CHARGE ONE:

“That for 37 years Joseph Hansen has suppressed from the Trotskyist movement details of his personal contacts with a GPU agent known as ‘John’ in New York in 1938.”

Originally, Hansen attempted to dismiss the evidence upon which the International Committee based this charge as “a geyser of mud” which “cast the foulest suspicion on me (Hansen) and the Socialist Workers Party.” (Intercontinental Press, November 24, 1975.)

Hansen admits the charge

Now, in the August 9, 1976 issue of Intercontinental Press, Hansen admits the charge.

He is forced to confirm beneath the weight of overwhelming evidence that he did have contact with a GPU agent who then introduced him “to a superior in the GPU, a man apparently the head or one of the heads of the American division of the GPU.”

But, in order to escape the criminal implications of this confession, Hansen claims that his meetings with the GPU were authorized by Trotsky and conducted with the knowledge of selected members of the SWP Political Committee.

The International Committee anticipated Hansen’s probable choice of alibis when it stated in the original indictment:

“We state categorically that Hansen is lying when he says that Trotsky told him to consort with the GPU agent ‘John.’

“It is inconceivable that the Bolshevik leader would instruct the head of security arrangements at Coyoacan to meet a GPU agent over a period of three months.” (January 1, 1976.)

The “evidence” produced by Hansen to condone his meetings with the GPU agent is a fabrication which recalls in its crudities the forgeries of the GPU in the 1930s.

For example, Hansen presents an alleged “Hitherto Unpublished Letter by Trotsky.”

It is supposed to contain Trotsky’s signal for Hansen’s “reconnaissance” of the GPU, as the accomplice likes to refer to his meetings with the agent “John.”

This is a blatant fraud with which he hopes to confuse those who are not familiar with the history of the Trotskyist movement. The “Hitherto Unpublished Letter” was, in fact, partially published in 1974 in the Volume Writings of Leon Trotsky 1938–39 printed by the SWP’s Pathfinder Press.

In this letter of March 8, 1939 (page 238), Trotsky clearly argued for a political intervention by the SWP among the rank and file of the Communist Party.

Trotsky’s continuous agitation for a political struggle among Stalinist workers, exploiting the contradictions within Stalinism to politically smash the Communist Party, was the source of very sharp conflict between the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party and himself.

This is shown in this volume: “Trotsky opened up a meeting of several SWP members by reading from his letter of March 8.”

As the discussion developed, Trotsky expressed anger for the failure of the SWP to show any initiative in making this turn toward the Stalinist workers.

The political essence of Trotsky’s argument can be easily grasped from an examination of the letter and the transcript of the discussion.

However, it is precisely this which Hansen sets out to pervert.

By publishing Trotsky’s letter of March 8, 1939 as if it were an astounding discovery, Hansen attempts to utterly distort its political significance.

What was obviously Trotsky’s argument for an orientation among Stalinist workers is transformed by Hansen into a go-ahead for his contact with the GPU.

It is nothing of the sort.

This is Hansen’s invention.

Any honest reader will see through it at once.

Hansen sets out to compound his fabrication by publishing additional paragraphs of Trotsky’s letter.

These paragraphs do not in any way alter the political thrust of the points Trotsky has already made.

A reference to “the manuscript”

But it does contain a reference to “the manuscript.”

Hansen brazenly pounces upon this word and declares that it is . . . a coded reference to the “GPU.”

Thus, Trotsky’s words: “As you can imagine, it is with the greatest impatience that I await your ultimate information about the manuscript” becomes (according to Hansen) “...I await your ultimate information about your contacts with the GPU agent ‘John’ in New York.”

Hansen’s ludicrous attempt to invest words with the meaning he requires proves that he will stop at nothing — lies, forgeries, distortions and slanders — to evade the International Committee’s charges.

A postscript to Trotsky’s letter leaves no doubt that the “manuscript” is a reference to the text of the biography of Stalin upon which Trotsky was then working.

Expanding upon a point which he had fleetingly raised in the main body of the letter, Trotsky expressed in the postscript his concern for the handling of his manuscript by a translator, Charles Malamuth, with whose work Trotsky was thoroughly dissatisfied.

Trotsky wrote:

“Then, against all my warnings, he permitted himself a condemnable indiscretion with my manuscript. I protested. His elementary duty should have been to apologize for his mistake and everything would have been in order again.

“I also find that comrades Burnham and Shachtman committed an error in entering into a discussion with him about the quality of the manuscript without asking him whether or not he had my authorization to give them the manuscript.”

‘Memorandum’ to the Political Committee

But this fraud is nothing compared to what Hansen now introduces: after 37 years of total silence he publishes what he calls “a memorandum in the form of a report to the Political Committee” of the SWP, allegedly dated April 7, 1939.

It says:

“Upon his return to the United States from Mexico, Comrade Joe Hansen chanced to meet an agent of the GPU.

“This agent introduced Hansen to a superior in the GPU, a man apparently the head or one of the heads of the American division of the GPU.'

Hansen claims that this “memorandum”, hitherto a complete secret from the SWP and the world Trotskyist movement, was written and signed by Max Shachtman and co-signed by James P. Cannon.

Both witnesses are conveniently dead.

Hansen goes on to say that the memo’s existence was made known only to a few Political Committee members, “those with an incorrigible inclination to gossip about matters taken up in the Political Committee being bypassed.”

A “memorandum” to the Political Committee that could not be presented to its members?

The bit about “incorrigible” gossipers shows what Hansen thought of his “comrades” on Cannon’s Political Committee.

Hansen talks to US State Department

But it should be recalled that it was Hansen who gossiped about his contact with the GPU agent “John,” on August 31, 1940, eleven days after Trotsky’s murder, to none other than the US Consul in Mexico City, Robert G. McGregor.

He in turn informed the State Department.

It is from the discovery of government documents that the International Committee — and only then, for the first time, the SWP — learned that Hansen had consorted with a top GPU operative.

In other words, Hansen was quite prepared to tell the US State Department and the FBI what he claims he could not tell members of the SWP Political Committee.

He must have felt that the class enemy was more to be trusted.

Robert G. McGregor’s report to Washington, DC, dated September 1, 1940, contained the following passages:

“Mr. Joseph Hansen, secretary to the late Mr. Trotsky, came in on Saturday morning in order to discuss matters connected with the assassination of Mr. Trotsky...

“It is Hansen’s opinion that Mornard himself will be unable to give much more authentic information concerning names of persons acting as his principles in this matter. For, while Hansen is convinced that the murder is a GPU job, that very fact makes it hard to unravel. Hansen stated that when in New York in 1938 he was himself approached by an agent of the GPU and asked to desert the Fourth International and join the Third. He referred the matter to Trotsky who asked him to go as far with the matter as possible. For three months Hansen had relations with a man who merely identified himself as ‘John’ and did not otherwise reveal his real identity.”^[1]

The authenticity of this document has already been confirmed by Hansen.

Hansen’s “secrecy story” falls to the ground on reading the Intercontinental Press of September 6, 1976.

Sara Weber endorses coverup

It contains an endorsement of Hansen’s coverup by Sara Weber, a member of Trotsky’s secretarial staff at Coyoacan. She recalls:

“One evening, L.D. Natalia Sedova and Sara were in a car driven by Hansen through a crowded section of Mexico City.

“In a lowered voice, apparently pursuing a previous conversation, L.D. told Hansen (I do not recall the exact words, but recall the sense vividly) that she thought that Joe should pursue his contact with the GPU man who had approached him (later identified as 'John') to see what would develop further.'

Hansen writes that the contact with the GPU agent was so top secret that it was not disclosed to SWP Political Committee members.

The so-called “memorandum” states that Hansen urged:

“That his personal safety and further political gains which might accrue be safeguarded by complete silence on the part of the Political Committee with their friends, political associates, and correspondents regarding the affair.

Even the most guarded allusion or hints might cause the failure of further work in this respect.”

But while Hansen has a news quarantine imposed over the Political Committee, Sara Weber has Trotsky casually raising this life-and-death matter with Hansen in the presence of Weber.

And not only did he raise it, but - according to Weber - Trotsky must have expressed himself so forcefully that she still recalls what he said “vividly”.

But Weber's long-suppressed recollection clashes with Hansen's version of events on the crucial matter of dates.

Timetables invariably present great problems for those who falsify history, for they are obliged to synchronize a number of fictionalized events with the exacting tempo of actual developments.

Stalin more than once came to grief with historical inventions.

The most notorious of these was the alleged conspiratorial meeting in Copenhagen’s Hotel Bristol in 1932.

Stalin had simply forgotten that this hotel had been torn down in 1917.

Weber fares no better.

Hansen told US consul McGregor that he met the GPU agent for a period of three months.

This began when he returned to New York on about the first of February 1939 (the date is Hansen’s) after a lengthy stay in Mexico.

This means that the contact presumably began in February or March and concluded after three months in April or May.

According to Hansen’s account in the Intercontinental Press of August 9, 1976, he returned to Coyoacán in October 1939 — a full six months after the contact with the GPU had been terminated.

He writes:

“I returned to Coyoacán the first part of October 1939.

“When Trotsky reviewed the small maneuvers with me, he thought it best not to publicize it.

“But he did say, ‘I think you may not have heard the last of it.’”

But here comes Sara Weber with a story which, despite her best intentions places Hansen’s side of the tale in serious doubt.

The discussion in the car which she reports in her “affidavit” could have only occurred after Hansen’s return to Mexico in October 1939.

She has Trotsky suggesting that “Joe should pursue his contact with the GPU man” when, according to Hansen, the contact had been terminated months earlier.

Weber has Hansen meeting with the GPU through October 1939 and then continuing the contact into 1940.

The whole episode is a mass of contradictions which need the most careful factual investigation.

The “invisible ink” correspondence

No less damaging to Hansen’s secrecy story is his choice of Mr. V.T. O’Brien as the intermediary through which the “invisible ink” correspondence between Trotsky and Hansen on the agent “John” was supposedly conducted.

With Hansen’s life on the line, Trotsky — we are told — selected this featherweight as the pivotal man in the penetration of the GPU.

This is preposterous, considering the fact that Jean Van Heijenoort — Trotsky’s secretary for seven years between 1932 and 1939 — has told the International Committee that he never knew — until we told him — anything about a contact between Hansen and the GPU.

This statement was made by Van Heijenoort in a tape recorded interview on September 10, 1975.

This tape will be placed before a Commission of Inquiry.

But Hansen is groping in the dark.

He desperately is trying to construct an alibi which someone is prepared to corroborate.

Weber has made a blind stab.

Now it’s O’Brien’s turn.

Thus, Hansen writes:

“I kept Trotsky informed of what I was doing in the assignment, having arranged this with V.T. O’Brien, an American secretary guard, before leaving Coyoacán.

“For security reasons, we followed the rule of keeping the number of persons involved to a minimum.

“For instance, in communicating to O’Brien on this topic, I was to use invisible ink, writing between double-spaced typewriter lines of letters on other subjects.”

And then Hansen quotes a letter he has recently received from O’Brien, written undoubtedly in response to a desperate call for help:

“I received a long letter from you, full of news from New York and of our friends there and around the country.

“I read it gratefully but never thought to give it the heat test.

“I don’t remember whether you finally flashed a signal to me or L.D., but I very well recall bringing in the letter with the real message showing plainly.”

Unfortunately for themselves, Hansen and O’Brien have run aground.

The “memorandum” states that Hansen “chanced to meet an agent of the GPU” after he returned back to New York.

A “chance” encounter is one that is not expected in advance.

Then, why would Hansen, before leaving Mexico, establish a code with O’Brien to keep him informed of the result of the contact?

Since Hansen claims that he merely “chanced to meet” the GPU, how could he have anticipated the meeting in advance?

It is impossible.

Therefore the next question arises.

How did Hansen once in New York arrange a code with O’Brien who was still in Mexico after the contact with the GPU had been made?

Again there is a mass of contradictions.

What we have here is a case of bad and stupid fabrications.

When the Commission of Inquiry is established, Mr. V. T. O’Brien should explain why he has chosen to involve himself in Hansen’s gross falsifications.

Hansen’s story falls to pieces

Hansen’s entire story finally falls to pieces with the content of the “memorandum” itself.

The GPU is the most ruthlessly efficient and sophisticated political police in the world.

Trotskyists do not “chance to meet” its agents.

And GPU agents do not introduce Trotskyists to their controllers.

It is beyond the realm of the possible to accept that Dr. Gregory Rabinovitz, the man who employed the alias “John,” would jeopardize his valuable GPU cover as the head of the Russian Red Cross in order to meet with one of Trotsky’s secretaries—unless he was convinced that the man with whom he was meeting would not expose him.

Alexander Orlov, the GPU defector who wrote the famous letter to Trotsky in an attempt to expose Zborowski, knew more about the modus operandi of the Soviet secret police than almost any man alive.

The fact that he survived his defection from Stalin proves it.

In 1963 he wrote a small book entitled Handbook of Intelligence and Guerrilla Warfare, a veritable working manual of GPU practices.

In Chapter 10, “Recruitment of ‘Sources,’” Orlov wrote:

“The recruitment of new informants into the underground network is the most hazardous and difficult task of all intelligence activities.

“From the very first step the recruiting agent finds himself at a serious disadvantage, because by proposing to a person that he become a spy for the Soviets, the agent exposes his own role even before that person has given his reply.

“If the answer is negative, the net result remains that the recruiter has given himself away…This alone shows how skillful and astute the recruiter must be, how softly he must tread to secure a hasty retreat, what a good judge of men he must be.

“Soviet operatives are constantly on the lookout for men and women who are able to deliver important secrets which Russia seeks.

“The first step is to find out who these people are, where they are, and what they are, their views and beliefs, their private lives and ambitions, their moral character and weaknesses, and above all their potential value as sources of information.”

In short, no contact is made without the most careful vetting of the potential recruit.

Far from being helped by his fabrications, they damn Hansen even more completely.

He obtained valuable information

His “memorandum” states that he obtained “through these conversations valuable information... for the Fourth International.”

If this were so, why had Hansen suppressed it for 37 years?

Why didn’t he publish the valuable information then?

Why not publish it now?

What was the information that Hansen acquired from the agent who was at the center of the preparations for the impending assassination of Trotsky?

Why, in all his bragging reminiscences of his experiences with Trotsky, has Hansen never revealed this mission?

We do not believe for a moment that Trotsky knew that Hansen was meeting with a GPU agent, let alone authorized it.

It is impossible to let pass Hansen's assertion that Trotsky “thought it best not to publicize” the contact with “John.”

This is an abominable slander.

The most crushing proof that Hansen is lying is the fact that Trotsky makes no reference to the information he was allegedly receiving from his secretary in all his writings.

Trotsky wrote at great length and detail about the activities of the GPU.

This was inseparable from his struggle against Stalinism.

He wrote in 1937:

“We must tirelessly gather printed material, documents, testimonials of witnesses concerning the criminal work of the agents of the GPU–Comintern.

“We must periodically publish in the press rigorously substantiated conclusions drawn from these materials.”

Had a secretary penetrated, under the supervision of Trotsky, the depths of the GPU, the information he obtained would have been the basis of a worldwide exposure of GPU operations.

Would it not have been necessary for the Socialist Workers Party to have published Hansen’s story with banner headlines like: “GPU Plot Against Trotsky Bared in New York!”

The story would have included detailed descriptions — if not photographs — of Hansen’s GPU contacts and above all of “John.”

In August 1940, several days before his assassination, Trotsky completed the article, “The Comintern and the GPU.”

He analyzed in detail the way in which the GPU functions beneath the cover of the National Stalinist Party.

He analyzes the budget of the Comintern.

Trotsky quotes the Stalinist-defector Benjamin Gitlow and the ex-Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth in Spain, Enrique Mattorás.

He also quotes the testimony of General Krivitsky, the GPU defector who was later murdered.

Trotsky is seeking to draw together all the threads of information on the GPU.

But there is no reference—or even the hint of a reference—to information Trotsky has obtained from Hansen.

The exposure of the GPU nest in New York would have been a body blow to Stalin, disrupting the careful preparations for the assassination.

But it was not exposed, because Trotsky received no information from Hansen.

The International Committee does not accept any part of Hansen’s story.

No one on the SWP Political Committee knew about his contact with the GPU, including Cannon and Shachtman.

We unhesitatingly declare that this “memorandum” is a complete forgery.

We demand that Hansen and Novack produce this document and submit it and all other documents relating to the contact with “John” to an international Commission of Inquiry for inspection.

We repeat the statement made in the original indictment: Trotsky did not tell Hansen to meet the GPU.

But that Hansen did meet the GPU is a fact.

We proved it and Hansen has at last admitted it after a 37-year silence.

All the evidence to sustain Charge One is ready for submission to the Commission of Inquiry.