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. Abel returned to Moscow, where he was forced into retirement by the KGB, who feared that during his five years of captivity U.S. authorities had convinced him to become a double agent. Rudolf Ivanovich Abel . We strive for accuracy and fairness. Alternate titles: Emil R. Goldfus, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, William August Fisher. As the spies waited, negotiators talked in the center of the bridge where a white line divided East from West. They immediately noted that it bore a great similarity to the Jefferson nickel which the Brooklyn newsboy had discovered in 1953. The first showed that he was Emil R. Goldfus, born August 2, 1902 in New York City. After completing a two-year stint with a radio battalion of the Red Army, he joined the OGPU security agency in 1927. Want to read all 2 pages? None could recall seeing a nickel or other coin quite like this one. Powers, a CIA-employed pilot, was to fly over some 2,000 miles of Soviet territory to Bodo military airfield in Norway, collecting intelligence information en route. He appeared before Judge Mortimer W. Byers on November 15, 1957 and was sentenced as follows (the three sentences to be served concurrently): Colonel Abel appealed his convictions, claiming that rights guaranteed to him under the Constitution and laws of the United States had been violated. Astrological Sign: Cancer, Death Year: 1971, Death date: November 15, 1971, Death City: Moscow, Death Country: Russia, Article Title: Rudolf Abel Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/crime/rudolf-abel, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: May 18, 2021, Original Published Date: October 14, 2015. Sorry, Jimmy, she said. 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. The Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Belov appeared before readers as some sort of James Bond modification, with adventurous antics and immoral acts. 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. this is just under two hours. "That Russian spy" was Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, who less than two weeks earlier had been indicted by a Brooklyn grand jury. There he found a hollowed-out nickel. All Rights Reserved. IT IS TOO EARLY TO SEND YOU THE GAMMAS. He became friends with two other convicted Soviet spies. 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. On February 10, 1962, American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is released by the Soviets in exchange for Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel, a senior KGB spy who was caught in the United States five. Mark made another admissionthat he was a Russian citizen, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, born July 2, 1902 in the Soviet Union. How did the Supreme Court rule in Rudolf Abel's Case? If thats `Mark, hell return, they correctly surmised. One year laterJuly 28, 1952a passport was issued to Hayhanen as Eugene Maki at Helsinki. In 1948, he slipped across the Canadian border into the United States, where he set about reorganizing the Soviet spy network. 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. He died in 1971. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. They also made several short trips together to Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Albany, Greenwich, and other communities in the eastern part of the United States. 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. Encouraging their son's love of music, Fisher's parents gave him piano lessons; he also learned to play the guitar. Donovan had read the newspaper accounts, which, he wrote, "described Abel in a sinister way as a 'master spy' heading all illegal Soviet espionage in the United States." Making contact with the KGB residency he received another $200 for his journey to Moscow. The detective had received his information from another police officer whose daughter was acquainted with the newsboy. ENCIPHER SHORT LETTERS, BUT THE LONGER ONES MAKE WITH INSERTIONS. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Rudolf Abel, Birth Year: 1903, Birth date: July 11, 1903, Birth City: Newcastle Upon Tyne, Birth Country: England. Thus, Hayhanen initially provided the FBI with little useful information. It contained the following typewritten message: Nobody came to meeting either 8 or 9thas I was advised he should. After decorated service as an intelligence operative during World War II, Abel assumed a false identity and entered an East German refugee camp where he successfully applied for the right to immigrate to Canada. An official website of the United States government. They sold their belongings and left their Idaho farm for New York to book passage on a ship to Europe. According to the lieutenant general of the Foreign Intelligence V. G. Pavlov: The very first chapter of the novel, called The Shield and the Sword, aroused categorical objections from me and R. I. Abel. [16] In 1921, following the Russian Revolution, the Fisher family left Newcastle upon Tyne to return to Moscow. Count One (Conspiracy to transmit defense information to the Soviet Union), 30 years imprisonment. His parents Heinrich and Lyubov were Bolshevik supporters from Russia, and young Fisher helped his father by distributing "Hands Off Russia" literature during World War I. In particular, he became a friend of Burton Silverman. Donovan is widely known for negotiating the 1960-1962 exchange of captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers and American student Frederic Pryor for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, and for negotiating the 1962 release and return of 9,703 prisoners held by Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT WITH THE FAMILY. ACCORDING TO YOUR REQUEST, WE WILL TRANSMIT THE FORMULA FOR THE PREPARATION OF SOFT FILM AND NEWS SEPARATELY, TOGETHER WITH (YOUR) MOTHERS LETTER.4. Enter a date in the format M/D (e.g., 1/1), The Spy Who Kept the Cold War From Boiling Over, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/spies-swapped, Iconic child star Shirley Temple dies at 85, Laura Ingalls Wilder, chronicler of American frontier life, dies, World chess champion Garry Kasparov loses game to computer, Final episode of Arrested Development airs on Fox, Auto safety crusader Ralph Nader testifies before Congress. For example, in 1954, Mark instructed him to locate an American Army sergeant, one formerly assigned to the United States Embassy in Moscow. In 1948, the KGB had called Hyhnen to Moscow where they issued him a new assignment. [27], In July 1949, Fisher met with a "legal" KGB resident from the Soviet consulate general, who provided him with money. Please check.. 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! 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. Hyhnen confirmed that it was "MARK" in the photograph. Donovan traveled to the Soviet embassy in East Berlin to negotiate the exchange, and on February 10, 1962, the two prisoners crossed paths as they were released on the Glienicke Bridge between East and West Germany. [] R. I. Abel resolutely expressed his firm reluctance to associate his name with such a hero "(V. G. Pavlov, Operation Snow, Moscow: BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, FBI: Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (Hollow Nickel Case), "Mark Rylance wins Best Supporting Actor in the most high profile British win of Oscars 2016", "BAFTA Film Award Nominations and Winners 2016", A memorial plaque to the legendary Soviet intelligence officer William Fisher was put up in Samara, A True Story of the Cold War: Bridge of Spies, Universal News reporting Capture Of Soviet Spy Col. Rudolph Abel (1957), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rudolf_Abel&oldid=1150189193. The real Eugene Nicolai Maki was born in Enaville, Idaho on May 30, 1919. Donovan successfully argued against the death penalty for "Colonel Abel" by suggesting he could be used for a future prisoner exchange with the Soviet Union. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Who Is Suspected Pentagon Leaker Jack Teixeira? Just before their transfer, Frederic Pryoran American student held by East German authorities since August 1961was released to American authorities at another border checkpoint. [59] The Brooklyn Bar Association approached several prominent trial lawyers with political ambitions, all of whom declined the case. 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. The money Hyhnen received from the KGB to support the network was instead spent on alcohol and prostitutes. Count Two (Conspiracy to obtain defense information), 10 years imprisonment and $2,000 fine. [27], On 26 November, Fisher met with Soviet "illegal" Josef Romvoldovich Grigulevich (codenamed "MAKS" or "ARTUR"). Rudolf Ivanovich Abel ( Russian: ), real name William August Fisher (11 July 1903 - 15 November 1971), was a Soviet intelligence officer. According to Genesis, Abel, a shepherd, offered the Lord the firstborn of his flock. . ) (n. 11 iulie 1903, Newcastle Marea Britanie - d. 15 noiembrie 1971, Moscova ), nsc. Fisher was subsequently indicted to stand trial as a Russian spy. In September 1939, Hayhanen was appointed to the primary school faculty in the Village of Lipitzi. Accordingly, passage was secured for Hayhanen on an airliner, and he was permitted to return to the United States. In August, Powers pleaded guilty to espionage charges in Moscow and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonmentthree in prison and seven in a prison colony. William Ghenrihovici Fischer. During the Cold War, Soviet spies worked together in the United States without revealing their names or addresses to each other, a precaution in the event that one was caught or, like Hayhanen, defected. 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. [7] Revolutionaries of the Tsarist era, his father was of German origins and his mother was of Russian descent. He was given a modest pension and in 1968 published KGB-approved memoirs. Inside was a tiny photographapparently a picture of a series of numbers. [30] Fisher spent most of his first year organizing his network. In 1948, Fisher slipped into the United States illegally by way of Canada. He was exchanged in 1962 for the American aviator Francis Gary Powers, who had been imprisoned as a spy in the Soviet Union since 1960. [20] That year he married Elena Lebedeva, a harp student at Moscow Conservatoire. The information which Hayhanen furnished to U.S. officials in Paris, France, in May 1957, was immediately checked. Upon its receipt in Washington on June 26, 1953, the nickel was subjected to the thorough scrutiny of a team of FBI scientific experts. It is an absolute necessity. [21] During his interview with the OGPU, it was determined he should adopt a Russian-sounding name and William August Fisher became Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. The trail of the hollow nickel ended when a thirteen-year-old newsboy was collecting for his weekly deliveries. Hyhnen was able only to provide Fisher's codename, "MARK", and a description. From the long list of possible suspects, the most logical candidate appeared to be Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin. Two months later, however, he was conscripted by the Communists secret police, the NKVD. 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. On February 10, 1962 it was exchanged in Berlin. Verified answer. Fisher, or "Rudolf Ivanovich Abel", was to serve his sentence (as prisoner 80016-A) at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Georgia. Less than three weeks later, acting on Hyhnen's information, surveillance was established near Fisher's photo studio. His son, born in England and going to Russia with his father, joined the Soviet intelligence and security agency GPU (the predecessor of the KGB) in 1927 and operated in western European countries and the Soviet Union in the next two decades. There is absolutely no doubt about it. Several former intelligence agents who had defected to the free world from communist-bloc nations were contacted. Something went wrong. By a five-to-four decision which was handed down on March 28, 1960, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of this Russian spy. 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