SPY RING INQUIRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26848, 12 August 1948, Page 5

SPY RING INQUIRY

RUSSIAN WITNESSES SANCTUARY FROM POLICE CALLED BY COMMITTEE FOR EVIDENCE N.Z.P.A.—Copyright Rec. 8 p.m. WASHINGTON, Aug. 10. The State Department ruled to-day that the House Un-American Activities Committee can subpoena Mrs Kosenkina, a Russian school teacher now at the Soviet Consulate in New York, after her alleged kidnapping by White Russians, but that F. 8.1. agents may not forcibly enter the consulate unless they believe a crime is being committed. Representative Karl Mundt, the committee chairman, said that no action will be taken at present, since the consulate enjoys diplomatic immunity. The Soviet Consul-general, Mr Lomakin, to-day for the second time asked the New York police to find the school teacher, Mikhail Samarin, who has already been subpoenaed by the committee. Mr Lomakin refused to allow _ the police to interview Mrs Kosenkina.

The United Press learned that Samarin stayed over the week-end at a farm near New Jersey conducted by a White Russian. He, with his wife and three children, was taken from New York city in the early hours of Saturday morning and hidden in an old truck at the request of Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, to whom Samarin had appealed for aid. Late on Saturday night the countess went to the farm and persuaded Samarin to go back to New York city and get in touch with the F. 8.1. He did so, the story added, and is there now under the protection of the House Un-Ameri-can Activities Committee. His family remained on the .farm. Meanwhile, the House Un-American Activities Committee heard several men accused of Communist activities by Miss Elizabeth Bentley deny her accusations of spying. After the hearings, committee members said that conflicting evidence during the hearings proved that some witnesses had committed perjury. They demanded that the Justice Department should investigate and prosecute. They also disclosed that after Miss Bentley had turned against the Communists, but while she was still keeping her Communist associations at the request of the F. 8.1., she was awarded 20U0 dollars and a Red Star by the Supreme Soviet Council on November 7/ 1945. The awards were apparently in recognition of her work and she turned the money and decorations over to the F. 8.1. Appearing before the _ committee, Duncan Lee, employed during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services, a counter-espionage agency, and named by Miss Bentley as a contact for the Communist spy ring, denied that he was ever a Communist or that he had disclosed secret information to anyone. He said his acquaintance with Miss Bentley was purely social. “ I served my country with complete loyalty and to the best of my ability. It is hard for me to believe Miss Bentley’s statements.” Miss Bentley repeated the accusation that Lee told her about “something super secret ” going on at the Oakridge, Tennessee, atom bomb plant and about the Office of Strategic Services operations in China and the Balkans. . , Another former Government official, William Ullman, alleged to have microfilmed secret documents for the spy ring, also denied the allegations but refused to disclose if he was a Communist or knew Miss Bentley. “Her statements about me are scurrilous and false. She is a liar. I have always been a loyal American citizen.” Robert T. Miller, formerly with the State Department, also denied Miss Bentley’s allegations that he was a Communist and a member of the spy ring.