Soviet penetration of the U.S. gets fresh look

Human Events, Jan 29, 2001 by Ryskind, Allan H

Romerstein/Breindel Revelations in The Venona Secrets

Herb Romerstein comes by his expertise on Soviet communism first-hand. Born in New York City, he joined the Communist Party at the tender age of 15, left two years later, and then dedicated his life to exposing this stunning criminal conspiracy that nearly conquered the world.

He probed Communist summer camps for children for the New York State legislature in the 1950s, became an investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1960s, and served as minority chief (HCUA) investigator for its successor, the House Committee on Internal Security, in the early to mid-'70s.

Romerstein joined the House Committee on Intelligence as a professional staffer in 1978 (overseeing the CIA and FBI, while studying KGB activities against the West) and, during the Reagan years, headed up the USIA's (United States Information Agency's) critical Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation. In this post, he embarrassed Moscow so extensively with his exposes of fraudulent Soviet calumnies against the West that the Soviets finally felt impelled to curb some of their most outrageous charges.

What's more, Soviet officials tipped their hats to Romerstein in significant ways: They frequently expressed admiration for his detailed knowledge of Soviet history, and they launched a disinformation campaign to discredit both him and his work, including the forging of a phony letter bearing Romerstein's legitimate signature .

Thus it is hardly surprising that, along with New York Post executive and editorial page editor Eric Breindel-who tragically died at age 42 in the midst of the project-- Romerstein has produced a superb book on Soviet espionage and policy subversion, The Venona Secrets, published by Regnery Publishers, Inc., a sister company of HUMAN EVENTS. (To order directly from Regnery call at 1-888-219-4747.)

Using the Venona documents-nearly 3,000 U.S. decrypted cables between Soviet spies in America and their Moscow superiors-and other Russian archival evidence, Romerstein sheds new light on the massive Soviet penetration of our most sensitive government agencies.

During the '30s and '40s, U.S. Communists, under direct Soviet control, swarmed into the Treasury and State Departments, the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner to the CIA) and even the upper reaches of the White House itself. They looted our atomic energy secrets, enabling the Soviets to develop the atomic bomb far earlier than experts believed possible, and they learned how to turn U.S. policy toward Soviet ends.

Nowhere was Soviet success more evident than in their recruiting of Harry Dexter White. Holding a Harvard Ph.D. in economics, White became a major figure in the Treasury Department, especially during World War II and the immediate post-war period. And he was instrumental in the founding of two existing major economic institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

White was also a notorious Soviet spy. In the pre-war years, he furnished secret Treasury information and documents to Whittaker Chambers, who turned them over to Soviet military intelligence. Famed Soviet courier Elizabeth Bentley informed the FBI in 1945 that White passed information to the Soviets through Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, the leader of another notorious spy ring that included White House adviser Lauchlin Currie. Venona intercepts reveal that White continued to feed the Soviets intelligence throughout World War 111.

But White's espionage activities may have paled in comparison to his success in shaping U.S. policy. Vitally Pavlov, an NKVD (later KGB) official, was picked by his superiors in Moscow to persuade White to participate in Operation Snow, which involved Soviet efforts to worsen U.S.Japanese relations. The purpose: to encourage Japan's war party to view the United States, not Russia, as its main enemy.

Pavlov phoned White in Washington in May 1941, made a date for lunch and then, at the restaurant, handed White an outline of themes that he wanted White to promote among key U.S. policymakers. Among them was a demand, to be wrapped in tough rhetoric, that Japan recall its armed forces from China. White then sent this proposed diplomatic demand, abrasive language and all, to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.

Morgenthau didn't act on White's memo at the time, but the issue of how to confront Japanese aggression resurfaced immediately prior to Pearl Harbor, as many in the U.S. government began frantically searching for ways to avoid hostilities in the Pacific, at least until the United States was better prepared militarily.

White, however, had different ideas. He rewrote his hard-edged memo to Morgenthau, which was then largely incorporated into Secretary of State Cordell Hull's famous ultimatum to the Japanese on Nov. 26, 1941. That message, many historians believe, goaded the war party in Tokyo into striking early in December at the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. Years later, Pavlov boasted of his role in the success of Operation Snow in which White had played such a critical part.