Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher - KGB Service

KGB Service

In 1946, Fisher rejoined the KGB, and was trained as a spy for entry into the United States. In October 1948, using a Soviet passport, he travelled from Leningradsky Station to Warsaw. He then travelled via Czechoslovakia and Switzerland to Paris. His passport bore the name Andrew Kayotis, the first of Fisher's fake identities. The real Andrew Kayotis (Lithuanian: Ąndręi Yųrgęsovįčh Kąyotis) was Lithuanian born, and had become an American citizen after migrating to the United States. Kayotis conveniently disappeared while visiting relatives in Europe. Kayotis had applied for, and received a visa to visit the Soviet Union, however the Russians retained his passport which Fisher would eventually use. Fisher then travelled aboard the SS Scythia from Le Havre, France, to North America, disembarking at Quebec. Still using Kayotis' passport, he travelled to Montreal and crossed into the United States on November 17.

On November 26, Fisher met with Soviet "illegal" Josef Romvoldovich Grigulevich (codenamed "MAKS" or "ARTUR"). Grigulevich gave Fisher a genuine birth certificate, a forged draft card and a forged tax certificate, all under the name of Emil Robert Goldfus, along with one thousand dollars. Fisher then handed back Kayotis's passport and documents, and assumed the name Goldfus. His codename was "MARK".

In July 1949, Fisher met with a "legal" KGB resident from the Soviet consulate general, who provided him with money. Shortly afterwards Fisher was ordered to reactivate the "Volunteer" network to smuggle atomic secrets to Russia. Members of the network had stopped cooperating after postwar security was tightened at Los Alamos. Lona Cohen (codenamed "LESLE") and her husband Morris Cohen (codenamed "LUIS" and "VOLUNTEER") had run the Volunteer network and were seasoned couriers. Theodore "Ted" Hall (codenamed "MLAD"), a physicist, was the most important agent in the network in 1945, passing atomic secrets from Los Alamos. The Volunteer network grew to include "Aden" and "Serb", nuclear physicists contacted by Hall, and "Silver". Fisher spent most of his first year organizing his network. While it is not known for certain where Fisher went or what he did, it is believed he travelled to Santa Fe in New Mexico, the collection point for stolen diagrams from the Manhattan Project. Kitty Harris, a former pupil of Fisher's, had spent a year in Santa Fe during the war, where she passed secrets from physicists to couriers. During this period, Fisher received the Order of the Red Banner, an important Soviet medal normally reserved for military personnel.

In 1950, Fisher's illegal residency was endangered by the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, for whom Lona Cohen had been a courier. The Cohens were quickly spirited to Mexico before moving on to Moscow. They were to resurface in the United Kingdom using the identities of Peter and Helen Kroger. Fisher was relieved the Rosenbergs did not disclose any information about him to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was safe but it heralded a bleak outlook for his new spy network. However on October 21, 1952, as instructed by Moscow, Reino Häyhänen left a thumbtack on a signpost in New York's Central Park. The thumbtack signaled to Fisher that Häyhänen, his new assistant, had arrived. Codenamed "VIK", Häyhänen arrived in New York on the RMS Queen Mary, under the alias Eugene Nikolai Maki. The real Maki had been born in the United States to a Finnish-American father and a New York mother in 1919. In 1927, the family migrated to Estonia. In 1948, the KGB called Häyhänen to Moscow where they issued him a new assignment. In 1949, Häyhänen freely obtained Maki's birth certificate. He was then to spend three years in Finland taking over Maki's identity.

After arriving in New York, Häyhänen spent the next two years establishing his identity. During that time he received money from his superiors left in dead-letter boxes in the Bronx and Manhattan. It is known he occasionally drew attention to himself by indulging in heavy drinking sessions and heated arguments with his Finnish wife Hannah. For six months Häyhänen checked the thumbtack and no one had made contact. He also checked a dead-drop location he had memorized. There he found a hollowed-out nickel. However, prior to opening the coin Häyhänen had misplaced it, either buying a newspaper with it or using it as a subway token. For the next seven months the hollow nickel travelled around the New York City economy, unopened. The trail of the hollow nickel ended when a thirteen-year-old newsboy was collecting for his weekly deliveries. The newsboy accidentally dropped the nickel and it broke in half, revealing a microphotograph containing a series of numbers. The newsboy handed the nickel to a New York detective, who in turn forwarded it to the FBI. From 1953 to 1957, though every effort was made to decipher the microphotograph, the FBI was unable to solve the mystery.

Late in 1953, Fisher moved to Brooklyn and rented a room in a boarding house in Hicks Street. He also rented a fifth-floor studio at the Overton Studios Building on Fulton Street. Since he was posing as an artist and photographer, nobody questioned his irregular working hours and frequent disappearances. Over time his artistic technique improved and he became a competent painter, though he disliked abstract painting, preferring more conventional styles. He mingled with New York artists, who were surprised by his admiration for the Russian painter Isaak Levitan, although Fisher was careful not to discuss Stalinist "socialist realism". The only visitors to Fisher's studio were artist friends with whom he felt safe from suspicion. Fisher would sometimes relate made-up stories of previous lives, as a Boston accountant and a lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest.

In 1954, Häyhänen began working as Fisher's assistant. He was to deliver a report from a Soviet agent at the United Nations secretariat, to a dead-letter box for collection. However the report never arrived. Fisher was disturbed by Häyhänen's lack of work ethics and his obsession with alcohol. In the spring of 1955, Fisher and Häyhänen visited Bear Mountain Park, and buried five thousand dollars, destined for the wife of the Soviet spy Morton Sobell, who in 1951 was sentenced to thirty years jail.

In 1955, Fisher, exhausted by the constant pressure, returned to Moscow for six months of rest and recuperation, leaving Häyhänen in charge. While in Moscow, Fisher informed his superiors of his dissatisfaction with Häyhänen. Upon his return to New York in 1956, he found that his carefully constructed network had been left to disintegrate in his absence. Fisher checked his drop points only to find messages several months old, while Häyhänen's radio transmissions had routinely been sent from the same location using incorrect radio frequencies. The money Häyhänen received from the KGB to support the network was instead spent on alcohol and prostitutes.

By early 1957, Fisher had lost patience with Häyhänen and demanded that Moscow recall his deputy. In January 1957, upon hearing he was due to return to Moscow, Häyhänen was fearful that he would be severely disciplined or even executed. Häyhänen fabricated stories to justify his delay, claiming to Fisher that the FBI had taken him off the RMS Queen Mary. Fisher, unsuspecting, advised Häyhänen to leave the U.S. immediately to avoid FBI surveillance, and handed him two hundred dollars for travel expenses. Prior to his departure, Häyhänen returned to Bear Mountain Park and retrieved the buried five thousand dollars, for his own use. Häyhänen arrived in Paris on May Day, having sailed from the U.S. aboard La Liberté. Making contact with the KGB residency he received another two hundred dollars for his journey to Moscow. Four days later, instead of continuing his journey to Russia, he entered the American embassy in Paris announcing that he was a KGB officer and asked for asylum.

When Häyhänen announced himself at the embassy on May 4, he appeared drunk. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials at the Paris embassy suspected Häyhänen was delusional, and a psychiatric assessment confirmed that he was an unstable alcoholic. Nevertheless, the CIA returned him to the United States on May 11, and handed him over to the FBI. As a member of a Soviet spy ring operating on American soil, Häyhänen came under the FBI's jurisdiction and they began checking out his story.

Upon his arrival in the United States, Häyhänen was interrogated by the FBI and proved very cooperative. He admitted his first Soviet contact in New York had been "MIKHAIL" and upon being shown a series of photographs of Soviet officials identified "MIKHAIL" as Mikhail Svirin. Svirin, however, had returned to Moscow two years previously. The FBI then turned its attention to Svirin's replacement. Häyhänen was able to only provide Fisher's codename "MARK", and a description. He was, however, able to tell the FBI about Fisher's studio and its location. Häyhänen was also able to solve the mystery of the "hollow nickel", which the FBI had been unable to decipher for four years.

The KGB did not discover Häyhänen's defection until August, although it more than likely notified Fisher earlier when Häyhänen failed to arrive in Moscow. As a precaution, Fisher was ordered to leave the United States. Escape was complicated because, if "MARK" had been compromised by Häyhänen, Fisher's other identities could have been compromised as well. Fisher could not leave the country as Martin Collins, Emil Goldfus, or even the long-forgotten Andrew Kayotis. The KGB Center, with the help of KGB's Ottawa resident, set about procuring two new passports for Fisher in the names of Robert Callan and Vasili Dzogol, but this process would take time. The Canadian Communist Party succeeded in obtaining a new passport for Fisher in the name of Robert Callan. Fisher, however, was arrested before he could adopt his new identity and leave the United States.