His parents were peasants. The information which Hayhanen furnished to U.S. officials in Paris, France, in May 1957, was immediately checked. Why, weve never seen a hollow coinor, for that matter, even heard of one before.. How did the Supreme Court rule in Rudolf Abel's Case? [63] In Abel v. United States, the United States Supreme Court upheld his conviction by a vote of 54. Updates? 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. Upon his return to New York in 1956, he found that his carefully constructed network had been left to disintegrate in his absence. [52] Upon opening the door, he was confronted by FBI agents who addressed him as "colonel" and stated that they had "information concerning [his] involvement in espionage." During the FBIs 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. One of the coins seemed to have a peculiar ring. [27] Fisher, as Kayotis, then travelled aboard the RMSScythia from Le Havre, France, to North America, disembarking at Quebec. Rudolf Abel was born William Fisher in England in 1903. After leaving the United States, the Maki family settled in Estonia. [70] Fisher, who was a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer on 15 November 1971. [6] In 1896, he was arrested for sedition and sentenced to three years internal exile. [24] Fisher's role in this operation was rewarded with what his superiors regarded as one of the most prestigious postings in Soviet foreign intelligence, the United States. British intelligence officer and Soviet spy. Due to a law that bans construction near the habitat of endangered species, developers kill and hide endangered species found on their land. 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. 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. However, prior to opening the coin Hyhnen had misplaced it, either buying a newspaper with it or using it as a subway token. [42], In 1954, Hyhnen began working as Fisher's assistant. Rudolph Abel Exchange For Garry Powers (1962) Watch on. In Moscow, however, plans were being made for a new Eugene Maki, one thoroughly grounded in Soviet intelligence techniques, to enter the scene. As a precaution, Fisher was ordered to leave the United States. Goldfus's birth certificate was obtained by the NKVD at the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the Centre would collect identity documents from International Brigades members for use in espionage operations. [59] The Brooklyn Bar Association approached several prominent trial lawyers with political ambitions, all of whom declined the case. In 1990 the USSR released a stamp depicting Rudolf Abel as part of series: Damaskin, Igor with Elliott, Geoffrey. Two days later, on 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. Letters subsequently received from him indicated that he was in a Lithuanian hospital. One of the nations most fascinatingand ultimately significantspy cases began in the summer of 1953, when a Brooklyn newspaper boy dropped a nickel he had just earned. FBI agents were convinced he fit the description of "MARK". On November 15, 1957, Brooklyn judge Mortimer W. Byers sentenced Soviet spy Rudolf Abel to consecutive terms of 30, 10, and 5 years in prison and fined him $3,000. On 10 February 1962, he was exchanged for the shot-down American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. [16] In 1921, following the Russian Revolution, the Fisher family left Newcastle upon Tyne to return to Moscow. Youve found him, the former Soviet Agent exclaimed. 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. He was released in 1962, however, in exchange for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. However, Hyhnen performed his duties poorly, and when he was recalled to the Soviet Union in 1957, he instead fled to the U.S. Embassy in Paris and revealed his secrets. During his eight years as an illegal resident he appears not to have recruited, or even identified, a single potential agent. He had arrived in the United States in October 1916 and became a naturalized American citizen at Grand Rapids, Michigan on December 30, 1930. [2] Once the FBI had a positive identification, they stepped up surveillance, following Fisher from his studio to the Hotel Latham. With this data, the FBI Laboratory succeeded in breaking through the curtain of mystery which surrounded the coded message. She disappeared for a moment, then returned with a purse in her hand. They were not convinced he might actually be a Russian spy until he produced a hollow Finnish 5-mark coin. ENCIPHER SHORT LETTERS, BUT THE LONGER ONES MAKE WITH INSERTIONS. [33][34][35] The thumbtack signaled to Fisher that Hyhnen, his new assistant, had arrived. [37], In 1955, Fisher, exhausted by the constant pressure, returned to Moscow for six months of rest and recuperation, leaving Hyhnen in charge. They immediately noted that it bore a great similarity to the Jefferson nickel which the Brooklyn newsboy had discovered in 1953. It was composed of copper-silver alloy, there being a shortage of nickel during World War II. 39. However, private treatment by the agency he had served for decades was not as warm. From Los Angeles came a peculiar-looking 1953 Lincoln penny. After serving four years of a 30-year sentence in an Atlanta, Georgia, prison, Rudolf Abel was traded to the Soviet Union for American pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down in a U-2 spy plane over Russia. From 1953 to 1957, though every effort was made to decipher the microphotograph, the FBI was unable to solve the mystery. 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 Hayhanens espionage superior, surveillance was established near his photo studio. It is an absolute necessity. FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. Rudolf Abel was born William Fisher in England in 1903. The case, which had made international headlines and turned James Donovan into a public pariah, faded into obscurity. Then, in the summer of 1949, he entered Finland as Eugene Nicolai Maki, an American-born laborer. [27] The real Goldfus had died at only 14 months, having been born on August 2, 1902, in New York. Operating as a Soviet spy in New York City, he was imprisoned for espionage following a high-profile trial in 1957. In the spring of 1955, Fisher and Hyhnen visited Bear Mountain Park, and buried $5,000, (equivalent to $50,578 in 2021), destined for the wife of the Soviet spy Morton Sobell, who in 1951 was sentenced to thirty years in jail. The certificate in the name of Collins was a forgery. For the past five years, I have been operating in the United States. [7] Revolutionaries of the Tsarist era, his father was of German origins and his mother was of Russian descent. [2] The prosecution failed to find any other alleged members of Fisher's spy network, if there were any. In 1957, Reino Hayhanen, a lieutenant colonel in the KGB, walked into the American embassy in Paris and announced his intention to defect to the West. 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. On May 28, 1957, agents observed a man resembling Mark on a bench in a park directly opposite the entrance to 252 Fulton Street. Four days later, instead of continuing his journey to the Soviet Union he entered the American embassy in Paris, announcing that he was a KGB officer and asking for asylum. Prior to his departure, Hyhnen returned to Bear Mountain Park and retrieved the buried $5,000 for his own use. During World War II, he again trained radio operators for clandestine work behind German lines. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. 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. [58], As Fisher was no longer considered an alleged illegal alien, but rather an alleged spy, he was flown from Texas to New York on 7 August 1957, to answer the indictment. The search for this storage room led FBI agents to a building at 252 Fulton Street. In 1957, Fisher was convicted in US federal court on three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy for his involvement in what became known as the Hollow Nickel Case and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Georgia. Supreme Court of the United States. He refused to cooperate at all. On July 15, 1947, Andrew Kayotis, then residing in Detroit, was issued a passport so that he could visit relatives in Europe. Sorry, Jimmy, she said. Thus, Hayhanen initially provided the FBI with little useful information. Corrections? This was the first time, however, that the FBI had ever encountered a nickel quite like this one. [53] During this period Fisher stated that his "real" name was Rudolf Ivanovich Abel and that he was a Soviet citizen, although he refused to discuss his intelligence activities. In examining the nickel, agents of the FBIs New York Office noted that the microphotograph appeared to portray nothing more then ten columns of typewritten numbers. The four powers were to discuss tensions in the two Germanys and negotiate new disarmament treaties. You can navigate days by using left and right arrows. 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. 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. What happened to Rudolf Abel? [43], By early 1957, Fisher had lost patience with Hyhnen and demanded that Moscow recall his deputy. 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. In 1962, he was. Ill ask the people across the hall, he said. From July 1949 to October 1952, Hayhanen resided in Finland and established his identity as the American-born Eugene Maki. On February 10, 1962 it was exchanged in Berlin. Less than three weeks later, acting on Hyhnen's information, surveillance was established near Fisher's photo studio. The Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel, has written a note to James B. Donovan, his courtappointed defender in a 1957 espionage trial . 26. He died in 1971. 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. In 1949, Hyhnen freely obtained Maki's birth certificate. Indicted as a Russian spy, Colonel Abel was tried in federal court at New York City during October 1957. Hyhnen, Fisher's former assistant, testified against him at the trial. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. He had returned to the Soviet Union in October 1956. It was collecting time again. He was given a modest pension and in 1968 published KGB-approved memoirs. He died in 1971. [27], On 26 November, Fisher met with Soviet "illegal" Josef Romvoldovich Grigulevich (codenamed "MAKS" or "ARTUR"). Rudolf Abel, in full Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, original name William August Fisher, (born July 11, 1903, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, Englanddied November 15, 1971, Moscow, Russia), Soviet intelligence officer, convicted in the United States in 1957 for conspiring to transmit military secrets to the Soviet Union. Although Hayhanen assisted the FBI in solving the mystery of the hollow nickel, the information he furnished placed other critical challenges before the agents. There were two ladies in the apartment across from the one occupied by Jimmys customer. Conspiracy to transmit defense information to the Soviet Union 30 years imprisonment; Conspiracy to obtain defense information 10 years imprisonment; Conspiracy to act in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without notification to the Secretary of State 5 years imprisonment. 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. Thats Mikhail.. The drama of Fisher's trial and the subsequent negotiations that led to the prisoner exchange were revived with the release of the 2015 movie Bridge of Spies. Place seems right. Abel reported to command and asked evacuation of the guy. His primary objective was to identify anti-Soviet elements among the intelligentsia. Fisher decided that he would not turn traitor as Hyhnen had done because he still trusted the KGB and he knew that if he cooperated with the FBI, he would not see his wife and daughter again. FOR ORGANIZATION OF COVER, WE GAVE INSTRUCTIONS TO TRANSMIT TO YOU THREE THOUSAND IN LOCAL (CURRENCY). He occasionally met with Reino Hyhnen, another Soviet agent residing in New York. 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