David Karr
Encyclopedia
David Harold Karr, born David Katz (1918, Brooklyn
, New York
– 7 July 1979, Paris
) was a controversial American
journalist, businessman, and Communist.
Enthralled with the radical left, Karr began writing at a relatively young age for the Communist Party USA
publication, the Daily Worker
.
In 1943 Karr came under the scrutiny of Rep. Martin Dies
, chairman of the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities for his Communist affiliations. Karr was at the time working for the Office of War Information (OWI). Karr appeared before the committee and stated under oath that he was an informant for the FBI, although this testimony was entirely a manufactured story. A special congressional investigation found no cause to remove him while at the same time the Civil Service Commission
concluded he was both untruthful and unreliable. Karr resigned from the OWI and was immediately hired by Drew Pearson
, one of America's most widely-read columnists. Years later, after the release of the Venona decrypts, a decryption from June 1944, established that Karr was an informational source for the NKVD
. In it, Soviet agent Vladimir Pravdin
reported to Moscow information he stated he received from Soviet TASS
deputy bureau chief Samuel Krafsur
from his contact (Karr).
Karr earned a reputation as an unscrupulous investigative reporter who misrepresented himself to sources. In 1944, Karr was also active in Vice President Henry Wallace
's effort to remain on the presidential ticket. President Franklin Roosevelt referred to Karr as a “chronic liar”. During the war, Karr was investigated twice by the FBI, once after obtaining a secret report on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
prepared for President Roosevelt by Oskar Lange
, who was another NKVD
source in the administration. To obtain the report, Karr claimed to be on Vice President Wallace's staff.
On 12 September 1946 Pearson wrote an article based on a classified
U.S. military study of British military operations against the Greek Communist insurgency
. The article, which alarmed the U.S. State Department, contained highly classified information on the British order of battle
in Greece. The document had been in the office of the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, one Alger Hiss
. An investigation revealed that the original document was missing, and that the information reached Pearson through his aide, David Karr. The FBI suspected that Karr was working for the KGB, and that his income was derived in part from the Soviet government.
The FBI had Phillip Jaffe under audio surveillance during the Amerasia
investigation and overheard Jaffe discussing with Andrew Roth
various possible contacts for information from government sources. Roth told Jaffe that Karr could obtain “a lot of stuff on the Far Eastern things that the other guys don’t get because of his Treasury connections. He goes up once a week with Harry”. Jaffe inquired as to whether this was Harry Dexter White
, already under suspicion for communicating information to the Soviet Union; Roth stated that it was. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy
referred to Karr as Drew Pearson’s “KGB controller
”.
Karr later began a series of articles on the use of public relations in business takeovers. In 1959, Karr became CEO of the Fairbanks-Whitney Corporation, a large defense contractor
whose divisions included Colt Firearms. After three years the shareholders dismissed him. Karr then turned to film and hotel businesses, and in 1971 became associated with Armand Hammer
, who expanded Karr’s contacts and business opportunities in the Soviet Union. Karr became a good friend of the son-in-law of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, Dzherman Gvishiani, and was granted North and South American trademark rights to Misha the Bear, the mascot of the 1980 Olympic games. Along with Hammer, he formed a joint venture to make and sell Olympic commemorative coins, an enterprise estimated to be worth some U.S. $200 million.
David Karr frequently boasted of having close ties with prominent U.S. senators and presidential candidates, and that he transmitted information between the Soviet and American governments on such issues as détente
, trade, and strategic-arms negotiations. Karr, who was at that time living in Paris, was head of a Franco-American firm called Finatech. According to KGB files, Karr arranged meetings between Sen. Edward Kennedy
and Soviet leaders. A KGB file describes Kennedy in 1978 trying to help a close friend, former Sen. John Tunney of California, get some business in the Soviet Union.
In 1992, Yevgenia Albats
, a Russian journalist assigned by the Russian Parliament
to examine the archives after the aborted Soviet coup attempt of 1991
, quoted "an extremely top secret KGB
memo to Soviet leaders":
In late 1978, as Occidental Petroleum
was attempting an unfriendly takeover of the Mead Corporation, Karr told a bizarre story in secret testimony before the Securities and Exchange Commission. One night in 1972, Karr said, he was summoned to a hotel in Moscow to find Hammer in his pajamas, in tears and on his knees, pleading with two K.G.B. agents not to arrest him. Hammer was being accused of bribery and smuggling two letters written by the founder of the USSR, V.I. Lenin, letters Hammer purchased at an auction in New York. Karr said that Hammer was let off the hook by agreeing to donate the treasures to the Soviet Union.
Within days of learning of Karr’s public disclosure, Hammer dropped his takeover bid of Meade. Seven months later, in July 1979, hours after returning from a trip to Moscow, Karr was found dead in suspicious circumstances in his Paris hotel room. Amid suspicions that Karr had been murdered, his widow halted the burial so that an autopsy
could be performed. One claim was that Karr had swindled his Russian partners. Rumors linked his friend Gvishiani to bribery scandals. Israeli intelligence officials claimed Karr was involved in secret Russian arms sales to states on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist watchlist, namely Libya
and Uganda
.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, in the new atmosphere of openness, Soviet investigative journalist Albats published an article in Izvestia
quoting documents from KGB archives that Karr was “a competent KGB source” who ‘‘submitted information to the KGB on the technical capabilities of the United States and other capitalist countries.”
In 2009, David Karr's grandson Doug Karr made the short film Ten for Grandpa
about his fabled ancestor. A fast paced investigation into Karr's complex life, the film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at dozens of other international film festivals.
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
– 7 July 1979, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
) was a controversial American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist, businessman, and Communist.
Enthralled with the radical left, Karr began writing at a relatively young age for the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
publication, the Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
.
In 1943 Karr came under the scrutiny of Rep. Martin Dies
Martin Dies
Martin Dies was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. His son, Martin Dies, Jr. was also a member of the United States House of Representatives....
, chairman of the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities for his Communist affiliations. Karr was at the time working for the Office of War Information (OWI). Karr appeared before the committee and stated under oath that he was an informant for the FBI, although this testimony was entirely a manufactured story. A special congressional investigation found no cause to remove him while at the same time the Civil Service Commission
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of United States is a federal law established in 1883 that stipulated that government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit. The act provided selection of government employees competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation...
concluded he was both untruthful and unreliable. Karr resigned from the OWI and was immediately hired by Drew Pearson
Drew Pearson (journalist)
Andrew Russell Pearson , known professionally as Drew Pearson, was one of the best-known American columnists of his day, noted for his muckraking syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round," in which he attacked various public persons, sometimes with little or no objective proof for his...
, one of America's most widely-read columnists. Years later, after the release of the Venona decrypts, a decryption from June 1944, established that Karr was an informational source for the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
. In it, Soviet agent Vladimir Pravdin
Vladimir Pravdin
Vladimir Pravdin or Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate codename LETCHIK was a senior NKVD assassin working in Europe during the Great Terror. He later became a KGB agent, stationed in the United States....
reported to Moscow information he stated he received from Soviet TASS
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union
The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union , was the central agency for collection and distribution of internal and international news for all Soviet newspapers, radio and television stations...
deputy bureau chief Samuel Krafsur
Samuel Krafsur
Samuel Simon Krafsur was a Boston-born journalist who worked for the Soviet news agency TASS during World War II. He was also known as Bill Krafsur.-Biography:...
from his contact (Karr).
Karr earned a reputation as an unscrupulous investigative reporter who misrepresented himself to sources. In 1944, Karr was also active in Vice President Henry Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...
's effort to remain on the presidential ticket. President Franklin Roosevelt referred to Karr as a “chronic liar”. During the war, Karr was investigated twice by the FBI, once after obtaining a secret report on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
prepared for President Roosevelt by Oskar Lange
Oskar Lange
Oskar Ryszard Lange was a Polish economist and diplomat...
, who was another NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
source in the administration. To obtain the report, Karr claimed to be on Vice President Wallace's staff.
On 12 September 1946 Pearson wrote an article based on a classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
U.S. military study of British military operations against the Greek Communist insurgency
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
. The article, which alarmed the U.S. State Department, contained highly classified information on the British order of battle
Order of battle
In modern use, the order of battle is the identification, command structure, strength, and disposition of personnel, equipment, and units of an armed force participating in field operations. Various abbreviations are in use, including OOB, O/B, or OB, while ORBAT remains the most common in the...
in Greece. The document had been in the office of the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, one Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...
. An investigation revealed that the original document was missing, and that the information reached Pearson through his aide, David Karr. The FBI suspected that Karr was working for the KGB, and that his income was derived in part from the Soviet government.
The FBI had Phillip Jaffe under audio surveillance during the Amerasia
Amerasia
Amerasia was a journal of Far Eastern affairs best known for the 1940s "Amerasia Affair" in which several of its staff and their contacts were suspected of espionage and charged with unauthorized possession of government documents.-Publication:...
investigation and overheard Jaffe discussing with Andrew Roth
Andrew Roth
Andrew Roth was a biographer and journalist known for his compilation of Parliamentary Profiles, a directory of British Members of Parliament, which is available online in The Guardian...
various possible contacts for information from government sources. Roth told Jaffe that Karr could obtain “a lot of stuff on the Far Eastern things that the other guys don’t get because of his Treasury connections. He goes up once a week with Harry”. Jaffe inquired as to whether this was Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White was an American economist, and senior U.S. Treasury department official, participating in the Bretton Woods conference...
, already under suspicion for communicating information to the Soviet Union; Roth stated that it was. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
referred to Karr as Drew Pearson’s “KGB controller
Agent handling
In intelligence organizations, agent handling is the management of agents, principal agents, and agent networks by intelligence officers typically known as case officers.-Human intelligence:...
”.
Karr later began a series of articles on the use of public relations in business takeovers. In 1959, Karr became CEO of the Fairbanks-Whitney Corporation, a large defense contractor
Defense contractor
A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems...
whose divisions included Colt Firearms. After three years the shareholders dismissed him. Karr then turned to film and hotel businesses, and in 1971 became associated with Armand Hammer
Armand Hammer
Armand Hammer was an American business tycoon most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran for decades, though he was known as well as for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union.Thanks to business interests around the world and his...
, who expanded Karr’s contacts and business opportunities in the Soviet Union. Karr became a good friend of the son-in-law of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, Dzherman Gvishiani, and was granted North and South American trademark rights to Misha the Bear, the mascot of the 1980 Olympic games. Along with Hammer, he formed a joint venture to make and sell Olympic commemorative coins, an enterprise estimated to be worth some U.S. $200 million.
David Karr frequently boasted of having close ties with prominent U.S. senators and presidential candidates, and that he transmitted information between the Soviet and American governments on such issues as détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
, trade, and strategic-arms negotiations. Karr, who was at that time living in Paris, was head of a Franco-American firm called Finatech. According to KGB files, Karr arranged meetings between Sen. Edward Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
and Soviet leaders. A KGB file describes Kennedy in 1978 trying to help a close friend, former Sen. John Tunney of California, get some business in the Soviet Union.
In 1992, Yevgenia Albats
Yevgenia Albats
Dr. Yevgenia Markovna Albats is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host. As of year 2011, she workes as a chief editor of The New Times magazine.-Early life and education:...
, a Russian journalist assigned by the Russian Parliament
Federal Assembly of Russia
The Federal Assembly of Russia is the legislature of the Russian Federation, according to the Constitution of Russian Federation, 1993...
to examine the archives after the aborted Soviet coup attempt of 1991
Soviet coup attempt of 1991
The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt , also known as the August Putsch or August Coup , was an attempt by a group of members of the Soviet Union's government to take control of the country from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev...
, quoted "an extremely top secret KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
memo to Soviet leaders":
In late 1978, as Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum Corporation is a California-based oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America...
was attempting an unfriendly takeover of the Mead Corporation, Karr told a bizarre story in secret testimony before the Securities and Exchange Commission. One night in 1972, Karr said, he was summoned to a hotel in Moscow to find Hammer in his pajamas, in tears and on his knees, pleading with two K.G.B. agents not to arrest him. Hammer was being accused of bribery and smuggling two letters written by the founder of the USSR, V.I. Lenin, letters Hammer purchased at an auction in New York. Karr said that Hammer was let off the hook by agreeing to donate the treasures to the Soviet Union.
Within days of learning of Karr’s public disclosure, Hammer dropped his takeover bid of Meade. Seven months later, in July 1979, hours after returning from a trip to Moscow, Karr was found dead in suspicious circumstances in his Paris hotel room. Amid suspicions that Karr had been murdered, his widow halted the burial so that an autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
could be performed. One claim was that Karr had swindled his Russian partners. Rumors linked his friend Gvishiani to bribery scandals. Israeli intelligence officials claimed Karr was involved in secret Russian arms sales to states on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist watchlist, namely Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
and Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, in the new atmosphere of openness, Soviet investigative journalist Albats published an article in Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
quoting documents from KGB archives that Karr was “a competent KGB source” who ‘‘submitted information to the KGB on the technical capabilities of the United States and other capitalist countries.”
In 2009, David Karr's grandson Doug Karr made the short film Ten for Grandpa
Ten for Grandpa
Ten for Grandpa is a 2009 film by writer/director Doug Karr starring David Huband, Catherine Black, and narrated by David Alpay. Filmed in Toronto for the Bravo! network this film explores the convoluted past of Karr's own Grandfather...
about his fabled ancestor. A fast paced investigation into Karr's complex life, the film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at dozens of other international film festivals.