George Koval
Encyclopedia
George Abramovich Koval was an American who acted as a Soviet
intelligence officer. According to Russian sources, Koval's infiltration of the Manhattan Project
as a Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (GRU
) agent "drastically reduced the amount of time it took for Russia to develop nuclear weapons."
Koval was born to Jewish
immigrants in Sioux City, Iowa
, USA. Shortly after reaching adulthood he traveled with his parents to the Soviet Union to settle in the Jewish Autonomous Region near the Chinese border. Koval was recruited by the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate
, trained, and assigned the code name DELMAR. He returned to the United States in 1940 and was drafted into the US Army in early 1943. Koval worked at atomic research laboratories and, according to the Russian government, relayed back to the Soviet Union information about the production processes and volumes of the polonium
, plutonium
, and uranium
used in American atomic weaponry, and descriptions of the weapon production sites. After the war, Koval left on a European vacation but never returned to the United States. In 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin
posthumously awarded Koval the Hero of the Russian Federation
decoration for "his courage and heroism while carrying out special missions".
in Belarus
to emigrate to the United States in 1910. Abram, a carpenter, settled in Sioux City, Iowa
, which at the turn of the 20th century was home to a sizeable Jewish population of merchants and craftsmen. He and his wife Ethel Shenitsky Koval raised three sons: Isaya, born 1912; George (or Zhorzh), born Christmas 1913; and Gabriel, born 1919.
George Koval attended Central High School, a red-brick Victorian
building better known as "the Castle on the Hill". Neighbors recalled that Koval spoke openly of his Communist beliefs. While attending Central High he was a member of the Honor Society and the debate team. He graduated in 1929 at the age of 15. Koval studied electrical engineering
at the University of Iowa
for the next two-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, his parents left Sioux City as the Great Depression
deepened. Abram Koval became the secretary for ICOR, the Organization for Jewish Colonization in the Soviet Union. Founded by American Jewish Communists in 1924, the group helped to finance and publicize the development of the "Jewish Autonomous Region
" – the Communist answer to Jewish emigration
to the British Mandate of Palestine then being undertaken by the Zionist
movement. The Koval family emigrated in 1932, traveling with a United States family passport. They settled in Birobidzhan
, near the border of Manchuria.
The Koval family worked on a collective farm and were profiled by an American Communist daily newspaper in New York City. The journalist Paul Novick wrote to his readers that the family "had exchanged the uncertainty of life as small storekeepers ... for a worry-free existence for themselves and their children." While Isaya became a champion tractor driver, George Koval improved his Russian language skills in the collective and began studies at the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology
in 1934. At the university he met and married fellow student Lyudmila Ivanova. Koval graduated with honors in five years and received Soviet citizenship.
. By the time he received his degree he had left Moscow under orders as part of a subterfuge. He was drafted into the Soviet army in 1939 to explain his sudden disappearance from the city. Though his parents had relinquished their US family passport, Koval returned to the United States in 1940, replacing a spy recalled during Stalin's purges
. Arriving in San Francisco, he made his way to New York City. According to Arnold Kramish, an American colleague he befriended and with whom he re-established contact in 2000, it was there that Koval assumed deputy command of the local GRU cell. This outpost operated under the cover of the Raven Electric Company, a supplier to firms such as General Electric
. Koval told coworkers he was a native New Yorker and an only child. He ingratiated himself with everyone he met. While Koval originally worked under a pseudonym, gathering information on toxins for use in chemical weapons, his handlers decided to have him work under his real name.
During the beginning of World War II
, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
had re-introduced the draft (conscription) in September 1940, and Koval registered for it on January 2, 1941. Raven Electric Company secured him a year's deferment from service until February 1942. According to historian Vladimir Lota, Koval's handlers wanted him to steal information about chemical weapons, and felt that he would not be able to do so while drafted. When the deferment expired, however, Koval was inducted into the United States Army
. He received basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey
before being sent to the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina
. There, Koval served as a private in the 3410th Specialized Training and Reassignment Unit. On August 11, 1943, he was transferred to the Army Specialized Training Program, a unit established in December 1942 to provide talented enlistees with an education and technical training. Koval attended the City College of New York
(CCNY) and studied electrical engineering. His CCNY classmates looked up to the older Koval as a role model and father figure who never did homework and was a noted ladies' man, never knowing about his Soviet education and wife. Colleagues recalled that he never discussed politics or the Soviet Union.
. Koval was assigned to Oak Ridge, Tennessee
; at the time, Project scientists were researching enriched uranium
and plutonium
-based bombs, with the Oak Ridge laboratories central to the development of both. The Project suffered from a lack of human resources, and asked the Army for technically qualified men.
Koval enjoyed free access to much of Oak Ridge; he was made a "health physics officer", and monitored radiation levels across the facility. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation
records, the job gave him top-secret security clearance. At the time, Project scientists discovered reactor-produced plutonium was too unstable for the intended bomb designs, and that polonium
initiators were needed for the necessary chain reactions to occur. Koval was charged by his handlers with watching Oak Ridge's polonium supply to transmit information about it through a Soviet contact named "Clyde". His information reached Moscow via coded dispatches, couriers, and the Soviet Embassy. Among the intelligence he sent was that Oak Ridge's polonium was being sent to another Project site at Los Alamos National Laboratory
.
Koval was transferred from Oak Ridge to a top-secret lab
in Dayton, Ohio
on June 27, 1945, where polonium initiators were fabricated. The world's first atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico
on July 16 of that year. Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan on August 6 and 9, leading to Japan's surrender
and the end of World War II. The Soviet Union responded by stepping up efforts to develop its own atomic bomb
. While the American Central Intelligence Agency
estimated the Soviets would not succeed until 1950–53, the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated on August 29, 1949. The initiator for the plutonium bomb was, according to Russian military officials, "prepared to the 'recipe' provided by military intelligence agent Delmar [Koval]".
or Israel
, Koval secured a passport for six months' travel to Europe. According to the Russian publication Российская Газета (Rossiiskaia Gazeta), he might have left because American counter-intelligence agents had discovered Soviet literature about his parents after being tipped off about the leak by a Soviet defector. He left by sea in October 1948 and never returned to his birth country. In Russia, he left the Soviet military with discharge papers as an untrained rifleman and the rank of private. His foreign background and service record made him "a very suspicious character", he wrote to Kramish. Turned down for education and research positions, Koval turned to his old GRU contact, who secured him a job as a laboratory assistant at the Mendeleev Institute
. Eventually, Koval managed to obtain a teaching job there; his students often laughed at his foreign pronunciations for technical terms.
While other spies such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
and Klaus Fuchs
were caught after the war, Koval apparently went unscrutinized for years. Among the reasons given for his maintained cover was that inter-service politics undermined efforts to perform proper security checks on employees. Another possibility is that the US government chose scientific ability over clear records and political sympathies. In the 1950s, the FBI investigated his wartime activities and interviewed his former colleagues, leaving them with the impression that he might have been a spy. The matter was kept confidential for sixty years as the United States was afraid of the damage that would result from the exposure of Koval's activities.
Koval described his 57 years of post-spy life living in Russia as "uneventful". His family knew he had done work for the GRU, but the subject was never discussed. He did not receive any high awards upon his return, a fact that bothered him. Bigger awards went to "career men", he told Kramish. However, he ended his correspondence by saying that he was not protesting his treatment; "[I am thankful] that I did not find myself in a Gulag
, as might well have happened". Koval died in his Moscow apartment on January 31, 2006, at the age of 92.
Koval's activities as a spy began to emerge after the publication of a 2002 book, The GRU and the Atomic Bomb, which mentioned Koval by his code name and listed him as one of a handful of spies who evaded counterintelligence groups. On November 3, 2007, he received the posthumous title of Hero of the Russian Federation
bestowed by Russian President Vladimir Putin
. When Koval was honored, the Russian presidential proclamation stated, "Mr Koval, who operated under the pseudonym Delmar, provided information that helped speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own".
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
intelligence officer. According to Russian sources, Koval's infiltration of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
as a Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
) agent "drastically reduced the amount of time it took for Russia to develop nuclear weapons."
Koval was born to Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
immigrants in Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City is a city in Plymouth and Woodbury counties in the western part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, a decline from 85,013 in the 2000 census, which makes it currently the fourth largest city in the state....
, USA. Shortly after reaching adulthood he traveled with his parents to the Soviet Union to settle in the Jewish Autonomous Region near the Chinese border. Koval was recruited by the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
, trained, and assigned the code name DELMAR. He returned to the United States in 1940 and was drafted into the US Army in early 1943. Koval worked at atomic research laboratories and, according to the Russian government, relayed back to the Soviet Union information about the production processes and volumes of the polonium
Polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for...
, plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
, and uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
used in American atomic weaponry, and descriptions of the weapon production sites. After the war, Koval left on a European vacation but never returned to the United States. In 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
posthumously awarded Koval the Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation is a Russian decoration and the highest honorary title that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Russian Federation. The President of the Russian Federation is the main conferring authority of the medal, which is bestowed on those committing actions or deeds that...
decoration for "his courage and heroism while carrying out special missions".
Early life
George Koval's father, Abram Koval, left his home town of TelekhanyTelekhany
Telekhany is a town in Ivatsevichy Raion of the Brest Oblast in Belarus. The name originates from Tatar language where it means "a tomb of Khan"...
in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
to emigrate to the United States in 1910. Abram, a carpenter, settled in Sioux City, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, which at the turn of the 20th century was home to a sizeable Jewish population of merchants and craftsmen. He and his wife Ethel Shenitsky Koval raised three sons: Isaya, born 1912; George (or Zhorzh), born Christmas 1913; and Gabriel, born 1919.
George Koval attended Central High School, a red-brick Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
building better known as "the Castle on the Hill". Neighbors recalled that Koval spoke openly of his Communist beliefs. While attending Central High he was a member of the Honor Society and the debate team. He graduated in 1929 at the age of 15. Koval studied electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
for the next two-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, his parents left Sioux City as the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
deepened. Abram Koval became the secretary for ICOR, the Organization for Jewish Colonization in the Soviet Union. Founded by American Jewish Communists in 1924, the group helped to finance and publicize the development of the "Jewish Autonomous Region
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated in the Russian Far East, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast of Russia and Heilongjiang province of China. Its administrative center is the town of Birobidzhan....
" – the Communist answer to Jewish emigration
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to the British Mandate of Palestine then being undertaken by the Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
movement. The Koval family emigrated in 1932, traveling with a United States family passport. They settled in Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Trans-Siberian railway, close to the border with the People's Republic of China....
, near the border of Manchuria.
The Koval family worked on a collective farm and were profiled by an American Communist daily newspaper in New York City. The journalist Paul Novick wrote to his readers that the family "had exchanged the uncertainty of life as small storekeepers ... for a worry-free existence for themselves and their children." While Isaya became a champion tractor driver, George Koval improved his Russian language skills in the collective and began studies at the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology
Mendeleev Russian University of Chemistry and Technology
D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia has its roots going far back into the 19th century. Back then, professors from the Imperial Moscow Technical School came up with an idea of establishing an Industrial College in Moscow to train “Chemical and Mechanical Engineer...
in 1934. At the university he met and married fellow student Lyudmila Ivanova. Koval graduated with honors in five years and received Soviet citizenship.
Recruitment and espionage
Later, Koval was recruited by the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (Главное Разведывательное Управление), or GRUGRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
. By the time he received his degree he had left Moscow under orders as part of a subterfuge. He was drafted into the Soviet army in 1939 to explain his sudden disappearance from the city. Though his parents had relinquished their US family passport, Koval returned to the United States in 1940, replacing a spy recalled during Stalin's purges
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
. Arriving in San Francisco, he made his way to New York City. According to Arnold Kramish, an American colleague he befriended and with whom he re-established contact in 2000, it was there that Koval assumed deputy command of the local GRU cell. This outpost operated under the cover of the Raven Electric Company, a supplier to firms such as General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
. Koval told coworkers he was a native New Yorker and an only child. He ingratiated himself with everyone he met. While Koval originally worked under a pseudonym, gathering information on toxins for use in chemical weapons, his handlers decided to have him work under his real name.
During the beginning of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had re-introduced the draft (conscription) in September 1940, and Koval registered for it on January 2, 1941. Raven Electric Company secured him a year's deferment from service until February 1942. According to historian Vladimir Lota, Koval's handlers wanted him to steal information about chemical weapons, and felt that he would not be able to do so while drafted. When the deferment expired, however, Koval was inducted into the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. He received basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
before being sent to the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
. There, Koval served as a private in the 3410th Specialized Training and Reassignment Unit. On August 11, 1943, he was transferred to the Army Specialized Training Program, a unit established in December 1942 to provide talented enlistees with an education and technical training. Koval attended the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
(CCNY) and studied electrical engineering. His CCNY classmates looked up to the older Koval as a role model and father figure who never did homework and was a noted ladies' man, never knowing about his Soviet education and wife. Colleagues recalled that he never discussed politics or the Soviet Union.
Atomic secrets
The Specialized Training Program was dissolved in early 1944, as the progress of the war tipped in favor of the Allies; many of the CCNY classmates were transferred to the infantry, while Koval and a dozen others were selected for the Special Engineer Detachment. The Detachment was part of the covert project to design, engineer, and fabricate an atomic bomb—an American, Canadian and British initiative known as the Manhattan ProjectManhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
. Koval was assigned to Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...
; at the time, Project scientists were researching enriched uranium
Enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its weight...
and plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
-based bombs, with the Oak Ridge laboratories central to the development of both. The Project suffered from a lack of human resources, and asked the Army for technically qualified men.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
records, the job gave him top-secret security clearance. At the time, Project scientists discovered reactor-produced plutonium was too unstable for the intended bomb designs, and that polonium
Polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for...
initiators were needed for the necessary chain reactions to occur. Koval was charged by his handlers with watching Oak Ridge's polonium supply to transmit information about it through a Soviet contact named "Clyde". His information reached Moscow via coded dispatches, couriers, and the Soviet Embassy. Among the intelligence he sent was that Oak Ridge's polonium was being sent to another Project site at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
.
Koval was transferred from Oak Ridge to a top-secret lab
Dayton Project
The Dayton Project was one of several sites involved in the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs. Charles Allen Thomas, an executive of the Monsanto Company corporation, was assigned to develop the neutron generating devices that triggered the nuclear detonation of the atomic bombs...
in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
on June 27, 1945, where polonium initiators were fabricated. The world's first atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
on July 16 of that year. Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan on August 6 and 9, leading to Japan's surrender
Surrender of Japan
The surrender of Japan in 1945 brought hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent...
and the end of World War II. The Soviet Union responded by stepping up efforts to develop its own atomic bomb
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb , was a clandestine research and development program began during and post-World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the United States' nuclear project...
. While the American Central Intelligence Agency
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...
estimated the Soviets would not succeed until 1950–53, the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated on August 29, 1949. The initiator for the plutonium bomb was, according to Russian military officials, "prepared to the 'recipe' provided by military intelligence agent Delmar [Koval]".
Later years
After the war, Koval was discharged from the Army. He returned to New York and CCNY, where he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering on February 1, 1948. Telling his friends he was thinking about taking a trip to PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
or Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Koval secured a passport for six months' travel to Europe. According to the Russian publication Российская Газета (Rossiiskaia Gazeta), he might have left because American counter-intelligence agents had discovered Soviet literature about his parents after being tipped off about the leak by a Soviet defector. He left by sea in October 1948 and never returned to his birth country. In Russia, he left the Soviet military with discharge papers as an untrained rifleman and the rank of private. His foreign background and service record made him "a very suspicious character", he wrote to Kramish. Turned down for education and research positions, Koval turned to his old GRU contact, who secured him a job as a laboratory assistant at the Mendeleev Institute
Mendeleev Russian University of Chemistry and Technology
D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia has its roots going far back into the 19th century. Back then, professors from the Imperial Moscow Technical School came up with an idea of establishing an Industrial College in Moscow to train “Chemical and Mechanical Engineer...
. Eventually, Koval managed to obtain a teaching job there; his students often laughed at his foreign pronunciations for technical terms.
While other spies such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg were American communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war. The charges related to their passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union...
and Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II...
were caught after the war, Koval apparently went unscrutinized for years. Among the reasons given for his maintained cover was that inter-service politics undermined efforts to perform proper security checks on employees. Another possibility is that the US government chose scientific ability over clear records and political sympathies. In the 1950s, the FBI investigated his wartime activities and interviewed his former colleagues, leaving them with the impression that he might have been a spy. The matter was kept confidential for sixty years as the United States was afraid of the damage that would result from the exposure of Koval's activities.
Koval described his 57 years of post-spy life living in Russia as "uneventful". His family knew he had done work for the GRU, but the subject was never discussed. He did not receive any high awards upon his return, a fact that bothered him. Bigger awards went to "career men", he told Kramish. However, he ended his correspondence by saying that he was not protesting his treatment; "[I am thankful] that I did not find myself in a Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
, as might well have happened". Koval died in his Moscow apartment on January 31, 2006, at the age of 92.
Koval's activities as a spy began to emerge after the publication of a 2002 book, The GRU and the Atomic Bomb, which mentioned Koval by his code name and listed him as one of a handful of spies who evaded counterintelligence groups. On November 3, 2007, he received the posthumous title of Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation
Hero of the Russian Federation is a Russian decoration and the highest honorary title that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Russian Federation. The President of the Russian Federation is the main conferring authority of the medal, which is bestowed on those committing actions or deeds that...
bestowed by Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
. When Koval was honored, the Russian presidential proclamation stated, "Mr Koval, who operated under the pseudonym Delmar, provided information that helped speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own".