Aside from its obvious pro-communist prejudices, the periodical seemed to be an innocent enough collection of articles about the politics and policies of east Asia. In reality, however, the offices of the journal served as a junction for a network of spies. Once detected, the web of individuals and other ‘front’ organizations connected to Amerasia showed itself to be both large and significant.
As reported in the Taiwan Today newspaper, the unraveling of the magazine’s facade began when one of its articles contained text which could have only come from a confidential source:
The strange case of Amerasia, like many a fictional spy thriller, opened quite accidentally. One day in February, 1945, Kenneth E. Wells of the Office of Strategic Services picked up a recent issue of the magazine, dated January 26, and found himself quoted — but not cited. Wells was head of the Southern Asian Section of the research branch of the OSS. To his amazement he read, in an article entitled “The Case of Thailand,” the very language he had used in a highly classified memorandum describing the lack of harmony between British and American policies in that part of the world. The article contained, verbatim, whole paragraphs out of a secret OSS report prepared by Wells himself some months earlier. Obviously, the magazine writer must have had the document itself before him as he wrote.
It was clear that secret government documents had been stolen and were in the hands of people who had no clearance to have them. Further, passages from those documents had been published. This was a crime, a breach of national security, and posed a danger to the lives of both Americans and Chinese.
The need for immediate action was obvious, as Taiwan Today explains:
Wells properly called the matter to the attention of Archibald Van Beuren, OSS security chief, who was sufficiently alarmed to fly to New York on February 28. There he instructed his director of investigation, Frank Brooks Bielaski, to find out how and why the document had gotten out of OSS files. Bielaski was given a list of the names of some 30 persons to whom copies had been sent. Most of them were in the OSS, but a few were in the Department of State, and at least one in both Army and Navy Intelligence. Copies had gone also to a half-dozen Foreign Service officers on duty in the Far East. With secretaries and assistants counted, perhaps 100 employees of the United States Government had access to the OSS report on Thailand. Bielaski’s task was to locate the leak. Figuring that it would take 10 men to maintain a close watch on each person in Washington, Bielaski estimated that he would need at least 1,000 OSS agents for the job. Such a force was not available. It was decided, therefore, to make a preliminary investigation of the magazine itself. An agent was sent to the New York Public Library to analyze past issues of Amerasia, and its editorial offices at 225 Fifth Avenue were put under round-the-clock surveillance. Bielaski himself made some inquiries regarding the staff of the magazine.
Already early in the case, a number of OSS agents were involved: Kenneth E. Wells, Archibald Van Beuren, and Frank Brooks Bielaski. Soon more OSS operatives would be part of the events, as well as FBI agents and eventually investigators acting on behalf of the U.S. Congress.
The cast of characters on the other side would grow as well. What began as a question about a small and even obscure little publication would turn into a catalogue of many of the most dangerous Soviet agents of the era.
The Soviet Socialists understood that the future success or failure of Mao’s insurgents would not only shape the history of China, but also the history of the United States. In turn, America’s policies toward China would nudge Mao’s terrorists in one direction or the other: toward success or toward failure. The Amerasia case uncovered one of Stalin’s key weapons in this struggle: Soviet agents acting covertly — as “moles” — inside the U.S. government. Those who shaped America’s policies toward China were acting, not on reliable information provided by honest civil servants, but rather on fabrications and opinions provided by Soviet espionage agents planted within the U.S. State Department.
Even as the battles of WW2 still raged, the Soviets were planning the postwar destruction of the Chinese government and the creation of Mao’s Marxist dictatorship.
OSS agents investigating Amerasia found not only that the publication’s staff had obtained stolen documents, but that many of the magazine’s writers were actually Soviet agents, part of a larger network which led to still more Soviet agents in the government and in other organizations, as Time magazine reports:
Chunky, spectacled Frank Bielaski, an ex-Wall Street broker turned Government secret agent, had handled many cases for OSS during the war. One midnight, tracing down the document quoted in Amerasia, Bielaski and four aides let themselves into a dark, empty building at 225 Fifth Avenue. They took an elevator to the eleventh floor and there, by what Bielaski later called “deceit and subterfuge,” entered Amerasia’s office. Once inside, they began a careful inspection. They found one room fitted out with photocopy equipment, a desk in another room spread with copies of Government documents. Behind a door were a bellows-type suitcase and two briefcases packed with other papers — altogether close to 300 originals and copies of documents stolen from the Offices of Naval Intelligence and Censorship, G2, OSS, State Department and British Intelligence. A few of them were marked “Top Secret” and “Secret”; all of them were labeled for official scrutiny only.
Clearly, there were moles at work inside the State Department. In addition to Amerasia, secrets were being passed on to the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), a policy think-tank, and to the IPR’s publications. The IPR’s main publication was a periodical titled Pacific Affairs.
The Soviet Socialist espionage network inside the United States did more than steal secret documents. It was also active in shaping America’s policies. Individuals working the State Department who were associated with the IPR wrote briefings for decision-makers in the U.S. government.
The Soviets, who sought the ultimate destruction of the United States, were shaping the decisions by which America was to defend itself against the Soviets. The USSR had managed to subvert the American system against itself.
The OSS gained physical evidence which revealed how widespread the Soviet infiltration was, as Time magazine reports:
The raiders picked up a dozen documents to show the kind of material they had found, and left. A few hours later Bielaski laid his report and the documents before officials in Washington.
Amerasia was co-edited and co-founded by Philip Jaffe. Jaffe was connected to a number of known Soviet spies, including Earl Browder, Owen Lattimore, and John Stewart Service. Each of these was connected to still others. In the end, a dizzyingly large network of Soviet operatives were related directly or indirectly to the Amerasia case.
Ultimately, some of these were tried in court and jailed. Others were rendered useless to the Soviets because their identities had been revealed. But some of them also managed to slip away and continue their espionage activity.
The case expanded from the OSS to the FBI, and then culminated in legal actions, as Time magazine explains:
The case was assigned to the FBI. For almost three months FBI agents kept Jaffe and his office under surveillance. Other agents tailed Jaffe on frequent trips to Washington where he met assorted small-bore Government officials. By late May, James Mclnerney, first assistant to Tom Clark, who was in charge of criminal prosecution for the Justice Department, was ready to collar the crowd, start prosecutions for espionage.
All of this would be mere historical trivia, except for the fact that Mao’s terrorists ultimately destroyed both China’s government and much of Chinese society. Mao’s victory is due, in part or in whole, to less-than-energetic American support for Chiang Kai-shek. Had Chiang been able to defend China against Mao, and had Mao’s communist dictatorship not been able to oppress China for several decades, then millions of Chinese would not have been murdered by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Not only would millions of Chinese lives have been saved, but also lives in Korea and Vietnam, including American lives.
Why did America fail to stoutly oppose Mao’s genocidal takeover of China? In part because the network of individuals who were associated with Amerasia had persuaded U.S. policy makers that Mao was benign and that Chiang Kai-shek was useless. Acting on disinformation — a step worse than misinformation — U.S. policy makers were lulled into letting Mao have China. Philip Jaffe’s network of Soviet spies is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings.
