NAZI SPIES
well,
let
AND AMERICAN
me
"PATRIOTS"
87
he
give a brief sketch of his activities before
became a Nazi agent:
In 1922, a Russian emigre, born in Petrograd and christened
Peter Afanassieff or Aphanassieff, came to the United States seek
a wealthy heiress. As
ing his fortune, preferably in the form of
an ordinary run-of-the-mill Afanassieff, he was just an unem
and it didn t take him
ployed White Russian looking for a job
to discover that in this democratic country heiresses and
long
So overnight Peter
their doting papas go nuts over titles.
Afanassieff blossomed out into Prince Peter Kushubue; and as a
Prince whose wealth had been confiscated by the Bolsheviki, the
doors of San Francisco society opened to him.
Afanassieff just barely missed marrying a wealthy heiress on
the West Coast, and in his despondence he tried his hand at a
But he picked the wrong outfit to practice pen
manship on. He forged a United States Treasury check and when
the federal men got after him he fled to Chicago. He was picked
up and on November 29, 1929, he found himself before a U. S.
Commissioner who ordered his return to San Francisco. On
December 19 of the same year he pleaded guilty before Federal
Judge F. J. Kerrigan and was given a year and a half. At the
trial he admitted to being just an ordinary Afanassieff and served
his sentence under that name.
When he came out he alternated between being Prince Kushu
bue and an ordinary Afanassieff and then, because the 1930 crash
had kicked the bottom out of the market for foreign titles, he
picked himself a good solid American name: Armstrong. He said
it was his mother s maiden name. For convenience we ll call him
Armstrong from now on.
When he arrived in Chicago in 1933, he met some White
Russians who were working with Harry A. Jung on an altogether
little forgery.
new
translation of the
"Protocols."
Jung planned
to publish
and distribute the forgeries in order to scare the wits out of his
Christian suckers, but changed his mind when he discovered he