Dark Doings

It was a sensational yarn, complete with arrogant Russians, secret papers, and hints of dark doings in high places. The man who told it was a bony-faced Manhattan businessman named George Racey Jordan, 51, wartime major in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Jordan and his story were triumphantly presented to a nationwide radio audience last week by Radiorator Fulton Lewis Jr.

The story went like this: in 1943 and 1944, Racey Jordan was stationed at Great Falls, Mont, as a Lend-Lease expediter and liaison officer with the Russian staff headed by a Colonel Anatoly Koti-kov. Through Great Falls moved thousands of U.S. war planes to be ferried on to Russia by way of Alaska. Jordan became suspicious of the black suitcases arriving by special plane and accompanied by armed Russian guards. One day he decided to take action, entered a plane, brushed aside two Russian couriers who "were screaming about diplomatic immunity," and broke open the cases.

"Flying Neutrons." He found, said Jordan, "a lot of blueprints and maps and engineering drawings and scientific data" labeled "Oak Ridge, Manhattan Engineering District." Major Jordan had never heard of the Manhattan Project, but he noted the words down. He inspected a blueprint and noted that it read: "Walls five feet thick of lead and water to control flying neutrons." He also found, he said, a note on White House stationery, "which impressed me because it had the name of Harry Hopkins printed in the upper left-hand corner. I jotted down part of the message. It said: 'I had a hell of a time getting these away from Groves.' And it was signed with the initials H.H."

Fulton Lewis briskly pointed out that General Leslie Groves was then head of the Manhattan Project. Jordan added that Hopkins "gave me instructions over the long distance telephone to expedite certain freight shipments ... I was to ... say nothing about them, even to my superior officers." Three shipments came through, of 500, 1,150 and 1,200 Ibs. Said Jordan: "All I know is that Colonel Kotikov had it listed as uranium."

After the broadcast, Fulton Lewis whisked his prize off to his farm near Hollywood, Md., proudly stood by as Jordan elaborated his story for other reporters. "It is now apparent that Harry Hopkins gave Russia the A-bomb on a platter," said Jordan. Kotikov would call the Russian embassy, he said, and the embassy would "plug in Harry Hopkins at the White House--they had a direct wire . . . Hopkins and I got to know each other very well over the phone . . ."

"Cock & Bull." Before Fulton Lewis Jr. took him up, Jordan had tried to peddle his story elsewhere. Though Jordan offered a neatly written notebook as "documentation," it was turned down as farfetched and without proof in its most important points.

After the headline-making broadcast, Author Robert Sherwood, biographer of Hopkins, promptly labeled the yarn "one of the most amazing cock-and-bull stories I have ever heard." He declared that never, in his reading of thousands of Hopkins papers, had he seen any White House stationery bearing his name. In initialing documents, said Sherwood, Hopkins invariably wrote "H. L. H.," never "H. H." This week the House Un-American Activities Committee opened a hearing. On the stand, Racey Jordan repeated his charges; but this time said he had spoken to Hopkins only once. The committee's investigator pointed out (and the State Department acknowledged) that export licenses had been granted for shipment of some 1,500 Ibs. of uranium compounds (not the fissionable U-235) to Russia in the spring of 1943 before the Manhattan Project "cut off all sources of uranium material." But Jordan's story was of shipments occurring in 1944. Meanwhile Broadcaster Lewis kept the pot boiling by throwing in another prospective villain. He charged that Henry Wallace was the official who had overruled General Groves's protest and insisted that atomic materials be sent to the Russians. Snapped Wallace: "Sheerest fabrication!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.