Harold Glasser - Perlo Group

Perlo Group

When Glasser returned to the United States in 1944, he reestablished contact with the Perlo group. Victor Perlo, the groups head, explained to Elizabeth Bentley that Glasser had been a member of the group before the War started, and Glasser was transferred to work with another group. Charles Kramer, another member of the Perlo group, told Bentley that Glasser joined Alger Hiss' group.

In an 25 April 1945 memo from Pavel Fitin, head of KGB foreign intelligence, to Vsevolod Merkulov, head of the overall KGB organization, Fitin asked fair treatment for an award to be given to a longtime operative, Harold Glasser. Fitin called Merkulov's attention to the fact that Glasser had been working for Soviet intelligence for a long time, since May 1937, usually for the KGB but also at times for the GRU. Fitin explained how, while Glasser was working with the GRU, Glasser felt he had been slighted. Fitin explained how the group of GRU agents of which Glasser was part, was decorated with honors of the Soviet Union, but Glasser had been neglected because of his transfer back to KGB. The text from KGB Archives reads in part as follows:

"Our agent RUBLE, drawn to work for the Soviet Union in May 1937, passed initially through the military "neighbors" and then through our station valuable information on political and economic issues.... To our work RUBLE gives much attention and energy is devoted and disciplined agent.

"According to data from VADIM the group of agents of the "military" neighbors whose part RUBLE was earlier, recently was decorated with orders of the USSR. RUBLE learned about this fact from his friend ALES, who is the head of the mentioned group. Taking into account RUBLE's devoted work for the USSR for eight years and the fact that, as a result of transfer to our station, RUBLE was not decorated together with other members of the ALES group, consider expedient to put him forward for a decoration of the Order of the Red Star. Ask for your consent.

Fitin's account corroborates Elizabeth Bentley's deposition.

In the transcript # 1759 KGB Washington to Moscow 28 March 1945, Glasser reports the Treasury Department is sending a young lawyer, Josiah DuBois, to Moscow to serve on the American delegation to the Allied Reparations Commission meeting. Glasser says he established “most friendly relations” with DuBois and judged him to be ideologically a Communist, although he was not a CPUSA member. Glasser reports how he counseled DuBois to be more “discreet” in expressing left-wing views and notes that his personal relationship with DuBois was such that he could “normally obtain by asking” anything he wanted.

Glasser is in the subject of several June 1945 Venona cables. Three June 1945 transcripts report Glasser's transmitting U.S. State Department reports of Soviet war losses, a State Department report on a Finnish company believed to be hiding Nazi financial assets, and an Office of Strategic Services report on the movement of Nazi gold through Swiss banks.