Vilyam Genrikovich Fisher |
Vilyam Genrikovich (August) Fisher (or Fischer) was a noted Soviet spy. He is generally better known by the alias, Rudolf Abel, which he adopted on his arrest.
He was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1903 of German-Russian parents who had been active in
the revolutionary movement in Russia, and had fled to England in 1901. They returned to the Soviet Union in 1921. After his
family's return to the Soviet Union Fisher worked as a translator for Comintern.
During his military service in 1925-1926 he was trained as a radio operator. He worked briefly in Soviet Military Intelligence and was then recruited by the OGPU, a predecessor of the KGB in 1927. He worked for them as a radio operator in
Norway, Turkey, Britain, and France then returned to Russia in 1936 as head of a school which trained radio operators destined
for duty in illegal
residences.
He narrowly escaped the Great Purges. Besides being from England, a
close relative had been accused of being a Trotskyite. He escaped proscecution but was dismissed from the NKVD in 1938. During
the Second World War he again trained radio operators for
clandestine work behind German lines.
In 1946 he again entered secret service and was trained as an illegal for entry into the United States.
He traveled to Canada under a false passport, then entered the United States on
November 17, 1947. He adapted the name of Emil Robert Goldfus (the real Goldfus had died at the age of 14 months). The Soviets
had constructed an elaborate legend for Goldfus, a fictitious biography of his life from 1902 to 1947.
As cover for his illegal residence he opened an artist's studio in the Orvington Studios in Brooklyn, although he had only
minimal artistic talent. To the other artists he came into contact with he represented himself as a retired photofinisher. He
made friends with a small group of younger men, mostly artists who shared his preferences for realistic art. He made no attempt
to sell paintings, but continued working on his technique. His friends found him intelligent and knowledgeable, but somewhat
secretive, for example, he never disclosed where he lived. He expressed admiration for the Russian artist Isaak Levitan. He is said to have been
able to finish the New York Times crossword puzzle. A smoker, he suffered from sinus infections, and eventually died later of
lung cancer after his return to Russia.
His job as resident was to recruit and supervise agents who gathered intelligence information. He was given
control of a pre-existing group of agents which included Lona and Morris Cohen who are believed to have been the couriers for the Rosenburg, Greenglass, Fuchs nuclear spy ring, and
later operated in Britain as Peter and Helen Kroger.
Fisher is not known to ever had any contact with the Communist
Party USA. As a part of his legend he sometimes talked about earlier days as a lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest during the
time of the Wobblies, but that was made up.
Fisher was captured by the FBI in 1957, partially as
the result of the defection of his assistant Reino Hayhanen, in what became known
as the "Hollow Nickel Case". He was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for espionage, but in 1962 he was "exchanged" for U2 pilot Gary Powers. After his return to Moscow he continued to work as a trainer for the KGB. Fisher is said to
have despised Kim Philby in Moscow.
He died from lung cancer in 1971.
See also: History of Soviet espionage in the United States
Further reading
- Louise Bernikow, Abel, Hodder and Stoughton, 1970, hardcover, ISBN 0340125934; trade paperback, Ballantine
Books, 1982, ISBN 0345302125
- Nigel West (Rupert Allason), Games of Intelligence: The Classified Conflict of International Espionage., Crown,
1990, hardcover, ISBN 0517578115
- Pavel Sudoplatov, Anatoli Sudoplatov, Jerrold L. Schecter, Leona Schecter, Anatolii Pavlovich Sudopl, Special
tasks :the memoirs of an unwanted witness, a Soviet spymaster, Little Brown, 1994, hardcover, ISBN 0316773522; trade paperback, Lightning
Source, 1995, 527 pages, ISBN
0316821152
External Link
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