November 7, 1944—Thousands of miles from the eastern half of the country he had saved with critical intelligence coups, Soviet spy Richard Sorge—often considered the most important espionage agent of the 20th century—was executed in Tokyo for masterminding a ring that penetrated the highest levels of the Empire of the Rising Sun.
Executed along with the Soviet for his part in the ring was Hotsumi Ozaki, believed to be the only Japanese citizen sentenced to death during the war on treason charges.
Russians are fascinated with Sorge for obvious reasons; the Japanese, because they are still stunned that a foreigner was able to ferret out secrets from their paranoid, authoritarian government of the time. Aside from military and intelligence historians, however, Americans have not paid much attention to him.
I believe Sorge’s life and career merit more extensive attention, because a) it answers a number of questions on how WWII worked out the way it did, and b) one of his chief contacts was an American woman who was charged—controversially at the time, credibly in retrospect—with being a foreign operative.
Ian Fleming once said that the spy he created, James Bond, had nothing on the real-life adventures of British operative Sidney Reilly. I would argue that Sorge’s career was even more consequential than Reilly’s.
There is the astounding nature of the secrets he passed along to Stalin, for instance:
* He not only predicted that Adolf Hitler would violate the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact by invading the U.S.S.R., but predicted when this would occur.
* He predicted that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor.
* He predicted that, instead of pushing toward Siberia, Japan would move south, toward French Indo-China.
In his professional capacity, Sorge slipped as easily across geographic borders as identities. In fact, the two were linked. Though born in 1895 in Azerbaijan—at the time, part of Czarist Russian—he was the child of a cross-national marriage between a Russian woman and her German mining engineer husband.
What was not permeable was Sorge’s devotion to Communism. Though some might argue it was practically his birthright (an uncle served as secretary to Karl Marx), he became devoted to the cause in earnest during the closing days of WWI, when forced convalescence because of a war wound while fighting for Germany led him to read the works of Mark more seriously.
While still a German national, Sorge joined the Comintern (Communist Party International). By 1930, he made his way to Shanghai, where, under cover as an editor for the German publication Frankfurter Zeitung, he was actually gathering intelligence for a planned Communist revolution. There, he made the acquaintance of future conspirator Ozaki through a mutual acquaintance: Agnes Smedley, an American journalist, novelist, feminist—and triple agent.
Yes, triple agent. Smedley started out working for Indian nationalists before moving on to Soviet Communists, then Chinese Communists. In Shanghai, she supplied Sorge—normally skeptical of the value of female operatives—with detailed information on Japanese and German military intentions and capabilities. She also began a romantic relationship with him.
Now, this sounds like James Bond stuff. So does the rest of his life from here on: After a short time spent re-establishing contacts in Berlin for the sake of his cover story, he was transferred to Japan, where Ozaki—not just a public intellectual but a friend of Japan's premier—started supplying him with documents about the regime. For good measure, Sorge slept with the wife of the German ambassador.
Executed along with the Soviet for his part in the ring was Hotsumi Ozaki, believed to be the only Japanese citizen sentenced to death during the war on treason charges.
Russians are fascinated with Sorge for obvious reasons; the Japanese, because they are still stunned that a foreigner was able to ferret out secrets from their paranoid, authoritarian government of the time. Aside from military and intelligence historians, however, Americans have not paid much attention to him.
I believe Sorge’s life and career merit more extensive attention, because a) it answers a number of questions on how WWII worked out the way it did, and b) one of his chief contacts was an American woman who was charged—controversially at the time, credibly in retrospect—with being a foreign operative.
Ian Fleming once said that the spy he created, James Bond, had nothing on the real-life adventures of British operative Sidney Reilly. I would argue that Sorge’s career was even more consequential than Reilly’s.
There is the astounding nature of the secrets he passed along to Stalin, for instance:
* He not only predicted that Adolf Hitler would violate the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact by invading the U.S.S.R., but predicted when this would occur.
* He predicted that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor.
* He predicted that, instead of pushing toward Siberia, Japan would move south, toward French Indo-China.
In his professional capacity, Sorge slipped as easily across geographic borders as identities. In fact, the two were linked. Though born in 1895 in Azerbaijan—at the time, part of Czarist Russian—he was the child of a cross-national marriage between a Russian woman and her German mining engineer husband.
What was not permeable was Sorge’s devotion to Communism. Though some might argue it was practically his birthright (an uncle served as secretary to Karl Marx), he became devoted to the cause in earnest during the closing days of WWI, when forced convalescence because of a war wound while fighting for Germany led him to read the works of Mark more seriously.
While still a German national, Sorge joined the Comintern (Communist Party International). By 1930, he made his way to Shanghai, where, under cover as an editor for the German publication Frankfurter Zeitung, he was actually gathering intelligence for a planned Communist revolution. There, he made the acquaintance of future conspirator Ozaki through a mutual acquaintance: Agnes Smedley, an American journalist, novelist, feminist—and triple agent.
Yes, triple agent. Smedley started out working for Indian nationalists before moving on to Soviet Communists, then Chinese Communists. In Shanghai, she supplied Sorge—normally skeptical of the value of female operatives—with detailed information on Japanese and German military intentions and capabilities. She also began a romantic relationship with him.
Now, this sounds like James Bond stuff. So does the rest of his life from here on: After a short time spent re-establishing contacts in Berlin for the sake of his cover story, he was transferred to Japan, where Ozaki—not just a public intellectual but a friend of Japan's premier—started supplying him with documents about the regime. For good measure, Sorge slept with the wife of the German ambassador.
All of this sounds like heady stuff. But, as W. Somerset Maugham noted in his semi-autobiographical fictional work on his own spying career, Ashenden: “The work of an agent in the Intelligence Department is on the whole monotonous. A lot of it is uncommonly useless."
Think of the time spent away from home. Think of all the time spent hand-holding some of the most miserable pieces of humanity, people willing to sell out their country for the sake of money, women, or just simply revenge.
Sorge had additional frustrations. That war injury, for instance, bothered him enough that he took to drinking to get over it. That, in turn—combined with anxiety about escaping the attention of authorities—led him to behavior that became increasingly erratic, such as riding around wildly drunk on the streets of Tokyo late at night on his motorcycle.
Ultimately, it wasn’t this that tripped him up, however, but the manner in which he transmitted his messages. According to Ruth Price’s The Lives of Agnes Smedley, the former mentor-lover of the American began using his transmitter too frequently. Japanese intelligence got wind of it, captured and arrested Sorge and Ozaki, grilled them incessantly about their work (in the course of which Sorge disclosed that Smedley was “a member of the Comintern headquarters staff”), and possibly tortured them before putting them to death.
Stalincouldn’t comment on Sorge’s situation, but he’d learned at last to appreciate his agent's tidbits of information. It wasn’t always this way. In June, faced with mounting hints from military associates that Hitler might invade the Soviet Union, Stalin disagreed:
“There’s this bastard who’s set up factories and brothels in Japan and even deigned to report the date of the German attack as 22 June. Are you suggesting I should believe him, too?”
The "bastard"--Sorge--turned out to be right, of course. Stalin still didn’t automatically accept Sorge’s report about Japanese troop movements, but this time he confirmed it with a local operative. That enabled the Soviet dictator to redeploy troops to counter Hitler’s thrust into the Russian interior.
Stalin even passed on Sorge’s tip about Pearl Harbor to American intelligence. Unfortunately, American defense chiefs didn’t believe him, so the report never got in the hands of U.S. commanders in the Pacific.
Sorge had additional frustrations. That war injury, for instance, bothered him enough that he took to drinking to get over it. That, in turn—combined with anxiety about escaping the attention of authorities—led him to behavior that became increasingly erratic, such as riding around wildly drunk on the streets of Tokyo late at night on his motorcycle.
Ultimately, it wasn’t this that tripped him up, however, but the manner in which he transmitted his messages. According to Ruth Price’s The Lives of Agnes Smedley, the former mentor-lover of the American began using his transmitter too frequently. Japanese intelligence got wind of it, captured and arrested Sorge and Ozaki, grilled them incessantly about their work (in the course of which Sorge disclosed that Smedley was “a member of the Comintern headquarters staff”), and possibly tortured them before putting them to death.
Stalincouldn’t comment on Sorge’s situation, but he’d learned at last to appreciate his agent's tidbits of information. It wasn’t always this way. In June, faced with mounting hints from military associates that Hitler might invade the Soviet Union, Stalin disagreed:
“There’s this bastard who’s set up factories and brothels in Japan and even deigned to report the date of the German attack as 22 June. Are you suggesting I should believe him, too?”
The "bastard"--Sorge--turned out to be right, of course. Stalin still didn’t automatically accept Sorge’s report about Japanese troop movements, but this time he confirmed it with a local operative. That enabled the Soviet dictator to redeploy troops to counter Hitler’s thrust into the Russian interior.
Stalin even passed on Sorge’s tip about Pearl Harbor to American intelligence. Unfortunately, American defense chiefs didn’t believe him, so the report never got in the hands of U.S. commanders in the Pacific.
The full nature of Sorge's exploits weren't revealed until 20 years after his death, when he was declared a hero of the Soviet Union. Stalin could not reveal very much during his lifetime--after all, he had disregarded the warning about Hitler's invasion, plunging his country into a horrifying mess.
As for Smedley, she died in the United Kingdom in 1950, after fleeing from the U.S. because of accusations by Major General Charles A. Willoughby that she was involved with Communist espionage. For years, friends such as Margaret Sanger and Roger Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union believed her to be a martyr to red-baiting.
It wasn't until Price was researching her biography--particularly in the late 1980s, when she interviewed aging Chinese and foreign expatriates in China--that the full extent of Smedley's involvement with Sorge's ring began to be understood. The end of the Soviet empire made availability Smedley's Comintern files, furthering confirming that involvement.
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