Albert E. Kahn - Allegations of Soviet Spying

Allegations of Soviet Spying

After his death, speculation developed as to whether Kahn had served Soviet intelligence. In 1946 the San Francisco KGB suggested that Kahn be recruited into Soviet espionage. Kahn requested that Julia Older, who worked in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), obtain information. Elizabeth Bentley stated in her deposition to the FBI that Kahn had furnished information directly to Jacob Golos and herself in 1942 on immigrant Ukrainians hostile to the Soviet Union. During that period, the Soviet Union was an ally of the United States in the war against Nazi Germany. Ukrainian nationalist and pro-fascist organizations were considered by the American government as allies of the Germans, and at the time Kahn shared his investigative findings with the FBI and American military intelligence. Venona project researchers John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr speculate Kahn may be code name "Fighter", as referenced in Venona decypt # 247 San Francisco to Moscow, 14 June 1946.

In September 1958, Kahn was called for the final time to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. One witness, Fedor Mansvetov, testified that he knew Kahn to be a Soviet spy because "he is following party line" by not referring to East European countries as "satellites". Kahn submitted an affidavit with the committee which charged that "witnesses at your hearings have been repeatedly encouraged to bandy about...grotesque accusations", and included a challenge:

"If I could sue your committee for defamation of character and interference with my work, I would. It might be a good lesson for you. Perhaps you will advise me whether each of your committee members is willing to waive his congressional immunity and assume full personal responsibility for spreading the charges made against me by your witnesses at this hearing. Perhaps just one of you –let us say Senator Eastland –will repeat in public and without congressional immunity the accusation that I am a spy. There seems a peculiar aptness to that popular American saying, 'Put up or shut up.'"

None of the Senators accepted his offer.