PAVEL FEDOSIMOV...
FIRST POSTED IN JANUARY 2022....
PLEASE REVIEW THE COMMENTS:
In particular the comment from Peter Davidson who has found a possible Adelaide Intelligence link to Pavel.....
In this post, we will review some already published information plus some very surprising news about another Pavel Fedosimov...
A little diversion, but in reality, it's more of an update and refresher for serious followers of the Somerton Man case.
Those that have been following will recognise the face of Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov, the name given to a man who was vice-consul for the Soviets in New York in the 1940s.. The clip you see above is an animated piece showing his face in reasonable detail. The photograph on which the clip is based was taken in 1947, it is the last known photograph of the man known as Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov.
According to records, (Vassiliev's notes) this man was recalled to Moscow and in fact, his details are recorded on the passenger list of the POBEDA that departed New York on July 30th, 1948 headed for Odessa. Pavel was at the time suspected of being about to betray the mother country hence the recall. Whilst Pavel's details were on the ship's manifest, the name of his wife, Vera Fedosimova, does not appear. In fact, according to records, no one of that name ever departed from the USA. Interestingly, Russian reports of the departure of the Pobeda recount the story of the wife of a Soviet Diplomat refusing to board the ship, however, no name was given to her in the Russian version of events.
According to records, (Vassiliev's notes) this man was recalled to Moscow and in fact, his details are recorded on the passenger list of the POBEDA that departed New York on July 30th, 1948 headed for Odessa. Pavel was at the time suspected of being about to betray the mother country hence the recall. Whilst Pavel's details were on the ship's manifest, the name of his wife, Vera Fedosimova, does not appear. In fact, according to records, no one of that name ever departed from the USA. Interestingly, Russian reports of the departure of the Pobeda recount the story of the wife of a Soviet Diplomat refusing to board the ship, however, no name was given to her in the Russian version of events.
A relatively minor though, nonetheless important fact that may later have significance, is that we found that Fedosimov on his return trip to Odessa, called in at the Port of Alexandria in August 1948.
At this time, Guy Burgess who was to be exposed as a major Soviet spy ( alongside his University days friend Donald Maclean) was the MI6 man in Port Said, the neighbouring port to Alexandria. Fedosimov was the handler for Donald Maclean when he had visited New York in July 1946.
THE NOSE COMPARISON
More on this later in this post, but first, let's look at one aspect of Pavel that has been the subject of some criticism, the nose. The photographic evidence is quite clear and I did take into account the issue of how photographic images of the human face can easily be misunderstood. There are those, and no disrespect intended that simply don't agree with my views and that is their right of course. But here's a video that compares the nose of Pavel to that found on the plaster bust of the Somerton Man. It's only a short video and I think you will be surprised by its content:And, on a lighter note, here's another video all about noses and this is for your entertainment Pete :), courtesy of Shostakovich :
WAS HIS NAME REALLY PAVEL IVANOVICH FEDOSIMOV?
This has been discussed numerous times in the past, what clouds the issue is the well-known habit of agents, both Soviet and others, to use numerous names even reusing names once used by other agents, an example would be Fedosimov's code name, STEPAN which was used by an earlier US based agents, Arnold Deutsch once used a similar code name.
In a 2017 post we looked at Pavel's time on the Front between 1941 and 1944 where he was a spymaster, here's a paragraph from that post:
In a 2017 post we looked at Pavel's time on the Front between 1941 and 1944 where he was a spymaster, here's a paragraph from that post:
THE OTHER PAVEL FEDOSIMOV, STEPAN (Pavel) September 1941:
“As head of an operational group, participated in a massive operation to relocate Volga Germans. November 1941 — handpicked two probationers (“Roman” and “Anna”) from the Germans of Kuybyshev Region to train in radio communications and drop behind German lines 1942 and 1943 — composed cover stories and fabricated documents with which probationers legalize themselves behind German lines January 1944 — departed for the country." (A reference to Pavel's return to the US, he arrived there, according to our notes on February 21st 1944.)
Sounds fairly straightforward, doesn't it? That is until you research the Russian files of the time and find that there was a 'Pavel Fedosimov' was killed in action in 1943 in the same region that our 'Pavel' served and within the time frame. The Pavel who died was born in the Kirov region in 1905.
What proof do we have that the man who, in the 1930s worked for Amtorg in the US before departing for Russia in 1940 or thereabouts, was the same Pavel Fedosimov who entered the USA in August 1944? We would need a photograph of the Amtorg Pavel to compare and would you believe that there isn't one? In fact, if I recall correctly the earlier Amtorg Pavel used a different spelling of 'Fedosimo', which is a valid variation.
So, for those interested, there is no proof whatsoever that 'Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov' who is quoted by others as being mentioned in documents after 1948 is the real name of the man in the images above and the subject of this post.
So, for those interested, there is no proof whatsoever that 'Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov' who is quoted by others as being mentioned in documents after 1948 is the real name of the man in the images above and the subject of this post.
Just to complicate matters a little further, Russian documents list 3 men who had the name of Pavel Fedosimov, one of which is one born in 1905 to be later killed in action in 1943.
A classic example of name change is that of Colonel Rudolf Abel, a Soviet Agent, real name Fischer a man born in the UK and emigrated with his parents around 1919. He adopted the name Rudolf Abel from a Latvian fellow agent, a man whom he had served with in the Intelligence war against the Nazis. The real Rudolf Abel died in 1955 of a heart attack. Fisher took his name as a mark of respect. Various code names were used including Frank and Mark, in all following his capture in 1950, Abel had used more than 100 different names to cover his identity. Abel was arguably among the best of Soviet agents. Abel is best known as the Soviet Spy exchanged for U2 Pilot Gary Powers as depicted in the movie, 'Bridge of Spies'
ERMAKOV, VICTOR ANDREEVICH
When investigating the names of various Soviet and other agents of the early cold war years and earlier, you really have to be cognisant of the tradecraft techniques employed and to substantiate every step that you possibly can in the process. It would be naive in the extreme to find a name, as others have, without finding a photograph to match. Think in terms of Gouzenko whose face was hidden from the public for 25 years until it was eventually revealed.
The search for post-1948 photographs of the man on the left who used the name Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov. continues.
I've long pondered if Pavel was the body found upon Somerton Beach, how'd it come about that he'd make his way to Adelaide and more so why. On face value it seems unlikely that he'd travel to Adelaide of al places to end up dead in the sand.
ReplyDeleteAn intriguing possibility surfaced earlier last year as i was searching through NAA and following rabbit burrows.
I won't bore you though with how i got there, but here is one that maybe worth following through on.
We know that Pavel was involved in overseeing the handlers of the cells to do with the Manhattan Project.
In NAA a number of ASIO files exist on people working under Oliphant. One of those files is on Dr John Stanley Gooden who had joined the Communist Party of Australia.
He has also been mentioned in Verona documents, such as https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/venona/dated/1945/10nov_gooden.pdf
Anyhow, he served in the Army and was demobilised to work with Oliphant in Birmingham. From there he went to the USA and met Manhattan Project scientists and visited Berkeley before returning to Birmingham he got really sick from a kidney condition often associated with radiation exposure and Oliphant sent him and his wife home to Adelaide in 1950, but he collapsed and died soon after arriving home to Somerton Park.
His wife doesn't appear to have any ASIO file, yet Claire Russel Ward was in the EYL before her husband and probably was the one to induce him to become a member. Either way that appears is where they met.
Somewhere along the way Clare become Oliphant’s personal secretary and handled all his correspondence as far I I could ascertain in Birmingham if not earlier on. She continued to do so after her husband's death, joining Oliphant at ANU until she married Walter Russell Crocker and left for India with him.
Anyway, she gets mentioned in a lot of ASIO memorandums in other people's files, yet has no file of her own?
A clue is found in her brother's ASIO file. A memorandum looms alerting ASIO that Russell Braddock Ward is about to be appointed to ANU and warning them that he is a member of the Communist Party. The informant is named as the personal secretary of Marcus Oliphant, Claire Gooden, his own sister! Not only that but she provides the makes of scientists being employed by Oliphant at ANU who are Communists.
This leaves me with the distinct probability that she had been recruited by MI5 whilst at Birmingham and so she's probably already a double Agent whilst throwing her brother under the bus. It would certainly explain how intelligence services knew what was going on around Oliphant and partly add to the reasons that the USA instituted the McMahon Act to exclude Britain from Nuclear research in 1946.
So, did Pavel get Gooden’s or Oliphant’s name from somone? And thus contact either about defecting and securing safe refuge somewhere whilst his defection is secured?
In either case Claire would've intercepted any such communication or would've been trusted by either to organise whatever the gentleman wanted.
You can see where this speculation is going, so I'll leave it there.
We need to await SA Police findings of the body in the grave to see whether they confirm the Carl Webb guess first, but if it's not Carl, then I'd concede that Pavel remains in the mix.
Claire-Russel-Crocker's genealogical profile is here with links to the information provided as source documents in her profiles and that of her husband's and brother.
https://www.geni.com/people/Claire-Russel-Crocker/6000000002590352016
Peter - the story of Claire & Russell Ward is a good one in and of itself! Russell Ward was a brilliant labour historian, harassed by ASIO for years!
DeleteI not sure that everyone at ASIO after it was formed were taken in by Claire's throwing low level CPA members under the bus. The NAA files show a high level of concern when her new husband was going to be appointed as High Commissioner to India.
ReplyDeleteHowever, let's hark back to 1940's.
At this point, both her then husband, Dr Stanley Gooden, and herself were in the Eureka Youth League and the CPA. Both leave for Birmingham and work for Sir Mark Oliphant. Will The British National Archives release Mi5 records on them? It's certainly evidenced from memos in NAA ASIO files that Mi5 must've caused ASIO to open a file on Gooden and other Australians that Oliphant was bringing back to work with him at the ANU. Concerns about access to sensitive information.
We also now know that both Stanley and Claire appear in Soviet cables deciphered in the Verona project. Both with code names.
If Claire was a Soviet mole, she did mask herself better than Bentley. After Bentley turned herself in and started naming names, it must've been a difficult time for Fedosimov. I can't imagine him being promoted when the imminent collapse of Soviet espionage cells in the USA. His recall to Moscow certainly suggests that moves were afoot to do something about him. Did he make his escape though only to be double crossed? Maybe so and maybe Philby, Claire and some others were the moles that he mistakenly thought were the people that could arrange his defection and safe refuge.
Well there's lots of circumstantial clues for such a scenario. Certainly the opportunity was there. Maybe if it was Fedosimov who died on Somerton Beach, then we might get more records released to confirm this possibility.
Peter, what year was it when they took off for Birmingham? I would think that they weng by air, if so it might be useful to see who else was on that flight.
ReplyDeleteThis abstract below gives us the years in which he travelled, but not much more. I'll look in family search, to see if there's any departure or arrival details tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteJohn Gooden and the Birmingham proton synchrotron
Brett A. Gooden
+ Author Affiliations
Historical Records of Australian Science 32(2) 141-155 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR20008
Submitted: 6 May 2020 Accepted: 18 October 2020 Published: 1 December 2020
Abstract
During World War 2, Sir Mark Oliphant began to plan for the construction of the world’s first proton synchrotron at the University of Birmingham. In March 1945, he offered a research fellowship to an enthusiastic and highly commended young physicist, John Stanley Gooden. Gooden had graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1941, and been working at the Radiophysics Laboratory, Sydney on radar research. With his wife, he arrived in Birmingham at the end of 1945, and immediately began work on the mathematical theory, design and construction of the proton accelerator. His enthusiasm and work ethic were infectious, and he soon became the project leader. In the latter part of 1947, Oliphant arranged for Gooden and John Fremlin to visit nuclear research facilities in the United States of America (USA) to gain knowledge about American plans for proton accelerators. They spent most of their time at the Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley and at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York. The United Kingdom (UK) was exhausted after the war, and despite the best efforts of Gooden and Oliphant’s team, the construction of the synchrotron was slow. In 1947, Oliphant accepted a position as head of the Research School of Physical Sciences at the new Australian National University in Canberra. Gooden was the first staff appointment to the school. Oliphant planned to build a cyclosynchrotron at the university with Gooden as team leader. Tragically, in 1950, Gooden’s chronic nephritis deteriorated, and he died on 9 June 1950. Described by Oliphant as ‘my most brilliant student’, Gooden pioneered the theoretical basis and construction of the proton synchrotron. The Birmingham machine was finally completed in 1953, a year after the Brookhaven Cosmotron.
Passenger records so far found in familysearch archives.
ReplyDeleteDr John Stanley Gooden and Claire arrived in New York on 31/10/1947 onboard the Queen Elizabeth