Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
– 7 July 1979,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
) was a controversial
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
journalist, businessman, Communist and
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
agent.
Early life
Enthralled with the radical left, Karr began writing at a relatively young age for the
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
publication, the ''
Daily Worker
The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were m ...
''.
Espionage allegations
In 1943, Karr came under the scrutiny of Representative
Martin Dies Jr.
Martin Dies Jr. (November 5, 1900 – November 14, 1972), also known as Martin Dies Sr., was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. He was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second and after ...
, chairman of the
House Special Committee on Un-American Activities
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
for his communist affiliations. Karr was at the time working for the
Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...
(OWI). Karr appeared before the committee and stated under oath that he was an informant for the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
, but that testimony was entirely a manufactured story. A special congressional investigation found no cause to remove him, but at the same time, the
Civil Service Commission
A civil service commission is a government agency that is constituted by legislature to regulate the employment and working conditions of civil servants, oversee hiring and promotions, and promote the values of the public service. Its role is rou ...
concluded he was both untruthful and unreliable. Karr resigned from the OWI and was immediately hired by Drew Pearson, one of America's most widely read columnists.
With the release of the
Venona
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
decrypts, a decryption from June 1944 established that Karr was an informational source for the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
. In it, Soviet agent
Vladimir Pravdin
Vladimir Sergeevich Pravdin, or Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate, codename LETCHIK Pilot" (15 August 1905 – 1970) was a senior NKVD officer and assassin working in Europe during the Great Terror. He later became a KGB agent, stationed in the Unit ...
reported to Moscow information he stated he received from Soviet
TASS
The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
deputy bureau chief
Samuel Krafsur
Samuel Simon Krafsur (January 10, 1913 – June 1983) was a Boston-born journalist who worked for the Soviet news agency TASS during World War II. He was also known as Bill Krafsur.
Biography
Krafsur was mentioned in the Venona intercepts ...
from his contact (Karr).
Karr earned a reputation as an unscrupulous investigative reporter who misrepresented himself to sources. In 1944, Karr was also active in Vice President Henry Wallace's effort to remain on the presidential ticket. President
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
referred to Karr as a "chronic liar." During the war, Karr was investigated twice by the FBI, once after obtaining a secret report on Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
prepared for President Roosevelt by
Oskar Lange
Oskar Ryszard Lange (27 July 1904 – 2 October 1965) was a Polish economist and diplomat. He is best known for advocating the use of market pricing tools in socialist systems and providing a model of market socialism. He responded to the economi ...
, another
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
source in the administration. To obtain the report, Karr claimed to be on the staff of US Vice President Henry Wallace.
On 12 September 1946, Pearson wrote an article based on a classified US military study of British military operations against the Greek Communist insurgency. The article, which alarmed the U.S. State Department, contained highly classified information on the British
order of battle
In modern use, the order of battle of an armed force participating in a military operation or campaign shows the hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of the armed ...
in Greece. The document had been in the office of the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, one
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
. An investigation revealed that the original document was missing and that the information reached Pearson through his aide, David Karr. The FBI suspected that Karr was working for the KGB and that his income was derived in part from the Soviet government.
The FBI had
Phillip Jaffe
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...
under audio surveillance during the
Amerasia
''Amerasia'' was a journal of Far Eastern affairs best known for the 1940s "Amerasia Affair" in which several of its staff and their contacts were suspected of espionage and charged with unauthorized possession of government documents.
Publicati ...
investigation and overheard Jaffe discussing with
Andrew Roth
Andrew Roth (23 April 1919 – 12 August 2010) was a biographer and journalist known for his compilation of ''Parliamentary Profiles'', a directory of biographies of British Members of Parliament, a small sample of which is available online in ...
various possible contacts for information from government sources. Roth told Jaffe that Karr could obtain "a lot of stuff on the Far Eastern things that the other guys don't get because of his Treasury connections. He goes up once a week with Harry"." Jaffe inquired as to whether this was
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World W ...
, already under suspicion for communicating information to the Soviet Union; Roth stated that it was. In 1950, Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
referred to Karr as Pearson's " KGB controller".
Karr later began a series of articles on the use of public relations in business takeovers. In 1959, Karr became CEO of the Fairbanks-Whitney Corporation, a large
defense contractor
The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and serv ...
whose divisions included
Colt Firearms
Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC (CMC, formerly Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company) is an American firearms manufacturer, founded in 1855 by Samuel Colt and is now a subsidiary of Czech holding company Colt CZ Group. It is the succ ...
. After three years the shareholders dismissed him. Karr then turned to film and hotel businesses, and in 1971, he became associated with
Armand Hammer
Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898 – December 10, 1990) was an American business manager and owner, most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran from 1957 until his death. Called "Lenin's chosen capitalist" by the press, ...
, who expanded Karr's contacts and business opportunities in the Soviet Union. Karr became a good friend of the son-in-law of Soviet Premier
Alexei Kosygin
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨɡʲɪn; – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premi ...
, Dzherman Gvishiani, and was granted both North and South American trademark rights to Misha the Bear, the mascot of the 1980 Olympic games. Along with Hammer, he formed a joint venture to make and sell Olympic commemorative coins, an enterprise estimated to be worth some U.S. $200 million.
Karr frequently boasted of having close ties with prominent US senators and presidential candidates and that he transmitted information between the Soviet and American governments on such issues as
détente
Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
, trade, and strategic-arms negotiations. Karr, then living in Paris, headed a Franco-American firm called Finatec. According to KGB files, Karr arranged meetings between Sen.
Edward Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
and Soviet leaders. A KGB file describes Kennedy in 1978 trying to help a close friend, former Senator
John V. Tunney
John Varick Tunney (June 26, 1934 – January 12, 2018) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator and Representative from the state of California in the 1960s and 1970s.
He was the son of boxing champion Gene Tunney.
...
of California, get some business in the Soviet Union.
In 1992,
Yevgenia Albats
Yevgenia Markovna Albats (russian: Евге́ния Ма́рковна Альба́ц, born 5 September 1958Russian Parliament
The Federal Assembly ( rus, Федера́льное Собра́ние, r=Federalnoye Sobraniye, p=fʲɪdʲɪˈralʲnəjə sɐˈbranʲɪjə) is the national legislature of the Russian Federation, according to the Constitution of the Russian F ...
to examine the archives after the aborted
Soviet coup attempt of 1991
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, quoted "an extremely top secret
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
memo to
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
leaders:"
In late 1978, as
Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum Corporation (often abbreviated Oxy in reference to its ticker symbol and logo) is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States, and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the ...
was attempting an unfriendly takeover of the Mead Corporation, Karr told a bizarre story in secret testimony before the
Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
. Karr said that one night in 1972, he was summoned to a hotel in Moscow to find Hammer in his pajamas, in tears and on his knees, pleading with two KGB agents not to arrest him. Hammer was being accused of bribery and smuggling two letters written by the founder of the Soviet Union,
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
, letters that Hammer had purchased at an auction in New York. Karr said that Hammer was let off the hook by agreeing to donate the treasures to the Soviet Union.
Death
Within days of learning of Karr's public disclosure, Hammer dropped his takeover bid of Meade. Seven months later, in July 1979, hours after returning from a trip to Moscow, Karr was found dead in suspicious circumstances in his Paris hotel room. Amid suspicions that Karr had been murdered, his widow halted the burial so that an
autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...
could be performed. One claim was that Karr had swindled his Russian partners. Rumors linked his friend Gvishiani to bribery scandals.
Israeli intelligence
Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...
officials claimed Karr was involved in secret Russian arms sales to states on the U.S. State Department's terrorist watchlist, namely
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
and
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, in the new atmosphere of openness, Soviet investigative journalist Albats published an article in ''
Izvestia
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes ...
'' quoting documents from KGB archives that Karr was "a competent KGB source" who "submitted information to the KGB on the technical capabilities of the United States and other capitalist countries."
Legacy
In 2009, his grandson Doug Karr made the short film ''Ten for Grandpa'' about his fabled ancestor. A fast-paced investigation into Karr's complex life, the film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
References
*
Yevgenia Albats
Yevgenia Markovna Albats (russian: Евге́ния Ма́рковна Альба́ц, born 5 September 1958 *Statement of Rep. Fred E. Busbey, Congressional Record 18 February 1944, A876.
*Statement of Rep. Martin Dies, Congressional Record 1 February 1943, 504–516.
*Extension of Remarks of Hon. Francis E. Walter, Congressional Record 6 February 1957.
*Henry Wallace Papers: see Harold Young from Oskar Lange, 3 July 1944.
*Washington Post, 3 July 1944. FBI Silvermaster file (PDF p. 33).
*Washington Post, 4 July 1994.
*Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to Harvey Klehr, 18 April 1990.
*John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, pgs. 244–247.
*Yevgenia Albats Nieman Reports, The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, Vol. 53 No. 4 Winter 1999.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karr, David
1918 births1979 deathsAmerican spies for the Soviet UnionAmerican people in the Venona papersEspionage in the United StatesPeople of the United States Office of War Information