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152-458: Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (née Greenglass ; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union , including providing top-secret information about American radar , sonar , jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs . Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by

304-610: A commissariat of the Soviet Union in 1934. During the Great Purge in 1936–1938, on Stalin's orders, the NKVD conducted mass arrests, imprisonment, torture, and executions of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens. The agency sent millions to the Gulag system of forced labor camps and, during World War II, carried out the mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Balts, and Romanians, and millions of ethnic minorities from

456-553: A 1st Directorate of NKGB. That state remained until 1946, when all People's Commissariats were renamed Ministries; NKVD was renamed Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the NKGB was renamed into Ministry of State Security (MGB). From 1946 to 1947, the 1st Directorate of the MGB was conducting foreign intelligence. In 1947, the GRU (military intelligence) and MGB's 1st Directorate was moved to

608-646: A 2001 book by his former handler Alexander Feklisov , Rosenberg was originally recruited to spy for the interior ministry of the Soviet Union, NKVD , on Labor Day 1942 by a former spymaster Semyon Semyonov . By this time, following the invasion by Nazi Germany in June 1941, the Soviet Union had become an ally of the Western powers, which included the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor . Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster,

760-610: A People's Commissar. However, the NKVD apparatus was overwhelmed by duties inherited from MVD, such as the supervision of the local governments and firefighting, and the Workers' and Peasants' Militias staffed by proletarians were largely inexperienced and unqualified. Realizing that it was left with no capable security force, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR established (20 December [ O.S. 7 December] 1917)

912-543: A Russian emigration conducted in the 1920s was Operation Trust (Trust Operation). "Trust" was an operation to set up a fake anti- Bolshevik underground organization , "Monarchist Union of Central Russia", MUCR (Монархическое объединение Центральной России, МОЦР). The "head" of the MUCR was Alexander Yakushev (Александр Александрович Якушев), a former bureaucrat of the Ministry of Communications of Imperial Russia , who after

1064-717: A career KGB officer who had risen steadily through the ranks as a loyal protégé of Sakharovsky. Mortin was on top the FCD only for two years, when, in 1974, he was succeeded by the 50-year-old Vladimir Kryuchkov , who was almost to equal Sakharovsky's record term as head of the FCD. After 14 years in FCD Hq, he was to become chairman of the KGB in 1988. Kryuchkov joined the Soviet diplomatic service, stationed in Hungary until 1959. He then worked for

1216-631: A courier and recruiter for the Soviets. In 2008, the National Archives of the United States published most of the grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed about the Rosenbergs and the legal case against them have resulted in additional U.S. government records being made public, including formerly classified materials from U.S. intelligence agencies. In September 2024,

1368-466: A day in protest. Cinema artists such as Fritz Lang registered their protest. President Dwight D. Eisenhower , supported by public opinion and the media at home, ignored the overseas demands. Pope Pius XII appealed to Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. All other appeals were also unsuccessful. Defense of the Rosenbergs surged in November and December 1952 and

1520-411: A foreign country under diplomatic cover (e.g., from his country's embassy). He is an official member of the consular staff, such as a commercial, cultural, or military attaché. Thus, he has diplomatic immunity from prosecution and cannot be arrested by the host country if suspected of espionage . The most the host country can do is send him back to his home country. He is in charge of the residency and

1672-484: A form of political warfare conducted by the Soviet security services to influence the course of world events, "in addition to collecting intelligence and producing politically correct assessment of it". Active measures ranged "from media manipulations to special actions involving various degree of violence". They included disinformation , propaganda , and forgery of official documents. The preparation of forged "CIA" documents which were then shown to third-world leaders

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1824-516: A game of disinformation. But Washington Resident Stanislav Androsov wished to demonstrate his office's effectiveness to his superiors and ordered the immediate arrest of all who helped the CIA and FBI. After those incidents, the security of residencies was increased and the Line KR was assigned more security officers, especially in countries like the United States and Great Britain. The KGB's FCD residency

1976-650: A given region (e.g., the quotas for clergy, former nobles , etc., regardless of identity). The families of the repressed, including children, were also automatically repressed according to NKVD Order no. 00486 . The purges were organized in a number of waves according to decisions of the Politburo of the Communist Party . Some examples are the campaigns among engineers ( Shakhty Trial ), party and military elite plots ( Great Purge with Order 00447 ), and medical staff (" Doctors' Plot "). Gas vans were used in

2128-471: A grand jury. For all questions, she asserted her right to not answer as provided by the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination . FBI agents took her into custody as she left the courthouse. Her attorney asked the U.S. commissioner to parole her in his custody over the weekend so that she could make arrangements for her two young children. The request was denied. Julius and Ethel were put under pressure to incriminate others involved in

2280-630: A high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA and NKVD liaison for Earl Browder . After Semyonov was recalled to Moscow in 1944 his duties were taken over by Feklisov. Rosenberg provided thousands of classified reports from Emerson Radio , including a complete proximity fuse . Under Feklisov's supervision, Rosenberg recruited sympathetic individuals into NKVD service, including Joel Barr , Alfred Sarant , William Perl , and Morton Sobell , also an engineer. Perl supplied Feklisov, under Rosenberg's direction, with thousands of documents from

2432-418: A member of the prosecution team, said that the case against Ethel was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence." FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote that "proceeding against the wife will serve as a lever" to make Julius talk. Their case against Ethel was resolved 10 days before the start of the trial, when David and Ruth Greenglass were interviewed

2584-478: A new document was released in response to a FOIA request filed by the couple's sons: written a week after Ethel's arrest by the National Security Agency 's chief decryptor and analyst, this 1950 memo provides an analysis of the decrypted Soviet Union intelligence on Julius and Ethel, reviewing Julius' spying activities and codenames, and concluding that Ethel was not engaged in espionage work for

2736-619: A number of people, including Major General Dmitri Polyakov , a high-ranking military intelligence officer ( GRU ). He was cooperating with the CIA and FBI. Ames reported that Colonel Oleg Gordievsky , London resident, had spied for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6). Line KR officers arrested many others, whom they sent to Moscow. There they were passed into the hands of the KGB Second Chief Directorate (counterintelligence). After

2888-467: A plane crash. He was replaced by Mikhail Trilisser , also a revolutionary. Trilisser specialized in tracing secret enemy informers and political spies inside the Bolshevik party. Before becoming INO chief, he led its Section of Western and Eastern Europe. Under Trilisser's management, foreign intelligence had become big professionally and respected by their opponent's services. This period characterized

3040-502: A purge coinciding with Stalin's Great Purge in 1937. Sheng and the Soviets alleged a massive Trotskyist conspiracy and a "Fascist Trotskyite plot" to destroy the Soviet Union. Soviet Consul General Garegin Apresoff , General Ma Hushan , Ma Shaowu , Mahmud Sijan, the official leader of Xinjiang province, Huang Han-chang, and Hoja-Niyaz were among the 435 alleged conspirators in the plot. Xinjiang came under Soviet influence. In

3192-563: A quick and secret process, they were sentenced to death. The death sentences were carried out in the Lubyanka Prison. They were buried face down in unmarked graves. Only Oleg Gordievsky was able to escape from the USSR, with SIS help. Line KR officers did not want to immediately arrest all the KGB personnel identified by Ames and Hanssen because they did not want to draw the attention of the CIA and FBI (which it did). They wanted to run

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3344-401: A second source of Manhattan Project information, engineer Russell McNutt , who worked on designs for the plants at Oak Ridge National Laboratory . For this success Rosenberg received a $ 100 bonus. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium . The U.S. did not share information with, nor seek assistance from, the Soviet Union regarding

3496-491: A second time. They were persuaded to change their original stories. David originally had said that he had passed the atomic data he had collected to Julius on a New York street corner. After being interviewed this second time, he said that he had given this information to Julius in the living room of the Rosenbergs' New York apartment. Ethel, at Julius's request, had taken his notes and "typed them up." In her second interview, Ruth expanded on her husband's version: Julius then took

3648-667: A secret political police, the Cheka , led by Felix Dzerzhinsky . It gained the right to undertake quick non-judicial trials and executions if that was deemed necessary in order to "protect the Russian socialist- communist revolution." The Cheka was reorganized in 1922, as the State Political Directorate , or GPU, of the NKVD of the RSFSR. In 1922 the USSR formed, with the RSFSR as its largest member. The GPU became

3800-679: A seizure of state power led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks , who established a new Bolshevik regime, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). The Provisional Government's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), formerly under Georgy Lvov (from March 1917) and then under Nikolai Avksentiev (from 6 August [ O.S. 24 July] 1917) and Alexei Niketan (from 8 October [ O.S. 25 September] 1917), turned into NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) under

3952-752: A small number of ex-NKVD agents in the Baltic states were convicted of crimes against the local population. These included: The extensive system of labor exploitation in the Gulag made a notable contribution to the Soviet economy and the development of remote areas. Colonization of Siberia , the Far North , and the Far East were among the explicitly stated goals in the first laws concerning Soviet labor camps . Mining, construction works (roads, railways, canals, dams, and factories), logging, and other functions of

4104-487: A special course in foreign intelligence. Fitin became deputy chief of the NKVD's foreign intelligence in 1938, then a year later at the age of thirty-one became chief. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service credits Fitin with rebuilding the depleted foreign intelligence department after Stalin's Great Terror . Fitin also is credited with providing ample warning of the German Invasion of 22 June 1941 that began

4256-572: A time when American fears about communism were high, the Rosenbergs did not receive support from mainstream Jewish organizations. The American Civil Liberties Union did not find any civil liberties violations in the case. Across the world, especially in Western European capitals, there were numerous protests with picketing and demonstrations in favor of the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers. Jean-Paul Sartre , an existentialist philosopher and writer who won

4408-555: Is involved enough in espionage to have his own codename ("Antenna" and later "Liberal"). Ethel did not have a codename; however, KGB messages which were contained in the Venona project's Alexander Vassiliev files, and which were not made public until 2009, revealed that both Ethel and Julius had regular contact with at least two KGB agents and were active in recruiting both David Greenglass and Russell McNutt . In 2001, David Greenglass recanted his testimony about his sister having typed

4560-415: Is that Julius was legally guilty of the conspiracy charge, though not of atomic spying, while Ethel was only generally aware of his activities. The children say that their father did not deserve the death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. They continue to campaign for Ethel to be posthumously legally exonerated. First Chief Directorate The First Chief Directorate was formed within

4712-575: The Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth , New Jersey, in 1940, where he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945. He was discharged when the U.S. Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party USA . Important research on electronics, communications, radar and guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during World War II . According to

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4864-612: The Battle of Stalingrad and the Crimean offensive . to stem desertions under Stalin's Order No. 270 and Order No. 227 decrees of 1941 and 1942, which aimed to raise troop morale through brutality and coercion. At the beginning of the war, the NKVD formed 15 rifle divisions, which grew by 1945 to 53 divisions and 28 brigades. Unlike the Waffen-SS , the NKVD did not field any armored or mechanized units. In enemy-held territories,

5016-604: The Caucasus , to remote areas of the country, resulting in millions of deaths. Hundreds of thousands of NKVD personnel served in Internal Troops divisions in defensive battles alongside the Red Army , as well as in " blocking formations ," preventing retreat. The agency was responsible for foreign assassinations, including that of Leon Trotsky . Within 1941 and from 1943 to 1946, secret police functions were split into

5168-674: The Great Depression . In 1939, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Ethel Greenglass was born on September 28, 1915, to a Jewish family in Manhattan . She had a brother, David Greenglass . She originally was an aspiring actress and singer but eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she met Julius in 1936. They married in 1939. Julius Rosenberg joined

5320-520: The Great Patriotic War . Only the actual invasion saved Fitin from execution for providing the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria , with information General Secretary of the CPSU, Joseph Stalin did not want to believe. Beria retained Fitin as chief of foreign intelligence until the war ended but demoted him. From June to September 1946, the head of foreign intelligence (MGB 1st directorate),

5472-610: The KGB directorate in 1954, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union became the Foreign Intelligence Service ( SVR RF ). The primary foreign intelligence service in Russia and the Soviet Union has been the GRU , a military intelligence organization and special operations force. From the beginning, foreign intelligence played an important role in Soviet foreign policy. In the Soviet Union, foreign intelligence

5624-706: The Korean War : I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered

5776-605: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , including a complete set of design and production drawings for Lockheed's P-80 Shooting Star , the first U.S. operational jet fighter . Feklisov learned through Rosenberg that Ethel's brother David was working on the top-secret Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory ; he directed Julius to recruit Greenglass. In February 1944, Rosenberg succeeded in recruiting

5928-541: The Nobel Prize for Literature , described the trial as "...a legal lynching ..." Others, including non-communists such as Jean Cocteau and Harold Urey , a Nobel Prize-winning physical chemist, as well as left-leaning figures—some being communist—such as Nelson Algren , Bertolt Brecht , Albert Einstein , Dashiell Hammett , Frida Kahlo , and Diego Rivera , protested the position of the American government in what

6080-522: The OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate), under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The NKVD of the RSFSR retained control of the militsiya and various other responsibilities. In 1934, the NKVD of the RSFSR was transformed into an all-union security force, the NKVD (which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union leaders soon came to call "the leading detachment of our party"), and

6232-816: The People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). In March 1946, the People's Commissariats were renamed to Ministries; the NKVD became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the NKGB became the Ministry of State Security (MGB). After the Russian February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government dissolved the Tsarist police and set up the People's Militias . The subsequent Russian October Revolution of 1917 saw

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6384-722: The Russian Orthodox Church , the Ukrainian Orthodox Church , the Roman Catholic Church , Greek Catholics , Islam , Judaism , and other religious organizations, an operation headed by Yevgeny Tuchkov . During the 1930s, the NKVD was responsible for political murders of those Stalin believed opposed him. Espionage networks headed by experienced multilingual NKVD officers such as Pavel Sudoplatov and Iskhak Akhmerov were established in nearly every major Western country, including

6536-599: The Russian Revolution joined the Narkomat of External Trade (Наркомат внешней торговли), when the Soviets had to allow the former specialists (called "specs", "спецы") to take positions of their expertise. This position allowed him to travel abroad and contact Russian emigrants. MUCR kept the monarchist general Alexander Kutepov (Александр Кутепов), head of a major emigrant force, Russian All-Military Union (Русский общевоинский союз), from active actions and who

6688-703: The Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) secret police organization, and thus had a monopoly on intelligence and state security functions. The NKVD is known for carrying out political repression and the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin , as well as counterintelligence and other operations on the Eastern Front of World War II . The head of

6840-619: The Spanish Civil War , the NKVD ran Section X, coordinating the Soviet intervention on behalf of the Spanish Republicans . NKVD agents acting in conjunction with the Communist Party of Spain exercised substantial control over the Republican government, using Soviet military aid to further Soviet influence. The NKVD established numerous secret prisons around Madrid, used to detain, torture, and kill hundreds of

6992-416: The Spanish Civil War . In February 1938, Slutsky was invited to the office of GUGB head komkor Mikhail Frinovsky , where he was poisoned and died. Slutsky was replaced by Zelman Passov , but soon he was arrested and murdered, his successor Sergey Spigelglas had met with the same fate, and by the end of 1938, he was arrested and murdered. The next chief (acting) of Foreign Department for only three weeks

7144-649: The Trust Operation . In 1936, Artuzov was replaced by then State Security Commissar 2nd rank Abram Slutsky . Slutsky was an active participant of the October Revolution and Russian Civil War . He had started work in security organs in 1920 by joining Cheka and later working in OGPU, Economic Department. Then in 1931, he went to serve in OGPU's Foreign Department (INO), and often left the country for Germany , France and Spain , where he participated in

7296-521: The White Guard people ( White movement ), of which the largest groups were in Berlin, Paris and Warsaw . The intelligence and counter-intelligence department led long so called intelligence games against Russian emigration. As a result of those games, the main representatives of Russian emigration like Boris Savinkov were arrested and sent for many years to prison. Another well known action against

7448-535: The atomic bomb ; he was also given a management role in the Soviet atomic effort, to help with coordination. After Sudoplatov left his post, he was replaced by Vladimir Dekanozov , before becoming INO head, Dekanozov was Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Council of People's Commissars and after he left his post in 1939 and became the Soviet ambassador in Berlin . For the next seven years, from 1939 to 1946,

7600-434: The intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the U.S., the program continued during the Cold War when it was considered an enemy. The Venona messages did not feature in the Rosenbergs' trial, which relied instead on testimony from their collaborators, but they heavily informed the U.S. government's overall approach to investigating and prosecuting domestic communists. In 1995,

7752-471: The sharashka were Sergey Korolev , head designer of the Soviet rocket program and first human space flight mission in 1961, and Andrei Tupolev , the famous airplane designer. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was also imprisoned in a sharashka and based his novel The First Circle on his experiences there. After World War II, the NKVD coordinated work on Soviet nuclear weaponry under the direction of General Pavel Sudoplatov . The scientists were not prisoners, but

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7904-501: The " Little Boy " bomb dropped on Hiroshima . On March 29, 1951, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage. They were sentenced to death on April 5 under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917 , which provides that anyone convicted of transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government "information relating to the national defense" may be imprisoned for life or put to death. Prosecutor Roy Cohn later claimed that his influence led to both Kaufman and Saypol being appointed to

8056-474: The Communist Party headquarters in Ukraine for eight years before joining the KGB in 1967. In 1988 he was promoted to General of the Army rank and became KGB Chairman. In 1989–1990, he was a member of Politburo. The next and last head of FCD was born on March 24, 1935, in Moscow Leonid Shebarshin . According to published sources, the KGB included the following directorates and departments in 1980s: " Active measures " ( Russian : Активные мероприятия ) were

8208-410: The Foreign Department had also been used to carry out assassinations abroad). During World War II , his unit helped organize guerrilla bands, and other secret behind-the-lines units for sabotage and assassinations, to fight the Nazis . In February, 1944, Lavrenty Beria (head of NKVD) named Pavel Sudoplatov to also head the newly formed Department S, which united both GRU and NKVD intelligence work on

8360-407: The French termed the American Dreyfus affair . Einstein and Urey pleaded with President Harry S. Truman to pardon the Rosenbergs. In May 1951 Pablo Picasso wrote for the communist French newspaper L'Humanité "The hours count. The minutes count. Do not let this crime against humanity take place." The all-black labor union International Longshoremen's Association Local 968 stopped working for

8512-425: The GUGB became GUGB's Department 7, and later Department 5. By 1941, foreign intelligence was given the highest status and it was enlarged to directorate. The name was changed from INO (Innostranny Otdiel) to INU— Inostrannoye Upravleniye , Foreign Directorate. During the following years, Soviet security and intelligence organs went through frequent organizational changes. From February to July 1941, foreign intelligence

8664-556: The German Gestapo . In March 1940, representatives of the NKVD and the Gestapo met for a week in Zakopane to coordinate the pacification of Poland. The Soviet Union allegedly deported hundreds of German and Austrian Communists to Nazi territories as unwanted foreigners. According to the work of Wilhelm Mensing , no evidence that which suggests that the Soviets specifically targeted German and Austrian Communists or others who perceived themselves as "anti-fascists" for deportations to Nazi Germany. Furthermore, many NKVD units later fought

8816-415: The KGB considered Julius Rosenberg an effective agent and Ethel a supporter of his work. According to Vassiliev, Julius and Ethel worked personally with KGB agents who were given the codenames Twain and Callistratus and were also described as being the ones who recruited Greenglass and McNutt for the Manhattan Project spy mission. Though the public release of Vassiliev's notebooks did not occur until 2009,

8968-414: The KGB largely stopped assassinations abroad after Stashynsky's defection, although they continued assisting the Eastern European sister services in doing so. The KGB First Chief Directorate residency was the equivalent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station. The chief of residency (Resident) was the equivalent of the CIA's Chief of Station . A legal resident is a spy who operates in

9120-429: The Line KR's role was increased considerably after CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames and FBI counterintelligence special agent Robert Hanssen volunteered their services to the KGB residency in Washington, DC. In return for money, they gave the KGB the names of officers of the KGB residency in Washington, DC, and other places, who cooperated with the FBI and/or the CIA. Line KR officers immediately arrested

9272-485: The Management office (INO chief and two deputies), chancellery, agents department, visas bureau and foreign sections. In 1922, after the creation of the State Political Directorate (GPU) and connecting it with People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs ( NKVD ) of the Russian SFSR , foreign intelligence was conducted by the GPU Foreign Department, and between December 1923 and July 1934 by the Foreign Department of Joint State Political Directorate or OGPU. In July 1934, OGPU

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9424-402: The Manhattan Project. The West was shocked by the speed with which the Soviets were able to stage " Joe 1 ", its first nuclear test , on August 29, 1949. However, Lavrentiy Beria , the head official of the Soviet nuclear project, used foreign intelligence only as a third-party check rather than giving it directly to the design teams, who he did not clear to know about the espionage efforts, and

9576-492: The Meeropol surname. After Sobell's 2008 confession, they acknowledged their father had been involved in espionage but that in their view the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, that their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband, and that neither deserved the death penalty. Michael and Robert co-wrote a book about their and their parents' lives, We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975). Robert wrote

9728-403: The Ministry of State Security. After the death of longtime Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in March 1953, Lavrenty Beria took over control of the security and intelligence organs, disbanded the MGB and its existing tasks were given to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) which he was in control of. In the MVD, the foreign intelligence was conducted by the Second Chief Directorate and following

9880-477: The NKVD carried out numerous missions of sabotage. After the fall of Kiev , NKVD agents set fire to the Nazi headquarters and various other targets, eventually burning down much of the city center. Similar actions took place across the occupied Byelorussia and Ukraine . The NKVD (later the KGB ) carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions. The targets included both collaborators with Germany and members of non-communist resistance movements such as

10032-423: The NKVD was Genrikh Yagoda from 1934 to 1936, Nikolai Yezhov from 1936 to 1938, Lavrentiy Beria from 1938 to 1946, and Sergei Kruglov in 1946. First established in 1917 as the NKVD of the Russian SFSR , the ministry was tasked with regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. It was disbanded in 1930, and its functions dispersed among other agencies before being reinstated as

10184-451: The NKVD's enemies, first focusing on Spanish Nationalists and Spanish Catholics , then after late 1938 increasingly anarchists and Trotskyists as objects of persecution. In 1937, Andrés Nin , the secretary of the Trotskyist POUM , and his colleagues were tortured and killed in an NKVD prison in Alcalá de Henares. Before the German invasion, to accomplish its own goals, the NKVD was prepared to cooperate even with such organizations as

10336-441: The NKVD. The military CI was also upgraded from a department to a directorate and put in the NKVD organization as the Directorate of Special Departments , or UOO NKVD USSR. The NKVMF, however, did not return to the NKVD until January 11, 1942. It returned to NKVD control on January 11, 1942, as UOO 9th Department controlled by P. Gladkov. In April 1943, Directorate of Special Departments was transformed into SMERSH and transferred to

10488-487: The OGPU was incorporated into the NKVD as the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB); the separate NKVD of the RSFSR was not resurrected until 1946 (as the MVD of the RSFSR). As a result, the NKVD also took over control of all detention facilities (including the forced labor camps, known as the gulag ), as well as the regular police. At various times, the NKVD had the following Chief Directorates, abbreviated as ""ГУ"ГУ"—Главное управление, Glavnoye upravleniye . Until

10640-439: The People's Defense and Commissariates. At the same time, the NKVD was reduced in size and duties again by converting the GUGB to an independent unit named the NKGB. In 1946, all Soviet commissariats were renamed "ministries." Accordingly, the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the USSR became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), while the NKGB was renamed the Ministry of State Security (MGB). In 1953, after

10792-518: The Polish Home Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , which were trying to separate from the Soviet Union, among others. The NKVD also executed tens of thousands of Polish political prisoners in 1940–1941, including at the Katyń massacre . On November 26, 2010, the State Duma issued a declaration acknowledging Stalin's responsibility for the Katyn massacre and the execution of intellectual leaders and 22,000 Polish POWs by Stalin's NKVD. The declaration stated that archival material "not only unveils

10944-600: The Rosenberg case and that Kaufman imposed the death penalty based on Cohn's personal recommendation. Cohn would go on later to work for Senator Joseph McCarthy , appointed as chief counsel to the investigations subcommittee during McCarthy's tenure as chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee. In imposing the death penalty, Kaufman noted that he held the Rosenbergs responsible not only for espionage but for American deaths in

11096-553: The Rosenbergs on the Sabbath, rescheduled the execution for 8 p.m.—before sunset and the Sabbath—the regular time for executions at Sing Sing where they were being held. On June 19, 1953, Julius died from the first electric shock . Ethel's execution did not go smoothly. After she was given the normal course of three electric shocks, attendants removed the strapping and other equipment only to have doctors determine that her heart

11248-415: The Rosenbergs provided us" but that he learned from Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov that they "had provided very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb." Boris V. Brokhovich, the engineer who later became director of Chelyabinsk-40 , the plutonium production reactor and extraction facility that the Soviet Union used to create its first bomb material, alleged that Khrushchev

11400-592: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, investigated how much the Soviet spy ring helped the USSR to build its bomb. Moynihan found that in 1945, physicist Hans Bethe estimated that the Soviets would build its bomb within five years. "Thanks to information provided by their agents," Moynihan wrote in his book Secrecy , "they did it in four." Nikita Khrushchev , leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, wrote in his posthumously published memoir that he "cannot specifically say what kind of help

11552-542: The Soviet Union during the Great Purge in the cities of Moscow , Ivanovo , and Omsk A number of mass operations of the NKVD related to persecution of entire ethnic categories. For example, the Polish Operation of the NKVD in 1937–1938 resulted in the execution of 111,091 Poles. Whole populations of certain ethnicities were forcibly resettled . Foreigners living in the Soviet Union were given particular attention. When disillusioned American citizens in

11704-651: The Soviet Union thronged the gates of the U.S. embassy in Moscow to plead for new U.S. passports to leave the USSR (their original U.S. passports had been taken for 'registration' purposes years before), none were issued. Instead, the NKVD promptly arrested the Americans, who were all taken to Lubyanka Prison and later shot. American factory workers at the Soviet Ford GAZ plant, suspected by Stalin of being 'poisoned' by Western influences, were dragged off with

11856-747: The Soviet Union. Julius Rosenberg was born on May 12, 1918, in New York City to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire . The family moved to the Lower East Side by the time Julius was 11. His parents worked in the shops of the Lower East Side as Julius attended Seward Park High School . Julius became a leader in the Young Communist League USA while at City College of New York during

12008-426: The Soviet contact agent Anatoli Yakovlev . This connection would be necessary as evidence if there was to be a conviction for espionage of the Rosenbergs. On July 17, 1950, Julius was arrested on suspicion of espionage based on Greenglass's confession. On August 11, 1950, Ethel was arrested after testifying before a grand jury. Another conspirator, Morton Sobell , fled with his family to Mexico City after Greenglass

12160-423: The Soviet state (" enemies of the people "), untold multitudes of people were sent to GULAG camps, and hundreds of thousands were executed by the NKVD. Formally, most of these people were convicted by NKVD troikas ("triplets") – special courts martial . Evidence standards were very low: a tip-off by an anonymous informer was considered sufficient grounds for arrest. Use of "physical means of persuasion" (torture)

12312-578: The Soviets throughout the war. Fuchs identified his courier as American Harry Gold , who was arrested on May 23, 1950. On June 15, 1950, Greenglass was arrested by the FBI for espionage and soon confessed to having passed secret information on to the USSR through Gold. He also claimed that Julius Rosenberg had convinced David's wife Ruth to recruit him while visiting him in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1944. He said Julius had passed secrets and thus linked him to

12464-400: The U.S. government made public many documents decoded by the Venona project, showing Julius Rosenberg's role as part of a productive ring of spies. For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's husband David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. The cable also makes clear that the sister's husband

12616-543: The USSR, such as leaders of nationalist movements, former Tsarist officials, and personal rivals of Joseph Stalin . Among the officially confirmed victims of such plots were: Prominent political dissidents were also found dead under highly suspicious circumstances, including Walter Krivitsky , Lev Sedov , Ignace Reiss , and former German Communist Party (KPD) member Willi Münzenberg . Pro-Soviet leader Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang received NKVD assistance to conduct

12768-521: The United States. The NKVD recruited agents for its espionage efforts from all walks of life, from unemployed intellectuals such as Mark Zborowski to aristocrats such as Martha Dodd . Besides the gathering of intelligence, these networks provided organizational assistance for so-called wet business , where enemies of the USSR either disappeared or were openly liquidated. The NKVD's intelligence and special operations ( Inostranny Otdel ) unit organized overseas assassinations of political enemies of

12920-535: The Wehrmacht, for example the 10th NKVD Rifle Division , which fought at the Battle of Stalingrad . After the German invasion, the NKVD evacuated and killed prisoners . During World War II, NKVD Internal Troops were used for rear area security, including preventing the retreat of Soviet army divisions. Though mainly intended for internal security, NKVD divisions were sometimes used at the front, for example during

13072-753: The arrest of Lavrenty Beria , the MGB merged back into the MVD. The police and security services finally split in 1954 to become: In 1935–1945, the Main Directorate of State Security of NKVD had its own ranking system before it was merged into the Soviet military standardized ranking system. The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union through massive political repression , including authorized murders of many thousands of politicians and citizens, as well as kidnappings, assassinations, and mass deportations. In implemention of Soviet internal policy towards perceived enemies of

13224-616: The atomic bomb. Numerous articles were published in 2008 related to the Rosenberg case. Deputy Attorney General of the United States William P. Rogers , who had been part of the prosecution of the Rosenbergs, discussed their strategy at the time in relation to seeking the death sentence for Ethel. He said they had urged the death sentence for Ethel in an effort to extract a full confession from Julius. He reportedly said "she called our bluff" as she made no effort to push her husband to any action. In September 2008, Morton Sobell

13376-482: The atomic bomb: "He [Julius] didn't understand anything about the atomic bomb and he couldn't help us." General Leslie Groves , who developed the American nuclear program as part of the Manhattan Project , said during a United States Atomic Energy Commission hearing on Robert Oppenheimer that he thought that "the data that went out in the case of the Rosenbergs was of minor value" and that he "always felt

13528-645: The biggest successes of Soviet foreign intelligence was the penetration of the American Manhattan Project , which was the code name for the effort during World War II to develop the first nuclear weapons of the United States with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada. Information gathered in the United States, Great Britain and Canada, especially in USA, by NKVD and NKGB agents then supplied to Soviet physicists, allowed them to carry out

13680-717: The chief of the foreign intelligence department (then 5th Department of the GUGB/NKVD) was a very young NKVD officer and graduate of the first official intelligence school (SHON), Major of State Security Pavel Fitin . Fitin graduated from a program in engineering studies at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in 1932 after which he served in the Red Army , then became an editor for the State Publishing House of Agricultural Literature. The All-Union Communist Party (CPSU) selected him for

13832-442: The course of history to the disadvantage of our country. The U.S. government offered to spare the lives of both Julius and Ethel if Julius provided the names of other spies and they admitted their guilt. The Rosenbergs made a public statement: "By asking us to repudiate the truth of our innocence, the government admits its own doubts concerning our guilt...we will not be coerced, even under pain of death, to bear false witness". After

13984-622: The creation of KGB foreign intelligence was conducted by the First Chief Directorate of the Committee for State Security or KGB, subordinate to the council of ministers of the USSR. The first chief of the Soviet foreign intelligence service, Cheka foreign department ( Inostranny Otdel —INO), was Yakov Davydov . He headed the foreign department until late 1921, when he was replaced by longtime revolutionary Solomon Mogilevsky . He led INO only for few months, as in 1925 he died in

14136-402: The death of Stalin in 1953, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev halted NKVD purges. From the 1950s to the 1980s, thousands of victims were legally "rehabilitated," i.e., acquitted with their rights restored. Many of the victims and their relatives refused to apply for rehabilitation, either out of fear or a lack of documents. The rehabilitation was not complete; in most cases, the formulation

14288-539: The development was indigenous. Considering that the pace of the Soviet program was set primarily by the amount of uranium that it could procure, it is difficult for scholars to judge accurately how much time was saved, if any. In January 1950, the U.S. discovered that Klaus Fuchs , a German refugee and theoretical physicist working for the British mission in the Manhattan Project, had given key documents to

14440-538: The effects were greatly exaggerated, that the Russians did not get too much information out of it". Groves requested that this "should be kept very quiet" as he still believed the Rosenbergs deserved to die. This part of his testimony was redacted from the publicly released 1954 transcript of the Commission's hearing on Oppenheimer and remained classified until 2014. The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages transmitted by

14592-616: The elements. On 3 February 1941, the 4th Department (Special Section, OO) of the GUGB NKVD security service responsible for the Soviet Armed Forces military counterintelligence, consisting of 12 sections and one investigation unit, was separated from the GUGB NKVD USSR. The official liquidation of OO GUGB within NKVD was announced on 12 February by joint order No. 00151/003 of NKVD and NKGB USSR. The rest of GUGB

14744-405: The enlisting of foreign agents, wide use of emigrants for intelligence tasks and organization of a network of independent agents. Trilisser himself was very active, personally traveling to Berlin and Paris for meetings with important agents. Trilisser left his position in 1930, and was replaced by Artur Artuzov , the former chief of department of counter-intelligence (KRO) and main initiator of

14896-508: The federal government of the United States in 1953 at Sing Sing in Ossining , New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to be executed during peacetime. Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement ), Harry Gold , and Morton Sobell . Klaus Fuchs , a German scientist working at Los Alamos Laboratory ,

15048-488: The first Soviet nuclear explosion in 1949. In March 1954, Soviet state security underwent its last major postwar reorganization. The MGB was once again removed from the MVD, but downgraded from a ministry to the Committee for State Security (KGB), and formally attached to the Council of Ministers in an attempt to keep it under political control. The body responsible for foreign operations and intelligence collection activities

15200-645: The first interview was published, Sobell denied that he knew anything about Julius Rosenberg's alleged atomic espionage activities, and that the only thing he knew for sure was what he himself did in association with Julius Rosenberg. In 2009, extensive notes collected from KGB archives were made public in a book published by Yale University Press: Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America , written by John Earl Haynes , Harvey Klehr , and Alexander Vassiliev; Vassiliev's notebooks included KGB comments concerning Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The notebooks make clear that

15352-419: The info into the bathroom and read it and when he came out he called Ethel and told her she had to type this information immediately ... Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the information that David had given to Julius. As a result of this new testimony, all charges against Ruth were dropped. On August 11, Ethel testified before

15504-493: The innocent [Jewish Slánský trial defendants] in Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia. The execution was delayed from the scheduled date of June 18 because Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas had granted a stay of execution on the previous day. This stay resulted from intervention in the case by Fyke Farmer , a Tennessee lawyer whose efforts had been scorned by Bloch. The execution

15656-458: The internal security. Line KR had operational control over residency personnel, surveillance , establishment of any suspicious contacts of residency personnel with citizens of the country where they are staying that they had not reported, checking personal mail, etc. Line KR used such tactics to prevent or uncover anyone from the residency or embassy from being recruited by the enemy, such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In 1985,

15808-598: The killings of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists members Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera by Bohdan Stashynsky in Munich in 1957 and 1959, as well as the unrelated slayings of emigre dissidents like Abdurahman Fatalibeyli , and the surreptitious ricin poisoning of the Bulgarian émigré Georgi Markov , shot with an umbrella-gun of KGB design, in 1978. The defection of assassins like Nikolai Khokhlov and Bohdan Stashynsky severely curtailed such activities however, and

15960-525: The labor camps were part of the Soviet planned economy , and the NKVD had its own production plans. The most unusual part of the NKVD's achievements was its role in Soviet science and arms development . Many scientists and engineers arrested for political crimes were placed in special prisons, much more comfortable than the gulag, colloquially known as sharashkas . These prisoners continued their work in these prisons and were later released. Some of them became world leaders in science and technology. Among

16112-406: The lines was responsible for counterintelligence . The Line KR (short for "kontrazviedka," counterintelligence) played a big role in the KGB residency, being responsible for counterintelligence and security of the residency and the consulate or embassy that housed the residency. Mainly it used so-called "defensive counterintelligence" tactics. This meant that Line KR attention and force was used for

16264-537: The main orations, bitterly exclaimed that America was "living under the heel of a military dictator garbed in civilian attire": the Rosenbergs were "Sweet. Tender. And Intelligent" and the course they took was one of "courage and heroism." In 1953, socialist historian W.E.B. Du Bois wrote a poem titled "The Rosenbergs", which began "Crucify us, Vengeance of God, as we crucify two more Jews" and ended "Who has been crowned on yonder stair? Red Resurrection? Or Black Despair?" Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan , vice-chairman of

16416-645: The memoir An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). In 1990, he founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children , a nonprofit foundation that provides support for children of targeted liberal activists and youth who are targeted as activists. Michael's daughter Ivy Meeropol directed a 2004 documentary about her grandparents, Heir to an Execution , which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival . Their sons' current position

16568-494: The national "Rosenberg committee" which undertook the funeral arrangements, and an all-night vigil was held in one of the largest mortuary chapels in Brooklyn. Many hundreds of people filed past the biers. Most of them clearly regarded the Rosenbergs as martyred heroes and more than 500 mourners attended to-day's services, while a crowd estimated at 10,000 stood outside in burning heat. Mr. Bloch [their counsel], who delivered one of

16720-465: The notebooks had been originally intercepted during the Venona decryptions. The Rosenbergs' two sons, Michael and Robert , spent years trying to prove the innocence of their parents. They were orphaned by the executions and were not adopted by their many aunts or uncles, although they initially spent time under the care of their grandmothers and in a children's home. They were adopted by the communist activist Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne and assumed

16872-432: The notes. He said "I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don't remember." He said he gave false testimony to protect himself and his wife and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so. "My wife is more important to me than my sister. Or my mother or my father, OK? And she was the mother of my children." He refused to express remorse for his decision to betray his sister, saying only that he did not realize that

17024-662: The others to Lubyanka by the NKVD in the very same Ford Model A cars they had helped build, where they were tortured; nearly all were executed or died in labor camps. Many of the slain Americans were dumped in the mass grave at Yuzhnoye Butovo District , near Moscow. However, the people of the Soviet Republics were still the majority of NKVD victims. The NKVD also served as an arm of the Russian Soviet communist government for lethal mass persecution and destruction of ethnic minorities and religious beliefs, such as

17176-483: The personnel. He is also an official contact who well-known people in government can contact in times of crisis. In 1962, KGB Washington, D.C. Resident Aleksandr Fomin (real name Alexander Feklisov ) played a huge role in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis . The residency was divided into lines (sections). Each line was responsible for its assigned task of gathering intelligence. For instance, one of

17328-487: The program, providing operatives and intelligence for assassinations and other types of covert operations. The Thirteenth Department was responsible for direct action , including assassination and sabotage ; at one time it was led by Viktor Vladimirov . They were used both abroad and domestically. Occasionally, KGB assassinated the enemies of the USSR abroad—principally Soviet Bloc defectors, either directly or by aiding Communist country secret services. For instance:

17480-468: The project was supervised by the NKVD because of its great importance and the corresponding requirement for absolute security and secrecy. The project also used information obtained by the NKVD from the United States. The agency was headed by a people's commissar (minister). His first deputy was the director of State Security Service (GUGB). Note: In the first half of 1941 Vsevolod Merkulov transformed his agency into separate commissariat (ministry), but it

17632-419: The prosecution would push for the death penalty. He stated, "I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister." At the grand jury, Ruth Greenglass was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?" She replied, "Yes, I wrote [the information] down on a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him." But at the trial, she testified that Ethel Rosenberg typed notes about

17784-642: The publication of an investigative series in the National Guardian and the formation of the National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case , some Americans came to believe both Rosenbergs were innocent or had received too harsh a sentence, particularly Ethel. A campaign was started to try to prevent the couple's execution. Between the trial and the executions, there were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism . At

17936-510: The recently created foreign intelligence agency called the Committee of Information (KI). In the summer of 1948, the military personnel in KI were returned to the Soviet military to reconstitute a foreign military intelligence arm of the GRU. KI sections dealing with the new East Bloc and Soviet émigrés were returned to the MGB in late 1948. In 1951, the KI returned to the MGB, as a First Chief Directorate of

18088-493: The reorganization begun by Nikolai Yezhov with a purge of the regional political police in the autumn of 1936 and formalized by a May 1939 directive of the All-Union NKVD by which all appointments to the local political police were controlled from the center, there was frequent tension between centralized control of local units and the collusion of those units with local and regional party elements, frequently resulting in

18240-732: The scale of his horrific tragedy but also provides evidence that the Katyn crime was committed on direct orders from Stalin and other Soviet leaders." NKVD units were also used to repress the prolonged partisan war in Ukraine and the Baltics , which lasted until the early 1950s. NKVD also faced strong opposition in Poland from the Polish resistance movement known as the Armia Krajowa . After

18392-483: The spy ring. Neither offered any further information. On August 17, the grand jury returned an indictment alleging 11 overt acts. Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were indicted, as were David Greenglass and Yakovlev. The trial of the Rosenbergs and Sobell on federal espionage charges began on March 6, 1951, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York . Judge Irving Kaufman presided over

18544-432: The thwarting of Moscow's plans. During Yezhov's time in office, the Great Purge reached its height. In the years 1937 and 1938 alone, at least 1.3 million were arrested and 681,692 were executed for 'crimes against the state'. The Gulag population swelled by 685,201 under Yezhov, nearly tripling in size in just two years, with at least 140,000 of these prisoners (and likely many more) dying of malnutrition, exhaustion and

18696-434: The trial, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Irving Saypol leading the prosecution and criminal defense lawyer Emmanuel Bloch representing the Rosenbergs. The prosecution's primary witness, David Greenglass, said that he turned over to Julius a sketch of the cross-section of an implosion-type atom bomb. This was the " Fat Man " bomb dropped on Nagasaki , Japan, as opposed to a bomb with the "gun method" triggering device used in

18848-399: The world, they were used to build legal intelligence post called residentura. It was led by a resident whose real identity was known only to the ambassador . The first operations of the Soviet intelligence concentrated mainly on Russian military and political emigration organizations. According to Vladimir Lenin 's directions, the foreign intelligence department had chosen as his main target

19000-465: Was Lieutenant General Pyotr Kubatkin (born in 1907), when he was replaced by then Lieutenant General Pyotr Fedotov (born in 1900). Before he became head of foreign intelligence, he was working in OGPU/GUGB counter-intelligence and 'Secret Political departments and then he headed the NKVD's counter-intelligence department. From 1949 to 1951, the head of intelligence in the Committee of Information

19152-401: Was "due to lack of evidence of the case of crime." Only a limited number of persons were rehabilitated with the formulation "cleared of all charges.". Very few NKVD agents were ever officially convicted of a particular violation of anyone's rights. Legally, those agents executed in the 1930s were also "purged" without legitimate a criminal investigation or court decision. In the 1990s and 2000s,

19304-541: Was First Chief Directorate (FCD). The first head of FCD was Aleksandr Panyushkin , the former ambassador to the United States and China and former head of Second Chief Directorate in MVD responsible for foreign intelligence. Panyushkin's diplomatic background, however, did not imply any softening in MVD/KGB operational methods abroad. Indeed, one of the first foreign operations personally supervised by Panyushkin

19456-461: Was Operation Rhine, the attempted assassination of a Ukrainian émigré leader in West Germany . In 1956, Panyushkin was succeeded by his former deputy Aleksandr Sakharovsky , who was to remain head of FCD for record period of 15 years. He was remembered in the FCD chiefly as an efficient, energetic administrator. In 1971, Sakharovsky was succeeded by his 53-year-old former deputy Fyodor Mortin,

19608-544: Was Sergey Savchenko. Savchenko was born in 1904 and at first he was working as a security guard. He joined Soviet security organs in 1922 and in the 1940s was a top NKVD man in Ukrainian SSR . When Andrey Vyshinsky became Minister for Foreign Affairs and the head of Committee of Information, Savchenko was his deputy and head of foreign intelligence. In 1951, he was replaced by Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Petrovich Pitovranov, longtime secret service worker. Between 1950 and 1951, he

19760-437: Was a "silly fool". He said the Soviets had developed their own bomb by trial and error. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing," he said. "We got nothing from the Rosenbergs." The notes allegedly typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was directly used in the Soviet atomic bomb project. According to Julius's contact Feklisov, the Rosenbergs did not provide the Soviet Union with any useful material about

19912-814: Was abolished, and staff were moved to the newly created People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). Departments of former GUGB were renamed directorates. For example, the foreign intelligence unit known as the Foreign Department (INO) became the Foreign Directorate (INU); the GUGB political police unit represented by the Secret Political Department (SPO) became the Secret Political Directorate (SPU), and so on. The former GUGB 4th Department (OO),

20064-472: Was arrested. They took assumed names, and he tried to figure out a way to reach Europe without a passport. Abandoning that effort, he returned to Mexico City. He claimed that he was kidnapped by members of the Mexican secret police and driven to the U.S. border, where he was arrested by U.S. forces. The U.S. government claimed Sobell was arrested by the Mexican police for bank robbery on August 16, 1950, and he

20216-472: Was convicted in the United Kingdom. For decades, many people, including the Rosenbergs' sons ( Michael and Robert Meeropol ), have maintained that Ethel was innocent of spying and have sought an exoneration on her behalf from multiple U.S. presidents. Among records the U.S. government declassified after the fall of the Soviet Union are many related to the Rosenbergs, included a trove of decoded Soviet cables (code-name Venona), which detailed Julius's role as

20368-549: Was convinced to wait for the development of the internal anti-Bolshevik forces. Among the successes of "Trust" was the luring of Boris Savinkov and Sidney Reilly into the Soviet Union to be arrested. In Soviet intelligence history, the 1930s proceeded as a so-called Era of the Great Illegals. Among others Arnold Deutsch , Theodore Maly and Yuri Modin were officers leading the Cambridge Five case. One of

20520-427: Was divided in two parts – Operational Staff and Support Staff NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs ( Russian : Народный комиссариат внутренних дел , romanized :  Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del , IPA: [nɐˈrodnɨj kəmʲɪsərʲɪˈat ˈvnutrʲɪnʲɪɣ dʲel] ), abbreviated as NKVD (Russian: НКВД ; listen ), was the interior ministry and secret police of

20672-437: Was engaged in." He said that he thought the hand-drawn diagrams and other atomic-bomb details acquired by Greenglass and passed to Julius were of "little value" to the Soviet Union and were used only to corroborate what they had learned from the other atomic spies. He also said that he believed Ethel Rosenberg was aware of her husband's deeds but took no part in them. In a follow-up letter to The New York Times , one week after

20824-556: Was extradited the next day to the United States in Laredo, Texas. Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. Gordon Dean , the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission , said: "It looks as though Rosenberg is the kingpin of a very large ring, and if there is any way of breaking him by having the shadow of a death penalty over him, we want to do it." Myles Lane ,

20976-742: Was formally formed in 1920 as a foreign department of Cheka ( Inostrannyj Otdiel —INO), during the Russian Civil War of 1918–1920. On December 19, 1918, the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) Central Committee Bureau decided to combine Cheka front formations and the Military Control Units, which were controlled by the Military Revolutionary Committee , and responsible for counter-intelligence activities, into one organ that

21128-418: Was interviewed by The New York Times after the revelations from grand jury testimony. He admitted that he had given documents to the Soviet contact but said these had to do with defensive radar and weaponry. He confirmed that Julius Rosenberg was "in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information...[on] the atomic bomb," and "He never told me about anything else that he

21280-536: Was located in Kharkiv and was divided in two sections: Western and Southern . Each section had six groups: registration, personal, technical, finance, law, and organization. WIB had its own internal stations, in Kiev and Odessa . The first had the so-called national section— Polish , Jewish and German . On December 20, 1920, Felix Dzerzhinsky created the Foreign Department ( Innostranny Otdel —INO), made up of

21432-457: Was merged back to the people's commissariat of Interior soon after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union . In 1943 Merkulov once again split his agency this time for good. Andrei Zhukov singlehandedly identified every single NKVD officer involved in 1930s arrests and killings by researching a Moscow archive. There are just over 40,000 names on the list. See also: Bibliography of Stalinism and

21584-657: Was named Cheka Special Section (department). The head of the Special Section was Mikhail Sergeyevich Kedrov . The Special Section's task was to run human intelligence: to gather political and military intelligence behind enemy lines, and expose and neutralize counter-revolutionary elements in the Red Army . At the beginning of 1920, the Cheka Special Section had a War Information Bureau (WIB), which conducted political, military, scientific and technical intelligence in surrounding countries. WIB headquarters

21736-579: Was often successful in sowing suspicion. Active measures included the establishment and support of international front organizations (e.g., the World Peace Council ); foreign communist, socialist and opposition parties; wars of national liberation in the Third World ; and underground, revolutionary, insurgency , criminal, and terrorist groups. The intelligence agencies of Eastern Bloc and other communist states also contributed to

21888-411: Was organized by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union —confirmation of which occurred with the publication of KGB documents obtained by Alexander Vassiliev in 2011. Proponents of clemency argued that the Rosenbergs were actually "innocent Jewish peace activists". According to American historian Ronald Radosh , the Soviet Union's goal was "to deflect the world's attention from the sordid execution of

22040-485: Was reincorporated into NKVD of the Soviet Union, and renamed the Main Directorate of State Security ( GUGB ). Until October 9, 1936, INO was operated inside the GUGB organization as one of its departments. Then, for conspiracy purposes, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Nikolai Yezhov , in his order #00362 had introduced a numeration of departments in the GUGB organization, hence Foreign Department or INO of

22192-462: Was sanctioned by a special decree of the state, which opened the door to numerous abuses, documented in recollections of victims and members of the NKVD themselves. Hundreds of mass graves resulting from such operations were later discovered throughout the country. Evidence exists that the NKVD committed mass extrajudicial executions, guided by secret "plans." Those plans established the number and proportion of victims (officially "public enemies") in

22344-420: Was scheduled for 11 p.m. the evening of June 19, during the Sabbath, which begins and ends around sunset. Bloch asked for more time, filing a complaint that execution on the Sabbath offended the defendants' Jewish heritage. Rhoda Laks, another attorney on the Rosenbergs' defense team, also made this argument before Judge Kaufman. The defense's strategy backfired. Kaufman, who stated his concerns about executing

22496-527: Was split into three sections. One section, which handled military counterintelligence in NKVD troops (former 11th Section of GUGB 4th Department OO) became the 3rd NKVD Department, or OKR (Otdel KontrRazvedki). The chief of OKR NKVD was Aleksander Belyanov. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941), the NKGB USSR was abolished, and on July 20, 1941, the units that formed the NKGB became part of

22648-618: Was still beating. Two more electric shocks were applied, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head. The Rosenbergs were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War . The funeral services were held in Brooklyn on June 21. The Rosenbergs were buried at Wellwood Cemetery , a Jewish cemetery in Pinelawn, New York. The Times reported that 500 people attended and some 10,000 stood outside: The bodies had been brought from Sing Sing prison by

22800-849: Was the deputy of MGB head Viktor Abakumov . On March 5, 1953, MVD and MGB were merged into the MVD by Lavrenty Beria and his people took over all high positions. The foreign intelligence (2nd Chief Directorate of the MVD), was given to Vasili Ryasnoy. After Lavrenty Beria was arrested, along with his people in MVD, Aleksandr Panyushkin became the head of foreign intelligence. In the first years of existence, Soviet Russia did not have many foreign missions that could provide official camouflage for legal outpost of intelligence called residentura, so, foreign department (INO) relied mainly on illegals, officers assigned to foreign countries under false identities. Later when official Soviet embassies, diplomatic offices and foreign missions had been created in major cities around

22952-505: Was the experienced NKVD officer Pavel Sudoplatov . Before he became INO head in May, 1938, on Stalin's direct order, he personally assassinated the Ukrainian nationalist leader Yavhen Konovalets . Later in June 1941, Sudoplatov was placed in charge of the NKVD's Special Missions Directorate, whose principal task was to carry out sabotage operations behind enemy lines in wartime (both it and

23104-505: Was the responsibility of the recently created new administration the People's Commissariat of State Security ( NKGB ) and was working in its structure as a 1st Directorate and, after the July 1941 organizational changes, as a 1st Directorate of the People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). It then returned to its former state. Already in April 1943, NKGB dealt with foreign intelligence as

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