Thank you very much indeed for your care in our affairs and we hope that you will help us in future. It is important for us to send a letter to Geneva to Sisi. Can you send this letter with a reliable man to whom you trust? All expenses will be paid. Please let us know about your proposals in this connection as soon as possible. Please inform us about delivery of your service mail to Geneva and why are you sure that it is not censored? Please wire to Rashel or Alexander that Gisel's parents are interested about the health of Sisi and Paul and that they will help them. We ask you to forward 810,000 to that watch company according to the Sisi's instructions. Make arrangements with our representative about forwarding of this sum of money to you in USA. All your personal expenses will be paid.
With best regards
Gisel
With our knowledge of the situation, this letter is also clear. In effect the Centre thanks Hermina for her assistance and hopes this will continue in the future. They add that it is important for them to get the money to Cissie and ask for Hermina's views as to how the transfer should be made. The reference to "your service mail to Geneva" refers presumably to official mail from the I.L.O. Office in Ottawa, where Hermina was employed, to the I.L.O. Office in Geneva, which as the I.L.O. had courtesy diplomatic privilege would not have passed through the censorship. The Centre asked Hermina to send a telegram to Rachel or Alexander. This Alexander probably does not refer to me but to Isaac, and this is where I think that the Commission became somewhat confused over the two Alexanders. The reference to the interest of the Centre in the "health of Sisi and Paul" is moderately clear. The Centre was obviously interested to know whether Cissie was still at large. It seems unlikely that the Paul is Paul Boetcher with whom Cissie was living, as Boetcher was not to my knowledge in the network. It probably therefore refers to another Soviet agent of Cissie's whose real identity is unknown to me.
The next document is a report of the interview between Koudriavtzev and Hermina, at which meeting she was shown the letter from Gisel. In this interview the latter stated that her correspondence with Geneva was carried on by means of letters and telegrams. The letters were sent as part of the I.L.O. mail and not subject to scrutiny, taking about three weeks to a month. Telegrams took only a few days. There is here in Paragraph 2 of the document a reference to Aleksander A ... , who as I have already said is Isaac. Hermina went on to state that she was a good friend of Cissie's and had helped her but had previously not known anything about Cissie's work. She was completely certain that the letters had been written personally by Cissie as her handwriting and signature were well known to Hermina. At this interview Hermina stated that she would be able to send the money but would like it in a check as it was difficult to carry such large sums over the border in cash.
Koudriavtzev reported that Hermina's conduct throughout the meeting was natural. She stated during the meeting that her reception by Tounkin contrasted severely with her reception in Moscow, where she had been received warmly.
Hermina went to New York and handed over $10,000 to a watch company which had been previously known to Hermina when she was in Geneva.
The fourth document is a note by Motinov dated 31.7.44 in which it is stated that Koudriavtzev had met Hermina, who reported that she had handed over the money to the watch firm. She had subsequently sent a telegram to Isaac, who replied a few days later that he had not received the money. Koudriavtzev advised her to send another telegram to Isaac and one to the watch company. On 28.8.44 Koudriavtzev again met Hermina, who reported that she had not received confirmation from Isaac that he had received the money, but had received a telegram from the watch firm informing her that they had received a telegram from Isaac stating "thanks for the warm greetings." She therefore considered that the money had been received.
The last document is merely a letter from Hermina in which she states that she is enclosing a short memorandum on the I.L.O. and adding that she was at the disposal of the Russians for supplying any supplementary information as well as translation into Russian if required.
The above is of course a much abbreviated account of the minute investigation into the whole transaction which was undertaken by the Commission. In order not to make the reading of this Appendix too tedious I have not quoted the five documents in full but merely given the gist of them and those portions of them which refer to the connections with our network. Appendix C contains the five documents in full.