Herbert Romerstein

Herbert "Herb" Romerstein (August 19, 1931 – May 7, 2013) was an American ex-communist and historian who became a writer specializing in anticommunism and was appointed Director of the U.S. Information Agency’s Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation and Active Measures.

As an author he is best known for his book The Venona Secrets (written with Eric Breindel).

Herbert Romerstein was born in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York into a Jewish family of Sam (1883 – 6 October 1946) and Rose (29 March 1909 – 27 March 1970) Romerstein.

Two years after his cheder, while still in high school in Brooklyn he joined the Communist Party USA.

Romerstein gained employment with C. Ludwig Baumann, "a retail furniture establishment."

In 1949, as the Truman administration continued its crackdown on communists, the party's denials that it had ever intended to overthrow the US "knocked the props from under all my teaching... Stop this shilly-shallying, I yelled at one of my party bosses."

During the Korean War, Romerstein left the party for accusing South Korea of attacking North Korea, and he fought in that war.

In September 1950, Romerstein had become a research analyst and investigator for American Business Consultants, publishers of the anticommunist newsletter Counterattack as well as for Bookmailer, which published his first book, Communism and Your Child, in 1962.

From 1965 to 1983, Romerstein served as a staff member for the US House of Representatives and worked as investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), as minority chief investigator for the House Committee on Internal Security, and on the staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

He moved to Clinton, Maryland, in the early 1970s.

In 1983, he joined the Reagan administration full-time as a director of the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the U.S. Information Agency.

He served in this capacity until President Reagan left office in 1989.

Thereafter, he became director of the Center for Security Research at the Education and Research Institute (ERI).

ERI's board members include Ralph Bennett, M. Stanton Evans, Patrick Korten, James C. Roberts, Allan H. Ryskind, and Terrence M. Scanlon.

Later, he worked at the Institute of World Politics as a specialist on espionage, Soviet political warfare, international terrorism, and internal security.

He conducted research in both U.S. and foreign archives, such as the Ukrainian archives in 1992 and the archives of the Communist International in Moscow, Russia, in 1993.

In 1992, Romerstein and Ray Kerrison reported in the New York Post that Oleg Kalugin had identified I. F. Stone as a Soviet agent, developed in The Venona Secrets, co-authored with Eric Breindel.

Romerstein defined counterpropaganda as "carefully prepared answers to false propaganda with the purpose of refuting the disinformation and undermining the propagandist."

Romerstein was married to Pat Romerstein.

Their children include Shari, David, Vicky, and Becky (Les) Rhoads.

Romerstein died on May 7, 2013, age 81.

He was buried on May 9, 2013, at the Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Adelphi, Maryland.

Surviving him were his wife, four children, a dozen grandchildren, brother Bill, and a niece and a nephew.

In January 2013, the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University acquired his collection of papers.

According to the archive, after being processed and registered the Romerstein papers will be Hoover's largest collection on communist subversion and the activities of communist front organizations, complementing its previous holdings of papers of the Subversive Activities Control Board and William T. Poole.

On April 12, 1951, Romerstein, at "19 1/2", testified before the Senate Sub-Committee on Internal Security regarding Communist infiltration into the American Communications Association and United Office and Professional Workers (now Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU).

The same year, he also testified before the Subversive Activities Control Board.