Joseph Milton Bernstein

Joseph Milton Bernstein (September 30, 1908 – July 1975)[1] was an American accused of spying for the Soviet Union and later confirmed as a Soviet agent by the US intelligence program Venona.

Background

Joseph Milton Bernstein was born on September 30, 1908, in Connecticut. He attended Yale University, where he joined the John Reed Club.[2]

Career

Bernstein allegedly recruited T.A. Bisson, who had stopped working at the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW) and began working in the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) and in the editorial offices of Bernstein’s periodical Amerasia. Bisson passed to Bernstein copies of four documents: (a) his own report for BEW with his views on working out a plan for shipment of American troops to China; (b) a report by the Chinese embassy in Washington to its government in China; (c) a brief BEW report of April 1943 on a general evaluation of the forces of the sides on the Soviet-German front; and (d) a report by the American consul in Vladivostok.[3]

Bernstein is supposed to have functioned as the contact between Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) and Philip Keeney of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and his wife, Mary Jane Keeney of the Board of Economic Warfare and later the United Nations.

In 1945 the Office of Strategic Services Security Division and the FBI searched the offices of the magazine Amerasia, which was suspected of holding classified government documents. The staff of the publication included accused Communist spies and agents, including Joseph Bernstein. In subsequent years, the case resulted in several convictions and a number of congressional hearings were held on the case.

Bernstein's code with the GRU and in the Venona project is "MARQUIS".

Works

Books:

Translations:

References
  1. Smith, I. C.; Nigel West (May 4, 2012). Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810873704.
  2. Klehr, Harvey; Radosh, Ronald (1996). The Amerasia Spy Case. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 3 (cost), 44 (Mitchell), 45–6 (Roth). ISBN 9780807822456. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  3. "GRU agent Joseph M. Bernstein is recruiting T.A. Bisson who passes along documents". 16 June 1943. Retrieved 12 June 2011.

External sources
  • John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press
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