Laurence Duggan

For the Australian poet, see Laurie Duggan.
Laurence Duggan
Born
Laurence Hayden Duggan

(1905-05-28)May 28, 1905
New York City
DiedDecember 20, 1948(1948-12-20) (aged 43)
New York City
NationalityAmerican
SpouseHelen Boyd
Academic career
InstitutionInstitute of International Education
Alma materHarvard University

Laurence Duggan (May 28, 1905 – December 20, 1948), also known as Larry Duggan, was a 20th-century American economist who headed the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II, best known for falling to his death from the window of his office in New York, ten days after questioning by the FBI about whether he had had contacts with Soviet intelligence.[1][2]

Despite public accusations by Whittaker Chambers and others, Duggan's loyalty was attested to by such prominent people as Attorney General Tom C. Clark, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Duggan's close associate journalist Edward R. Murrow, among others.[3] However, in the 1990s, evidence from decrypted Soviet telegrams revealed that he was an active Soviet spy for the KGB in the 1930s and 1940s.[4]

  1. ^ Welles, Benjamin Sumner (1949). Laurence Duggan 1905–1948: In Memoriam. Overbrook Press. pp. 3 (family, education), 4 (marriage, children), 4–5 (State), 5–6 (UNRRA), 6–8 (IIE), 8 (1948), 11 (body), 41–44 (Murrow broadcast), 90 (UNRRA). Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  2. ^ "The Man in the Window". Time. 3 January 1949. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  3. ^ John Earl Haynes; Harvey Klehr (2000). Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. Yale UnP. p. 202. ISBN 0300129874.
  4. ^ Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era (2000) pp 3-21.