Arthur Adams (spy)
Encyclopedia
Arthur Aleksandrovich Adams (October 25, 1885, Eskilstuna
, Sweden
– January 14, 1969) – a Soviet spy, Hero of the Russian Federation
, who passed to the Soviet Union critical information about the American Manhattan Project
.
in Sweden in 1885 to a Swedish father and a Russian Jewish mother. Following the death of his father. Adams's mother with her children returned to Russia, where she died in 1895. Adams entered military navy school in 1896. In 1903 he graduated from a school of mining technology in Kronshtadt.
While in college, Adams joined the Bolshevik
party and actively participated in 1905 Russian Revolution at Russia's South. The Tsarist police arrested him and sent him into exile in 1905, Adams escaped from his place of exile and successfully emigrated to the United States in 1913. His Russian biographers claim he served in the United States army during World War I
and eventually achieved the rank of Major.
In 1919 Adams was included to the Martens
' mission (de facto American trade mission in Soviet Union).
In situation of acute lack of qualified personnel (situation partially created by bolsheviks themselves) Adams as a man with strong engineering background immediately became a top bureaucrat.
In 1925 Adams became deputy head of the Main Board of Aviation Industry of the USSR, and worked at that position for 10 years. Adams was responsible for supplies of imported equipment and materials for the aviation industry and therefore often made trips abroad. That's when he was noticed by experts of surveillance agency of Red Army
(future GRU
).
Adams, an educated engineer, established personal relationships with other scientists during his frequent trips abroad. He often visited enterprises in Europe and America. Adams collected technical and industrial information which he shared with the Soviet military.. As Adams was successful in completing tasks of the surveillance agency, it was decided to accept him as staff intelligence worker. In 1935, in the age of 50 Adams was enlisted to serve in the Chief intelligence service of Red Army's headquarters.
Adams was sent to the U.S. for illegal work. Shortly he managed to get a legal position, established his own firm and his own agent network involving over 20 experts from the American military industrial enterprises.
In 1938 Adams was summoned to Moscow, being accused in a false denouncement. Luckily enough, the falsified case against Adams was closed and in 1939 he moved to the U.S. again, creating his intelligence network anew.
. Contemporary Russian sources state that Adams (Codename: Achilles) was in contact with an agent (Codename: Eskulap) who was associated with the Chicago Met Lab
. In June 1944 Eskulap reportedly gave Adams 2500 pages of documents relating to the development of the Atomic Bomb. In July and August he provided another 1500 pages and specimens of weapon-grade Uranium
, Plutonium
, and Berillium, Eskulap did not appear at the September rendezvous and Adams learned he was terminally ill. The existence of the covernames Eskulap and Achilles is proven by their appearance in a single Venona decrypt dated August 1943. However, the only information that can be gleaned from this message is that Eskulap's wife worked for "Chicago University." The identity and occupation of Eskulap, as well as his association with Adams, if any, remains unknown, although the use of the covername "Eskulap" ("Asclepius
"), suggests he may have been a Doctor of Medicine.
It is known that, in 1943, U.S. Military Intelligence received information from confidential sources linking Adams to scientists working at the Met Lab. In the spring of 1944 they observed clandestine meetings between Adams and Met Lab scientist Clarence Hiskey
. The FBI and Military Security performed an illegal search of Adam's New York apartment and discovered sophisticated camera equipment, material for constructing microfilm, and notes on experiments being conducted at the atomic bomb laboratory in Oak Ridge
, Tennessee. They also observed him climbing into an automobile driven by Pavel Mikhailov (Codename: Molière) the GRU station chief in New York. The U.S. Military decided to neutralize Hiskey by drafting him into the army in April 1944. Before reporting for duty Hiskey introduced Adams to two other prospective sources, John Hitchcock Chapin and Edward Manning, both of whom would later deny, before Congressional Committees, passing secret information to Adams. The military assigned Hiskey to an outpost near the Arctic Circle
where he held a job counting winter underwear. While en route, Hiskey's bags were searched and found to contain seven pages of notes on secret work at Oak Ridge. There are a number of Venona decrypts which refer to Hiskey, (Codename: Ramsey) but they are concerned with Soviet attempts to re-establish contact with him once he had been drafted. Hiskey may originally have had the codename Eskulap. His wife also had a communist background.
Another Adam's operation to penetrate the Manhattan Project occurred in the winter of 1944. A counterintelligence officer caught one of Adam's agents, Irving Lerner
, an employee of the Motion Picture Division of the OWI, attempting to photograph the cyclotron
at the University of California, Berkeley Radiation Laboratory.. The cyclotron had been used in the creation of plutonium and Lerner was acting without authorization. Lerner resigned his job and went to work for Keynote Records
in New York, a jazz
label which also employed Adams as a technician.
Early in 1945 Adams eluded FBI surveillance while taking his dog for a walk. The FBI picked-up his trail in Chicago where he was seen boarding a train for the west coast accompanied by Eric Bernay, owner of Keynote Records and a well-known comintern
agent. The FBI prevented Adams from boarding a waiting Soviet vessel in Portland, Oregon, but were under orders not to arrest him in order to avoid a diplomatic incident. Adams returned to New York and escaped to the Soviet Union in 1946.
After retirement from the GRU
in 1948, Adams worked for a long time as political observer at TASS
. He died in 1969 and is buried at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery
.
On June 17, 1999 Russian President Boris Yeltsin
posthumously awarded him the title Hero of the Russian Federation
"for courage and heroism shown during the performance of special assignments".
Eskilstuna
Eskilstuna is a city and the seat of Eskilstuna Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 60,185 inhabitants in 2005. Eskilstuna has a large Sweden Finn population....
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
– January 14, 1969) – a Soviet spy, Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation is a Russian decoration and the highest honorary title that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Russian Federation. The President of the Russian Federation is the main conferring authority of the medal, which is bestowed on those committing actions or deeds that...
, who passed to the Soviet Union critical information about the American Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
.
Biography
Adams was born in the city of EskilstunaEskilstuna
Eskilstuna is a city and the seat of Eskilstuna Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 60,185 inhabitants in 2005. Eskilstuna has a large Sweden Finn population....
in Sweden in 1885 to a Swedish father and a Russian Jewish mother. Following the death of his father. Adams's mother with her children returned to Russia, where she died in 1895. Adams entered military navy school in 1896. In 1903 he graduated from a school of mining technology in Kronshtadt.
While in college, Adams joined the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
party and actively participated in 1905 Russian Revolution at Russia's South. The Tsarist police arrested him and sent him into exile in 1905, Adams escaped from his place of exile and successfully emigrated to the United States in 1913. His Russian biographers claim he served in the United States army during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and eventually achieved the rank of Major.
In 1919 Adams was included to the Martens
Ludwig Martens
Ludwig Christian Alexander Karl Martens was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician and engineer.-Early years:...
' mission (de facto American trade mission in Soviet Union).
In situation of acute lack of qualified personnel (situation partially created by bolsheviks themselves) Adams as a man with strong engineering background immediately became a top bureaucrat.
In 1925 Adams became deputy head of the Main Board of Aviation Industry of the USSR, and worked at that position for 10 years. Adams was responsible for supplies of imported equipment and materials for the aviation industry and therefore often made trips abroad. That's when he was noticed by experts of surveillance agency of Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
(future GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
).
Adams, an educated engineer, established personal relationships with other scientists during his frequent trips abroad. He often visited enterprises in Europe and America. Adams collected technical and industrial information which he shared with the Soviet military.. As Adams was successful in completing tasks of the surveillance agency, it was decided to accept him as staff intelligence worker. In 1935, in the age of 50 Adams was enlisted to serve in the Chief intelligence service of Red Army's headquarters.
Adams was sent to the U.S. for illegal work. Shortly he managed to get a legal position, established his own firm and his own agent network involving over 20 experts from the American military industrial enterprises.
In 1938 Adams was summoned to Moscow, being accused in a false denouncement. Luckily enough, the falsified case against Adams was closed and in 1939 he moved to the U.S. again, creating his intelligence network anew.
Atomic Espionage
Arthur Adams was one of the first Soviet spies to receive information about the American Manhattan ProjectManhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
. Contemporary Russian sources state that Adams (Codename: Achilles) was in contact with an agent (Codename: Eskulap) who was associated with the Chicago Met Lab
Metallurgical Laboratory
The Metallurgical Laboratory or "Met Lab" at the University of Chicago was part of the World War II–era Manhattan Project, created by the United States to develop an atomic bomb...
. In June 1944 Eskulap reportedly gave Adams 2500 pages of documents relating to the development of the Atomic Bomb. In July and August he provided another 1500 pages and specimens of weapon-grade Uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
, Plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
, and Berillium, Eskulap did not appear at the September rendezvous and Adams learned he was terminally ill. The existence of the covernames Eskulap and Achilles is proven by their appearance in a single Venona decrypt dated August 1943. However, the only information that can be gleaned from this message is that Eskulap's wife worked for "Chicago University." The identity and occupation of Eskulap, as well as his association with Adams, if any, remains unknown, although the use of the covername "Eskulap" ("Asclepius
Asclepius
Asclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
"), suggests he may have been a Doctor of Medicine.
It is known that, in 1943, U.S. Military Intelligence received information from confidential sources linking Adams to scientists working at the Met Lab. In the spring of 1944 they observed clandestine meetings between Adams and Met Lab scientist Clarence Hiskey
Clarence Hiskey
Clarence Francis Hiskey , born Clarence Szczechowski, became active in the Communist Party USA when he attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. He became a professor of chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Columbia University and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute...
. The FBI and Military Security performed an illegal search of Adam's New York apartment and discovered sophisticated camera equipment, material for constructing microfilm, and notes on experiments being conducted at the atomic bomb laboratory in Oak Ridge
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...
, Tennessee. They also observed him climbing into an automobile driven by Pavel Mikhailov (Codename: Molière) the GRU station chief in New York. The U.S. Military decided to neutralize Hiskey by drafting him into the army in April 1944. Before reporting for duty Hiskey introduced Adams to two other prospective sources, John Hitchcock Chapin and Edward Manning, both of whom would later deny, before Congressional Committees, passing secret information to Adams. The military assigned Hiskey to an outpost near the Arctic Circle
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
where he held a job counting winter underwear. While en route, Hiskey's bags were searched and found to contain seven pages of notes on secret work at Oak Ridge. There are a number of Venona decrypts which refer to Hiskey, (Codename: Ramsey) but they are concerned with Soviet attempts to re-establish contact with him once he had been drafted. Hiskey may originally have had the codename Eskulap. His wife also had a communist background.
Another Adam's operation to penetrate the Manhattan Project occurred in the winter of 1944. A counterintelligence officer caught one of Adam's agents, Irving Lerner
Irving Lerner
Irving Lerner Before becoming a filmmaker, Lerner was a research editor for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, getting his start in film by making documentaries for the anthropology department. In the early 1930s, he was a member of the Workers Film and Photo League, and later,...
, an employee of the Motion Picture Division of the OWI, attempting to photograph the cyclotron
Cyclotron
In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction...
at the University of California, Berkeley Radiation Laboratory.. The cyclotron had been used in the creation of plutonium and Lerner was acting without authorization. Lerner resigned his job and went to work for Keynote Records
Keynote Records
Keynote Records was a record label founded by record store owner Eric Bernay in 1940. The label's initial releases were folk and protest songs from the Soviet Union and the Spanish Civil War, and several anti-war releases from American musicians followed...
in New York, a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
label which also employed Adams as a technician.
Early in 1945 Adams eluded FBI surveillance while taking his dog for a walk. The FBI picked-up his trail in Chicago where he was seen boarding a train for the west coast accompanied by Eric Bernay, owner of Keynote Records and a well-known comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
agent. The FBI prevented Adams from boarding a waiting Soviet vessel in Portland, Oregon, but were under orders not to arrest him in order to avoid a diplomatic incident. Adams returned to New York and escaped to the Soviet Union in 1946.
After retirement from the GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
in 1948, Adams worked for a long time as political observer at TASS
TASS
TASS or Tass may refer to:* Telluride Association Sophomore Seminar, a six-week educational opportunity for minority high school students* Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, TASS is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for it...
. He died in 1969 and is buried at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery
Novodevichy Cemetery
Novodevichy Cemetery is the most famous cemetery in Moscow, Russia. It is next to the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. It should not be confused with the Novodevichy Cemetery in Saint Petersburg....
.
On June 17, 1999 Russian President Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
posthumously awarded him the title Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation is a Russian decoration and the highest honorary title that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Russian Federation. The President of the Russian Federation is the main conferring authority of the medal, which is bestowed on those committing actions or deeds that...
"for courage and heroism shown during the performance of special assignments".