CovertCouncil

People

PERSON FILE · 2 July 1910 – 23 June 1995

Morris and Lona Cohen

New York communists who worked for Soviet intelligence in the 1940s, vanished in 1950, and resurfaced in a London suburb as the booksellers Peter and Helen Kroger, radio hub of the Portland spy ring.

1910–1995

3 min read · 7 sources, 2 primary

Morris Cohen (1910–1995) and Lona Cohen (1913–1992)
Morris and Lona Cohen in an Associated Press photograph from their release from a British prison, October 1969. Unknown (Associated Press). Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

When British police searched a bungalow in Ruislip in January 1961, they found a radio transmitter under the kitchen floor and two New Zealand passports in the names of Peter and Helen Kroger. Fingerprints matched to FBI records gave the couple their real names: Morris and Lona Cohen of New York, wanted in the United States as Soviet agents.1,7

Morris

Morris Cohen was born in New York City on 2 July 1910 to Jewish immigrant parents from the Russian Empire. He went to college on a football scholarship, became a Communist Party organizer in the Bronx, and in 1937 went to Spain to fight with the International Brigades.5 After being wounded he was recruited by Soviet intelligence and returned to the United States in November 1938.5,7 His codename in Soviet intelligence traffic, and in the US Army's The Venona project decrypts, was VOLUNTEER.5

Lona

Lona Cohen was born Leontine Petka in Adams, Massachusetts, on 11 January 1913, the daughter of Polish immigrants, and left home young for New York, where she joined the Communist Party.6 She married Morris in July 1941 and, after he told her what he did, joined the work. When he was drafted into the US Army in 1942 she took over the network of sources he had been running.6

The atomic connection

The best-known claim about the Cohens is that in August 1945 Lona traveled to New Mexico and collected material on the atomic bomb from Theodore Hall, a young physicist at Los Alamos, carrying it back to the Soviet consulate in New York.6

After a lull caused by the defections of Elizabeth Bentley and Igor Gouzenko, the Cohens resumed contact with Soviet intelligence and worked with the illegal later known as Rudolf Abel. In 1950, after the arrest of Klaus Fuchs set the American investigations moving toward the Rosenberg network (Julius Rosenberg), they left New York and disappeared.5,6 The FBI opened a file on them under the number 100-406659.4

The Krogers of Ruislip

After a period in Poland and travel on Soviet missions, the Cohens arrived in England in 1954 on New Zealand passports and settled at Ruislip, where Peter Kroger opened an antiquarian book business.5,7 MI5's file summary states their role: "Soviet illegal spies who, under false identities, provided the communications link for Gordon LONSDALE."1 Konon Molody, the KGB officer living as Lonsdale, brought them naval material from the Portland spy ring, and they sent it to Moscow by radio and by microdots concealed in books.2,7

They were arrested on 7 January 1961 and convicted at the Old Bailey that March; each was sentenced to 20 years.7 Searchers spent days on the house, finding the transmitter, one-time pads and microdot equipment (see Illegals and legends and Concealment devices).7

Exchange and Moscow

The Cohens served less than nine years. On 24 July 1969 the Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, told the Commons that a British subject sentenced by a Soviet court in 1965 had been released that day, and that the government had undertaken to recommend remission of the remainder of the Krogers' 20-year sentences in three months' time, leaving them free to go wherever they chose.3 They were released in October 1969 and went to the Soviet Union.7 In Moscow they were decorated with the Order of the Red Banner and later named Heroes of the Russian Federation.5,6 Lona died in Moscow on 23 December 1992 and Morris on 23 June 1995.5,6 Russia honored them on postage stamps in 1998.7

Key dates

  1. November 1938 Morris Cohen returns to the United States from the Spanish Civil War, already working for Soviet intelligence.
  2. July 1941 Morris and Lona marry; Lona soon joins his intelligence work.
  3. August 1945 Lona Cohen reportedly collects atomic material from Theodore Hall in Albuquerque.
  4. 1950 The Cohens leave the United States and disappear.
  5. 1954 Settle in Ruislip, near London, as Peter and Helen Kroger.
  6. 7 January 1961 Arrested at their Ruislip bungalow.
  7. October 1969 Released from British prison under an Anglo-Soviet exchange agreement.

Sources

  1. Other KV 2/4484: Peter John KROGER and Helen Joyce KROGER alias Morris COHEN and Lona COHEN (catalogue description), The National Archives (UK), Discovery catalogue (1948–1960).
  2. Official history September 2019 release of historical MI5 files, MI5 (Security Service), archived by the Internet Archive (2019-09).
  3. Other Mr. Gerald Brooke (Release), HC Deb 24 July 1969, UK Parliament, Hansard (1969-07-24).
  4. FBI Subject: Morris and Lona Cohen, File Number 100-406659, Part 1 of 4, Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Vault.
  5. Wikipedia Morris Cohen (spy), Wikipedia.
  6. Wikipedia Lona Cohen, Wikipedia.
  7. Wikipedia Portland spy ring, Wikipedia.

Elsewhere in the files

Read next

1951 – 22 March 1961 The Portland spy ring A Soviet network that took naval secrets from the Admiralty's underwater research establishment at Portland, run by the KGB illegal 'Gordon Lonsdale' and broken up by MI5 in January 1961. September 1941 – June 1950 Soviet atomic espionage (Enormoz) How Soviet intelligence penetrated the Manhattan Project under the codename ENORMOZ, who its sources were, how Venona and confessions exposed them, and what the stolen secrets were worth. 1 February 1943 – 1 October 1980 The Venona project The US Army codebreaking program that, from 1943 to 1980, read parts of some 2,900 wartime Soviet intelligence cables and exposed Fuchs, the Rosenbergs and Donald Maclean. 1920s–1980s Illegals and legends Soviet officers who lived abroad as private citizens under borrowed identities, with no diplomatic protection. The Abel and Portland court records show how their legends were built and how they came apart. 22 June 1953 – 15 November 1957 The Hollow Nickel case A Brooklyn newsboy's trick nickel held a coded message the FBI could not read for four years, until a drunken KGB defector explained it and led agents to the illegal known as Rudolf Abel.