In October 1945, Wallace reached out to Anatoly Gorsky, then the Washington station chief for the NKGB (later KGB) to set up a secret meeting. Gorsky, of course, agreed.
Wallace began their conversation by discussing the Truman administration’s attitude towards the Soviet Union. He noted that the Truman administration would like to invite Soviet scientists to visit the United States to witness American successes in nuclear power. But his banter soon turned indiscreet, as Wallace caricatured Truman as a “
petty politico who got his current post by accident.” He proceeded to highlight his policy disagreements with Truman, including Wallace’s efforts to have America’s nuclear arsenal turned over to the U.N. Security Council. He then explained to Gorsky that there were two main factions “
fighting for Truman’s ‘soul’”: a smaller pro-Soviet group (centering on Wallace) and a larger anti-Soviet group, made up of Secretary of State James Byrnes and Attorney General Tom Clark. Wallace, already eyeing the 1948 Democratic nomination, then suggested to the NKGB station chief that the Soviet Union should help the pro-Soviet faction, stating that, “
you (meaning the USSR) could help this smaller group considerably, and we don’t doubt… your willingness to do this.”
This remarkable conversation, preserved in the Russian archives, highlights both Wallace’s indiscretion as well as his perception of Soviet influence on the American political establishment. While Gorsky’s report of the conversation was sent to Moscow with alacrity, the NKGB declined to finance Wallace or his supporters.
[…]
Wallace later suggested that he would have made
Laurence Duggan and Harry Dexter White, both long-serving Russian intelligence assets in the U.S. government, his secretary of state and secretary of treasury.