_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Greatest Mail-Order Catalogue in History
A complete, itemized list of Lend-Lease shipments is unobtainable from any agency or
group of agencies of our Government. However, the Russians kept their own lists which I, as a liaison officer, was allowed to consult and copies of which I finally acquired.
They list the dollar value of every item, though not always the exact quantity, with annual
totals as follows:
1942 - $1,422,853,332;
1943 - $2,955,811,271;
1944 - $3,459,274,155;
1945 - $1,838,281,501.
The grand total for four years is some $9.6 billions, which compares with the President’s
figure of $9.5 (for shipments only) in the Twenty-First Report. But the complete Russian
record is much more revealing than any partial or “protocol requirement” list the public has
been allowed to see.
I would have preferred to give the Russian figures for each of the four years, because
there are many interesting comparisons, such as the thorium shipments which stopped after
1943. Space limitations prevented this. Faced with the choice of listing some items with all
the breakdowns, or cumulative totals for all the items, I chose the latter. If any readers would like to have the yearly breakdowns on specific items, I will be glad to provide them from my worksheets.
At the start I have grouped all the materials – chemicals, metals, minerals – suitable for
use in an atomic pile. I have not listed here the ‘millions of dollars’ worth of mining, orecrushing, and construction equipment which we sent to Russia. Informed readers may also find materials suitable for use in the hydrogen bomb elsewhere in the lists.
Item Quantity Cost in Dollars
ATOMIC MATERIALS
Beryllium Metals 9,681 lbs. -- $ 10,874.
Cadmium alloys 72,535 lbs. -- $70,029.
Cadmium metals 834,989 lbs. - $71,466.
Cobalt ore & concentrate 33,600 lbs. -- $49,782.
Cobalt metal & cobalt-bearing scrap 806,941 lbs. -- $1,190,774.
Uranium metal 2.2 lbs. -
Aluminum Tubes 13,766,472 lbs. -- $13,041,152.
Graphite, natural, flake, lump or chip 7,384,282 lbs. -- $812,437.
Beryllium salts & compounds 228 lbs. -- $775.
Cadmium oxide 2,100 lbs. -- $3,080.
Cadmium salts & compounds, n.e.s. * 2 lbs. -- $19.
Cadmium sulfate 2,170 lbs. -- $1,374.
Cadmium sulfide 16,823 lbs. -- $17,380.
Cobalt nitrate 51 lbs. -- $48.
Cobalt oxide 17,800 lbs. -- $34,832.
Cobalt salts & compounds n.e.s. 11,475 lbs. -- $7,112.
Cobaltic & cobaltous sulfate 22 lbs. -- $25.
Deuterium oxide (heavy water) -- $1,100 grs. -
* “n.e.s.” stands for “not especially specified,” throughout.
These lists continue on page 83. (Pages 77 through 110 are copies of written orders, etc.
along with many pages of details itemizing goods sent through Lend-Lease to Soviet Russia.
These pages will be scanned in here, as soon as our webmaster receives them via mail. -
Jackie)
When you read the out-of-print book titled From Major Jordan's Diaries, you will understand
the purpose of the Lend Lease Act. Here is an excerpt from his preface:
"But the tremendous volume of Lend-Lease material going through under
“diplomatic immunity,” the infiltration of Soviet agents through the Pipeline,
the shipments of non-military supplies and even military secrets, were more
than I could stomach. I finally protested through proper channels, first in Great
Falls, and then in Washington; nothing happened. This was in 1944, while I
was still in the Army."
Jackie -- May 26th, 2003
Lend Lease Act, 11 March 1941
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AN ACT
Further to promote the defense of the United States, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as "An Act to Promote the Defense of the
United States".
SEC. 2. As used in this Act -
(a) The term "defense article" means -
(1) Any weapon, munition. aircraft, vessel, or boat;
(2) Any machinery, facility, tool, material, or supply necessary for
the manufacture, production, processing, repair, servicing, or
operation of any article described in this subsection;
(3) Any component material or part of or equipment for any
article described in this subsection;
(4) Any agricultural, industrial or other commodity or article for
defense.
Such term "defense article" includes any article described in this
subsection: Manufactured or procured pursuant to section 3, or to
which the United States or any foreign government has or
hereafter acquires title, possession, or control.
(b) The term "defense information" means any plan, specification, design,
prototype, or information pertaining to any defense article.
SEC. 3.
(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the President may, from time to time.
when he deems it in the interest of national defense, authorize the Secretary Of War, the
Secretary of the Navy, or the bead of any other department or agency of the Government -
(1) To manufacture in arsenals, factories, and shipyards under their jurisdiction,
or otherwise procure, to the extent to which funds are made available therefore,
or contracts are authorized from time to time by the Congress, or both, any
defense article for the government of any country whose defense the President
deems vital to the defense of the United States.
(2) To sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to
any such government any defense article, but no defense article not
manufactured or procured under paragraph (1) shall in any way be disposed of
under this paragraph, except after consultation with the Chief of Staff of the
Army or the Chief of Naval Operations of the Navy, or both.
The value of defense articles disposed of in any way under authority of this
paragraph, and procured from funds heretofore appropriated, shall not exceed
$1,300,000,000.
The value of such defense articles shall be determined by the head of the
department or agency concerned or such other department, agency or officer as
shall be designated in the manner provided in the rules and regulations issued
hereunder. Defense articles procured from funds hereafter appropriated to any
department or agency of the Government, other than from funds authorized to
he appropriated under this Act. shall not be disposed of in any way under
authority of this paragraph except to the extent hereafter authorized by the
Congress in the Acts appropriating such funds or otherwise.
(3) To test, inspect, prove, repair, outfit, recondition, or otherwise to place in
good working order, to the extent to which funds are made available therefore,
or contracts are authorized from time to time by the Congress, or both, any
defense article for any such government, or to procure any or all such services
by private contract.
(4) To communicate to any such government any defense information
pertaining to any defense article furnished to such government under paragraph
(2) of this subsection.
(5) To release for export any defense article disposed of in any way under this
subsection to any such government.
(b) The terms and conditions upon which any such foreign
government receives any aid authorized under subsection (a) shall
be those which the President deems satisfactory, and the benefit to
the United States may he payment or repayment in kind or
property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the
President deems satisfactory.
(c) After June 30, 1943, or after the passage of a concurrent
resolution by the two Houses before June 30, 1943, which
declares that the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a)
are no longer necessary to promote the defense of the United
States, neither the President nor the head of any department or
agency shall exercise any of the powers conferred by or pursuant
to subsection (a) except that until July 1, 1946, any of such
powers may be exercised to the extent necessary to carry out a
contract or agreement with such a foreign government made
before July 1,1943, or before the passage of such concurrent
resolution, whichever is the earlier.
(d) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or to permit
the authorization of convoying vessels by naval vessels of the
United States.
(e) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or to permit
the authorization of the entry of any American vessel into a
combat area in violation of section 3 of the neutrality Act of 1939.
SEC. 4
All contracts or agreements made for the disposition of any defense article or defense
information pursuant to section 3 shall contain a clause by which the foreign government
undertakes that it will not, without the consent of the President, transfer title to or possession of such defense article or defense information by gift, sale, or otherwise, or permit its use by anyone not an officer, employee, or agent of such foreign government.
SEC. 5.
(a) The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the head of any other
department or agency of the Government involved shall when any such defense
article or defense information is exported, immediately inform the department
or agency designated by the President to administer section 6 of the Act of July
2, 1940 (54 Stat. 714). of the quantities, character, value, terms of disposition
and destination of the article and information so exported.
(b) The President from time to time, but not less frequently than once every
ninety days, shall transmit to the Congress a report of operations under this Act
except such information as he deems incompatible with the public interest to
disclose. Reports provided for under this subsection shall be transmitted to the
Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House of representatives, as the case
may be, if the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be, is
not in session.
SEC. 6.
(a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated from time to time, out of any
money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such amounts as may be
necessary to carry out the provisions and accomplish the purposes of this Act.
(b) All money and all property which is converted into money received under
section 3 from any government shall, with the approval of the Director of the
Budget. revert to the respective appropriation or appropriations out of which
funds were expended with respect to the defense article or defense information
for which such consideration is received, and shall be available for expenditure
for the purpose for which such expended funds were appropriated by law,
during the fiscal year in which such funds are received and the ensuing fiscal
year; but in no event shall any funds so received be available for expenditure
after June 30, 1946.
SEC. 7.
The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the head of the department or
agency shall in all contracts or agreements for the disposition of any defense article or
defense information fully protect the rights of all citizens of the United States who have
patent rights in and to any such article or information which is hereby authorized to he
disposed of and the payments collected for royalties on such patents shall be paid to the
owners and holders of such patents.
SEC. 8.
The Secretaries of War and of the Navy are hereby authorized to purchase or
otherwise acquire arms, ammunition, and implements of war produced within the
jurisdiction of any country to which section 3 is applicable, whenever the President deems
such purchase or acquisition to be necessary in the interests of the defense of the United
States.
SEC. 9.
The President may, from time to time, promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry out any of the provisions of this Act; and he may exercise any power or authority conferred on him by this Act through such department, agency, or officer as be shall direct.
SEC. 10.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to change existing law relating to the use of
the land and naval forces of the United States, except insofar as such use relates to the
manufacture, procurement, and repair of defense articles, the communication of information
and other noncombatant purposes enumerated in this Act.
SEC 11.
If any provision of this Act or the application of such provision to any circumstance
shall be held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the Act and the applicability of such
provision to other circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
Approved, March 11, 1941.
Source: Public Laws. Part 1 of United States Statutes at Large Containing the Laws and
Concurrent Resolutions Enacted During the First Session of the Seventy-Seventh Congress of the United States of America, 1941-1942, and Treaties, International Agreements Other than Treaties, and Proclamations. Vol. 55 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1942): 31-33._____________________________________________________________________________________
My Visit to the State Department in 1944
The stream of “diplomatic suitcases” passing without inspection through Great Falls
weighed more heavily than ever upon my conscience. During January, 1944, I made a
special trip to Washington to see whether something couldn’t be done.
When I explained m intention to Colonel O’Neill, he agreed the matter was important
enough for a trip to the Capital and promised to issue the necessary orders. I left Great Falls on Jan. 4, 1944, which was my 46th birthday.
Because the Colonel and Mrs. Kotikov wished to visit New York at this time, I got firstclass
transportation. The C-47 in which we traveled belonged to the unsuspecting Colonel
Kotikov, and bore the Russian red star. Lt. Col. Boaz was our pilot and when we landed in
Minneapolis we were photographed by the Minneapolis Star.
I reached Washington on the afternoon of January 6. The next morning I went to ATC
headquarters at Gravelly Point, and spent the day being shuttled back and forth among eight different offices. On the following morning I appealed to Colonel Paige, who suggested that I try the Chief Air Inspector, Brigadier General Janius W. Jones.
General Jones afterwards denied that he ever met me, but my diary entry for Jan. 8 reads:
Saw Gen. Jones, Col. Wilson, Col. Vander Lugt.” As a matter of fact, Jones listened to me
for fifteen minutes, and promised to send on of his ace inspectors to Great Falls. He said this officer would be Colonel Robert H. Dahm, who actually arrived on Jan. 25.
That afternoon I went to the old State Department Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. I
had been directed to John Newbold Hazard, liaison officer for Lend-Lease. He was soon to
act as a special adviser to Vice-President Wallace on a mission to the Soviet Union and
China, and is today professor of public law at Columbia University and director of its
Russian Institute. I was not to meet Mr. Hazard, however, until some months later at a
meeting of the Washington Forum.
From his private office, after I was announced, came a young assistant.
“Major Jordan,” he began, “we know all about you, and why you are here. You
might as well understand that officers who get too officious are likely to find
themselves on an island somewhere in the South Seas.”
With natural anger, I retorted that I didn’t think the State Department had any idea how
flagrant abuses were at Great Falls. I said we had virtually no censorship, or immigration or
customs inspection.
Crowds of Russians were coming in of whom we had no record. Photostats of military
reports from American attachés in Moscow were being returned to the Kremlin. Planeloads
of suitcases, filled with confidential data, were passing every three weeks without inspection, under the guise of “diplomatic immunity.”
“But, my dear Major,” I was admonished with a jaunty wave of the hand, “we know all
about that. The Russians can’t do anything, or send anything out of this country, without our knowledge and consent. They have to apply to the State Department for everything. I assure you the Department knows exactly what it is doing. Good afternoon.”
I returned to Great Falls in low spirits. But I took heart from Colonel Bernard C. Hahn,
another of General Jones’ Inspectors who did not conceal his indignation after I took him
over the base and showed him the things I had protested about. “What can we do?” he asked. I replied that the State Department was hopeless, and that our best chance was to call in Army Counter-Intelligence.
Colonel Kotikov was displeased when he learned of this turn of events, and let me
understand that he knew I was responsible. An overall report was drafted, but has never been made public. Its existence was confirmed to me in 1949 by the FBI, through their questions. On March 28, 1944, however, a report had been prepared by an unidentified special agent of Counter-Intelligence. It ran, in part, as follows:
On 13 March, 1944, while in the performance of official duties, this agent had occasion to
contact Major George Racey Jordan, United Nations Representative at East Base, Great
Falls, Mont…, Major Jordan stated that he was desirous of conveying certain information to
intelligence authorities…
There is an incredible amount of diplomatic mail sent to Russia through Great Falls…
All of this was protected from censorship by diplomatic immunity. It may be significant that
it is not at all uncommon for the Russian mail or freight shipment to be accompanied by two
men who openly state that they are to see that the mail or freight is not examined and the
diplomatic immunity privilege violated…
This agency observed that Major Jordan appeared to maintain accurate, detailed files and
was very anxious to convey his information through intelligence channels. He requested that he be contacted at a time when the Russian activity could be outlined in minute detail, and was advised that this would be done…
It is recommended that a prolonged interview be conducted with Major Jordan; that his
records be scrutinized for information of an intelligence nature; and that he be contacted
regularly.
It is further recommended that the facts contained herein be given due consideration, with
a view to contacting the State Department in order that they may be cognizant of the
situation and that corrective measures be taken. [1]
The recommendations were endorsed by the Acting Adjutant General of the U.S. Army,
Brigadier General Robert H. Dunlop, who urged that their adoption, in his judgment, would
result in “a more comprehensive enforcement of existing laws and regulations than hitherto
has been the case.” [2]
When the report and endorsement arrived at the State Department, it was necessary to
make at least a show of activity. The matter was assigned to Charles E. Bohlen, who later
became Counselor of the Department. A specialist on Russia, he acted at Teheran and Yalta as interpreter for Mr. Roosevelt, and at Pottsdam as political advisor to Mr. Truman.
On July 6 Bohlen called a meeting of representatives of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Office of Censorship, Military Intelligence, Air Transport command,
Immigration and Naturalization Service, Bureau of Customs, Foreign Economic
Administration and State Department. If any minutes or memoranda of the session were
recorded by the Department of State, they were not made available from its files when the
Un-American Activities Committee asked for them in 1950.
Bohlen had an interview with the Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy, and followed
with a written memorandum dated July 28. It presented a statement of U.S. customs and
censorship regulations, and advised that in future they would be enforced. The warning
appears to have been ignored completely.
On Sept. 20, 1944 security officers at Great Falls reported that a C-47 left for Moscow
with 3,800 pounds of non-diplomatic records. They had not been censored and were
therefore in violation of the Espionage Act. But local officers did not dare to remove the
shipment from the Pipeline.
An explanation of their timidity was found in a notarized statement submitted to the Un-
American Activities Committee by Captain Harry Decker, chief of a new Traffic Control
Unit set up in July, 1944 at Great Falls. Its function was to make sure that overseas personnel
and cargo, in and outbound, were checked by the proper civilian agencies.
Customs, Immigration, Censorship and the FBI now had staffs at Great Falls. Captain
Decker had learned, as I had to, that it was possible to force the Russians to accept
inspection by refusing to clear American pilots flying Soviet planes. Beyond that, nothing
could be done. Captain Decker said he had asked again and again for authority to ground any plane bearing contraband persons or freight, and to hold it until the defense was rectified. He was enlightened by a high official of the Department of Commerce, Irving Weiss, who made a trip to Great Falls. Such authority, Weiss told him, could be granted only by a top echelon decision of the State Department, the Board of Economic Welfare and the President’s Protocol Committee. “It seemed,” Captain Decker observed ruefully, “that the power of enforcement lay at very high levels beyond the reach of us there.” [3] Needless to say, no enforcement order was issued.
By this time, I was no longer at Great Falls.
SOURCES
CHAPTER TEN
My Visit to the State Department in 1944
1. Hearings, testimony of Donald T. Appell, March 2, 1950, pp. 1128-29.
2. Ibid., p. 1146.
3. Ibid., p. 1140.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Priest Who Confronted Stalin
Many surprising things turned up on the Pipeline, but the most unexpected of all was a
priest.
Before I tell the story of Father Orlemanski, it is necessary to recall some details of the
tragic fate of Poland. In a speech on Jan. 22, 1944 Winston Churchill gave the first clue that
the Western Powers were planning to deliver Poland, one of their staunchest allies, into
Russian hands.
The Prime Minister could afford to take the public lead; he had no Polish constituency,
while the United States had 3,000,000 citizens of Polish birth or descent. At Teheran, four
months earlier, Poland’s death-sentence had been arranged; it was to be executed at Yalta
early in 1945.
Prominent roles in the tragedy were played by two American citizens who were cleared
from Great Falls to Moscow on April 12 and 19, 1944. Both had been equipped by the State
Department with passports authorizing travel to the Soviet Union, and by the War
Department with military passes for the Western Defense Command (Great Falls) and
Alaska Defense Force (Fairbanks).
First to arrive was Oscar Richard Lange, professor of economics at Chicago University.
Born and educated in Poland, he had been a traveling fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation
from 1934-36 and had come to America in 1937, at the age of 33. He was naturalized in
1943.
I first heard of Oscar Lange from Colonel Kotikov, who was leaving on one of his
mysterious hurry-up flights to Washington. He asked me to keep a particular look-out for a
man “high in Polish affairs” who would be passing through on the way to Moscow. He could
be identified because he “walked with a limp.” On account of an urgent appointment in
Edmonton, he was to be sent along without delay.
As my diary records, Professor Lange arrived on April 11 and departed early the next
morning. In the press of other business I took little notice except to examine his papers,
which were in order. But I sat up when a telegram was forwarded by the Airbase
Commander. It was from General Marshall, who sent his personal order for the professor’s
clearance. I thought, “This Lange must really be a V.I.P.” Never before, at Great Falls, had
such intervention from the Chief of Staff occurred.
The second American was Father Stanislaus Orlemanski. To the best of my information,
Professor Lange and Father Orlemanski were the first Americans to pass the “Iron Curtain”
stretched across the Bering Sea.
Father Orlemanski was the pastor of a church in Springfield, Mass. He was possessed by
the idea of an heroic mission. He would confront Joseph Stalin face to face and wrest from
him a promise that Communist persecution of religion would cease. For such a dream there
have not been too many parallels since the Middle Ages.
In the year 1219 another of “God’s fools,” Saint Francis of Assisi, trudged across a noman’s
land in Egypt, through the Moslem camp where there was a price on every Christian
head, and stood at last before the Saracen commander-in-chief. To Sultan Malik-al-Kamil
the friar preached the Gospel and implored him to accept baptism. The monarch smiled, but
granted safe-conduct to Francis and remarked to his courtiers that for the first time he had
met a true “Nazarene.”
On the morning of April 18 Colonel Kotikov telephoned us that he had been stranded at
Billings, Montana. In a B-25 bomber, Colonel Boaz, Major Paul Reid and I flew to the
rescue, returning about 2:15 the same afternoon.
There in my office, sitting with an air of tranquil patience, was a Catholic priest. He was
nearly six feet tall and had the build of a husky workingman. We shook hands and
exchanged names.
Quite simply, Father Orlemanski said that he was on the way to Moscow. I, Major Jordan,
was to put him on a plane. He spoke with the serenity of one who had taken to heart the
favorite maxim of Saint Francis of Assisi: “Cast your care upon God, and He will protect
you.” Thinking of the fate in store for a priest in Russia, I was horrified.
I demanded his credentials, never dreaming he could have any. To my stupefaction, he
ordered military passes for the Alaska Defense Force and Western Defense Command,
bearing the names of their respective chiefs, Major General Simon B. Buckner and Major
General David McCoach, Jr. Next he produced a passport from the State Department
empowering him to travel to the Soviet Union by way of Egypt, Iraq and Iran. He also had
visas for the three countries.
I asked why he was in Montana instead of the Near East. The Soviet Consulate in New
York, he answered, had instructed him to ignore the visas and report to me in Great Falls. I
went immediately to Colonel Kotikov, who showed me a wire from the Soviet Embassy
directing him to facilitate the priest’s departure. He was bound for Moscow by personal
invitation from Premier Stalin himself.
“But it isn’t safe!” I objected. “Your people have been killing priests by the thousands!”
“Ho, ho!” Kotikov laughed. “Was years ago, during bad part of Revolution. Today, under
the great Stalin, religion in Russia very fine.” He shrugged off the visas for Egypt, Iraq and
Iran..
“Stalin wants him. Is visa enough,” he said.
Full of worry, I went back to Father Orlemanski and asked how it happened that he, a
Catholic priest, had been invited to Moscow by Joseph Stalin. He explained that his flock
was made up entirely of Poles, by nativity or heritage, and that he had been besieged with
questions, which he could not answer, about the fate of the Catholic religion in their
homeland. Would it be suppressed? Would it be allowed to survive? Would it be tolerated
for an interval and then destroyed? Had the hour not come for trying to bring about good
relations between the Vatican and Kremlin?
Believing in direct action, Father Orlemanski sat down and wrote an appeal to the one
man in the world who had the answers.
No letter could have been more providential for Stalin. He was preparing to swallow
Poland, a morsel notoriously indigestible. There was urgent need of help from quarters
which were Polish and non-Communist. Father Orlemanski was both. That he was also an
American, and beyond all else a Catholic priest, was too good to be true.
It happened that the Springfield cleric had published some writings on the position due to
labor in society. The son and pastor of workingmen, and himself no stranger to manual labor, he had advanced ideas on the subject. His writings came into Stalin’s hands.
The result was one in which the priest saw the hand of God. Through the Soviet
Consulate in New York he received a cordial invitation to go to Moscow as Stalin’s personal
guest, for a discussion across the table of the matters cited in his letter.
“When Mr. Stalin invited me,” the priest told a correspondent in Moscow named Harrison
E. Salisbury, “he sent a message to Mr. Roosevelt and asked him if it was all right for me to
come over and, if it was, to fix it up about my travel papers.”
Out of his native independence, Father Orlemanski responded with demands so
uncompromising that they might have served as an example for the White House and State
Department. He had the boldness to dictate the three conditions under which he would
accept Stalin’s invitation:
(1) He would not travel to Moscow unless there was a sworn understanding that
he would talk with Stalin himself.
(2) In case of an attempt to elude the promise after he got there, and foist some
lesser person upon him, he would take the next plane home.
(3) Under no circumstances would he travel with Professor Oscar Lange, who
had been suggested as a companion.
I told Father Orlemanski that transportation would not be available till the following
afternoon. So I phoned for a reservation at the Rainbow Hotel and asked him to tell me about himself.
He was 54 years old, and pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church on Franklin Street,
Springfield, Mass. His father was an immigrant from Posen who had come with his young
bride to Erie, PA, in 1876. Then had ten children, five girls and five boys, of whom four
became priests. The elder Orlemanski started life in America as a common laborer, but
gained a modest fortune in the contracting business. In 1912 he won a Carnegie medal for
heroism: he had risked his life in an effort to snatch a stranger from death in a railroad
accident.
In 1917, two years after ordination, Father Orlemanski was sent to Springfield to found a
parish in a settlement of Polish-Americans who were employed in local mills. There were
only 80 families, but the number grew in 27 years to 965, aggregating bout 3,000 souls.
Beginning with a rented tenement, he developed a parish center, not without fame, which
covered more than a city block and was valued at half a million dollars. It boasted a school,
convent, community house, rectory and an extraordinary new church, dedicated in 1940.
Most of the construction was done with their own hands by men and boys of the parish, who gave their work free. As carpenter, plasterer and painter, the priest toiled shoulder to
shoulder with the others. He himself designed the church. He finished with an expression
that was very old-fashioned and somehow touching in an era of installment buying and
public deficits: “There isn’t a penny of debt!”
By this time I began to feel protective toward Father Orlemanski. Though not a Catholic, I
was moved by his courage, simplicity and faith. I asked whether he had flown before. He
had never been on a plane, and had traveled from New York to Great Falls by railway, at his
own expense. He had no parachute.
“Do I need one?” he asked.
Under regulations, he could not board a plane without it and it would be useful in getting
to the ground, I said, if anything happened. He looked so disturbed that on impulse I offered
to lend him my own. But he must be sure to return it, as the Army would charge me $125 if
it were lost. (The parachute arrived by express several weeks later.) To show how the
apparatus worked, I buckled it over his black coat.
“Father,” I warned, “if you do have to jump, don’t start praying until you’ve counted to
ten and pulled the release handle. After that, you can pray your hardest.” He laughed, and
said he would remember. I saw him to the hotel and asked him to lunch at the Officers’ Club
at 11 A.M. the next day.
We entered the club with Colonel Kotikov, in Red Army uniform. Eyes bulged and jaws
dropped. While the Colonel chatted with other Soviet officers, I was glad to have the priest
to myself, for I had another question, and a serious one. Did he have the sanction of the
Catholic Church for his one-man crusade?
A look of distress crossed his face. To be frank, he admitted, he was acting against orders
from his superior. This was the Most Rev. Thomas M. O’Leary, Bishop of Springfield, who
has since died. He had told Bishop O’Leary of the invitation from Stalin, and had been
expressly forbidden to accept it. “There were fences,” he said, “and I had to leap over them.”
He realized that if he went to Russia, it would have to be as a private individual. The
Church must not be committed in any way. If he got back alive, and had accomplished
something of benefit, the rest would be up to the Bishop. The priest had applied for his first
vacation in 30 years and it had been granted. So here he was in Great Falls, severed
temporarily from his parish and free, as he imagined, to act on his own.
I had thought of a small service that would make the trip to Fairbanks more pleasant.
Going to the ready-room where pilots waited for assignment, I asked whether any of them
spoke Polish. A stocky, blonde lad, whose name I have forgotten, came forward.
I introduced him to Father Orlemanski before the take-off. They broke into happy
exchange in their own tongue as Colonel Kotikov and I walked with them to the C-47. The
priest’s farewell word to me was: “Bless you, Major, for such a good Polish pilot!” I went to
my office and wrote in the date-book: “Rev. S. Orelmanski departed for Moscow, 14:40.”
At Fairbanks, it appears, the transport halted only long enough to take on gas and a Soviet
pilot. Father Orlemanski had no chance to dismount. It seems probable that no one at Ladd
Field knew he was aboard. The first night was spent in Siberia, at the third airfield beyond
Nome. According to my list, it was Nova Marinsk.
The flight across Asia was punishing. Winter still prevailed. Due to cold, altitude or motor
noise, or all together, the priest’s hearing was permanently injured. There was a day when
the plane got lost. The pilot was too stubborn to consult his maps or too proud to admit that
he didn’t know how to use them. Father Orlemanski was accustomed to taking charge and
making decisions. He got out the maps, identified points on the ground and convinced the
pilot he was 150 miles off the course.
He arrived in Moscow on April 25, and was promptly fastened upon by Professor Lange.
They were in a theatre at 10 P.M. when a messenger notified Father Orlemanski that a car
was waiting to drive him to the Kremlin. He arose, and so did Lange. The priest halted.
“If this man is going along, I’ll stay here,” he announced.
The economist dropped back into his seat and the priest went alone to meet Stalin. Also
present at the Kremlin were Molotov and the interpreter, Pavlov.
No respecter of persons and the son of a fearless man, the priest talked to Stalin as if he
were a member of his own parish. At emphatic moments he did not hesitate to pound the
table and shake his finger in the autocrat’s face. He addressed the Generalissimo as “Mr.
Stalin” or simply “Stalin.” Flatly he declared that Poland must never have Communist rule,
but a government modeled on the American system.
For his part, the wily Stalin acted to perfection a role that was to take in Americans more
worldly than Father Orlemanski. Such a performance tricked President Truman into praising
him as “good old Joe,” and led General Arnold, returning from Teheran, to swear that Stalin
was not a Communist at all, but the soundest of democrats.
In every respect he was the jolly, flattering host, full of deference and good humor. He
made jokes, and laughed heartily at those cracked by the priest. Throughout he used the
respectful title “Father.” No offense was taken when the pastor charged that Communism
was persecuting the Catholic Church. On the contrary, Stalin protested, he was an ardent
champion of liberty of conscience and worship. After a decent resistance, he admitted that
Father Orlemanski was right about everything.
When he saw that the spell had taken effect, Stalin got down to business. At Sumy, he
revealed, was the Red Army’s first detachment of Polish recruits, numbering 8,000. For the
moment, at least, they had been christened the “Kosciuszko Division.”
Tadeusz Kosciuszko, one of Russia’s most formidable enemies, was a hero of the
American Revolution, an aide to General Washington and an honorary citizen of the United
States. Father Orlemanski himself was the founder of a society in America named the
“Kosciuszko League.” Visibly he was enchanted by what seemed the happiest of omens.
If he liked, Stalin went on, it would be possible to arrange for Father Orlemanski to
inspect the camp, and perhaps speak a few words to his countrymen. The pastor accepted
gratefully, and in his enthusiasm consented to a further proposal that he should address the
Polish people over the radio. Two and a half hours had passed when the session broke off.
“You won’t believe me,” Father Orlemanski exclaimed afterward to a friend, “but when
Stalin was talking to me I couldn’t help thinking to myself: ‘There is a man who would make
a good priest!’” Stalin, it has been said, trained for the priesthood in his youth.
The Washington Bureau of the Tass Agency broke the story for the morning papers of
April 28. It was confirmed by Radio Moscow. All the globe was electrified by news that
Stalin and Molotov had been in conference with a Catholic priest from America. Dispatches
stated that no Catholic priest had entered Russia, at least openly, since 1934. Only rarely,
they emphasized, did Stalin receive a private person, and almost never a religious one.
Russian newspapers, on April 29, gave the episode a play reserved for guests at highest
official rank. On front pages were headlines and group photos of Stalin, Molotov and Father
Orlemanski. It was noted that the Generalissimo was smiling broadly.
In the United States this caused a tumult. Polish cliques branded Father Orlemanski as a
man of “divided loyalties.” The Springfield chancellor announced that “diocesan authorities
had no knowledge of the pastor’s trip to Russia” and that the journey “was made on his own initiative, without permission.”
Speaking for the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the Rt. Rev. Monsignor Michael
J. Ready, its general secretary, described the mission as “a political burlesque, staged and
directed by capable Soviet agents.” He added pointedly that one would like to know “the
exact part our own government had in the performance.”
Secretary Hull admitted that the State Department had supplied passports to Russia for
Father Orelemanski and Professor Lange. They went as private citizens, he declared, and in no way represented the American government. Both had been invited to Moscow by Soviet authorities.
At a news conference, the President diverted inquiries from himself to the chief of the
Passport Division, Mrs. Ruth B. Shipley. Everyone knew her severity in granting passports,
he pointed out, and whenever an applicant got by Mrs. Shipley, it was certain the law had
been complied with.
One midnight, toward the end of April, I was aroused by a telephone call from New York
or Washington. The speaker was a woman correspondent for a wire service. She asked
whether I had cleared a Catholic priest through Great Falls to Moscow.
She repeated the question in several forms, taking care not to mention Father
Orlemanski’s name. I was sleepy and shivering with cold. I instructed her that any
information about Father Orlemanski must come from Colonel William Westlake, chief of
public relations for the Army Air Forces.
“Thank you, Major,” the girl chuckled, “you’ve told me exactly what I wanted to know.”
Newspapers revealed the next morning that Father Orlemanski had been routed through
Great Falls. The airfield’s gates were thronged with reporters, who waylaid mechanics and
crewmen and learned from them that a Catholic priest had been walking with me.
A general in Washington got me on the phone. Had I seen the newspapers? I had. “Well,”
he shouted, “you’ve certainly stuck your neck in a sling! What right had you to put a priest
on a plane and send him to Moscow?” The voice was full of menace.
I hastened to remind him that Father Orlemanski, in addition to a passport, had two
permits from the War Department, covering the Western Defense Command and the Alaska
Defense Force. Evidently this was news to the General. There was a pause. In a very
different tone, he muttered: “Oh. I see!” He hung up, and that was the last I heard from the
Pentagon.
In the meantime, Father Orlemanski visited the “Kosciuszko Division” at Sumy. A special
train was put at his disposal for the four-day trip. He was pleased to note that the men were
duly provided with Catholic chaplains. He assured them in a speech that he was no
Communist, and led cheers for Poland, the Soviet Union and the United States. But he
declared that Stalin, to his personal knowledge, was a true friend of Poland and the Catholic religion. Of similar tenor was his radio address to the Polish people.
Back in Moscow, he was taken in charge by Salisbury, bureau chief in Russia for the
United Press, and by a commentator for the Columbia Broadcasting System, James Fleming, who was a Catholic. They knew that turmoil was raging in America, and were fearful about the reception awaiting Father Orlemanski. The public would have only his word, they declared, that Stalin’s intentions were friendly and peaceable. The pastor would be “slaughtered” unless he could furnish tangible proof – something over Stalin’s signature, for example.
On that evening the priest had a second engagement at the Kremlin, which also lasted two
and a half hours. He said: “Mr. Stalin, I have to have something in writing, I must have some
sort of statement from you to take back to America.” The Generalissimo answered that was a “good idea.”
The remainder of the night was spent by Father Orlemanski in drafting two documents.
One was his own statement summarizing conclusions reached at both interview. The other
contained two questions, for which Stalin was asked to give signed answers. Father
Orlemanski’s statement, sanctioned by Stalin, was released on the day the pastor left
Moscow. It read in part:
Unquestionably Marshal Stalin is the friend of the Polish people. I will also make this
historical statement: Future events will prove that he is well disposed toward the Catholic
Church…
“Poland should not be a corridor through which the enemy passes at will and destroys
Russia,” said Stalin.
He really wants a strong, independent, democratic Poland to protect herself against
future aggressors.
He has no intention of meddling in the internal affairs of Poland. All he asks for is a
friendly Poland.
As to religion, the religion of our forefathers shall be the religion of the Polish people.
Marshal Stalin will not tolerate any transgressions in this regard.
Salisbury and Fleming were delighted when Father Orlemanski produced the other
document, signed by Stalin. The document read as follows:
Translation of the answers of Marshal Stalin to questions by Rev. Stanislaus
Orlemanski.
Q. Do you think it admissible for the Soviet Government to pursue a policy of
persecution and coercion with regard to the Catholic Church?
A. As an advocate of freedom of conscience and that of worship, I consider
such a policy to be inadmissible and precluded.
Q. Do you think that cooperation with the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, in the
matter of the struggle against persecution and coercion of the Catholic Church
is possible?
A. I think it is possible.
Stalin invited Father Orlemanski to a third meeting, from which the priest excused
himself. He was in haste to report the success of his mission at home. After 12 days in
Russia, he departed on May 6 in jubilation.
The priest had no doubt that he had managed single-handed to negotiate a private
concordat with Stalin guaranteeing the Catholic Church against persecution throughout the
Communist world. As evidence that Christianity was still free in Russia, the guileless cleric
took with him a basket of Easter eggs procured in Moscow.
Disillusionment began at Fairbanks, where he arrived three days later. The War
Department, alarmed by public clamor, refused him transportation to Great Falls. Borrowing
$200 from a Catholic chaplain, he took passage on a commercial airliner and reached Seattle May 10.
His journey across the continent was accompanied by a blare of headlines. At a press
conference in Chicago, he made public the questionnaire signed by Stalin. He was welcomed by his parishioners with music, banners and acclamations. From Bishop O’Leary, however, came a missive ordering him into seclusion. The charges were “disobedience” and “treating with Communists.”
He was not helped by an announcement from the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop
Cicognani, that Father Orlemanski, like every priest, was subject to his Bishop. There could
be an appeal, if he wished, to the Pope, but the Apostolic Delegate had no jurisdiction.
After two days the pastor surrendered. To Bishop O’Leary he wrote a letter of apology.
An old friend and enthusiastic admirer of his accomplishments as a parish priest, the Bishop
on May 21 allowed him to celebrate Mass once more at Our Lady of Rosary Church. His two papers, including the document with Stalin’s signature, were sent by ordinary post with a three-cent stamp, to Archbishop Cicognani. Presumably they are now in the Vatican
archives.
Early the following June the Premier of Free Poland, Stanislaus Mikolajczyk, arrived in
Washington to offer a last desperate prayer for the life of is country. He refused to receive
Professor Lange, whom he regarded as a notorious Soviet propagandist. Mr. Bohlen, of the
State Department, sent for Mikolajczyk.
Although Lange was a Marxist, Bohlen asked the Premier to see him in the interest of
good relations between the USSR and the United States. Unable to refuse, Mikolajczyk had
to listen to Lange’s “realistic” views. Stalin, he said, thought Poland unadapted to
Communist rule, did not wish to dominate the country and had no interest in its internal
structure.
Soon afterward the Premier had a conference with Mr. Roosevelt, who thanked him for
meeting Lange and suggested that he talk also with Father Orlemanski, “a good man, pure
and decent, possibly too naive, but with the best of intentions.” Father Orlemanski would tell him that Stalin favored religious freedom and particularly freedom for the Catholic Church. Father Orlemanski had reported, he went on, that Stalin was troubled by religious
separatism. Obviously he did not wish to become, like the Tsars, head of the Greek Orthodox Church. He might agree to a union of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox faiths, with the Pope in command of both.
What did Mikolajczyk think of sending Father Orlemanski to Rome to submit this idea to
the Vatican? The Premier answered dryly that he would be ready to believe in Stalin’s
sincerity after he released many Catholic priests still held in Soviet prisons.
Poland was sold down the river at Yalta in February, 1945. Three months later Stalin and
Harry Hopkins met companionably in Moscow to discuss the “Government of National
Unity” which was to be the intermediate step toward that country’s absorption in the Soviet
empire.
There would be 18 or 20 ministries, the dictator said, of which four would be offered to
Mikolajczyk’s faction. The rest would go to the pro-Soviet “Lublin regime.” What would
Hopkins think of Professor Lange as a member of the new Cabinet?
The only objection offered by Hopkins was that the economist might be unwilling to give
up his American citizenship, which was only two years old. Shortly afterward Lange was in
Warsaw getting himself re-naturalized as a Pole.
It was decided that he should become Ambassador to the United States. For an obscure
pedagogue, he proved to have unparalleled backing. Former Ambassador Davies entreated
him in a letter to accept the appointment for the sake of Soviet-American friendship. Arthur
Bliss Lane, Ambassador to Poland, warned the State Department that Lange had been known for years as a Communist sympathizer, but his warning was ignored. On July 5, 1945 Poland’s Stalinist government was recognized by the United States and the United Kingdom. As for Father Orlemanski, he is still pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church. But events in East Europe have taught him that the only freedom of religion tolerated by Communism is freedom to serve as an organ of the state; and that Communist cooperation with any creed is impossible save on terms of overlord and vassal.
One condition of his reinstatement was a promise of silence regarding the mission to
Moscow. He is quoted, however, as reflecting sadly: “Stalin tried to use me and I tried to use him, for the good of my Church. He won and I lost.”
It is possible that he finds a bit of comfort in remembering the occasion on which Stalin
took him to admire Lenin’s tomb. The priest said to Stalin: “I suppose you’ll be having a
bigger one.” Then he looked him in the eye and said: “Because you know, Stalin, you too
will die some day, like the rest of us.”____________________________________________________________________________________
How Russia Got U.S. Treasury Plates
I returned to Great Falls, for the first time as an Army Officer, on June 13th, since I had
just been replaced by Lieutenant George Walewski Lashinski. I was due to speak in Omaha
on the 16th, and this was my last chance to say good-by to my friends, including Colonel
Kotikov.
On a personal level, I had always been very friendly with the Colonel; he was one of the
most unusual people I had ever known, and he had many likable traits as a human being. It
was only when politics intervened, or orders came to him from above, that his attitude and
manners became difficult.
During our farewell talk, Colonel Kotikov mentioned the “money plane” which had
crashed in Siberia and had been replaced. I asked what he meant by “money plane.” The
U.S. Treasury, he explained, was shipping engraving plates and other materials to Russia, so that they could print the same occupation money for Germans as the United States was
printing.
I was certain he was mistaken. I was quite sure that never in history had we let money
plates go out of the country. How could there be any control over their use? “You must
mean, Colonel,” I said, “that we have printed German occupation money for Russia and
shipped the currency itself.”
“No, no,” he replied. He insisted that plates, colored inks, varnish, tint blocks, sample
paper – these and similar materials had gone through Great Falls in May in two shipments of five C-47s each. The shipments had been arranged on the highest level in Washington, and the planes had been loaded at the National Airport.
I was still incredulous, but I was impressed enough to pass these remarks on to Colonel
Bernard C. Hahn, the Air Force Inspector who had come on as a result of my trip to
Washington.
Not until 1950 did I learn all the particulars about these money plates. The full story has
never been released to the general public, and only a few people in Washington seem to
know the details of this Lend-Lease scandal. I see no reason why every citizen should not
know how his public servants handled such a grave matter in wartime.
The sum of money which we lost in redeeming the marks which the Russians rolled off
their presses, with no accountability whatever, appears to have been $250,000,000! It was
not until September, 1946, that we put a stop to the siphoning of our treasury by refusing to
redeem further marks. By this time the plates had been in Russian hands over two years.
At the closed hearing in June 1947 Senator Styles Bridges, chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, inquired of Assistant Secretary of War Howard C. Petersen:
“Does Russia still have the plates, so far as you know?”
Mr. Petersen: As far as I know, they still have the plates.
Chairman Bridges: And as far as you know, are they still printing the currency?
Mr. Petersen: As far as I know, they are still printing the currency.
Chairman Bridges: And has there been any protest from this Government
endeavoring to stop them?
Mr. Petersen: There have been strenuous efforts from the Allied Control
Council in Berlin to obtain an accounting from the Russians as to the amount of
Allied military marks which they have issued. Those efforts have been
unsuccessful. [1]
Senator Bridges and Mr. Petersen had previously had this exchange:
Chairman Bridges: Was there any action taken by the War Department to
restrict the number of notes issued by the Russians?
Mr. Petersen: The answer of the War Department is “No.”
Chairman Bridges: And as far as you know, was there any action taken by the
State or the Treasury Department to restrict Russia in the number of notes she
would issue?
Mr. Petersen: To my knowledge, none. [2]
Mr. Petersen later stated: “I know when we stopped the use of them (the Allied
marks) in Germany. It was September 1946.”
Here is the exchange between Senator William F. Knowland of California and
Assistant Secretary Petersen:
Senator Knowland: As I understand, there are $380,000,000 more currency
redeemed than there were appropriations for?
Mr. Petersen: That is correct.
Senator Knowland: And you expect eventually that that amount will be cut
down to $160,000,000; is that right?
Mr. Petersen: Yes…
Senator Knowland: Now what I would like to ask is, what is the amount
outstanding as of, let us say, the end of last month (May, 1947)?
Mr. Petersen: That is $340,000,000. [3]
The hearing continued for two days. At its end there were 141 printed pages of oral
testimony, and in addition 31 pages of State Department documents, 59 pages of Treasury
Department documents, and 474 pages of War Department documents. From the mass of
unreleased material it is possible to reconstruct the story chronologically, step by step.
It started in early 1944, when the need for uniform occupation currency in Germany was
acknowledged by the Allies. On January 29th Ambassador Averell Harriman informed our
State Department from Moscow:
“Great importance is attached by the British Government to the Russian
Government’s participation in this arrangement. [4]
Cordell Hull informed Harriman on February 8th that the U.S. would be glad to print the
money for Russia.
“The production of sufficient currency to take care of Soviet requirements, if
desired, is being contemplated. [5]
On February 15th Moscow’s answer came from Harriman:
“The Commissariat for Finance considers that in preparing the currency it
would be more correct to print a part of it in the Soviet Union in order that a
constant supply of currency may be guaranteed to the Red Army…
It will be necessary to furnish the Commissariat for Finance, in order that the
M-marks may be of identical design, with plates of all denominations, a list of
serial numbers, and models of paper and colors for printing.”
The Russian technique was clever: Don’t ask whether your demand will be met; ask when
it will be met. Harriman’s cable ended as follows:
“Molotov asks in conclusion that he be informed when the Commissariat for
Finance may receive the prints, models of paper and colors and list of serial
numbers. Please instruct.” [6]
Secretary Hull took over a month before replying on March 23:
“It is not expected that the Combined Chiefs of Staff will favor the delivery of
plates to the Russians.” [7]
However, other departments of the Government were also being consulted. Inside the
Treasury Department great concern was expressed by two veteran civil servants, Mr. D.W.
Bell, Under Secretary of Treasury, and Mr. A.W. Hall, Director of the Bureau of Engraving.
In a memorandum to his immediate superior Bell stated:
“It would be very difficult to make the plates available to the Russians, The
Treasury had never made currency plates available to anybody.” [8]
Mr. Hall reported to the same superior, pointing out the gravity of the problem of
accountability. His memorandum said:
"To acquiesce to such an unprecedented request would create serious
complications. To permit the Russian Government to print currency identical to
that being printed in this country would make accountability impossible…
he present contractor for the printing of invasion currency for Germany is under
heavy bond to insure against the misappropriation, loss, or improper use of
plates, paper, and printed currency.
I do not believe that under any circumstances would the contractor agree to the
manufacture of duplicate plates by any agency outside of his plant.
Furthermore, it is doubtful that the Treasury Department could force him to do
so. Almost certainly his bond would become forfeit if such an arrangement
were resorted to." [9]
The immediate superior of Mr. Bell and Mr. Hall was a relative newcomer to the Treasury
Department named Harry Dexter White. Revealing testimony about Mr. White has been
made by Whittaker Chambers in his recent book, Witness:
In the persons of Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, the Soviet military
intelligence sat close to the heart of the United States Government. It was not
yet in the cabinet room, but it was not far outside the door…
Harry Dexter White had become Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. In a
situation with few parallels in history, the agents of an enemy power were able
to do much more than purloin documents.
They were in a position to influence the nation’s foreign policy in the interests
of the nation’s chief enemy, and not only on exceptional occasions like Yalta
(where Hiss’ role, while presumably important, is still ill-defined), or through
the Morgenthau Plan for the destruction of Germany (which is generally
credited to White), but in what must have been the staggering sum of day-today
decisions. [10]
With this clue in hand, the day-to-day progress of the decision on the engraving plates
makes fascinating reading. Mr. Bell again conferred with Harry Dexter White.
He pointed out that the plates which had been engraved for the Treasury Department
were, in fact, the property of the Forbes Company in Boston and if we insisted that they
should make duplicate sets available to the Russians, it is possible that the Forbes Company
would simply refuse to print any further currency for us, on the grounds that security control
had been removed and they could not be responsible for anything that might happen to the
printing of the currency from that time on. [11]
He added that not only could the U.S. print all the currency the Russians could possibly
desire, but “we could have the first shipment ready for them before the Russians could
start manufacturing currency from plates that we might make available to
them.”What did Henry Dexter White think of all this?
White said that he
…had read with considerable interest the memorandum of March 3 from Mr.
Hall to Mr. Bell on this subject, but he was somewhat troubled with the views
expressed therein, which indicated that we could not make these plates
available to the Russians…
Mr. White reiterated that he was loath to turn the Russian request down without further
review of the matter. He called attention to the fact that in this instance we were not printing
American currency, but Allied currency and that Russia was one of those allies who must be
trusted to the same degree and to the same extent as the other allies. [12]
Never, of course, had any other ally asked for engraving plates nor had we supplied them.
We had printed other occupation currency for use in Italy and Japan, and our other allies
were perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, but Mr. White made no reference to this.
Mr. White then records his meeting with Ambassador Gromyko at the Soviet Embassy in
Washington on the evening of March 22. He relates that Gromyko
“kept coming back with a question which he asked a number of times, namely,
why the Forbes Company should object to giving a duplicate set of plates to his
Government. He said that after all the Soviet Government was not a private
corporation or an irresponsible government. I explained to him how both the
Forbes Company and the American Banknote Company felt but I am afraid he
remained unimpressed with the reasons I offered.” [13]
At no point did Mr. White say that our Government, for which he was in this instance the
spokesman, objected to providing duplicate plates because this would make accountability
impossible. There was only the integrity of two American business firms with which to meet
Russian demands and protect the interests of the United States.
The State Department also heard from Mr. Harriman in Moscow that
“the Russians could not accept the explanation of a private printing company
interfering with the program under consideration. The Russians asked that they
be told whether the plates would or would not be made available to them. In the
event the plates were not made available, they were prepared to proceed with
the printing of their own variety of mark currency.” [14]
This threat had the desired effect.
When Senator Bridges asked Assistant Secretary Petersen at the closed hearing, “Who in
the United States made the decision to turn over, to the Russians, United States engraved
printing plates for producing currency?”, Petersen answered: “The record as I have seen it in the War Department indicates that the decision was made by the State and Treasury
Departments…” [15]
The decision was made on April 14, 1944. It was recorded by James Clement Dunn of the
State Department in the following memorandum of his conversation with Secretary
Morgenthau. The paragraph next to last, referring to the difficulties raised by the Forbes
Company, indicates that the Treasury Department was ready and willing to assume, under
the President’s War Powers, the responsibility which the business firms would not
undertake. Here is Mr. Dunn’s memo in full:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Memorandum of
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
Date: April 14, 1944.
Subject: Duplicate plates to be furnished to the Soviet Government.
Participants: Mr. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the treasury; Mr. Dunn,
Copies to: SEE – Mr. Bohlen.
Mr. Morgenthau telephoned me this morning to say that he was informing the
Soviet Ambassador this afternoon that the duplicate plates for the printing of
the Allied military mark to be used in the invasion of Germany would be
furnished to the Soviet Government in response to that Government’s request.
He asked whether the Department of State was in favor of this action.
I replied that it was the opinion of this Department from the political point of
view, aside from any military considerations or any technical questions or
difficulties, that if possible it was highly advisable to have the duplicate plates
furnished to the Soviet Government in order that the three Governments and the
three Armies entering Germany would be using the same identical currency.
The Soviet Government had informed us that if the plates were not furnished to
it, that Government would proceed to produce a different currency for use in
Germany. It was our opinion that it would be a pity to lose the great advantage
of having one currency used by the three Armies, which itself would indicate a
degree of solidarity which was much to be desired not only for the situation in
Germany but for its effect on the relations in may other aspects between the
Soviet, British, and United States Governments.
Mr. Morgenthau said he was very glad to have this expression of the
Department’s views on this question as there might be some technical
difficulties arise which would require the Treasury to take over, under the
President’s War Powers, the plant which is now using the original plates for the
production of these marks.
This question has been up between the United States and Soviet Governments
since last November, and it has become perfectly clear to us as a result of the
exchanges of correspondence on the subject that the Soviet Government is not
ready to join in the common use of the same currency unless it receives the
duplicate plates from us.
In order to convince the Soviet Government of our sincerity in the desire to
have the closest collaboration in these military operations against Germany, it
becomes essential that we make every effort within our possibility to furnish
the plates to that Government.
JAMES CLEMENT DUNN. [16]
On the same day Secretary Morgenthau sent a memo to Soviet Ambassador Gromyko
saying,
“There will be shipped from Washington on Tuesday, April 8, glass negatives
and positives of all plates used for printing M-marks. The designs are in
negative and positive forms since it is not known which is preferred by the
Soviet Government.”
He ended by saying,
“The U.S. Treasury is desirous to cooperate with the Soviet Government in this
matter in every possible way.” [17]
It was not until May 13 that the first shipment actually left the Washington airport. There
was a comedy of errors on the second shipment, which was supposed to leave by plane at 6 A.M. on Tuesday, May 23. Mr. Hall reported to Mr. Bell as follows:
The material was loaded on the trucks yesterday, and a crew of men brought in
to work at 5 A.M. today (May 23), and delivery was made to the Airport before
6 A.M…. I called Colonel Frank H. Collins (of the ATC) to ascertain whether
the planes had left, and he informed me that the crews of the five planes were
standing by waiting for the representatives of the (Soviet) Embassy. He further
stated that the crews were becoming impatient as they wanted to land at Great
Falls, Montana, before sundown. [18]
The trouble was that the Soviet Embassy had arranged for their couriers to board he
planes on May 24! The five airplanes were therefore held overnight with “a guard in each
plane, and a guard around the area where the planes were parked.”
They left early on Wednesday, May 24, after each courier arrived with an additional box
weighing over 200 pounds. Colonel Collins said he “thought the extra boxes contained
American canned goods and American liquor.” [19]
As for the third shipment, said Mr. Hall,
“it is now necessary to uncrate all of the material and rearrange the whole
shipment. You will remember when we talked to the Ambassador (Gromyko),
he insisted upon complying strictly with instructions he received from his
government, and now that his government had reversed itself, we have to do
the job all over again.
This has been a pretty trying assignment for all associated with it.” [20]
Was there anything else that Russia could possibly ask from the Treasury? Yes, it could
ask us to repeat one of the planeloads. That is exactly what Gromyko asked on June first, in a note to Morgenthau which stated briefly that “all the materials… perished in connection with a crash of the plane which carried them.” [21] Gromyko said absolutely nothing about when the crash occurred, or where.
Did we ask for proof of the crash, or direct any questions whatever to Gromyko about the
alleged accident? On the contrary, Secretary Morgenthau promptly answered:
“I am pleased to inform you that the seven items representing replacement of
the materials lost in the plane crash will be ready for shipment on Wednesday,
June 7… I trust that this arrangement meets with your approval.” [22]
Why was Russia so insistent on printing German occupation currency without
accountability? The answer is quite simple. They knew that the U.S. Army would convert
such currency into dollars. (Russia, of course, refused to redeem the same currency with
roubles.) As a result, every Russian-made mark that fell into the hands of an American
soldier or accredited civilian became a potential charge against the Treasury of the United
States.
Russia could pay its occupation army in marks, and in fact did so, adding a two-year
bonus for good measure. If the Red Army could get anything out of the German economy
with these marks, all well and good. If they could get anything out of America, even better.
In any event, these marks cost the Russian economy nothing whatever. With the materials
provided from Washington, they took over a former Nazi printing plant in Leipzig, deep in
the Russian zone, at a safe distance from American inspection, and started the presses
rolling.
Any GI could buy a pack of cigarettes for 8 cents at a U.S. Army Post exchange. For this
the Russian and German black-markets would offer him 100 marks from the Leipzig mint.
To realize a profit of almost $10 on an 8-cent package of cigarettes, the American had only
to take his 100 Leipzig marks to an Army Post Office, purchase a $10 money order and mail
it to the United States.
It was revealed that the standard offer for a five-cent candy bar was 50 marks, or $5; $18
for one pound of Crisco; $20 for one K-ration; $25 for a pound of coffee, and $2,500 for a
wrist watch costing $17.
By December 1946, the U.S. Military Government found itself $250,000,000 or more in
the red. It had redeemed in dollars at least $2,500,000,000 marks in excess of the total marks issued b its Finance Office! The deficit could have had no other origin than the Russian plant in Leipzig.
Let us read once again the War Department’s testimony at the hearing in 1947:
Chairman Bridges: Was there any action taken by the War Department to
restrict the number of notes issued by the Russians?
Mr. Petersen: The answer of the War Department is “No.”
Chairman Bridges: And, as far as you know, was there any action taken by the
State or the Treasury Department to restrict Russia in the number of notes she
would issue?
Mr. Petersen: To my knowledge, none.
Chairman Bridges: My next question is, does Russia still have the plates, so far
as you know?
Mr. Petersen: As far as I know, they still have the plates.
Chairman Bridges: And as far as you know, are they still printing the currency?
Mr. Petersen: As far as I know, they are still printing the currency.
Chairman Bridges: And has there been any protest from this Government
endeavoring to stop them?
Mr. Petersen: There have been strenuous efforts from the Allied Control
Council in Berlin to obtain an accounting from the Russians as to the amount of
Allied military marks which they have issued. Those efforts have been
unsuccessful. [23]
To everyone’s surprise, the Russians at one point agreed to submit quarterly statements of
the volume of money they were putting into circulation. Their statements were so palpably
rigged, however, that American officers called them “unbelievable.” In that case, smiled the
Russians, it would be useless to make further reports.
It took 18 months before Russia’s siphon into the American Treasury was severed. The
Army’s payroll in Germany was shifted from Allied marks to U.S. Military Certificates,
which were non-convertible.
In addition to the $250,000,000, there was a further loss, which through small was
mortifying. A charge of $18,102,84 was rendered to the Soviet Embassy, covering the
expense of the engraving plates and the materials in the three 1944 deliveries. The bill was
ignored and is still unpaid. The Russians, as Mr. Petersen indicated, still have the plates and undoubtedly a good deal of knowledge regarding U.S. currency manufacture techniques. As for Harry Dexter White, his ascent was steady. Five months after the duplicate plates fiasco, there was a conference of the Secretaries of State, War and the Treasury at the Hopkins office in the White House. White read a prospectus for the doom of Germany: It’s people were to become a pastoral horde; their entire industrial plant would be removed or destroyed; all equipment was to be torn from the Ruhr mines, and it’s coal deposits would be “thoroughly wrecked.”
Secretary Stimson was struck with horror – an emotion which Secretary Hull shared. They
learned with consternation two weeks afterward that the “Morgenthau Plan” had been
initiated by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at the Quebec Conference of
Sept. 11, 1944. To Mr. Roosevelt’s face, Secretary Hull charged that Churchill’s signature
was procured by Morgenthau with an offer of $6,500,000,000 of postwar Lend-Lease for
Britain. [24]
From Assistant to the Secretary, Mr. White moved up to Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury in 1945. During February 1946, he was appointed by President Truman, and
confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Director of the International Monetary Fund, with a tax
exemption salary of $17,500.
The name of Harry White became so important in the record of the Senate committee that
finally Senator Bridges suggested calling him as a witness. But White was absent from the
capital on vacation. It was announced that Morgenthau and White would be placed on the
stand at a future section, but this was never called.
Mr. White submitted his resignation from the International Monetary Fund on June 19,
1947, the day after the committee recessed. When the economist was put on oath the
following year, he denounced the Chambers accusations as “unqualifiedly false.” He was not and never had been a Communist, White affirmed, and had committed no disloyal act. But two weeks later his funeral was held at Temple Israel in Boston: he had died of a heart
attack.
In November of that year Whittaker Chambers produced five rolls of microfilmed
documents. Among them were eight pages of script divulging U.S. military secrets. Found in
possession of an acknowledged Communist courier, the handwriting was identified as that of Harry Dexter White.
SOURCES
CHAPTER TWELVE
How Russia Got U.S. Money Plates
1. Occupation Currency Transactions Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations,
Armed Services and Banking and Currency, U.S. Senate, (U.S. Government Printing Office,
1947), p. 27.
2. Ibid., p. 27.
3. Ibid., p. 8.
4. Ibid., p. 147.
5. Ibid., p. 147.
6. Ibid., p. 148.
7. Ibid., p. 150.
8. Ibid., p. 178.
9. Ibid., pp. 175-176.
10. Witness, Whittaker Chambers, (Random House, 1952), p. 427.
11. Occupation Currency Transactions Hearings, p. 178.
12. Ibid., pp. 178-179.
13. Ibid., p. 183.
14. Ibid., p. 151.
15. Ibid., p. 16-17.
16. Ibid., p. 152-53.
17. Ibid., p. 186.
18. Ibid., pp. 206-7.
19. Ibid., p. 208.
20. Ibid., p. 207.
21. Ibid., p. 208.
22. Ibid., p. 211.
23. Ibid., p. 27.
24. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, (Macmillan, 1948), Vol. II, pp. 1613-18.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“The Broadcast Goes on Tonight”
My one desire, after retiring from the Army, was to forget it. I had had a surfeit of
military life dominated by political practices, and vowed to have nothing more to do with it.
The means of escape was to plunge up to my ears with private business, taking up where I
left off in 1942.
As a side-line I kept up a modest career in public speaking which has continued until now.
It started in Montana. Colonel Meredith was frequently asked to deliver addresses. He
loathed them and got in the habit of ordering me to take his place. I remember my first effort
was before parents and teachers of the Whittier School in Great Falls early in 1944.
For some reason the invitations persisted after I left the Army, though I never sought an
engagement nor was I connected with a speaker’s bureau. Prior to 1950 the subject was
generally deeds of heroism on the Fairbanks flight and my adventures among the Russians.
Again and again I declared that we knew nothing about the Russians, while they knew
everything about us. Understanding them for what they were, I stated, was now one of the
crucial things in the world.
The Smyth Report was issued in August, 1945, the month of the Hiroshima
announcement. My first intimation that uranium and the atom bomb had any connection
derived from summaries of the Smyth Report which filled newspapers and magazines in the
weeks following its appearance.
In my memory the word “uranium” sounded like an echo, but I was not even certain
whether the spelling was the same I had written two and a half years earlier. I made a
journey to the safe where my most important records were stored. From a metal box I drew
the memorandum on my first search of the diplomatic suitcases. One of the entries read:
“Uranium-92.”
I thought to myself: “So that’s what the Russians wanted with uranium!” But my alarm
was quieted by official lullabies. Because of “Russian ignorance and backwardness,” top
authorities stated, Moscow could not hope for years to achieve an atom bomb. Like the rest
of the nation, I buried my head in the sand.
News in May 1949, that a fraction more than an ounce of U-235 had been lost or stolen at
the Argonne Laboratory, convulsed the nation for more than a month. Headlines bellowed
and Congress roared.
My own response was indignation. In view of the petty amount involved, so colossal an
uproar appeared absurd and spurious. What was a single ounce of uranium compared to the hundreds of pounds that had passed through Great Falls? And why screech about the Russian espionage when Washington itself had delivered to the Soviet Union one installment of 420 pounds and another of half a ton?
Of course, I was still unaware of the distinction between uranium compounds and uranium
metal. I had heard of fissionable U-235 and non-fissionable U-238, but they were phrases
without meaning. In my untutored thought, uranium was uranium, just as iron was iron. But
my instinct was not wholly wrong. The 1,465 pounds of uranium chemically handed by
Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union contained a potential of not merely one ounce of U-235 but
6.25 pounds, or 75 ounces.
In July, 1949 I took the plunge and phoned the office of Fulton Lewis, Jr. I had never met
him, but I was one of his radio fans. He was out of the city, and I told the story to his
secretary. Mr. Lewis never heard of my call.
On September 23, 1949, President Truman disclosed that an atomic explosion had just
occurred in the Soviet Union.
I was shocked and stunned to the depths of my being. American policy had suffered a
stupendous defeat. There was evidence in my possession, I was convinced, proving that the disaster was chargeable not only to spies but to actual members of the Federal hierarchy. It was information that the American people obviously should have. But I was at a loss where to turn.
Eleven days after the President’s announcement, I had lunch with my friend Arthur
Johnson at the Army and Navy Club in Washington. Once more I recited the story of the
Pipeline and my experiences at Great Falls. At the conclusion, Mr. Johnson solved my
dilemma with six words. He was a native of New Hampshire and a personal friend of his
senior Senator. As we left the table, he announced: “I’m going to telephone Senator
Bridges.”
When I was received on the afternoon of Oct. 5, the Senator looked at me quizzically.
“Well, Major,” he smiled, “I’m afraid you’re on the wrong track. I have been assured that in
1943 there were not 1,000 pounds of uranium in the whole United States.”
“Who said the uranium came from the United States?” I retorted. “It came from Canada!”
The Senator seemed stunned. I told him there had been a previous shipment of 420 pounds
from Denver and a later consignment of what I then thought to have been 500 pounds.
“What is more,” I went on, “Mr. Hopkins personally directed me to expedite the
Canadian shipment.” Incredulously, Mr. Bridges exclaimed: “Harry Hopkins?” I insisted
Harry Hopkins himself gave the order by telephone. The Senator asked whether I would be
willing to testify, under oath, as to what I had charged. I answered that I would.
For two long hours the Senator examined me closely. As I was leaving, he said the things
I alleged were so shocking that an investigation would be necessary. He would need time to
decide on the course to be pursued. In the meanwhile, I must promise to keep the matter
secret. I gave my word.
Twenty days passed and, on Oct. 25, 1949 Fulton Lewis telephoned from Washington.
Senator Bridges had spent the weekend with him, he stated, and they had gone over my story in detail. It was decided to use the Lewis staff for a thorough investigation, and then, if the story stood up, to break it by radio. I was to join Mr. Lewis at breakfast next morning at a
hotel in New York and bring my documents.
At 9 A.M. on Oct. 26 we got down to work. The commentator went through my chief
records page by page, item by item, and word by word. His questions were pitiless; it
seemed to me that the bar had lost a great prosecuting attorney. Five hours later, at 2 P.M.,
he rose and stood for some minutes looking out of the window. Then he wheeled about and
let me know the verdict.
“I suppose the next stop,” he drawled, “will be your former superior, Colonel Gardner, in
Mansfield, Ohio.”
As I was collecting my papers, he added: “I’m sorry, Major, but this is something I’ll
have to turn over to the FBI.”
I heard nothing from Mr. Lewis for almost a month, but it was not long before Edgar
Hoover’s boys started to haunt my days, from early morning to night. In pairs they
beleaguered my office. My three metal cabinets, brought up from the basement, were
ransacked folder by folder. Endless Photostats were taken. Looking for discrepancies, they
had me tell the story again and again. Sometimes their questions were new. More often they were the same ones, asked on different occasions, to check previous answers.
When I slipped away for a quiet Thanksgiving to the home of my mother-in-law in
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, there, waiting in a chair on the porch when I arrived, was an
FBI man, with twenty typewritten questions.
On Dec. 1 there was a call from Mr. Lewis.
“Major,” he announced, “I’ve checked your story from stern to stern. The FBI made a
parallel investigation and has given me permission to break it over the radio. The first
broadcast will be on Monday night, Dec. 5. We’re going ahead from there a whole week, and maybe longer.”
He invited my wife and me to his home in Maryland for the weekend.
The next day we were sipping cokes in his living-room and my wife, Kitty, in all
innocence, dropped a bombshell. “By the way, Racey,” she asked, “did you get those calls
from Walter Winchell?” Mr. Lewis slowly put down his glass. I hurried to explain that
Winchell’s office had been telephoning since Nov. 28 and that in the last two days there had been several calls. The commentator rose.
“I think,” he announced, “that we won’t wait till Monday. The broadcast goes on tonight.
Let’s get at my typewriter!”
There was the chance that Winchell, on Sunday, might try to heat the gun. And so our
opening interview went on the air that evening, Friday, Dec. 2, 1949.____________________________________________________________________________________
Clouds of Witnesses
The first Fulton Lewis broadcast had scarcely ended, when a multitude of officers and
servicemen, throughout the country, sprang to my support – at the risk, in a few cases, of
postwar government jobs. Several participated in later broadcasts from the Lewis studio,
others on local radio programs and newspaper interviews.
A number were my former colleagues at Newark, Great Falls, and Fairbanks. The names
of most of the others I had never heard before. Some disclosed incidents of questionable aid to Russia that lay outside my own experience.
The WAC sergeant who worked in my office was one of the first persons to come
forward. She was now Mrs. Gordon Bean of Meadville, Pa., but as Sergeant Georgianna
Pilkington she had acted for a year as my chief military clerk at Great Falls.
When my date book was produced, she recognized the volume as the identical one she
had often seen while tidying my desk. In its pages, she said, I was always entering “copious
notes about everything.” She said I kept it under lock and key in the top drawer, whenever I
left the office.
“Major Jordan told me frequently,” declared Mrs. Bean, that he was very much concerned
about how much information was going through.” She observed that I was troubled by the
importance as well as volume of these contraband shipments. When Colonel Kotikov was
dissatisfied, she related, it was common knowledge that all he had to do was call Washington to get whatever he wanted. [1]
It was also disclosed that traffic in black suitcases started before I ever dreamed of their
existence. This was revealed by former Corporal Henry J. Cauthen of Company G, fourth
Infantry Regiment, which was stationed at Nome, Alaska. He was employed in 1949 by an
engineering firm in San Jose, Cal. In an interview he told of an experience at Nome one
Sunday afternoon in late November or early December, 1942. That was one month before I
arrived in Great Falls and three months before my first search of Russian suitcases.
“Some friends and I were watching an A-20 take off for Russia,” said
Cauthen. “About five miles from the base it crashed and burned. We skied over
to see whether we could rescue any of the men. The plane was destroyed and
four Russians were dead. On the ground were four suitcases. Two had been
almost consumed, but the others were intact except that the light straps with
which they were bound had split apart. All were black and very cheaply made.
“We examined one of them. There were maps on top, and beneath was a
stack of blueprints. The first chart had been made for the Air Corps by the
American Army Engineers. It was in English, but there were markings in
Russian showing all our positions and defenses in and around the Nome
Airbase.
“While we were looking at this map, some Russians came over in a
skimobile. One officer was very disturbed to see that we had opened the
suitcase, and demanded that I give it to him. I did so. He wrapped it up and
carried it away. This was witnessed by several of our own Army Corps officers
who were there at the time.” [2]
Corroboration of the charge that uranium information went to the Soviet Union came
unexpectedly from a senior GI student at Clemson College, S.C. He was Royall Edward
Norton, 29 years old and married, with one son.
Norton consulted the president of Clemson College, Dr. Robert E. Poole, who suggested
that they ask counsel from former Justice James F. Byrnes, who was arriving next day to
deliver an address. Byrnes advised Norton to send a full report to the Un-American
Activities Committee. Thus it happened that Mr. Lewis made a special trip to Clemson,
which is near Greenville, S.C.
Norton enlisted in the Navy during October, 1941, and served till the close of the war, in
the North and South Atlantic, the Caribbean, Africa, Sicily and Alaska. He suffered
shipwreck aboard the USS Motole and injuries to his foot and back in an airplane crash. He
was honorably discharged with the rank of Chief Petty Officer, four letters endorsing his
candidacy for a commission, and a general service rating that was exceptionally high.
A letter of commendation for his service with the Red Army Air Forces covered a tour at
the Coast Guard Air Station, Elizabeth City, N.C., and the naval base on Kodiak Island,
Alaska. At Elizabeth City planes were conditioned for delivery to Russia and Russian pilots
were trained to fly them. At Kodiak they were reconditioned, stripped of surplus gear and
cargo, inspected and reloaded. He gave Fulton Lewis the following account of one of his
Alaskan experiences:
A PBM – a Catalina type without landing gear* - was being loaded for the
take-off to Russia. I had finished checking the cargo against my inventory
when I noticed three extra parachute bags that obviously were not filled with
parachutes.
*This seaplane was requested by the Russians only for its Wasp engine, which they could
not get from us any other way. Since they never used seaplanes, this PBM (and how many
others?) was presumably discarded after being cannibalized.
“I started to inspect them, and in the first one found a wooden box about 18
inches long, less than a foot wide and maybe 8 or 10 inches deep. The top of
the box was not fastened down or sealed in any way, and I lifted it up to see
what was inside.
“The Soviet pilot, who was making a final check in the cockpit, saw what I was
doing and put on a terrific scene. He tried to make me stop, yelling in English:
‘Personal gear – personal!’ I went on long enough to see what was in the box. It
contained a solid stack of blueprints, all of about the same size and general
appearance, as if they belonged to a set.
“I unfolded the one on top and examined it fairly carefully. I had had some
little experience in reading blueprints. This was very unusual and different from
anything I had ever seen. But I had studied enough chemistry in school to
recognize it as a highly complicated pattern of atomic structure. Protons and
neutrons were shown.
“In the lower right hand corner was a group of words, which were probably an
identification of the blueprint. I cannot remember the terms, but I do recall the
figure ’92.’ It meant nothing to me at the time, as I had never heard of atomic
energy or atomic bombs. In the light of Major Jordan’s broadcast, this was
undoubtedly a blueprint of the atomic structure of the 92nd element, uranium.” [3]
Norton also revealed that he entered a protest against Russian demands for a complete set of astronomical charts of all Alaska and the Aleutian island chain.
“I could not see why they had any need for such a thing,” stated he. “A simple
course map would have been enough. The astronomical charts give them a
tremendous amount of additional information, far beyond what was necessary.
But the Russians were able to use enough influence, despite my objection, to
get 15 complete sets.” [4]
During the Fulton Lewis broadcast of Dec. 7, his researcher Russell Turner quoted
Marcus McCann, a civilian member of the loading crew at Great Falls, as stating he was
present when I opened a large brown-paper bundle on a plane being turned over to the
Russians. In this package McCann saw railroad maps and plans of factories.
Another of the freight-handling crew, Elmer Williams, was reported to have explained to
Turner that two kinds of shipments went through Great Falls. One was sent openly and the
other consisted of hundreds of “diplomatic” pouches, boxes, bags and suitcases,
accompanied by armed guards who never left them, but slept with them in the warehouses.
Crewmen weighed these secret shipments, Williams said, so that planes could be kept in
balance when they were loaded, but had no idea of the contents. “Virtually anything could
have gone through,” he asserted. Among open deliveries he remembered thousands of
pounds of printed materials – books, technical publications, newspapers, plans and tools,
such as wrenches and fine precision drills. [5]
Colonel Frank C. Lynch of Pasadena related that he was an ordnance expert at the
Aberdeen Proving Ground. It was one of his duties to accompany a Russian officer assigned there and make sure he learned nothing about super-secret weapons. They included an antiaircraft cannon that aimed itself, so that all the gunners had to do was feed it with shells. In the summer of 1944 he was ordered to crate this miracle gun for shipment to Russia. He accompanied the weapon to Philadelphia, Colonel Lynch related, and saw it loaded on a freighter.
Harvey Hart, port manager of Longview, Wash., declared that one of the last shipments to
Russia included items labeled “301A Geiger tubes” and “401A registers,” purchased from
the Cyclotron Specialties Company. Geiger counters are used for detecting radioactivity.
These instruments left for Vladivostok on the steamship Surikov, said Hart.
Lloyd Chestley of Presque-Isle, Main, volunteered that in 1944 he gave information about
American radar to a Soviet General. Chestley was an Air Forces radar officer, with the rank
of Captain, at a U.S. airbase near Gluntoe, Ireland. He stated that an American officer
accompanied the General, who was armed with “authorization” to inspect secret equipment.
Robert K. Califf of Lake Worth, Fla., who was weighs and balances officer at the
Washington airport, with the rank of First Lieutenant, revealed that he was often prevented
from inspecting Russian shipments. In his interview, as quoted, he stated:
I can say I was prevented many times from examining parcels and pouches
which I should have inspected. I was prevented from examining these articles
by higher authorities, on the grounds that they carried “diplomatic immunity.” [6]
Private George F. Roberts, of Seattle, told reporters he was stationed during the war at an
Army base near Edmonton, and that he was driven away from transports bound for Siberia
by civilians wielding tommy guns and speaking a foreign language. He saw large boxes in
the planes, but was prevented from inspecting their contents. Superiors ordered him, Roberts declared, to “stay off C-47s.”
An offer to produce the manifesto for a cargo containing two helicopters and thirty large
U.S. Army tanks, which left the Erie pier in Jersey City on the Russian freighter Chutokea
for Siberia by way of the Panama Canal in 1948, was made by Herbert Cooney, a former
Congressional investigator, of 1419 University Ave., Bronx. Apparently a ruse, he said, the
tanks were earmarked for Turkey.
Two intelligence officers, residents of Los Angeles, told newspapermen they had been
questioned by FBI operators. Lt-Colonel Lewis J. Clarke, Jr. said that during four years at
Fairbanks and Great Falls he made daily reports on Russian activities to G-2 in Washington. “I could only tell the FBI what any other officer could tell them,” reported Major Perry W. Parker, “namely, that the Russians in Montana and Alaska spent most of their time trying to worm out secret information from Americans.”
One of the Navy’s specialists in small arms and special weapons, whose name was
withheld because he was still in active service, related that he was placed in charge of a
training program at Governor’s Island, N.Y. He was harassed by Russian officers who
demanded information about weapons so new that they had not yet been tested or even built. When he refused, the Russians threatened to appeal to Washington and have him dismissed. He was haled before Navy superiors at 90 Church Street and reprimanded. His request for a transfer was granted.
The War Department itself announced that during 1944 a dozen Russian officers were
trained in radar operations at Fort Monmouth, N.J., Signal Corps Center. They were
instructed in three types of radar – for aiming artillery, identifying aircraft and tracing lowflying bombs and planes.
My former superior, Colonel Gardner, was interviewed by Fulton Lewis. In his Dec. 5
broadcast Mr. Lewis told me:
I talked with Colonel Gardner this afternoon and he told me he had the same
experience in Newark that you had. Every time the Russians were displeased
with the way things were going – which was frequently – they would get on the
telephone to their Embassy in Washington and have the Embassy contact Mr.
Hopkins. All the difficulties would be straightened out immediately. I asked
Colonel Gardner how he knew it was Mr. Hopkins who did the job. He said it
was common information. The Russians referred to it, and so did everyone else.
It was general routine knowledge, he declared. [7]
In a broadcast of his own, Colonel Gardner was kind enough to remark that “Major Jordan
was one of my best and most trusted officers.” He continued:
I know nothing first-hand about the shipment of atomic materials. I do know that, while I
was in command at Great Falls and in charge of this operation, the Russians could and did
move anything they wanted to without divulging what was in the consignment. [8]
Before a microphone in Mansfield, Ohio a week later, Colonel Gardner declared:
“There is more beneath the surface than has yet come to light, and it is to be
hoped that the investigating committee will forget partisan politics and go to
the very bottom. We in America must know whether public servants in
Washington are still giving our secrets away. If so, they should be eliminated.
We have had enough of fellow-travelers and Americans who believe in foreign
ideologies.” [9]
He then quoted a letter from “one of the outstanding airmen of all time,” Roscoe Turner
of Indianapolis.
Many thanks for your good letter of Dec. 6 and the attached statement of yours
in support of our mutual friend, Racey Jordan.
I am needling the Legion on this support too because, after all, there may be an
attempt to hush this thing up, as it is stepping on too many high places.
I also wrote Jordan and told him not to lose his nerve since he has done such a
magnificent job of uncovering it. [10]
Major John C. Starkle came forward in San Francisco for the Fulton Lewis broadcast of
Dec. 9
I recall an occasion late in 1943 when Major Jordan came into my office and
raised quite a row because Russian aircraft had come in with equipment he
thought the Russians shouldn’t have. He was in communication with his
superiors. We discovered that none of us was familiar with the apparatus. It
was a secret type of electronic equipment which was not authorized for the
Russians and which we removed. It did not go to Russia.
I was in Great Falls for a year and a half. During 1943 Major Jordan and I were
closely associated. His office was across the hangar from mine and we had
lunch together nearly every day at the Officer’s Club. He was United Nations
Representative for the 34th Sub-Depot, in which I was assistant maintenance
officer for the Ferrying Section, with jurisdiction over repair, maintenance and
utilization of UN aircraft.
Major Jordan mentioned Harry Hopkins’ name quite often… Concerning
materials of which I had person knowledge, and so far as my observations
went, everything Major Jordan has said checks out. [11]
Lt.-Colonel Bernard C. Hahn of Washington, Pa., was on duty several months at Great
Falls as personal representative of the Army Air Inspector, Brigadier General Jones. In a
newspaper interview, Colonel Hahn said that he “helped Major Jordan break open some of
those mysterious black suitcases the Russians were sending home.” He continued:
Through 1934-44 Great Falls was the take-off point for thousands of planes
supplied to Russia through Lend-Lease. I noticed cheap, black composition
suitcases that the Russians were putting aboard planes going to Siberia. It was
not my job to inspect them. My principal duty was to watch for sabotage and
defects in these planes.
Shortly after I arrived at Great Falls, Major Jordan became much concerned
over the black suitcases. I told him he’d better take it up with the security
officer at the base.
He did so, and one morning the security officer whose name I have forgotten
[Col. O’Neil]; Colonel William Boaz, the technical officer at the field, Major
Jordan, and I moved in and began examining suitcases. We found no Oak
Ridge plans, documents or heavy water. But I do know they were sending to
Moscow enough U.S. roadmaps and technical magazines to cover all the pantry
shelves in Russia. [12]
Colonel Kotikov, Hahn added, requested that a WAC Sergeant be assigned to watch over
his wife. Mrs. Kotikov complained to Colonel Hahn, the letter stated, that her husband didn’t
trust her “and has that woman follow me everywhere.” He reflected that Colonel Kotikov
probably has as little privacy as his wife, and explained that “an enlisted man on Kotikov’s
staff was at his heels day and night.” The reference, of course, to Sergeant Vinogradsky.
The first person to whom I confided the story of my search of “diplomatic suitcases” was
the security officer of the 34th Sub-Depot, at Gore Field, Lt.-Colonel George F. O’Neill.
Without losing a moment’s time, Colonel O’Neill published a pledge to “support Major
Jordan to the limit.” His interview was dispatched from Los Angeles, where he had taken a
post, after retirement, with the Veterans Administration. He was quoted as follows:
There is one instance which offers conclusive proof of Major Jordan’s story. I
have detailed this evidence to the FBI. For that reason I cannot speak about it at
this time. I’m ready to tell the whole matter under oath.
All of us at the Great Falls airbase knew that Russia had the ear of the White
House. That was common knowledge among the officers.
If the Russian mission didn’t like the way something was going, in no time at
all they’d have the White House on the wire and then we’d be jumping.
As far as anything Major Jordan says, I knew him to be a square-shooter. I have
absolute faith in his integrity.
Only people who were at the base could understand the difficult times we had
there. It was men like Jordan who never slept that made an impossible job
possible. [13]
The former commandant of Gore Field, Col. D’Arce, declared in an interview that the
Russians “could have sent the Capitol dome to Moscow without our knowing what was in
the boxes.” Under prevailing instructions, he explained, it was not the duty of American
officers to question the nature of shipments to Russia but to speed the cargo through as fast as possible. “I remember Major Jordan very well,” said Col. D’Arce. “He is not the type of man to make up a story out of whole cloth.”
The Lewis broadcast of Dec. 6 presented quotations from an interview with Lt.-Colonel J.
D. McFarland of Hamilton, Ohio, formerly an inspector for the Alaskan Wing of the Air
Transport Command. “I believe,” he announced, “that I can substantiate everything Major
Jordan says,” His statement was cited in part as follows:
I was in Great Falls every couple of weeks. Major Jordan repeatedly raised hell
about uncontrolled deliveries going to Moscow.
The Russians wanted no restrictions from the U.S. Army. Every time the issue
got hot, they would telephone Washington, and they always had their way. [14]
According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, Colonel McFarland, who was in close touch with
General Gaffney in Fairbanks, declared that I was transferred from Great Falls in 1944 as a
consequence of my activities against uninspected shipments to Soviet Union. He had
personally examined the diary, he said, in which I kept records of such consignments.
As commander of the Great Falls Army airbase, Colonel Russell L. Meredith was in
nominal command of the Soviet movement. By his own wish, I seldom bothered him with
problems in that area. More than once he protested that it was my job to keep the Russians
out of his hair.
With good cause, I hold Colonel Meredith in respect and gratitude. Naturally he was
indignant over a scandal alleged to have taken place in a post under his authority. It was only human that his impulse should have been to denounce some features as “preposterous.” An officer of roved equity, Colonel Meredith in respect and gratitude revised his opinion now that fuller information is at hand. In November, 1949, there had not been a single Lewis-Jordan broadcast and the Un-American Activities Committee had not heard a single witness in the case. I quote the ensuing dialogue between Fulton Lewis and Russell Turner during the Dec. 6 broadcast:
Turner: I interviewed the former commandant of the base, Colonel Russell
Meredith, now retired; and seven civilians who had been members of the
ground crew at the Lend-Lease depot – the individuals who actually handled
the freight.
Lewis: Well, let’s handle the Colonel first. He is one of the people quoted as
saying that Major Jordan’s story is “unbelievable.”
Turner: He told me the same thing. But he also said he found a notation in his
own diary – that he could not understand how 10 tons a month of printed
material passing through the Great Falls base was going to help the Russians
win that particular war.
Lewis: So this statement in itself confirms the fact that tremendous quantities of
printed matter were going through the Great Falls base?
Turner: More than that. He stated that he himself had personally protested
against the quantity of stuff that was going through, but was told to lay off –
that such policy matters were being decided by “top brass.” He said he didn’t
recall any specific occasion on which names were mentioned, but that at the
time, in his own mind, he presumed Hopkins and Wallace to have been the
persons referred to.
Lewis: Did the Colonel have any other information to offer?
Turner: He said once again it was difficult to remember anything specific, but
that generally speaking the material going through seemed to be everything the
Russians could lay their hands on about American industries, locations, plans,
mechanical designs and scientific data of all kinds – and that there was a
mountain of it. [15]
SOURCES
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Clouds of Witnesses
1. Interview with WAC Sgt. Bean, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 5, 1949.
2. Corp. Henry Cauthen, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 19, 1949.
3. Royall Edward Norton, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 14, 1949.
4. Ibid.
5. Interview with Great Falls crewmen, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 7, 1949
6. Interview with Robert Califf, Associated Press, Dec. 5, 1949.
7. Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 5, 1949. Interview with Col. Gardner.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Letter of Roscoe Turner to Col. Gardner, Dec. 8, 1949.
11. Major Starkle, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 9, 1949.
12. Interview with Lt. Col. Hahn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 14, 1949.
13. Interview with Lt. Col. O’Neill, Los Angeles Examiner, Dec. 5, 1949.
14. Interview with Lt. Col. McFarland, Cincinnati Inquirer, Dec. 7, 1949.
15. Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 6, 1949.____________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
As final corroboration of the story which I have set forth in this book, I am going to call
on testimony which comes from the other side of the Iron Curtain. It is the testimony of four
people, two of whom are Russian and two American.
The first witness is a former member of the Soviet Purchasing Commission, Victor A.
Kravchenko, Author of I Chose Freedom, who was questioned by the counsel for the House
of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, Frank S. Tavenner, Jr., as
follows:
Mr. Tavenner: What position did you hold with the Soviet Government while
you were here in the United States?
Mr. Kravchenko: I was economic attaché of the Soviet Purchasing Commission
from August 1943 to April 1944.
Mr. Tavenner: Will you explain to the committee the set-up of the Soviet
Purchasing Commission, that is, who controlled the activities in which the
Commission was engaged, and any other pertinent matter regarding its function
which this committee would be interested in?
Mr. Kravchenko: Yes. First I ask your permission to explain the general
features of the situation during the war. Before we came to the United States –
when I say “we” I mean all members of the Communist Party who had more or
less responsible duties or more or less responsible jobs – before we came to the
United States, we had received instructions from the party.
Mr. Tavenner: By “party” are you referring to the Communist Party?
Mr. Kravechenko: Communist Party, of course, because in the Soviet Union
there is only one party. In conversations which I had with officials of the
Central Committee Party, I was told repeatedly:
“You are going to the capitalistic United States. We are allies
today because we need each other, but when the war is over and
we shall have won victory – and we are sure we shall win it – we
shall again become open enemies.
We shall never modify our philosophy and our doctrine. We are
allies in trouble, but both partners know that they hate each other.
Sooner or later a clash between the two is inevitable. Until then
the Allies will remain our friends and we shall cooperate in our
mutual interests.
For this reason and with an eye to the future we must study
carefully the industry in the United States, the military industry,
the civilian industry, all technological and industrial processes,
and we must get hold of their secrets so that we can achieve
similar results in our country and when the time comes we will be
ready for the fight.”
Rep. Francis E. Walker: Did the Russians regard the United States as their
enemy during the period we were fighting for the common cause?
Mr. Kravechenko: Ideologically and secretly, yes. For example, every week we
had closed Party sessions in our office in Moscow. Somebody would come
from the Central Committee or from the Politburo. He would give us a speech
on the international situation, the war situation, and so on, and would make it
absolutely clear – I mentioned it in my book and it is not necessary to repeat,
but I would like to mention that they always said and always repeated:
“We are Allies because there is a war on. But we must realize that
the Americans will never like us and we will never like them.”
Also,
“We will never like the English and the French; I mean their
political attitudes.”
And practically – as a practical result of all this – every Soviet official, when he
goes to the United States or to any other country, he always has two duties to
perform. These duties go parallel:
One of them is a simple engineer to the Soviet Purchasing Commission, but
before he comes to the United States, the Central Committee of the Party or
some special government office or department, issues orders indicating where
in the United States he must work, which factory or chemical plant, or any kind
of industry he has to watch. I am talking now about engineers, because I was
one of them and I know their work best. I don’t know what orders were given
by the general staff.
Now, when this man came to the United States he had to do two jobs at the
same time. The one was open and legal, and the other was conspiracy. And
when he went back to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government would
appreciate his work in the U.S.A. according to the secret information he had
gathered for the Soviet industry or for the military staff. All of us had such
duties.
Mr. Walter: Is that true of the diplomats as well?
Mr. Kravchenko: Absolutely. They are absolutely no different. In 1943 or 1944
Mr. Rudenko, who was chairman of the Soviet Purchasing commission, had an
office at 3355 Sixteenth Street in Washington. General Serov was military
attaché at that time.
Gromyko was Soviet Ambassador to Washington. Gusev, in New York, was
head of the organization Amtorg. All these officers worked together. Of course
there was competition among them, because everyone wanted the “thank you”
from the Soviet Union so that upon his return to the Soviet Union he would
receive a higher position.
Mr. Walter: Do I understand the Soviet diplomatic representatives in the United
States were engaged in espionage?
Mr. Kravchenko: Absolutely. Mr. Chairman, that is their system. We must
understand that they all received special training, for instance, Mr. Malik, now
representative in the United Nations: Mr. Zarubin, Soviet Ambassador in
London*; Mr. Panyushkin in Washington, who has good experience in military
intelligence. All of them – there is no question – all of them are members of the
Party. That comes first. Their first duty is not diplomatic; their first duty is to
be devoted members of the Party. They must do everything the Politburo of the
Soviet Union requires, at any price.
*Georgy Zarubin is now Ambassador to the United States.
Now I come back to your question. For example, the Soviet Purchasing
Commission during the war had more than a thousand employees. Some of
them came to the United States as simple engineers, but in reality they were in
top positions in industry or in scientific research. Some came as citizens, but
really they were officers of the Navy or artillery or tank troops or the air force.
No official of the Soviet Purchasing Commission came to the United States as a
member of the Communist Party. If you look at the records in the Department
of State you will find that no Party members came from the Soviet Union.
This was the psychologically favorable moment for the Soviet Government.
We were in the midst of a war. Many American people paid great respect to the
Soviet Army. Everybody was in sympathy with and liked to talk to men in
Soviet military uniform.
In the Soviet Purchasing Commission, Mr. Rudenko, Mr. Serov, and a few
chairmen of departments were called “the Politburo of the Purchasing
Commission.” On the seventh floor of the Soviet Purchasing Commission,
behind an iron door at 3355 Sixteenth Street, Washington, D.C. – it was not in
Moscow – there was a special department of the NKVD.
Everything that came from the Soviet Union, for instance a secret
communication, came to the seventh-floor department. Also, the seventh-floor
department kept agents in every department, in the metal department or
chemical department or aviation department.
Secret material went to the special department, one of whose officials was Mrs.
Arutunian. Her husband was son of the Deputy Commissariat of Railroads of
the Soviet Union. She also worked for this special department and all secret
papers went through her hands. With this department I had some trouble, and I
know what I am talking about. All of us knew about the functions of the special
department, but we never knew who the representative of the Soviet Secret
Police was in the Soviet Purchasing Commission.
Mr. Tavenner: Did I understand you to say Rudenko was responsible to the
NKVD which had its headquarters on the seventh floor? Is that a correct
statement?
Mr. Kravchenko: The special department formally was under Mr. Rudenko,
because he was head of the Soviet Purchasing Commission; this is natural. But
in fact they were independent, the NKVD section was independent from the
chief of the Purchasing Commission.
Mr. Tavenner: And the head of the Purchasing Commission, Mr. Rudenko, was
compelled to carry out certain activities that were outlined by the NKVD? Is
that a correct statement?
Mr. Kravchenko: This is absolutely natural. You see, he had two bosses. The
one boss – may I make this clear? – was Mr. Mikoyan, the member of the
Politburo, and second assistant to Mr. Stalin during the war. Mr. Mikoyan was
Commissar of Foreign Trade. During the war Mr. Mikoyan was in charge of
Lend-Lease. That was his duty as a member of the Politburo. All supplies for
the Soviet Government passed through the hands of Mr. Mikoyan.
As to Leonid Rudenko, I had known him many years. We worked at the same
factory in the Ukraine in about 1924 or 1925. Mr. Rudenko received orders
from Moscow from Mikoyan, from the foreign office, from the general staff,
and from the Party. What he did for one office or another I don’t know, but the
fact is that all these offices were represented in the United States.
At the end of 1943 or beginning of 1944, one day we received orders issues to
all responsible members of the Communist Party. It was after work, after 5
o’clock. The office door was closed, and Mr. Serov came in with several sheets
of paper containing orders from Mikoyan to Mr. Rudenko and to all members
of the Party in the Soviet Purchasing Commission.
These orders made it absolutely clear that we had to find out all secret
information about the industrial development in the United States, and
especially in the military industry, and Mr. Mikoyan said, “We shall appreciate
you according to your ability to comply with this order.” This document was
read to us and we were asked to sign a statement that we knew about this order
and that we would make every effort to fill it. This was what I saw, what I
knew. It was absolutely clear; there was no mistake about it.
Mr. Tavenner: What effect did this order have upon the activities of the
Russians who were members of the Soviet Purchasing Commission?
Mr. Kravchenko: First I will mention a few names and give you a practical
example of what they did.
One day I saw big books like this, approximately (indicating) which contained
many pictures of the aviation industry, the special machines, special details,
and so on. There were pictures and blueprints. Three large volumes. This
material was signed by General Belayev, Alexander Rostartchouk,* and
Engineer Khimuchin.
General Belayev was chairman of the Soviet Purchasing Commission;
Alexander Rostartchouk was head of the metal section; and Engineer
Khimuchin, who came to the United States as a simple engineer, actually was
doctor of technical sciences and was working on research at an institute in
Moscow in that capacity. He came to the United States as a simple engineer.
How they obtained those pictures and blueprints, how they found all this
information about the development of aviation in the United States, I don’t
know. I just saw these documents; I saw the signatures; and I know General
Belayev took them when he flew to Moscow. This is the first example.
Second example: I can’t mention a certain name in open session of the
committee. I have some good reasons for that. But I know this: Two Soviet
Navy captains obtained information on the production of American submarines,
on technological processes and details on the perspective development of the
submarine industry. This is the second example.
The third example: From 1925 or 1926 I have known Semen Vasilenko. Semen
Vasilenko, now in the Soviet Union, is head of the whole production of pipes
and tubes in the Soviet Union, as part of the metallurgical industry.
Mr. Tavenner: Will you repeat that?
Mr. Kravchenko: He is head of the production of pipes and tubes in the Soviet
Union.
Mr. Tavenner: Will you spell that name?
Mr. Kravchenko: S-e-m-e-n V-a-s-I-l-e-n-k-o. Semen Vasilenko. I knew him
many, many years. Vasilenko was a member of the Party; he had been a
member of the Ukrainian Government and was awarded a Stalin premium, and
also he had a few decorations. He came to the United States for the sole
purpose of finding some special information about the metallurgical and tube
industry and military industry.
One day in February 1944, I don’t remember the date, Vasilenko, myself and
Vdovin got ready to fly to the Soviet Union six large bags, and Vasilenko took
the six bags to the Soviet Union. I saw that material. Some of this material was
about the production of planes and the new technological processes; some was
about artillery; some was about new technological processes in metallurgy;
some was about the possibilities of industrial development.
Mr. Kearney: Would the witness mind repeating that?
Mr. Kravchenko: Among this material there was also an outline of the
possibilities of industrial development. I mean the perspective: for example,
what was planned 5 or 10 years ahead; what the plans for the present are; and
so on; also the plan in perspective for the general development of industry. Do
you understand?
I know all this material was found in an unofficial way. What could be the
reason for Mr. Vasilenko, former member of the government, or for somebody
else, to do work as a plain workman? They were working as plain workmen.
We closed the door. Nobody could see this material. And Vasilenko took this
material and flew to the Soviet Union.
Now, one more example. At the end of 1943 or the beginning of 1944, Vassili
Sergeiev was deputy of Mr. Mikoyan. Mr. Sergeiev* came to the United States.
He had meetings here and saw many responsible industrial people and so on.
He brought from Moscow another order about various types of information
which should be obtained. Sergeiev gathered the heads of the departments and
explained what kind of material they are expected to get at any price.
*My diary records that Vassili Sergeiev, his wife Nina, Petre Makeev, Valentina Batanova,
and Anatoli Baranovsky were expedited through Great Falls to Moscow on March 9, 1944.
They were allowed to depart nearly two tons of personal and “diplomatic” baggage.
I must make it clear, Mr. Chairman, all departments of the Soviet Purchasing
Commission – aviation, transportation, all of them – were working for this
purpose. We transferred to the Soviet Union not just this one package; we
transferred to the Soviet Union dozens of tons of material, and not just by
airplane. We also were using Soviet ships that came from Lend-Lease for the
Soviet Union, and they called this material Super Lend-Lease. (Laughter)
Well, it is true. And they sent material by these ships for the only reason, that
the Soviet Government never believed in peace between these two countries.
They worked very hard to prepare themselves. They understand very well that a
new war, if it comes, will be a great technical war, much more so than the last
war, and they know very well that the United States is a great industrial country
They must find all material they can, all kinds of information, to be on a level
with this country in its military and industrial developments; also, to be up to
date.
Mr. Walter: Do you know how this Super Lend-Lease material was concealed
before it was put aboard the ships?
Mr. Kravchenko: Lomakin simply could come to any boat, or anybody else
could come and bring whatever they wanted. And any captain and any sailor
would go ashore to New York or Philadelphia or Baltimore. They did as they
pleased. How could you check on them? I saw Soviet ships in New York. We
brought this material on the ship. Who cared what we took? Had we taken the
Empire State building and put it on a ship, nobody would have cared! That is
true. I know; I saw that. Nobody opened boxes and checked. I witnessed it. I
saw dozens of times how Soviet boats were loaded, and I know what I am
talking about.
Mr. Walter: So no check was made, and these packing cases containing plans
and blueprints were freely passed on the ships with other Lend-Lease material?
Mr. Kravchenko: You see, Mr. Chairman, it was absolutely naturally during the
war. In the United States, as in many countries in the world, there was much
respect for the Red Army. It was a natural feeling. I am talking now about the
policy and psychology of the Soviet Government. They did everything against
the United States during the war, and now why should they change?
Mr. Kearney: Were any of those packages under diplomatic seal?
Mr. Kravchenko: Yes. Vasilenko flew to the Soviet Union with all this luggage;
possessed diplomatic immunity. And Vasilenko was not an exception.
Everybody who went back always took something with him under diplomatic
immunity. And during the war the Soviet Government received plenty of
airplanes from the United States. These airplanes were flown by Soviet pilots to
the Soviet Union. It was part of our activity during the war.
Mr. Tavenner: If I understood you correctly, Vasilenko packed these six bags
behind closed doors?
Mr. Kravchenko: That is right.
Mr. Tavenner: Were you there when they were packed?
Mr. Kravchenko: Yes. I was helping him.
Mr. Tavenner: You helped him pack them?
Mr. Kravchenko: Yes. We worked like simple workmen because they didn’t
trust anybody.
Mr. Tavenner: Then you did actually assist in packing that sort of material?
Mr. Kravchenko: Yes, I did.
Mr. Tavenner: Do you recall the month and year in which Vasilenko flew these
packages to Moscow?
Mr. Kravchenko: I don’t remember exactly the date, but I remember very well
it was sometime in February, 1944.
Mr. Tavenner: February, 1944?
Mr. Kravchenko: That is right.
Mr. Tavenner: Mr. Chairman, it was the testimony of Major George Racey
Jordan, from his diary, that Vasilenko came through Great Falls, on the 17th of
February, 1944, en route to Moscow with diplomatic mail. [1]
Besides corroborating so dramatically the espionage journey of Semen Vaslienko through
Great Falls, which I had recorded in my diary, Mr. Kravchenko also confirmed many other
names and duties of Russian agents who appeared on the list which I had turned over to the FBI.
My second witness, An American, is Father Leopold Braun. For eleven years he was the
only American priest in Russia. He served from 1934 through 1945 as the pastor of the
Church of Saint Louis de Francais, in Moscow. Since his return to the United States, Father
Braun has made few public appearances, one of which was at a Communion breakfast held
at the Hotel Brevoort in New York.
At the time Father Braun went on record with these observations, based on what he saw at
first hand during the crucial war years in the Russian capital:
The American people were fooled into believing that our wartime aid to Russia was
aiding the Russian people, when instead it was implementing the harsh and brutal regime of
Stalin and the Politburo. Organized appeasement hid from the American people the truth
about what was happening to the millions [billions, actually] of dollars’ worth of aid that we
gave to Russia.
Lend-Lease aid to Russia during the war was diverted to a second, secret Red Army
which was used exclusively for the purpose of suppressing revolts against the Kremlin
regime.
Naïveté on the part of responsible persons in the State Department has strengthened the
grip of the Politburo and the Communist Party. Our State Department has absorbed Soviet
propaganda time and again, and if by chance they did not absorb it, they indicated that they
did not understand it. [2]
Father Braun saw Lend-Lease supplies, which were intended solely to fight a war against
a tyrant named Adolf Hitler, used by the Soviet for purely domestic purposes – just as
tyrannical, of course.
Two final witnesses, American and Russian, also confirm the main contention of this
book – that there were Lend-Lease shipments of a non-military nature. They confirm it
explicitly and concretely, and they are the two people who really ought to know: Harry
Hopkins and Joseph Stalin.
I said I would cite testimony from behind the Iron Curtain only. Well, that is where Mr.
Hopkins’ words were spoken – in the Kremlin, to Stalin’s face. It was in May, 1945, during
Hopkins’ last trip to Moscow, following President Roosevelt’s death.
Former Secretary of State James F. Byrnes quotes the words verbatim and tells us that
their source is Hopkins’ and Averell Harriman’s “report on their conversations with Marshal
Stalin, which they sent to the President,” [3] meaning of course President Truman, who
asked Byrnes to read this record of the meeting before embarking for the Potsdam
Conference.
The report reveals that Stalin, at this final meeting with Hopkins in the Kremlin, “was
particularly irritated by the manner in which Lend-Lease shipments had been suspended at
the end of the European war.” [4]
He stated that Russia had intended to make a “suitable expression of gratitude” to the
United States for the Lend-Lease assistance during the war, but the way to which it had been halted “now made that impossible to do.” [5]
In other words, we were officially told that we were not going to get even a “thank you”
from the Russian people or their master for our eleven billions of Lend-Lease, and of course
we never have got one.
Naturally Hopkins was very much upset by Marshal Stalin’s remarks, which reflected on
the one operation of the war nearest his heart, the vast program in which he had chief
responsibility. Stalin noticed Hopkins’ reaction and stated later in the meeting that “he was
afraid that his remark concerning Soviet public opinion had cut Mr. Hopkins to the quick.” [6]
In any event, Hopkins did not let Stalin’s ungrateful gibes about Lend-Lease go
unanswered, and at once “explained that cancellation of Lend-Lease was necessary under the law because Lend-Lease was authorized only for the purpose of prosecuting the war.”
Hopkins then proceeded, in an understandable state of emotion, to make this historic
admission. Secretary Byrnes tells us:
“He reminded the Marshal of how liberally the United States had construed the
law in sending foodstuffs and OTHER NON-MILITARY ITEMS to their aid.” [7]
In stating how liberally the United States construed the law, Mr. Hopkins was, of course,
referring to himself. As William Chamberlain has said, Hopkins was, “after the President,
the most powerful man in America during the war.” [8]
He was Administrator or Lend-Lease. The law under which he operated was at no time
submitted to any court for interpretation or test, and therefore it was he who “construed” the
law, he decided what we supplied to Russia under Lend-Lease, and he himself tells us,
addressing Marshall Stalin directly, that he construed the law liberally in sending nonmilitary
items to Stalin’s aid.
And what did our final witness, Joseph Stalin, have to say to this? A man of few words,
he replied in character. There is neither ambiguity nor obscurity in his reply and, with these
eight words, I rest my case:
“Stalin readily acknowledged the accuracy of Hopkins’ statement.” [9]
And what of my friend Colonel Kotikov? In August, 1945 the Soviet Government
announced rewards “for the successful execution of tasks assigned to them by the Soviet
Government, according to stipulations of the Red Army and Navy.”
Second on the list, receiving the Order of the Red Banner, Russia’s highest decoration
after the Order of Lenin, stands the name of A.N. Kotikov. [10]
The United States of America did not rate Russia’s official “thank you,” but it is at least
interesting to know that Colonel Kotikov did.
SOURCES
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Conclusion
1. Hearings Regarding Shipments of Atomic Materials, testimony of Victor A. Kravchenko,
March 7, 1950, pp. 1179-86.
2. New York Times, April 12, 1952.
3. Speaking Frankly, p. 61.
4. Ibid. p. 62.
5. Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 896.
6. Ibid., p. 898.
7. Speaking Frankly, p. 62.
8. America’s Second Crusade, William H. Chamberlain, (Henry Regnery & Company), p.
187.
9. Speaking Frankly, p. 62.
10. Bulletin No. 781, American Russian Chamber of Commerce, Aug., 1945.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“His statements prove true,” said John O’Donnell in the New York News.
The man to whom he was referring is Major George Racey Jordan, whose statements
concerning American Lend-Lease to Russia during World War II were met with strident
denials from columnists, commentators, and government employees.
Fortunately, Major Jordan did not have to rely on his memory: Shortly after his
appointment as Lend-Lease expediter, a post he held at Newark Airport and then at Great
Falls, Montana, he began keeping his famous diaries.
He credits his foresight in doing so to a World War I sergeant at Kelly Field, Texas, who
in 1917 told the then nineteen-year-old corporal:
“Jordan, if you want to get along, keep your eyes and your ears open, keep your
big mouth shut, and keep a copy of everything!”
George Racey Jordan served in the 147th Aero Squadron of Captain “Eddie”
Rickenbacker’s First Pursuit Group in World War I. Between 1918 and the Second World
War, he completed his education and became in time a successful sales and advertising
executive. He left his business career to serve his country again during World War II.
Working under a special presidential directive at Great Falls, Major Jordan watched with
increasing uneasiness the growing mountain of Lend-Lease items being channeled to Russia and the infiltration, on the return trip, of Soviet agents into the United States.
Most disquieting of all, however, were the thousands of “black suitcases” that traveled
with diplomatic immunity and State Department top priority from the U.S. to the U.S.S.R.
through the Lend-Lease pipeline. In spite of strenuous objections by armed Russian couriers, Major Jordan inspected some of these suitcases. His notes on their contents, and on “regular” Lend-Lease shipments, became the basis for his radio interviews with Fulton Lewis, Jr., and for his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1949 and 1950.
Major Jordan’s statements have indeed proved true. The Soviets were able to explode
their atom bomb earlier than our experts dreamed possible because our officials provided
them with uranium, thorium, cobalt, cadmium, and atom bomb data from our own top-secret
Manhattan Project.
Major Jordan is the author of Gold Swindle, The Story of Our Dwindling Gold. He
presently lives in Southern California.
ENDAgain, our very sincere appreciation and thanks to Karen A. for donating her precious
time to transcribe this book. As stated in the forward statement, we've made an exhaustive
search and cannot find a bookseller who offers it.
Another relevant report Karen has transcribed which will be posted here, is titled "And
Not A Shot Is Fired." (Webmaster's note: Link coming soon) Revisit this section often for
new additions as our time allows. Here are the first few paragraphs of the intro to that
report:
By Jan Kozak (Member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia)
One might ask today, years after the fall of the Berlin Wall: “Why would
anyone want to read a report by a communist about the revolutionary takeover
of Czechoslovakia – a country that no longer exists? The Czechs are capitalists
now, remember?"
Such a question reveals a number of erroneous assumptions that this
document convincingly refutes – not the least of which is the false assumption
that the leaders of the former Communist states of Eastern Europe were wedded
to ideology.
As Jan Kozak and 40 years of brutal Communist Party rule in
Czechoslovakia so clearly demonstrate, communism was a tactic employed for
the assumption of power, rather than a sincere belief.
These same tactics, modified only slightly, are being used today. Americans
who labor under the false premise that communism is either an ideology or a
system of economics that died with the Cold War do so at their personal and
national peril.
Thanks, also, to Darren Weeks, our webmaster extraordinaire, who gives so generously of
his time and limited personal funds in building and maintaining this site.
With love and gratitude. . . Jackie -- June, 1st, 2003
HTTP://WWW.SWEETLIBERTY.ORG