Stephen Laird was an American journalist, working as a Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 magazine reporter and CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 correspondent. He was also accused of being a Soviet spy, supposedly becoming a Communist in the 1930s and in the 1940s providing information to agents of the Soviet Union.

Laird was allegedly recruited by the Soviets while he was at Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....

 in the early 1930s. Laird told the Allentown Morning Call in 1986 that he became close friends with former Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 Oleg Troyanovsky

Oleg Troyanovsky

Oleg Alexandrovich Troyanovsky was ambassador of the Soviet Union to Japan and China and was the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations ....

, son of Aleksandr A. Troyanovsky, the first Soviet ambassador to the United States from 1934 to 1938, while at Swarthmore. Troyanovsky was a fellow student and member of the football team, of which Laird was assistant coach. Troyanovsky later became a foreign policy assistant and interpreter for Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 and adviser to Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

.

Laird was supposedly considered to be a politically well-developed person by the MGB in 1944, and being utilized as an agent. In 1949 he was living in Vic Vaud, Switzerland. His case was referred to the CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 in the fall of 1950. The story of Laird's secret life surfaced for the first time in the Venona files

Venona project

The VENONA project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States and United Kingdom intelligence agencies involving cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the majority during World War II...

. Laird's reported code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona files is "Yun".