SOMERTON MAN: HARRY GOLD, ATOM SPY MET THE SOMERTON MAN?

THE INTRIGUING STORY OF
HOW HARRY GOLD MET THE SOMERTON MAN?

DECEMBER 1946, THE EARL THEATER, THE BRONX NEW YORK

In the last post, we discussed how a Soviet Agent met Harry Gold, an Atom Spy at the Earl Theatre in the Bronx on that cold Thursday December 26th. 1946. 

The man Harry met was quite large, around 6'2", huge hands and he walked on the balls of his feet. He was a classic toe walker and toe walking as we know can lead to extremely well-developed calf muscles apart from contributing to wedge-shaped toes. The agent was also described as having 'very sharp features'. This description is a seriously close match to that of the Somerton Man but there is more to the comparisons than just his appearance.

There was another, most unusual aspect that the man shared with SM, he knew exactly how to confirm the identification of the person he was intended to meet. He had one part of a torn piece of paper that, in the Earl Theater instance, had written instructions scrawled across it. Initially, one piece of that same paper was given to Gold by Anatoli Yakovlev, Gold's handler, whilst the other was given to the man who would, in fact, meet Gold that day, the 'toe walker'. If both pieces matched then the identification was confirmed by both parties.  Yakovlev was to become known as the Russian's most successful spymaster during the early Cold War years.

At the prescribed time, Harry met up with the Soviet agent in the upstairs foyer of the Earl Theater. A question was asked by the agent, "Do you know how to get to Paul Street?" and Harry responded with his part, "Yes I am going there myself a little later". This short exchange was to be the initial identifier without which, nothing further would have happened. But in this instance, the two parts were spoken correctly and Harry dutifully produced his torn part of the scrawled message and so did the agent. Both parts matched and the identification routine was successfully completed. A short discussion followed in which the agent told Harry that his contact "John' would be going on a trip the next day but he was to immediately go to a location where he could meet John for the final time.

The purpose of the meeting between the Soviet agent and Harry was ostensibly to organise the handover of the handlers role from "John" ( Yakovlev) to the new toe walking, huge handed agent. In a later post we will show how things did not exactly go with Yakovlev's plan but for our purposes in this post, the meeting at least went ahead.

SOMERTON PARK. ADELAIDE, TUESDAY NOVEMBER 30th. 1948

Followers will recall that the Somerton Man had with him a small torn piece of paper that was found at the autopsy hidden deep inside a hard to find waistband 'fob' pocket. The paper had been rolled up tightly and pushed down to the seam of that pocket, presumably, this was done to fool any cursory searcher into thinking that, from the outside at leat, the paper was part of the seam.

You will also know that this paper was identified as having come from a small poetry book, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam a Fitzgerald 1st edition published by Whitcome & Tombs of New Zealand around 1942. The book was described by Gerry Feltus as being a 'pocket' sized version. This book was later handed into the SA Police by a man referred to as Mr Francis. He had apparently found it in the glove box of his car where it had been placed by his brother in law who had in turn originally found it behind the front seats of the car and moved it to the glove box believing it to belong to the owner of the car. The story is that the brother in law found the book around the time of the Parafield Air Show in late November 1948. The real name of Mr Francis has never been released publicly although I understand it is known by a small number of people.

How can we explain the purpose of this torn piece of paper found on the Somerton Man and which had been rolled up so tightly as to almost have been missed at the autopsy? Given the nature of spy meeting spy and their identification procedures, what was the scenario that played out at Somerton on November 30th. 1948? A fateful day for the Somerton Man, it was a warmish day with a low of 16 degrees and a high of 26. The overnight temperature fell just a little to 20 degrees.

Quite a stark contrast to the Bronx in December 1946 when layers of warm clothes would have been needed. Interestingly the Somerton Man was dressed for much cooler weather although wearing a 'jersey' beneath your coat was considered acceptable fashion at the time.

More to follow...