CASE STUDIES IN INVESTIGATING ESPIONAGE

(PUBLICIZED AND JUDICIARIZED)

Experts in the Intelligence Community and outside scholars rely on case studies for insights into the motives and behavior of those who spy. Case studies look backward and highlight warning signs that in hindsight become obvious. Because it can be easy to discount the factors that obscured such signs, case study methods run the risk of hindsight and confirmation bias, focusing solely on the spy and insufficiently on the context. Often spies go undetected by exploiting or manipulating routine organizational processes and accepted customs or practices, first to “survive” in the system despite problems in personality and job performance, and later to cover their espionage. Sometimes larger organizational variables erode or undermine counterintelligence and security practices to such a degree that these variables are arguably equally instrumental in espionage. The term “systemic failure” is often used in official reports after major catastrophes to account for such variables. It is important, therefore, not to assume that the problem of espionage resides solely in the nature of the individual spy; problems in the context within which the spy operates can be equally serious.

Alert readers will point out that experts in espionage only have arrested spies to study and that there may be some who have “gotten away with it.” These spies would by definition not be included in our study sample, and therefore our model only describes those who get caught. Ironically, many caught spies eventually tell investigators they were certain they had the skills to avoid capture, unlike their less skilled counterparts. Nicholson, for example, said this about his fellow case officer Ames, whose arrest prompted Nicholson to start his own espionage and “do better” at not getting caught. FBI special agent Hanseen served in counterintelligence and was convinced he could outperform the spies he was tasked to study and catch.

It is extremely difficult to predict complex, relatively rare human behavior such as espionage because of the problem of false positives: many people demonstrate the common warning signs that can lead to the decision to spy but most will never engage in espionage. It is equally difficult for an organization to detect, measure, and therefore account for the reasons behind good-news “success” stories, for example, when a budding insider threat is recognized early and effectively addressed before causing great harm. The small number of arrested spies means there is insufficient statistical power to conduct meaningful empirical analyses to predict who in an organization will become a spy. For example, the press dubbed 1985 the “Year of the Spy” because of a string of high-profile cases: eight Intelligence Community insiders were arrested that year on charges of espionage. In fact, the previous year the FBI had apprehended a much larger number: 12.

Even in these two consecutive “banner years” for espionage arrests, the total number of spies (20 individuals) was vanishingly small compared to the millions in the US government with top secret accesses who did not commit espionage. The low base rate for espionage cases has not changed since the mid-80s. The 2015 Annual Report of Security Clearances Determinations by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reports that 1,220,678 top secret security clearances were active in 2015, and arrests for espionage in 2015 were in no way comparable to the “high” of 20 cases in 1984 and 1985.

In sum, as a result of these limitations, the Intelligence Community turns to in-depth psychological assessments to better understand the psychology of espionage. The long-term consensus among Community counterintelligence professionals (psychologists, law enforcement and investigative professionals, and analysts) is that the key individual variables motivating espionage described in this article—personality, crisis, and opportunity—are supported through the accumulation of case studies of arrested spies since formal psychological and investigative studies began during and after WWII.

The John Walker Spy Ring: Keeping it in the Family

John A. Walker joined the Navy in 1955. He developed into an experienced and competent communications specialist, received numerous awards and promotions, and retired as a chief warrant officer after 20 years in the service. At the time of his retirement, he had been spying for the Soviet Union for a decade. Before leaving the Navy, Walker recruited three subagents with active clearances to ensure that his espionage could continue and that he would retain personal control over the feed mechanisms to his handlers.

Walker recruited his friend Jerry Whitworth, a Naval communications specialist who, like Walker, had a “top secret crypto” clearance. Walker and Whitworth agreed to a “50/50 split” of the proceeds, with Walker functioning as the middleman. After retirement, Walker also recruited his brother, Arthur, a retired Navy lieutenant commander, who was working for a defense contractor. He also signed up his 20-year-old son, Michael, who had enlisted in the Navy. Walker used greed to induce his brother and son to spy, though during post-arrest debriefings Michael said his primary motive had been a desire to be like his father.

Walker’s daughter enlisted in the Army in 1978. He offered her “a great deal of money” if she would seek a position in Army communications, giving her $100 and promising that this was only the beginning should she cooperate. She steadfastly refused, but he continued to contact her periodically to ask if she had given it further thought. After his daughter left the Army, Walker appeared at her residence accompanied by Whitworth and Whitworth’s wife and again tried to recruit her, telling her that his “man in Europe” was willing to provide her with special equipment to spy but was worried that she was getting “too old” to reenlist. She rebuffed him again, but Walker later sent her $500, characterizing the money as an advance from his “man in Europe.”

Walker and his subagents were arrested in 1985 after his ex-wife called the FBI after he had stopped support payments to her. She was stunned when her tip-off also resulted in the arrest of her son and said afterward that she would never have called the FBI had she known that Walker had recruited their son. Walker’s daughter called the FBI separately in an attempt to regain custody of her only child, which she had surrendered during divorce proceedings from her husband, who had threatened to reveal her father’s espionage to the FBI if she fought for custody.

During the debriefings after his arrest, Walker characterized his spying as an exciting game and adventure that was also “quite profitable.” Asked if, in hindsight, he would have done things differently, he joked that he should have killed his alcoholic ex-wife, and he maintained that he was caught only because he lost his capacity to pay for “the drunk’s” silence. Walker’s exploitative and callous attitude and inability to appreciate his role in damaging the lives of others are characteristic of psychopaths. Walker died in prison in August 2014. His son was paroled in 2000 after serving 15 years of a 25 year sentence.

Jonathan Jay Pollard: Self-Appointed Hero

Jonathan Pollard, a civilian analyst with the Navy, spied for Israel from June 1984 until his arrest on 21 November 1985. Pollard was highly responsive to Israeli tasking and compromised numerous intelligence documents from CIA, NSA, DIA, and the US military. He has consistently characterized his espionage as the duty of a loyal Israeli soldier and claimed he was a martyr, comparing his life of incarceration to that of an Israeli pilot abandoned after being shot down in enemy territory.

Pollard’s pre-espionage history showed a pattern of self-aggrandizement and lapses in judgment. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, he bragged to fellow students that he was a Mossad agent, claiming that Israel was paying his tuition and that he had fought and been wounded in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In one memorable episode, he brandished a pistol in front of startled fellow students, loudly proclaiming that he needed to carry it for protection because of his intelligence activities. A former college roommate described Pollard as having a penchant for “dirty jokes” and being so immersed in fantasy war games on campus that he was nicknamed “Colonel” (of the Mossad).a Pollard’s conduct and attitude problems continued after he secured an analytic job with the Navy. One Monday, he arrived disheveled and unshaven for an interview for a new position, claiming that the Irish Republican Army had kidnapped his then-fiancée and he had spent the weekend securing her release. This incident went unreported, although he did not get the job.b In a 1980 effort to join the Navy’s HUMINT intelligence element, Pollard made fictitious claims to have completed an M.A., to be proficient in Afrikaans, and to have applied for a commission in the naval reserve. Even more far-fetched, he told his immediate supervisor that he had valuable South African contacts because his father had been a CIA chief of station in South Africa. (Pollard’s father was a microbiologist on the faculty of Notre Dame University.) Based on these fabrications.

Pollard secured the assignment. Once on the job, his falsehoods became apparent and his erratic behavior raised further alarms. He showed up at meetings against orders, claiming he was entitled to attend, and he disclosed classified information without authorization to a South African defense attaché, perhaps in an attempt to sustain his lies about his valuable liaison contacts. In a letter from jail in 1989 designed to raise political support for an Israeli-fostered campaign to gain his release from his life sentence, Pollard wrote, “I do not believe that the Draconian sentence meted out to me was in any way commensurate with the crime I committed. As I have tried to point out on innumerable occasions, I was neither accused of nor charged with having intended to harm this country, as I could have been under the provisions of the espionage statute. In other words, I did not spy ‘against’ the United States. Nowhere in my indictment . . . was I ever described as a ‘traitor,’ which is hardly a surprise given the fact that the operation with which I was associated actually served to strengthen America’s long-term security interests in the Middle East.” Pollard’s lack of insight into his failures in judgment and ethics and his recasting of events to conform to his grandiose fantasies and self-image are consistent with narcissistic personalities.

William Kampiles: Self-Styled Special Agent

In March 1978, after resigning under duress from his position as a watch officer in the CIA Operations Center, William Kampiles passed to the Soviet Union a top secret KH-11 satellite technical manual. He received $3,000 for this document that contained detailed information on a major US intelligence collection system. Kampiles had joined the CIA in 1977 at age 22. He was offered a watch officer position when his application for Directorate of Operations (DO) case officer training was rejected. He arrived at work with distorted notions of his abilities and prospects and quickly became disgruntled. Uninterested and contemptuous of his assigned duties, he clashed with his supervisor, and his persistent efforts to transfer to the DO led to a formal notice that he was required to serve in his present position for two years, which only deepened his disgruntlement. Through personal contacts, Kampiles managed to secure an interview with the DO Career Training Staff. His interviewer described him as immature and lacking self-discipline and judgment. Highlights of their discussion include Kampiles revealing that he had only accepted the watch officer position as a way to secure entry into the DO and that he would resign from the CIA if he were not accepted. He attributed his difficulties in the Operations Center to his reputation as a playboy, and when his interviewer asked if this reputation was deserved, he boasted of his successes with women. Questioned about what he had liked best about a past menial job, he quipped that it was the expense account. Kampiles smuggled a KH-11 manual out of the Operations Center to try to get his CIA supervisor in trouble when it was found to be missing. He also vaguely envisaged that he could turn around his upcoming termination by using the document to initiate a free-lance, James Bond-style operation, thus persuading the CIA that he was indeed case officer material and could be deployed as a double agent against Moscow. Four months after his resignation, he volunteered the document to the Soviets in Athens, Greece, where he was visiting relatives. Upon his return to the United States, he got in touch with a former CIA colleague and revealed his contact with the Soviets. The colleague asked him to describe his activities in a letter. Kampiles wrote about his “accidental” meeting with a Soviet in Athens and noted that other meetings followed, but he did not directly admit to passing documents. “What I have talked about thus far has been generalized,” he explained. “I did this because to be entirely specific it would take the length of a short book to narrate this entire story. If you think there might be agency [i.e., CIA] interest, I might be willing to discuss this experience in full detail.”

The letter led to an FBI investigation and Kampiles’s arrest for espionage, for which he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Reflecting on his motives and state of mind at the time that he took the KH-11 manual and later when he passed it to the Soviets, Kampiles told his FBI interrogators, “I think you know, boiling it down, I think it was monetary and the glamour and the excitement, that this sort of thing might bring on . . . the danger . . . the intrigue, all that together.” Kampiles’s immersion in a fantasy world, his belief that both reality and other people would play along, the profound failures in perception and judgment caused by his fantasies, and his initial shock upon his arrest and eventual remorse at the harm he caused are all consistent with immaturity.

Robert Hanssen: Self-Designated Cold Warrior

Former FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen spied for the Russians for a total of nine years over a 21-year period, beginning in 1979 and ending with his arrest in 2001. Because of his position in the FBI Foreign Counterintelligence Unit and his use of computer technologies, Hanssen was able to pass extensive and highly damaging information. After his arrest, Hanssen reported that as a junior special agent working in the FBI’s New York office, he was inspired to commit espionage by reading operational files of past and then current Russian agents. While fascinated by the clandestine and secret world described in the files, he was also struck by what he estimated to be amateurish tradecraft and was curious to see if he could do better. He initiated his espionage by leaving a letter signed with a code name for a Russian case officer whose tradecraft he admired. In this, as in all communications with his handlers, Hanssen insisted on remaining unidentified.

His anonymous letters to his handlers provide a window into his psyche. The tone varies from arrogant lecturing to pleading for understanding and communication. He often addressed his handlers with a mixture of superciliousness and admonition, as in the following excerpt from an 8 June 2000 letter in which he describes how they should view the United States: “The US can be errantly [sic] likened to a powerfully built but retarded child, potentially dangerous, but young, immature, and easily manipulated. But don’t be fooled by that appearance. It is also one which can turn ingenious [sic] quickly, like an idiot savant, once convinced of a goal.”

Hanssen was motivated to spy by a mixture of greed, need for excitement, desire to test himself, and craving to feel like a “hero” by becoming involved in something significant. To external appearances, there were many signs of stability in his lifestyle. The Hanssen family was religiously devout with extensive ties in their faith community. Hanssen appeared to be a responsible primary breadwinner. He was a moderately successful FBI special agent who, while not necessarily fitting the typical mold, had secured a niche job that suited his talents. Despite these external signs of stability, however, Hanssen possessed salient secret vulnerabilities. His desire to serve as a hero led him to initiate a mentoring relationship with a prostitute he imagined he could rescue from her lifestyle by showing her a better way to live. He abruptly cut off this relationship when she proved unable to live up to his expectations. He installed a live-feed camera in his bedroom and surreptitiously captured his sexual activity with his wife for a male friend, even discussing with this friend ahead of time what he would like to watch. He also passed to him nude pictures of his wife and posted pornographic stories on the web featuring him and his wife, all without her knowledge.

At work, Hanssen was considered odd and carried several pejorative nicknames. He was disciplined for angrily grabbing a female colleague. He exploited a breach in the computer firewall to break into his supervisor’s computer, claiming he did it to show FBI security the vulnerability of sensitive computer systems. When he was reprimanded as a young special agent for throwing classified information in the trash rather than shredding it, he responded that he knew what was really classified and what was not. The failures in empathy and in respect for others, the self-absorption, and the poor judgment evident in these behaviors suggest a mixed personality disorder.

Jeffrey Carney: The Spy Codenamed “The Kid”

Jeffrey Carney enlisted in the US Air Force on his 17th birthday in 1980 and was granted a top secret clearance a year later. He began spying for East Germany’s Ministry of State Security (MfS) in 1983 while working as a linguist at Marienfelde Base in West Berlin. He continued spying at his next post in Texas, from which he abruptly deserted in 1985. The MfS exfiltrated and resettled him in Berlin, where he helped them target Americans. When the Iron Curtain fell, his handlers abandoned him and tipped off US authorities; he was arrested in 1991.

Carney’s initial motivation for his walk-in was a sense of betrayal by family, friends, and supervisors. His family background was painful and unstable, including severe physical and emotional abuse and neglect and the frequent disappearance of his father. Carney described himself as having been a lonely child, an “underdog” who felt inferior and had a burning desire to prove his worth. He dropped out of high school to help support his mother financially, including paying for her divorce from his father. When he visited home in 1983 on leave, he was shocked to find his father living there. After an acrimonious visit, he returned to Germany, nursing feelings of bitterness and inadequacy. He was also coming to terms with his homosexuality, which at the time put his military career at risk. In addition, Carney was deeply dissatisfied with the Air Force.

Despite salient intellectual gifts, he was unable to sustain an unblemished work record, had been decertified as a language instructor, and had trouble regaining his credentials. He was outraged by his decertification, which he blamed on his supervisors’ ill will, and felt humiliated and embarrassed. On the night of his impulsive attempt to defect to East Germany, all of the acquaintances and friends he approached rejected his overtures to go out. He went alone to some bars, had several drinks, and contemplated suicide. At one bar, he happened to read an article about a Taiwanese pilot who defected to mainland China, was feted as a hero, honored with a parade, and given money. “I’ll show them, I’ll show them all,” was Carney’s reaction. Acting on this thought, he took a cab to Checkpoint Charlie, walked across, and presented himself to the East Germans as a defector. They quickly convinced him to go back to his post at Marienfelde as a spy. After his routine reassignment in 1984 to a domestic post, Carney became preoccupied with the announcement that all employees with access to sensitive compartmented information (SCI) would be polygraphed. He was also furious with Air Force doctors, who refused to operate on what he believed was a hernia. When he threatened to go to the inspector general with his complaint, he was referred for a psychological evaluation and became concerned that drugs would be used to make him say things beyond his control, exposing both his espionage and his homosexuality. He deserted and flew to Mexico City, presenting himself unannounced to the East Germans. Upon his resettlement in East Berlin, the MfS tasked him with transcribing intercepted conversations of US military and embassy personnel, from which he discerned their responsibilities, attitudes, relationships, and personalities. If he felt that particular individuals were vulnerable, he wrote an assessment describing their situation and suggesting the best recruitment approach. Carney claimed that the MfS apparently prized his work.

After his arrest,a Carney readily confessed to his espionage and said that it helped him regain a sense of personal pride and purpose. “Each time I took information out,” he asserted, “I felt like I was slapping my supervisors in the face.” He also expressed bitterness that the US government had violated his German rights by forcibly taking him away from his home, his personal belongings, and his common-law spouse. Carney’s impulsive decision to defect in a time of despair, along with the psychological stability and sense of achievement and purpose that he temporarily gained once engaged in espionage, demonstrate the role that stress and crisis can play in motivating a vulnerable person to seek a solution through espionage. Carney was released in 2002 after serving 11 years of a 38-year sentence. He attempted to return to Germany, claiming German citizenship, but he was denied entry because the East Germans had never granted him citizenship.

The Anger of Edward Lee Howard

Howard was dismissed from the CIA in 1983 after a polygraph exam indicated he was involved in petty theft and drug use. In the months after his dismissal, he moved to New Mexico with his wife, Mary. His alcohol abuse escalated, and he became increasingly angry at what he perceived to be the agency’s unfair treatment. Howard claimed he provided information to the Russian KGB and eventually defected to Russia when he became aware of US surveillance of his activities, while believing he was unfairly targeted and accused. A book about Howard by David Wise and Howard’s own memoir, though filled with significant errors of fact, provide good examples of how a vulnerable person’s sense of disgruntlement and perceived ill-usage can provide the impetus to turn to espionage and the flawed, but compelling, justification for doing so. a Readers will notice similar strands of acrimony and disgruntlement in the Carney, Pollard, and Hanssen cases. Howard’s death in Russia was reported on 22 July 2002. He supposedly broke his neck in a fall at his dacha, but the exact circumstances have never been made public.

The “Handling” of Sharon Scranage

Sharon Scranage compromised CIA staff officers, agents, and operations while serving as a secretary and administrator in Africa from 1983 to 1985. Her spying necessitated the exfiltration and resettlement of numerous African agents and their families. The total cost of her espionage has been estimated to be several million dollars. Scranage joined the CIA in 1976 as a clerk-stenographer. She consistently received favorable performance reports, including appreciative comments about her pleasant and dedicated workplace demeanor. Her private life was less settled, however. She divorced her husband of two years in 1980, after he had become physically and psychologically abusive, including hitting her and threatening her with a gun. Only two days after Scranage’s arrival at her post in Africa in 1983, a State Department communicator introduced her to the man who subsequently became her handler. He quickly drew her into a sexual affair and—apparently working from an accurate assessment of Scranage’s susceptibility to psychological abuse—began to use a combination of affection and fear to increase his power over her and to elicit more and more sensitive information from her. In addition to establishing a sexual relationship with her and thus asserting physical control, Scranage’s handler also used verbal intimidation and threats to deter her from revealing what she had done to station personnel and to isolate her socially from sources of support in the station and community. He systematically assaulted her trust in CIA and her most senior manager, arguing that this manager had put her in her present position. Her handler also fed her dread of being discovered and made veiled threats to harm those agency personnel and their family members with whom she appeared close. By such means, Scranage’s handler positioned himself as her preeminent authority figure and protector rather than the CIA and her managers and colleagues. In hindsight, she described herself as “a puppet” in his hands. After her arrest, Scranage consistently expressed profound remorse for her espionage.

Ana Montes: Cuban Spy

Just 10 days after the attacks of 9/11, the FBI arrested a 44-year-old woman named Ana Belen Montes.

She had nothing to do with the terrorist strikes, but her arrest had everything to do with protecting the country at a time when national security was of paramount importance.

Montes, it turned out, was spying for the Cubans from inside the U.S. intelligence community itself—as a senior analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA. And she was soon to have access to classified information about America’s planned invasion of Afghanistan the following month.

Montes was actually the DIA’s top Cuban analyst and was known throughout the U.S. intelligence community for her expertise. Little did anyone know how much of an expert she had become and how much she was leaking classified U.S. military information and deliberately distorting the government’s views on Cuba.

It began as a classic tale of recruitment. In 1984, Montes held a clerical job at the Department of Justice in Washington. She often spoke openly against the U.S. government’s policies towards Central America. Soon, her opinions caught the attention of Cuban “officials” who thought she’d be sympathetic to their cause. She met with them. Soon after, Montes agreed to help Cuba.

She knew she needed a job inside the intelligence community to do that, so she applied at DIA, a key producer of intelligence for the Pentagon. By the time she started work there in 1985, she was a fully recruited spy.
To escape detection, Montes never removed any documents from work, electronically or in hard copy. Instead, she kept the details in her head and went home and typed them up on her laptop. Then, she transferred the information onto encrypted disks. After receiving instructions from the Cubans in code via short-wave radio, she’d meet with her handler and turn over the disks.

During her years at DIA, security officials learned about her foreign policy views and were concerned about her access to sensitive information, but they had no reason to believe she was sharing secrets. And she had passed a polygraph.
Her downfall began in 1996, when an astute DIA colleague—acting on a gut feeling—reported to a security official that he felt Montes might be under the influence of Cuban intelligence. The official interviewed her, but she admitted nothing.

The security officer filed the interview away until four years later, when he learned that the FBI was working to uncover an unidentified Cuban agent operating in Washington. He contacted the Bureau with his suspicions. After a careful review of the facts, the FBI opened an investigation.

Through physical and electronic surveillance and covert searches, the FBI was able to build a case against Montes. Agents also wanted to identify her Cuban handler and were waiting for a face-to-face meeting between the two of them, which is why they held off arresting her for some time. However, outside events overtook the investigation—as a result of the 9/11 attacks, Montes was about to be assigned work related to U.S. war plans. The Bureau and DIA didn’t want that to happen, so she was arrested.

What was Montes’ motivation for spying? Pure ideology—she disagreed with U.S. foreign policy. Montes accepted no money for passing classified information, except for reimbursements for some expenses.

Montes, who acknowledged revealing the identities of four American undercover intelligence officers working in Cuba, pled guilty in 2002 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Brian P. Regan Espionage

On August 23, 2001, former Air Force intelligence officer Brian P. Regan—a father of four from Bowie, Maryland who had racked up more than $100,000 in credit card debt—was arrested by FBI agents at Dulles International Airport for stealing classified materials from the National Reconnaissance Office.

When arrested, Regan was attempting to board a flight to Switzerland and had encrypted notes in his possession, along with the contact information of foreign diplomatic offices.

he FBI ultimately learned that Regan had taken a trove of classified materials, including photographs of Iraqi missile sites and encoded tactical information that he had accessed through his classified Internet network. He intended to sell the materials to China, Iraq, and Libya for $13 million.

Before his arrest, Regan had buried his stash of stolen materials in various places deep underground. He had written these locations on a note, stuffed the note in a toothbrush holder, and buried it under the I-95 exit sign near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

In February 2003, Regan was convicted following a jury trial, and he agreed to accept a life sentence for attempted espionage and unlawful gathering of defense information in exchange for his full cooperation in locating the buried materials. He was sentenced on March 20, 2003.

Regan ultimately led investigators to the materials he had stolen. And the FBI dug it all up: approximately 20,000 pages of highly classified documents, and a variety of videotapes and computer compact disks, all buried underground in Maryland and Virginia's state parks.

Alger Hiss

The jury returned from its deliberations on January 21, 1950. The verdict? Guilty on two counts of perjury.
Alger Hiss, a well-educated and well-connected former government lawyer and State Department official who helped create the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II, was headed to prison in Atlanta for lying to a federal grand jury

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The central issue of the trial was espionage. In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers—a senior editor at Time magazine—was called by the House Committee on Un American Activities to corroborate the testimony of Elizabeth Bentley, a Soviet spy who had defected in 1945 and accused dozens of members of the U.S. government of espionage. One official she named as possibly connected to the Soviets was Alger Hiss.

The FBI immediately began probing her claims to ensure those who were credibly named—including Hiss—did not continue to have access to government secrets or power. As the investigation into Bentley and related matters deepened in 1946 and 1947, Congress became aware of and concerned about the case. Details leaked to the press, and the investigation became national news and embroiled in partisan politics in the run up to the 1948 presidential election.

Chambers, who had renounced the Communist Party in the late 1930s, testified reluctantly that hot summer day. He ultimately acknowledged he was part of the communist underground in the 1930s and that Hiss and others had been members of the group.

In later testimony, Hiss vehemently denied the accusation. After all, Chambers had offered no proof that Hiss had committed espionage or been previously connected to Bentley or the communist group.

It could have ended there, but members of the committee—especially then-California Congressman Richard Nixon—prodded Chambers into disclosing information suggesting there was more to his story and his relationship with Hiss. In later testimony, Hiss admitted knowing Chambers in the 1930s, but he continued to deny any ties to communism and later filed a libel suit against his accuser.

The committee was torn. Who was telling the truth, Hiss or Chambers? And should either be charged with perjury?

A key turn of events came in November 1948, when Chambers produced documents showing both he and Hiss were committing espionage. Then, in early December, Chambers provided the committee with a package of microfilm and other information he had hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm. The two revelations, which became known as the “Pumpkin Papers,” contained images of State Department materials—including notes in Hiss’ own handwriting.

It was the smoking gun the Justice Department needed. Hiss was charged with perjury; he could not be indicted for espionage because the statute of limitations had run out. An extensive FBI investigation helped develop a great deal of evidence verifying Chambers’ statements and revealing Hiss’ cover-ups.

In 1949, the first trial resulted in a hung jury, but in 1950, Hiss was convicted. On January 21, 1950, he was sentenced to five years in prison, ending an important case that helped further confirm the increasing penetration of the U.S. government by the Soviets during the Cold War.

Espionage in the Defense Industry

During a social gathering held in 1970 at a commercial establishment in the New York City vicinity, one Sergey Viktorovich Petrov (fictitious name), a Russian citizen, happened to strike up a casual conversation with an individual employed as an engineer with the Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

In the course of the ensuing verbal exchange, Petrov explained that he was Russian and was employed at the United Nations (UN) where he translated papers relating to various scientific affairs. He added that he lived in New York City with his wife and daughter, and that he was trained in aeronautical engineering. He also related that he had a five-year contract.

The engineer revealed his employment and noted that he was engaged in design planning relating to the F-14 fighter aircraft that was being developed by Grumman for the United States Navy. He explained that his company had been dismissing a large number of engineers, and therefore, his future employment prospects at Grumman were rather bleak. The American illustrated his points by commenting on certain economy measures he had undertaken in his personal spending habits due to his uncertain future.

Before the chance meeting was over, Petrov bought his new-found friend a drink. He told the engineer he would enjoy seeing him again in the near future at which time he could perhaps treat the American to a steak dinner. The engineer accepted Petrov's invitation at 7 p.m., one week later.

Petrov and the engineer met as planned the following week. At Petrov's suggestion, the engineer followed the Russian's car to a restaurant in Amityville, Long Island. During the two-hour-long dinner, they discussed a number of general topics. At one point, Petrov said he was seriously considering starting a business in the New York City area. He added that he would enjoy having the engineer as an employee should the latter lose his job at Grumman. Petrov went on, explaining that in the meantime he was preparing his doctoral thesis. In this regard he wished to obtain some engineering data about the F-14 aircraft. Petrov said he would pay the engineer for any information he could provide, but quickly added that he did not need any classified data. Petrov said he especially desired some information about the F-14's wing sweep mechanism since this concept greatly intrigued him. He remarked that in case the engineer was unable to provide him with details of the wing sweep mechanism, he would, nevertheless, appreciate any information whatsoever concerning the work performed at the Grumman plant.

Petrov then told the engineer that if he could provide anything of value, he would be paid approximately $300 per month. The engineer promised Petrov he would consider his request and would inform the Russian of his decision at an engineering conference which was to be held soon. The engineer added that Petrov would, no doubt, wish to attend this meeting since the subject matter would be of interest to him. To the engineer's surprise, however, the Russian replied that he did not think it would be wise for him to attend his forthcoming conference. He also cautioned the engineer to give no sign of recognition should their paths cross at any future scientific meeting.

Before concluding their meeting, Petrov obtained the engineer's home telephone number but declined to provide his own in return. They then agreed to meet again in front of their present location at 7 p.m. on a date about three weeks later. Petrov told the engineer that if for some reason he could not make it on that day, then they would meet on the following Monday at the same time and place.

At the conclusion of this second meeting, the engineer, suspicious of Petrov's intentions, reported his suspicions to the Grumman security office which immediately notified the New York Field Office of the FBI. Special agents of the FBI interviewed the engineer who agreed to cooperate by meeting again with Petrov in order to ascertain the Russian's intentions. The engineer explained that his remarks concerning his somewhat precarious financial situation seemed to impress Petrov. The agents then instructed the engineer to continue to express a need for money at future meetings.

At their next meeting, Petrov asked the engineer to be alert for any reports or publications relating to the F-14. He added that he was also interested in any other material to which the engineer had daily access. In reply, the American inquired as to what he could expect in the way of monetary compensation. The Russian promised to pay him from $100 to $300, the exact amount depending solely on the material's value.

Petrov asked the engineer if he would have any problems in removing material from the plant. Petrov then commented that if the engineer could borrow the requested data overnight, he would return it the next day. Although Petrov previously had said he did not require any confidential material, at this point he mentioned that any confidential information the engineer could provide would be "worth more."

Future meetings between Petrov and the engineer continued on a almost monthly basis. They were invariably held at different restaurants on Long Island on Monday evenings at 7 p.m. FBI agents, conducting a surveillance of the meetings, observed that most of them were held within close proximity of Long Island railroad stations. Future meetings between the American and the Russian were always arranged at the conclusion of each previous meeting. The date, time, and place of the next meeting were agreed upon together with an alternate meeting date in case either party was unable to attend on the original date.

As their relationship progressed, Petrov provided the engineer with small sums of money—usually about $250—for each report the American gave the Russian. Petrov never ceased to pressure the engineer for F-14 technical reports, especially confidential ones. The engineer, however, continued to bring routine reports to the meetings, explaining that confidential reports were very difficult to obtain. Petrov then suggested that the engineer should request a transfer to another area of the Grumman plant where he would be in a position to have access to a much larger variety of engineering data. He promised to compensate the engineer for any decrease in salary that might occur as a result of any such transfer.

Several months later, in response to Petrov's urgings, the engineer offered him some drawings relating to the F-14's wing design. He warned the Russian that he had to have the drawings back before he returned to work the next day. At this point, Petrov told the engineer he would furnish him with a copying machine, thereby eliminating the necessity of bringing the actual reports and drawings to future meetings.

At a subsequent meeting on March 1, 1971, Petrov gave the engineer an inexpensive, portable copying machine. He then suggested that the American use the machine in a motel room and promised to reimburse the engineer for all expenses incurred in this regard. Such an arrangement would enable the engineer to return the original reports to his office the next day while having a copy available for Petrov at their next meeting.

During their March meeting, Petrov remarked that he would probably be returning to the Soviet Union in May for a vacation. He made it clear, however, that in the meantime he expected the engineer to "keep busy" obtaining and copying F-14 reports.

Shortly before returning to Russia on May 19, 1971, Petrov set up a schedule of future meetings. On odd months the meetings would be held on the first Monday of the month, while the even month meeting dates would be on the second Monday. Alternate meeting dates, in case one of them missed the regular day, would be on the following Monday of each month. Petrov then told the engineer he would return to the United States in August. They agreed to meet again on August 9th at a restaurant in the vicinity of Islip, Long Island.

Following Petrov's return from the Soviet Union, their dinner meetings continued on a regular basis. They met at previously designated restaurants and, during dinner, discussed the engineer's employment prospects at Grumman and what material the engineer had managed to bring with him. After dinner they normally left the restaurant and entered the engineer's car where the F-14 reports and money were exchanged. Petrov would then get out of the car and depart the area on foot. During their earlier meetings, Petrov drove his own automobile to the meeting location. Later, however, the Russian started driving to a railroad station located several stops short of the meeting site and then rode a train to his final destination. Petrov explained to the engineer that no one would recognize him so far from New York City, but he was afraid the police might begin to notice his car after a while.

During their November 1, 1971 meeting, Petrov furnished the engineer with a specially altered 35-mm camera. This camera was capable of taking 72 photographs from each 36-exposure roll of film. Included with the camera were a couple of rolls of film and a high-intensity lamp. Petrov instructed the engineer in the camera's operation and told him to use both the camera and the copying machine until he was certain he could operate the camera correctly. The Russian explained that it would be much easier to pass the engineering reports if they were on film. The engineer could place the film in a cigarette package and give it to Petrov who would in return hand the American a similar package containing cigarettes.

During their January 3, 1972 meeting, Petrov told the engineer that his contract at the UN would probably terminate in October or November of that year. He stated that, should he have to return to Russia, he would introduce the engineer to a colleague with whom the American could continue to do business. Petrov added that if he failed to appear at their designated meeting site on both of the first two Mondays of that month, then the engineer was to go to a movie theater in Freeport, Long Island the following Monday. The engineer was to walk up the right side of the theater entrance at precise intervals of 7:00 to 7:07 p.m. and 7:30 to 7:35 p.m. A man, standing in this area, would say to the engineer: "Hello. Are you interested in buying an antique Ford of 1930?" The engineer was to reply: "Yes. I am. After all, I was born in 1930." As an extra precautionary measure, the new man would have one half of a dollar bill. The engineer would have the other half of the dollar bill.

Their fifteenth and final meeting took place at a restaurant near Patchogue, Long Island on February 14, 1972. Petrov seemed pleased when the engineer told him he had brought along some confidential pages from a report on the F-14 project. Petrov then said that since their business arrangement was working out so well, he wanted to minimize the possibility of anyone recognizing them together. He mentioned a plan to use walkie-talkies to eliminate all unnecessary personal contact. Petrov, unaware of his impeding arrest that evening, promised to give the engineer his walkie-talkie unit at their next meeting. He instructed the engineer to place the rolls of film, containing the Grumman reports, in small, metal containers which would then be cast in plaster of Paris bricks. The engineer was to place the bricks in predesignated locations and then transmit a radio signal to Petrov who would be stationed about one-half mile away. Upon receipt of this signal, Petrov would wait approximately one-half hour before retrieving the brick.

Petrov told the engineer that during the first three months of this new system, the drop-off points for the plaster bricks would be somewhere on Long Island. Subsequent drop-off points would be on the west side of the Tappan Zee Bridge in Rockland County, north of New York City.

When asked about payment for the confidential report that the engineer had brought along that evening, Petrov replied that he would have to look at it to determine its value. Upon finishing dinner, they left the restaurant and entered the engineer's car. At this point, Petrov asked if the engineer had the confidential material ready. In response, the engineer removed a large grey envelope stashed in the back of the car which contained a copy of an F-14 engineering report, a roll of film containing a copy of the same report, and several pages that were classified "confidential" from another report. The engineer then handed the envelope to Petrov who placed it into his attache case. Petrov, after giving the engineer a small, white envelope in return, got out of the car and started to walk toward the parking lot's exit. At this moment, based upon a prearranged signal, FBI agents immediately intercepted and arrested Petrov before he could escape. The Russian, seeing that capture was imminent, attempted to dispose of the evidence by throwing his attache case high into the air. However, it was immediately retrieved by one of the FBI agents.
Petrov was taken to the Federal Detention Center in New York City. The following morning, he was brought before the U.S. magistrate for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. The U.S. magistrate set bail at $500,000 and remanded Petrov into the U.S. marshal's custody until a Russian translator could be obtained the next day.

Ironically, Petrov, who worked as a Russian-English translator at the UN, remained silent during his court appearance, indicating that he did not understand the English language!
A search of Petrov's person turned up three index cards. Each contained hand-drawn diagrams of various locations within the New York area. These were obviously the drop-off sites that Petrov had had in mind when he discussed the use of plaster bricks with the engineer.
Petrov was arraigned and released after his $500,000 bail was reduced to $100,000. A federal grand jury returned an indictment on February 17, 1972, charging Petrov with espionage and violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. On August 14, 1972, the indictment was dismissed following instructions from the White House to the U.S. Department of Justice and after Petrov returned to the Soviet Union with prior court approval. It was decided by top U.S. officials that this dismissal would best serve the national and foreign policy interests of the United States.

Maksim Martynov

In the summer of 1954, a Soviet Air Force officer invited a United States Colonel—whom he knew through official contacts— to lunch with him at his quarters in East Berlin. The Soviet, who knew the American planned to retire from the Army, indicated that he wanted to have a private conversation with him. On the designated date, in August, the two men met by prearrangement in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in East Berlin. It was raining slightly. The Colonel entered the Soviet's car, which was standing on a side street. The two then drove off to the Soviet's quarters. The United States officer told the Soviet that he had instructed his driver to return to the spot in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in an hour and a quarter. The Soviet replied that would not be long enough, but the American assured him that his driver would wait.

The house to which the Soviet brought the Colonel was unoccupied. The two men sat down for lunch. There was a knock at the front door. A newcomer, dressed in civilian clothes, was introduced to the Colonel. He acknowledged the introduction by saying, "Hello, Colonel, how are you?" in American English. This Soviet civilian stated he had been in New York during the war and inferred that he had worked at Amtorg. He appeared to be about 38 years of age, weighed about 175 pounds, and was 5 feet 10 inches in height. Though the Soviet civilian claimed he would not drink, he accepted a glass of wine and ended up by drinking the entire bottle.

After eating, the American indicated that he must leave, but the Soviet officer insisted that he stay for a cup of coffee. The Soviet officer then left the room for the coffee and was gone about 30 minutes. During his absence, the Soviet civilian asked about inconsequential things and then asked the Colonel if he planned to live in Leavenworth, Kansas (the location of Army Command and General Staff School), upon his return to the United States. The Colonel indicated that he did. (The Colonel had not mentioned his place of retirement to the Soviet civilian, though he had previously mentioned it to another Soviet officer at another meeting.)

The Soviet civilian then asked, "Colonel, if I come to the States, could I come and see you there?" The Colonel's reply was, "Why, certainly." The Soviet then remarked that he was a man with a wife and child and wanted security for them. He asked the Colonel if he would help him if he (the Soviet) came to the States. Again the Colonel replied that he would. The Soviet then made a chart of downtown Manhattan. He marked the northeast corner of 86th Street and Madison Avenue with a dot. The Soviet then asked if the Colonel could come to New York, and the Colonel replied that he might do so in the fall. The Soviet then indicated that if the Colonel would come to the northeast corner of 86th and Madison, he would meet him there at 4 p.m. on any of the following alternate dates: October 15, 25; or November 5, 15, or 25; January 1; February 1; March 1.

The Soviet then indicated that though he himself would probably not meet the American in New York, someone would do so and would make the following statement, "Seems to me that I have met you at Spechstrasse, Colonel. What is the number of your house there?" The Soviet continued, "You should reply: ‘Oh, yes, I have lived there at Spechstrasse 19.'"

The Soviet then asked if the Colonel could bring some books, pamphlets and maps from the school in Leavenworth with him. The Colonel replied that since he would be retired, he would have nothing to do with the Leavenworth school. The Soviet suggested that he could perhaps get some material anyhow. The American Colonel stated he "would have to think it over." The Soviet asked the Colonel if he needed any money, and he replied in the negative.

At about this time, the Soviet officer returned and again excused himself to brew some coffee. The Colonel then made a copy of the sketch of the Manhattan area which the Soviet civilian had done, since the Soviet refused to give him the original sketch. After coffee the Army Colonel announced that he had to leave since it was getting late. The Soviet asked him if he could return again in a couple of days, but the Colonel replied he would be very busy packing and would be unable to make another appointment. With that, the Colonel left the house and returned to where his driver was waiting for him.

The American Army officer immediately reported this meeting to appropriate authorities and indicated his willingness to cooperate in any way with the proper intelligence agencies in connection with any future meetings with the Soviet.
Shortly thereafter, the American Colonel returned to the United States; and the full details of the approach made to him by the Soviets were made available to the FBI. On October 15, 1954—the first meeting date set by the Soviet civilian—FBI agents took inconspicuous positions near the intersection of 86th Street and Madison Avenue in New York. At the same approximate time as the Colonel's appointment, these agents observed Soviet officers attached to the Soviet representation at the United Nations. They obviously were looking it over for the contemplated rendezvous and seemed to be expecting another party to appear.

The FBI made arrangements to effect a meeting on the next scheduled date of October 25, 1954. Plans were made for a special agent of the FBI to act as a substitute for the Army Colonel at the meet. Accordingly, a Bureau agent who came closest to resembling the Colonel was selected for the assignment. (The FBI agent was 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighed about 178 pounds and had brown hair with a receding hairline, hazel eyes, a ruddy complexion, and a rather full face with a round chin. The Colonel was 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed about 180 pounds and had brown hair with a receding hairline, brown eyes, a ruddy complexion, and a rather full face with a round chin. The Colonel wore a mustache, and there was 10 years' difference in their ages.)

The agent was made up by a New York professional make-up artist. The make-up work was done on the basis of a photograph of the Army Colonel, as well as a detailed description of him. The make-up included a false mustache made of crepe hair which was held in place by spirit gum. (This type mustache is extremely difficult to make inasmuch as it must be put on hair by hair to appear natural.) The agent's hair was also touched up to make it appear to be considerably graying. After the application of make-up, a strong resemblance between the agent and the Colonel could be seen, particularly in the mustache, mouth, nose, eyebrows, chin, and shadows under the eyes.

Since the Army Colonel was known to have worn loose-fitting tweed-type clothing, the agent taking his place wore a tweed sport coat which was loose-fitting.

The agent also had to familiarize himself to a considerable extent with the background of the Colonel, his family background, the family's activities and whereabouts, the Colonel's previous assignment in Germany and any other details which might be necessary to further convince the Soviets that the agent was the actual Colonel. Appropriate identification data was also furnished the agent in the event the Soviet might request it.

On October 25, 1954, the special agent posing as the Army Colonel arrived at the intersection at approximately 4:05 p.m. Two Soviet nationals (identified as members of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations) were observed in the area closely scrutinizing the agent posing as the Colonel; however, they made no attempt to contact him. Again on November 5, 1954, the special agent was present at the meeting place; however, no Soviets were seen in the area.

On November 15, at approximately 4:05 p.m., the special agent disguised as the Colonel arrived at the designated intersection by taxicab. He noticed a man standing on the corner who was obviously watching him. The stranger appeared to be about 5 feet 10 inches in height; weight about 190; husky build; about 35 to 40 years of age. He wore a dark blue overcoat, blue suit and dark gray hat. For five minutes the stranger studied the agent intensely, then walked up to him and mumbled something. The "Colonel" didn't hear him and queried: "Pardon me?" The Soviet national then gave the prearranged code phrase: "Seems to me that I have met you at Spechstrasse. Colonel, what is the number of your house there?" The agent replied: "Oh, yes, I have lived there at Spechstrasse 19."

The Soviet national then introduced himself as "Schultz" and suggested that they go for a ride. ("Schultz" was immediately recognized by FBI agents who had concealed themselves in the area as Maksim Martynov, attached to the Soviet delegation of the United Nations.) The substitute Colonel declined and suggested instead that they take a walk to Central Park. The Soviet agreed to this proposal.

As they walked along, the "Colonel" inquired as to whether he could meet the Russian whom he had been introduced in East Berlin. "Schultz" indicated that he would not, but that he (Schultz) was a friend of his carrying out the mission for him. The "Colonel" then showed the Soviet an identification card, which he examined.

Upon arrival in Central Park, the two began looking for a park bench on which to sit. Unable to find one, they crossed the bridle path and walked along the reservoir. "Schultz" then posed questions concerning Fort Leavenworth, and the substitute Colonel furnished him innocuous answers and nonclassified data. The Soviet then indicated that he would need specific information about the Army post and asked the "Colonel": "Are you willing to help me?" The "Colonel" replied that it would be a difficult job to obtain necessary data, but that it might be possible.

The Soviet national then commented about the "Colonel's" heavy expenses in having to come to New York to make the "meet." He reached into his overcoat pocket, pulled out a roll of paper and handed it to the "Colonel." Without looking at it, the agent quickly placed the roll in his pocket. It turned out to be 25 ten-dollar bills.

"Schultz" stated that he would like to see the "Colonel" again and set the next meeting for January 15, 1955, at 4 p.m. at 86th and Madison Avenue. He added that if he (Schultz) did not contact him on that date, the Colonel should appear on the first Saturday of each succeeding month for four months at another address indicated on a paper he handed to him. The paper proved to be a cash register receipt from a Fifth Avenue book store.

"Schultz" noted that if he himself did not appear, another Soviet would take his place. Accordingly, he gave the following instructions so that the "Colonel" would be easily recognized: he was to carry a red and blue pencil, sharpened at both ends in his left hand and a street guide of Manhattan and the Bronx in his right coat pocket. The "Colonel" was to enter the designated book store and browse around in the scientific and medical section of the store. If another person, other than "Schultz," would appear, he would greet the "Colonel" with the words: "Are you interested in theory?" The "Colonel's" reply was to be: "I am interested in elementary theory." With that, the two men separated after spending about 35 minutes together.

At about 4:01 p.m. on January 15, 1955, the substitute Colonel drove up in a taxicab to the corner of 86th Street and Madison Avenue. When he alighted from the cab, he noticed "Schultz" standing on the corner and walked over to him. "Schultz" gave a smile of recognition, and the two shook hands. The Soviet then said, "Let's take a walk."

The "Colonel" suggested that they go to Central Park. The Soviet refused and insisted on walking up Madison Avenue. The two then agreed to go to a nearby hotel bar, with "Schultz" indicating that he would buy the "Colonel" a dinner. As they walked toward the hotel, the "Colonel" told the Soviet that he had been successful in getting the information he desired and that some of the data was in the briefcase he (the "Colonel") was carrying.

On entering the bar, the substitute Colonel selected a vacant table located in a corner of the dimly lit bar. The two sat down and the "Colonel" placed the briefcase on the seat beside him. They then ordered a drink. "Schultz" leaned over and cautioned his companion to speak in a low voice. The "Colonel" then noted that he had everything the Soviet wanted him to get and asked if "Schultz" had any paper on which to make notes. When the Soviet replied, "No," the "Colonel" stated: "You will just have to remember what I have to say to you."

The "Colonel" further noted that he could also give him some data contained in the briefcase; and as the "Colonel" talked, the Soviet looked around the bar. Then the Soviet whispered, "I don't like this place." The Soviet appeared to be extremely eager to leave the bar and get possession of the briefcase.

At this point, the substitute Colonel placed the briefcase on the table in front of him. This was the signal for special agents who were observing the meeting to approach the two men.

When these "intruders" identified themselves as FBI agents, "Schultz" appeared to be visibly shaken. His face paled considerably, while he protested that he was just having a drink. Upon request, "Schultz" displayed credentials identifying him as Maksim Martynov, a member of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations. As such, he had diplomatic immunity. FBI agents then confronted him with the knowledge of his act of espionage.

Martynov regained his composure and refused to talk further with the agents. He snapped his fingers for the waiter's attention and upon the waiter's arrival handed him two bills in payment for the drinks. Martynov didn't bother to wait for his change—50 cents—but immediately picked up his hat and left the lounge at 4:13 p.m. He was subsequently identified as proceeding by bus directly to the Soviet United Nations delegation headquarters.

On February 21, 1955, the Department of State declared Martynov persona non grata in connection with his espionage activity, and he departed the United States on February 26, 1955.

Biographical Data on Martynov:
Maksim Grigorlevich Martynov was born February 17, 1915 in Leningradskaya Oblast, USSR. He entered the United States on November 12, 1951 as a member of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations. He made several visits to Russia and last re-entered the United States on November 3, 1954 carrying a Soviet diplomatic passport. He held the rank of colonel in the Soviet military establishment.

Iva Toguri d’Aquino and “Tokyo Rose”

Iva Toguri Aquino, who gained notoriety as the mythical Tokyo Rose, was the seventh person to be convicted of treason in U.S. history.

Background
Following the Japanese surrender in September 1945, American troops began searching for Japanese military leaders and others who may have committed war crimes. The press—sometimes following, sometimes beating the military to the scene—did the same.

Two of these reporters, Henry Brundidge and Clark Lee, sought “Tokyo Rose,” the notorious siren who tried to demoralize American soldiers and sailors during the war by highlighting their hardships and sacrifices.

Through their legwork and contacts, the two reporters quickly identified one young American woman, Iva Ikuko Toguri d’Aquino, who had made such broadcasts. Brundidge and Lee offered her a significant sum, which they later reneged on paying, for exclusive rights to interview her. Aquino agreed, signing a contract that identified her as Tokyo Rose.

The problem for Aquino, though, was that Tokyo Rose was not an actual person, but the fabricated name given by soldiers to a series of American-speaking women who made propaganda broadcasts under different aliases.

As a result of her interview with the two reporters, Aquino came to be seen by the public—though not by Army and FBI investigators—as the mythical protagonist Tokyo Rose. This popular image defined her in the public mind of the post-war period and continues to color debate about her role in World War II today.

Early Life
Aquino was born Ikuko Toguri in Los Angeles on July 4, 1916. Her father, Jun Toguri, had come to the U.S. from Japan in 1899. Her mother followed in 1913, and the family eventually settled in Los Angeles. During her school years, Ikuko Toguri used the first name of Iva. She attended grammar schools in Calexico and San Diego before returning with her family to Los Angeles where she finished grammar school and went on to high school and junior college.

Iva Toguri enrolled in the University of California at Los Angeles and graduated in January 1940 with a degree in zoology. She did graduate work there until June of that year. During her school years, Toguri was a popular student and was considered a loyal American. Her favorite pastimes included sports, hiking, and swing music. From June 1940 until July 1941, Toguri assisted her father in his mercantile shop.

To Japan
On July 5, 1941, Toguri sailed for Japan from San Pedro, California, without a U.S. passport. In subsequent years, she gave two reasons for her trip: to visit a sick aunt and to study medicine. In September of that year, Toguri appeared before the U.S. Vice Consul in Japan to obtain a passport, stating she wished to return to the U.S. for permanent residence. Because she left the U.S. without a passport, her application was forwarded to the Department of State for consideration. Before arrangements were completed for issuing a passport, Japan attacked America, and war was declared.

Iva later withdrew the application, saying she would voluntarily remain in Japan for the duration of the war. She enrolled in a Japanese language and culture school to improve her language skills. From mid-1942 until late 1943, Toguri worked as a typist for the Domei News Agency; in August 1943, she obtained a second job as a typist for Radio Tokyo.

The Zero Hour
In November 1943, Toguri was asked to become a broadcaster for Radio Tokyo on the Zero Hour program. The program was part of a Japanese psychological warfare campaign designed to lower the morale of U.S. Armed Forces. The Zero Hour was broadcast every day except Sunday, from 6 p.m. until 7:15 p.m., Tokyo time. Toguri participated in most weekday broadcasts, but other women handled weekend duties.

Toguri was introduced on the program as “Orphan Ann,” “Orphan Annie.” Toguri’s average time on each program was about 20 minutes, during which she made propaganda statements and introduced popular records of the day, such as “Speak to Me of Love,” “In a Little Gypsy Tea Room,” and “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” The remainder of the program was devoted chiefly to news items from America and general news commentaries by other members of the broadcasting staff.

By late 1944, Toguri was writing her own material for the program. Her salary at Radio Tokyo reportedly amounted to some 150 yen per month—about $7 in U.S. currency. Toguri was not a professional radio personality, but many of those who later recalled hearing her enjoyed the program, especially the music.

As far as its propaganda value, Army analysis suggested that the program had no negative effect on troop morale and that it might even have raised it a bit. The Army’s sole concern about the broadcasts was that “Annie” appeared to have good intelligence on U.S. ship and troop movements.

On April 19, 1945, Iva Toguri married Felipe Aquino, a Portuguese citizen of Japanese-Portuguese ancestry. The marriage was registered with the Portuguese Consulate in Tokyo; however, Aquino did not renounce her U.S. citizenship. She continued her Zero Hour broadcast until the war was over.

After The War
In September 1945, after the press had reported that Aquino was Tokyo Rose, U.S. Army authorities arrested her. The FBI and the Army’s Counterintelligence Corps conducted an extensive investigation to determine whether Aquino had committed crimes against the U.S. By the following October, authorities decided that the evidence then known did not merit prosecution, and she was released.

Before the year was out, Aquino again requested a U.S. passport. American veterans groups and noted broadcaster Walter Winchell learned of this and became outraged that the woman they thought of as “Tokyo Rose” wanted to return to this country. They demanded that the woman they considered a traitor be arrested and tried, not welcomed back.

The public furor convinced the Justice Department that the matter should be re-examined, and the FBI was asked to turn over its investigative records on the matter. The FBI’s investigation of Aquino’s activities had covered a period of some five years. During the course of that investigation, the FBI had interviewed hundreds of former members of the U.S. Armed Forces who had served in the South Pacific during World War II, unearthed forgotten Japanese documents, and turned up recordings of Aquino’s broadcasts. Many of these recordings, though, were destroyed following the initial decision not to prosecute Aquino in 1946.

The Department of Justice initiated further efforts to acquire additional evidence that might be sufficient to convict Aquino. It issued a press release asking all U.S. soldiers and sailors who had heard the Radio Tokyo propaganda broadcasts and who could identify the voice of the broadcaster to contact the FBI. Justice also sent one of its attorneys and reporter Harry Brundidge to Japan to search for other witnesses. Problematically, Brundidge enticed a former contact of his to perjure himself in the matter.

With new witnesses and evidence, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco convened a grand jury, and Aquino was indicted on a number of counts in September 1948. She was detained in Japan and brought under military escort to the U.S., arriving in San Francisco on September 25, 1948. There, she was immediately arrested by FBI agents, who had a warrant charging her with the crime of treason for adhering to, and giving aid and comfort to, the Imperial Government of Japan during World War II.

The Trial
Aquino’s trial began on July 5, 1949, one day after her 33rd birthday. On September 29, 1949, the jury found her guilty on one count in the indictment. The jury ruled that:
“...on a day during October, 1944, the exact date being to the Grand Jurors unknown, said defendant, at Tokyo, Japan, in a broadcasting studio of the Broadcasting Corporation of Japan, did speak into a microphone concerning the loss of ships.”

This made Aquino, who had gained notoriety as Tokyo Rose, the seventh person to be convicted of treason in the history of this country. On October 6, 1949, Aquino was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment and fined $10,000 for the crime of treason.

On January 28, 1956, she was released from the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia, where she had served six years and two months of her sentence. She successfully fought government efforts to deport her and returned to Chicago, where she worked in her father’s shop until his death. President Gerald Ford pardoned her on January 19, 1977. She passed away in 2006.

Neither Brundidge nor the witness testified at trial because of the taint of perjury. Nor was Brundidge prosecuted for subornation of perjury. According to FBI records available at the National Archives, the Department of Justice thought that the evidence came down to the witness’s word against that of Brundidge.

Hollow Nickel/Rudolf Abel

On the evening of Monday, June 22, 1953, a delivery boy for the “Brooklyn Eagle” knocked on the door of one of his customers in the apartment building at 3403 Foster Avenue in Brooklyn. It was “collecting time” again. A lady answered the door. She disappeared for a moment, then returned with a purse in her hand.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” she said. “I don’t have any change. Can you break this dollar bill for me?”

The newsboy quickly counted the coins in his pocket. There were not enough. “I’ll ask the people across the hall,” he said.

There were two ladies in the apartment across from the one occupied by Jimmy’s customer. By pooling the coins in their pocketbooks, they were able to give the newsboy change for a dollar.

After he collected for the newspaper, Jimmy left the apartment house jingling several coins in his left hand. One of the coins seemed to have a peculiar ring. The newsboy rested this coin, a nickel, on the middle finger of his hand. It felt lighter than an ordinary nickel.

He dropped this coin to the floor. It fell apart! Inside was a tiny photograph— apparently a picture of a series of numbers.

Two days later (Wednesday, June 24, 1953) during a discussion of another investigation, a detective of the New York City Police Department told an FBI agent about the strange hollow nickel which, he had heard, was discovered by a Brooklyn youth. The detective had received his information from another police officer whose daughter was acquainted with the newsboy.

When the New York detective contacted him, Jimmy handed over the hollow nickel and the photograph it contained. The detective, in turn, gave the coin to the FBI.

In examining the nickel, agents of the FBI’s New York Office noted that the microphotograph appeared to portray nothing more then ten columns of typewritten numbers. There was five digits in each number and 21 numbers in most columns. The agents immediately suspected that they had found a coded espionage message. They carefully wrapped the nickel and microphotograph for shipment to the FBI Laboratory.

Upon its receipt in Washington on June 26, 1953, the nickel was subjected to the thorough scrutiny of a team of FBI scientific experts. Hollow coins, though rarely seen by the ordinary citizen, are occasionally used in magic acts and come to the attention of federal law enforcement agencies from time to time. This was the first time, however, that the FBI had ever encountered a nickel quite like this one.

The face of the coin was a 1948 Jefferson nickel. In the “R” of the word “TRUST”, there was a tiny hole—obviously drilled there so that a fine needle or other small instrument could be inserted to force the nickel open.

The reverse side had been made from another nickel— one minted sometime during the period of 1942 to 1945. It was composed of copper-silver alloy, there being a shortage of nickel during World War II.

While efforts were being made to decode the message on the microphotograph, FBI agents in New York launched an investigation to find the source of the hollow coin. The two ladies who had changed the newboy’s dollar on the evening of June 22 were located. Yes, they remembered Jimmy; but, if either had given him a hollow nickel, it was entirely unintentional. “Why, we’ve never seen a hollow coin— or, for that matter, even heard of one before.”

The proprietors of novelty stores and related business establishments in the New York vicinity were contacted. Photographs of the hollow coin were shown to them. None could recall seeing a nickel or other coin quite like this one.
“It’s not suitable for a magic trick,” one novelty salesman commented. “The hollowed-out area is too small to hide anything aside from a tiny piece of paper.

In Washington, each effort to decipher the microphotograph met with failure. Additionally, the kind of typewriter which had been used in preparing the coded message could not be identified. Since the FBI Laboratory maintains a reference file concerning typewriters manufactured in the United States, a foreign-made typewriter undoubtedly was involved.

From 1953 to 1957, continuing efforts were made to solve the mystery of the hollow coin. Several former intelligence agents who had defected to the free world from communist-bloc nations were contacted. They could shed no light on the case.

As the search for the source of the hollow nickel expanded across the United States, hollow subway tokens, “trick” coins, and similar objects were submitted to the FBI Laboratory by agents in various parts of the country. From New York came a half dollar which had been ground in such a manner that smaller coins could be concealed under it. From Los Angeles came a peculiar-looking 1953 Lincoln penny. FBI scientists determined that it had been coated with nickel.
Two hollow pennies were found in Washington, D.C. Neither of these pennies, nor the assortment of other coins which the Laboratory examined, was found to have tool markings or other distinguishing features to identify it with the newsboy’s 1948 Jefferson nickel.

In the intelligence and counterintelligence field, patience is more than a virtue. It is an absolute necessity. Months of determined probing by the FBI’s scientists and investigative staff had led merely to one blind alley after another. Yet, the relentless search to identify the person who had brought the hollow nickel to New York, as well as the person for whom the coded message was intended, continued.

Defection of a Russian Spy
The key to this mystery proved to be a 36-year-old Lieutenant Colonel of the Soviet State Security Service (KGB). Early in May 1957, he telephoned the United States Embassy in Paris and subsequently arrived at the embassy to be interviewed. To an embassy official, the Russian espionage agent explained, “I’m an officer in the Soviet intelligence service. For the past five years, I have been operating in the United States. Now I need your help.”
This spy, Reino Hayhanen, stated that he had just been ordered to return to Moscow. After five years in the United States, he dreaded the thought of going back to his communist-ruled homeland. He wanted to defect— to desert the Soviet camp.

Hayhanen was born near Leningrad on May 14, 1920. His parents were peasants. Despite his modest background, Hayhanen was an honor student and, in 1939, obtained the equivalent of a certificate to teach high school.

In September 1939, Hayhanen was appointed to the primary school faculty in the Village of Lipitzi. Two months later, however, he was conscripted by the Communists’ secret police, the NKVD. Since he had studied the Finnish language and was very proficient in its use, Hayhanen was assigned as an interpreter to an NKVD group and sent to the combat zone to translate captured documents and interrogate prisoners during the Finnish-Soviet war.

With the end of this war in 1940, Hayhanen was assigned to check the loyalty and reliability of Soviet workers in Finland and to develop informants and sources of information in their midst. His primary objective was to identify anti-Soviet elements among the intelligentsia.

Hayhanen became a respected expert in Finnish intelligence matters and in May 1943 was accepted into membership in the Soviet Communist Party. Following World War II, he rose to the rank of senior operative authorized representative of the Segozerski district section of the NKGB and, with headquarters in the Village of Padani, set about the task of identifying dissident elements among the local citizens.

In the summer of 1948, Hayhanen was called to Moscow by the KGB. The Soviet intelligence service had a new assignment for Hayhanen—one which would require him to sever relations with his family, to study the English language, and to receive special training in photographing documents, as well as to encode and decode messages.
While his KGB training continued, Hayhanen worked as a mechanic in the City of Valga, Estonia. Then, in the summer of 1949, he entered Finland as Eugene Nicolai Maki, an American-born laborer.

Background of the Real Maki
The real Eugene Nicolai Maki was born in Enaville, Idaho on May 30, 1919. His mother also was American born, but his father had immigrated to the United States from Finland in 1905. In the mid-1920s, Eugene Maki’s parents became deeply impressed by glowing reports of conditions in “the new” Russia. They sold their belongings and left their Idaho farm for New York to book passage on a ship to Europe.

After leaving the United States, the Maki family settled in Estonia. From the outset, it was obvious that they had found no “Utopia” on the border of the Soviet Union. Letters that they wrote to their former neighbors showed that Mr. and Mrs. Maki were very unhappy and sorely missed America.

As the years passed, memories of the Maki family gradually began to fade, and all but possibly two or three old time residents of Enaville, Idaho, forgot that there has ever been a Maki family in that area. In Moscow, however, plans were being made for a “new” Eugene Maki, one thoroughly grounded in Soviet intelligence techniques, to enter the scene.
Hayhanen Becomes Maki

From July 1949 to October 1952, Hayhanen resided in Finland and established his identity as the American-born Eugene Maki. During this period, he was most cautious to avoid suspicion or attracting attention to himself—his Soviet superiors wanting him to become established as an ordinary, hard-working citizen. This false “build up,” of course, was merely part of Hayhanen’s preparation for a new espionage assignment.

While in Finland, Hayhanen met and married Hanna Kurikka. She was to join him in the United States on February 20, 1953—four months after his arrival here. Even his wife knew him only as Eugene Maki, so carefully did he cover his previous life.

On July 3, 1951, Hayhanen—then living in Turku, Finland—visited the United States Legation in Helsinki. He displayed a birth certificate from the state of Idaho which showed that he was born in Enaville on May 30, 1919, and, in the presence of a Vice Consul, he executed an affidavit in which he explained that his family had left the United States in 1928:

“I accompanied my mother to Estonia when I was eight years of age and resided with her until her death in 1941. I left Estonia for Finland in June, 1943, and have resided here for the reason that I have no funds with which to pay my transportation to the United States.”

One year later—July 28, 1952—a passport was issued to Hayhanen as Eugene Maki at Helsinki. Using this passport, he sailed October 16, 1952 from Southhampton, England aboard the Queen Mary and arrived at New York City on October 21, 1952.
Several weeks before he departed for America, Hayhanen was recalled to Moscow and introduced to a Soviet agent, “Mikhail,” who was to serve as his espionage superior in this country. In order to establish contact with “Mikhail” in the United States, Hayhanen was instructed that after arriving in New York he should go to the Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Near the tavern, he was told, he would find a signpost marked “Horse Carts”

“You will let Mikhail know of your arrival by placing a red thumb tack in this signpost,” a Soviet official told him. “If you suspect that you are under surveillance, place a white thumb tack on the board.”

Hayhanen Returns to the United States
The information which Hayhanen furnished to U.S. officials in Paris, France, in May 1957, was immediately checked. There could be no question of its accuracy. Accordingly, passage was secured for Hayhanen on an airliner, and he was permitted to return to the United States.

Following his arrival in New York on May 10, 1957, Hayhanen was given a thorough physical examination, suitable quarters were found for him, and arrangements were made for him to be interviewed by FBI agents.

From the fall of 1952 until early in 1954, he said, “Mikhail” served as his espionage superior in New York. They met only when necessary—the meeting place being the Prospect Park subway station. To exchange messages and intelligence data, they used “dead drops”—inconspicuous hiding places—in the New York area. One of these “dead drops” was an iron picket fence at the end of 7th Avenue near Macombs bridge. Another was the base of a lamp post in Fort Tryon Park.

In one of the “dead drops” mentioned by Hayhanen—a hole in a set of cement steps in Prospect Park—FBI agents found a hollowed-out bolt. The bolt was about two inches long and one-fourth inch in diameter. It contained the following typewritten message:

“Nobody came to meeting either 8 or 9th...as I was advised he should. Why? Should he be inside or outside? Is time wrong? Place seems right. Please check.”

The bolt was found on May 15, 1957. It had been placed in the “dead drop” about two years previously, but, by a trick of fate, a repair crew had filled the hole in the stairs with cement, entombing the bolt and the message it contained.

Questioned about the hollow bolt, Hayhanen said that “trick” containers such as this were often used by the espionage apparatus which he served. Among the items he had been supplied by the Soviets were hollow pens, pencils, screws, batteries, and coins—in some instances magnetized so they would adhere to metal objects.

Hollow 50 Markkaa Coin
In the modest home of Hayhanen and his wife on Dorislee Drive in Peekskill, New York, FBI agents found such items as a 50 Markka coin from Finland. It had been hollowed out, and there was a small hole in the first “a” of the word “Tasavalta” which appeared on the “tail side” of this coin.

FBI Laboratory experts examined this Finnish coin on May 17, 1957. They immediately noted that it bore a great similarity to the Jefferson nickel which the Brooklyn newsboy had discovered in 1953. Two separate coins obviously had been used in making this “trick” 50 Markkaa piece. This also was the case with the hollow nickel. And both coins had a small hole in one printed letter so that a sharp-pointed instrument, such as a needle, could be used to open them.

Although the FBI was convinced that it had finally identified the Soviet espionage apparatus which was responsible for the hollow Jefferson nickel, only one half of the mystery posed by this coin since its discovery in June 1953 had been solved. The coded message which the nickel contained still had to be deciphered.

During the FBI’s extensive interviews with him, in May 1957 Hayhanen was carefully questioned regarding the codes and cryptosystems which he had used in the various Soviet intelligence agencies he had served since 1939. The information which he provided was applied by FBI Laboratory experts to the microphotograph from the Jefferson nickel.
With this data, the FBI Laboratory succeeded in breaking through the curtain of mystery which surrounded the coded message. By June 3, 1957, the full text of the microphotograph was known. The message apparently was intended for Hayhanen and had been sent from the Soviet Union shortly after his arrival in the United States. It read:
“1. WE CONGRATULATE YOU ON A SAFE ARRIVAL. WE CONFIRM THE RECEIPT OF YOUR LETTER TO THE ADDRESS `V REPEAT V’ AND THE READING OF LETTER NUMBER 1.”
“2. FOR ORGANIZATION OF COVER, WE GAVE INSTRUCTIONS TO TRANSMIT TO YOU THREE THOUSAND IN LOCAL (CURRENCY). CONSULT WITH US PRIOR TO INVESTING IT IN ANY KIND OF BUSINESS, ADVISING THE CHARACTER OF THIS BUSINESS.”
“3. ACCORDING TO YOUR REQUEST, WE WILL TRANSMIT THE FORMULA FOR THE PREPARATION OF SOFT FILM AND NEWS SEPARATELY, TOGETHER WITH (YOUR) MOTHER’S LETTER.”
“4. IT IS TOO EARLY TO SEND YOU THE GAMMAS. ENCIPHER SHORT LETTERS, BUT THE LONGER ONES MAKE WITH INSERTIONS. ALL THE DATA ABOUT YOURSELF, PLACE OF WORK, ADDRESS, ETC., MUST NOT BE TRANSMITTED IN ONE CIPHER MESSAGE. TRANSMIT INSERTIONS SEPARATELY.”
“5. THE PACKAGE WAS DELIVERED TO YOUR WIFE PERSONALLY. EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT WITH THE FAMILY. WE WISH YOU SUCCESS. GREETINGS FROM THE COMRADES. NUMBER 1, 3RD OF DECEMBER.”

Other Soviet Agents
Although Hayhanen assisted the FBI in solving the mystery of the hollow nickel, the information he furnished placed other critical challenges before the Agents. “Mikhail,” the Soviet with whom Hayhanen maintained contact from the fall of 1952 until early 1954, was yet to be identified. And, when “Mikhail” dropped from the scene in 1954, Hayhanen was turned over to another Russian spy, one known only as “Mark”. Hayhanen felt that “Mark” undoubtedly was still actively engaged in espionage within the United States! He also must be identified.

Hayhanen obtained the impression that “Mikhail” was a Soviet diplomatic official—possibly attached to the embassy or the United Nations. He described “Mikhail” as probably between 40 and 50 years old; medium build; long, thin nose; dark hair; and about five feet, nine inches tall. This description was matched against the descriptions of Soviet representatives who had been in the United States between 1952 and 1954. From the long list of possible suspects, the most logical “candidate” appeared to be Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin.

Svirin had been in and out of the United States on several occasions between 1939 and 1956. From the latter part of August 1952 until April 1954, he had served as the first secretary to the Soviet United Nations Delegation in New York.
On May 16, 1957, FBI agents showed a group of photographs to Hayhanen. The moment his eyes fell upon a picture of Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin, Hayhanen straightened up in his chair and announced, “That’s the one. There is absolutely no doubt about it. That’s Mikhail.’”

Svirin was beyond reach of American justice. He had returned to the Soviet Union in October 1956.
The FBI’s next task was to identify “Mark,” the Soviet agent who had succeeded “Mikhail” as Hayhanen’s contact man. Hayhanen did not know where “Mark” was residing or the name which “Mark” was using; however, he was able to furnish many other details concerning him.

According to Hayhanen, “Mark” was a colonel in the KGB and had been engaged in espionage work since approximately 1927. He had come to the United States in 1948 or 1949, entering by illegally crossing the Canadian border.
In keeping with instructions contained in a message he received from Soviet officials, Hayhanen was met by “Mark” at a movie theater in Flushing, Long Island, during the late summer of 1954. As identification symbols, Hayhanen wore a blue and red striped tie and smoked a pipe.

After their “introduction” at this theater, Hayhanen and “Mark” held frequent meetings in Prospect Park, on crowded streets, and in other inconspicuous places in the area of Greater New York. They also made several short trips together to Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Albany, Greenwich, and other communities in the eastern part of the United States.

“Mark” also sent Hayhanen on trips alone. For example, in 1954, “Mark” instructed him to locate an American Army sergeant, one formerly assigned to the United States Embassy in Moscow. At the time he related this information to FBI agents in May 1957, Hayhanen could not remember the Army sergeant’s name. “I do recall, however, that we used the code name `Quebec’ in referring to him and that he was recruited for Soviet intelligence work while in Moscow.”

(An intensive investigation was launched to identify and locate “Quebec.” It quickly produced results when, in examining a hollow piece of steel from Hayhanen’s home, the FBI Laboratory discovered a piece of microfilm less than one-inch square. The microfilm bore a typewritten message which identified “Quebec” as Army sergeant Roy Rhodes and stated the Soviet agents had recruited him in January 1952. Full information concerning Rhodes’ involvement in Russian espionage was disseminated to the Army; and following a court-martial, he was sentenced to serve five years at hard labor.)

Hayhanen described “Mark” as about 50 years old or possibly older; approximately five feet ten inches tall; thin gray hair; and medium build. The unidentified Soviet agent was an accomplished photographer, and Hayhanen recalled that on one occasion in 1955, “Mark” took him to a storage room where he kept photo supplies on the fourth or fifth floor of a building located near Clark and Fulton Streets in Brooklyn.

The search for this storage room led FBI agents to a building at 252 Fulton Street. Among the tenants was one Emil R. Goldfus, a photographer who had operated a studio on the fifth floor since January, 1954—and who also had formerly rented a fifth-floor storage room there.

In April 1957 (the same month Hayhanen boarded a ship for Europe under instructions to return to Moscow), Goldfus had told a few persons in the Fulton Street building that he was going South on a seven-week vacation. “It’s doctor’s orders,” he explained. “I have a sinus condition.”

Goldfus disappeared about April 26, 1957. Less than three weeks later, FBI agents arrived at 252 Fulton Street in pursuit of the mysterious “Mark.” Since Goldfus appeared to answer the description of Hayhanen’s espionage superior, surveillance was established near his photo studio.

On May 28, 1957, agents observed a man resembling “Mark” on a bench in a park directly opposite the entrance to 252 Fulton Street. This man occasionally walked about the park; he appeared to be nervous; and he created the impression that he was looking for someone—possibly attempting to determine any unusual activity in the neighborhood. At 6:50 p.m., this man departed on foot—the agents, certain their presence had not been detected, chose to wait rather than take a chance of trailing the wrong man. “If that’s `Mark,’ he’ll return,” they correctly surmised.
While the surveillance continued at 252 Fulton Street, other FBI agents made daily checks on the “dead drops” which Hayhanen stated he and “Mark” had used. The agents’ long hours of patience were rewarded on the night of June 13, 1957. At 10:00 p.m., they saw the lights go on in Goldfus’ studio, and a man was observed moving in the room.

The lights went out at 11:52 p.m., and a man who appeared to generally fit the description of “Mark” stepped into the darkness outside the building. This man was followed down Fulton Street to a nearby subway station. Moments later, FBI agents saw him take a subway to 28th Street, and they stood by unnoticed as he emerged from the subway and walked to the Hotel Latham on East 28th Street.

On June 15, a photograph of Goldfus which the FBI took with a hidden camera was shown to Hayhanen. “You’ve found him,” the former Soviet Agent exclaimed. “That’s ‘Mark.’”

Goldfus—registered at the Hotel Latham under the name of Martin Collins—was kept under surveillance from the night of June 13 until the morning of June 21, 1957. During this period, FBI agents discreetly tied together the loose ends of the investigation, matters which had to be resolved before this Russian intelligence officer could be taken into custody.
Arrested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service on an alien warrant based upon his illegal entry into the United States and failure to register as an alien, “Mark” displayed a defiant attitude. He refused to cooperate at all.

Following his arrest, “Mark” was found to possess many false papers, including two American birth certificates. The first showed that he was Emil R. Goldfus, born August 2, 1902 in New York City. According to the second one, he was Martin Collins, born June 2, 1897, also in New York. Investigation was to establish that the Emil Goldfus whose birth certificate “Mark” displayed had died in infancy. The certificate in the name of Collins was a forgery.

During his career as a soviet spy, “Mark” also had used many other nabel in addition to the ones cited above. For example, during the fall of 1948, while en route to the United States from the Soviet Union, he had adopted the identity of Andrew Kayotis. The real Andrew Kayotis, believed to have died in a Lithuanian hospital, was born in Lithuania on October 10, 1895. He had arrived in the United States in October 1916 and became a naturalized American citizen at Grand Rapids, Michigan on December 30, 1930.

On July 15, 1947, Andrew Kayotis, then residing in Detroit, was issued a passport so that he could visit relatives in Europe. Investigation in Detroit disclosed that several persons there considered Kayotis to be in poor physical condition at the time of his departure from the United States. Letters subsequently received from him indicated that he was in a Lithuanian hospital. When Kayotis’ friends in Michigan heard no more from him, they assumed that he had passed away.

Nearly 10 years later, “Mark” was to admit that he had used Kayotis’ passport during the fall of 1948 in booking passage aboard an ocean liner from LeHavre, France, to Canada. On November 14, 1948, he disembarked from the ship at Quebec—and quickly dropped out of sight.

“Mark” made another admission—that he was a Russian citizen, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, born July 2, 1902 in the Soviet Union. Although he refused to discuss his intelligence activities, the photo studio and hotel room which he occupied were virtual museums of modern espionage equipment. They contained shortwave radios, cipher pads, cameras and film for producing microdots, a hollow shaving brush, cuff links, and numerous other “trick” containers.
Indicted as a Russian spy, Colonel Abel was tried in federal court at New York City during October 1957. Among the government witnesses to testify against him was his former trusted espionage assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Reino Hayhanen.

On October 25, 1957, the jury announced its verdict—Abel was guilty of all counts. He appeared before Judge Mortimer W. Byers on November 15, 1957 and was sentenced as follows (the three sentences to be served concurrently):

Count One (Conspiracy to transmit defense information to the Soviet Union), 30 years’ imprisonment.

Count Two (Conspiracy to obtain defense information), 10 years’ imprisonment and $2,000 fine.

Count Three (Conspiracy to act in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without notification to the Secretary of State), five years’ imprisonment and $1,000 fine.

Colonel Abel appealed his convictions, claiming that rights guaranteed to him under the Constitution and laws of the United States had been violated. By a five-to-four decision which was handed down on March 28, 1960, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of this Russian spy. An investigation which had started with a newsboy’s hollow nickel ultimately resulted in the smashing of a Soviet spy ring. On February 10, 1962, Rudolf Invanovich Abel was exchanged for the American U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who was a prisoner of the Soviet Union.

The EFRAIM SAMUEL Case – A Romanian Spy

The Soviet Union and its satellite countries in Eastern Europe have strived to collect intelligence in Israel since its establishment, when Eastern European intelligence services have often been assigned as sub-contractors supporting the Soviet super-power's intelligence necessities. The Romanian Intelligence Service, for example, was during communist times one of the dominant services acting against Israel. It conducted its activity through intelligence officers, who served under the cover of official roles in the various Romanian delegations in Israel.

One of the major methods of the Eastern block to infiltrate agents into Israel was under the cover of newcomers. Generally, an immigrant movement offers a convenient opportunity for secret services to infiltrate agents into a country, and Israel, being a country absorbing immigrants is ideal for that purpose. However, since immigration from the Soviet Union was most restricted and scanty, the Soviets used the waves of immigrants from other Eastern European countries as an instrument to introduce intelligence agents into Israel. Romania is among the countries from which there was an extensive immigration to Israel during the 50's and 60's.

According to Eastern European modus operandi, most of the deployed operatives were of previous active Communist-Party background. Some were recruited after having engaged in the absorption process; others were infiltrated under the cover of newcomers, instructed by intelligence elements. For some, Israel was merely a waypoint on their way to be infiltrated into another western country. ISA has regarded the possibility that among the East European immigrants are also agents infiltrated by foreign secret services, including the Romanian service, with the utmost seriousness and has strived to uncover them.

EFRAIM SAMUEL was born in 1923 to a Jewish family in the town of Dej in Transylvania. He joined the Romanian Communist Party during the Second World War. In 1944 he joined the Party apparatus, and was promoted to a District Secretary. In 1948 he was appointed the Romanian Minister of Agriculture's Secretary. The minister and his deputy – Nicolae Ceausescu, who later became Romania's president – have both helped him in later years. As a result of the 1952 dismissal of the Minister of Agriculture due to internal power struggles in the Romanian Communist Party, EFRAIM SAMUEL was dismissed from office as well .EFRAIM SAMUEL was arrested and transferred to a mental hospital, where he was brutally interrogated. After several months he was released from detention, but eventually lost his Party position. He subsequently returned to his work as an electro-mechanic. EFRAIM SAMUEL later claimed these experiences during the interrogation and detention have haunted him for years and have influenced his resolve. In 1956 he was summoned to the Communist Party's offices and was accused of "right-wing perversions", and was offered to purge his name by undertaking a "difficult mission" on the Party's behalf. EFRAIM SAMUEL turned to Ceausescu, whom he had previously known, but the latter refused to intervene, and EFRAIM SAMUEL had no choice but to accept the offer. EFRAIM SAMUEL was trained for the mission in a six-month intelligence course, where he was instructed both theoretically and practically in clandestine activity and in various methods of clandestine communications, as well as in recruiting sources. The target – Israel – only became known to him upon completing the course. He signed an "agent-contract" for a period of five years. He was to immigrate and be absorbed in Israel, consequently settling down in Haifa. His intelligence assignments were to get familiar with the Israeli political scene, and to report to his superiors about the country's leading political forces. He was to keep track of the economic situation and report about commercial contracts signed between Israel and western countries, as well as to spot candidates to be recruited to the Romanian intelligence. EFRAIM SAMUEL, his wife and two children immigrated to Israel on April 27, 1958.  He was first sent to a kibbutz, worked in his vocation and was successfully absorbed. He later moved to Haifa due to pressure from his wife, and worked as an electrician. In 1963 he began working as maintenance manager in a laundry company in northern Israel.

Several months after EFRAIM SAMUEL immigrated to Israel, certain indications immerged from various sources which suggested EFRAIM SAMUEL may be a Romanian intelligence agent.

In September 1958 he was summoned to an interview by the relevant ISA department, yet he produced reasonable answers and did not raise suspicion.

However, additional suspicious information immerged, some of which led to designating EFRAIM SAMUEL as suspected of espionage, and to monitoring him through operational means. During the surveillance it appeared EFRAIM SAMUEL had been aware of the possibility of being monitored, often exposing surveillance. The ISA was also convinced his letters abroad contained a hidden content.

The operational monitoring of EFRAIM SAMUEL lasted for nearly six years. Meanwhile, suspicious material continued to add up in his file mostly from debriefings of new immigrants from Romania, alongside suspicious features in his behaviour. Yet, this was not sufficient to form a body of evidence for prosecution.

In July 1964 EFRAIM SAMUEL moved with this family to Neve Shaanan neighbourhood in Haifa. The apartment adjacent to his has been rented by the ISA for the tightening of the operational surveillance on him.

In March 1965 a breakthrough was noted when a Romanian intelligence transmission to EFRAIM SAMUEL apartment had been intercepted by ISA elements monitoring his activities. But that was not sufficient either in order to arrest and bring him to trial. The evidence needed was one which can withstand legal purposes, such as catching him red-handed while receiving a transmission from his Romanian handlers, containing incriminating material such as reception logs, and a one-time-pad which enables the deciphering of the transmission, etc. ISA had prepared for acquiring legal evidence and the next day, upon the initiation of another Romanian intelligence transmission to EFRAIM SAMUEL, ISA personnel stormed his apartment accompanied by a police officer, holding a warrant for his arrest. While breaking into the apartment, the couple's bedroom door was locked, and was broken after the couple refused the police officer's demand to open it. In the bedroom were found the radio receiver used for receiving the transmissions. His wife held a piece of burnt paper, which included listings EFRAIM SAMUEL made during receiving his handlers' messages, and which she apparently tried to burn down in the room's heater. The couple was separated. Once EFRAIM SAMUEL understood he had been uncovered, he turned in the earphones he used for receiving the transmissions and the cipher. EFRAIM SAMUEL was interrogated for a month. He admitted to some of the counts, namely those he had been "incriminated" with. Yet, in other topics he kept his cards close to his chest, and only disclosed partial information, while trying to mislead the interrogators.

Only in later stages of the interrogation, in light of his wife's arrest, his concern for the wellbeing of his children and his own detention conditions, he made a clean breast of details regarding his handling, assignments and communication with the Romanian intelligence. Inter alia, EFRAIM SAMUEL unfolded the story of two clandestine meetings with a Romanian intelligence officer conducted in Israel, and confirmed the ISA's basic assumption that his letters to Romania contained concealed contents. EFRAIM SAMUEL's wife was also interrogated and at first employed the total denial tactic, including the attempt to burn down the papers, albeit this act was witnessed. Although it has been assessed the wife was an active partner to her husband's activity, considering the couple's children, it has been eventually decided she will not stand trial and was released. EFRAIM SAMUEL trial began in September 1965 in the Haifa District Court. The hearing took place in the president-of-court's chamber in order to keep the arrest secret. The bill of indictment contained four clauses: conspiring to collect information, collecting information, transferring information, all with the purpose of compromising the State's security, as well as contact with a foreign agent (Romanian secret agents).EFRAIM SAMUEL denied all charges and claimed to having done what he did out of compulsion, under threat and no alternative – not out of free will. He mentioned the torture he endured in Romania in 1952 and the influence it had on him. He also stated he had no intention of compromising the State security; he claimed he only passed marginal information, and avoided taking on heavier assignments. In that manner he refrained from taking a job in the Acre Steel Works and from joining Mapai, the Israeli Workers' Party – with the pre-intention of avoiding accessibility to information his handlers would have been interested in. He also stated he evaded the task of recruiting new agents for the Romanian intelligence. EFRAIM SAMUEL was legally convicted and was sentenced to six years in jail. The Romanians asked in 1966 through unofficial channels for his release. They clarified the "highest instance in their country", that is President Ceausescu, is inquiring about EFRAIM SAMUEL's fate. ISA deemed further imprisonment of EFRAIM SAMUEL pointless and agreed to release him, stipulated that he would leave Israel and return to Romania. On May 23, 1967 EFRAIM SAMUEL's sentence was reduced, and his son was released ahead of time from military service. On May 30, 1967, six days before the Six Day War – EFRAIM SAMUEL and his family left Israel and returned to Romania.

Rasko - a Double Agent

In the summer of 1958, a new immigrant from Romania arrived at a government office and informed the clerk that he arrived to Israel under cover as a Romanian Intelligence agent with different espionage missions to carry out, and asked to meet a security official. He immigrated to Israel with his family only a few days earlier. Following this incident, the ISA began conducting a controlled operation in which the immigrant – who was given the code name Rasko – was operated as a double agent vis à vis the Romanian Intelligence (the Securitate). The operation lasted many years and was defined as "the Eastern European School for Intelligence" since the stream of information taught the ISA about Eastern European Intelligence and its modus operandi. Rasko embraced both Zionism and Communism, and was a member in the Communist party since adolescence. During World War II he joined the Soviet forces fighting in the east; and at the end of the war returned to his hometown and launched an academic career. His wife was also a scholar and a member in the Communist party since adolescence. She acknowledged the fact that she had been a recruit and a facilitator of the Securitate at their hometown. Her handling focused on providing reports about official visitors from abroad and the academic circle at her town. When still living and training in Romania, before their deployment in Israel, the couple decided to cooperate with the Israeli security authorities and report about the espionage mission for Romania on their arrival.

The first task of the ISA was to interview the couple and learn all about their mission in Israel. It took quite a bit of time and numerous meetings to study the information that Rasko furnished ─ general and specific information regarding his long term training in Romania before immigrating to Israel,  acquaintances, links to Romanian Intelligence officers, missions, and his evaluation of other agents operating in Israel. Rasko's wife also passed a series of interviews which focused on the task she was given by the Romanian Intelligence: a radio operator for her husband and other Romanian agents operating in Israel. In the course of their interviews, the couple disclosed they were recruited two years earlier, in the summer of 1956. Their recruitment was marked by several meetings with senior members in the Communist party and representatives in the Romanian Ministry of the Interior. The couple was told they were chosen to represent their country in an Intelligence mission in Israel and another Western country. Moreover, they were specifically told the decision to execute the mission is not up to them. Rasko received a military rank on behalf of the Romanian Intelligence, an established tradition among Soviet Intelligence organizations. In the course of the two years prior to their deployment to Israel, Rasko and his wife were trained according to basic principles in several domains:
Principles of clandestine activity – detecting and shaking off surveillance, recruiting agents, methods of clandestine communication etc.

Knowledge of Western Intelligence organizations and their modus operandi.

Strengthening and implanting Communism (indoctrination) and reinforcing the bondage to their homeland Romania.

Land of Israel Studies in diverse areas such as economics, politics, and history.

At the end of the training, Rasko received a list of operational and Intelligence collecting missions to be carried out in Israel. He was instructed to find a job as a journalist, join a Zionist party, establish and cement extensive social ties, and collect information on political, military, and security issues. It seems that the Romanian Intelligence expected greatly from Rasko and considered him a valuable spy seeing the quality of the missions he was assigned. Therefore, the ISA was interested in turning Rasko into a double agent vis à vis the Romanian Intelligence; however, the couple faced a dilemma whether to agree to ISA's request to be double agents for fear of exposure by the Securitate and its ability to revenge. Only after continuous spiels did Rasko agree to take part in the operation and become a double agent. Since then, all of Rasko's activities vis à vis the Romanian Intelligence were monitored by the ISA.In the course of the long term operation, the ISA exposed Romanian Intelligence officers who maintained contacts with Rasko in Israel and abroad. Some were Intelligence officers working in Israel under cover as diplomats; some were officers who personally met Rasko abroad, and others arrived especially from Romania to meet him (the fact that the Securitate thought it right to risk and send to Israel senior Intelligence officers to meet Rasko suggests they valued him greatly). Throughout the operation, various technological and communication means used by the Eastern European Intelligence were revealed. These included: cryptograph, encrypted messages, Dead Drops  dispersed in Israel. In addition, Rasko's handling by the ISA exposed Romanian and Eastern European Intelligence interests (through Rasko's Intelligence collecting missions), cover addresses used by the Romanian Intelligence, and its modus operandi.The information accumulated in this operation was of considerable assistance to ISA's ability to foil the ongoing efforts made by Eastern European Intelligence agencies to send and recruit agents to Israel.Seven or eight years after the operation began, first questions were raised whether to end the operation and the link between Rasko and the Romanian Intelligence, since Rasko's handlers in Romania assigned him more and more complex missions that could not be fulfilled. In 1965, the media published a story about an arrest of a Romanian Intelligence agent operating in Israel (see the EFRAIM SAMUEL Case). Rasko informed the Romanian handlers about his intentions to end the operation with Romania for fear of being exposed. The Romanian Intelligence refused and his handlers tried to convince him to continue and work for them while clarifying that it is not up to him to decide. But to no avail…The ISA considers the handling of Rasko as one of the most important and valuable operations in the area of thwarting Eastern European espionage, and Rasko as ISA's best teacher in the field of Eastern European Intelligence field work. The operation with Rasko and his lengthy handling vis à vis the Romanian Intelligence were considered as one of ISA's best achievements, and ironically the Romanian Intelligence also considered Rasko a great success.

Yisrael Bar

On March 31, 1961, Yisrael Bar, a senior employee in the Ministry of Defense, was arrested under suspicion of espionage for the USSR. Yisrael Bar, a former lieutenant colonel in the IDF, was a well known military commentator and an expert on military history, and was employed in a civilian job in the Ministry of Defense to write a book on the history of the War of Independence.

Bar was born in Austria in 1912 to an assimilated Jewish family. He was active in the Austrian Social–Democratic Party and claimed to have taken part in the armed conflict between the military organization of this party, the “Schutzbund,” and the Austrian army.

Bar took pride in having later completed officer training in the Austrian military academy and for having served as an officer in the army for a certain period of time.

Given that it has been proven that Bar lied regarding two of the achievements he attributed to himself – having completed a doctorate in modern literature from the University of Vienna as well as having participated in battle alongside the Social-Republicans in the Civil War in Spain during the years 1936-1938, claiming to have completed his service as a colonel serving as a brigade commander – the personal record in which he took such glory should be regarded with a critical eye.

Even so, to be certain, Bar obtained first-hand knowledge, theoretical and historical, in many military areas, which made him an expert in these issues despite his lack of real field experience.

Thus, for example, he learned about the Spanish Civil War from the press and military literature. He was proficient in the details of the battles, names of places, commanders, military units, a proficiency which left no doubt as to his credibility and military experience.

His falsifications were revealed only following his arrest and interrogation
Bar immigrated to Israel in October 1938 and was accepted to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as a research student. He concurrently joined the “Hagana” organization.  Bar’s publication of articles on military subjects led to his acceptance in 1940 as a permanent member of the “Hagana”. There, he took part in training and in planning until the outbreak of the War of Independence. With the establishment of the IDF he was appointed as one of the two assistants to the head of the Operations Division and the Deputy Chief of the General Staff as well as serving as head of the Planning Division for the Operations Division, at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He requested discharge from the IDF in 1949, because of his failure to be promoted to a new position in the Operations Division in direct subordination to the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. He bitterly claimed that he was not promoted because his credibility was in question because of his connection with an opposition party, “Mapam”. Bar was formally discharged after a leave of absence in July 1950.  Bar was politically active in “Mapam” during his service in the IDF . After his resignation from the IDF he began work in Mapam, as head of its security department. In this position he obtained military intelligence information about the IDF in order to keep party officials, who were in the opposition, informed, and was closely connected with the party’s information department which was gathering political non-military intelligence. During his “Mapam” activity Yisrael Bar was closely associated with Moshe Sneh, the leader of the “Left Socialists”, a group that identified completely with the USSR, and supported them blindly, even during the Prague Trials and the Moscow Doctors’ Plot during the years 1952-1953.When the “Left Socialists” left “Mapam” in January 1953, Bar chose unexpectedly not to join Sneh and temporarily retired from political activity. In 1954, to the surprise of many, he joined “Mapai”, the majority party.In the early fifties he lectured on military history in various courses in the IDF. In mid-1955, he signed a civilian contract with the Ministry of Defense for the purpose of writing about the events of the War of Independence. He was involved with this project until his arrest . In 1959 Bar was appointed head of the Department of Military History in the University of Tel Aviv.  The contract with the Ministry of Defense afforded him the rank of colonel and thus he was considered among the ministry’s senior administrative officials, which intermittently received various updates, including classified material.

The dramatic change in Bar’s political views sparked varying reactions. Some considered him to be an opportunist hoping to return to the IDF; others viewed his efforts to approach Ben-Gurion, the Minister of Defense, with suspicion, considering them an alarming sign of attempted left wing influence. Bar took advantage of his new status in the Ministry of Defense in order to create the impression that he had a very close relationship with Ben-Gurion, and that he was amongst his confidantes and advisors. Despite his civilian status he would often wear the uniform of lieutenant colonel. Furthermore, he had the habit of spending lunch breaks in the General Staff base, where he would meet senior officers and exchange updates and opinions. Many of them trusted him fully, and given that he presented himself as a close confidante of the minister of defense, they even considered him to be a close link to the minister, one who could promote their personal and professional matters. Some even provided him classified documents, including intelligence assessments, for consideration.

From the year 1958 Bar began to develop close connections in Europe, including Germany, France, UK as well as other Western countries. Furthermore, he embarked on several trips to those countries, while creating the impression that he was on a government mission and thus obtaining the aid of military attachés and Ministry of Defense delegations. His meetings included the German minister of defense, Strauss, and the head of French intelligence, among others.

During his visit to Germany in 1960 he met the head of German intelligence, General Gahlen, who was a prime target for Soviet intelligence. He did so despite the explicit prohibition of the head of the Mossad, Isser Harel, which was conveyed to him by the director general of the Ministry of Defense. When Isser Harel discovered that Bar had carried out the meeting he had specifically prohibited, he considered it a suspicious sign, one which corroborated suspicions that he had long harbored regarding Bar. Harel suspected Bar due to his close connection to Sneh, his activity in the “Mapam” Security Department, which seemed to have a subversive bent, and the suspicion that he could be a communist who had infiltrated “Mapai” in order to attain a central position and to become a Soviet-Communist agent within the establishment. The information on Bar at that point was not enough to legally justify his removal from his position in the Ministry of Defense. Consequently Harel had three long conversations with Bar in 1955, 1956 and 1958. He was also closely monitored, with no results. Harel was not satisfied with the first conversation in 1955, when Bar was questioned about his past. In September 1956, prior to the “Kadesh” operation Harel had a second conversation with Bar, as a precautionary measure carried out in cases of “individuals with questionable loyalties”. This conversation was also intended as a warning to such individuals, were the Soviets to attempt to recruit them, or simply as a deterrence to the formation of such connections. Following the arrest of Aharon Cohen in 1958, on the grounds of espionage for the USSR and due to certain connections between Bar and Cohen around that time, Harel conducted another conversation with him. No specific suspicions were raised in these three conversations; however Harel’s suspicions were far from allayed. Even after Bar’s meeting with the head of the German intelligence service, he was monitored, but still there was not enough material to support the suspicions. In January 1961, Vladimir Sokolov, a member of the Soviet intelligence and a staff member at the Soviet Embassy, was observed carrying out secretive activity in a certain area of north Tel Aviv. The ISA decided to increase the surveillance of this area to a daily level. On March 29, 1961 at approximately 08:00 P.M, the surveillance detected an unidentified individual carrying out a secret meeting with Sokolov. Surveillance of the individual’s movements led to an apartment on the second floor of 67 Brandeis St. in north Tel Aviv -- Yisrael Bar’s apartment. The following evening, on March 30, 1961 at approximately 08:00 P.M, Bar was observed walking in the area of the previous meeting, carrying a heavy briefcase. He met with Sokolov and was later seen walking without the briefcase. At 10:40 P.M he was observed walking to his apartment holding the briefcase.
In the time between these events two Soviet cars, one of which belonged to Sokolov, were observed exiting the Soviet Embassy separately, and heading in the direction of Tel Aviv. A member of the Soviet intelligence holding a briefcase emerged from one of them. The ISA’s intelligence assessment was that the material in the briefcase had been photocopied and returned to Bar. Yisrael Bar was interrogated that night and his apartment was searched. Classified documents were discovered during the search. Bar was arrested on the morning of March 31, 1961. Bar initially denied all accusations of contact with foreign diplomats, but later on, admitted to having connections with the Soviet intelligence as well as to his operator Vladimir Sokolov.
The interrogation revealed that Bar’s recruitment by the Soviets began in 1956, when he met Sergei Lousiev, a representative of the Soviet news agency “Tass”, and a known member of the Soviet intelligence, in the apartment of an Israeli journalist. About a month later Bar was invited to Misha Eidelberg’s apartment. Eidelberg was an old acquaintance from “Mapam”, and a central activist in the Communist organization “The Movement for Friendship with the USSR”. Shortly after arriving at Eidelberg’s apartment Lousiev arrived “unexpectedly” and began to discuss some “frustrations” in his press work: his lack of sources of information, the constant slandering of the USSR in the Israeli press, and finally, the fact that there was no Israeli willing to explain the Israeli point of view to the Soviets. By telling Bar this, Lousiev as much as invited him to become the “Israeli spokesperson”.
Lousiev expressed his desire to continue meeting Bar and they decided to schedule another meeting over the phone. However, before Bar had the chance to call, he met Lousiev “coincidentally” and they scheduled another meeting, which was held in September 1956.
Bar informed the Minister of Defense’s military secretary about this new acquaintance and the secretary advised him to discuss the issue with the head of the ISA Amos Manor. Bar did report the issue to the head of the ISA, during a meeting on a separate topic. Manor warned him that Lousiev was a member of the Soviet intelligence and that his intentions were far from innocent. Despite these warnings Bar met Lousiev again. In September 1956, when he was summoned for the meeting with Isser Harel, he mentioned his acquaintance with Lousiev and was warned again regarding the continuation of his relationship with the Soviet. His further relationship with the Soviets was, claimed Bar, at three festive occasions held at the consulates of Bulgaria, the USSR and Yugoslavia, between September 1957 and January 1958. Bar met Lousiev again and was introduced to Vasili Avdyenko, a senior member of the Soviet intelligence, stationed as head of the KGB branch in the USSR embassy. According to Bar, the two had a serious conversation regarding political and strategic issues regarding the relations between Israel and the USSR. Avdyenko later introduced Bar to Vladimir Sokolov. He began meeting Sokolov in January 1958 and they gradually moved from semi-public meetings including intellectual exchange of ideas in pleasant surroundings, to conspirative meetings on military matters concerning Western countries and later, concerning Israel as well. Bar was subjected to a number of intelligence interrogations conducted in the Soviet intelligence facility, located in the Russian Church in Abu-Kabir. During further stages of the intelligence relationship with Bar, Sokolov demonstrated increasing interest in security matters related to Israel. He demanded and was given documents, which he photocopied. In early 1961 Sokolov’s demands became more aggressive and even threatening. He demanded information on Israel’s nuclear potential and implied that Bar would never be able to sever his connections with the Soviets. According to Bar, he was shocked and began to reconsider this relationship, which had begun on a political background, but had turned into “the work of an actual mole.” He even contemplated, he claimed, turning to the ISA, but did not do so due to Harel’s hostile approach towards him, and the harsh words between them after his meeting with the German general. In response to pressure from the Soviet operator, Bar provided him the plans of an American army base that had been built in Turkey by an Israeli company – “Solel Bone”. Sokolov appeared for his next meeting, which he had set with Yisrael Bar for April 10, 1961. On April 16, 1961 Bar’s arrest became public, following which Sokolov left the country. Bar claimed in his defense that he had acted out of the hope to turn the Soviet orientation in the Middle East in Israel’s favor. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Following his appeal to the Supreme Court his sentence was made harsher and was lengthened to 15 years imprisonment. Israel Bar passed away while still in jail in May 1966.

Shimon Levinson (Lavi) Affair

In April 1983, Mr. Levinson entered the Soviet Union's embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, and offered his assistance to the Russians. He was recruited and operated by the Soviet intelligence agency and secret police, the KGB, until his arrest in May 1991.

Every counter-intelligence agency's nightmare is the existence of an agent (a spy) of a hostile entity at the heart of the state's intelligence community and in the vicinity of the state's high-ranking decision makers. Such an agent obtains accessibility to most sensitive information, including strategic plans, and is therefore liable to cause extensive strategic damage.

The case of Shimon Levinson (Lavi), a reserve military officer, a former army intelligence colonel, a former member of both ISA and Mossad as well as a chief security officer in the Prime Minister's Office, was such a nightmare come-true.
In April 1983, Mr. Levinson entered the Soviet Union's embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, and offered his assistance to the Russians. He was recruited and operated by the Soviet intelligence agency and secret police, the KGB, until his arrest in May 1991.

In the years he had been operated by the Russians, Levinson held intensive communication with his handlers, both by clandestine meetings in Europe and Moscow, and by means of clandestine communications: secret writing, radio transmissions, dead-letter drops, etc., through which he had transferred  a great deal of critical information to his handlers. Levinson stated in his interrogation, his sole motive was his financial difficulties and concerns about his family's future economical situation, and not any ideological motives, nor any affiliation to the Soviet Union. Throughout the seven years of his handling,

Levinson received from his Russian handlers 31,000 dollars, and has disrupted the ties once his financial situation improved (in the beginning of the 90's). Due to Levinson's varied background, his familiarity with and access to top secret information, he was considered one of the highest-ranking KGB agents in Israel, causing Israel the gravest intelligence scathe.

Shimon Levinson was born in 1933 in Jerusalem. He was married +4.

He was enlisted in the IDF in 1950 and has served there for more than 10 years in a variety of positions, such as:

1950 – 1953 – a member of the Israeli-Jordanian armistice committee.

1954 – an army attaché in Turkey (attained an honorary rank without attending an officers course).

1954-1960 – returned to the armistice committee, as a coordinator between the Intelligence Corps and the Jordanian army.

1960 – 1961 – participated in the vocational high course for intelligence, after which he had been appointed head of documentation section in the Military Intelligence Directorate

He left the military out of frustration for not having been promoted. For a year he was employed as CEO of the Government Coins and Medals Corporation, but was forced to resign after having submitted a false complaint on corruption and mismanagement. In March 1963 Levinson was recruited by ISA and served in the Jerusalem field office as head of a security vetting team. In 1965 he was transferred, at his request, to 'Mossad' where he was employed until March 1967 in credibility checks.

At the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he returned in 1967 to the armistice committee, where he served until its nullification in July 1967.

He was later enrolled for the UN Liaison, and was subsequently promoted to commander of the unit until 1970. Upon finishing this term in the UN liaison, he returned to Mossad's liaison department, and has served for two years as head of an overseas station.

He was returned to Israel due to a security mishap he was responsible for, and was re-positioned as special assistant to head of special liaison in Mossad headquarters, where he worked until 1973. In July 1973 he was reposted as IDF liaison colonel to the UN until 1978 when he retired again, frustrated for not being promoted. Levinson exploited the connections he developed with the UN and was appointed in 1979 in charge of UN war on drugs in Thailand, where he had served until June 1983. Near the end of his term of office in Thailand he ran into financial difficulties due to failing attempts to undertake private business.

In 1984 Levinson tried to rejoin Mossad again but was rejected in light of negative information regarding his character and traits.

In May 1985, after interference by close high-ranking acquaintances, he was appointed chief security officer at the Prime Minister's Office. He left abruptly in December that year, after having been criticized for his function as a security officer.

He later tried his luck unsuccessfully as a businessman.
In May 1991, after having been identified as a spy – he was lured back to Israel from abroad, and was arrested in the Ben Gurion airport. He was interrogated and immediately admitted to the offences attributed to him. He was convicted in trial and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.Levinson provided his handlers with comprehensive information in the following topics:

The structure of the Israeli intelligence community – its various units, including: the Military Intelligence Division, Mossad, ISA, the police's special operations unit and Nativ – the government liaison bureau for eastern Bloc Jewery.
The information provided included names and details of units and sub-units, names of their chiefs as well as modus operandi.

Structure of the Prime Minister's Office, activity and key personalities.

Details on the Israeli Foreign Ministry, including the forwarding of original documents to his handlers.

The Israeli political system: personnel, parties, opinions and atmosphere.

Information on American intelligence officers in contact with Israeli intelligence, including names, functions and specialties

Levinson has served his sentence in jail, sharing his cell with Dr. Marcus Klinberg.

He was released from jail in 1999 after a third of his sentence had been deducted for good behavior.

While in prison, his wife left him, as well as his friends and colleagues. He was disbanded from organizations he was a member in, such as the IDF Veterans Association and others. His health was also deteriorating. Upon his release, he rented an apartment in Jerusalem, socially secluded and looking to keep himself busy.

In 2003, as soon as his stay of exit term expired, Levinson left Israel, currently staying abroad, and usually returning for brief visits.

Lessons from this event have been learnt and assimilated, thus contributing to a process of implementing new working processes, safeguarding from similar future occurrences.

The Yaacobian Case

On December 19, 1963, a new immigrant from Brazil, a resident of Ashkelon, Yitzhak (Zaki) Kuchuk, was arrested on suspicion of espionage on behalf of Egypt.

The ISA first tracked him down in February 1962 after the censorship intercepted a letter destined to an address in Rome known to serve the Egyptian Intelligence. The letter which was written in English did not provide many details since the name or the address of the sender were not included. The content indicated that the writer arrived to Israel on December 24, 1961, and was staying at a Kibbutz. The first attempts to trace the suspect were unsuccessful. However, the censorship's continuous monitoring lead the way to additional letters sent to Rome, and a letter sent from an address in Rome to a man named Zaki Salim who was living in the Kibbutz of Negba, located in southern Israel. A lab test of this letter suggested it contained secret writing in Arabic. In February 1962, Zaki (Ben Salim) Kuchuk was traced and suspected to have conducted the clandestine interchange of letters in secret writing. His final identification was confirmed in October 1962 since he reported in one of his letters to Rome that he had moved to Ashkelon. Following his trace, the ISA learned of Kuchuk's departure from the Kibbutz where he learnt Hebrew, to an apartment in Ashkelon provided by the Jewish Agency, and his plan to join the IDF on November 5, 1962. The ISA enabled his recruitment to the IDF after coordinating with the IDF Field Security Office (nowadays called the Information Security Department), but Kuchuk was limited from the start to non sensitive and classified roles only and was closely monitored. He was placed as a driver at the Home Front Command HQ.

He served at the IDF for only one year and received an early release in November 1963 under a pretence that he is over aged and wishes to start a family. On December 19, 1963, Kuchuk was arrested at his apartment in Ashkelon. One of the reasons for his arrest was his intention to marry an Israeli woman who was unaware of his true identity.

Recruitment to the Egyptian Intelligence
Zaki (Ben Salim) Kuchuk was actually Kaborak Yaacobian, an Armenian, born in 1938, in Cairo, whose parents had fled the massacre of the Armenians in Turkey. Yaacobian lacked citizenship and worked as a photographer at a photo printing shop in Cairo. In 1959, Yaacobian and his friend were arrested by the Egyptian police for keeping company with prostitutes. He refused to testify against the prostitutes; therefore, he was sentenced to a one and a half year of imprisonment for running a brothel. In January 1960, at the time of his imprisonment, a rumor spread in prison that the authorities were searching for speakers of foreign languages. He filed his candidacy and was interviewed in prison by an Intelligence Egyptian officer who tried to recruit him to an Intelligence mission abroad. At some point, Yaacobian understood that the mission will take place in Israel, and he refused. Yaacobian was released from prison after appealing to reduce his sentence. Shortly after the release, Yaacobian encountered financial problems since his criminal record made it hard for him to find a job. At this point, the Intelligence officer renewed contact with Yaacobian and tried to convince him to join the Egyptian Intelligence service for a three year period and promised to issue him an Egyptian citizenship, provide economic welfare for his widowed mother, and discharge him from Egyptian military service. This time Yaacobian accepted the offer. The process of his recruitment consisted of Intelligence guiding, a new identity of a Jew given by the Egyptian Intelligence, and even circumcision. His new identity was of a Thessaloniki born Jew who immigrated to Egypt with his mother. Yaacobian was given two photos by the Egyptian Intelligence – a photo of the Jewish cemetery in Cairo and a photo of his (false) mother's grave. One of his handlers accompanied him to the central Jewish synagogue in Cairo several times, mostly on Saturdays and Jewish holidays so he could learn about Judaism and Jewish customs. This preparation was quite superficial and in fact, he was completely ignorant regarding Jewish tradition and customs. After being given a laissez-passer by the name of Yizthak Kuchuk, Yaacobian was instructed to arrive to the Red Cross office and ask for assistance to immigrate from Egypt. He was told to turn to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees); there he was offered two destinations – one of them was Brazil and that was his choice. When arriving to the Brazilian Consulate, Yaacobian presented the necessary documents, including a document from the rabbinate in Cairo confirming his identity as Yitzhak Kuchuk. This document was of course provided by the Egyptian Intelligence.

Yaacobian arrived to Brazil on April 26, 1961, on a boat leaving from Italy. On his way he made friends with an Israeli family from Kibbutz Bror Hayil on its way for a family visit in Brazil. One of his Egyptian handlers was specifically deployed to Brazil in order to direct the operation and he instructed Yaacobian to strengthen his ties with the Israeli family. Infiltrating into Israel was quite an easy task for Yaacobian: the father of the family convinced him to immigrate to Israel and even arranged a meeting between Yaacobian and relevant representatives from Zionist institutions within Brazil responsible for immigration. Soon Kuchuk / Yaacobian received an immigration visa and even signed a written commitment to serve in the IDF.Close to the time of his "immigration" to Israel, Yaacobian's handler equipped him with money and cameras. On his way to Israel, Yaacobian met with his Egyptian recruiter who gave him one last briefing in Genova, Italy. At the first part of his handling, the Egyptians wanted to see Yaacobian's acclimatization and the standing of his cover story in Israel. According to the Egyptian plan, he was instructed to find a job in a photo printing shop in the area of Tel Aviv and after eight months of acclimatization, attempt to depart to Egypt through Cypress; there, his handlers would consider whether to invest in his own photo printing shop in Tel Aviv. He was told that during the visit in Egypt they plan to teach him clandestine radio communication and equip him with a radio device that will be handed to him in Tel Aviv. The Egyptian Intelligence and Yaacobian set up clandestine means of communications using cover addresses in Italy (Rome). He was instructed and equipped with materials for secret writing and equipment to develop it. As for his hostile Intelligence reconnaissance task, during the stage of his acclimatization Yaacobian was directed to report about signs of alertness or abnormal situation in Israel.

Kuchuk / Yaacobian arrived to Israel on December 24, 1961 but the course of things did not go as planned. He was sent according to his request to an Ulpan (an intensive Hebrew course) at a Kibbutz and in November 1962 he was recruited to the IDF. His Egyptian handlers instructed him to try and serve at the armored corps but he failed to reach a significant role in IDF since the ISA and the Information Security Department foiled his attempts. His other requests included doing a regular service at the IDF and working as a photographer at the Intelligence branch in the Central Command HQ (he claimed that he was offered this job by one of his commanders), but these requests were rejected for the obvious reasons. In May 1963, he filed candidacy for officer candidate expediency tests, but failed them. In November 1963 he was released from IDF and shortly afterwards arrested. Kuchuk / Yaacobian disclosed in his interrogation that up to his arrest he dispatched 18 letters, 6 airmail letters, and 2 postcards to his handlers. He received 8 letters and 3 postcards. He managed to report to his handlers some critical information:
Location of armored corps base at Julis and the existing number of tanks.
Location of Chasa camp, near Julis.

Location of Home Front Command HQ in Jaffa.

Expected procurement of Mirage jets, tanks, and other modern weaponry.

Mirage, Dassault Mystère and Ouragan training flights in the area of Lakhish.

Location of an existing nuclear facility between Dimona and Sodom.

Yaacobian was put on trial for espionage and in March 1964 he was sentenced for 18 years of imprisonment. Two years later, in March 1966, he was released in an Israeli-Egyptian prisoners exchange agreement. Yaacobian and 2 other Egyptians were transferred to Egypt in exchange for 3 Israelis who mistakenly crossed the border to the Gaza Strip.