Robert Gordon Switz

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Robert Gordon Switz (born 1904) was a "wealthy American who converted to communism"[1] and served as spy for Soviet Military Intelligence ("GRU").[2][3][4]

Background[edit]

Robert Gordon Switz was born in 1904 in East Orange, New Jersey, the son of Theodore Switz, a naturalized Russian, and Genevieve Switz.[5] He attended Mercersburg Academy but did not go to college. Instead, in 1922, he shipped out as seaman to Germany, which he toured.[3]

Career[edit]

Switz went abroad again to France, where he obtained an airplane pilot's license, then trained at Roosevelt Field (airport) on Long Island.[3]

Some time during the 1920s, Switz joined the Communist Party USA and then the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) in the early 1930s.[2][4] In New York, he worked in a network that included Lydia Stahl and Paulne Jacobson-Levine (later recounted in the 1952 memoir of Whittaker Chambers[6]).[2]

In early 1933, Switz was involved in turning an American soldier, Robert Osman, stationed in Panama Canal Zone, via a "honey trap" - Frema Karry, a young Russian girl in Switz's network. Osman provided war plans. He was arrested, represented by socialist lawyer Louis Waldman (later lawyer for Walter Krivitsky), and imprisoned for 25 years. Switz escaped unnamed at the time. In July 1933, Switz was reassigned to a Paris-based network led by "Markovich."[2] He went to live in Paris as a sales representative for the MacNeil Instrument Company: the company's president J.N.A. Van Ven Bonwhuizsen later said, "He never made any sales."[3]

As a spy in Paris for the Soviets, Switz's role in espionage was to "gather French defense information for the benefit of Soviet intelligence."[1] In December 1933, French intelligence arrested Switz in his apartment on the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin (near the Paris Opera). Most of the information collected concerned French armaments, and was a form of industrial espionage. It included nearly $3,800, letters from the French Ministry of War, and eggshells, each pierced on one end. His arrest led to the arrest of 29 others, including Stahl and Romanian spy Octave Dumoulin. Switz escaped prosecution by cooperating with investigators from La Sûreté nationale. The trial occurred in March 1935.[1][2][3][4][6][7][8][9][10]

In October 1933, Finnish-American Arvid Jacobson was arrested in Finland, whose government declared that Jacobson and Switz belonged to the same Soviet network between United States, Canada, France, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Latvia.[11]

On September 27–28, 1948, and again on February 27 and March 1, 1950, Switz testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee.[7]

Personal life[edit]

In 1929, brother Paul F. Switz was a star football player at Yale University and later an economist.[12] Brother Theodore Switz was a chemical economist at Lehman Corporation .[3]

In 1933, Switz married Marjorie Tilley, daughter of Bertha Tilley and graduate of Vassar College.[3]

Legacy[edit]

The Switz case ran concurrently with a scandal in France over Ukrainian born embezzler Alexandre Stavisky.[7]

"L'affaire Switz" offset any Soviet gains in intelligence into the French military with embarrassment for the USSR as well as the French Communist Party ("PCF").[1][6]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Porch, Douglas (1995). The French Secret Service: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 128. ISBN 9780374529451. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e Leonard, Raymond W. (1999). Secret soldiers of the revolution: Soviet military intelligence, 1918–1933. Greenwood Press. pp. 95–6, 104, 110, 117–8. ISBN 9780313309908. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "FRANCE: Two Blonde Hairs". TIME. 26 March 1934. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  4. ^ a b c "Robert Gordon SWITZ / Marjorie Tilley SWITZ". British National Archives. 30 March 2004. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  5. ^ "Son Accused as Spy, Mother Gravely Ill; Mrs. Switz Being Cared for by Friends Here, It Is Revealed at Jersey Home". New York Times. 3 January 1934. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  6. ^ a b c Chambers, Whittaker (May 1952). Witness. Random House. pp. 50-51, 290, 311, 387. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  7. ^ a b c Meier, Andrew (August 11, 2008). The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service. W. W. Norton. pp. 162-163. ISBN 978-0-393-06097-3. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  8. ^ "Switz Is Innocent, His Mother Says; East Orange Woman Defends Her Son Against Espionage Charges in France". New York Times. 27 December 1933. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  9. ^ "France to Try 21 Spies of Soviet; Robert G. Switz and His Wife, Americans, Who Confessed, Expected to Win Liberty". New York Times. 25 March 1935. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  10. ^ "French Hush Talk of Soviet Spy Ring; They Quiet Tone of Court at Trial to Avoid Embarrassing France-Soviet Talks". New York Times. 27 March 1935. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  11. ^ "FINLAND: Model Spy". TIME. 25 March 1935. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
  12. ^ "Paul F. Switz, Consultant, 82". New York Times. 24 August 1988. Retrieved 27 May 2019.

External sources[edit]

William T. Murphy,"The Honeymoon Spies: Robert Gordon Switz and Marjorie Tilley," American Intelligence Journal, 36:1 (2019),75-98.

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