Rudolf Ivanovich Abel (1903-1971) - the famous Soviet illegal intelligence officer, had the rank of colonel, one of the most outstanding intelligence officers of the twentieth century.
Childhood
His real name is Fisher William Genrikhovich. He was born on July 11, 1903 on the north-east coast of Great Britain in the industrial town of Newcastle upon Tyne. His parents were in this country as political emigrants.
Father, Heinrich Matteus (Matveyevich) Fischer, a German by birth, was born and raised in Russia, in the Yaroslavl province on the estate of Prince Kurakin, where his parent worked as a manager. In his youth, he met Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, became a staunch Marxist, actively participated in the revolutionary movement "Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class" created by Vladimir Ulyanov (he was personally acquainted with V. I. Lenin). Heinrich was a polyglot, besides Russian he was fluent in French, English and German. By the will of fate, finding himself in Saratov, he met the girl Lyuba, who later became his wife.
Mom, Lyubov Vasilievna, was a native of Saratov, from an early age she participated in the revolutionary movement. Throughout her life she was a companion of her husband.
In 1901, Lyuba, together with her husband Heinrich, were arrested by the tsarist government for revolutionary activities and expelled from Russia. It was not possible to go to Germany, there a case was opened against Henry, so the family settled in the homeland of the great poet Shakespeare - in Great Britain. They already had an eldest son, Harry, and the parents who were born in 1903 decided to name the boy in honor of the famous playwright - William.
From childhood, William was interested in natural sciences and was well versed in technology. He was fond of drawing, sketching, making portrait sketches of acquaintances, the boy especially liked to paint still lifes. Also, the child showed interest in music lessons, he very well mastered such instruments as guitar, piano, mandolin. The boy studied easily, while growing up very persistent, if he set himself any goals, he stubbornly went to achieve them. He knew several languages, William could have turned out to be a cool scientist, artist, engineer or musician, but he had a completely different fate.
He had a rare gift: he sensed the thoughts of others, always knew exactly where danger could come from, even when nothing foreshadowed it. William was a rare owner of the olfactory vector, in other words, unsurpassed intuition. Despite the fact that his parents called him affectionately Willie, the boy was not their favorite. This is not surprising, because the owners of the olfactory vector are rarely loved by people, even the closest and dearest. And all due to the fact that olfactory people themselves never love anyone, rarely and very little talk with others.
Youth
At the age of fifteen, William graduated from high school and got a job at a shipyard as an apprentice draftsman. A year later, he successfully passed the entrance exams to the University of London, but he did not have to study at this institution, since the family left the UK. A revolution took place in Russia, the Bolsheviks were now in power, and in 1920 the Fischers returned to their homeland, adopted the citizenship of the USSR (but at the same time they did not renounce English). For some time they lived on the territory of the Kremlin together with other families of prominent leaders of the revolution.
Seventeen-year-old William immediately liked Russia, and he became its passionate patriot. The guy, who spoke excellent Russian and English, was immediately noticed, and soon he already worked in the executive committee of the Communist International (Comintern) as a translator.
Then the young Fischer entered the higher art and technical workshops (VKHUTEMAS), this educational institution was created in 1920 through the merger of the Stroganov School of Industrial Art and the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
In 1924, William became a student at the Institute of Oriental Studies, where he began to study India with particular zeal, choosing the Hindustan branch. But soon he was drafted to serve in the Red Army, where he went with pleasure. Fischer ended up in the Moscow Military District, in the 1st Radiotelegraph Regiment. Here he received the specialty of a radiotelegraph operator, which was very useful to him in the future. He became a first-class radio operator, everyone recognized his superiority in this matter.
Getting started in exploration
Demobilized, William went to work at the Research Institute of the Air Force of the Red Army as a radio engineer. In April 1927, he married Elena Lebedeva, the girl graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in harp, and later became a professional musician.
Soon, the cadres of the OGPU (Special State Political Administration) became interested in the young man, who knew four languages almost perfectly, had a spotless biography and skillfully mastered the radio business. In the spring of 1927, he was enlisted in the foreign department of the OGPU on the recommendation of a relative of Serafima Lebedeva (the elder sister of his wife), who worked in this department as a translator.
At first, Fischer was an employee of the central office, but very soon the Moscow Committee of the Komsomol sent him to the state security organs. In a professional environment, he got used to it rather quickly and became a full member of the team. Soon, the leaders of the service appreciated the unique abilities of William and entrusted him with special tasks that had to be performed along the line of illegal intelligence in two European countries.
The first business trip was to Poland. The second to Great Britain, it turned out to be longer and was called semi-legal, because William traveled under his own name. The official legend looked like this: at the end of the winter of 1931, Fischer turned to the British Consulate General in Moscow with a request to issue him a British passport, because he was a native of England, in Russia he ended up due to his young age and by the will of his parents. Now he quarreled with his parents and wants to return to his homeland with his wife and daughter (in 1929 the couple already had a girl named Evelyn). The Fishers were given British passports and went abroad, first to China, where William opened his own radio workshop.
At the beginning of 1935, the family returned to the Soviet Union, but four months later they went abroad again, this time using Fischer's second specialty - a freelance artist. Eleven months later, William with his wife and daughter arrived in Moscow, where he continued his career in training illegal immigrants.
On the last day of 1938, he was dismissed from the NKVD without explanation. For some time he had to work in the All-Union Chamber of Commerce and at an aviation plant, while Fischer constantly wrote requests for his reinstatement in the intelligence agencies.
During the war in 1941, Fischer was reinstated in the NKVD, and he began training personnel for partisan warfare behind enemy lines. He trained radio operators who were sent to the cities and countries occupied by the Germans.
During this period, William met an employee of the Soviet foreign intelligence Rudolf Iogannovich (Ivanovich) Abel. Subsequently, the resident of Soviet intelligence, William Fisher, used this name when exposing him in the United States, it also stuck with him, thanks to which it became known to the whole world.
Another name and fate
In 1937, Rudolf Abel was first mentioned in documents. It was not only a new name, but also a completely different fate, history, legend.
Rudolf Abel was born on September 23, 1900 in Riga, his dad worked as a chimney sweep, and his mother was a housewife. Until the age of fourteen he lived with his parents, graduated from four classes of elementary school. He began working as a messenger, in 1915 he moved to Petrograd. With the beginning of the revolutionary events, together with his compatriots, he took the side of the Soviet regime. He got a job on the destroyer "Zealous" as a private fireman, participated in operations on the Kama and Volga in the rear of the whites. He fought near Tsaritsyn, graduated from the class of radio operators in Kronstadt, then worked in this specialty in distant places - on the Bering Island and on the Commander Islands.
In the summer of 1926, he was appointed commandant at the Shanghai Consulate. After that, he worked in Beijing at the Soviet embassy as a radio operator. In 1927, he began cooperation with the INO OGPU, from where he received a referral to illegal work abroad in 1929. He returned to his homeland in the fall of 1936.
His wife, Alexandra Antonovna, was of noble origin, they had no children.
Rudolph had a brother, Voldemar, who was convicted in 1937 for a counter-revolutionary conspiracy and espionage in favor of Germany. The arrest of his brother led to the dismissal of Rudolph from the NKVD in the spring of 1938.
At the beginning of World War II, he returned to service in the agencies, was a member of the operational group for the defense of the main Caucasian ridge, and carried out special assignments to send Soviet agents to the German rear.
In 1946 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and resigned from the state security organs. In 1955, he suddenly passed away.
America activity and failure
In 1946, Fischer was placed in a special reserve, and a lengthy preparation for his business trip abroad began. He was endlessly devoted to Russia, he never hid his highly patriotic feelings for the Motherland, so he agreed to carry out this task, despite the fact that he had to part with his wife and daughter.
In 1948, in the American city of New York, in the Brooklyn area, a photographer and freelance artist named Emil Robert Goldfuss, aka Fisher and illegal "Mark", settled. The "owner of the photo studio" was supposed to obtain information about nuclear facilities and the creation of atomic weapons. His messengers were the Soviet intelligence officers of the Cohen's wife.
In 1952, radio operator Reino Heihannen (operational pseudonym Vik) was sent to help Mark. He turned out to be unstable psychologically and morally, mired in debauchery and drunkenness, for which he was recalled from the United States. But "Vic" realized something was wrong and surrendered to the American authorities, telling about his activities in the United States and gave up "Mark".
In June 1957, "Mark" (William Fisher) checked into the Latham Hotel in New York, where he had another communication session. Early in the morning, FBI officers burst into the room, claiming from the doorway that they knew his real name and the purpose of his stay in America. Thus, they tried to create the effect of surprise, but not a single emotion was reflected on Mark's face. Not with a single movement, muscle, look, he did not betray himself, which testified to his inhuman endurance.
To somehow make it clear to Moscow that he was arrested, but did not betray his homeland, Fischer named himself after his late friend Rudolf Abel. Its olfactory vector helped destroy evidence under the watchful eye of three FBI professionals. Until now, many believe that the scout had the ability to hypnosis. Especially when he was sentenced to 32 years in prison instead of the death penalty under American law.
Liberation
For three weeks they tried to turn Abel over, then they threatened him with an electric chair, but everything turned out to be useless.
He was first held in the New York City Detention Center, then transferred to Atlanta Federal Correctional Jail. And in the Soviet Union began a long and stubborn struggle for his liberation.
On May 1, 1960, in the area of the city of Sverdlovsk, Soviet air defense shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, the pilot Francis Harry Powers was captured. On February 10, 1962, two cars stopped on the Alt Glienicke bridge on the border of East and West Berlin. A man came out of each, reaching the middle of the bridge, they exchanged glances and walked past to the opposite cars, sat down and parted. This is how Powers was exchanged for Abel. An hour later, the great Soviet intelligence officer in Berlin saw his family, and the next morning they all returned to Moscow.
The last years of his life, William Fischer, aka "Mark", aka Rudolf Abel, trained and instructed young workers for foreign intelligence. He died of cancer (lung cancer) on November 15, 1971, and was buried at the New Donskoy cemetery in Moscow.
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The specificity of the activities of the scouts is such that their true names, as a rule, become known only years after the end of their careers or, which is also not uncommon, of death. Over the years, they change many pseudonyms, and replace true life stories with fictional legends. Their fate was shared by Rudolf Abel, whose biography was the reason for writing this article.
Heir to a revolutionary family
The legendary Soviet intelligence officer Abel Rudolf Ivanovich, whose real name is William Genrikhovich Fischer, was born on July 11, 1903 in Great Britain, where his parents, Russian Social Marxists of German origin, were exiled for revolutionary activities. The family got the opportunity to return to their homeland only after the Bolsheviks came to power, which they took advantage of in 1920.
Rudolph Abel, who received his primary education in England and was fluent in English, arrived in Moscow, worked for several years as a translator in the executive committee of the Comintern, after which he entered the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops, known better by their abbreviation - VKHUTEMAS. To this step he was prompted by his long-standing passion for the visual arts, which began in England.
The beginning of service in the OGPU
After serving in the army and receiving the specialty of a radio operator there, Rudolf Ivanovich worked for some time as a radio engineer in one of the research institutes of the Ministry of Defense. During this period, an event occurred that largely predetermined his future life. In April 1927, he married Elena Lebedeva, a young harpist who had recently graduated from the Moscow Conservatory. Her own sister Serafima worked in the OGPU apparatus and helped her new relative get a job in this structure closed to outsiders.
Due to the fact that Rudolf Abel was fluent in English, he was enrolled in the foreign department, where he worked first as a translator, and then, in his army specialty, as a radio operator. Soon, or rather in January 1930, he was entrusted with the mission that began his path as a scout.
Departure for England
As part of the assignment he received, Abel applied to the British embassy for permission to return to England and, after receiving citizenship, moved to London, where he supervised the agent's activities and at the same time liaised the center with the station located in Norway.
By the way, one important detail should be noted - at this stage of his career and until he was sent to the United States in 1948, he acted under his real name and only at a critical moment resorted to a pseudonym, under which he later became widely known.
Unexpected dismissal from service
His very successful career was interrupted in 1938, after another Soviet intelligence officer, Alexander Orlov, chose not to return to his homeland and fled to the United States. To avoid failure, Rudolph Abel was urgently recalled to Moscow. With the defective agent, he had only a few short single contacts, but this was enough for Beria, who was suspicious of everyone who at least once had to communicate with "enemies of the people", ordered him to be fired.
As a matter of fact, at that time this could be considered a very favorable outcome, since many in such situations ended up behind bars. Abel could well have shared their fate. Rudolph, meanwhile, did not lose hope of returning to the service, which he had come to love.
Service during the war
Over the next three years, as an employee of various Soviet institutions, he repeatedly submitted reports on the restoration of his previous job. His request was granted only in 1941, when, with the outbreak of the war, there was an urgent need for qualified personnel with intelligence experience.
Once again becoming an employee of the NKVD, Abel headed the department in charge of organizing guerrilla warfare in the temporarily occupied territories. On this, one of the most important sectors of the fight against the enemy in those years, he prepared sabotage and reconnaissance groups for their subsequent transfer to the German rear. It is known that it was then that fate brought him together with a man who actually bore the name Rudolf Abel, which became his pseudonym many years later.
New task
Unfortunately, very soon after the joint victory over fascism, the former allies turned into irreconcilable enemies, divided by the "iron curtain", and their yesterday's fighting brotherhood turned into a cold war.
In the current situation, it was vital for the Soviet leadership to have comprehensive information regarding American developments in the field of nuclear weapons, the colossal destructive power of which was demonstrated during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was with this task that the intelligence officer Rudolf Abel was sent in 1948 to the United States, where he lived and carried out his illegal activities, using the passport of the American citizen Andrew Kayotis, who had died shortly before that in Lithuania.
Soon, Rudolph Abel was forced to change his pseudonym and, according to documents issued in the name of a certain artist Emil Goldfuss, opened a photo studio in Brooklyn. She, of course, was only a cover behind which the center of the Soviet residency was hiding, which was engaged in collecting data at various nuclear facilities in the country. A year later, he changed this name, again becoming William Fisher. For everyone who was part of his extensive network, Abel was known under the nickname Mark, this is how his reports sent to Moscow were signed.
The closest agents who played the role of Abel's liaisons were the Coen spouses - Soviet intelligence officers of American origin. Thanks to them, the data of interest to the intelligence center could be obtained not only from the scientific centers of America, but also from the secret laboratories of Great Britain. The effectiveness of the agent network created by Abel was so high that a year later he received a message that he had been awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Agent turned traitor
In 1952, another illegal Soviet intelligence agent was sent to help Mark, this time of Finnish origin - Reino Häyhänen, who had the pseudonym Vik. However, as practice has shown, he turned out to be unsuitable for such a complex and demanding work. Many of the operations entrusted to him were on the verge of collapse solely because of his irresponsibility.
As a result, four years later, the command decided to recall him to Moscow, but Vic, who had by that time had lost the habit of the gray and wretched Soviet life, did not want to return to his homeland. Instead, he voluntarily surrendered to the authorities and, having entered into cooperation with the FBI, gave all the names and addresses of Soviet agents known to him.
Failure and arrest
The head of the center was monitored around the clock, and in April 1957 he was arrested at the Latham Hotel in New York. Here he first called himself the name of Rudolf Abel - his old acquaintance, with whom he prepared sabotage groups during the war years. So he was then listed in the official records.
The defendant invariably responded with categorical objections to all the accusations that the United States put forward against Rudolf Abel. He denied participation in intelligence activities, in any ties with Moscow, and when he was offered cooperation in exchange for freedom, he portrayed a complete lack of understanding of the essence of the matter.
Years spent in prison
At the end of that year, Mark was sentenced to thirty-two years' imprisonment by a federal court decision, which he began serving in the Atlanta Correctional Prison. It should be noted that, according to his recollections, the conditions of detention were not particularly strict, and during the years spent behind bars, he had the opportunity to fill the time with his favorite pastimes - mathematics, art history and even painting.
In this regard, it is curious to note that the former chairman of the KGB of the USSR V. Ye. Semichasny said that the portrait of Kennedy, painted by Abel in the conclusion, was so liked by the president that, given to him, it hung for a long time in the Oval Office of the White House.
Again in the ranks of the State Security
Despite such a harsh sentence, freedom came to the highly gifted prisoner much earlier. In 1962, Rudolph Abel, after exchanging him for the American pilot Francis Powers, who was shot down during a reconnaissance flight over the territory of the Soviet Union, returned to Moscow. Making this deal, the US authorities, together with Powers, bargained for Abel and another student, who had been arrested shortly before on suspicion of espionage.
After a period of rehabilitation, Abel continued to work in the apparatus of the Soviet foreign intelligence. He was no longer sent abroad, but was used to train young scouts who had yet to embark on this difficult and dangerous path. In his spare time, he, as before, was engaged in painting.
The last years of the scout's life
In Soviet times, experienced professional consultants were often involved in the creation of historical and sometimes detective films. One of them was Rudolf Abel. The film Dead Season, filmed in 1968 at the Lenfilm studio by director Savva Kulish, largely reproduces episodes of his own life. Having appeared on the screens of the country, he was a huge success.
The famous Soviet intelligence officer William Genrikhovich Fisher, known to all of us under the pseudonym Rudolf Abel, died on November 15, 1971 in one of the capital's clinics. The cause of death was lung cancer. The hero's body was interred in the Novy Donskoy cemetery, where it rested next to the grave of his father, Genrikh Matveyevich Fischer.
Exactly 55 years ago, on February 10, 1962, on the bridge separating the FRG and the GDR, an exchange of the Soviet illegal intelligence agent Rudolf Abel (real name - William Genrikhovich Fisher) took place for the American pilot Francis Powers shot down over the USSR. Abel behaved courageously in prison: he did not disclose to the enemy a single, even the smallest episode of his work, and he is still remembered and respected not only in our country, but also in the United States.
Legendary Scout's Shield and Sword
The film by Steven Spielberg, released in 2015, "The Spy Bridge", which told about the fate of the Soviet intelligence officer and his exchange, was recognized by film critics as one of the best in the work of the famous American director. The tape is made in the spirit of deep respect for the Soviet intelligence officer. Abel, played by British actor Mark Rylance, is a strong-willed person in the film, while Powers is a coward.
In Russia, the intelligence colonel was also immortalized on film. He was played by Yuri Belyaev in the 2010 film "Fights: the US government against Rudolph Abel", the cult picture of the 60s "Dead season" by Savva Kulish tells partly about his fate, at the beginning of which the legendary intelligence officer himself addressed the audience with a small commentary ...
He also worked as a consultant on another famous Soviet spy film - "Shield and Sword" by Vladimir Basov, where the main character, played by Stanislav Lyubshin, was named Alexander Belov (A. Belov - in honor of Abel). Who is he, a man who is known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean?
Artist, engineer or scientist
William Genrikhovich Fisher was a very talented and versatile person with a phenomenal memory and a very developed instinct that helped to find the right solution in the most unexpected situations.
Since childhood, he, who was born in the small English town of Newcastle upon Tyne, spoke several languages, played various musical instruments, drew beautifully, drew, understood technology and was interested in natural sciences. A wonderful musician, engineer, scientist or artist could have emerged from him, but fate itself predetermined his future path even before birth.
More precisely, his father, Heinrich Matthäus Fischer, a German citizen, who was born on April 9, 1871, on the estate of Prince Kurakin in the Yaroslavl province, where his parent worked as a manager. In his youth, after meeting the revolutionary Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, Henry became seriously interested in Marxism and became an active participant in the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class created by Vladimir Ulyanov.
Named after Shakespeare
The secret police soon drew attention to Fischer, which was followed by an arrest and long-term exile - first to the north of the Arkhangelsk province, then transfer to the Saratov province. Under these conditions, the young revolutionary proved to be an outstanding conspirator. Constantly changing names and addresses, he continued to wage an illegal struggle.
In Saratov, Henry met a young like-minded woman, a native of this province, Lyubov Vasilievna Korneeva, who received three years for her revolutionary activities. They soon married and left Russia together in August 1901, when Fischer was faced with a choice: immediate arrest and deportation in chains to Germany, or voluntary departure from the country.
The young couple settled in Great Britain, where on July 11, 1903, their youngest son was born, who received his name in honor of Shakespeare. Young William passed the exams at the University of London, but he did not have to study there - his father decided to return to Russia, where the revolution took place. In 1920, the family moved to the RSFSR, receiving Soviet citizenship and retaining British citizenship.
The best of the best radio operators
William Fisher entered VKHUTEMAS (Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops), one of the leading art universities of the country at that time, but in 1925 he was drafted into the army and became one of the best radio operators in the Moscow Military District. His superiority was also recognized by his colleagues, among whom were the future participant of the first Soviet drifting station "North Pole-1", the famous polar radio operator Ernst Krenkel and the future People's Artist of the USSR, artistic director of the Maly Theater Mikhail Tsarev.
© AP Photo
After demobilization, Fischer, it seems, found his calling - he worked as a radio engineer at the Research Institute of the Red Army Air Force (now the Valery Chkalov State Flight Test Center of the RF Ministry of Defense). In 1927 he married the harpist Elena Lebedeva, and two years later they had a daughter, Evelina.
It was at this time that political intelligence, the OGPU, drew attention to a promising young man with excellent knowledge of several foreign languages. Since 1927, William has been an employee of the Foreign Intelligence Department, where he worked first as a translator and then as a radio operator.
Dismissal due to suspicion
In the early 30s, he asked the British authorities to issue him a passport, since he had quarreled with his revolutionary father and wanted to return to England with his family. The British willingly gave Fischer documents, after which the intelligence officer worked illegally for several years in Norway, Denmark, Belgium and France, where he created a secret radio network, transmitting messages from local stations to Moscow.
In 1938, fleeing large-scale repressions in the Soviet intelligence apparatus, Alexander Orlov, a resident of the NKVD in Republican Spain, fled to the West.
After this incident, William Fisher was recalled to the USSR and at the end of the same year was dismissed from the authorities with the rank of lieutenant of state security (corresponding to the rank of army captain).
Such a change in attitude towards a completely successful intelligence officer was dictated only by the fact that the new head of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Lavrenty Beria, openly did not trust the employees who had worked with the previously repressed "enemies of the people" in the NKVD. Fischer was still very lucky: many of his colleagues were shot or sent to prison.
Friendship with Rudolph Abel
The war with Germany returned to Fischer's ranks. From September 1941 he worked in the central intelligence apparatus in Lubyanka. As the head of the communications department, he took part in ensuring the security of the parade that took place on November 7, 1941 on Red Square. He was engaged in the preparation and transfer of Soviet agents to the Nazi rear, led the work of partisan detachments and participated in several successful radio games against German intelligence.
It was during this period that he became friends with Rudolf Ivanovich (Johannovich) Abel. Unlike Fischer, this active and cheerful Latvian came to reconnaissance from the fleet, in which he fought back in the civil war. During the war, they lived with their families in the same apartment in the center of Moscow.
They were brought together not only by their common service, but also by the common features of their biography. For example, like Fischer, Abel was dismissed from service in 1938. His older brother Voldemar was accused of participation in a Latvian nationalist organization and was shot. Rudolph, like William, was in demand with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, carrying out important tasks in organizing sabotage in the rear of the German troops.
And in 1955, Abel died suddenly, never knowing that his best friend was sent to work illegally in the United States. The Cold War was in full swing.
The enemy's nuclear secrets were required. Under these conditions, William Fisher, who managed to organize two large intelligence networks in the United States under the guise of a Lithuanian refugee, turned out to be an invaluable person for Soviet scientists. For which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Failure and paint
The volume of interesting information was so great that over time, Fischer needed another radio operator. Moscow sent Major Nikolai Ivanov to him as an assistant. It was a personnel error. Ivanov, who worked under the agent name Reino Heikhanen, turned out to be a drunkard and a lover of women. When, in 1957, they decided to recall him back, he turned to the US special services.
They managed to warn Fischer of the betrayal and began to prepare to flee the country through Mexico, but he himself recklessly decided to return to his apartment and destroy all evidence of his work. FBI agents arrested him. But even in such a stressful moment, William Genrikhovich was able to maintain an amazing composure.
He, who continued to paint in the United States, asked the American counterintelligence officers to erase the paint from the palette. Then he quietly threw a crumpled piece of paper with a cipher telegram into the toilet and flushed the water. When detained, he identified himself as Rudolf Abel, thereby making it clear to the Center that he was not a traitor.
Under a false name
During the investigation, Fischer firmly denied his involvement in Soviet intelligence, refused to testify in court and thwarted all attempts by American intelligence officers to work for them. They didn't get anything from him, not even his real name.
But Ivanov's testimony and letters from his beloved wife and daughter became the basis for a harsh sentence - more than 30 years in prison. In conclusion, Fischer-Abel painted oil paintings and was engaged in solving mathematical problems. A few years later, the traitor was punished - a huge truck crashed into a car driven by Ivanov on a night highway.
The scout's fate began to change on May 1, 1960, when Francis Powers, a U-2 spy plane pilot, was shot down in the USSR. In addition, newly elected President John F. Kennedy sought to ease tensions between the United States and the USSR.
As a result, it was decided to exchange the mysterious Soviet intelligence officer for three people at once. On February 10, 1962, at the Gliniki Bridge, Fischer was handed over to the Soviet special services in exchange for Powers. Also released were two American students previously arrested on espionage charges, Frederick Pryor and Marvin McEnen.
Until now it remains classified as "secret", but even the facts that are available today are impressive and tell a lot about his personality.
Hereditary communist
William Fisher (he will receive his pseudonym much later) was born in England into a family of Russian political immigrants - his father and mother participated in the revolutionary movement in their homeland and were even personally acquainted with Lenin. We can say that Abel inherited devotion to the ideas of communism and faith in Soviet ideology - a faith that was not broken either by imprisonment in an American prison, or the hardships of work and life in Soviet Russia, or the opportunity to cross over to the American side in search of a well-fed and comfortable life.
Dismissal from service
A career in intelligence did not develop very consistently for Abel - so, after almost ten years of service and work in the line of illegal intelligence in Norway and Great Britain, he was fired from the NKVD. The reason was Beria's distrust of those who had connections with the "enemies of the people", specifically with Alexander Orlov, a scout who fled to the West in 1938. Abel also worked with him at one time. After leaving the service, he went to work at the All-Union Chamber of Commerce, and later moved to an aircraft industrial plant, where he worked until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Of course, such work was not for him: Abel's intellect required the solution of more complex problems and much more important tasks, therefore, while working at the plant, he constantly wrote reports to the party bosses with a request to restore him to his post. And after more than two years in the civil service, at the very beginning of the Second World War, he managed to return - Abel was enrolled in a unit that organized military reconnaissance and sabotage groups and partisan detachments behind enemy lines.
Radio game "Berezino" and participation in the parade
During the Great Patriotic War, Fischer-Abel fully showed his abilities, proving in practice the correctness of the decision to return him back to the central intelligence apparatus. He trained radio operators for partisan detachments and agents sent to the German rear. In addition, Abel took part in the strategic operation "Berezino", where he was responsible for the most important part - the radio game (that is, the transmission of disinformation to the enemy headquarters, allegedly on behalf of their agents), which he conducted exceptionally masterly. On account of Abel and security service at the famous parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.
Work in the USA and the failure of the operation
After the end of World War II, Fischer received an extremely responsible assignment from his superiors - in 1948 he was sent to a key area of foreign intelligence work - the United States. In the states, Fisher, under the operational pseudonym "Mark", was working to recreate the Soviet spy network, and used an art workshop in Brooklyn as a cover. Abel's main focus was collecting information about the atomic bomb being developed by the Americans and transferring it to our intelligence. Abel spent nine years conducting intelligence activities in the United States and during this time he managed to do a great job. His failure was not the result of negligence or miscalculation, the reason was the betrayal of another Soviet agent, Reino Heihanen, who handed Abel over to the American special services.
Agent pseudonym
After the arrest, the main task of "Mark" was to avoid provocations by the FBI and inform Moscow of his arrest. Fischer understood who passed him and acted on the basis of this knowledge. Heikhanen did not know Mark's real name, so during interrogation he passed himself off as another Soviet intelligence officer, his late friend, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, with whom he worked side by side in Soviet intelligence for a long time. Since then, Fischer has gone everywhere under his name. It was only in the early nineties that the Russian foreign intelligence service officially announced that the real name of the Soviet intelligence officer who identified himself as Abel upon arrest was William Genrikhovich Fisher.
Exchange and return home
For collecting military information and espionage in favor of the USSR, Abel was threatened with the death penalty, but thanks to the efforts of his lawyer James Dokovan, who, incidentally, also once served in intelligence, the death sentence was replaced by a prison sentence of thirty-two years, which at 54 was tantamount to life imprisonment. the verdict. But this court decision turned out to be very far-sighted. In May 1960, an American plane was shot down near Sverdlovsk and its pilot, Francis Powers, was captured. Under pressure from the public and the pilot's family, the CIA agreed to trade Powers for a Soviet agent. The importance and weight of Abel's figure allowed the Americans to return to their homeland not only the downed pilot, but also two more citizens of their country, detained and held on the territory of the Soviet Union. On February 10, 1962, a historic exchange took place on the Glienik Bridge separating East and West Berlin.
Creative talent
William Fisher was exceptionally educated and comprehensively developed, not only professionally, but also culturally. He knew six languages and even taught French to his cellmate, was versed in the humanities and natural sciences, was well versed in music, literature, photography and painting (it was no accident that Abel's cover in New York was in the studio). During his imprisonment in an American prison, Abel also did not sit idle - he developed his silk-screen production process, solved mathematical problems, prepared detailed drawings for the best use of the prison building and painted oil paintings. There is even a legend, which does not have strong evidence, that the portrait of Kennedy, painted by Fisher in prison, was presented to the president and even hung in the oval office.
