Alexander Gregory Barmine
| Alexander Gregory Barmine | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Aleksandr Grigoryevich Barmin 16 August 1899 Mogilev, Russian Empire (now Mahilyow, Belarus) |
| Died | 25 December 1987 (aged 88) Rockville, Maryland |
| Other names | Alexander Gregory Barmine |
| Occupation | diplomat/spy, propagandist |
| Employer | Soviet GRU, US VOA, USIA |
| Known for | defection |
| Spouse(s) | Edith Kermit Roosevelt (m. 1948–52), Halyna |
| Children | Margot Roosevelt, Tatiana Barmine, Olga Barmine, Gregory Barmine, Boris Barmine |
| Relatives | Theodore Roosevelt (grandfather/inlaw) |
Alexander Gregory Barmine (Russian: Александр Григорьевич Бармин Aleksandr Grigoryevich Barmin; 16 August 1899 – 25 December 1987) was an officer in the Soviet Army who fled the purges of the Joseph Stalin era. After settling in France, he later moved to the United States where he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private during World War II as an anti-aircraft gunner, later joining the Office of Strategic Services. After the war, Barmine became an employee of the Voice of America during the Harry S. Truman administration. He later became a senior adviser on Soviet affairs at the United States Information Agency (USIA).
Barmine was born in 1899 in Mogilev, Mogilev Government, Russia (Russian Empire) (now Belarus). As a young man, he participated in the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution. Sent to a Red Army officer's academy, he served in several battles. By the age of 22, he had risen to the rank of brigadier general in the Red Army. After attending the Red Army's general staff school, he was eventually assigned to the Soviet Foreign Office and Commissariat of Trade. He married a widow with prominent connections in the Communist Party, Olga Federovna, and the two traveled to Soviet Turkestan to work in the party apparatus. There they both became ill with severe cases of malaria. Returning to Moscow, the couple had two twin boys, but his wife died in childbirth.
Barmine was later educated in Kiev and Moscow at the Frunze General Staff College and at the Oriental Languages Institute. As a member of the Soviet GRU, Barmine was assigned in 1935 to work abroad under diplomatic cover with the Soviet Foreign Office and Trade Ministry Commissariat under various diplomatic and trade representative titles. Late that same year, Barmine moved to Athens, Greece to take up an appointment as chargé d'affaires to the Soviet Embassy in Athens, Greece.
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