Date: 1921-03-23
Source: ru:ND

Comrade Dzerzhinsky!

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Louise Bryant (widow of John Reed). Among other things, she spoke at length about Nuorteva. “A rather peculiar” fellow, to be sure—there’s something “peculiar” about him. He’s doing everything he can to keep me (Bryant) from seeing Trotsky. He’s been insulting Vanderlip and so on. William is an English spy. Nuorteva has been telling everyone that Leeds (or Lid) is a spy.

He also tried to pull a fast one on Nora Hellgren (I’m attaching her name in English), who is currently here.

I’m bringing all this to your attention.

Yours, Lenin.

Please let me know when you receive this letter—and what information you have regarding Nuorteva.

Fund 2, Inventory 1, File 26238, Page 2 – autograph.

On March 11, 1921, V.I. Lenin received a letter from American journalist L. Bryant, in which she requested an audience to discuss the press and concessions (see: V.I. Lenin. Biographical Chronicle. Vol. 10. Moscow, 1979, p. 218). The meeting took place on March 23.

Lenin’s note concerns A.F. Nuorteva, head of the Department for Countries of the Entente within the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, who—apart from the information provided by Bryant—had been arrested by the organs of the Cheka on March 19, 1921. On March 25, F.E. Dzerzhinsky sent Lenin a report on the arrested Nuorteva. Nuorteva was accused of having hired, in a department handling classified information, a man suspected of espionage—namely, William. Lenin wrote on the note: “To the archives. Confidential. ((From Dzerzhinsky regarding Bryant))” (RGASPI, Fund 2, Inventory 2, File 551).

In those same days, Dzerzhinsky informed Lenin that Lid was a merchant who had been dispatched to Russia to gather intelligence on the country’s economic situation (see: V.I. Lenin and the Cheka. 2nd ed. Moscow, 1987, pp. 401–402).

G.V. Chicherin wrote about Nora Hellgren: “In America, she was a radical, far‑left liberal with ties to Indians and Irish… Here, she joined the Communist Party. She is an exceptionally skilled stenographer. In America, she served as secretary of the Economic and Legal Department of Martens’ Bureau” (RGASPI, Fund 5, Inventory 1, File 2056, Page 35).