Hemingway revealed to have been a failed KGB agent

[ThirdWorldJohn]

Hemingway revealed as failed KGB spy

Notes from Stalin-era intelligence archives show 'agent Argo' as a willing recruit in 1941

Up till now, this has been a notably cheerful year for admirers of Ernest Hemingway – a surprisingly diverse set of people who range from Michael Palin to Elmore Leonard. Almost every month has brought good news: a planned Hemingway biopic; a new, improved version of his memoir, A Moveable Feast; the opening of a digital archive of papers found in his Cuban home; progress on a movie of Islands in the Stream.

Last week, however, saw the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press), which reveals the Nobel prize-winning novelist was for a while on the KGB's list of its agents in America. Co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, the book is based on notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, made when he was given access in the 90s to Stalin-era intelligence archives in Moscow.

Its section on the author's secret life as a "dilettante spy" draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name "Argo", and "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us" when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to "give us any political information" and was never "verified in practical work", so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade. Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?

The latter reading would chime with his attempts to assist the US during the second world war in his fishing boat El Pilar, patrolling waters north of Cuba in search of U-Boats, making coded notes but only one sighting.

Revelations made in recent years have not been kind to some of the writers and artists who made their reputations in the Spanish civil war. George Orwell's list of public figures who were crypto-communists, prepared for a Foreign Office propaganda arm in 1949, sullied his saintly image when it was published six years ago. Research in Soviet archives led Antony Beevor to call Andre Malraux a "mythomaniac". Robert Capa has been accused of faking the best-known photo of that conflict. The virulent hatred of Arabs of Martha Gellhorn - Hemingway's third wife, who covered the civil war with him - has been exposed. And now it's the turn of Hemingway himself, the biggest name of all, to lose some of his lustre.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy

[mix]

1. The Soviet-Nazi treaty was just about to be broken, June 1941...

The Russians and Americans would henceforth be allies against fascism until its defeat. That is the context here, Hemingway helping an ally.

[Thothmes]

7. Doesnt make any difference.

A couple of Americans doing long terms in prison for providing the Isralies information.

[mix]

8. no history never does

(try to stay focused)

[Thothmes]

9. focused on what

The Roosevelt administration actively hunted NKVD agents that they thought were inside the Manhatten project.

[mix]

10. 1941-45

Hunting Russian spies in the US during that time doesn't surprise me. Just as Hemingway's supposed association with the Soviets does not entirely surprise me, nor does our brief alliance with them.

Fascism was the immediate threat, and for many Americans, the Russians were the coming one. Hemingway was a leftwing internationalist, but also an American. He did the right thing.

[provis99]

2. isn't Vassiliev the same idiot who said MLK, Jr was a KGB spy?

Real credible source, there.:eyes:

[MADem]

3. For all anyone knows he could have been working two or three sides of the street... nt

[timeforpeace]

4. Maybe he didn't commit suicide.

[MisterP]

5. we still have to find out how reliable these writers are: neocons love to cite fudged and illusory

Eastern-Bloc documents to blame the Reds for Nuclear Disarmament or Civil Rights (not that I'm saying this is the case with Vassiliev & co.)
after the 70s, the Right--stung by the citizens' groups, personal testimonies, and whistleblowers of the 60s exposing pollution and dangers--decided to create its own "grassroots" organizations, so they could speak "for the people" and not just "the country and its safety" or "science": thus were created the libertarians, who say that taxes, food and product safety, environmental and animal protection, gun control, tobacco laws, incest limitations, etc. threaten YOU (or at least "regular folks" just like YOU!!!11) Another trick was the false whistleblower, who pretended that this group or the other was the dupe of malign powers, whether external (Moscow) or internal (as in accusations of agents provocateur)

[mix]

6. Hemingway was in good company.

Elbe River, 1945

(my 1776th post, 1776 and 1945, two of America's greatest years !)

[tuckessee]

What company are you referring to?

Certainly you're not equating American GI's in WW2 with a traitor who volunteered to work for a foreign intelligence agency during its most murderous, genocidal period are you?

[mix]

13. Which army helped the Allies defeat the Nazis?

Regardless of Soviet crimes, the US and Russian solders were allies, as were their governments, the NVDK/KGB included, against fascism.

[Kurska]

11. He spent alot of time with the Republicans of spain, Uncle joe was a big hit over there.

I'm honestly not suprised if Hemingway came out of the Spanish civil war with a pro-stalin tint and wanted to help him.

[mix]

12. How would you prove this statement?

--I'm honestly not suprised if Hemingway came out of the Spanish civil war with a pro-stalin tint and wanted to help him.

Because I do not think it is tenable, i.e attributing his motivation to Stalin's cult of personality.

[Kurska]

14. I've read alot about the history of the Spanish civil war and Uncle joe was very popular among

The stock and file of the republican army, even to the point where the anarchist/trotskists were purged towards the end of the war.

The cult of personality wasn't a localized phenomenon exclusive to Russia, it was something that plagued many communist movement of the 30's and 40's, especially the 40's.

I'm speculating based exclusively on his involvement in the Spanish Civil war that was sympathetic to the Republican Army and the pro-Stalin tint of much of that army. Obviously I can not prove anything, I'm certainly not trying to defame the guy.

[mix]

15. such purges, my friend, are why the Stalinists were hated among Republicans n/t

[Kurska]

16. There were few true "Republicans" in the movement to the support the government. n/t

[mix]

17. Hemingway was no Stalinist. n/t

[Kurska]

18. I'm not saying he was. Stalinist in the 30's and 40's meant something a whole lot diffrent then it

does today. Most of the very worst of Stalin's regime was not even uncovered until after the fall of the soviet union.

[mix]

19. the left knew about Stalin's crimes, particularly the Trotskyites, since the 1920s...

...this article is BS...and historically nonsensical--accusing Hemingway of fighting the precise war his government was.

[Kurska]

20. You're completely wrong on that, even after the great purges stalin was still hardly considered the

absolute villain he is today, even by the left.

[mix]

21. Stalin's victims on the left knew about his crimes before the rest of the world.

Trotskyites above all. After WWII, with most opposition eliminated within the communist movement, Stalin was able to keep his crimes hidden for awhile, but obviously the truth emerged as his power eroded.

Your point about "Uncle Joe" and Hemingway remains an absurdity, as does the linked article's claim.