Fresh Recruits
Spy Story #7: Spycraft and marriage
What happens in the in-between, in the hushed exchange of intimate relationships, the quiet moments of indecision? As a person moves from adolescence into adulthood, our influences change. Parents and educators are replaced by romantic partners in shaping our habits and actions.
It’s impossible to know for certain when exactly my grandmother Marjorie “became” a spy, but it happened sometime between when she graduated from Vassar in May 1932 and when she boarded a ship bound for England in May 1933.
There are multiple sides to every story. While the factual basis for this one is the sworn testimony both my grandparents gave after they returned home from Europe, in January of 1939, each of them tells a different version of the same story.
Marjorie made many choices that would change the direction of her life in immutable ways. But she didn’t do it alone.
I never knew my grandfather, Gordon. He died before I was born.
While Marjorie would later take charge of the operation, Gordon’s influence led them to becom spies in the first place.
It was Gordon who first sought out the opportunity to join the Communist cause. Gordon was handsome and charismatic, skilled at making conversation and forming connections with anyone he met. He was a natural flirt, always knowing just the right works to make someone smile. He had a memory for faces, easily recalling a person’s height, hair color, and facial expression many years later.
A trained airplane pilot, Gordon thought the Communists might hire him to go to Russia as an aviation instructor. In the spring of 1931, while Marjorie was still away at Vassar, Gordon was recruited by a Communist handler named Schuman who indicated there was indeed an opportunity to go to Russia as an aviator, but that Gordon would have to prove his loyalty.
“Newcomers do the dirty work,” he said, ominously.
During that summer, Gordon invited Marjorie to study with him at the Workers’ School in New York, where Marjorie likely first gained proximity to people talking about the real-life application of Marxist ideals. At the same time, unbeknownst to Marjorie, Gordon was deepening his relationship with the Community Party. While he initially did a few mysterious assignments, moving photographic equipment between secret locations, by the fall, another member of the party was teaching Gordon photographic techniques.
In a pre-digital age, photography was an essential component of spying. Once an agent acquired an asset, they would need to replicate it quickly and return it to its original location before its disappearance could be discovered. At the time, film was the easiest way to capture large amounts of information in a small format that could be easily hidden and transported.
By the fall of 1931, Gordon’s Communist handlers were so pleased with his commitment and competence, they began to recruit him in earnest. Gordon was already having qualms about the nature of his work but was seduced by their offer of $50 a week to remain involved. Still, Gordon yearned to go to Russia as an airman to get away from the messy business of espionage. While he continued photographing confidential documents by request in an apartment in Brooklyn, he became paranoid about police surveillance.
Marjorie and Gordon made an excellent team. Both had a gifted memory for specific details. While Marjorie was skilled at making and following a well-laid plan, Gordon excelled at trusting his intuition. Marjorie, always level-headed and cool under pressure, was the perfect antidote to Gordon’s hot temper which could flare up at a moment’s notice.
Marjorie graduated from Vassar and immediately moved in with Gordon, presumably on the fast-track to engagement and marriage. Gordon had rented an apartment from an acquaintance who summered in Europe, where a man known as Walter, the new head of the New York Russian espionage organization, paid them a visit.
Gordon described Walter vividly: a Russian Jew of about 39 years old, short – about 5’5” tall. He had very black hair, brown eyes with a very calm, peaceful expression. He had previously been in the Russian Navy and in the Russian mercantile marine, rising through the ranks in the Russian revolution in 1917. He spoke English well, with a slight but pleasant accent.
It was during one of Walter’s visits to their apartment that Marjorie first learned of Gordon’s activities. It’s hard to know exactly what made Marjorie want to learn spycraft. Perhaps it was her indignation at the idea of being kept in the dark about Gordon’s covert activities. Maybe it was her earnest, naive sympathy for the Soviet cause. Most likely, it was a combination of factors that led her to appreciate espionage as her best available “career” option.
Once Marjorie learned of Gordon’s espionage activities, she petitioned him to let her get involved. While Gordon tried to keep her out of it, she insisted.
By the winter of 1932, Gordon had become one of the cell’s best photographers and was often asked to instruct others. Gordon and Marjorie frequently spent time together at a Party-controlled apartment uptown, practicing photographic techniques they would use to capture and transmit state secrets during a future assignment. An artistic person by nature, Marjorie enjoyed the challenge of rendering confidential information in forms that could be easily disguised and transported. Together, they figured out a way to render nine to twelve pages of documents onto a one square inch Leica negative using a photographic contraption of their own invention. As Marjorie’s competence in photography grew, so did Gordon’s trust in her.
During this period Gordon was frequently tasked with photographing confidential documents obtained from Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton, OH. These included scientific or technical reports of experimental work on airplane construction—analyses of wing construction, ground tests for motors, fuselage construction, which came in series of five or six books at a time, which needed to be photographed and returned quickly to avoid detection. In addition to photography, Gordon also prepared films for shipment to Moscow, often concealing the films in belts and shoes for transport by certain sailors on the S.S. Bremen and Europa.
Between May 1932 and April 1933, Gordon traveled twice to Panama to recruit and engage a U.S. Army Corporal stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. Though the Panama mission yielded little result, it seemed to have reassured Gordon’s handlers that he was ready for a bigger assignment, and they began to talk in earnest about sending him abroad, as originally promised.
Around the same time, a man named Frank entered the scene. According to Gordon’s account, Frank was about 45 years old, 5’ 6” tall, broad shoulders, slight paunch. Particularly striking face, very delicate features, clear complexion, ruddy cheeks. Iron gray hair turning white at the temples, bald with a coating of thin hair on top of his head which was silver gray. Distinguished looking, straight eyebrows, straight nose, and a small mouth with a slightly sarcastic, ironic swing to the right. Very thin lips when he spoke but softer in repose, ears close to his head, particularly careful of his dress, blonde lashes, gray-blue eyes.
Frank was in charge of the British branch of the Russian espionage service, headquartered in London, and he had orders to transfer Gordon to work under him in England. Walter objected to the order, loath to lose such a good agent, but Frank insisted the orders were final.
Gordon had maintained his aviation transport license, subsidized by the party. He had also obtained a contract to sell an infra-red ray apparatus manufactured in Delft, Holland on a commission basis, which would serve as his cover to engage with European industrialists and military engineers.
As soon as Gordon returned from Panama in April 1933, Frank recommended that Gordon leave London by the month, suggesting he go alone and receive a salary of 10 GBP a week. Gordon judged this sum to be insufficient to support the lifestyle he would need to keep up to make the connections that were expected of him and was adamant that Marjorie go with him. Gordon became so enraged during his argument with Frank, he threatened to quit the entire operation. Only Marjorie’s gentle coaxing and reasoned thinking could bring him back down to earth, earning both of them the assignment.
Gordon and Marjorie married on May 9, 1933 at the Municipal Building in Manhattan and set sail for Antwerp on the S.S. Gerolstein on May 15 to begin their new life together abroad.