Louis Ferdinand,
grandson of the Kaiser; and some guy in the French Embassy in Berlin. (A
real internationalist.) ... She was most embarrassed-her face flushed red
and she smiled in a most silly manner. But immediately she added-this
coyly-'I had a contact in the French Embassy too.' (Perhaps it was the gin I
was drinking but at this moment I felt slightly overwhelmed. I considered for
a moment to excuse myself and retire to the washroom, stick my head in a
basin of water-cold-and in general overhaul myself. But realizing, seriously, that I must show poise to Martha, I called over to the waiter and ordered another drink-for Martha. I was under control.) ( ... Surely there
must be other countries represented in this International Brigade-including
the Scandinavian.)

I asked her why she slept with Udet. Her answer: Boris (Vinogradov) had
told her to get next to every important Nazi. Udet she considered importantso she slept with him. And, so she says, she learned much from him. Vinogradov had not been in Berlin while she was having this affair with Udet.
When she told him (Vinogradov) about it he did not object. (He sure must
have loved her.) I did not ask her why she had slept with Louis Ferdinand or
the `French contact.' The girl seemed to be suffering under my direct questions. I actually felt sorry for her. (She is honest to say the least-she didn't
have, to admit to these promiscuous relationships.) ...

She asked me if it was now a rule that people in our work were not to have
a sexual life. Of course not, no such rule, I answered. We are interested in personal morals only when they reach the political plane.... Martha's attitude was not belligerent or defiant but rather one of a student listening to a Professor lecture. A most difficult situation to find one's self in-lecturing on a subject never studied. But I was in it and I had to see it through in a manner befitting my position. Externally presenting a cool and confident appearance, I
lectured on middle class morals, proletarian morals, when sex is permissible in
our kind of work, when not, discussion of hormones and sheep ovarian extract
influence on humans, etc. I lectured on more than I knew. The above may
sound most silly but it had a good effect on Martha. She became very sober.
And she remarked: `I should have been told these things in Berlin. Nobody
taught me anything there. I see your point.' And then later: `I don't want to
seem to be trying to impress you but I don't want you to have the wrong impression of me. I am not weak on these matters. If you tell me not to have a
sexual affair in the S.U. I won't.'

Sometime during our conversation-I don't recall exactly when-Martha
made the remark that all men were vulnerable ... somewhere. Does this
mean, I asked her, that you feel that you could sleep with most any man if you
so chose? `Yes.' she said. And then: `It might be advantageous at times.' (This
she meant in terms of political work.)"

Franklin was impressed: "`This is a worldly wise girl.... I believe her to
be sincere."' Moscow Center, however, was less so, seeing no intelligence
value in her suggestion that she and her brother come to the Soviet Union
as journalists, preferring that she work either in the Middle East or the
United States. An undated memorandum that likely was written in this
period noted that although "`she considers herself a Communist and
states that she recognizes the party's program and statutes,, " Martha was
"`a typical representative of American Bohemia, a woman who has become sexually depraved, ready to sleep with any handsome man."'10

However scandalized by her sexual mores, the KGB gratefully accepted her intelligence assistance. She delivered a report of a meeting
that she and her brother had held with Secretary or State Cordell Hull,
and in late December 1941 Martha discussed her contacts with various
exiled German writers, indicating that Leon Feuchtwanger was "`very
reliable"' and "`must have at his fingertips many many French names
useful for us. I am sure he would not hesitate to cooperate fully if he
knew the source asking for it."' She also recommended Jurgen Kuczynski (an exiled German Communist; see chapter z), whom she knew "`to
be perfectly reliable from the Harnacks and from my own observation
and experience with him. He worked for the Freedom station at one time
and as far as I know has never deviated an inch on any matter whatsoever."' He "`would be more valuable and trustworthy for us than anyone
I know besides the Harnacks in Berlin.' I'll

Moscow Center was pleased but informed Zarubin in January 1942
that Dodd required -constant supervision of her behavior. It is essential
to give her firm guidance, get her interested in our work, and direct her
energy toward benefiting our cause."' She needed to be "`oriented toward getting close and getting introduced to the president's wife, Eleanor,
on the line of various public organizations, committees, societies, etc.
Here we should make use of the special interest that the Roosevelts show
in China and everything related to it."' Moscow insisted she sever her social ties to staff at the Soviet Embassy. Finally, Martha had to not only
"`refrain from recruiting her husband for our work and letting him know
about it, but must also not recruit him into the party, which, judging by
your last letter, she is stubbornly trying to do."'12

These strictures, however, had little effect on the headstrong Dodd.
In early February she reported that Alfred had seen Loy Henderson at
the State Department and renewed his campaign for a diplomatic position. She insisted that "`it would be a great mistake if he were not obtained for our work."' Because of his earlier marriage to a member of the
Rosenwald family, he had wide connections with wealthy Americans.
Martha was "`sure he could recapture many of his past friends over a period of time,"' although "`if he were forced constantly to meet useless,
worthless high society people, the dregs of the capitalist system, he would
be thrown back into the frustrated miserable state he was in when he was
married to the Rosenwald family."' He needed a productive job. She also
reported that he had recently joined the CPUSA, but Martha felt "`that
he is not being used to his fullest capacity by the Party and is at the same
time being exposed by them. Therefore again I urge, after full discussion
of all the above points, that he be accepted for work with us."113

No reply to that report is in Vassiliev's notebooks, but Moscow must
have relented because in March, Martha wrote that she had discussed
her underground work with Alfred, without specifying exactly for whom
she worked: "`He was enthusiastic about the work and wanted to do
something immediately"' but "`stated that he could not work for any organization that did not include Communists and that did not follow the
policy of the Soviet Union."' They had discussed his forming some kind
of business or going into government work. While reluctant to do the former, he was willing to consider it

"if I [Martha] could suggest how it could be done without arousing suspicion
and adverse criticism, and without jeopardizing his funds. He argued that if he
lost his money he could be of comparatively little use to the progressive movement and would not be able to maintain a covered social and moneyed posi tion to attract other contacts.... I asked him to get the names of as many
business firms as possible who still traded with neutral countries or had men
who traveled to Europe who in any way could be considered reliable. I told
him this was to establish a means of getting money and messages to people in
occupied countries. He fully understood this.... He recognizes the secrecy of
the work, is anxious and enthusiastic to help."

Martha suggested he meet with Elizabeth Zarubin and added that Alfred
"`also asked if he would have to discontinue his class in Marxist theory. I
told him I thought so but that somehow or other we might arrange for
him to have a two hour conference once a week discussing what he has
read with one of the underground workers. He agreed to this, urging only
that he continue his studies, otherwise he would be a less effective person in every way if he did not master the theory of Marxism which he has
been practicing for so long."' She repeated her demand that he "`be taken
in to our work. If he is not seen I must resign, as he is exposing both of
us,"' since his activities in the American Labor Party required him to associate closely with Communists.14