Henry Collins (official)

Henry H. Collins Jr. (1905 – 1961) was an American citizen employed in the New Deal National Recovery Administration in the 1930s and later the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. He was a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Washington D.C. based Ware group, along with Alger Hiss, Lee Pressman, Harry Dexter White and others.

Background

Collins was also a childhood friend of Alger Hiss in Baltimore. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Business School.

Government career

Collins worked in the National Recovery Administration and then the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

He later served as director of the American Russian Institute in New York.

Alleged espionage activities

Collins was the Ware group's treasurer and collected communist party dues from its members. He also acted as a talent spotter and recruiter for Soviet intelligence. "Worthington Wiggins" is the pseudonym of a State Department employee Collins recruited. J. Peters, head of the CPUSA's secret apparatus recognized that Collins, Hiss and Pressman had the potential for advancement within the United States government.

In 1936 a decision was made to separate Collins from the larger Ware group, and Whittaker Chambers became Collins's contact with Peters. Former State Department official Laurence Duggan, shortly before his suicide, told the FBI that Collins had attempted to recruit him for Soviet espionage, with Duggan stating that "he wanted (me) to assist in furnishing information ... to the Soviets."

Collins was also credited with recruiting Bela Gold into his CPUSA cell, a cell whose members included Edward Fitzgerald, who became a leading figure of the Perlo group.

See also

• List of American spies
• Ware Group
• Whittaker Chambers
• Noel Field
• Harold Glasser
• John Herrmann
• Alger Hiss
• Donald Hiss
• Victor Perlo
• J. Peters
• Ward Pigman
• Lee Pressman
• Vincent Reno
• Julian Wadleigh
• Harold Ware
• Nathaniel Weyl
• Harry Dexter White
• Nathan Witt

Sources

• Chambers, Whittaker, testimony before HUAC 3 August 1948
• Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-300-08462-5
• Weinstein, Allen, and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999)
• Vassiliev, Alexander, "A.Gorsky's Report to Savchenko S.R., 23 December 1949", "Failures List".