Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

SECTION VI

THE SOVIET REPATRIATION CAMPAIGN

The subcommittee received an abundance of evidence showing the manifestations in this country of the Soviet repatriation campaign which appeared to reach its peak in the first part of the year throughout the world.

The campaign enlisted, in the United States, without consideration for its legality or illegality, the services of Soviet officials who were serving in this country as diplomatic or United Nations officials.

It was directed from East Germany by Soviet Maj. Gen. N. P. Mikhailov, but it reached down into small towns in New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and Michigan for its victims.

This repatriation campaign sought to lure back to the Soviet Union and its satellites people who had either escaped or who had migrated from those countries. Its purposes will be revealed below, but it was mainly a weapon in the psychological warfare campaign being carried on against the West.

THE CASE OF THE RUSSIAN SEAMEN

The subcommittee issued a separate report on May 24, 1956, after it held an inquiry of 15 days into the circumstances surrounding the successful efforts of the chief delegate of the Soviet mission to the United Nations, Arkady Sobolev, and members of his staff to induce by a variety of means, including coercion, the redefection of five Russian seamen who sought refuge here in the United States. This report also covered the unsuccessful effort to cause still other Russian seamen to return to the U. S. S. R. This work of the subcommittee is set forth in appendix H of this annual report and is drawn upon, as part of the year's record, as a basis for some of the recommendations and conclusions herein. The whole episode represented probably the boldest activity entered upon by Soviet officials here in this country.

What occurred to the subcommittee was that the Soviet Union maintains 83 of its nationals in its delegation to the United Nations, 29 others are employed by the U. N. Secretariat, 117 in its embassies, and 20 in other activities. In view of the depredations of these individuals against refugees and escapees, it is a distressing thought that a similar number of Chinese Communists could work virtual havoc among the large Chinese-American communities in New York, San Francisco, and other cities, many of whose residents have relatives in Red China and many of whom are here illegally, and are thus subject to blackmail. This situation would prevail if Soviet China should gain admission to the U. N. and be accorded diplomatic recognition.

AS REDEFECTION LOOKED FROM THE OTHER END

Persons who were the victims, or intended victims, of the redefection campaign conducted by the U. S. S. R. and her satellites in this

1 There are still others in the specialized services of the United Nations.

country filled the record with their tales of pressure, coercion, threats against relatives and even suave blandishments. They recognized that their return would be utilized as part of the campaign of international Red propaganda. They were unanimous in relating the methods used to persuade them to return.

The subcommittee took testimony from two former members of the Polish merchant marine, whose stories were similar to those of the Soviet seamen. For the purposes of the record, they were identified by the fictitious names of Zenon Dudek and Georg Filipiak. Both had been taken to Formosa and then transferred to the United States, after the Chinese Nationalist Navy had intercepted their ship on the way to Red China with supplies for the Chinese Communists. Both were subjected to a letter writing campaign from home, allegedly from their relatives. Agents of Red Poland's repatriation campaign called on both at their homes in this country. Filipiak was visited by a man who gave the name of Eugene Szczepanik and said he came from the Polish Embassy in Washington.

Seweryn Bialer, whose testimony is the subject of another section of this report, told the subcommittee what happened when other Polish sailors from the same ship and friends and close companions of these two men returned to their homeland:

Then they were used in Poland for a very serious propaganda campaign (p. 1783).

Bialer spoke with authority, since he was still in Poland occupying a high Communist post when those seamen came back.

Other aspects of the repatriation campaign were given by Bialer from his viewpoint on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

As he explained it, there were four steps used in the repatriation campaign, which "were carried on by the foreign section of the central committee of the Polish Communist Party."

First, the intended victim receives individual letters from members of his family. "They are really written by the families," said Mr. Bialer. "Of course, they were enforced by the party."

The second method is promises:

"If you return to Poland, you will have a better job and you will make more money and you will have more opportunities than you have in the country in which you are living presently."

The third method is an appeal to ambition, to vanity, to a desire of a personal glory:

"If you return to Poland, you will be famous; you will have opportunities to speak to the people."

The fourth method is simply blackmail, sheer blackmail.

TANYA ROMANOV BECOMES A SOVIET TARGET

The Soviet repatriation campaign_reached down, in one case, at least, toward an American citizen. It succeeded in spiriting out of the country a 22-year-old child born in the United States and who was an American citizen. The child, Tanya Romanov, was born out of wedlock to Elena Romanov, now Mrs. George Dieczok, and then a Yugoslav-American resident of Philadelphia. The natural

father of the child, Alexei Chwostow, had been a Russian refugee, quite anti-Soviet in his political orientation. Adversity, according to the evidence, caused him to drift into a position wherein he began to give attention to the lures of the Soviet agents who were engaged in the repatriation drive. After an indecisive period, and after giving assurances to the Church World Service, which had sponsored his residence in the United States, that he would not leave the country, he vanished. However, on October 3, 1956, Chwostow and Tanya, accompanied by Soviet officials, turned up at the pier that berthed the Queen Mary and boarded that ship. An immigration inspector, Jacob Singer, who had unqualified orders to take the child off the ship, boarded the vessel shortly thereafter and proceeded to Chwostow's cabin, where he encountered the latter, Tanya, and the Soviet counselor, Fedor F. Solomatin, Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Washington. The inspector directed that the child be taken from the ship. Solomatin intervened and both he and the immigration agent left the ship to report to the Soviet Ambassador and immigration headquarters, respectively. After that Carl D. Brandt, an enterprising Look magazine reporter, who had heard of the incident and who was aboard the ship, observed Chwostow and Tanya, who had been left alone by Singer, being taken by Konstantin Ekimov, the First Secretary of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations, into the cabin of Lt. Col. Alexander P. Koryakovsky, a Soviet U. N. official, who was also about to sail.

After the immigration inspector returned to the ship, he was informed that the child was observed entering the Koryakovsky cabin. He proceeded at once to execute his orders. However, even though he identified himself as an official of the United States Government, he was denied entrance to the cabin. He proceeded to the office of Staff Capt. W. J. Law and demanded that his authority be respected. Both Solomatin and Ekimov were present to counter his request. Singer testified that he told Captain Law that Tanya was an American citizen and as such had to have an American passport before she left the country; that her leaving the country without a passport was a violation of the immigration law and that anyone aiding her departure was violating the law.

Captain Law returned to the Koryakovsky cabin and searched it but did not find the child.2

More immigration inspectors boarded the vessel and joined Singer in the futile hunt. Meanwhile an order was issued in Washington that clearance should be denied for the ship to sail. The ship was allowed to sail, however, when the executive assistant to the Commissioner, James L. Hennessey, as he himself told the subcommittee, countermanded the order after he began to doubt his authority to prevent the sailing. The immigration people stayed on the ship to the quarantine station in New York harbor but abandoned the search at that point when they were unable to find the hidden child or Chwostow. Thus the Soviet officials were able to deceive and to defy American immigration authorities and a kidnaping was effected.

After the ship reached London and before Chwostow could complete his trip to the Soviet Union, a writ was obtained by Tanya's mother in the British courts that caused Chwostow and Tanya to be

Captain Law later acknowledged that he did not look in the lavatory.

taken off the Soviet ship Molotov to which they had transferred and be brought under the jurisdiction of the British court. While awaiting the return day of the writ Chwostow and Tanya remained in London in the Soviet Embassy there. On December 13 the court ordered that Mrs. Dieczok be given custody of the child. After that the mother and child returned to the United States.

The subcommittee put all these facts into its public record because the technical kidnaping represented a most forward act on the part of the Soviets in that it involved an American citizen whose birthright it was to grow up in the United States. And in using deception and concealment in preventing the authorized agents of the United States Government from performing their duty, the Soviet officials were abusing the hospitality of this Government. In the case of Konstantin Ekimov, because he was a United Nations representative and because the scope of his authority was limited to United Nations activities, to the exclusion of all consular functions, the subcommittee recommended to the State Department that he be declared persona non grata and be asked to leave the country. Senator William E. Jenner, the acting chairman, made this request on October 23, and on October 29 Secretary of State Dulles declared Ekimov persona non grata. On November 30, he left the United States.

Chwostow is reported to have arrived in the U. S. S. R. but the Soviets were not able to exploit the spectacle of a father carrying a little child returning to the homeland after a "disillusioning stay among the money-mad capitalists."

MICHAEL SCHATOFF

Another Soviet U. N. official who stepped outside of his authority to take part in the repatriation campaign was asked to leave the United States on August 29.

He was Rostislav Shapovalov, second secretary of the Soviet mission to the United States, who was identified by Michael Schatoff, a witness before the subcommittee on June 13 and July 20, as 1 of 2 men who repeatedly tried to persuade him to return to Russia. The other Soviet citizen involved was Aleksei Petukhov, an employee of the U. N. secretariat.

Petukhov approached Schatoff at an English class in which both were enrolled. Schatoff testified:

Petukhov told me that I have no future in the United States and that, on the other hand, the emigrees' plans about changes in the Soviet Union will never be accomplished and that the sooner I return to the Soviet Union the better it is for me ***Further, Petukhov tried to blackmail me and expressed some threats, and I understood that they wanted to make me a Soviet agent.

Shortly afterward, Shapovalov entered the picture. At first he asked Schatoff to obtain for him literature published by Russian emigrant organizations. Schatoff said he refused Shapovalov's request.

"He told me that he wanted me to come home and cease my political activity in emigrant circles," Schatoff told the subcommittee.

Two friends of Schatoff, whose names were not revealed in public session, testified they were also approached by 1 or other of the 2 Soviet citizens.

After this testimony, Chairman Eastland sent copies of the hearing transcript to the State Department.

On August 29, a letter from Roderic L. O'Connor, acting Assistant Secretary of State, advised Chairman Eastland that the State Department had requested the immediate departure of Shapovalov from the United States. The action was taken, the letter stated, because Shapovalov persisted in his illegal activities even after the Soviet U. N. delegation had been warned about them.

The State Department also informed the Secretary General of the United Nations that any further indication that Petukhov was participating in the repatriation drive would result in a request for his departure.

GLOWING PROMISES FROM HUNGARY

The ironic contrast between current post-revolt oppression of Hungarians and the glowing promises to refugees before the revolt is evident in the testimony of Msgr. Bela Varga, a postwar Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament.

Monsignor Varga told of a repatriation campaign which included various enticements and threats, including an amnesty for all refugees. Other inducements included promise of jobs, economic positions, or restoration of previous jobs.

In the cold light of after events, such lures seem cynical indeed. The repatriation campaign was managed from within Hungary by the notorious Hungarian Secret Police-the AVH.

Monsignor Varga said:

An organized action for redefection had been meticulously prepared and started in Hungary by a vast organization controlled by the secret police.

This organization was implemented in the United States, Monsignor Varga said, by—

a parallel secret Communist organization reporting in detail
on all Hungarian refugees who may be of any political im-
portance or who could be used for propaganda purposes if
returned home.

Shrewdly conceived letters from members of the refugees'
families and people closest to them are being sent to them,
partly by mail or, as has happened in several instances, de-
livered by members of the Hungarian Communist diplomatic
staff in the United States who then use various enticements
and threats to induce the refugees to return to Hungary.

LETTERS FROM BULGARIA

Letters from New York City and Chicago reached Bulgarian escapees urging that they return to Communist Bulgaria. The subcommittee got this information from Michael Mischaikow, himself an escapee. Since arriving in the United States, Mischaikow told the subcommittee, he had learned that strangers had tried to learn from his former address in Munich, Germany, the American address to which he had moved.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »