Cold War exile

by Don S. Kirschner

In 1953 Maurice Halperin was called before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to defend himself against allegations of espionage. He was accused of having supplied Soviet sources with classified material from the Office of Strategic Services while he was an employee during World War II. The Cold War was in full force. McCarthyism was at its peak. Caught up in the rapids of history, Maurice Halperin's life spun out of control. Denying the charges but knowing he could never fully clear his name, Halperin fled to Mexico and then, to avoid extradition, to Moscow in 1958. Among the friends he made there were British spy Donald MacLean and Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara. Disenchanted with socialism in the Soviet Union, he accepted Guevara's invitation to come to Havana in 1962. There he worked for Castro's government for five years before political tension and his own disillusionment with Cuban socialism forced him to leave for Vancouver, Canada. Was Halperin a spy or a scapeg