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original research

Any attempt to reinstall McCarthyite conspiracy theories and rants into this article will be vigorously resisted. 172 | Talk 12:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Nobs's writings were sourced rather specifically. Ad hominems (and obscenities) are not a trump card, especially fifty years after the fact. --TJive 13:44, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

He is not using secondary sources. What he is doing is "original research," a nice way of writing saying spewing defamatory bullshit. 172 | Talk 15:32, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

172, you need to be a bit more clear in your charge. Were it true that he is "not using secondary sources", this would not itself constitute a violation of no original research. As the article states:

The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts or ideas that, in the words of Misplaced Pages's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".

Original research is research that creates primary sources or secondary sources.

I looked at the version which you challenged and changed; I have not been sufficiently moved to look through the entire history thus far. In that version of the article, he gave the following sources:

An Encyclopedia Britannica entry on the "International Brigades" in support of the claim that, "the Abraham Lincoln Brigade a Comintern organization that fought in the Spanish Civil War." The entry is not fully available but the article states that, "the International Brigades were recruited, organized, and directed by the Comintern, with headquarters in Paris. The U.S. contingent called itself the Abraham Lincoln Batallion." The encylopedia is being used in this context as a secondary source, and his factual claim is thus not novel.

A 91 page FBI document for the claim that, "An FBI investigation later revealed that Magdoff made many false statements regarding his employment after graduation in order to obtain employment with the federal government." I have not read through the entire document to establish the veracity of this, and it does not appear to be word search compatible; this document, in the meantime, could be construed as either a primary document or a secondary one depending on how it is used.

An article which is purported by Nobs to be a "United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive" history, hosted on the website of the Federation of American Scientists. He cites page 31 to state that, "According to United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) Official History, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies (See pg. 31)." The relevant text of page 31 is as follows:

The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network....Harry Magdoff: Statistical Division of WPB and Office of Emergency Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Commerce Department.

The reference is being used as a secondary source in which the claim is being attributed to it.

A web page of historian John Earl Haynes on which it appears posted what purports to be notes on a KGB document analyzed by "Alexander Vassiliev, a former KGB officer". The link directs to the following text:

3. “Tan” – Harry Magdoff, former employee of the Commerce Department.

Which refers to this annotation by John Earl Haynes:

Magdoff, an economist, was a source for Bentley’s Perlo network. He worked for the War Production Board in World War II and then for the Commerce Department. He appeared in 1944 Venona messages as a Soviet source under the cover name Kant. Tan appeared only once in the deciphered Venona traffic, in a 1945 message, and was unidentified; but the context was consistent with it being Magdoff. Tan, it appears, had replaced Kant as Magdoff’s cryptonym in 1945.

These sources (the document and the annotation) are provided for the claim:

Magdoff was identified by Arlington Hall cryptographers in the Venona project and FBI counterintelligence investigators as a Soviet source under the cover name "Kant" in 1944. Code name "Tan", which appears in the 1948 Gorsky Memo, and appears once in deciphered 1945 Venona traffic, according to researcher John Earl Haynes, is consistent with Magdoff. Code name "Tan", as the evidence suggests, replaced "Kant" as Magdoff’s cryptonym in 1945.

Part of which is attributed directly to Haynes, the rest of it is already suggested by him.

An article by Vladimir Pozniakov, "a Senior Researcher at the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow," published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Cold War International History Project, apparently hosted by the Smithsonian Institute. Nobs's claim, in reference to this article, is that:

Magdoff's complicity in espionage was corroborated by a message exhumed from the NKVD archives in Moscow in the 1990s. A message from the head of KGB foreign intelligence operations, Lt. General Pavel M. Fitin, to Secretary General of the Comintern Georgi Dimitrov dated September 29, 1944 requested information on Magdoff related to his recruitment into the espionage service of the Soviet Union.

Magdoff's name appears within the 18th footnote:

19 Feklisov, pp. 65-105; M. Vorontsov, Capt. 1st rank, Chief Navy Main Staff, Intelligence Directorate, and Petrov, Military Commissar, NMS, ID to G. Dimitrov, 15 August 1942, No. 49253ss, typewritten original; G. Dimitrov to Pavel M. Fitin, 20 November 1942, No. 663, t/w copy; P. M. Fitin to G. Dimitrov, 14 July 1944, No. 1/3/10987, t/w copy; P. M. Fitin to G. Dimitrov, 29 September 1944, No. 1/3/16895, t/w copy. All these documents are NMS ID and FCD Chiefs' requests for information related to Americans and naturalized American citizens working in various US Government agencies and private corporations, some of whom had been CPUSA members. The last two are related to a certain Donald Wheeler (an OSS official), Charles Floto or Flato (who in 1943 worked for the "...Dept. of Economic Warfare"), and Harry Magdoff (War Production Board)-the request dated 29 Sept. 1944-and to Judith Coplon who according to the FCD information worked for the Dept. of Justice.-RTsKhIDNI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 478, l. 7; d. 484, l. 34; d. 485, l. 10, 14, 17, 31, 44.

It is in reference to this passage (itself positioned after the previous footnote):

Also, the limitations imposed on the usage of the CPUSA membership did not mean that Soviet intelligence ceased recruiting both Americans and non-Americans in America.

Since this article itself attempts to correlate primary sources in interpreting data, it is a secondary source and the claim staked by Nibs seems to me a plain reading of what is written there.

"Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999)", a book co-authored by the individual whose material is quoted as a primary document in another source given by Nubs. I do not see how this could be cited as a primary source.

"Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)", the second of whom annotated the aforementioned primary document. I do not see how this could be cited as a primary source.

"Alexander Vassiliev, Untitled Notes on Anatoly Gorsky’s December 1948 Memo on the Failed American Networks (2003)", what would seem to be by now an obvious reference though I can not locate the source of this specific title.

"Feklisov, Alexandre, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs: Memoirs of the KGB Spymaster Who Also Controlled Klaus Fuchs and Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis, New York: Enigma, 2001", which has no readily apparent relevance but would hardly seem to be a primary source.

Your suggestion that he is conducting inappropriate original research is quite baffling then, considering that every contentious analytical claim is referenced, quite explicitly, and typically attributed directly to that source. Unless he is one of the individuals cited in this article, then he is actually following what is officially encouraged policy:

esearch that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is strongly encouraged. In fact, all articles on Misplaced Pages should be based on information collected from primary and secondary sources. This is called source-based research, and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

I would politely suggest that you tone down the rancorous language and instead focus specifically on concerns you may have regarding the sources themselves or the presentation of information, rather than deleting content wholesale with nothing but personal attacks and vague threats. It is neither helpful in attempting to resolve such a dispute nor does it conform with expected policy and behavior. --TJive 17:18, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

We only have evidence here that he was hounded by the FBI during the McCarthy era, and hardly anything corroborating the claim that he was a Soviet spy by secondary sources. I do not regret my language. Misplaced Pages will not be used to turn the clock back to the McCarthy era. 172 | Talk 17:31, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

We only have evidence here that he was hounded by the FBI during the McCarthy era

I am not sure what this is in reference to. McCarthy was in control of the PSI not the FBI. I'm not sure what the date of the FBI report listed is from, but it does not concern the more specific references to documentation regarding his activities (rather the assertion that he lied in order to get a job); they come not only from counter-intelligence but research into KGB sources.

hardly anything corroborating the claim that he was a Soviet spy by secondary sources.

I just got through explaining in a bit of detail how the references were being used as secondary sources and in many instances were attributing the info and the claim directly to those sources. I am not sure what standard you are using here or that any would suffice.

Misplaced Pages will not be used to turn the clock back to the McCarthy era.

That is a rather anti-encylopedic and ahistorical attitude to correlating facts and valid information. Misplaced Pages is not supposed to be either an activist or agenda-driven tool. If evidence comes to light which calls for a revision of history then history should be revised. However, this article does not concern "the McCarthy era". It concerns Magdoff. I'm not sure if you are aware of VENONA or the research into Soviet archives after the collapse, much less the work of such as Weinstein, Vassiliev, Haynes, Klehr, and so forth. That is no excuse to deny that this all exists. And condescendingly referring to Nobs' gathering of this known and published information as "bullshit" and "detective work" is neither helpful or particularly relevant, as he is not going further than what the references say or violating policy in his work. --TJive 16:32, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for a very well studied presentation of the evidence. I might include, the source included within the text from the FAS website is a duplicate reprint of the that available listed at the bottom the page from the Official History of the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX), entitled, A Counterintelligence Reader, vol. 3 chap. 1, pg. 31. The two are identical and are Open Source information. Nobs01 19:04, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

This isn't the place for your detective work, which is not adequately corroborated by secondary sources. 172 | Talk 19:07, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, you want a secondary source, here's one: Nigel West, Venona: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War (HarperCollins, London, 1999), which describes Magdoff as a "member of a new network" (one containing Perlo and others). There's a bit more about him in this book, but I won't bother to type it in. Noel (talk) 22:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, here's another secondary source (mentioned above, but here's what it says): it turns out I do have The Secret World of American Communism, which is about the contents of Comintern archives released to Western researchers in the 1990's, It's published by Yale University, hardly a source of disreputable, shadowy, works. : The Comintern memo (Document 90) of 28/29 September 1944 (no doubt a response to the Venona May messages given below, since it names the same list of people) which it provides includes the entry "5. Magadoff, works on the WPB." This book goes on to say:

Of the seven names in the message, Elizabeth Bentley named six of them ... Harry Mogadoff ... as sources from whom she received espionage material.

I know Elizabeth Bentley is something of a bête noire on the left, but alas for them, she's the real thing. Pavel Sudoplatov, a two-star general in the NKVD who ran the NKVD's "Administration for Special Tasks", says in his autobiography Special Tasks that:

For the FBI to utilize the disclosures by Guzenko, and later by Elizabeth Bentley, an American NKVD agent, to penetrate and destroy our agent networks was not an easy job.

thereby confirming that she really was an NKVD agent, and really did blow real agents/sources (including Mogadoff) to the US authorities. Noel (talk) 21:12, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Note on FBI Silvermaster group file, pgs. 182-188 in original, will be found on pgs. 3-9 in PDF format. Nobs01 19:18, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Another secondary source: Herbert Romerstein, Stanislav Levchenko, The KGB Against the "Main Enemy": How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States, (Lexington, Mass. : Lexington Books, 1989), pg. 108, lists Harry Magdoff as a member of the Perlo group. nobs 20:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Note on above source material cited by TJive: Allen Weinstein is currently the Archivist of the United States; see American Histrical Association, Allen Weinstein Becomes Ninth Archivist of the United States. nobs 20:02, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Reference to McCarthy

Reverted and placed here pending sourcing that Harry Magdoff ever testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Magdoff became vulnerable during the McCarthy Era. nobs 23:13, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I would hope all issues can be resolved without an edit war. In regards to this issue, there definitely were "security concerns" regarding Magdoff. Those "security concerns" did not originate with charges by Joseph McCarthy. No evidence has been presented that Magdoff was a "victim" of McCarthy. Magdoff's security concerns have been well documented. I would very much like to complete a well rounded bio-page of Magdoff, entailling all aspects of what appears to be a very interesting life. Hiding facts, however, and invoking distortions, IMHO, will ultimatley serve no purpose and fail. I look forward to cooperation with any serious student of Magdoff. nobs 15:53, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Venona

Before I looked at this article Nobs01 states as historical fact that: Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies. Magdoff appears in 1944 Venona messages as a Soviet source under the cover name "Kant".

OK, well first of all Google shows the words "magdoff", "kant" and "venona" appear on exactly four web pages ("hiss", "ales" and "venona" appear on over 700). One of these pages is Nobs01's Misplaced Pages entry, so it's really three entries. One is from a white supremacist site, which seems to be quoting from another source. One is from some far-right red-under-every-bed author, who basically accuses pretty much every known figure on the left, whether communist or not, of being a Soviet spy - Alger Hiss, Harry Magdoff, Harry Dexter White, even IF Stone for God's sake. The other is a memo referring to the original Venona message, and the speculations of those at the time, let's see what that was:

MAGDOFF - "KANT".

So US intelligence was not able to retrieve this whole sentence, just the last two words, Magdoff and Kant. Everything else is just a speculation. Now first of all, who is to say this is Harry Magdoff? There are Magdoff's living in California, Nevada, Louisiana, Vermont, Massachusetts. Why is is Harry Magdoff? More importantly, spies never have their name transmitted by the Soviets. Code names are always used. So if his name was transmitted, it actually would help his case.

Nobs01 is putting all of this wild speculation about Venona into Misplaced Pages as factual encyclopedia articles. In fact, I just looked and see IF Stone is being accused of being a Soviet spy as well. Why not just go edit the FDR and Truman articles and accuse them of "twenty years of treason" like McCarthy did? It's quite ridiculous we have to waste our time cleaning up after people putting in the kind of stuff the John Birch Society put out during the McCarthy era. Ruy Lopez 18:30, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

You should quote the entire 13 May message (text, image), not just two words:

"On HELMSMAN's instructions GOOD GIRL contacted through AMT a new group in CARTHAGE: MAGDOFF - "KANT". GOOD GIRL's impressions: They are reliable FELLOWCOUNTRYMEN, politically highly mature; they want to help with information. They said that they had been neglected and no oone had taken any interest in their potentialities "STORM". RAIDER, PLUMB, TED, and KANT will go to TYRE once every two weeks in turn. PLUMB and TED know PAL. We shall let you have identifying particulars later."

Note that the name Magdoff is completely spelled out (i.e. the assignment of KANT to Magdoff was not just dective/guesswork, but comes from a direct textual connection in a decrypt).

Shortly thereafter (as promised - We shall let you have identifying particulars later) there's this 30 May messsage (image, pg 1 image, pg 2 image, pg 3), which is a long list of the " of new group":

"The probationers of the new group have given the following personal histories of themselves:" ... "2. 'KANT' became a fellow COUNTRYMAN a long time ago, being , works in the Machine Tool Division of the DEPOT."

which states flat out that the Magdoff in question worked in the War Production Board, pretty much confirming that the Magdoff in question is this one.

Your statement that spies never have their name transmitted by the Soviets. Code names are always used. is incorrect, as you can see on page 2 of the second message, where Harold Glasser's name is given in full.

Please note that your use of the term "spies" is loose and imprecise; the NKVD (and is predecessors and successors) carefully distinguished between "agent" (someone who had a formal relationship with the NKVD, sometimes involving money), and "sources", a term which covered a wide range of people, some of whom might just be gossips, not witting helpers. There's a wide range in there, and just because some is named as a source of information, and is given a covername, doesn't mean they were "spies" (in the conventional meaning of the term).

Your ranting about the John Birch Society and the McCarthy era is absolutely out of place. If you have any facts to bring to the table, please produce them. Noel (talk) 20:36, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

You are still making quite a stretch to say that Harry Magdoff was definitely, in fact, a Soviet spy. First we have a sentence where only two word appear, Magdoff and Kant. For you, this is enough proof that Harry Magdoff is Kant. I wonder why if Magdoff is some kind of secret agent, why the names of everyone around his entry has a code name, but it wasn't seen fit to give him one.

It doesn't matter if everyone who has written about Venona (including Wise and Haynes) has made a mistake in linking Magdoff and KANT, because i) actual documents from Comintern archives, including one photographically reproduced in Secret World of American Communism refer to him by name, and ii) he was identified by name by Elizabeth Bentley as someone from whom she had gotten information for the Soviets - and Bentley's bona-fides as a real NKVD agent who blew real assets is vouched for by no less a person than a 2-star general of the MGB/MVD! (See above.) Noel (talk) 22:29, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Then you somehow look at the message "'KANT' became a fellow COUNTRYMAN a long time ago, being , works in the Machine Tool Division of the DEPOT." as being this "states flat out that the Magdoff in question worked in the War Production Board". Sorry, but I don't see this at all. At least five people are said by Nobs to be spies in the War Production Board. This message doesn't even connect Kant to the production board since 8 groups of the cipher missing between the mention of Kant and the code name which is supposed to represent the War Production Board. This would be like seeing something mentioned on one page of a book, flipping eight pages forward, seeing that someone works at a codename which they think is a board, and then saying there is a definitive connection. Even if there was a connection, which there isn't, Magdoff is not the only person who worked on the War Production Board. He worked in the Statistical Division of the WPB anyhow, Nobs is trying to list him as working at multiple divisions, which is absurd.

If you actually look at the page that text is from, you'll see that the sentence I quoted is one entry from a list of names, each of which is of the form " " - so those missing 8 groups (i.e. at most 8 words) are all part of the description of KANT, to whom the latter part also applies. But as I point out above; this is all nit-pickings; Mogadoff was identified by name by both an NKVD agent and Comintern archives. Noel (talk) 22:29, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

The "facts" which "prove" Magdoff was a Soviet spy have more holes than a sponge. Enormous leaps of conclusions are made here. I should also mention that there is very little discussion on the Internet of the idea of Magdoff being a spy, aside from here, the white supremacist site and the 2 conspiracy sites. Ruy Lopez 21:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit bemused by your reference to the white supremacist site and the 2 conspiracy sites. The sites I linked to were the NSA, and John Earl Haynes (owner of another site linked to) is a specialist in 20-th century US history at the Library of Congress, which is not exactly a wooden shack full of people dressed in white sheets. The reason that there's little about Mogadoff in the records is that he's a relatively minor figure in the 1940s Soviet intelligence network; just a minor source who provided some (probably not very important) information. Its not the most important fact about him, but it's worth noting, both in and of itself, and because when Bentlet accused him, it had consequences for his career. Noel (talk) 23:49, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

He's referring to a particular search he seems to have put in to dismiss the importance of it which besides being a non sequitur ignores completely that the vast majority of the evidence for and characterizations of Magdoff in this context come from researchers published in respectable forums, ex-KGB officers, admitted spies, and government agencies. --TJive 00:02, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Please check out the absurdity of Magdoff's own words http://foia.fbi.gov/silversm/silversm2c.pdf (pgs. 4-5 in the PDF format),

"In a supplemental questionaire executed September 4, 1942, Magdoff stated that he was the father of two sons, aged three years and five months; that he was appointed "Chief of the Control Records Section of the War Production Board." His salary was indicated by him as $541.67 per month.

"In a questionaire executed by his employer, maintained by Local Board no. 3, Magdoff's employment was described as "Economimic Analyst, Chief, Current Business Analysis Unit," salary $6750 per annum, date entered present position, July 4, 1944. It was stated that Magdoff serves as an expert analyst and advisor to officials of the Department (War Production Board) upon the fundemental problems arising from mobilization of the nations's resources, inter-relationships of major segments of the economy under war strains - anticipation of major bottleneck and backward areas which retard national effort.

"In response to a questionaire completed by Harry Magdoff he listed the following employment:

1940 - 1942 - WPA Statisitcs Division, Senior Economic Statisitician,

July 4, 1944 to the date of questionaire (April 16, 1945) - Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Chief, Currect Job Analysis Unit.

It should be noted many, many of the persons working in government during WWII who had covert relationships with Soviet intelligence changed jobs several times, or in some cases they were "on loan" from one Department of the government to another. nobs 22:11, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Nobs already gave a reference to his WPB employment:

http://www.nacic.gov/history/CIReaderPlain/Vol3Chap1.pdf

Harry Magdoff: Statistical Division of WPB and Office of Emergency Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Commerce Department.

Also reformatted the comments so they are directly attributed to users, hopefully avoiding confusion. --TJive 22:42, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Noel, excellent work and analysis. Yes indeed the term "spy" is applied too loosely too often; we are specifically refering to persons with covert relationship with Soviet intelligence, not the "unwitting type" which do occur, and I am working on a glossary of terminology which should help. For the record, here is more from Haynes and Klehr that references Magdoff:

• Venona 629 KGB New York to Moscow, 5 May 1944
• Venona 687 KGB New York to Moscow, 13 May 1944
• Venona 769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, part 1
• Venona 769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, part 2
• Venona 769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, part 3
• Venona 179, 180 KGB Moscow to New York, 25 February 1945, uses codename "Tan"

Elizabeth Bentley told the FBI that on a rainy Sunday in March of 1944, at a meeting with the Perlo group, Harry Magdoff had been on sick leave recovering from an operation and was about to return to work at the War Production Board. The FBI checked and found that Magdoff had been on sick leave from January 10 to Marcy 7 1944 for a gall bladder operation, and that it had rained in New York on both Sunday February 27 and March 5, 1944.

Source: Elizabeth Bentley deposition, 30 November 1945, FBI file 65-14603; Elizabeth Bentley, Out of Bondage: The Story of Elizabeth Bentley, New York: Ivy Books, 1988), pgs. 163-165; New York FBI memo, 16 January 1947, FBI Silvermaster file (FBI file 65-56402), serial 1936. nobs 20:58, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I am not extremely knowledgeable on the specifics of the McCarthy era (other than how he was a bad dude -- learned that from my 8th grade ex-hippie teacher) but if sufficient evidence has been produced that Magdoff was a spy or some kind of intelligence asset, then we can retain the reference to McCarthyism in there without making him sound like a perfectly innocent victim. J. Parker Stone 05:59, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

"Forefront of leftist thought"

If this is true, I'd assume it'd have been in the '60s and '70s amongst the New Left. "Socialist" or "Marxist thought" would probably be more accurate, "leftist" strikes me as a little too broad for someone like Magdoff. Other than that, I just have to ask was he really a prominent figure (outside of this monthlyreview source, which naturally is gonna be complimentary) compared to others on the New Left? J. Parker Stone 05:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Sure - he was one of the Soviet Union's top spies! Ruy Lopez 05:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

har har. J. Parker Stone 06:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

The New Left did not pass from the scene after the 1970s. The Monthly Review, New Left Review, and Journal of World System Research still publish some influential academic books, particularly in sociology and political economy. If you're going to study history and politics, there's a chance that you might be assigned Duncan Green's Sielent Revolution, David Harvey's New Imperialism, or Michel Beaud's History of Capitalism in one course or another, which were published by Monthly Review. 172 | Talk 06:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

goddammit 172 why'd you have to inform me of this, i'm already worried enough about the pinko professors i'm gonna have to listen to. btw, for now i'm gonna be majoring in econ.

getting back to the issue, my point was that the New Left was at its most influential in the '60s and '70s, even if some of their material is still used in academia. also whether he's really a prominent leftist figure today compared to other folks in mags like The Nation, which as far as I can tell is the most popular leftist publication in the U.S. today. J. Parker Stone 06:53, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Haha. In that case, you might be relatively safe; sociology departments are usually teaming with the most pinkos, while economics departments usually have the least... I see your point now. I'll go ahead and insert "leftist" and "socialist." 172 | Talk 07:34, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

my dad had a communist professor in Econ, but that was at UCSC, so yeah. banana slugs. J. Parker Stone 07:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

It is my understanding that Monthly Review is considerably more influential outside the US than inside, in places like India and Africa. IIRC, there are/have been translations of it in various languages. By Monthly Review, I also mean the MR crowd: Sweezy, Huberman, Magdoff, and many of the writers they published. -- Viajero | Talk 17:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

That's a good point to add to its pockets of influence in the U.S. in academia. Of course, there's also the influence in Russia, given that Magdoff has long been one of the Kremlin's top moles in the U.S. 172 | Talk 22:56, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't doubt that Marxist opinion in general is much more popular in certain third world countries, but I was making my comments based on the fact that Magdoff is a U.S. citizen and MR is based in the U.S. J. Parker Stone 04:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. But Misplaced Pages is an international project with readers from around the world. -- Viajero | Talk 09:34, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Well I have no major objections to how 172 changed the phrase. My only thought about the general article now is that it seems a little laudatory in certain spots since it's based on an article from the MR, but nothing horrendous. I ain't gonna get involved in the whole spy v. McCarthyite mess. J. Parker Stone 09:42, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Procedure

Let me first insert for the record, two terms I dislike and try to avoid are "spy" and "treason", while the first is sometimes unavoidable, the second is virtually non-existent in any of my wikipedia contributions, unless it occurs in a direct attributed quote, where the subject of the quote is something else.

That said, the proper proceedure is to (First) examine the credibility of the source, and (Second) examine the substance of source material. Any objections? nobs 17:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

By all means, and let's have the discussion on a seperate page while the claims are sorted out: ]--Cberlet 22:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Let's discuss the credibility of each source cited, then discuss substance. Agreed? nobs 00:56, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, but it will make life easier to move the discussion over to the other page, and attempt to rewrite the section and then consider moving it all back. It's not like th charges have vanished. Please give me a few minutes to write a little something on the other page.--Cberlet 01:20, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Here is the page: Conspiracy allegations about Harry Magdoff The title is a bit POV :-) but I did edit the lead to be less confrontational.--Cberlet 01:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet:

1. You need to stop moving large swaths of info to a non-NPOV page in order to discredit information by labeling it is a conspiracy theory, or "allegation". The info is a concise section that does not make Magdoff's bio large in and of itself.
2. Please quit condescendingly alluding to anyone's work on these articles as being related to McCarthy or McCarthyism, and quit alleging original research until you have evidence to prove the assertion. 172 has already come in saying the same things you have and had no more proof than has been given so far.
3. The discussion should continue here, not at the ridiculous POV page, and the page should be put up for Vfd. --TJive 01:39, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

I am trying to see that a constructive conversation takes place. Stop being so agressive and making demands. In my view the material is speculative POV that is way too large given the rest of the text on the page. I have started a reasonable conversation on the other page which is directly linked to this one. Feel free to rename it. But please start be entering into a real discussion there first. there are other editors on this page that think the accusations againt Magdoff are simply bogus.--Cberlet 03:21, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Saw you comment regarding misrepresentation. would be happy to discuss it. nobs 14:47, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

We are discussing it on the other page. You are welcome to join in.--Cberlet 15:22, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

References

PLEASE NOTE: The REFERENCE MATERIAL asked for was for the other page where there is a clear notice at the top that says: "You are welcome to edit this article, but please do not blank, merge, or move this article, or remove this notice while the discussion is in progress. For more information, read the Guide to Votes for Deletion.' That's where the reverences belong. Thanks for providing them there. Please stop violating clear Wiki policy by suggesting that I am reverting material improperly.--Cberlet 18:03, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

• Uh, I'm not really sure I understand what you are saying. There is no Misplaced Pages policy stating that references do not belong in an article. In fact, you are supposed to cite your sources. The status of Conspiracy allegations about Harry Magdoff shouldn't mean anything in regards to references being listed here. --18:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Because they are references to text that was moved to another page Conspiracy allegations about Harry Magdoff. The references to that text thus were moved to the other page. The references being discussed now have no connection whatsoever to the text remaining on this page, and the very nature of them as accurate in establishing the claims being made (on the other page, not on this page) are being challenged on that other page. Complicated, I know, but once there was a call for a vote for deletion, the text on that new page being voted on is covered by the statement noted above, "please do not blank, merge, or move this article, or remove this notice while the discussion is in progress." Based on current voting patterns, the text that can be verified, including the appropriate references, will be back here shortly.--Cberlet 18:41, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Sources and POV

Let's start by trying to find some neutral language to set the stage. People who believe in the claims about Magdoff being tied to the KGB are "Believers" while those who are skeptical are "Skeptics."

I'm a Skeptic, but I have edited another page with similar issues, including Venona documents, and folks ended up writing a compromise text.

The Skeptics need to see that the Believers have real published cites that cannot be ignored or simply dismissed as right-wing propaganda.

The Believers need to see that the Skeptics have real published cites that cannot be ignored or simply dismissed as left-wing propaganda.

These are largely mutually exclusive positions, and it is unlikely that one side will convince the other.

So what is a fair and NPOV edit?

That's what we will discuss here.

To start, there is a language problem. There is a difference between witting and unwitting information sources used by the KGB. There are KGB case officers, KGB operatives, and KGB agents. In tradecraft lingo, the KGB agent is a witting non-KGB-employee information source. This can be a paid or unpaid position. But the witting aspect is important.

Then there is the issue that intelligence operatives often write material later found in intelligence agency files that is not, in fact, true; and which tends to be written in a way that advances their career. So people they talk to who are not aware that they are talking to KGB operatives are frequently converted in the files into witting agents. This is quite common. See the work of Frank Donner for verification.

Few people have actually read the Vanona files, and those that have often disagree over what they reveal. We need to represent the Belivers and Skeptics in this regard. Most readers of the files have viewed them from a highly POV perspective.

Finally, many people who testified before McCarthy era committees made "sworn" statements that were never verified. Much of their claims have been challenged in published works. Some witnesses later recanted. Some witnesses made claims that were later verified. This is part of the story as well.

So as we examine the credibility of the sources for this section of the text, all of these factors need to be discussed in a reasonable and careful way that assumes good faith.

I have a POV about this matter, but so does everyone else. Let's all step back and try to edit fairly. For a start. I am deleting my original opening comments on this page. They did not assume good faith. I apologize.--Cberlet 01:45, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet, your actions today in general have not assumed good faith. Nobs has indicated to me that he does not wish to respond here as this page is inherently POV and I agree with him. Move your comments to Talk:Harry Magdoff and we can discuss it. --TJive 02:05, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet, I agree here with your comments regarding the need to cool down and respect others' POV. However so far you have failed to understand why creating this page has been so far the worst thing towards achieving this. Not only do you admit to angrily creating a POV-laced fork, it forbids us from taking a look at differences between the material in the overall context of Magdoff. Certainly if there is any compromise whatsoever on the point of espionage it is not necessary whatsoever to have a separate article, so in effect you unilaterally created a sandbox to keep out info you personally dispute. It was inflammatory and only complicated matters.

Regarding what else you have written, it is mainly vaguely referenced problems with VENONA itself, and there is no mention of how this may or may not apply specifically to Harry Magdoff where the information is corroborated in other sources as well. Are you suggesting Magdoff is unwitting? That the agents lied? Where is your proof? What is a source that claims this at least besides Wiki editors? Otherwise that is the only thing original research, not anything written so far. --TJive 19:42, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

I believe Cberlet has misread the significance of the Boardman memo; it is not the working papers of the Army Signals Intelligence Service, or FBI Counterintelligence investigators, trying to match code names to suspects. It is the end product of that effort. And the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, as well as the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive "Official History", and the Archivist of the National Security Agency (custodian of documents for the Signals Intelligence Service) all come to the same conclusion. Efforts to discredit Elizabeth Bentley no longer will hold up, nor any of the recycled arguements of the past half century from The Nation magazine. nobs 20:07, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Note to Cberlet: While I appreciate your contributions, and would like to work with you, I politiely request that you place your notes as footnotes, as other editors have done. Many of the issues these notes raise are valid, and many also are incomplete or could be balanced with other material. So as not to break the continuity, for now I request you follow the established format, and we can discuss particulars to these insertions. Please note, I do not adopt a method of beginning with a conclusionary premise, i.e. beginning a subject with a preordained conclusion in mind, then seek out the evidence to support that conclusion. Rather, I use the historical method of Contemporaneous corroboration, moving along a fixed timeline and seeking (as under Mosaic Law) corroboration for narrative. And where corroboration does not exist, then a clear identification of the witness in question along with attestations to credibilty. I beleive we can work together, but lets agree on method. Thank you so much. nobs 19:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Bentley

Elizabeth Bentley named over 80 supposed American spies, which if true means the KGB must have been one of the most incompetent spy organizations around. Most spy agencies wouldn't give their own case officers, people of their own nationality and who had been vetted, over 80 people to handle. If they defected it would be a disaster. But to let an American know of who over 80 spies are? It's preposterous. A cornerstone of spycraft is Need To Know. Yet the KGB let her know her - a foreigner, the identities of over 80 spies? This seems rather ridiculous. Only in an atmosphere of hysteria, a witch hunt, would the logical fallacies of this be apparent.

What is the evidence that Magdoff was a spy? "It was obvious to that these people, including Abt, had been associated for some time and that they had been engaged in some sort of espionage for Earl Browder." OK, well why was that obvious? "There followed then a general discussion among all of us as to the type of information which these people, excepting Abt, would be able to furnish." I have seen this before in Red Scare cases. If a group of communists are sitting around, and one of them begins talking about his job, that becomes them discussing information that they're able to furnish. She didn't even say anyone furnished information, whatever that means, they just mentioned that they were able to furnish information, whatever that means. I should also mention that witnesses like Bentley were coached into what to say, which doesn't mean it's untrue, but the language of an innocent discussion of a day of work becomes transformed into a sinister communist plot. It should be recalled that the USSR was the US's ally during World War II also - these were not a bunch of former German-American Bund members talking about troop movements.

And I haven't even gotten into the stretching of what barely amounts to circumstantial evidence about Magdoff in Venona, being turned into proof that Magdoff was a Soviet spy.

And what came of all of this for Magdoff? Nothing. During the Red Scare people were thrown in jail, they were executed, why did nothing happen regarding all of this, if Magdoff was some kind of spy? Magdoff is still alive, and living in the New York City metropolitan area. If there's proof he's a spy, why hasn't he been arrested? Ruy Lopez 01:51, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

As I have pointed out to you before (and which you conveniently ignore), no less a source than Pavel Sudoplatov, a two-star general in the NKVD who ran the NKVD's "Administration for Special Tasks", says in his autobiography Special Tasks (pp. 217) that:

"For the FBI to utilize the disclosures by Guzenko, and later by Elizabeth Bentley, an American NKVD agent, to penetrate and destroy our agent networks was not an easy job."

thereby confirming that she really was an NKVD agent, and really did blow real agents/sources to the US authorities. If you won't believe a KGB two-star general (and note that Sudoplatov did not defect to the West, but stayed in Russia), exactly how good a source would it take to convince you she was for real?

To answer some of your other points, as for Most spy agencies wouldn't give their own case officers, people of their own nationality .. over 80 people to handle, this is simly untrue. Many defectors have blown hundreds of agents, e.g. Philip Agee and Vasili Mitrokhin; if I had time to look through my library I could dig up others who caused the same kind of damage.

Bentley knew so many agents/sources in part because she was a courier for Jacob Golos, and for others, for many years. Note, however, that she did not know the names for many of them - one famous example is Julius Rosenberg, whose name she did not know, but with whom she had had contact.

As to why Magdoff was never tried, I can only guess it was because he was a minor figure in the network, against whom the public evidence (remember, VENONA was secret - it wasn't used against the Rosenbergs) was thin, and by the time more evidence surfaced, the statute of limitations had run out. Noel (talk) 20:32, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Agee was a case officer - and he did not blow the cover of over 80 people that he had been a case officer of. Other people gave (and give) information to Agee, and he was and is simply the conduit for those people. He has not blown the cover of hundreds of people, he has been the conduit for hundreds of people's cover blown. As far as Vasili Mitrokhin, when he presented his services to the US, the US believed he was a red herring sent by Soviet intelligence, or perhaps BS'ing them for his own reasons, and told him to buzz off. So the CIA certainly seems to think what he had to say is garbage. In other words, your idea that Mitrokhin had real documents is not an opinion shared by the CIA, for one.

I'm not really sure what your point is about some NKVD guy saying she was a spy, wouldn't her saying she was a spy mean a lot more than that? And who ever disputed that she had said that?

Bentley was not a case officer, she was an American. I do not think the KGB would expose half their American spy network to some flaky Vassar girl. She walks into a room and says there is "a general discussion among all of us as to the type of information which these people, excepting Abt, would be able to furnish." I should point out she was coached in her vocabulary as to how to say this. What does this mean? A bunch of people sitting around in a room talking about their day at work could be presented as this. If she acted as a go-fer for Golos, she probably did run into a lot of people in the CP. But as you said, she had limited information. The proof from her that Magdoff was a spy is him and his friends were hanging out and he was talking about his day at work. That seems pretty weak to me. And what comes from Venona seems to be pretty weak to me as well. You are taking very, very scant circumstantial evidence and saying it is absolute proof Harry Magdoff was a Soviet spy. With a lot more evidence to this, if this was a basis for such things, I could prove that the Bush family and Bin Laden family collaborated to make 9/11 happen. I've read what Bentley said and I don't see anything there except she suspected he (and 80+ other people) were spies. It should be pointed out that J. Edgar Hoover objected to the use of Bentley, because he thought her stories were so weak that it would make him and the communist-hunters look bad. You have essentially nothing from her, and nothing from Venona, and you are trying to add 0 and 0 and make it equal 1 - that Magdoff was a spy. It does not add up. Ruy Lopez 02:01, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

(De-indenting) Well, I have now done what I should have done before - actually looked through some books, rather than try and cite instances from memory. So here we go with some people who did blow over 80 sources (if you are allowed to count agents of their own service, it gets really trivial to rack up really big numbers). I stopped at two, but I'm pretty sure there were more - just don't have time to keep looking for the exact cites.

• Vladimir Vetrov, aka Farewell, blew "slightly under a hundred case leads involving a slightly greater number of individuals" (Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors, pp. 321).
• Stanislav Levchenko blew "the KGB's other local assets" in Japan, "some two hundred assorted Japanese 'assets'" (The Storm Birds, pp. 299-300).

As to your reply, I don't know much about Agee, simply remembered that he'd blown a lot of people; I shouldn't have relied on my memory.

As for Vasili Mitrokhin, and your ridiculous claim that the CIA certainly seems to think what he had to say is garbage and the idea that Mitrokhin had real documents is not an opinion shared by the CIA:

• In fact, he was turned away because CIA policy at that time (after the collapse of the Sovet Union) prohibited recruitment of Soviet/Russian intelligence officers, not because the CIA thought his information was "garbage": the CIA's Soviet/East European Division had decided that the KGB was no longer a threat and had instituted a controversial new policy that led CIA officers in the field to turn away many defectors. Paul Redmond, who was then the CIA's deputy chief of counterintelligence, said .. that he sought to take over the Mitrokhin case after other officials had failed to show interest, but by then Mitrokhin had turned to the British. - James Risen, New York Times News Service
• The FBI called his archive "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source".
• Mitrokhin's book is referenced in unclassified studies on the CIA's own website, e,g, here, which I kind of doubt they would do if they thought it was garbage.

So I think Mitrokhin's claims to have revealed "thousands of Soviet agents and intelligence officers in all parts of the globe" are fairly sound.

Ironically, your "no individual would know so many names" reasoning is an exact echo of the attempted debunking of Mitrokhin by a spokeswoman for the SVR, who said "Hundreds of people! That just doesn't happen! .. Any defector could get the name of one, two, perhaps three agents - but not hundreds!" I got a good chuckle out that one.

As far as Bentley goes, and your I do not think the KGB would expose half their American spy network to some flaky Vassar girl comment, I seem to recall (don't have time to track down the citation now; IIRC correctly, it involved using Gold as a courier to both Fuchs and Greenglass) that there was a lot of aggro in the NKVD about tradecraft violations from the network she and Golos headed, so that may be part of the explanation. But as a courier, and a constant companion to the head of the network, it's not too surprising she'd met a lot of sources.

And for the 17th time, I did not say that Magdoff was a "spy", I said he was a "source" - they are very different. Noel (talk) 21:28, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: Why do we have to keep going over the issue of Elizabeth Bentley's credibility. It is irrelevent to this article. All Bentley did was alert counterintelligence to an investigation, the evidence was gathered outside of her testimony in (1) Venona transcripts (2) Soviet Archives. The reasons for Bentley not testifying, and why Magdoff (et al) were never prosecuted is fully documented. Her credibility matters in none of those issues. You keep reinserting attempts to damage here credibility; what logic or purpose does this serve? that the FBI should not have begun its own investigation because she couldn't be beleived, hence all the other evidence is to be ignored? It is purely an extraneous detraction from the issues under discussion, as any good defense attorney would seek to do. Yet it is wholely irrrelevent. If you insist on a path like this, then expect "Kremlin-directed Stalinist mouthpiece" directed at your "skeptics". As the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy says of Hiss, the issue "seems" settled, so does the ONCIX "confirm" the "accuracy" of Elizabeth Bentley. It is 2005, not 1948 anymore. nobs 18:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Evidence/prosecution

It would seem the point requires particular emphasis that evidence was not forthcoming for a lack of prosecution rather than the other way around. --TJive 20:37, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Why no prosecution is stated here Belmont to Boardman, sec. IV. Prosecution, B. Disadvantages,

"...we do not know if the deciphered messages would be admitted into evidence... the defense attorney would immediately move that the messages be excluded, based on the hearsay ... neither the person who sent the message (Soviet official) nor the person who received it (Soviet official) was available to testify...it would be necessary to rely upon their admission through the use of expert testimony of those who intercepted the messages and those cryptographers who deciphered the messages. A question of law is involved herein. It is believed that the messages probably could be introduced in evidence on the basis of an exception to the hearsay evidence rule

"... the defense probably would be granted authority by the court to have private cryptographers hired by the defense examine the messages as well as the work sheets of the Government cryptographers. ... This would lead to the exposure of Government techniques and practices in the cryptography field to unauthorized persons and thus compromise the Government's efforts

The Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy reports the same conclusion. nobs 21:01, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Golos made contact with the Perlo group in November 1943 (Haynes & Klehr, chap. 5); Golos died the same month, November 27 1943. Bentley was put in charge of all Golos contacts then by Earl Browder; five days after Golos death Bentley met with a contact who put her in contact with Golos old Soviet contact. The Soviet's were immediately concerned about having a flaky Vassar girl in control of such a vital element. But the Soviet's had other problems too, the War, the disbanding of the Comintern created much confussion. Bentley had her first meeting with the Perlo group at the end of Feb or early Mar 1944, as referenced in detail in Magdoff article. I can show other Venona decrypts, how the Soviets wanted to take control of the Bentley's operations, but were prevented by Browder. But by the end of 1944, they did just that, they pushed her out of the way and took control. She know roughly 42 or 47 members by personal contact, dating back to 1938; other members she only knew through cut outs, like Harry Dexter White or William Henry Taylor. That is a big reason for her defection, having been removed from control, she knew she knew too much, and her life was in danger, seeing she was of no more use to the Soviets. And it was the FBI that pumped her for every scrape of information possible, including names of people she was recieving information from through cut outs. So it is the FBI that can rightly be criticized, for having to rely on second hand information from Bentley, cause they couldn't do their own job right (IMHO, criticism of Bentley is unfair in this regard, and should be placed on the FBI). The Gorsky Report is available at two places on line George Mason University History News Network and John Earl Haynes site . you will see they are virtually identical, and list Harry Magdoff as a member of the Sound & Myrna groups (Golos & Bentley groups). nobs 02:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I should also add that Elizabeth Bentley lost a libel suit against one of the people she accused, William Remington Ruy Lopez 16:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I think that would be an excellent fact to mention in her article. Noel (talk) 21:28, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the endorsement, User:Nobs01 keeps removing it. Ruy Lopez 06:18, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Tags

Let's be serious about compromise and constructive editing here. Drop the delete. Drop the merge. If it gets merged back after we have talked for awhile, fine, but lets not start out by having a revert war. There is no point. --Cberlet 03:09, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet, there was an already an edit war over the article, and there was lots of pertinent discussion on the talk page, both of which you may find by a quick glance. That is part of why moving the content and attempting to start talk anew was inappropriate and seen as a bad faith affront. I am perfectly calm, however, but there is no reason to move the content and discussion here. --TJive 03:18, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Note that instead of waiting for the outcome of the VfD vote and Merge notice that TJive initiated, the material being debated was unilaterally merged back into the main article, where it now forms the largest block of text on a biography page. --Cberlet 12:30, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll repeat what I said there as well.

Cberlet, you are the one who unilaterally moved all of the text from the main article to a POV fork without consensus and without even asking anyone's thoughts; I was simply correcting this move. It was already the largest section (by text) on the page when you got there. The reason being the section was challenged factually so we backed it up in the most concise manner possible. Also, this page is not for the purpose of debating the merits of the claims but whether this page as it is should exist. --TJive 19:45, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of underlying documents

I have discovered shocking evidence that the claims on this page have misrepresented the underlying documentation cited.

According to an FBI memo dated May 15, 1950, Harry Magdoff was listed as one of a group of "individuals positively or tentatively identified" as part of a KGB set of assets, with the names agreeing with information "furnished me by Elizabeth Bentley."

But in a memo February 1, 1956 discussing in detail the problem of actually properly identifying people in the Venona material when cover names are used, there is a specific reference to the cover name "Magdoff-Kant" followed by the parenthetical phrase "(probably Harry Magdoff)"

So this identification of Harry Magdoff "tentively" and "probably" has been promoted into an actual positive identification. This assumption is periodically made throughout various government intelligence documents, but in the memo wrapping up the investigation and prosectuion based on this information (in which Magdoff was never indicted) the summary concludes that the identification of Harry Magdoff is still uncertain.--Cberlet 13:46, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

The 1 February 1956 memo Belmont to Boardman (1) discusses in detail the problems of prosecution based on Venona material (not "actually identifying people", as misrepresented above); (2) the Belmont to Boardman memo refers to "Magdoff-Kant" as "probably Magdoff"; in the next paragraph it refers to "Kant" as "Magdoff" (I know it's an old cliche to argue what "is" is, but "Magdoff-Kant" is a different spelling from "Kant"), as the memo reads, identification of "Kant" is postive as "Magdoff", and the identification of "Magdoff-Kant" is probable as "Magdoff". And the discussion following those two references sites this as corroboration of Elizabeth Bentley's depositition. nobs 15:41, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Preposterous.--Cberlet 16:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Please do not move my comments around. There is an ongoing vote regarding this page Please respect the democratic process.--Cberlet 16:16, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Boardman to Belmont

Text IV. PROSECUTION :

"...It is also evident that a public disclosure of (S) information would corroborate Elizabeth Bentley."

The Perlo group fits into the (S) information when we examine the following message of 5/13/44:

"Mayor" (unidentified) in NYC personally prepared a report to MGB headquarters in Moscow advising that some unspecified action had been taken regarding "Good Girl" (Bentley) in accordance with instructions of "Helmsman" (Earl Browder). "Mayor" then made reference to winter and also to "Magdoff-'Kant' "(Probably Harry Magdoff). This latter reference was then followed by a statement that in "Good Girl's" opinion "they" are reliable. It was also mentioned that no one had interested himself in their possibilities.

The name "Storm" (unidentified) was mentioned and it was then reported that "Raider" (Victor Perlo), "Plumb" (Charles Kramer), "Ted" (Edward Fitzgerald) and "Kant" (Harry Magdoff) would take turns coming to NY every two weeks. "Mayor" said "Plumb" and "Ted" knew "Pal" (Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, whose cover name was later changed to "Robert").

With reference to the foregoing, it is to be recalled that Elizabeth Bentley advised that Jacob Golos informed her he had made contact with a group in Washington, D.C. through Earl Browder. After the death of Golos in 1943, two meetings were arranged with this group in 1944. The first meeting was arranged by Browder and is believed to have been held on 2/27/44. The meetings were held in the apartment of John Abt in NYC and Bentley was introduced to four individuals identified as Victor Perlo, Charles Kramer, Harry Magdoff and Edward Fitzgerald.

nobs 16:27, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

The information provided by Elizabeth Bentley was considered so weak and questionable that even Hoover resisted attempts to use it in prosecutions of the alleged "spy ring." I do not dispute that from the perspective of the KGB they were in touch with people they considered to be sympathisers. At issue is what has been published regarding an analysis of the situation. There are two opposing camps looking at the same historic record and reaching different conclusions. The text about Harry Magdoff has been a highly POV one-sided rendition of the published material (plus original research) featuring government agents and militant anti-communists.--Cberlet 16:39, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems you have yet to read entire Belmont to Boardman 1 February 1956 memo (about 14 pages); that is absolutely necessary to gain any foundational grasp of the significance of Venona project materials. You will note, in Section II. WHO HAS KNOWLEDGE OF VENONA PROJECT INFORMATION?, J. Edgar Hoover did not have knowledge, so any reference to Hoover is insignificant. I appreciate very much your reading the two paragraphs on the Boardman memo that mentioned Magdoff's name, however the 57 year old arguements directed at Elizabeth Bentley's credibility will not stand up in light of a reading of the "historical record", as you so state. nobs 16:53, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Bentley: Stephen J. Spingarn, Attorney, U.S. Treasury Dept., 1934-41; Asst. to the Attorney General of the United States, 1937-38; Special Asst. to the Gen. Counsel, Treasury Dept., 1941-42; Asst. Gen. Counsel, Treasury Dept., 1946-49; Alternate Member, President's Temp. Comm. on Employee Loyalty, 1946-47; Asst. to the Special Counsel of the President, 1949-50; Administrative Asst. to the President, 1950 said of Bentley:

"I have no doubt that the main thrust of what Elizabeth Bentley says was correct—I mean I believe it—but on any given peripheral individual whom she didn't know but only heard about I would certainly want a lot more information";

(From the Truman Presidential Library Oral History Interview with Stephen J. Spingarn

Spingarn is questioning only persons Bentley did not meet; as the materials corroborated above demonstrate, Bentley met Magdoff face-to-face in clandestine meetings. nobs 17:12, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Point of clarification: I misspoke a moment ago in saying J. Edgar had no knowledge; this is incorrect. With reference to Cberlet claim "The information provided by Elizabeth Bentley was considered so weak and questionable that even Hoover resisted attempts to use it in prosecutions", that was indeed the position of the FBI and its Director, as again the Belmont to Boardman, sec. IV. Prosecution demonstrates. Bentley's testimony needed corroboration; the memo discusses the legal aspects of defendents rights, how a defense attorney would move to dispense Venona transcripts as "hearsay", how the cryptographers would then have to be called as expert witnessess, and thus compromise the program. The twist Cberlet puts on the decision not to prosecute is that Bentley's credibitly was in question; the Boardman memo is the actual source (weather Cberlet understands or not) of the FBI's decision not to prosecute (not J. Edgar, as Cberlet alleges), considering the information "weak". It was fear of compromising the Venona project why Magdoff was not prosecuted. And the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy Report will likewise support this conclusion. nobs 17:52, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet said: The text about Harry Magdoff has been a highly POV one-sided rendition of the published material (plus original research)

Please elaborate on how the material is either POV or original research. --TJive 19:51, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

1). There are published sources that claim Magdoff was an agent of the KGB. Cite them here. It is not acceptable to have Wiki editors doing original research based on their reading of the Vanona documents. 2). Different people read the Vanona and other documents with a different perspective. It is clear that the KGB thought of Magdoff as a source of information. What is not clear is if there is sufficient evidence to say outright that Magdoff was a witting agent of the KGB. Most of the material on the page is actually original research based on a POV reading of the documents. A more skeptical reading produces a different perspective.--Cberlet 22:10, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet plenty of sources were provided (rather specifically) before you even moved the article. --TJive 01:05, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Published sources

• Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, A Counterintelligence Reader, vol. 3, chap. 1, p. 31. (Official History of Counterintelligence Operations in the United States)
• Archives of the National Security Agency (custodian of documents for the Army Signals Intelligence Agency)
• Alexandre Feklisov, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs: Memoirs of the KGB Spymaster Who Also Controlled Klaus Fuchs and Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Enigma, 2001). ISBN 1929631081
• Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). ISBN 0300077718
• Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); p. 312 (Document 90) reproduces a copy of the September 29, 1944 Fitin to Dimitrov memo (RTsKhIDNI 495-74-485). ISBN 0300068557
• Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill Anderson, The Soviet World of American Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). ISBN 0300071507
• Herbert Romerstein, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors (Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2000). ISBN 0895262754
• Herbert Romerstein, Stanislav Levchenko, The KGB Against the "Main Enemy": How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1989). ISBN 0669112283
• Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999). ISBN 0788164228
• Nigel West, Venona: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War (London: HarperCollins, 1999). ISBN 0006530710
• Elizabeth Bentley, Out of Bondage: The Story of Elizabeth Bentley, New York: Ivy Books, 1988. ISBN 0804101647
• Vladimir Pozniakov, A NKVD/NKGB Report to Stalin: A Glimpse into Soviet Intelligence in the United States in the 1940's

The above list contains no FBI files, which are available if needed.

Wow three Klehr/Haynes books, great.

Then we have that scholarly work with the scholarly title "The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors". Let's look at the blurb from its inside flap - "New information that links Albert Einstein to Soviet intelligence and conclusive evidence showing that J. Robert Oppenheimer gave Moscow our atomic secrets". Hey, how come you haven't added Einstein and Oppenheimer to your list of Soviet stooges along with Stone and Magdoff? This is published by Regnery, a publisher which actually loses money every year, but is kept afloat by well-heeled conservative foundations so as to "get the message out". Here's some more scholarly works put out by this publisher last year:

• Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security.
• Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left.
• In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror.
• Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

Thanks for showing what your "scholarly" sources are. Ruy Lopez 01:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, as a matter of fact Oppie is mentioned in the Venona transcripts, and listed in Haynes & Klehr's Appendix D as being uncorroborated; on my timetable, I guesstimate sometime in the next two years I will be able to fully deal with that subject, once having completed the New York & Washington Rezidenturas. Then I will have time to deal exclusively with the KGB San Fransisco decrypts. Meantime, others are working on that. Oppie fits in with Isaac Folkoff. Also, as the evidence is uncovered there, the Rosenberg saga will probably have to be rewritten. Yes, they indeed were patsies and scapegoats and willingly went to the chair to coverup higher ups. Also, the 1953 Testimony of Paul Crouch released in 2003 before the PSI names Oppenhiemer pointedly as a member of the CPUSA. So if you feel the necesity to include Oppie's name on the list, by all means do so, just place an (*) after it to signify the source. As to Einstein, I know only vague references to that, but have heard a quote to the effect he regretted ever coming to America. I'm not sure what it's significance is. nobs 01:36, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Einstein was associated with several communist front groups but has never been shown to be involved in espionage. Are strawmen and ad hominems all you ever carry? --TJive 01:48, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Also, I do not recall citing that book in the article. It is merely mentioned for being a VENONA reference. --TJive 01:50, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

There is an active discussion going on at Talk:Robert_Oppenheimer#CPUSA. Letter from Boris Merkulov to Lavrenty Beria is of interest. nobs 01:55, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Note: Extraneous reference material inserted as a response to User:Ruy Lopez from Marquette University Libraries, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, FBI, "Series 6, Albert Einstein , who hold the FBI documents, quote from the introduciton:

"Physicist Albert Einstein was investigated by the FBI because of his affiliation with the Communist Party. Einstein was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four Communist groups, and served as honorary chairmen of three Communist organizations."

Now, simply find the specific references to Harry Magdoff in the published material cited above, find a quote about Magdoff, cite it, and plunk it into the text to replace the material that gives the appaearance of being original document research.--Cberlet 12:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The only reference to Magdoff in "Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, A Counterintelligence Reader, vol. 3, chap. 1, p. 31. (Official History of Counterintelligence Operations in the United States)" is a section listing the allegations of Elizabeth Bentley, so to claim that the U.S. government identified Magdoff as a spy by citing this document is a misrepresentation of the underlying document.--Cberlet 16:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

It is clear that many of the citations other than those traceable to Bentley do not support the claims that Magdoff was a witting intelligence agent for the KGB. See the notes I have added to the text. Unless there are cites provided to published sources--with quotes and page #s please--that claim that Magdoff was a witting KGB agent, the entire Venona section is original research of primary documents, and therefore should be deleted and replaced with a sentence that accurately reflects the published claims about Magdoff and the KGB.--Cberlet 20:27, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the challenge to Elizabeth Bentley's credibility,A Counterintelligence Reader, vol. 2, chap. 4:

"The VENONA decrypts were, however, to show the accuracy of Chambers' and Bentley's disclosures."

"Elizabeth Bentley was a controversial figure, and there were many who discounted her information. Ms. Bentley appears in the VENONA translations (covernames UMNITSA, GOOD GIRL, and MYRNA) as do dozens of KGB agents and officers whom she named to the FBI. VENONA confirms much of the information about Soviet espionage that Ms. Bentley provided the FBI." nobs 18:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Right, Bentley was controversial, and one U.S. spy agency report is quoted as saying "VENONA confirms much of the information about Soviet espionage that Ms. Bentley provided the FBI." Fine. We will report published quotes regarding both sides of that issue. Not a problem. Now what does this have to do with Harry Magdoff? "MUCH" information is not good enough. "Show the accuracy" is not good enough. Clearly there were KGB officers, operatives, and agents active in the U.S. during this period. More than many people on the left care to admit. Fine. Now there is more evidence. Agreed. Venona was a significant addition to the historic record. Agreed.

Where are there actual published quotes claiming Harry Magdoff was a spy? We know Bentley thought he was. We know people say he was close to the CPUSA. We know that the KGB wanted information about him from the Venona material, but that is (so far) original research. Your interpretation of how the Venona material--in your analysis--shows a connection to Harry Magdoff is fascinating. You should put up a website making your assertions. But none of that matters here. Where are the quotes from published material claiming Harry Magdoff was a KGB agent or witting information source for the KGB?--Cberlet 20:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I would be happy to respond, but truthfully it would be redundant of the material presented on this Talk page, and in the article. nobs 00:14, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet's original research

Cberlet, you are here yourself engaging in original research and yet you claim it is the work of others that violates this policy. For example:

Several historians and researchers claim that Harry Magdoff was among a number of Soviet intelligence sources within the U.S. government, but whether or not Magdoff was aware he was being used as an information source by the KGB is hotly contested and has never been proven.

Who says this is even an issue? Who has "contested" whether or not he witting? Besides Wiki editors?

document that from the KGB perspecitve, a number of persons were seen as information sources by the Soviet spy agency.

This is almost laughably pedantic. Who claims that Magdoff was not an information source?

Note: this includes a discussion of the difficulty of establishing that Harry Magdoff is the person being discussed in the Venona intercepts.

You are attempting to qualify an information source based on your own interpretation of it. Incidentally, the author of the single equivocation ("probably") pertaining to Magdoff is unclear, it is not repeated, and the memo goes on to say that this corroborates Elizabeth Bentley and that prosecution is undesirable because of the compromises involved in using the information.

Note: only ID of Harry Magdoff is that Elizabeth Bentley ID's him as member of "Perlo" group.

I like how in nearly every given reference you keep repeating "only"; "only" in fifteen separate instances is there a reference which describes Magdoff's involvement.

Note: No direct ID of Harry Magdoff as information source - only request for more information about him.

"No direct ID". Does every single reference require that, "Harry Magdoff provided us with XXXX information on YYYY date" or else you are going to qualify it as not meeting an arbitrary standard of yours in and of itself? The memo establishes a response in Moscow to information sent from New York where information is requested about members to complete their recruitment. "Magdoff, works on the WPB" is listed plain as day. Magdoff worked on the production board, and he was listed in very similar references from the earlier NY-Moscow cables.

"MAGDOFF - "KANT" . GOOD GIRL's impressions: They are reliable FELLOWCOUNTRYMEN , politically highly mature; they want to help with information. They said that they had been neglected and no oone had taken any interest in their potentialities" Note: ID of "MAGDOFF - "KANT" is in context of discussing TWO people, not one person with the cover name "KANT." They are discussed as possible information sources by KGB agent. Not evident that they are aware that person is KGB agent. Note identifying "KANT" as Harry Magdoff is not in original transmission, and contradicts the text of the transmission.

These are completely the speculations of yourself and have no place in this article. I have no idea where your "two people" idea came from. As you should have noticed in the text there are "53 groups unrecoverable"; names of other people in this cable were not decrypted, and Magdoff comes at the end of the list. This singular identity is corroborated as far as other VENONA cables where the same "KANT" is mentioned as being on the WPB, and Magdoff is mentioned elsewhere. Also, the text is already cited.

Note: No direct mentions of Harry Magdoff in original communications

There is no single reference in these to "Harry Magdoff" no, but this doesn't matter.

Other problems:

Moving the Bentley stuff screws up the narrative and the footnotes. There is no reason for it.

Some claim the code name "Kant" in the Venona transcripts is Harry Magdoff.

This makes the section redundant.

Kant was identified by Arlington Hall cryptographers in the VENONA cables and by FBI counterintelligence investigators as being a Soviet information source described using the cover name "KANT" as of 1944.

Really? Kant was identified as Kant? No, the investigators identified Kant as Magdoff.

Note: reference to Magdoff is in this context: "All these documents are NMS ID and FCD Chiefs' requests for information related to Americans and naturalized American citizens working in various US Government agencies and private corporations, some of whom had been CPUSA members."

This is superfluous because the source is cited within the article.

Cberlet you have claimed a few times now that the work in the article is based on original research and our own look at the primary documents but we have cited multiple instances where government and independent researchers have come to the conclusion about Magdoff based upon their own look into primary sources. Yet to counter this you have given your own tendentious (and even simply erroneous) readings of the documents themselves with no citation to back that up; that is what constitutes original research. --TJive 20:32, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Please provide the quotes from published secondary sources (not primary documents where you have done original research) that claim that Harry Magdoff was a Soviet spy. So far there is one cite that has been provided that relies solely on Bentley. --Cberlet 20:46, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

This is incorrect. West is secondary (and he's a writer who specializes in this topic, too), and he is not relying on Bentley. And if you're referring to "The Secret World of American Communism" with your mention of one cite that .. relies solely on Bentley, it doesn't - see pp. 313-317. Noel (talk) 16:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? That's your only response? That you want direct quotes from the dozen publications listed here? Do you realize how long and redundant this article will be if we have to do that?

You are doing your own original research and so far you have yet to support the assertion on anyone else's part. --TJive 20:53, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

If there is so much of it, why is there a problem providing it? What I am trying to point out, is that most of the text on THIS page under discussion asserting Magdoff is a spy, is original research. If Romerstein or Klehr have made the assertion, by all means cite it. --Cberlet 20:58, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Chip there have already been numerous references given in the notes and published reference works. Even if you just follow the footnotes you will come up with examples like this one:

http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page44.html#_ftn41

Magdoff, an economist, was a source for Bentley’s Perlo network. He worked for the War Production Board in World War II and then for the Commerce Department. He appeared in 1944 Venona messages as a Soviet source under the cover name Kant. Tan appeared only once in the deciphered Venona traffic, in a 1945 message, and was unidentified; but the context was consistent with it being Magdoff. Tan, it appears, had replaced Kant as Magdoff’s cryptonym in 1945.

There are others given in the Talk:Harry Magdoff page from among the listed books. All this accomplishes is wasting everyone's time on a red herring to satisfy an objection that will quickly be replaced by another one on the morrow. --TJive 21:09, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

None of the above insertions were sourced, None. And this after the demand was made to footnote and source the material which was removed from the Harry Magdoff article. This is clearly, clearly an unfair burden being demanded. nobs 21:14, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it so difficult to understand my point? 90% of the text under discussion does not belong on the Harry Magdoff page. A handful of authors have read the primary documents and concluded Magdoff was in some way involved with providing information that turned up in KGB files. There are several indications that Magdoff was given a code name by the KGB. So what? "He appeared in 1944 Venona messages as a Soviet source under the cover name Kant." Good quote. Does not say Magdoff was a spy, does it? Try another one.--Cberlet 21:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Wow.

It does not say he was a "spy" because the term is imprecise and is not even being applied to Magdoff. Having "involvement in espionage" does not mean you are a "spy" in the traditional sense. Magdoff is being accused of supplying secret information to the Soviets, and thus a "source" having "involvement in espionage" on behalf of the Soviet Union. --TJive 21:25, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

I should note that this, also, was discussed on the Harry Magdoff talk page a long time ago. --TJive 21:28, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Finally!!! Yes, but then why does it take up most of the Harry Magdoff article??? Here is what Victor Navasky concludes about the anticommunist interpretation of the Venona material:

In Appendix A to their book on Venona, Haynes and Klehr list 349 names (and code names) of people who they say "had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence that is confirmed in the Venona traffic." They do not qualify the list, which includes everyone from Alger Hiss to Harry Magdoff, the former New Deal economist and Marxist editor of Monthly Review, and Walter Bernstein, the lefty screenwriter who reported on Tito for Yank magazine. It occurs to Haynes and Klehr to reprint ambiguous Venona material related to Magdoff and Bernstein but not to call up either of them (or any other living person on their list) to get their version of what did or didn't happen.

The reader is left with the implication--unfair and unproven--that every name on the list was involved in espionage, and as a result, otherwise careful historians and mainstream journalists now routinely refer to Venona as proof that many hundreds of Americans were part of the red spy network.

My own view is that thus far Venona has been used as much to distort as to expand our understanding of the cold war--not just because some researchers have misinterpreted these files but also because in the absence of hard supporting evidence, partially decrypted files in this world of espionage, where deception is the rule, are by definition potential time bombs of misinformation.

Why do we believe documents from spys for any country?--Cberlet 21:29, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

How does Navasky know Klehr didn't call up Magdoff? Also, given that Magdoff took the 5th on this issue years ago, is there any reason to expect he'd talk about it now? Noel (talk) 16:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Victor Navasky is a partisan of the "Old Left" who has not actually given much thought to the documents in question. By the way I read that article long ago. It is basically a wishy-washy polemic which admits that there was espionage but insists that all these poor Stalinists were still being persecuted, still "patriotic" Americans interested in nothing but benign social change through the democratic process.

Yes, as the counterrevisionist scholars argue, Venona half-documents that some CP leaders knew about and may have been middlemen for the receipt of secrets, and perhaps they even recruited some spies. But missing from Venona is the experience of 99.9 percent of the million comrades who passed through the CPUSA during the 1930s and early '40s--stay-at-homes who contented themselves with reading (and sometimes shouting at) the Daily Worker, demonstrators who sang along with Peter Seeger and social activists who organized trade unions and rent strikes in the North and fought lynching and the poll tax in the South.

Such emotive writing has little relevance for facts being established here. However, I will support a reference to Victor Navasky believing that the evidence regarding Magdoff is ambiguous at best, if you really believe that helps the point. --TJive 21:35, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I suppose we are to take that as a procommunist interpretation of the material, which is guarded and defensive at best. But that much is evident in his own writing in the first place. --TJive 21:39, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for red-baiting me. It is too perfect. Actually I am not a fan of communism, and have published my criticisms of Leninism and Stalinism, which you can find on the web, if you actually bothered to do the research. Nor was I a fan of the Soviet union. And I am agnostic on the question of the actual relationship of Harry Magdoff to the KGB. I think the record is unclear. v. --Cberlet 22:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet, I never attacked you; in fact, I wasn't even talking about you. I simply inferred that Victor Navasky's interpretation was procommunist, as would also seem to be the implication of your own remarks. You seem to have attached a negative qualification to these researchers and historians being "anticommunist" as if that is either a character flaw or discredits the work. Certainly there are examples of the reverse, and yes Navasky is one of them. --TJive 22:14, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Here is the fully qualified text from Haynes & Klehr Appendix A, pg. 339 - 340; it was paraphrased on the Venona project page so as not to be copyvio.

APPENDIX A