124.613/1172: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:05 p.m.]
1480. My 1470, August 11, 1 p.m. The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs notified me today that it had been advised by the appropriate authorities of the Soviet Government that Shiffer has for several years been engaged in espionage activities on behalf of Germany and that after having assembled irrefutable evidence of these activities they had taken him into custody. When the foregoing message was delivered by the Chief of the American Division of the Commissariat,48 he was closely questioned regarding the use of the phrase “irrefutable evidence.” After consulting the document from which he was reading his statement, he affirmed that the evidence was regarded by the [Page 907] appropriate Soviet authorities as being irrefutable.49 Shiffer has been employed by the Embassy since May 1934 and has been engaged exclusively in translating and research work of an economic nature. He has had no access to the Embassy’s political section and he has had no opportunity other than his general association with the Embassy staff to obtain information which could reasonably be presumed to have any value from an espionage point of view or which could be detrimental to our interests. The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs proffered no indication of the nature of the evidence alleged to have been assembled showing that Shiffer has been engaged in espionage activities, and as it is a matter of common knowledge that the evidence upon which Soviet citizens are dealt with here probably would not stand the test of a court of law in the United States, I am not convinced of his guilt.50 I am inclined to believe that his German descent and his research activities of an economic nature on behalf of this Mission may constitute the sole basis for the action taken by the Soviet authorities. However, in view of Shiffer’s Soviet nationality, I perceive no grounds for intervention on his behalf.
- Vasily Alexeyevich Valkov (until October 1941).↩
- About a month later two notes from Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyshinsky insisted that the evidence proved Shiffer’s guilt, which his own testimony had confirmed.↩
- In a memorandum of August 25, 1941, Loy W. Henderson also noted his disbelief of the charges against Shiffer, whom he had personally known. “I am convinced that the Soviet Government has taken advantage of the present situation in order to complete its efforts to prevent our Embassy from doing any effective economic reporting. Soviet authorities know very well that if they accuse a member of our staff at this moment of being a German spy we would not be able to protest his arrest.” (124.613/1184)↩