Venona 79 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 January 1945, KGB in Treasury

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T247 (Reissue)

• From: New York

• To: Moscow

• No: 79

• 18 January 1945

To VIKTOR[i]

According to ROBERT's [ii] report, he may be presented with an opportunity of obtaining from RICHARD [iii] ROUBLE's [iv] appointment to RICHARD's post, as the latter will soon be appointed assistant secretary. (MAJ's [v] note: It is possible that this is a slip of the pen, for RICHARD and others are already assistants if [C % ROBERT] [1 group unrecovered] NABOB's [vi] department, where he is obviously can be promoted to the post of deputy.) [vii] ROBERT has repeatedly suggested that ROUBLE be turned over to him.

According to our information he could get better results from ROUBLE than our line. He suspects that ROUBLE is connected with us through other ZEMLYa-ChESKIJ [viii] channels. ALBERT [ix] emphasizes that ROUBLE was passive in the REJDER [x] group although he was able to give [us] valuable material. Some months ago ROBERT complained that ROUBLE was hiding important documents from ZhENYa [xi] (his secretary).

If we are convinced of ROUBLE's good faith toward the ZEMLYaKI [viii], ROBERT would like to take him into his group. ROBERT has always been against appointing two of our groups to one department and [D % instead asks] that our probationers [xii] from RICHAR's department be under his direction to avoid misunderstandings. In ALBERT's opinion, if ROUBLE is reliable from our point of view he ought to be turned over to ROBERT. ROBERT does not want to promote ROUBLE to RICHARD's post unless he takes him into his group; on the other hand he is not quite sure that he will be able to get ROUBLE into this post, as it is possible that somebody else is already earmarked for it.

Wire your decision by priority telegram not later than 21 January indicating the method of establishing contact between ALBERT and ROUBLE if you agree to including ROUBLE in ROBERT's group. MAJ [v]

No. 58
18 January

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Footnotes:

• [i] VIKTOR: Lt. Gen. P. M. FITIN.
• [ii] ROBERT: Nathan Gregory SILVERMASTER.
• [iii] RICHARD: Harry Dexter WHITE.
• [iv] ROUBLE: Probably Harold GLASSER.
• [v] MAJ: Pavel Ivanovich FEDOSIMOV.
• [vi] NABOB: Henry MORGENTHAU, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury.
• [vii] MAJ's confusion is due to the fact that the proposed promotion , which later took place, was from "assistant to the secretary of the treasury" to "assistant secretary of the treasury." There was probably no slip of the pen, but he sorted the positions out correctly by using the Russian words for "assistant" and "deputy" respectively.
• [viii] ZEMLYaChESKIJ (adjective) and ZEMLYaKI (noun) refer to members of the communist party of the country in question. Here, therefore, they mean "American communist party" (attributive) and "members of the American communist party" respectively.
• [ix] ALBERT: Iskhak Abdulovich AKHMEROV, alias W. GEINKE.
• [x] REJDER: i.e., RAIDER: Victor PERLO.
• [xi] ZhENYA: Sonia GOLD, nee STEINMAN, employed in the Treasury Department from 24 August 1943 to 21 August 1947. If she was in fact GLASSER's secretary at the time of this message, the statement here is a strong confirmation of the identifications of ROUBLE and ZhENYA; if she was not, it strongly suggests that one or both identifications are incorrect.
• [xii] Probationers: Agents.

29 September 1976

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