The Mysterious Comrade Peters

(Conspiracy Nation, 09/02/07) – Angela Calomiris was one of several civic-minded persons recruited by the FBI in the early 1940s as “plants” within the Communist Party USA (CP-USA). These people worked regular day jobs and served their government without pay. They were the “eyes and ears” for the FBI at a time when secret Communist agents were being infiltrated into key positions in the United States. (Another unpaid volunteer was Herbert Philbrick. See “He Led 3 Lives,” http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Philbrick.html).

In Calomiris' book, Red Masquerade (New York: Lippincott, 1950), mention is made of a mysterious “Comrade Peters.” In a debriefing session, one of Calomiris' FBI handlers, Ken Bierly, wondered if during her induction ceremony on April 25, 1942 “Peter's Manual” had been used. Calomiris describes the ritual as “a little like a baptism.” She likens Marxism to a “scientific” religion, with Karl Marx the prophet and Vladimir Lenin the savior. Conspiracy Nation has previously noticed the quasi-religious aspect of Communism. (See “Rasputin and the Holy Mother,” http://www.shout.net/~bigred/RasputinFatima.html).

Calomiris later learned that the induction ceremony did indeed include an oral reading from “Peter's Manual.” Specifically, a pledge from that manual was recited aloud: “I now take my place in the ranks of the Communist Party, the Party of the working class... I pledge myself to rally the masses to defend the Soviet Union, the land of victorious Socialism...” (Abridged)

But who exactly was this mysterious “Comrade Peters”? For secrecy, CP-USA members were usually not known by their full names. Calomiris was baptised “Comrade Angela.” Top-secret operatives used a complete alias, such as “Comrade Juniper.” Such was the case with “Comrade Peters,” revealed to be Isidor Boorstein, born in 1894 in the town of Cop, Austria-Hungary (later Czechoslovakia).

In 1949, “Comrade Peters” was arrested and deported from the United States. Around 1978, the Nation magazine sent Donald Kirk to interview “Comrade Peters,” then living in Budapest and going by the name “Joszef Peter.” Joszef Peter laughed away the idea of CP-USA employing him for secret missions. “This is so stupid,” he said, “the 'secret Communist' and 'not-secret Communist.'” (Footnote 7, chapter 3. The Secret World Of American Communism, by Harvey Klehr, et al. Yale University Press, 1995).

However recently declassified Soviet archives show that “Comrade Peters” was lying – even to Nation magazine! Document 25, reproduced in Klehr's book (op. cit.), states specifically that from 1936 to 1938 “Comrade Peters” was a “worker in the secret apparatus of the CPUSA CC.”

What is usually called the “secret apparatus” is a translation of the Russian word “Konspirativnyi”, which Klehr suggests could be translated as “conspiratorial apparatus” or “conspiracy apparatus.” (Footnote 8, chapter 3). Just as Freemasonry has higher levels of initiation, so too did CP-USA have a “secret apparatus” cloaked from the lower levels.

Besides being known as “Comrade Peters,” Isidor Boorstein, and Joszef Peter, the clandestine operative also went under the aliases of Goldfarb and Alexander Stevens.

An “illegal apparatus” was set up within CP-USA partly to handle a foreseen “fascist crackdown.” If CP-USA were to be outlawed, the “secret apparatus” would allow it to continue functioning underground. But Moscow also decided, since the “secret apparatus” was already set up, then why not use it for espionage purposes?

The 1920s Communist underground in the United States was not systematically maintained. In the 1930s, the “person chosen to revitalize the CPUSA's secret apparatus was J. Peters [Comrade Peters].” CP-USA internal security had been so lax that in 1929 the Daily Worker had openly published its intent to form a secret organization. (Footnote 5, chapter 3, Klehr, op. cit.). Security had to be tightened, and “Comrade Peters” was the man for the job.

Enter Whittaker Chambers

In the early 1930s, Whittaker Chambers had been initiated into the “secret apparatus.” Among his assignments was to assist secret Communists working for government agencies in Washington, DC. “These groups provided the CPUSA with information about sensitive government activities and sought to promote Communist influence within the government.”

In April 1938, fearful regarding Joseph Stalin's ongoing bloody purge of the Soviet intelligence apparatus, Chambers vanished from sight. This, writes Klehr, may explain why “Comrade Peters” was replaced as head of the “secret apparatus” two months later, in June 1938. If Chambers talked, “Comrade Peters” might be exposed. And if “Comrade Peters” were taken into custody and interrogated, that risked the entire “secret apparatus.”

By 1939, apparently anticipating assassination, Whittaker Chambers wrote a secret essay, “The Faking of Americans,” and entrusted it to Herbert Solow, a journalist and friend. This unpublished essay warned that Chambers was prepared, if provoked, to name names. “Back off!” was the subtext message to CP-USA. Chambers eventually did testify that a Communist underground existed in Washington, DC during the 1930s. Critics to the contrary, documents unearthed from the Soviet archives show that “a thriving Communist underground was in place in the 1930s. Other documents demonstrate that this party underground was active within the federal government itself.” (Klehr, op. cit.)

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