Julius Rosenberg Spied, Russian Says KGB Haiyller Acknowledges Espionage in Controversial Case
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Julius Rosenberg Spied, Russian Says KGB Haiyller Acknowledges Espionage 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 Moscow. 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 only played a peripheral ROSENBERG, From Al 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- clear secrets from the United States. knows about the Rosenberg affair, despite what he described as the ob- He described as absurd the claim of jections of Russian intelligence sentencing judge Irving R. Kaufman that the Rosenbergs had "altered the chiefs. A lifelong Communist, Fekli- course of human history" through their sov wants the world to know that Ju- treachery by putting the atomic bomb lius Rosenberg was a "hero" who into the hands of the Soviets. helped the Soviet Union in its hour Feklisov's assertions about the na- of need in World War II and was lat- tare of the espionage role played by er abandoned by his Soviet spy mas- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are consis- ters. tent with recently released top secret "My morality does not allow me to 'American intercepts of Soviet intelli- keep silent," said Feklisov, saying he . gene cables between New York and is the only Soviet intelligence officer Moscow from the early 1940s. The still alive with intimate personal so-called Venona intercepts include re- knowledge of the Rosenberg case. peated references to Julius Rosen- "Julius was a great sympathizer of berg's industrial espionage but sug- the Soviet Union. There were oth- gest only peripheral involvement in ers who also believed in commu- atomic spying. nism, but were unwilling to fight. Ju- The intercepts show that the Sovi- lius was a true revolutionary, who ets had at least three key agents in the was willing to sacrifice himself for U.S. atomic energy program, known his beliefs." as the Manhattan project, who had no In interviews with The Washing- connection to the Rosenbergs. The ton Post and the Bethesda-based ca- most important was a nuclear scien- ble TV network Discovery Channel, tist, Klaus Fuchs, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by a British court in 1949. "Julius was a great Feklisov said the decision to tell his side of the Rosenberg story is the re- sympathizer of the sult of years of personal agonizing and arguments with his superiors in the Soviet Union.... foreign intelligence arm of the KGB. In 1993, he began cooperating with a Julius was a true researcher at the U.S.A. Institute in Moscow, Svetlana Chervonnaya, and revolutionary, who an independent American filmmaker, Ed Wierzbowski, who have investigat- was willing to ed other Cold War spy cases. Last Au- gust, Wierzbowski's company, Global sacrifice himself for American Television, arranged for •Feklisov to visit the United States to his beliefs." work on a documentary film about the — Alexander Feklisov Rosenberg case which is scheduled to be aired on the Discovery Channel Feklisov said he held a series of at next Sunday. least 50 meetings in New York with Rosenberg from 1943 to 1946. He Symbols in Political Conflict credited Rosenberg with helping to 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 Ronald Radosh, 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.