811.111 Refugees/801: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 10—5:35 a.m.]
39. Alexander Hafftka, whose name was included in the Department’s 560, September 19, 1940,7 as one of the refugees recommended by the President’s Advisory Committee,8 and who is an individual of more than average intelligence, made the following statements to me in the strictest confidence at the time that he, his wife and daughter received a transit visa. He said that during his stay in Kaunas,9 where he had resided since the occupation of Poland, he made the intimate acquaintance of many of the refugees in the Lithuanian area who have been recommended to the Department by the President’s Advisory Committee. He stated categorically that from 10 to 20 percent of all of these individuals have been and are being solicited by the Soviet Commissariat for Internal Affairs (GPU) to act as its agents after their arrival in the United States. Hafftka attributed the delays which have been taking place in the issuance of Soviet transit and exit visas to the refugees recommended by the President’s Advisory Committee in large part to the slow process of selection by the GPU of the individuals it desired to solicit and to the necessity in many cases of “working on” the individuals before they could be induced to accede to the GPU proposals. He said that in many instances the threat that Soviet exit visas would not be granted followed by a long delay had operated to induce many individuals to acquiesce in the GPU demands. He added that the GPU selected for solicitation the most presentable and intelligent men and the most attractive women, and that those selected were almost invariably individuals having relatives remaining within the Soviet Union or Soviet-occupied territories. Hafftka, who denied that he had been solicited by the GPU, after considerable persuasion on my part mentioned several names of persons who had admitted to him in the strictest confidence that they had been solicited by the GPU to act as its agents in the United States. These names were found by the Embassy to appear on the lists of individuals recommended by the President’s Advisory Committee. Hafftka concluded with the statement that many of the refugees had told him that, faced with the choice between remaining in the Lithuanian area and obtaining a Soviet exit visa, they had agreed or would agree to the GPU demands.
[Page 599]The foregoing confirms previous reports by the Embassy concerning the methods employed by the GPU with respect to both American citizens and aliens departing from the Soviet Union for the United States. Details concerning the nature of the solicitations will be found in my strictly confidential telegram No. 1780, December 26, 3 p.m.10
- Not printed.↩
- The President’s Advisory Committee on Refugees, James G. McDonald, Chairman.↩
- Kovno.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. iii, p. 239.↩