![]() When the studio was raided, the FBI realized it had found a goldmine of information. However, Abel had not disposed of the evidence in his studio before he attempted to leave the United States, a surprising error for a spy as seasoned as Abel. He knew he was caught when an FBI agent addressed him as “Colonel.” Ever the professional, Abel didn’t say a word when he was arrested, simply staring ahead. Just before he was scheduled to leave, the FBI arrested him at a hotel in New York. Abel was recalled, but didn’t make it out of the United States. When Hayhanen didn’t arrive in Moscow, the Soviets knew right away that he had defected. However, they decided to verify the information he had given them, and realized he was telling the truth. At first, the CIA suspected Hayhanen was drunk, and he may very well have been. He made it as far as Paris, where he walked into the American embassy, telling his story and pleading for asylum. Hayhanen received his recall orders, and panicked, fearing he would be executed upon arriving in Moscow. By 1957, Abel had had enough, and demanded that his assistant be recalled to the Soviet Union. Hayhanen had been extremely careless, and had spent much of the network’s finances on alcohol and prostitutes. When Abel returned to Brooklyn, he found his operation in shambles. A year later the KGB was concerned that Abel was becoming exhausted, and recalled him to the USSR for six months of vacation. Abel quickly found his assistant to be completely incompetent, but tried his best to make an effective spy out of Hayhanen. ![]() Nevertheless, the Soviets sent an agent named Reimo Hayhanen to help Abel in New York. The Soviets decided Abel needed an assistant, to which he objected. Abel would sometimes leave town for weeks at a time, which his friends attributed to his eccentric, bohemian personality.īy 1954, Abel had built a large spying operation, and his methods of transmitting coded messages included placing microfilm inside of hollowed-out bolts, coins, and pencils. In addition to his new espionage contacts, he made friends among other artists, who never had any reason to suspect him as being anyone other than who he said he was. He had perfectly impersonated a German military officer and was able to give the Red Army valuable information on German troop movements.Ībel came to New York in 1948, and he quickly built a spy network in America. Proficient in Russian, English, Polish, German, and Yiddish, Abel was a uniquely versatile spy. Goldfus was actually a Soviet KGB colonel named Rudolf Abel, and he had been one of the Soviet Union’s greatest spies during World War II. While his artistic talents were average at best, Goldfus had a talent for espionage that was anything but average. In 1948, an artist and photographer named Emil Goldfus rented a small studio in Brooklyn. One of their contemporaries in New York was running a Soviet spy ring of his own, which he built for seven years after the Rosenbergs were arrested. When atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried, convicted and executed, they never admitted guilt or gave up any of their contacts. Both countries used every available method to find out each other’s plans and secrets, and in the process, many participants in this game either died, were sent to prison, or were ruined personally and politically. However, this was not the end of Cold War espionage between the two superpowers in fact, it was barely the beginning. The United States broke the Soviet atomic spy ring in the early 1950s, after the USSR had already accomplished its goal of acquiring the American information its scientists needed to build an atomic weapon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |