Walter Krivitsky

Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II.

Early life
Born to Jewish parents as Samuel Ginsberg in Podwołoczyska (Pidvolochysk, then Galicia, Austria-Hungary), he adopted the name "Krivitsky" (a name based on the Slavic root for "crooked, twisted") as a revolutionary nom de guerre when he entered the Bolshevik intelligence around 1917.

He operated as an "illegal" (agent with false name and papers) in Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy and Hungary, and rose to the rank of control officer. He is credited with stealing plans for submarines and planes, intercepting Nazi-Japanese correspondence, and recruiting many agents, including Madame Lupescu and Noel Field.

In May 1937, after the GRU was taken over by the civil State Security, the NKVD (later KGB), Krivitsky was sent to The Hague to operate as the rezident, or regional control officer, operating under cover of an antiquarian. It appears that he coordinated intelligence operations throughout Western Europe.

Defection
At that time the General Staff of the Red Army was undergoing a purge in Moscow, which Krivitsky and close friend, Ignace Poretsky (also known as Ignace Reiss), both abroad, found deeply disturbing. Poretsky wanted to defect, but Krivitsky repeatedly held back.

Finally Poretsky did defect, which he announced in a defiant letter to Moscow. Poretsky's assassination in Switzerland in September 1937 prompted Krivitsky to defect the following month.

In Paris, Krivitsky began to write articles and made contact with Lev Sedov (Trotsky's son) and the Trotskyists. There he also met undercover Soviet spy Mark Zborowski, known as "Etienne," whom Sedov sent to protect him. Sedov died mysteriously in February 1938, but Krivitsky eluded attempts to kill or kidnap him while in France.

At the end of 1938, anticipating the Nazi conquest of Europe, Krivitsky sailed from France to the United States. With the help of journalist Isaac Don Levine and literary agent Paul Wohl, he produced an inside account of Stalin's underhanded methods called In Stalin's Secret Service (also published as I Was Stalin's Agent), published in 1939 after appearing first as a series in the Saturday Evening Post. (Note: the title appeared as a phrase in an article written by Reiss' wife on the first anniversary of her husband's assassination:  "Reiss... had been in Stalin’s secret service for many years and knew what fate to expect." )  The book received a tepid review by the very influential New York Times.

Violently attacked by the Left in America, Krivitsky was vindicated when a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact (which he predicted) was signed in August 1939.

Caught between dedication to socialist ideals and detestation of Stalin's methods, Krivitsky believed that it was his duty to inform. This decision caused him much mental anguish, as he impressed on American defector Whittaker Chambers. Krivitsky told Chambers, "In our time, informing is a duty" (recounted in Chambers in his autobiography, Witness).

Krivitsky testified before the Dies Committee (later to become the House Un-American Activities Committee) in October 1939, and sailed as "Walter Thomas" to London in January 1940 to reveal secrets to British Military Intelligence, MI5. It is a matter of controversy whether he gave MI5 clues to the identity of Soviet agents Donald Maclean and Kim Philby. There is no doubt, however, that the NKVD learned of his testimony and initiated operations to silence him.

He soon returned to North America, landing in Canada. Always in trouble with the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, Krivitsky was not able to return to the United States until November 1940.

Krivitsky retained Louis Waldman to represent him on legal matters. (Waldman was a long-time friend of Isaac Don Levine.)

Death
The August 1940 assassination of Trotsky in Mexico convinced him that he was now at the top of the NKVD hit list. His last two months in New York were filled with plans to settle in Virginia and to write, but also with doubts and dread. On February 10, 1941, at 9:30 a.m. he was found dead in the Bellevue Hotel (now The George) in Washington D.C. by a chambermaid, with three suicide notes by the bed. His body was lying in a pool of blood, caused by a single bullet wound to the right temple from a .38-caliber revolver found grasped in Krivitsky's right hand. A June 10, 1941, report indicates he had been dead for approximately 6 hours.

According to most sources, (including Krivitsky himself) he was murdered by Soviet intelligence, but the official investigation, unaware of the NKVD manhunt, concluded that Krivitsky committed suicide.

Chambers recounted the death in his memoirs: One night one of my close friends burst into my office at Time. He was holding a yellow tear-off that had just come over the teletype.

"They have murdered the General," he said. "Krivitsky has been killed."

Krivitsky's body had been found in a room in a small Washington hotel a few blocks from the Capitol. He had a room permanently reserved at a large downtown hotel where he had always stayed when he was in Washington. He had never stayed at the small hotel before. Why had he gone there?

He had been shot through the head and there was evidence that he had shot himself. At whose command? He had left a letter in which he gave his wife and children the unlikely advice that the Soviet Government and people were their best friends. Previously, he had warned them that, if he were found dead, never under any circumstances to believe that he had committed suicide. Who had forced my friend to write the letter? I remembered the saying: "Any fool can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a good natural death."...

Krivitsky also told me something else that night. A few days before, he had taken off the revolver that he usually carried and placed it in a bureau drawer. His seven-year-old son watched him.

"Why do you put away the revolver?" he asked. "In America," said Krivitsky, "nobody carries a revolver." "Papa," said the child, "carry the revolver."

Survivors
At first news of his death, Whittaker Chambers found Krivitsky's wife Antonina ("Tonia" according to Kern, "Tonya" according to Chambers) and son Alek in New York City. He boarded them on a train to Florida, where they stayed with Chambers's family (who had already fled New Smyrna). Both families hid there several months, fearing further Soviet reprisals. The families then returned to Chambers's farm in Westminster, Maryland. Within a short time, however, Tonia and Alek returned to New York.

Both wife and son lived in poverty for the rest of their lives. Son Alek died of a brain tumor in his early 30s, after serving in the US Navy and studying at Columbia University. Wife Tonia (who changed her surname legally to "Thomas") continued to live and work in New York City until retiring to Ossining, where she died aged 94 in 1996.

References and further reading


Walter Germanowitsch Kriwitzki Válter Krivitski Walter Krivitsky ולטר קריביצקי Valter Germanovics Krivickij Walter Krivitsky ウォルター・クリヴィツキー Walter Kriwicki Кривицкий, Вальтер Германович