Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (91 page)

In one of these missives, Soble confidently asserted that Morros was
not under suspicion by the FBI, despite the highly publicized search for
Hollywood Communists drawing newspaper headlines. Soble had ignored a number of warning signals. While the KGB didn't know it, an
"anonymous" letter (discussed in chapter 9) received by the FBI in 1943
had specifically named Boris Morros as a Soviet agent, the only American
singled out, and the FBI followed up. In 1944 Morros had even missed
a scheduled meeting with Soble because, he said, he had noticed surveillance. Soble himself had complained in 1945 that Morros's indiscretions had probably alerted the FBI to his own role. In his autobiography
Morros explained that in 1947 he had been approached by Bureau agents,
confessed his involvement with the KGB, and agreed to be an FBI double agent. Consequently, Morros's 1947 proposal to Soble to have the Soviets finance a new company was an FBI sting operation, and every contact he had with the KGB after that point was under FBI supervision and
review.38

Moscow was sufficiently intrigued by Soble's glowing reports to
arrange for Morros to meet Aleksandr Korotkov, head of the KGB illegals department, in Switzerland in August 1948. Morros continued to inflate
his own past history, boasting that his teacher at the Petrograd Conservatory had been Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and that he had been close
friends with Sergei Prokofiev. His most implausible and startling assertion
was that he had attended the First Congress of Eastern Peoples in Baku
just after the Bolshevik Revolution, where he had met Beria and was ordered to go abroad and wait to be contacted. Morros told Soble, "`I wasn't
brought over from Soviet Russia 30 years ago for this. I was sent by
Lavrenty Pavlovich [Beria], and I finally want to speak with the leaders
of the Sov. power."' Since Beria was still alive, it is unlikely that the Bureau had put Morros up to this tall tale; he had a congenital impulse to
magnify his importance. This Hollywood self-promoter couldn't and
wouldn't turn it off even when dealing with the KGB and the FBI, two
exceedingly non-frivolous organizations. He demanded to be used for
something important or else "discharged and sent to Russia together with
his wife." Korotkov was not impressed, discerning that this was a "'theatrical gesture."' He also was skeptical of many of the biographical claims
about Morros's youth in Russia and suggested a more detailed investigation to determine their truth. He deflected Morros's desire for $300,000
to start a new company to produce television shows and merely suggested
they meet again. Despite these reservations, Korotkov's conclusions were
far off the mark. Morros, he decided, was a businessman with a fondness
for Russia, anxious to obtain money and fame. He saw no sign he was
working for the FBI. Even if he was exaggerating, the opportunities he
suggested were intriguing. Korotkov recommended against putting up
the money but not ruling out some contributions in the future. In the
meantime, he wanted to test Morros's loyalty with assignments for getting
information on his high-level contacts. Moscow Center concurred.39

Soble was present at some of Korotkov's meetings with Morros, and
the Russian noticed that he supported the impresario "`albeit rather
timidly."' That led Korotkov to suspect that his proposed role in the new
business as Morros's partner and the KGB's representative might not be
disinterested and that Soble "`hoped to play a lucrative part in it."' When
Korotkov asked at a second meeting if a refusal to fund the business
meant a parting of ways with Morros, the latter insisted that he was still
committed to working with the KGB. He agreed to cultivate Thomas
Dewey but said he would need to make a $io,ooo contribution to his political campaign. Korotkov did not respond to that overture but said
Moscow would not want him to use his personal funds for its purposes
and would decide on a case-by-case basis about what it would support. He concluded that Boris Morros hoped to obtain future Soviet investments,
was hedging his bets so as to profit if American-Soviet relations got better, and "'is to some degree bound to us through his past work.' '40

Morros tantalized the KGB over the next year, offering a detailed account of his meeting with Pope Pius XII and their conversation at the Vatican in September 1948 and an account of his visit to the White House at
the invitation of President Truman's daughter Margaret in February 1949,
adding that he had also met with Vice-President Alben Barkley, Ambassador Averell Harriman, and Treasury Secretary John Snyder. Morros did
meet with the people he named. Social interchanges between Hollywood
and the American governmental elite had a long history. But Morros attributed to these meetings an exaggerated personal intensity and intimacy.
Once again, Moscow asked Soble to have Morros gather information on
all his famous acquaintances and agreed to consider his business proposal
to distribute Soviet music in the United States, eventually arranging negotiations with the Ministry of Film in Moscow in 195o.41

While in Moscow in January 1950, Morros met with Korotkov once
again. Chastised for "`coming empty-handed,"' he claimed to have provided some information earlier to Soble. When Korotkov disparaged the
value of that material, Morros agreed it was inadequate and blamed the
press of business, his extended stay in Europe, and the need to develop
further his film activities, which would give him additional entree "`to
the circles that interest us in the USA."' Pleading that he lacked skill at
"`our work,"' he asked for someone to be assigned to direct contact with
him and "`that he be given absolutely concrete assignments."' He blustered that he could arrange for someone to get employment in Cardinal
Spellman's office, could influence Margaret Truman, and could even be
elected to Congress. The KGB was not terribly bothered by his tendency
to brag and boast; it concluded, for example, that he had never been given
any assignments by Beria but had spun that story "`to raise his prestige in
our eyes."' He was given instructions again to obtain details about prominent Americans with whom he had ties.42

In addition to the lure of his high-level contacts, Morros was of use
to the KGB because of his close ties to its longtime illegal operative Jack
Soble. A memo summarized his history:

"In the interest of conducting anti-U.S. intellig-nce work in France in 1948,
we set up an illegal station led by the illegal agent Cz. ["Czech"/Soble] As a
cover, Cz. opened a bristle company in Paris with our financial assistance. For
this purpose, Center allotted him $57,000 on the condition that he return it.
`Czech' Jack Soble, born 1903 in the USSR, Jewish. Citizen and CPSU member since 1933. Married with a son. He has no close relatives in the
USSR.... He has two brothers, as well as oth. relatives, in the USA and
Canada. We recruited Cz. for intelligence work in 1931. From 1933 to 1940,
he lived in the USSR and carried out individual intellig-nce assignments. In
1940, he left the USSR on our orders with a group of his rel-tives and went to
the USA, where he was successfully legalized and where he conducted intellignce work until 1945. In 1946, he became an Amer. citizen. Starting in 1948, he
and his family lived in Paris, where he would oversee the work of the company
he had organized and simultaneously carry out our assignments."43

Meeting with Soble in Austria in late 1950, Morros concluded that
two people with him, Jane Foster Zlatowski and her husband George,
were KGB agents. Agents were supposed to be kept isolated and unknown to each other, and although Soble insisted that "`I, for one, did
not say anything to him about this, and I am sure they didn't say anything
to him about it either,"' the KGB concluded that the blunder probably lay
with Soble. And Morros claimed that Soble had dropped hints about the
Zlatowskis. (And it was a blunder: Morros told the FBI about the Zlatowskis.) Morros was also one of the KGB's few communications links
with Soble. At his last meeting with a regular KGB contact in January
1951, Soble had warned that he was under investigation by authorities
and direct contacts should be suspended. (Given that Morros had long
ago told the FBI about Soble, likely he was under surveillance.) By late
1951 Moscow had approved a plan to liquidate Soble's station because it
had produced little of value. Unable to locate Soble and hearing that he
had sold his business in Paris, wired the money to the United States, and
opened a similar bristle factory with the funds, the KGB decided to use
Morros to meet with him and persuade him to come to a meeting in either Paris or Vienna. Although Soble met several times with Morros, he
resisted suggestions that he travel to Europe, insisted he had not sold the
bristle factory, and would eventually repay the money. Exasperated yet
again by Soble's evasions and Morros's convoluted stories, a senior
Moscow Center officer fumed: "`We need to make a concerted effort to
drag out both of them, take their money, and arrest them.' "44

In November 1952 the KGB concluded:

"Although in the last year and a half, none of our operatives has met with Cz.,
["Czech"/Soble] we have no doubt that he has guessed about our intentions to
bring him back to the USSR and has decided to sever ties with us once and for
all, not to return the money we gave him, and to remain in the USA permanently. Given that it is highly undesirable for us to leave Cz. abroad, our pri mary task at present with regard to him is to return Cz. to the USSR by any
means, and then to collect the money that was invested in his cover (in full or
in part). Since it will be difficult to accomplish this now, as Cz. is currently on
his guard, we will give the impression that we believe the allegedly `serious'
reasons that prompted him to move to the USA and intend to continue intell.
work with him in that country. We then intend to pick a more suitable time
and invite Cz. allegedly for `negotiations' in Europe, where we will abduct him
and bring him back to the USSR."

Although using Morros to attempt to persuade Soble to travel abroad,
the report noted that "`we have begun to have certain suspicions about
him as well,"' because of his inability to complete tasks assigned to him
and his constant requests for the names of Soviet contacts in the United
State S.45

In addition to recovering its money, the KGB was anxious to salvage
whatever intelligence could be gleaned from Soble's ring. Morros reported to his KGB contact that at one of their meetings Soble had told
him that his nephew, Ilya Wolston, had been transferred from the State
Department to the Defense Department and had important material to
give to the Soviets. (Recruited by his uncle, Wolston had worked for the
KGB during World War II, when he entered the U.S. Army and became
a military intelligence officer. After the war he worked for the State Department as a Russian translator.) In July 1953 Morros passed along another message from Soble that he was trying to get a foreign passport,
promising to eventually repay the money, and wanted to transmit some
important material. Morros asked for permission to pick it up, also relaying news in December that Soble was worried that he would be exposed
by ongoing investigations into Martha Dodd Stern. Aleksandr Korotkov ordered: "`Get to the bottom of these letters. Same objective-how are we
going to get our hands on these bastards?' '146

In May 1954 Soble informed Moscow through Morros that he had
an investment opportunity with a hospital and needed $25,000. Morros
offered to give him $1o,ooo and have the Center put up the rest, but
nothing happened. Repeated efforts to arrange a meeting with Wolston
in Paris or Vienna to obtain his supposedly valuable information all fell
through. At a March 1955 meeting in Vienna Morros said that Soble had
claimed he gave $25,000 and some diamonds to Jacob Albam (a KGB operative and Soble's assistant) and had lost the rest of the KGB's money in
business, but when Morros met with Albam, he denied receiving anything. Morros had also determined that Wolston was mentally ill and was
not the potential rich source Soble had held him out to be. He also of fered to take over all of Soble's contacts and suggested that he might be
able to induce Robert Oppenheimer to defect to the USSR, given Oppenheimer's loss of his security clearance and public attacks on him by
anti-Communists. Moscow Center took these suggestions seriously. It rejected, however, his attempt to get the KGB to intervene with Soviet authorities in a dispute Morros was having with them about television rights
to Prokofiev's opera War and Peace. 47

Soon afterwards, the KGB lost contact with Morros. But it hadn't
heard the last of him. The FBI had decided that running Morros as a
double agent had reached the limit of its usefulness. In early 1957 the
Justice Department indicted Jack Soble and his wife Myra, Jacob Albam,
Alfred and Martha Stern, and George and Jane Zlatowski on espionagerelated charges, and Morros surfaced as a double agent in a blaze of publicity. Jack Soble initially claimed complete innocence and prepared a
vigorous legal defense. But he soon realized that with Morros's evidence
and a decade of FBI surveillance, along with a government threat to seek
the death penalty, his options were limited. Soble pled guilty, made a detailed statement of his activities, and agreed to testify against his sources.
His wife also pleaded guilty, as did Albam. Jack Soble received a sevenyear prison sentence, Myra got four years, while Albam was sentenced to
five years. The Sterns were in Mexico at the time and soon departed for
exile in Czechoslovakia. The Zlatowskis were in France and appeared to
have provided information to French security about KGB operations
there to avoid extradition to the United States. Jack also testified against
his brother, Robert Soblen, another long-term KGB illegal operative.
Soblen refused to cooperate and received a life sentence when convicted
in 1961. He then jumped bail and fled to Israel, hoping to claim citizenship there. But Israel deported him, and he died of a self-administered
overdose of barbiturates (whether intentional or accidental is unclear)
while being returned to the United States.48