Will the NKVD Assasinate Trotsky's Killer?
Will the NKVD Assasinate Trotsky's Killer? SINCE -he assassination of Loon Trotaky in Mexico City in 1V40, •Cents of the Communist International, both in Mexico end in the USA, have been plotting-...
...We will fight against any and all Faaciat moves, such as the speech of Winston Churchill in which he seeks to promote war against the Soviet Union...
...Actually, Communist forces in control of these unions have slipped badly during the past year...
...Meanwhile The Daily Worker is so concerned with the NMU feud that George Morris, the Staliniat'i ace brasa check writer, did a series backing up Communist policy within the NMU and urging "unity...
...Communists Plan Maritime Federation as "Peace" Weapon The Maritime Federation, proposed a a month ago by the Communists in the CIO, will have its convention in San Francisco in May...
...He was tried and sentenced to a long prison term...
...Other American members of the assassination network are as obscure, but relatively important ia Party circles...
...At first they professed to be friends of Jackson who wanted to be "alone with him for a few minutes...
...As in the case of Stalin's agents sent here to obtain atomic information, no arrests have been mad I because of the supine State Department policy of avoiding action that might offend Moscow...
...If Joe Curran ia aeek-ing to fight Communist domination in a union which made him president with full Stalinist backing, he might use more militant tactics...
...Therefore, a few months after Jackson was sentenced, the NKVD set up a special "ring" which had as its purpose the liquidation of Jackson...
...The Marine Cooks and Firemen's Union haa refused to participate in the Ban Francisco convention, and the MCF president, Vincent Malone, has personally condemned the Stalinist plan...
...Those and other statements made by Curran after Frederick Woitman of the Wtrld-Ttlefram and Howard Rushmore of the Journal American exposed the inter-union feud, are not the remarks of an anti-Stalinist...
...The Communist Party views the situation with alarm, and William Z. Foster is reported to have warned his waterfront comrades: There has bsea a little surgery in the NMU bat apparently not onoeigh...
...minutes to talk to me...
...The FBI was informed and G-men were sent to Mexico City to investigate...
...Jackson ia known to have "sung" loudly and long about his NKVD connections and named those roaponaible for Trotsky's assassination...
...SINCE -he assassination of Loon Trotaky in Mexico City in 1V40, •Cents of the Communist International, both in Mexico end in the USA, have been plotting- the liquidation of the man who murdered him—Frank Jaekaea...
...While dozens of FBI man assigned to the "Alto-operation" squad continue to shadow aaoaibera of the ring, the plotting goes on...
...The callers became more persistent One of them talked to the Warden of the prison where Jackson is being held and displayed a package containing 125,000...
...Joe's recent blasts at the Communists in the NMU can well be taken with a grain of aalt, considering that Curran has known for eight years that the Stalinists controlled not only the union but Joe himself...
...His use of forged Canadian papers and of the name Jackson—his real name, according to Mexican police, ia Jacques van den Sreschd — was never explained...
...With such a program, the red-baiters, the mouthpieces of the Fascists, such as the Woltmans and Rush-mores who distort the truth In their \ desire to favor the monopolies and our enemies, will never weaken our union...
...They point out that Joe Ryan, whom Bridges chased from the Coast years ago, may have a $20,000-a-year-for-life pie card, but his Eaat Coast longshoremen get $1.60 an hour as contrasted to $1.15 on the West Coast They also contend that Bridges "overloaded" the ILWU for political purposes and now that unemployment is hitting the docks, many union veterans are barely making a living...
...It ia headed by an American Communist who lives on Perry Street in Greenwich Village...
...Although a high-ranking Stalinist, this woman ia never mentioned in the Party press or the various Communist fronts...
...Curran accused Myers of attempting to "run the union" and wailed that a "machine" had dictated to other officers and members of the NMU...
...However, true to Stalinist operational strategy, they would not risk placing a man who has attacked Party leaders-even in a closed meeting—at the head of the CIO maritime federation...
...However, his charges at a closed membership meeting concerning Frederick "Blackie" Myers and Howard McKenzie, Stalinist "whips" in the NMU, rocked Communist headquarters...
...AD of the letters, giving instructions on plana to kill Jackson, were in secret ink and were deciphered in the FBI's Washington laboratory...
...The dock hands there and in other cities claim that Bridges has bungled the entire hiring situation...
...After several months of intense investigation which included shadowing NKVD agents and members of the American Communist Party, the FBI learned that the NKVD ring waa under direct instructions from MOSCOW to eliminate Jackson at any coat...
...On the other hand, the CIO has slready run Into difficulty with its projected federation...
...Curran banished any brief hopes that might have been raised by his charges in his column in the Pilot, NMU organ, with such statements as: "Whatever differences we have are trade union differences, and once the membership has received a report and acted upon it, that ends any differences which might have existed...
...Such a plan has been in the offing since the early days of the Proflntern (Red International of Trade Unions), and over the years the Stalinists have gained control in such CIO unions as the National Maritime Union, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen, the American Communications Association, the Inland Boatmen, and others...
...From the strongly anti-Communist AFL msritime unions came chortles of glee, not unmixed with skepticism over Curran's "conversion...
...However, behind the scenes the formation of such a federation has other aspects...
...The offer was repeated % number of times, but the bribes were refused...
...Curran haa asked Bridges to postpone the threatened ILWU atrike set for April 1 until after the May meeting and Indicated at a recent NMU rally that both CIO Eaat and West coast msritime groups would go out together, along with the other affiliates...
...Jackson, it will be remembered, was the NKVD man who wormed his way into Trotaky'a Mexican exile and after eight months of careful planning, killed ' the arch-enemy of Stalin'with an Alpine axe...
...A counter-attack in which the AFL will set up a maritime federation has been proposed...
...Both Curran and Bridges have teamed up to stage what may be a general atrike after the Federation convention...
...At the time he begged Col...
...The political and economic reasons for such a Stalinist move are obvious...
...Sylvia Ageloff, Department of Welfare employe in ' New Vork who introduced Jackson to Trotsky, accused him in court of having gutde love to bar In order to further the assassination plot...
...There is no room, for red baiting in our union...
...The publicity-loving Joe Curran, president of the National Maritime Union, probably is out as a candidate for head of the federation...
...Sanchez Salasar, chief of the Mexican secret police, for a gun so he could kill himself...
...Since Joe was elected and kept in office for eight years by this "machine," such a charge seems a bit belated...
...What seems evident is that Curran has a strong rank-and-file following among the NMU's 60,000 members, and the Communists may attempt to "develop him politically" rather than bunish him from office...
...Mexican police were approached with offers of bribes by mysterious strangers, some of them Americans...
...Police, who had been tipped off that the NKVD waa after their prisoner, refused to let them enter the cell...
...The New Leader has learned that the AFL shipping and dock organizations are planning to take full advantage of the present Communist weaknesses In maritime...
...up a special squad with the code name "Alto-operation" to track ¦own the agents in the network...
...Back in Moscow, the comrades also knew that he might "sing...
...The FBI intercepted letters sent the Mexican NKVD agents from heads of the ring in New York...
...If these comrades continue in defying the party lino, we will have to do some ¦ore surgery...
...The proposed 'talk" was to be outside the prison walls...
...Such a powerful federation, bringing together the CIO seamen and longshoremen for possible joint strike action against "imperialist war" to aid Stalin's foreign policy, would have tremendous potential value to Moscow, Or in ease of a strike by one federation affiliate, the other unions would walk out in support, paralyzing shipping and dock work coast to coast...
...However, Myers was forced to backtrack and hurriedly announced, after both the Journal-American and World-Teleyram exposed the inter-union squabble, that he would not run for re-election, Whether this was a Party decision to oust Myers in the face of Curran'» charges remains to be seen...
...But Jackson, with his NKVD training, knew that he had bungled the job—he had not Basse his escape...
...This ring is still in existence...
...He wailed that the former leader of the Russian revolution had made advances to Miss Ageloff, and gave other weird excuses, none of which tallied with the facts...
...They later reported to Washington, and the FBI set...
...The Seafarere organ of the Seafarers Intel national Union, said: "Curran . .. haa been for the moat part a willing part of the controlling machine...
...They want to make Comrade Harry the boss of the federation, believing that such a move will aerve the dual purpose of restoring his prestige and giving the shaky Stalinists throughout maritime a selling point in recruiting union members during the coming lean postwar years...
...It's youra," he told the warden, "if you'll let Jackson out of his cell for a few...
...l^EXICAN secret police intercepted a ¦umber of .letters from the United States sent to high-ranking local Communists and two suspected NKVD agents...
...To It will be Invited all teamen and longshoremen who are opposed to Communism and Its wrecking policies In the labor movement...
...In Stalin's politics, this it virtually a death sen tenet, and should the Mexican police who are keeping Jackson virtually in protective custody relax their vigilance, the NKVD Will accomplish its purpose...
...The proposed federation ia in this reaped an almost desperate attempt on the part of maritime Communist heads to rebuild their Bridges...
...Harry Bridges, Stalin's fair-haired boy on the West Coast, is now being booed in such longshoremen centers as San Pedro and Portland...
...To persona not familiar with the ways of the NKVD, Jackson's conduct during the trial was incredible...
Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 13
