Henry Hill Collins Jr. (1905–1961), also known as Henry H. Collins, Jr., and Henry Collins, was an American citizen employed in the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate " cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governm ...

in the 1930s and later the

Agricultural Adjustment Administration The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part o ...

. He was a member of 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 Rev ...

(CPUSA) and the Washington D.C. based

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 ...

, along with

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 co ...

Lee Pressman Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following hi ...

, Harry Dexter White and others. He was also a "pioneer in the compiling of ornithological field guides."

Background

Collins was born in 1905 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, a "scion of a Philadelphia manufacturing family" in paper products. "My ancestors came from England to this country in 1640." He received a BA from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

and a business degree 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 highe ...

. Collins was also a childhood friend of Alger Hiss in Baltimore. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Business School. Chambers also describes Collins as "my personal friend."

Government career

Initially, Collins worked in the family paper business. He left during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

for work in the federal government during the

. In 1933, Collins worked in the

. He also worked at the

and the

US Department of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemploy ...

. He also worked for the Soil Conservation Service, the US Department of Labor, and a House committee on migration. In 1941, he joined the U.S. Small Business Committee, then a Military Affair subcommittee. During World War II, Collins served as a captain in the Army, fought at the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

, and won three ribbons and "five European campaign stars." Immediately after the war, he worked for six months as a district official for displaced persons in Germany as part of the States Department's division of occupied territories. Collins remained in government service until 1947. In 1948, he was serving as executive director of the American Russian Institute in New York and living at 58 Park Avenue, New York (as testified before

HUAC 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 ...

in 1948).

Alleged espionage activities

In August 1948, as the Hiss Case began, he appeared under subpoena before the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, create ...

(HUAC) and would answer no questions of substance. In 1950, Ware lived at the San Cristobal Valley Ranch near

Los Alamos, New Mexico Los Alamos is an census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, that is recognized as the development and creation place of the atomic bomb—the primary objective of the Manhattan Project by Los Alamos National Labo ...

, and its atomic proving grounds. During testimony in 1953, Collins declared, "The ranch was a perfectly legitimate business operation." In 1952,

Nathaniel Weyl Nathaniel Weyl (July 20, 1910 – April 13, 2005) was an American economist and author who wrote on a variety of social issues. A member of the Communist Party of the United States from 1933 until 1939, after leaving the party he became a co ...

confirmed under oath that Collins had been a member of the

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 ...

founded by

Harold Ware Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture. He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a S ...

and inherited by

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Workers Party of America, Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet Union, Soviet spy (1932–1938), defe ...

. Subpoenaed again in 1953, he declared, "I will not be a finger man for this committee."

Personal and death

Collins married Susan B. Anthony II, great-niece of

Susan B. Anthony Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...

. He married Mary Evans Collins with whom he had two sons and one daughter. Collins once spotted a prothonotary warbler for Alger Hiss. Collins died age 57 on May 25, 1961, at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx after a car crash two days earlier.

Works

In addition to books on American and Soviet government, Collins may have authored some dozen books on birds. * ''America's Own Refugees; Our 4,000,000 Homeless Migrants'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941) * ''The Constitutions of the 16 Constituent or Union Republics of the USSR: A Comparative Analysis'' (1950) * ''Bent's Life Histories of North American Birds'' (edited) (1960) * ''Bird Watchers' Guide'' (1961)

References

External links

* * Chambers, Whittaker, testimony before HUAC 3 August 1948 * Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America,''

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...

, 1999. * * Weinstein, Allen, and Alexander Vassiliev, ''The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era'' (New York: Random House, 1999) * Vassiliev, Alexander, "A.Gorsky's Report to Savchenko S.R., 23 December 1949", "Failures List". {{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Henry 1905 births Members of the Communist Party USA American spies for the Soviet Union American communists American people in the Venona papers 1961 deaths Harvard Business School alumni Princeton University alumni American people of English descent People from Philadelphia