1. Rudolf Ivanovich Abel was the alias of William August Fisher, a Soviet intelligence officer, created to alert his Soviet KGB handlers when Fisher was arrested in the USA on charges of espionage by the FBI in 1957.
17 Facts About Rudolf Abel
1. 2.
Rudolf Abel moved to Russia in the 1920s, and served in the Soviet military before undertaking foreign service as a radio operator in Soviet intelligence in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
3.
Rudolf Abel later served in an instructional role before taking part in intelligence operations against the Germans during World War II.
4.
Rudolf Abel served just over four years of his sentence before he was exchanged for captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers and Yale University doctoral student Frederic Pryor.
5.
Rudolf Abel then worked briefly in the radio research institute before being recruited by the OGPU, a predecessor of the KGB, in May 1927.
6.
Rudolf Abel returned to the Soviet Union in 1936, as head of a school that trained radio operators destined for duty in illegal residences.
7.
Rudolf Abel had then spent three years in Finland taking over Maki's identity.
8.
Rudolf Abel rented a fifth-floor studio at the Ovington Studios Building on Fulton Street.
9.
Rudolf Abel mingled with New York artists, who were surprised by his admiration for the Russian painter Isaak Levitan, although Fisher was careful not to discuss Stalinist "socialist realism".
10.
Rudolf Abel was to deliver a report from a Soviet agent at the United Nations secretariat, to a dead-letter box for collection.
11.
Rudolf Abel admitted his first Soviet contact in New York had been "MIKHAIL" and upon being shown a series of photographs of Soviet officials identified "MIKHAIL" as Mikhail Svirin.
12.
Rudolf Abel was able to tell the FBI about Fisher's studio and its location.
13.
Rudolf Abel occupied himself with painting, learning silk-screening, playing chess, and writing logarithmic tables for the sheer enjoyment of it.
14.
Rudolf Abel became friends with two other convicted Soviet spies.
15.
The idea that the name of the master spy was Rudolf Abel replaced the reality of Fisher.
16.
Rudolf Abel made a notable appearance in the foreword to the Soviet spy film Dead Season and worked as a consultant on the film.
17.
Rudolf Abel's ashes were interred at the Donskoye Cemetery under his real name, next to Konon Molody who had died the previous year.