The Kasenkina Case
() was a 1948 Cold War-era political scandal associated with the name of Oksana Kasenkina, a teacher of chemistry at the Soviet school in New York. Kasenkina disappeared and was believed by the American public to have been abducted by Soviet officials after wishing to seek asylum in the United States. The events were sensationalized by the media and became part of the Red Scare. In reality, the most likely explanation of events is that Kasenkina suffered from mental instability and expressed a genuine wish to return to the Soviet Union. The full scope of events only became clear 50 years later when the top-secret documents from the State Department and FBI were declassified and released to the public.
The events of the scandal took place in the context of McCarthyism and the Berlin Blockade, and received wide coverage in the mass media, and continues to receive attention today. Ellis M. Zacharias, a retired Rear Admiral and senior Intelligence Officer of the US Navy, wrote:
"Bigoted individuals should not be allowed dominant influence on the delicate conduct of our foreign relations – but soon it became evident that such persons had gained complete control of the case. By inspiring headlines and stimulating the news stories below them, they drove the State Department to a diplomatic action whose severity was out of proportion to the incident".
Kasenkina's disappearance
After WWII, profound economic and political differences led to a confrontation between the allies that had defeated Nazi Germany. In 1946 the United States, United Kingdom, and France unified their occupation zones in Germany. The Marshall Plan was introduced to support the economic recovery of Western Europe and stop the expansion of Communism. In retaliation, the Soviet Government began the Berlin Blockade (June 24, 1948 – May 12, 1949) by halting all surface traffic communications (road, railroad, and canal transport) to West Berlin, which was located 100 miles (160 km) inside Soviet-controlled Eastern Germany. Diplomatic negotiations on the terms of lifting the blockade were moving slowly. As tensions continued to mount, the Soviets began to reduce the number of experts they sent to the United States.
In June 1948, the Soviet school in New York was closed on orders from Moscow. All teachers and students were to return to the USSR by September. On July 31, when the steamer "Pobeda" was scheduled to sail, the former headmaster and math teacher Mikhail Samarin was reported missing along with his wife (an English teacher) and their 3 children. Also missing was the 52-year-old chemistry teacher Oksana Kasenkina. On August 9, Samarin arrived at an FBI office and requested asylum for himself and his family, which was granted.
For 50 years and political reasons, the US State Department held the documents of the Kasenkina case as classified and top-secret. The documents declassified in 1998 and were made available to the public at the State Archives of the United States (National Archives, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740) show that three days before her departure, at different times, two Russian-speaking men, chemist Dr. Alexander Korzhinsky and Leo Castello, independently started a conversation with Kasenkina on a park bench close to her place of residency. Korzhinsky invited her to his apartment for dinner; she refused to eat but complained that she did not want to return to the USSR. He advised her to seek help at the office of the anti-Soviet newspaper "The New Russian Word". On July 31, Vladimir Zenzinov, a journalist and former member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, took her to Reed farm in Valley Cottage belonging to the Tolstoy Foundation. The President of the Foundation, countess Alexandra Tolstaya, provided Kasenkina shelter and a job. The teacher worked in the kitchen and dining room serving farmworkers, many of whom previously served in the White Movement and the Russian Liberation Army and therefore distrusted the Soviet teacher.