SOMERTON MAN: SOVIET COLD WAR COVER ROLES & COVER NAMES

COVER ROLES & COVER NAMES

Profile 1:

This man was the main handler of espionage agents for the Soviets and their 'ENORMOZ' project, The Atom Spies.  He was extraordinarily effective in the role and he organised the systematic illicit acquisition  of the critical plans and details for the US Manhattan project via a network of well-placed spies within the US. His cover role was that of the General Consul of the Consulate- General of the Soviet Union based in New York City between 1940 and 1946.

Amongst his team was Harry Gold, Pavel Fedosimov and Alexander Feklisov. Working through them he became the controller of information from the Rosenbergs, Morton Sobel and David Greenglass and was ultimately responsible for organising the flow of high-grade information from Klaus Fuchs.

In 1946 he ws recalled to Russia and resumed work in the scientific and technical intelligence field under his real name, ANATOLY YATSKOV. He worked repeatedly on intelligence projects in Europe and Asia into the 1950s.

In a 1992 interview he disclosed that only half of his spy network had been uncovered and that the main player, still unnamed, had the code name PERSEUS.

He was a much-decorated intelligence operative and amongst the awards was a posthumous 'Hero of the Russian Federation'.

Yatskov is a relatively rare surname within Russia, ranked at approximately 16000, with a higher density found in Ukraine, approx. 6000, and Belarus approx. 8000.

Profile 2:

Mentioned above is a man known in the US as ALEXANDER FEKLISOV:

Attached to the Soviet Consul in New York between 1940 and 1946, he was the NKVD officer responsible for recruiting agents in the field and he reported directly to Anatoly Yatskov.

Apart from directly handling Julius Rosenberg with whom he developed a close friendship, he recruited Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, Barr was in the US Army Signal Corps. Sarant was known to Barr and he was instrumental in his recruitment. Both were later to be charged and imprisoned for spying.

Feklisov returned to Russia about the same time as Yatskov. He later served in London in the late 1940s and went returned to the US serving as the KGB station chief between 1960 and 1964. He is credited with developing the solution to the Cuban Missile crisis.

Fekislov used a cover name on his second tour in the US, that name, believed to be his real name, was ALEKSANDR FOMIN.

Feklisov is an extremely rare surname, raked at approximately 73000,  just as is the name Fedosimov. FOMIN is a common name in Russia.

Profile 3.

This next man needs no introduction to followers of this blog, 
PAVEL IVANOVICH FEDOSIMOV:

This man was named by Harry Gold as the man who turned up at the Earl Cinema in the Bronx in 1946 just prior to Yatsov's and Feklisov's departure for Russia.

It is this man who asked the right ID pre-qualifying question and it is this man who produced the torn piece of paper given to him by Yatskov and matched it to the piece given by Yatskov to Harry Gold thus proving their respective IDs. Read more here:

It is this man who I believe is the Somerton Man, my belief was predated by long-time researcher John Ruffels. He was the man who proved most helpful to the producers of the 1978 documentary on the Somerton Man organised and hosted by Stuart Littlemore. 

It was John who gave me the initial lead given by Senator Cavanagh who pointed directly to the ATOM SPIES book and from there the inclusion of the Earl Cinema meeting between Gold and the big fair-haired man with large hands and who walked on his toes. As you can see in this photograph, he also had unusual teeth.

The only thing John wasn't able to do was to put a name to the man. That only became possible later with the release of FBI files covering the event some years later. Hats off to you JR!

This is the only photograph that we have of Fedosimov and despite exhaustive searching, we have not been able to find any further photographs of him. We do not know what other names he may have used.

There can be little doubt that this man, a known NKVD officer, used other names and the name he went under, Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov whilst he worked at the Soviet Consul in New York was most likely not have been his real name as was the case with the two other Soviet agents and  handlers, Yatskov and Fomin.

There are many mentions of a Yakovlev, the name of one of the Russian's most famous aircraft manufacturers.

Fedosimov is a rare name in Russia, ranked at 38000 approximately.