Harry Gold
| Harry Gold | |
|---|---|
Harry Gold after his arrest by the FBI
|
|
| Born |
December 11, 1910 Bern, Switzerland |
| Died | August 28, 1972 (aged 61) Philadelphia |
| Resting place | Har Nebo Cemetery |
| Occupation | Laboratory chemist |
| Criminal charge | Conspiracy to commit espionage |
| Criminal penalty | 30 year sentence |
| Criminal status | parolled after 14 years |
Harry Gold (December 11, 1910 – August 28, 1972) was a laboratory chemist and spy for a number of Soviet spy rings operating in the United States during the Manhattan Project.
Gold was born Heinrich Golodnostskiy in Bern, Switzerland, to Russian Jewish immigrants. On 13 July 1914, the family arrived at Ellis Island, New York, where they changed their family name to Gold. They moved to south Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a young man, he became interested in socialism, which eventually led him to contacts within the Communist movement.
After leaving South Philadelphia High School in August 1928 (receiving his diploma in February 1929), Gold was a woodworker at Giftcrafters in Kensington, Philadelphia. From December 1928, he was an entry-level worker for the Pennsylvania Sugar Company. In April 1934, Tasso Lessing Black recruited Gold for Soviet espionage. From 1934 to 1936, he studied chemical engineering at Drexel Institute, while working as a Pennsylvania Sugar Company laboratory assistant. Gold attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated summa cum laude in 1940. In February 1946, he lost his Sugar Company job. From June 1946, he worked for Brothman Associates.
In 1940, Jacob Golos activated Harry Gold for Soviet espionage, but he was not a recruited agent of the rezidentura. This changed in the late 1940's, when Soviet Case Officer Semyon Semenov appropriated Gold from Golos. Gold became a formally recruited Soviet agent at this time, and was assigned the codename GUS, GOS, or GOOSE. Semenov remained Gold's control officer until March 1944.
In 1950, Klaus Fuchs was arrested in England and charged with espionage. Fuchs confessed that while working in the United States during World War II he had passed information about the atom bomb to the Soviet Union. Fuchs denied working with other spies, except for a courier who collected information from him. When initially shown photographs of suspects, including Gold, he failed to identify him as the courier, but did so after subsequent prompting.
...
Wikipedia