Relations With Soviets
Hopkins was the top American official charged with dealing with Soviet officials during World War II and spoke with many Russians, from middle ranks to the very highest. He often explained to Stalin and other top Soviets what Roosevelt was planning, in order to enlist Soviet support for American objectives. As a major decision maker in Lend Lease, he expedited the sending of material to the Soviet Union, as Congress had ordered, in order to end the war as quickly as possible. This included accepted shipments of uranium and offered shipments of "ferro-uranium from Latrobe". George Racey Jordan, a lend-lease major in the Air Force, accused Hopkins of passing nuclear weapons plans to the USSR, but a congressional committee stated the charges were dubious.
It is likely that Soviets who spoke to Hopkins would have been routinely required to report the contact to the NKVD, the Soviet national security agency. Mark (1998) says that some Soviets such as master-spy Iskhak Akhmerov thought he was pro-Soviet while others thought he was not. Verne W. Newton, author of FDR and the Holocaust, said that no writer discussing Hopkins has identified any secrets disclosed, or any decision in which he distorted American priorities in order to help Communism. As Mark demonstrates, Hopkins was not in fact pro-Soviet in his recommendations to FDR, he was anti-German and pro-U.S. Any "secrets" disclosed were authorized. Mark says that at this time any actions were taken specifically in order to help the American war effort and prevent the Soviets from making a deal with Hitler.
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