Helen Grace Scott

Helen Grace Reswich Scott Keenan, more commonly, Helen Grace Scott, was a United States citizen employed in the Office of Strategic Services and later the Office of U.S Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis War Criminals on the staff of Justice Robert H. Jackson during World War II. She was allegedly a spy for the Soviet Union.

Between 1933 and 1938, Helen Scott served on the Executive Committee of the Workers Alliance, a Comintern affiliate front organization. In 1944, she worked for Congressman Boulton. Keenan had been a freelance journalist in the 1930s before beginning work in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) as a writer and editor in 1945. She first worked for the New York line of KGB, then later the Washington, D.C. branch of the KGB.

Venona

Helen Grace Scott Keenan's code name in Soviet intelligence, and later as deciphered by the Venona project is "Fir" (or "Spruce"). "Firtree" and "El" also occurred. Keenan is referenced in the following Venona decryptions:

• 326 :KGB Moscow to New York, April 5, 1945;
• 3614–3615: KGB Washington to Moscow, June 22, 1945.

Sources

• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)
• Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, 21 February 1946, FBI Silvermaster file (busted link) (65—56402), serial 573