The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia (63 page)

1
Annensky quoted from Anna Akhmatova,
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova,
Vol. 1, trans. Judith Hemschemeyer (Somerville, Mass.: Zephyr Press, 1990).

2
Elizabeth Kimball MacLean,
Joseph E. Davies: Envoy to the Soviets
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), 21.

3
Robert C. Williams,
Russian Art and American Money, 1900-1940
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 231.

4
The
Sea Cloud
was originally launched as the
Hussar V
but was renamed after Marjorie’s divorce; Williams,
Russian Art and American Money,
249.

5
MacLean,
Joseph E. Davies,
21-22.

6
Ibid.

7
Ibid., 26.

8
Charles Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow
(New York: Booktab Press, 1946), 14.

9
Loy Henderson Papers, File “Memoirs Vol. 9,” 1938-42, Box 20, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

10
Marjorie Merriweather Post Collection, Hillwood Museum Archives, Washington, D.C.

11
Harpo Marx, with Rowland Barber,
Harpo Speaks
(London: Gollanz, 1961), 307.

12
Elizabeth Hampel,
Yankee Bride in Moscow
(New York: Liveright, 1941), 143.

13
Ibid., 252.

14
Charles Thayer,
Bears in the Caviar
(London: Michael Joseph, 1952), 88; Hampel,
Yankee Bride in Moscow,
228.

15
Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow,
18.

16
Joseph Davies,
Mission to Moscow
(London: Gollancz, 1942), 33-34.

17
Véronique Garros, Natalia Korenevskaya, and Thomas Lahusen (eds.),
Intimacy and Terror: Soviet Diaries of the 1930s,
trans. Carol A. Flath (New York: New Press, 1995), 12.

18
Hans Von Herwarth,
Against Two Evils: Memoirs of a Diplomat-Soldier During the Third Reich
(London: Collins, 1981), 110.

19
MacLean,
Joseph E. Davies,
31.

20
Kolya Voinov,
Outlaw: The Autobiography of a Soviet Waif
(London: Harvill Press, 1955), 119.

21
Eugene Lyons,
Assignment in Utopia
(London: Harrap, 1938), 127.

22
Roy Medvedev,
Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism,
trans. Colleen Taylor (London: Spokesman, 1976), 115; Aleksandr Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes
(New York: Random House, 1953), 260.

23
Anna Larina,
This I Cannot Forget: The Memoirs of Nikolai Bukharin’s Widow
(London: Hutchinson, 1993), 312.

24
Robert Conquest,
The Great Terror: A Reassessment
(London: Hutchinson, 1990), 141; Vadim Z. Rogovin,
1937: Stalin’s Year of Terror,
trans. Frederick S. Choate (Oak Park, Mich.: Mehring, 1998), 69.

25
S. J. Taylor,
Stalin’s Apologist: Walter Duranty, New York Times’ Man in Moscow
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 225-26.

26
Neue Freie Presse,
Jan. 30, 1937.

27
Joseph Davies to Secretary Hull, Feb. 17, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
38-39.

28
“Speech of N. S. Khruschev,” Feb. 1, 1937,
Moscow Daily News,
1; Conquest,
The Great Terror,
149.

29
Conquest,
The Great Terror,
165.

30
George Kennan quoted in Keith David Eagles,
Ambassador Joseph E.Davies and American-Soviet Relations, 1937-1941
(New York: Garland, 1985), 127.

31
George Kennan,
Memoirs: 1925-1950
(London: Hutchison, 1967), 82.

32
Loy Henderson,
A Question of Trust: The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Diplomatic Relations: The Memoirs of Loy W. Henderson,
ed. George W. Baer (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), 423.

33
Hampel,
Yankee Bride in Moscow,
218; Elbridge Durbrow Collection, Box 68, interview with John Mason, May 5, 1981, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif.

34
Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
62.

35
Joseph Davies diary, Moscow, March 23, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
95-96.

36
Joseph Davies to Sumner Welles, June 28, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow
, 111; Joseph Davies to Secretary of State, July 28, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
129-38.

37
Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes,
241; John Reed, quoted in “Dybenko Persuades Cossacks to Surrender,”
Moscow News,
Feb. 28, 1935; Edvard Radzinsky,
Stalin: The First Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia’s Secret Archives,
trans. H. T. Willets (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996), 387; Conquest,
The Great Terror,
212; Roy Medvedev,
Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism,
trans. Colleen Taylor (London: Spokesman, 1976), 341.

38
Joseph Davies, letter to Mrs. Millard Tydings, Moscow, March 22, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
94; Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
78; Robert C. Williams,
Russian Art and American Money, 1900-1940
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 249.

39
Irena Wiley,
Around the Globe in Twenty Years
(New York: McKay, 1962), 37.

40
Post Family Papers, Series II: Marjorie Merriweather Post Re: Joseph E. Davies, Scrapbooks, Russia, 1937, Marjorie Merriweather Post Collection, Hillwood Museum Archives, Washington, D.C.

41
Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow,
38.

42
Von Herwarth,
Against Two Evils,
62; Journal, July 5, 1937, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

43
Joseph Davies letter to Stephen Early, March 9, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
82;
Time
magazine, March 15, 1937.

44
Moscow Post Files, Vol. 394, April 15, 1937, RG 84, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

45
Thayer,
Bears in the Caviar,
157.

46
Marjorie Merriweather Post interview with Nettie Major, Aug. 31, 1964, PM4(50) Hillwood Museum Archives, Washington, D.C.

47
Keith David Eagles,
Ambassador Joseph E. Davies,
211; Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
102.

1
Nikolay Gumilyov, “Heaven,” from
The Pillar of Fire,
trans. Richard McKane (London: Anvil Press, 1999), 106.

2
Joseph Davies journal, June 18, 1937, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

3
Joseph Davies,
Mission to Moscow
(London: Gollanz, 1942), 105.

4
Charles Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow
(New York: Booktab Press, 1946), 14.

5
Dispatch, Aug. 10, 1937, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 0793, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

6
Elizabeth Kimball MacLean,
Joseph E. Davies: Envoy to the Soviets
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), 40.

7
Marjorie Merriweather Post interview with Nettie Major, Aug. 31, 1964 and Sept. 1, 1964, Hillwood Museum Archives, Washington, D.C.

8
Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow,
26.

9
Ibid., 16.

10
Ibid., 63-64.

11
Ibid., 64.

12
Ibid., 29.

13
Ibid., 19, 29, 44, 47.

14
Joseph Davies journal, Oct. 18, 1937, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

15
Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow,
41.

16
Joseph Davies journal, July 5, 1937, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

17
Joseph Davies journal, July 27, 1937, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

18
Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow,
85.

19
Ibid., 84-85.

20
Loy Henderson,
A Question of Trust: The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Diplomatic Relations: The Memoirs of Loy W. Henderson,
ed. George W. Baer (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1986) , 368.

21
361.1121, Belakoff, Timothy, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

22
Jan. 10, 1939, 361.1115/84, July 10, 1939, 361.1115, Burton, Paul, 361.1115, Cooper, John, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

23
Letter from Mrs. Hilma Oja, of 1999 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y., Oct. 24, 1938, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

24
361.1115 Harry, Jaffe, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

25
361.1115, Marvin, Volat, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

26
361.1115, Ivan, Dubin, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

27
Robert C. Williams,
Russian Art and American Money, 1900-1940
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 251.

28
“Soviet Silent to All Queries on Robinson,”
New York Daily News,
Dec. 14, 1937.

29
361.1115, Robinson, Donald, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

30
Krivitsky FBI File, FBI Reading Room, Washington, D.C. Given that all bureaucracies, including that of the Soviets, were liable to error, the mechanics of this deception were occasionally revealed. On March 20, 1937, for example, the Soviet Foreign Office forwarded to the American embassy the passport of one William Hill, a twenty-four-year-old native-born American citizen, with a request that the passport be made valid so Hill “might be deported to the United States.” In response, the American embassy advised the Soviet Foreign Office that “Hill would be required to appear at the Embassy to execute the necessary application for the renewal of his passport,” and then nothing more was heard. Ten months later, on January 10, 1938, the American embassy officials were advised by the Soviet authorities that “Hill had died in Karelia during the summer of 1937.” The following year, the Soviet Foreign Office sent the Americans a copy of William Hill’s death certificate, which gave the date of death as July 11, 1936, and the cause of death “haemorrage in cerebrum (murder).” The circumstances of William Hill’s death and the Soviet request for the renewal of his passport eight months after his death raised the “grave suspicions” of the American diplomats: “
The possibility that Hill was killed by a GPU agent either in resisting arrest or later while under detention is not to be dismissed.
” “The Murder of William Hill, American Citizen,” July 28, 1939, 361.113 William, Hill RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

31
861.00/11847, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland; Edward Gazur,
Secret Assignment: The FBI’s KGB General
(London: St. Ermin’s, 2001), 166; Krivitsky FBI File, FBI Reading Room, Washington, D.C.

32
Loy Henderson, “Memoirs, Vol. 9, 1938-1942,” Box 20, Loy Henderson Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

33
361.1121, Sviridoff, George/22, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Two years before George Sviridoff’s arrest, the Swedish American engineer Axel Markuson, upon his return from an Amtorg contract in Russia, had written a warning on behalf of American teenagers “who had come from the United States to Russia and cannot return as they would like, although they were born in the United States.” Axel Markuson’s son had informed him of two boys, both seventeen years old— “one from Boston and the other from Cleveland—who had tried to escape by boat over the Black Sea but were caught by the GPU.” Their American passports had been taken from them when they first entered Russia, and they had nothing to prove their nationality:
“One of them had a sister, 19 years old, who was thinking of marrying an American engineer in order to get out of Russia in that way . . . The unfortunate plight of these poor American-born children is brought to the Department’s special attention.”
(Interview with Axel Markuson, Jan. 18, 1932, 861.5017, Living Conditions/423, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

34
June 1, 1938, Kennan note, from 361.1121, Sviridoff, George/21, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

1
Joseph Davies to secretary of state, July 28, 1937, from Joseph Davies,
Mission to Moscow
(London: Gollancz, 1942), 138; Joseph Davies to secretary of state, Nov. 15, 1937, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
159.

2
Joseph Davies to Cordell Hull,
Strictly Confidential,
April 1, 1938, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

3
Charles Ciliberti,
Backstairs Mission in Moscow
(New York: Booktab Press, 1946), 113.

4
Journal, March 2, 1938, Joseph Davies Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

5
Robert Conquest,
The Great Terror: A Reassessment
(London: Hutchinson, 1990), 241.

6
Walter Duranty,
The Kremlin and the People
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1942), 68.

7
Roy Medvedev,
Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism,
trans. Colleen Taylor (London: Spokesman, 1976), 175.

8
TSGAOR, fond 7523 sch, op.66, d.58, ll.1-5, quoted from Diane P. Koenker and Ronald D. Bachman (eds.),
Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation
(Washington, D.C: Library of Congress, 1997), 109.

9
William C. Bullitt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jan. 1, 1934, President FDR’s office Files, 1933-1945, Part 2: Diplomatic Correspondence “Russia,” Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

10
Vitaly Shentalinsky,
The KGB’s Literary Archive,
trans. John Crowfoot (London: Harvill Press, 1995), 277-78; Aleksandr Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes
(New York: Random House, 1953), 260.

11
“Krestinsky at His Trial,” March 12, 1938,
Moscow News,
9; Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes
289-90.

12
Medvedev,
Let History Judge
, 186-87.

13
Trud, May 26, 1988, from Conquest,
The Great Terror,
237.

14
Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes,
284.

15
Louis Fischer,
Men and Politics: An Autobiography
(London: Cape, 1941), 483.

16
Charles E. Bohlen,
Witness to History, 1929-1969
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 51; Edvard Radzinsky,
Stalin; The First Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia’s Secret Archives,
trans. H. T. Willets (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996), 334; Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes,
207.

17
Boris Souvarine,
Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism
(London: Secker and Warburg, 1939), 476.

18
“Trotsky Sees ‘Witch Trial,’”
New York Times,
Jan. 21, 1937.

19
Joseph Davies to Secretary of State Hull, March 17, 1938, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
178-79.

20
Charles Thayer diary, March 2, 1938, Charles Thayer Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.

21
“US Painters Exhibit Here Lacks Life, Reality,”
Moscow Daily News,
Oct. 16, 1936.

22
Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
193.

23
361.1115 Aisenstein, Michael, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

24
Loy Henderson,
A Question of Trust: The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Diplomatic Relations; The Memoirs of Loy W. Henderson,
ed. George W. Baer (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), 416.

25
RF FPA. S. 0129. SF. 20. F. 133a. C. 389(1). S. 1-2. Copy, [October] 1937, #355, Secret memo from the diary of M. M. Litvinov,
Twentieth Century Documents: Soviet-American Relationship in 1934-1939,
compiled by B. I. Zhilyaev, scientific editor G. N. Sevost’yanov (Moscow: 2003).

26
Conquest,
The Great Terror,
424.

27
Fitzroy MacLean,
Eastern Approaches
(London: Cape, 1949), 23.

28
Keith David Eagles,
Ambassador Joseph E. Davies and American-Soviet Relations, 1937-1941
(New York: Garland, 1985), 194; Joseph Davies to Secretary of State, June 9, 1938, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow
219-26.

29
Henderson,
A Question of Trust,
417.

30
Joseph Davies letter to Emlen Knight Davies, June 9, 1938, from Davies,
Mission to Moscow,
230.

31
Elizabeth Kimball MacLean,
Joseph E. Davies: Envoy to the Soviets
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), 57; “Farewell,”
Time
magazine, June 20, 1938.

32
APRF, fond 45, op.1, d.375, ll. 14-18, from Koenker and Bachman (eds.),
Revelations from the Russian Archives,
646.

33
861.00/11787, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland; Loy Henderson Papers, File “memoirs Vol 7,” Ch. 10-13, 1934-38, Box 20, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

34
Loy Henderson Papers, File “memoirs Vol. 7,” Ch. 10-13, 1934-38, Box 20, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.; Margarete Buber,
Under Two Dictators,
trans. E. Fitzgerald (London: Gollanz, 1949), 13.

35
Loy Henderson Papers, File “memoirs Vol. 9,” 1938-42, Box 20, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

36
Amb. J. K. Huddle’s Inspection Report, Moscow April 17, 1937, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

37
Ibid.

38
361.1121, Nausiainen, Elmer, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

39
Mayme Sevander,
Of Soviet Bondage
(Duluth, Minn.: Oscat, 1996), 111-12.

40
Edwin McKee, “The Purge at Petrozavodsk,” July 19, 1938; 361.1121 Nausiainen [
sic
], Elmer J., RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

41
Loy Henderson to Moffat, Division of European Affairs, Nov. 30, 1938; 361.1121, Nausiainen, Elmer J./6, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

42
Dec. 21, 1938, RG 84, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

43
June 27, 1938, Memo of Conversation between K. A. Umanskii and J. Davies, Doc 384, RF FPA. S. 05. SF. 18. F. 147. C. 132. S. 32-33, Litvinov,
Twentieth Century Documents.