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Old April 30th, 2011 #15
Mike Parker
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Victor Perlo

Victor Perlo (1912–1999) was a Marxist economist, government functionary, and a longtime member of the governing National Committee of the Communist Party USA. From 1935 through the middle 1940s, Perlo allegedly participated in the gathering of information for the secret foreign intelligence apparatus of the Soviet Union, activity for which he is remembered as the namesake of the so-called "Perlo group." In the years following World War II, Perlo published extensively as one of the Communist Party's leading voices on economic issues.

Biography

Early years

Victor Perlo was born May 15, 1912 in East Elmhurst, Queens county, New York. Perlo was the son of ethnic Jewish parents who had both emigrated in their youth to America from the Russian empire.[1] His father, Samuel Perlo, was a lawyer and his mother, Rachel Perlo, was a teacher.[1]

Perlo received his Bachelor's degree from Columbia University in New York City in 1931 and Master's degree in mathematics from the same school in 1933.[2]

Late in 1932 or early in 1933, while still a student at Columbia, Perlo joined the Communist Party USA, an organization with which he was affiliated throughout his life.[1]

Perlo married his first wife, Katherine, in 1933 and divorced in 1943. Subsequently, he married his second wife, Ellen, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. The couple had three children, a girl and two boys.[3]

Perlo had varied interests, which included tennis, mountain climbing, and chess. He was also a talented pianist.

Governmental career

After his graduation from Columbia in 1933, Perlo went to work as a statistical analyst and assistant to a division chief at the National Recovery Administration (NRA), remaining at that post until June 1935.[1] Perlo then moved to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board where he was an analyst for the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, establishing statistical analyses for properties mortgaged to the corporation and projecting long term financial accounts.[4] Perlo worked in that capacity until October 1937.[1]

In October 1937, Perlo left government service to work in the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank established in 1916, where he stayed as a researcher for more than two years.[1] In November 1939, Perlo went to work in the US Department of Commerce, where he worked as a senior economic analyst in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.[4]

Perlo moved to the Office of Price Administration (OPA) in November 1940, where he was head of the economic statistics division.[1] There Perlo engaged in the study of inflationary pressures in the American economy, particularly with the advent of World War II, which helped provide documentation enabling the institution of price controls.[4]

Perlo remained in that capacity until leaving to become head of the aviation section of the Bureau of Programs and Statistics at the War Production Board (WPB).[1] Perlo's work at the WPB involved analysis of the various economic problems of aircraft production.[5] In September 1944 he was made a special assistant to the director of the Bureau of Programs and Statistics of the WPB.[1]

During his time in the federal bureaucracy, Perlo was a contributor to the Communist Party's press, submitting articles on economic matters under a variety of pseudonyms.[1] He also secretly assisted I.F. Stone in gathering materials for various journalistic exposés.[1]

About December 1945, Perlo went to the U.S. Treasury Department, where he worked in the Monetary Research department.[6] There he was an alternate member of the Committee for Reciprocity Information, which took care of technical work relating to trade agreements under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act and doing preparatory work for the International Trade Organization.[6]

Perlo left government service in 1947, resigning in the midst of an investigation over whether his continued employment represented a security risk.[7]

Career after government

In 1948, Perlo obtained a position as an economist for the Progressive Party, assisting the Presidential campaign of former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President Henry Wallace.[8]

In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[9]

Espionage allegations

In 1935, Perlo was allegedly part of a Washington, DC-based communist group headed by J. Peters (code-named "Steve") which mined information on behalf of Soviet intelligence.[10] At Peters' direction, Perlo (code-named "Raid") met with several other leading CPUSA members including V.J. Jerome, Eugene Dennis, and Roy Hudson, although any relationship of these latter-named individuals to the Soviet intelligence gathering effort was not clear even to the service's Washington, DC station head Anatoly Gorsky in December 1944.[10]

Perlo was accused of being a Soviet agent by defecting spy Elizabeth Bentley in the summer of 1948 and on August 9 was called before Congress to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), engaged in an investigation of alleged Communist infiltration of the federal government. Perlo repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked about his relations with other alleged espionage agents and Communist Party members, refusing three times when asked in various ways whether he was or had been a member of the Communist Party.[11] He took the Fifth three more times when asked whether he had ever known, seen, or passed classified information to Elizabeth Bentley, who was present in the hearing room, and 36 more times when asked about various other individuals of interest to HUAC.[12]

Perlo was then temporarily excused from the stand and Elizabeth Bentley brought forward. Bentley testified that she had first met Victor Perlo in the apartment of attorney John Abt in March 1944 and acknowledged that Perlo was the head of the "so-called Perlo group of Government employees" that had furnished information to Bentley for transmission to the Soviet government.[13] Bentley testified that Perlo was employed in the part of the War Production Board which made use of secret information on aircraft production and stated that he had passed on to her "production figures listed by types of planes — fighters, bombers, transports, photographic planes, and so on."[14]

Recalled to the stand, Perlo again repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment before being allowed to read into the record a prepared statement. "The lurid spy charges of the Bentley woman and Chambers are inventions of irresponsible sensation seekers," Perlo declared, adding "I am a loyal American citizen, and I categorically assert that I have never violated the laws or interests of my country."[15]

While the veracity of the charges remained unresolved at the time, the cloud over Perlo with respect to the espionage allegations made against him combined with his refusal to cooperate with HUAC effectively denied him future academic employment and ended his government career.

Perlo was again called by Congress for testimony in 1953, this time before the Senate Sub-committee on Internal Security.

Death and legacy

He died on December 1, 1999 at his home in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. He was 87 years old at the time of his death.[3]

Victor Perlo's papers are housed in the special collections department of Lewis J. Ort Library at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland.

Victor_Perlo Victor_Perlo


Perlo group

Headed by Victor Perlo, the Perlo group is the name given to a group of Americans who provided information which was given to Soviet intelligence agencies; it was active during the World War II period, until the entire group was exposed to the FBI by the defection of Elizabeth Bentley.

It had sources on the War Production Board, the Senate La Follette Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; and in the United States Department of Treasury.

The Perlo group and Venona

Much useful additional information on the activities of the Perlo group was given by the Venona project. The first Venona transcript referencing the Perlo group gives the names of all the members in clear text, as code names had not yet been assigned.

The Perlo group fits into the Venona project information when transcript # 687 of 13 May 1944 is examined. Iskhak Akhmerov in New York City personally prepared a report to MGB headquarters in Moscow advising that some unspecified action had been taken regarding Elizabeth Bentley in accordance with instructions of Earl Browder. Akhmerov then made reference to winter and also to Harry Magdoff. This latter reference was then followed by a statement that in Bentley's opinion "they" are reliable. It was also mentioned that no one had interested himself in their possibilities.

The name Golovin was mentioned, and it was then reported that Victor Perlo, Charles Kramer, Edward Fitzgerald and Harry Magdoff would take turns coming to New York every two weeks. Akhmerov said Kramer and Fitzgerald knew Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, whose cover name was later changed to "Robert".

Bentley advised that Jacob Golos informed her he had made contact with a group in Washington, D.C. through Earl Browder. After the death of Golos in 1943, two meetings were arranged with this group in 1944. The first meeting was arranged by Browder and was held in early 1944. The meetings were held in the apartment of John Abt in New York City and Bentley was introduced to four individuals identified as Victor Perlo, Charles Kramer, Harry Magdoff and Edward Fitzgerald.

KGB Archives

Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev in Haunted Wood, a book written from an examination of KGB Archives in Moscow, report the KGB credits the Perlo group members with having sent, among other items, the following 1945 U.S. Government documents to Moscow:

February

Contents of a WPB memo dealing with apportionment of aircraft to the USSR in the event of war on Japan;

WPB discussion of the production policy regarding war materials at an Executive Committee meeting;

Documents on future territorial planning for commoditiies in short supply;

Documents on a priority system for foreign orders for producing goods in the United States after the end of the war in Europe;

Documents on trade policy and trade controls after the war;

Documents on arms production in the United States in January 1945;

March

A WPB report on "Aluminum for the USSR and current political issues in the U.S. over aluminum supplies" (2/26/45);

April

Documents concerning the committee developing plans for the U.S. economy after the defeat of Germany, and also regarding war orders for the war against Japan;

Documents on the production of the B-29 bomber and the B-32;

Tactical characteristics of various bombers and fighters;

Materials on the United States using Saudi Arabian oil resources;

June

Data concerning U.S. war industry production in May from the WPB's secret report;

Data concerning plans for a 1945–1946 aircraft production from the WPB;

More data on specific aircraft's technical aspects;

August

Data concerning the new Export-Import Bank;

Data concerning supplies of American aircraft to the Allies in June 1945;

Data from the top secret WPB report on U.S. war industry production in June;

October

Detailed data concerning the industrial capacities of the Western occupation zones of Germany that could be brought out as war reparations;

Information on views within the U.S. Army circles concerning the inevitability of war against the USSR as well as statements by an air force general supporting U.S. acquisition of advanced bases in Europe for building missiles.

Members

Victor Perlo headed the Perlo group. Perlo was originally allegedly a member of the Ware group before World War II. After receiving a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University in 1933, Perlo worked at a number of New Deal government agencies among a group of economists known as “Harry Hopkins’ bright young men.” The group worked, among other things, for creation and implementation of the WPA jobs program, and helped push through unemployment compensation, the Wagner National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and Social Security. During World War II, Perlo served in several capacities, working first as chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board, then in the Office of Price Administration, and later for the Treasury Department. Perlo left the government in 1947. Perlo also worked for the Brookings Institution and wrote American Imperialism. Perlo's code name in Soviet intelligence was "Eck" and "Raid" appearing in Venona project as "Raider".

Victor Perlo, Chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board; head of branch in Research Section, Office of Price Administration Department of Commerce; Division of Monetary Research Department of Treasury; Brookings Institution

Edward Fitzgerald, War Production Board

Harold Glasser, Deputy Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Department of the Treasury; United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration; War Production Board; Advisor on North African Affairs Committee; United States Treasury Representative to the Allied High Commission in Italy

Charles Kramer, Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Price Administration; National Labor Relations Board; Senate Subcommittee on Wartime Health and Education; Agricultural Adjustment Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee; Democratic National Committee

Harry Magdoff, Statistical Division of War Production Board and Office of Emergency Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce

Allen Rosenberg, Board of Economic Warfare; Chief of the Economic Institution Staff, Foreign Economic Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; Senate Committee on Education and Labor; Railroad Retirement Board; Councel to the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board
Donald Wheeler, Office of Strategic Services Research and Analysis division

See also

Harry Magdoff and espionage

Perlo_group Perlo_group