Individuals Functioning As Agents of Influence
Individuals operating as an agent of influence may serve in the fields of journalism, government, art, labor, academia, or a number of other professional fields. Cultural opinion makers, nationalists, and religious leaders have also been targeted to serve as individual agents of influence. The following are some notable individuals that have been accused of being foreign agents of influence. The list is not exhaustive but is meant to show the wide range in which such agents can operate. As previously noted, proving someone is an agent of influence is among the most difficult endeavors, even for the most skilled counterintelligence officers.
- Alger Hiss – an accused agent of influence who was also a minor spy. At the time of his exposure he had significant support among US politicians and only went to jail for lying under oath about passing documents to the Soviet Union.
- Harry Hopkins – debate continues today over whether enough evidence persists to accuse him of being a Soviet agent of influence, but he was largely responsible for fostering pro-Soviet views within the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.
- Arne Herløv Petersen – used as a Soviet agent of influence in Norway for over 10 years, he mainly focused on various means of manipulating Danish public opinion.
- Arne Treholt - he was exposed as a result of overuse as an agent of influence in taking blatantly one-sided arguments over Norway’s northern border.
- Rose O'Neal Greenhow – Confederate spy and accused agent of influence working among the British.
- William Stephenson – assumed British agent of influence working in the US in the era of World War II.
- Harry Dexter White – According to confessed spies and FBI informants Whitaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, Harry Dexter White was accused of being a Soviet agent of influence working in the US as an Assistant Secretary of Treasury. He was accused of fostering animosity between the US and Japan in an effort to advance Russian interests. He was also accused of influencing the climate so that Russia could gain disproportional representation in the United Nations and delaying aid to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek in an effort to facilitate the communist takeover of the government. In his book Treasonable Doubt, R. Bruce Craig questions whether this accusation is true, largely relying on the White’s pivotal role in the founding of the Bretton Woods system to point that some key achievements of his career were staunchly anti-Communist in nature. As mentioned earlier, however, it is among the most difficult tasks to prove someone is an agent of influence. As noted by Dr. James C. Van Hool, joint historian of the US Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency, debate over White’s status as an agent of influence continues to this day.
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