KGB Material Released By Cold War Project, Available Online

pha7boy writes "The Cold War International History Project just released the 'Vassiliev Notebooks.' The notebooks are an important new source of information on Soviet intelligence operations in the United States from 1930 to 1950. Though the KGB's archive remains closed, former KGB officer turned journalist Alexander Vassiliev was given the unique opportunity to spend two years poring over materials from the KGB archive taking detailed notes — including extended verbatim quotes — on some of the KGB's most sensitive files. Though Vassiliev's access was not unfettered, the 1,115 pages of densely handwritten notes that he was able to take shed new and important light on such critical individuals and topics as Alger Hiss, the Rosenberg case, and 'Enormous,' the massive Soviet effort to gather intelligence on the Anglo-American atomic bomb project. Alexander Vassiliev has donated his original copies of the handwritten notebooks to the Library of Congress with no restriction on access. They are available to researchers in the Manuscript Division."

Article about Vassiliev's credibility

[miletus]

Here's an article from the Nation that questions some of Vassiliev's conclusions on the Hiss case [thenation.com]

Re:He did what for two years?

[abigor]

I hope you're joking, as that is the correct use of the verb "to pore":

pore

1. to read or study with steady attention or application: a scholar poring over a rare old manuscript.
2. to gaze earnestly or steadily: to pore over a painting.
3. to meditate or ponder intently (usually fol. by over, on, or upon): He pored over the strange events of the preceding evening.

Re:#2

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, [freerepublic.com]I [raptureready.com] do [conservapedia.com].

Freaking hilarious. While it's possible that original troll is just an imitation of stupidity as opposed to the real thing, your reasoning is tortured.

— not GP AC

Re:Yes but...

[anaesthetica]

The Venona project [wikipedia.org], only declassified toward the end of the Cold War, contains a large amount of information vindicating the position that the U.S. government was indeed riddled with Soviet assets. McCarthy didn't have access to Venona, and in all probability his lists of communists working in the government were a wild goose chase. It's unfortunate that his tactics and fervor discredited his larger objective, however, because it turns out that there were quite a number of spies in the U.S. government and other key institutions of American society.

Re:Article about Vassiliev's credibility

[nbauman]

I think the Nation article raises points that stand on their own merits:

Vassiliv sued John Lowenthal (and lost) for libel over Lowenthal's claim 'that Weinstein and Vassiliev "omit relevant facts" and "selectively replaced covernames with their own notion of the real names." 'that "he never met the name of Alger Hiss in the context of some cooperation with some special services of the Soviet Union."'

When Vassiliev was asked on the witness stand whether 'he'd ever seen a single document linking Alger Hiss with "Ales"--the code name of a Soviet agent in the 1940s who, Weinstein and Vassiliev insisted, had to be Hiss--he admitted he hadn't.'

The 5th Column

[jmorris42]

> True. But they were mostly useless.

Depends on what your definition of useless is. Go read _Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies_ by M. Stanton Evans. The fifty year seal on the Senate records has expired and combined with many other sources, all well footnoted, that book makes several things clear.

1. McCarthy had no idea just how far the rabbit hole went. Which is why he lost. But what he did know was for the most part accurate.

2. The US State Dept from the entry of the Soviet Union into WWII to the end of the period covered in the book was essentially in Soviet hands. China and Eastern Europe fell into Communist hands with the heroic assistance of the 5th Column within our foreign service.

3. A non-trivial but not quite majority of the US Congress were either Communists or useful idiots. The majority were Dems but the Pro/Anti Communist line hadn't hardened alone party lines to the same extent. Many Dems were still hard core anti-communist, including for example Robert Kennedy who served with Joe McCarthy for a time.

Again, I dare you kids to read it. It is brutal in the attention to detail and use of actual declassified documents.