Samuel Simon Krafsur (January 10, 1913 – June 1983) was a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-born

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who worked for the

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, ...

news agency

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) ...

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 opposin ...

. He was also known as Bill Krafsur.

Biography

Krafsur was mentioned in 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 ...

intercepts under the codename IDE. He was used by 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. ...

during the war as a source of information and for recruiting journalists as informants and agents, and is referred to in the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

archives as a "KGB agent

In the 1930s Krafsur joined the

Communist Party of America 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 Re ...

. He attended

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

for a year. He lived at 68 Phillips Street in Boston before going to

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

to fight with the

Abraham Lincoln Brigade The Abraham Lincoln Brigade ( es, Brigada Abraham Lincoln), officially the XV International Brigade (''XV Brigada Internacional''), was a mixed brigade that fought for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War as a part of the Internationa ...

during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

, where he was wounded in 1937. In 1938 Krafsur was a member of the editorial staff of "The Volunteers for Liberty" a newspaper which was an, "organ of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade" organization out of 125 West 45 Street in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In April 1938 he was in charge of finding veterans to tell their war stories to be made into radio plays written by

Irwin Shaw Irwin Shaw (February 27, 1913 – May 16, 1984) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: ''The Young Lions'' ( ...

. He began working for TASS in 1941 after being recruited by the 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 ...

. He became the assistant to the manager

Laurence Todd Laurence Todd (1882–1957) was an American journalist who worked as a news agency correspondent in Washington, DC. A committed radical, Todd worked as personal secretary to Socialist Party of America, Socialist Congressman Meyer London from 1915 t ...

at the Washington sub-bureau.The Two Faces of TASS, Theodore Eduard Kruglak, page 99. Krafsur was considered an important asset to the NKVD because of the many contacts he had with other newsmen. He was the deputy TASS bureau chief in

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, ...

and 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 ...

spent a lot of time and effort trying to identify who he was under his codename IDE. In May 1944, he was described in a NKVD cable from New York to Moscow as, "absolutely devoted to the

USSR 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 nationa ...

." He provided at least twenty leads of people for possible recruitment including Joseph Berger, a personal aide to the chairman of the

Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...

, and

I. F. Stone Isidor Feinstein "I. F." Stone (December 24, 1907 – June 18, 1989) was an American investigative journalist, writer, and author. Known for his politically progressive views, Stone is best remembered for ''I. F. Stone's Weekly'' (1953–1971), ...

. In 1949, Laurence Todd was relieved of his managing duties and instead given the title of senior correspondent. In this same year Krafsur left TASS and was later called before the

House 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 ...

where he chose not to cooperate. Later he worked in a toy store. In the early 1960s he married the ex-wife of the secretary-treasurer of the Mine, Mill, and Smelters Union. He died, at the age of seventy, in

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...

in 1983 under the name "Samuel Krafsur".

Note

* National Security Agency Archive

National Cryptological Museum

Custodian of documents for the Army Signals Intelligence Corp

Sources

* * * Social Security Death Index, USA.

External links

Spying on America
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krafsur, Samuel 1913 births American male journalists 20th-century American journalists Northeastern University alumni Espionage in the United States Writers from Boston Writers from St. Petersburg, Florida Abraham Lincoln Brigade members American communists 1983 deaths American spies for the Soviet Union American people in the Venona papers 20th-century American writers Members of the Communist Party USA