Missed a spot: More on Grajdanzev and IPR

An update on Grajdanzev's presence in the McCarran IPR hearings. I missed a few spots where he was discussed more in testimony by Owen Lattimore. This was because they spelled his name differently (but inconsistently) in that part, as "Gradjanzev" or "Gradjansev."

Grajdanzev (spelled correctly) is mentioned briefly in a paragraph about a meeting in a letter from Carter to Holland ("Exhibit No. 53"). The meeting is about "Soviet Policy in the Pacific"; Grajdanzev is said to have attended, along with 12 other people (although Lattimore denied having been there). The context of this testimony is whether Lattimore had met James S. Allen and when he "knew" Allen was a Communist.

He comes up later (as "Gradjansev") in a Feb. 10, 1938 letter written to Harriet Moore of the American Russian Institute about asking Moore and Grajdanzev to write a "rejoinder" to an article to be published in Pacific Affairs by economist L. E. Hubbard (misidentified at times as "L.M. Hubbard") that was critical of the Soviet Union. (This is the article, entitled "A Capitalist Appraisal of the Soviet Union.") Originally Lattimore wanted the Soviet economist, V. E. Motylev, who had protested the Hubbard article to write a rejoinder, but evidently Motylev wasn't willing. So Moore and Grajdanzev were approached to write "the most penetrating and masterly rejoinder that can possibly be produced."

Lattimore stated that a rejoinder hadn't been published, but that an article entitled "The Rate of Growth in the Soviet Union" was published in response to Hubbard's article. That article, written by "Andrew W. Canniff," is here. Lattimore noted that "Canniff" was a pseudonym (and the front matter to the issue of Pacific Affairs identifies the name as a pseudonym),* but he wasn't sure if it was a pseudonym for Moore and Grajdanzev. The Senator questioning Lattimore suggested that Moore was a Communist at the time in question, though Lattimore denied knowing any information about this at that time.

They go on to discuss Grajdanzev ("Gradjansev") for a bit:

Senator FERGUSON. Who was the gentleman there, Gradjansev?

Mr. LATTIMORE. The other was Mr. Gradjansev, who was a White Russian.

Mr. MORRIS. Do you know whether that is the same Mr. Gradjansev who was dismissed from General MacArthur's headquarters for left wing activity?

Mr. LATTIMORE. I did not know that he was dismissed for left wing activity. I know he worked for a while under SCAP.

Mr. MORRIS. Did you know he was dismissed?

Mr. LATTIMORE. Yes; I knew he was dismissed.

Mr. MORRIS. What reason did you believe was the cause of his dismissal?

Mr. LATTIMORE. The reason I heard was that he had given some cigarettes to some Japanese. He was a man who didn't smoke, and he used his cigarette ration to give to some Japanese who were doing some economic work for him, and this was considered, I believe, to be black-marketeering.

This story is slightly different from the one given by Holland (mentioned here) about Grajdanzev selling liquor on the black market to pay his research assistants. Both stories, though, suggest the kind of close observation he was under--as Masuda described it, Grajdanzev was being tailed for some reason.

Lattimore goes on to say that, given the description of "Canniff" in Pacific Affairs as someone who was "studying the agricultural economics of both the Soviet Union and Manchuria," Canniff "was probably Mr. Gradjansev."

Grajdanzev's name (spelled properly this time) comes up again in a 1940 letter from Lattimore to Frederick V. Field that is discussed during Lattimore's testimony. In the letter, Lattimore recalls recommending Grajdanzev to S. Taylor Ostrander (whom Lattimore describes as being connected with the Defense Advisory Commission), who needed "an economist competent to deal with Japanese wartime fiscal policies." "I pointed out that for his purposes the fact that Grajdanzev does not yet have his citizenship might be a barrier, but he told me that in some cases they proceed by appointing someone to a general job, with salary allowances for taking on assistants for such purposes as this."

Going back to the "penetrating and masterly rejoinder," Lattimore says that at the time, he had "no reason to suppose that Harriet Moore was Communist, and I had no reason whatever to suppose that Grajdanzev was Communist, or pro-Communist." (Which makes me wonder if Lattimore is implying that he now thinks Grajdanzev is at least pro-Communist. Unfortunately I don't think he ever answers my question.)

One more time that Grajdanzev comes up in the questioning of Lattimore is when the senators present a translation Grajdanzev did of a Soviet newspaper article praising an article that Lattimore wrote about Soviet treatment of national minorities. Special Counsel Morris asks Lattimore (somewhat sarcastically, I suspect) if it was Grajdanzev's regular practice to forward to Lattimore "favorable references in the Soviet press."  Lattimore's response is that, "as a friend of mine, if he ran across something that would interest me he would send it to me."

Finally, there is Exhibit No. 566-G, which is a 1938 letter from Lattimore to Grajdanzev. It's mostly about Lattimore's response to Grajdanzev's views on the progress of the war in Europe, but Lattimore starts off by writing about what appears to be Grajdanzev's attempts to get US citizenship:

I think you are doing the right thing about trying to arrange your own application to get on the quota. It seems to me that there is a good chance that this will succeed, and if it does it may simplify the problem for Mary. I am assuming, of course, that you will let me know without any delay if there is anything whatever that I can do.

I'm not sure where this exhibit is used in the questioning of Lattimore, though.

The moral of the story: consider alternative spellings of names like Grajdanzev!
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* The front matter also identifies "Canniff" as the author of an article entitled "Japan's Puppets in China" that was published in Asia. (This article was published in 1938 in Volume 38, No. 3 of the magazine, pp. 151-153.)