Philip Olin Keeney (1891–1962), and his wife, Mary Jane Keeney, were librarians who became part of the Soviet Silvermaster spy ring in the 1940s.
Keeney met Mary Jane when both were working as librarians at the University of Michigan in 1929. In 1931, he became head librarian and professor of library economy at Montana State University (now known as the University of Montana) at Missoula, where he made several improvements. By the mid-1930s, both Keeney and his wife were involved with left-wing political movements. In 1937, Keeney, although tenured, was summarily terminated after questioning book censorship by a local politician and supporting a proposal to revive a local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. Supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Association of University Professors, among others, Keeney brought a wrongful dismissal suit and, in 1939, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in his favor and mandated reinstatement. But, made ill by the stress, he soon resigned. In 1939, the Keeneys founded the Progressive Librarians' Council (PLC). That year, the PLC endorsed for Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish, chairman in 1937 of the first open meeting of the Second Congress of the League of American Writers, which was "founded under Communist auspices in 1935," according to a 1942 report by President Roosevelt's Attorney General Francis Biddle. As he was not a librarian, the American Library Association (ALA) opposed MacLeish's candidacy, but when FDR made his appointment, the PLC candidate got the nod.
The PLC also smuggled money to Emilio Andrés, in exile in France after the Spanish Civil War. During the Hitler-Stalin pact, the PLC sent a letter to FDR urging him not to aid Poland, France or the United Kingdom, all fighting for their lives under the Nazi onslaught. (The letter had been phrased in such a way that it appeared to be from the ALA, but that group sent the President its own missive clarifying that the PLC did not speak for the ALA.) Once the pact broke down, and Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the PLC altered its position, advocating American participation in the war. identified in 1944 by Biddle and in 1948 by Truman administration Attorney General Tom Clark as a subversive organization. In 1940, "Keeney and his wife were signed on apparently by the Neighbors,"—code name for Soviet military intelligence (GRU)—according to a 1944 report by NKVD agent Sergey Kurnikov.
Government work
Despite Keeney's radical political views, activities in several "popular front" groups and socialization with numerous people involved in Soviet espionage activities, both he and his wife were able to obtain a variety of federal jobs between 1940 and 1947. Within months of the PLC's endorsement of MacLeish for Librarian of Congress, Keeney was working at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., NKVD agent Jacob Golos allegedly met with him there.
After the United States became involved in World War II, Keeney transferred to the Office of the Coordinator of Information, which was later transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), meaning that recruitment was being undertaken. A note from U.S. cryptographers states "KINI: If correct, probably Philip Olin KEENEY."
From 1943 to 1945, Keeney was Chief of the Document Security Section in the Foreign Economic Administration. His wife, meanwhile, worked in the Bureau of Economic Warfare. In 1945, Keeney was allegedly transferred from the GRU to the NKVD. Later, designated "Libraries Officer" in the SCAP Civil Information and Education Section, he played an important role in promoting the revival and reform of library services in Japan. He negotiated the return of library buildings requisitioned by the Military Government and fostered the renewal of the Japan Library Association. His memorandum "Unified Library Services for Japan" of 8 April 1946 (aka The Keeney Plan) was a set of recommendations based on the California County Library System and stimulated discussion of new library legislation, but was very incompletely reflected in the eventual Library Law of 1950.
His wife worked in France for the Allied Staff on Reparations.
In 1946, the State Department prepared a Top Secret chart identifying 124 loyalty or security cases on the department payroll. Later that year, State Department official Samuel Klaus prepared a 106-page confidential memo summarizing security data on each of the cases listed on the chart. One of these was Mary Jane Keeney.
A 1946 congressional report named Keeney's wife, and in 1947 both lost their federal jobs and were denied passports. Within three months, Keeney attempted to leave the country without a valid passport, on the same Polish ship on which Comintern agent Gerhardt Eisler had escaped to the East bloc; the lawyer who encouraged him in this unsuccessful attempt to leave the country was Eisler's attorney. Despite all this, by the following year, Mary Jane was working in the Document Control Section of the United Nations secretariat.