010500 Obituary left out some facts about communist 

Gannett's Dec. 9 byline on the life of local "Red Hill" resident Victor Perlo, who died on Dec. 1, fails on reporting important facts on this local "activist" Recent Yale University Press, publications like "The Secret World of American Communism" and "Venona" are better sources than simply the descendant's family.

Victor Perlo was not a "victim of the anti-communist furor fomented by Joseph  McCarthy."  This "Marxist economist," according to the books cited above, was actually the leader of a large Washington D.C. espionage cell in the '30s and '40s. He personally furnished Stalin's regime with data on U.S. aircraft production, U.S. shipments to various fronts and sensitive internal policy disputes with the U.S.. military. 

In a 1944 unsigned letter to President Roosevelt, his first wife bitterly denounced him and others as participants in clandestine communist activities in Washington. A May 13, 1944, deciphered KGB cable identifies Perlo as a "reliable countryman (communist)" who "wants to help with information." When called to testify before the House Un­American Activities Committee on Aug. 9, 1948, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Please note he employed a civil liberty of the United States to cover criminal activity not available in the Stalinist Russia to which he was ultimately loyal.

PHILIP CHRISTE

                                      Mount Kisco