Maurice Hyman Halperin (1906–1995) was an American writer, professor, diplomat, and accused Soviet spy (NKVD code name "Hare").

Biography

Maurice Hyman Halperin was born on March 3, 1906, in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1927, he received an A.B. from Harvard College, in 1939 an MA from the University of Oklahoma, and in 1931 a doctorate from the Sorbonne. the Russian contact at that time, told me that Halperin had been accused by General William J. Donovan, the head of OSS, of being a Soviet agent..." The next day, the FBI notified Harry S. Truman's White House that "according to a "highly confidential source," among those "employed by the government of the United States" who "have been furnishing data and information to persons outside the Federal government, who are in turn transmitting this information to espionage agents of the Soviet government," was "Maurice Halperin, Office of Strategic Services." Subsequent surveillance of Halperin disclosed that he was in contact with Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Lauchlin Currie, Philip and Mary Jane Keeney, and others.

SISS investigation (1953)

In 1953, after Soviet cables were secretly decrypted by U.S. counter-intelligence, Halperin was called before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to defend himself on charges of espionage, at which time he lost his teaching position at Boston University.

Works

Aside from an early literary study, Halperin published three books critical of Castro:

  • Roman de Tristan et Iseut dans la littérature anglo-américaine au XIXe et au XXe siècles (1931)
  • Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro: An Essay in Contemporary History (1972)
  • The Taming of Fidel Castro (1981)
  • Return to Havana (1994)

See also

  • NKVD
  • Elizabeth Bentley
  • Silvermaster Group
  • Perlo Group
  • Venona project

References

  • Alexander Vassiliev's notes from KGB Archival Records
  • Haynes, John E. and Klehr, Harvey, In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage, Encounter Press (2003)
  • Haynes, John Earl & Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press, 2000. .
  • (ed. available via books.google)
  • Peake, Hayden B., OSS and the Venona Decrypts. Intelligence and National Security (Great Britain) 12, no. 3 (July 1997): 14–34.
  • CIA Publications, The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency, no date.
  • Kirschner, Don S.,Cold War Exile: The Unclosed Case of Maurice Halperin Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1995
  • Schecter, Jerrold and Leona, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History, Potomac Press, 2002
  • CIA Publications, The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency, no date.
  • The Peak obituary
  • Warner, Michael, The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency Chapter: X-2. Central Intelligence Agency Publications (2000). "Research & Analysis Latin America specialist Maurice Halperin, nevertheless passed information to Moscow."
  • Chairman's Forward, Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy (1997)
  • Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, Appendix A, 7. The Cold War (1997)
  • X-2
  • FBI Venona FOIA, p. 53