Abraham George Silverman was a

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and statistician who was a member of the Soviet

Ware Group The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augu ...

Biography

Silverman graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. In the early days of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Franklin D. 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 ...

's New Deal, he worked for the

Railroad Retirement Board The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is an independent agency in the executive branch of the United States government created in 1935 to administer a social insurance program providing retirement benefits to the country's railroad workers. T ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, as director of research. From there he found employment in the Federal Coordinator of Transport, the United States Tariff Commission and the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Silverman was a civilian economic adviser and Chief of Analysis and Plans to the Assistant Chief of the Army Air Forces Air Staff for Material and Services Division, assigned to

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a meton ...

. Silverman allegedly supplied documents from the Pentagon to the Silvermaster group of

Soviet 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 nation ...

spies Spies most commonly refers to people who engage in spying, espionage or clandestine operations. Spies or The Spies may also refer to: * Spies (surname), a German surname * Spies (band), a jazz fusion band * Spies (song), "Spies" (song), a song by ...

. Silverman knew Greg Silvermaster to be a conduit for Communist Party USA General secretary, Earl Browder. In 1941, Silverman was on loan to the

US Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

and worked for a period of time on the frozen funds policy. Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury

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 ...

used Silverman to supply documents to

Soviet intelligence This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...

in the latter part of 1942 and early 1943. Presidential Assistant Lauchlin Currie furnished Silverman with oral information, including information that the United States was on the verge of breaking Soviet

codes In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

. Irving Kaplan of the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

was also giving Silverman information to be transmitted to the Soviet Union. As the war progressed, the volume of material increased. Silverman worked closely with Lud Ullman, who also worked at

and did the photographing of stolen documents prior to being turned over to the Golos network. In August 1945 Silverman left the Pentagon to work for the French Supply Council in Washington D.C., an office of the new

French government The Government of France (French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who i ...

. Silverman and Silvermaster learned much about U.S. policies and about Lauchlin Currie and Harry Dexter White's own views through their association. Currie appears to have been involved in carrying out orders from President Roosevelt to get U.S. intelligence services to return Soviet cryptographic documents to the Soviet Union and to cease decoding operations. The code name "Aileron" appears in the

Venona project 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 ...

and was identified as Silverman. Aileron was possibly a reference to Silverman’s Air Force position.

References

External links

FBI Silvermaster File The Silvermaster File of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation is a 162-volume compendium totalling 26,000 pages of documents relating to the FBI's investigation of GRU and NKVD moles inside the U.S. federal government both before and ...

Silvermaster Group FBI FOIA

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverman, George Jewish American scientists Harvard University alumni American spies for the Soviet Union American people in the Venona papers Espionage in the United States Year of birth missing Year of death missing

Biography

See also

References

External links