Books: His Name Meant Sorrow

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Lesson for Tomorrow. Meissner's story differs from Willoughby's official account in two important respects. The U.S. Army believes that Sorge was betrayed to Tokyo's secret police by a Japanese Communist. Meissner credits Sorge's downfall to the work of a certain Colonel Osaki of the Japanese secret police who, in the best tradition of melodrama, tripped Sorge over the pretty foot of a nightclub dancer.

U.S. Intelligence seems to accept the Japanese statement that he was executed in 1944. Meissner suggests that the death sentence against Sorge was never carried out. He cites these items: a French diplomat claims to have seen him since; his execution, if it took place, occurred without a witness from the condemned man's own country, although such a witness is required by Japanese law; nor were his remains made available to friends or relatives. The German ambassador in Tokyo at war's end, Heinrich Stahmer, believed that Sorge survived to direct the Far Eastern Department of the Red army's Fourth Bureau (Intelligence).

Whatever the facts, Meissner's story has two morals. The first, which Author Meissner calls "an ominous and sinister lesson for tomorrow," is that, despite the many sensational spy cases since the war, no ring quite as formidable and versatile as Sorge's has been uncovered—though there is no reason to assume that none exists.

The other moral is one of irony. The Japanese secret police were convinced that all foreigners were spies. In such circumstances, a real spy had the advantage of going about his business without attracting any more suspicion than the next fellow.

Richard Sorge left private misery and public ruin in his spoor; history may remember him for a bitter, accidental play on words. His name in German spells "sorrow." As Sorge went about his dreadful career, Pope Pius XI was preparing his famous German-language encyclical against totalitarianism, whose opening words are: "Mit brennender Sorge [With burning sorrow]."