Samuel Dickstein | |
|---|---|
 Dickstein in 1937 | |
| Justice of the New York State Supreme Court | |
| In office January 1, 1946 – April 22, 1954 | |
| Chairman of theCommittee on Immigration and Naturalization | |
| In office 1931–1945 | |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York | |
| In office March 4, 1923 – December 30, 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Meyer London |
| Succeeded by | Arthur G. Klein |
| Constituency | 12th district (1923–45) 19th district (1945) |
| Member of theNew York State Assembly from the 4thNew York district | |
| In office January 1, 1919 – December 31, 1922 | |
| Preceded by | William Karlin |
| Succeeded by | Samuel Mandelbaum |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1885-02-05)February 5, 1885 Vilna,Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | April 22, 1954(1954-04-22) (aged 69) New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Education | City College of New York New York Law School |
Samuel Dickstein (February 5, 1885 – April 22, 1954) was aDemocratic Congressional Representative fromNew York (22-year tenure), aNew York State Supreme Court Justice, and aSoviet spy. He played a key role in establishing the committee that would become theHouse Committee on Un-American Activities, which he used to attackfascists, including Nazi sympathizers, and suspectedcommunists. In 1999, authorsAllen Weinstein andAlexander Vassiliev learned that Soviet files indicate that Dickstein was a paid agent of theNKVD.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Dickstein was born on February 5, 1885, into a Jewish family of five children nearVilna in theRussian Empire (now known asVilnius,Lithuania). His parents were Rabbi Israel Dickstein (died 1918) and Slata B. Gordon (died 1931). In 1887, his family immigrated to theUnited States. They settled on theLower East Side ofNew York City. Dickstein attended public and private schools, theCity College of New York, and in 1906 graduated fromNew York Law School.[1][2][3][7][8][9]
In 1908, Dickstein passed the bar and began private practice in New York with the firm of Hyman and Gross.[1][7][8]
In 1911, he entered theTammany Hall Democratic organization in Manhattan under mentorJohn F. Ahearn. From 1911 to 1914, he served as Deputy State Attorney General. In 1917, he became aNew York City Alderman. In 1919, he was elected as an Assemblyman of theNew York State Legislature.[1][2][3][7][8][10]
In 1922, Dickstein was elected as a Democrat to theSixty-eighth Congress, defeatingSocialist incumbentMeyer London. He was reelected eleven times. He resigned from Congress on December 30, 1945.[1][2][3][7][8]
In 1930, Dickstein co-sponsored a bill condemning religious persecution in the Soviet Union.[8]
By 1931, Dickstein was serving as chairman on theCommittee on Immigration and Naturalization (Seventy-second throughSeventy-ninth Congresses). During his tenure, he became aware of the substantial number of foreigners legally and illegally entering and residing in the US, and the growingantisemitism along with vast amounts of antisemitic literature being distributed in the country. This led him to investigate independently the activities ofNazi and otherfascist groups in the U.S.[7][8]
In 1932, Dickstein joined forces withMartin Dies Jr. to outlaw membership in theCommunist Party of the USA.[8]
In 1933, he called for congressional investigation intoanarchism, following the failed assassination attempt of U.S. PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt byGiuseppe Zangara.[1][2][7][8]
In 1939, Dickstein held hearings on a "Child Refugee Bill", also known as the "Wagner-Rogers Bill", to allow up to 10,000 children under age 14 into the United States during 1939–1940 in addition to normal German quotas. U.S. Secretary of StateCordell Hull opposed the measure, as did theAmerican Legion,United Daughters of the Confederacy, theSociety of Mayflower Descendants, and theDaughters of the American Revolution. The hearings made clear that the bill's purpose was to save German Jews from "annihilation... a complete pogrom."[8]
(b)_(1).jpg)
On January 3, 1934, Dickstein introduced the "Dickstein Resolution" (H.R. #198), which passed in March 1934, to establish a "Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities" or "McCormack-Dickstein Committee" (later, the "Dies Committee" and later "House Un-American Activities Committee").[1][2][7][8]
Its mandate was to get "information on how foreign subversive propaganda entered the U.S. and the organizations that were spreading it."[11]
From 1934 to 1937, this Special Committee, withJohn William McCormack (D-MA) as chairman and Dickstein as vice-chairman, held public and private hearings and collected testimony filling 4,300 pages, and it was replaced with a similar committee that focused on pursuing communists. Its records are held by theNational Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC.[11][7]
One of the first investigations by the Special Committee was the "Business Plot", an alleged 1933political conspiracy, which, according to retiredMarine CorpsMajor GeneralSmedley Butler, wealthy businessmen were plotting to create afascist veterans' organization with Butler as its leader and stage acoup d'état to overthrow PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified before the Special Committee about his claims.[12] No one was prosecuted. Nonetheless, the Special Committee "delet[ed] extensive excerpts relating to Wall Street financiers includingGuaranty Trust directorGrayson Murphy,J. P. Morgan, theDu Pont interests,Remington Arms, and others allegedly involved in the plot attempt. (Even in 1975, a full transcript of the hearings could not be traced.)"[13]
At the time of the incident, news media at first reported on the plot earnestly, then quickly changed course and dismissed the plot. For instance,The New York Times newsroom gave the plot front-page coverage until an editorial characterized it as a "gigantic hoax".[14] Historians have found no evidence for the existence of the plot beyond Butler's claims.[12][15][16][17]
Throughout the rest of 1934, the Special Committee conducted hearings, bringing before it most of the major figures in the U.S. fascist movement. Dickstein, who proclaimed as his aim the eradication of all traces ofNazism in the U.S.,[18] personally questioned each witness. His flair for dramatics andsensationalism, along with his sometimes exaggerated claims, continually captured headlines across the nation and won him much public recognition.[3]
By 1935, the Special Committee had helped publicize that theFriends of New Germany (AKA the "German American Bund") ofFritz Julius Kuhn and the "Silver Shirts" ofWilliam Dudley Pelley were supporting Nazi Germany but within existing laws.[7]
In 1937, Dickstein sought for continued House investigation but lost control toMartin Dies Jr.[7][8]
It has been reported that while Dickstein served on this committee and the subsequent Special investigation Committee, he was paid $1,250 a month by the SovietNKVD, which hoped to get secret congressional information on anti-communists and pro-fascists. It is unclear whether he actually passed on any information.[10]
Later the same committee was renamed theHouse Committee on Un-American Activities when it shifted attention to Communist organizations and was made a standing committee in 1945. Following the 1938German takeover of Austria, Dickstein attempted to introduce legislation that would allow unused refugee quotas to be allocated to those fleeing Hitler.[19]
Democratic leaders in the House distrusted Dickstein. They were unaware of his spying or his bribery, but they did know he brutally browbeat and threatened witnesses, grossly exaggerating evidence, and they removed him from membership on the committee.[20]
In September 1945, not long before stepping down from office, Dickstein called the Dies Committee's investigations into Hollywood "a lot of ballyhoo" about an industry that is almost "100 per cent American" and also asserted that "the alien problem is dying away."[21]
Peter Duffy wrote:
An Austrian working for the Soviets approached him and asked for help in securing American citizenship. Dickstein told the man that the quota for Austrian immigrants was filled but for $3,000 he would see what he could do. Dickstein said he had "settled dozens" in a similarly illegal fashion, according to the NKVD memo on the meeting. Moscow concluded that Dickstein was "heading a criminal gang that was involved in shady businesses, selling passports, illegal smuggling of people, [and] getting citizenship."[3]
In his 2000 bookThe Haunted Wood, writerAllen Weinstein wrote that documents discovered in the 1990s in Moscow archives showed Dickstein was paid $1,250 a month from 1937 to early 1940 by theNKVD (equivalent to $27,300 in 2024), the Soviet spy agency, which hoped to get secret Congressional information on anti-Communist and pro-fascist forces as well as supporters ofLeon Trotsky. According to Weinstein, whether Dickstein provided useful intelligence is not certain; when he left the Committee the Soviets dropped him from the payroll. Dickstein also unsuccessfully attempted to expedite the deportation of Soviet defectorWalter Krivitsky, while theDies Committee kept him in the country.[10]Duffy stated:
Dickstein denounced the Dies Committee at NKVD request ("a Red-baiting excursion") and gave speeches in Congress on Moscow-dictated themes. He handed over "materials on the war budget for 1940, records of conferences of the budget subcommission, reports of the war minister, chief of staff, etc." according to an NKVD report.[3]
TheBoston Globe stated: "Dickstein ran a lucrative trade in illegal visas for Soviet operatives before brashly offering to spy for the NKVD, theKGB's precursor, in return for cash."[5] Sam Roberts, inThe Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case, wrote that "Not evenJulius Rosenberg knew that Samuel Dickstein had been on the KGB's payroll."[22] Kurt Stone wrote that Dickstein "was, for many years, a 'devoted and reliable' Soviet agent whom his handlers nicknamedCrook."[8] Joe Persico wrote, "The files document Soviet spying by Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York, so greedy that his handlers gave him the code nameCrook."[4][3]
Following his time in Congress, Dickstein served as a justice of theNew York State Supreme Court until his death in 1954.[1][2][3]
Dickstein died age 69 on April 22, 1954, in New York City. He was buried at theUnion Field Cemetery, Queens, N.Y.[1]
A one-block section ofPitt Street, betweenGrand Street andEast Broadway on theLower East Side of Manhattan, is named Samuel Dickstein Plaza. There has been a push to rename the street,[23] but as of 2018[update] it has been unsuccessful.[24]
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)| New York State Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | New York State Assembly, New York County, 4th District 1919–1922 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 12th congressional district 1923–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 19th congressional district 1945 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
