Morris Childs
An American-born Soviet Spy who Later Became a Double Agent Working for the United States
Morris Childs was born as Moishe Chilovsky in Kiev in 1902. He grew up in Chicago, changed his name to Morris Childs and took part in a growing left wing movement within the city. He became one of the charter members of the American Communist Party in 1919.
In 1929, he was selected by the Soviet Communist Party to attend the prestigious Lenin School in Moscow where he learned about the concepts of developing revolution and the fundamental principles of Communism. Among his schoolmates were future Soviet premiers Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev and Morris Ponomarov who would go on to serve as a member of the politburo and as the international head of the Communist Party.
Childs headed the Illinois district of the American Communist Party, a key position and ran for the United States Senate seat under the political wing of the Communist Party. He gathered only 1,000 votes. He served as the editor of the Daily Worker, the leading communist publication in the United States. He was considered to be one of the leading figures in the Communist movements in the United States. He was replaced as editor of the Daily Worker due to political machinations between rival components of the American Communist Party. He was weakened by the movement and crumbled under the stress and strain, suffering a debilitating heart attack in 1947. He felt abandoned when no one from the Communist Party offered aid or comfort. A deep resentment over his ouster from his prominent position within the American Communist Party combined with his feelings of abandonment during his medical crisis caused an overwhelming sense of betrayal to brew within him.
After numerous raids on American Communist Party leaders in the United States by the FBI, the Justice Department sought to destroy the party from within by seeking disillusioned members of the group. Because of his ill health and his loss of position, the FBI targeted Morris and his brother Jack as ideal candidates to work as informants. Morris was approached by FBI agent Carl Freyman who found that Morris was not only angry over his betrayal by the American Communist Party, but has also become disillusioned with the Communist mantra, especially in light of the egregious actions of Soviet dictator Stalin. Morris agreed to work with the FBI to gather information about the Communist Party. The U.S. Government provided medical treatment for Morris and he soon regained his health. He was assigned the title Agent CG5824S but was referred to internally as “58”. Because the hope was that Morris would travel alone into the Soviet Union in a quest for information, the involvement was deemed “Operation Solo”.
After two years of working his way back into the American Communist fold, Morris was summoned to a meeting where he was instructed to travel to Russia to arrange for financing of the American Communist Party by the Soviets. Travelled to the Soviet Union in April 1958 and met with his old friend Morris Ponomarov who deemed Childs the real United States ambassador. The two devised a plan by which to smuggle Soviet funds into the United States, using Morris’ brother Jack as a courier. Over 30 years, the Childs brothers would facilitate the transfer of more than $30 million, which was then disbursed by Morris throughout the United States to different American communist causes (with the FBI, of course, monitoring the activity. The FBI took an inventory of the money and traced its origins, determining that a significant amount of it flowed in from Cuba).
In 1959, Childs travelled back in to the Soviet Union to attend a meeting of all heads of state of communist nations. Serving as the U.S. delegate, he was elected recording secretary and thereby obtained privy to top secret documents. One night while filing away some of these documents in his safe, he slammed the door on his little finger, cutting the tip of it off. Fearful that under sedation he might reveal that he was working on behalf of the FBI, he refused an anaesthetic and had the doctors stitch him up. The next day, Premier Khrushchev acknowledged the incident, boasting that Morris was so committed that he refused the anaesthetic because he was so protective of the Soviet documents that he would endure the great pain rather than possibly betray the state secrets. Khrushchev called Childs to the podium before a crowded assembly and affectionately announced him to the “the last of the true Bolsheviks”. This solidified his role as a highly trusted member of Khrushchev’s inner circle and legitimised his position within the Kremlin. Because of the heights within which Childs had ascended within the Soviet power-base, Operation Solo was one of the most protected secrets within the Department of Justice. Only 12 people knew of Childs role and of the operation. In fact, not a single President of the United States knew about it until Gerald Ford was in office.
He married Eva Lieb in 1962 and revealed his role as an agent of the FBI. Eva participated in the clandestine activities as well as providing moral support to Morris who often found himself under overwhelming stress. Morris travelled back to Moscow in November 1963 and was visiting with Ponomarov when news arrived of the assassination of President John Kennedy. Childs, who understood Russian fluently (a fact that he kept from the Soviets) listened in to a conversation between Ponomarov and a KGB official. From this Childs learned that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the assassination. While in Moscow, Childs would bring home sensitive files which he and Eva would copy in the dark of night. Eva then smuggled these copies inside her blouse back to the United States.
Informed the FBI that Stanley Levison had been a financial advisor for the Communist Party of the United States in 1954. Although Levison dropped out of the party a few years later, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover became alarmed because Levison had become an advisor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960’s. Hoover, infatuated with King, sought to paint King as a communist working under the guidance of Levison. When the FBI informed King of Levison’s past, King refused to disassociate himself from his advisor. This resulted in Hoover bugging King’s home and hotel rooms. Hoover attempted to blackmail King with evidence of alleged adulterous affairs, an activity which caused horrific negative fallout upon the Bureau.
In January 1967, Childs made his 22nd trip to the Soviet Union on behalf of the FBI, he was confronted by Ponomarov with information obtained by a Soviet spy who had come across an FBI file which documented some of the information from Operation Solo, information that only Childs should have been privy to. Childs, in grave danger, bluffed his way out claiming that there must have been a leak in the Communist Party USA.
Childs, because of his position in the Communist Party also met with communist dignitaries around the world, including Chairman Mao Tse-tung of China. He learned that the Soviet Union and China were not friendly allies, despite their communist beliefs. He reported this divide, allowing the United States to develop a relationship with China during the Richard Nixon presidency.
In 1977, returning from his 57th trip to Moscow as an FBI informant, Morris and Eva were stunned when the plane they were on was ordered back to Moscow immediately. Sensing the worst, the couple prepared for the most dire consequences. Fortunately, the plane was called back only because Communist Party USA head Gus Hall had arrived in Moscow and wanted to meet with Childs. After their meeting, Childs and Eva safely returned to the United States. In 1980, fearful that the Church Commission’s investigation had put the Childs’ at too much risk, Morris and Eva were given new identities and Operation Solo was shut down. In 1988, Morris was quietly awarded the National Security Medal by FBI Director William Sessions.
Morris Childs died in 1991 and his wife Eva died four years later. He is only now being recognised officially for his contributions as perhaps the most important spy in the history of the United States as he served as the FBI’s eyes and ears in the Kremlin for almost forty years.
Morris “Two-Gun” Cohen
London-born Adventurer who Arranged
Counterintelligence for China
Born in London in 1889. Morris Cohen spent much of his early life which involved brushes with the law. He was sent to reform school and was sent to live with relatives in Canada after his release.
He took in various jobs but exhibited an immense talent as a gambler. After accumulating vast earnings from his talents, he was able to get associated with members of high society. One such affair was his introduction to Chinese revolutionary Sun Yet-sen. Yet-sen was leading a revolt against the Manchu dynasty, trying to supplant it with a unified China, complete with western-based democracy. Yet-sen had brokered deals which provided him with sufficient funds to lead the revolution but was having trouble securing arms for fighting.
Cohen suggested that he could fully arm the revolutionaries and was engaged to do so. His success in doing so prompted Yet-sen to bring Cohen in as a trusted advisor after the revolution’s success in 1912. Cohen accepted the invitation and after the end of World War I, travelled to China and was named the Head of Intelligence for Yet-sen in 1922.
Established an elaborate counter-espionage system, reporting to Yet-sen events and activities within China as well as Japan. Employed two spies, Isaac Lincoln and Lionel Philip Kenneth Crabb, both of whom were known for the adventurous exploits.
Often engaged in hand to hand combat in beating down insurrection movements against Yet-sen. At all times, he wore a gun in his shoulder holster and one in a hip holster (thus earning the nickname "Two-Gun") and often led the charge into enemy lines. He devised methods of intelligence gathering, establishing sophisticated networks involving common farmers in various provinces of China as well as foreign diplomats and businessmen. He employed various levels of interrogation to extract information from captured enemies, including torture and execution.
After Yet-sun’s death in 1925, Cohen assumed the same role with Chiang Kai-shek, Yet-sen’s successor. He worked vigorously to gather information about the Chinese Communist Party which was gaining a foothold in China. Likewise, obtained information from people close to Japanese military intelligence. He learnt that Japanese military intelligence officer Major Ryukichi Tanaka and his mistress Eastern Jewel planned to create a violent disturbance in Shanghai in order to provide Japan with an excuse to attack and invade the city. He warned Kai-shek, but was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Hong Kong.
He was released by the Japanese after the end of World War II. Upon his return, found that he had been replaced. He had lost his position and left China. He eventually returned to Canada where he died in 1970.
Judith Coplon
American-born Soviet Agent who Passed Information about American Counterintelligence
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1922. Judith Coplon was the daughter of a prominent manufacturer.
She graduated Cum Laude from Barnhard College in 1943, having focused on Russian History and Culture and was employed by the United States Department of Justice, first in New York and later in Washington D.C. after being promoted to the foreign agents registration division. She had access to FBI documents with lists of foreign diplomats and suspected foreign spies. She was highly praised for her analysis on Soviet political and cultural issues. She got promotions at regular intervals.
She started supplying information to the Soviets sometime between 1945 and 1947 and was assigned a special Soviet contact, an Intelligence Officer named Valentin Gubitchev. Gubitchev was a former member of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations. At the time he started meeting Coplon, he was an employee for the United Nations.
In 1948, an unidentified informant passed information along to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover, reporting that a woman, formerly employed in the New York branch but then working at the Washington offices of the Department of Justices was passing secrets that were making their way to the Russian Embassy in New York.
She often travelled to New York City on the weekends, often asked to leave from work early on Fridays. She took classified documents home with her and retyped them and gave the retyped documents to Gubitchev when she visited him in New York.
She requested a special document containing a list of suspected Soviet spies. Director Hoover personally delivered a fake version of the document to Coplon’s supervisor, who immediately provided it to her. Coplon, upon receiving the document requested the rest of the day off and then travelled to New York for the weekend (followed by FBI agents – January 14, 1949).
She was trailed by FBI agents around Manhattan until she finally met with Gubitchen in a restaurant. After exchanging documents, the couple left and boarded a subway train. As the doors to the train were closing, Gubitchev bolted from the train and evaded the trailing FBI agents.
Having been observed passing documents, Coplon was transferred to another division of the Department of Justice, in order to keep her away from sensitive documents. Coplon continued to seek access to such documents, volunteering to aid her replacement in getting up to speed.
She requested additional classified information that her supervisor had recently obtained (fake information received from Hoover). Her supervisor left the information in Coplon’s view and left the room. Coplon left the room and caught a train to New York (March 6, 1949).
After meeting Gubitchev, Coplon and her Soviet handler were confronted by FBI agents. After trying to flee, both were apprehended and arrested. Coplon had numerous top-secret documents on her person, including the one provided by Hoover. Coplon was charged with treason and espionage and Gubitchev was charged with espionage.
Coplon faced two trials, one in Washington and one in New York. She was convicted in both. Gubitchev was convicted and deported. Coplon convictions were overturned, as an Appeals Court ruled that the FBI had illegally recorded conversations between Coplon and her attorney and further that the FBI had arrested her without an arrest warrant.
She married one of her attorneys and moved to New York where she settled down as a housewife.
Lionel Crabb
British Royal Navy Diver Assigned to Missions against the Soviet Union
Lionel Crabb was born January 28, 1909 in Streatham, London.
Crabb and his mother Beatrice and father Hugh lived in poverty. Nicknamed “Buster”, Crabb served as a merchant seaman as World War II began and was commissioned into the Royal Navy Patrol Service in 1941 after first serving as an army gunner. Because of an eye injury he was unable to travel to sea and volunteered for the dangerous task of mine and bomb disposal. He was assigned to Gibraltar in 1942 and aided other Navy divers in protecting British ships against Italian saboteurs. Italian frogmen ambitiously sought to install limpet mines to the hulls of British ships.
Initially, Crabb was assigned to disarm bomb removed from ships, but he eventually asked to be trained as a diver. He was a quick learner and received numerous commendations, including a George Medal. He was eventually promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He became the Principal Diving Officer for Northern Italy in 1943. A few years later, he was stationed to Palestine and in 1948 he left the Royal Navy.
For a few years Crabb was in the private sector working for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. He also worked with searching through sunken Spanish galleons.
In 1952, Crabb returned to active duty and was assigned to frogman duties in various ports. He searched and investigated sunken Royal Navy submarines. He married Margaret Player and continued on as a frogman, and in 1955 worked with another frogman, Sydney Knowles, investigated the hull of a Soviet ship, the Sverdlov.
Crabb was recruited by MI6 and on April 19, 1956, he was assigned to perform surveillance on a Soviet cruiser. The cruiser, the Ordzhonikidze, had carried Soviet premier Nikolai Bulganin and future premier Nikita Khrushchev into Portsmouth Harbour in England on a diplomatic mission. Crabb was inspecting the hull of the ship but did not check in with his MI6 contact. He was never seen again.
On June 9, 1957, a body was found in a frogman outfit off the coast of Pilsey Island. The body was missing its head and both hands and thus made identification impossible. Neither Margaret Player (the two has divorced years earlier) nor his girlfriend, Pat Rose, could identify him. A subsequent examination by a coroner announced that it was most likely Crabb’s.
Speculation swirled around Crabb’s disappearance. Rumours abounded that he was captured by the Soviets, that he was a double agent and defected to the Soviet union and even that he was shot by the British services. However, in 1990, Joseph Zwerkin, a former Soviet Intelligence agent explained that Soviet security saw Crabb as he was inspecting the Ordzhonikidze and a sniper shot him in the water. The fallout from the disappearance was immense. Crabb was operating under the guidance of MI6 which is governed to operate outside of Britain while MI5 operates within the country. Although MI6 attempted to cover-up the operation, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden forced the resignation of John Alexander Sinclair, the Director-General of MI6.
British government documents related to the Crabb case will not be released until 2057.
Velvalee Dickinson
American Businesswoman who Passed U.S. Naval Secrets to the Japanese
Born in 1893 in Sacramento, California, Velvalee Dickinson was the daughter of wealthy southern parents. She attended high school in Sacramento and then attended Stanford University, graduating in 1917.
She worked as an accountant for a brokerage house run by Lee Dickinson. Velvalee married Lee and both worked servicing Japanese-American truck drivers and farmers. Because of a significant growth in the produce business in the area, Lee Dickinson opened a branch office of his company in 1932. The Dickinsons became acquainted with numerous Japanese diplomatic and military officials and became active in a number of Japanese-American organisations.
The brokerage house failed due to the economic climate of the great depression and the couple was forced to move to New York in 1935. Velvalee took a job selling dolls in Bloomingdale, dolls having been a hobby of hers as a child. In 1938, she opened her own doll shop on Madison Avenue and met with enormous success. Her clientele included famous socialites and movies stars and Velvalee became known as an expert on dolls and their clothing and accessories. In addition to her doll shop, she established a large mail-order business as well.
She re-established ties with the Japanese-American community. She was particularly friendly with the Japanese consul general in New York, Kaname Wakasugi, and Tchira Yokoyoma, the Japanese naval attache for the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. Velvalee joined several Japanese organisations, often attending functions in Japanese attire. She was approached about spying on behalf of Japan and agreed to do so. After the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, she lost contact with many of her Japanese associates, who were either under surveillance by the U.S. Government or were expelled to Japan.
She travelled with her husband back and forth between the east and west coast of the United States, assessing the strength of various naval stations and vessels within. They were funded by Japanese intelligence and used the cover of looking browsing the west coast for dolls and other antiques to sell.
Used a delivery system for passing coded messages. These letters were sent to Senora Inez Lopez deMalinali, in Buenos Aires, Argentina and were sent, obstensively from various women in the New York area. Each letter contained fairly innocuous information, often mentioning dolls. The dolls were a code name for a specific warship and the attire or accessories were used to indicate its origin (for instance, a doll in a hula skirt would refer to a warship from Hawaii had arrived in California). The contact in Buenos Aires had her cover blown and fled but Japanese intelligence failed to inform Dickinson of this. When the letters were returned to the United States as undeliverable, several of the women who allegedly sent them contacted postal authorities. The FBI became involved and determined that the alleged “senders” were all clients of Dickinson’s doll shop. The FBI allowed her to continue on, hoping to use her to track others in the spy chain.
Lee Dickinson died of a heart attack in March 1943. Authorities finally descended upon her in January 1944 and arrested her at her doll shop, finding a large amount of money in her safety deposit box that could be traced to a Japanese bank in New York. She was indicted on espionage charges and for violating censorship laws. She was convicted for censorship violations and sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine and sent to a correctional facility in Alderson, West Virginia. She was paroled in 1951 and disappeared in February 1954.
Nelson Drummond
U.S. Naval Clerk Coerced into Turning over Secret Documents to the Soviets
Nelson Drummond served as a yeoman first class at the U.S. Naval Headquarters in London, England in the mid-1950’s. He worked as a clerk and had access to top secret documents and received NATO and “Cosmic” clearance.
He was a heavy drinker and often found himself in financial difficulties due to heavy gambling debts. He was approached one evening in a tavern by a KGB agent who offered to buy him a drink. Drummond accepted and the agent continued buying drinks all night. The agent later asked the drunken Drummond if he would obtain a Naval identification card for the agent, for use at the Naval Exchange store. Drummond agreed and accepted $250 for his efforts, signing a receipt slip for having received the cash.
He was immediately blackmailed, with the KGB threatening to show the receipt to Naval authorities if he refused to cooperate in turning over documents to them. Drummond did as they demanded, supplying the Russians with sensitive documents in return for payments of cash.
He was transferred to the United States in 1958, but continued supplying to the Soviets from his numerous ports of travel (at various times he was stationed in Norfolk , Virginia, Boston, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island). Many of these documents included training and operating manuals, a large number of which he stole from the Newport Naval Base (the information he passed concerned naval weapons systems and antisubmarine electronics, he turned these documents over to Russian diplomats working out of the United Nations.
He continued his espionage activities until 1964, when the FBI was alerted to his actions. Drummond made a full confession, estimating that he had received upwards of $20,000 over the period of time. His activities cost the United States more than $200 million, the cost of replacing and revising the documents, manuals and plans he had turned over to the KGB,
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the first Black American ever convicted of espionage.
Paul Dukes
M16 Officer Assigned to Spy on Russia Utilising Assorted Disguises
Born in London, England in 1889, the son of a clergyman, Paul Dukes was educated in Surrey and graduated from Charterhouse in 1909. He continued his education at St. Petersburg, Russia, where he studied music at the prestigious observatory and later worked as the assistant to the conductor of the Imperial Marinsky Opera. He took a job in 1916 with the Anglo-Russian Commission, reporting on the Russian press. The Anglo-Russian Commission coordinated the war efforts of the two countries during World War I.
He began working for the British government as a spy in 1918 and met with MI6 head Mansfield Cummings. He was given a brief training in espionage but was hurriedly sent to Russia where he monitored the turbulent activities surrounding the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Bolshevik party. He employed a number of disguises and covers as he worked from deep within, assessing the strength of the fragile, new Bolshevik government. He recommended the British government support the White Russians, a group opposing the Bolshevik regimes and working towards its overthrow. Dukes went so far as to row in a small boat into the Baltic Sea where he met with British patrol ships.
He was made a spymaster within Russia, working with the National Center, an organisation representing the White Russians. Dukes helped to finance this group and its soldiers with money received from Britain (although much of the money he received from England was counterfeit).
Feliks Dzerzhinsky
Head of the Bolshevik Secret Police, the CHEKA
Born in Vilna, Lithuania in 1877, Feliks Dzerzhinsky wanted to become a priest at an early age, but became involved in politics as a teenager and helped to lead protests against the czarist regime in Russia at the time. He was arrested several times from 1897 to 1900 and twice escape from the Siberian prison to which he was confined.
He continued to work as a political agitator in Berlin, Germany and in Poland. He was again arrested and imprisoned. Twice more he was imprisoned for the same charge and in 1917 was released from prison by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.
He was a trusted ally of Vladimir Lenin and was placed in charge of security for senior party members. He was later appointed by Lenin to serve as the head of Cheka, the Russian Secret Police (and precursor to the KGB). Cheka consisted of less than 25 employees when it was established but boasted more than 37,000 just two years later.
Cheka was designed as three divisions. The First Directorate was concerned with detecting and putting down subversive activities within the Soviet Union, the Second Directorate with subversive was active outside the Soviet borders and the Third Directorate looking for the same within the Soviet military system.
Designed and developed a ruthless, merciless, brutal system of eliminating political dissidents. Employed imprisonment, torture and murder without hesitation, both to set an example and as a precautionary measure. Sanctioned assassinations abroad as well as planted the seeds of intelligence networks throughout Europe and within the United States.
He setup the first Soviet concentration camps in Solovetsky Island in 1922 and also served as the first Director of Transportation for the Soviet Union, overseeing the reorganisation of the Russian Railway system.
In 1924, he was named Director of the Soviet Economics Council. He died on July 20, 1926, reportedly by natural causes, although speculation exists that he suffered a fatal stroke while engaged in an argument with Josef Stalin.
Klaus Fuchs
German-born British Theoretical Physicist and Atomic Spy
The son of Lutheran pastor, Klaus Fuchs was born in 1911 in Russelheim, Germany. He rose to power very fast and stayed at the peak for a long time.
Fuchs was raised in a very religiously strict home, with fervent anti-Nazi overtones. He got his education at the University of Leipzig. He was an organiser of the German Socialist Party. He joined the Communist Party as a student at the University of Kiel but fled to England when Adolph Hitler attained power in September 1933. He obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 1936 and followed that up with a Sc.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
He attempted to become a British citizen in 1939, but England entered World War II against Germany and Fuchs was arrested as a suspected German agent (which he was not). He was sent to an internment camp in Canada. He became extremely angry and resentful of his treatment by the British and was likely contacted by Soviet agents during this time. He was released from the internment camp based in part on his noted anti-Nazi statements. Based on his background and capabilities in physics, was recruited back to England to work on the joint effort between England and the United States to create the atomic bomb. After obtaining security clearance, worked with Professor Rudolf Peierlson an endeavour called the Tube Alloys Project. While working on this atomic research, he also became a British citizen.
Although working on the atomic bomb research project for Britain, developed a moral dilemma in that he felt the Soviet Union should have access to the same research, being an ally with Britain and the United States. He developed a contact with the Soviet Embassy in London and agreed to pass on information. He started his mission by delivering copies of monthly reports to his contact, Semion Kremer.
He was sent by Britain to the United States to work further on the atomic research project in late 1943 at Columbia University. He met a new Soviet contact in the United States named Harry Gold (known to Fuchs as Raymond). He delivered research notes to Gold each month, while in New York and later after being transferred to the Los Alamos laboratories in New Mexico where actual development of the bomb took place. Stepped up the meetings with Gold, delivering information each week to him.
He delivered technical schematics of the atomic bomb as well as reports on test blasts. He delivered information about an experimental plutonium bomb. He ended his meetings with Gold after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After returning to England in 1946, Fuchs served as the head of the theoretical physics division of the Atomic Energy Establishment in Harwell. England was in the process of developing its own atomic weapon and wanted Fuchs contributing to the effort. He continued to supply the Soviet embassy with documents and information, keeping them abreast of British innovations, despite the fact that World War II had ended.
He was assigned a new contact in Britain, code-named “Sonia”. Sonia was in fact Ruth Kuczynski, a very successful Soviet spy throughout Europe. Sonia proved to be a difficult taskmaster, more and more demanding of Fuchs for information. Fuchs became disenchanted with Soviet requests, believing that their use of the information was nowhere near as noble as he had envisioned. Eventually, severed contact with Sonia any Soviet agents.
In 1949, the FBI uncovered information detailing the actions of a scientist working on the Los Alamos project, active in disseminating classified information to foreign agents. The scientist, code-named “CHARL’Z” was determined to be Fuchs, the FBI informed British Intelligence liaison Kim Philby (himself a member of the notorious Cambridge spy ring). Philby, afraid of exposing his own espionage activities, passed the information along to British authorities, but lacking hard evidence, Britain was unable to arrest Fuchs.
Ignorant of the investigation centered on him, Fuchs approached a Harwell security officer to inquire as to concerns regarding his father’s recent appointment at the University of Leipzig in Soviet-controlled East Germany. MI5 sent William Skardon, one of their top interrogators to interview him. Under friendly questioning, Fuchs broke down and confessed on January 27, 1950. In his confession, Fuchs implicated several spies, including Harry Gold. Exposing Gold in turn exposed David Greenglass, which in turn, exposed Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel.
Later on Fuchs was tried for violating the Official Secrets Act. He explained his actions by claiming a “controlled schizophrenia” which allowed him to value the Marxist philosophy and passing secrets to the Soviets while at the same time holding a loyalty to England. The court was unimpressed and sentenced Fuchs to 14 years in prison.
He was sent to the Wormwood Scrubs prison where he served as the prison librarianm, but was released in 1959 after serving as a model prisoner. Moved to East Germany and headed the Central Institute for Nuclear Physics in Dresden.
Fuchs married Greta Keilson and lived in relative anonymity until his death, by natural causes, in 1988.
Igor Gouzenko
Soviet Cipher Clerk who Defected to Canada, Turning over Soviet Secrets
Born outside of Moscow in 1919, Igor Gouzenko, the son of a Czarist sympathiser and school teacher, was educated at Rostov-on-Don and Verkne Spasskoye.
He attended the Moscow Engineering Academy and the Moscow Architectural Institute and joined the Komsomol (the Communist Youth Movement) in 1937. He was recruited by the NKVD in 1939 and served as code and cipher clerk, then as an intelligence officer on the front lines during World War II battles against the German Army in 1941.
He was sent to Ottawa, Canada in 1943, working in the Russian Embassy as a cipher clerk but also spying on Canadian authorities and sending secret information about them back to Moscow.
He was exposed to a free society for the first time and grew to like the Canadian lifestyle. He also grew disenchanted with the Soviet system and when he was unexpectedly recalled to Moscow in 1944, decided to defect. On September 5, 1945 left the Soviet embassy with a briefcase stuffed full of secret documents. These documents exposed the existence of and size and scope of a Soviet spy ring operating within the Canadian borders. He went to a Canadian newspaper in an attempt to turn this information over but was laughed out of the offices and considered a crank. Likewise, attempted to turn his information over to the Canadian governmental authorities, but they also refused to believe his story and returned to the newspaper once again.
Terrified that his theft had been exposed, he and his family hid in their apartment that night, ignoring several loud knocks on the door. He contacted his neighbour, a Canadian Air Force officer and explained his story to him. The officer helped him to hide his family and contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A few days later, four men crashed through the door of Gouzenko’s apartment and ransacked it. The men were detained by the police who identified them as employees of the Soviet Embassy. When an inspector on the scene turned his head, the four men fled.
On September 8, 1945, the Soviet Embassy complained about their employees being detained and questioned, citing their diplomatic immunity. Embassy officials demanded that Gouzenko, whom they described as a criminal, be arrested and turned over to them. They claimed that he had stolen funds from the Embassy and wanted to return him to Moscow for prosecution.
Gouzenko was in the custody of the Royal Mounted Canadian Police and had provided them with a number of documents, the quality of which were compelling enough for them to realise that he was genuine about his desire to defect. The papers described a world-wide spy operation, set into place by the Soviet Union and operating throughout the world. Under protective custody, Gouzenko continued to expound upon his claims. He exposed numerous Soviet agents (listed on index cards from the Embassy) and provided them with notes from the casebook of Soviet spymaster Colonel Nicolai Zabotin. Canadian officials quickly thereafter shared these revelations with the U.S. and British governments.
Because he was exposed by Gouzenko, Colonel Zabotin was recalled to Moscow and was sentenced to four years of hard labour for allowing a disgruntled employee to compromise the entire Soviet spy apparatus. He appeared several times on Canadian television wearing a hood over his head in order to conceal his identity. Gouzenko penned his autobiography titled “This was My Choice” in 1948.
Gouzenko died in 1982.
Christine Granville
Polish-born British SOE Known for her Daring Exploits in Intelligence and Sabotage Missions
Krystyna Skarbek was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1915. She was the daughter of Count Jerzy Skarbek, a Polish aristocrat and the granddaughter of a wealthy Jewish banker in the Goldfeder family. She was educated in a convent in Warsaw and at the age of 17 was crowned Miss Poland after winning a beauty contest.
She was married briefly but divorced her husband soon thereafter. She remarried, this time to Georg Gizycki, a writer who was twice her age. After they were married, they were living in Africa, where he was working on a book, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939. The couple immediately travelled to Britain and she volunteered to work with British intelligence services (her husband joined the Free Polish Services and was later killed in combat).
Krystyna was brought into the Special Operations Executive branch of British intelligence, recruited because of her intellect and her fluency in several languages. She was given the name Christine Granville by SOE and used it for the rest of her life. She was to work with resistance group in fighting the Nazi invasion and received special training in espionage.
She was assigned to Budapest where she worked under the cover of a journalist. Her real purpose was to aid Polish refugees to escape across the border. An excellent skier, she skied several times across the Tatra Mountains into Poland to retrieve escaped Polish prisoners of war and bring them out of the country. She would go on to establish several escape routes, bringing Polish refugees back into England.
She was sent to parachute training in Cairo, Egypt and would use this training for numerous jumps into
Nazi-occupied France. She was also assigned to gather information on German troop readiness in Poland as well as information on German armaments, including a new anti-tank gun. She travelled several times between England and Poland delivering this information. On her trip into Poland, she was stopped by German soldiers. She reportedly pulled the pins out of two live grenades and told the soldiers that if they attempted to take her into custody, she would drop the grenades, killing all of them. The soldiers allowed her to retreat to safety.
She was stopped on another trip at the border but dumped incriminating evidence into a river beforehand. Unfortunately, she was still in possession of a large sum of money which she could not explain. Brazenly, she told the guards to either take the money and let her and her comrades go or to turn everything over to their superiors (who would keep the money). The guards kept the money and let them escape. On another occasion, when stopped by border guards, she convinced them that she and her companions were simple farm peasants on their way to have a picnic. On yet another occasion where she and her companions were arrested by Hungarian police, she bluffed her way out of trouble, convincing them that she was related to Admiral Horthy, Regent of Hungary. She was soon thereafter released and made her way back to England with photos showing German troop buildup.
She was parachuted into southern France in 1944 and was used as a courier, using the name Pauline (and sometimes Jacqueline) Armand, delivering messages and materials that could not be transmitted via radio or telegraph to Cairo.
Granville was often used to spread propaganda, insisting that England would not abandon Poland in its fight against Nazi Germany and convincing Italian troops to desert their German allies. She worked for a period of time under Colonel Francois Cammaerts, head of the 10,000 troop maquis in Rhone Valley. When he and two allies were captured in Digne and imprisoned as spies, Granville reportedly met with the Nazi commandant and convinced him that if he did not release the three men immediately, he would be shot by the approaching Allied forces (A more likely scenario is that she claimed to be the niece of British General Montgomery, and threatened two local Digne liaisons. They demanded that she write out a statement clearing them of collaborating with the Nazi and also demanding monetary payment, both of which were accommodated).
As soon as the war ended, Granville was released from her intelligence duties and was forced to find any work she could. She worked for a time as switchboard operator at the India Hotel in London, then as a saleswoman at Harrod’s department store and later an attendant at the Paddington hotel.
In 1951, she took a job as a stewardess on the ocean liner, Winchester Castle which sailed between England, Australia and South Africa. Her superior on the liner was a steward named Dennis Muldowney. Muldowney who suffered from schizophrenia became obsessed with Granville and declared his love for her. After she rebuffed his advance several times, Granville quit her job and moved to London. Muldowney followed her there, quitting his job and taking a position with the Reform Club in Winchester. Again professing his love for her, Muldowney was told by Granville in no uncertain terms that she wanted him to leave her alone. After this final rejection, Muldowney, began stalking her. On June 15, 1952, Muldowney spotted her walking down the stairs in her hotel and rushing to her, stabbed her to death. Muldowney was sentenced to death for the murder and was hanged in September 1952 at Pentonville Prison.
Granville was buried with the French Croix de Guerre, a medal from Poland, the George Medal for Special Services, the Order of the British Empire and the badge of the French Resistance.
Theodore Alvin Hall
American Physicist and an Atomic Spy for the Soviet Union
Born in 1926, Theodore Alvin Hall, the son of a furrier, grew into a tall, handsome youngman with a pleasing personality.
A Graduate of Harvard University he was a star physicist. He served in the United States Army during World War II but had leftist beliefs early on, feeling that the Soviet philosophy was more ideologically align with his views. He met Saville “Savy” Sax while attending Harvard, the two sharing common
socio-political beliefs.
He was assigned to work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, helping to develop the atomic bomb. He believed that the United States unilateral control over Atomic bomb weaponry gave the country too much power that could lead to possible disaster if there was no other country with the proper tools to serve as a counter-balance. He decided to help to even the balance of power by providing information to the Soviet Union in order to aid them in their own Atomic research. Along with Sax, he made contact with Soviet officials to initiate an information transfer.
Sax made contact with Nicola Napoli, the president of Soviet cultural propaganda organisation in New York City called Artkino. Sax told Napoli that he had a friend who was privy to top secret atomic research information and wanted to share it with the Soviet Union. Hall, at the same time visited the Amtorg, an import/export company that served as a cover for the base of operations for a network of Soviet spies. There he spoke with a warehouse worker who directed him to meet with Sergei Kurnakov, a Soviet journalist based in New York. Napoli had also suggested that Sax meet with Kurnakov.
Hall was scheduled to return to Los Alamos a few days later, so Kurnakov was pressed to make a determination whether Sax and Hall were legitimate in their offer or were undercover agents for the FBI. The decision was made that two potential for gaining valuable information far exceeded the accompanying risks.
Moscow received a cable on November 12, 1944, detailing the offer by the young spies. Hall was given the code name “Mlas” which meant young and Sax, a year older than Hall was referred to as “Star” meaning old. Hall obtained and Sax delivered numerous documents and design pals for atomic weapons research including information about implosion experiments to the Soviets.
The United States learned of Hall’s espionage activity when it deciphered intercept Soviet cable messages. These messages, known as the Venona documents provided clear evidence of Hall and Sax. However, the United States, unwilling to alert the Soviets to the fact that they had broken the Soviets code, confronted Hall but did not pursue legal action against him. Hall went on to become a noted biophysicist at Cambridge University, working with biological X-ray research.
In 1996, the Venona documents were made public by the NSA. Hall, in ill health with cancer and Parkinson’s disease, acknowledged that he may have been wrong about the Soviet government, but refused to apologise for his actions. Hall died in 1999.
Robert Hanssen
American FBI Agent who Passed Information to Soviet
Intelligence
Robert Hanseen was born on April 18, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois.
He was the son of a Chicago police officer and a housewife, Howard Hansen who was part of a special division called the Red Unit, created to ferret out communist sympathisers during the Red Scare.
Robert Hanssen attended Knox College in Galeswood, Illinois, majoring in Chemistry while also taking Russian as a foreign language. After being rejected for a position as a cryptographer with the NSA, enrolled in the Dental School of Northwestern University in 1966. At Northwestern, Hanssen became known for his penchant for wearing Black suits to class every day. In 1968, halfway through the Dental program, Hanssen grew tired of it and decided he would rather become a psychiatrist. After growing tired of this pursuit, he returned to Northwestern and earned an MBA in accounting and information systems.
He met Bonnie Wauck, a student nurse at a state mental facility in Chicago in 1965. The two married on August 10, 1968. Wauck was the daughter of a University professor and a practicing Catholic, and member of the Opus Dei organisation. Four years later, Robert enrolled in the Chicago Police Department and was soon assigned to a special training class for a new division of the department that focused on police corruption.
He was distrusted by many within the division, including his boss, John Clarke. He was considered a devoted family man in his community, spending time with his children, teaching them to excel at academics. He also became an enthusiastic member of Opus Dei, which was deemed a cult by many. The organisation instructed its members to attend Catholic church services every day and confession once each week. He applied twice to the FBI and was accepted the second time in January 1976, and was assigned to the Bureau’s Gary, Indiana office but was transferred two years later to New York City. Living with his wife and four children in Scarsdale, New York, Hanssen was having a tough time making ends meet and decided to exploit his position with the FBI.
Disenchanted by the lackadaisical attitude of fellow FBI agents, Hanssen approached Russian agents and offered to sell secret documents. He was rewarded famously for his efforts but was caught by his wife while counting $20,000 and writing a letter to the Soviets in his basement. Thinking he was writing a love letter to a girlfriend, she demanded to know what was going on. He admitted to her where he had gotten the money but claimed that he had only given the Soviets useless information. Instead, he had actually provided the Soviets with very valuable information, including the identity of Dmitri Polyakov, a
top-level Soviet double agent. In place of turning him to the authorities, she convinced him to confess his actions to an Opus Dei priest. The priest instructed him to give up his activities and to donate the money, he received, to Mother Teresa’s charities.
He was considered a highly intelligent agent, but his tepid interpersonal skill as well as his continued preference for black suits caused many to tag him with the nickname “the Mortician”. Unfortunately, the perception that he was an aloof, introverted worker hindered his upward mobility within the Bureau. He was transferred to the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC where he was initially assigned to develop a budget for the Bureau that was to be presented to the Congress. He was moved to the Soviet Analytical Unit in 1983 and given a high security clearance. After a four year stint, he was called back to New York.
He decided to re-establish his link to the Soviets. Knowing that the FBI was not conducting surveillance on Victor Degtyar, a KGB Colonel living in Alexandria, Virginia, Hanssen sent a letter to Degtyar, with instructions to pass another letter on to Victor Cherkashin, the head of Soviet espionage efforts in Washington. In this letter, Hanssen offered to turn over classified and highly sensitive information to the Soviets in return for $100,000. He also provided the name of three Russian agents who were working for the United States. Two of the agents were executed and one was imprisoned.
He dropped off some documents at a dead drop and was rewarded with a payment of $50,000. For the next six years, Hanssen continued to deliver classified information to his Soviet contacts, many involving nuclear weaponry and satellite information. One of his secrets passed included the inner workings of the COINS-II (Community On-Line Intelligence System). He provided Soviets with extraordinary logistical information, including information related to U.S. readiness in the event of a nuclear war. Over this period of time, he collected more than $ 600,000 for his services as well as the acknowledgement of his importance. His information was directed to the Soviet heads in Moscow and he received official letters of praise of the director of the KGB. He was also promised that $100,000 had been deposited for him in an interest bearing account in a Soviet bank. Hanssen never told the Russian agents his real name, although he did, on occasion, use the alias Ramon Garcia.
In 1990, Mark Wauck, Bonnie’s brother and also an FBI agent, learned that Bob had stashed away thousands of dollars in cash and spent money more freely than he had previously been doing. Mark suspected that Bob might be engaged in spying and reported his suspicions to FBI officials in Chicago. These warnings, however, went unheeded and were ignored.
While betraying his country as a spy, Hanssen seemed to become even more committed in his devotion to the Opus Dei organisation, attending meetings and rallys fervently and sending his children to Opus Dei schools. He often seemed obsessed with religious and moral issues such as abortion. Despite these high principles, he engaged in lurid activities. He interacted online with pornographic internet websites and chat rooms. He was reported to have filmed himself having sex with his wife and watched the tape with a friend. Most bizarre, however, was a relationship he developed with a stripper named Priscilla Galey.
Hanssen gave her money and jewellery and even provided for extensive dental work for her. He also took her on trips abroad and purchased a Mercedes-Benz for her. Surprisingly, however, despite lavishing her with such expensive gifts, Hanssen never pursued a sexual relationship with her. He seemed more intent on changing her life and leading her to religion. The relationship ended when she became involved in drugs. He was accused of making advances towards women in the FBI office and was suspended once for pushing an administrative assistant to the ground and was disciplined for his actions.
In 1991, following the fall of the Soviet Union, Hanssen felt that the instability of the nation (and its intelligence community and operatives) made it too dangerous to continue in his espionage activities. For the next eight years, he continued on at the FBI, but when former KGB official Vladimir Putin rose to power in 1999, Hanssen felt it was time to get back into the game and he re-established contact with the Russians.
In September 2000, a Russian agent cooperating with the FBI provided files he had received and included the plastic bags in which they were delivered. Robert Hanssen’s fingerprints were found on these bags. The FBI quietly began surveillance on him and videotaped him taking documents marked SECRET from the FBI office. The Bureau went so far as to bug his home, office and car and purchased a house across the street from where they increased their surveillance.
He was observed making numerous trips to Foxstone Park where Hanssen checked for a signal that the Russians were ready to trade information for money.
On February 18, 2001, Hanssen went to church and then dropped off his friend Jack Hoschuer at Dulles Airport in Virginia. He traveled to Foxstone Park, near his Vienna, Virginia home, got out of his car and walked over to a footbridge, under which he left of package. The package contained the documents he had taken from his office and a computer diskette upon which was a goodbye letter to his Russian “friends”.
The letter stated:
Dear Friends,
I thank you for your assistance these many years. It seems, however, that my greatest utility to you has come to an end, and it is time to seclude myself from active service... Life is full of its ups and downs... I will be in contact next year, same time same place.
As he made the “dead drop”, 10 FBI agents converged upon him, placing him under arrest. Hanssen was said to have exclaimed “What took you so long?” Bonnie Hanssen was taken into custody and interrogated but claimed she didn’t believe her husband was a spy.
The Justice Department wanted to pursue the death penalty for the man they called the most damaging FBI turncoat in history.
Instead, in June 2001, Hanssen was able to cut a deal, receiving life in prison without the possibility of parole in return for providing full details of his actions. He claimed that he spied against his country in order to provide for his family and because of his resentment for being passed over for job promotions. He showed little remorse for his action and was sentenced on May 10, 2002 and assigned to the Federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.