October 22, 1957
RUDOLPH ABEL: New York, 19 – A former Russian agent has revealed that Colonel Rudolph Abel, believed to be a counter-espionage spy, is linked to a convicted member of the Rosenberg-Fuchs espionage ring which was passing American atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The former Lt Colonel Reino Heyhanen who defected to the West earlier this year, said that Abel, 55, a veteran agent of the Soviet secret police NKVD, was the head of the spy network that had been active in the USA for years. Hayhanen said that in 1955, four years after the convictions of Morton Sobell, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying, Abel was sent by the Soviets to give $5,000 to Sobell’s wife Helen. Instead, Abel hid the money and Heyhanen cooperated in the scam, sending a false report to Moscow that the money had been handed over to Helen Sobell. Hayhanen testified as a witness for the prosecution at Abel’s trial. He did not refer to Morton Sobell, but to Helen Sobell, whom he referred to as the «wife of agent Stone» (Sobell’s code name). Stone, he said, had been accused of spying for the Russians and sentenced to imprisonment. In fact, Sobell had been sentenced to 30 years in Alcatraz prison, when the Rosenbergs’ trial took place.
