Charles Kramer (economist)

Charles Kramer, originally Charles Krevisky (born December 14, 1906, date of death unknown) was an American economist who worked for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his brain trust. Among other contributions, he wrote the original idea for the Point Four Program. He also worked for several congressional committees and hired Lyndon B. Johnson for his first Federal job. Kramer was accused of being a spy for the Soviet Union, but no charges were brought against him.

Kramer's family lost everything in the Depression as a result of his youngest brother's illness, and Kramer was forced to quit medical school and go to work. He was forced to take menial jobs such as farm labourer, sailor and stenographer.

Evidence of Kramer's membership in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and his contacts with known Soviet agents comes from several sources: the direct testimony of Whittaker Chambers,Elizabeth Bentley, Lee Pressman, and Nathaniel Weyl; the Venona decrypts; and the Moscow archives of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

Hope Hale Davis and her husband, Karl Hermann Brunck, were both members of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). They were invited to the home of Charles Kramer, for their first meeting. Also in attendance were Victor Perlo and Marion Bachrach. Kramer explained that the CPUSA was organized in units. "Charles... explained that... we would try to limit our knowledge of other members, in case of interrogation, possible torture. Such an idea, he admitted, might seem rather remote in the radical Washington climate, but climates could change fast. In most places members of units knew each other only by their Party pseudonyms, so as not to be able to give real names if questioned."

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