Amtorg is a suite of offices on Manhattan's arch-respectable Fifth Avenue where businessmen from all over the U. S. deal with Red Russians who talk broken English but drive buying and selling bargains to a gross of $115,000,000 yearly.
Backed by the goodwill of many a potent, impeccable U. S. corporation with whom he deals in millions, bold Board Chairman Peter Alexeivich Bogdanov of Amtorg actually dared last week to sug gest that he will sue sleek Grover Aloysius ("Gardenia") Whalen, Police Commissioner of New York. If Red Bogdanov succeeds in silencing Mr. Whalen, "ruble diplomacy" will have won its outstanding victory thus far, for the Commissioner charged last week nothing less than that Amtorg is a backer, political and financial, of organized Communist agitation in the U. S., that Amtorg in short is helping to foment "the World Revolutions of the World Proletariat." Earlier victories of "ruble diplomacy" include the arrangement whereby — although the Soviet Government is supposed to be too reprehensible to receive diplomatic recognition — the State Department issues permits under which Chairman Bogdanov and his scores of Red employes come and go without hindrance between Moscow and New York. Mr. Whalen handed out to newspapers a set of letters obtained by his undercover men, one typed on the stationery of Amtorg, others with Moscow letterheads. Impartial observers wondered if here was another "Zinoviev Letter," like that which rocked British politics in 1924 and upset the first MacDonald Cabinet after it had recognized the Soviet Government. Crudely phrased, prolix, roundabout, the letters arrive awkwardly at these points: 1) One "Feodor" of Moscow writes to one "G. Grafpen," ordering him to go to "Seattle in the State of Washington," conferring on him a "mandate" respecting "illegal work," and continuing: "Between the 15th and 26th of March [1930] you will have to call in Seattle a reunion of all our general representatives, which must receive instructions, literature for organization of the First of May outbreaks from you and sums of money from Comrade Sversky, who continues to be in charge of the financial department."
2) "G. Grafpen" replies to "Fedorov" (not "Feodor" as above) from Manhattan on the letterhead of Amtorg dated "loth March 1930," naming over a list of "Comrades" whom he asks shall not be recalled to Moscow, as this "might result in a very serious handicap in our work."
One of these indispensable comrades is described as "Bogdanov," and this fact would presumably be the basis of any suit by Chairman Bogdanov of Amtorg against Commissioner Whalen.
To reporters Mr. Whalen described his documents as "very definite and complete." He identified the "Comrade Sversky" whom "Feodor" mentions as the paymaster of Red agents in the U. S., as Director Boris E. Skvirsky of the Soviet Union Information Bureau at Washington.