On Monday, April 3, 1944, Victor Kravchenko, a top official of the Soviet Purchasing Commission, held a press conference in New York to explain why he was defecting from the Stalinist regime. Two days before, he had left his office in Washington feigning illness and saying that he might not come in on Monday. At his lodgings, he paid a week’s rent and said he was going away on a business trip. He caught a train to New York, travelling in a second class compartment “because Soviet officials always travel in Pullman style” (first class).
I registered under an Italian name at a dingy uptown hotel—the kind of hotel where you pay in advance for your room. It was a room made to order for suicide: narrow, musty, depressing. I locked the door. In the half-light of the one electric bulb I began to write out a statement, parts of which were to appear in the American press two days later.
On February 11, 1946, Kravchenko finished writing his autobiographical work, I Chose Freedom, described as “The Personal and Political Life of a Soviet Official.” In a signed postscript, he wrote:
I began work on this book immediately after my escape from the Soviet Purchasing Commission and worked on it month after month under harrowing conditions of persecution and threats against my life. I was obliged to wander from city to city, continually changing hotels and private residences, living under assumed names and assumed nationalities, finding safe “hide-outs” in the homes of Americans or my own countrymen. To all of those who showed me kindnesses and gave me moral support I want hereby to express my deep gratitude.
Among the unnamed friends and guardians whom Kravchenko referred to was Mr. David Dallin, the American writer on Soviet affairs; his wife Lilia Dallin, formerly Lola Estrine; and Mark Zborowski, the GPU agent who had masterminded the murders of Leon Sedov and Trotsky, and who was at that time informing on the Fourth International and the American Trotskyist movement.
On March 2, 1956, when Zborowski appeared before the Senate judiciary subcommittee investigating “The Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States,” he revealed how he became involved in the Kravchenko affair. After describing how he met his GPU controller on the beach at Coney Island, Zborowski was asked, “Did you receive an assignment to report on Victor Kravchenko?”
Zborowski: That is right.
Q: Have you told us about that now?
Zborowski: The same man (the agent Chaliapin) asked me whether I knew Victor Kravchenko. And I said I knew Victor Kravchenko, because I met him once at Mrs. David Dallin’s house.
Q: When did you meet Mr. Victor Kravchenko?
Zborowski: I don’t remember.
Q: Approximately?
Zborowski: Approximately a few months, a couple of months after his defection to the United States.
Q: Which was, I recall, in May of 1944?
Zborowski: Well, I met him probably somewhere in the fall of 1944, or maybe the winter of 1944.
Q: Now, did you—
Zborowski: I refused—I was given the assignment to foster a friendship with Mr. Kravchenko, which I never did.
Q: You were given the assignment of fostering a friendship with Mr. Kravchenko?
Zborowski: That is right.
Q: Which you never did?
Zborowski: Which I never did.
Q: But you did know him at the time?
Zborowski: I knew him at the time I was invited to Mrs. Dallin’s house at the time that Mr. Kravchenko was there. That is the first time I met him.
Q: Now, did you report back to this gentleman, the NKVD man?
Zborowski: No.
Q: Just a minute, now. Did you ever report back to him anything about Kravchenko?
Zborowski: Well, that was not reporting. I would like to straighten it out. He asked whether I knew Kravchenko, and I said yes, I knew Kravchenko.
Q: And did you tell him—
Zborowski: Then he says, “Well, if you know Kravchenko, try to establish friendship with him and try to get him involved in a relationship with you,” which I refused again; which I didn’t do. I never met Kravchenko again until I think a certain time for a very short, brief period.
Q: And you elected at that time not to tell these things to, say, the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Zborowski: Pardon?
Q: You elected at that time not to tell of these episodes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Zborowski: That is right.
In retrospect, the meeting at the Dallin’s apartment was a strange one: Mr. Dallin, the expert on “Soviet affairs;” Mrs. Dallin, reputedly a “Trotskyist-Menshevik;” Kravchenko, a Soviet defector who was in fear of receiving the same treatment as Ignace Reiss and Walter Krivitsky (to name but a few); and Zborowski who, as far as the Dallins presumed, was a dedicated Trotskyist, former political confidante of Leon Sedov, and an observer at the founding conference of the Fourth International. When top Soviet officials defect, it is normal practice for the American intelligence authorities to take them in hand for months and even years to “debrief” them. How, then, did he end up at a social evening with the Dallins and a “Trotskyist” so shortly after his defection?
Zborowski was charged with telling lies to the FBI and brought before the US Federal Court in 1958 on charges of perjury. He was convicted and sentenced on December 8 to the maximum of five years. He appealed and in 1962 he was again before the court. He was convicted a second time and sentenced to three years and 11 months imprisonment. At his first perjury trial before Judge John M. Cashin, Zborowski testifies about his relations with Kravchenko. It was a different story from the one he had told the Senate subcommittee two years earlier. Asked if he had ever met Kravchenko, Zborowski replied, “Yes.”
Q: And do you recall who it was who introduced you to Kravchenko?
Zborowski: Mrs. Dallin.
Q: And was anyone else present when Mrs. Dallin introduced you to Kravchenko?
Zborowski: I think Mr. Dallin.
Q: Mr. Dallin was present?
Zborowski: I think so.
Q: And do you recall where this introduction took place?
Zborowski: In the apartment of Mrs. Dallin.
Q: Now, can you place this introduction to Kravchenko in relation to the date April 4, 1944? How long after that would it have been?
Zborowski: I think it was a couple of weeks, several weeks after he defected.
Q: After the introduction in the Dallins’ apartment did you and Kravchenko go anywhere?
Zborowski: I think we came down to our apartment.
Q: Just you and Kravchenko or did someone else join you?
Zborowski: No, only Kravchenko and myself.
Q: Mrs. Dallin did not go with you?
Zborowski: Not that I recall, no.
Q: And was your wife in your apartment when you and Kravchenko arrived?
Zborowski: She was.
Q: So that the three of you would have been in the apartment?
Zborowski: Right.
Q: And you had a conversation with Kravchenko on that date?
Zborowski: Yes.
Q: And Kravchenko—what did he say to you on that occasion?
Zborowski: A number of things. He described me the condition in Russia. He described me his dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the American production. He described to me the way, the inefficiency of the defense of Moscow, and a number of things I don’t recall.
Q: Was this the, occasion when he talked about a series of articles or books that he was writing?
Zborowski: Yes.
Q: Now, Mr. Zborowski, there has been some talk about a book in this case. Do you recall if what Mr. Kravchenko discussed with you at that time was not a book but an article in a magazine?
Zborowski: I think it was both topics. I think he said he would write an article in a magazine but he is also preparing a book.
Q: And that magazine, just for the record, was Cosmopolitan magazine?
Zborowski: It was one of the weeklies. I don’t remember whether it was Cosmopolitan but it could have been.
Q: Have you given the court and jury the full extent of the conversation between you and Kravchenko in your apartment this few weeks after April 4, 1944?
Zborowski: You request me now to give you—
Q: I want the entire conversation that you had with Kravchenko in your apartment a few weeks after April 4, 1944. If there is anything that you have not told this jury, please do so now.
Mr. Nathan (for Zborowski): I take it Mr. Kantor means everything that Mr. Zborowski now remembers about that conversation.
Mr. Kantor, Assistant US attorney: He can only testify as to what he remembers, your honor.
Mr. Nathan: Well, the question is broader, your honor.
Zborowski: Should I answer the question?
Judge Cashin: Go ahead.
Zborowski: Kravchenko came down to my apartment, I remember, in the beginning we were sitting in the living room. For a while my wife was present. Then she went to the bedroom. We remained, the two of us only. He told me about his experiences in Russia. I was extremely interested at that time in what was happening in Russia. That was the general conversation. It was about, as I said, the dissatisfaction with the American production. There was an engineer, he was an engineer, and he felt that America in this respect was not as good as the Russians are. Which I was very surprised. He spoke on the other hand of the poor Russian preparation for the war. The fact that they distributed, if I am not mistaken, some kind of inefficient weapons.
Then he discussed with me that he wants to write a book about all his experiences in the past, and if I am not mistaken he had part of the manuscript with him and he read to me portions of the manuscript, especially those, I think referring to his early childhood in the Ukraine. Then he told me—I don’t recall exactly now whether he is going to publish an article based on this book or an article independent of his book which he will publish in one of the American weeklies. He said that he is working with some kind of an editor—he had difficulty with the English language—and he told me—I don’t remember the name at the present time of the American editor who helped in the preparation either of the article or of the translation of the book. Which now I don’t recall. That is the extent of it. Most of the time was spent on reading the manuscript.
While Zborowski was entertaining the Soviet defector in his apartment in Manhattan—in the same block as the Dallins were living—he was receiving $150 a month from his controller, Jack Soble, to spy for the GPU. When Mrs. Dallin testified about Zborowski in the Senate hearings in 1956, she gave details of his espionage role in the French Trotskyist movement and the Fourth International: the theft of Trotsky’s Russian archives by the GPU, the murders of Leon Sedov and Ignace Reiss. But she did not say a word about the Kravchenko affair in New York. But when Jack Soble was brought from prison to testify against Zborowski in the first perjury trial, he did. He gave a detailed account of how Zborowski informed the GPU about Kravchenko’s defection—even before it took place! Referring to Zborowski’s abilities as an agent, Soble testified:
But the most important thing what I want to emphasize is that Zborowski—that the Russians not only asked for material from Zborowski, but Zborowski himself gave voluntarily lots of information about which the Russians didn’t know at all. I want to emphasize for instance—I don’t know if I am—I am not so familiar with American law. I don’t know if I am entitled to say it, but Zborowski, for instance, I take only one example, came and created a panic among the Russians through me, that one Russian is going to defect, the Russians who work here. He thought he works in the embassy. His name was later known as “Kravchenko.”
Mr. Nathan: Can we have the date, your honor?
Soble: This happened in 1943. I don’t recall exactly the date, but I know that this was in the Times on the first page. You can find it in the Times in 1943.
Mr. Kantor: Mr. Soble, do you recall, to the best of your ability, when Zborowski first met with you to describe the information about Kravchenko?
Soble: Zborowski described this event before the Public Library, I met him.
Q: That is where you met him?
Soble: Yes.
Q: But when did you meet him?
Soble: When did I meet him exactly? I can’t say.
Q: To the best of your ability.
Soble: I met him, I mean, it must have been a week or two weeks before Kravchenko’s real defection.
Mr. Nathan (for Zborowski): Objection to what must have been.
Judge Cashin: Yes, strike it out.
Q: Mr. Soble, do you recall in your mind when it was that Kravchenko defected? Do you have that time fixed in your mind?
Soble: Kravchenko defected—
Q: Without giving a date do you recall when that happened?
Soble: In the later part of 1943.
Q: The meeting that you are referring to, where you met Zborowski, was that before or after the event of the defection?
Soble: Of course, before the event.
Q: How long before was it?
Soble: This is what I said, a week or two weeks.
Q: Mr. Soble, I show you government’s exhibit 5 for identification and ask you if this refreshes your recollection as to when the defection actually occurred.
Soble: I am sorry I mixed it up but I know only the fact that in April ’44, as I say, it happened, and I understand now really that I was wrong on that, because he couldn’t have done it in 1943. I started only working with Zborowski, and this was later on, so it took place really in ’44 instead of ’43.
Q: Can you recall what part of the year, the season or the month when Zborowski first got in touch with you in connection with Kravchenko?
Soble: When he got in touch with me?
Q: Yes.
Soble: Zborowski got in touch with me in connection with the defection of Kravchenko one or two weeks before.
Q: Before April ’44?
Soble: Yes.
Q: How did he get in touch with you?
Soble: He called me, as I told you, he called me in—now, I see exactly that this took place in ’44. I must excuse myself. There are so many dates I really cannot exactly say always, but in 1944 he knew already my phone number, and I knew his phone number, and he called me up in an emergency case. We had appointments before the Public Library.
Q: What did he say to you on the telephone, Mr. Soble?
Soble: “I have to see you.” I mean, “Right away” and if we can meet. I said all right, “Let’s meet in an hour or so,” and I left and met him there before the Public Library.
Q: What happened when you met him at the Public Library? What did he say to you and what did you say to him?
Soble: At the public library he described to me all the details, I mean, about the event which is going to take place. He met at 108th Street where he lived, he met a fellow, yes, a man approached him on the street who spoke broken English with a very heavy accent, a Russian accent, and he had on a piece of paper the exact address where he lives, he, Zborowski, lives, and he asked him about this number of the house. It was a few houses away from his house. At first, he Zborowski, thought that this man is coming to him, but he didn’t show him the name to whom he is going, and he understood and he then finally found out that this man is going to the same house where Professor Dallin was, and through Dallin he found out the confirmation that particularly through Mrs. Dallin that there was a man who is going—who wants to defect the Russians, and they didn’t tell him, of course, they didn’t tell him the name Kravchenko, so he understood that this is the same man, Zborowski understood that this is the same man whom he met by accident a few houses away from his house where he lived.
Q: Did he describe or did he tell you that this man was described in any way?
Soble: Yes.
Q: What did he say about him?
Soble: He described this man that he is—I mean, after having spoken, as I understand, with Mrs. Dallin, I could give more information, but Dallin still kept it for themselves, his identity. They said that he is working as a Russian official here and that he is going to defect the country, and he particularly found it out, as I said, through Mrs. Dallin. And I reported it—I should report it right away.
Q: And did you report it right away?
Soble: I still asked Zborowski if he has any doubts in his mind, and he said no, this is a Soviet Russian. And I reported it to Chaliapin.
Q: Now, after you reported this information to Chaliapin, do you recall meeting another Russian?
Soble: Yes, one day or two days later there came—there was a real panic created by this information. I didn’t meet for a long time, I mean, for a long time, I mean, several, many months, Zubilin, at all. I know only at that time Chaliapin and suddenly I got a telephone call in the evening at my apartment, 107th Street in Washington Heights, from Zubilin, that he is coming right away to my apartment. That means that he must have called me somewhere near my house, and he wants to talk to me. He came up to my apartment and he said my wife was there, he said only hello, and he left, he said, “Well, let’s go out right away, I want to talk to you on the street.” And he went out with me and right away, I mean, he was always a very excited man, and he must have had, still have had a few more Martinis, as I understand it, because he was very much in love with this American drink, and he said, “Well let’s talk it over. What is all about this information about a man who wants to defect the Russians?” Zborowski still made the remark, this is what made him so much excited still, that this is an old member of the Party. And Zubilin said that, “Well old members of the Party I consider members since 1917.” Well, we are only three people like this: Litvinov, he himself, and another fellow. “So you don’t think,” he says, “that Litvinov will defect Russia,” or is he—Zubilin—“will defect Russia?” I said what about the other fellow? He said, no, he is also without any doubt.
Q: That other fellow, did he mention his name?
Soble: No, he didn’t mention his name. So he said, “Well, then, you have to—where does he work, at the Embassy or at the Trade Mission?” I said “Well, this I don’t know.” And this Zborowski doesn’t know. So then finally he insisted that we will meet the next day—“I want to clean up this story again because, I mean, I am responsible for this. I want to know it, and let’s make an appointment between Zborowski, Chaliapin, Zubilin, and myself” I said, “Where should this meeting take place? I mean, I have to call Zborowski and see.” He says he has to find time for this. This is an emergency.
And this meeting took place, I called up Zborowski, and this meeting took place the next day in the afternoon near my, around 107th Street, around the corner. And Zborowski gave them again all these details, that he doesn’t know the name, that he met him at 108th Street, that he definitely went to the Dallins, and that this is a soft Russian who is going to defect. After that, I mean, they left, and after a few days, or after a week, you know, or so on, Chaliapin was—he saw me once and he said, still coming back to this matter, “I think the whole thing which Zborowski brought this time is a pure fantasy. You see, there is no action, and, I mean, Russians who defect, they defect very fast, they say, well, the story is not so old. It is just a few days, I mean, it might take him time. He hasn’t the right contacts where to defect.”
“Well, you think your way.” We checked everything. And just a couple of days later, I recall it very, very distinctly, because these things I recall very much, the Kravchenko story. I walked into the subway. It was after 11 o’clock in the evening, when you get the New York Times edition, the early morning edition of the New York Times, and on the first page I found about the defection of Kravchenko.
Judge Cashin: We will suspend here and take a recess to 2:15.
Judge Cashin: Wait a minute, maybe I can help you. The last thing he said, as I recall it, when he was testifying to this morning before we recessed at 1 o’clock was that he went into the subway and got an early edition of the Times and in that Times appears whatever date it was he saw about the defection of Kravchenko. Now, pick it up from there.
Q: After you read that copy of the New York Times in the subway, Mr. Soble, did you meet with Zborowski again?
Soble: Of course I met with Zborowski.
Q: Now, would you tell the Court and jury what you talked about to Zborowski after that time?
Soble: Well, I mean, then it was already known that this was Kravchenko and he was very proud of it that he found it out but they couldn’t—
Mr. Nathan: Your Honor, could we have the conversation and the times and places?
Judge Cashin: Yes.
Q: Now, Mr. Soble, if you can, describe when the meetings took place, these subsequent meetings, where they took place, and describe what you said to Zborowski and what he said to you.
Soble: As I said before, I mean, these meetings used to take place mostly in the 40th Street, in the Times Square area, around the 108th Street, and also before the Public Library, and we used to meet also from time to time in the 50th Streets.
Q: Now, at any of these meetings, Mr. Soble, after April 4, 1944, did you have a conversation with Zborowski about Kravchenko?
Soble: Of course I did.
Q: Now, would you tell the jury about that meeting and that conversation?
Soble: I cannot place this meeting in the 40th Streets or in the Fifties, but one of these places we had a conversation in which he was, I mean, his authority, I mean, increased and he said that he was right, that he found out the right information, that the Russians couldn’t place him, well, this is not his fault, and they admitted it, Zublin and Chaliapin, that this was a thing they didn’t know.
Q: Did Zborowski give you any additional information about Kravchenko?
Soble: He gave a lot of information about Kravchenko, particularly I remember one meeting which took place before the Public Library, and about which I spoke to Zborowski at the confrontation when we had it last year when he said that—
Q: We will get to the confrontation later, Mr. Soble. In the meantime this meeting at the Public Library, would you describe that for us?
Soble: Yes. He brought, I mean, he brought later on he brought manuscripts from Kravchenko in which he described his defection from Russia and all the things which he went through, and he had to get back these papers very fast.
Mr. Nathan: Your Honor, could we have who “he” is?
Q: By “he” whom do you mean?
Soble: Zborowski had told me that he, Zborowski, had to get fast back these papers because he helps Kravchenko, I mean, in looking this over, and I gave these papers to Chaliapin and they made, as I understand, photostats of it and I returned these documents to Zborowski.
Under cross-examination, Soble gave further information about Zborowski’s early warning of Kravchenko’s defection.
Soble: Finally he had one case at one occasion, he developed his own initiative, personal initiative. Nobody of the Russians knew about it. He came and he said, “There is a man who wants, who is ready to defect the Russians on the American side. Be careful.” He described him. He knew him. He met him. He met at that time once. He described him. He didn’t know his name. And the whole panic started with Zubilin. I didn’t see Zubilin already for a long time and he came to my apartment without even asking if he should come. You see, they were—when they want you they come.
Judge Cashin: Go ahead.
Soble: So I just—he came to me and to the surprise of my wife, who didn’t like it at all that he came to her apartment bothering us, and he said, “I just want to know who wants to defect.” I said, “I don’t know. I gave you this information from Zborowski. You must know better.” He said—Zborowski, as one of the details, said also that this Russian, he is an old member of the party. He said, “I checked the old members of the party at the embassy and there is nobody except three members, old members of the party—Zubilin, myself, Litvinov, the ambassador—you understand that Litvinov is not going to defect,” and another fellow, whose name I forgot. There was nobody among the old members of the party, but Zborowski was right. A few days later Kravchenko defected.
Judge Cashin: All right, go ahead.
Soble: And Zubilin understood that. Zborowski is not a dreamer; that this was true, that he really defected.
Q: Mr. Soble, during the period 1943 to 1945, do you recall any other information that Zborowski gave to you other than Kravchenko?
Soble: He gave—here we come to a point where he—I don’t know if I can say it, I mean, because I was from the beginning, I will come to this later—I was from the beginning mixed up about Zborowski’s attitude. I don’t want in any way, I want the counsel to understand this fully and the jury and everyone. I am not in the slightest form, I want to hurt in any way Zborowski, but when I pleaded guilty and I said I am going to tell the whole truth I was at least amazed—I was suspecting at least Zborowski’s attitude. Because I remembered in February, March, ’56, about his testimony before the Committee where he was called, and I was sure that he, Zborowski, told the whole truth and that only a part of the truth was published in the newspapers.
And this man—then when I met him at the confrontation I was really amazed about it because I couldn’t understand his point of view. On one point he says—once he says the Russian Secret Service destroyed his life and the life of his family. On the other side, he says, well, “I didn’t work for them. I cannot recall Jack Soble.” I saw him, from the pictures in the newspapers I recognized him. I got so mixed up that I really didn’t know what Zborowski wants. Does he admit or doesn’t he admit? I understand people who don’t want to admit and they take 30 years or they take 50 years, I don’t know, but I don’t understand Zborowski’s attitude, and this is what amazed me more than everything else, because when I was brought in, and I will repeat it one hundreds times, when I was brought in to the confrontation, I was sure. I mean, first of all I didn’t know at all where I am going or who I am going to see, and when they asked me who is this man I said, “Zborowski.” And then I heard for the first time Zborowski saying he recognizes me from the pictures from the newspapers. So I said to myself, what is what? Does he lie before the Committee or does he lie here, or what is what? I know that I didn’t pick up this man.
Why? For what reason? What for should I pick up a man with the name Zborowski just to tell them about him stories and pure fantasies? Why? Because I want to hurt him? This is what I cannot understand psychologically still until now that a man who complains bitterly about the Russian Secret Service and at the same time doesn’t admit the other things.
(It was at this point that Soble made his startling claim that Zborowski had told him that he suspected Mr. Dallin of being tied up with the US secret service. See previous chapter, “The Dallin Story.”)
I am sorry but I have to finish this statement about the Menshevikis. I say it again and again that Zborowski’s attitude mixed me up entirely in different periods of his testimony. Today, “The Secret Service destroyed me, the Russian Secret Service.” Tomorrow “he didn’t do anything in this country.” Yesterday he recognizes me only from the pictures in the newspapers. Then suddenly he recognizes me, “Yes, I know this guy,” and so on and so forth. And the second matter, what is most important to me is that I didn’t want and I don’t want to hurt Zborowski in any way. Whatever I don’t remember, what I don’t recall, I will never say. But he should make up his mind at least today or tomorrow, I don’t know when, but he should make up his mind what is what. Did the Russian Secret Service destroy his life or didn’t it? If it did, why doesn’t he come out with the truth?
Q: Mr. Soble, when you received the information from Zborowski, did you give him anything in return?
Soble: Of course I gave him.
Q: What?
Soble: A paid agent. I mean, he shouldn’t be abused or he shouldn’t be proud of it. He used to get $150 every month against receipts.