-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
>From Major Jordan's Diaries
George Racey Jordan�1952 All rights reserved
LCCN 52-6448
Western Islands
395 Concord Avenue
Belmont. Massachusetts 02178
PRINTING HISTORY
Harcourt, Brace edition published 1952
Free Enterprise edition published 1958
American Opinion edition published 1961
The Americanist Library edition published 1965
170pps � out-of-print
--[14]--
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Clouds of Witnesses
The first Fulton Lewis broadcast had scarcely ended, when a multitude of
officers and servicemen, throughout the country, sprang to my support-at the
risk, in a few cases, of postwar government jobs. Several participated in
later broadcasts from the Lewis studio, others on local radio programs and
newspaper interviews. A number were my former colleagues at Newark, Great
Falls, and Fairbanks. The names of most of the others I had never heard
before. Some disclosed incidents of questionable aid to Russia that lay
outside my own experiences.
The WAC sergeant who worked in my office was one of the first persons to come
forward. She was now Mrs. Gordon Bean of Meadville, Pa., but as Sergeant
Georgianna Pilkington she had acted for a year as my chief military clerk at
Great Falls. When my date-book was produced, she recognized the volume as the
identical one she had often seen while tidying my desk. In its pages, she
said, I was always entering "copious notes about everything." She said I kept
it under lock and key in the top drawer, whenever I left the office.
"Major Jordan told me frequently," declared Mrs. Bean, "that he was very much
concerned about how much information was going through." She observed that I
was troubled by the importance as well as volume of these contraband
shipments. When Colonel Kotikov was dissatisfied, she related, it was common
knowledge that all he had to do was call Washington to get whatever he
wanted.[1]
It was also disclosed that traffic in black suitcases started before I ever
dreamed of their existence. This was revealed by former Corporal Henry J.
Cauthen of Company G, Fourth Infantry Regiment, which was stationed at Nome,
Alaska. He was employed in 1949 by an engineering firm in San Jose, Cal. In
an interview he told of an experience at Nome one Sunday afternoon in late
November or early December, 1942. That was one month before I arrived in
Great Falls and three months before my first search of Russian suitcases.
"Some friends and I were watching an A-20 take off for Russia," said Cauthen.
"About five miles from the base it crashed and burned. We skied over to see
whether we could rescue any of the men. The plane was destroyed and four
Russians were dead. On the ground were four suitcases. Two had been almost
consumed, but the others were intact except that the light straps with which
they were bound had split apart. All were black and very cheaply made.
"We examined one of them. There were maps on top, and beneath was a stack of
blueprints. The first chart had been made for the Air Corps by the American
Army Engineers. It was in English, but there were markings in Russian showing
all our positions and defenses in and around the Nome Airbase.
"While we were looking at this map, some Russians came over in a skimobile.
One officer was very disturbed to see that we had opened the suitcase, and
demanded that I give it to him. I did so. He wrapped it up and carried it
away. This was witnessed by several of our own Air Corps officers who were
there at the time."[2]
Corroboration of the charge that uranium information went to the Soviet Union
came unexpectedly from a senior GI student at Clemson College, S.C. He was
Royall Edward Norton, 29 years old and married, with one son.
Norton consulted the president of Clemson College, Dr. Robert F. Poole, who
suggested that they ask counsel from former Justice James F. Byrnes, who was
arriving next day to deliver an address. Byrnes advised Norton to send a full
report to the Un-American Activities Committee. Thus it happened that Mr.
Lewis made a special trip to Clemson, which is near Greenville, S. C.
Norton enlisted in the Navy during October, 1941, and served till the close
of the war, in the North and South Atlantic, the Caribbean, Africa, Sicily
and Alaska. He suffered shipwreck aboard the USS Motole and injuries to his,
foot and back in an airplane crash. He was honorably discharged with the rank
of Chief Petty Officer, four letters endorsing his candidacy for a
commission, and a general service rating that was exceptionally high.
A letter of commendation for his service with the Red Army Air Forces covered
a tour at the Coast Guard Air, Station, Elizabeth City, N. C., and the naval
base on Kodiak', Island, Alaska. At Elizabeth City planes were conditioned I
for delivery to Russia and Russian pilots were trained to fly them. At Kodiak
they were reconditioned, stripped of, surplus gear and cargo, inspected and
reloaded. He gave Fulton Lewis the following account of one of his Alaskan
experiences:
"A PBM�a Catalina type without landing gear[*]�was being loaded for the
take-off to Russia. I had finished checking the cargo against my inventory
when I noticed three extra parachute bags that obviously were not filled with
parachutes.[ * This seaplane was requested by the Russians only for #8 Wasp
engine, which they could not get from us any other way. Since they never used
seaplanes, this PBM (and how manyothers?) was presumably discarded after
being cannibalized.]
"I started to inspect them, end in the first one found a wooden box about 18
inches long, less than a foot wide and maybe 8 or 10 inches deep. The top of
the box was not fastened down or sealed in any way, and I lifted it up to we
what was inside.
"The Soviet pilot who was making a final check in the cockpit, saw what I was
doing and put on a terrific scene. He tried to make me stop, yelling in
English: 'Personal gear�personal!' I went on long enough to see what was in
the box. It contained a solid stack of blueprints, all of about the same size
and general appearance, as if they belonged to a set.
"I unfolded the one on top and examined it fairly carefully. I had had some
little experience in reading blueprints. This was very unusual and different
from anything I had ever seen. But I had studied enough chemistry in school
to recognize it as a highly complicated pattern of atomic structure. Protons
and neutrons were shown.
"In the lower right hand comer was a group of words, which were probably an
identification of the blueprint. I cannot remember the terms, but I do recall
the figure '92.' It meant nothing to me at the time, as I had never heard of
atomic energy or atomic bombs. In the light of Major Jordan's broadcast, this
was undoubtedly a blueprint of the atomic structure of the 92nd element,
uranium."[3]
Norton also revealed that he entered a protest against Russian demands for a
complete set of astronomical charts of all Alaska and the Aleutian island
chain.
"I could not see why they had any need for such a thing," stated he. "A
simple course map would have been enough. The astronomical charts gave them a
tremendous amount of additional- information, far beyond what was necessary.
But the Russians were able to use enough influence, despite my objection, to
get 15 complete sets."[4]
During the Fulton Lewis broadcast of Dec. 7, his researcher Russell Turner
quoted Marcus McCann, a civilian member of the loading crew at Great Falls,
as stating he was present when I opened a large brown-paper bundle on a plane
being turned over to the Russians. In this package McCann saw railroad maps
and plans of factories.
Another of the freight-handling crew, Elmer Williams, was reported to have
explained to Turner that two kinds of shipments went through Great Falls. One
was sent, openly, and the other consisted of hundreds of "diplomatic"
pouches, boxes, bags and suitcases, accompanied by armed guards who never
left them, but slept with them in the warehouses.
Crewmen weighed these secret shipments, Williams said, so that planes could
be kept in balance when they were loaded, but had no idea of the contents.
"Virtually anything could have gone through," he asserted. Among open
deliveries he remembered thousands of pounds of printed material�books,
technical publications, newspapers, plans and blueprints; as well as special
shipments of motor parts and tools, such as wrenches and fine precision
drills.[5]
Colonel Frank C. Lynch of Pasadena related that he was an ordnance expert at
the Aberdeen Proving Ground. It was one of his duties to accompany a Russian
officer assigned there and make sure he learned nothing about super-secret
weapons. They included an anti-aircraft cannon that aimed itself, so that all
the gunners had to do was feed it with shells. In the summer of 1944 he was
ordered to crate this miracle gun for shipment to Russia. He accompanied the
weapon to Philadelphia, Colonel Lynch related, and saw it loaded on a
freighter.
Harvey Hart, port manager of Longview, Wash., declared that one of the last
shipments to Russia included items labeled "301A Geiger tubes" and "401A
registers," purchased from the Cyclotron Specialties Company. Geiger counters
are used for detecting radioactivity. These instruments left for Vladivostok
on the steamship Surikov, said Hart.
Lloyd Chestley of Presque-Isle, Maine, volunteered that in 1944 he gave
information about American radar to a Soviet General. Chestley was an Air
Forces radar officer, with the rank of Captain, at a U.S. airbase near
Gluntoe, Ireland. He stated that an American officer accompanied the General,
who was armed with "authorization" to inspect secret equipment.
Robert K. Califf of Lake Worth, Fla., who was weights and balances officer at
the Washington airport, with the rank of First Lieutenant, revealed that he
was often prevented from inspecting Russian shipments. In his interview, as
quoted, he declared:
I can say I was prevented many times from examin-ing parcels and pouches
which I should have inspected. I was prevented from examining these articles
by higher authorities, on the ground that they carried "diplomatic
immunity."[6]
Private George F. Roberts, of Seattle, told reporters he was stationed during
the war at an Army base near Edmonton, and that he was driven away from
transports bound for Siberia by civilians wielding tommy guns and speaking a
foreign language. He saw large boxes in the planes, but was prevented from
inspecting their contents. Superiors ordered him, Roberts declared, to "stay
off C-47s."
An offer to produce the manifesto for a cargo containing two helicopters and
thirty large U.S. Army tanks, which left the Erie pier in Jersey City on the
Russian freighter Chutokea for Siberia by way of the Panama Canal in 1948,
was made by Herbert Cooney, a former Congressional investigator, of 1419
University Ave., Bronx. Apparently as a ruse, he said, the tanks were
earmarked for Turkey.
Two intelligence officers, residents of Los Angeles, told newspapermen they
had been questioned by FBI operators. Lt.-Colonel Lewis J. Clarke, Jr., said
that during four years at Fairbanks and Great Falls he made daily reports on
Russian activities to G-2 in Washington. "I could only tell the FBI what any
other officer could tell them," reported Major Perry W. Parker, "namely, that
the Russians in Montana and Alaska spent most of their time trying to worm
out secret information from Americans."
One of the Navy's specialists in small arms and special weapons, whose name
was withheld because he was still in active service, related that he was
placed in charge of a training program at Governors Island, N.Y. He was
harassed by Russian officers who demanded information about weapons so new
that they had not yet been tested or even built When he refused, the Russians
threatened to appeal to Washington and have him dismissed. He was haled
before Navy superiors at 90 Church Street and reprimanded. His request for a
transfer was granted.
The War Department itself announced that during 1944 a dozen Russian officers
were trained in radar operations at Fort Monmouth, N. J., Signal Corps
Center. They were instructed in three types of radar�for aiming artillery,
identifying aircraft and tracing low-flying bombs and planes.
My former superior, Colonel Gardner, was interviewed by Fulton Lewis. In his
Dec. 5 broadcast Mr. Lewis told me:
I talked with Colonel Gardner this afternoon and he told me he had the same
experience at Newark that you had. Every time the Russians were displeased
with the way things were going�which was frequentlythey Would get on the
telephone to their Embassy in Washington and have the Embassy contact Mr.
Hopkins. All the difficulties would be straightened out immediately. I asked
Colonel Gardner how he knew it was Mr. Hopkins who did the job. He said it
was common information. The Russians referred to it, and so did everyone
else. It was general routine knowledge, he declared.[7]
.In a broadcast of his own, Colonel Gardner was kind enough to remark that
"Major Jordan was one of my best and most trusted officers." He continued:
I know nothing first-hand about the shipment of atomic materials. I do know
that, while I was in command at Great Falls and in charge of this operation,
the Russians could and did move anything they wanted to without divulging
what was in the consignment.[8]
Before a microphone in Mansfield, Ohio a week later, Colonel Gardner
declared: "There is more beneath the surface than has yet come to light, and
it is to be hoped that the investigating committee will forget partisan
politics and go to the very bottom. We in America must know whether public
servants in Washington are stiff giving our secrets away. If so, they should
be eliminated. We have had enough of fellowtravelers and Americans who
believe in foreign ideologies."[9] He then quoted a letter from "one of the
outstanding airmen of all time," Roscoe Turner, of Indianapolis.
Many thanks for your good letter of Dec. 6 and the attached statement of
yours in support of our mutual friend, Racey Jordan.
I am needling the Legion on this support too because, after all, there may be
an attempt to hush this thing up, as it is stepping into too many high places.
I also wrote Jordan and told him not to lose his nerve since he has done such
a magnificent job of uncovering it.[10]
Major John C. Starkie came forward in San Francisco for the Fulton Lewis
broadcast of Dec. 9:
I recall an occasion late in 1943 when Major Jordan came into my office and
raised quite a row because Russian aircraft had come in with equipment he
thought the Russians shouldn't have. He was in communication with his
superiors. We discovered that none of us was familiar with the apparatus. It
was a secret type of electronic equipment which was not authorized for the
Russians and which we removed. It did not go to Russia.
I was in Great Falls for a year and a half. During 1943 Major Jordan and I
were closely associated. His office was across the hangar from mine and we
had lunch together nearly every day at the Officers' Club. He was United
Nations Representative for the 34th Sub-Depot, in which I was assistant
maintenance officer for the Ferrying Section, with jurisdiction over repair,
maintenance and utilization of UN aircraft.
Major Jordan mentioned Harry Hopkins' name quite often ... Concerning
materials of which I had personal knowledge, and so far as my observations
went, everything Major Jordan has said checks out.[11]
Lt.-Colonel Bernard C. Hahn of Washington, Pa., was on duty several months at
Great Falls as personal representative of the Army Air Inspector, Brigadier
General Jones. In a newspaper interview, Colonel Hahn said that he "helped
Major Jordan break open some of those mysterious black suitcases the Russians
were sending home." He continued:
Through 1943-44 Great Falls was the take-off point for thousands of planes
supplied to Russia through Lend-Lease. I noticed cheap, black composition
suitcases that the Russians were putting aboard planes going to Siberia. It
was not my job to inspect them. My principal duty was to watch for sabotage
and defects in these planes.
Shortly after I arrived at Great Falls, Major Jordan became much concerned
over the black suitcases. I told him he'd better take it up with the security
officer at the base.
He did so, and one morning the security officer, whose name I have forgotten
[Col. O'Neill]; Colonel William Boaz, the technical officer at the field,
Major Jordan, and I moved in and began examining suitcases. We found no Oak
Ridge plans, documents or heavy water. But I do know they were sending to
Moscow enough U.S. roadmaps and technical magazines to cover all the pantry
shelves in Russia.[12]
Colonel Kotikov, Hahn added, requested that a WAC Sergeant be assigned to
watch over his wife. Mrs. Kotikov complained to Colonel Hahn, the latter
stated, that her husband didnt trust her "and has that woman follow me
everywhere." He reflected that Colonel Kotikov probably has. as little.
privacy as his wife, and explained that "an enlisted man on Kotikov's staff
was at his heels day and night." The reference was, of course, to Sergeant
Vinogradsky.
The first person to whom I confided the story of my search of "diplomatic
suitcases" was the security officer of the 34th Sub-Depot, at Gore Field,
Lt.-Colonel George F. O'Neill. Without losing a moment's time, Colonel
O'Neill published a pledge to "support Major Jordan to the limit." His
interview was dispatched from Los Angeles, where he had taken a post, after
retirement, with the Veterans Administration. He was quoted as follows:
There is one instance which offers conclusive proof of Major Jordan's story.
I have detailed this evidence to the FBI. For that reason I cannot speak
about it at this time. I'm ready to tell the whole matter under oath.
All of us at the Great Falls airbase knew that Russia had the ear of the
White House. That was commonknowledge among the officers.
If the Russian mission didn't like the way something was going, in no time at
all they'd have the White House on the wire and then we'd be jumping.
As far as anything Major Jordan says, I knew him to be a square-shooter. I
have absolute faith in his integrity.
Only people who were at the base could understand the difficult times we had
there. It was men like Jordan who never slept that made an impossible job
possible.[13]
The former commandant of Gore Field, Col. d'Arce, declared in an interview
that the Russians "could have sent the Capitol dome to Moscow without our
knowing what was in the boxes." Under prevailing instructions, he explained,
it was not the duty of American officers to question the nature of shipments
to Russia but to speed the cargo through as fast as possible. "I remember
Major Jordan very well," said Col. d'Arce. "He is not the type of man to make
up a story out of whole cloth."
The Lewis broadcast of Dec. 6 presented quotations from an interview with
Lt.-Colonel J. D. McFarland of Hamilton, Ohio, formerly an inspector for the
Alaskan Wing of the Air Transport Command. "I believe," he announced, "that I
can substantiate everything Major Jordan says." His statement was cited in
part as follows:
I was in Great Falls every couple of weeks. Major Jordan repeatedly raised
hell about uncontrolled deliveries going to Moscow.
The Russians wanted no restrictions from the U.S. Army. Every time the issue
got hot, they would tele-phone Washington, and they always had their way.[14]
According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, Colonel McFarland, who was in close
touch with General Gaffney in Fairbanks, declared that I was transferred from
Great Falls in 1944 as a consequence of my activities against uninspected
shipments to the Soviet Union. He had personally examined the diary, he said,
in which I kept records of such consignments
As commander of the Great Falls Army airbase, Colonel Russell L. Meredith was
in nominal command of the Soviet movement. By his own wish, I seldom bothered
him with problems in that area. More than once he protested that it was my
job to keep the Russians out of his hair.
With good cause, I hold Colonel Meredith in respect and gratitude. Naturally
he was indignant over a scandal alleged to have taken place in a post under
his authority. It was only human that his impulse should have been to
denounce some features as "preposterous."
An officer of proved equity, Colonel Meredith may have revised his opinion
now that fuller information is at hand. In November, 1949, there had not been
a single LewisJordan broadcast and the Un-American Activities Committee had
not heard a single witness in the case. I quote the ensuing dialogue between
Fulton Lewis and Russell Turner during the Dec. 6 broadcast:
Turner: I interviewed the former commandant of the base, Colonel Russell
Meredith, now retired; and seven civilians who had been members of the ground
crew at the Lend-Lease depot-the individuals who actually handIed the freight.
Lewis. Well, let's handle the Colonel first. He is one of the people quoted
as saying that Major Jordan's story is "unbelievable."
Turner. He told me the same thing. But he also said he had found a notation
in his own diary�that he could not understand how 10 tons a month of printed
material passing through the Great Falls base was going to help the Russians
win that particular war.
Lewis. So this statement in itself confirms the fact that tremendous
quantities of printed matter were going through the Great Falls base?
Turner. More than that. He stated that he himself had personally protested
against the quantity of stuff that was going through, but was told to lay
off�that such policy matters were being decided by "top brass." He said he
didn't recall any specific occasion on which names were mentioned, but that
at the time, in his own mind, he presumed Hopkins and Wallace to have been
the persons referred to.
Lewis. Did the Colonel have any other information to offer?
Turner. He said once again it was difficult to re member anything specific,
but that generally speaking the material going through seemed to be
everything the
Russians could lay their hands on about American in-dustries, locations,
plans, mechanical designs and scien-tific data of all kinds-and that there
was a mountain
of it.[15]
pps. 141-150
--[SOURCES]--
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Clouds Of Witnesses
1. Interview with WAC Sgt. Bean, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 5,1949.
2. Corp. Henry Cauthen, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Der.. 19, 1949.
3. Royall Edward Norton, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 14, 1949.
4. Ibid.
5. Interview with Great Falls crewmen, Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 7, 1949.
6. Interview with Robert Califf, Associated Press, Dec. 5, 1949. 7. Fulton
Lewis broadcast, Dec. 5, 1949. Interview with Col. Gardner.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Letter of Roscoe Turner to Col. Gardner, Dec. 8, 1949.
11. Major Starkie, Fulton Lewis broadcast Dec. 9, 1949.
12. Interview with Lt. Col. Hahn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec, 14,1949.
13. Interview with Lt. Col. ONeill, Los Angeles Examiner, Dec. 5,1949.
14. Interview with Lt. Col. McFarland, Cincinnati Inquirer, Dec. 7, 1949.
15. Fulton Lewis broadcast, Dec. 6, 1950.
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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