From American-Russian Relations 1781 – 1947, William Appleman Williams, 1952
These efforts [at handling the Red problem] ultimately failed for two reasons — Wilson’s preference for military intervention against the Bolsheviks, and dissension among those who advocated economic penetration. The President’s decision did not prevent the final acceptance of a plan to enter Russia economically, but it did deprive that effort of energetic support by the Government. Whatever hopes the group had to enter Russia behind armed force were dissipated in an internal struggle for control of the venture. This division was apparent even in the first nebulous plans formulated in April, 1918.One plan began to take form in the American-Russian League organized by Herbert L. Carpenter and supported by the national Chamber of Commerce, the American Federation of Labor, and one wing of the American Russian Chamber of Commerce. But the return to the United States of Frederick M. Corse, who had served as manager of the Russian division of the New York Life Insurance Company for sixteen years, led to immediate complications. Corse, who considered Bolshevism no more than “conscious, organized loot,” naturally desired to have the Morgan-backed American-Russian chamber of Commerce control the entire operation. . . .
( pages 148-9 )
But though he frankly admitted that the anti-Soviet forces “could be broken down at any time by our failure to support them,” Wilson declined to risk the destruction of Kolchak in return for guarantees of a more liberal policy on the admiral’s part. The Soviets, the President added, were “perfectly correct in claiming that the Allies were supporting Kolchak and Denikin, and not putting pressure on them to stop fighting.” Nor, he might have added, to force them to change policies that gave the Bolsheviks “increasing popular support as Kolchak’s regime disclosed to the people its real nature and purpose.” To be sure, the President had “misgivings” about the admiral’s politics and even suggested economic coercion to change them. He accepted, however, Kolchak’s assurances that all was well in Siberia as “a very good proclamation.” Not recognition, assuredly but a satisfactory answer to a query made to specify “certain conditions under which they would continue to send supplies and munitions to the anti-Bolshevik forces.” * * *
The move satisfied the articulate anti-Bolsheviks in the United States but provoked the resignation of two advisors, historian Samuel Eliot Morrison and economist Adolf A. Berle, Jr., who were “fundamentally opposed” to Wilson’s Russian policy. . . .
( page 171 )
New York Toronto : Rinehart, 1952.
From The Mitrokhin Archive, C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, 1999
. . . On September 2, 1939, the day after the outbreak of war in Europe, Whittaker Chambers had told much of what he knew about Soviet espionage in the United States to Adolf Berle, Assistant Secretary of State and President Roosevelt’s adviser on internal security. Immediately afterwards, Berle drew up a memorandum for the President which listed Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and the other leading Soviet agents for whom Chambers had acted as courier. One of those on the list was a leading presidential aide, Lauchlin Currie (mistranscribed by Berle as Lockwood Curry). Roosevelt, however, was not interested. He seems to have dismissed the whole idea of espionage rings within his administration as absurd. Equally remarkable, Berle simply pigeon-holed his own report. He did not even send a copy to the FBI until the Bureau requested it in 1943.3333. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 290-1. Weinstein, Perjury, pp. 292-3. KGB files cited by Weinstein and Vassiliev (The Haunted Wood, pp. 106, 149, 161-2) identify Lauchlin Currie as the agent PAGE referred to in a number of the VENONA decrypts. Mitrokhin’s notes do not mention Currie.
The SWORD and the SHIELD :
The MITROKHIN ARCHIVE and the secret history of the KGB
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin.
New York : Basic Books, 1999, page 107, note p. 593 )