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Morris and Leontine Cohen, the spy couple who prevented World War III...

Alina MAKSIMOVA, especially for "Crime"

Spouses-scouts Morris and Leontina Cohen were born in the United States, but all their lives they considered themselves citizens of Soviet Russia. They did a lot to prevent a third world war, which America almost unleashed. Possessing the atomic bomb, American politicians were confident in their superiority and saber-rattling with might and main. Only after the appearance of the same weapons in the Russians in the United States handed over back. The Cohens were one of those thanks to whom the atomic bomb appeared in the USSR. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their names were declassified, and the couple were awarded the title of Hero of Russia. Posthumously.

PASSION FOR LEFT IDEAS

Morris Cohen was born on July 2, 1910 in the East Side of New York. His parents were originally from the Russian Empire, and left for the United States, fleeing Jewish pogroms. Which at the beginning of the 20th century quite often happened in Ukraine, where the Coen seniors lived. But they did not hate their Motherland and passed on their love for Russia to their son.

Morris showed good results in rugby at school and managed to get a sports scholarship at Columbia University. Almost immediately after graduating from university, he went to Spain, where a civil war was raging. In October 1937, during the battle of Fuentes de Ebro, he was wounded in both legs and ended up in the hospital. Where he attracted the attention of the Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Orlov, who recruited a young American. In Spain at that time there were several schools in which Soviet intelligence officers from various countries were trained in the basics of intelligence activities. There, after recovering, Morris was trained.

Leontina's path to being a scout turned out to be more tortuous. She was born on January 11, 1913 in a family of immigrants from Poland. Growing up Lona, as her friends and relatives called her, fell on a period of economic crisis called the Great Depression. This crisis affected not only the United States, but also many European countries. And the USSR at the same time showed tremendous economic growth. Which, as it were, proved the superiority of the socialist model over the capitalist one. Leontina was an activist in the trade union movement from an early age, and at the age of 18 she joined the Communist Party.

Morris and Lona were introduced by their mutual friend at an anti-fascist rally in New York in 1939.

du. A young international brigade member, who had just returned from Spain, struck the young communist in the very heart. Young people quickly found a common language, and then fell in love with each other. Morris hesitated for a while, but eventually confessed to his beloved that he was working for Soviet intelligence. And he offered Lone to become his wife and partner in illegal work.

The decision to work for intelligence was not easy for Leontina. Since this meant a break in all ties with the Communist Party and in general with people who adhered to "left" (that is, socialist) views. But in the end, Lona agreed. According to the recollections of people who knew the Coens at that time, the spouses turned out to be just an ideal pair of scouts. One of the intelligence officers who worked in New York in the early forties, Yuri Sokolov, later wrote:

“Morris and Lona were inseparable as loving spouses, and as friends, and as associates in intelligence work. Almost always, when we talk about Morris, we actually mean both."

Lona's initially excessive impulsiveness and love of risk was balanced by her husband's composure and caution. Morris and Lona became liaisons between illegal immigrants in the US and the Soviet residency. But gradually the couple began to entrust very serious tasks.

NEWEST MACHINE GUN AND "NUCLEAR" WIPES

In 1941, the Coens are assigned to obtain documentation for a new aircraft machine gun, which was produced at a factory in Hartford. At that time, the United States had not yet officially entered World War II (this would happen in December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), and therefore did not particularly share their military developments with the allies.

Leontine managed to get acquainted with a certain young engineer (his name has not yet been declassified, only the pseudonym "Frank" is known), who agreed to cooperate. But he did not have access to the documentation. But he was responsible for quality control of products. For several days, "Frank" took out the newest machine gun from the factory in separate parts and handed them over to Lona. When all the details were taken out, the Cohens packed what was taken out of the factory in a case from under the double bass and forwarded it to the USSR Consulate in New York. Experienced intelligence officers who worked in the United States at that time were simply stunned by this. They thought that the Coens would get the blueprints, and they dragged the machine gun to them.

In 1942, Morris was drafted into the army. Morris took part in the operations of American troops in Algiers in 1942, the landing in Sicily in 1943. After the landing of allied forces in Normandy in 1944, the corps in which Cohen served was transferred to Europe. He met the end of the war in the rank of corporal, with several military awards. He celebrated the victory on the Elbe, together with Soviet soldiers.

While Morris was fighting in Europe, Leontina continued to work for Soviet intelligence in the United States. In 1943, she was given the task of focusing on the Manhattan Project. So in the USA they called the work on the atomic bomb. The main developments were carried out in the secret and closed town of Los Alamos. Among the scientists working on the project, Soviet intelligence had a source of information. But communication with him was difficult. Scientists from Los Alamos were released to neighboring cities only once a month.

Leontina managed to get a referral from a New York doctor for a lung condition in Albuquerque, near Los Alamos. Lone had to wait four weeks to meet the source. During this time, she managed to arouse suspicion among the FBI, of which there were simply an indecent number in Albuquerque.

After the documents were finally received and Leontina tried to leave for New York, right at the train, the FBI decided to carefully search the suspicious person. The documents were hidden in a box of napkins, and it would certainly have been shaken up. But Lona was not taken aback. She calmly provided the bag for inspection, and then began to sneeze deafeningly. She took out a box of tissues from the bag being searched, pulled out a couple, and gave the box itself to the FBI agent. He automatically took it and continued to hold it all the time, while his colleagues inspected the girl’s things and even searched her herself. And Lona occasionally turned to him for another napkin to blow her nose. As the train pulled away from the platform, the FBI finally let Leontina go. Already passing into the car, Lona "suddenly remembered" the napkins, snatched them from the hands of the Fabian and jumped into the departing train. A few days later, the secret documents were already delivered to Moscow.

In February 1945, when it was already absolutely clear that Nazi Germany was actually finished, the Yalta Conference of the leaders of three countries took place: the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. On which the fate of post-war Europe was decided. US President Franklin Roosevelt, who had sympathy for the Communists and understood that it was the Soviet Union that made the greatest contribution to the victory over Germany, agreed to the demands of Joseph Stalin regarding the arrangement of Eastern Europe. In fact, giving the Soviet Union all the countries that were conquered by Soviet troops.

Everything changed on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died and Harry Truman became president. Who believed that the communist idea is no less harmful to the world than Nazism. Truman viewed the USSR not as an ally, but as an enemy. During the Postdam Conference in July-August 1945, the US President tried to revise the previously reached agreements. And he seemed to have a trump card: the day after the start of negotiations, July 18, 1945, Truman received a long-awaited message. The first test of the atomic bomb was super-successful, and the Americans had a superweapon. This is what Truman tried to hint to Stalin, but the Soviet leader only smirked.

In early August 1945, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese died, cities were literally wiped off the face of the earth. And all this from just two bombs! Stalin, who had previously been rather skeptical about the creation of atomic weapons, was impressed. The USSR did not have an adequate response to this weapon. But they had an army that defeated the Nazis and accumulated vast experience in military operations. Which, by and large, the Americans did not have. They fought with the Japanese rather sluggishly. And as soon as the Red Army entered the war and defeated the Kwantung Army, the world saw with its own eyes which army was stronger. But the atomic bomb was a serious trump card.

Soviet scientists were ordered to create something similar as soon as possible. The fact that Kurchatov spoke back in 1939 about the possibility of using the split atom in military equipment and about its destructive power, and that Kurchatov was sent to hell, was forgotten. Scientists were ordered to create a Soviet atomic bomb as quickly as possible. But the Soviet Union was losing heavily in this race. The latest developments in this area were in the United States, Great Britain and Germany. But the Americans made sure that the German nuclear scientists did not fall into the hands of the Russians. However, the Soviet troops managed to capture some of the German scientists and take them to the Union. But the USSR was still far behind. Kurchatov argued that the creation of an atomic bomb could drag on for a decade. That in the conditions of greatly complicated relations with the United States, it was like death. Truman, confident in the superiority of American weapons, became more and more impudent, threatening the USSR with nuclear weapons. From unleashing a third world war, he was stopped only by the fact that the United States had too few atomic bombs.

The almost impossible was entrusted to Soviet intelligence officers in America: they were obliged to obtain as much material as possible on the Manhattan Project. To achieve this goal, the famous Soviet intelligence officer William Fisher, better known as Rudolf Abel, was sent to the United States. The Cohens became his main contacts.

In 1949, the USSR tested the first Soviet atomic bomb. US exclusivity in the field of nuclear weapons ended, and Truman immediately toned down his threats to the Soviet Union. And it was the scouts who played a huge role in the fact that the USSR had adequate weapons. And the Cohens were one of them.

HEROES IN THE HOMELAND DID NOT EXPECT?

But between the capitalist and communist worlds, a "cold war" began. Which in America was exacerbated by the "witch hunt". This was the name given to the violent persecution of communists and all sorts of unreliable people (mostly with socialist views) in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the United States.

The reputation of the Cohens was tarnished. Leontina was marked by membership in the Communist Party, and Morris fought in Spain on the side of the Republicans. The leadership of Soviet intelligence decides to withdraw the Coens from a possible strike. In 1950, spouses-scouts were transferred to the USSR. Where they study radio business and learn the methods of modern encryption. In 1954, under the name of the Kroger spouses, who came from New Zealand, they were transferred to the UK. Where at that time the Soviet intelligence officer Konon the Young (pseudonym Ben) worked very actively. Managed to quickly become his own in the highest circles of the English establishment. The Coens-Krogers became Ben's closest assistants and his connection with Moscow.

Work continued in England for five years, and then Ben was arrested. This happened as a result of the betrayal of the Polish intelligence officer Michal Goleniewski. Michal cooperated for a long time with the American and British intelligence services, passing them the ciphers that passed through him. He knew neither the Cohens nor Molodoy, but most of the ciphers sent by the Coens from England passed through Poland. According to these documents, the British counterintelligence managed to figure out Konon the Young. And checking his connections, they also contacted the Coen-Kroger spouses.

In the middle of 1961, Morris and Leontina heard the verdict of the British court: the husband - 25 years old, the wife - 20. British and American intelligence tried for a long time to convert the spouses, but in vain. And in 1969, the English intelligence officer Gerald Brooke failed in the USSR. The leadership of Soviet intelligence offered the British an exchange: Brooke for the Kroger spouses. The British agreed.

Leontina and Morris arrived in Moscow in October 1969 and applied for Soviet citizenship. But then suddenly the all-powerful (at that time) ideologist of the CPSU Mikhail Suslov reared up. Having learned that some Americans were awarded Soviet orders (both spouses were awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Friendship of Peoples), and now they demand Soviet citizenship, he sharply opposed. Suslov did not understand for what such merits Americans could become citizens of the USSR. But Yuri Andropov, who at that time headed the KGB of the USSR, was not afraid to go into conflict with Suslov and achieved a personal meeting with Leonid Brezhnev. In which he said something. The Cohens received Soviet citizenship. Until the early 1990s, they worked in Soviet intelligence training schools.

Leontina died at the end of 1992, Morris passed away in June 1995. Just a month before he was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. Leontina Cohen was awarded this title in 1996.

The Cohens. The most famous and most successful pair of Soviet intelligence officers. For many years they worked for the Soviet foreign intelligence residency. They have dozens of successful intelligence operations on their account.

It was they who extracted samples of uranium and biological weapons from the laboratories of Western countries. It was they who in 1943 delivered the American developments of the atomic bomb to the USSR.

If not for the Coens, perhaps the history of our country would be completely different. And the Soviet Union, which won the Second World War, would have had to survive the atomic bombings, like the Japanese.

30s of the twentieth century. Civil war begins in Spain. An international brigade is sent from the United States to support the Spanish Republicans. Among the volunteers - 26-year-old Morris Cohen, a member of the US Communist Party, a high school teacher.

The brave American quickly comes to the attention of Soviet foreign intelligence. After a conversation with the NKVD resident, he agrees to cooperate. He returns to the USA as a Soviet intelligence agent under the pseudonym "Louis". And he attracts his wife Leontina to work. She will go down in intelligence history under the pseudonym "Leslie".

Morris and Leontine Coen

1942 USA. Nuclear Center at Los Alamos. Here, in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, the famous physicist Robert Oppenheimer and a group of scientists are working on the creation of the first atomic bomb. Soon, the Soviet residency reports to Moscow about these secret developments. Get the secret of the atomic bomb instruct the Soviet intelligence officers: Morris and Leontine Coen.

Even before the United States entered the war with Germany, Morris Cohen managed to recruit a scientist from the Los Alamos laboratory, who passed secret research data to intelligence officers. When Morris was drafted into the army, his wife Leontina was sent alone to meet with the informant.

In order for Leslie to be able to get close to the secret facility and obtain information about the developments to create atomic weapons in the United States, the Center comes up with a whole legend. In a city where almost every centimeter is under the supervision of American intelligence agencies, a scout arrives with a certificate that she has a serious lung disease that requires treatment exclusively in the climate of Los Alamos.

Three times the scientist did not come on dates. But when the meeting did take place, Leontine Cohen received a complete technical description of the atomic bomb!

After that, she had only one thing to do: take the train and leave the dangerous place. But at the station, Leontina came across a police cordon. FBI officers checked the documents and luggage of all passengers of the outgoing train.

A policeman approached her. Lona pretended to be confused and could not find a ticket. She began to nervously get things out of her suitcase, and gave the package of documents, which seemed to interfere with her, to the policeman. Another policeman also said, “You are exactly like my daughter. She's just as uncollected." When the ticket was found, she went to the carriage. And the documents, imagine!, remained in the hands of the policeman. But Lona's calculation was justified - the policeman caught up with her and shouted: "Mrs. Cohen, take your purse!"
Morris Cohen

Soon the secret of the atomic bomb was in Moscow.

Already in 1949, the Soviet Union conducted the first tests of an atomic bomb.

After that, the US intelligence services understand: in such a short time, the USSR could not independently develop its own bomb. So, secret drawings were stolen from American laboratories!

At Los Alamos, checks begin, special services are looking for a traitor. To avoid failure, Morris and Leontina are urgently taken to Moscow.

In 1955, Morris and Leontine Coen were given a new assignment by management. With passports in the name of the Kroger spouses, under the operational pseudonyms Peter and Helen, the scouts leave for the UK. According to legend, the Krogers are New Zealand businessmen who came to Britain to start their own business. Under this cover, Leontina and Morris work as signalmen for the resident of the Soviet intelligence Konon the Young, known as Ben.

The task of the scouts is to penetrate the secrets of a secret laboratory for the creation of biological weapons and obtain information about a deadly virus, two hundred grams of which would be enough to destroy all people on Earth.

October 17, 1960 Leontina and Morris receive a container with samples of a dangerous virus. The intelligence officers do not yet know: from the very beginning of this special operation, British counterintelligence established round-the-clock surveillance over them.

Around 6 pm there was a knock on the door. I opened the door, there was a man unknown to me. I immediately understood - this man from the special services. It was written on his forehead. We were told that we were under arrest, ordered to get dressed, and taken to prison. The shock was terrible. We knew what we would have to go through.
Morris Cohen

Even by the strictest standards, the verdict of the court was very harsh. Conon the Young received 25 years. Morris and Leontine Coen, their guilt was never proved - 20 years in prison each.

For older people, such terms were tantamount to a death sentence. However, 3 years later, the British authorities exchanged Konon Molodoy for an agent of the British special services, who was arrested in Moscow. The hope of being freed again appeared among the Coens.

It took the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs nine whole years to release Morris and Leontina. In exchange for the Coens, Moscow released the British intelligence officer Gerald Brooke.

Morris and Leontina Cohen received the title of Hero of Russia only after their death. Such was the degree of secrecy in what they had been doing all their lives. Their work is forever included in intelligence textbooks. And their love and loyalty to each other is an eternal example for all of us.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Leontine Teresa Cohen(Petke; operational pseudonym - Helen Kroger; January 11 ( 19130111 ) , Adams, Massachusetts, USA - December 23, Moscow) - Soviet intelligence officer - an illegal immigrant of American origin, Hero of the Russian Federation (the title was awarded posthumously in 1996).

Biography

In her youth, she was a trade union activist and a member of the Communist Party USA. She met her future husband Morris Cohen in New York at an anti-fascist rally in 1939 after his return from Spain. In the early 1940s, she was recruited by the intelligence of the USSR, following her husband.

Excerpt characterizing Cohen, Leontine Teresa

The decree of the President of Russia of June 15, 1996 would please Leontina Cohen. It says that she was awarded the title of Hero of Russia "for ensuring state security in conditions involving a risk to life, and for the heroism shown." She longed for recognition. But I received it posthumously...

The newborn was screaming.

Good sign, healthy! In the family of an emigrant from Poland, a Jew Petke, they knew in advance that if a girl was born, she would be called Leonty Teresa - in honor of her grandmother and Saint Teresa. But a year later, the pretentious name "Leontina Teresa" was reduced to the sweet "Lon". Her parents adored her. When they could - spoiled, which was not easy - Petka were poorer than church mice.

Lona loved her childhood. From the height of the past years, it seemed to her something completely fabulous. Here is a father smiling, a mother smelling of something sweet ... And - free will, wind in the face. Growing up in Massachusetts, Lona had a freedom that she later forgot.

It all ended at twelve, when school had to be combined with work. A year later, she dropped out of school altogether and worked wherever she had to - either she cleaned houses, or she sold clothes, acutely feeling her isolation: for the indigenous inhabitants of the state, only they themselves, “white Anglo-Saxon Protestants”, were the ideal, the rest, from visitors to blacks, were considered the second sort. When the situation became completely unbearable, the Petke family left for New York. Here the atmosphere was different, but the family did not become easier financially - in 1927, America entered the time of the Great Depression.

Lone liked the stormy New York.

And when Hitler came to power in Germany, she discovered that she was close to the communist ideology, and at the age of 23 she became a member of the US Communist Party, plunged into heated discussions of politics, later “fell ill” with Spain, went to rallies and carried out party assignments.

At one of the rallies, a friend introduced her to his friend Morris Cohen. She was so excited that she could not concentrate in any way, she kept casting a glance at the handsome young man.

After the rally, Morris caught up with her: - You are not taken to Spain and you are saddened? I will fight for you, I was registered as a candidate.

He said something, she answered something ... Everything was in a fog. And they couldn't part anymore. Escorting him to the war in Spain, she said that she would be waiting.

Morris did not have to serve long. The machine-gun burst pierced both of his legs, plus he was wounded in the groin.

Stay a man, don't worry. Are there children? the surgeon asked. - If not, bad. There won't be any more.

In the hospital, he read Lenin, more and more imbued with the ideas of communism, and cautiously delayed the moment of explanation with Lona. It was at the moment of mental anguish that Orlov, a resident of the Soviet intelligence service, recruited him.

Morris believed that his "underground work" would contribute to the worldwide victory of communism. Having met Morris, Lona wept with happiness.

In the evening he told her everything.

You will be both husband and child to me,” she said without thinking. - Because I love you.

They learned about the German attack on the USSR immediately after the marriage.

By the beginning of family life, Lona worked at a military plant, and Morris worked in a Soviet-American trade organization. She sensed that he was hiding something from her. And Morris increasingly thought that Lona would be an ideal assistant for him and an excellent spy.

Finally, the Center, "probing" Lona, gave permission for recruitment. She agreed to help the Soviets - like her husband, she dreamed of communism. So in 1941, Leontina Teresa Petke-Cohen became a Soviet intelligence officer, receiving the pseudonym Leslie. The call signs of the couples changed: "Summer Residents", "Volunteers", "Druhari".

The verification task was performed brilliantly: Leslie got both the drawings of a new machine gun, and ... the machine gun itself, which the factory worker bribed by her took out, disassembled into parts.

At that time, work was underway in America on the atomic bomb. Volunteers were also included in the Enormez special operation to obtain information about research. Louis (alias Morris) recruited scientist Arthur Fielding (name changed, alias Perseus). The information transmitted by him in the USSR became a sensation.

In 1943, Fielding was transferred to Los Alamos in the Nevada desert. Meeting him in a place where everyone was in full view was risky. This is where Leslie's acting skills came in handy.

She traveled to a nearby resort and dated Fielding as his lover.

Perseus could not get in touch for a long time.

But the wait was worth it. He gave Leslie fantastic documents! But the police strictly inspected everyone leaving Nevada. Leslie hid the documents in the bottom of the sanitary napkin bag and ran to the car three minutes before the train left, pretending to be a fussy confused lady. While the search was going on, she asked one of the policemen to hold the bag of napkins. If only he knew!.. The documents she brought were overvalued. And a little later, through the same Perseus, she transmitted diagrams, drawings and descriptions of the atomic bomb completely ready for testing, also reporting the date and place of their conduct. In addition, Leslie informed the USSR about the US decision to drop a bomb on Japan, forcing her to surrender...

Perseus eventually became a well-known activist in the anti-war movement, meetings with him became rare. By this time, the Soviet illegal immigrant William Fisher, aka Rudolf Abel, was already responsible for Louis and Leslie, who had returned from the war. He liked the volunteers.

And when Leslie provided Abel with materials on weapons-grade plutonium and a copy of Truman's secret bill on the creation of the National Security Council and the organization of the CIA under it, he simply applauded his "ward".

On August 29, 1949 at 6 o'clock in the morning the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated. The US administration and President Truman were smitten that their country had ceased to be a monopoly in terms of nuclear weapons. But even more they were occupied with another thought: how could it happen that the USSR, bled white by the war, achieved such success?! The race for "atomic spies" has begun.

As a warning, the spouses Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who had nothing to do with atomic espionage, were executed. The circle of searches narrowed. Louis and Leslie needed to be rescued urgently...

During the last meeting with Perseus, Leslie received from him data on the Trojan plan, according to which 70 Soviet cities were to be bombed ...

Under the names of Maria Teresa and Pedro Alvarez Sanchez, the "Volunteers" left for Mexico. From there - to Amsterdam, Switzerland, Prague ... In November 1950 they ended up in Moscow.

In Moscow, the Coens began to train young intelligence officers, but they yearned for operational work. They were now led by Conon the Young, aka Gordon Lonsdale. Under his leadership, the couple began a four-year preparation for the “cast” to England. They arrived in London as Peter John and Helen Joyce Kroger and purchased a house near Northolt Air Force Base.

It was difficult for the prim English to become their own. But even the children of former neighbors still remember the charming Helen Kroger - she cooked delicious pastries, was sweet, and sometimes mischievous - she could, for example, whistle loudly. Gradually, Helen's charm did its job - they fell in love with a couple.

No one, of course, knew that a cellar for a radio transmitter had been dug in the Kroger kitchen. No one knew that the spouses were filming and sending secret documents to the Union at night.

Lonsdale was entrusted with the collection of data on the means of chemical and bacteriological warfare.

The work of illegal immigrants in England is an occasion for a thick novel. The Kroger spouses worked in such a way that Lonsdale, realizing that the group could be discovered, petitioned for obtaining Soviet citizenship for the Coens. Suslov, the chief ideologue of the Central Committee, answered him: “The question of the Cohens has been raised prematurely. They can still betray us. When they return to the Soviet Union, then we will consider their application. M. Suslov. 2.11.60".

The pincers began to shrink, slowly and surely. Lonsdale was placed under surveillance. The fact of his meeting with the Krogers was recorded.

Observant Helen Kroger soon noticed that one of the neighbors, Mrs. Sech, lost interest in her and her husband and was trying to avoid meetings. Several times Helen saw strangers in her house. It was clear to her that they were under surveillance.

They couldn't destroy all the evidence.

They took the Krogers - illuminating the house with spotlights and overtaking a crowd of journalists.

The interrogations began. Even before the arrest, an instruction from the Center was received: "Go all the way to Lonsdale, you have nothing to do with it." The intelligence equipment in the caches was, of course, discovered.

But even under the pressure of indisputable evidence, the Krogers denied their involvement in espionage and intelligence activities.

But the sentence was severe. Gordon Lonsdale received 25 years in prison, the Krogers - 20 years in prison.

They were taken to different prisons.

Helen sat with the criminals.

So the authorities took revenge on her for her silence.

She endured bullying, but sometimes she got into a fight and won. She didn't have a choice. Only win! ● On April 21, 1965, Peter Kroger was taken out of his cell and sent to breakfast alone. He decided that this was the end. At the same time, Helen also left the cell - with the same thoughts. A day later, they were sent to Moscow on a regular scheduled flight: after long negotiations, they managed to agree on their exchange for Gerald Brooke, an MI5 agent arrested in the USSR. A little earlier, Konon the Young was exchanged for Greville Wynn, a spy and liaison of O. V. Penkovsky, exposed in the USSR.

Four years later, by a secret Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces, Morris and Leontina Cohen were awarded the Orders of the Red Banner, and then they received USSR citizenship.

Until the early 1990s, Lona and Morris Cohen worked for the Office of Illegal Intelligence. They didn’t sit still - they went to Europe, where they held meetings with illegal immigrants and carried out special tasks. They were happy together. She knew that this love - forever ...

On December 28, 1992, a week before her 80th birthday, Leontina passed away. Morris suffered greatly after her departure and could not live long without her.

A month later, a decree was signed on conferring the title of Hero of the Russian Federation on him.

And a year later, in 1996, the same title was awarded to Leontina.

Of the female scouts, she was honored with his first.

She was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner, Friendship of Peoples.

Ranks

Positions

employee of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR

Biography

Cohen Leontina Teresa (operational pseudonym - Kroger Helen) - an employee of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Born January 11, 1913 in Massachusetts (USA). Jewess, daughter of a native of Poland, Vladislav Petke. Received higher education. A committed communist, she joined the US Communist Party at the age of 18. Actively participated in the trade union movement.

In 1941, she married Morris Cohen, also known for his leftist views and who fought in the Spanish Civil War. He fully shared the convictions of his wife, although he was not a communist. However, when Morris informed her a few months later that he had been working for Soviet intelligence for several years, Leontina went through a difficult choice before agreeing to help him.

Together with her husband she was a liaison agent. When Morris was drafted into the army and sent to the front in Western Europe, she took over the communication of Soviet residents (primarily A.A. Yatskov) with agents, including agents in the atomic sphere. Moreover, she herself successfully carried out complex reconnaissance operations. For example, during one of them, samples of enriched uranium were obtained through Canada, urgently transported to Moscow. In August 1945, she played a large role in the penetration of Soviet intelligence into the second US atomic center in Albuquerque, near the main center in Los Alamos. After Anatoly Yatskov left for Europe, the connection was soon lost. It was revived in 1948 by the legendary Soviet intelligence officer William Fisher (known to the whole world as Colonel Rudolf Abel). She successfully worked in his illegal residency, but in 1950, due to the threat of failure, she was transferred to Moscow with her husband.

From 1950 to 1954 she worked in the Department of Illegal Intelligence of the MGB, later - the KGB of the SSR. In 1954, together with her husband, under the name of the spouses from New Zealand, Peter and Helen Kroger, they were transported to the UK. For several years we have been successfully working on transferring secret information on rocket technology to Moscow. However, in January 1961, Morris was betrayed by M. Golenevsky, a traitor from Polish intelligence, and the couple were arrested. All the information necessary for the arrest and sentencing of the British was reported by the CIA of the United States. As a result, already in March 1961, Morris Cohen was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and Leontina Cohen to 20 years in prison (although, unlike her husband, her involvement in working for Soviet intelligence was not proven at all).

After difficult lengthy negotiations in August 1969, Morris and Leontina Cohen were exchanged for a British intelligence agent arrested in the USSR and returned to the USSR. Their experience and knowledge were needed by Soviet intelligence, they were invited to work in Directorate "C" (illegal intelligence) of the First Main Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the KGB of the USSR. To work there, you needed Soviet citizenship. The documents were drawn up quickly, but when the turn came to put the last and most important signature - Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU M.A. Suslova - he sharply objected. Not wanting to delve into the details of the long and dangerous work of the Coen spouses for the good of the USSR, not understanding the full value of the information they obtained, Suslov said that they were failed agents and were unworthy of being Soviet citizens. There was a long hitch, as the leadership of the Soviet foreign intelligence was afraid to argue with the all-powerful main ideologist of the CPSU. However, there were decent people who reported the incident to the Chairman of the KGB, Yu.A. Andropov. By the way, he himself was afraid to conflict with Suslov, but in this matter he literally went ahead. Andropov raised the issue at the next meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, categorically demanding that the Coens be accepted into Soviet citizenship. At the same time, he stated that they brought more benefits to the Soviet Union than many high-ranking party workers. Brezhnev supported Andropov without hesitation and demanded an immediate positive solution to the issue. The instruction of the General Secretary was carried out, and soon Andropov achieved the awarding of the Coen spouses and Soviet orders.

Until the end of her life, Leontina Cohen worked as a teacher and analyst in the KGB of the USSR and in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. She went on short business trips abroad several more times, but information about their goals and results is not disclosed - 30 years ago in intelligence is not a deadline.

She lived in the hero city of Moscow. She passed away on December 23, 1992. She was buried in Moscow at the Kuntsevo cemetery.

By decree of the President of the Russian Federation of June 15, 1996, "for the courage and heroism shown in the performance of a special assignment," Cohen Leontine Teresa was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.

She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of Friendship of Peoples, the medal "For Valiant Labor. In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of V.I. Lenin" (1970).

In 1998, a postage stamp with a portrait of Hero of Russia Leontina Cohen was issued in the Russian Federation.

Biography provided by Anton Bocharov (Novosibirsk city)

Biography provided by Kirill Osovik

Sources Heroes of the atomic project. - Sarov, 2005 Kolpakidi A., Prokhorov D. Foreign intelligence of Russia. SPb-Moscow, 2001.