Duncan Lee: Difference between revisions
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Lt. Col. '''Duncan Chaplin Lee''' (died 1988) was confidential assistant to [[William Joseph Donovan|Maj. Gen. William ("Wild Bill") Donovan]], founder and director of the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS), [[World War II]]-era predecessor of the [[CIA]], during 1942-46. Lee is identified in [[Venona]] as the Soviet double agent operating inside OSS under the cover name "Koch."<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/08_Jun_1943_m7_p1.gif 800 KGB New York to Moscow, 8 June 1943, p. 1]</ref>, making him the most senior alleged source the [[Soviet Union]] ever had inside American intelligence. |
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As an OSS officer, Lee served as head of the |
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China section of SI, the [[Secret Intelligence Branch]].<ref>{{cite book |
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|title=OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II |
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|author=John Witeclay Chambers II |
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|chapter=10: Postwar Period |
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|pages=483 |
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|publisher=U.S. National Park Service |
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|year=2008 |
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|url=http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/oss/}}</ref> While an officer, according to Soviet courier [[Elizabeth Bentley]], Lee—frequently but inaccurately described as a descendant of Confederate Gen. [[Robert E. Lee]]<ref>“KGB, The Inside Story of its Foreign Relations From Lenin to Gorbachev” (Harper Perennial, 1990)</ref> -- furnished her with information on “anti-Soviet work by OSS” and other topics of interest to Moscow, which was officially an American ally at this time.<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/Silvermaster006.pdf FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 6], p. 35 (PDF page 36)</ref> As Bentley told the [[FBI]] when she defected in 1945, she transferred this information to her Soviet handlers.<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/NKVD.pdf FBI Report, Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, October 21, 1946], p. 163 (PDF page 181)</ref> |
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In her August 1948 appearance before the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]] (HCUA), Bentley testified that Lee furnished her “various types of information,” which she then turned over to her Soviet handlers, including, in Bentley’s words, details on “whether the OSS had spotted any of our people [Communists]” in that organization. As the Germans were retreating from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Bentley reported Lee as identifying groups working with the OSS to keep Soviet troops out of their countries. Lee also told her, she said, that “something very secret was going on” at Oak Ridge, Tenn., an apparent reference to the [[Manhattan Project]].<ref>“Testimony of Elizabeth T. Bentley,” Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government, Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, Second Session, Public Law 601 (Section 121, Subsection Q [2]), Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1948, p. 727</ref> |
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Lee, a former [[Rhodes scholar]] who attended [[Oxford University]] with fellow OSS staffer [[Donald Wheeler|Donald Niven Wheeler]] (identified in Venona as the Soviet agent operating in OSS under cover name "Izra"<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/30_May_1944_R3_m1_p3.gif 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, p. 3]</ref>), repeatedly denied Bentley's allegations, under oath<ref name="Duncan C. Lee 1948">Testimony of Duncan C. Lee, U.S. Congress. House. Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the U.S. Government, 80th Congress, August 10, 1948.</ref>, but acknowledged he and his wife knew Bentley as a family friend (albeit under an assumed name)<ref>Testimony, op. cit.</ref> and that he had met her several times while an OSS officer in various locations, as well as with [[Mary Price]] (identified in Venona as the Soviet agent operating in the office of columnist [[Walter Lippmann]] under the code names "Dir"<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/08_Jun_1943_m3.gif 868 KGB New York to Moscow, 8 June 1943]</ref> and "probably" "Arena"<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/29_Apr_1944_R3_m3_p3.gif 588 New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, p. 3]</ref>), and veteran [[NKVD]] ''rezident'' [[Jacob Golos]], identified in Venona as ''Zvuk'' ("Sound"). Lee said he eventually realized that Bentley held "communistic"<ref>"Testimony of Duncan Chaplin Lee -- Resumed," HCUA Hearings, op. cit., p. 733</ref> views and terminated their relationship<ref name="Duncan C. Lee 1948"/>, but never reported these meetings as regulations would seem to require.<ref>Ibid., p. 735</ref> |
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Lee’s testimony elicited from one HCUA member, Rep. John McDowell (R-Penn.), the comment: For the first time “since the conspiracy of Aaron Burr, a high officer of the Army has been accused publicly of the violation of the Articles of War, which he must certainly realize the penalties and the punishment.”<ref>Ibid., p. 749</ref> Lee was in fact never indicted much less convicted of perjury or any other crime despite the accusations of his alleged co-conspirator Bentley<ref>Testimony of Duncan C. Lee, U.S. Congress. House. Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the U.S. Government. 80th Congress, August 10, 1948.</ref>. According to Bentley, Lee refused to meet with her in the presence of others when divulging classified information to her and refused to give her any classified documents; there was as a consequence virtually no credible evidence to corroborate Bentley’s accusations<ref>Bentley Statements to the FBI November 30, 1945.</ref>. Bentley herself was not an effective witness. Only one of the dozens of people she denounced were ever convicted of any crime arising out of her accusations, but only a few were even prosecuted. Many freely admitted their espionage in public hearings once the statute of limitations had run, and most of those she named were independently proved guilty by the testimony of other eyewitnesses, if not eventually by the Venona files.<ref>Athan Theoharis, “The FBI and American Democracy” (University Press of Kansas, 2004). John Earl Hynes and Harvey Klehr “Early Cold War Spies” (Cambridge University Press, 2006).</ref>. |
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The VENONA decrypts that refer to Koch only confirm that Bentley passed on to Moscow the information she claimed to have received from Lee and do not in themselves provide independent evidence to corroborate Bentley’s accusation that Lee was the source of that information<ref>See Athan Theoharis, “The FBI and American Democracy” (University Press of Kansas, 2004).</ref>. A 1944 Venona decrypt confirms that Lee tipped off Bentley about Donovan sending him on a secret mission to China.<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/23_Sep_1944_R3_m4_p1.gif 1353 KGB New York to Moscow, 23 Sept. 1944, p. 1]</ref> |
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According to the [[Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy|Moynihan Commission]], "It would ... appear from the VENONA messages that Duncan Chaplin Lee, Special Assistant to OSS Director William J. Donovan, was a Soviet agent."<ref>[http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/moynihan/appa7.html Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, 1997, Senate Document 105-2, Pursuant to Public Law 236, 103RD Congress(United States Government Printing Office, Washington : 1997) Appendix A: 7. The Cold War]</ref> “Agent”, however, is almost certainly a mischaracterization of Lee since there is no evidence that Lee was ever a member of the NKVD or any other Soviet intelligence gathering organization. On the basis of existing evidence “source” would be a better word to describe Lee, if that was in fact what he was. |
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Despite Bentley’s accusations, Lee went on to have a successful career as a lawyer in the private sector<ref>“A Register of Rhodes Scholars 1903-1981” (Rhodes House, Oxford, 1981)</ref>. Lee continued to represent clients such as Claire Chennault and Whiting Willaurer. In 1949, following the fall of China to the communists, Lee represented a CIA-front company in the Hong Kong and UK courts in a successful effort to keep a large fleet of transport aircraft in Hong Kong, once owned by the Nationalist Chinese government, from being turned over to the new communist Chinese regime after its recognition by the British<ref>David McKean, “Tommy the Cork, Washington’s Ultimate Insider from Roosevelt To Reagan”, (Steersford Press, 2004); William McLeary, “Perilous Missions, Civil Air Transport and the CIA’s Covert Operations in Asia” (Smithsonian Institution, 2002); Letter from Major General (Ret.) Claire L. Chennault to Adjunct General, U.S. Army, May 27, 1951 and Affidavit of Whiting Willauer, May 15, 1951.</ref>. Lee joined insurance giant American International Group in 1953, rising to serve as AIG’s chief in-house lawyer in New York City prior to his retirement in 1974<ref>“A Register of Rhodes Scholars 1903-1981” (Rhodes House, Oxford, 1981).</ref>. He subsequently moved to Toronto with his Canadian wife, Frances Lee Smith, where he died in 1988<ref>New York Times, Obituary, 1988.</ref>. |
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== References == |
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{{Ibid|date=July 2010}} |
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{{reflist}} |
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== Source == |
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* Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, ''The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era'' (Random House, 1998) |
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* [http://foia.fbi.gov/venona/venona.pdf FBI Venona FOIA] |
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==External links== |
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* [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.documents&group_id=511603 The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)] has the full text of former KGB agent Alexander Vassiliev's Notebooks containing new evidence on Lee's cooperation with the Soviet Union |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Duncan}} |
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[[Category:1988 deaths]] |
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[[Category:American spies for the Soviet Union]] |
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[[Category:American people in the Venona papers]] |
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[[Category:People of the Office of Strategic Services]] |
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Revision as of 13:51, 16 May 2011
hey my name is duncan lee i am a boss