811.111 Habicht, Hermann: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 17—3:30 p.m.]
522. In the course of a conversation with Hermann Habicht this afternoon he disclosed to me in the strictest confidence that he has been approached on three separate occasions during the past 6 years by the GPU to return to the United States and to act as one of their agents there, and that it was intimated to him 3 years ago that if he would acquiesce in this proposal an exit visa would be granted to his wife. He expressed the opinion that his wife’s arrest had resulted from his rejection of the GPU’s proposals, it being the intention of the GPU to hold her under arrest until she agrees to a similar proposal and thereupon to grant her an exit visa with the understanding however that the members of her family including her son by a former marriage shall remain in the Soviet Union.33