Laurence Duggan

File:Exeter Tree Halo.jpg's Academy Building]]

Laurence Hayden Duggan was born on May 28, 1905, in New York City. His father, Stephen P. Duggan, was a professor of Political Science at the City College of New York before founding the Institute of International Education (IIE). His mother Sarah Alice Elsesser was a director of the "Negro Welfare League" of White Plains, New York.

Duggan received early education at the Roger Ascham School in Hartsdale, New York, and White Plains Community Church, where he learned simplicity, courtesy, and democracy. In 1923, he graduated cum laude from the Phillips Exeter Academy. In 1927, he graduated with distinction from Harvard University. (Ware Group members such as Alger Hiss and Lee Pressman were 1929 graduates of Harvard Law School.) In 1930, when he joined State, he took postgraduate courses in history, government, and economics at the George Washington University.

File:Dana-C.-Munro-1904.jpg (1904) hired Duggan for Latin American affairs at the State Department]]

In 1927, Duggan began his career by working for Harper Brothers publishers. By 1929, his father, then director of the IIE, created a bureau for Latin America and offered the position to his son. Duggan accepted, learned Spanish and Portuguese, and toured the region to become better acquainted with it. By 1930, he had produced a report that reached Charles Howland, head of studies in international relations at Yale University. Howland forwarded the report to Dana Munro, chief of the Latin American Division, who offered Duggan a position.

File:Fotothek df pk 0000195 003.jpg in UNRRA displaced persons camp in Germany]]

In 1930, Duggan moved to Washington, D.C. to join the U.S. Department of State. For nine years he was head of the Latin American Division and for four years he was adviser on political relations (his Harvard friend Noel Field had joined State in the late 1920s). Duggan assisted Secretary of State Cordell Hull at major conferences in Lima, Peru, and Havana, Cuba. Positions he held included Chief of the Division of the American Republics as well as Political Adviser and Director of the Office of the American Republics.

In 1944, Duggan returned briefly to the private sector, when he served as consultant on Latin American affairs–a "profitable business."

Shortly thereafter, Herbert H. Lehman (New York governor) and Dr. Eduardo Santos (former president of Colombia asked Duggan to serve the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) for six months (in 1936, Noel Field had taken a position for the U.S. with the League of Nations and in 1941 become director of the American Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's relief mission in Marseille).

File:Edward_R._Murrow.jpg, CBS News journalist and IIE trustee]]

In 1946, a committee of the IIE (comprising Virginia Gildersleeve of Barnard College, Edward R. Murrow of CBS News, Waldo Leland of the Carnegie Institute, and Arthur W. Packard of Rockefeller Brothers Fund) offered Duggan the presidency of the IIE upon his father's retirement. The IIE provided for a flow of exchange students between the United States and several other countries.

On November 1, 1946, Duggan began as IIE president. One of his first actions was to make the board more inclusive by adding women, union representatives ("labor men"), and African-Americans including Benjamin Mays of Morehouse College. He expanded students to include trainees, entrepreneurs, labor leaders, professionals, artists, and musicians. U.S. President Truman appointed Duggan to the ten-member administrators of the Fulbright Act. He provided advice during the establishment of UNESCO. In 1947, he served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the second session of the UNESCO general conference, held in Mexico City.

During his two years as president, IIE's funding increased its budget nearly 400% from $109,000 to $430,000. Funding from the Carnegie Corporation alone increased $50,000 per year during that time (and Alger Hiss became president of its sister organization, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace within days of Duggan's appointment to the IIE).

File:William C Bullitt.jpg, one of Duggan's (unwitting) sources]]

Duggan was a close friend of Noel Field of the State Department. The GRU had also tried to recruit him through Frederick Field.

{{cite book

| first1 = John Earl

| last1 = Haynes

| first2 = Harvey

| last2 = Klehr

| title = Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America

| publisher = Yale University Press

| pages = 201–204

| date = 1999

}}

In the mid-1930s, Duggan was recruited by Hede Massing as a Soviet spy.

{{cite book

| first = Hede

| last = Massing

| authorlink = Hede Massing

| title = This Deception: KGB Targets America

| publisher = Duell, Sloan and Pearce

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cogGAQAAIAAJ

| pages = 176, 207–209

| date = 1951

| accessdate = 6 October 2017}} Duggan told the FBI that Henry Collins of the Ware group had also tried unsuccessfully to recruit him to the NKVD. Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era (2000) pp 3-21.

Peter Gutzeit, the Soviet Consul in New York City, was also an officer in the NKVD. In 1934, he identified Laurence Duggan as a potential recruit. Boris Bazarov told Hede Massing that they wanted her to help recruit Duggan and Noel Field. The plan, suggested by Gutzeit, was to use Duggan to draw Field into the network.{{Cite web|url=http://spartacus-educational.com/Laurence_Duggan.htm |title = Laurence Duggan |website=spartacus-educational.com |first=John |last=Simkin |date=September 1997}} Gutzeit wrote on 3 October 1934 that Duggan "is interesting us because through him one will be able to find a way toward Noel Field... of the State Department's European Department with whom Duggan is friendly."Peter Gutzeit, Soviet Consulate in New York City, memorandum to Moscow (3rd October, 1934)

Duggan provided Soviet intelligence with confidential diplomatic cables, including from American Ambassador William Bullitt. He was a source for the Soviets until he resigned from the State Department in 1944.Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era (2000) pp 3-21.

According to Whittaker Chambers in his 1952 memoir, Egmont Gaines proposed covert group, "insisting" the group approach Duggan, "whom he called 'very sympathetic'."

{{cite book

| first = Whittaker

| last = Chambers

| authorlink = Whittaker Chambers

| title = Witness

| url = https://archive.org/details/witnesscham00cham

| url-access = registration

| place = New York

| publisher = Random House

| date = 1952

| pages = [https://archive.org/details/witnesscham00cham/page/339 339]

}} Duggan was then in the State Department, and became chief of its Latin-American Division. According to Boris Bazarov, Duggan told his Soviet handlers, he remained "at his hateful job in the State Department" only because he was "useful for our cause."Julian Borger, [https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/jan/27/features11.g22 "The Spy Who Made McCarthy: New Evidence Reveals that the Unwitting Architect of the McCarthy Witch-Hunts was a Soviet Agent,"] The Guardian, 26 January 1999.

File:IIE Logo Board in Reception Room at NYC Headquarters.jpg, seen in 2014]]

In 1932, Duggan married Helen Boyd, a Vassar College graduate. They had four children. At the time of his death, the family lived in Scarsdale, New York.{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/mount-vernon-argus-scarsdale-man-named-i/176611993/ |title=Scarsdale Man Named In Spy Probe Dies In 16-Story Plunge From Office |agency=AP |newspaper=The Daily Argus |location=White Plains, New York |page=1 |date=December 21, 1948 |accessdate=July 13, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}}

On December 20, 1948, Duggan fell to his death from his office at the IIE, located on the 16th floor at 2 West 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan.{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/mount-vernon-argus-scarsdale-man-contd/176611660/ |title=Scarsdale Man (cont'd) |agency=AP |newspaper=The Daily Argus |location=White Plains, New York |page=29 |date=December 21, 1948 |accessdate=July 13, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}} His body was discovered around 7{{nbsp}}p.m. that evening. A few days later, the New York Police Department made public the result of its investigation, which concluded: "Mr. Duggan either accidentally fell or jumped."

During his last four days, he spoke with his father about funding for the IIE, his mother about Christmas, with Dr. Santos at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel about US-Latin American relations, and on December 20 itself with Pierre Bédard, director of the French Institute, about inviting a distinguished French national to lecture in the United States under IIE auspices.

File:Archibaldmacleish.jpeg, who composed a poem in Duggan's memory]]

Friends published a memorial book about Duggan, with contributions made directly to the book or gleaned from the press by: Eleanor Roosevelt, Tom C. Clark, Sumner Welles, Marquis Childs (friend), Edward R. Murrow, Roscoe Drummond, and Raymond Moley, Joseph Harsh, Elmer Davis, Martin Agronsky, Henry R. Luce, Clarence Pickett, and Harry Emerson Fosdick. Archibald MacLeish composed a memorial poem, published in the New York Herald Tribune.

On December 21, 1948, at 7:45 PM (barely 24 hours after Duggan's death), Murrow broadcast on CBS radio:

Tonight, the headlines are shouting: "Duggan Named in Spy Case." Who named him? Isaac Don Levine, who said he was quoting Whittaker Chambers. And who denies it? Whittaker Chambers. Tonight, Representative Mundt says: "The Duggan affair is a close book so far as the House Committee is concerned." The Representative from South Dakota also says he is thinking of making recommendations for changing the procedure at committee hearings, maybe even giving the accused person the right to be heard before the Committee issues a report.
The members of the Committee who have done this thing upon such slight and wholly discredited testimony may now consult their actions and their consciences.

The Venona project succeeded in decrypting some Soviet intelligence cables that had been intercepted in the mid-1940s. The code name used for Laurence Duggan in the decrypted transcripts is "Frank" and "19".Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev. The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era (2000) pp 3-21. He is referenced in the following Venona decryptions, which provided information to the Soviets about Anglo-American plans for invading Italy during World War II:

• 1025, 1035–1936, KGB New York to Moscow, June 30, 1943
• 380 KGB New York to Moscow, March 20, 1944
• 744, 746 KGB New York to Moscow, May 24, 1944
• 916 KGB New York to Moscow, June 17, 1944
• 1015 KGB New York to Moscow, to Victor [Fitin], July 22, 1944
• 1114 KGB New York to Moscow, August 4, 1944
• 1251 KGB New York to Moscow, September 2, 1944[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/venon00015.cfm National Security Agency Venona transcript, September 2, 1944]
• 1613 KGB New York to Moscow, November 18, 1944
• 1636 KGB New York to Moscow, November 21, 1944

• W. Marvin Smith
• Abraham Feller

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book

| first = Whittaker

| last = Chambers

| authorlink = Whittaker Chambers

| title = Witness

| url = https://archive.org/details/witnessw00cham

| url-access = registration

| place = New York

| publisher = Random House

| date = 1952

}}

• {{cite book|author1=Haynes, John Earl|author2=Harvey Klehr|title=Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M8p00bTFvRkC&pg=PA202|year=2000|publisher=Yale UnP|page=202|isbn=0300129874}}
• {{cite book

| first = Hede

| last = Massing

| authorlink = Hede Massing

| title = This Deception: KGB Targets America

| publisher = Duell, Sloan and Pearce

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cogGAQAAIAAJ

| pages = 176, 207–209

| date = 1951

| accessdate = 6 October 2017}}

• {{cite web

| first = Alexander | last = Vassiliev

| authorlink = Alexander Vassiliev

| title = Notes on Anatoly Gorsky's December 1948 Memo on Compromised American Sources and Networks

| publisher = Wilson Center

| url = https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/alexander-vassilievs-notebooks-and-the-documentation-soviet-intelligence-operations-the-unit-0

| date = 2003

| access-date = 25 November 2016}}

• {{cite book

| first = Benjamin Sumner

| last = Welles

| authorlink = Sumner Welles

| title = Laurence Duggan 1905–1948: In Memoriam

| place = Stamford, CT

| publisher = Overbrook Press

| date = 1949}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Duggan, Laurence}}

Category:1905 births

Category:1948 deaths

Category:People from New York City

Category:People from Scarsdale, New York

Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:American spies for the Soviet Union

Category:American people in the Venona papers

Category:United States Department of State officials

Category:Deaths from falls

Category:Suicides by jumping in New York City