711.61/823: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 6—3:20 p.m.]
1296. Department’s 863, July 2. In a further conversation with Lozovski yesterday afternoon he stated that:
1. He had not been successful in obtaining the release of Mrs. Habicht and that there were “more important things to discuss.” I replied that I could not agree and that I was tired of having our requests thrust aside as unimportant while the Soviet Government pressed its own requests of every nature. Lozovski replied: “How about Ovakimian?” To this remark I expressed my surprise that the Soviet Government in view of existing conditions should still be in a “trading mood” but that if it wanted to trade I was quite prepared to approach the matter from that angle. I then asked him whether he preferred “a limited trade” or to “clean the slate” of all cases involving individuals. He answered that in principle he preferred the latter course. I then proposed the release from imprisonment and exit visas for the persons named in the Department’s telegram [Page 982] under reference and stated that I would recommend to the Department the dropping of the charges against Ovakimian and his return to the Soviet Union. To this Lozovski replied: “That would be six for one. How about the three Bookkniga clerks?”91 I answered that if we were going to “clean the slate” and that if I might add such other names to my list as fell within the same categories as those already mentioned to him, I would recommend that the charges against the “three Bookkniga clerks” also be dropped. Lozovski said that he would let me have his reply “as soon as possible.”
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- For the last portion of this telegram, see p. 893.↩
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Three officials (Morris Liskin, president; Raphael Rush (Rusz), vice president; and Norman Weinberg, secretary-treasurer) of the Bookniga Corporation, New York, N. Y., agency for the sale of Soviet books and periodicals in the United States, had been indicted in December 1939 for failure to register as agents of a foreign principal, and for conspiracy to prevent Bookniga from complying with the registration law. (See Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 931–933.) They were released on bond of $6,500 each. The first two were naturalized American citizens, whereas the last was American born.
Their trial began on June 9, 1941, in the District of Columbia Federal Court, with Justice F. Dickinson Letts presiding, and Benjamin M. Parker, prosecutor, as special representative of the Attorney General. The three were found guilty by the jury on July 1, 1941, and were sentenced on July 14 by Justice Letts.
Liskin, who had already been fined $500 for failure to register, was now fined $500 and sentenced to 8 months to 2 years in jail on the second count of conspiracy to prevent the registration of the corporation. Rush was sentenced to 4 months to 1 year for failure to register, and to 8 months to 2 years on the conspiracy charges, besides being fined $500 on each count. The jail terms were to run concurrently. Weinberg was sentenced to 6 to 18 months’ imprisonment and fined $500 for failure to register, but was acquitted on the conspiracy charge. Motions for new trials were overruled.
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