SECRET.

BEGINS.

TO: SIC Jeffrey Morton, Salt Lake City, Utah.

FROM: Clyde Tolson on behalf of J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

DATE: 17 January 1953.

RE: Request for information.

Jack ZELIG may be identical with Zelig JACQUES.

INS reports that the latter entered the United States from British Mandate Palestine on a student visa on 1 August 1939 to study at the New School for Social Research in New York City.  He registered for classes, but then disappeared.

SSA reports that a “Jack Zelig” was employed as an Assistant Manager of “The Golden Arm” lounge in Newport, Kentucky from January 1943 to March 1946.  Newport PD reports that the lounge is a popular bar and restaurant with excellent floor shows.  Kentucky SP report that the lounge is a front for large-scale gambling and prostitution, and that the Newport PD is “as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”

Kentucky SP further report their interest in a traffic incident that occurred near Newport in February 1946.  An automobile was discovered at the bottom of a steep bank, partially submerged in the Licking River.  Two men inside had died of injuries attending the accident.  Both men were “Italian gentlemen” from New Orleans.  A technician discovered black paint mixed in with the green paint on the left side of the wrecked car.

War Department reports that twenty-one men with some variant of that name served in the Army between 1940 and 1950.

Bureau examination of their service records found one Jack Zelig of particular interest.  Born: New York City, 1 August 1914.  Enlisted, March 1946, at St. Louis, Missouri.  After basic training, this Zelig was assigned to the Transportation Corps, where he trained as a truck-driver.  His commander discovered that he already spoke some Russian, so he was sent to the Army Language School, The Presidio, San Francisco.  Worked as a translator and radio observer in the listening post maintained at Fort Rousseau, Sitka, Alaska Territory.  He received a compassionate discharge upon the death of his father in March 1950.

Kentucky SP further report that the truck plate number belongs to a moving van based in Lexington, Kentucky.  Stolen sometime in late December 1952, but not reported until 2 January 1953 because it was replaced with a similar-appearing plate.  The replacement plate, in turn, was stolen off a garbage truck in Covington, Kentucky.  Replaced by a Handicapped Driver plate stolen off a Nash Metropolitan, but no one noticed.

No further information at this time.