104-10173-10134
14-00000
SAACS, HARDL
2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992
HOUSE SILICE COTHEHA, ON ASSASSINATIONS STAFF ALTIBLES
- 201- 18446
FILE TITLE/NIPIRER/VOLUME: ISAACS, HARID
INCLUSIVE DATES:
GUSTODIAL UNIT/LOCATION:
ROOM:
DELETIONS, IF ANY: THIRD AGENCY DOCUMENTS
SIGNATURE OF
REVIEWING OFFICIAL
DATE
DATE
RECEIVED RETURNED
"REVIEWED BY
(PRINT NAME)
10:
SAU628
BETSY WOLE
Betony Holf
NO DUCUMENTS MAY BE COPTED OR REMOVED FROM THIS FILE.
LE
201
No. 18446
IS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDF
MATERIAL FILED IN THIS FOLDE
14,00000
C-O-N-F-3EBRET-T-1-A-L
Whened In
9 January 1975
Review of 201 File on U.S. Citizen
(date)
In accordance with the DDO's notice of 9 December 1974,
I have reviewed the 201 file on ISAACS
(surname)
(201 number indicated below), and have determined that it can
most accurately be categorized as indicated below:
should be closed.
witting collaborator. OI Code Al
potential witting collaborator; date opened
OI Code A2.
former witting collaborator (relationship terminated)
OI 
Code A3.
potential witting collaborator never contacted (security
reasons
; derogatory information). 01 Code A4.
counterintelligence case (i.e., involving a foreign
intelligence or security service). OI Code A5..
all others. 01 Code A6.
Signed Balban Beeth
(name)
CH/FCCI
(title)
(component)
This assignment of category has been entered into STAR.
Signed.
KAM
241AN
(initials).
(date)
This document is a permanent part of this file.
SECRET
In
J-I-A-L
When
C-O-N-F-1-113
201-18976
E2 IMPDET
CL BY 054979
14-00000
SECRET
4 October 1974
XAAZ-35686
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Former Records of Ray Murphy
1. The attached documents are part of a large
collection of records held by Ray Murphy during his
tenure as an official of the Department of State.
He transferred all of his records to CIA upon his
retirement in the mid-1960's. The documents of that
collection which did not meet the retention criteria
of the DDO or the Office of Security were destroyed.
While those which were of utility have been retained
and accessioned as appropriate to the DDO records
system.
2. The attached records concern
Harold ISAACS
who is the subject of 201-0018446
be classified to that file.
and should:
Attachment
on att H/W
M. Carl Hartman
M. Paul Hartman
C/CIRA/RS
PLM
NS
☑D
RECOND COPY
SECRET
4. Oct 74
201-18446
E2. IMPDET
CL BY 006593
14-00000
Copy:
BP:
=
- Iran, taivid
BOURCE:
NEW WAUSES, New York City,
Gctober 22, 1936 Page 12
EUROPE'S CRISIS; JAPAN PRAPARES
By Hanau Chan
-
There are numerous American journalists of
different political color and shades of opinion who are
"cooperating" in this way with Japanese imperialiam, but
whoever has followed the writings of Harold Isaaca,
Alexander Euchman, Frank Gloss and Wilbur Burton in The
Chino Press, The China Weekly Review, Asia, Pacific Affairs,
New International, etc., realizes that these American
Trotskyist journalists are the most vicious and most dan-
gerous of the whole lot of reactionary journalists.
Hiding behind a barrage of Marxist phraseology (which
noue of them has yet learned to manipulate with faoility),
these people are energetically conducting a campaign of
lies against the Communist International, the Chinese
Communist Party, the Soviet Union, the Chinese Soviets
and the Chinese Red Army, a campaign which aims to under-
mine the confidence of the outside world in the Chinese
Soviet movement and the Red Army,
H/WATT Ci
RECORD COPY
Harold Isures.
201-18446
ATT oi To XAAZ-35686
201-184.46
14-00000
SUR COLUNIST ACTIVITIES FILES
Date Oct. 23.1957
.
SOURCE:
File No.
DAILY WORKER
100.... Адеми
X 4202 China
TROTZKYITE BOOK MOURNS
OVER CHINESE REVOLUTION
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CIII of devious Trotskyite polemics,
NESE REVOLUTION. By Isaacs book, has been reissued,
Harold D. Issacs. Stanfonl Uni- partly to cash in on the hate-China
versity Press. 352 pp: $5.
By ROBERT FRIEDMAN
racket, and partly because any
stick is useful to Big Business
The presses are spewing forth against the liberation bound
anti
-Chinese books these devs ati masses.
Isaacs now says he no longer
a pace which bills to match the loves Trotsky, whose introduction
anti-Soviet tonal
China hands who served Western stead, he is an open defender of
All the old has been dropped as a liability. In
imperialism as banker, soldier, spy. imperialist intervention against the
or whatever in the Orient are now people of the Far East.
busy at the typewriter, engaged
But typical of his Trotskyite
in profitable vilification of 450,-weaseling is Isaacs' attack on the
000,000 people because they de- Chinese Communists of the 1920's.
because they supported)
: cided to take their fate in their first
i
own hands and build for them-Chiang Kai-shek despite the fact
selves.
that he was to become the butcher)
One book which deserves, even 'ond because they allegedly cringed
of the Chinese revolution, and sec
under the cynical and opportunist before Chiang when he turned on
reign of capitalism, some special the workers in 1927.
prize for adaptability is Harold D.
Isaacs "Tragedy of the Chinese
Revolution...
This nonsense, which would nie?
Published first in 1938 as antory, on the chance that today's
out every political alliance in his
avowedly Trotskyite tract (com-ally might he tomorrow's enemy.
plete with introduction by Trotsky) is ironic in view of the fact that
calling the defeat of the Chinese Chiang sits today on Taiwan, a
Workers in 1927 a "betrayal by discredited gangster save only in
Stalin and the Chinese Commu- the eyes of Isaacs political men-
nists, the same book emerges now, tors.
refurbished, to mourn the victory
Meanwhile the Chinese people
of the very same Chinese workers will go about their business build-
a generation latert.
ing socialism, unconcerned by
Isaacs tears for the tragedy of
Filled with the murky intricacies 1927 or 1951.
H/W ATT 02 To XAA2-35756
RECC.)
201-18446
E
-4
'
14-00000
COPY: MK: S8
COMP.
REM
Enclosure No. 1
To Des toh No. 3317
- hold
8 1/30/35
1 Ta Yong Yi Ping Hutung
Felping, China.
Oct. 5, 1934.
Ar, T. A. Bisson
136 Claremont Avenue
Mount Vernon, N. Y.
Dear Mr. Bisson:
I have seen the correspondence exchanged between
Mr. Class and yourself regarding the contributions you
collected for the China Forum. A draft for the sum in
full will be sent to you this week.
I do not know in the name of whom or what Miss Smedley
speaks of the China Forum. Since she was not in China at
the time the Forum Suspended, nor has she corresponded
with me on the subject, I consider it necessary to place
before you and the other contributors an account of the
circumstances in which the Forum ceased publication.
Since you apparently gathered the contributors together
in a meeting to hear what Miss Smedley had to say, I
would appreciate it deeply if you would gather them once
more to hear my account. The enclosed is a copy of a
letter, sent by me last May to the Chinese Communist Party.
It has been published in China in a Chinese translation
and copies have been sent abroad but has not been pub-
lished in English as far as I know. I do not know the
names of the people who were good enough to contribute
to the Forum but their interest in the matter warrants
placing before them the story of what happened to the
magazine. I trust, out of simple fairness to me, you
will be good enough to give them this opportunity.
I greatly regret any inconvenience or embarrassment
to which you have been put in this matter. I do hope,
however, that my letter will enlighten you and your
friends and enable you to appreciate the difficulties
which have arisen. I know of no project to revive the
China Forum at the present time. Should such occur, the
resultant publication would be of a considerably different
oharacter from the one I edited, as will be obvious from
the facta given in my letter to the C. P. I think people
who are interested in supporting the revolutionary move-
ment here should know these facts.
Once again, I appreciate all the trouble you have
gone to in this matter.
Did you ever, incidentally, receive the article
"Fascism in China" and the newsletter which I mailed to
July 13 last?
Yours sincerely,
(Harold R. Isaacs)
enol.
(Copied by FD)
H/R ATT CS TO XA42-35636
811 50 34 (Chence / Searchlight Rub./58
201-18446
14-00000
11
COPY
Letter of H. R. Lenace to the C.C.P. concern:
ing the China Forum
To the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party:
The two-year period of my extra-organizational col-
laboration with the Chinese Communist Party has come to
an end and the China Forum which I founded and edited dur-
ing that time has been forced to suspend publication. In
the interest of our whole movement as well as in my per-
sonal interest, I consider it necessary to record here
and publish the history of the China Forum and the oir-
cumstances of its suspension. You refused me the oppor
tunity to lay the matter before the membership of the
party even when I offered to do so in your own organs and
not through the columns of the Forum. When, wrongly, I
permitted the Forum to go down in silence, you turned
around and in your organs and near organs in China and
abroad you proceeded with the usual slanders of "betrayer"
and "counter-revolutionary". In so doing you didn't have
the courage or the simple honesty to state that you pre-
sented the China Forum with an ultimatum and forced its
suspension because in reply its editor raised questions
which are being placed before the whole movement today
by the International Left Opposition. Nor did you state
that you deliterately smashed the Forum for this reason
despite my repeated and extended offers to continue publi-
cation as before on a straight anti-Kuomintang, anti-
imperialist basie, leaving these various problems to de
thrashed out first privately among ourselves. In other
words, you deliberately forced suspension of the China
Forum despite the fact, on your own admission, that its
loss was a serious blow to the revolutionary movement in
China, that it meant the disappearance of an organ which
for two years you had considered an extremely valuable
instrument in the hands of the movement. Here, as in the
broader issues which led to our differences, your blind
adherence to false policies was once more demonstrative
of your readiness to place your factional interests above
the interests of the Chinese Revolution.
-
In going back over the history of the Forum, I think
the vicious character of your action becomes even more
evident when I start with the fact that from beginning to
end I functioned not as a member of the party but as a
willing sympathizer who was prepared to throw all his
energies into a job he saw he could do edit and publish
an organ in China which could help mobilise the forces
of this country for struggle against the Kuomintang and
the imperialists by exposing the regime of terror and
privation which they have in common imposed upon the
masses of the Chinese people. Permit me to recall at
this point that I never accepted any personal remunera-
tion for time or labor. You gave the Forum financial
aid but I never received a dollar from you that was not
put into the paper. I refused your offers of compensa-
tion and earned my living elsewhere. Your only claim on
me was my full-hearted loyalty to the Communist ideal and
☐ RECE
our
14-00000
our common dedication to the struggle against a regime
of hate and misery and oppression. In the end you for-
felted this claim by ceasing any longer to be in my eyes
honest or effective leaders of this struggle.
Although you helped the Forum financially, the part
you played in building it up from the day it started in
January, 1932, to the day of its last appearance in Janu-
ary 1934, was insignificant. My repeated requests for
cooperation in matters of circulation and material for
publication went largely unsatisfied throughout that time.
You never supplied me with the reports I so frequently
and urgently sought, particularly on trade unions, strike
struggles, the Red Armies, the Red districts, etc. Every-
thing the Forum did and became was the fruit of the work
of a tiny group of devoted collaborators (the most in-
portant of whom had no connection with you whatever) and
myself who had to depend almost entirely on our own re-
sources for everything we did and published. At every
crisis in the Forum's existence, when it was banned by
the French authorities in Shanghai at the very outset;
when it was hounded and persecuted by the American and
Chinese authorities in the summer of 1933, when through
British police pressure it was thrown out of every avail-
able printing ship in the city; when the pseudo-Fascist
Blue Shirts again and again threatened the printing plant
which I built up partially through personally contracted
loans it was invariably through my own initiative, with
the help of the little Forum staff, that we pulled our-
selves up by the bootstraps every time and carried on to
a point in January this year where the Forum was flourish-
ing and growing daily in circulation, prestige, and in-
fluence despite the many formidable obstacles in its way.
The formation of the China Forum Readers Association,
which in the brief space of three months spread to eleven
cities in five provinces, developing into a mighty poten-
tial weapon for the revolutionary movement, was the prod-
uct of spontaneous action on the part of the Forum'a
readers, later sponsored and led by the paper itself.
All these were the Forum's own achievements, not yours.
By your arbitrary and criminal action you shattered them
in the full stride of their growth. Because to my bitter
disappointment I had not 6 nor could I secure the resources
to carry on myself - owing largely to the difficult condi-
tions of work and the impossibility of getting revenue
from the paper itself all that had been achieved and
was to be achieved was ground into the dust.
-
-
II.
-
From almost the very beginning of my active work
which I date from the time I began reporting events in
China in a Communist way a number of questions presented
themselves to me in increasingly forcible form. These
arose originally from my discovery of the gross diator-
tions and exaggerations which I found to be characteristic
of Communist propaganda in China and abroad. I define
propaganda as the skilful, clear, accurate and wholly
truthful reporting of the facts linked to an incisive,
purposive
14-00000
purposive interpretation and a plan of action for deal-
ing with the facts in a revolutionary way. I learned
this 
from the and work of Lenin and his Bolshevik
comrades who taught us that the truth comes from the
masses themselves and that only dianater can result from
telling them lies. I have never learned to the contrary
that 
it was my revolutionary duty to work in any other
way although I soon found that the present day Communist
Party press makes a practice of distinguishing between
propaganda and truth.
Examples of exaggeration and distortion most strik-
ing to me were naturally those which applied to China,
because here I could check allegations with known facts.
I first wrote these down to the ignorance or incapacity
of individuals. 
I felt that Communist editors abroad
would publish accurate facts about China if they could
get them.
Accordingly with a friend I tried to set up.
an independent mail news service and sent weekly bulletins
to papers all over the world giving brief, sharp, factual.
accounts of what was going on. This was in the fall of
1931 after my return from the area of the great Central
China 
floods of that summer. I scarcely understood then
why this service failed to secure any response from the
Communist press abroad. After about three months I had
to suspend it for lack of support. It simply didn't get
published except in a few organs which were not official,
Communist Party papers, including the New York Militant.)
-It wasn't long before I began to perceive, with a
deeper study of international events and the history of
the Chinese Revolution, that a consistent thread ran
through the distortions and exaggerations which I found
not only in brief casual reports of current events but
in the solemn pronunciamentoes made by delegates before
plenums of the E.0.0.1.`f discovered that these departures
from the truth were made necessary by the official premise
that ever 
since the catastrophe of 1927 a mighty, upsurg-
ing revolutionary movement has been marching forward in
China to the very brink of seizure of power under the
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. I discovered
that these exaggerations were necessary because the prem
ise 
was false and along with it all the basic tenets of
the policies being pursued by the Communist International
and the Communist Party in China. I cannot begin here to
give a summary of some of these distortions (which I
verbally cited to you by the dozen) ranging from partiou-
lar incidents (the wilfully false picture given of the
cotton 
mill strike in Shanghai in January, 1932, even to
the point of transposing it to February to heighten the
impression given of the workers' role in the Shanghai war)
to high flown generalizations like the statement recently
made before the Plenum of the S.C.C.I. that the C.C.P. has
won over the majority of the Chinese working class and
the peasantry.
In denying the factual truth of this premise, whence
flows the whole policy of the Communist Party in China, I
deprecate not a whit the magnificent militancy and courage
of Chinese workers, striking again and again and fighting
against
14-00000
against terrific odds in defense of their very lives;
nor the noroio struggles waged by peasants all over the
country; nor the fight of the Red Armies against the
Kuomintang, I merely respect the cold, indisputable faot
that these struggles are defensive, not offensive, that
they are isolated, desperate and unorganised.
with very
-
few exceptions - a few small strikes here and there and
the larger exception of the Red Army they are without
organised revolutionary leadership. Moreover the develop-
ment of this leadership, the task of the C.P., 18 proceed-
ing at a tragically retarded pace owing to the false
policies and inept tactica of the party.
In danying the presence of a mighty revolutionary
upsurge (1.6., a vast, organised march toward the seizure
of power) I respect facts made still clearer perhaps when
compared to the facts and figures of the monster mass move-
ments of the 1925-27 period. The tragio errore of the
Communist leadership in 1927 were primarily responsible
for the decapitation of that great movement and because
no lessons have been drawn from those events to this very
day, these errors, monstrously accumulated, are still re-
sponsible for the tragedies of today. But for the purpose.
of our comparison here, let us for example take the single
fact that in 1926 in Greater Shanghai there were 257
strikes. In 1933 there were 82. Let us remember that
on the eve of the workers' seisure of power in Shanghai
in March, 1937, there were more than 800,000 workers,
handicraftarmen and petty traders out on the streets fight-
ing with arms in hands for demands of a far-reaching po
litical character. A close check for the entire country
in the latter half of 1933 showed me that less than one-
thirtieth of that number were engaged in strikes and other
disputes during any given month and that almost invariably
the demands were defensive demands against wage outs and
lockouts. Moreover, the lack of cohesive leadership
often in departments of the same factory or in one or more
of a group of factories - or even sometimes lack of even
the most elementary organization has in almost every
case led to deadening failure and relatively easy betrayal
by the yellow "labor leaders" and "mediators of the
*Kuomintang. In 1935 the shooting of thirteen students
by British police in Shanghai was the touch-off for a
general strike which paralyzed the city and which was
seconded by vast sympathy strikes which broke like a
series of tidal waves over the entire country. In Janu-
ary, 1932, when the Japanese imperialists used the Shanghai
International Settlement as a base for operations which
cost the lives of tens of thousands of Chinese, not a
single strike interrupted the normal course of the pub-
lic or other services in that settlement. In the factories
there were no strikes but a large scale lockout to which
the overwhelming majority of Shanghai's workers submitted
without protest.
The dogged, persistent struggle carried on by small
sections of the rank and file workers in isolated instances
in recent years is tribute to the magnificent fibre of
Chinese

14-00000
-5-
Chinese workers. It is not evidence that a revolutionary
seizure of power is on the order of the day. It is evi-
dence, along with the heroio sacrifices of thousands who
have lost lives and liberty in Chinese revolutionary
struggle during the last seven years of Kuomintang re-
motion, that it is possible to fight the monstrous white
terror which Chinese Communists frequently cite as a
reason for the insufficiency of their work. Yet it is
largely because this terror has not been fought effectively
that the Kuomintang regime, despite the fact that it is
rotting and crumbling, can still keep the lid down on the
boiling, simmering hatred of the people it rules. Unless
the martyrdom of thousands of China's finest workers,
peasants and revolutionary intellectuals is to be in vain,
we must turn resolutely away from the folly of calling to
insurrection when what is needed is painstaking education,
organization and the sponsorship of day-to-day struggles
of the masses for democratic demands, the slow building up
of a party and mass organizations and a movement which
will be able to command the forces capable of carrying out
an insurrection.
In the case of the widespread but isolated and in-
dividual cases of peasant uprisings, and this includes
the Red Armies in Kiangsi, these struggles await the
leadership of a strong working class movement before they
can have a successful issue. The Red Armies in their re-
stricted and surrounded areas and with their meagre re-
sources have fought heroically against the Kuomintang
attacks upon them. But until the Kuomintang is shaken
from its bulwarks in the imperialist controlled working
class centres, their prospect of revolutionary triumph
remains necessarily dim. No revolutionary purpose is
served by taking refuge in the fiction that these armies
have proletarian leadership because individual workers,
.undoubtedly leaders of superior quality and courage, have
been torn from their factories and their fellow-workers
and sent down to occupy key positions in the Red Army
districts and in the Red Armies themselves. Indeed, this
common practice of extracting the most conscious and pro-
gressive working class elements from their working olasa
environment and sending them down to the Red districts is
a good index to the criminal transposition of emphasis
which has helped paralyze the working class movement in
the cities. If the White Terror doesn't carry off the
workers' leaders as they arise, the C.P. does and has done
so in hundreds of cases. This helps in no small part to
explain why it has also been impossible to mobilize a
genuine mass anti-Japanese movement in the fact of mili-
tary aggression and why the White Terror of the Kuomin-
tang has succeeded, by filling mass graves and innumer-
able prisons with the martyred dead and living, in down-
ing the anti-imperialist movement or efforts toward the
organization of such a movement and paving the way for
the ever increasing encroachments of the imperialists.
The party has not yet gripped and directed the deep and
bitter and often inarticulate hatred of the masses of the
people for their oppressors and this includes large seo-
tions of the lower netty bourgeoisie who could be won by
successful mass pressure from below. This is because the
Party
14-00000
Party has failed to translate the realities of everyday
events into its program and tactics..
I cannot here go into the many-faceted problems and
issues which flow from these facts with regard to the
policies and tactics of the Chinese revolutionary movements
Nor extending to the international scene need I go into
the terrific effects of the German catastrophe nor the
storm of questions which has been directed at the C.I.
leadership whose responsibility in the disaster has be-
come nakedly clear to unnumbered Communists and Communist
sympathizers the world over. Nor into the whole set of
implications which arise from the policies of the 0.1.,
with particular reference to the late developments in
Soviet foreign policy, the Litvinov-Roosevelt agreement,
the forthcoming mooted entrance of the U.S.S.R. into the
League of Nations and in a smaller but equally oharacter-
iatio way, the forthcoming association of the U.3.8.R.
with the Institute of Pacific Relations which hopes to
höld its next talkfest in Moscow. These problems, with
their many specific links to the Chinese questions, were
the basic questions over which I soon began to take issue
with the official views of the Party and the International. .
III.
But precisely because at all costs I desired to carry
on the Forum's open struggle against the common enemy -
against the Kuomintang and the imperialists - I sedulously
avoided bringing these issues into the columns of the paper,
increasingly against my better judgment. I leaned over far
backward in this respect. This expressed itself in many
of the current issues with which we had to deal.
-
I ask you to recall the whole uphill fight which the
Forum waged on behalf of Paul and Gertrud Ruegg in the
spring and summer of 1933 during which time I repeatedly.
warned against the emphasis which was being placed on the
legal aspects of the case and the *negotiations" with
the Kuomintang to the detriment of mass pressure and the
capitalization of the case for political purposes. You
paid lip service to the need for mass oressure partiou
larly here in China but in fact the legalities" and
futile negotiations remained the major pillars of the de-
fense. Until in the very end I finally rebelled, I wasn'
even permitted to give Ruegg his honourable and rightful
title secretary of the Pan Pacific Trade Union Secre-
tariat. Yet, although I felt the struggle for the Ruegge
was being seriously handicapped by the tactics being pur-
sued, I carried on the fight with all the energy at my
command and you will recall that it was I who created the
local defense committee and was chiefly responsible for
the widespread press propaganda and the considerable
sympathy which we aroused. Yet the strictly non-political
attitude which Ruegg was forced to assume at the trial
(in contrast to the highly political attitude of his
prosecutors) was in my opinion one of the major reasons
-
for
14-00000
for the fate to which he and his wife were condemned.
I ask you to recall the whole period of the organiza-
tion and activities of the China-League for Civil Rights,
from December, 1933, to June, 1933, in which I took an
nctive pert. I gave full play to this hybrid League and
its work without once publishing the basic criticisms
which I often voiced to you and which in the end were
wholly confirmed by what happened after the Kuomintang
murdered Yang Chien in June that year.
I ask you to recall the views I set forth in August
and September, 1933, on the subject of the "anti-War Con-
gress" which at your specific request I did not publish.
Instead, to my regret, I published the foul rot of Mar-
ley & Co., without freely giving play to the true facts
about that farcical junket which had convinced me that
the policies which gave it birth do not one single whit
advance the international struggle against imperialist
war.
-
On one occasion 'and this at least I can take com-
fort in I passively resisted when you requested me to
write and publish a slanderous attack on Chen-Tu-hoiu
when he was condemned to 13 years imprisonment by the
Kuomintang. Your request was specific. I was not to
deal with the issues which had brought Chen Tu-hsiu from
being the leader of the C.P. in 1937 to being leader of
the Chinese Opposition in 1933. I was only to string to-
gether a vile series of labela in an effort to explain
why the Kuomintang even imprisoned the leader of the
Left Opposition. As you know, that attack was never
written or published.
Again in December, 1933, upon my return from Tukien,
you specifically demanded that I set aside the results of
my own personal investigations in Foochow in order to
write on your behalf (but over my signature!) an utterly
baseless and slanderous attack on the Left Opposition.
You will recall that you charged at that time that the
"Trotskyists" were prominently identified with the new
government set up in Fukien by Chen Ming-shu and Taai
Ting-kal. You lumped the Left Opposition with the Third
Party and the so-called Social Democrats among the petty
bourgeois satellites of the Fukien militarists. It was
as much to satisfy myself on this very point as to per-
form a mission for you that I went down to Fooohow and
spent two weeks there and learned through direct contact
with dozens of people prominently concerned that the Left
Opposition were stoutly and clearly opposed to the Foochow
regime. I haven't place bare to discuss the relations of
the C.P. to the short-lived Fukien Government or the char-
ncter of the "negotiations" which were going on down there...
The important thing here is that on my return you demanded
that I write elanders which flew in the face of everything
I myself had learned. It is interesting, as a oldelight
on your methods in factional strife as you conceive it,
that your representative in Foochow sent back a report,
through me, ironically enough, that one of the most prom-
inent of the youthful pseudo-radicals in Fooohow, Wu
Chi-yuen
14-00000
-8-
It so
Chi-yuen to be exact, was a leading "Trotskyist”.
happened that I had set and had several lengthy interviews
with Wu and by the time I left Poochow I understood his
He was as
position and his personality exceedingly well.
Yet you actually
much a Trotskyist as Mei Lan-fang is!
demanded that I ignore my own knowledge of the man and in
I
my article on Fukten set him down as a "Trotskyist".
was faced on the one hand by your demands that I write
falsehoods to suit your policies and on the other by my
deep desire to set forth the actual facts about the Oppo-
sition's attitude towards the Fukien regime.
more, to preserve the shreds of our relationship, I drove
a middle course and did neither, leaving the 
whole 
question
out of my article.
But once
Despite the facts that these issues weighed more and
more heavily upon me, despite the fact that events in
China and abroad were pressing themselves more and more
imperatively on the concerns of every sincere revolution-
ary, I still tried to keep the Forum balanced 
on its
ribbon-like path, concentrating on the anti-Kuomintang,
anti-imperiallat struggle, and in so doing fulfilling at
least a partial function as a revolutionary organ.
deeply felt, however, that I was betraying my readers by
avoiding these issues. How could I write of Germany 
and
How could
avoid all the implications of that disaster?
I write of America's recognition of the U.S.S.R. and still
fail to say that the Communist International had 
virtually
been murdered at Washington? How could I warn against the
dangers of imperialist Intervention in the U.S.S.R. 
and
still not point out that Soviet foreign policy was 
in
fact daily heightening the danger of such intervention?
Yet I somehow did so and sought in whatever way possible
to retain some basis for our continued collaboration
.
IV.
Nevertheless, abruptly in January of this year you
forced an ultimatum upon me and subsequently forced 
the
break in our relationship because I could not and would
not, at your demand, devote the China Forum 
to policies
which I could not and do not believe compatible 
with 
the
interests of the Chinese Revolution and the international
proletarian revolution. I could not, at your demand, set
aside the convictions to which I had literally 
been 
driven
by the stinging lash of catastrophic events in China,
Germany and the world over. Particularly my deep inter-
est in Chinese events during the last three years made it
impossible for me, finally, to give active support to
policies and tactics whose disastrous effects were being
a thousandfold confirmed for me by the tragic events of
every swiftly-passing day. I could not ignore questions
which strike at the roots of our work and the whole struo-
ture of our hopes for a revolutionary future.
Despite the fact that these questions are rocking
the entire International today, you denied my right to
raise
14-00000
:
-
raise them in print. You demanded more. You demanded
that I attack anybody who did s0 - primarily the people
the only
you call "counter-revolutionary Trotskyists*
people who are facing these problems today in a fearless,
revolutionary way. You demanded that the China Forum
become a stereotype for the policies and vulgar faction-
al slanders which I could neither then nor now be party
to. In reply to my questions on China you simply quoted
back to me the lies and half-lies I've been so used 
to
reading in Inprecorr. You even declared: "For propa-
ganda purposes a certain amount of exaggeration is neces-
"but we 
know the
sary... and went on amazingly to say:
true facts and we base our policies on them, not on these
A new slant on modern-day 
6.1. taotios!
exaggerations!-ª
They have to be
Facts, you said, are curious things.
turned around and around and around and examined closely
The trouble is
until their true nature becomes apparent.
you turn them so far and so quickly that they turn into
- 
or at
something like a dizzily turning top of fancy
best wish
-
fulfilling misrepresentations.
To my questions on Germany you quoted Heckert,
Platnitsky, and the E.C.C.I.'s famour resolution declar-
ing that the collapse of the German party and the slaughter
present and
of the German workers were based on the past,
You declared I had
future correct policies of the C.P.O.!
(no right to offer critical comment on the dangerously
opportunistic foreign and domestic policies of the U.S.S.R.,
most notably on the entry of the U.S.S.R. on a straight
nationalist basis into the disgusting corridors of in-
perialist intrigue. To the contrary, I was to lovingly
fawningly fondle and hail the policies which have meant
disaster in China, Germany and elsewhere and are rapidly
leading the U.S.3.R. into the vacuum of nationalist iso
This I
lation from the world wide proletarian movement.
was to do, to begin with, by publishing Stalin's face on
the front page and columns of the customary panegyrics
to his infallibility. Above all and before all, was to
take up oudgels againat "counter-revolutionary Trotskyism".
to raise
That was to be the main point of my reformation
no questions myself and slander anybody else who did so.
-
In reply to your demand that I submit to an editorial
board in order that these editorial policies should be.
effectively put into practice, I offered (1) to continue
publication strictly as before, meanwhile arguing out my.
differences with you in discussions on the side; (2) to
throw the columns of the Forum open to a general disous-
sion of all basic revolutionary question, with free play
If your views
to unorthodox as well as orthodox views.
were correct, I argued, it would be a distinct advantage
to you to have such an opportunity to display their bril-
liance alongside the puny efforts of your critios; (3) to
publish orthodox news and views but to reserve for myself
the right to comment and criticise.
You
These repeated offers you repeatedly refused.
offered to discuss these questions with me verbally if in
the
14-00000
-10
the seanwhile I throw the Forum open to your editorial
board. My other proposals were unthinkable! Give the
Forua's readers a chance to hear counter-revolutionary"
viewpoints? Never that! I could only display my revo-
lutionary purity by acceding to your demands. We would
talk things over until Spring, then if all went well (1.e.,
if I showed a satisfactory adaptability to your view-
point) I could pack up for an educational trip to the
Soviet Union where I would certainly become convinced
of the error of my ways.. In other words you wanted my
signature 
on a promissory note with the amount left
blank for you to fill in. You put this in the form of
an ultimatum and you told me that if I did anything but
accept I would forthwith enter the camp of the "counter-
revolution".
I had to refuse these terms. I had to refuse to
lend myself to a slanderous and baseless struggle against -
the International Left Opposition. I had to refuse to
lend space to the nauseatingly fawning praise of Stalin
and uncritical reception of Stalinist policies which
characterise the Communist Party press the world over.
I had to refuse to take shelter in the cold and draughty
empty spaces which stretch behind the impressive facade
and early tradition of the Communist International. I
would like to go to the Soviet Union for a vist someday
A but I had to refuse your offer on your terms. I had to
refuse, in short, to become a hack prostitute in the name
of the Revolution.
In the end, too, I had to refuse to turn over to you
the printing plant I had built up with so much pain and
struggle because I considered it not your property but
the property of the working class movement. Because I
could not carry on the Forum myself, for lack of finan-
cial resources and because of heavy debts contracted, I
disposed of the plant and turned every farthing of the
proceeds over to where I now consider the true interests
of our movement lie. It was with a deep and abiding bit
terness that I had considered comrades, when for two years
it had fought off all its many enemies on the outside.
Yet with it came the realization that we have to
build anew over the ruins you have wrought. The revolu
tion and the building of our future moves forward and
when we trample down the defenses of our enemies we shall
crush underfoot everything and everybody that stands in
our way. No sycophantic, blind, allegiance to a name, an
empty facade, a torn and shredded prestige can lead us
forward. Only unswerving fidelity to our goal and active
struggle towards this end with the weapons of a correct
and tested political line will lift us from defeat to ul-
timate victory. To this struggle I shall continue to
dedicate all my energies.
Harold R. Isaacs.
Peiving, China
May 20, 1934.
(Copied by RD)
20-1406
14-00000
EUR COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES FILES
Date:
: Julyle, 1950
File No.
SOURCE: DAILY WORKER
9100. Isaac
POST WRITER ADMITS ALL
KOREA' OPPOSES INVASION
The Korean people are united, honest headline: "S. Koreans Don't
behind the Liberation Armies from 
Know Why Help Has Come,”.
the North and are hostile to 
the
American troops sent there by dicated its own awareness of the
(In late editions the Past in-
Trumans interventionist order, the 
phoniness of this headline by drop-
New York Post's Far East expert. ping it. 
The new and complained:
Harold R. Isaacs, admitted yester- "Weak S. Korean 
Regime Hana-
day.
Isanes articlo gave the lie to
pers Gls at Front.")
the Post's own editorial line of in China during the Japanese war
But Isaacs made clear that "if
support to the police-state reginic the Americans 
had a friendly pop-
of Synglman thee and the Tru-ulation 
on their side, this is by
man attack on Korea as an act to no means 
the case now in Korea."
defend "democracy."
Isaacs declared that the U. S. remains localized, even & victory.
He concludes: "Even if the war
has 
"much more reason to count won 
in due course will be a tem-
on general Korean hostility 
than porary one, and such a victory, will
on heroic support." He admitted not be 
easily won'
that "South Korean civilians 
have
been infiutely harder hit by the
American 
action so fur" than by
their fellow-Koreans from the
north.
The South Korean government!
was an "unpopular one in the elec-
tion 
held only four weeks ago.":
Isacs 
said, "the regime of Presi
dent 
Syngman Rhee was decisively
zejnidrated."
Isaac's 'declared that the guerilla
movements in South Korea "could"
have operated only with a con-
siderable 
measure of popular sup
port," and he acknowledged the
"
intense desire of all Koreans for
reunification of their dismembered
Country."
To top this story, bristling with
exposure of the imperialist nature
of the 
Truman' attack on Korea,
and with evidence of the Korean
people's awareness of their real
enemy, the Post concocted the dis.'
H/W ATT 05 To 35556
RECORD COPY
201-18446
14-00000
No. 1480.
SECHAT:
7100- Issaer, Harold.
December 2, 1932.
MEMORANDUM.
sith reference to R.A. memorandum No. 1305 of December
4, 1931, regarding Harold ISAACS and his connection with
Hilaire NCULENS, it has just been learned that one Viola
ROBINSON arrived in Shanghai on August 22, 1932, by tho
C% 1.R. 9.3. PRESS OF ASIA. Ca august 29. Miss HCBIN ON,
together sith Harold ISAACS of the CHINA PORUN, gave notioe
to the United States Consulate General of their intended
marriage, which actually took place in the 14th September.
In his marriage application, ISAACS particularly requested
that no publicity to given to the forthcoming ceremony. It
appears that Miss ROBINSON is a follower of the Suffragette,
Lucy STONE, pho, some fifteen or twenty years ago, advocated
among American women the retention of the maiden name after
marriage: According to officials of the United States
Consulate General, Viola (CHING CN, therefore, will not be
known as Trs. ISAACS.'
In connection with Viola CDINTON's activition in China,
in a letter, dated Szochuen, July 24, 1931, Harold ISAACS
wrote to Viola BOBINSON as follows:
"You are in the swim, Viola. I'm coming back to
dive in and swim alongside. that do you think? It
is all extremely fortuitous from our standpoint
the I should have seen the light at last. Your
work with UGG and the future in it is far more
important than anything you could co out here or
anywhere elsa for that matter.. i'll get back
no matter a possible delsy no matter how - there
Bill be a job to be done and by our gods I'm going
to get into it..."
Attention is called to the name su mentioned in the atove
extract..
A TRUE COPY
OF THE SIGNED
ORIGINALLY
wing
1442-
•H/W ATT LE TO 35256
RECORD COPY
201-18446
14-00000
No.2019
Confidential..
Isaan,
Parold
AMERICAN CONSULAR SERVICE.
American Consulate General,
Shanghai, China, December 10, 1931.
Subject: Harold H. Isaaco.
THE HONORABLE
TEE SECRETARY OF STATE,
WASHINGTON,
Siri
800-003
I have the honor to report that an American
oiticen named Harold R. Isanos has been reported to
this office by the police of the International Sot-
tlement as a communist suspect. The foots regarding
Mr. Isanes are briefly as follows:
Mr. Harold R. Ismaes called at this office in
Desember, 1930, and stated that he would be for a few
months in Shanghai; at that time he exhibited pass-
port No. 179020, issued by the Department of State on
March 17, 1950. He stated that he expected to leave
Shanghai in June, 1931; that his home was in New York
City and that hip local address was in care of the
American Express Company.
According to Police reports Ionees arrived in
Shanghai from Manila as a first-class passenger on the
3. 9. PRESIDIAT JEFFERS on Desember 17, 1930. Не зав
..
employed by the GANGHAT KING POST AND KERCURY AN
later by the CIA PRUS but apparently lost both
H/W ATT:07 TO XAA 2-3SLJÓ
To
#20181968.
fi.
201-15446
14-00000
positions. He has resided with a British subject named
C. Frank Cluss at 109 Woihaimel Road and made a trip with
Clase to Szechuan during Juno, 1931. The police file
contains a copy of a letter written by him to a kiss
:
Viola Robinson, cure of the Amorioan Consulato, Dresden,
Germany, dated July 24, 1931, at Chongtu, 3zoshuem.
This lotter, it is stated, was returned unopened to
Shanghai from Dresden, addressed to Harold R. Isaacs
in care of the Amorioan Express Company, Shanghai, and
was opened by the Post Office Consor at the request of
the Commissioner of Posts. The letter is very long and
shows that Icasos, although previously holding oom-
munistic views, only decided definitely to turn "Red"
during July of this year. Ho states that he was in-
fluenced in this decision by certain conversations with
0. Frank Class, above referred to, during their trip to
3200huen.
In connection therewith it may be of interest to
state that Rosording to a police report dated October
17, 1931, information regarding this letter was given
by the Shanghai Municipal Folies to an officer of the
local Britial Consulate Coneral, who apparently sablad
information regarding it to London. The police report
states that a reply was subsequently receive the glet
of which is as follows:
"Viola Robinson arrived in the United
States about the middle of September. The
whole fasily are communists in touch with
Ion' family."
The police state that Harold R. Iances in Rovember,
1931, established a neva aganey under the nemo of the
"Par

14-00000
ม
-3-
Far Eastern Press Correspondence," cable address
Penprecop, P. 0. Box 1920. on Cotober Oth Ismass and
C. Frank Glass moved from 120 Folhniwal Road to House
No. 8, Passago No. 177, Avenue Dubail. The police state
that this address was formerly known as Number 25 Avonue
Dubail and is the boarding House at which Agnes Smedley
resided from May, 1929, to May 1930. The police report
that Agnes Smedley frequently visits Isanes and Class
at this address.
In my monthly political report for November, on
page 15 it was stated that the bodies of numerous members
of the family of a certain Kou had been murdered, allegedly
by communists in retaliation for Kou's turning traitor to
the communist, cause, In connection with thio matter
Isaacs addressed an open letter to the verious newspapers
of Shanghai, under date of November 24, 1931, in which
he scored them for branding those alleged murders as
"horrible" and "dastardly," while at the same time they
did not raise their editorial voicos against the whole-
sale murders committed by Chiang Kai-shek, the Garrison
Commander of Shanghal and other Chinese militarists.
Hone of the papers saw fit to publish this letter but I
have received a copy thereof, and coples are enclosed.
I have also received a photostatic copy of the last pace
containing the signature of Mr. Innses.
Rompestfully yours,
E'win S. Cunninghas,
American Consul General.
20-78446
14-00000
Enclosure:
PRJ N
1/- Copy of open letter from Karola
Isaacs, dated November 24, 1931,
A true copy of
the signed orig-
In Cuadruplicate
No Copy to Losition.
74-00000
بیارم
Enclosure No. 1 to despatch No. of Edwin S. Cunningham,
American Consul 
General at whore, China, dates neomber
10, 1931, on the subject; "Harold R. Isunes."
NIOREN MITTER TO THE POUIGI NETS WIZZO DE CHEERAI.
Your publication of the "chastly" (Shanghai Times)
"horrible" (China Press), "dastinily" ("vening Post and
North China Daily News) minders allegedly committed by
Chinese Communists in the Fremon Concession brings
forcibly to mind certain other unpects of the Chinese
soene whose chastliness and barbarity find their way
into your columns only at rare intervals And then
only in brief cool paragraphs.
There on be no attempt to "justify" these allogod
murders, if the tale be trio. We all hate the guts of a
traitor. it wo cannot all condone a system of vendetta
which exacto as the price of betrayal the innocent lives
of a traitor's family. That, however, Involves the.
question of differing social quatoria to which no abstract
moral a solute own poeably be applied.
Betrayal has its price under any social nors,
whether we turn the dirty work of vengeance over to the
ineffable roles of the Lord or employ the less aesthetic
but more offective instruments of the gallows, electric
chair, lethal chamber, the guillotine or the ore refined
weapons of social astrolan; hottier we consider the
traitor himself responsible for his actions - or exaos
rotribution from his blood relations as well. Jehovah,
too, visits the sins of the father upon his children,
yea, even unto the third and fourth conerational)
But you reporters, whose typewriters quivered
with the horror of these alleged deeds of murder in
Frenchtown can still without a qual condone and even
express satisfaction at mass murders a thousand times
ero revolting, a thousand times more barbarous - but
less so in your journalistically judicious eyes only
because officially perpetrated.
-
-
You city itors at the moment sonding. Four men
out to run down the last threaded folds to this particular.
story why don't you send them out to Lunghua come fine
sunny morning: Phy don't you give them an opportunity
to witness the Sorture and murder of young men and women
whose only crime is a realistic appreciation of the
social and economic factors at work in the world and
a domand for their readjustment?
You eitors, who wield your editorial powers so
Bolf-righteously, why don't you onsistently examine and
logically expose a versent that maintains itself
largely by desperately slaughtering the flower of its
protesting youth and the backbone of its peasant in 8003
who attempt protest against its venality and corruption?
Only
14-00000
Only when it is convenient for your foreign interesta,"
however, do you find it politio to treat out some of your
favorite blasts inst the Wanking regime, attacks which
are almost always umalistoly offect by the naudoating
calogies and blatant lios that follow.
Considered from your own point of view, Messrs.
Editors, the murderers of these Fronchtown people should
be brought to justion and made to pay for their crimes.
similarly from your own point of view, to what bar of
Justice should Chiang Rai Shek be brought, before what
tribunals can we arraign the carrison commanders of Shanghai,
Nenking, Hankow, the warlords of Shantung, Szochuen,
Kwangtung and Manchuria for the lives they have taken in
the perpetual wars they have waged on the people of China?.
On any principles of abstract justice, is the mass murder
of thousunda by the machine gun, the bomber, the rifle, the
word, the axe any more just than the furtive strangulation
of nine hopeless relatives of a self-branded yellow our?
This perpetual warfare has been waged on the pretext of
suppressing "banditry." If this be so, we are confronted
with the startling faot, vouchel for and advertised by
the government boasting the recognition of all foreign
powers, that vast portions of the Chinese population are
criminal: On this promise, Chiang Kai Shok & Co.
backed by the cohorts of the Soong Honago swoop down on
whole provinces, massacre thousands, take heavy tolls.
from the meagre life earnings of peasants and workers.
And with all their guns and planes and hundreds of
thousands of soldiers, they still fail to eradicate the
"bandits."
Who are the bandits, the robbers, the murderers?
Answer this question, Kesers. Editors and answer it
honestly if you dare!
-
Japan, in violation of no-called principles
of justice, but in full accord with the lessons of
history, helping herself to a good slice of Continental
Abialy part of the Nunking Government's domain.
Laoking the courage, the ability, the inclination to turn
its gunn on the invader, the Kuomintang sits in solemn
conclave at lanking and discusses further measures-which,
it hopes, will pormit the extermination of new portions
of China's vast "original" population to pro(2088
more effectively.
Let us take some of the facts sporadically reported
by your own and the Chinese press during May-December,
1980. You reported 4,749 executions. From other, more.
meticulous & urces are derived statistics which show that
no less than 96510 wore executed during the last four months
of 1930 alone! This fiure counts (lobular, doesn't it?
Yet for every digit there is somewhere in China a rotting
corpse.
During the period following the close of the
so-called military" period of the suonistong in 1908
to
14-00000
to the opening of the Third Plenary Session of the
Party in 1980 approximately 450,00 workers, possente,
and students mot dout: at the hands of China's
"rovolutiomry” armies. One Shanghai and ly (Chinese)
late the next year oitorialized as follows:-
"All China's problems could be satisfactorily settled if
the good work of the past few months can be continued.
From August to Getober (1930) alone 160,000 Communists
wore killed and 450,000 people starved to death in the
famine regions."
And if the dimensions of these figures aro not
ghastly enough to have you, shall we engage in a bit of
felicitous description of the tortures a plied by these
righteous saviors of China? Shall we speak of the
burnings in oil, the burying alivo (as wore five young
man and women at Lunghua on Feb. 7 lest) the strangulations
the unspeakable mutilation of human bodies before death?
Those aren't wild nightmares. You have oll scan and
shuddered at the photographs which can still be bought
Here and there in Shanghai depicting these processes in
all their grisliness,
And at these, Mesara. Fitore, do you raisa
your editorial hands in saintly horrer Do you splash.
your columns with the adjectives "dastardly, horriblo,
ghastly?" Hardly. That would offend your Nanking.
friends. If you do not maintain silence that bespeaks
contentment, you brazenly applaud. for this we can
quote you chapter and verse from your own editorials.
There are no organs, no publications hero that
dare look these feats boldly in the face. Your
mastheads all carry boasts of your impartiality. Here
is at least one opportunity to invest them with some
quality of vorisi ilitudo.
November 24, 1931.
Copied by
Compared with Ha
Sincerely,
(Signed)
Harold R. Isaacs'
177 Avenue Duba 11,
House 6.
}
14-00000
000-In, Herold R.
.EE COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES FILES
FILE NO.
D.W.
SOURCE:
8-4-32
DATE:
EDITOR OF CHINA
PAPER IN DANGER
Threat to Turn Isaacs
Over to Nanking
SHANGHAI, Aug. 2-The Wall
Street government, supporting its
Nanking butcher agents, has threat-
ened to turn qyer Harold R. Isaacs,
American editor of the "China For-]
um" to the Nanking hangmen.
As editor of the 'China Forum,"
Isaacs has committed the crime'
against Imperialism of supporting-
the Chinese Revolution and ruthless-
ly exposing the mass murder of reven
olutionary Chinese workers and peas-
ants by the Nanking regime and the
United States and other imperialist
brigands. He has exposed the shame-
ful sell-out of the Chinese masses.
by the Nanking traitors to the Jap-
aness, American and other imperial.
ista.
The United States government has
warned Isaacs that it will withdraw
the protection of extra-territorial
rights unless the "China Forum"
changes ita editorial and news pol-
icles. Under the extra-territoriality
treatles imposed upon China by the
imperialists, American and other citi
zens of the imperilaist powers may
not be tried in the Chinese courts.
Because Isaacs is an American..ciil-
zen the Nanking government has not
been able to wreack its vengeance, on
him for his exposure of their bloody.
terror and betrayal of the Chinese
masses. The Wall Street Govern
ment, which protects its business.
agents looting China now proposes
to throw Isaacs to its Nanking lack-
eys for trial in the Chinese courts
on charges carrying life imprison-
ment or the death penalty.
Isaacs has categorically refused to
concede to the demands of the United
States government that he change
the policies of the "China Forum."
He is closely associated in the anti-
imperialist, anti-Kuothintang fight
with Madame Sun Yat-sen, who is
chiarmen of the committee lading
the night to save Paul and Gertrude
Rueggs from a death sentence in the
Chineze courte.
American workers and intellectuals
and their organizations should at
once zend vigorous protest to the
State Department at Washington
jag its attempt to ad Isaacs
to death in the Nanking Courts
Maa
thentice of the Italia Ataine
H/ww
01442.
3546
RECORD SET
20-18846
14-00000
Press Conference
7/30/32.
9550 Долога
direct to Paris for three or four days before proceeding to
London. His visit to Pariò is, therefore, strictly unofficial.
FRANCE
A correspondent asked if the French Government had askod
the State Department for an agrément for a new Ambassador in
Washington, M. Germaine-Martin. Mr. Rogers replied in the
negative.
CHINA
A correspondent asked if Representative La Guardia of
New York had asked the State Department to intervene in the
case of an American named Harold Isaacs who is now oditing a
newspaper in China, which, according to press despatches,
is a Communist organ. The correspondent continued by saying
that according to stories the American diplomatic officers
in China warned Mr. Isaacs that he would be, likely to los0
his extraterritorial status because of hisactivities. Fur
thermore, his father, who is in New York, wants the Depart-
ment of State to get Mr. Harold Isaacs back and have him de-
ported. In reply, Mr. Rogers said that he knew nothing of
Many communication from Mr. La Guardia on the subject. In re-
gard to the story, it is not true that this Government has
threatened to deprive Mr. Isaacs of his extraterritorial rights:
in Shanghai.
BOLIVIA-PARAGUAY
A correspondent asked if the State Department. had received
any reports to the effect that the Bolivians had captured two
Paraguayan forts. In reply, Mr. Rogers said that he undor-
stood that Assistant Secretary White talked with the correspon-
dents last night concerning the situation and that Mr. Whito
might possibly be able to see the correspondents again today.
REDUTO COP
H/~ ATT of To X^42 - 3506
201-18446
14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE: 10 AUGUST 1953
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
INTERNAL SECURITY
FBI FILE #: 100-286243
-
-
R
BUREAU
105-1247 NEW YORK
14-00000
- Secret
ZOTOV, IVAN PAVLOVICH
19 MORDOVIAN REPUBLIC ASSR
S211600/1970
WEST GERMANY 1970
201-254377
2.5 D 19
018446
201-018446
Secret
14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE: 6 AUG 1952
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
INTERNAL SECURITY - R
FBI FILE #: 100-286243 (BUREAU)
105-1247 (NEW YORK)

14-00000
MALYST
SECRET
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DATE PROCESSED
".
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
AJ FILE NO.
B. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO. 4. CATE
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO.. 8. EVALUATION
10. DIESEMINATED IN
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION.
18. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
1. DATE
ISAACS, HAROLD R.
201-018446
SEX M.008 13 SEP 10
USA, NY, NYC
CIT USA
OCC JOURNALIST
a LO, SEN
201-000415
XAAZ-24958
13 APR 67
P4
NEWSWEEK CORRESPONDENT IN SHANHAI IN 30S.
INVOLVED IN CP FRONT: ACTIVITIES
. CONTACT
OF SMEDLEY AND NOULENS. POSS 
IDEN W/ALIAS
JACOB, A. MBR OF SORGE GRU RING 
IN SHANGHAI
.
19.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
SOOM
3+37
867TION EDITIONS.
SECRET
R. 6707240926
FILE IN 201-618446
17.401
14-00000
| DISPATCH
10
Chief; DO
141
FROM
HOMACE Representative, Boston
CLASSIFICATION
SECRET
PROCESSING ACTION
FOODING
☑
NO ANGEVING REQUIRED
• QUALIFIED DESK
CAN WIDGE INDELING
SUBJECT ISOLOG/WUSPARROW/Operational
Dr. Harold R. ISAACS, Professor of Political Science at M.I.T.
ACTION REQUIRED REFERENCES.
USGF1
1. On 12 July 1967, WUSPARROW/1 renewed his old friendship with
Subject at the MIT Faculty Club. Subject is now a senior research associate
at MIT's Center for International Studies and has recently been named a
Professor.
2. For the past few years Subject has been working on an international
study series involving minority racial groups. His reports have been
published in the New Yorker magazine and as books, The New World of Negro
Americans and India's Untouchables. Subject plans to publish in August
1967 a book on the American Jews in Icrael and is working on another on
the Philippines.
3. WUSPARROW/1 first not Subject in 1946 after he had just completed
a long and friendly interview with Ho Chi Minh as Far East correspondent
for Newsweek. At that time, Subject felt that the United States was making
a mistake in not accepting to as the leader of a united Vietnam, reeling
that Ho was independent enough of China to make him at worst a sort of
Tito.
4. Subject presently is despairing of United States foreign relations
in that our people from Washington, or elsewhere, seldom seem to establish
a deep rapport with Asian or African nationals. Subject feels that such
relations as do exist never reach more than an ineffective superficial
level.
5. Subject first went to the Far East about 1930 when he was a crew
- member of the Matson Line's Malolo and disembarked at Honolulu to work for
the Honolulu Advertiser. (WUSPARROW/1 went to work for the same paper two
years later.) Subject went next to the Philippines where he worked on a
Manila daily. While in Manila he was offered the editorship of the Bangkok
Royal Mail, to fill in for St. Clair McELWAY, now of the New Yorker.
Distribution:
`2¸- C/DO
CONTINUED
Copy filed 2006-300/3 Fule in 201-17446
CROSS REFERENCE TO
UTEA
543
CLASSIFICATION
SECRET
DATE
11 August 1967
HOS FILE NUMBER
-2006-360/3
;,
14-00000
CONTINUATION OF
DISPATCH
CLASSIFICATION
DRSPATCH SYMBOL ANO NUMA
SECRET
UTRA -
543
6. Subject's mind was set on China and in late 1931 he wont to
Shanghai and joined The China Press, working alongside Tiliman DURD IN,
now of 
the New York Times. Subject lost his job with The China Press
after a flare-up with Hollington TONG, part-owner of the paper. Subject
then joined the 
Newsweek foreign staff. Subject was in and out of
Bangkok after World War II and WUSPARROW/1 became friendly with him.
According to WUSPARROW/1, many people regard Subject's Tragedy of the
Chinese Revolution as a significant work and a recent writer on China,
Dennis BLOODWORTH, holds a good view of Subject's Scratches on the Mind.
7. Subject now-seems permanently settled with MIT, having bought
a home at 96 Farlow Road, Newton. Subject hosts there at pool-side
"seminars" on Saturday afternoons, with MTT faculty friends and journalist
friends such as Bob SHAPLEN coming by. Subject invited HUSPARROW/1 to
participate as well.
8. However, as WUSPARROW/1 ascertained, Subject has little contact
with foreign students save for an occasional adult foreign graduate
student. We hope, considering Subject's background, that he will prove
with WUSPARROW/1's guidance to be a profitable unwitting spotter and
assessor of foreign graduate students.
LOUIS K. ROLLOFIER
WEC 1
compliance
2FB
2E REAC
0.05€
БУСЕ ИЗ
14-00000
N/C Tracer?
X-6347
DW-
7
SECRET
Land tracer
T.lephone Request for Name Check-
FROM
Priority
US
•RECEIVED
1748
For Use of RI Nome Check Control Office
ذرا ان
TAKEN BY
PSB/FBI
Gerry F.
ROBINSON, Viela
NAME
U.S.
DATE 24 NOV 1965
CHECKED BY
REPLY
ALIAS AND SPELLING VARIATIONS
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH
AVE AND W/20/10
OTHER IDENTIFYING DATA
REFERENCES
NAI to CSCI 316/04352-65
dated 26 Oct. 65.
subject, ISAACS, Howold Rotter
per Trace by Diann
on 10 Nov. 65
24//11/05
26201-18446
14-00000
·Special
RECERN TO:
10/14/05
Tainor
cay
FILS #151-1423
PC
BUDED: 11/11a
NAME ISAACS, HAROLD ROBERT,
BORN: Sept. 19, 1910, NYC, NY.
MS:
NYC,
CTI
H
+ Rep 10-13-45
Lee CSC #5.22.66.2153
married Viola Robinson, dob June 20, 1910, NYC, NY
married Shanghai, Sept. 14, 1932
ADDRESSES:
SANCS
Aug., 1965 to present, 96 Farlow Rd., Newton, Mass.
July, 1953 to Aug., 1965
Hase.
Feb., 1944 to July, 1953, 333 Central Pk. Host, NYC, NY
Sept., 1941 to Feb., 1944, 4938 Newport Ave., Friendship Hts., Md.
1940 to Sopt., 1941, 72 Pk. Torraco West, NYC, NY
1937 to 1940, 40 Monroe St., NYC, NY
EDUCATION
SSN:
George Washington H. S., NYC, 1923 to 1926
082-03-4029
EMPLOYMENT:
1953
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Camb, Mass., academic, research
1943 to 1950, Newsweek, WDC, CBI, Pacific, SE Asia, NYC, reporter,
war corres. assoc. editor
1943, Lookhoed Aircraft Corp., WDC, radio writor,
1940 to 1943, Columbia Broadcasting Co., NYC, WDC, writer
1934 to 1935, self employed, Poking, China, writer
1932 to 1934, Havas Nows Agency, Shanghai, China, news editor
1931 to 1932, China Press, Shanghai, China, city editor
1930 to 1931, Shai Evening Post, Shanghai, China, reportér
1930, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, reporter
FOREIGN TRAVEL:
China, 1930 to 1935, Travel, work, writing
China, Burma, India, 1944, to 1945, war correa. Newsweek
PI, India, Indonesia, 1949 to 1949, Nook anЯignment
Phillippines, 1950 to 1950, cover Baguo conference
Europe Mainly UK, 1957 to 1957, travel, visit university
Czech., Israel, India, 1960 to 1960, academic
Malaya, PI., otc., 1963 to 1964,
RELATIVES:
Father, I. Robert Isaacs, deconsod
Mother, Sophie Dorlin, deceased
Wife, Viola Robinson Isaacs, dob 1310, same
REFERENER:
research project
1/17/15
FILE IN 201 - 18446
S.rgent Shriver, Ponce Corps., P, known 17 yrs.
NAI to information foraided in
0501-316/04352-65 dated 26 October 1963
Harold Robert.
subject: ISAACS,
(husband's 201)
possible souf
10 NOV 1955 - 1 NOV 1965
Dm5
14-00000
UNCLASSIFIED
INTERNAL
U!
ONLY
SUBJECT: (Ophonol)
FROM: 0
RE
CONFENTIAL
☐ SECRET
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
US
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
UNITED STATES
CATE
EFORMED
POWAGED
EXTENSION
NO
CSCI 316/04352-65
DATE
25 October 1965
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show kam whom
to whom. Draw orress column offer each comment.).
11.
CÍ STAFF 2C 35
26 OCT 1965
ст
2.
³ RID/CE
Attn: Sarah Marmaduke
S.
6.
RID/AN GA 50
7.
RI/TY
8.
9.
100
31.
12.
13.
14.
15.
FORM
3-02°
RID/FI LB 4003
OP.20
9.64
GA-10
26 OCT 1955 CR
ادان
TO: PSB/FBI
FILE TITLE.
ENCLOSURE
FILE NUMBER
DOCUMENT DATE
DATE 1355
610
USE PREVIOUS
SECRET
CONFIDENTIAL
☐
INTERNAL
USE ONLY
ABSTRACT ✗
INDEX
UNCLASSIFIED
14-00000
TO:
SECRET
WHO FOREIGN OFSSEN
26 OCT 1965
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
ATTN: Special Agent in Charge of
Washington Field Office
FROM:
Deputy Director for Plans
-SUBJECT: ISAACS, Harold Robert-
Reference is made to the request dated 14 October
1965 concerning Subject. Attached for your retention is a
copy of our CSCI-316/04169-65, dated 13 October 1965,
subject: ISAACS, Harold Robert. It is noted that a portion
of the information appearing in said CSCI was previously
forwarded to you in our SODB 20568, dated 2 December
1949, subject: Harold Robert ISAACS.
CSCI-316/04352-65
Encl.
1 name check
1 attachment as stated above
RID/CE: JMA/CPL/ell
Based on: CSCI-316/04169-65
CS.COPY
SECRET
26) - 184 46
62957 1
big
Extorical
53) FOREIGN DISSÉM IN 201-18446
14-00000
Special
CA
NATURN TO: Tainor
10/14/63
caw
FILK #151–1423.
PC.
BUDED: 11/11a
OCT15
NAME: ISAACS, HAROLD ROBERT
EORN: Sept. 13, 1910, NYC, NY
MS:
married Viola Robinson, dob June 20, 1910, NYC, NY
married Shanghai, Sopt. 14, 1932
ADDRESSES:.
Aug., 1965 to present, 96 Farlow Rd., Newton, Mass.
July, 1953 to Aug., 1965°
Hass.
Feb., 1944 to July, 1953, 339. Contral Pk. West, NYC, NY
Sept., 1941 to Feb., 1944, 4938 Newport Ave., Friendship Hts. Md.
1940 to Sopt., 1941, 72 Pk. Terraco West, NYC, NY
1937 to 1940, 40 Monroe St., NYC, NY
EDUCATION
SSN:
George Washington H. S., NYC, 1923 to 1926
082-03-4029
EMPLOYMENT:
1953
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Camb, Mass., academic, research
1943 to 1950, Newsweek, WDC, CBI, Pacific, SE Asia, NYC, reporter,
I war corres. assoc. editor
1943, Lookhoed Aircraft Corp., WDC, radio writer,
1940 to 1943, Columbia Broadcasting Co., NYC, WDC, writer
1934 to 1935, self employed, Paking, China, writor
1932 to 1934, Havas News Agency, Shanghai, China, news editor
1931 to 1932, China Press, Shanghai, China, city oditor
1930 to 1931, Shai E, China, reporter
1930, Honolulu Advor
FOREIGN TRAVEL:
2 Cor
ANALYST
China, 1930 to 1935, vol, kiting
2/10/13/8-5
China, Burma, India, 1945, corres. Newsweek
PI, India, Indonosia, 1949 to 1949, Nosswoek assignment
Phillippines, 1950 to 1980, cover Baguo conference
Europe Mainly UK, 1950 to 1957, travol, visit university
Czech., Israel, India
to 1980, pandemic research project
1984,
Halaya, PI., etc., 1982
RELATIVES:
'
Father, I. Robert Issacs, docensed
Mother, Sophie Dorlin, deceased
Wife, Viola Robinson Isaacs, dob 1910, game
REFERENCE:
16F 20
ICA
CS COPY
FILE IN 201-
18446+
18 OCT 1965
Sargent Shriver, Peace Corps., WDC, known 17 yrs.
14-00000
RETURN TO:
20/14/06
Taloor
cav
FILS #151-1423
DUDED: 11/
CA
HS
OCT 21
NAME: ISAACS, HAROLD ROLERT
کی
DORN: Sopt. 13, 1010, NYC, NY
Isanes
ES: married Viola Robinson, Rob June 20, 1910, NYC,
ADDRESSES:
married Shanghai, Sopt. 14, 1932
irz
Aug., 1965 to prosent, 96 Parlow Ed., Horton, Mass.
July, 1953 to Aug., 1985
13.
Feb., 1914 to July, 1953, 233 Central Ph. Wost, MTC, NZ.
Sept., 1941 to Feb., 1941, 4933 Newport Ave., Friendship Hts., Hd.
1940 to Sopt., 1941, 72 FX. Defence West, NYC, NY
1937 to 1940, 40 Lonroo St., HTC, NY
EDUCATION
SSN:
George Washington H. S., NYC, 1923 to 1926
082-03-4020
1935-1940 HAVAS News Agency
EMPLOYMENT: 1950-1953 Stifempleyad.-whiten wyc
1953
ass. Inst. of Technology, Camb, Mass., academic, research
1943 to 1950, Nowoweek, WEC, CEI, Pacific, SE Asia, NYC, reporter,
war corres. assoc. editor
1943, Lookhoed Aircraft Corp., WC, radio writor,
1940 to 1943, Columbia Broadcasting Co., NYC, HDC, writer
1934 to 1935, solf employed, Peking, China, writer
1932 to 1954, Navas News Agency, Shanghai, China, news editor
1931 to 1982, Chica Press, Shanghai, Ching, city editor (CHINA
1930 to 1931, Shai Evening Post, Shanghai, China, reporter
1030, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, reporter
1925 1930 New York Times-REPORTER
FOREIGN TRAVEL:
China, 1930 to 1935, Travel, work, writing
China, Burma, India, 1944, to 1945, war corros. Newsweek
PI, India, Indonesia, 1949 to 1949, Nouswook assignment
Phillippinop, 1050 to 1956, cover Baguo conference
Europe Mainly UK, 1957 to 1957, travel, visit university
Czech., Israel, India, 1960 to 1960, academic research project
Malaya, PI., etc., 1963 to 1964,
RELATIVES:
Father, I. Polent Idsecs, deccased
Mother, Sophie Berlin, deceased
Wife, Viola Robinson ɛace, dob 1910, same
REFERENCE:
Surgont Shrivor, Poace Corps., WDC, known 17 yrs.
FORUM)
Sh
ILE IN 201-12446
possible soref
(husbands 201
22 OCT 1955
1
NAI to information forwarded in CSCI-316/04352-65,
dated 26 October 1965, subject: ISAACS, Harold
Robert.
DMS
14-00000
UNCLASSIFIED
☐
IN VAL
.US. ONLY
SUBJECT: (Optional)
FROM:
gi
RID/CE
US
TO: Officer designation, room number, and
building]
1.
CI STAFF 2C 35
2.
3. RID/CE
GA-10
Attn: Sarah Marmaduke.
S.
6:
RID/AN GA 50
7.
8.
RID/MIS
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
RID/FI 1B 4003
☐☐ CONFIL TIAL
☑ SECRET
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
EXTENSION
NO
DATE
CSCI 316/ 04169-65
11 October 1965
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
DATE
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
RECEIVED
PORWARDED
1200188506
13 OCT 1965 EK
또
FORM
3-02
610
USE PREVIOUS
EDITIONS ☑ SECRET
CONFIDENTIAL
OP-56
9.14
TO:
PSB/CSC
FILE TITLE
FILE-NUMBER
201
ENCLOSURE
DOCUMENT DATE
18
446
71 1965
INTERNAL
USE ONLY
ABSTRACT X
INDEX
UNCLASSIFIED

14-00000
SECRET
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
13 OCT 1965
TO:
FROM:
United States Civil Service Commission
Attention: Mr. Joseph G. Campbell
Deputy Director for Plans
SUBJECT: ISAACS, Harold Robert
1. Reference is made to your request dated 14 September 1955.
The files of this office contain considerable information concerning
Subject, the salient elements of which are summarized below.
2. According to undated information from a reliable source,
Subject born 13 September 1910 in New York City, arrived in Shanghai,
Chian, from Manila, Philippine Islands, in December 1930. First
employed in Shanghai by the English language daily, Evening Post and
Mercury. Subject became associated a few weeks later with the China
Press, with which he remained until May 1931. In June 1931 Subject
traveled up the Yangtze River with the British Communist, Cecil Frank
GLASS, a suspected agent for the Third International in China. Also
in 1931, Subject became the Shanghai secretary of the Comite Inter-
nationale Pour la Defense de Paul et Gertrude RUEGG (NOULENS), a
committee, with Headquarters in Berlin, formed to aid the defense of
the NOULENS against charges of espionage perferred by the Chinese
Government. Subject was in correspondence with Will MUENZENBERG,
President of the Committee and an active agent in Germany for the Third
International. Subject was also known to be in contact with Agnos
SMEDLEY in Shanghai during the same period. On 14 September 1932
in Shanghai, Subject married Viola ROBINSON, an American citizen
born 10 June 1910 in New York City. Miss ROBINSON was believed to
have been connected with Communist activities in the United States
and in China. Correspondence between her and Subject prior to their
marriage indicated that they were both sympathetic to activities
being conducted by the Communists in China.
CS COPY
SECRET
FILE IN 201-18446-*
NO FOREIGN DISSE
ཡ.. 88017 1
Excluded mes
decrassificati
201-15446
+14-00000
SECRET
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
3. According to predecessor organization information, Subject:
was also employed as a staff writer for the Havas News Agency in
Shanghai during the period 1930-1935 and was a member of the Society.
of Friends of the USSR and of the China League for Civil Rights.
:
4. An undated report from an unknown source indicated that
Subject had turned against the Stalinist Government of the USSR, and
had become a Trotskyite (probably during the mid-1930's). Friends
of Subject stated that even during the height of his Trotskyist career
he never accepted money from any group, that he was open and above
board, and that he never engaged in any conspiracies to overthrow
established government. They also indicated that Subject was
attracted to communism by sheer idealism. Immediately after Pearl
Harbor, Subject broke with the Trotskyite group as he had broken
with the Communist and began writing propaganda for the United
States Government.
1
5. According to Source of paragraph 2, Subject was a wer
correspondent in China during World War II for Newsweek. In July
1945 he was refused entry into China by Chinese Nationalist authorities,
presumably as a result of anti-Nationalist articles he wrote for News.
week. In 1949 Subject was Special Features Editor for that magašine,
at 152 West 42nd Street, New York City. He was the author of several
books, including No Peace in Asia and The Tragedy of the Chinese
Revolution.
6. Subject's present political beliefs are unknown to this office.
CSCI-316/04169-65
Encl. 1 name check
RID/CE: JMA/DS/1pm
Based on: SODB-20568
CSCI-3/778,850
SECRET
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
GROUP 1
Endersbalk
reclassification
Mass
14-00000
H.R
ISAACS, Härled Robert
ISACKS R
ISAAKS
DD 10-5
MEMORANDUR
RI ANALYST
0516STI
si SLANGH
%
Dms
FE/COOS Mu
FE/JKOJO
as
HUNT
#451
14 SEP 1965
718
9-14-65
9-13-10
NewYork
N
USA
Life
possible so ref 52473
FILE IN 201–18446
کردی بر این بر نور
15 SEP 1965
201-18446
14-00000
SECRET
(then Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Suspected Soviet Agents domiciled in
Shahghai
COCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
CHINA-CI AOP-L
Box 193
13. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SMOOL NO. 4. CATE
SMP-D 4718
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM DATE OF INFO. 9. EVALUATION
S.
ANALYST.
JEP
a. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
3. Dec. 1963
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION:
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
AI FILE NO.
xx
14-
PERTINENT INFORMATION.
Interested parties in the subjcet of HAROLD ISAACES are referred to this document
The bulky nature of this document plus, numerous refs to other individuals and the
poor quality of paper this makes it necessary to leave the file in its present
classification.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
21-18446
FORM
867 PREVIOUS
SECRET
(7.46)
- $7
14-00000
UNCLASSIFIED
INTERNAL
ONLY
SUBJECT, (Optional)
CONFIDENTIAL
SECRET
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET 7.7202163
FROM
RID/CE
FE
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
Japan
DATE
ماز
FWD'D
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
NO.
DATE
CSCI-3/ 778,850
22 November 1963
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
to whom. Draw a line ocross columa after each comment.)
RECO
1.
201
CI STAFF 2C 35
2.
3.
топ
5.
KID/AN GA 50
"Red/mis
7.
8.
g
TO: ACSI (Telephonic)
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
FORM
RID/FI 1B 4003
1 DEC 55
610
OP-56
5.62
USE PREVIOUS
EDITIONS
SECRET
CONFIDENTIAL
FILE TITLE
FILE NUMBER
201-18446
ENCLOSURE
ADSTRACT X
DOCUMENT DATE
V 1963
INDEX
INTERNAL
USE ONLY
UNCLASSIFIED
14-00000
SECRET
NO FOREIGN DISSEN
27 NOV 1963
TO:
Assistant Chief of Staff, Intolligence
Department of the Army
Attention: Chief, Counterintelligence
Branch Security Division
FROM: Deputy Director, Plans
SUBJECT: ISAACS, Harold Robert
1.
Roference is made to the request received on
14 October 1963 from Lt. Whipple concerning Subject.
with
h 
respect to the specific questions posed in the
request, Subject is the author of a number of books,
including No Pence in Asia, Five Years of Kuomintang
Reaction, and The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution.
The files contain no information concerning Subject's
teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
however they do contain the following summary of un-
evaluated information based on several predecessor
organisation reports. Additional information concern-
ing Subject is contained in our SODB 20588, dated 2
December 1949, subject: Harold Robert ISACCS, a copy
of which is attached for your retention.
a. Subject was employed as a staff writer for
the Havas News Agency in Shanghai from 1930-1935,
He was also editor and publisher of the China Forum,
a communist periodical, from January 1932 to an
unspecified dato. In July 1832 ISAACS wrote and
published the above-cited Five Years of Kuomintang
Reaction, a 136-page illustrated book of Communist
nature. While in Shanghai he was a member of The
Society of Friends of the USSR (Shanghai Branch)
and The China League for Civil Rights.
b. In 1933 Shanghai authorities listed Subject's
wife, Viola ROBINSON, as a suspect Soviet agent re-
siding in Shanghai. Prior to their marriage on 14
September 1932, ISAACS stated in a letter to Miss
ROBINSON that he had definitely turned "Red." All
the members of the ROBINSON family were described as
Communists.
SECRET
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
CS COPY
201-18446
1
Existed from
FILE IN 201-18446
Atup
1End
14-00000
SECRET
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
c. In July 1933 tho Nanking Government ordered
the Municipality of Greater Shanghai to take drastic
measures to stop the propaganda appearing in a
nusder of publications including the China Forum,
published by Subject. Subject's magazine allegedly
'published' Communist propaganda; in this connection a
protest was to bo lodged against him with the American
Consulate..
d. Subject was described as a "self-confessed
Communist in 1933. The following year he wrote an
article entitled "I Break With The Chinese Stalinists"
which appeared in the September-October 1934 edition
of The New International, a Communist propaganda
organ published in New York.
2. An undated report from an unknown source indicated
that Subject had turned against the Stalinist Government
of the USSB, becoming a Trotskyite(probably during the mid-
1930's). Friends of Subject stated that even during tho
height of his. Trotskyist career he never accepted money
from any group, that ho was open and above board, and that
he never engaged in any conspiracios to overthrow established
government. They also stated that Subject was attracted to
Communism by "sheer idealism." Immediately after Pearl
Harbor, ISAACS broke with the Trotskyite group as he had
broken with the Communists and began writing propaganda
for the United States Government.
3.
According to a report dated 25 June 1951 from a
fairly reliable source, Subject served at that time as a
Ford Foundation advisor on Far Eastern Projects.
4. For additional information concerning Subject you
are referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to
the Department of the Navy (no documentation available).
CBCI-3/778,880
Encl: 1 attachment as stated above.
RID/CE:
Based on:
JHA/MI/dcl
FE/1, 201-18446*
CHINA CIA OP 1, SMPD 2713, 10-11-32
CHINA CIA OP 1, SMPD 4606, 16-5-33
CHINA CIA OP 1, SMPD 4718
CHINA CIA OP1, SMPD 4685 & 4685/C
CHINA CIA OP 1, SMPD 5454-8,21-12-33
CHINA CIA OP 1, SMPD 6628
FDZ, 201-488-8
SO for NAVY referal.
SECRET
CS CO
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
Expunk
Gergating an
101
14-00000
EX8997
FE
TALSTIQUE HALLEN JON HARGA QURIS. KOP
DW_7
Caci - 3/778,850°
A404
Анон
ACSÌ
-
Lt. Whipple via Jane Roman
14 Oct 63
BATE
TRKER BY
Moran
ISAACS, Harold Robert.
INNE
Mply
MAS AND STELLING VARINIICE
born 1910
"DAR NO ME aan
MEMORANDUM COORDINATION
OTHER IDENTIFYING DATA
REFERENCES
[1353
INITIALS
RINALYST
me
DIV. BRANCH
FE
new
REDHOR
Author of many books on Chină 8. E. Asia.
Harold R.Isaacs authority on China
Harold R. Isaacs teaches at MIT
are all the names the same person?
Summary of
1
Reproduct
CS COPY
Rec
cy
FILIEⱭN
Endz i
15/10/633
201-18446
LEON 20118446*
14-00000
B.
ANALYST
SECRET
(Ben Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
12. CROSS REFERRED TO, THIS FILE
6. DATE Decessed
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
:.
"RI FILE NO.
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
DATE
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM 6. DATE OF INFO. "
EVALUATION
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
THERE IS A RESTRICTED CI/CA FOLDER ON THE SUBJECT
OF THIS 201 HELD UNTER C: 5237
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
15 446
TORM
0+ 57
867EVIOUS CITIONS.
SECRET
17+467
"
14-00000
SECRET
(Shen Pilled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Del Consul Yeniral
Riports, Shangha's
S. ANALYST
6. DATE PROCESSED
व
30 ОСТ 1965
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
16-5-16
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
ONHA 12913
4. DATE
16 Jones
658
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM 6. DATE OF INFO. 9. EVALUATION
སོསྐྱངས
10. MINATED IN
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
DATE
PERTINENT INFORMATION
H.R. ISAACS
American Communist, Suspected of working
for the Komintern and the Ris.
13.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-18446
FORM
9-37
86% PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
(7.40)

14-00000
FILE NO.
JO - 5237
SUBJECT
ABSTRACT OF DOCUMENT BEING CROSS FILED
CI/CA
ISAACS, HAROLD R.
CATE OF DOCUMENT
ANALYST
Born
-
1910
-
nationality
American
DATE
وود
CROSS FILED BY
26.JUN
PERTINENT INFORMATION
THERE IS A RESTRICTED CI/OA FOLDER ON THE SUBJECT OF
THIS 201 HELD IN RI/AR FILE, WASH-CIA-FERS-4.
CROSS REFERENCE FORM
FORM NO.
' AUG $4
137
REPLACES FOR 58-34
WHICH MAY BE USED.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE RO.
11/06
☐
1.39)
14-00000
UNCLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SECRET
INSTRUCTIONS: Officer designations should be used in the "TO" column. Under each comment a line should to drawn across sheet
and each comment numbered to correspond with the number in the "TO" column Each officer should initial (check mark insufficient)
before further routing. This Routing and Record Sheet should be returned to Registry
FROM:
RI/ANALYSIS
TELLPHON
TO
ROOM
NO.
ን
NE 107
·
ств
DATE
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
TELEPHONE
MCO
PWOD
7 MAY 1955
Ctk
eliy
..
10.
11.
12.
1.
14.
DATE
NPK-A-4384
COMMENTS
EGN. Or.. MAKS
PHIOSTAN
Actr
་་་
Fin
Site Sealy requested
24 y 56 wil
Helly
That
CARDED BY
20 AUG 1956
21
RI/FI
FORM NO.
1 APE AS
610
OTHER
SHAN PLEASE NOTE-
ABSTRACT
INDEX
1409
L
DATE
14 MAY 1956
REPLACES STEP.18
WHICH MAY BE USED
SECRET
CONFIDENTIAL
UNCLASSIFIED
14-00000
TIA
Abwesty At San
DISPATCH NO. NPK-A-4284
TO
Chief, NEA
FROM
SECRET
CLARATION
Chief of Station, Karachi
SUBJECT
GENERAL
SPECIFIC
1.
2.
2 May 1956
NRH/wrg
Operational/INTEL
DATE 5. May 1956.
Far Eastern Association 8th Annual Mooting,
Request for Background and Operational Information.
The program of the 8th Annual Meeting of the Far Eastern
Association, held in Philadelphia 3 5 April 1956, has just
arrived here. It indicates that the 
association has already
taken decided steps towards its announced expansion into the
South Asian field. The station assumes that Headquarters
covered the meeting and can get access now or later to copies
of monographs, notes on proceedings, and so on.
would seen to
The following items, keyed to the program,
be of interest to this station if Headquarters can get themi
Distribution:
5 - NEA
2- Karachi
A.
B.
C.
On 3 April, Zakye Eglar: "The World View of the
Punjabi Villager".
(Note: This is quite likely the East Punjabi,
but it should have some validity for Lahore as
well as for Delhi.).
On the same day, a Pakistan Studies Organization.
Meeting was held at 1700. It would be useful 
to
know who is interested in Pakistan studies (both
individuals and organizations) and what lines
they are thinking of working on.
On 5 April, all the items. of a "South Asian Mis-
cellany" should be of considerable interest,
particularly Stanley Haron's "The Future 
of 
East:
Bengal. Hydecker has some early drafts 
of the
Harold Isaacs study, but they are too early to
provide any useful material; this project (at
CENIS, MIT) is one that Headquarters 
should 
non1-
tor closely, however.
,
NEIL R.
HYDECKER
FR51-28A
MAR
SECRET
CLASSIFICATION
RI COPY
786-2--12
14-00000
TO:
TOF SEGRET
Director
Federal Buram of Investigation
Attention Mr. S. J. Papich
FACIA
Deputy Director, Plans
ME 5, liss
SUBJECT: Nornando SEGUERIMA, alco known as Fernando aguar RCHES
2. Reference is made to a communication from this Agency
dntol 30 August 1955, captioned as above, our reference CS 01-2542.
2. Attached for your information is a copy of a lotter
writton by subject. and addressed to the post office box mentioned
in the referenced comalum. The letter a signed by subject as
Falf, his fominino psuedonym. It should also to explained that
English is not subject'u nativo language; tharoforo, the grammar
and spalling used by subject in his lotters are to be exportal.
3. This offico interprota subject's lottor as follows
G.
Aunt Josephine in Jose Lab, with whom subject, una
boon in contact the past several months and who has been indoctri-
nating subject with loftiat iddology. has not eduitted to
subject that ho is a Communist, although in his conversations with
cubject ha sticks very close to the current lins of the Philippine
Communist Party (PKP).
b..
Harold ISAACS (FBI File No. 100-286243) is well known
to the bureaui.
G. Unclo MANUEL is probably the lato Philippine President
Naquel CULON, who sponsored. Jose LANSING's entry into the United
States in 1937 whon LANSANG studied at Columbia University.
William CARTER, Jr. has not yet boon identified by this offico.
4. PEILILIC, fru is probably Dr. Filadolfo PHILILIO,
former Associate Professor of Mechanics at the University of the
Philippines. PALILIO received his B from the University of the
Philippines and his M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.
Sinst
Lecce laughing
COPY OF 2
-
18446
14-00000
SECRET
Recording to a usually reliable source of this jency, FRIGILIO WAS
navorable to completely fouljust to Philigal life after having
lived in the United States. He is known for his strong pro-ladricun
views cal according to cource probably his (reatest desire is to
resido permanently in the United Status. Although it is known, that
PANCILIO was on friendly terms with JODO LANDING there is no zaroni
that bo chared
political views.
น. Fr. S to probably Father DELANEY, Jecult Chaplain.
At the University of the Philippinos.
f. Cypros or Cyprus University may possibly be syracuse
University.
B Med is probably Ricardo\[BES, Pilippine nove
paperman who was allegedly consented with Harry BRIDGRS in the
International longeḥprotons and Kurehouse' Union (INU) in
Honolulu. LABES was born on 3 April 1915 in alles however, most
of his life has been pont in Rawail. no naturalized a U.3.
citishn in 1948 and returned to the Philippines in 1949, where has
lost hita U.S. citizenship in 1952. Thore is no information in the
files of this office which indicates that LADEZ a returned to
Hawaii. For additional Lifformation concerning UADBEZ, reference in
made to a mouranium to the Burau, dated 23 November 1949, cubfooti
PRicardo LDS (uka Ricardo LAVER)", our reference 50 DS-20307.
h. Unclo A is a CYC, Uncle TD is Baltasar
QUYUGIN with whom the Bureau to foallier as a result or previous
correspondenco concarning Mis doughter, Carnon Jano YUCAT (EBI
1 No. 105-32501). From the wording of subject's hotter this
office documes that Baltaner CUYUGA is avere that the Fodoral
Duronu of Duvestigation is invectigating for.
appears that Balteson CUYUGAN gave subject a lotter to deliver
porconally to his brother For CURUGAN, possibly to avoid a tail
intercept by the Euromi. It should be noted that subject stated
that ho hailed the lotter instead.
It alco
4. In view of the sensitiveness of the source of the above
information, it is requcated that no further dissemination be made
of the information without prior clearance with this /gency..
CS CL-2768
L.
Attachment - A copy of a letter Addressee coly}
小
DEN
Mens 155
1.2.1 00Y OF .Z.
K
TOP SECHET
201-18446
14-00000
FBI DOCUMENTS AS FOLLOWS:
DATE: 26 MAY 1955.
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
FBI FILE #: 100-286243 (BUREAU)
DATE: 19 MAR 1954
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
FBI FILE #: 100-286243 (BUREAU
BXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
DATE: 27 JAN 54
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL.
SUBJECT: LIU TSUN-CH'I (M) AKA
T.C. LIU, LAU CHIN-KI
FBI FILE #: 100-365280 (BUREAU)
14-00000
:
13.
5.
ANALYST
14.
JP
SECRET
(Shon Pallet in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
LIU TSUN-CHI
112-
CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
201-41745
3. DISPATCH OR SORE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
DFB---
-30147'
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM DATE OF INFO. ..
4. DATE
24 Dept. 53
EVALUATION
.. DATE PROCESSED
10. 013SEMINATED IN
11. DATE
3 Dec. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
1. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION.
Comments made by Francis McCracken Fisher
Fisher also recalled that sometime after the subject had gone over the Communists
after 1950, he Fisher, met Harold Isaacs, a writer who formerly was a Trotskyte in His
views, at which time Isaacs advised Fisher thaht he had known that subject was a Commurist
as early as the 1930's in Peking, China. Isaacs stated that the subjcet had worked for
the Tass News Agency in Peking after having graduated form college and had evern
bbeen sent to jaol due to his communist activies.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.,
FORM
8-57
867 ***
PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
i
201-18446
SECRET
(7-461
whi
14-00000
FBI DOCUMENTS AS FOLLOWS:
DATE:
26 MAY 1953
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAAC.
FBI FILE #: 100-286243 2 (BUREAU)
DATE: 18 FEB 53
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
FBI FILE #: 100-286243 (BUREAU)
DATE: 12 NOVE, 52
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS.
FBI FILE #: 100-286243 (BUREAU)
14-00000
SECRET
(When Filled ing
CIFL
Si det 52
EVALUATION
Jual
flaument,
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
File
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
200-7-212-1
2.
RI FILE NO.
i
3. DIGRATE ON
SOURCE LOC. SYMBOL NO.
..
willey alde very to Sorge.
Shayhai municiple
Police Filth
3. ANALYST
ann Cherien
6. DATE PROCESSED
RZ
Enclas
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO.
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
29 6765
DOCUMENT. DISPOSITION
12. CROSS-REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
AI FILE NO.
14.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
Changhai MP, Special Branch, S-2, report finterception
1 of propaganda-tuige letter to Harold R. ISAADS
сей
Issue
and Volume 3, No. 8, 31 32 of
"The Chinese Worker's Correspondence "added to
the China Jorum.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
20182446*
FORM
B-5!
867 PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
(Den Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Reneral Willoughbys Sili
Documents Pithin
Richaut Sexy, and the Tha
punicipal Police Files
3. ANALYST
16. DATE PROCESSED
Leann Cherwin 29 Sicles
RI FILE NO.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
200-7-212-1
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SIMSOL NO.
Ki
Encl. 23
4. DATE.
310c152
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO. .. EVALUATION
110. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
14''
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
Photo copy of Special Edition of China Trum called
years of Kuomintary feaction" glasi carigionatice
concerning
be.
"Five
u
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-12446.7
FORM 867EVIOUS
SECRET
(7-46)

14-00000
SECRET
7 then Filled [ny
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Beered willoughbyfilis
Documents Pertaining to
Richard Sorge, and the
Muncipal
Shanghai
B. ANALYST
Palies File
6. DATE PROCESSED
dann herwin 29 Light 65
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
2.
RI FILE NO.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
200-
7- 212
4. DATE
3. DISPATCH SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
RI.
Encl. 18 31 de 52
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE. OF INFO. 1.
10. DISSEMINATED IN
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION:
PERTONENT
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
1. Shanghai Muncipal Patul "TILORMATION
19 April
Report by d. I. Ross 
14 Quil 
34.
CWC, val. 4, No. 13, 13.4.34
DATE
EVALUATION
addressed; Mr. N.R. IRAACS, Embankment Building
North boochow 
Road, Local
forwarded extracts of
Chinese worker's Correspondence
relating to labour disputes in
March 1934-
Shanghai during
The publication which was obtained from a
confidential cource was delivered though 
the
poet, addressed to 
ISAACS as above.
15.
_FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-18446
FORM
9-57
867 S PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
(7-48)
14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE: 6 OCTOBER 1952
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: JOHN KING FAIRBANK
FBI FILE #: 77-24341 (BUREAU)
14-00000
SECRET
(Shen Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE.
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
to
Deneral Willoughby's Files
Lexcument, Castorning
Richard Rorge, and tlife
Changha
5. ANALYSE.
-
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
..
RI FILE NO.
200-7-212-1
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE. DOC SYMBOL NO.
Ri
hai muncipal Police Files
6. DATE PROCESSED
.. DATE
Encl. 8
31G52
3. SOURCE CRYPTONYM 6. DATE OF INFO. ⚫. EVALUATION
12: CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE.
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
294ept 65
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
BI FILE NO.
14.
PERTINENT INFORMATION:
Photographic copies of letter from Will MUENZENBERE to
ISAnes regarding defence of Paul & Bertrude RUEGG.
ISAACS
Jigational Committee for
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-184467
FORM
9-37
867 VIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE:
26 MAY 1952
CLASS: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJ:
GEORGE HERRING, WAS:
RING, PAUL RUEGG
FBI FILE #: 100-344906 (BUREAU)
1
14-00000
ANALYST
SECRET
(Then Filled la)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Cl
STEIN
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
كندا
CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
..
DATE PROCESSED
To clas
√391-81
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO. 4. DATE'
17243
7. SOURCE CRYPTONEM ⚫. DATE OF INFO. 9. EVALUAT
inch
"
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11.
DATE
DOCUMENT. DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
“PERTINENT. INFORMATION
14.
A.K. ISAACS, and there, many
can
American
capper cercespondents in Shanghon rund
Corrispondouts
1930 D 1932.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
FORM
9-57
867 USE PREVIORS EDITIONS.
201-18446
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
(Shen Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Agnes Shelley, was.
...
ANALYST
Зер
妆
CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
14.
COCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
201-414
3. CISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
DFB-16151
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO.
4. DATE
5 Mar. 52
D. EVALUATION
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
21 Nov. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
DATE
According to coffidential informant T-17, of unkomwn reliability, Agnes
amedley attempted to ovtain from the American Express Co. in Shanghai certain mail
addressed to Harold R. Isaacs while Isaacs was avsent from the city. One of
the return addresses on this mail was Smith and Isaacs, 344 East 149th Streed
Branx New York. Harold R. Isaacs, mention above, was identified by T 17 as
.
an American Journalist of Communist sympathies who resised in Shahghai in the Early
thirties.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-18446
FORM
1. $7
SECRET
(7-487
867***
PREVIOUS EDITION).
14-00000
AGNES SMEDLEY,
SECRET
(Men Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUVENT
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO. 201-414
.3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
DFB-16129
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO.
4. DATE
14 Feb. 52
B.EVALUATION
3. ANALYST
.. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11 DATE
JEP
3 Dec. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
xxxxx
13. TRANSFERRED TO.
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
14.
Subject of the document is mentioned as having visited the residence of Harold R.
Isaacs and C. ?R Frank Glass, two notorious local Commmmunits sympathisers.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201
For 18446.
FORM
9.37
867 PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
17.461
14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE: 31 JAN. 52
CLASS: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJ: TILLMAN, DURDIN
FBI FILE #: 105-15218 (BUREAU)
14-00000
:
SECRET-
(Then Filled 25)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
IDA FRANCES TREAT BERGERET
3.
ANALYST
JEP
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
201-87387 6205
3. DISPATCH OR SOURct Doc. SIMBOL NO.
DFB-24411
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM DATE OF INFO. ..
4. DATE
12 Feb. 52
EVALUATION
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11.
DATE.
3 Dec. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE.
14.
PERTINENT INFORMATION.
Subject remembers meetint HAROLD R. ISAACS, an American Jounnalist, at a party
at the home of Madame SUN YAT SEN.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-18416
FORM
9-57
867 PREVIOUS EDITION3.
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
CONFIDENTI
RESTRICTED:
FREE
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
INSTRUCTIONS.-Officer designations should be used in the "TO" column. Under each comment a line should be drown
across 
sheet and each comment numbered to correspond with the number in the "TO" 
column. Each officer should Initial
(check 
mark insufficient) before 
further routing. This Record and Routing Sheet should 
be returned to Registry.
FROM:
etc
10-
ROOM.
NO.
DATE
DECETVED
FORWARDED
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
S.
35/50
1603
NO
DCE
DATE
China
29624
randed
STC/SIB
1
MAR 18 1952.
ta
11.
12°
13.
14
STC/ICB
15
FORM
RI
51-9
4385
COMMENTS
Hasant
m
CONSOLIDATION EFFECTED
BY -241-221
DEN
REC
1 16 7 121 109)
DD121352
FREE
RESTRICTED
CONFIDENTIAL
10-00412-5

14-00000
J
CONFIDENTIAL
sec 4535
Office Memorandum UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO
* St
Attni
low
DATE: bury 1902
Chief, Contic Division, 0)
SUBJECT)-CE, Inforarti --Pro-Cammil A sentiment of 13 Titiodels in China
1. Pélosed is a copy of on rrtiele prevered for publiction in
the Charistica sciencetera fomer editor of Shanghai.
it stashed and
probably will not be published
EXCLOSURE (A) as listed above.
* COPY
CONFIDENTIAL
284-167
14-00000
1. A happy ending has been writion in the case of forris Appolman,
former Communist who is now secretary of the Conoral hose emorial Hospital
of Denver. He has been praised in "nolinton for "disclosing his Communist
past", and his board of directors has voted confluence in him and continued
hia in his job.
2. No doubt all this is fitting and proper but it doesn't answer the
question of why nobody in Denver Booms to have known anything about
Appolman's Rod-tinged part, or why there was anything sensational about his.
rovolation of it in Washington. hile the police state is rightly anathoma
to American citizens, it seems remarkable that official records should not
be in existence and reasonably accessable to people with reason to check up
on such a point as past Communist service.
3. The point about Appelman is not that he did anything; particularly
reprehensible, but that what he did was quite in the open. According to the
Tashington tontimony he served the Communist party, apparently without
special concealment, in Runnia, Germany and other points in lurope, going
around the world' between 1724 and 1938, He sought to rellevaux and
Grace branish in the editorship of a Shanghai halish-language Communist
marasino, "The Voice of China", in 1937, he testified, but didn't got off
'his ship in Shanghai because of the hostilities there at the time.
... . '.,
4. This shells something of a light on the supposedly fearless and
ruthless Communist operations throughout the world. I was in thanghai when
fighting broke out there between Jnjinn and China on Aut. 13, 1937, and can
testify that wo had three months of dir-long warfare before the cuspaign
moved inland. During that period a good many people left for obvious.
reasons, but some came in, and it might be presumed that an accredited
agent of international Communiom would at least have paused in nearby Kobo.
or Hongkong till things calmed down a little. Possibly the Communists aro
as subjoat to qualms about personal safoty as anyone also or more so.
5. About "The Voice of China" there could hardly be any illusion in
the mind of anyone who hiul carod to pay the alightest attention to it.
Each issue bore a virtual advertisement of its Communist allegiance on its
front cover, to those familiar with methods of converting Chinese into
English. The name "Voice of China" appeared in beth Eilish and Chinoso,
and in the Chinese a peculiar Soviet-originated system of Romanization was
used so that what is ordinarily, by conventional Wade system, written
"Chung ha" for China was spelled "Chung Jun" - an extraordinary effect
frankly explaining the publication's omiorahtp.
6. But what was more, Harold Toaacs, the editor who preceded the
Granichos, had done considerably more than was conveyed by press dispatches.
from the Washington hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committos.
These said he was "believed to have deviated from Communist policy" whereas
in fact he challenged with the Chinese Communists and their Moscow patrons
14-00000
COTALE 4355
Tils AVD
completely with an article heatal "I break with Stalinism."
canlid elucidation of the Communist financial backin; of the "Voice of
China” and if anyonà either in or out of official life had previously
suffered any illusions as to its nature, Innnes article-published also-
where than in the "Voice", of course-certainly should have dispelled than,
7. The Granicha seem to have lived quietly in Shanghal and pero little
known, which under the circumstances was hardly surprising since they wore
1 running an obviously Communist organ. Chiang Kai-shek'a forers could not
moddle with thon openly; for at that time Shan hat was an international
city oporated under extraterritoriality. Thit the Nationalist secret police
did create some trouble for the "Voice" and then Consul-Cerioral Clarence E.
Gauss was allegedly reprimanded by the State Department in 1937 for not.
doing more to help them as Americans, Technically the were entitled to
full American protection but Gauan, now with the import-xport, bank in
Washington, D., was a sort of Old Curmudgeon of the Shanghai American
community and it soms that he thought it his moral obligation to let them
fry in any trouble they might get into as Communist agents. Gauss can't
have suffered greatly for this in the eyes of his superiors, for he uns
Later promoted to arbassador both to China and to Australia.
8. This background has sono present importance since an American
magasine is being operated today in Communist Shan hal, which tolerates no
criticism or opposition. Originally prostationalist under the late
J. B.. Forell, it has been friendly toward the communists under his son,-
John Willtar well, and it stayed on after most other American enterprises-
including in daily Shanghed livening lont and Mercury, edited by myself-had
shut down and American officials had loft Red China
9. Before they departed, these officials hat reason to compile an
extensive filo on what is now the China bonthly Review. One incident which.
10 knorm to have irked than was the Review's treatment of the case of.
William Olivo, American consular official, in the mumer of 1949 soon after
the Communists had taken over. Clive bluntored into a traffic conflict with
the Communist police, uns taken to first one and then a second pelloe
station, and in the course of several days' imprisonment he was severely
beaten with flats and gunbutts, kicked and otherwise maltreated. Forell's
Review blandly professed to have little information on the matter but gave.
an account unfavorable to Clive. Then consular officials asked Fowell to
show up. This and other matters more recorded in some detail but in view
the background of American intelligence operation, one may question -
whether these detalls will ever be hauled out of the files.
the consulate and look Olive over and get the full story, he called.
10. More recently, copies of the Review have been slanted strongly
against the Americans and the United Nations cause in Korea and one issue
editorially spoke of the United States as "the enemy." It should not be
difficult to preserve continuity in following such a case of American
pro-Communist activity abroad, though nothing could be done to Powell unless
L
14-00000
CORETTI PRE +385
SECURITY INFORMATION
arantil he decided to return to his own country-and evan thar, tha
colex nature of American laws on this general subject make it hard to
tell what could be done aside from perhaje denyin; another passport to go
alroad again.
11. The important thing, as shown by a long list of casos gravely.
investigated by congressional comittons, is to have the postwar Central
Intelligence Agency or some comparable group such as the Foleral Bureau of
Investigation keep track of the wealth of information available. Too much
was to effort goes into the many duplications of inquiry.
3
107
14-00000
DCE 4355
cater, ffc, con
Jub
Cile
CONFIDENTIAL
SECURITY DEFORMATION
Je inslow
Contact Division
7. February 1958
(5 Deforesti ---Count Sentiment of US Nationals in China
1. Folosed is a copy of an article prepared for publication in
the Christian Science Monitor by former editor of the Shanghai
- uewspaper, it he not yet be published and
probably will not be published because of its length.
ANGLOYEES. (Å) as listed above.
N. ACHAFT
COPY
☐
2-21-1592
CONFIDENTIAL
14-00000
OFFICIAL DISPATCH
VIA:
SPECIFY AIa on sta POUCH
DISPATCH NO.
་
TO
FROM.
CLASSIFICATION
6 February 1958
DATE:
Head of Mission, FEJĀPES
Chief, 7B.
Counter-ees
SUBJECT: GENERAL-
SPECIFIC. Tumman 96al of OB study on "The HOULERS Case"
Attabombs (2) Subject MR Stafy (§ copies)
The attached staty entitled "The ROULEMS Case empiled by our 62
offies, in forwarded for your information and for retention in your CE
files.
CORY
Originator John L. Witzleban
PERNHARD VON AMON
19.
Jum 1940
RELEASING OFFICER
LLOYD GEORGE
Chief, FE
;
61-80
COORDINATING OFFICER
CLASSIFICATION
AUTHENTICATING OFFICER
John Chrislaw.
FB/B/SO
(789)
14-00000
203_1811, Shanghai Funcipal Files, filed 16-4-2- 37
ISAACS, Harald Robort
Born 13 Sept 1910, NÝC
Nat'l
American
Helgint
Build
DESCRIPTION.
modium
Halp
black, wavy, brushed back
Eyes
brom
DOCUMENTATION
In 30s was traveling on passport § 177036
Arrived in China from Manila on 10 Dec 1930
Upja ket arrival joined the editorial staff of the Shanghai Svaning Post and
Marcury
,
Was a secretary of the HOULENS Defense Comites and a member of the Society of
✓ da of the USSR
to Szechem are to tel
On 12 June 1931, ISAACS and his friend GLASS took a trip up the Yangtssed During,
this 
trip ISAACS wrote his 
fianose, Viola ROBINSON, that he had decided to ten" Red
as a result of conversations 
with ⱭLAST.
The two returned to Shanghai in Aug 1931 and took up residedos At 128 Weihaiwei
Ronde
ISAA03 later started and became the editor and published of the "China Forum"
oh 
at first wan 
job-printed but from Oct 1932 on was printed by the Level Publish-
ing 
CC
, Lane 478 Tiendang Road, Shanghai ISAACS openedly stated he was man-
ager of the printing 
co and owned 40% of its shared.
On 7 Aug 1933; ISAACS and his wife Viola ROBINSON whan he had married in Sept
1932 
Lars Shanghai 
for Japan on the 35 Magasaki Maru: On 16 Aug, they proceeded
Japan, returning to Shanghai on Aug 26th.
Inaddition to his other activities, ISAACS was also employed with the Havalews
Agency is severed connection with this Agency around Dec 1933.
In Des 1939 ISAACS was in Poochow to gather 1st hand info re the newly formed
"Peolplate Revolutionary Government of the Republic of China:".
In the spring of 1934, ISAACS and his wife left for Mantoin en route to Puking
at which 
city he 
resided at #2 Thung Fu Chin Tao, East City. Foking mailing addroas
was $ Mr 
HIMAN, Grand Hoteli
14-00000
Ch 3 January 1954, ISAACS visited Mr and Mrs. NOCLENS while they were an a
Inunger strike in prison
On 14 January 1934). the parents of ISAACS, Mr. and Mro I.H., ISAACS arrived in
Shanghai from Los Angeles: During their stay in Shanghai they resided at the Metro-
pol.otal Annex on 20 February they left Shanghai for Port Said en route to Marseilles
en the 35 Rawalpindi.
On & April 1936, ISAACS under the pen name of Lo Sen had an article published in
yhe New Militant, the organ of the NY District Worker's Party. The article was an
attack on Stalin and as entitled Stalintern ready to embrace Chian Kai Sheko
Officer Chinese Red Army in return for resurrection of disasterous 1927 bloo8
At this same time, ISAACS was also lecturing on Japan, China, and the USGR and the
Mar Crisis in the Far East:
14-00000
GLASS
Shanghai Huni Police Files, filed, 16-4-2-37, p 2.
In Shanghal GLASS made the acquaintance of one Demarco C.B33, American from
Kansas City, born 1893.This was some time after April 1932”.
Born
Name C.F.. CLASS
Cecil Prank GLASS.
×25 Harch 1901, Birmbåghes, England
Passport British passport, # 94153, issued 5 Jan 1931 in Pretoria, South Africa
Pol Affiliation Number of the CP
Overt Profession Journalist
Believed to have left England in the early 1920s for South Africa where he resided
at Johannesburg for many years.
Arrived in Shangaad from Durbes May 1931
On 12 June 1931 made a trip through up the Infletos Yangtze with Harold ISAACS
American Communist and writer for the editor of the China Forin A letter written by
ISACS to his fiancee, Hics Viola ROBINSON, during this trip contained information
that ISAAC3 had decided to turn "Red" as a result of his conversation with GLASS"
In Sep 1931, GLASS becente a member of the AULENG Defense Committee" and tro
months later was appointed Shanghini Representative of the Anglo Asiatic Talograph
Agency (Angasta) a news agency with HQ in Horbin, which position he held until 19335
In Aug1933, his was living in Room 510, 1276, North Ssochuen Road, Shanghat
14-00000
FCS 1811; Shanghai Mundopal Files, file: 16–4–2– 37
ROBINSON; Bola
RSRISAACS
Banan 10 July 1910, HTC
Nat'l
American
Description
Height ga
Build slim
Comple
fair
Dcumentation
In 1932 holder of US passport # 382046 issued NYC 14 May 1931-
1931 known to have visited Germany
Known Communist and follower of Lucy STUHE
Arrived in Shanghai on 23 Aug 1932
14 Sept 1932 married Harold Robert ISAACS. She had been engaged to ISAACS for
some 
years before her arrival in China, and it has 
been stated that the letters
between the two indicated that Communist 
sympathies
ISAACS' 
intention of joining the CF
on the part of both and of
:
4.
After, her arrival in Chine was employed at the Dah Chung Middle School:
Shanghai 
as a beacher
She lived in the Embankment Building Bldg, North Soochow Road
On 7 August 1933, the ISAICS left. Shanghai for Japan and on 16 Aug 1733
proceeded to Dairen, returning to Shanghal by rail of 26 August 1933.
In Nov 1933; info was received to the effect that Hiss R.BINSON was a teacher
the 
Comparative Law School, Shanghai/
AUG 14 1351
例
1/

14-00000
Harold Robert ISAACS with aliases
LO SEN (panname used in China)
Harald Robert ISAACS was born in New York City on 13 September 1910 of Amer.
ican parents. The father has been reported as decidedly of the commercial typo.",
ISAACS has been described as intelligent, critical, devous and nervously organized.
Little is known concerning the activities of ISAACS prior to his arrival in
China from Manila on 10 December 1930; however, who visited ISACS
Jonpay
date in Shanghai, is reported to have ambarrassed his son in the presence of friends
by kidding the latter about trying to make money on real estate while in Los
Angeles before going to China.
a. 1. H. USAACS
met?
The actual date when Cecil Frank GLASS and Harold ISAACS is not known, but it
mist have been shortly after the arrival of GLASS in Shanghai in May 1931, for in
A
"
June 1931, ISAACS And GLASS made a trip up the Yangtase together,
It has been stated that IS.MACS became interested in Comunism with specific re
it has been atated that
lation to China, but lotters written by ISAACS to his fiances, Viola ROBINSON,
cheted-bo- of his trip with GLASS,,
-obesed-on-Adress
bolt hat ISAACS became interested in Communion
specific
relation to Chinaj) it has also bean stated that lettere between ISAACS and his
fianco, Viola ROBINSON, which were written during the Yangtage trip indicated.Com
minist sympathies on the part of both, and one of the letters contained the inform
理
:
mation that ISAACS had decided to turn "Rod" as a result of his conversations with
GLASS.As you are aware, ISAACS and GLASI returned to Shanghai in August 1931 and took
up residence at 128 Weihaiwai Road. In September 1931; both men are reported to have
become members of the ROLLERS Defonse Commities, ISAACS being the Secretary;
BAY
14-00000
ISAACS is also reported to have been a zanber of the Society of Friends of the USSR.
Oy:n his arrival in China, ISACS joined the editorial staf of the Shanghai
Evening Post and the Mercury. ISAACS was also employed with the Havas News Agency,
which connection he is reported to have sovered around Decumber 1933.
ISAACS also started and later became editor and published of the "China Forum.
It is believed to have been
Sb-wae a monthly English language paper issued at first as a commercial job from the
Hercury, Free From October 1932 on it was printed by the Level Publis ing Company
Ino, 335 Lane 478, Piandong Road.. ISAACS is reported to have openly stated that
he was massor of the pringting company, owing 40% of the sharea.
he was a
ཧ.
It has been stated that those who knew ISACS in Shanghai found no reason to think
pay off man for Agorican Communists, and that during the first oart of his
stay in Chine, he was not a follomar of Trotaky. However, he is reported to have fin-
ally because convinced that the tatics of the Chinese Comunists, were wrong and that
Trotsky was both criticising them and the Soviet Government under Stalin. Ha
thorofare wrote an article entitled," I Break with Seat: Stalinists,” in which
among other things; ho is reported to have stated that the expense of publishing the
magazine had boon bmed by the Chinese Communists. He is then reported to have
discontinued the magazine and to have sold the printing equipment; the sum bring
realised fyon the tale not being turned back to the Chinese Communists but to have
been given to the Trotsky causes
ISAACS had been engaged for several years to Viala ROBINSON who arrived in
Shanghai ca 23 August 1932 On 14 September 1932, she and ISAACS were married and took
Apt 204, the
up residence in se Embankment Building en Borth Sooches Road, Prior to the fall of
1933) Irene REITER or LATER f she a subject in the SORGE Case is reported
to have lived in the Ebankment Building with one Renes CXL. Rold AUDOUARD and his
wife who have been reported as Surist bytas and were who were imam to have.
14-00000
"
I
been in close contact with E E KISCH when the latter was in China also lived in
this building in the early 1930s An Apartment 509.
After her arrival in China, Viola ROBINSON ISAACS was employed at the Dal
Clung Middle School; and by November 1933) was reported as a teacher at the
Comparative Lear School in Shanghai.
O2 August 1983, the ISAACS left Shanghai for Japan, and on 16 August 1933
December
procooded to Dairen, roturning to shanghai by rail on 26 August 1933. In Hamb
1933 ISAACS Loft, Shanghel for Poochow to gather first hand information on the nonly
formed #People's Revolutionary Government of the Republic of China.
1924 ISAACS is reported to have visited Mrs, and Mray NOULENS while they
on a hanger strike in prisons In the spring of 1934, ISAACS and his wife left for
Tointain an route to Poking at which city, they resided at 2 Plang Pu Cala Tao, kast
City: His mailing address was 3 of one Mr. URIEMANN, Grand Hotel, Paking.
As had been set out heretofore, ISAACS is reported to have turned against
the Stalinist Government of the USSR, becoming a Protskite: During this period he
wrote the Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution," allegedly as a single gesturo 8f
interpretation and protest to show how, in his opinion, both the Kuomintang and
the Censunists had gone wrong in China.lao in Appil 1936, under the hen nego of
ser, ISAACS had an article published in the "New Militant; the orger of
District Worker's Partys. The article reportedly an attack on Stalin and was
entitled; Stalintora ready to cobrien Chiang Kai Shok Officer Shiness Red
"my in Return for ressurection of disasterous 1977 bloc,” –
14-00000
It has been stated by friends of ISAACS" even during the height of his Trot-
skyist career be never accepted money from any group; that he was open and above
board; and that he never engaged in any conspiracies to overthrow established govern-
ment. They are also reported to have stated that ICS was attracted to Communiam
by Shaheer idealism.”.
It has been further reported that insediately after Pearl Harbor; ISAACS broke
with the Probalyite group as he had broken with the Communists and began writing
propaganda for the United States Governments
Senetias in the late 19300; TSLAGS returned to the United States.-By-the-Kall
Until the fall of France, he was employed by the Havas News Agency.in October 1943,
of 1943, in nas working for Newmook Magazine in Washington, D.C. His address ab tut
time wis Frindship Heights, Newport Avey, 4938..
By late 1944 or early 1945). ISAACS was in Chungking as a representative
Hering this period, he had a great deal of trouble about consorship, and
reportedly ana deined permission to visit Comunist areas. It has been stated that
actually to was maroly unfortunate in that he applied just after the government nau
restored isa ban on journalistic travel in that direction. At the time he had mas
denied paglasio
eddy MUTE of Time bad just been allowed to go, and ISAACS falt
that he was being discriminated against has been stated that MHITE, upon his return
cave such a tood account of administration in the Red areas that this added to othe
similar experie!
Amarican newspaDEFRIEN
solidified the government determination no to let any more
go up and become Communist converte. In March 1945, ISAACS
más reparted as about to leave Chungking permanently,
The following descriptions of Harold and Vinis ISAAC3 are set out for you
14-00000
Harold ISAACS
Barn.
Nati
10 July 1910, NYC
American
Height
Sig
Build!
medium
Hair
Eyec
black, wavy: brushed back
brown
Complx.
Viola R. LACS
13 Sept,,1910, NYC
American
515°
alim
fair:
Passports in early
1930s. US Passport # 177026
Us passport 382016, Resed NIC 14 May.
1.931
DLEY and Frank GLA ISMCS de known to have been in
addition to Agies
contact with the following while in China;
F DURDIN: For a
ime during his stay in China, ISAACS is reported to havo
i
Lived with DURDI, then correspondent of the NY Times and meno, at one time, managing
aditor
China Press.
油
John'
MURAY, Shanghai representative of the Pacific News Agency in Van-
Server WAY is also known to have been in contact with E.E. KISCH, Agnes SIGDLEY,
Irene RO or WIDEHETER and one 71 BOVER. Guring his stay in China,
AUG 14
INTEGRATION E
140
14-00000.
:
PUBLICATIONS
Brote an article entitled "I Break with the Stalinists" which allegedly among
other 
things, that the expanses of publishing a 
magasing which he was putting out
been borned by the Chinese Communister
one time, ISAACS published a monthly English language magasins, sued first
aba commersial 
joy(sic) from the Horoury Press and 
later printed from a small Printing
outfit purchased by ISAACS. It has been stated that after 
publishing the article "I:
Break 
with the Staliniste," ISAACS discontinued the 
magazine and sold its printing
oquipment It has been stated that the small sun 
realised from the sale was not turned
I 
back to the Chinese Commumiste but was turned over to the 
Trotaky Cause,
14-00000
SECRET
(When Pilled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Arne Ermal Hd.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
9. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYNO.
201-9046-1
WEITE MEYER LB-14423
4. "DATE
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM 8. DATE OF INFO. EVALUATION
رخون
...
ANALYST
325
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
6. DATE PROCESSED
10.
SEMINATED IN
11. CATE
20 oct s
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
14.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
In Sept. 1931 it yar
regated the anal
Committee Id the Secretary of
Thi and
Pacific Tendia
Union beceritarist (noun) had been formed inn
Shanghaw, and that and addition to WEITERE jur
its members included HAROLD ISAACS and
athus, - all well known local conical Journaliste,
19.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
→
201-18446
FORM
. ">
867 PREVIOUS EDITIONE.
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
(Shen Pitted in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
.
Alexander Hassler Buchman
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.,
201-6758
3.
DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
SODB-45339
4. DATE
₫ 5 Dec. 51
3. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS.
DATE OF INFO. 9.
EVALUATION
9.
ANALYST
. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
1.
DATE
James
Plaugher
3 Dec. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
12- CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
14.
1.
Reference is made to previous correspondence concerning the captioned subject
and 
in particular to your communication of 10 
July 51, your file number 105-11929
in 
which it was 
requested that Tilman Durdin be interviewed 
regarding his knowledge
of the background, beliefs 
and activities of the individuals 
named below.
who travels continously 
and extensively in the Far 
East, was finally located in Djakartal
Indonesia, and on 
14 Nov. 51 was interviewed, in accordance with your 
request, and the
Durdin,
following information elicited.
2. Durdin stated he knew nothing definite regarding the present activities and alleded
communist connection of Frans Joseph WEISBLATT, Harold ISAACS, Frans 
GLASS, ALEXANDER
BASSLER BUCHMAN and George Alexander 
Kennedy, and that he could 
furnish info on their
early activities only.
18. DURDIN said that he knows Harold Isaacs well and that he last saw him at the conference
in Baguido in the Philippines, which was held in November 1947.
ISAACS was formerly with 
NEWSHREK but 
that he now believes he is a gree lance lecturer
and writer.
He 
stated that I
He gave his opinion that Isaaxs, althought left wing
, is not necessarly
a communist.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
FORM
- 37
867 SEVIOUS CORTIO
201-15-446
SECRET
17-441
14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE: 5 DEC. 51
CLASS: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJ:
PAUL RUEGG, WAS: HILAIRE NOULENS,
AND OTHERS
FBI FILE #: 100-344906 (BUREAU)
14-00000
FROOM.
t..
INFORMATION:
INCOMING CLASSIFIED MASSAGE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
SECRET
Pics No.
15 NOV 5!
IN 40810
Paraphor Not Repent
Handle as SECRET Corresponderica pri Pars, $(1) 604-300.-
JAKA-528
1393
SS-SITED CUS
ACCORDING TO PREVIOUSLY AGREED UPON
THERESENT
HAD ONLY HAZY PELLECTION M
ABOUT 193 (AS. RESSIVED]
DID NOT LIVE WITH WEISHLATT, ALTH) PGSSTU
PERIOD NG
SHES VELLA
STEEK OUT WALTEVES ISAMOS 6 Ta
SECRET
%
FORSIDE TO MAST a
PY OF THIS MESSAGE

14-00000
SHANDMAT DURING 30'S BUT SUBJECT
.
14-00000
COPY
SECRET
Assistant Director for Policy Coordination
Attention: Security Officer
Chief, Special Security Division
Harold R. Isaacs
7 November 1951
1. Reference is made to a memorandum from your office dated
3. July 1951 in which you requested that a Special Inquiry be con-
ducted to resolve information concerning an allegation that Sub-
ject is sympathetic to and/or connected with Communist activities..
2. On 31 August 1951, Mr. Kenneth Patrum of the Security
Office was advised that partial results have been received as
a result of inquiries at several national agencies. The partial
information reflected that Subject had been connected with at
least two factions of the Communist Party while living in the
Far East. It was suggested that extreme caution be used in con-
tacting or associating with the Subject.
;
3. This office has completed the investigation of the Sub-
ject, which includes a check of records of the appropriate Federal
agencies. As a result of this investigation, the filos of this
office contain a great deal of information concerning Subject's
association with questionable organizations and individuals.
Although Subject has denied any current activities with the Commu-
nist Party, his associations and activities are highly questionable
and his political sympathy has not been unqualifiedly resolved at
the present time.
4. In view of the information as set forth above, it is
recommended that extreme caution be exercised in dealing with the
Subject. Under no circumstances should Subject be contacted, with
regard to possible use by this agency prior to receiving a final
security determination by this office.
FOR THE SECURITY OFFICER, CIA
SECRET
ROBERT H. CUNNINGHAM
14-00000
AB
OFFICIAL DISPATCH
DISPATCH NO.
ICKE
1100
CLASSIFICATION.
CATE: 14 Septentie 1001
Cief of station, Rong Kong
Chief, Foroiga visica
SUBJECT: GENERAL
SPACIFICE
Inferation
Roquent for Inter
requested
Is is
1. In cotton with a current fastigation MENARI
But Tillah berdin bo intervisted alon the lines lagt out bele.
requarter Pat ifta not now in
for the you charter
set to the proper statione It la nota sablo for you or a sorbay
of your step to instancy, this 
info porally. \It is
te not exported to be the:
of this dispatch sau be
thrive,
at a procis of this deputatlo Male
(a repevectative of the rute is ama: Lablo), and that
ho interview, 
Mirgin and into the food
8. A rollati statul Dab in 1933 Detines ir
Pangal, assing as of by outer of the "China) Press," At tant the bow sig
to have shared an aparica Jeph but, who is incribed as an
Aparican 
taboo reporter. According to the informan
SLATT we at a clue ansociate of Harold, who me said on
have 
beam 
exploit than in 1953 no cuter of thing even, ord
es a 
trammist publication. A LASER sourse of uninen raliability bas stated
that in 1953 ISAACS 
sh "notorious radical sympathis" same suspected
of boding an guart 
for the Third interimtisal,
8. In 1949, "ANCHANT repessartatives into Hurris Louis AFLEEN
in Gelarndo, APPLE itted a CP neder fra 1924 to
1937. He stated that 
in 1935 and 1984 to ~ Durila in Shangha!, and that
aring that 
period, ha, Haruld LAACS, FRE theans AlumnUSY PRIMAL,
fro pably 
hold moetings at the have of film. Din in ducha, Frank OLAS)
is a Britian 
subject pressurtly living in Los Angeles, Burte en martesa
also in Los 
Arzalon, AUFLeriod and GLASS as
freunited in 1955-34, and described But as a forms” number of tho
Comin's eth Lengue in the 6.3. A 2/3 infertext of uninen rell
has suporta at 
drie bat period GLANS REG KRAADS 15 mpeded of boles
RELEASING ST
LLOYD GEORGE
CHEN, 97
104 40
31-16
COORDINATING OFFICIA
AUTHENTICATING OFFICER
GEORGE W. MALLORY__
CLASSIFICATION
47861
14-00000
agmits for the Third Internations in tranghel, a
4. In addition to the above individuale, Durdin is also reported to have
down an sequaintance in Shanghat about 1932-35 of George AlNHEIT, WO
is presently employed at Yale University. KENNEY was an aspainter of
ISAACS and was also reported to have been assoolated with "Lifusing croupo
Aanghal at that time.
6. In view of the above LAGERAH dosires that Durain be intervisted
as som as possible relative to the one
with: WEISBLATT, IRAACE, GLASS, BUCH
cament particularly decorning my ac
of the OP or the Third Internationalj
la segnalatarse and associatica
Duri is requested to
these infiviams on behalf
muy may have been engaged in
aspirage activities on behalf of the Soviet Union, either during the early.
: 1920's in China, or at ay subsequent period,
GEORGE B. MALLORY
14-00000
Anlivà States Department of Eustice
Federal Bureau of hæretigation
Exakt
21, §. €.
☐ PRESE
FILA AD2.
_105-15219
CONFIDENTIAL
BY SPECIAL HASSENGER
DEB-11880
.Da 59:
September 11, 1951
Director
Contral Intelligence Agency
2430 8 Street, N. H.
Enshington, D. C.
Attention: Majer Doral W. G. Wynnn
Office of Special Operations
-
Direnter
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Prom
John Edgar Hoover
Subjects
TIINAN DINDIN
INTERHAL SECURITY - R
201-6556
Tipt 141951
In cornection with an official investigation being con-
ducted by this Bureau, we are desirens of obtaining engtain inforation
from tr. Fillman Durdin, who is presently located c/o Hong Kong, T.
Standard, 108 
Windsor Hous Victoria, Hong Kong. It would to appreciated
if would have one of 
year representatives interview. Purdin in
Hong Kong along the lime eat out colon.
For your information, Dardin is a foreign ecrrespondent for
thelb York 
Times 
papar. He is an Astrica od kisen born March »,
1907, 
at Elkhart, Teams, and has been employed as a foreign currUSFOTEINS ·
for the the Yark 
Plass for many years, possibly since at least the ecply
1930's.
A reliable informant has advised that in 1939 Dardin was in
Shanghai, China
, 
acting as City Editor of the newspaper aim Prosa..
At that tiso. Durdin 
was paid to be sharing an apartment with Frans Jape på
Eisblatt, described 
as an American itison then in China as a roweropor
roporter.
According to our informant, Weisblatt was at that time a alone
associate of 
ons 
Harold, Icases. Isaacs, an American edtion prosently
living in New York City, was said by our informant to have been exployed
14-00000
3
to Shanghal in 1933 as Editor of the "Chiman Forum" described as a
Communist publicatioal. A 
soutes of unknown reliability bas stated that
In 1933 AC VR B "notorious radical 
sympathiser" and was suspected
of being an arent of the Third 
International.
organized 
the Shanghai Committee for the Defence of the muège, F-
1
cald to invo
and Gertrud Rime were convicted 
in Chica in 1932 for Russian of planage
activities,
In March, 1949)
Bureau interviewed one Korris'
Lila Appleman, an averitan citizen presently living in Denver, Colorado,
and App'aran sfaitted having been a 
number of the Communist Party Stum
1924 to 1937. Appleman stated that 
in 1923 and 193h be knew Durdin in
Sherchal, and that during that period
, ha, Appleman, Harolds, Frank
Claes and Alexander Buchar, frequently held 
meetings at the bases of
Pillar id in Shanghai.
Frank Class is a
itish citizen presently. Uving in Los
Angeles, California. Buchan is 
an 
American citizen also presently
living in Loa Angeles. My Applesan 
described Isaacs and losse
inctakyited in 1933-34, and described 
Puchman as a former member of
Communist Youth Lingue. In 
the United States.
reliability has also reported that during that period Glass and Ismass
An informant of unkno
vere avspected of bein; agents for 
the Third International in Shanghai.
In sodition to the above individuals, Durdita is also reported
to have been 
an acquaintance in Shingal 
in about 1932-33 of George
Alexander Kennedy, an American 
citizen presently employed at Ialo
University. Variety was an 
acquaintance of Harold ismas at that time,
and wan-alex reported to have been 
associated with “left-wing groups" in
Shanghai at that time,
In view of the information indicating that MP. Durdin was
acquainted 
with these individuals 
during the early 1930's, it is destred
that he be intrived relative to 
the extent of his acquaintance and
association with the following: 
Frans Joseph Weinblatt, Harold Isaaca,
Prack lasa, Alexander Buchman, 
and George Alexander Kemundy.
It is requested that Durdin be questioned particularly as
any information 
be my possess 
concerning an activities of these
individuala on behalf of the 
Communist Party of the Thir International
Durtis conia also be stand vinether he 
has any information indicating any
of these girls may have enged. In 
espionage activities on behale
of the Soviet Union, either during 
the early 1930's in China or at any
duljčéquat jerist. It is desired that 
full details be obtained from
I
14-00000
Mundi relative to any information be my furnish concerning
possible aversive activities on the part of any of these individual
It would be appreciated if you would endeavor to have
With Interviewed at the earliest possible date.
14-00000
SECRET
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
2.Jug.51
INSTRUCTIONS: Officer designations should be used in the "TO" column. Under each comment a line should be drawn across shoot
and each comment bred to correspond the ember in the "TO" colume Each rfficer should initial fchrik 'mark insufficient!
before further routing. This Routing and Record Sheet should be returned to Registry.
MQ.
FROM:
IR
DATE
TO
ROON
NO
REC D
FIND O
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
DATE
2FH-89
COMMENTS
3.
FDZ
PUPORTS
Comell
2. Moris
10.
2006173251
Lassed
FOR COPY RETAINED FDZ/BR.2
No Dissem- inaccurate
Lute Pans quiered me
recent whereabout
Fiquières.
Xrif filed
.
100-4-21-6
11.
14
15.
IR
14409
SECRET
FORM NO. St-10
FEB 1950
//
201-18446
DITELLIGENCE
pl
Aug 5,
ABSTRICT
RECORDS
--43200-
INDEX
B. & SOCLETI
14-00000
Frest Hanol.
No. of pages 1
Report Made by Walter J. Ingold
SECRET
Report No. 1
Enclosures
2771-89
None
Approved by James H. Lanier
Distributions
None
Referencer HANO 242 and WA3H 01125
Source Cryptonyms Tunic-2
Remarkss
1. In our last message to Tunic-2 on 30 July we used the discrepancy concerning Leb
Figueres visit to NVN as an example in a gentle lecture 
on the virtues of
The 
man obviously 
takes.
accurate reporting. By 1 August Tunio-2 anowered back.
pride in his work.
2. An ope comment relating to this report will be sent in another pouch or via cable.
177-3
BEORET
11G GORY
14-00000
Subjects Loo Figueres
--
SECRET
Report No.1 2FM-89
Date of Infor as indicated
Place Acquired Viet Nam, Hanbi
Evaluations B-3
Date Acquired: 1 August 51
Date of Reports 2 August 51
: 1
Sources
According to Hoang Mul, who works in the Viet Ninh Ministry of Foreign Affairo,
Leo Fluores was in Saigon in oarly 190. The French did not allow him to remain
in Saigon and he was forced to return to France. Figueres later wont to Hong Kong
in late August 1950, and then proceeded to the Viet Bac via the Hoa Nam (F.C., South
China) road to attend the Third Congress of the FCI hold in early October 1950.
.
There had been several previous casos of individuals who were unable to reach Viet
Minh territory from Saigon because of French interference. In July 1949 Kr. A. Roth,
Siitor of 
the Sunday Tritung, arrived in Saigon and obtained all necessary papers;
the French did not allow him to proceed because of his pro-Communist articles. Othors
woro Walter Briggs of the Christian Science Monitor, Harold Tenace from Newswook, and
8. Perolman (because he criticized Bao Dai in Westward, Ho!).
SECRET

14-00000
FBI REPORT
DATE: JULY 51
CLASS: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJ: UNKNOWN
FBI FILE #: 100-68282 (NEW YORK)
14-00000
Johnn
бело
made
File & index
Jonly
из
This
25 June 1951.
MEMORANDUM FORT PR/CS
SUBJECT
Harold R. Isaacs, Request for an information
namecheak on.
1. It is requested that a name chook for information be
conducted on Subject for the purpose of determining the valida
ity of 
charges that Subfoot is sympathetic to and/or counseted
with 
Communist activities.
-21 Họ have boon informed unofficially that subject is
ourrently employed by the Ford Foundation as an adviser on
Far 
East projects. When no of our covert agents was recently
onlled upon by the Ford 
Foundation to prosent some suggestions
for a Far East 
program, the agent found that subject was in-
terested in 
and was to be closely connected with this program.
It is 
planned that the Ford Foundation remains unsurare of the
CIA 
connection with this covert agent..
3. When the report is completed, the information should
be routed to J. Bruce Anstuts, FE-1/arc..
FC-1/JBN/ph
Dist: Orig 2 1
2
1
-
Addressed
Registry.
FE-1 files."
SECRET
DOUGLAS D. PIRNIE
Deputy Chief, FS-1
14-00000
".
HAMS Harold R. Ignos
ADDRESS (last known 148) 333 Contral Park West, N.Y.C.
DATE OF BIRTH: 1910
NATIONALITY: American
BUSINESS CARER (a)
Staff writer for Havas News Agency.
(1930-1935)
(b)
Editor of China Forum
(o)
City Editor for China Press, Shanghai,
China
(d). Far Eastern War Correspondent for Kowawook
(1044-1945)
(e) Special Projects Editor for Newsweek (1947 - ?).
(f) Advisor to Ford Foundation
PUBLICATIONS:
1. Contributed to Harper's Magazine and Toronto Star Weekly.
2. Books (see attached)
-2
SECRET
14-00000
1. Two-thirds of the world, Problems of a new approach
to the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin-America,
-
1950
2. New Cole in Asia, Selected documento un Major Inter-
national developments in Far East. 1963 and 1947 –
noted and introduction 1567..
No Fence for Asia - 1947.
4. Tradegy of Chinese Revolution
-
1938
1932
15. Five Yearn of Kuo Min The Reaction
Whither Price 1036 - Lear Trotsky wrote the book and
Isaacs translated it.
SECRET
14-00000
SECRET
(then Filing in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Surge Espionage Case
RI FILE NO.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
200-6-7-55
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC.
DAR-137
SYMBOL NO.
.. DATE
28 Dec. 1950
".
EVALUATION
7. SOURCI CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO.
3.
ANALYST
DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. JATE
James E. Plaugher
21 Nov. 1963
DOCUMENT
DISPOSITION
CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
妆
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
14.
PERTINENT INFORMATION.
1. Inclosed is Consecutive Exhibit No. 32 in the documentation of the Sorge Espionage
Case. This 'Exhibit consists of two related parts: I 
and II.
divided into two sections, A and B, because of its bulk.
The second part is
Part I is an index of each
Part II consist of a resume of the
personality and organization listed in Part II.
contents of each Shanghai Municipal Police file, followed by a babular listing
of the contents of the files, with page references.
Page 24.
Isaacs, Harold Robert:
Anti-War Congress report, mentioned in
Burton report, mentioned in
"China Forum" editor of
:
"Chinese Workers' Correspondence":
Investigation re
Received by
Envelope addressed to
"Fiev Years of Kuomintang Reaction"
Granich, "Evidently another 
Isaacs"
.
"I Break with the Chinses 
Stalinists
"
author of
G-2 Doc.
Page
59
10.
30-32
8-9
1
65
205 2255, 2
32
94
1-2
6
45
65
16.'
107
2-7
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
0
FORM
9.57
867VIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
201-18446
(7-48)
2
14-00000
15.
SECRET
(when Piled 201
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
AGNES SMSÐLEY, WAS.
3.
ANALYST
JEP
14.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
:.
RI FILE NO.
201-43
3. Dispatch OF SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL. NO.
55-1461.
7 CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO.
DATE
28 arr.50
EVALUATIN
16. DATE PROCESSED
15. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
21 Nov. 1963
.DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13. TRANSFERRED TO
BI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE-
page 69
The July 30, 1932 issue of the New York Times", under a Shanghai Dateline
of Jule 29, 1932, states that Harold R. Isaacs, an American citizen., was warned
by the U. §. consul in Shanghai that the U. S. may with draw is in its extra
territirial rights and allow him to be tried in a Chinese Court. Isaacs, then
editor of the "China Forum", had violently attacked Chiang Kai-Shek, calling him
among other things, a butcher. The article further stated that issacs was
as associate of Agnes Smedley, a correspondedt for American newspapers.
page 73.
The "arch 7, 1946 issue of the New York Times reflects an article
captioned "Group of Americans, including writers and journalists announced
that they had sent aletter to Chaing Kai Shek concerning the death of Yang
Chao, OWI employee, who was arrested by the Nationalists and ided in prison.
:
The sighers were critical of the treatment recieved by CHAO. THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUAL
signed the letter: Maxwell. S. stewart. Elizabeth Ames, Maroline Slade,
Alfred Kazin Eric Severeid, Richard Wasts, jr. H.-R. Isaacs, Agnes Smedley
and Theordore White.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
..:
FORM
1-57
867 PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
201-18446
SECRET
17-481
14-00000
.
SECRET
(Men Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
AGNES SMEDLEY was. Ayoo, Yahoo
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
:.
RI FILE NO.
201-414
".
DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
4. DATE
MEDFB-854
17. SOURCE CRYPTONYM 6. DATE OF INFO.
24 Jan 1950
9. EVALUATION
g.
ANALYST
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
JEP
3 Dec. 1963
DOCLIMENT DISPOSITION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
3000x
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION:
14.
15.
DATE
Passport files of State Dept. also indicate passport renewal application dated June
23
, 1932 in 
which the subject listed as identifying witnesses --subject mentioned
Harold R. Isaaks, who according to information possessed by T-1 as 'RED'
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
8-37
FORM 867
PREVIODS
EDITIO.
201-18446
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.
ADSO SODB-20568
DEC 2 1949 mia also
HEART FOR TH
Attentioni
ose H. Ingorasll
MICROFILMED
Subjectionaruld bobart
FEB 3 1966.
WENZEN
DOC. MICRO, BER.
1. this to in reply to P. Jack. Ncolta request for information
concerning harold Robert ISAACS, anda by telephone on November 1949.
+361-152
2. Recording to information obtained from a source caldered rolics,
Harold pobert ISAACS was born in Now Bork City on 13 September 1910. A
He arrived a fail in December 1930 and in possession
of American passport 177025. TCS was first exployed in shanghai bạ
the hangnal Evening Lost & Hercury, an `nglish language daily publie
in han hai. ftor a few weeks, he became associated with the hi
another inglish-langus daily published in anal, and me with this
paper until a 1931. Intune of the ears your made a trip us
the langtze River th Cacil Frank / witish subject and member
of the ritish Communist Party, suspected of being an agent for the hard
International in China.
3. On 15 June 1931, Fleire NOULENS, with aliases, ac arrested by the
Shanghai Kuntelpal (olice on charges of espionace in behalf of the Third
international. ISAACS Decene the hangnal secretary of the Coulth integ
nationale Pour la defense de Paul of Gertrud (), a committes
formed to aid the NCULENS in their defense against charges of espionago
preferred by the Chinese government. Eur files reflect that [wa
in correspondence with BERG, the President of the Committee
with hoadquarters in Berlin.
BERG an active agent in cermany
for the Third International. ISAACS known to here in contach
with Agnes SMEDLEY in Shanghai at this time.R'S) HAROLD R.TSAAGS
SULF CIF:USA OEL: COMMUNIST AGENT? WIFE OF HAROLD ROEFIT ISAACS (201-18446)
40 Co 29 agust 1932, a notice to the waericansulate
General in Shanghai of his intenden marriages)
merican citizen forn 10 June 2012
ACHINE
ORIN
arrived in thanghai 25 August 1932 from Vancouver, Canada, aboard the
xpress of asia, andinosion of American passport 382046
issued in New York on 14 May 1931. The modding mas held on 14. september
1932 at the American Consulate General
as believes to
LE 201-18446
STOR SEGRET
(901-1
503
181
14-00000
- SECRET
have been evaneeted with os maist activities in the United States and
Unino. Correspondence batho-n
and stes prior to their
marriage, quicate that they wore bithappatic to nativitio being
conducted by the tornuniaus in ink. On 22 Poresker 1932, 1.
was entrusted by Br. vacaran the
defense attorney,
with teaching the nglish language
the four-year old"
Bon of illaire and norte No. 65.
May
་
3094 April 1936, ISA CF, under the pseudanya of. 98%, oublished an
article in the few lilitant, organ of the ociniist orkers' arty in
Hew York, entitled "italistern Reddy to brace Chiang Rai-shek
Offer Reday in Return for Resurrection of the disastrous 1927 3100.9.
it is bolleved that later joined the Fourth international, organized
by Trotsky subsequent to the latter's exils from hussia.
ს. During World War II A
correspondent for wok
in China. In July 1945 he was refused entry into this by Chinese
tionalist outhorities, presumably as a result of anti-nationalist
articles written by for
7. Harold Mobert TAC is currently Special Features Editor for Negment,
152 best 42nd Street, New York, New York. Be is the author of pavaral
books, including in safe and Theed of the Chinese Revolutisy.
15AC ourrent political beliefs are unkown to this ganay.
*:
B. should leave this country, this agency would appreciata using
advised of his intended destination, date of departure and any other
pertinent details.
FOR THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELIGENCA
80 01-20563
eo: Federal ureau of Investigýtion
PF
bdo
2
REGISTRY COPY
ROBERT A. 201103
Assistant Director
14-00000
3.
24-
SECRET
(The Tilted Ins
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
16-7-24-73
Shanghai Municipal Felice Files.
American Citizens Suspected of Commie
Connections.
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
ZCSA-746
14. DATE
24 Feb. 49
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO. B. EVALUATION
EMALYST
James E. Plaugher
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
31. DATE
21 Nov 1963
•
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
112.
CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
☐ Para. 17
PERTINENT INFORMATION
Harold "obert Isaacs was born in New York City on 3 Sept. 1910 and held
USA passport 177026. He was the editor and Publisher of the China Forum. a Shanghai
Communist periodical first published in 1932: the secretary of the Nuolens
Defense Committee; a member of the Shanghai branch of society of Friends of the
USSR and of China League for Civil Rights. He arrived in Shanghai from Manila
in Dec. 1930 and worked for Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, swithing after
a few weeks to the China Press where he was employed until, 931 (May). In June
1931 Isaacs took a trip up the Yangtze with “. Erank Glass, a Brigish Communist
and suspected Third International agent. A la
..
letter wiritten by Isaacs
to his fiance, Viola Robinson stated that he was turning "Red" as a result of
conversations with GLASS. Ather atatements indicated athat Miss Robinson an
American then in Germany, was an active member of the communits Party. Isaacs used
the pseudonym of Lo Sen and published in the New Militante organ of the New York
Dist. Workers Party, an attack on Stalin entitled Stalintern Ready to Embrace
Chiang Kai shek. In 1949 Isaacs was in the employ of the ?American magazine
NEWSRESA, New York City, as special projects editor.
112.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
867TIQUE SORTIONS
SECRET
201-18446
(7-40)

14,00000
References
Detailst
X-2 BRANT
REPORT
Pean
REGISTRY COPY
205-1811
14-00000
CONFLUENTIAL,
HEADQUARTERS, DETACHMENT 404-A
STRATEGIC SEVICE UNIT
BATAVIA, JAVA
Buse
SN: ZM2477
REPORT NO: ZB-10
80
1 CAPT. BLUNCHELL, ATTN: LT BARKETTE
FROX
GRABILL
REPORT DATE: 8 Doc 45
INFO DATE 1 7 Doo 45.
NO. PAGES
1 2
SUBJECT:
INTERVIEW BETWEEN MR. HAROLD ISAACS,
MR. CHARLES TAMAN, AND MR.
.
DIAH.
SOURCES: Mr. Harald Isange, oorrespondent for Howswook magazine.
Mr. Charles Tabu, Malaya born Tamil, formerly employed
on Singapore newspapers, newscaster for Singapore
radio, English-speaking announcer on Batavi Radio:
during occupation, and presently editor of newspaper
Independent,
Hr. Dian, eltor of Herdėka, nationalist newspaper, Batavia.
B-3, except as noted.
EVALUATION:
The subject interview was held at the request of Fr. Isaacs'
in line with His desire to talk with leading figures of Indonesian
nationalist movement who held no official government position.
CIRCULATION OF MERDEIA
Asked about present elronlation of MERDEKA, Mr. Diah replied
with the following; MENDERA is the largest Indonesian newspaper on
the island of Java. 
At present it is printed only in Batavia, with
a dally total circulation of about 13,000 copies. of this number,
approximately 
6,000 copies are sent out of the city by train to
Bandoeng, Soerakarta, and Djoklakarta, leaving a Batavia circulation.
of between 10,000 and 14,000 coples. Source exprossed the opinion.
that while 
the Indonesian population of Batavia is in the neighborhood
of 500,000 persons, the literacy rate is perhaps only twenty percent
of this figure. Thus, to admitted, MERDEKA is probably reaching less
than four percent of the total Indonesian population of Batavia,
despite the fact that Batavia is probably the most litorate area on
the island of Java because of concentration here of all the govern-
montal functions, prever and present...
When questioned as to why His circulation was so inconsistent
with the potential reading population, source replied that he w&B
Handicapped by lack of panor. ne expressed the opinion that a
circulation of 50,000 would be assured, and a circulation of as high
an 100,000 possible, were sufficient paper available. At the present
rate of 
sumption, to estimates that sufficient parer 18 on hand
from prewar stacks to ontinue publication of MERDEKA for
(2)
COMFIDENTIAL
year
Wish-Riz Intel -102
ZM2477
REASON TONTSERENERG
14-00000
INSTALL
THE INPRMENERI
On December 7, 1945, the NDA press commenced publication of
a dally English language newspaper entitled INDEPENOCHT. Tho
masthead of this paper states also that it incorporates the INDONESIAN
NEWS BULLETIN, a former English language newspaper published by
ANTARA news agency.
The INDEPENDENT is at present being editoi by Mr. Tambu, with
some assistance from Mr. Diah, and using the paper and facilities
of MERDEKA.
The first lasue of INDEPENDENT Was remarkable only for its
avoidance of any discussion of local affairs, only two articles.
having anything whatonever to do with Java. Questioned about this,
Tambu admitted that, while his ultimate ambition was to roach foreign
and troop (Brition) readers, he was besitant about entering beadlong
into 
discussion of local affairs and the Nationalist cause, becausė,
(0-3), the British aro unfavorably disposed towards MERDEKA already,
and would use 
his venture as an excuse to confiscate the entire
printing plant, were he too openly partisan in his early issues.
Within a 
week or two to hopes to be secure enough in the poultion to
start laying more strees on local news and editorials.
The first issue of INDEPENDENT was printed in 400 copies, most
of which wore given away, although the stated price is 1 Japanese
guilder the copy.
(2)
CANFIDENTIAL
14-00000
To: Lieutenant Colonel ROGER A. PFAPP
From: John I. Coddington
Subject: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
27 March 1945
Mr. GEORGE N. KATES of 083, Fik, has just returned to the United States
from Chungking. He reached Washington yesterday. He claims to have known
HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS quite well in Chungking, and has the following observations
to make concerning Mr. ISAACS:
HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS is about 35 years of age. He attended Columbia
University, and received the degree of A.B. there in 1930. He is the son of
an orthodox Jewish merchant, who is very wealthy, and who has always supported
HAROLD, even though he did not approve of the radical views that HAROLD expressed
in the 1930's.
HAROLD went to China immediately after graduation from Columbia, partly,
atleast, out of a desire to see strange parts of the world and to experience
"adventure." He went out by way of Hawaii, and stowed away for part of the
either between San Francisco and Honolulu, or between Honolulu and
voyage
-
-
Shanghai
"adventure."
Mr. KATES does not remember which. Anyway, this was part of the
In China, HAROLD met a South African named FRANK GLASS, who was an "intellectual"
and a very interesting person. GLASS was a Leftist, but not at all a Communist.
HAROLD took a trip up the Yangtse with GLASS in 1930 or 1931. At about this time,
HAROLD became a convert to Trotskyism, partly, at least, under GLASS's influence.
He felt that "suffering humanity" required a "revolution" to set things straight.
Communism was too organized, and HAROLD was a complete individualist, and reacted
strongly against the organizational set-up of Communism, and so espoused Trotskyism.
He returned to Shanghai from the western part of China, and went to work for
14-00000
HAROLD FOBURT ISAACS, continued
THE HAVAS News Agency. Shortly after this, in Shanghai, he married VIOLA ROBINSON,
who was, like HAROLD, a wide-eyed intellectual. This marriage probably took place
in 1932. VIOLA was a great friend of AGNES SHEDLEY, the author of the Eattle Hymn.
of China and of other books dealing with the Chinese Revolution.
An organization called the China League for Civil Rights was formed about
1932. YANG CH'IEN was the head of this for Central China, and Dr. HU SHIH (later
Chinese Ambassador to Washington) was the head of it for North China. YANG was at
that time Secretary-General of the Academia Sinica. YANG was soon assassinated
by the Blue Shirts (at that time CHIANG KAI-SHEK's bodyguard). HAROLD ISAACS had
been an enthusiastic member of the China League for Civil Rights, and in the
atmosphere of turmoil, after the killing of YANG, when all Leftists were under
attack by the Kuomintang, HAPOLD became the editor and publisher of the China Forum,
a magazine that published a number of controversial articles. The magazine was
protected by the fact that the editor was an American, and therefore had extra-
territorial rights. Yet the magazine was regarded as a "thorn in the flesh" by Mr.
CUNNINGHAM, who was at that time American Consul-General in Shanghai. There were
various controversies
-
the printing shop was broken up by Kuomintang strong-arm
men; the mails were refused to the magazine; but he continued publication for some
time, and smuggled the copies out to the subscribers.
:
In 1933 or 1934, ISAACS had a fight with AGNES SMEDLEY. It was an ideological
fight, and therefore especially bitter. ISAACS and his wife left Shanghai after
this, and moved to Paking. There he acquired a Chinese translator named LIU, and
there he settled down to write his book, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution.
This book "nails the Stalinists to the mast" and shows that they were messing.
around with a situation in China which they did not understand. Very many people
who have read the book consider it excellent.
14-00000
HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS, continued
-3-
The book was completed, and ISAACS and his wife returned to the United States
about April or May 1935. Immediately after this, ISAACS made a papid trip to
Oslo, Norway, to see his hero, LEON TROTSKY, who was living there at that time.
It was on this occasion that he must have undertaken to translate TROTSKY's book,
1
Whither France ? ISAACS then returned to New York, and went to work for the
HAVAS News Agency once more. :
At some time in the late 1930's, he became interested in New York politics,
and he worked hard for NORMAN THOMAS.
:
By 1940, however, he became disgusted with New York politics, and became
interested in the war, and in"bourgeois life." He and his wife had a baby at
about this time (their first), and ISAACS found he could write radio scripts and
get good money for them. Up to 1940, he had been living chiefly off his father,
but from 1940 on, he began to make money. In 1942, he did a "Report to the Nation"
for CBS.
Soon after this, he joined the Staff of News-Week, and in 1944 was sent to Chungking
by that magazine. There must have been a certain amount of trouble in convincing
the Chinese Central Government that ISAACS had really changed since the old days
in Shanghai; but this convication was evidently accomplished, or ISAACS would not
have received permission from the Chinese Covernment to go to China.
ISAACS is a very smart man indeed. He knows a lot about China, and he knows a
lot about people in general. Moreover, he is a great deal "smoother" and more
diplomatic now than he was ten years ago.
14-00000
To:
Lieutenant Colonel ROGER A. FFAFF
From: John I. Coddington g.1.6.
Subject: HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS
13 March 1945
ISAACS, Inrols Robert
:
HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS is now the correspondent of Newsweek magazine in
China. His headquarters are in Chungking, but he evidently travels to Kunming,
Kweiyang, and other places in the course of his duties. He seems to have arrived
in China in his present capacity during the summer of 1944, probably in July.
Subject was born in 1910, and is a member of a wealthy family. He became
a firmly convinced Trotskyist in his youth, and remained one till the time of
Pearl Harbor. He is now regarded as a renegade by his former Trotskyist colleagues,
because he has disavowed the principles of world revolution, turned away from
Trotsky's teachings, and since 1939 has been writing patriotic propaganda for the
United States Government.
He went to China about 1930, and wrote two books dealing with Chinese
politics, Five Years of Kuomintang Reaction (1932), and The Tragedy of the Chinese
Revolution (1938). Both of these volumes expressed the author's Trotskyist
point of view. The first was published in Shanghai, and the second in London.
Neither was ever published in the United States, and ISAACS said that the
Stalinist Comminists were so powerful in this country that they were able to
prevent the publication of the Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution here. This
book received high praise from many serious students of Far Eastern affairs,
including G.P. Hudson, Fellow of All Souls College at Oxford, and author of
The Far East in World Politics, who said that ISAACS' book was the best one ever
written on the Chinese Revolution. Hudson is now an official of the British
Ministry of Information.
ISAACS' non-Communist and non-Trotskyist friends say that even during the
201-18446
14-00000
:
HAROLD ROBERT ISAACS, continued.
-2-
height of his Trotskyist career, ISAACS never accepted money from the group. Не
"was always open and above-board, and never ongaged in any conspiracies to overthrow
established government. He was attracted to the movement, they say, by sheer
idealism.
For a time in China, ISAACS lived with Tillman DURDIN, the China correspondent
of the New York Times, who was then the managing editor of the China Press. ISAACS
returned to the United States in the late 1930's, and was for a time employed by
the havas 
News Agency, until the fall of France in 1940. In 1943, he was employed i
by Newsweek magaxine in Washington, D.C., and resided at 4938 Newport Avenue,
Freindship Heights.
Publications
(a) Books
Five Years of Kuomintang Reaction (Shanghai, China Forum Publishing Co.,
1932), 136 pp. Library of Congress Call 
No.: DS 777.47.C45
The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (London, Secker & Warburg, 1938)
501 pp. Library of Congress Call No.: 
DS 774.17
(b) Translations
Lev Trotskii (Leon Trotsky), whither France, translated by John G. Wright
and Harold R. Isaacs (New York, Pioneer 
Publishers, 1936). Library of
Congress Call No.: DC 398.77
(c) Articles in Periodicals
"Perspectives of the Chinese Revolution: a Marxist View," Pacific Affairs,
vol. 8, pp. 269-283, Sept. 1935.
"Job by Experts," Newsweek, p. 30, 7 Aug. 1944.
"Surprising the Japs," Newsweek, pp. 35-36, 7 Aug. 1944.
"Blowing the Top," Newsweek, pp. 45-6, 4 Sept. 1944.
"Last night in Kweilin," Newsweek, pp. 31-32, 25 Sept. 1944.
14-00000
:1
HAROLD HORSET ISAACS, continued
"One Man's Fight against Corruption: the Story behind the Stilwell Incident,"
Newsweek, p. 44, 13 Nov. 1944 1
"Troupers of the CBI," Newsweek, p. 100, 13 Nov. 1944
"Ignorant Men and Modern Weapons: Inside Story of the Chinese Army," Newsweek
p. 44, 20 Nov. 1944
"Death for Kweiyang," Newsweek, p. 36, 18 Dec. 1944
"Dorn of the Salween," Newsweek, pp. 26-27, 1 Jan. 1945
.
"First Truck to Kunming," Newsweek, p. 34, 29 Jan. 1945.
"
"Ting Hao: Shouts of Welcome met First Convoy to Kunming," Newsweek, pp. 35-36,
12 Feb. 1945
Bibliography
SI Files #25,443: 6 October 1943
Books and Periodicals in Library of Congress:
14-00000
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
630 FIFTH AVENUE,
NEW YORK 20, N. Y.
CONFIDENTIAL
16. 402.
То
Major General William J Donovan
From
John C Hughes
Subject
Harold R. Isaacs.
10 March 1945
Pursuant to our telephone conversation, I asked
Mr DeVecchi of this office to check with Alan Grover, Vice
President of "Time and Life". One of the men with whom
Grover works very closely knows Isaacs intimately. In
this man's opinion, Isaacs is a very solid and substan-
tial citizen, knowledgable, hard working and an able cor-
respondent of good character. He states that he has re-
cently had occasion to communicate with Isaacs and that his
address is:
Stach
Harold R Isaacs
War Correspondent
U.S.F.
APO 627
CT
c/o Postmaster, New York
221
#78324
Pic Of 221
301-18.446

14-00000
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
630 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK 20, N. Y.
1. tipkes
CONFIDENTIAL
March 9, 1945
MEMORANDUM
MR. SPENCER PHENIX
TO:
FROM:
ROSET DeVECCHI
Alan Grover, Vice-President of TIME, LIFE,
at my request checked with one of the men in his or-
ganization who knows Harold R. Isaacs, personally.
He told Mr. Grover that Mr. Isaacs, in his
opinion, is & very solid and substantial citizen,
knowledgable, hard working, good character, and an
able correspondent.
address:
Mr. Isaacs can be reached at the following
HAROLD R. ISAACS
War Correspondent
U.S.F. CT
APO 627
c/o Postmaster New York, N.Y:
NY. S1. Pers.3
1/4
Box1
X78278
201-18446
14-00000
SECRET
(Mon Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
AI FILE NO.
Various reports and newspaper clippings
relating to operations.
China CLA-OP-
CLA_OP___
". DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
SHP-D-5760 "Box 203
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM 8. DATE OF IN
INFO.
°.
4. DATE
26 Aug. 35
EVALUATION
3. ANALYST
JEP
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
14.
FORM
1-57
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
21 Nov. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13.
TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
THE NORTH-CHINA Daily NEWS Saturday 6 July 35
Mr. Harold R. Isaacs, an American and Publisher of the communist Publication
"China Foruka. YUAN 
Haueh editor of the chinese section. of the "China Forum.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
867 USE PREVIOUS EDITIONS.
201-1844466
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
(then Filled Ins
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
VICTOR MUSSIK's visit to AMOY.
CHINA CIA OP-11
STUNT INC.
"
DATE
D 14.22
26 Jan. 34
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYM. DATE OF INFO.
..
EVALUATION
3. ANALYST
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
JEP
£3 Dec. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
xxxx
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT. INFORMATION
Between Des. 26 Jul Authorities at
Amoy between Dec. 24 1933 and
under the name of Victor Mussik, the local
Jananese authorities, therefore, request for info regarding the movements of Victor
Mussik during the afore mentioned period to ascertain if He actually visited amoy during
this period
FORM
8-57
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
867 vious soitions,
30x-182/48
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
(then FillNINY
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
Attack on Bookstores
3. ANALYST
14.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
R1 FILE NO.
China-ca-op-1
3.. DISPATCH OR SOURCE. SYMBOL NO. 4 DATE.
SMP-5454-3 box 200
3. SOURCE CRYPTIONS DATE OF INFO. ".
21 Dec 33
EVALUATION
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED I
11. DATE
: 21 Nov. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13 TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
JAMES E. Plaugher
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
XXXXXX
The second incident was seen in the entry by persons unknown on the night.
of November 14 of premises of the Lev el Printing Co., incorporated in New York
printers and publisher of the "China Forum" a bi-lingual magasine under the editor-
ship of an American named Harold R. Isaacs, which has dicided communistic
sympathies.
FORM
9-37
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
867 SEVIOUS COSTIONS.
301-18446
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
13.
SECRET
(When Fall 2
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE-
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DISTRICH KUOMINTANG ISSUES SECRET ORDER
FOR ANTI JAPANESE MOVEMENT.
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
·3.
CHINA-CIN-OP-1.
DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
4- DATE
SD 4685&SMPD 4685c Box 193 22 July 33
7-SOURCE CRYPTONYM.
DATE OF INFO 9. EVALUATION
ANALYST
JAES. E. Plaugher
8. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
3. Dec. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION.
12- CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
14-
PERTINENT INFORMATION
The transportation of the China Rorum has already been prohibited by the Nanking Govt.
because the magazine had been publishing propaganda for the reds as well as attacks
on the National bovt, that the publisher being an American citized named Isaac the
measures taken against the peper had no effect. This time a strong protest will by
lodged with the American Consulate against Isaac..
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
FORM
867 VIODS
EDITIONS.
201-18
18:
446
SECRET
(7-48)
14-00000
3
s.
SECRET
Bon Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
List of correspondents in Shanghai
CIHINA-CIAL OP
3. DISPATCH OR SOLACE DOC. SYMBOL BJ.
a. DATE
SMPD
4528
23 Feb. 33-
ANALYST
JPE
•
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
7. SOURCE CRYPTOWYM. DATE OF INFO S. EVALUATION
6. DATE. PROCESSED
#3 Dec. 1263...
10. DISSEMINATED IN
" DATE
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
13 TRANSFERRED TO
RE-FILE NO.
.14.
PERTINENT INFORMATION
among the correspondents listed one H.R. ISAACS (American) address 509 Embankment Apart-
ments. Repr. of the HAVAS News Agency.
13.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
FORM
9-37
867*** PREVIOUS
CDITIONS.
SECRET
(7-46)
14-00000
SECRET
(Then Pilled, 80)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT.
Copy of report by D. S. PITTS
Copy of China Workers' Correspondence,
Addressed 
to Harold R. Isaacs
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
".
CHINA CIA OPI
DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
SMPD 2713
7. SOURCE CRYPTOXYM 6. DATE OF INFO.
"
4. DATE
lo Nov. 32
EVALUATION
BOX-179
.5.
ANALYST
DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN-
13. DATE
JEP
23 Dec. 63.
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
SRI. FILE NO.
xxxx
PERTINENT INFORMATION
14
This document contains numerous references to Hanold R, Isaacs and his wife. For further
information 
the interested parties are requested to see the document itself due to
bulky nature the poor quality of paper reporduction is virtually impossible.
S.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
201-15446.
FORM
D. 37
867EVIOUS EDITIONS.
SECRET
(7.40)
14-00000
SECRET
(Don Filled Ins
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
NEW YORK NATION"
SANALYST
JAMES E. Pigher
14.
ODCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO. CHINA CIA-OP-
3. WISPATCH ON SOVE. SOC. AU
SMPD 4014
17 Sept 32
73 SOURCE CRYPTOSYM]. DATE OF INFO. 9. EVALUATION
16. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
13. DATE
3. Dec. 63.
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION:
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO:
PERTINENT INFORMATION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
In continuation of a previous report on the subject of the New York "Nation", I hate
to state that further efforts to purchase this publication have proved successful,
and I attach herewith three copies, respectively dated July 6, Aug. 10 and Aug. 24,1932.
From a cusory perusual of these editions, the "Nation's political policy appears
to bd a socialistic nature, openly professing oppositon to the Republican and Democratic
doctrines prevailing throughout the United States, and advocating support for the
Cocialist Party's candidate-Norman Thomas at the forth coming Presidetial
elections.
Further articles appearing in these editions are nothing more nor less that scurrilous
attacks on the Republican President of The USA.-Herbert Hoover.
Harold F. Isaacs mailing list has been carefully
of the "Nation" or any of the Poople connected with it.
udd, but no mention is made
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
30118446
FORM
3-37
867 ***
SECRET
(7-40)
PRECIOSO EDITI403.
14-00000
John M. Hurray
SECRET
(Then Filled in)
DOCUMENT TRANSFER AND. CROSS REFERENCE
SUBJECT OF DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT IDENTIFICATION
2.
RI FILE NO.
CHINA-CIA op 1
3. DISPATCH OR SOURCE DOC. SYMBOL NO.
4. DATE
SMP-D
3703
2-Juno-32
7. SOURCE CRYPTONYMS. DATE OF INFO. 8. EVALUATION
ANALYST
6. DATE PROCESSED
10. DISSEMINATED IN
11. DATE
3 De. c. 63
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION
12. CROSS REFERRED TO THIS FILE
13. TRANSFERRED TO
RI FILE NO.
PERTINENT INFORMATION.
During the Summer of 1932. Murray is known to have been associated with the following
Local communist sympathizers: H.R. ISAACS.
15.
FILE THIS FORM IN FILE NO.
FORM
0-17
867***
PROTIQUE CORTION.
SECRET
17-481
14-00000
...22
2.66
SHANGHAI MUNICIPAL POLICE:
BRAL PALICE
File No. REGISTRY.
28
Special Branch 5.5.
REPORT
Date Ayril
The New International - Extract.
Made hy..
and
Forwarded by
SMPA-6628
D.S.I. Golder.
Maga labh
Sestined to fut
I forward herewith us directed the D. C. Special
Branch 12 copies of an extract from "The New International",
a Communist propaganda organ published in New York, U.S.A.
D. C. (Special Branch).
Em Golder
.D. S. I.
* Lee File
42713/26
$2,
Please let me know what has
Is he still
happened to losers.
detained by the Chinese Police at baking?
дже
1/4/25.
208-7-212-1
18446

14-00000
EXTRACT FROM THIS NEW INTERNATIONAL 37LER - (CTNESR 1934
POLISHED IN NEW YORK).
I Break with the Chinese Stalinists
To the Central Committee of the Chineus Communist Party:
The two-year period of my extra-organizational collaboration
with the Chinese Communist party has come to an end and
"the China Forum which I founded and edited during that time
has been forced to suspend publication. In the interest
of our whole movement as well as in my personal interest,
I consider it necessary to record here and publish the
history of the China Forus and the circumstances of its
suspension..……….
XXXXX
From almost the vory beginning of my active work -
which I date from the time I began reporting events in
China in a communist way - a number of questions presented
themselves to me in increasingly forcible form. These
arose originally from my discovery of the gross distortions
and exaggerations which I found to be characteristic of
communia propaganda in China and abroad. I define pro-
pagunda as the skillful clear, accurate and wholly truthful
reporting of the facts linked to an incisive, purposive.
interpretation and a plan of action for dealing with the
facta in a revolutionary way. I leamed. this from the life
and work of Lenin and his Bolshevik comrades who taught
us that the truth comes from the masses themselves and that
only disaster can result from telling them lies. I have
never learned to the contrary that it was my revolutionary
duty to work in any other way, although I soon found that
the present-day Communiot party press, makes a practise of
distinguishing between propaganda and truth.
Examples of exaggeration and distortion most striking.
to me were naturally those whi applied to China, beca
here I could check allegations with known facts. I first
wrote these down to the ignorance or incapacity of indi-
viduals. I felt that communist editors abrad zguld
publish accurate facts about China if they could get them.
Accordingly with a friend I tried to set up an independent
mail news service and sent weekly bulletins to papera all
over the world giving brief, sharp, factual accounts of
what was going on. This was in the fall of 1931 after my
return from the area of the great Central China floods of
that summer. I scarcely understood then why this service
failed to secure any response from the communist press.
abroad. After about three mon the I had to suspend it for
lack of support. It simply didn't get published except
in a few organs which were not official Communist party
papers, including the New York Militant.
It wasn't long before I began to perceive, with a
deeper study of international events and the history of
the Chinese revolution, that a consistent thread ran
through the distortions and exaggerations which I found
not only in brief casual reports of current events but
in the solemn pronunciamentoes made by delegates before
plenums of the B.C.C.I. I discovered that these departures
from the truth were made necessary by the official premise
that over since the catastrophe of 1927 a mighty, upeur-
ging revolutionary movement has been marching forward in
China to the very brink of beizure of power under the
leadership of the Quinese Communist party. I discovered
that these exaggerations were necessary because the premise
wo flee and along with it all the basic tenets of the
14-00000
politics being pursued by the Communist International
and the Communist party in China. I cannot bagin here
to give a aunty of some of these distortions (which
I verbally eated to you by the dozen), ranging from
particular incidents (the wilfully false picture givon
of the cotton mill strike in Shanghai in January 1932,
dron to the point of trans.osing it to February to
heighten the impression given of the workers' role in
the Shanghai war) to high-flown generalizations like
the statement recently made before the plenum of the
B.C.C.I. that the C.C.P. has "won over the majority
of the Chinese working ones and the peasantry"………..
In denying the presence of a might revolutionary
upsurge (1.6., a vast onganized march toward the sel-
zure of power); I respoot facts made still cloarer
perhaps when compared to the facts and figures of the
monster mass movements of the 1925-27 period. The
tragic errors of the communist leadership in 1927. were
primarily responsible for the decapitation of that
great movement and because no lessons have been drawn
from these events to this very day, these errora,
monstrously accumulated, are still responsible for the
tragedies of today. But for the purposes of our com-
parison here, let us take for example the single fact
that in 1926 in Greater Shanghai, there were 257 strikes.
In 1932 there were 82. Let us remember that on the eve
of the workers' sizure of power in Shanghai in March,
1927, there were more than 800,000 workers, handicrafts-
men and petty traders out on the street fighting with
arms in hands for demands of a far-reaching political
character. A close check for the entire country in
the latter half of 1933 showed me that less than one-
thirtieth of that number were engaged in strikes and
other disputes during any given month and that almost
invariably the demands were defensive demands against
waga outs and lookouts. Moreover, the lack of cohe
sive leadership often in departments of the same
factory or in one or more of a group of factories -
or even some time a lack of even the most elementary
organization has in almost every case led to deadening
failure and relatively easy betrayal by the yellow
labor leaders" and mediators" of the Kuo Min Tang.
1925 the shooting of thirtoon students by British
police in Shanghai was the touch-off for a general
strike which paralyzed the city and which was seconded
by vast sympathy strikes which broke like a series of
tidal wave over the entire country. In January 1932,
when the Japanese imperialists used the Shanghai
International Bettlement as a base for operations
which cost the lives of tone of thousands of Chinese)
not a single strike interrupted the normal course of
the public or other services in that settlement. In
the factories there were no atrikes but a large scale
lookout to which the overwhelming majority of Shanghai's
workers submitted without protest....
In
In the case of the widespread but isolated and
individual cases of peasant uprisings, and this includes
the Red armies in Xiangal, these struggles await the
leadership of a strong working class movement before
they can have a successful issue. The Red armies in
their restricted and surrounded areas and with their
meagre resources have fought heroically against the
Kuomintang attacks upon them. But until the Kuo Min
Tang is shaken from its bulwarks in the imperialist-
controlled working class centers, their prospect
of revolutionary triumph remains necessarily dim.
No revolutionary purpose is served by taking refuge
in the fiction that thobe armies have proletarian
loadership because individual workers, undoubtedly
14-00000
loaders of superior quality and courage, have been torn
from their factoriée and from trair fellow workers and
Dent cown to occupy key positions in the Red army dis-
tricts and in the Red armies themselves. Indeed, this
common practise of extracting the most conscious and pro-
gressive working class elements from their working class
environment and sending them down to the Red districts is
a good index to the criminal transposition of emphasis
which has helped paralyze the working class movement in
the cities. If the mite Terrof doesn't carry off the
workers' lenders as they arise, the C.P. Goes and has
done so in hundreds of ca888. This helps in no amall
part to explain why it has also been impossible to mobi-
·lize a genuine mass anti-Japanese movement in the face of
military aggression and why the White Terror of the Kuo
Min Tang has succeeded, by filling mass graves and in-
numerable prisons with the martyred dead and living, in
downing the anti-imperialist movement or efforts toward
the organization of such a movement and paving the way
for the ever-increasing encroachments of the imperialists.
The party has not yet gripped and directed the dog and
bitter and often inarticulate hatred of the masses of
the people for their oppressors and this includes large
sections of the lower patty bourgeoisie who could be won
by successful mase pressure from below. This is because
they party has failed to translate the realities of every-
day events into its program and tactics.....
x x x x x
But precicely because at all costs I desired to
carry on the Forum's open struggle against the common
onemy - against the Kuo Min Tang and the imperialiste
I seduloualy avoided bringing these issue into the
columns of the paper, increasingly against my botter
judgment. I leaned over far backward in this respect.
This expressed itself in many of the current issues with
which we had to deal.
•
I ask you to recall the whole uphill fight which the
Forum waged on behalf of Paul and Gerturd Ruegg in the
spring and summer of 1932 during which time I repeatedly
warned against the emphasis which was being placed on the
"legal". aspects of the case and the "negotiations" with
the Kuo Min Tang to the detriment of mase pressure and
the capitalization of the case for political purposes.
You paid lip service to the need for mass pressure -
particularly here in China - but in fact the "legalities”
and futile negotiations remained the major pillars of
the defense. Until in the very end I finally rebelled,
I wasn't even permitted to give Ruegg his honorable and
rightful title - secretary of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union
Secretariat! Yet although I felt the struggle for the
Rueggs was being seriusly handicapped by the tactica
being pursued, I carried on the fight with all the energy
at my command and you will recall that it was I who created
the local defense committee and was chiefly responsible
for the widespread press propaganda campaign and the
.considerable sympathy which we aroused. Yet the strictly
non-political attitude which Ruegs was forced to assume
at the trial (in contrast to the highly political attitude
of his prosecutore!) was in my opinion one of the major
reasons for the fate to which he and his wife were condemned.
I ask you to recall the #ole period of the organi-
zation and activities of the China League for Civil Rights,
from December 1932 to June 1933, in which I took an active.
part. I gave full play to this hybrid League and its
work without once publishing the basic criticisms which
I often voiced to you and which in the end were tolly
confirmed by what happened after the Kuo Min Tang murdered
Yang Chier in June that year. I ask you to recall the
views I set forth in August and September 1923, on me
14-00000
subje at of the "Anti-War Congress" which at your
specific request I did not publish. Instead, to my
regret. I published the foul rot of Marley & Co.
without freely giving play to the true facts about
that farcical Junket which had convinced me that the
policies which gave it birth do not one single whit
advance the international struggle against imperialist
war.
As
On one occasion - and this at least I can take
comfort in - I passively resisted when you requested
me to write and publish a slanderous attack on Chen
Du Haiu when he was condemned to 13 years imprisonment
by the Kuo Min Tang. Your request was specific. I
was not to deal with the issues which had brought
Chen Du Hoiu from being the leader of the C.P. in 1927
to being leader of the Chinese Opposition in 1933. I
was only to string together a vile series of labels
in an effort to explain why the Kuo Hin Tang. even
imprisoned the leader of the left Opposition.
you know, that attack was never written or published.
Again in December 1933, upon my return from
Fukien, you specifically demanded that I set aside
the results of my own personal investigations. in
Foochow in order to write on your behalf (but over
my, signature:) an utterly baseless and slanderous
attack on the Left Opposition. You will recall that
you charged at that time that the "Trotskyiste" were
prominently identified with the new government set
up in Fukien by Chen Ming-shu and Teal Ting-kai. You
lumped the Left Opposition with the Third Party and
the socalled Social Democrats among the petty bourgecis
satellites of the Pukien militarists. It was as much
to satisfy myself on this very point as to perform a
mission for you, that I went down to Foochow and
spent two weeks there and learned through direct con-
tact with dozens of people prominently concemed that
the Left Opposition was stoutly and clearly opposed
to the Foochow regime. I haven't place here to dis-
cuss the relations of the C.P, to the short-lived
Pukion government or the character of the "negotia-
tions which were going on down there. The important,
thing here is that on my return you demanded that I
write slanders which flew in the face of everything
.I myself had learned. It is interesting, as a side-
light on your methods in factional strife as you
conceive it, that your representative in Foochow sent
back a report, through me, ironically enough, that
one of the most prominent of the youthful pseudo-
radicals in Foochow Tu Cui-yuen to be exact, was a
leading "Trotskyist". It so happened that I had met.
and had several langthy interviews with and by
the time I left Foochow I understood his position and
his personality exceedingly well. He was as much a
Trotskyist as Hai Lan-fang is! Yet you actually
demanded that I ignore my own mowledge of the man
and in my article on Fukien set him down as a
"Trotskyist". I was faced on the one hand by your
demands that 
I write falsehoods to suit your policies
and on the other by my deep desire to set forth the
actual facts about the Opposition's attitude toward
the Bukien regime. But once more, to preserve the
shreds of our relationship. I drove a middle course
and did neither, leaving the hole question out of
my article.
14-00000
•
1
Nevertheless, abruptly in January of this year you
forced an ultimatum upon re and subsequently forced the
break in our 
relationship because I could not and would
not, at your demand, devoite the China Forum to policies
which I could not and do not believe compatible with the
interests 
of the Chinese revolution and the international
proletarian revolution. I could not, at your demand,
Bet aside 
the convictions to which I had literally been
driven by the stinging lash of catastrophic events in
China, 
Germany and the world over. Particularly my deep
interest in 
Chinese events during the last three years:
made it im 
ossible for me; finally, to ive active sup-
port to policies 
and tactics whose disastrous effects
were 
being a thousandfold confirmed for me by the tragic
events of every 
swiftly-passing day. I could not ignore
questions which 
strike at the roots of our work and the
whole 
structure of our hopes for a revolutionary future.
Despite the 
fact that these questions are rocking.
the 
entire International 
today, you denied my right to
raise them in print
. 
You 
demanded more.
that I attack 
anybody who did so
You demanded
you call "counter-revolutionary Trotskyists"
primarily 
the pelle
people 
ho are facing these problems today in a fearless,
the only
revolutionary way! You demanded 
that the China Forum
become a stereotype 
for the policies and vulgar factional
slanders which I could 
neither then nor now be party to.
In reply to 
my questions on China you simply quoted back
at me the lice and half-
lies I've been so used to reading.
in Inprecorr. You 
even declared: "For propaganda purposes
a certain amount of 
exaggeration is necessary....
went on 
amazingly to say: "but we know the ture facts
and we 
base our policies on them, not on these exaggera-
tions!" A new 
slant on modern-day C.I. tactics!, Facts,
you say are ourious things
. They have to be tumed
around and 
around and around and examined closely until
their true nature 
becomes apparent. The trouble is you
turn them so far and 
so quickly that they turn into some -
thing like a dizzily 
turning top of fancy
with-
fulfilling misrepresentations.
or at best
-
and
To my questions on Germany you quoted Heckert,
Piatritsky and the B.C.C.I.'s famous resolution declar-
ing that the 
collapse of the German party and the slaughter
of the German workers were based 
on the past, present and
future correct policies 
of the C.P.G.! You declared I had
no right to offer 
critical comment on the danger usly
opportunistic foreign 
and domestic policies of the U.S.S.R.
most notably on the entry 
of the U.S.S.R. on a straight
nationalist basia into 
the disgusting corridors of im-
perialist intrigue
. 
To 
the contriry, I was livingly.
fawningly to foudle and hail the 
policies which have meant.
diouster in China, Germany 
and elsewhere and are rapidly
loading the U.S.S.R, into 
the vacuum of nati nalist
isolation from the 
world-wide proletarian movement.
I was to do to 
begin with, by publishing Stalin's face
on the front page and 
columns of the customary penegyrics
to his infallibility. Above all 
and before all, I was
to take up cudgele against "counter
-revolutionary
Trotskyiem". That 
was to be the main point of my re-
formation - to raise no 
questions myself and slander any-
body else who did 
so
.
This
In reply to your demand that I submit to an editorial
beard 
in order that 
these editorial policies should be
effectively put into 
practise. I offered (1) to continue
publication strictly 
as before, meanwhile arguing out my
differences with you in discussions 
on the side: (2) to
throw the columns 
of the Forum open to a general discussion
14-00000
of all basic revolutionary questions, with free play to
unorthodox as well as orthodox views, If your vin WB
were correct, I argued, it would be a distinct advan-
tage to you to have such an opportunity to display their
brilliance alongside the puny efforts of your critics;
(3) to publish orthodox news and views but to reserve
for myself the right to comment and criticise.
You
These repeated offers you repeatedly, refused.
offered to discuss these questions with me verbally if
in the meanwhile I threw the Porur open to your editorial
board. My other proporals were unthinkable: Give the
Forum'a readers a chance to hear "counter-revolutionary"
viewpoints ? Never that : I could only display my
revolutionary purity by acceding to your demands.
would talk things over until spring, then if all ment
well (1.0. if I showed a satisfactory adaptation to
your viewpoint). I could pack up for an educational trip
to the Soviet Union where I would certainly become con-
vinced of the error of my ways. In other words, you wanted
my signature on a promissory note with the amount left
blank for you to fill in. You put this in the form of
an ultimatum and you told me that if I did anything but
accept I would forthwith enter the camp of the "counter-
revolution".
I had to refuse these terms. I had to refuse to
lend myself to a alanderous and baseless struggle against
the International Left Opposition. I had to refuse to
land space to the nauseatingly farming praise of Stalin
and uncritical reception of Stalinist policies which
characterize the Communist party press the world over.
I had to refuse to take shelter in the cold and draughty
empty spaces which stretch behind the impressive facade
and early traditions of the Communist International. I
would like to go to the Soviet Union for & visit one day.
but I had to refuse your offer on your terms. I had to
refuse, in short, to become a hack prostitute in the name
of the revolution..
In the end, too, I had to refuse to turn over to
you the printing plant I had built up in th oo much pain
and struggle because I considered it not your property
but the property of the working class movement. Because
I could not carry on the Porun myself, for lack of
financial resources and cacause of heavy debts contracted,
I disposed of the plant and turned every farthing of the
proceeds over to where I now consider the tire interests
of our movement lie. It was with a deep and Abiding.
bitterness that I had to see the Forum go down under the
blows of those whom I had considered comrades, then for
two years it had fought off all its many enemies on the
outside.
Yet with it came the realization that we have to
build anew over the ruins you have wrought. The rev
lution and the building of our future moves forward And:
when we trample dom, the defenses of our enemies we shall
crush underfoot everything and everybody that stunde in
our way. No sycophantic, blind allegiance to a name,
an empty facade, a tom and shredded preatige can
lead
us forward. Only unswerving fidelity to our goal and
active struggle toward this end with the weapons of a
correct and tested political line will lift is from
defeat to ultimate victory. To this struggle I shall con-
tinue to dedicate all my energies.
Peiping, China, May 20, 1934.
Harold R. ISAACS.
14-00000
ISAACS
COUNTRIES
1931-1936
China(DSB 786)
1954
Harold Rodent. Isaacs
working MIT Canter for Internat! Studios. (dornica)
"Five Years of Kuomintain Reaction", a 13 pare pamphlet published in 1932 at Shanghai, lists
ISAACS as Editor. The pamphlet consists of reprints of articles which appeared in the "China
Forum" by "anonymous authors and collaborators". The pamphlet denounces the Kuomintang and
CHIANG Kai-shek for alleged massacre of its political opponents, chiefly Communists, in order
"that the bourgeoisio might continue to rule and the imperialists to draw their tribute from
the capitalization of human misery". Chinese Communists are seen as the hope of the future.
ISAACS continues to reside at 333 Central Fork West, NC, and is employed as free lance journal
1st, as of 12 Way 53. DFB-27426.
ISAACS
REFERENCES:
Dossien
Shanghai Muncipal Folice Files, CS 135,Photo # 177.File 16-4-2-35
DFB 1461,11 May 1950. Agnes Smedley file, 201-414
201-18446
DFB 7864, 28 Feb 1951. Enclosing info re Richard SORGE gathered from FBI interview
with ISAACS in April 1950.
DFB 11880, 11 Sept 51, 201-6556-1
Presently living in NYC-
DFB-15017, 15 Jan. 52; 201-6556-4; no new info.
DFB-14/23, 20 Dec 1951, 201-006-1, Sub member of an Aid Committee to the Secr
of the Ten Fecific Trees Union Secretariat (NQYLERS) in Shanghai alang
with Armes STOLY, Irene HYTON, J. POWELL, Edgar SNOW, Frank GLASS.
Shanghai Municipal Police Files, CS-1811, 16-4-2-37, 5 Feb 49.
Long/3, 14 August 167, 001-0216-2
FB_14747, 8 Jan 1952, 20149750-1 re APPRIMAN, Morris Louis
DFB-27426-12 June 53, 201-19446-4.
14-00000
ISAACS, H
Probably Harold R ODELT
JACOB.-FBI think that there is a possibility that the JACOB, an unidentified
young Amer journalist in Shanghai in 1931, 32 who was a member of the SORGE network
in China might possibly be identical with ISAACS, ISAACS. incelf has advised that
ho do not believe that he could have been the indiv to whom SORGE cave the covern
JACOB. ( DFB 7864)
Addresses: May 1953 - 333 Central Park West, NYC:
DFB-27426.
171
\4W-1011, -10-4-2-31, 5 Feb 59: Shanghai Municipal Fol Files.)
how buy thing
or
سعدتم
the
guy
Sy Hist
Marin
(over)
(OVER)
to frem. Collins called & see if Its died release
now. He 
will see harroll tomorrow.
this info
some it is
11 Sept 51-Collins has tocked to Brewer about records.
Brewer said Callies couldn't you at Hous
said Brewer promised
ashed Frewer & fired the Seport of he want it.
on file
un 155
14-00000
LTE days(); ' SET SOZ
ISAACS
The July 30 1932 issue of the NY Times under a Shanghai dateline of 29 July 1932,
states 
that Harold R ISAACS, 
an American citiben was warned by the US Consul General in
Shanghai that the US may withdraw 
its extra-Territorial rights and allow him to be tried
in a Chincub county 
ISAACS then the editor of the "China Forum," had violently attacked
Chiang Mai Shek, calling 
him, among other things, "a butcher." The article further
stated that 
ISAACS was an associate of Agnes LOLEN,a correspondent for American news-
papers DB 1461)
Preceded the GRANICHES, as editor of "The Voice of China". Wrote an article "I Bresk
With 
Stalinism".-which gave a 
candid elucidation of the Comm. financial backing of the
"
Voice of China". DCE-4385, 7 Feb., 52
One Harold Robert ISAACS was born 13 Sept 1910; 5'9" tall, med build, br oyes, &
blach 
wavy hair brushed back. Born in NYC, Amc citizen
. Editor & publisher of the
China Forum. Was secy of NOULENS Defense 
Committee & member of Society of Freinds of USSE
Arrived in China from Manila on 10 Dec 30 & joined 
editorial staff of Shanghai Evening
Post 
and Mercury. On 12 June 31, took trip on Yangtze 
with C.F.GLASS, susp Sov agent, &
wrote 
his fiances he decided to turn "Red" as a result of talking 
with GLASS. The 2
returned in Aug 
& took up residence at #128 Weihaiwei 
Road. Started printing Forum later.
Manager of Level Printing C., Inc in NY State & owned 40% 
of its shares. Employed with
Havas 
News Agency. ISAACS married Miss Viola ROBINSON 
Sept 32. Lived in Apt 204, Embank-
ment Bldg., Shanghai. In 3 Jan. 34 Subj visited 
NOULES who were on hunger strike in
prison. Subj's parents arrived in Shanghai 14 Jan 
34 & lest 20 Feb for Marseilles. Subj.
published art in New Militant, organ of NY Districts 
Worker's Party attacking STALIN.
ISAACS was also lecturing on Japan, China, and USSR 
& War Crisis in Far East.
(ZCS-1811, 16-4-2-37, 5 Feb 59: Shanghai 
Municipal Fol Files.)
the
guy
(over)
whore hung on the Brain & f
Is that pays 
would solease
toos. He will see farroll tomron.
to
Ohio
11 Srpt 51- Collins has talked to Brewer about this some more.
Brewed Cali couldn't at House 
s
said brewer promised them report he wants it.
asked brewer's found he 
file
вол
3155
ISAACS, HAROLD
26 June 1951
-
05237
File in "New Chook" file Cau
سوا
FE-1 Amstuts
Memo dated 25 June to PT/CS requesting informational namecheck on subj.
for the purpose of determining the validity of charges that Subj. is sympathetic
to and/or connected with Communist activities. See 
file for rest of memo.
on
it au dun. Kep away for time bring hustid us to know.
(PT/CO) adriced he may hair poor info.
Notified. 17. Coll who is frite aufs
struty not fin
Wabits to try to get suby. and where he is.
29 Aug 51 - Fllins had brew talking 
to Carroll & 
also been
up to 943. Carroll said had rifo. Dorije Ping Smedley it i
Utified Colling the Ford 
this son's 
he
Wants. Wants to out bad issu
betraying OPC interest... leeds of Rusty House Records (f
buy thing or the guy is that predation 
can be red 
release
to the 
on the is
reference
DO NOT TOUCH.
phou
This info
now. He will see farrell tomorrow.
content
11 Sept 51- Callis has talked to Brewer about this some org
agendy's wat
Zoid Brewer promised him Report the wants it.
asked 
Brewer & found has hadn't in file in I855
ticism
Confidant adiiced that
of China in the Hongtat de
of the drench Confalo
ofing
only the tider
dependent
event be
the
171 719
further statë! A ja tomber
10305. Si les Alvised this
DPP-10313
dict, accordi
Wat as exfent
severe
termamente
desireal
prented
the first editor of the CCP paper of which
author of "The Tragedy of the Chinese revolution" and
APAN 1ter was to become editori
APPELAN met Subj thru Alexander BUCHAN; Subj wa
According to AFPELMAN, Subj in
DIE-14747
//////#/#1330/4778
DFB 25069, 12 March 1953,
withdrawal of US support from French colonial forces in Indochine and recognition of Red China
in hope of driving a wedge between Russia and Chinese Communists.
201-18446-3.
World Policy" appears in the August 7, 1950 issue of the "New Republic". The article advocates
to these texts which is apparently non-political in nature. His article "kKorea and American
ern powers during the perild of II and later. ISAACS supplies a brief editorial introduction
collection of the official texts of various treaties and agreements among South Asian and "est-
The book "New Cycle In Asia" by ISAACS, pub in 1947 by the Institute of Pacific, "elations as a
14-00000

14-00000
ISAACS, HAROLD
"Name Chock
in
08.5237
FE-1 Amstuts
to and/or connected with Communist activities. See file for rest of memo.
1 for the purpose of determining the validity of charges that Subj. is sympathetic
26 June 1951 - Memo dated 25 June to PT/CS requesting informational namecheck on subj
(12/10) 15341
notified
"
on
that predativa cave the referred lease
OPC interest... Teds of knowny House Record (O)
Wants. Wants to get bare eased at youdain, cat si
DO NOT TOUCH.
Collins the band this act
up to Its. Carroll said bad reto. Horze Rig Smedley et al.
29 Aug 51- Fund Collins had brew talking to Caproll & also been
• Malets to try to get suby. and of where he is.
Thine. Keep away no who is strute dog to know:
away for tume Bring. dustity not gin.
Keep
14 aug 51-(pi/co) adriced he may have poor info..
thous
-
ching ou
the
み
Delay Any Coiling called again to see y
to eu.
This info now. He will see farroll tomouche.
omon SP.E.
some or
11 Sept 51-Collins has tocked to Brewer about this cords.
the now wants it.
Brewer promised time report of the ye
asked mewer & found he
Brewer said Callie Coudn't got 
at House Records
m
"grss
informant add
valled or
of U in the diar
to Prese
of the French Colonial Co
of an denendentment
only the top of
ira. In
HO CHE
a former Con
the fr
list Cost
Leather breed
ician
ven apfent mort
up desired)
] Commends. Informan
told a real est
Curber ata
in 'vised that he was t
1018. Spht epiled
DPR-10313
His High Moss
s
TY, Y
MOSCOW in erly
Syed on a free lance, iniiter.
According to APPELMAN, Subi is author of "The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution" and
APPLAN 
met 
Subj the Alexander BUCHMAN; Sub] wa the first editor of the CCP paper of which
A. AN 1ter who to become 
editor. DUB-14747
164/86616/18/
The book "New Cycle In Asia" by ISAACS, pub in 1947 by the Institute of Pacific Relations as a
collection of the official texts of various 
treaties and agreements among South Asian and West-
orn powers during the perild 
of FW II and later. ISAACS supplies a brief editorial introduction
to theme taxts which is apparently 
non-political in nature. His article "kKorea and American
World Policy" appears in the August 7, 1950 issue of the "New 
Republic". The article advocates
withdrawal of US su port from French 
colonial forces in Indochine and recognition of Red China
in hope of driving a wedge between 
Russia and Chinese Communists. D:B 25069, 12 March 1953,
201-18446-3.
14-00000
*€-97781-702
EAST 4690 pas en we een auton
but 
pay to a part 
to wins to Tambaya
Be a Mo 056 2 sony 
24
the same as a
--
yet, Callis
it is
Samy
to come
up
to
Count
• Called there. Brewer say cause male involved
00/80/560. to discuss,
give refs aut
to be passed on.
Jossing 
fo., Col. Edwards find will have to
give it out.
Collins called Brewer & they made some arrangement.
13. Apt. - Brewer, Collins & I talked over case. Prever told Collins.
What House 
is don't contain particularly derog. It is
other
files the, & fused 
& divulge wips &
Collins. 
Paid that a contact with ford
augh are
Fundation
high-lea 
CIA man (like Peradon)
-(Curly) could 
not tell food
Suly. - Collin
dade
and that Collin
Foundation
ay
-
abaut
Case is considerard closed.
apresd
13 November 1951- undated mims from 00/08 advising that "under
should subject be 
contacted with
regard to possible use
prior to
receiving a final security determination
Cory to FG-1 Collins.
ly
A
120
this t
circumstances
: by this agency
"office."
this
مة
14-00000
1
CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
SECRET
(When filled in)
PERSONALITY (201) FILE REQUEST
DATE
TO
FROM
RI/ANALYSIS SECTION
FE/2/CB
INSTRUCTIONS:. Form must be typed or printed in block letters.
126 Aug. 57
OPEN
ROOM NO.
2507-J
ACTION
AMEND
TELEPHONE
8574
SECTION 1 List 201 number, name and identifying data in the spaces provided. All known aliases and variants (including maiden name, if
applicable) must be listed. It the 
identifying data varies with the alias used, a separate form must be used. Write UNKNOWN for items you.
are unable to complete.
SECTION ih List cryptonym or pseudonym, if assigned. If true name is sensitive, obtain 201 number from 201 Control Desk and complete
Section I and 
Section 
III
. On a separate form, enter the 201 number and complete Section 11 and Section 111.
SECTION I To be completed in all cases
Submit each form separately.
SENSITIVE
NONSENSITIVE
NAME
TYPE
NAME
2.
المح
201 NO.
SECTION I
1:
SOURCE DOCUMENT
18444
(Middle)
ISAACS, Harold Robert
(first)
NAME VARIANT
(Middle)
RICORE CO
(Title)
SEX
3.
(Title)
PHOTO
BRTH CATE
.S.
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
6. CITY OR TOWN OF BIRTH
OTHER IDENTIFICATION
D
10
TES
x NO
OCCUPATION/POSITION
Correspondent of Newsweek magazine in China (1945)
1.
2.
3.
OCC/POS. CODE:
.NEWS.
CRYPTONYM
SECTION II
PSEUDONYM
SECTION 110
COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE.
19
ACTION DESK
11.
SECOND COUNTRY INTEREST
12.
THIRD COUNTRY INTEREST
12a.
CHINES)
FE/2/CE
COMMENTS:
PUNCHED
2011
Shirley D. Gundlach.
18446
PERMANENT CHARGE
RESTRICTED FILE
SIGNATURE
723
NO
NO
form No.
1 Ort. 36. 831 Use previous etios
SECRET
CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
(38)
14-00000
Vecterer d
301-18446
after the vention to cry orders to resto
Wns for pertoto
wood by
Janing dent at a editor of
ܘܘ ti mol oi
.…
ܙܚ Ad for manag ,ܡܙ ܪ܂ ܕܗ 2ܩ ܙܗܙܐܪܝ ܙܙܗܗܩ
in CU : ܢܤܫܕܝ ܙ ܠurien at quaܓܘ ' ܢܣ ܡ ܢ
ܟܡܗ n taw ܙ ܗ ܗiltor ai in tuta ܝܘ ܚ
with me 3, other representative later married Luay J..().
Venier josturer, wrked for 1911
ܕ unu yT TU :nisi ܡܢ ܐܗ ridiup ac Ai
0703
P. Perold tort
(oralical)
1930 arredan reported active to her of an 3; also reported
·Classed se suspected comintern agent. See Sity Piles, X1-2), ry4 of 20 May 1933
...
-
ae been in this country since 1917. Now (Feb 49) Special Postures siltor for Newk
aring. After comunist phase ins and early 30's biller and brilliant
critique of no direction of the Chinese Com unist Party from 1926-28 (v.
be completely dislliusioned with the core (Stalls or Tootiny branch), Live
in New York with wife and two children. WO
Carried on suspect list of Persin agentes3-1911 in onselers ....
For connection, with Hilaire RUTANS, vas, art the 111 rd International, Agnes Saltat, et a.
CLAUDINE - Cecil Frank CLASS.
1 CM IM
"
inile ip State..
(cestLined)
3 JAAC3, Harold Robert
(cont Laued).
1340 DB-6962, dated 13 December 1967 in Dossiers Wische App.
See 30 DB-4928, 31 May 1950, in Doss. THIRD (COIDUVIST) INTERNATIONAL PERSONNEL,
bdo
See D-7766, FD1 Investigative report, 28 Feb. 1951 (110).
_ bdo'
ܐܕܪܙ ܟܐ ܘܘܗ ܫܬ ܚT ad reatu t
Satimed as having, publicly broken wth Coveruntat backing of the
"Voice of Chine publication 
and having denounced book backing
% 
former editor of Shanghai 
newspaper in article for the Christian
Sefence Monitor.
or tein ܂ܙܐ ܩ ܚ ܗܠ ܩ ܕ ܩ o ed
4. ISAC3, Harold Robert (cont'd)
.ܫܝ r( in) ܒܪ. ܫܙܐ ܕut th
DFD-26749
Autor of The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution" on Korris L. APPZIMAN (qv).
Felieved to te foreign correspondent for "
Anck. First editor of CCP paper of which AFFI later to besace editor. See
in I.
Patrick J. HURLEY advised that subject told him that John King FAIRBANKS (qv) DPS-21896
10 a Trotzkyile Communist. See ref. doc. in -201-19078;
10006 20 July 11.
Subject's book, "To Peace for hala", published 1967, sunrised. Soe ref.
doo. in a 201-1846-2;
25 Dev. 1952
boj
4388
Tram Contacts
Div
Nevesont in Indochine. Alleged to have been on membership list of fict
16 Aug. 1952
Text of artiale by mubject attacking French rile in
هر
See ref. doe in R.
"
5. S. Baro Robert
ESTERNERS CONECTED WITH
THE FAR EAST
Potaph 1953-1952. (1987). In dossier-1 Calau BBLICORT-1947 Lie3.
Auther of peace for Asia (1967). In LICORAPHY-1967 Ms.
1951 Liet.
D7B-27125
which appeared in the "Chine Farms" by anonymous ethore and collaboratore.
The pamphlet anounces the uomintang and CILAR) Kal-hak for alleged me
:ight contime to rule and the imperialiste to drew their tribute from the
Park: West, KY, and le employed as a freelance journalist. See ref. dos. (RI).
Ebject's book "The Trarety of the valtion", first published 1938
in Great rained in a revised edition 1751 by Stanford nie. Press.
DFB-29131
ܚ ܕ ܝܙdܙܐܗܩ ܢܡ ܩܐܗ ,: ,ܩܥܤ nania of boc i: ut vidtion in
a devocratte socialist state, but was perverted to serve the needs of
and that the base of his can be cited as "deperelle social
See DFB-21411, 11 Feb. 1953, subjects Ida TREAT (qv) (31 201-6205-7).
.bos.
18. ure 53
ments among South Astan and westers powers during the period of world was i
is apparently non-political in nature. His article "ores & American World
6. ISAACS, Harold Rolart
9ib is a write and former rotavite
Covinist is early as 1935 in
Stated that LIT, Then-ch's (02/91/15/2759) as
Chine and had works for Tees Now Agency in
Poking after Tehaling from college ani hal even een sent to jail Lecause of his
corial activities.
_ An article by SSAAC "The Diamine of the Crisis" in the "Saturday Review.
4 August 1951, states, "The Aston criate is not created by Russian total tarii, bet
to
I'
these revolutions into demorate pale. His article "The Blind Alley of
antivities of the seaters nations in Orient brad fear and betred, word calaly
Fearonsible 
for rise of totaliter. In the "Saturday Roof Literature of.
Criticised book for experistality and for sending only military solutions to
problers of 
Crimni. 
See 
DFB
-
30869ed2ber 1953 to 1 (201-19466).
Subject presently reside at 92 Varicked, Naber, K., and is exployed as a BFB-JUTA
6 Apair Sh
201-0018446