Reino Häyhänen
Encyclopedia
Reino Häyhänen, was an ethnic Finn Soviet Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...

 who defected to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Birth and education

Born to peasants, Häyhänen rose above his modest background to become an honor student and, in 1939, obtained the equivalent of a certificate to teach high school. In September, 1939, Häyhänen was appointed to the primary school faculty in the village of Lipitzi. Two months later, however, he was conscripted by the Communists' secret police, the NKVD. Since he had studied the Finnish language
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

 and was very proficient in its use, Häyhänen was assigned as an interpreter to an NKVD group and sent to the combat zone to translate captured documents and interrogate prisoners during the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

. With the end of this war in 1940, Häyhänen was assigned to check the loyalty and reliability of Soviet workers in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 and to develop informants and sources of information in their midst. His primary objective was to identify anti-Soviet elements among the intelligentsia.

Häyhänen became a respected expert in Finnish intelligence
Valtiollinen Poliisi
Valtiollinen poliisi was the predecessor of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service.- Etsivä keskuspoliisi :...

 matters and in May, 1943, was accepted into membership in the Soviet Communist Party. Following World War II, he rose to the rank of senior operative authorized representative of the Segozerski district section of the NKGB and, with headquarters in the village of Padani, set about the task of identifying dissident elements among the local citizens.

In the summer of 1948, Häyhänen was called to Moscow by the KGB. The Soviet intelligence service had a new assignment for Häyhänen - one which would require him to sever relations with his family, to study the English language, and to receive special training in photographing documents, as well as to encode and decode messages.

While his KGB training continued, Häyhänen worked as a mechanic in the city of Valga, Estonia. Then, in the summer of 1949, he entered Finland as Eugene Nicolai Mäki, an American-born laborer. He would later be stationed in the United States.

Defection

In May 1957, Häyhänen telephoned the United States Embassy in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and arrived at the Embassy for an interview. He said: "I'm an officer in the Soviet intelligence service. For the past five years, I have been operating in the United States. Now I need your help." He had been ordered to return to Moscow, after five years in the United States, and now wanted to defect.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation
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...

 (FBI) had obtained a hollowed-out nickel, the Hollow Nickel Case
Hollow Nickel Case
The Hollow Nickel Case , refers to the method that the Soviet Union spy Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher used to exchange information between himself and his contacts, including Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin and Reino Häyhänen.-Background:On June 22, 1953, a newspaper boy , collecting for the...

, in June, 1953, the nickel contained microfilm with a series of numbers on it; however, until Häyhänen's contact, the bureau had been unable to discover its provenance. With his help the FBI was able to link the nickel to KGB agents, including Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin (an ex-United Nations employee) and Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher
Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher
Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a noted Soviet intelligence officer...

 (aka Rudolph Ivanovich Abel).

Häyhänen was being recalled to Moscow for good, and defected on the way back in Paris. The deciphered message in the nickel turned out to be worthless, a personal message to Häyhänen from the KGB in Moscow welcoming him to the U.S. and instructing him on getting set up. However, he would give the FBI the information that it needed to crack the cipher, uncover the identity of his two main contacts in New York (Svirin and Fisher), and a nearly identically-made Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 50 Markka coin.

In addition to Svirin and Fisher (code name "Mark"), Häyhänen (code name "Vic") told the FBI about Vitali G. Pavlov, onetime Soviet embassy official in Ottawa; Aleksandr Mikhailovich Korotkov; and U.S. Army Sergeant, Roy Rhodes (code name "Quebec"), who had once worked in the garage of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The KGB was able to get to Rhodes because it had "compromising materials" about him. Häyhänen and Fisher were in the United States mainly looking for information on the U.S. atomic program and U.S. Navy submarine information.

See also

  • VIC cipher
    VIC cipher
    The VIC cipher was a pencil and paper cipher used by the Soviet spy Reino Häyhänen, codenamed "VICTOR".It was arguably the most complex hand-operated cipher ever seen, when it was first discovered...

  • Hollow Nickel Case
    Hollow Nickel Case
    The Hollow Nickel Case , refers to the method that the Soviet Union spy Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher used to exchange information between himself and his contacts, including Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin and Reino Häyhänen.-Background:On June 22, 1953, a newspaper boy , collecting for the...

  • Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher
    Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher
    Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a noted Soviet intelligence officer...

  • List of Eastern Bloc defectors
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