Tony Sharp: Stalin’s American Spy. Noel Field, Allen Dulles & the East European Show Trials. London: Hurst, 2014. 410 pp.
Noel Field’s unwavering idealism enabled him to help a lot of people who were victimized by the Nazis during the war, but thereafter landed him in a heap of trouble behind the Iron Curtain. About the best that can be said of him is that he was true believer who never lost his faith in communism’s destiny to move humanity forward, even if it meant averting his gaze from the party’s actual historical record in which he himself played a part.
Stalin’s mind-set always demanded that conspirators be identified, unmasked and punished, and in the postwar period Field was convenient for this purpose. He was selected as a weapon to be used against those Hungarian communists Stalin distrusted, particularly László Rajk. The reason for choosing Field? Simple: He fit the bill. He was an American, had a wide range of contacts (including with Allen Dulles), and – since he was behind the Iron Curtain – could easily be imprisoned and subjected to torture, thus guaranteeing he would provide the desired testimony against Rajk and others. The Soviet leader knew from experience that a victim could be counted on to say anything his torturers wanted him to say, though at the same time Stalin also managed to convince himself that the person being tortured was telling the truth, or a close enough approximation. In any case, if it hadn’t been Field, his agents would simply have found somebody else.
In sum, though Field was innocent of the charges leveled against him in his show trial, there is little about him that marks him as especially heroic or even exceptionally unfortunate. He was, rather, a sacrificial pawn in a much larger chess game. After his release from Hungarian prison in the wake of Stalin’s death, this “idealistic and honest man” – as one of his allies described him – was largely rehabilitated. (pg. 256) He and his formidable wife remained in Budapest, and even received a pension from the state. Characteristically, he asked that it be reduced, as he was able to get by on less – thus proving that a heart unspotted is not easily daunted. His request was granted. When revolution broke out in 1956, he sided with the communist authorities, the very people who had wrongfully imprisoned and mistreated him, and began faithfully mouthing their version of events. He impressed the last person to interview him as “a cultured, refined man, and an inveterate day-dreamer.” (pg. 316)
So what we have here is a capable, well-intentioned idealist who, finding himself in turbulent times, threw himself into humanitarian work, only to realize too late that he was out of his depth. The fate that befell him might merit a case study, but that is not the same thing as a biography, no matter how freighted with detail. Perhaps this explains why none has been written of Field until now – and Stalin’s American Spy hardly qualifies as the story of his inner struggles, personal challenges and growth. Rather it is a record of where he went, who he met and what he did up until his arrest. Thereafter it recounts the imprisonment and torture he was subjected to at the hands of his former comrades.
Tony Sharp may be a diligent, conscientious collector of facts, but as a writer he leaves much to be desired. While he has dutifully compiled data, he cannot by any stretch be called a stylist. Stalin’s American Spy is a book that is destined to be more consulted than read. In the chapters about Field (as opposed to the ones providing historical background), his writing can best be described as choppy. No one who cares about the effective presentation of information would begin consecutive sentences, as Sharp does, with “However….” “Yet….” “Despite this….” and “However….” (pg. 2)
Such infelicities could be overlooked, but Sharp’s insistence on overloading us with irrelevant detail. Clearly he has done a lot of digging, but alas not a lot of sifting. We get a plethora of useless facts about family background (it would not surprise me to learn that he has some expertise in genealogical research), little on more pertinent matters such as, for example, the conspiratorial mindset. The wealth of information can be exasperating when it is not made clear what point is being supported. Some sections may remind readers of an overly-annotated Wikipedia article or an FBI report, as he provides one itinerary after another – who went where, when, and how they got there. Particularly in the early chapters, he drowns the reader in the minutiae of people’s travel plans. This is alleviated to some extent later on, when he steps back and provides some historical context, for example when he discusses Stalin’s hostility toward the Jews and the murder of Solomon Mikhoels. These background chapters that barely mention Field are on the whole better written.
Along the way, the book provides more evidence – if any were needed – that torture, by its very nature, fails to produce reliable information. People undergoing it will simply say anything to stop the pain, whether true or not. Their overriding goal is to figure out what the torturer wants to hear, and “surrender” that information. One curious side effect is that torture sometimes proves so psychologically effective that those suffering it can come to believe their own invented stories. Moreover, Stalin’s dictum that “Ten per cent of the truth is already the truth, it already demands decisive measures on our part, and we will pay if we do not act accordingly” will inevitably remind some readers of Vice President Cheney’s views.
Sharp’s translations from German sources are for the most part accurate, though “Leitung” is probably better rendered as “directorship” than “leadership.” Likewise “der Lange” is “the tall man” rather than “the long man.” (pg. 37)
A thorough, useful bibliography is appended.
Update 1: For a much darker view of Field, see Stephen Koch’s fascinating Double Lives. Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West (1993).
According to Koch, Field was recruited by the Soviets as early as the 1920s, well before the rise of Hitler. He did not resign his post at the State Department out of compunction but under orders from his foreign masters. Far from a dabbler, he was a witting and eager collaborator. He may have started out young and naive, but by the end he was a hardened Stalinist to the core, working “under cover of his seeming role as a leading American do-gooder in the world of European refugees…” (Double Lives, pg. 167) Koch claims his arrest in Prague was also a sham -– he was chosen for his leading role in the show trials because he knew everyone involved. The most telling fact is that even though he was locked up, he survived when many he denounced did not. Though Koch admits the evidence is inconsistent, the character that emerges in his book is much more cunning and insidious.
Update 2: For a more recent treatment of this topic, see Kari Marton: True Believer (2016). Her parents were the only ones Noel and Herta Field granted an interview to after their release from prison in Budapest.
© Hamilton Beck
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