Research sheds light on famed psychoanalyst’s espionage activities
July 17, 2012 1 Comment
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An early student of Sigmund Freud, who introduced psychoanalysis in what is today Israel, was likely an agent of Soviet intelligence, according to historical evidence stemming from his life and the lives of his close relatives and friends. Max Eitingon, who was a member of Freud’s inner circle of students, funded and directed the Psychoanalytic Institute and polyclinic in Berlin, Germany, in the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1933, the rise of German national socialism prompted Eitingon, who was Jewish, to emigrate to Palestine, where he continued his psychoanalytic work. The view that Eitingon may have actively collaborated with Soviet intelligence in both Germany and Palestine was famously discussed in a lengthy letter exchange in The New York Review of Books in the summer of 1988. Although the debate continues among intelligence historians, two researchers, Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, both of the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute, believe that there is “a preponderance of circumstantial evidence” that Eitingon did collaborate with Soviet intelligence in Germany and Palestine. In a paper published in March of this year, the two researchers argue that Eitingon’s services to the Soviets included dispatching messages and providing safe houses for Moscow’s operatives. But in a fascinating research update, published yesterday in online journal Tablet, Ginor and Remez contend that historical evidence pertaining to the activities of Eitingon’s Russian-born wife, Mirra, and other relatives and friends, adds credence to the view that the famed psychoanalyst was working for Soviet intelligence. The two scholars point out that Mirra Eitingon, née Burovsky, had a son from a previous marriage, named Yuli Borisovich Khariton. Yuli, who remained close to his mother even after she left Russia, grew up to become the principal designer of the Soviet atomic bomb. Additionally, Ginor and Remez call attention to the role of two of Eitingon’s professional acquaintances: Adolf Yoffe, the Soviet Union’s first ambassador to Germany, and his successor, Viktor Kopp, both of whom shared Eitingon’s psychoanalytic interests. Specifically, Kopp was second-in-command at the Soviet Psychoanalytic Association, while Yoffe had been mentored by Alfred Adler, one of the psychoanalytic movement’s co-founders in Austria. In this sense, Ginor and Remez argue that psychoanalysis and intelligence work were “intertwined” in Eitingon’s life and career. Read more of this post
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
News you may have missed #764
July 20, 2012 by Ian Allen Leave a comment
►►US government agency spied on whistleblower scientists. The US Food and Drug Administration has been found operating a massive surveillance campaign targeting its own scientists for writing letters to journalists, members of Congress and President Barack Obama. The scientists were expressing their concern over the FDA’s approval of medical imaging devices for colonoscopies and mammograms that could endanger patients with high levels of radiation. The covert spying operation, which is most likely illegal, led the agency to monitor the scientists’ computers at work and at home, copying emails and thumb drives and even monitoring individual messages line by line as they were being composed in real time.
►►UK lawmaker tells MI6 chief to ‘stop bragging’. The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Sir John Sawers, has been accused by Liberal Democrat parliamentarian Baroness Falkner of Margravine of demonstrating a “lack of judgment” for “bragging” about MI6’s role in slowing Iran’s nuclear program. Earlier this month, Sir John said in an interview that covert operations by British spies had prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons as early as 2008. But Lady Falkner said in a speech at the House of Lords that “Sir John’s comments could almost be construed as bragging. In my view”, she continued, “it would be best for the veneer of silence to descend on the Secret Intelligence Service once again. There is such a thing as too much information”.
►►German domestic intel agency gets new director. The German government has appointed terrorism expert Hans-Georg Maassen to head the country’s domestic intelligence body, known as the “Verfassungschutz. Maassen’s appointment comes after several turbulent weeks for the agency that have resulted in three of its top officials stepping down amid a scandal connected to a series of murders by a Neo-Nazi group calling itself the National Socialist Underground.
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