Sunday, May 2, 2021

Interview of Soviet Military Intelligence Illegal Zalman Litvin (1992)

  Transcribed, translated, and edited by Kevin Riehle  

  With assistance from Katherine Ruffatto[1][2]

 Introduction

The following is the English translation of a video-recorded interview of Zalman Volfovich Litvin, who operated as a Soviet military intelligence illegal officer in China from 1935 to 1937, and in Southern California from 1938 to 1945.  He used the name Ignacy Samuel Witczak while he was in the United States.  The interview took place in 1992, when Litvin was 84 years old, and he died the following year.  A video of the interview is posted to the Russian video site Net Film in two parts at https://www.net-film.ru/film-25738/ (Part 1) and https://www.net-film.ru/film-25737/ (Part 2).

The existence of an illegal intelligence officer using the name Witczak was first made public in 1946 in the Canadian government’s Report of the Royal Commission, which presented the results of investigations based on the revelations of Soviet military intelligence code clerk Igor Gouzenko, who defected in September 1945.[3]  The materials that Gouzenko turned over to the Canadian government contained a reference to Witczak, which the Canadian government passed to the FBI, leading to an FBI investigation.  Witczak was mentioned again in 1952 in a U.S. congressional report titled The Shameful Years: Thirty Years of Soviet Espionage in the United States, which provides additional detail about the FBI’s investigation.[4]  The name Zalman Litvin was not known at that time.  Litvin’s real name was first made public in 1990 by Petr Ivanovich Ivashutin, the long-serving former Director of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), in his article “Докладывала точно (“Reported Precisely”), ВоенноИсторический Журнал (Journal of Military History), 1990, No. 5.  Litvin was also briefly referenced in Venona materials, which consist of communications between Moscow and Soviet intelligence stations around the world from 1943 to 1946 that were intercepted and decrypted by the U.S. government, and made publicly available in 1995.

Litvin’s account provides valuable firsthand documentation of a Soviet intelligence officer who operated clandestinely abroad.  Nevertheless, as it was recorded over 45 years after the events described, he glosses over certain portions of the story and deliberately withholds some information to protect his sources.

Litvin’s interview should be read in conjunction with Dr. Mike Gruntman’s book Enemy Among the Trojans: A Soviet Spy at USC (Los Angeles; Figueroa Press, 2010) (http://www.astronauticsnow.com/spyatusc/index.html), which provides a U.S. perspective on the case, as well as information about Litvin’s life after his return to the Soviet Union in 1945.

Interview: “From the History of Secret Services,” Part 1

Narrator:  Special services of any country do not tolerate too close attention on them by journalists.  That is understandable.  Despite the fact that we know today that the Academy of the Ministry of Security of Russia[5] is located here, much, or more accurately everything, is carefully hidden from the curious eyes of passers-by.

Russian special services are justifiably proud of the fact that among their employees have been outstanding intelligence officers of the 20th century, like Rudolf Abel, Gordon Lonsdale, and Richard Sorge.[6]  Russians show them love, and adversaries, respect.  But there are people who have worked for many years beyond the borders of the country and who have done infinitely much for its security, but whom professionals from neither Japanese nor American counterintelligence services could name.

Their strengths were not only an outstanding ability to use weapons of all kinds, but, even more so, a deep analytical ability, and of course, a love for their homeland.

Today, when the press pays so much attention to all types of traitors like Kuzichkin and Gordievsky,[7] we will tell about a remarkable military intelligence illegal, Zalman Litvin. 

Litvin:  A long time before World War II, information about the plans of Japanese militarists began to arrive at the intelligence organs of the Soviet Union, at military intelligence GRU.  To clarify which direction Japanese military circles would choose to fulfill their expansionist aspirations, to solve that task, the GRU trained a whole group of great intelligence officers, including a man named Richard Sorge, a man of legend, who succeeded, under the most difficult Japanese circumstances, to create a hugely effective intelligence rezidentura that has no equal for its results. 

At the same time, it created a second echelon as well, into which, completely by chance, I was drawn.

I was born in a small Siberian town, Verkhneulinsk, which is located between Irkutsk and Chita.  That town is now called Ulan-Ude and is the capital of the Buryat Autonomous Republic.

Journalist:  You were born into a patriarchal Jewish family, right?

Litvin:  I was born into a patriarchal Jewish family.  I had a brother and sister.  My father was a merchant in one of the shops in Verkhneulinsk.  We lived at below middle class.  I was the only member of my family to receive a higher education.  After graduating from middle school in 1926, I entered the Eastern Department (Chinese Section) of the Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok. 

Journalist: You had chosen that specialty since childhood.  Why specifically there?

Litvin:  I chose that specialty, so to speak, by chance.  I initially was thinking about entering the Irkutsk State University law school.  For some reason I had always imagined myself as becoming a great lawyer.  But some of my friends influenced me, saying, “there are already too many lawyers, but there are too few China specialists.  Why don’t you go to the famous Far Eastern State University?”  At that time there were only two Eastern Departments, in Leningrad and Vladivostok. 

I studied there for four years.  During those four years I was able to obtain a pretty good knowledge of the Chinese language, good enough that, during the events on the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1929,[8] I was recruited (as a student in the third year of the Chinese department) as a translator in the First Pacific Division.  I crossed the Chinese border with the division at that time and for the first time encountered, so to speak, the necessity of using the language for military purposes.

We captured a group of prisoners and I was assigned as supervisor of the prisoner convoy.  I was to deliver them from Manchurian territory to Khabarovsk, where Blyukher,[9] who later became a marshal, was commander.  I interrogated the prisoners in Khabarovsk for Soviet military intelligence.  It was then that I first came to the attention of Soviet military intelligence.

Journalist:  How did that happen?

Litvin:  A representative of our intelligence, whose surname I remember well—his surname was Melnikov[10], a colonel by rank—was the rezident there.  He paid attention to me because I knew English, and at that time he had received a large amount of intelligence information in English.  He didn’t have a translator, and when he heard that I knew English and could help him as a translator, he brought me into that intense activity.

I can now say, from the perspective of those long, long years ago, that the GRU learned about my existence based on his recommendation.  And suddenly, completely unexpected for me, I was called to the telephone.  A man introduced himself with a military rank and told me that a comrade wanted to meet me and talk about my future.  It was completely unexpected for me.  I, of course, agreed.  He told me directly, “we are interested in you as a person who knows both Chinese and English and who has undergone training in the city of Kashgar.  We have only positive information about you, and we want to bring you into the work of the GRU.  Think about it.”

Journalist:  And how long did you consider the proposition?

Litvin:  I considered the proposition for only a short time, because I was, apparently to some measure, an adventurer.  I was possessed with an adventurer’s spirit, so to speak, to continued working along that line, with which I had on a small scale already become acquainted in Kashgar.  And being still young, I of course, was interested, and I was being called into that line of work.  I agreed.

Journalist:  Does that mean your training as an illegal began?

Litvin:  The training of illegals is, I would say, a kind of in-house training, because I don’t even known whether at that time there was any kind of special training school for preparing illegals.  I just don’t know.  But for some reason, maybe because I had some small experience, they decided to use and train me… to use major specialists in that field working in the GRU.

Journalist:  And the work in China, was it supposed to be directed against someone, against some country, or for what were they training you in that work?

Litvin:  At that time China held an adversarial policy against the Soviet Union.  Naturally, I was directed to work against China of that period; against a China that conducted an anti-Soviet policy.  At that time, our very famous intelligence officer Borodin[11] worked in China; the Borodin who played a huge role in training Chinese revolutionaries.

Journalist:  And when and where did you meet Borodin the first time?

Litvin:  I never met him.  I only know his name, knew that he worked in Canton, and that he created, or he participated in creating, the Whampoa School[12] in the city of Canton, which trained Chinese military intelligence officers.  The “Whampoa School,” as far as I can remember, maybe that isn’t completely accurate, but I remember the name very well.

Journalist:  Did only Chinese train at that school?

Litvin:  Only Chinese trained at the school, and our comrades were the instructors.  At that time our General Blyukher was operating under the name General Galin, worked under the name Galin.  He, along with Chiang Kai-Shek prepared the so-called famous Northern Military Approach.[13]  Chiang Kai-Shek at that time cooperated with us, so to speak, until he was captured in Shanghai, where he essentially betrayed us and Blyukher and Borodin had to escape.[14]

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, during your training as an illegal, when did the Japanese direction come up, and did it come up then?

Litvin:  No, it didn't come up at that time.  But they told me that my education…they would tell me that my education allowed them to use me widely in countries on the Asian continent, not naming countries specifically.  But at that time, so to speak, the most important country for me already, without need for any clarification, was Japan, because no other countries could compare in political and military significance with Japan.  I already felt at that time that Japan…I felt without them telling me, that our distant interests were with Japan.

Journalist:  When your training was complete, when did you find out, so to speak, what your direction would be?

Litvin:  Sometime toward the end of 1934 I was ready to travel to China.

Journalist:  How did you get there?

Litvin: A route was planned.  I was initially supposed to travel to Vienna and live there for a time to become acquainted with the capitalist ways of things at that period.  From Vienna, I was to go to Italy, and my designated rezident in northern China, Zhbikovskiy,[15] traveled to America to obtain legalization in China for him and me.  We were supposed to meet in Italy.  For some reason, the Administration decided to legalize me as a citizen of Finland, even though I didn’t know a word of Finnish.  They obtained a passport but, so to speak, with a fake photograph.  I therefore attached little meaning to this.  I thought that the Administration knew everything, and I traveled to Poland, through Austria, to Italy, and stayed for a short time in Italy until my future rezident arrived there.  We traveled to Shanghai completely successfully.

Journalist:  And that passport did not disappoint?

Litvin:  That passport did not disappoint.  We decided initially to go to Shanghai, I mean, to set up our base at Peking.

Journalist: And how did you secure legalization?  How did Zhbikovskiy get to America?  Under what passport did he travel, Zalman Volfovich?

Litvin:  Zhbikovskiy lived under a German passport, since he knew German superbly.  He superbly knew Polish as well.  But he was a German by his passport.  How did he come to America?  He succeeded, apparently with the help of some of our comrades, to arrange with a large, at that time, American perfume firm, from which he received the rights to open an affiliate in China, with the rights to sell a wide variety of American perfume products in China.  When he arrived in Italy, he already possessed the necessary documents.

[Section break]

Litvin: I gradually befriended a whole group of students at Peking University, young, talented guys.  And I thus learned that they had strong anti-Japanese attitudes. 

Journalist:  The Chinese?

Litvin:  These Chinese students.  Occasionally I had picnics with them, they came to visit me, and I visited them in their dormitory.   Their instructor led them and me, and I gradually befriended a whole group of Chinese students.  And that was unexpected for me.  They turned out to be the main heroes in the drama I was called on to play in China at that time because I had received clear instructions to operate against Japan.

Journalist: You mean, when you received instructions for Japan once you were already in China?

Litvin: …instructions for Japan, since at that time the invasion into northern China by Japanese forces had begun.  At that very time I received the assignment to collect information about which Japanese forces were entering northern China, how are they armed, what were their plans, and what were their objectives?  That group of Chinese students with whom I came into contact, with whom I had become friends even before I received that assignment, was a great help.  I was surprised that they so easily agreed to work against Japan.  I understood that they were so infected with anti-Japanese feelings at that time, that they were so upset by the sudden invasion of the Japanese into northern China, that they immediately, almost for no money, helped me.  I simply, so to speak, got close to them ideologically.  They knew I was from the Soviet Union…

Journalist:  They knew?

Litvin:  They knew.  I opened up to them.  And I have to say, that despite my over three-year stay in China, not one of them ever betrayed me.  They helped me for a long time.  In particular, they found a Chinese man who worked in a Japanese headquarters, who had access at that time to secret Japanese military document, copies of which I received from them.

Journalist:  He worked in the Japanese general staff.

Litvin:  Not in the general staff, but in the staff of a group of forces that were occupying northern China.

Journalist: Do you remember the name of the Chinese man who worked there?

Litvin:  No.

Journalist:  Through him came valuable…

Litvin:  I remember only one surname of the supervisor of the group, whose name was Zhao, his surname was Zhao.  Zhao came to visit me in Tianjin about twice a week from Peking.  I had already moved to Tianjin at that time.  That city is located about two to three hours by train from Peking.  It is a rather large industrial center of the PRC… that is, China, the Chinese Republic, not PRC.  And he brought me information that he had collected from his assistants, about the locations of Japanese forces in northern China.  He had it all written on very thin rice paper—all of the data.  When he was coming to Peking on one of his meetings, Japanese forces surrounded the train and began to search every Chinese person.  You can imagine, if the Japanese discovered that rice paper on him, he would be immediately shot.  But he, showing extraordinary calm, held a huge Chinese dumpling in his hands while he was being searched.  The rice paper was inside the dumpling.  And while a Japanese officer searched him, he gradually ate the dumpling and ate the paper.  That is Zhao was like, what kind of courage he had.  will never forget that man.

Journalist: And your contacts with the rezident, how did they happen, what was his leadership role?

Litvin:  The rezident gave me instructions for what direction I should work.  Later he told me to open… to rent a location for an office for our firm.  I worked in that office, came as if I worked there every day.  Representatives of various trade organizations who were interested in buying our perfume products came to my office.

Journalist:  American, you mean?

Litvin:  American perfume products.  I also organized the advertising of our products in the Chinese press in China.  I had an agreement with an advertising firm that systematically advertised our products.  Our firm worked pretty well, because we sustained our rezidentura on its profits, and we were able to withstand any inspection, if there had been one, to confirm the means on which my rezident and I lived.  It gave sufficient… the volume of our sales was sufficient to justify our relatively comfortable living in Peking and Tianjan. 

Journalist:  You mean you turned out to be a good businessman.

Litvin:  If I could say so, I turned out to somewhat of a good businessman, able to navigate that rather uncomplicated business.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, was there only you and your rezident in your group, or was there someone else, like an assistant…?

Litvin:  Only the rezident and I.  Plus our helpers who we had recruited from among the Chinese. 

Journalist:  How did you transmit your collected information to Moscow?

Litvin:  A radioman was sent temporarily to the group, a German by nationality, who represented a large Swiss watch company in China.  He had a transmitter and all of our information was transmitted directly to Moscow through him.

Journalist:  What Swiss firm did he represent in China, do you remember?

Litvin:  I don’t remember.

Journalist:  You don’t remember, right?

Litvin:  Which Swiss firm?  No, I don’t remember.  But I know he had a large selection of watches.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, it was there where you first met the Japanese.

Litvin:  I saw there for the first time the Japanese war machine.  How cruelly they treated the Chinese.  They did not consider Chinese to be people.  They beat them.  They would not let them pass.  They searched them. The treated them very severely.  And during the period I really grew to hate the Japanese.  It was completely incomprehensible to me. How could you treat a man, a person, the way they treated the Chinese?  That great, hardworking…  The Chinese, if I could briefly describe them, those people were workhorses, real workhorses, who could labor unceasingly for a long time, an extremely long time, to feed their family.  It was a surprisingly poor country.  And of course, the Chinese were divided into various militant groups.  And the Chinese power was in no way comparable to the Japanese power.  Japanese forces took northern China practically without a shot, without any serious resistance.

Journalist:  Did you already at that time know, so to speak, or feel that Japan represented a threat to our country?

Litvin:  Maybe not to the extent that I should have imagined.  But I understood, in any case, that Japan was a country with which we should be extremely careful; which we should study; that we should know, both from the perspective of its technological potential, and from the perspective of its military potential.  The discipline of the Japanese military was exceptional.  Japanese soldiers were exceptionally trained, both in technology and in tactics.  It was a highly specialized people.

Journalist:  But you did not like them as people, the Japanese?

Litvin:  The Japanese, no.  I didn’t like them.  They were very rude.  They treated me more or less normally.  But as I later learned, apparently some suspicion about our firm had begun to bother them.

When I received the order to liquidate our firm in 1937 and leave through Manchuria, I received a transit visa in my passport through the Soviet Union to Finland.  I was supposedly still a Finn.  While I was in China, I remember ordering an extremely beautiful tea service for 12 people.  The tea service was sent to me from Japan.  It was a beautiful tea service.  I thought, how happy they will be at home to receive such a present.  I very carefully packed it in a large chest with my other things.  At the time, the government of Manchukuo was already established under Japanese supervision.  I reserved a cabin on the train with the chest in which the tea service, which I was closely guarding, was packed.  I crossed the border from China into Manchuria and there was a customs post.  Manchurian customs ordered me to open the chest in which the tea service was located.  The Japanese inspector, who was inspecting Japanese customs and me, opened the chest, looked at the tea service, and forcefully slammed the lid shut, and half the service was broken.  I did not know why he treated me so cruelly.  When I arrived in Harbin, I noticed surveillance following me.  I stayed in one of the best hotels in Harbin, and I constantly noticed someone following me. 

Journalist: Japanese counterintelligence had spotted you?

Litvin:  Apparently at that time Japanese counterintelligence had some information about me.  I arrived from Harbin to the Manchuria station; the Soviet Moscow-Manchuria express on which I was supposed to cross the Soviet Union came to the Manchuria station.  That was the instruction from the Center.  Most of the passengers who were traveling with me, while we were waiting for the Soviet express at the Manchuria station, asked the Japanese commandant for permission to see Manchuria.  They all received permission, except me.  He gave everyone their passport, but he kept mine.  I understood at that moment that the Japanese knew something about me.  I prayed to God that I could…not for him to let me see Manchuria, but that he would give me my passport so I could board our express that was arriving in Manchuria.

Journalist:  How did Zhbikovskiy get out of China?

Litvin:  First I’ll finish telling about this.  Zhbikovskiy went through Europe.  He was ordered to leave through Europe.  He traveled by a circuitous route to the Soviet Union through Europe.  I also wanted to go through Europe, knowing the weakness, so to speak, due to various suspicions.  I very much did not want to cross Manchuria.  But they only recommended that I travel through Manchuria.

When the Soviet express arrived at the Manchuria station and the Japanese official began to hand out passports, he looked at me, held my Finnish passport for a short time, and angrily threw it at me.  I received my baggage, spotted the Soviet guide, and boarded the luxurious, soft cabin.  The train began to move.  And on that train I made it to Moscow.

Journalist:  And thus ended your first foreign assignment, right?

Litvin:  Thus ended my first foreign assignment.

Journalist:  That was in 1937.

Litvin:  That was 1937.

Journalist:  And did your know what was happening at that time in the GRU, how they were recalling...?[16]

Litvin:  You know, being in China I knew almost nothing about that.  But when I returned to Moscow in 1937, I visited the GRU the next day or two.  And after a day or two I learned how our leadership was being replaced.  I met with one, and the next day he was arrested.  And thus, a significant portion of the people with whom I met were later arrested by Stalin’s apparatus.  I was amazed myself knowing that arrests were happening, arrests of people whom I met after my return from China.  I realized then for the first time that my supervisor was arrested, my rezident, with whom I had worked so much, who had done so much for me. How long we had been friends, and how much we had accomplished together; suddenly I realized he was arrested.  And there was no one to ask about it.  I was afraid to ask the question.

Journalist:  And what do you think, why did they never take you?

Litvin:  To this day I cannot answer that question.  Many were arrested around me.  Not only did they not arrest me, but they began to train me for a second trip after my home leave.  It is hard for me to explain that.  I to this day cannot say why.  I was ready to be among those victims, who at the time were very many.  But a man with whom I worked even to the end, I can’t remember his name, he was apparently beyond suspicion, he met with me constantly during that time.  But later I was transferred to another group in the GRU that worked on Japan.

But as for how people treated me in the GRU, as for how they treated me and talked about me, how they talked about my future, I was completely at a loss about why I remained out of that game.  Why the KGB at that time, I can’t remember what it was called then, the GPU…

Journalist:  NKVD.

Litvin:  NKVD… why I, so to speak, slipped away from the attention of that organization.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, when you got to the Japan Group, what kind of group was it?  Did they know, did they inform you that Sorge was working in Japan?

Litvin:  Initially, I knew absolutely nothing about that, and I did not know about Sorge’s work in Japan.  But simply… Just as before I went to China, they systematically lectured about Japan, what Japan was, the country, the people, the economy, politics, state structure.  I gradually comprehended all of those elements, working in the group that at that time was led by General Popov.[17]  He died.

In the process of training, I gradually learned about their ideas, that the idea was not to send me, not to assign me to Japan, but my direction was the United States, where, in California there was a large number of Japanese citizens—that is, American citizens of Japanese descent, the so-called Nisei.  They considered…  My leadership at that time considered that specifically here many opportunities might open up to find Japanese who would agree to work against their country, as American citizens. 

Journalist:  More precisely, why was California chosen, Zalman Volfovich?

Litvin:  I think that California was chosen first because there concent…  In southern California there is concentrated a large Japanese population, in the area of Los Angeles, in the area of San Francisco, where many Japanese, so to speak, are already complete Americanized, are apparently completely loyal to America.  Politically it seems they were close to the American ideals.  And for them, as we thought at that time, so to speak, they would not necessarily see working against Japan as working against their native country.  Their native country had become the United States.  And that apparently led our leadership to believe that it would be easier to work with them, they would be easier to draw into cooperation than, say, to attract a Japanese living in Japan.

Journalist:  Did the training for that American assignment last long in Moscow?

Litvin:  I think, as far as I can remember, that training lasted about two months.  It was devised that I could best be legalized in American as a university student, where I could meet both American and Japanese students.  Universities in America occupy a special position.  They are independent.  And the American student body has not, I would say, so totally embraced American ideology, if I could say that.  I experienced that for myself when I met American students.  I understood that many of them had their own opinions about the various issues that America was facing, and in particular issues related to Japan.

Journalist: Zalman Volfovich, how did your wife react to the fact that such a diversion was coming in her life too?

Litvin:  It seems to me that she did not comprehend all of the difficulties connected with this trip, with this assignment.  But the very thought of traveling to Paris, about traveling to a country like the United States, interested her.  I don’t think she thought about the danger connected with this assignment.  It seems like I sheltered her so much from those thoughts that the idea that this might be dangerous, in particular for both of us, didn’t even arise.  The thought did not take root.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, how did you get to California?  And under what guise did you travel there, what was your surname?

Litvin: My surname was… First I was given a Canadian passport.

Journalist:  In Moscow?

Litvin: In Moscow.  Under the name Richard Witczak.[18]  As it was explained to me, the passport belonged to that person, a Canadian of Polish origin, who had at some point joined the Republican Army during the war in Spain.  I was told that that person had died, that the passport, so to speak, could be considered ironclad, and that in Intelligence they thought the passport was very safe.  It was in fact, a real Canadian passport, with only the photograph replaced.  The remaining parameters simply fit.  And thus, with that passport, in that name, I traveled to the United States.

Narrator:  And thus, America awaited him.  That was on the eve of the Second World War.  The story of that is in our next episode.

 

Interview: “From the History of Secret Services,” Part 2

 

Narrator:  We continue our story about an illegal military intelligence office, Zalman Litvin.  In the past lie China, acquaintance with Japanese counterintelligence, and the loss of friends and colleagues during the years of repression.  Ahead lies a new assignment and new dangers.  This time, he will be confronted by one of the strongest counterintelligence services in the world, the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America.  And thus, America.

Journalist:  How old were you at that time?

Litvin:  That was 1938—30 years old.

Journalist:  Well, tell us, with your loving wife, 30 years old in Paris.  I think you and your wife had a wonderful time.

Litvin:  We went to nightclubs, and in general we had a wonderful time.  And my wife of course very much admired Paris.  We went to several stylish shops, but we were shocked by the colossal prices, which were unaffordable to us at that time.

Journalist:  And were you well supplied with money?

Litvin:  We were supplied with money sufficient that were not in need of anything.  They provided a certain amount, I don’t remember how much, for an extended period of time in case I was out of communications, so that I could survive for some time.

Journalist:  Did you have any meetings with representatives of intelligence in Paris?

Litvin:  No. There were no meetings of any kind in Paris.

Journalist:  Nothing?

Litvin:  We were supposed to go from Paris to Boulogne.  In Boulogne we boarded the French, I think, I don’t remember, the French or Belgian steamer Bendan.  We traveled on that steamer to New York.  Of course, everything was very interesting to us, the steamer itself, the people who were with us, and everything that we saw.  But especially, of course, the moment we sailed into New York surprised us the most.  It was, of course, the first time we had seen huge skyscrapers and the huge Statue of Liberty.  Everything I had read, everything that I knew about America, seemed to me to be true.  And I couldn’t take my eyes off those sites that presented themselves before us when we sailed into New York on that steamer.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, the thought of going to America with such a specific mission.  Did it disturb you?

Litvin:  You know, it did not disturb me.  But the anxiety began the moment we arrived at New York and they announced that immigration officials would be coming on board the ship, and that every passenger on the ship would have to go through immigration control.  That, of course, is what disturbed me.  I was afraid and my wife was afraid.  Would we successfully make it through immigration control?  Were there any mistakes in the passport?  Was the surname listed in any black list, which could, so to speak, influence the immigration authorities?  That, of course, was very disturbing.  I think the two, maybe three hours of waiting before the immigration inspector saw us were the most difficult for me in all of my time working in intelligence, except for the final moment when I had to leave America.  And when the immigration stamp appeared in our passport my wife and I went to a restaurant and drank a bottle of champagne. 

Journalist:  And with that, so to speak, the life of an intelligence officer in America began.

Litvin:  With that, my life as a Soviet intelligence officer in America began.  We checked into the Hotel Taft.

Journalist:  Were you supposed to meet somewhere there?

Litvin:  A meeting with our man, a representative of intelligence, was supposed to be there.  I didn’t know who.  I knew only the place and the password that I was to say to the person who was supposed to meet me.  It turned out that that person, who waited for me almost daily, was desperate to meet me, because, it turns out, I extended my stay in New York longer than I was supposed to.  And the meeting happened almost on the last day.

Journalist:  And who was that person?

Litvin:  That person I later learned worked as the representative of Inturist in Los Angeles.[19]  He had been in the city for a long time and was the rezident, the legal rezident of Soviet military intelligence.  He greeted me very, very well.  He was glad for my arrival.  He said he was very worried that I had not met him that whole time.  I explained the reasons.  We arranged the next meetings.  In essence, it was decided that it would legalize myself in America as a university student, an idea that he had matured.  It was proposed initially in Moscow, but it had been planned only vaguely, and in my opinion the solution of the issue was left to this person.  He advised me to become a university student.

Journalist: And how did you address him when you met him?  Did you call him by a Russian name or not?

Litvin:  I used his Russian name.  He was named Misha.  But he called me Sam.  That is, so to speak, a very common name in America.  And we became friends, but we never went to each other’s homes, of course.  Meetings were strictly organized, clandestine, and each time I met him I came away completely inspired.

Journalist: And was communication only through him, or were there other methods?

Litvin:  No, at first communication was through him.  But later, when he finished his stay in America, communication passed through another person.

I studied in the Political Science Department.  I chose that department because it fit my profession, and for me, with my previous knowledge, it was a particularly attractive place where I could develop, where I could show my abilities.  For that reason I chose that department specifically.  And I succeeded, so to speak, in proving myself positively to the professors in that department.  Thus, the instructors and professors saw in me a student who was broadly interested in the topics being studied in that department.  At that time, American students, men and women, mostly had fun in the lower-level courses and thought little about their studies.  But all of my attention was concentrated directly on a recognition that I had to successfully pass those subjects that were being taught.  In the second year, toward the end of the second year in that department, my instructors even tasked me with grading the tests done by American students.  It was a planned path, so to speak, toward determining my “me” in that department.  A second year foreign student, so to speak, whom professors entrusted with grading students’ work—for me that was a great success.  It opened the path for me to become friends with many American students.

Journalist: Zalman Volfovich, student life, so to speak, was very stressful.  But what was your life like as an intelligence officer?

Litvin:  Mostly my task was to study the people whom I met—those students with whom I studied.  I began to invite students to my house for a cup of coffee to pick up the discussions that we had in seminars and symposia, but just to continue them at home.  They came to my house.  We lived in a small apartment.  We would gather a group of about ten and for several hours we would debate various topics.

Journalist:  But you were, in general, preparing the ground for recruitment.

Litvin:  To a certain degree to find out—well, I can say, to attract them to—for recruitment as well.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, how many people did you attract to that work?

Litvin:  Well, I don’t remember now, but it was several people.  I don’t want to answer that question in more detail because those people might still be alive and well, my answer, so to speak, could compromise them in some way.

Journalist: But you attracted them to work against Japan?

Litvin:  The main task was to find people who would agree to work against Japan.  There were some people whom I was able to convert on that basis.  I thought that it might be safe to discuss with them a topic that very much interested me: Japan; and that I came to America with a specific purpose.  I wanted for several of them to help me learn more deeply about Japanese military plans.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, how in your assessment did the Center evaluate your work?  Did you collect any information?

Litvin:  Initially, it evaluated my work in the first year as unsatisfactory, because in the first year, although we had agreed that I would concentrate my attention on studies, and therefore I would devote little of my attention to my primary profession, they, so to speak, considered that I was devoting too much of my attention to my studies.  And even in one of the letters that I received, they asked me, “would we have sent you just to graduate from an American university?”  It was such an ironic question, to which I answered that everything I had done in the first year was absolutely necessary for further work in my primary job.

Journalist:  That first year was unsatisfactory, but later?

Litvin:  Later on, in my opinion, they evaluated my well.  They considered everything to be going successfully.  And when I succeeded in recruiting several people to send them to Japan, they were very, very satisfied.[20]

Journalist: Was that followed with any awards or promotions?

Litvin: You know, during my stay in America I received several awards and promotions…

Journalist:  Which ones?

Litvin:  I received the Order of the Red Star—two Orders of the Red Star, several medals, and later the Order of the Patriotic War…

Journalist:  Two Red Stars only for the time you spent in America.

Litvin:  That was for America, yes.  That is what they told me because I didn’t see them.  They sent me several congratulations from the GRU leadership, congratulating me for awards and promotions to the next rank.

Journalist:  What rank were you when you arrived in America?

Litvin:  I arrived as a senior lieutenant.  At that time it was called a teknik-intendant of the first rank—that was three squares.

Journalist:  And when you left?

Litvin:  I left as a lieutenant colonel.

Journalist:  That’s not bad; you were well promoted.

Litvin:  Yes.

Journalist:  So, you finished your term of study and you remained as an instructor at the university.

Litvin:  The process was, after I completed my bachelor’s degree I continued on to work on the next level, a master’s degree.  And at that point, when I graduated from university and received my diploma, I was offered a position as an instructor in the department from which I graduated.  I became, thus, an instructor.  At that low rank I was instructing a course that was usually led by someone who held a doctoral degree.  So after I received a master’s degree, my, so to speak, supervisors in the department began to prepare me to continue on and work on a doctoral degree in political science, a “PhD in political science.”[21]

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, during that time when you were working and studying, were there any specific tasks from the Center, were you faced with any concrete tasks?  For example, to obtain information about such and such, etc.?  Specifically?

Litvin:  They demanded information from me about people, so to speak; I gave the most detailed information about all those people whom I had attracted to myself and I recruited them only after I receive approval from the Center.  I made no recruitment pitches without the Center’s approval.  Only with the agreement of the Center.  Therefore, they very thoroughly checked every person that I proposed.  And after I receive approval, I, so to speak, talked concretely with the given person.  But they never asked me about them.  And as I recollect, as you know, at that time, we received during the war years a large amount of military materiel by lend-lease.  Lend-lease provided certain…we received significant assistance from the United States through lend-lease.  There was a firm proposal from President Roosevelt at that time that all that was planned for lend-lease would be sent in a timely manner to the Soviet Union.  But there were many companies that sabotaged President Roosevelt’s decision.  I was tasked to a certain degree to find out which companies in southern California were delaying the lend-lease orders. I succeeded in finding people who worked in those companies and who could give me information that indicated that the leadership of a company considered lend-lease to be of secondary importance, and that it was necessary to fulfill orders for their own armed forces, and only then for the Soviet Union.  That was one of the assignments included in my plans only after the beginning of the World War II.

Journalist: How often did you communicate with Moscow?

Litvin:  I did not have direct communications with Moscow.  I communicated only through the representative who worked there.  At first it was once per month or twice per month.  When I gathered more information, the meetings became more frequent.

Journalist:  Who initiated the meetings, you or he?

Litvin: Mostly me, because I could not keep the information that I handed over for a long time.  I would contact my representative and ask for an expedited meeting, to move up the meeting to a sooner time.

Journalist: Did you phone him, or how did it work?

Litvin:  I phoned him.  I had a certain phone number and a certain code by which we would, so to speak, agree to meet.  The meeting place was pre-arranged and designated for several times in advance.

Journalist: Wasn’t it dangerous to phone, with counterintelligence…

Litvin:  I phoned from a payphone, never from my house.  The conversation was about business.  It would have been hard to determine that the conversation was of a special character, using codes of a certain type.  It was a business discussion, a conversation about this and that.  But in the process of the conversation certain words were inserted that let my colleague know that I wanted to meet him.

Journalist:  As far as I understand, along with your work receiving all of those ranks, a bachelor’s degree, and a master’s degree in America, you also became a father in America?

Litvin: I became a father in America, yes.  My son was born.  My wife was cared for by one of the major specialists of the time.  She gave birth in one of the major hospitals, as they were called.  The hospital was called the “Cedars of Lebanon.”[22]  It was one of the most famous hospitals in Los Angeles, and famous American actresses usually gave birth in that hospital. It was quite an expensive hospital, but I receive a special compensation for all of the costs associated with the payment. 

Journalist:  What American name did you give your son?

Litvin:  Richard.  His name became Richard, shortened to Dickie.  And after many years— he is more than 40 years old—to this day we at home and his friends still call him Dickie.  But he is actually named Iosif Zalmanovich Litvin.[23]

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, when did you start to feel like it was getting hot?

Litvin:  I was so sure of my security, I was so certain of those friends who surrounded me that I absolutely did not feel it.  Of the things I was doing, what of my tasks should I not be doing from the point of view of American laws?  But once, the doorbell of my apartment rang.  I opened the door.  A man entered whom I had met after [Murom?].  I was to prepare for a trip to Washington at that moment.  There was a university in Washington, called in English the “Fletcher School of Foreign Relations”—it is like our diplomatic academy—where I was to receive…work on a doctoral degree on the recommendation of my university.  The idea of my entry into the diplomatic academy arose after I had received an assignment to transfer from Los Angeles to Washington in order to work in that group, the intelligence group that was located in Washington.  The Center had decided that there should be such a person in that group, and there were people there with whom a person with my specialty could meet.  And thus, they decided to transfer me there, despite my request that it was time for me to return to my homeland. 

But to get accepted into that diplomatic academy, I had to have authentic documents.  That, strictly speaking, gave rise to the requirement for me to have a real Canadian passport.  It was completely natural that, if I submitted documents to that educational institution, the management of that educational institution would certainly check the authenticity of my documents, even with a recommendation from the administration of my University of Southern California.  The Center thus decided that I should have a real Canadian passport.

Journalist:  What, was yours not real?

Litvin:  Well, it was a passport that belonged to, as I later learned, a man who was living peacefully.  But his…  He had returned form the Spanish civil war completely alive, and he continued to live in Canada using that name.  I knew nothing about this.  Imagine what would have happened it they had arranged a meeting of those two little guys?  It appears that the Center at that time also knew little about this man still being alive… continuing to live in Canada.  To continue to operate with this passport, or even with a Canadian one if I were to receive one, could lead to a catastrophe, because sooner or later it would be established that it is a different person.  You can understand what a predicament I was in, but I still knew nothing about it.  Thus they told me that we would work on completely receiving Canadian citizenship, receive a Canadian passport, and that I should come to Canada at some time; that I would sometime receive Canadian citizenship and on that basis a new passport.  To do all that, it was necessary for me to complete the corresponding forms and submit two photographs, of me and of my wife.  I completed all of these documents and they were sent by diplomatic mail to Ottawa in the name of the military attaché. 

At that very time, the cipher clerk Gouzenko, who became a traitor and who compromised a great many Soviet intelligence officers, removed those documents from the cipher room along with other documents and passed them to the Canadian authorities.  The Canadians became aware of me at that time, that there existed another person [break in recording] Soviet intelligence officer who was operating under cover as a student in Los Angeles.  And at the very moment, that person came to my apartment, who said that something has happened and you should cease all ties that you have.  I asked, what about Washington, should I still go?  I was supposed to leave the next day.  We agreed that if he appeared on the train platform, I was not to go to Washington.  If he was not there, the trip would happen.  I received specific instructions about whom to meet and at what time in Washington.  And that is how I went to Washington.

Journalist: He was not on the platform, that man, right?

Litvin:  The man did not come to the platform. Yes.  And thus I had authorization to go to Washington.  But I already felt that something was not right.  When you asked me the question about when I started to feel hot, it was at that time that I felt that it was hot, because the appearance of that man at my home and, so to speak, the instruction that I cease all communications, that usually happens only in the case of danger.  Nevertheless, I went to Washington.

Journalist:  Still not knowing what awaited you there?

Litvin:  I didn’t know what awaited me there, with whom I would meet.  But the assignment, so to speak, was to prepare for a permanent transfer to Washington.  When I arrived in Washington, a turnstile stood at the exit from the station.  Passing through it, I saw two well-dressed Americans in straw hats; perfectly dressed.  I knew perfectly at that time that they were employees from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  When I passed them, one winked to the other.  I felt intuitively, that those two men would follow me.  Instead of taking a taxi I left on foot in the direction of the Supreme Court building in Washington.  Along the way I turned and saw that the two were following me.  I faced a dilemma: what to do?  I was supposed to have a meeting.  But I could not meet under the watch of those two people.  I could not compromise the man who was supposed to meet me.  And the meeting was scheduled for that evening and was supposed to happen in a hotel—I unfortunately forget the name of it now, but it was in a park not far from the White House.  And thus, for the whole day I led those two people behind me.  I went into a cinema, and then I went into another cinema, I went into a café, and then into a restaurant; I did everything to extract myself from their surveillance.  But nothing worked.  Nevertheless, I decided to go all-in and there was no way out.  It was already starting to get dark early.  When I approached a park, I was able to hide behind several trees that were in the park.  The agents that were following me passed without noticing me.  I used that moment.  Knowing the floor number, I went to that floor in the hotel, and at the designated place on that floor I met the person.  He introduced himself and I introduced myself.

He said, “Don’t worry. I know you are being followed.”  He described to me in detail what had happened in Canada, directly from him.  He is still alive, that man; his name is Sergeyev.  He told me in detail what had happened in Canada.  I asked what I should do.  He answered, “decide yourself.”  We came to an agreement.  He recommended that I go to the Soviet embassy.  But I knew that I still had a wife and son in Los Angeles.  If I went to the embassy I could not see them again.  I would essentially be leaving my family to the mercy of fate.  I therefore did not agree to that.  We decided he would take me in his car to Baltimore, which was about two hours drive from Washington.  The FBI agents had absolutely lost me.

Journalist:  Zalman Volfovich, and what…

Litvin: We parted in Baltimore.  I stayed the night in a hotel, and then I went to New York.[24]  But they gave me a contact in New York.

Journalist:  He gave you a contact…

Litvin: He gave me a contact for New York.  In New York I also stayed in a hotel.  And after sometime I met with our man.  He told me even more details about what was happening in Canada, and that the Center was doing everything it could to resolve all of those events so that it did not reflect on me.  He supplied me with additional money, and we agreed to meet again.  After a while, I stayed in a hotel for a day or two.

Journalist:  Do you remember the hotel, where is it?

Litvin:  I don’t remember the hotel because I switched several hotels in New York.  And I must say that wherever I went, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found me.

Journalist:  They found you?

Litvin:  Yes.  I tried to rent a room advertised in the New York Times, in a private apartment.  I succeeded, and I stayed several days in that apartment.  I eventually went downtown and noticed surveillance.  I broke away from the surveillance several times, and they found me several times.  Then I decided to ask one of my friends to buy me a car.

Journalist: A new one?

Litvin: A car…another car, fill it with gas, park it is a certain place, and give me the keys.  That car, so to speak, waited for my departure from Los Angeles.[25]  Every time I left the house I would agree with my wife that if I phoned and used a certain word, it would mean I had broken free from surveillance.  Imagine, every time I left, my wife did not know whether I would return in the evening and she would be alone.  That concerned me greatly, and she was obviously also worried.  In any case, we agreed that there was no other solution.  If I leave and don't try to get out, we would be arrested.  And if I am not there, they could not accuse her of anything and she would be left, so to speak, free and Moscow would do everything possible to save her. 

One of my students, who I had given many “A’s”…

Journalist: “A’s” at work, you mean, or…

Litvin:  For work and without work; in order to maintain her in good standing.  She was the daughter of a major businessman in America.   One day she came in her car to the place where my office was and asked—she said her father had given her a new Cadillac for her birthday—would I like to try out the new Cadillac and go to lunch with her?  I thought, why not?  I took my brief case just in case.  We got into her car and went to a restaurant of her choice.  We had a wonderful lunch at the restaurant.  We talked.  We discussed various topics related to her studies, with her university.  And after that…after lunch, she said, “let’s go back to the university.”  I told her, you know, that I have some business in the city.  Why doesn’t she go on her own.

I already said, I think, the when we were traveling I did not notice any surveillance, there was no surveillance.  And so I of course wanted to take advantage of that moment.  I was surprised, and I was sure that there should have been surveillance, but there wasn’t any.  And that way, having broken free from surveillance, I approached the place where my car was parked, got into it, called my wife and told her I was leaving.[26]  As it turned out, it was Thanksgiving Day, and many Americans had gone into the mountains.[27]  I thus told her that I was invited to go into the mountains so they would lose me.  I said I had left the car parked in the student village.  It appears that representatives of the FBI had not taken their eyes off the car.  They did not know where I was.  Late, late at night, as I learned later from my wife they phoned my wife and asked where I was.  My wife said I had gone to the mountains for a picnic.  “What should we do with your car?  Drive it to your house?”  She told them to let it stay where it was.  Incidentally, I don't know what happened to that car.  And I drove that car all night to San Francisco.

Journalist:  People were waiting for you there?

Litvin: They were waiting in San Francisco.  Our people met me in San Francisco, and we went together in a car, and then in another car, to a city, where…I have forgotten…

Journalist:  Portland.

Litvin:  Portland.  To the city of Portland where they were waiting for me.[28]  To my luck, one of our ships was in Portland without any American monitoring.  The captain and his assistant met me.  They put me in one of the spare…it was a firebox, a reserve firebox.  I stayed in that very firebox for two days.  They brought me food there.  Only the captain and his assistant knew I was there.  The captain was very, how to say, encouraged that they gave him the opportunity to fulfill such a patriotic mission and extract a Soviet intelligence officer from the country.

After the American pilot disembarked and our ship left American territorial waters into the open sea, the open ocean, I left the firebox and met many Soviet passengers who were returning home and all were surprised that they had not seen me when they embarked on the ship.  I invented all sorts of stories for them and in any case, I became friends with that group of passengers and our ship and half-cargo steamer set off for Vladivostok.  A cutter approached our ship in Vladivostok before we entered the port, while we were still in open water.  GRU representatives were on the cutter, and a colonel whose name I don’t remember.  They brought a greatcoat and military uniform with them, since I had left with only a raincoat and it was cold.  They took me off the ship so the passengers who remained on the ship, did not know that I…I wasn’t there any more.

I stayed in Vladivostok several days.  I of course went to see the building where I had studied, walked the streets where I had spent four years.  Many of the passengers who had left with me were going to Moscow, but they gave me a specific day when those passengers had already departed or were still in Vladivostok so that I would not meet them on the train. And so, I went on that train, accompanied by GRU representatives, to Moscow.

Narrator:  Today we have told about only one of the many intelligence officers who spent their entire lives in the service of their country.  In the future we plan to continue our program with stories of the special services.



NOTES

[1] Kevin Riehle is an associate professor at the National Intelligence University.  Katherine Ruffatto is a 2019 recipient of NIU’s Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree.

[2] The views expressed in this article are those of the original publishers and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or any U.S. government agency.

[3] Robert Taschereau and R. L. Kellock, Report of the Royal Commission (Ottawa: Edmund Cloutier, 1946), p. 39, inter alia.

[4] United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities, The Shameful Years: Thirty Years of Soviet Espionage in the United States (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1952), pp. 25-28.

[5] The Ministry of Security of Russia was later broken into multiple agencies.  In 2003, most of those agencies were re-combined into the Federal Security Service.

[6] Rudolf Abel, who real name was William Fisher, operated in the United States as an illegal from 1948 to 1957, when he was arrested in New York.  He was exchanged for U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1962.  Gordon Lonsdale, whose real name was Konon Molodiy, operated in the United States and then in the United Kingdom as an MGB/KGB illegal from 1953 until he was arrested in London in 1961.  He was exchanged for British businessman Greville Wynne in 1964.  Richard Sorge operated in Tokyo as an illegal from 1933 to 1941 when he was arrested by the Japanese secret police. He was executed in November 1944.

[7] These two prominent KGB officers, who defected in the 1980s, both published books in 1990: Vladimir Anatolyevich Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB: Myth and Reality (London: André Deutsch, 1990; and New York: Pantheon, 1990); and Christopher Andrew and Oleg Vladimirovich Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990).

[8] In 1929, Soviet and Chinese forces fought over control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which had been jointly administered by the Chinese and Soviet governments since 1924.  In July 1929, Chinese forces seized the railway, and the Soviet Union responded with military force to re-establish joint control.

[9] Vasiliy Konstantinovich Blyukher was a Soviet advisor in China from 1924 to 1927.  He was arrested and executed in 1938.

[10] Possibly a reference to Boris Nikolayevich Melnikov, a Razvedupr officer who served under diplomatic cover as the Consul General in Harbin, China, from 1928 to 1931, and whose responsibilities included monitoring Japanese affairs.  He was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938.

[11] Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg, aka Borodin, was a senior Soviet advisor to the Chinese Nationalist government from 1924 to 1927.  He was arrested in 1949 and died in a prison camp in 1951.  He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1954.

[12] The Chinese Nationalist government established the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924, under the command of Chiang Kai-Shek, with Soviet support and instruction.

[13] Chiang Kai-Shek led a Northern Expedition, with Soviet support, in 1926 in an attempt to unify Chinese warlords, until the Kuomintang itself split into right-leaning and left-leaning factions and the expedition faltered.

[14] Chiang neutralized the Kuomintang’s left-wing faction and expelled Soviet advisors from the country in 1927.

[15] Stefan Vladislavovich Zhbikovskiy, a Razvedupr officer from 1921 to 1937, was dispatched to China from January 1935 to early 1937, which likely corresponds with Litvin’s time there.  Zhbikovskiy was arrested and executed in 1937.  He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1955.

[16] The narrator is referring to the Great Purge, which was raging in the Soviet Union when Litvin returned to Moscow.

[17] Colonel (later General Major) Petr Akimovich Popov, a Japan specialist, led the Japan/Korea Section at Razvedupr Headquarters from the late 1930s into early World War II.  He died in 1966.

[18] Litvin was dispatched using the name Ignacy Samuel Witczak.  The real Witczak was a Polish émigré to Canada who had volunteered to fight in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.  While in Spain, Witczak surrendered his passport to his Soviet handlers, who subsequently claimed to have lost it when he returned to Canada. That passport was later altered to become Litvin’s cover document for his illegal assignment in the United States.  Witczak was still alive in 1945 when Igor Gouzenko defected and provided identifying information that led to Litvin’s compromise and escape from the United States.

[19] This is likely a reference to Mikhail Gorin (probably a pseudonym), a GRU officer operating under cover as the manager of the Los Angeles Inturist office from 1936 to December 1938.  The FBI arrested Gorin for receiving classified information from Hafis Salich, who was working for the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence in California.  The information Salich provided to Gorin involved U.S. monitoring of Japanese officials and Japanese-American citizens, which was consistent with the tasks assigned to Litvin.  This court case came to be known as Gorin v. United States, one of the few pre-war applications of the U.S Espionage Act of 1917; see https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/19 (accessed 21 January 2019).  See also Ellis M. Zacharias, Secret Missions: The Story of an Intelligence Officer (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1946), pp. 203-205.

[20] Dr. Arnold Krieger, who knew Litvin at the University of Southern California, was one of these, although he claimed to have refused Litvin’s offer.  Krieger testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities on 11 September 1951 that Litvin had attempted to recruit him to be a letter drop in China, Japan, or Latin America.  See United States Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities, Communist Infiltration of the Hollywood Motion-Picture Industry, Part 5 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1951), pp. 2098-2015.  Discussion of Litvin/Witczak is on pp. 2104-2110.

[21] Spoken in English.

[22] Spoken in English.

[23] Iosif Zalmanovich Litvin is a physics and mathematics tutor in Moscow; see https://profi.ru/profile/LitvinIZ/.

[24] For an FBI summary of the investigation surrounding Litvin’s trip to New York and transcripts of letters he sent to his wife in Los Angeles, see “Corby Case: Ignacy and Bunia Witczak,” 24 October 1945, The National Archives, Kew, London, KV 2/1635, serial 15A.

[25] Ibid.  According to the FBI, Litvin arrived in New York on 19 September, two weeks after Gouzenko’s defection.  Litvin omits mention of his return to Los Angeles from New York, which occurred in mid-October 1945.

[26] Litvin’s wife, Bunya Yevgenyevna Faybusovich and son “Dickie” remained in the United States until January 1946, two months after Litvin’s departure.  According to Venona materials, the first mate of the Soviet tanker Sakhalin, which clandestinely carried Bunya and Dickie back to the Soviet Union, was an NKVD agent named Kalinin, codenamed YELKIN; see Venona messages, San Francisco to Moscow number 137, 21 April 1944; San Francisco to Moscow number 426, 8 August 1945; and San Francisco to Moscow number 25, 26 January 1946.  The FBI tracked the Sakhalin to a South American port, but was not able to apprehend it; see John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 419, n52.

[27] In 1945, Thanksgiving Day fell on 22 November.

[28] Venona message, San Francisco to Moscow number 612, 24 November 1945, briefly discusses NKVD preparations to evacuate Litvin, identified only as “R,” from the United States through Portland.