Monday, August 14, 2023, 10:53
As a cryptographic expert working at the (former) Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (Canada), and also concurrently serving as an intelligence officer of the Russian Military Intelligence Agency (GRU), Igor Gouzenko has access to secret communications of the GRU and the Soviet People’s Commissar of State Security (NKGB) between Canada and Soviet consulates and embassies in Britain and the United States.
Gouzenko was even able to open the safe in the embassy’s code room, which contained a variety of documents from officers’ files to encrypted telegrams. Cryptographers are key players in the world of espionage, where spies are talented players.
In early September 1945, Gouzenko suddenly left the agency and never returned. He stuffed in his shirt 109 sets of top-secret Soviet diplomatic files and more than a hundred documents on Soviet spies undercover in Canada, England and the United States, including some documents related to espionage. atomic bomb message. “It was a dazzling trove of stolen GRU documents,” as one scholar later described it.
Shocking details
Days before, Gouzenko had applied for asylum himself along with his wife and 15-year-old son, and handed over the newly “snatched” bulky luggage to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). After the RCMP notified the FBI, director J. Edgar Hoover personally (on September 12, 1945) sent an urgent telegram to President Harry Truman about the deserter and his statements, one of That number is that leader Stalin “collected complete information related to the atomic bomb into Project No. 1 of Soviet espionage activities”. Because the Soviet agent at that time was Kim Philby (head of British counterintelligence), the Soviets almost immediately knew about the defection. One scholar later wrote: “For the Russians, (Gouzenko’s) defection was nothing short of a disaster, they called for an immediate re-examination of their intelligence activities.” Mr. Lavrentiy Beria (then Deputy Prime Minister) quickly sent telegrams to most of the “Rezidentura” (resident Soviet spies) abroad and warned that “G’s defection” (referring to Gouzenko) has inflicted heavy losses on our country, posing a daunting challenge to our operations in the United States and its allies.”
Lavrentiy Beria writes that instructions will be sent soon – regarding ways to improve the entire spy network and tighten security rules. Specifically, Beria emphasized: “Work must be carefully organized so that each member (spy and employee) does not know anything about each other’s work other than what is directly related to the task that person is doing.” proceed”. There is reason to panic, because Gouzenko exposed Canadian and American spy networks and ignited a counterintelligence storm in the search for enemy agents on both sides of the border. Agents with whom George Koval had connections were also among the affected group, such as agent Arthur Adams who used a fake Canadian passport with the help of Sam Carr – head of the Canadian communist party and a among the Soviet spies denounced by Gouzenko.
Gouzenko announced many star Soviet spies including an unnamed assistant to the US Assistant Secretary of State (who was later identified as Alger Hiss), in addition to mentioning the name of Fred Rose, a member of in the Canadian Parliament. Considered one of the most important Soviet spies in Canada, Fred Rose was the leader of the GRU spy group in Montreal. Rose connected with Pavel Mikhailov at the Soviet consulate in Manhattan, indirectly connecting Rose with intelligence officers Arthur Adams, Benjamin Lassen, and George Koval. In 1943, when Fred Rose was elected to the Canadian House of Commons, Mikhailov cabled Moscow: “Fred, our man from Lesovia (Canadian code) has been elected to the Lesovian Parliament.” Fred Rose (as well as Adams, Lassen and Jacob Golos) worked at Amtorg (New York). Both Golos and Lassen (through Mikhailov or World Tourists) used Fred Rose to collect Canadian travel documents for the agents whose support they received.
One of the missions of Rose’s spy network was “to help create fake documents for use by Soviets wanting to enter the United States illegally and beyond.” It is unclear whether Koval ever met any of these other than Lassen, but in the months that followed, Fred Rose’s organizational connections in spy networks in both Canada and the United States began to emerge, often appearing on the news on both sides of the border. FBI Director Hoover often sent urgent telegrams to his bureau chiefs conveying that Gouzenko must be “Project No. 1” and that “all resources are being maximized.” In that context, Koval was offered a job at the Monsanto company located in Dayton. A few months after the Gouzenko earthquake, it was another spy’s turn to defect, this time an American named Elizabeth Bentley, deputy and lover of Jacob Golos (a Soviet spy undercover in the US). After Golos died in 1943, Mrs. Bentley took over Golos’s two information networks: both networks were run by economists, one was the Wartime Production Department, the other was the Wartime Economic Department. war.
“Fictional spy” Alfred Adamson
It was a four-part series about Soviet espionage published in the New York Journal-American, a widely circulated and highly conservative newspaper publication owned by William Randolph Hearst. Writer Howard Rushmore (former editor of the Daily Worker newspaper – an official organ of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA), Mr. Rushmore is a former party member). Rushmore was fired from the CPUSA and the Daily Worker in 1939 when he refused to write a potentially unfavorable review of “Gone With the Wind”—a mandate ordered by the CPUSA according to Rushmore’s statement. At the Journal-American newspaper, Rushmore specializes in writing anti-Communist articles, and Rushmore’s boss is a former FBI agent who serves as a regular anchor for the US Federal Reserve (FED). Rushmore also acted as a liaison between Journal-American and Edgar Hoover – a master of using the press to achieve his own purposes.
In the Rushmore series, Hoover wanted to use it to oust President Truman and form a tough stance against Soviet espionage. Arthur Adams was the focus of the first article in the series, published on December 3, 1945. Using the fictitious name Alfred Adamson, Rushmore presented himself as a Soviet spy under investigation by the FBI (who used the cover of working for a music company on Fifth Avenue; the company This was owned by the same person who ran a small music store on West Forty-Fourth Street and paid Adamson about $75 a week. That owner was actually Eric Bernay received atomic bomb secrets from a scientist living in Chicago, and that he had transported a heavy box of documents in a black Plymouth sedan bearing the license plate of the Soviet consulate, the registration number bearing the name “Pavel Mikhailov” Rushmore also outlines how Adamson sent telegrams to his American wife in Moscow through the wife of a Manhattan doctor practicing on the Upper West Side.
Rushmore emphasized that it had been two years since the FBI discovered a package of documents filled with details about the atomic bomb in Adamson’s hotel room and that although they were enough to prove Adamson’s espionage crime, “there was no crime.” any action in his arrest”. The article’s intention was to embarrass the Truman administration for not arresting Adamson. The series’ impact on Adamson, or exactly when he became aware he was being watched around the clock by FBI agents, is not well documented. However, certainly before the Journal-American series of articles, the instincts of an experienced spy caused him to be on high alert. Months after the Feds began monitoring him in 1944, Edgar Hoover ordered his phone calls to be wiretapped and a “bug” installed in his room (room number 1103 at the Peter Cooper Hotel on East Thirty-Ninth Street). FBI agents followed Hoover’s every move, even sitting behind him in the movie theater.
In late spring 1945, a gentleman visited Adamson’s hotel room. He was followed by two men across the street while he was tying his tie. Adamson said he learned about atomic bomb research in Chicago and wanted to know more. Then the conversation turned to the subject of war, and the stranger quickly left. Clearly Adamson couldn’t stop the visitor, or so it seemed. There was also an exchange between Adamson and Secret Service agent Leonard Langen at a bus stop at East Fifty-Third and Madison streets on January 12, 1946, at 9 p.m., in which Adamson sought to know Exactly what Edgar Hoover was afraid of: manipulating an agent about the facts so the FBI could act accordingly. For the next hour and 15 minutes, Adamson and Langen stood in the cold as they talked. Adamson complained about the Journal-American article and vehemently denied that he was a Soviet spy.
Mysterious disappearance
The last time agents saw Adamson was January 23, 1946. At 1:30 that afternoon, Adamson stopped by Victoria Stone Jewelers on Madison Avenue, carrying a small black bag and a cardboard box. In fact, Victoria Stone was one of Adamson’s intermediaries with Eric Bernay and Pavel Mikhailov, among others. Adamson immediately went to the New York Public Library on Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue to read a mechanical magazine. At 4:35 that afternoon. Adamson returned to his office at Keynote Recordings and has been missing ever since. Although agents monitored the building and were tipped off that at 5:05 p.m., Adamson was still in the office, the FBI New York branch was unable to find him.
At 1 a.m. the next day, more than 10 FBI agents fanned out to search for Adamson in Manhattan. Other FBI field offices were also notified. Customs and immigration officials at all US ports are on high alert. Americans were surprised when all of Adamson’s belongings in Peter Cooper’s hotel room were taken away. Evidence that Adamson was still alive was a postcard sent to Victoria Stone a few days later. Postmarked New York, January 26, at 7:30 a.m., it reads “Dear Victoria: I wanted to tell you that everything is fine. Sincerely send to my friends that I love you very much. AA January 25, 1946”. On February 16, 1946, the Journal-American published on its front page the headline: “Red Atomic Spy Evaded the FBI; Ottawa Law on Leaking Top Secret Documents”. Next is the content: “The leader of the overseas Soviet spy network, who stole the atomic bomb secrets as exposed in the Journal-American on December 3, 1945, has fled far away. 3 weeks earlier. A person named Alfred Adamson was involved with 22 people who are currently being questioned by the Canadian side on charges of providing secret atomic information to Russia.”
The article also discussed in detail “Adamson” and his relationship with Canadian intelligence, as well as his relationship with an electric company. It’s unclear who this is about. Two weeks later, on March 5, 1946, the New York Times published a story about Gouzenko’s escape. The Times waited to publish Canada’s official reports on the investigation of “a covert spy network organized by members of the Soviet embassy staff in Ottawa and operating under direct instructions from Moscow”. The first report made it clear that the atomic bomb project was a top priority for Soviet spies; The second report was that the inquiry was scheduled to be released on the day in mid-March when Fred Rose was arrested at his home in Ottawa, after returning from the first session of the Canadian Parliament in 1946. Fred Rose was an official. first Western public official to be charged with spying for the Soviet Union. Under Rose’s photo on the front page of the Journal-American were the words “How many of these are still in America?”.
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Newsessentials Blog 
jimbrownnyusa
April 27, 2024
What about the Indian nuclear development program, Smiling Buddha? If you are interested in sinister spies who made our world a safer place and think you know all about espionage and nuclear developments check out your knowledge by reading about how the West’s intelligence agencies literally stumbled upon Operation Smiling Buddha in London in 1974. That Operation was, as I am sure you will all know, India’s development of its own nuclear bomb … with a bit of help from apartheid South Africa.
The saga as told in Beyond Enkription in TheBurlingtonFiles fact based spy series of novels may only be a part of a much more complex picture. Nonetheless, it is fascinating example of just how espionage really works. There are no “spoilers” about this episode in the public domain so if interested you will have to read the relevant chapters in the book.
Beyond Enkription is an intriguing unadulterated factual thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots. Nevertheless, it has been heralded by one US critic as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. No wonder it’s mandatory reading on some countries’ intelligence induction programs.