Talk:Samuel Krafsur

message: The entry on S.S. Krafsur is not a neutral point of view. Indeed, it's a calumny, using perjorative wording and presenting conclusions unsupported by fact or evidence. Krafsur was never charged with espionage. Why build a potted biography on the premise of espionage. What's the motive here?
S.S. Krafsur was an employee of TASS and as such, a registered agent of a foreign power, as required by law. That is not synonomous with 'spy' or 'secret agent'. Upon whom could he 'spy' as an open and acknowledged employee of TASS, with full press credentials to do what reporters do? Everyone around knew he worked for TASS. TASS was the Russian news agency and they didn't even pay union scale. Krafsur was right to leave TASS when US - USSR relationships became increasingly hostile.
 
I'd like to know who wrote this smear. I can find no evidence in reading published Venona transcripts that Krafsur played a 'key role' or any role in recruiting other journalists as agents for the Soviet Union. He did, it seems, answer enquiries from TASS management about the attitude of one or more journalists to the Soviet Union. In the context of WWII in which the USA, GB, and USSR were allies this hardly seemed treasonous. It was, moreover, entirely consistent with the paranoid style of Soviet practice to ask such questions.  
It is false to describe Lincoln Brigade volunteers as 'fighting for the communists'. In fact, they were fighting with Spanish loyalists for the legally elected government of Spain and fighting against Franco's insurgents, Hitlers' Condor Legion, and Mussolini's army, all of whom were supporting vigorously and decisively the fascist revolution in Spain. The International Brigades' volunteers could not have known that USSR support in the conflict  was compromised by Soviet internal affairs (read their witch hunts and show trials) because of the highly secretive and paranoid ways in which the Soviets operated. 
S. S. Krafsur was 'uncooperative' with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956 because they only wanted him to name publicly people he might have thought were communists or communist supporters. Nothing was asked about spying because there wasn't any. This was show business because the Committee already had full knowledge of American leftists. Krafsur was right not to play the game of fingering others for the Committee's witch hunt. And it cost him too.
The fact is that S.S. Krafsur was no more than a legal, registered employee of an allied nation in wartime doing his job as a newsman. His request in 1944 (if memory serves) to volunteer for the armed forces was turned down by the State Department because his job with TASS held to be in the national interest of USA.
- Elliot Scoville Krafsur
:If you are taking unbridge to this article it is because you don't like what it says, it does not mean that the information is incorrect. The article is well sourced. Most of the people who "volunteered" to fight as members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were members of the Communist Party, including Conlon Nancarrow.
:You don't deny that he was a foreign "agent" I see, and most likely you weren't quite aware of just what Krafsur's involvement was with the KGB since the Venona papers weren't released until the 1990's. And it would have been difficult for HUAAC to know that Krafsur was an asset to the KGB because his codename IDE protected his identity until the records of the Soviet Union became available and revealed that IDE was indeed Krafsur.
:You can read the latest books and sources on the Venona papers and the American Communist Party for the old standards of beliefs on these issues are being shattered in light of the information that has been uncovered. ClownBoy 03:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Krafsur

message: Venona transcript 705 KGB New York to Moscow, 17 May 1944 reads in part,
:"After months of study we propose to use an employee of the Editorial Office [TASS], Samuel KRAFSUR (name sent in the clear), henceforth "IDE", for cultivating newspapermen's circles in Washington, D.C.  IDE is a Communist Party member, was in the International Brigade in SPAIN.  He is absolutely devoted to the USSR, always zealously carries out minor tasks set by Vladimir Pravdin in connection with the obtaining of information.  Systematic work among IDE's extensive connections will give opportunities for obtaining valuable information and also of studying individual subjects for signing on [KONTRAKTsIYa].  Of the more than [B% 2] leads of IDE's which could be used on the basis of I.'s[Ya.] personal relationships with them [the following][a] deserve special attention:  Joseph BERGER - personal secretary of the Chairman of the National Committee of the Democratic Party. [redacted Journalist born 1899] - brother of the well-known journalist [redacted Newspaper correspondent born in 1897, brother of redacted].  IDE is very friendly with them both.  In future, if development of IDE's work requires it, [C% we shall provide] him with an active contact [ZhIVAYa SVYaZ'] so that information will be recieved in New York promptly.  We await your sanction."
Thank for the opprotunity to extract this document from the gif file; will be happy to extract more documents if necessary.  nobs 18:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Venona

message: This business is going nowhere. Legitimate objections have been registered in asking Wikipedia to withdraw the biography. Wikipedia's spokesman Tony Walton encourages the controversy and denies the validity of the points we've made. It seems entertainment is the company interest here. 
Well, it's not entertaining for the family and it's time to withdraw from this discussion. There are other ways to deal with this. We've got some anonymous (yes, Mr Walton, anonymous) folks hugely enjoying their exercise in rightousness and so let's let them 'win' the day. After all, what have they won since only they know their names? - E S Krafsur
: Just out of curiousity, have you asked Yale University to "withdraw" the book they published, naming Samuel Krafsur as "an important Soviet agent" who "played a key role in the KGB's efforts to find journalistic informants and agents"? (Haynes/Klehr, Venona, pp. 242) Will you be employing "other ways" to deal with them, and the Library of Congress, where Mr. Haynes is an employee? Noel (talk) 14:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TIME OUT 

message: As this article is being researched, one thing to keep in mind is there will be a tie-in with the I. F. Stone article, another highly controversial piece.  In Krafsur's case, the evidence seems much more clear cut.  I would encourage researchers to pay close attention to the relationship if Izzy Stone.  nobs 16:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, good point. I had forgotten about the IF Stone tie-in. Given how notable the IFS controversy is, I would say this ups the notability of Krafsur, who apparently talent-spotted him. (BTW, I'm not sure that Stone ever really did anything for the Soviets, although I guess it's somewhat murky.) Noel (talk) 17:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Personal view on Stone: I don't think Stone was much of an information source, he did however provide "legitimacy" to numerous front organizations, which had the effect of overwhelming FBI counterintelligence operations.  That may have been his only task. nobs 17:48, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: I F Stone

message: We can only judge Krafsur's importance from the Venona transcriptions and rightly so. However, the US only managed to intercept and decryipt fraction of the estimated messages that were being send to Moscow. There is bound to be much more involvement that has not yet been discovered and my never be. So his true importance as an operative may never be known. Dwain 22:41, September 2, 2005 (UTC)
:Krafsur is unique in many ways; what is decrypted, from his recruitment onwards, gives a very good picture.  And he is not a low-level source, he was regarded as extrememly important. Twice we have him relaying the thinking FDR, also Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Ambassador Harriman, among other important sources.  And the issues discussed in #878B & 848, the dismemberment of Germany and the Polish question, remain extremely controversial.  Plus we have good insights into how he functioned both as a recruiter & purveyor of high level information.  There are good insights into how the KGB operated in handling him.  And one thing I found interesting, to underscore its importance, the date on #878B & 848, 31/3/1967, twenty-three years after it was sent, the NSA was still working on decphyering that document.  nobs 01:06, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Comment 

message: The contents of decrypts # 1433, 1435 are particularly interesting; the KGB operational report says how dependant they are of the "Editorial Office", i.e. TASS (Krafsur), the suggestion that the 
whole Editorial Office may have to be moved to Washington.  This is the famous decrypt whrere the New York and Washington KGB offices criticize each other. Pravdin is responding to Aspresyan's statement that without "their help" (CPUSA, specifically Krafsur's Editorial Office) "we are completely powerless".  It goes on to say that if Thomas Dewey were elected in 1944, "this source would dry up", i.e. the connection Krafsur had to the White House & President.  nobs 03:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is part of what is discussed in the section New York Espionage Operations -- the New KGB of the NSA's release "The Venona Story" by Robert L. Benson, a primer on the subject of Venona.  Writers have made light of two facts (1) the dispute & criticism of each other by the two KGB offices, and (2) their open admission of their dependence upon native FELLOWCOUNRTYMEN CPUSA members.  With the Samuel Krafsur bio, we see exactly why they were so dependent, Krafsur was a source of FDR's "thinking" in at least two decrypts, plus other high level sources.  nobs 03:41, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 1433, 1435 

message: Excerpted reference from  # 1291 KGB New York to Moscow, 9 September 1944, p.2 
:"In a talk with Krafsur the correspondent of the Baltimore Sun Paul Ward completely confirmed Walter Lippmann in regard to the principal aim of Franklin D. Roosevelt's meeting with Winston Churchill adding the Roosevelt also intends to discuss the question of India." ; message was resent here with more of the coded signal recovered.
:Krafsur is a direct pipeline into the White House, transmitting to the KGB confidential planning for World War II Summit Conferences.  I beleive this is the Quebec Conference (List_of_World_War_II_conferences).nobs 02:33, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Notability

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