George Koval

George Koval APPENDIX: GEORGE KOVAL At the March 26, 1933 ICOR national executive plenum held in New York, national secretary Shloime Almazov admitted that some of the Americans who had emigrated to Birobidzhan had returned home, unprepared for pioneer work. But others, remarked Almazov, such as the Koval family, had adjusted and were doing very well.1 The ICOR in June 1935 printed a letter that George Koval had written to relatives in the U.S. Born in Sioux City, IA, in 1913, he had migrated to Birobidzhan with his parents Abraham and Ethel, themselves originally immigrants from Telekhani in Belarus, in tsarist Russia, and two brothers, Isiah (Shiye) and Gabriel. At the time of writing he was studying engineering at the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology in Moscow. Abraham Koval had been secretary of the Sioux City branch of the ICOR.2 Two years later, Arkady Rovner wrote in Nailebn-New Life that the Kovals had been well-to-do and had owned a spacious home in Sioux City. Yet they gave up their “well-established” life so that their three sons would have in Birobidzhan those opportunities that they could no longer expect in the crisis-ridden United States. The Kovals were said to “bless the day” that they decided to emigrate. They were now distinguished citizens and patriots of the “great Soviet Fatherland.” In the summer of 1936 the family was visited by Abraham Koval’s sister and her husband, also ICOR members, who returned to Sioux City “overbrimming with enthusiasm for what they saw in the Soviet Union generally, and in Biro- Bidjan in particular.” The Kovals, Rovner declared, were participating in “the rejuvenation of a nation, the building of a new Jewish nation in the Jewish Autonomous Territory.”3 Also in the summer of 1936, while on a visit to Birobidzhan, Paul Novick met Shiye Koval, who was now one of the best tractor drivers on the Icor commune. Shiye’s two brothers were studying chemistry in Moscow, their mother told Novick, and she had much nakhes [satisfaction] from them. Novick thought to himself that the Kovals had exchanged the uncertainty of life as small storekeepers in Sioux City for a worry- free existence for themselves and their children.4 George Koval, who died in Moscow on January 31, 2006, went on to have a most unusual career. In November 2007, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin posthumously honored him with the “Gold Star and Hero of Russia” medal. It was revealed that Koval, under the code name “Delmar,” was a GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces) “mole” working on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Speaking at the award ceremony, 253 A PPENDIX II Putin stressed that Koval’s work had strengthened Russia’s defense capabilities considerably and had drastically reduced the amount of time it took for Russia to develop its nuclear weapons. Upon graduating with honors from the Mendeleev Institute, Koval had been recruited and trained by Soviet military intelligence, and was sent back to the United States for nearly a decade of scientifi c espionage, from roughly 1940 to 1948. He initially gathered information about new toxins that might fi nd use in chemical arms. After America entered World War II in December 1941, Koval was drafted into the U.S. Army, and by chance found himself moving toward the bomb project, then in its infancy. The Army in 1943 sent him for special wartime training at City College in Manhattan. There, Koval and a dozen or so of his Army peers studied electrical engineering. Meanwhile, the Manhattan Project asked the Army for technically adept recruits, and in 1944, Koval headed to Oak Ridge, TN, where the main job was to make bomb fuel, considered the hardest part of the atomic endeavor. Koval gained wide access to the complex, and in June 1945, his duties expanded to include top-secret plants near Dayton. In 1948, Koval fl ed the United States when American counterintelligence agents found Soviet literature hailing the Koval family as happy immigrants from the United States. A year later, Moscow detonated its fi rst bomb, surprising Washington at the quick loss of what had been an atomic monopoly.5 ENDNOTES 1 “Barikht fun general-sekretar tsu dem icor plenum, gehaltn in new york, 26tn marts, 1933,” ICOR 6, 4 (April 1933): 13; “In der icor baveygung,” ICOR 6, 5 (May 1933): 18. 2 “Letters from the Soviet Union Tell of New Happy Life,” Nailebn-New Life 9, 2 (June 1935): 45. There is a picture of the Koval family taken before they left for Birobidzhan in the ICOR 5, 7 (July 1932): 14. In November 1928Abraham Koval had arranged a great reception in Sioux City for Reuben Brainin, who was on a speaking tour, and $600 was collected for the ICOR. “In der ‘icor’ baveygung,” ICOR 1, 4 (December 1928): 14. 3 A. Rovner, “Pen Portraits of American Jews in Biro-Bidjan,” Nailebn-New Life 11, 4 (April 1937): 14-15 [English section]. 4 Paul Novick, Yidn in biro-bidzhan, 73, 81-84. 5 William J. Broad, “A Spy’s Path: Iowa to A-Bomb to Kremlin Honor,” New York Times, November 12, 2007, A1, A19; Michael Walsh, “Iowa-Born, Soviet- Trained,” Smithsonian 40, 2 (May 2009): 40-47. 254.

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