FDR Adviser Was Soviet Spy, Book Says

http://archive.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/10/26/190137.txt

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February 9, 2011

FDR Adviser Was Soviet Spy, Book Says

Wes Vernon
Friday, Oct. 27, 2000
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Harry Hopkins, close adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a Soviet spy, says a new book released this week. Written by Herbert Romerstein, former head of the U.S. Information Agencys Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation, and the late Eric Breindel, a journalist who had worked on the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The Venona Secrets" (Regnery, 608 pp.) flatly identifies Hopkins as a conscious, willing Soviet agent. The "Venona" documents consisted of secret Soviet cable traffic from the 1940s that the United States intercepted and ultimately decrypted. Previous books discussing the Venona information and new revelations obtained from the Soviet archives after the Cold War have hinted that Hopkins was an "unconscious" agent whose anti-U.S. and pro-Soviet actions were unintended. That is a "dumbing down," Romerstein told NewsMax.com. This book minces no words. "The idea that Hopkins was unconscious is unrealistic," say Romerstein and Breindel. They note that Hopkins was constantly dealing with Ichak Ahkmerov, whom the Soviets had put in charge of illegal undercover agents in the United States. "Some have argued Hopkins was only serving as Roosevelts back channel to Stalin," reads the new book. "If this were true, his contact would not have been Ahkmerov, but any one of the several officials he knew regularly." Otherwise, there was no reason for Hopkins to meet with Ahkmerov. The latter had no reason to "break his cover as a middle class businessman (a fur trader) and reveal his identity as a Soviet intelligence officer to Hopkins unless Hopkins were an agent himself." Moreover, one of the Venona papers describes an "agent 19" as having attended a confidential meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill. Edward Mark, a military historian, identifies "agent 19" as Hopkins, who, he says, was the only one close enough to Roosevelt to have been allowed to attend secret meetings with Churchill.

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FDR Adviser Was Soviet Spy, Book Says

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In the 1960s, we are told, Oleg Gordievsky, who defected from the KGB, said he had attended a lecture by Ahkmerov during World War II. "Ahkmerov mentioned his contact with Alger Hiss, but the man he described as the most important of all wartime agents in the United States was Harry Hopkins." Gordievsky, after his defection to the West, became an agent for British intelligence "until he was exposed by the CIA traitor Aldrich Ames." Romerstein and Breindel reveal that "when Gordievsky discussed Ahkmerovs revelations about Hopkins with KGB colleagues and later with British intelligence and CIA officers, all agreed that Hopkins had been a very important agent indeed." How important was Hopkins to the Soviets? "The Venona Secrets" cites Robert Sherwood, a friendly biographer of Roosevelt and Hopkins, as saying that "during the years when Harry Hopkins was a guest [living in] the White House, he was generally regarded as a sinister figure, a backstairs intriguer, an Iowan combination of Machiavelli, Svengali and Rasputin. ... "There were many of Roosevelts loyal friends and associates, in and out of the Cabinet, who disliked Hopkins intensely and resented the extraordinary position of influence and authority he held." Hopkins played a major role in FDRs dealings with Stalin as to the shape of the world following the war. It was Hopkins who steered Roosevelt toward pro-Soviet positions at every turn. It was Hopkins, for example, who persuaded the president to push for East European governments that were friendly to the Soviet Union (though he "had plenty of help" from other Soviet spies in the government, Romerstein reminded NewsMax.com). It was Hopkins who overruled Lend-Lease officials and insisted on shipping uranium and other materials to Moscow, under the cover of Lend-Lease, which later enabled the Soviets to build their own atomic bomb. It was Hopkins who had maintained contact with the Soviet underground and had been part of a Red cell "study group" within the Department of Agriculture as far back as the 1930s. Einstein as an Anti-American Dupe The brilliant scientist Albert Einstein comes off in the book as more of a "dupe" or as "a frequent victim of communist manipulation," definitely anti-American, but just how pro-Soviet is not certain. But his intent may not have been relevant to the end result of his activity.

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FDR Adviser Was Soviet Spy, Book Says

http://archive.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/10/26/190137.txt

Einstein had been influenced by Comintern leader Willi Muenzenberg to lend his name to and participate in several international Soviet fronts. The book says an identified Soviet spy had introduced Einstein "to Pavel Mikhailov [a top Soviet agent in the United States] to provide the Soviet Union with atomic information." Although scholars disagree as to just how much technical information Einstein had to offer the Soviets, the father of atomic physics had repeatedly surrounded himself with people involved in Soviet underground work. "The Venona Secrets" offers conclusive evidence showing that atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer did, in fact, give Moscow our atomic secrets. Oppenheimers role has been the subject of bitter dispute for a half century. One can only imagine the uproar that would have ensued had it been known at the time that a Soviet agent was living at the White House and advising Roosevelt on matters that would affect the world for the rest of the century, and perhaps beyond. Contemporary Parallels Today, we have a president who invites Chinese agents of influence to White House "coffees" to raise money traced to a communist power that, we have been warned, is preparing for war with the United States. The money later ends up in the coffers of a re-election campaign. There is some uproar, but it is usually a one-day story. Barely a blip on the evening news. People shrug their shoulders and put the man back in office, albeit with less than 50 percent of the vote. The Clinton administration has been so preoccupied with the legacy of one man (as opposed to the security interests of the United States) that some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are seriously worrying that, in the current Middle East crisis, the president may "wag the dog." They fear Clinton may create a "crisis" to help his vice presidents campaign, using the argument that "we must not change horses in the middle of the stream." Today, the Soviet Union is no more, and the world, as some intelligence experts warn, is not any safer than it was during the Cold War, just different. Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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