Leontine Teresa Cohen (Petke; operational pseudonym - Helen Kroger; January 11 ( 19130111 ) , Adams, Massachusetts, USA - December 23, Moscow) - Soviet intelligence agent, an illegal American origin, Hero of the Russian Federation (title awarded posthumously in 1996).
Biography
In her youth, she was a trade unionist, a member of the US Communist Party. She met her future husband Morris Cohen in New York at an anti-fascist rally in 1939 after his return from Spain. In the early 1940s, she was recruited by the intelligence of the USSR, following her husband.
Excerpt Characterizing Cohen, Leontine Teresa
On the 24th it cleared up after the bad weather, and on that day after dinner Pierre left Moscow. At night, changing horses at Perkhushkovo, Pierre learned that there had been a great battle that evening. They said that here, in Perkhushkovo, the earth trembled from the shots. To Pierre's questions about who won, no one could give him an answer. (It was a battle on the 24th at Shevardin.) At dawn Pierre drove up to Mozhaisk.All the houses of Mozhaisk were occupied by troops, and at the inn, where Pierre was met by his master and coachman, there was no room in the upper rooms: everything was full of officers.
In Mozhaisk and beyond Mozhaisk, troops stood and marched everywhere. Cossacks, foot, horse soldiers, wagons, boxes, cannons could be seen from all sides. Pierre was in a hurry to drive forward, and the farther he rode away from Moscow and the deeper he plunged into this sea of \u200b\u200btroops, the more he was seized by anxiety of uneasiness and a new joyful feeling he had not yet experienced. It was a feeling similar to that which he experienced in the Sloboda Palace when the emperor arrived - a feeling of the need to undertake something and sacrifice something. He was now experiencing a pleasant feeling of consciousness that everything that makes up people's happiness, the comforts of life, wealth, even life itself, is nonsense, which is pleasant to dismiss in comparison with something ... With which, Pierre could not give himself an account, and he tried to figure it out for himself for whom and for what he found a special charm to sacrifice everything. He was not interested in what he wanted to sacrifice for, but the sacrifice itself constituted a new joyful feeling for him.
On the 24th there was a battle at the Shevardinsky redoubt, on the 25th not a single shot was fired from either side, on the 26th there was battle of Borodino.
Why and how were the battles at Shevardin and at Borodino given and accepted? Why was the Battle of Borodino given? It didn't make the slightest sense to either the French or the Russians. The closest result was and should have been - for the Russians, that we were close to the death of Moscow (which we feared most in the world), and for the French, that they were close to the death of the entire army (which they also feared the most in the world) ... This result was obvious at the same time, and meanwhile Napoleon gave, and Kutuzov accepted this battle.
If the generals were guided by reasonable reasons, it seemed how clear it should have been for Napoleon that, having gone two thousand miles and taking the battle with the probable accident of losing a quarter of the army, he was going to certain death; and it should have seemed just as clear to Kutuzov that by accepting the battle and also risking losing a quarter of the army, he would probably lose Moscow. For Kutuzov, this was mathematically clear, as it is clear that if I have less than one checker in checkers and I change, I will probably lose and therefore should not change.
When the opponent has sixteen checkers, and I have fourteen, then I am only one-eighth weaker than him; and when I exchange thirteen pieces, he will be three times stronger than me.
Before the Battle of Borodino, our forces were approximately five to six of the French, and after the battle as one to two, that is, before the battle of one hundred thousand; one hundred and twenty, and after the battle fifty to a hundred. At the same time, the clever and experienced Kutuzov took the battle. Napoleon, the genius commander, as he is called, gave battle, losing a quarter of his army and further stretching his line. If they say that, having occupied Moscow, he thought how to end the campaign by occupying Vienna, then there is a lot of evidence against this. The historians of Napoleon themselves say that he also wanted to stop from Smolensk, knew the danger of his extended position, knew that the occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, because from Smolensk he saw in what position the Russian cities were left to him, and did not receive a single answer to their repeated statements about the desire to negotiate.
Giving and accepting the Battle of Borodino, Kutuzov and Napoleon acted involuntarily and senselessly. And historians, under the accomplished facts, only later summed up cunning evidence of the foresight and genius of the commanders, who of all the involuntary instruments of world events were the most slavish and involuntary figures.
The ancients left us samples of heroic poems, in which heroes constitute the entire interest of history, and we still cannot get used to the fact that for our human time this kind of story does not make sense.
To another question: how the Borodino and the Shevardino battles that preceded it were given - there is also a very definite and well-known, completely false idea. All historians describe the case as follows:
The Russian army allegedly, in its retreat from Smolensk, was looking for the best position for a general battle, and such a position was allegedly found at Borodino.
The Russians allegedly fortified this position forward, to the left of the road (from Moscow to Smolensk), at an almost right angle to it, from Borodino to Utitsa, in the very place where the battle took place.
Ahead of this position, a fortified forward post on the Shevardinsky kurgan was supposedly set up to observe the enemy. On the 24th, it was as if Napoleon attacked an advanced post and took it; On the 26th, he attacked the entire Russian army, which was stationed at the Borodino field.
The Coen couple. The most famous and most successful pair of Soviet intelligence officers. For many years they worked for the residency of the USSR foreign intelligence. On their account dozens of successful reconnaissance operations.
It was they who mined samples of uranium and biological weapons from laboratories in Western countries. It was they who brought American developments to the USSR in 1943. atomic bomb.
If it were not for the Coen couple, perhaps the history of our country would have been completely different. AND The Soviet Unionwho won the Second World War, like the Japanese, would have to survive the atomic bombings.
30s of the twentieth century. In Spain begins civil War... An international brigade is sent from the United States to support the Spanish Republicans. Volunteers include Morris Cohen, 26, a member of the US Communist Party and a high school teacher.
The brave American quickly comes to the attention of Soviet foreign intelligence. After a conversation with the NKVD resident, he agrees to cooperate. He returned to the United States as a Soviet intelligence officer under the pseudonym "Louis". And he attracts his wife Leontina to work. She will go down in intelligence history under the pseudonym "Leslie".
Morris and Leontine Cohen
1942 year. USA. Nuclear Center at Los Alamos. Here, in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, the famous physicist Robert Oppenheimer and a group of scientists are working on the creation of the first atomic bomb. Soon about these secret developments Soviet residency reports to Moscow. Soviet scouts Morris and Leontine Coen are assigned to get the secret of the atomic bomb.
Even before the United States entered the war with Germany, Morris Cohen managed to recruit a scientist from the Los Alamos laboratory, who transmitted information about secret research to intelligence officers. When Morris was drafted into the army, his wife Leontine was sent alone to meet with the informant.
In order for Leslie to be able to get to the secret facility and get information about the development of the creation of atomic weapons in the United States, the Center comes up with a whole legend. In a city where almost every centimeter is under the supervision of American special services, a scout arrives with a certificate that she has a serious pulmonary disease that requires treatment only in the Los Alamos climate.
Three times the scientist did not come on dates. But when the meeting did take place, Leontine Cohen received a complete technical description of the atomic bomb!
After that, she had only one thing to do: get on the train and leave the dangerous place. But at the train station Leontina ran into a police cordon. FBI officers checked the documents and luggage of all passengers on the departing train.
A policeman approached her. Lona pretended to be confused and unable to find a ticket. She began to nervously take things out of the suitcase, and gave the package with documents, which seemed to be in the way of her, to the policeman. Another policeman said, “You are exactly like my daughter. The same unassembled one ”. When the ticket was found, she went to the carriage. And the documents, imagine !, remained in the hands of the policeman. But Lona's calculation was justified - the policeman caught up with her and shouted: "Mrs. Cohen, take your purse!"
Morris Cohen
Soon the secret of the atomic bomb was found in Moscow.
Already in 1949, the Soviet Union carried out the first tests of the atomic bomb.
After that, the US intelligence services understand: in such a short time, the USSR could not independently develop its own bomb. So the secret blueprints were stolen from American laboratories!
Checks begin at Los Alamos, the secret services are looking for a traitor. To avoid failure, Morris and Leontina are urgently taken to Moscow.
In 1955, management assigns Morris and Leontine Coens a new assignment. With passports in the name of the Kroger spouses, under the operational pseudonyms Peter and Helen, the scouts leave for the UK. According to legend, the Krogers are New Zealand businessmen who came to Britain to start their own business. Under this cover, Leontine and Morris work as signalmen for the Soviet intelligence resident Konon Molodoy, known as Ben.
The task of the scouts is to penetrate the secrets of the secret laboratory for the creation of biological weapons and obtain information about a deadly virus, two hundred grams of which would be enough to destroy all people on Earth.
On October 17, 1960, Leontine and Morris receive a container with samples of the dangerous virus. The scouts do not yet know: from the very beginning of this special operation, British counterintelligence established round-the-clock surveillance over them.
At about 6 pm there was a knock on the door. I opened the door, there was a person I didn't know. I immediately understood - this man is from the special services. He had it written on his forehead. We were announced that we were arrested, ordered to get dressed, and taken to prison. The shock was terrible. We knew that we would have to go through.
Morris Cohen
Even by the strictest standards, the court's verdict was very harsh. Konon Young got 25 years old. Morris and Leontine Coen, their guilt was never proven - 20 years in prison.
For elderly people, such terms were tantamount to a death sentence. However, 3 years later, the British authorities exchanged Konon Molodoy for an agent of the British special services arrested in Moscow. The Coens also had hope of freeing themselves.
It took the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs 9 years to free Morris and Leontine. In exchange for the Coens, Moscow released the British intelligence officer Gerald Brook.
Morris and Leontine Cohen received the title of Hero of Russia only after their death. Such was the degree of secrecy of what they did all their lives. Their work was forever included in intelligence textbooks. And their love and loyalty to each other is an eternal example to all of us.
Morris and Leontine Cohen are the spy spouses who prevented World War III ...
Alina MAKSIMOVA, specially for "Crime"
Spouses Morris and Leontine Cohen were born in the United States, but considered themselves citizens all their lives. Soviet Russia... They did a lot to prevent the third world war, which America almost unleashed. With the atomic bomb, American politicians were confident of their superiority and rattled their weapons with might and main. Only after the Russians had the same weapon in the United States they handed it back. The Coen couple were among those who helped bring the atomic bomb to the USSR. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their names were declassified, and the spouses were awarded the title of Hero of Russia. Posthumously.
HOBBY LEFT IDEAS
Morris Cohen was born on July 2, 1910 in the East Side suburb of New York. His parents were from Russian Empire, and left for the United States, fleeing Jewish pogroms. Which at the beginning of the 20th century happened quite often in Ukraine, where the Elder Coens lived. But they did not hate their homeland and passed on their love for Russia to their son.
Morris showed at school nice results in rugby and managed to get an athletic scholarship at Columbia University. Almost immediately after graduation, he went to Spain, where the civil war broke out. In October 1937, during the Battle of Fuentes de Ebro, he was wounded in both legs and was hospitalized. Where he attracted the attention of the Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Orlov, who recruited a young American. In Spain at that time there were several schools in which Soviet intelligence officers from various countries were trained in the basics of intelligence activities. There, after recovering, Morris received training.
Leontine's path to scout turned out to be more tortuous. She was born on January 11, 1913 in a family of immigrants from Poland. Lona's growing up, as her friends and relatives called her, fell on a period of economic crisis, called the Great Depression. This crisis has affected not only the United States, but also many European countries. And the USSR at the same time demonstrated tremendous economic growth. Which, as it were, proved the superiority of the socialist model over the capitalist one. Leontina was an activist of the trade union movement from an early age, and at 18 she joined the Communist Party.
Morris and Lona were introduced by their mutual friend at an anti-fascist rally in New York in 1939.
doo. The young inter-brigade officer, who had just returned from Spain, struck the young communist in the very heart. Young people quickly found a common language, and then fell in love with each other. Morris hesitated for a while, but in the end admitted to his beloved that he was working for Soviet intelligence. And he invited Lona to become his wife and partner in illegal work.
The decision to work for intelligence did not come easily to Leontine. Since this meant breaking off all ties with the Communist Party and, in general, with people who adhered to the "left" (that is, socialist) views. But in the end Lona agreed. According to the recollections of people who knew the Coens in those days, the spouses turned out to be just an ideal pair of scouts. One of the scouts working in New York in the early forties, Yuri Sokolov, later wrote:
“Morris and Lona were inseparable as loving spouses, as friends, and as companions in intelligence work. Almost always, when we talk about Morris, we actually mean both. "
Lona's initially excessive impulsiveness and love of risk was balanced by her husband's composure and caution. Morris and Lona became contacts between illegal immigrants in the United States and the Soviet station. But gradually the couple began to be assigned very serious tasks.
THE LATEST MACHINE GUN AND ATOMIC WIPES
In 1941, the Coens are tasked with obtaining documentation for a new aircraft machine gun, which was produced at the Hartford plant. At the time, the United States had not yet officially entered the Second world war (this will happen in December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), and therefore did not particularly share their military developments with the allies.
Leontine managed to meet a certain young engineer (his name has not yet been declassified, only the pseudonym "Frank" is known), who agreed to cooperate. But he did not have access to the documentation. But he was responsible for quality control of products. For several days, "Frank" carried the latest machine gun out of the factory for individual parts and handed them over to Lona. When all the details were taken out, the Coen couple packed the removed from the factory in a double bass case and forwarded it to the USSR consulate in New York. Experienced intelligence officers working in the United States at that time were simply stunned by this. They thought that the Coens would get the blueprints, and they brought them the machine gun.
In 1942, Morris was drafted into the army. Morris took part in the operations of American troops in Algeria in 1942, the landing in Sicily in 1943. After the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944, Cohen's corps was deployed to Europe. He met the end of the war with the rank of corporal, with several military awards. He celebrated the victory on the Elbe, together with Soviet soldiers.
While Morris fought in Europe, Leontina continued to work for Soviet intelligence in the United States. In 1943 she was assigned to focus on the Manhattan Project. This is how the work on the atomic bomb was called in the United States. The main developments were carried out in the secret and closed town of Los Alamos. Among the scientists working on the project, Soviet intelligence had a source of information. But communication with him was difficult. Scientists from Los Alamos were released to neighboring cities only once a month.
Leontina managed to buy a referral from a New York doctor to treat a lung disease in Albuquerque, near Los Alamos. Lona had to wait four weeks to meet with the source. During this time, she managed to arouse suspicion among the FBI officers, of whom there were simply an indecent number in Albuquerque.
After the documents were finally obtained and Leontina tried to leave for New York, right at the train, the FBI officers decided to thoroughly search the suspicious person. The documents were hidden in a box of napkins, and they would definitely shake it up. But Lona was not taken aback. She calmly provided her search bag, and then began to sneeze deafeningly. She took out a box of napkins from the bag being inspected, pulled out a couple, and gave the box itself to the FBI agent. He mechanically took it and continued to hold it all the time while his colleagues inspected the girl's things and even searched her herself. And Lona occasionally turned to him for another napkin to blow her nose. As the train was leaving the platform, the FBI finally released Leontina. Already passing into the carriage, Lona "suddenly remembered" about the napkins, snatched them from the hands of the FBI man and jumped into the departing train. A few days later, the secret documents were already delivered to Moscow.
In February 1945, when it was already absolutely clear that Nazi Germany was virtually finished, the Yalta Conference of the leaders of three countries: the USSR, the USA and Great Britain took place. On which fate was decided post-war Europe... US President Franklin Roosevelt, who had sympathy for the communists and understood that the Soviet Union made the greatest contribution to the victory over Germany, agreed to Joseph Stalin's demands for the arrangement of Eastern Europe. In fact, giving the Soviet Union all the countries that were conquered by the Soviet troops.
That all changed on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died and Harry Truman became president. Who believed that the communist idea was no less harmful to the world than Nazism. Truman viewed the USSR not as an ally, but as an enemy. During the Postdam Conference in July-August 1945, the US President tried to achieve a revision of the previously reached agreements. And he seemed to have a trump card: the day after the start of negotiations, July 18, 1945, Truman received a long-awaited message. The first test of the atomic bomb was super successful, and the Americans had a superweapon. This was exactly what Truman tried to hint to Stalin, but the Soviet leader only grinned.
In early August 1945, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese died, cities were literally wiped off the face of the earth. And all this from just two bombs! Stalin, who had previously been rather skeptical about the creation of atomic weapons, was impressed. The USSR did not have an adequate answer to this weapon. But they had an army that defeated the Nazis and accumulated vast experience in military operations. Which, by and large, the Americans did not have. They fought with the Japanese rather sluggishly. And as soon as the Red Army entered the war and defeated the Kwantung Army, the world saw with its own eyes which army was stronger. But the atomic bomb was a serious trump card.
Soviet scientists were ordered to create something similar as soon as possible. The fact that Kurchatov back in 1939 spoke about the possibility of using a split atom in military equipment and its destructive power, and Kurchatov was sent to hell, was forgotten. Scientists were ordered to create a Soviet atomic bomb as soon as possible. But the Soviet Union lost a lot in this race. The most recent developments in this area were from the USA, Great Britain and Germany. But the Americans made sure that the German nuclear scientists did not fall into the hands of the Russians. However, some of the German scientists soviet troops managed to capture and take out to the Union. But the USSR was still far behind. Kurchatov argued that the creation of the atomic bomb could take a decade. That in the conditions of greatly complicated relations with the United States, it was like death. Truman, confident in the superiority of American weapons, became more and more impudent, threatening the USSR with nuclear weapons. The only thing that stopped him from unleashing a third world war was that the United States had too few atomic bombs.
The almost impossible was entrusted to the Soviet intelligence officers in America: they were obliged to obtain as much material as possible on the "Manhattan Project". To accomplish this goal, the illustrious soviet intelligence officer William Fischer, better known as Rudolph Abel. The Coen couple became his main contacts.
In 1949, the USSR tested the first Soviet atomic bomb. US exclusive in the area nuclear weapons ended, and Truman instantly lowered his tone in threats to the Soviet Union. And in the fact that the USSR had adequate weapons, it was the intelligence officers who played a huge role. And the Coens were among them.
HEROES ARE NOT WAITING FOR IN THE HOMELAND?
But between the capitalist and communist worlds began “ cold war". Which in America was aggravated by the "witch hunt". This was the name of the violent persecution of communists and all kinds of unreliable (mainly with socialist views) in the late 40s - early 50s in the United States.
The Coen couple's reputation was tarnished. Leontina was noted for membership in the Communist Party, and Morris fought in Spain on the side of the Republicans. The leadership of Soviet intelligence decides to withdraw the Coens from a possible blow. In 1950, the spouses-scouts were transferred to the USSR. Where they study radio business and learn modern encryption techniques. In 1954, under the name of the Kroger spouses from New Zealand, they were transferred to the UK. Where at that time the Soviet intelligence agent Konon Molodyy (pseudonym Ben) was working very actively. Managed to quickly become his own in the highest circles of the English establishment. The Kroger Coens became Ben's closest associates and his connection to Moscow.
Work in England continued for five years, and then Ben was arrested. This happened as a result of the betrayal of the Polish intelligence officer Michal Golenevsky. Michal collaborated with the American and british intelligence, transmitting to them the encryptions that passed through him. He knew neither the Coens nor the Young, but most of the encryption messages sent by the Coens from England passed through Poland. According to these documents, the British counterintelligence was able to figure out Konon the Young. And checking his connections, they went out to the spouses of the Coen-Krogers.
In mid-1961, Morris and Leontine heard the verdict of a British court: husband - 25, wife - 20. British and American intelligence for a long time tried to recruit the spouses, but in vain. And in 1969, the British intelligence officer Gerald Brook failed in the USSR. The leadership of Soviet intelligence offered the British an exchange: Brooke for the Kroger spouses. The British agreed.
Leontina and Morris arrived in Moscow in October 1969 and applied for Soviet citizenship. But then suddenly the all-powerful (at that time) ideologist of the CPSU Mikhail Suslov reared up. Upon learning that some Americans were awarded Soviet orders (both spouses were awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Friendship of Peoples), and now demanding Soviet citizenship for themselves, he sharply opposed it. Suslov did not understand for what such merits Americans could become citizens of the USSR. But Yuri Andropov, who at that time was the head of the KGB of the USSR, was not afraid to go into conflict with Suslov and achieved a personal meeting with Leonid Brezhnev. On which he said something. The Coens received Soviet citizenship. Until the early 90s, they worked in schools for training Soviet intelligence officers.
Leontine died at the end of 1992, Morris passed away in June 1995. Just a month before he was awarded the title of Hero Russian Federation... Leontina Cohen was awarded this title in 1996.
Leontina (Lona) Teresa Petke was born in 1913 in Massachusetts, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. Her youth fell on the years of the Great Depression, and the girl was carried away by the ideas of socialism. She became a trade union activist, joined the US Communist Party at the age of eighteen. In 1939, while participating in an anti-war rally, Lona met a young man named Morris Cohen. He was also born into a Jewish family that emigrated to the United States from Russia, and was three years older than Lona. Morris played well in rugby, which earned him a scholarship to study at Columbia University. After graduation, he briefly worked as a history teacher, but in 1937 he volunteered for Spain. There, Cohen's collaboration with Soviet intelligence began. After being wounded, he returned to the United States as a messenger. Morris did not hide his views from his girlfriend for a long time, and Lona also agreed to become an agent of Soviet intelligence. They began to work together, and in 1941 they got married. The Center highly appreciated Leontina Cohen, noting her resourcefulness, courage, ability to inspire the confidence of the interlocutor.
In 1942, Morris Cohen was drafted into the army and fought valiantly against the Nazis. Leontina continued to work alone. She managed to get and transfer to the USSR blueprints for American military aircraft. However, these data were of no particular value, since soon the corresponding equipment was included in the volume of supplies under Lend-Lease. But Lona's trip to Albuquerque, allegedly for treatment, made it possible to obtain materials on nuclear developments in the United States, in addition, she delivered samples of uranium ore from Canada.
In 1945, Morris Cohen was demobilized and expressed his readiness to continue his agent activities. However, due to the strengthening of the anti-Soviet orientation of the post-war US leadership, caused by the betrayal of several residents, the Center temporarily froze the activities of the Coens, leaving them as contacts for Rudolf Abel. In 1950, agent Fuchs, who personally knew Lona, was failed, and she and her husband were hastily taken to Moscow. There Leontina underwent additional training as a radio operator-cipher officer, and in 1954 she took a direct part in a new large-scale operation of Soviet intelligence.
First, the Coens were taken to Paris, where they received New Zealand passports in the name of the Kroger spouses and the pseudonyms "Summer Residents". After that, they crossed over to London, where they became part of the reconnaissance group. It was led by Ben (Konon the Young), who worked under the name successful entrepreneur Gordon Lonsdale. True, unlike the hero of "Dead Season", he collected information not about the developments of Nazi doctors, but about the new weapons of the British navy and American military bases located in England.
The Coens bought a house on the outskirts of London, near a military airfield, and opened a second-hand bookstore. A radio transmitter was installed in the basement of the house, with the help of which Lona conducted communication sessions with the Center at night. She transmitted information that Molodyy was collecting through an employee of the naval base in Portland, Harry Hownton (who, by the way, believed that he was working for the Americans). With the direct participation of Leontina, the most important materials were sent to Moscow about the secret developments of the British and US navies, including new missile weapons. According to experts, this operation was one of the greatest successes of Soviet foreign intelligence, and as the British counterintelligence officers themselves admitted, "not a single secret remained in the Admiralty."
The failure of the residency occurred after one of the leaders of the Polish intelligence service, Golenevsky, went over to the side of the United States. He reported on the recruitment of the alcoholic Hownton and on the arrival in Moscow of information from the Royal Navy base. After that, MI5 (British counterintelligence) quickly got on the trail of Ben and the Coens, and in January 1961 they were arrested. The young man took the blame, there was practically no evidence against the Coens until the FBI service handed over their dossier to the investigation. Morris and Leontine were sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, they were released much earlier, as a result of the exchange for the MI5 employee Gerald Brook, who was arrested in 1969 in Moscow. The young man had been released a few years earlier, he was exchanged for Penkovsky's liaison Grevil Vina (the exchange scene, which does not coincide with reality, became one of the best episodes of "Dead Season").
On their return to Moscow, Morris and Leontina, however, were in for trouble. Their invaluable experience was essential soviet intelligence, but for employment, the spouses needed to obtain USSR citizenship. An obstacle to this was the position of M.A.Suslov, who called the Coens failed agents who did not deserve to be citizens of a great power. Despite the fact that it was very dangerous to object to the all-powerful ideologue of the CPSU, Andropov raised the question of the citizenship of intelligence officers at the Politburo, and enlisted the support of Brezhnev. Moreover, the Coens were awarded the Orders of the Red Banner (later - Friendship of Peoples).
Leontina took up teaching work, from time to time she went on business trips abroad. The outstanding scout died in 1992 and was buried at the Novo-Kuntsevsky cemetery in the capital. Her services to the state were recognized posthumously - in 1996, by presidential decree, she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. The expiration of the statute of limitations has allowed some to reveal the veil of secrecy over the intelligence operations of the past years, and in 1998 the image of Leontina Cohen even appeared on a postage stamp.
Cohen Leontine Teresa (Kroger Helen) was born in Massachusetts on January 11, 1913.In the family of Vladislav Petke, a native of Poland. In her youth she took part in political activities... She was a member of the US Communist Party, was a trade union activist.
She met her future husband Morris Cohen in New York at an anti-fascist rally in 1939 after his return from Spain. M. Cohen collaborated with the Soviet foreign intelligence. On his tip, Leontine Cohen was recruited, who guessed about her husband's connections with Soviet representatives. L. Cohen did not hesitate to agree to assist the state security authorities in the fight against the Nazi threat. During the war years, she was used as a liaison agent for the foreign intelligence station in New York. I was in touch with the resident officer Anatoly Yatskov. Following the instructions of the Center, she mined uranium samples in Canada in three months.
On the instructions of the residency in August 1945, L. Cohen left for the resort town of Albuquerque, located not far from the secret US atomic laboratory in Los Alamos. To ensure personal safety, she stocked up with a doctor's certificate certifying the need for a course of lung treatment in this resort area. For a month, she expected to meet with a Soviet foreign intelligence source who was supposed to transfer materials to her on the Manhattan Project. Finally, the agreed meeting took place. It turned out that the source had confused the date of the meeting. He donated a number of valuable materials from the Los Alamos Nuclear Center for residency.
At the train station in Albuquerque, the FBI organized a thorough screening of passengers and their luggage, due to the strict secrecy regime imposed by the US authorities around nuclear facilities. Leontine was not taken aback. Pretending that she was looking for a ticket, she thrust a box with napkins in which the received documents were hidden to the inspector, and presented the ticket. After answering the questions of the FBI agent, the scout went to the carriage, as if forgetting about the box, which was returned to her without checking.
In connection with the aggravation of the situation in the United States caused by the betrayal of the source of residence E. Bentley and the flight of the GRU cipher in Canada Guzenko, who had issued a number of foreign intelligence agents, the station's connection with Leontina and her husband was temporarily suspended. In 1949, they were included in the illegal residency of the outstanding intelligence officer R. I. Abel as agents-contacts. Leontina provided the transfer to Moscow of important documentary materials on the creation of the atomic bomb in the United States. She worked with R. Abel for about two years.
In 1950, after the arrest in Great Britain of the foreign intelligence agent K. Fuchs, with whom Leontina had met, she and her husband were taken to Moscow. Here Leontina underwent additional special training to work as a radio operator-encryptor.
In 1954, the Center decided to send Leontine and her husband as communicators-radio operators of the illegal station in England, which was led by Ben (the pseudonym of the illegal intelligence officer Konon Molodoy, also known as the Canadian businessman Gordon Lonsdale). Arriving in late 1954 with New Zealand passports in the names of Peter and Helen Kroger, the scouts purchased a small second-hand bookstore in the suburbs of London. They set up a radio station in the basement of their home near the Northholt military airfield and began regularly transmitting "information of special importance" to the Center using a high-speed radio transmitter. They received intelligence information through Ben from an employee of the Portland Naval Base Harry Houghton.
In January 1961, in connection with the betrayal of the Polish intelligence officer M. Golenevsky, British counterintelligence arrested Ben at a meeting with G. Houghton, and in the evening of the same day, the Kroger spouses. A March 1961 trial sentenced Helen Kroger to 20 years in prison, despite the lack of direct evidence against her. This was due to the fact that the US FBI passed on to the British side the information it knew about the intelligence activities of the Kroger spouses in the United States. In 1969 Helen and her husband Peter were exchanged for an agent of the British special services J. Brooke and on October 25 they arrived in Moscow. Here Helen met R.I. Abel and K. Molody, with whom she worked abroad for a long time.
Before last days life she continued to work in the office of illegal intelligence. She performed special tasks. She traveled to various European countries to organize meetings with the intelligence agent, illegal migrants. She took part in the training of young employees of illegal intelligence.
For great services in providing state security of our country, she was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Friendship of Peoples.
December 23, 1992 Leontina Cohen passed away. She was buried at the Novo-Kuntsevo cemetery.
June 15, 1996 By the decree of the President of the Russian Federation for the successful implementation of special tasks to ensure state security in conditions associated with a risk to life, the heroism and courage shown in this case, L. Cohen (posthumously) was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.