99
The military had a very difficult time sorting out the accusations flying back and forth between the factions, as a document in Stankievich’s “blue file,” USAIRR, Ft. Meade, Maryland, shows:
The denunciations are not all logical and consistent. It is noted that some of the leaders are denounced for being Soviet agents and for having collaborated with the Nazis, and Stankievich, mentioned above, was denounced for being a Soviet agent, a Nazi collaborator and as a collaborator with U.S. Occupation Forces.
Apparently, it did not occur to the military that all of the denunciations might have had some basis in fact.
100
Cookridge, op. cit., pp. 245-52.
101
The United States Army not only recruited the labor service companies but gave them arms as well.
New York Times
, February 4, 1946,p. 1.
The Times
, March 13, 1947, p. 7, said that about 10,000 non-Germans were used for guard duty in the U.S. and British zones of Germany.
102
According to the 1948 CIC Consolidated Guidance report, a group known as the “White Russian National Counterintelligence” revealed in February 1948 that it was organizing a group of young White Russians in guerrilla warfare and intelligence and was planning to dispatch them on missions to White Russia. The group indicated that it would be in contact with U.S. authorities as soon as this organization was ready for action. The leaders of the training group were also noted by the CIC as persons whom the Soviets had desired extradited because of their participation in atrocities in Byelorussia.
103
The extent of the Soviet attempts to gain information on Wisner’s plans can be readily understood from a review of what Stankievich was requested to obtain by Nina Litwinczyk. Summaries of the Soviet espionage requests are contained in Stankievich’s “blue file,” USAIRR, Ft. Meade, Maryland.
104
The incident of the partisan mole living in the United States is described in FBI File No. NK105-1478.
105
In the July 12,1955 issue of
Novoye Russkoye Slovo
, Abramtchik was interviewed concerning the charge that he had been a Communist in his youth. Instead of denying the allegation, Abramtchik said, “I don’t consider it necessary to react with slander. And finally, even if I had been a Bolshevik once, there is nothing criminal in that.” The newspaper went on to report that Abramtchik had lost several votes in the Paris emigré organization because the delegates could not elect a man “who had gone to the Soviet Union several times.”
106
Kim Philby,
My Silent War
(Grove Press, 1968), p. 193.
107
Donald Maclean’s penetration of the atomic bomb program is discussed in
The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb
(Brown and MacDonald, eds. Dial Press, 1977).
108
Operation Paperclip file, OSI.
109
Top Secret State Department Decimal File, 194849, National Archives.
Chapter Seven
110
The text of Congressman Klein’s discussion is printed in the Congressional Record for August 7, 1948 at page A5155.
111
8 U.S.C. 1427a(3) requires that every applicant for American citizenship have “good moral character.” Ironically, during the late 1950s the Immigration Service considered people who were unfaithful to their wives as lacking good moral character, while prior membership in the SS was not a bar.
112
This legislation was requested by the intelligence community because all too often agents brought in under the 100 Persons Act would simply refuse to work after they had been granted a visa for permanent immigration. The Parole Powers Provisions allow the intelligence community to bring in an unlimited number of illegal entrants for a “temporary” stay. Once the agents are here, their visas can be voided if they refuse to cooperate.
113
The Hrynkievich file is contained in Blue File No. D95605, USAIRR, Ft. Meade, Maryland.
114
Ostrowsky’s list of delegates at the Minsk convention of 1944 contains the following entry for “Lapitski, Mikalaj”: “Protopresbyter, graduate of the Vilna Theological Seminary, graduate of the Theological Department of the Orthodox Theology at the Warsaw University, member and president of the Theology Student Circle, Superior of various parishes in the region of Hlybokaje and in the City of Minsk, member of the Metropolitan Bureau of the Byelorussian Orthodox Church Administration of the Byelorussian Autocephalic Church, member of the Preparatory Commission to the Byelorussian Autocephalic Sobor of the Byelorussian Orthodox Church in Minsk 1942, member delegate from the clergy to the Second All-Byelorussian Congress.”
115
Copy in Kushel’s Immigration file.
116
According to a letter from the CIC Central Registry to the American consulate general in Stuttgart (copy located in Stankievich’s “blue file,” USAIRR, Ft. Meade, Maryland), Stankievich also attempted to immigrate to the United States during the mid-1950s under the Refugee Relief Act. In this document the Army informed the State Department that Stankievich admitted holding the following positions under the Nazis:
July 1941-February 1944 Town Mayor, Borissow, USSR, German Military Administration, Borissow, USSR
(Left) to take up another job
February 1944-June 1944 Delegate of the White Ruthenian Central Committee, Baronovichy, Poland (Reason for leaving) fled
June 1944-August 1944 Unemployed, en route to Berlin, Ger many
August 1944-March 1945 Editor, White Ruthenian Newspaper Raniza (Morning) German Ministry for the East Address un known, Berlin, Germany
117
State Department files, Foreign Affairs Information Management Center, 1953 Agreement with the CIA.
118
Conversations with former staff members of the US. Consulate in Stuttgart.
119
According to the CIC screening officer who handled Jasiuk‘s application for a DP visa, Jasiuk “has been doing work of a highly confidential nature for an American agency as was proved specifically at interview of subject by the persons in the agency for whom he was working.” Wagenaar was one of those who testified. At that time Jasiuk submitted a false background history concealing his Nazi collaboration. None of the State Department officials present made any objection, even though they must have known that the information was false.
120
CIC file on Arendt Wagenaar.
121
Ibid
122
The Kasmowich incident is described in a confidential memo from the American consulate general in Munich, Germany (January 19, 1955). Following his arrest, Kasmowich was not only released but was later returned to the U.S. zone and given a job with the U.S. Army as an accountant. As of 1966, he was still living in Germany.
123
Letter from Weckerling to Hoover. Copy in the AFOSI file for Emanuel Jasiuk, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C.
124
INS files, OUN/SB.
Chapter Eight
125
Smith’s term as DCI is discussed in Select Committee Report, op. cit., pp. 36-38; also Corson, op. cit., pp. 323-26.
126
On Dulles and Wisner, see Mosley, op. cit., pp. 272-73.
127
In 1967 Stanislaw Stankievich wrote a monograph entitled “Byelorussian Literature Under the Soviets.” Stankievich’s immigration file stated that he served as chairman of the “Institute for the Study of the USSR” in Munich, Germany, from July 1954 to June 1962.
128
AMCOMLIB’S activities were hardly a major secret. See
New York Times
, August 12, 1951, p. 17 (“Five Major Refugee Organizations Map Plans to Set Up Subversive Activities Center in Munich Financed by the American Liberation of Peoples of Russia Committee”).
129
The American Committee for Liberation was founded in 1950 and its first broadcast went on the air March 1, 1953. According to their brochure, Radio Liberation was a completely independent venture from the older Free Europe Committee which sponsored Radio Free Europe. According to the letterhead of the American Committee for Liberation, 6 East 45th Street, New York 17, N.Y. (supporting the Institute for the Study of the U.S.S.R.), the Board of Trustees included Mrs. Oscar Ahlgran, John R. Burton, William Henry Chamberlain, Charles Edison, J. Peter Grace, Jr., Allan Grover, H. J. Heinz 11, Isaac Don Levine, Eugene Lyons, Howland H. Sargent, Leslie C. Stevens, Dr. John W. Studebaker, Reginald T. Townsend, William L. White, and Philip H. Willkie.
130
Appended to the “Conference on the 450th Anniversary of the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, sponsored by the Belorussian Institutes of Arts and Sciences and in Cooperation with the Ethnic Heritage Studies, Cleveland State University, August 31, 1980,” is a complete list of all the conventions held by the Byelorussians in the United States. It is worthy of note that several of the speakers were persons who were accused by the Soviet Union of having committed war crimes and atrocities, including Stanislaw Stankievich.
In discussing the recent wave of immigrants from Byelorussia who came to the Cleveland area in 1949-51, one commentator noted, “the progress of the more recent immigrants was quite impressive.” The children attended college, and the immigrants themselves had a very high percentage of professional members. Unlike most refugees, the new Byelorussian immigrants were mostly registered as Republican. Michael S. Papp, monograph,
The Ethnic Communities of Cleveland
(1973).
131
FBI File NY97-1251 (1952) describes some of the front groups formed by members of the Byelorussian Central Council “which governed Byelorussia under German occupation from 1944 to 1945.” The FBI report also notes that “all of its officers are now in the U.S.”
132
At that time, the Argentine headquarters of the Belarus network was called the “Zhurtavnie Belorusau U-Argentinie” and was located at Calle Itapariu 2681 V. Alcina, Buenos Aires.
133
Jasiuk‘s participation in the Ukrainian American Congress is described in FBI File NY97-1251. In the same file appears the notation that “another governmental intelligence agency, in report of September 19, 1950, advised that Jasiuk in 1942, when White Russia was occupied by the Germans, allegedly worked in one of the departments of the Security Police at Baronovichy, Poland, and allegedly submitted a list of Polish residents to the German Secret Service which resulted in some of the people listed being shot.” The FBI subsequently reported to the Immigration Service that Jasiuk was “trustworthy” and a good anticommunist.
134
Byelorussian Independence Day, BAA
(New York, 1958), contains photographs of ex-Nazis with prominent American politicians.
135
Philby, op. cit. p. 202.
136
The extent of Soviet infiltration of the various ex-Nazi émigré organizations is described in Cookridge, op. cit., pp. 254-55.
137
Sobolewsky’s letter to the Assistant Attorney General is contained in Department of Justice File 149-06-2-12, Section 4, May 19, 1952.
138
By memorandum of July 17, 1952, James M. McInerney, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., advised the FBI that the facts submitted on the Byelorussian Central Administration (also known as the Byelorussian Central Representation) did not constitute them as an agent of a foreign principal as defined by Section 20(a) of the Internal Security Act of 1950. The FBI was advised that the Justice Department had decided to conduct a further investigation of the Byelorussians under the Foreign Registration Act of 1938 (FBI File NY97-1251). By memorandum of September 9, 1952, Charles B. Murray of the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, subsequently advised the FBI that he had received a letter from Jury Sobolewsky submitting additional information on the organization. On the basis of Sobolewsky’s statement, the Justice Department concluded that the Byelorussians were not agents of a foreign principal within the meaning of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.