360M.1121 Devenis, Michael: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
2040. With reference to the Department’s telegram No. 1261, December 6, 1 p.m.,19 the Foreign Office has promised to investigate the question of Devenis’ alleged whereabouts and report its findings to the Embassy as soon as possible.20
[The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs advised the Embassy at Kuibyshev on March 27, 1942, that Dr. Devenis had been located in the Ural area and that negotiations for his release were in progress. He was finally released on May 6, and arrived in Kuibyshev on May 24, whence he departed on June 16, and arrived in the United States in September 1942.
Some other comments upon several of the individuals mentioned in these cases are to be found in House Report No. 1229, 82d Congress, 2d session, The Shameful Years: Thirty Tears of Soviet Espionage in the United States, pages 17–20.]
- The necessity for the removal of the American Embassy from Moscow to Kuibyshev in October 1941 is explained on pp. 907–911.↩
- Not printed.↩
- The Chargé in the Soviet Union reported in telegram No. 2122, December 31, 1941, the assertion of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs that it was still investigating this case. Subsequently, a former fellow prisoner gave information to Mrs. Devenis that her husband was being held in the far north of the Soviet Union, and she in turn relayed this news to the Department of State, which renewed the requests to the Soviet Government for the release of Dr. Devenis.↩