Julius Rosenberg Spied, Russian Says KGB Haiyller Acknowledges in Controversial Case

By qVlichiel bs Wastdaagtae Peet Staff Writer NEW YORK—Half a century has passed since Alexander Fekli- sov held his last clandestine meet- ing with Julius Rosenberg, but the retired Soviet spy describes the occasion as if it were yesterday. , It was a hot, humid evening in August 1946. Feklisov, then a young intelligence officer at- tached to the Soviet Consulate in New York, had just been recalled to . The FBI was closing in on the networks of Soviet agents set up by the Kremlin dur- ing World War II from the ranks of committed American Commu- nists. A telegram had arrived BY ED WIFR7BOWSKI FOR THE WASHR.GTON POST Retired KGB spy controller Alexander Feklisov visits Long Island graves of from the KGB's Moscow Center Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for wartime espionage. to temporarily close down the New York operation. They met at a Hungarian res- fore going their separate ways. history. Julius and Ethel Rosen- taurant on Manhattan's Upper Feklisov went on to have a distin- berg went to their deaths insisting West Side and then, as night fell, guished career in foreign intelli- that they were the victims of a 'went for a walk along Riverside gence, including a posting to government conspiracy. Up until Drive. They watched the pleasure Washington as KGB resident in now, Moscow has steadfastly de- boats steaming up the Hudson the early 1960s. Rosenberg and nied their guilt and has refused to River, lights twinkling from their his wife, Ethel, were executed in make public any of the intelli- portholes. Feklisov remembers 1953 after a sensational treason gence files dealing with the case. sitting on a bench with Rosenberg trial at which they were accused For generations of left-wing and giving his American friend fi- of giving Soviet Russia the secret Americans, the innocence of the nal instructions" on how to re- of the atom bomb. Rosenbergs was an article of po- sume contact with his Soviet han- Flash forward 50 years. Fekli- litical faith. dlers. He handed over $1,000 to sov returns to New York in late Aged 82 and frail, Feklisov sat cover possible emergencies. August to help clarify one of the on a bench on Riverside Drive, At the end of the meeting, the most divisive and enduring con- near where he said his final good- two men stood and embraced be- troversies in modern American See ROSENBERG, A18, CoL 1 Cuban missile cnsis, saia mat .luaus ROSENBERG, From Al Rosenberg only played a peripheral role in Soviet atomic espionage. Ac- bye to Rosenberg. He said the time cording to Feklisov, Rosenberg was has come to publicly reveal what he "not directly involved" in stealing nu- knows about the Rosenberg affair, clear secrets from the . despite what he described as the ob- He described as absurd the claim of jections of Russian intelligence sentencing judge Irving R. Kaufman chiefs. A lifelong Communist, Fekli- that the Rosenbergs had "altered the sov wants the world to know that Ju- course of human history" through their lius Rosenberg was a "hero" who treachery by putting the atomic bomb helped the in its hour into the hands of the Soviets. of need in World War II and was lat- Feklisov's assertions about the na- er abandoned by his Soviet spy mas- tare of the espionage role played by ters. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are consis- "My morality does not allow me to tent with recently released top secret keep silent," said Feklisov, saying he 'American intercepts of Soviet intelli- is the only Soviet intelligence officer . gene cables between New York and still alive with intimate personal Moscow from the early 1940s. The knowledge of the Rosenberg case. so-called Venona intercepts include re- "Julius was a great sympathizer of peated references to Julius Rosen- the Soviet Union. There were oth- berg's industrial espionage but sug- ers who also believed in commu- gest only peripheral involvement in nism, but were unwilling to fight. Ju- atomic spying. lius was a true revolutionary, who The intercepts show that the Sovi- was willing to sacrifice himself for ets had at least three key agents in the his beliefs." U.S. atomic energy program, known In interviews with The Washing- as the , who had no ton Post and the Bethesda-based ca- connection to the Rosenbergs. The ble TV network Discovery Channel, most important was a nuclear scien- tist, , who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by a British court "Julius was a great in 1949. Feklisov said the decision to tell his sympathizer of the side of the Rosenberg story is the re- sult of years of personal agonizing and Soviet Union.... arguments with his superiors in the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB. Julius was a true In 1993, he began cooperating with a researcher at the U.S.A. Institute in revolutionary, who Moscow, Svetlana Chervonnaya, and an independent American filmmaker, was willing to Ed Wierzbowski, who have investigat- ed other spy cases. Last Au- sacrifice himself for gust, Wierzbowski's company, Global American Television, arranged for his beliefs." •Feklisov to visit the United States to — Alexander Feklisov work on a documentary film about the Rosenberg case which is scheduled to Feklisov said he held a series of at be aired on the Discovery Channel least 50 meetings in New York with next Sunday. Rosenberg from 1943 to 1946. He credited Rosenberg with helping to Symbols in Political Conflict organize an important industrial es- . With the Cold War over and the So- pionage ring for Moscow and hand- yiet Union consigned to history, it is ing over top secret information on easy to forget the extraordinary emo- military electronics. At the same tions aroused by the case that FBI Di- time, however, he insisted that Ethel rector J. Edgar Hoover dubbed "the Rosenberg never had any direct con- crime of the century." Executed by tact with Soviet intelligence, but electric chair in Sing Sing at sundown conceded that she was probably on June 19, 1953, the Rosenbergs rap- "aware" of her husband's activities. idly became a potent political symbol. Feklisov, who is known in the Unit- To the left, they were martyrs of the ed States for his role as a behind-the- scenes intermediary between the KGB and the White House during the 1962 McCarthyite "hysteria" then sweeping involved in espionage," said Schneir, America. To the right, they were lead- contradicting one of the central points ers of a Communist fifth column that of his 1968 book, "Invitation to an In- had betrayed America from within. quest," which he wrote with his wife, The controversy over the govern- Miriam. ment's handling of the case was The Rosenberg children, Michael heightened by the severity of the pun- and Robert Meeropol, who have re- ishment. The double death sentence peatedly maintained that their parents for husband and wife was unprece- are innocent of espionage, declined an dented, at least in a federal court, and invitation to meet with Feklisov last meant that two young children had to September during his two-week visit grow up as orphans. It provoked a in the United States. Michael Meero- storm of protest all around the world, pol told The Post that the family will with France condemning the United reserve judgment about Feklisov's as- States for "barbarism" and Pope Pius sertions until after the screening of XII issuing a personal appeal for clem- the television documentary. ency. "There was a kind of droll aspect to Golden Age of KGB McCarthyism initially, but after the Rosenberg case everything got seri- Alexander Semyonovich Feklisov ous," recalled Walter Schneir, a left- arrived in the United States in early wing historian who has devoted much 1941 under the pseudonym Alexander of his life to demonstrating the Rosen- Fomin. It took him 11/2 months to bergs' innocence. "There was a time reach New York, traveling via Siberia, when everybody could tell you exactly Japan, and San Francisco. Officially, he what they were doing when they was assigned to the Soviet Consulate heard about the execution of the Ro- " in New York, but this was merely a cover for his espionage work. senbergs. It was one of the moments like the assassination of President The period after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was a Kennedy." golden era for Soviet foreign intelli- Along with the revelations con- gence. Up until the western allies tained in the Venona intercepts, which opened up .a second front in France in were released to the public in July June 1944, Russia was left to bear the 1995, Feklisov's reminiscences could brunt of defending the world from Na- resolve much of the remaining contro- zi aggression. There was no shortage versy surrounding the Rosenberg af- of idealistic young Communists both in fair. While historians will continue to America and Western Europe who argue about certain details, there is were ready to assist the world's first now broad agreement between the ri- Socialist country in any way they val camps on central facts of the case. could. "The debate is closed. It's all over," "It was not very difficult to find peo- said , co-author of a ple to help us," recalled Feklisov, 1983 book, "The Rosenberg File: A . whose specialty was techno-scientific Search for the Truth," which main- espionage. "I had the impression that if tained that the Rosenbergs were we put an advertisement in the paper guilty of espionage. "There is no lon- with a request for secret information, ger any debate among serious people thousands of people would have re- that Julius Rosenberg was a spy for plied. That was the situation in those the Soviet Union. [At the same time] it days." is clear that the Rosenbergs did not give the Soviets the 'secret' of the A prime source of recruits for Sovi- et intelligence was the Young Commu- bomb, and they should not have been executed." nist League, to which tens of thou- sands of college students belonged. A long-running literary feud be- According to , a college tween Radosh and Schneir over the friend of Rosenberg, half the members details of the Rosenberg case seems of his engineering class at City College unlikely to end any time soon. Both of New York in the late 1930s were men served as consultants for the Dis- Communists. The Rosenberg spy ring covery Channel and plan to publish would be made up almost entirely competing assessments of Feklisov's of Communists from City College. revelations in this week's editions of "Remember, this was a time when their respective ideological house or- there was 30 percent unemployment gans, the New Republic and the Na- and people were getting thrown onto tion. But the fact remains that the dif- ferences between the two historians are now largely academic. "I accept that Julius Rosenberg was THE WASIINGTON POST

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are returned to jail March 29, 1951, after being convicted of spying F E PROTO for the Soviet Union. Flanked by federal marshals, Ethel Rosenberg arrives at Sing Sing prison in Ossining, N.Y., to await the outcome of appeals of espionage conspiracy conviction.

ALE PHOTO eral of his agents, including Rosen- berg, were assigned to Feklisov. There was a gap of a few months as the Soviets waited for FBI surveillance to ease off. Feklisov has vivid memo- ries of his first meeting with Rosen- berg in late 1943. It was a Sunday, a day when FBI surveillance was usually less intensive. After checking to see that he was not being followed, Feklisov went to Knickerbocker Village in lower Man- A visit to hattan where the Rosenbergs had an Knickerbocker apartment. He called from downstairs Village in New over the intercom, describing himself York last year as "a friend of Henry," Semenov's cov- rekindles er name. The two men met on the Alexander staircase outside the Rosenberg apart- Feklisov's memories of ment and agreed to meet again in a meetings couple of weeks at Childs' restaurant. between the At first, obtaining information from KGB spy field agents like Rosenberg was cum- controller bersome and laborious, Feklisov re- and Julius called. Rosenberg would have to Rosenberg during smuggle documents out of his work- World War II. place, meet with Feldisov, wait for the documents to be copied, and then re- place the documents without anyone noticing that they were gone. This procedure required frequent meet- ings, with a high risk of detection. From mid-1944 on, Feklisov orga- nized a different system of collecting information. He distributedLeica cam- eras to his agents, and instructed them BY DOUG GOODMAN FOR TIE DISCOVERY CHANNEL in how to photograph documents. Us- the street every day," said Sobell, who vilian inspector for the Signal Corps, ing this procedure, they were able to served 18 years in prison after being which gave him access to develop- cut the agent-handler drop-off time to convicted in 1951 on conspiracy ments in the field of radio electronics. a few seconds. "It would happen al- charges. Feklisov says the fact that both Rosen- most instantaneously," Feklisov re- "People like me were attracted to berg and Semenov were Jewish creat- called of the "brush" contacts. "We communism because it seemed to of- ed an extra bond between them. would arrange to meet in a place like fer a rational explanation for what was "They found common ground very Madison Square Garden or a cinema, wrong with society. Capitalism wasn't easily," said Feklisov, who worked as and brush up against each other very rational," said Sobell, who continues to Semenov's assistant, explaining that quickly." Longer meetings were re- served for strictly "instructional" ses- deny any involvement in espionage. Rosenberg frequently talked about sions. As Feklisov tells the story, Rosen- Hitler's persecution of the . "He berg was originally recruited in the Feklisov credits Rosenberg with wanted to do everything he could to persuading some of his old friends spring of 1942 by Semen Semenov, a fight against Fascism." from City College to work for KGB agent working out of the Soviet the Sovi- Semenov returned to Moscow in ets. Feklisov said neither he nor any trade organization Amtorg. At this 1943 after coming under tight surveil- other Soviet agent ever met Ethel Ro- point, Rosenberg was working as a ci- lance by U.S. . Sev- senberg, whose forceful personality tality, said Feklisov, that accounts for the Rosenbergs' refusal to cooperate in any way with the FBI after Julius's arrest in June 1950. Had they told the FBI even a part of what they knew, the would probably have escaped the electric chair, many scholars believe. As he reflects on his relationship , with Rosenberg, Feklisov looks back ruefully at a series of mistakes by So-; viet intelligence that he believes led to' his friend's arrest and execution. Most ; damaging of all, he said, was a decision in early 1944 to recruit Rosenberg's brother-in-law, , as a Soviet agent. At the time, Greenglass was working as a mechanic at Los Ala- mos, N.M., the headquarters of the American atomic bomb project. According to Feklisov, Rosenberg had mentioned Greenglass as a "devot- give Rosenberg some unnstmas pre-' ed Communist" and possible recruit. . sents from the KGB, including an ale, Feklisov passed his recommendation gator handbag for Ethel and a toy for. on to his superior, Leonid Kvasnikov, who was responsible for gathering in- their son Michael. He ended up having": to lug a 20-pound box containing one telligence on the atomic bomb. Al- of America's most secret military do-• though the Kremlin already had sever- vices back to the Soviet Consulate. Af- al sources at Los Alamos, including ter they got over their initial surprise. Fuchs, it was always in the market for and pleasure, his bosses were ftriow. extra tidbits of information about the bomb. at Rosenberg for taking an unnecese ra PHOTO/ASSOCIATED PRESS :e Feklisov insisted that the Soviets The Rosenbergs embrace in a prison sary risk. At their next meeting, Fekli soy passed their observations on to Ju did not receive valuable information van after their arraignment. from Greenglass, who occupied a Iow- lius. "I calculated the risks very care*. level position at Los Alamos and had was depicted by U.S. prosecutors as only a rudimentary grasp of the work ly," Rosenberg replied, according to, playing an important role in motivating . Feklisov. "What I was risking was only on the bomb. But the Greenglass con- nection Julius's treachery. one-hundredth of what a Red. Army proved fateful to the Rosen- soldier risks when he attacks a tank." bergs. When the FBI began investigat- A 'Partisan' Complex? ing an atomic spy ring in 1949, on the Feklisov said he believes that Ro- displayed a kind of "Partisan basis of intercepted Soviet cables, According to Feldisov, the Rosen- , senberg Greenglass readily confessed. He told complex," in which he was constantly berg spy ring supplied the Kremlin the FBI that he had been recruited by comparing his exploits to those of the with a stream of intelligence about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. breakthroughs in the American mili- Soviet guerrilla fighters behind Nazi tary electronics industry, including the lines in World War LE. It was this men- Henry and Alex development of radar systems. He said the most valuable device that the Sovi- Without access to the KGB files on . ets received from Rosenberg himself the Rosenberg case, it is difficult to was a fully functioning proximity fuse, corroborate the details of Feklisov's used to bring down enemy aircrafp story. While the FBI has been aware without hitting them directly. .ps for some time that Feklisov worked The proximity fuse story is a good for Soviet intelligence in New York illustration of Rosenberg's taste for. during World War II, the precise na- the melodramatic and his willingness ture of his activities during the war to take great personal risks for his Se- has remained a mystery to the federal cialist beliefs. Development of the fuse' government until now. was a closely guarded military secret' Partial confirmation of Feklisov's and its production tightly supervised. relationship with Rosenberg is con- Feklisov recalls that Rosenberg pains--. tained in the FBI's own files. In prison, takingly assembled a duplicate proxime Julius Rosenberg shared a cell with an ity fuse out of discarded spare parts' FBI informer named Jerome Tartakow and then smuggled the device out of who succeeded in gaining his confi- the Emerson Radio Factory in Malmo dence. According to FBI records, Rce hattan in December 1944. See ROSENBERG, A19, Col.] "I have a Christmas present for the ," Rosenberg boasted to= Feklisov at their next meeting, at a- Horn & Hardart automat. Feklisov had called the meeting to; — - Feklisov Is First Russian to Confirm Espionage Role of Julius Rosenberg

ROSENBERG, From A18 contact was ABC News diplomatic cor- clusion" on the authenticity of his sto- respondent John Scali, who later ry. senberg told Tartakow that he had served as U.S. ambassador to the "We could not endorse it, but we meetings with two Russians, whom he United Nations. could not refute it. We had to admit named as Henry and Alex. With hind- Feklisov's account of Ethel Rosen- defeat," Schneir said. sight, it now seems likely that these berg's minimal involvement in her hus- Chervonnaya, the Russian research- two names refer to Semenov, whose band's work conforms with what is er, says that Feklisov told her key de- code name was Henry, and Feklisov, known from the Venom documents. tails about the Rosenberg story before who says he was known to Rosenberg The most damaging reference to Ethel publication of the Venona intercepts in by his real first name. July 1995. He mentioned various code Feklisov is mentioned several times in the intercepts comes in a Nov. 27, 1944, KGB message from New York names that were later confirmed by in the Venona intercepts under the Venona. Schneir's literary rival, Ra- to Moscow, which mentions "ETHEL, code name CALISTRAT as one of sev- dosh, is also impressed by the cumula- 29 years old, married five years . . . a eral Soviet agents working under tive weight of Feklisov's testimony. Kvasnikov's direction. The State De- FELLOWCOUNTRYMAN [code "He is the genuine article," Radosh partment was presumably aware of word for Communist Party member] said. "I do not think that someone could this background when it approved a vi- since 1938." The message said she make up all those minute details." sa.for Feklisov to work as a counselor "knows about her husband's work," but at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, was in "delicate health" and "does not FOR MORE INFORMATION from 1962 to 1964. The position was work." For the history of the U.S project a cover for his real job as head of Sovi- Schneir, the left-wing historian, that broke encoded Soviet messages et intelligence in the United States. says he was unable to catch Feklisov and caught the Rosenbergs, as During a 1989 seminar in Moscow out in a significant error of fact when well as a press release from on the Cuban missile crisis, Feklisov he interviewed him in September. He the Rosenberg children who still identified himself publicly as the noto- adds, however, that Feklisov's obvious attest to their parents' innocence, rious "Mr. X," who said he served as familiarity with the literature of the click on the above 'symbol on the front the back channel between the Kremlin case and the Venona documents make page of The Post's site and the White House. His American it impossible to reach a "definite con- at www.washingtonpost.com ILE PHOTO earisians demonstrate for clemency for the Rosenbergs hours before the couple was executed on June 19, 1953. THE WASHINGTON POST

Components of the Julius Rosenberg Wartime According to retired KGB agent Alexan- The FBI's files on the Rosenberg case der Feklisov, the Rosenberg spy ring con- contain numerous references to Barr, but ■ sisted of the following people: he was never charged with any crime. He A classmate of Barr has repeatedly denied any involvement in and Morton Sobell at CCNY. Specialized in ■ Studied electronic Soviet espionage. aircraft engineering engineering at City College of New York and became one of ■ A classmate of Joel with Rosenberg, America's leading Barr at CCNY. Worked graduating in 1938. experts in jet at the Signal Corps propulsion and He was a member of laboratory in Fort the Young Communist supersonic flight. He Monmouth, N.J. worked for the League. Feklisov says According to Feklisov, that Rosenberg National Advisory Sarant was recruited Committee for recruited Barr as a to work for Soviet PERL Aeronautics, first in Soviet intelligence intelligence by Barr in agent toward the end Washington and then 1943. Feklisov says in Cleveland. According to Feklisov, Peri of 1942, at a time that Sarant worked as when he was working was recruited for Soviet intelligence at SARANT a subagent of Barr and for Western Electric in . Rosenberg's suggestion. Feklisov says did not have Feklisov says he met with Barr on that he traveled to Cleveland to meet with independent contacts Perl in late 1944, and to arrange a courier numerous occasions, and received with Soviet intelligence. The FBI claimed system to receive his materials. valuable information from him on infrared that Barr and Sarant photographed secret sights and missile electronics. materials foethe Soviets at an apartment Questioned by FBI agents in August After the war, Barr moved to France, they shared at 65 Morton Street in 1950, Perl denied knowing either but disappeared in June 1950, at a time Greenwich Village. Rosenberg or Sobell. He was convicted of when the FBI was closing in on other Sarant disappeared from the United perjury and sentenced to a five-year members of the Rosenberg spy ring. He States in July 1950, shortly after being prison term in 1951, but repeatedly reappeared in public 40 years later in St. questioned by FBI agents about his denied that he was involved in a Soviet Petersburg, Russia. Living under the connection with Rosenberg. He espionage ring. According to American pseudonym Joseph Berg, he had played a reappeared in the Soviet Union under the intercepts of Soviet intelligence traffic, key role in constructing a radar-controlled pseudonym Philip Staros, working with Perl provided the Kremlin with important antiaircraft system for the Soviet Union. Barr on the development of the Soviet information on aeronautics, for which he Since 1991, he has been moving freely military electronics industry. He died in received a $500 bonus in 1944. Now between the United States and Russia. Moscow in 1979 of a heart attack. deceased. R SUNDAY, MARCH 16. 1997 A19

Industrial Espionage Ring

MORTON SOBELL DAVID GREENGLASS ■ A CONY classmate ■The brother of Ethel of Perl and Barr. Rosenberg, Greenglass Worked at the General worked as a mechanic Electric laboratory at on the U.S. atomic Schenectady, N.Y. bomb project at Los According to Feklisov, Alamos, N.M. Sobell was recruited in According to Feklisov, 1944 by Rosenberg. Julius Rosenberg Feklisov says.he met mentioned that with Sobell frequently Greenglass was working in in Manhattan in on the bomb project in 1944 and 1945, and September 1944. In GREENGLASS received important January 1945, information from him Greenglass went to • on military radar systems and future radio New York on leave. Feklisov says he engineering projects. Sobell, who now arranged a meeting between Greenglass lives in San Francisco, denies ever and the Soviet field officer in charge of meeting with Feklisov or any other Soviet atomic espionage, Anatoly Yatskov. Yatskov citizen during World War II. later told Feklisov that he had not received Sobell disappeared to in the "any worthwhile information" from summer of 1950, at a time when the FBI Greenglass. was investigating the Rosenberg spy ring, Questioned by the FBI in June 1950, Kidnapped by Mexican agents and forcibly Greenglass confessed to Soviet espionage, deported to the United States, he was a and named Julius Rosenberg as his co-defendant with Julius and Ethel recruiter. He changed his testimony during Rosenberg. In 1951, he was sentenced to the investigation to also implicate his sister, a 30-year prison term, of which he served Ethel, saying she had typed espionage 18 years. Released in 1980, he material. Under a plea barga in with federal subsequently worked for a medical prosecutors, he served a 15-year prison electronics firm, and wrote a book, "On term for espionage. His wife Ruth was Doing Time," about his prison experiences permitted to go free. Greenglass lives in on Alcatraz island. He maintains his upstate New York under an assumed name. innocence. —Michael Dobbs PHOTOS COURTESY OF 1)!SCOVERY CHANNEL