New York Spycraft, From Nathan Hale to the Cold War, and Beyond. New York, a hotbed of spying going back to the Revolutionary War, has retained its magic.
This week, federal authorities announced that they had been watching Russians sneaking around the city since 2000, the spies blending into one of the world’s greatest centers for anonymity and invisibility. As is customary, city life itself is camouflage for spies and their counterspies.
Ethel Rosenberg in 1950, after her husband, Julius, was arrested
In this latest chapter, an F.B.I. affidavit made public on Monday said that a woman named Anna Chapman was passing messages to Russian officials over WiFi. She set up in a Barnes & Noble on Greenwich Street in TriBeCa, while a Russian stood across the street with his briefcase and laptop. Another time, she worked from a Starbucks at 47th Street and Eighth Avenue, the affidavit said, and flashed messages to a Russian driving past in a van.
One day in 2004, the F.B.I. said, its agents observed a man named Christopher Metsos walk up the stairs at the Forest Hills station of the Long Island Rail Road, carrying an orange bag. A Russian diplomat was coming down the stairs with a similar bag, and they swapped in passing.
A statue honoring Nathan Hale, considered America’s first spy, overlooks City Hall. The British captured him after the Battle of Long Island in 1776
Another man working for the Russians, identified by the authorities as Richard Murphy, flew to Rome to pick up a fake Irish passport, under the name Gerard Eunan Doherty. If his contact smelled trouble, he would be carrying a copy of Time magazine in his left hand, and they would keep walking. Mr. Murphy was able to get the passport and traveled on it to Moscow, buying a computer that he brought back to Brooklyn and passed to another Russian agent at a coffee shop in Fort Greene, according to prosecutors.
Today’s spies use coffee shop languor and commuter bustle as their cover. Each generation finds its own way.
William Sebold sailed into New York Harbor in 1940 with a novel, “All This and Heaven Too,” in his coat pocket. It contained secret radio codes for transmitting information to German spy masters. Inside his wristwatch was a micro-photograph, described during a federal trial as being no bigger than a postage stamp. When it was enlarged, the document had a long list of instructions for Frederick Joubet Duquesne, a South African who lived in New York, and apparently had a lifelong hatred of the British.
When Sebold came to see him, Duquesne wrote a note saying that it was not safe to talk in his office. They repaired to an Automat for their spook chat. Duquesne assembled a big ring of spies to collect information, and passed it along through Sebold, who, it turned out, was working with the F.B.I. The case became the basis for the 1945 film “The House on 92nd Street.”
Judith Coplon, suspected of being a spy during the Cold War
(Duquesne had a pretty interesting life before this caper: He apparently blew up a British ship in 1916, and a year later, managed to get The New York Times to print his obituary, reporting that he had been killed by Bolivian Indians. He made his way back to New York, was arrested and jailed pending extradition to Britain. He faked paralysis, however, and was confined to Bellevue Hospital’s prison ward. There, he cut through the bars on his window and made his getaway. Supposedly betrayed by a woman, he was rearrested in the 1930s — at the time, he was working as a critic in the theater district under an assumed name — but was freed after a judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on the British case.)
The most famous cold war case involved Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but there were others before it.
In 1949, a 27-year-old woman named Judith Coplon, a graduate of Barnard College then working for the Department of Justice, made regular weekend trips from Washington to New York. From Pennsylvania Station, she would travel to Fort Tryon Park and meet with a Russian man. She would later say that they were in love.
However, she was being watched by the F.B.I., and on March 4, 1949, the couple was followed as they rode the A train downtown, eventually making their way to a spot under the Third Avenue El at 16th Street. They were arrested, and Miss Coplon was carrying documents that had been given to her by her boss. She denied feeding the man information, and said she was trying to break off the affair, having learned he was married.
Both were found guilty of espionage, and the Russian was deported. Ultimately, the convictions were overturned. Miss Coplon married her appellate lawyer and raised a family.
After the Battle of Long Island in 1776, Nathan Hale went behind enemy lines to report on the movement of British troops. Near Flushing Bay, the British caught him. A few places lay claim as the site of his hanging. His statue stands in City Hall Park. ( nytimes.com )
This week, federal authorities announced that they had been watching Russians sneaking around the city since 2000, the spies blending into one of the world’s greatest centers for anonymity and invisibility. As is customary, city life itself is camouflage for spies and their counterspies.
Ethel Rosenberg in 1950, after her husband, Julius, was arrested
In this latest chapter, an F.B.I. affidavit made public on Monday said that a woman named Anna Chapman was passing messages to Russian officials over WiFi. She set up in a Barnes & Noble on Greenwich Street in TriBeCa, while a Russian stood across the street with his briefcase and laptop. Another time, she worked from a Starbucks at 47th Street and Eighth Avenue, the affidavit said, and flashed messages to a Russian driving past in a van.
One day in 2004, the F.B.I. said, its agents observed a man named Christopher Metsos walk up the stairs at the Forest Hills station of the Long Island Rail Road, carrying an orange bag. A Russian diplomat was coming down the stairs with a similar bag, and they swapped in passing.
A statue honoring Nathan Hale, considered America’s first spy, overlooks City Hall. The British captured him after the Battle of Long Island in 1776
Another man working for the Russians, identified by the authorities as Richard Murphy, flew to Rome to pick up a fake Irish passport, under the name Gerard Eunan Doherty. If his contact smelled trouble, he would be carrying a copy of Time magazine in his left hand, and they would keep walking. Mr. Murphy was able to get the passport and traveled on it to Moscow, buying a computer that he brought back to Brooklyn and passed to another Russian agent at a coffee shop in Fort Greene, according to prosecutors.
Today’s spies use coffee shop languor and commuter bustle as their cover. Each generation finds its own way.
William Sebold sailed into New York Harbor in 1940 with a novel, “All This and Heaven Too,” in his coat pocket. It contained secret radio codes for transmitting information to German spy masters. Inside his wristwatch was a micro-photograph, described during a federal trial as being no bigger than a postage stamp. When it was enlarged, the document had a long list of instructions for Frederick Joubet Duquesne, a South African who lived in New York, and apparently had a lifelong hatred of the British.
When Sebold came to see him, Duquesne wrote a note saying that it was not safe to talk in his office. They repaired to an Automat for their spook chat. Duquesne assembled a big ring of spies to collect information, and passed it along through Sebold, who, it turned out, was working with the F.B.I. The case became the basis for the 1945 film “The House on 92nd Street.”
Judith Coplon, suspected of being a spy during the Cold War
(Duquesne had a pretty interesting life before this caper: He apparently blew up a British ship in 1916, and a year later, managed to get The New York Times to print his obituary, reporting that he had been killed by Bolivian Indians. He made his way back to New York, was arrested and jailed pending extradition to Britain. He faked paralysis, however, and was confined to Bellevue Hospital’s prison ward. There, he cut through the bars on his window and made his getaway. Supposedly betrayed by a woman, he was rearrested in the 1930s — at the time, he was working as a critic in the theater district under an assumed name — but was freed after a judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on the British case.)
The most famous cold war case involved Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but there were others before it.
In 1949, a 27-year-old woman named Judith Coplon, a graduate of Barnard College then working for the Department of Justice, made regular weekend trips from Washington to New York. From Pennsylvania Station, she would travel to Fort Tryon Park and meet with a Russian man. She would later say that they were in love.
However, she was being watched by the F.B.I., and on March 4, 1949, the couple was followed as they rode the A train downtown, eventually making their way to a spot under the Third Avenue El at 16th Street. They were arrested, and Miss Coplon was carrying documents that had been given to her by her boss. She denied feeding the man information, and said she was trying to break off the affair, having learned he was married.
Both were found guilty of espionage, and the Russian was deported. Ultimately, the convictions were overturned. Miss Coplon married her appellate lawyer and raised a family.
After the Battle of Long Island in 1776, Nathan Hale went behind enemy lines to report on the movement of British troops. Near Flushing Bay, the British caught him. A few places lay claim as the site of his hanging. His statue stands in City Hall Park. ( nytimes.com )
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