Lt. Col. Duncan Chaplin Lee was confidential assistant to Maj. Gen. William ("Wild Bill") Donovan, founder and director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), World War II-era predecessor of the CIA, during 1942-46. Lee is identified in Venona as the Soviet double agent operating inside OSS under the cover name "Koch."^[1], making him the most senior agent the Soviet Union ever had inside American intelligence (that we know of). For other people with similar names, see Wild Bill Major General William Joseph Donovan, KBE United States Army (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer and intelligence officer, best remembered today as wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). ... The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency and was a lineage precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as for the Special Forces and Navy Seals, who have traced their lineage back to... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between the United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdoms MI5 that involved the cryptanalysis of Soviet messages. ...

While an OSS officer, according to Soviet courier Elizabeth Bentley, Lee, a descendant of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, furnished her with information on “anti-Soviet work by OSS” and other topics of interest to Moscow.^[2] As Bentley told the FBI when she defected in 1945, she transferred this information to her Soviet handlers.^[3] Elizabeth Bentley, 1948 Elizabeth Terrill Bentley (January 1, 1908- November 18, 1963) was an American who was a spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. ... // This article is about the Confederate general. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...

In her August 1948 appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), Bentley testified that Lee furnished her “various types of information,” which she then turned over to her Soviet handlers, including, in Bentley’s words, details on “whether the OSS had spotted any of our people [Communists]” in that organization. As the Germans were retreating from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Bentley reported Lee as saying, various groups were working with the OSS to keep the Soviet troops out of their countries —- knowledge that the Soviets would have been eager to secure. Lee also told her, she said, that “something very secret was going on” at Oak Ridge, Tenn., an apparent reference to the Manhattan Project. ^[4] The House Committee on Un-American Activities or HUAC (1945-1975) was an investigating committee of the United States House of Representatives. ... This page is about the World War II nuclear project. ...

Lee, a former Rhodes scholar who attended Oxford University with fellow OSS staffer Donald Niven Wheeler (identified in Venona as the Soviet agent operating in OSS under cover name "Izra"^[5]), denied Bentley's allegations, but acknowledged meeting her several times while an OSS officer in various locations, as well as with Mary Price (identified in Venona as "probably" the Soviet agent operating in the office of columnist Walter Lippmann under the code name "Arena"^[6]), and veteran NKVD rezident Jacob Golos, identified in Venona as Zvuk ("Sound"). Lee said he eventually realized that Bentley held "communistic"^[7] views, but never reported these meetings as regulations would seem to require.^[8] Rhodes House in Oxford Rhodes Scholarships were created by Cecil John Rhodes. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Donald Nivan Wheeler was employed by the Office of Strategic Services from 1941 to 1946. ... Mary Wolfe Price was an American citizen and secretary to journalist Walter Lippmann of the New York Herald. ... Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974) was an influential United States writer, journalist, and political commentator. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Russian-born Jacob Golos (birth name Jacob Rasin orJacob Raisin) (died 1943) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet secret police operative in the USSR an longtime senior official of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) involved in icovert work and cooperation with Soviet intelligence agencies. ...

Lee’s testimony elicited from one HCUA member, Rep. John McDowell (R-Penn.), the comment: For the first time “since the conspiracy of Aaron Burr, a high officer of the Army has been accused publicly of the violation of the Articles of War, which he must certainly realize the penalties and the punishment.”^[9]

A 1944 Venona decrypt confirms that Lee tipped off Bentley about Donovan sending him on a secret mission to China that would become a topic of controversy after the fall of that country to communism in 1949.^[10]

References

1. ^ 800 KGB New York to Moscow, June 8, 1943, p. 1
2. ^ FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 6, p. 35 (PDF page 36)
3. ^ FBI Report, Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, October 21, 1946,p. 163 (PDF page 181)
4. ^ “Testimony of Elizabeth T. Bentley,” Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government, Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, Second Session, Public Law 601 (Section 121, Subsection Q [2]), Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1948, p. 727
5. ^ 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, p. 3
6. ^ 588 New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, p. 3
7. ^ "Testimony of Duncan Chaplin Lee -- Resumed," HCUA Hearings, op. cit., p. 733
8. ^ Ibid., p. 735
9. ^ Ibid., p. 749
10. ^ 1353 KGB New York to Moscow, 23 Sept. 1944, p. 2

Source

• Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era (Random House, 1998)
• FBI Venona FOIA