Talk:Harry Hopkins/Archive 1

Archive 1

Hopkins a spy?

Someone has vandalized this page.

"Such critiques of Roosevelt and Hopkins as the notorious book, Verona Secrets, paint Hopkins as a Russian spy. No such allegation has been substantiated or proven." http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1610.html. It's pretty sad really.
[The above anonymous comment was added 19:15, 16 July 2005 from IP 24.5.145.42]

- What is sad is your reliance on stale history and offer of only opinion. Information is actually coming from the Soviet archives that Hopkins was in fact considered an "agent of influence" for the Soviets inside the U.S. Do you speak Russian? Have you read any of the recently declassified information contained in Moscow? Do you have contacts in the Eastern bloc with knowledge of WWII political secrets? Are you really satisified with the "authority" of a website on US history that looks to be more concerned with hosting google ads than with the facts of history.
[The above anonymous comment was added 01:47, 13 February 2006 from IP 24.52.166.132]

Vasily Mitrokhin was a KGB archivist who defected from the Soviet Union with copies of KGB files. He claimed Harry Hopkins was a secret Russian agent. ["The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB," by Vasily Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew.]

Moreover, Oleg Gordievsky, a high-level KGB officer who also defected from the Soviet Union, reported that Iskhak Akhmerov, the KGB officer who controlled the clandestine Soviet agents in the U.S. during the war, had said Hopkins was "the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States." [KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev," by Oleg Gordievsky and Christopher Andrew.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.168.75.57 (talk) 07:18, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

"He claimed Harry Hopkins was a secret Russian agent." --the book says no such thing. Hopkins official job was to share American secrets with Stalin to coordinate the war against Germany. Rjensen (talk) 07:45, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

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Does the above writer know Russian? Obviously he is not concerned with the basic facts of history and has no evidence whatsover to back up his claims. No, the above is scurrilous demogoguery emanating historically from Hopkins' and FDR's political opponents among the America First crowd and others who were unenthusiastic about World War 2 and loathed the New Deal as "socialism". The Soviet Union was our ally in the biggest, most cataclysmic war in human history. In his capacity as FDR's chief foreign affairs advisor and emissary he worked to solidify and manage these alliances playing a role in facilitating military aid to these countries, not only Russia but to Britain through lend-lease in 1940-41 during the dark days of the Battle of Britain, a period when Russia had reverted to neutrality during the Stalin-Hitler pact. He also did yeoman work for the Chinese struggling against Imperial Japan.

Again, Russia was our ally who lost 25 million of their people. As allies we worked together, obviously with a certain level of common interests and aims necessary to any alliance, to defeat Adolf Hilter and Nazi Germany. Harry Hopkins was a great American and an individual of the highest order, one who was a reliable friend and ally (not agent, big difference) to all the Allied people fighting to defeat the Axis. If Russian, British and other Allied diplomats in Washington felt that Hopkins was a person who they could turn to get more munitions and supplies, to speed up the Anglo-American invasion of Europe, that only redounds to Hopkins' credit.

Note on Yalta: FDR and his team did try and get promises of democratic rights in Eastern Europe, however the two points that cannot be overemphasized is firstly that in February 1945 the war was still raging in both Europe and the Pacific, the latter venue-in the pre-nuclear period still-would require Russian intervention. Secondly, anything we supposedly gave up or were tepid in not enforcing involved ground the Russians had already liberated (or conquered) from the Germans at a great cost in blood. Thus at that point in time in 1945 there was next to nothing that we or we and Britain acting together could have done about it. Thus another classic cheap shot by reactionaries out to besmirch and overthrow the New Deal and FDR's legacy at all costs. Tom Cod

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The question is still being studied; Hopkins certainly had contact with Soviet intelligence in a diplomatic capacity. There is a problem however regarding identification of one source which basically is either Hopkins or one other person. The identification may never be made. Til, then, Hopkins enjoys the benefit of the doubt. Nobs01 19:28, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

The unidentified source is Zamestitel, which means "deputy" in Russian. Originally counterintellignece thought it to be Henry A. Wallace. At the Trident Conference the Soviets had a very high contact, Source No. 19 (Gorsky Memo), who reported on sensitive conversations between FDR & Churchill and a third high official. See Edward Mark, "Venona Source 19 and the Trident Conference of May 1943: Diplomacy or Espionage?", Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 2 (April 1998), pgs. 1-31. Nobs01 19:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

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Benefit of the doubt is including an unsubstantiated claim as fact? No wonder people are giving up here. Nevermind. Have at it. I should have known better than to even get involved.
[the above anonymous comment was added 19:46, 16 July 2005 by Wiki Tiki Tavi]

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Please note, there is no judgement made within the article, neither should there be based on the evidence in question as it exists today. In fact, no discussion whatsoever of questioning Hopkins alligiances exists within the article, as rightly it should not, based upon existing evidence. The conduct of diplomacy, however, and foreign policy, is a wide open question, and can rightly be criticized. Particularly seeing Hopkins was in full posession of the knowledge that most Americans did not know, until Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published in 1974. Also, given numerous statements by Hopkins about Josef Stalin. Nobs01 19:59, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Venona transcipts New York 812 to Moscow, 29 May 1943. Agent "19", p.1, New York 812 to Moscow, 29 May 1943. Agent "19". p.2 nobs 21:35, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

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Again, you miss the point. Hopkins's comments were made about our ally Russia while WW2 was still going on; Hopkins died before the Cold War got off the ground. He was the "go to guy" for tanks, planes and other material aid, not only for the Soviets but the British and Chinese as well. His function was not to bad mouth our allies in that context. What foreign policy do you think he and FDR should have followed? To support Germany's invasion of Russia, like the America First crowd largely did? Tom Cod 23:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC) _____________

Hopkins is one of the major figures of the 1933-45 period and this article, alas, says very little about what he accomplished either in domestic or foreign policy. I deleted the Soviet documents; they are say nothing about Hopkins and are not useful to someone using an encyclopedia. We need a long critical article, not mud-throwing about highly debatable and largely irrelevant issues. RJensen Rjensen 23:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Hopkins is certainly an extraordinarily interesting historical figure. As to whether or not he was a Soviet spy, there is much to consider on both sides of the argument.

On one hand, there is substantial evidence[1][2] from reliable sources supported by Soviet archives that Hopkins was a Soviet spy.

On the other hand, no less than Winston Churchill was effusive in his praise of Hopkins:

There he sat, slim, frail, ill, but absolutely glowing with refined comprehension of the Cause. It was to be the defeat, ruin, and slaughter of Hitler, to the exclusion of all other purposes, loyalties, or aims. In the history of the United States few brighter flames have burned.

Harry Hopkins always went to the root of the matter. I have been present at several great conferences, where twenty or more of the most important executive personages were gathered together. When the discussion flagged and all seemed baffled, it was on these occasions he would rap out the deadly question, "Surely, Mr. President, here is the point we have got to settle. Are we going to face it or not?" Faced it always was, and, being faced, was conquered. He was a true leader of men, and alike in ardour and in wisdom in times of crisis he has rarely been excelled. His love for the causes of the weak and poor was matched by his passion against tyranny, especially when tyranny was, for the time, triumphant."

The Second World War - The Grand Alliance, p.24, by Winston Churchill, (C) 1950, Houghton Mifflin. [Volume 3 of Churchill's 6 volume history of WWII]

Churchill's statement certainly seems persuasive. Obviously, Churchill never doubted Hopkins' allegiance. However, in fairness, I should admit that Churchill was characteristically effusive in his praise of political friends and foes, alike. Also, the above passage was written after Hopkins' death, which undoubtedly also contributed to the generosity of Churchill's praise. But Churchill wrote that passage when discussing the events of January, 1941, which was a time when Stalin's USSR was about as nearly allied with Hitler as the United States was with Great Britain, and Churchill certainly never had any illusions about the evil nature of Stalin. If Hopkins was a Soviet spy, then he certainly hid it extraordinarily well from one of the the day's most famously perceptive observers of world affairs.

The bottom line is that I don't truly know whether or not Hopkins was a Soviet spy. However, I disagree with Tom Cod and RJensen. The debate over whether or not Hopkins was a spy is a legitimate one, not a "cheap shot by reactionaries out to besmirch and overthrow the New Deal," and certainly not "irrelevant." Clearly the issue deserves mention in this article. NCdave 06:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

AIM is not a reliable source and the NYTimes review casts doubt on the veracity of the book. But it does say that the book calls Hopkins an agent, but not a "conscious" one. Whatever that means, it does not add credence to the claim that Hopkins was a spy In fact, it suggests the opposite. 74.185.165.188 14:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Both AIM and the NYT are reliable secondary sources. The NYT review of K.G.B. The Inside Story, By Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, says:

Before publication, much was made of the book's more startling revelations: the identification of John Cairncross, a former British Foreign Office employee, as the fifth member of a Soviet spy ring that included Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt (Mr. Cairncross has denied the allegation); new details of the assassinations of Leon Trotsky and the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg; the characterization of Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's closest and most trusted adviser, "as the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States," although he admittedly was "never a conscious Soviet agent." ...

[The book's] reading of the present makes too much common sense to disregard. "The greatest threat to the future of the K.G.B. is its own past," the authors conclude. "From its headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square it directed during the Stalinist era the greatest peacetime persecution and the largest concentration camps in European history. . . . The center's acute nervousness about revealing the contents of its archives demonstrates its awareness of the threat they pose."

Mr. Andrew and Mr. Gordievsky appear to have opened a window on those archives. ...

The issue of Hopkins' Soviet connections is a legitimate one, and obviously deserves mention in this article. NCdave (talk) 08:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it really so hard to believe that Hopkins was an agent of influence for the Soviet Union? This isn't some right-wing smear campaign aimed at overthrowing the New Deal. Our government was heavily penetrated by not only Soviet agents but British agents as well. Read "Desperate Deception" to learn about the British operations in the U.S. When you read how the British did it, and when you realize that British intelligence themselves were compromised by the Soviets, then you will understand that this isn't some far-fetched conspiracy theory. This is nothing about the New Deal and all about a foreign power influencing U.S. policy. For all you on the left who doubt this...do you also think the Israelis are not influencing U.S. policy?

199.208.239.141 (talk) 15:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)Cullen

Umm, yes, it is hard to believe. (I've read Desperate Deception) It is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, not nonsense. Nobody who knows who Hopkins was, the second most powerful man in the USA, the "deputy president", could believe such a thing. It's preposterous. Why not say FDR & Churchill were Soviet spies? Or Stalin was a German spy? This sort of thing belongs in novels by Philip K. Dick, who could distinguish between fact and fiction much better than some (right wing) spy storytellers. Kudos to Rjensen for keeping such detritus out.John Z (talk) 16:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

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Yes, it would make for good fiction if Hitler were a Soviet agent...except in the case of Hopkins, its fact. To put it all in perspective. The USSR saw themselves as the launching pad for world socialism. Russia, with centuries of intelligence work under the Czars had nearly perfected the tradecraft of recruiting assets. The United States had only limited military intelligence experience...and almost no counterintelligence experience. Do you really believe the Soviet Union wouldn't try to get assets (be they agents of influence or sources of information) into the government? There is enough evidence out there that Hopkins was indeed at least an agent of influence for the Soviet Union. Will there ever be absolute proof that will sway allt he critics and apologists? No, we will never have a photo of Hopkins smiling and shaking the hands of Soviet Intelligence Officers while he is holding up a piece of paper saying "I am an agent of influence for the USSR!" No, intelligence is compartmented work for a reason...the fewer people who know a secret, the longer it will last.

Can we all start by agreeing that yes the Soviet Union had penetrated our government considerably before, during and after WWII? Can we agree on that? 199.208.239.141 (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC) culmo80

No, we do not agree on the facts and then write the article. We write the article based on reliable sources, and if the reliable sources are in conflict, which is the case here, we tell both sides, keeping the mainstream version foremost. Guidelines to pay attention to are WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. John Cairncross in The Enigma spy: the story of the man who changed the course of World War Two says Hopkins was smeared by KGB. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. says Hopkins was a dupe, not a spy, an opinion shared by Arthur Herman in Joseph McCarthy: reexamining the life and legacy of America's most hated senator, page 75. All the spy stuff comes from a 1990 book by Christopher Andrew sourced from KGB insider Oleg Gordievsky: KGB: The Inside Story, yet Andrew says in 2000 that Hopkins was "an American patriot with little sympathy for the Soviet system." The mainstream view is that Hopkins was not a spy but a man who bent over backward to help the Soviet war effort, at most an "unconscious source" or a Soviet dupe. Peter Niblo says Hopkins was not paid, an essential part of being a spy. FBI director Ray Wannall says Hopkins was a conscious spy, but he had an axe to grind; he was angry at Hopkins interfering with an investigation of another spy, Steve Nelson.

At any rate, this article will not try to determine the one true version of history. It will tell the several versions of what important historians think is true. Binksternet (talk) 21:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

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Taking money is NOT an important part of being a "spy." Many people who have acted on the behalf of a foreign government have done so for ideological reasons or for some other reasons. The misnomer "spy" is overused to describe anything related to intelligence activities as some sort of all-encompassing title. There's intelligence collection and their's manipulation which are different things. The Soviets had plenty of collection through us and through the British which they had already heavily penetrated. Culmo80 (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)culmo80

I see that RJensen is still looking after Harry Hopkins' reutation with the assiduousness of a press agent. Now, thanks to him, this section now reads like the argument of the counsel for the defense of Harry Hopkins. Here's what he took down:

Journalist Eric Breindel and U.S. government security agent Herbert Romerstein argued that Hopkins could not have been an unconscious agent, and instead described him directly as a spy for the Soviets in their book The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors. However, Verne W. Newton, author of FDR and the Holocaust, said that no writer discussing Hopkins has identified any secrets that he gave away that he should not have, or any decision in which he distorted American priorities in order to help Communism.

Too bad that readers of Wikipedia can no longer read that and make up their own minds. RonaldSmif (talk) 04:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

References

This article appears to be biased.

Admittedly having arrived with a limited historical knowledge of Harry Hopkins, the WWII section of this article appears to be biased against the subject. For example, the statement that Hopkins "shunned the American position of free elections for Poland" seems wildly off-base. From what I have read, particularly in Churchill's account of WWII, Hopkin's did the best he could to press for a more inclusive Polish interim government with only lukewarm backing from the US administration.
[the above anonymous comment was added at 02:42, 12 January 2006 from IP 67.105.171.62]

Yes I tried to clean out the POV which has very little to do with anything Hopkins did --and put the emphasis back on what he in fact did do. He was one of the most powerful men in the world 1940-45 and we need to explain why. Rjensen 08:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I see that Rjensen who is mother-henning this page will not permit presentation of the substantial recently-discovered evidence that Harry Hopkins was an agent for the Soviet Union. I invite anyone interested in Harry Hopkins to read the book on Venona by Romerstein and Breindel, who lay out the evidence quite convincingly. It is hardly "wild speculation" that they engage in, and it is most inaccurate to portray them as "non-experts" in contrast to the legions of court historians that we have in this country.

This is from the dust jacket of their book: "Herbert Romerstein was head of the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the United States Information Agency from 1983 to 1989. He had previously served as a professional staff member for several congressional committees, including the House Intelligence Committee and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Now retired, Romerstein continues to write and lecture on the subject of Soviet espionage.

"Eric Breindel studied at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. Named senior vice president of News Corporation in 1997, he was also a syndicated columnist and the moderator of Fox News Watch, a weekly national public affairs television program. Previously, he had served more than a decade as editorial page editor of the New York Post and worked on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Breindel died in 1998 at the age of forty-two."

Those without the time to consult their book directly may read articles about it at http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/1/5/163140 and http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2000/november_2000_4.html. Root50 01:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The evidence that Hopkins was a Soviet "agent" has not been accepted by any reliable source. The false insinuation is that he betrayed his country. Actually his mission was to work very closely with Stalin and USSR to help USSR defeat Germany, He did a very good job. The "evidence" (p 214) is that a Soviet spy named Akhmerov had some minor bit og information that Hopkins heard from FDR. Did he get it from Hopkins?--unknown. Did he ever meet Hopkins: unknown. What did Hopkins tell Akhmerov--unknown. What did Akhmerov tell Hopkins: unknown. Conclusion: Hopkins betrayed his country and was acting under orders of Akhmerov! Well yes, many of the Soviets in USA were spies and Hopkins talked with many of them--that was his job. He talked to the ambassadors, generals, purchasing agents, to the staffs (many of them spies of course) and to Stalin himself--many times. Did he tell some Russian what FDR thought and said in private conversations with Churchill? Yes, that was Hopkins' job. Did that Russian tell Akhmerov? Very likely (it was Akhmerov's job to report what he heard third and fourth hand--spies do that.) Did Hopkins say anything improper--no one even claims that. Did he help Russia militarily (yes, that was American national policy in ww2). There is zero evidence that secret XYZ was passed from Hopkins to the USSR--what was the XYZ secret?? The key flaw in the book is that if spy Akhmerov passed along information that Hokins once had, them Hopkins must have told Akhmerov directly (but Akhmerov could have heard it from fellow Soviets)--and then jump to the astonishing conclusion that Akhmerov gave order to Hopkins. No Reussian ever claimed that. Putting wild insinuations it in Wiki violates our rules on reliable sources. Rjensen 01:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The only way to call my proposed section on Harry Hopkins "wild insinuations" is to thoroughly mischaracterize it, which is what Rjensen has done. Here, for the record, is how I describe what Romerstein and Breindel have to say, as opposed to the mishmash above:

Authors Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, in their 2000 book (see below, pp. 210-219) argue that Hopkins was an agent for the Soviet Union. Their evidence is, first, that Soviet KGB defector, Oleg Gordievsky, said that Hopkins was in regular communication with top Soviet covert operative, Iskhak Akhmerov, in New York City. This was more than just a "back channel" for communication between Roosevelt and Stalin because Hopkins had existing back channels at the Soviet embassy that he used, and Akhmerov's identity as an operative was not supposed to be known to the the U.S. government. Second, the Venona project decrypts reveal a report on a Washington discussion between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill by an "agent 19." Only Harry Hopkins among suspected Soviet agents would have been privy to that conversation. Third, former Communist Whittaker Chambers testified to Congress in 1948 about the formation of Communist "study groups" within the U.S. government from which espionage agents were recruited. One of those groups, led by Lee Pressman, was established within the Department of Agriculture in late 1933, and Hopkins was a member of that group. Fourth, his policies were strongly pro-Soviet, particularly in his work as head of the Lend Lease program in which he pushed for the supplying of highly-sensitive military equipment to the Soviet Union.

Yes, those are allegations, but I label them as such in the section heading. I think that they are certainly credible enough for the readers to be informed of them so they can come to their own conclusions. Actually, I now believe that the fourth point is not quite strong enough. Since I put it up I have read Major George Racey Jordan's From Major Jordan's Diaries and I found this excerpt with respect to the Lend Lease program that Hopkins ran. Major Jordan was the expediter of shipments to the Soviet Union, and Col. Anatoli Kotikov was his Soviet counterpart:

At this time I knew nothing whatever about the atomic bomb. The words "uranium" and "Manhattan Engineering District" were unknown to me. But I became aware that certain folders were being held to one side on Colonel Kotikov's desk for the accumulation of a very special chemical plant. In fact, this chemical plant was referred to by Colonel Kotikov as a "bomb powder" factory. By referring to my diary, and checking the items I now know went into the atomic energy plant, I am able to show the following records starting with the year 1942, while I was still at Newark. These materials, which are necessary for the creation of an atomic pile, moved to Russia in 1942:

Graphite: natural, flake, lump or chip, costing American taxpayers $812,437. Over thirteen million dollars' worth of aluminum tubes (used in the atomic pile to "cook" or transmute the uranium into plutonium), the exact amount being $13,041,152.* We sent 834,989 pounds of cadmium metal for rods to control the intensity of an atomic pile; the cost was $781, 472. The really secret material, thorium, finally showed up and started going through immediately. The amount during 1942 was 13,440 pounds at a cost of $22,848. [Note: On Jan. 30, 1943 we shipped an additional 11,912 pounds of thorium nitrate to Russia from Philadelphia on the S.S. John C. Fremont. It is significant that there were no shipments in 1944 and 1945, due undoubtedly to General [Leslie] Groves' vigilance. Regarding thorium the Smyth Report (p. 5) says: "The only natural elements which exhibit this property of emitting alpha and beta particles are (with a few minor exceptions) those of very high atomic numbers, such as uranium, thorium, radium, and actinium, i.e., those known to have the most complicated nuclear structures." (pp. 33-34) Root50 02:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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There is now substantial evidence that Harry Hopkins was a Soviet spy. Even the Military Channel refers to him as such in a biography about WW2 USAAF General Allison, who dealt extensively with Hopkins during the war. And as noted above, there are now several books on the subject and accusations by ex-KGB agents verifying the charge.

The Wiki should include these charges in the WW2 section of Hopkins entry. Just as many Wiki articles include disputes about a subject. Rjensen seems intent on hiding this info on purely ideological grounds.
[the above anonymous comment was added at 19:50, 16 February 2007 from IP 68.32.26.39]

Major Jordan appears to have been a spy for someone--he admitted he spied on the Russians but not for the USA--probably for Germany. Rjensen (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Harry Hopkins: Of course Hopkins was an agent of influence for the Soviets. He single handed won the war in Europe by getting Lend-Lease for Russia. But he wasn't a spy Russia needed no spies they had the nazi nuclear scientists already. Nuclear war was invented in Berlin.
John Hadley
[the above comment was added at 16:41, 19 June 2007 from IP 67.100.91.129]

Gentlemen, please sign your comments. It is very easy to do. At the end of your comments, simply type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~.

NCdave 06:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Hopkins for President?

I wish the portion about Hopkins' supposedly vying for the presidency had some sort of citation; it seems to come out of nowhere. --Andersonblog 22:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Systematic Attack By The Right On The New Deal

Somewhere on here it needs to be noted that the right wing and the right wing press has made it an object to attack and vilify key architects of the New Deal. This type of rewriting of history is not just happening with this article on Harry Hopkins, but also with other key architects of the New Deal. It must be noted that the publisher of the book where these accusations are first made is a right wing publisher deeply involved with right wing politics. The source of the main accusations listed in the article is from a man who was not born during much of Hopkins work on the New Deal, and in fact was only 7 years old at the time of Harry Hopkins death, and has been connected with right wing political figures. On top of that the information was at least 2nd hand. It seems to me that these attacks on public figures related to the New Deal are systematic and coordinated. In fact I think an investigation of that could possibly be very illuminating. —Preceding comment added by FredLGibsonJr (talk • contribs) 03:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Venona Secrets or not?

Should the Venona Secrets book be mentioned in the article or ignored?

I think it should be specifically mentioned so that it can be dismissed point by point, or dismissed out of hand. Leaving the book off the page invites people such as the IP editor from Fresno to add the book as a serious source, which it is not. Binksternet (talk) 15:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you understand how wikipedia works? "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources..." The book is a reliable source. People like Richard Jensen, who think that depleted uranium was used as anti-tank rounds in WWII, are not. Not unless the USSR had time travel developed during WWII, as DU penetrators weren't built until the 1970s. I'm surprised Jensen is engaging in such obvious counterfactual nonsense to defend Hopkins. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I am well aware of the importance of NPOV and its proper expression in articles. The book is certainly a reliable source per WP:RS, but the argument about how it should be mentioned in this biography article is very much related to its reception by scholars: they generally do not think it is worthy. For starters, the book is published by Regnery Publishing which acknowledges that its books "are contrary to those of 'mainstream' publishers in New York." Regnery books are typically conservative, but the Venona Secrets book was predicted by Time magazine to offer "sensational charges" rather than pure scholarship. Binksternet (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It's heavily footnoted, and very dry for a book that you claim to be a sensational rag. Have you even read it? It's quite tedious when it is arguing positions that it knows will disagree with established beliefs. But the interesting part about the VENONA intercepts is that it destroyed 50 years of established beliefs in academia, even though some people are so ossified that they can't admit when they've been proven wrong. The entire point of NPOV is that you don't allow one person's bias to dominate an article, as it is right now.

If you have read that Time article, it actually agrees with the charge that Alger Hiss was a communist spy. Which, while not germane to the Hopkins article, certainly disagrees with your Pavlov below (the authors also address this in the book). 99.120.200.86 (talk) 23:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It has also been criticized as "patchy" by an otherwise approving radical right-wing reviewer. Author Eric Breindel was well known as a newspaper editor (and a heroin buyer) but was not an espionage historian or scholar. Author Herbert Romerstein served as the director of the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the United States Information Agency from 1983 to 1989, which makes him an expert in the use of broadcast media to influence populations, but not an expert in espionage. These two non-spy guys tackle the question of espionage and get it very wrong in regard to Hopkins. They failed to take into account the job Hopkins was charged with: to help the Soviet Union fight Nazi Germany. Binksternet (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The book certainly talks about Hopkins heading up the Lend-Lease program to help the Soviet Union fight Nazi Germany. In fact, Hopkins used his position to push for uranium to be sent to the USSR so that they could develop their own atomic weapons program - a traitorous crime far worse than anything poor Julius and Ethel did.

Furthermore, since when is the Director of the Office to Counter Soviet disinformation - and a member who served on the House Intelligence Committee and the *HUAC* - considered unfit to write a book about Soviet espionage? This is, frankly, a very weak ad hominem. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 23:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Romerstein's expertise in propaganda does not give him any leverage in espionage. Binksternet (talk) 01:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You are honestly claiming that a man from the HUAC is not qualified to speak about the subject of the HUAC? Seriously? Would you reject the ghost of Hoover if he came back from the grave, too? But again, you're getting astray. The book is a reliable source, in the Wikipedia sense of the word, and your exceptionally odd ad hominem doesn't make the slightest difference for its use in the article. Especially since the authors themselves conducted interviews with many of the former spies, and so themselves are the primary source for a number of the cases studied in the book. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 06:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

When the Romerstein and Breindel book is cited by experts, its rickety conclusion about Hopkins is largely ignored. For instance, think-tanker James R. Edwards Jr cites The Venona Secrets in his article "Keeping Extremists Out: The History of Ideological Exclusion and the Need for Its Revival" but the cite is only about the Palmer raids and about Soviet-born spies infiltrating the USA, not at all about Hopkins.

Victor Saul Navasky, a respected journalist, scholar, and an expert on American anti-communism, dismisses the Romerstein and Breindel book along with many of the conclusions made from the publication of the Venona project papers. Navasky specifically questions the Venona Secrets determination that Hopkins was a "Soviet agent". He says that the ambiguous Venona project papers are used too often by "otherwise careful historians and mainstream journalists" who "now routinely refer to Venona as proof that many hundreds of Americans were part of the red spy network." Navasky says the inherent ambiguity of heavily redacted and incomplete material such as this is too often dropped in favor of sensationalism. Binksternet (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

...and noted left-wing author, you left out. Yes, Regnery is a right-wing publishing house. But book is hardly sensational as you keep claiming (it's actually quite dry reading), and the ridiculous efforts that some people like Navasky have gone to on the left to ignore or discredit the VENONA intercepts is both astonishing, and irrelevant. The claim against Hopkins is made in a reputable source, and is more nuanced than you think it is (have you read the section in question?), stating its case more on the "preponderance of the evidence" as it were, than as an open-and-shut case as with Harry Dexter White or Alger Hiss. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 23:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Professor Yoshiro Miwa of the University of Tokyo, Professor J. Mark Ramseyer of Harvard Law School mention The Venona Secrets in their scholarly paper The Good Occupation. Regarding Hopkins, they acknowledge that the book fingers Hopkins as a "fourth possible high-level Soviet spy", but they dismiss such conclusions by saying "his role is more uncertain."

John Earl Haynes lists the Venona sources in his Working Reference, and he notes that Agent 19 is never identified positively, but among those under speculation are Harry Hopkins, Lord Beaverbrook, Eduard Benes, and Laurence Duggan. In their 1999 book Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Haynes and Harvey Klehr think it likely that Agent 19 was a British person, a subordinate of Churchill and a delegate to the May 1943 Washington Conference. Haynes lists in his Working Reference that Hopkins may have been codenamed "Deputy" or "Zamestitel", though these codenames may have been vice president Henry A. Wallace (and Wallace may have had further codenames). Nothing in the Venona papers is conclusive about Hopkins.

Basically, the Venona material is fraught with conjecture. Per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV we must declare the source of any sensational theories about Hopkins being a Soviet agent, and to provide balance we must describe Hopkins as performing exactly the task given to him by FDR. Binksternet (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, The Venona Secrets authors cite retired NKVD officer Vitaliy Pavlov when it suits them, but they choose to ignore his memoir about Operation Snow in which he says "Harry Hopkins [and] Alger Hiss... were not agents of ours". Binksternet (talk) 19:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

They address Pavlov in the book, and counter it with a quote from spymaster Akhmerov who mentioned both his contact with Hiss and with Hopkins, stating "the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States" was Harry Hopkins. Primary sources trump secondaries, Bink, though in this case the quote was reported second-hand. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 23:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Pavlov specifically says that 0. Gordiyevsky lied about spymaster Akhmerov, making the supposed Akhmerov quotes useless. Gordiyevsky's version of Akhmerov's words is not secondary or tertiary, it is fabulary. Binksternet (talk) 01:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

As I said, the book addresses Pavlov directly in the book. You may choose to believe Pavlov, or you may choose to believe Gordy, but you may not use your bias to censor the article. If you have a counterargument, under No Original Research you'll need to find a source to make the case for you. Your own beliefs are mostly irrelevant. NPOV means that both sides are presented, as long as they are properly sourced and verifiable. Censorship of opposing viewpoints is not acceptable. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 06:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The bigger issue, though, of course, is that you and Dr. Jensen are goaltending the article, violating wikipedia policy on NPOV and Reputable Sources. If some sources have disagreed with the conclusions in The Venona Secrets, you may post their POVs as well. But forcing an article into conformity with your beliefs (and claiming anything to the contrary is "sensational") is against everything Wikipedia stands for. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 23:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The biggest issue is that the ONLY reason to cite the book is to attack FDR politically. that's a POV motivation. Only ant-FDR people mention it. Scholars never mention it. It is not a RS and no RS cites it. yes it has footnotes--any editor here known how easy it is to create a footnote. For good scholarship on exactly this topic see Mark, Eduard. "Venona'S Source '19' And The "Trident" Conference Of May 1943: Diplomacy Or Espionage?" Intelligence & National Security, Apr 1998, Vol. 13 Issue 2, p1-31. Rjensen (talk) 23:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

FDR is not germane to the Hopkins article, and I hardly am using it to attack FDR. It 'is' a reliable source, using the Wikipedia definition of the term, and is obligated to the included under the neutral POV policy. To censor other dissenting viewpoints is to violate Wikipedia policy. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 00:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It's all about attacking FDR--any spy could see that. As for the book, the authors' research overlooked the long major article on the subject (by Mark) in the leading scholarly journal on espionage. More exactly they suppressed that information in order to hint that Hopkins was a spy. I checked--not a single history or political science or national security journals had a favorable review of The Venona Secrets -- thus it fails the Wikipedia tests: "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable. If the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses, generally it has been at least preliminarily vetted by one or more other scholars....One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received [in this case zero--rj]...." Anyone serious about the issue needs to read the standard scholarship--Mark 1988-- (and I can provide a copy if they email me). Rjensen (talk) 00:30, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Richard, "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources; and, all majority and significant minority views that appear in these sources should be covered by these articles", and the specific criteria for history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#History) is that the book is footnoted and uses primary sources and quotes, all three of which the book does. The fact that you would like to pretend the book doesn't exist, or is part of a super-secret conspiracy to destroy FDR's legacy is irrelevant. It is a reliable source, in the Wikipedia sense of the word, and you have no right to censor it. (Also - have you even read the book? Your criticisms of it seem to be quite off-mark.) 99.120.200.86 (talk) 06:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I just re-read the Hopkins section in the book. While there is no Mark 1988, there is a Mark 1998 referenced in the book (Chapter 6, Footnote 71, page 214), which discusses Agent 19 in the VENONA intercepts. Given that VENONA wasn't released until 1995, I'm going to assume that you either got the date wrong and missed the fact that they did actually use that exact reference in the Hopkins section, or are using a source from before VENONA was released. Either way, it seems like sloppy research to me. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 06:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The book presents a fringe conspiracy theory that no RS accepts. It's junk that's popular only among FDR haters who have no serious interest in what really happened. the bits about Hopkins are based on a combination of hatred, misunderstanding, and ignorance of diplomacy. Hopkins told secrets to the Russians: that was his job. Anyone seriously interested should read serious work--start with Mark. and no, having a footnote does not make anything reliable. Wiki requires: "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context." Read Mark and decide for yourself what quality looks like. Rjensen (talk) 07:07, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Your attitude is a conspiracy theory about FDR haters that has no basis in reality. Also, Hopkins went beyond telling secrets to the Russians - he also pressured land-lease suppliers to send mass quantities of uranium to the Soviets, after they found out about the atomic program from other clandestine sources. The Venona Secrets is the correct source to use for this article. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 01:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

here's an example of the conspiratorial mind at work: "he also pressured land-lease suppliers to send mass quantities of uranium to the Soviets". It's first of all not true (it is not in Venona), and second assumes the Soviets were enemies, not allies. (Uranium was used to make anti-tank weapons, which the Soviets urgently needed. The a-bomb is made out of a very rare kind of uranium (U-235) which was not sent. Rjensen (talk) 02:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example of someone who evidently doesn't know that depleted uranium anti-tank weapons weren't made until 25 years after WWII ended: "Uranium was used to make anti-tank weapons, which the Soviets urgently needed. -Rjensen". Richard, are you claiming Stalin had invented time travel? 99.120.200.86 (talk) 07:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Venona Secrets is a crappy source, a Swiss cheese of missing arguments, but the question in front of us is whether to mention it and debunk it or to ignore it. I think we must buckle down and deal with it because it has gained much popular notice. Binksternet (talk) 03:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll make a list of the points it claims. You and Richard Jensen can create a list of counterarguments. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 07:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

good point. A solution is to work with the Mark article: Hopkins was (probably) a source but was acting for FDR and American interests. Rjensen (talk) 07:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

See history: "The Germans in fact had the technology back in World War II. When they ran out of tungsten, a large quantity of uranium was earmarked for antitank projectiles" quoted from Antitank' ' by Richard E. Simpkin (1982) p 97--it's the "depleted" version that is postwar. :) Rjensen (talk) 08:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Claims in The Venona Secrets

A list of the claims in the Venona Secrets. I'm including concurring references from other sources.

1. The Soviets had become interested in atomic espionage, had been spying on the program from '41 on, and had been interested in acquiring Uranium for this reason. Allan Nunn May turned over a sample of uranium alongside information on the atom bomb in '45, according to Gouzenko's documents, and other agents were instructed to acquire U-235 for atomic weapons as well.

2. Chemator (called Chematar in some references), of New York City, was a company that supplied chemicals to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program. They received a request on 2/1/43 for 220 pounds of Uranium Oxide (which the Nazis used in their nuclear weapons program, and was placed on an export control list by Nicols of the Manhattan Project on 1/26/43), 220 pounds of Uranium Nitrate (an intermediate in Manhattan's nuclear enrichment process), and 25 pounds of Uranium Metal (which the Manhattan Project was desperate to produce). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project#Uranium) The orders were increased to tons by March. Lend-Lease approved the shipments. Major Racey Jordan (who's not a very reliable source, IMO) said that Harry Hopkins was directly behind expediting the shipments, and overruled Leslie Groves on preventing the shipments. Groves contradicts this, but gives an odd response saying that they didn't ask the right questions in http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855036,00.html

I'd like to find the original HUAC transcripts for this, but there's an expanded version here: http://www.archive.org/stream/sovietatomicespi1951unit#page/184/mode/2up - a relevant quote: "In a classified file memorandum dated May 1, 1943, the Lend-Lease Administration officer, through whom most of these exchanges had been carried on, wrote that as a result of telephone conferences between General Wesson and General Groves, the previous decision not to approve the Soviet request was reversed by General Groves and General Wesson, and that it had been decided to allow the Soviets to proceed under the export license to obtain the particular stocks of 500 pounds of urano-uranic oxide and 500 pounds of uranium nitrate for which they had previously applied."

3. Lee Pressman was a Soviet spy, and the head of a communist study group in Washington DC, of which Harry Hopkins was a member, based on McJimsey's book. This is confirmed by the rather unreliable source The Strange Death of FDR (http://books.google.com/books?ei=L8yOTr7IKemusQLE74HAAQ&ct=result&id=wk5YAAAAMAAJ&dq=inauthor%3A%22Emanuel+Mann+Josephson%22&q=Marzani#search_anchor) which states that Hopkins was complicit in bribery with arms manufacturer Murray Garsson. In exchange for contracts, Garrson gave Hopkins money and the use of his room at the Wardman Park Hotel. Among the people using it with Harry Hopkins was Carl Marzani and the Ware Group. Harry Hopkins got Pressman hired as general counsel for the WPA. As an aside, Harry Hopkins uses typical communist-propaganda language in the Soviet Archives on him sampled here: http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/harry-hopkins-a-glimpse-into-the-russian-records

4. Harry Hopkins screwed over Poland on behalf of the Soviet Union. General FL Anderson reported that Hopkins supported not airdropping aid to Polish partisans who were uprising against the Nazis, and that he would block telegrams from Churchill recommending otherwise. If this is true, it definitely refutes Jensen's claim that Hopkins always acted properly in regards to his favorable treatment of the USSR. Additionally, Hopkins met with Stalin to discuss the Poland accord, which people had been worried had been broken after Yalta (in which Stalin had promised "free and unfettered" elections in Poland), coming to a new accord on June 6th, 1945 that led to the "Western Betrayal" - a Poland puppet state run by the USSR instead of a free democracy. Since Truman sent Hopkins to Moscow to try to salvage the Yalta agreement of free elections, so Hopkins' rolling over on the issue represents a betrayal of Truman and Poland in favor of the USSR. (http://books.google.com/books?id=IIudXdpnk5YC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=truman+hopkins+poland&source=bl&ots=1E7Ef1ZtBH&sig=bhAVPEXDZzRPj0T52lVFbNH7CgI&hl=en&ei=U9eOTuGFOfSHsAK0q7C1AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=truman%20hopkins%20poland&f=false) Hopkins told Stalin, "The United States would desire to see a Poland friendly the Soviet Union, and in fact desired to see friendly countries all along the Soviet Borders." Which isn't true, of course. To this, Stalin responded: "If that be so, we can easily come to terms in regard to Poland." I believe Stalin did allow a minority government of London poles in the new government, who were, of course, thrown out as soon as the Iron Curtain fell.

5. According to McJimsey and Chebrikov, Hopkins arranged for his friend, pro-Soviet colonel ("The Red Colonel") Faymonville to be promoted to Major General and to be sent to Moscow, over the objections of Army Intelligence. Faymonville was subverted in Moscow.

6. According to McJimsey, Hopkins applied pressure to try to get a Soviet defector returned to the USSR (where he would be presumably executed).

7. Hopkins had back-channel access to the Soviets through a variety of official and semi-official channels. He had no need to be in contact with NKVD spymaster Akhmerov. Akhmerov avoided contact with anyone other than his spy network, and was under cover in the US as a clothier. Meeting with an American official who was not part of his network would have exposed him to arrest and/or deportation. In a KGB lecture, Akhmerov reported that Hopkins was "the most important of all Soviet wartime agents", as reported by Gordievsky. Akhmerov described his contacts with Hopkins as beginning in the early 30s, and continuing into the 40s. VENONA intercepts include information that came from Hopkins. The authors reject the notion of Hopkins using Akhmerov as a back-channel to the Soviets, as it was part of his official responsibilities to do so, and he had such relationships with the Soviet embassy and its ambassadors.

8. Hopkins was "Agent 19" in the VENONA intercepts.

I think that covers the main points. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 11:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Sory; No RS agrees with this tissue of imagination. 1. no connection to HH 2> Major Racey Jordan is a joke--he was laughed out by Congress and no historians buys his story--which I have actually read. (he claims as an Air Force major to have known the secrets about uranium, and to have broken into sealed diplomatic pouches to spy on Hopkins). 3) no RS 4) no RS 5) not relevent to spying 6) not related to spying 7) there is no evidence Akhmerov ever had face-to-face contact with Hopkins (Akhmerov talked to many people who did talk to Hopkins, he quote what HH said from their notes); Hopkins was indeed the most important Soviet source of secret info on US plans. That was his job. Akhmerov did not known that HH was anti-Soviet in discussions with FDR. "Akhmerov described his contacts with Hopkins as beginning in the early 30s" is false. 8) probably true. This had to do with telling Stalin in 1943 that the invasion of France would not happen that year. Hopkins job was to make sure Stalin did not get really angry and cut a deal with the Germans. 99.120.200.86 seems not to have read Mark -- he relies on the conspiracy literature instead and that violates Wiki policy requiring the best RS. Rjensen (talk) 11:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I listed both The Strange Death and Racey Jordan as being "unreliable". You might take note of that before trying an ad hominem. I'm pretty sure you're wrong though about #4 (Poland) not having reliable sources, as the sources quoted there are from a primary source in the Library of Congress as well as notes from the Potsdam Conference printed by the GPO. That's as reliable as it gets unless it is an outright misquote. I can't find the primary sources online, but secondary sources seem to confirm it. Pressman, additionally, was unquestionably promoted by Hopkins. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 11:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The business about Poland is a red herring. The Source cited by 99.120.200.86 clearly states that HH succeeded in (briefly) moving Stalin toward the American position. He got Stalin to agree to appoint 4 London Poles to the new Polish cabinet. (Stalin in fact did so.) HH of course had the role of protecting American interests , not those of the Polish govt in exile in London, which had no power in Poland except that which HH negotiated for them with Stalin. HH followed Truman's instructions closely, which is what diplomats are supposed to do. The Pressman case is again irrelevant to Hopkins-as-spy. Anyone reading the documents ay recommended by 99.120.200.86 will see the Soviets never considered HH their agent. Pavlov specifically rejects the idea: "At the time of [Gordievsky's] allegation about Hopkins [1990], we made a detailed check into Akhmerov’s circumstances in that period [and concluded]: there was no chance that Akhmerov had ever participated in any meeting at which Hopkins could have been present....The nonsense [of Gordievsky’s allegations] was obvious." That's from the top Russian spy. During the war the Russian spies complained they could never recruit an agent near HH: "Vassiliev’s notes on a 1943 “Plan for reinforcing the intelligence work” in the United States also make it clear that, after the passage of a year, the Soviets still did not have any agents from “the circles of such individuals as Hopkins.” They did not even have “suitable cadres of qualified workers, capable of overseeing prominent and respectable agents” from such circles." Rjensen (talk) 12:35, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the best thing, as per Wikipedia policy, would be to say that 1) Hopkins was accused of passing nuclear weapon plans to the Soviets, but this accusation was discredited by the congressional investigation committee, 2) The Venona Secrets states they think Hopkins acted in the interests of the USSR (but was disputed - if you have a source that disputes this), 3) The Venona Secrets states that on the balance of evidence, Hopkins was a Soviet agent, but this is disputed by Eduard Mark. This is the correct NPOV way of presenting the facts from the various sources. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

No none of that comes from a RS. It appears 99. gives his strong bias away when he writes "Harry Hopkins screwed over Poland on behalf of the Soviet Union....that led to the "Western Betrayal" - a Poland puppet state run by the USSR instead of a free democracy. Since Truman sent Hopkins to Moscow to try to salvage the Yalta agreement of free elections, so Hopkins' rolling over on the issue represents a betrayal of Truman and Poland in favor of the USSR." Hopkins represented American interests not Poland's, and the accusations are rigged from a Polish anti-Soviet perspective. Hopkins did not know any "nuclear weapons plans" (that was Rosenberg). No RS says HH acted in Russia's interests--indeed the links provided by 99. say exactly the opposite. Fact is not a single scholar credits the Venona Secrets book --it's all speculation based on FDR-hatred. Rjensen (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You still show you don't know what a reliable source is. It's in the congressional hearing records that he was accused by Racey Jordan, and the committee found his claims to have little merit. This is an undisputed fact from a reliable source (the congressional record - the link is above). Please re-read wikipedia policies on how articles should be written. Your (and my) personal thoughts on the matter mean nothing. I'll file a request for review if you continue deleting undeniable facts from reliable sources. 99.120.200.86 (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Major Jordon's claims re Hopkins were back up by another army Major who worked in the Lend-Lease program. See "Memoirs of Ivan D. Yeaton, USA (Ret.) 1919-1953" by Major Ivan Yeaton.

If not Hopkins, then who? While there may be some doubt that Hopkins was a clandestine Soviet agent, there is no doubt that someone with his stature & clout was operating as one of many of Stalin's secret agents embedded in our government & influencing our policies. But if one examines everything Hopkins did, the overwhelming conclusion is he was either one of Stalin's secret agents, or one of the world's greatest fools.

Two books everyone should read:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Betrayal-Assault-Character-ebook/dp/B008BU71BM

"Stalin's Secret Agents," by Herbert Romerstein & Stan Evans MoFreedom (talk) 18:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Hopkins told the Russians a lot of secrets-- that was his job. Major Jordon's story was ridiculous and was rejected by Congress & everyone else. He claimed to be a self-appointed spy who illegally broke into secret diplomatic sealed pouches while working for the Air Force in North Dakota. Rjensen (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Hopkins was nobody's fool. He was following orders from FDR, helping the Soviets beat the Germans because otherwise the Nazi machine would have taken all of USSR, and the outcome of WWII would have been very much in doubt. I recommend MoFreedom stop searching for a secret agent, because the agent was not so secret, and he was doing exactly the right thing. Binksternet (talk) 17:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)