by William Korey

The Kremlin could no longer stonewall. Instead, there was a total reversal of previous denials, and stage three of the cover-up was launched. In a formal diplomatic note dated February 2, 1957, Soviet deputy foreign minister Andrei Gromyko declared that a "page-by-page research" of archival prison records had produced a single document that appeared to refer to Wallenberg. This document would become central to the future Soviet posture on Wallenberg.

The document was attributed to a Colonel A. L. Smoltsov, the head of the prison’s health services.61 It was addressed to Viktor Abakumov, the minister of state security, and was dated July 17, 1947. The text, together with a misspelling of Wallenberg’s name, follows:

I report that the prisoner Walenberg, who is well-known to you, died suddenly in his cell this night, probably as a result of a heart attack. Pursuant to the instructions given by you that I personally have Walenberg under my care, I request approval to make an autopsy with a view to establishing the cause of death.

An additional comment was reported to have been scrawled across the bottom in the same handwriting. It read: "I have personally notified the minister and it has been ordered that the body be cremated without autopsy." Although the document was attributed to "Smoltsov," it should be emphasized that the Gromyko report did not include the original of the document or even a photocopy of it.

In an accompanying note, the Kremlin asserted that "no other information whatsoever" concerning the case had been found. And Smoltsov was reported to have died on May 7, 1953. Thus the matter was clearly resolved: "the conclusion should be drawn that Wallenberg died in July 1947."

Curiously, new evidence indicates that the 1957 Gromyko memorandum went through several drafts, beginning nearly a year earlier.62 In April 1956, an appendix to the memorandum from Molotov and Serov stated that Wallenberg had been held in Lefortovo prison and that he died in that prison hospital in July 1947. It added that his body had been cremated. Several months later, in October 1956, a second draft appeared. Soviet foreign minister Dmitri Shepilov sent a memorandum to the Communist Party Central Committee noting that Wallenberg was held in both Lefortovo and Butyrka prisons and that he suddenly died on July 17, 1947—for the first time, that specific date was indicated—and that his body was cremated.

What is striking about these earlier drafts was that they did not mention Smoltsov at all. Thus, even before the presumed solid evidence of Smoltsov’s report was located and released in February 1957, earlier drafts or formulations of the Wallenberg matter alleging his sudden death in July 1947 and his cremation had been circulating among the Soviet party leadership. In addition, the earlier drafts placed the location of his death not in Lubyanka but in other prisons—Lefortovo and Butyrka.

Especially intriguing were the very different reported sources for the Wallenberg death in the different drafts.

The April 1956 draft gave as its source the records of Abakumov. The October 1956 draft stated that its information came from several persons. The final draft of February 1957—the Gromyko memorandum—specifically stated that its sole source of information was the Smoltsov note and that, aside from that source, "no data were found containing information on Wallenberg’s stay in the Soviet Union." The Gromyko memorandum further explained that a thorough search was made in the archives relating to prisoners as well as in the investigation files of the prisons of Lefortovo, Lubyanka, and Vladimir. In none of these prisons, noted the memorandum, was information about Wallenberg to be found. This was the first time Vladimir prison appeared in any official communication dealing with Wallenberg, which may have been due to the fact that that prison was identified as the location of several reported sightings of the Swedish diplomat. In fact, in September 1990 several researchers visited that prison and ascertained that no previous inquiry on Wallenberg had been made.63

Even at this point the Kremlin did not discuss why Wallenberg was cast into the Soviet gulag. Strange, too, was the purported cause of death. Smoltsov’s note suggested that it was "probably" a heart attack. Yet Wallenberg was only 35 at the time. Would so young a man with no record of cardiac problems be suddenly afflicted with a heart attack? And how? Were there no other medical reports in the prison records?

To shift suspicion away from the NKVD, the Soviet note deliberately focused on the person to whom the Smoltsov document was addressed. Viktor Abakumov was an especially convenient target. A former key aide to Lavrenti Beria, Abakumov had been convicted in 1954 for undefined "gross crimes" and was executed. According to the Kremlin note, it was "indisputable" that "Wallenberg’s detention in prison, as well as the incorrect information about him supplied by certain former leaders of the security organs to the Soviet Union’s Foreign Ministry over a period of years, was a result of Abakumov’s criminal activities." The convenience of the Kremlin evidence was mind-boggling. One man is guilty of everything and he is dead. He alone was responsible for Wallenberg’s detention; and he alone was responsible for ten years of denial and lying by the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Case closed. But was it? In fact, the recently released indictment of Abakumov, in its catalog of his "crimes," did not mention Wallenberg.64 Moreover, the Kremlin overlooked Bulganin’s January 17, 1945, order to arrest Wallenberg. In 1955, of course, Bulganin held the post of prime minister of the USSR.

The Smoltsov document may have been the centerpiece of the Kremlin case in 1957, but its authenticity and credibility would later encounter serious challenges. Beside the misspelling of Wallenberg’s name and the doubt about the possibility of cardiac arrest in a fairly young person, an investigation conducted by a Swedish-Soviet commission—created in mid-1991, almost forty years after the alleged Smoltsov document was first released—noted a crucial problem concerning the reference to cremation.65 According to a KGB search made available to the Swedish-Soviet commission, the official list of cremations conducted in 1947 by the only crematorium in Moscow did not include the name of Wallenberg. Another former security official noted that the only prisoners who were cremated, as a general rule, were those who had been executed. The question naturally arose as to whether Wallenberg was executed. In November 1991, a high-level KGB official, V. Nikonov, stated that, in his "personal" opinion, Wallenberg "was executed" because his arrest had created such "a political scandal" that the authorities "did not know what to do with him." Still, no evidence has been advanced offering any confirmation of an execution.66

The possibility that the Smoltsov document was a fabrication was enhanced by handwriting analysis. A researcher, writing in 1991 in a popular Moscow journal, contended that a comparison of the handwriting of Smoltsov, which appeared on the death certificate of another prisoner, with that on the 1947 document concerning "Walenberg," suggested that the latter was probably forged.67

Also arousing suspicion was the assertion in the Gromyko memorandum that the Smoltsov note had been found in the medical service archive at Lubyanka prison. According to Konstantin Vinogradov, the deputy head of the archives of the Kremlin’s Federal Security Service (the former KGB), no such archive exists or ever existed. Besides, a KGB official told the Swedish Working Group of the joint commission that he had searched Lubyanka prison records and found no Smoltsov report.68

What happened on July 17, 1947, then, remains a mystery. That something terrible occurred is suggested by evidence accumulated by Dr. Vadim Birstein from archival inquiry and the testimony of witnesses.69 On July 22, 1947—only five days after the date of Wallenberg’s presumed heart attack—every person who had ever been a cell mate of Wallenberg or his driver, Langfelder, was interrogated by the KGB officials in the Lubyanka and Lefortovo prisons. The interrogations sought to elicit what the cell mates knew about Wallenberg or Langfelder. More significantly, according to Birstein, the purpose of the interrogations was to instill a sense of terror in the cell mates to prevent them from uttering the name of Wallenberg or Langfelder in the future.

Although the veracity of the Smoltsov document of 1947 has been seriously questioned, no alternative explanation of what happened to Wallenberg has been unearthed. Absolute proof of his death in 1947 simply does not exist, and numerous "sightings" of Wallenberg in the Soviet gulag have been reported.

One particular case, however, does merit special attention in view of the publication several years ago of the intriguing 1964 minutes of the Communist Party Central Committee’s Presidium, which refer specifically to the Wallenberg matter. The case involved the personal experience of a highly qualified source, Professor Nanna Svartz, a prominent Swedish physician, who also happened to be the private doctor of Maj von Dardel, Wallenberg’s mother. The professor arrived in Moscow in January 1961 to attend a medical congress, as she had many times in the past.70

At the congress, Svartz met with a leading Soviet specialist, Professor Aleksandr Miasnikov, with whom she had discussed scientific subjects at earlier conferences. While she sat with him in his office on January 27 and talked (in German) about matters of mutual interest, she decided to raise the case of Wallenberg and asked whether he knew about it. When the response was positive, Svartz noted that Wallenberg’s kin had received reports that he was still alive. Could her colleague advise her on how she might discover Wallenberg’s whereabouts?

According to her account, Miasnikov said "that he knew about the case and that the person [she] was asking about was in poor condition." After a further exchange, her "informant then said in a very low voice that the person inquired about was in a mental hospital." Shortly afterward, Miasnikov refused to talk further with Svartz. When she saw him again, he denied making the comments she attributed to him, and Svartz’s various attempts to see her Soviet colleague during 1963-64 came to naught. She, of course, had informed the Swedish government of her initial discussions with Miasnikov, and they became the basis for strong inquiries to the Kremlin by Swedish prime minister Tage Erlander.

The subject had obviously grown embarrassing. As a document from Communist Party Central Committee archives released only recently—in mid-1993—indicated, the Presidium (formerly Politburo) of the Central Committee, at its meeting on April 28, 1964, decided that "it would be advisable" for Miasnikov to write Svartz a letter that "should refute her statements" that he had ever "given her any information about Wallenberg."71 The denial was promptly written and sent the next day. Miasnikov, in his letter, attributed the "misunderstanding" to his inadequate knowledge of German. At a meeting the following year, held in Moscow in the presence of Foreign Office representatives from both the Soviet Union and Sweden, Miasnikov emphatically denied that he knew anything about Wallenberg "since he had nothing to do with prisons or prison hospitals or with prisoners of war." Four months later, the Soviet doctor died suddenly. Svartz wondered whether "it was really a case of natural death."

Even as the Svartz-Miasnikov episode was coming to a close, another intriguing development occurred. As recorded in the memoirs of Carl Perssons, the former director of the Swedish Security Police, published in 1991, three KGB officials initiated a strange conversation in East Berlin in 1964. These officials were attached to the Soviet embassy in the capital of the East German communist regime. They had approached a certain Carl Swingel, who was active in the Swedish Lutheran Church in West Berlin and had worked with the East German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel, prominently involved in East-West prisoner exchanges.72

Reportedly, the KGB agents suggested an exchange of Wallenberg for Stig Wennerstrom, a Swedish military officer who had been apprehended and convicted for espionage on behalf of the USSR. The stunned Swedish intermediary then asked the KGB officer who had proposed the swap, "Is Wallenberg alive then?" The response of the Soviet security agent was said to be: "We’re not in the habit of dealing with dead bodies." The Swedish cabinet chose not to pursue the matter further even though Perssons felt, at the time as well as later, that it was a "credible lead."

What gave the Wennerstrom episode a special resonance was that it recalled discussions among Swedish Foreign Ministry officials in the late 1940s concerning prisoner exchanges. The Swedish chargé d’affaires in Moscow at the time had reported that, whenever he had raised the question of Raoul Wallenberg with Soviet officials, the latter would in turn mention the names of those they wanted from Sweden. This practice of exchanges with Moscow was known to have been carried out successfully by the Swiss, the Italians, and the Danes. In contrast, the Swedes eventually returned Russian spies without asking for anything in return.73

Per Anger, who had been assigned the Wallenberg matter in 1948, called the attention of his foreign minister, Östen Undén, to these prisoner exchanges. In addition, Anger noted, Sweden had given Russia a billion crowns in credit during 1946 trade negotiations. When Anger then asked Undén why not ask the Soviets for Wallenberg in exchange for apprehended Russian spies, the reply of the foreign minister was strange: "The Swedish government does not do such things." Later, during the height of the cold war, such prisoner exchange programs between the United States and the Soviet Union brought about the release from the Soviet gulag of such prominent dissenters as Yuri Orlov and Anatoly Shcharansky.

Once Moscow had released the Smoltsov material, it must have been aware that its diplomatic note would be negatively received in Sweden and elsewhere in the West, since it implied that for over a decade Moscow had been lying to the world in saying that it knew nothing about Wallenberg and that, indeed, he was not in the USSR. A document made available for the first time in December 1991 indicated that Gromyko was informed that acknowledgment of Wallenberg’s death "would be certain to provoke a hubbub."74

Indeed, Stockholm reacted with shock and dismay. Initially, the Swedish government complained about the "meager information" in the Kremlin’s documentation. According to Stockholm, Moscow’s official note said nothing about the motives for Wallenberg’s arrest or about his fate during the years that followed. A week later, Stockholm spoke out sharply and angrily. How was it conceivable that Soviet security organs could imprison a diplomat of a neutral country for two years without reporting it to the Soviet Foreign Ministry? And why did the Soviet government delay for so long the "thorough investigation" it had repeatedly assured the Swedish government it had undertaken? Especially inconceivable was the Kremlin’s assertion that, aside from the Smoltsov note, all other documentation concerning Wallenberg had been "completely obliterated."

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