The Spy Who Changed History

by Svetlana Lokhova

  Russian women had demonstrated that they could perform much more effectively than men in nearly every branch of aircraft manufacture. They learned their trade more quickly. They were more adept with precision work, and they were more adaptable to the rigorous discipline and care required in airplane construction. The result was that Russian factories were able to increase their output and at the same time train numerous women aircraft mechanics. Insofar as her air power was concerned, Russia was bound to prove a formidable foe. Russia had an air force peculiarly adapted to Russian needs, whether for a campaign with neighbors in the West or the East. The Russian air force was trained and equipped for any possible conflict with either Germany or Japan.28

  The report was the closest that American intelligence would come to eating humble pie, it could moreover be seen as a backhanded compliment to Shumovsky’s secret work.

  11

  BACK IN THE USSR

  In January 1938, the grand old lady SS Berengaria set sail from Southampton via Cherbourg in France en route for New York. It was almost the final voyage of the Cunard liner that had started life as a German luxury vessel bearing the appropriate name for a ship of spies, The Impersonator. There was no concealing the age of the ship, which had developed a propensity to catch fire owing to her faulty electric wiring. (A final fire in March 1938 would condemn her to a one-way trip to the scrap yard.) Joining the vessel in Cherbourg after a long train journey from Moscow via Warsaw, Berlin and Paris were four NKVD officers travelling under cover as Russian engineering students. One of them was accompanied by his wife Ekaterina and young child Marianna.1

  There was no pretence at concealment among a large group of students this time. The whole party was made up of spies and their families, new recruits for the roster of dedicated Soviet S&T spies in America. They had one destination, Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge and the campus of MIT. One of the students, 26-year-old Semyon Semyonov, later commented that when enrolling in MIT, the ‘education was not regarded as an end in itself but as a means of preparing for doing intelligence work, studying the country, the language, and broadening my overall range of technical interests’. By the time they left the USA, Semyonov and his companions, thirty-year-old Nikolai Yershov, Fyodor Novikov, thirty-four, and thirty-one-year-old Vasily Markov (in the US, he called himself Mironov) – their NKVD codenames were TWAIN, GLAN, LAUREL and KURT2 – had written new chapters in the history of Soviet espionage in the US.

  Semyonov would be instrumental in stealing atomic secrets; Mironov wrote a letter in Russian to the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover in 1943, revealing the details of the extensive Soviet spying operation in the US. In the most extraordinary passage of his letter, the five foot six inch MIT alumnus confessed to participating in an act of mass murder.

  Semyon Semyonov

  Shumovsky had gone to considerable trouble to arrange for the four spies to be enrolled at his American alma mater. These were family men with wives and young children who planned to settle down in the US for the long term. They were professional intelligence officers who had all served for some time in the NKVD before being assigned abroad. Stan travelled back to Boston from New York, where he was now based, to personally vouch for the new students and sign them in on their first day at MIT. On a previous trip to Boston, he had arranged their rented accommodation, cars and schooling for the children. Yershov, and probably the others as well, lived in an apartment near the campus at 888 Massachusetts Avenue, paying $45 a month in rent.3

  On arrival in New York, the four met their new boss Ovakimian at his office at AMTORG, where he explained that they had two goals at MIT. The first and most pressing need was to master a higher standard of English. The second was to network as broadly as possible with the scientific community, both students and teaching staff. In the event of war, it was expected that these talented scientists would be mobilised and their work turned to military use. The labs at MIT were already working on the next generation of technology for the US military, such as early stage radar and direction-finding equipment for gun laying. Karl Compton was Roosevelt’s favourite scientist and was a reasonable bet to be involved in planning any wartime scientific effort.

  By 1938 MIT was being used as a finishing school for ‘legal’ Soviet S&T spies. Columbia University in New York was the college of choice for ‘illegals’. Its city environment was ideal to acclimatise to America and learn English anonymously; a spy would pass unnoticed in the masses of the metropolis. But the MIT spies were in America to get noticed. In the 1941 academic year a fresh batch of Soviet students planned to enrol at MIT, but the war intervened in the scheme. Soviet intelligence provided equal opportunities for Americans when it came to studying at universities. Among those recommended to apply to MIT with their fees covered by the NKVD was Harry Gold;4 it was believed that if he had a degree he would be more credible with his contacts as a courier. Another was David Greenglass,5 who was supposed to gather intelligence on MIT’s work on nuclear physics while still a student.

  Shumovsky had a further job to do for Soviet intelligence in Boston. He was monitoring the progress of yet another MIT student. Soviet intelligence was paying the fees not only for four Russians but also for the American Norman Haight, codename LONG. Haight had returned to MIT at Russia’s expense to study for a Master’s degree. In the middle of the Great Terror, Haight’s report card was being sent to Moscow: ‘The source LONG finished his first semester with good or excellent marks. At present, in his second semester, he has set out to complete his other subject requirements, as well as his thesis work. The state of the source’s health has worsened significantly in view of his intensified work.’6

  Ovakimian, himself a talented scientist, believed a first-class education was essential to success in espionage. In talking to his sources, he demonstrated an understanding of their scientific work and wanted his new officers to show the same attitude. To the recently landed newcomers, he stressed the need for hard work and application in their studies.

  With the words fresh in their ears, the new party of students, along with Yershov’s wife and child, headed up to a chilly Boston in early January escorted by Shumovsky. A small crocodile of Russians followed the tall figure of Stanislav Antonovich, as they knew him, on a personal tour of the city of Boston, neighbouring Cambridge and the university campus. The tour was interrupted periodically when Stan ran into an old friend or acquaintance and broke into English.

  Having spent five years at MIT as a student and spy, there was no one better to explain how the Institute operated and who to cultivate. Shumovsky was able to show them where in Boston to find the best Russian food and friendly émigrés. A second briefing explained the practicalities of combining open academic life with the secret world of espionage. By now, unlike in 1931, an organisation was in place to support the four newcomers. American couriers brought them their occasional secret orders, identifying themselves with passwords – usually an innocuous question and a rehearsed answer. For urgent matters they could communicate by telephone.

  That the four were using their time at university for far more than acclimatisation to life in America remained unknown to the Americans. A recently declassified 1970s CIA report, investigating the routes by which foreign agents entered the US, noted that

  A former Soviet agent, whose name cannot be mentioned for security reasons, speaking about USSR students who are sent abroad for higher education, stated that all individuals who are allowed to leave the USSR must have a specific reason such as industrial espionage or preparation for future assignments either in the country to which they are sent or to some other country at a later period. He advised that students come within this category. Semyon M. Semyonov entered the United States as a student on January 18, 1938. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the next few years, Semyonov was reported to be operating a network of agents while he moved from one appropriate cover to another.

  Yet despite the mounting evidence, even in the 1970s the CIA could n
ot see that an American university could be a target for infiltration. The FBI was even further off the mark. Their chief investigator Robert Lamphere never spotted the link between America’s centre of scientific excellence and the Soviet’s extensive S&T espionage effort. Even though he knew that five out of the dozen members of the team were MIT alumni, he only noted that the ‘KGB paid Smilg’s tuition at MIT – where, incidentally, Semyonov himself had studied’.

  • • •

  By January 1938, Ovakimian was well established as the New York station chief on a salary of $450 a month. BLÉRIOT, as benefited his seniority, was now second on the list, receiving $350 a month. The newly arrived students received generous salaries as well: GLAN was paid $300 a month, and TWAIN, KURT and LAUREL received $250 each.7 This was not the action of an intelligence organisation in crisis, reeling from the effects of the Great Purges. The US-based S&T team were receiving a significant investment both in money and human resources. The organisation was paying five sets of tuition fees, all living expenses for four families and generous monthly salaries. The Soviets had learned from the Shumovsky experience that the key to success in America was a thorough assimilation in the American way of life, excellent language skills, technical expertise – and above all, hard work.

  However, the new intake at MIT was cut from very different cloth than Shumovsky. As far as Ovakimian was concerned, they were trouble from the start. He considered them to be lazy and neglectful of their education. It was imperative that to be successful as S&T agents they should be top-notch scientists like himself and Stan. This was a requirement seemingly lost on the new crop of students, who had no fear of repercussions from not studying and personally profiting from their time in the US. Ovakimian was forced to write seeking an answer to a thorny question. He sent a personal letter regarding the students’ behaviour to ‘Comrade Philip’, apparently a senior officer in Moscow Centre:

  Comrades LAUREL, KURT, GLAN, and TWAIN were warmly welcomed by us, and despite an overload of work, we (BLÉRIOT and I) gave them the utmost attention, both here and in Boston. We helped them get settled with apartments, furniture, and their studies. We are in regular contact with them. Obviously, I will handle their little circle. As you see, we have grasped the full seriousness of the problem of replacement and change. But I must point out, unfortunately, that you have pampered the guys and haven’t quite properly oriented them on certain matters. Most of them don’t like to work hard (for now this applies to studies), especially since their academic training has proved to be rather poor. In addition, there is no Bolshevik modesty. But these things can be corrected. These folks, of course, are completely green and they suffer from conceitedness. They gave BLÉRIOT three gold watches to mail to their wives at home, citing a promise from you. I have temporarily held on to the watches. Please let me know what to do with them.8

  Ovakimian’s frustration was understandable. In the midst of a turf war with the illegals who operated in parallel with his team, he had wanted experienced officers assigned to New York, not trainees who required wet nursing. There were sharp disputes over sources with the illegal line and, more fundamentally, criticism of his overall performance. But Ovakimian was not easily intimidated and went toe to toe in a fight with one of the NKVD’s trained assassins. Fresh from a failure to kill Trotsky, YUZIK (Iosif Grigulevich) was not a man to cross. He had eliminated dozens of Trotskyists in Spain during the Civil War, sprayed Trotsky’s house in Mexico City with a machine gun and later, impersonating a Costa Rican diplomat, tried to kill President Tito of Yugoslavia. In New York, he operated as an illegal with designs on running the whole intelligence operation. Ovakimian demonstrated great personal courage in facing down this dangerous man.9

  By the summer of 1938, the MIT students had to be pressed into service. The most talented of the new intake, Semyonov, was a Jew from the Black Sea town of Odessa. His family would join him in the United States once his wife had recovered from the birth of their son.fn1 Semyonov was an orphan in a town famous for its clowns and entertainers. Using his innate ability to be charming, tell jokes and entertain, he had survived, despite his small stature, in a harsh world. A ball of energy with a mind that was always scheming, he was not a man who would thrive in a classroom, but he found his ideal job socialising around the campus. With a wife and young baby in tow, the jocular Semyonov became a fixture at MIT parties. No one ever suspected the real reason why, drink by drink, joke by joke, he cultivated America’s top physicists, chemistry and engineering experts, but Semyonov got to know everyone, and they all remembered him. If anything important happened in America’s scientific community, Semyonov would know who was doing it, or someone who did. Most scientists he approached would help their friend if he asked them, not realising that the information he was asking for was an American secret.

  • • •

  BLÉRIOT meanwhile was on his way home. Shumovsky had finally been recalled. After more than seven years away from Moscow, except for short vacations, he was set to rejoin his family, and perhaps resume normal life. He returned to a job as one of the Soviet’s elite aviation engineers, with better pay than a government minister. His family occupied a new apartment on the widened Leningrad Prospect near his old university.

  It was strange at first for Shumovsky to hear his own language spoken on the street and adjust to the sights and sounds of his home country after so long away. He had to relearn to think in Russian. Many of Moscow’s old Tsarist street-names had been replaced, causing him confusion. The city was one giant building site. Whole blocks of buildings had been shifted intact to allow for the widening of the main highways and establish ring roads. A magnificent new metro system had opened, its marble opulence the envy of the world. American-designed cars in their hundreds now crowded the newly widened streets, creating similar traffic problems to New York. But much of Moscow was still a quiet old city with its share of horses and carts and open street markets.

  Back in his adopted home town, Shumovsky started to relax, seeing an end to his life of furtive meetings and dodging tails. He could forget his tradecraft and the fear of betrayal and arrest. The constant stress of espionage work abroad burned out even the strongest-willed individual, and Shumovsky was one of the Soviets’ longest-serving overseas agents. His family was well on the way to being grown up; his daughter was sixteen and his son ten. After years living a solitary life, he adjusted to a routine of taking his children to school (which was the same as the one I attended) and started a regular office routine. Having lived apart for years, communicating only by letter, there was a long process of adjustment to being a real family man. Although he was prohibited from talking in detail about his activities or acknowledging that he used to work for intelligence, his family was aware of his status and privilege. He was able to spend a month debriefing before the start of his next important job, at the newly created Ministry Of Defence Aviation Department.10

  There was much to enjoy in Moscow in 1939; in the words of Stalin in a speech, ‘life has become better, comrades, life has become more cheerful’. The great rage in Moscow was the cinema, especially a crop of new musical comedies, Hollywood-style movies such as the Busby Berkeley-inspired Circus and Stalin’s favourite comedy, Jolly Fellows. A great fair had opened in Moscow in which stomach-churning rides swung passengers back and forth in aeroplane-shaped gondolas.

  However, it was impossible to escape everywhere the signs that a major war was imminent. The regular civil defence drills included air raid and gas attack practices. And the subject of one new film the family had to see was in contrast to the diet of comedy. If War Comes Tomorrow summed up the prevailing sombre mood and tension. The movie was directed by Yefim Dzigan and was a work of propaganda. Its theme song, composed by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach, was played everywhere in the city. If War Comes Tomorrow lacks the artistic and dramatic depth of Sergey Eisenstein’s movie Alexander Nevsky, but it has a similar message – that anyone who attacks Russia with a sword dies by the sword. The film’s character
s are shown as simple, brave Soviet citizens, but they play a subsidiary role to the massive battle scenes and aircraft that form a significant part of this movie.

  Shumovsky was soon able to introduce his son and daughter to some of the film’s stars, the Heroes of the Soviet Union Gromov and his crew, as well as their aircraft, at the newly completed Zhukovsky airfield. The family were able to inspect for themselves the current and prototype planes of the expanding air fleet. No doubt they would have been taken on a VIP test flight in an aeroplane incorporating the technology acquired by Shumovsky in the US. Now he was trying to pass on to his young son his own enthusiasm and love of flying, at the age that he himself had discovered the thrill back in Kharkov.

  In Moscow there were many more men in military uniform every day. The Red Army was growing dramatically, from 1.3 million in 1937 to close to 5 million by 1941. Shumovsky was soon back in military uniform himself; already a member of the air force reserves, in his new role as deputy chair of the Technical Council of the People’s Commissariat for Aviation Industry (Narodny Komissariat Aviatsionnoy Promyshlennosti or NKAP), he became a member of the regular air force. The whole aviation industry had been taken out of government control and placed under the aegis of the military to improve efficiency. Shumovsky was given the newly created rank of lieutenant colonel.11 He was now receiving intelligence on aircraft developments rather than sourcing it. As the Soviet Union moved onto a war footing, Shumovsky had stepped into a vital role. His new job combined two functions. First, he was responsible for overseeing improvements in the quality and capacity of production by introducing the American techniques and technology that he had spent the last several years acquiring. In 1939 NKAP employed 272,000 workers in 86 factories, manufacturing components and assembling aircraft. Production that year had shifted to focus almost exclusively on combat planes, and in particular on important new models of fighters and ground-attack planes not bombers. Despite expert opinion, none of the Spanish Republican stronghold cities, such as Barcelona and Madrid, had surrendered during the Spanish Civil War because of the intense air raids conducted by Hitler’s Condor Legion. Whereas the British and Americans would remain wedded to the strategic bomber, the Soviets changed their aviation strategy in the light of the experience in Spain to focus on developing a tactical air force capability. There was a rush to refit the air force with faster fighters and tactical bombers, although the work would still be incomplete by 1941 when the Germans attacked. Together with Dmitry Golyaev, an engineer and leading aircraft production specialist, Shumovsky oversaw the reconstruction and refitting of every existing factory with the latest equipment. This was a monumental task, for at the same time several large new enterprises were put into operation. In 1939 the industry had seventeen aircraft assembly plants; by 1940 there were twenty-one and by June 1941 the number had reached twenty-four. Fifteen of these factories turned out fighters and nine produced bombers. Both in an effort to spread economic activity evenly around the USSR and also to locate strategic industries away from the country’s frontiers, many of these factories were built in the east.