Robert Owen Menaker (June 25, 1904 – September 1, 1988) was an American exporter who allegedly worked for

Soviet intelligence This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Biography

Born in

Passaic, New Jersey Passaic ( or ) is a City (New Jersey), city in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was List of municipalities in New Jersey, the state's 16th-most-populous ...

, Menaker was the son of a

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest po ...

immigrant who was imprisoned for revolutionary activity in Russia. His family were noted radicals; he was named for utopian socialist

Robert Owen Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist, political philosopher and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement, co-operative movement. He strove to ...

and one of his nieces, Ellen, was married to

Victor Perlo Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912December 1, 1999) was an American Marxist economist, government functionary, and a longtime member of the governing National Committee of the Communist Party USA. Biography Early years Victor Perlo was born May 15, 19 ...

, head of the

Perlo group Headed by Victor Perlo, the Perlo group is the name given to a group of Americans who provided information which was given to Soviet intelligence agencies; it was active during the World War II period, until the entire group was exposed to the FBI ...

. Menaker was identified by

Arlington Hall Arlington Hall (also called Arlington Hall Station) is a historic building in Arlington, Virginia. Originally it was a girls' school and later the headquarters of the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) cryptography operations ...

cryptographers in sixteen

Venona The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, u ...

messages. Menaker assisted Floyd Miller's infiltration of the Socialist Workers Party. Several Venona messages are related to Menaker's employer, Michael Burd, for whom Menaker worked at the Midland Export Corporation of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. In 1944 and 1945, Menaker traveled to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

to represent Midland Export. While in Chile he met the Chilean diplomat Christian Casanova Subercaseaux. Burd and Subercaseaux were also both Soviet intelligence agents. After returning from his 1944 Chile trip, Burd complained to the New York

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

office that Menaker alienated several companies they did business with. KGB Officer Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov reported to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

that "allowances should be made" working with Menaker since he had not been thoroughly trained or screened prior to assignment. In a later Venona transcript, the KGB speculates about the possibility that

Laurence Duggan Laurence Duggan (May 28, 1905 – December 20, 1948), also known as Larry Duggan, was a 20th-century American economist who headed the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II, best known for falling to his ...

, another source who had recently resigned from the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

, might go to Chile in place of Menaker or do some unspecified work with him. A cable from October references work with Joseph Katz, owner of the Tempus Import Company in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, and one of the KGB's most active agents. The decrypt requests instructions regarding Menaker's salary, and noted someone would be paying him thirty thousand dollars but that he might not receive it for a year. Menaker, like his friend Floyd Miller, "apparently cooperated with the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

to some extent in the 1950s....His son wrote of the frequent presence in the household in the 1950s of a friendly FBI agent, but his father never spoke about precisely what he did in Mexico, or what he told the FBI." Menaker and his wife, Mary Grace Menaker, had two sons: author Daniel Menaker (1941–2020), and Michael Menaker (d. 1967). He is the grandfather of ''

Chapo Trap House ''Chapo Trap House'' (also referred to as ''Chapo'') is an American socialist political comedy podcast launched in March 2016 and hosted by Will Menaker, Felix Biederman, Matt Christman, and Amber A'Lee Frost. It is produced by Chris Wade. The ...

'' host Will Menaker. Menaker moved from New York City to

South Nyack, New York South Nyack is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Orangetown in Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of Grand View-on-Hudson, northeast of Orangeburg, east of Blauvelt State Park, south of Nyack and ...

in 1952. He died at a hospital in Nyack on September 1, 1988, at the age of 84.

Venona

Menaker, whose code names as deciphered by Arlington Hall cryptographers is BOB and CZECH, is referenced in the following

Venona project The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, u ...

decryptions: *55 KGB Moscow to New York, January 10, 1943 *694 KGB New York to Moscow, May 15, 1943 *1044 KGB New York to Moscow, July 2, 1943 *1185 KGB New York to Moscow, July 21, 1943 *1031 KGB New York to Moscow, July 24, 1944 *1143–1144 KGB New York to Moscow, August 10, 1944 *1313 KGB New York to Moscow, September 13, 1944 *1337 KGB New York to Moscow, September 19, 1944 *1430 KGB New York to Moscow, October 10, 1944 *1470 KGB New York to Moscow, October 17, 1944 *1512 KGB New York to Moscow, October 24, 1944 *1522 KGB New York to Moscow, October 27, 1944 *1613 KGB New York to Moscow, November 18, 1944 *1637 KGB New York to Moscow, November 21, 1944 *1716 KGB New York to Moscow, December 5, 1944 *77 KGB New York to Moscow, January 17, 1945

References

*Daniel Menaker, ''The Old Left'', (New York: Knopf, 1987). *Earl M. Hyde, ''Bernard Schuster and Joseph Katz: KGB Master Spies in the United States'', International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 12, Number 1, March 1, 1999 * *

John Earl Haynes John Earl Haynes (born 1944) is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti- ...

and

Harvey Klehr Harvey Elliott Klehr (born December 25, 1945) is a professor of politics and history at Emory University. Klehr is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America (many written jointly with ...

, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'' (New Haven:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

, 1999), pgs. 266–267, 284 . {{DEFAULTSORT:Menaker, Robert 1904 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople American people in the Venona papers American people of Russian-Jewish descent American spies for the Soviet Union Espionage in the United States People from Passaic, New Jersey People from South Nyack, New York