Samuel Dickstein

Who was Samuel Dickstein?

Samuel Dickstein was a Democratic Congressional Representative from New York and a New York State Supreme Court Justice. He played a key role in establishing the committee that would become the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which he used to attack fascists, including Nazi sympathizers, and suspected communists. Authors Allen Weinstein, and Alexander Vassiliev said in 1999 that Soviet files indicate he was a paid agent of the NKVD. The Boston Globe stated: "Dickstein ran a lucrative trade in illegal visas for Soviet operatives before brashly offering to spy for the NKVD, the KGB's precursor, in return for cash." Sam Roberts in The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case stated "Not even Julius Rosenberg knew that Samuel Dickstein had been on the KGB's payroll." Kurt Stone wrote "he was, for many years, a 'devoted and reliable' Soviet agent whom his handlers nicknamed 'Crook.' "