Readers Respond to DocumentsTalk.com
I advise anyone interested in finding out what is fact and what is fantasy in the shadow world of spying before and during World War II to read it carefully. —Susan Butler
I have just examined your website and am lost in wonder at the scope and extent of your researches…. The sheer effort is mind-boggling.
What a pity that your interest is centered in the US. Had it been the UK, you would have resolved all the riddles that bother me! —Harry Chapman Pincher
The historical research of Svetlana Chervonnaya is a brilliant example of investigative journalism of the highest class. —Yury Totrov
Your site is a very impressive and welcome find. Are you still actively engaged?
Leslie Louis author of books and articles on the Cold War and 28 issues of Cold War Dossier.
Simply wanna comment that you have a very decent internet site , I love the pattern it really stands out. cheap cpanel hosting | cpanel hosting |
I just recently came upon your website by chance. I’m an amateur (i.e. nonprofessional, noncredentialed) researcher of the Hiss-Chambers affair. I recognized your name as one of the co-authors of a new angle on the VENONA cables.
I was particularly impressed by your discussion of the FBI “expert” who was analyzing whether the information in the 4 handwritten “Baltimore” memos violated the Espionage Act. I wonder if you’ve looked at the typewritten documents with the standard in mind? I’m unconvinced that if Alger Hiss did leak any information to Whittaker Chambers that it amounted to anything that would have been a violation of the Espionage Act. The US was officially neutral in 1938!
Re: Mary Martin memo. Hugh Martin was, indeed in Latvia 1923. See the attached report. He was in Army intelligence in Petrograd in 1918, and later worked for the State Department in Latvia. He & Mary lived in DC in 1930.
Just discovered your very informative website! It has already helped with my research of Ludwig Martens and his comrades. Do you have more information in English re his son who worked in Soviet intelligence than is mentioned in the following clip from Wikipedia? Any leads?
“During World War II the son of Ludwig Martens, Wilhelm Ludvigovich (Willy) Martens, was the head of the Free Germany committee intended to organize German POWs to fight alongside the Soviets against Axis troops. The committee was organized in Krasnogorsk in 1943. Later Wilhelm Martens worked as a Soviet intelligence officer.[2]”
Thank you,
Don Evans
North Bethesda, MD, USA
Dear Mrs. Chervonnaya,
Congratulations, you’ve made a very good job and I’ve learned a lot. Indeed it’s often difficult to jump over the borders, not only concerning the different languages but the opinions of history, too.
Yours
Helmut Roewer
It’s funny about smoking guns. Usually the people who talk about finding one have been on the hunt for a long, long time. Whether it is Alexander Vassiliev and John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, after countless books and articles thinking they have nailed Alger Hiss as an authentic spy, or Ric Gillespie, after eight trips to a South Pacific island thinking he has found artifacts belonging to Amelia Earhart, the mindset is the same: many years of hunches and many years of work leading to a belief the grail is there…just a bit out of reach of their fingers. They don’t give up, but that doesn’t make their findings true.
Documentstalk punctures many myths. I advise anyone interested in finding out what is fact and what is fantasy in the shadow world of spying before and during World War II to read it carefully.
(The writer is author of “East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart” (1997); “My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin” (2005))
It’s time to clear away the rubble of the Cold War and deal with the myths 60 years in the making about Russian-American relations. These myths, surprisingly, are very much alive both in Russia and in the USA as well. The only Russian I know who has been moving to demolish the myths is Svetlana Chervonnaya; unfortunately for us Russians, she is doing it in English.
(The writer is author and/or editor of “The Empire of the GRU” (1999); “The Encyclopedia of the Military Intelligence of Russia; The Encyclopedia of the Foreign Intelligence of the USSR”; and many other volumes)
I’ve just had a quick look at your new website so far, but it’s clear that you’ve done a terrific job of pulling together and explaining this very complex material.
(The writer is Historian of the International Monetary Fund and author of “The IMF and the Force of History: Ten Events and Ten Ideas That Have Shaped the Institution”; “The Case Against Harry Dexter White: Still Not Proven,” and many other volumes)
I have just examined your website and am lost in wonder at the scope and extent of your researches. I had not fully realized how privileged I am to know you and be in contact with you. The sheer effort is mind-boggling. What a pity that your interest is centered in the US. Had it been the UK, you would have resolved all the riddles that bother me!
Keep it all going. It is marvelous source of information – all those biographies, etc.!
(The writer is the author of “Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover- ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain” (2009); “Too Secret, Too Long” (1984); “Their Trade Is Treachery” (1981); and many other volumes)
I took a quick look at your website and found it fascinating. It will require time to carefully read through all the segments. I’m glad that you have undertaken such an effort (and in English!). It is always good to get both Russian and American perspectives on such emotionally charged history.
(The writer is an adjunct professor, Indiana University, teaching intelligence history after a career at the CIA)
Writing to tell you how impressed I am by your new website. It is fabulous and a welcome contribution to espionage scholarship. BRAVO!
(The writer is the author of “How The Cold War Began: The Igor Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies” (2005))
You are the only Russian analyst, researcher and scholar who for a long time has been exploring the periods in history which are so difficult for most of the experts in the field to understand, not to mention the intelligence operatives from different decades. As for me, I do not know anyone like you.
(The writer is a retired Colonel, KGB Foreign Intelligence)
If asked whom I’d recommend for the position of the chief of the History Department, organized at the SVR or the GRU, I’d recommend Svetlana Chervonnaya. The historical research of Svetlana Chervonnaya is a brilliant example of investigative journalism of the highest class. If the Russian Investigative Committee, the federal criminal investigation system launched by President Putin to pursue Russia’s most serious crimes, had investigators-analysts like Svetlana Chervonnaya, the number of unsolved organized assassinations would fall dramatically.
(The writer is a retired Colonel, KGB Foreign Intelligence)
Wonderful news! I’m looking at it now and will surely spend many fascinating hours reading it. Your approach is beyond reproach and very honest and realistic. … As we all know, perfect objectivity isn’t obtainable, and if it was it would be too long to read, but we can’t suppress the important findings of our research because it doesn’t fit our beliefs or point of view.
(The writer is the author of a forthcoming book on the Hiss case)