Sylvia Callen
Encyclopedia
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| Socialist Workers Party Socialist Workers Party (United States) The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba... |
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Sylvia Callen Franklin, also known as Sylvia Lorraine Callen, and Sylvia Caldwell, was a young Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
communist, recruited by Louis Budenz into 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....
's secret apparatus circa 1937.
Callen was assigned by Dr. Gregory Rabinowitz to go to 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...
and infiltrate the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
(SWP) using the pseudonym "Sylvia Caldwell". She became the secretary of James Cannon
James P. Cannon
James Patrick "Jim" Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.Born on February 11, 1890 in Rosedale, Kansas, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911...
, who headed the SWP. Callen later testified to a federal grand jury about her infiltration
Infiltration tactics
In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small, lightly equipped infantry forces attacking enemy rear areas while bypassing enemy front line strongpoints and isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons.-Development during World War I:...
of the SWP and about how she provided information from the SWP offices to Rabinowitz. Rabinowitz was later replaced by Jack Soble
Jack Soble
Jack Soble Jack Soble (birth name:Abromas Sobolevicius, sometimes used Abraham Sobolevicius or Adolph Senin) Jack Soble (birth name:Abromas Sobolevicius, sometimes used Abraham Sobolevicius or Adolph Senin) (born May 15, 1903 in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania - ?, but possibly (1897-1974) was a Jewish...
. She had been married for a time to Zalmond Franklin
Zalmond Franklin
Zalmond David Franklin or Salmond Franklin was a Communist Party of the United States member and KGB asset during World War II. Zalmond was married at one time to KGB operative Sylvia Callen...
, who also served Soviet intelligence
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....
. For a time, she was also known as Sylvia Lorraine Doxsee.
Callen is identified in Venona traffic under the cover name SATYR. Venona messages reveal Callen giving copies to the 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...
of SWP correspondence, intimate information on Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
's widow, Natalia Sedova
Natalia Sedova
Natalia Ivanovna Sedova is best known as the second wife of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary. She was, however, also an active revolutionary in her own right and wrote on cultural matters pertaining to Marxism...
, and financial reports of Trotskyist groups.
When Budenz later defected, he named Callen as a Stalinist infiltrator but her SWP comrades refused to believe him. In 1954, Callen, then known as Sylvia Doxsee and living in Chicago, was called before a grand jury. Invoking the Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
, she refused to answer questions about her membership in the SWP, her relationship with the KGB, Louis Budenz, or anything else. She was called back to another grand jury in 1958. This time, she was more cooperative, confessing that she met regularly with Rabinowitz and Soble to pass on confidential Trotskyist material at an apartment rented by a woman named Lucy Booker. Callen was named as an unindicted co-conspirator when Robert Soblen
Robert Soblen
Dr. Robert Soblen , was a prominent member of the pro-Trotsky Left Opposition in Germany in the 1930s. He moved to the United States in 1941 with his brother Jack Soble, and was arrested in 1960 as a Soviet spy. Convicted and sentenced to life in prison, he fled the U.S...
was charged with espionage in 1960, but she never publicly testified.
Callen's grand jury testimony was first publicly released and her status as a GPU agent confirmed as part of the International Committee of the Fourth International's
International Committee of the Fourth International
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...
Security and the Fourth International investigation.
Venona
Syvia Callen is referenced in the following Venona project decryptions:- 899 KGB New York to Moscow, 11 June 1943, p.1
- 899 KGB New York to Moscow, 11 June 1943, p.2
- 926 New York to Moscow, 16 June 1943
- 670 KGB New York to Moscow, 11 May 1944, p.1
- 670 KGB New York to Moscow, 11 May 1944, p.2
- 670 KGB New York to Moscow, 11 May 1944, p.3
- 751–752 KGB New York to Moscow, 26 May 1944
- 851 KGB New York to Moscow, 15 June 1944, p.1
- 851 KGB New York to Moscow, 15 June 1944, p.2
