Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912 – December 1, 1999) was an American
Marxisteconomist, government functionary, and a longtime member of the governing National Committee of the
Communist Party USA.
Biography
Early years
Victor Perlo was born May 15, 1912, in
East Elmhurst,
Queens, New York City,
N.Y. Perlo was the son of ethnic
Jewish parents who had both emigrated in their youth to America from the
Russian empire.[1] His father, Samuel Perlo, was a
lawyer and his mother, Rachel Perlo, was a teacher.[1]
Late in 1932 or early in 1933, while still a student at Columbia, Perlo joined the
Communist Party USA, an organization with which he was affiliated throughout his life.[1]
Perlo married his first wife, Katherine, in 1933 and divorced in 1943. Subsequently, he married his second wife, Ellen (whose uncle was
Robert Menaker), with whom he remained for the rest of his life. The couple had three children, a girl and two boys.[3]
Perlo had varied interests, which included tennis, mountain climbing, and chess. He was also a talented pianist.
Governmental career
After his graduation from Columbia in 1933, Perlo went to work as a
statistical analyst and assistant to a division chief at the
National Recovery Administration (NRA), remaining at that post until June 1935. Perlo then moved to the
Federal Home Loan Bank Board where he was an analyst for the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, establishing statistical analyses for properties mortgaged to the corporation and projecting long-term financial accounts.[4] Perlo worked in that capacity until October 1937.[1]
In October 1937, Perlo left government service to work in the
Brookings Institution, a liberal
think tank established in 1916, where he stayed as a researcher for more than two years.[1] In November 1939, Perlo went to work in the
US Department of Commerce, where he worked as a senior economic analyst in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.[4]
Perlo moved to the
Office of Price Administration (OPA) in November 1940, where he was head of the economic statistics division.[1] There Perlo engaged in the study of
inflationary pressures in the American economy, particularly with the advent of
World War II, which helped provide documentation enabling the institution of
price controls.[4]
Perlo remained in that capacity until leaving to become head of the aviation section of the Bureau of Programs and Statistics at the
War Production Board (WPB). Perlo's work at the WPB involved analysis of the various economic problems of aircraft production.[5] In September 1944 he was made a special assistant to the director of the Bureau of Programs and Statistics of the WPB.[1]
During his time in the federal
bureaucracy, Perlo was a contributor to the Communist Party's press, submitting articles on economic matters under a variety of
pseudonyms.[1] He also secretly assisted
I.F. Stone in gathering materials for various journalistic exposés.[1]
About December 1945, Perlo went to the
U.S. Treasury Department, where he worked in the Monetary Research department.[6] There he was an alternate member of the Committee for Reciprocity Information, which took care of technical work relating to trade agreements under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act and doing preparatory work for the
International Trade Organization.[6]
Perlo left government service in 1947, when his loyalty was called into question during an investigation by the
House Un-American Activities Committee. Perlo denied allegations that he had spied for the Soviet Union.[7]
Alleged espionage career
A dedicated Communist, Victor Perlo allegedly headed the
Perlo group of Soviet espionage agents in the United States.[8] Before World War II, Perlo had been a member of the
Ware spy ring.[8] The Perlo ring included several important U.S. officials, including a Senate staff director, and the ring supplied the Soviet Union with economic, political, and military intelligence, including United States aircraft production figures.
Perlo infiltrated through the United States Department of Commerce in 1938 to gather economic intelligence, and passed on intelligence concerning basic economic decisions he presented to Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce. He transferred to the Division of Monetary Research, and served under
Harry Dexter White, followed by
Frank Coe and
Harold Glasser, all of whom were later alleged to be Soviet agents.[citation needed]
History's Biggest Rip-Off: The Arms Budget Threat to Your Livelihood and Life. New York: New Outlook Publishers, 1980.
Super Profits and Crises: Modern US Capitalism. New York: International Publishers, 1988.
Belt-Tightening Time: But for Whom? New York: New Outlook Publishers, 1989.
Economics of Racism II: The Roots of Inequality, USA. New York: International Publishers, 1996.
People vs. Profits: Columns of Victor Perlo: Volume 1, The Home Front, 1961-1999. Edited by Ellen Perlo. New York: International Publishers, 2003.
People vs. Profits: Columns of Victor Perlo: Volume 2, The USA and the World. Edited by Ellen Perlo. New York: International Publishers, 2006.
Articles
"On the Distribution of Student's Ratio for Samples of Three Drawn from a Rectangular Distribution," Biometrika, vol. 25, no. 1/2 (May 1933), pp. 203–204.
"The Investment-Factor Method of Forecasting Business Activity," With Richard V. Gilbert. Econometrica, Journal of the Econometric Society, vol. 10, no. 3/4 (July–October 1942), pp. 311–316.
"New York as the Financial Center," Science & Society, vol. 19, no. 4 (Fall 1955), pp. 289–302.
"'People's Capitalism' and Stock-Ownership," American Economic Review, vol. 48, no. 3 (June 1958), pp. 333–347.
"The Revised Index of Industrial Production," American Economic Review, vol. 52, no. 3 (June 1962), pp. 496–512.
"Notes on Marxian Economics in the United States: Comment," American Economic Review, vol. 56, no. 1/2 (March 1966), pp. 187–188.
"Criminalization of African Americans," Political Affairs [New York], vol. 75, no. 2, (February 1996), pg. 18.
Hearings, Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments — Part 7. Judiciary Committee Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, US Senate. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1950; pp. 383–459. —Testimony of May 12, 1953.
^
abcdefghiAutobiography prepared by Perlo and relayed in summary form to Moscow in December 1944 by KGB Washington Station Chief Anatoly Gorsky, KGB file 45100, v. 1, pp. 44-45; transcribed in Vassiliev White Notebook #3, pp. 72-73 and published in John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009; pp. 271-272.