861.00/3–449
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kohler) to the Secretary of State
No. 129
The one development on the Soviet scene which bulked larger than any other during the month of February was the screaming crescendo attained in the stream of abuse and vilification directed at those members of the Soviet intelligentsia who had permitted themselves, at any time during the past 12 years, to stray so far from the rocky path of Communist orthodoxy as to criticize the concept of “Soviet realism” and to venture the suggestion that some good might be found in Western culture. This campaign, aimed primarily at the drama, literary and art criticics, represented a culminating point in the drive for ideological conformity in the arts touched off by the August 1948 Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party denouncing certain Leningrad writers2 and seemed to be intended to crush with utter finality any ideas concerning the feasibility of cultural cooperation with the West which may have been entertained by some circles of the much-bedeviled Soviet intelligentsia.
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The most sensational event of the month for the foreign colony and, it may be assumed, for many Soviet citizens as well, was the publication in Russian of a book entitled The Truth About American Diplomats by Annabelle Bucar. Miss Bucar, who is regarded as an American citizen in the absence of any positive information from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs that she has expatriated herself by applying for Soviet citizenship, resigned from her position as an Administrative Assistant in the USIS office of the Embassy [Page 582] in February 1948.3 At that time, she stated in a letter to the Ambassador that she had acquired a “real understanding of the country [the USSR] and its fine people who are doing their utmost toward making the world a better place to live in”. Since Miss Bucar felt that the policy of the Embassy was directed against these people, she considered that further work in the Embassy was incompatible with her views and she said that she therefore had decided to remain in the Soviet Union. Almost as an afterthought, she admitted that her decision had also been influenced by the fact that she had found her personal happiness in the land of the Soviets by falling in love with a Russian.
While vague rumors continued to reach the Embassy regarding her whereabouts and activities, nothing definite concerning Miss Bucar was heard during the months following her precipitate departure. Although in March and again in December 1948 notes were addressed to the Foreign Office requesting its good offices in obtaining the return of Miss Bucar’s Special Passport and identification card, the Embassy felt that it would be unwise to accord undue attention or publicity to the case, inasmuch as her action was thought to serve as an instructive illustration of the privilege every American citizen enjoys to disagree publicly with his own Government and to elect to reside anywhere. With the appearance of her book in the Moscow bookshops on February 20, however, the spotlight of publicity was turned on her case with Winding intensity.
The book itself purports to reveal the “truth” about the intelligence activities of the Embassy and viciously attacks those members of the Foreign Service whom she describes as forming an “anti-Soviet clique” holding responsible positions in the Department and in the Moscow Embassy. The book is obvious Soviet propaganda. It is quite clear that the main sections were written or at least the content provided by someone other than Miss Bucar, since she was never in a position in the Embassy to know either the personalities or the general policy matters so freely discussed. While she mentions the birth of her son, it is of interest to note that the reasons given in the book for [Page 583] her decision to remain in the Soviet Union are wholly political and make no reference to the love element featured in her original letter of resignation.
Appearing at first in a limited edition of 10,000 copies, the book sold briskly and it was almost impossible for Embassy representatives to obtain copies. A subsequent issue of 100,000 has not appreciably relieved the situation. The great propaganda campaign foreshadowed by the publication of the book got under way with long reviews of Miss Bucar’s “true confessions” appearing in Pravda and most other Moscow papers with the notable exception of the Soviet Government organ, Izvestia. The story was also reported extensively on the radio. It was obvious that the average Soviet citizen, so starved for color and spice in his drab daily life, was finding The Truth About American Diplomats of exceptional interest, although it was difficult to learn the reaction of the public to the charges contained therein. In any event, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the life of Embassy staff members in Moscow, already circumscribed and harassed by Soviet security regulations, would become even more difficult as a result of the sensational falsifications propagated by Miss Bucar.
The supposition that the publication of the book was timed to detract attention from the Kravchenko trial in Paris4 was finally confirmed in a unique way in a Foreign Office reply to the Embassy’s renewed inquiries concerning Miss Bucar’s Special Passport and her citizenship status under Soviet law. Brushing aside the Embassy’s legitimate requests with the assertion that it saw no basis for interfering in the relationship between the Embassy and its former employee, the Ministry went on to say “It would be better if the Embassy would think of the felonious criminal-deserter Kravchenko and his use of various passports received in the USA”. In its answer, the Embassy, after stating that it could not regard the Ministry’s note as a serious response, repeated its request for information concerning Miss Bucar’s status and concluded with the observation “With respect to the advice to the Embassy contained in the Ministry’s note, the Embassy will continue to be guided in the conduct of its affairs by the instructions it receives from its own Government”.
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[Not signed]
- The extracts are from the Embassy’s despatch No. 129 from Moscow on March 4, 1919, a monthly résumé entitled “Report on Internal Political and Social Developments in the Soviet Union for February 1949”.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. vi, pp. 774–776.↩
- Miss Annabelle Irene Bucar had been employed in the Cultural Information Section of the Embassy in Moscow. She was believed to have fallen in love with an operetta singer named Konstantin Lapschin. Her book was published in Moscow by the Literaturnaya Gazeta. There was also a Hungarian edition; and the Tass News Agency of the USSR in India brought out an edition in New Delhi. Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith’s comments on these events are in his book My Three Years in Moscow (Philadelphia and New York, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1950), pp. 186–187. He did not believe that she had been capable of writing the entire book herself. The Embassy stated in airgram A–484 from Moscow on April 25, not printed, that the Moscow Bolshevik for April 14 had declared that her book “unmasks the character of the American diplomats, their bestial hatred for the USSR and their criminal espionage activity on the territory of our country”. (861.00/4–2549)↩
- Viktor Andreyevich Kravchenko had brought a libel suit in Paris against the weekly communist publication Les Lettres Françaises for 7 million francs which attracted considerable public curiosity (January 24–April 4, 1949). The trial verdict awarded him a nominal sum. See the New York Times, Index 1949, s. v., Kravchenko, Victor, p. 567, and Libel, p. 594; and his own book I Chose Justice (New York, Scribner, 1950). For documentation on the attempts by the Soviet Government to obtain his deportation from the United States after his defection in 1944, see Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. iv, pp. 1224–1241, and 1945, vol. v, pp. 1131–1138.↩