Unmasking the wolf in sheep's clothing: Soviet and American campaigns against the enemy's journalists, 1946–1953

Abstract

This article uses a comparative perspective to examine Soviet campaigns against American correspondents in Moscow, and American crusades against the representatives of the Soviet news agency TASS. Building on Russian and US archival materials, it shows that the practice of targeting the enemy's foreign correspondents transcended the Cold War divide. Yet, different ideological injunctions informed the dynamics of each campaign and the mechanisms available to the participants. The respective campaigns turned journalists into the symbols of socialist and liberal political systems. As a result, the rhetoric of rights, duties, and freedom of the press in the USSR and in the US became entangled in the ideological rivalry of the two superpowers.

Acknowledgements

The author would like express her gratitude to Brian Becker, David Foglesong, Mary-Catherine French, Jochen Hellbeck, Simon Huxtable, Artemy Kalinovsky, Tehila Sasson, Tal Zalmanovich, and Zohar Manor-Abel for their comments and suggestions. I specially thank Francesca Pitaro and Valery Komor at the AP Corporate Archive and to the reviewers for Cold War History for recommending this article for publication.

Notes

¹ Harrison Salisbury to Edwin L. James, 22 September 1949. Harrison Salisbury Papers, Box 187. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Columbia University.

² Ibid.

³ My definition of ‘ideology’ derives from what Terry Eagleton called the ‘intersection between belief system and political power.’ The advantage of this ‘broad definition’ according to Eagleton, is that it reflects the ‘common usage’ of the word ideology and could describe both the confirmation and the challenging of a particular social order. Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991), 6–7.

⁴ Eddy Gilmore to Alan J. Gould, Assistant General Manager of the Associated Press, 10 November 1945. AP 2.1, The General Files: Foreign Bureau Files, The Archives of The Associated Press.

(Hereafter APA).

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ TASS prepared these compendia in its foreign bureaus on a weekly basis.

⁷ O.V. Khlevniuk, et. al., ed. Politburo Tsk Vkp(B) I Soviet Ministrov Sssr, 1945–1953 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002), 195.

⁸ Ibid., 195–202.

⁹ Ibid., 201–202.

¹⁰ ‘Resolution of Politburo TsK VKP(b) on censorship of outgoing information from the Soviet Union,’ 25.02.1946. RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 1056. Ll. 25–26. Accessed via the Internet Archive of Alexander Yakovlev Foundation: http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/69274. Last accessed on 26.4.2012.

¹¹ Telegram to Secretary of State, 5 March 1946; Box 126, 1946:891; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, US Embassy Moscow; Classified General Records, 1941–1963; Records of the Foreign Service of the Department of State, RG 84; National Archives, College Park MD. (Hereafter: NACP, US Embassy in Moscow).

The Politburo updated the rules in March 1946. The new additions permitted correspondents to see the censors’ interventions. RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 1057. L. 18. Accessed via Internet archive of Alexander Yakovlev Foundation: http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/69274. Last accessed 26.4.2012.

¹² Whitman Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents: Reporting on Russia from the Revolution to Glasnost (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1988), 123; Craig Thompson to Time Magazine, 26 November 1946; 1946:891, Box 126; NACP, US Embassy in Moscow.

¹³ GARF (State Archive of Russian Federation), f. R-9425, op. 1, d. 759, ll. 1; 3; 5; 7.

¹⁴ The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Durbrov), 10 November 1946, FRUS 1946, VI, 804.

¹⁵ Foreigners were not allowed to travel by car further than 50 kilometres from Moscow, and even these trips were confined to 10 specific roads. A trip outside of the city required an advance notification to the Soviet authorities. ‘Treatment of US Personnel in the Soviet Union’, 26 May 1950; Box 8: 1620; American Representation in the USSR, 1933–1967; Bureau of European Affairs, Office of Soviet Union Affairs; Bilateral Political Relations Subject Files, 1921–1977, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. (Hereafter: NACP, Bilateral Political Relations).

¹⁶ Eddy Gilmore quoted in a letter from Lloyd Stratton (Assistant to AP General Manager) to John Lloyd. 8 September 1947. AP 01.4B, Box 38, Folder 101, Records of Board President Robert McLean, APA.

¹⁷ Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 4–14.

¹⁸ Zhirkov G.V., Istoriia tsenzury v Rossii XIX–XX vv (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 2001), online edition, Part II: Evoliutsiia sovetskoii tsenzury: glvalit – kak ee ofitsial'noe ucherezhdenie (1922–1927). http://evartist.narod.ru/text9/38.htm#з_09

¹⁹ Zhirkov, Istoriia tsenzury, Part II. http://evartist.narod.ru/text9/38.htm#з_09; Vladimir A. Nvezhin, ‘Esli zavtra v pokhod:’ podgotovka k voine i ideologicheskaia propaganda v 30kh – 40kh godax (Moscow: Eksmo, 2007), 55–57.

²⁰Krokodil, 20 June 1947, p. 10.

²¹ In 1945, Krokodil carried three cartoons targeting the American press (6 July, 10 September and 30 December). In 1946, three cartoons attacked the press (20 August, 10 September, 30 September). In 1947 six cartoons were dedicated to the American press.

²² The ‘bourgeois press’ was the central topic of discussion in three articles that appeared in 1947, 10 articles in 1948, 15 articles in 1949, and 29 in 1950. By contrast, the term was used only once in 1945 and in 1946, and on both occasions in historical context.

²³ Konstantin Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia: razmyshleniia o I.V. Staline (Moscow: Kniga, 1990), 103–104; 147–148.

²⁴ Bassow, Moscow Correspondents, 124–125; ‘Pis'mo v Redaktsiiu,’ Izvestiia, 15 April 1948; ‘Expelled Reporter Quits Russia,’ New York Times, 19 April 1948.

²⁵ Bassow, Moscow Correspondents, 124–125; ‘Soviet Ousts NBC Reporter’, New York Times, 16 April 1948.

²⁶ ‘Expelled Reporter Quits Russia’, New York Times, 19 April 1948.

²⁷ Tracy B. Strong and Helene Keyssar, Right in her Soul: the Life of Anna Louise Strong (New York: Random House, 1983), 280.

²⁸ Salisbury reported to his editors that pro-Soviet Western correspondents became concerned after Strong's deportation. For example, Ralph Parker, a British communist journalist, was very nervous about his future in the USSR and attempted to leave the country. Harrison Salisbury to C. L. Sulzberger, 23 May 1949, Salisbury Papers, Box 187. Later on, when the Daily Worker correspondent Joseph Clark arrived in Moscow, he complained that he faces many obstructions in his reporting and that the Soviet officials were distant and unfriendly. Fisunov to Ivan Beglov, Undated 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, l. 48.

²⁹ Peter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 182–183.

³⁰ ‘The Central Committee's Agitation and Propaganda Department's (Agitprop) Plan of Activities for Increasing Anti-American Propaganda.’ RGASPI, f.17, op. 132, d. 244, l. 48.

³¹ Ibid., L. 52.

³² Nikolai Pogodin, P'esy. Missuriiskii val's (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1952), 245.

³³ Similarly, a film adaptation of Nikolai Virta's 1949 play The Conspiracy of the Doomed presented a new character: Kira Rachel, a journalist from Chicago and ‘an agent of imperialism’.

³⁴ Vladimir Pechatnov, ‘Exercise in Frustration: Soviet Foreign Propaganda in the Early Cold War, 1945–1947’, Cold War History 1, no. 2 (January 2001): 1–27; Dzhahangir G. Nadzhafov,'The Beginging of the Cold War between East and West: The Aggravation of Ideological Confrontation.' Cold War History 4, no. 2 (January 2004): 140–74.

³⁵ Pechatnov, ‘Exercise in Frustration’.

³⁶ Kenez, Propaganda State, 8.

³⁷ Thomas C. Wolfe, Governing Soviet Journalism. The Press and the Socialist Person after Stalin. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 2; Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on my Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2006), 1–6, 288–291.

³⁸ Jeffrey Brooks, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 164–184; Louise McReynolds, ‘Dateline Stalingrad: Newspaper Correspondents at the Front’, in: Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 28–43.

³⁹ Bassow, Moscow Correspondents, 125, 133.

⁴⁰ The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State, 4 March 1946, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1946, Volume VI: Eastern Europe, The Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1969), 711.

⁴¹ Joseph Newman, ‘Russians Isolate Reporters, But Can't Hide Facts Censorship Was Meant to Conceal’, Washington Post, 2 Nov 1949; Edmund Stevens, ‘Triple Squeeze Ousts Foreign Reporters’, Christian Science Monitor, 24 January 1950.

⁴² Confidential to George V. Allen, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, 8 July 1949; Box 2: 1181; NACP, Bilateral Political Relations.

⁴³ Robert McLean to Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 21 June 1949. AP01.4B, Box 21, Records of Board President Robert McLean, APA.

⁴⁴ During World War II censorship was voluntary: the press willingly opt in and the censors came from the ranks of professional journalists that volunteered for the task. The Office of Censorship was dismantled after Japan surrendered in August 1945. See: Michael S. Sweeney, Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 7–39.

⁴⁵ ‘Two Russian Envoys are Leaving after Spy Report’, New York Times, 17 July 1946.

⁴⁶ See for example: ‘TASS’, Time Magazine, 29 July 1946.

⁴⁷ Martin Manning, ‘Impact of Propaganda Materials in Free World Countries’, in: Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War, ed. Greg Barnhisel and Catherine Turner (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 146.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 147.

⁴⁹ Memo to Nikolai Pal'gunov (TASS Director), 2 March 1953, GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 531, l. 28–29.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² ‘Memo on Foreign Correspondents under Foreign Agents Registration Act,’ 27 July 1951; Box 7: Soviet Correspondents, 1951–1960; Special Collection Subject Files, 1950–1982, NACP, Bilateral Political Relations.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Edwin L. James, ‘Watch is Kept on Role of Local Communists’, New York Times, 23 May 1948.

⁵⁵ Aleksandr Aleksandrov to Nikolai Pal'gunov and Ambassador Paniushkin, 5 February 1948. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 192, ll. 10–12.

⁵⁶ GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 251, ll. 110–111.

⁵⁷ Vladislav Morev to Pla'gunov, 17 December 1949. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 251, ll. 69–71.

⁵⁸ Robert K. Bingham, ‘The Man from TASS’, The Reporter, 10 October 1950, 39; ‘Freedom to Libel’, Time Magazine, 11 July 1949; ‘Moscow's Pen Pall’, Time Magazine, 15 May 1950.

⁵⁹ Cyrus L. Sulzberger, ‘Soviet Censorship Thins Press Corps’, New York Times, 6 November 1949.

⁶⁰ Paul F. Healy, ‘Stalin's American Snoops’, The Saturday Evening Post, 20 January 1951, 47.

⁶¹ Ibid., 51.

⁶² Ivan Beglov to Pal'gunov, 19 January 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, ll. 11–13.

⁶³ Georgia Webbing and Tape Company to Ivan Beglov, 8 January 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, l. 14.

⁶⁴ ‘Communists Imprison 4 AP Men in Prague as Spies’, Editor and Publisher, 7 July 1951, p. 7; ‘Reporter Vanishes’, Time Magazine, 7 July 1951; ‘Oatis Trial Report Shows False Cause’, New York Times, 22 July 1951; William L. Ryan, ‘Bill Oatis Is Unconvincing “Spy” to His Hoosier Friends’, Washington Post, 15 July 1951.

⁶⁵ ‘Senators Bid U.S. Hit Back for Oatis’, New York Times, 18 July 1951; ‘House Asks Rebuff To Czechs On Oatis’, New York Times, 15 August 1951; ‘“Deal” To Free Oatis Opposed by O'Conor’, New York Times, 27 September 1951.

⁶⁶ In July 1951, 11 citizens of socialist countries served as resident correspondents in the United States. In addition to seven TASS correspondents, Pravda and Soviet Radio had one correspondent each. The other two correspondents worked for the Polish Press Agency. Memo on Communist Correspondents in the US, 26 July 1951, Box 7: Soviet Correspondents, 1951–1960; Special Collection Subject Files, 1950–1982; NACP, Bilateral Political Relations.

⁶⁷ ‘Tass Washington Bureau Chief No Newsman, Says ASNE Head’, Washington Post, 25 July 1951; ‘TASS Correspondent Hit: Editor Charges Its Man in Washington Has No Training’, New York Times, 25 July 1951.

⁶⁸ ‘Red Head’, Time Magazine, 21 November 1949; ‘Moscow's Pen Pall’, Time Magazine, 15 May 1950; Healy, ‘Stalin's American Snoops’, 47.

⁶⁹ ‘TASS Correspondent Hit: Editor Charges Its Man in Washington Has No Training’, New York Times, 25 July 1951.

⁷⁰ GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, l. 67.

⁷¹ Ibid., d. 309. ll. 67–71.

⁷² Ibid., d. 309. ll. 60, 69–71.

⁷³ ‘TASS Accreditation Halted During Official Spy Check’, Editor and Publisher, 8 September 1951, 7–8.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 7–8, 36, 64.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 36.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 36, 64.

⁷⁷ Sen. O'Connor (MD). ‘William M. Oatis’, Congressional Record 97. Pt. 8, (5 Sept. 1951) p. 10958.

⁷⁸ ‘2 ask action on Reprisals in Oatis Case’, Washington Post, 6 September 1951.

⁷⁹ ‘Celler to Ask Tass Ban’, New York Times, 5 September 1951.

⁸⁰ ‘Editors (28 to 12) Endorse Barring Tass from Gallery’, Editor and Publisher, 15 September 1951, 7.

⁸¹ Ibid., 10.

⁸² Ibid., 7.

⁸³ ‘Tass Men as Spies’, Washington Post, 7 September 1951.

⁸⁴ ‘Those Red Correspondents’, New York Times, 7 September 1951.

⁸⁵ ‘Editors (28 to 12) Endorse Barring Tass from Gallery’, Editor and Publisher, 15 September 1951, 10–11.

⁸⁶ Beglov to Pal'gunov, 12 September 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, ll. 75–76.

⁸⁷ Memorandum on ‘Communist Correspondents in the US’, 30 July 1951, Box 7: Soviet Correspondents, 1951–1960; Special Collection Subject Files, 1950–1982, NACP, Bilateral Political Relations.

⁸⁸ ‘Newsmen bulk at move to ban red reporters’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 21 September 1951; ‘Capital Newsmen permit TASS in press galleries’, Christian Science Monitor, 21 September 1951.

⁸⁹ ‘Editors urged to Fight “Tightening Down of News Barriers,”’ Christian Science Monitor, 27 September 1951; Campbell Watson, ‘AP Editors Consider Oatis, Security Screen’, Editor and Publisher, 29 September 1951, 10.

⁹⁰ ‘Press Galleries’, Washington Post, 26 September 1951.

⁹¹ David R. Davies, The Postwar Decline of American Newspapers, 1945–1965 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006), 39–40.

⁹² David L. Hebert, Freedom of the Press: Bill of Rights (Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2005), 12–15; George Kennedy and Daryl R. Moen, What Good Is Journalism?: How Reporters and Editors Are Saving America's Way of Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 1–3, 18–34.

⁹³ David Halberstam, The Powers that Be (New York: Knopf, 1979), 343.

⁹⁴ Ibid., 33–40

⁹⁵ Ibid.

⁹⁶ Beglov to Pal'gunov, 9 November 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, l. 90.

⁹⁷ Ibid.

⁹⁸ Ibid.

⁹⁹ Beglov to Pal'gunov, 12 September 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, l. 76.

¹⁰⁰ Pal'gunov to Beglov, 13 October 1951. GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 309, l. 85.

¹⁰¹ GARF, f. R-4459, op. 38, d. 381, l. 41.

¹⁰² A. H. Raskin, ‘Report on Moscow's Reporters in America’, New York Times, 4 November 1951, 15, 30–32, 34.

¹⁰³ Ibid., 34.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid.

¹⁰⁵ David C. Engerman, ‘Ideology and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917–1962’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War Vol. 1, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 20.

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Dina Fainberg

Dina Fainberg is an Assistant Professor of East European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She is currently completing a manuscript on American and Soviet foreign correspondents in the Cold War and editing the diaries of Stanislav Kondrashov, a renowned Soviet commentator on foreign affairs. Email: [email protected]