Walter Krivitsky

Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II.

Biography

Early life

Born to Jewish parents as Samuel Ginsberg in Podwołoczyska (Pidvolochysk, then Galicia, Austria-Hungary), he adopted the name "Krivitsky" (a name based on the Slavic root for "crooked, twisted") as a revolutionary nom de guerrewhen he entered the Bolshevik intelligence around 1917.

He operated as an "illegal" (agent with false name and papers) in Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy and Hungary, and rose to the rank of control officer. He is credited with stealing plans for submarines and planes, intercepting Nazi-Japanesecorrespondence, and recruiting many agents, including Madame Lupescu and Noel Field.

In May 1937, Krivitsky was sent to The Hague to operate as the rezident, or regional control officer, operating under cover of an antiquarian. It appears that he coordinated intelligence operations throughout Western Europe.

Defection

At that time the General Staff of the Red Army was undergoing a purge in Moscow, which Krivitsky and close friend, Ignace Reiss, both abroad, found deeply disturbing. Reiss wanted to defect, but Krivitsky repeatedly held back.

Finally, Reiss did defect, which he announced in a defiant letter to Moscow. His assassination in Switzerlandin September 1937 prompted Krivitsky to defect the following month.

In Paris, Krivitsky began to write articles and made contact with Lev Sedov (Trotsky's son) and the Trotskyists. There, he also met undercover Soviet spy Mark Zborowski, known as "Etienne," whom Sedov sent to protect him. Sedov died mysteriously in February 1938, but Krivitsky eluded attempts to kill or kidnap him while he was in France, including flight to Hyères.

At the end of 1938, anticipating the Nazi conquest of Europe, Krivitsky sailed from France to the United States.

Anti-Stalinism In Stalin's Secret Service

With the help of journalist Isaac Don Levine and literary agent Paul Wohl, Krivitsky produced an inside account of Stalin's underhanded methods. His account appeared in book form as In Stalin's Secret Service (UK title: I Was Stalin's Agent), published on November 15, 1939, after appearing first in sensational serial form in April 1939 in the top magazine of the time, the Saturday Evening Post. (The title had appeared as a phrase in an article written by Reiss' wife on the first anniversary of her husband's assassination: "Reiss... had been in Stalin’s secret service for many years and knew what fate to expect.") The book received a tepid review by the very influential New York Times.

Violently attacked by the Left in America, Krivitsky was vindicated when a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact (which he predicted) was signed in August 1939.

Testimony

Caught between dedication to socialist ideals and detesting Stalin's methods, Krivitsky believed that it was his duty to inform. This decision caused him much mental anguish, as he impressed on American defector Whittaker Chambers. Krivitsky told Chambers, "In our time, informing is a duty" (recounted by Chambers in his autobiography, Witness).

Krivitsky testified before the Dies Committee (later to become the House Un-American Activities Committee) in October 1939, and sailed as "Walter Thomas" to London in January 1940 to be debriefed by Jane Archerof British Military Intelligence, MI5 – in doing so he revealed much about Soviet espionage. It is a matter of controversy whether he gave MI5 clues to the identity of Soviet agents Donald Maclean and Kim Philby. There is no doubt, however, that the NKVD learned of his testimony and initiated operations to silence him.

Death

Krivitsky soon returned to North America, landing in Canada. Always in trouble with the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, Krivitsky was not able to return to the United States until November 1940. Krivitsky retained Louis Waldman to represent him on legal matters. (Waldman was a long-time friend of Isaac Don Levine.)

Meanwhile, the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico on August 21, 1940, convinced him that he was now at the top of the NKVD hit list. His last two months in New York were filled with plans to settle in Virginia and to write, but also with doubts and dread.

On February 10, 1941, at 9:30 a.m. he was found dead in the Bellevue Hotel (now The George) in Washington, DC, by a chambermaid, with three suicide notes by the bed. His body was lying in a pool of blood, caused by a single bullet wound to the right temple from a .38-caliber revolver found grasped in Krivitsky's right hand. A report dated June 10, 1941, indicates he had been dead for approximately 6 hours.

According to many sources, (including Krivitsky himself) he was murdered by Soviet intelligence, but the official investigation, unaware of the NKVD manhunt, concluded that Krivitsky committed suicide.

Two people with close ties to Krivitsky later recounted opposite interpretations of his death:

• Suicide: Reiss' wife wrote:

  In the United States, he had to make a new start in life, without knowing the country or the language. He did find friends, good friends, but among them he realized how frightfully alone he was... He lived in relative security and even affluence from the sale of his articles. His family was safe and well cared for, he had friends, it seemed he could start a new life. But something else had happened. For the first time he had the leisure to see himself in his new situation. He had broken with his old life and had not built a new one. He went to a hotel in Washington, wrote a letter to his wife and one to his friends, and put a bullet through his head... To those who knew his handwriting, his style, his expressions, there could be no doubt that he had written them.

• Assassination: Chambers recounted in his memoirs:

  One night one of my close friends burst into my office at Time. He was holding a yellow tear-off that had just come over the teletype.
  "They have murdered the General," he said. "Krivitsky has been killed."
  Krivitsky's body had been found in a room in a small Washington hotel a few blocks from the Capitol. He had a room permanently reserved at a large downtown hotel where he had always stayed when he was in Washington. He had never stayed at the small hotel before. Why had he gone there?
  He had been shot through the head and there was evidence that he had shot himself. At whose command? He had left a letter in which he gave his wife and children the unlikely advice that the Soviet Government and people were their best friends. Previously, he had warned them that, if he were found dead, never under any circumstances to believe that he had committed suicide. Who had forced my friend to write the letter? I remembered the saying: "Any fool can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a good natural death"...
  Krivitsky also told me something else that night. A few days before, he had taken off the revolver that he usually carried and placed it in a bureau drawer. His seven-year-old son watched him.
  "Why do you put away the revolver?" he asked. "In America," said Krivitsky, "nobody carries a revolver." "Papa," said the child, "carry the revolver."

Speculation persists into the 21st Century. As an example, in 2017, Antony Percy argued in his book Misdefending the Realm (Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press, 2017[16]) that Krivitsky:

• Was the UK's most important source on Soviet plans
• Did not receive action from MI5 on intelligence he supplied
• Was assassinated by Soviet intelligence after Guy Burgess informed Soviet superiors about Krivitsky

Krivitsky's assassination, Percy argues, cleared threat of exposure of the Cambridge Five and other moles.

Survivors

At first news of his death, Whittaker Chambers found Krivitsky's wife Antonina ("Tonia" according to Kern, "Tonya" according to Chambers) and son Alek in New York City. He brought them by train to Florida, where they stayed with Chambers's family (who had already fled New Smyrna). Both families hid there several months, fearing further Soviet reprisals. The families then returned to Chambers's farm in Westminster, Maryland. Within a short time, however, Tonia and Alek returned to New York.

Both his wife and son lived in poverty for the rest of their lives. Alek died of a brain tumor in his early 30s, after serving in the US Navy and studying at Columbia University. Tonia (who changed her surname legally to "Thomas") continued to live and work in New York City until retiring to Ossining, where she died aged 94 in 1996 in a nursing home.

Works

• In Stalin's Secret Service (1939) (second edition 1939, 1979, 1985, 2000)
  • Agent de Staline (French, 1940)
  • Byłem agentem Stalina (Polish, 1964)
• Rusia en España (Spanish, 1939)
• MI5 Debriefing & Other Documents on Soviet Intelligence (2004)