COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman ESTES KEFAUVER, Tennessee JOSEPH C. O'MAHONEY, Wyoming ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina JOHN L. MCCLELLAN, Arkansas THOMAS C. HENNINGS, JR., Missouri PRICE DANIEL, Texas WILLIAM E. JENNER, Indiana HERMAN WELKER, Idaho JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland ROBERT MORRIS, Chief Counsel SECTION II SOVIET ESPIONAGE IN THE UNITED STATES At its first hearing of the legislative year on February 8, 1956, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee outlined its intentions with respect to investigating the scope of Soviety activity in the United States. "Under consideration," the subcommittee declared, "will be the activities of Soviet agents and agencies not now registered whose activities may warrant legislative action *** to determine to what extent the Soviet activity here is calculated to contribute to Soviet expansion abroad and to what extent it is working to undermine the structure and composition of our own Government here" (p. 2). The opening witness was Lt. Col. Yuri Rastvorov, who had defected in January 1954 from his post in Toyko where he was serving as Soviet military intelligence officer under the cover of a post as second secretary of the Soviet mission. Colonel Rastvorov began his career with the Soviet Intelligence Service in 1940, being trained in the Japanese department of the Moscow Institute of Eastern Studies. In 1943 he was assigned by the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Japanese Department of the Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet Ministry of State Security. In January 1946, he was sent to Tokyo under the guise of a representative of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His service in Tokyo covered two periods: from 1946 to 1947, and from 1950 to 1954 (pp. 4, 800, 801). Mr. Rastvorov described the pattern of Soviet intelligence organization which, he said, applies to the United States as well as Japan. He drew a diagram showing that the Soviet Intelligence Service consists of two parts, the first part being devoted to political intelligence otherwise known as the MVD, and the other known as GRU or military intelligence, which is in turn subdivided into field intelligence, naval intelligence, and others. Intelligence personnel operate in all countries with which the Soviet Union maintains diplomatic relations under direction of a person, usually in the disguise of first, second, or third secretary of the Embassy or occasionally as Ambassador or with some mission. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, through its connections with the Communist parties of the world, maintains its own separate intelligence service. The chief of Soviet intelligence maintains contacts with the illegal part of the Communist Party (pp. 3, 4, 13, 14). The subcommittee was, of course, primarily interested in activity pertaining to the United States. Mr. Rastvorov was familiar with the career of Gaik Badalovich Ovakimian, who operated in the United States until 1941.1 Ovakimian used the cover of the Amtorg Trading 1 Official records show that on May 5, 1941, Ovakimian was arrested by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York City. He was charged with violation of the Foreign Agents' Registration Act. At the time of his arrest, Soviet officials insisted that Ovakimian had immunity as a Soviet official. Ovakimian was subsequently released on $25.000 bail furnished by the Soviet consulate through the Amtorg Trading Corp. Ovakimian never came to trial in this matter. Instead, an agreement was reached between the Soviet Government and the U. S. Department of State whereby Ovakimian was allowed to return to the Soviet Union. He departed from San Francisco, Calif., aboard the Soviet vessel Kim on July 23, 1941. Corp. After he returned to Moscow, he became Deputy Chief of Intelligence with the rank of major general (p. 5). Rastvorov recalled the name of Vassili Mikhailovich Zubilin, alias V. Zarubin," who was third and later second secretary of the Soviet Embassy and simultaneously "boss of MVD intelligence" in the United States. He was in this country from January 1942 to August 1944. His wife, who accompanied him here, also worked as an intelligence officer. A security report in the record of the subcommittee discloses that Steve Nelson, a leading American Communist, advised Zubilin that his work on behalf of the apparatus had been predicated upon a note from Moscow, which had been brought to him by a courier from New York, and that the head of the Communist party in the United States was fully cognizant of the fact that he, Nelson, was engaged in secret work for the Soviets. Nelson discussed thoroughly with Zubilin the various personalities engaged in work for the Comintern apparatus on the west coast (pp. 6, 7, 8). Zubilin returned to the Soviet Union to become major general in intelligence. Zubilin was replaced as chief resident agent of the MVD by Gregory Dolbin, who had served as the head of Soviet intelligence in Tokyo from 1940 to 1944. This was the same man who visited Owen Lattimore in his home and who accompanied Vice President Henry A. Wallace and Lattimore on their trip to the Soviet Union (pp. 8, 9). Sokolov, former Soviet Chief Resident of Intelligence in Tokyo in 1944, was in the United States from 1947 to 1949, occupying a similar position here (p. 9). Sokolov was succeeded by Aleksandr Semenovich Panyushkin. serving as Ambassador. Panyushkin had been the subject of previous testimony by N. E. Khokhlov, a former Soviet agent, who testified about his assignment to assassinate Okolovich, an anti-Soviet leader. Khokhlov declared: I had many conversations with Panyushkin, many instruc- Panyushkin was appointed Soviet Ambassador to the United States in 1947 and served until 1951. He holds the rank of major genera in the MVD (p. 10). He was succeeded in the post of Chief of Soviet Intelligence in Washington, D. C., by Mr. Wladkin.* Mr. Rastvorov knew Anatole Gromov, who had been the contact of Elizabeth Bentley, former Communist espionage agent, and of Lauchlin Currie, who was involved in the same espionage ring. Gromov had been first secretary of the Soviet Embassy (pp. 779, 780). Rastvorov 2 Zubilin was linked with a sensational Soviet spy case January 25, 1957, with the arrest of three New Yorkers-Jack and Myra Soble, and Jacob Albam. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover said the three were picked up as a result of the "scrutiny of the clandestine actiri ties of Vassili Zubilin." Hoover said Soble had long been involved in Soviet intelligence activities, and at one time had under his supervision other Soviet agents in the United States, including Albam. & Activities of Soviet Secret police, May 21, 1954, pp. 24, 25. The diplomatic list issued by the State Department in October 1951 shows a Nikolal A. Vladykin as counselor of the Soviet embassy. identified Gromov as a colonel in the MVD, who was head of its American section from 1948 to 1950. He also added that Kasparov, former chief resident of the Soviet intelligence group in Tokyo, "was in the United States in the beginning of the forties" (p. 13). Jurisdictionally there are two chief resident Soviet agents in the United States. The witness drew a distinction between the MVD group headed by the chief resident agent, attached to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, covering the United States as a whole and another directed by an agent attached to the United Nations. He identified some of the agents in the latter category. One was Sumskoi, who came to the United Nations in the forties, having previously operated at intelligence headquarters in Moscow. Another was Valentin Gubitchev, a Soviet U. N. employee exposed as a confederate of Judith Coplon, who was convicted of transmitting secrets of the Department of Justice where she worked (pp. 11, 12, 13).5 Mr. Rastvorov rated A. E. Titov who was, in September 1954, first secretary of the Russian U. N. delegation, as "probably chief of the intelligence operations" and described him as a close personal friend of Panyushkin (p. 795). The deep interest of Soviet intelligence in the United States is illustrated by Rastvorov's account of his experience with one of his agents named Higurashi, formerly a secretary of the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, and after World War II, an official in the Japanese Foreign Office: * * The information submitted by Higurashi was so detailed * * * My analysis of RON's (Japanese Communist Party) re- RECRUITING METHODS Colonel Rastvorov described in some detail how the MVD recruits its agents. The first source is, of course, those who are ideological supporters of the Soviet Union, including members of the Communist • Miss Coplon's conviction was set aside by the Second Circuit Court on December 5, 1950. Party. Another means is through blackmail against individuals who have relatives in Communist countries, or who have some personal weakness, such as homosexuals. Women agents are often used as decoys to create compromising involvements. Efforts are made to penetrate the most influential circles. Mr. Rastvorov testified: The main objective of the Soviet espionage effort was the infiltration of its agents into the Imperial Court circle, into the Government and business, and into the political parties of Japan. *** As a concurrent mission, the Soviet intelligence organs in Japan were instructed to undertake the espionage operations against the Allied occupation forces, with the first priority of this effort given to the United States and to the British personnel and installations. Immediately after the capitulation of Japan, the intelligence group of the MVD in Tokyo instigated the search for, and the reestablishment of contact with, former Soviet espionage agents. *** Before my departure from Moscow for Tokyo, I was instructed to report for briefing to the Director of the Intelligence Service (MVD), Lieutenant General Fitin. In the course of my visit to Fitin, he underscored and emphasized the need for recruitment of American and British. Referring to his instructions from the Kremlin, he stated that "with the collapse of Hitlerite Germany, our principal enemies remain the United States and Great Britain. This is the direction of the main Soviet effort. ** ** In the immediate postwar period *** numerous "White Russian" émigrés were employed by the American forces of occupation throughout Japan. ***The Soviet intelligence planned to use the "White Russians" recruited by the MVD in at least two capacities. One was to furnish to the MVD intelligence information, and the other, to spot likely American, British, Australian, and Japanese individuals for eventual recruitment as Soviet intelligence agents. *** In 1947, the Politburo of the Communist Party authorized the formation of a special group composed of intelligence officers of the MVD and of the Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet Army General Staff. These groups were intended for conducting recruitment operations among the Japanese, the German, Spanish, and Italian prisoners of war held on the territory of the Soviet Union. * * * During the Korean war, Soviet intelligence combined its efforts with those of its Chinese Communist counterpart in the exploitation and recruitment of the captured members of the U. N. forces in Korea. The main effort was again concentrated on American and British nationals (pp. 800-814). Besides the Soviet Embassy itself, various other covers were used for Soviet intelligence. It was Rastvorov's estimate that 85 or 90 percent of the personnel of Tass, the news agency of the Soviet Union, were representatives of military or political intelligence serv ices (pp. 18, 19). VOKS, the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, is used in the same manner. The subcommittee learned that this was true of the American affiliate of VOKS, the |