Soviet dictator Josef Stalin approved the execution of an American and a cover story saying he had died of disease, a U.S.-Russian commission announced Thursday.
The group, which is searching through Soviet secret police and military archives, released the names of eight additional American civilians who were marooned in the former Soviet Union during World War II or the Cold War.Some emigrated in the 1960s or 1970s, but others are thought to be either still living or buried in the former Soviet Union, it said.
"A search through archives sometimes reveals terrifying documents. An appeal was recently found in which (Soviet counter-espionage chief Viktor S.) Abakumov requests Stalin to allow the killing in prison without trial and investigation of an American citizen earlier sentenced to eight years' imprisonment," said a statement released by Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, Russian chairman of the joint commission.
"Abakumov suggested falsifying documents and informing relatives that the prisoner died from a disease. With Stalin's consent, the hapless prisoner was killed," said the statement, reported in the daily Izvestia newspaper.
The newspaper did not release the name of the victim or the date of his death. From the report, it appeared that the American was executed near the end of World War II or immediately afterward.
The commission said other similar incidents were detailed in the files. The commission so far has declined to release complete versions of the documents from the formerly secret archives.
The joint committee, headed by Volkogonov and Malcolm Toon, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, was established last March to look for U.S. prisoners of war and other servicemen who reportedly were held in the Soviet Union.
The committee, however, so far has not turned up a single missing serviceman.
Millions of Soviet citizens were killed arbitrarily by Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union from the late 1920's until his death in 1953.