Valentin Markin (aka "Arthur Walter") (1903 – 1934) was the chief illegal ''
rezident A resident spy in the world of espionage is an agent operating within a foreign country for extended periods of time. A base of operations within a foreign country with which a resident spy may liaise is known as a "station" in English and a (, 're ...
'' and director of the
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
operations of the
Soviet Union
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, ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
from 1933 to 1934. Markin headed the activities of both
Soviet military intelligence
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
and that of the
Soviet secret police
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 ...
during this period.
Biography
Early years
Valentin Borisovich Markin was born in the city of
Groznyi, part of the
Russian empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, in 1903.
[Svetlana Chervonnaya]
"Valentin Borisovich Markin (1903-1934),"
DocumentsTalk website. Retrieved August 19, 2010. He studied at a business school as a young man.
In 1920, Markin joined the
Komsomol, the youth section of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union and he worked on Komsomol activities for the next two years in the
region of the Caucuses.
Career
Markin joined Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) and was stationed in Berlin in the 1920s, where he married an Armenian girl who worked for the Soviet trade mission. His superior in Berlin was
Ignace Reiss
Ignace Reiss (1899 – 4 September 1937) – also known as "Ignace Poretsky,"
"Ignatz Reiss,"
"Ludwig,"
"Ludwik", "Hans Eberhardt,"
"Steff Brandt,"
Nathan Poreckij,
and "Walter Scott (an officer of the U.S. military intelligence)" ...
. At some point, Markin left the GRU and secured a position with the Foreign Department (INO) of the NKVD.
In the United States, Markin lived under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"Arthur Walter."
He also is known to have used the aliases Oskar, Hermann, and Davis.
The novice GRU agent
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 Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...
met with Markin, posing as Hermann, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
in 1933. He was, Chambers wrote, "a short, sturdy figure confined in a tight-fitting, rumpled suit and elevated on high-heeled German shoes." His brush like mop of hair looked like it had been cut with a sickle. "I felt," Chambers continued, " that I had met what is much more unusual in life than a thoroughly good man-a thoroughly bad one."
[
]
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (
SVR) provided the authors
Allen Weinstein
Allen Weinstein (September 1, 1937 – June 18, 2015) was an American historian, educator, and federal official who served in several different offices. He was, under the Reagan administration, cofounder of the National Endowment for Democracy in ...
and
Alexander Vassiliev
Alexander Vassiliev (russian: Александр Васильев; born 1962) is a Russian- British journalist, writer and espionage historian living in London who is a subject matter expert in the Soviet KGB and Russian SVR. A former officer ...
an unprecedented peek into their archives for the preparation of ''The Haunted Wood'' (1999). One of the startling revelations in the text was that Valentin Markin had a source inside the U.S.
State Department, codenamed "Willi," who had access to "numerous ambassadorial, consular, and military attache reports from Europe and the Far East," and could "filch transcripts of recorded conversations Secretary of State
Cordell Hull and his assistants had with foreign ambassadors."
The Soviets paid "Willi" the extraordinary sum of $15,000 per year for the documents, which he passed to Markin through an intermediary codenamed "Leo," subsequently identified as ''
New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established ...
'' journalist
Ludwig Lore.
Death and legacy
In August 1934, "Arthur Walter" (Markin) was found at the Luxor Baths of the
Luxor Hotel (New York City) on 46th Street in New York City suffering from a serious head wound. Whittaker Chambers wrote that Markin was initially believed to have been attacked during a mugging while intoxicated.
Markin subsequently died in the hospital after having contracted
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
following surgery.
According to
Hede Massing
Hede Tune Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" (also "Hede Eisler," "Hede Gumperz," and "Redhead") (6 January 1900 – 8 March 1981), was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United State ...
, a Soviet intelligence operative who worked with Markin, he was murdered by
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.
...
agents due to suspected sympathies toward
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
.
Markin was replaced as chief illegal ''rezident'' by
Boris Iakovlevich Bazarov.
Footnotes
Further reading
* Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness.'' New York: Random House, 1952.
* Walter Krivitsky, ''In Stalin's Secret Service.'' New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939
* Hede Massing, ''This Deception.'' New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1951
* Elisabeth K. Poretsky, ''Our Own People: A Memoir of 'Ignace Reiss' and his Friends.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969.
* Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, ''The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era.'' New York: Random House, 1999.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Markin, Valentin
1903 births
1934 deaths
NKVD officers
GRU officers