User:Nobs/Perlo

Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912 -- December 1, 1999) was a Marxist economist and a longtime member of the national committee of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA).

Born in East Elmhurst, New York, Perlo was the son of Russian-Americans who had both emigrated in their youth from Omsk in Siberia. He received a BA and MA in mathematics and statistics from Columbia University in 1933.

Perlo served in various New Deal agencies beginning with the National Recovery Administration and later the Works Progress Administration. While serving in Washington, D.C., Perlo joined the Ware group, a group secret Communist Party members in the federal government. A cadre of Ware group members later formed the Perlo group, headed by Perlo, which was engaged in espionage activity on behalf Earl Browder, General Secretary of the CPUSA. In 1938 Perlo went to work in the United States Department of Commerce and gathered data on basic economic decisions he presented to Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce. Later he transferred to the Division of Monetary Research, and served under Harry Dexter White, followed by Frank Coe and Harold Glasser.

In late 1943 Browder referred the Perlo group to Jacob Golos, an Amreican citizen and emigre from Russia who head the CPUSA's secret apparatus, and who held rank in the Soviet NKVD. The secret apparatus was functioning as an auxilliary to Soviet intelligence. Browder arranged for the group to met directly with the Soviet couriers. Control of the group was given to Elizabeth Bentley.

Bentley's first meeting with the group was to ascertain what information they could provide, who its members where, to collect Communist Party dues, and make arrangements for clandestine recovery of stolen government information. At this meeting, Perlo asked if the information was going to "Uncle Joe".

Perlo was by then Chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board. His spy ring included a Senate staff director and supplied the Soviet Union with United States aircraft production figures. Before the War's end, he transferred to the Division of Monetary Research, and served under Harry Dexter White, followed by Frank Coe and Harold Glasser. Perlo left the government in 1947.

Perlo's code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona project is "Raider".

After the war, Perlo was employed in the Brookings Institution. From the 1960s until his death, he was chief economist for the CPUSA. His major works include American Imperialism (1951), Empire of High Finance (1957), Economics of Racism I and II (1973 and 1996), and Superprofits and Crises (1988).

Venona
Venona decrpyts that reference Victor Perlo.


 * Venona 588 KGB New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, Part 1
 * Venona 588 KGB New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, Part 2
 * Venona 588 KGB New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, Part 3
 * Venona 687 KGB New York to Moscow, 13 May 1944
 * Venona 769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, part 1
 * Venona 769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, part 2
 * Venona 769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, part 3
 * Venona 1003 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 July 1944, Part 1
 * Venona 1003 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 July 1944, Part 2
 * Venona 1015 KGB New York to Moscow, 22 July 1944
 * Venona 1214 KGB New York to Moscow, 25 August 1944, Part 1
 * Venona 1214 KGB New York to Moscow, 25 August 1944, Part 2
 * Venona 79 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 January 1945 (HTML)
 * Venona 1823, 1824, 1825 KGB Washington to Moscow, 30 March 1945, Part 1
 * Venona 1823, 1824, 1825 KGB Washington to Moscow, 30 March 1945, Part 2
 * Venona 3707 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945, Part 1
 * Venona 3707 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945, Part 2


 * Venona 3708 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945
 * Venona 3713,3715 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945, Part 1
 * Venona 3713,3715 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945, Part 2
 * Venona 3713,3715 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945, Part 3

Perlo group

 * Victor Perlo
 * Edward Fitzgerald, War Production Board
 * Harold Glasser, Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Department of the Treasury; War Production Board; Advisor on North African Affairs Committee
 * Alger Hiss, Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs United States Department of State
 * Charles Kramer, Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Price Administration; National Labor Relations Board; Senate Subcommittee on Wartime Health and Education; Agricultural Adjustment Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee
 * Sol Leshinsky, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
 * Harry Magdoff, Statistical Division of War Production Board and Office of Emergency Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce
 * George Perazich, Foreign Economic Administration; United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
 * Allen Rosenberg, Board of Economic Warfare; Chief of the Economic Institution Staff, Foreign Economic Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; Senate Committee on Education and Labor; Railroad Retirement Board; Councel to the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board
 * Donald Wheeler, Office of Strategic Services Research and Analysis division