Leonard Mins

Leonard Emil Mins (1900–1988) was an American who worked in the Russian Section of the Research and Analysis Division of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. Mins also worked for Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU).

Mins joined the

Mins was in France in 1938 working with exiled German writers, one of whom was the father of the later notorious East German spymaster and Stasi officer Markus Wolf. In his 1997 memoirs Wolf recalled his old friend as, "a Communist exile who had been my parents' close friend" in Russia. "He had been the channel through which my father was able to communicate with us during his internment in France."

Mins worked for the OSS from 1942 to late 1943, and worked mostly on a survey of strategic minerals and

Venona

Leonard Mins cover name in Soviet Military Intelligence, and as deciphered in the Venona project, is "Smith". Mins is referenced in the following Venona project decrypts:

• 1131 GRU New York to Moscow, 12 July 1943
• 1348 GRU New York to Moscow, 16 August 1943
• 1350 GRU New York to Moscow, 17 August 1943
• 1373 GRU New York to Moscow, 23 August 1943
• 1456 GRU New York to Moscow, 8 September 1943

References

• CPUSA Comintern Representative to CPUSA, 26 January 1935, Archive of the Communist Party of the USA,
  RTsKhIDNI
  515-1-3750.
• Markus Wolf, Man Without a Face (New York: Times Books, 1997), 304.
• Testimony of Leonard Mins, 8 April 1943, "Investigations of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the U.S.," vol. 7, 3415–3437.
• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, New Haven: Yale University Press, (1999) pgs. 181–183, 193.
• Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors, Washington DC, Regnery Publishing, 2001