Alfred Epaminondas Sarant, also known as Filipp Georgievich Staros and Philip Georgievich Staros (September 26, 1918 – March 12, 1979),
was an engineer and a member of the
Communist party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
in New York City in 1944. He was part of the
Rosenberg spy ring that reported to Soviet intelligence. Sarant worked on secret military radar at the United States
Army Signal Corps
The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...
laboratories at
Fort Monmouth
Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about from the Atlantic Ocean. Th ...
, New Jersey.
Alexandre Feklisov, one of the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
case officers who handled the Rosenberg spy apparatus described Sarant and
Joel Barr
Joel Barr (January 1, 1916 – August 1, 1998), also Iozef Veniaminovich Berg and Joseph Berg, was part of the Soviet Atomic Spy Ring.
Background
Born Joyel Barr in New York City, to immigrant parents of Ukrainian Jewish origin. He attended C ...
as among the most productive members of the group. Sarant was recruited as a Soviet espionage agent by Barr.
Biography
A member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) during the Second World War, Sarant worked at the nuclear physics laboratory of Cornell University. In 1941, Julius Rosenberg and Joel Barr were recruited as Soviet spies by
Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos (born Yakov Naumovich Reizen, Russian: Яков Наумович Рейзен; April 24, 1889 - November 27, 1943) was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary who became an intelligence operative in the United States on behalf of the U ...
. They in turn persuaded Sarant to join the network.
According to Alexander Feklissov:
Joel and Alfred were good friends and spent a lot of time together. I must admit that Sarant had the makings of an undercover agent; he was a cautious young man, yet full of resolve, with progressive ideas. Before we recruited him though, he had to pass a test. Barr asked Sarant to borrow some secret documents to which he had access because he, Barr, needed them for his personal use. Alfred did not hesitate in helping his friend and in the meantime the Center approved a bona fide approach."
However, he was at first reluctant to become a spy but was eventually convinced to join the network by Barr. Sarant was given the code name Hughes.
The
Venona project
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
transcript of 14 November 1944 reported to Moscow that Sarant had been successfully recruited.
The transcript noted Sarant and Barr were roommates and good friends and proposed to pair them off and get them to photograph their own materials. Initially Barr delivered film to Rosenberg, who passed it on to officers of the
Soviet intelligence
This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...
. Later, Barr met directly with KGB officers; Sarant did not have direct contact with the KGB in the U.S. One transcript reports Sarant and Barr delivered 17 authentic drawings relating to the
AN/APQ-7
The AN/APQ-7, or Eagle, was a radar bombsight system developed by the US Army Air Force. Early studies started in late 1941 under the direction of Luis Alvarez at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, but full-scale development did not begin until April ...
, an advanced and secret airborne radar system developed jointly by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
and
Western Electric
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
for the United States military.
In 1946 Sarant moved to
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
, where he worked at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in the physics
laboratories
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...
. Sarant's next door neighbor was
Philip Morrison
Philip Morrison (November 7, 1915 – April 22, 2005) was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and for his later work in quantum physi ...
, a former
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
scientist and personal friend who joined the
Communist Party of the United States
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
in 1939. Sarant knew socially several prominent physicists, including
Hans Bethe
Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize ...
and
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...
.
Two days after Julius Rosenberg's arrest on 17 July 1950, the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
interviewed Sarant but did not arrest him, although it possessed decrypted MVD cables that clearly identified Sarant as a member of the Rosenberg ring.
Three days later Sarant ran away with Carol Dayton, the wife of his close friend and neighbor, Bruce Dayton; Sarant and Dayton abandoned their children and spouses. The two crossed into
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and eluded the FBI.
In Mexico City, Sarant sought assistance from officials at an obscure Polish trade office, guessing correctly that they were intelligence officers. Following instructions from the KGB, the Poles hid Sarant and Dayton in Mexico, then engineered an escape that crossing the border to
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
on foot, taking a freighter to Casa Blanca, and flying to Poland via Spain. After six months in Warsaw they moved on to Moscow. The KGB arranged a dramatic reunion with Barr, who was summoned from Prague, where he had fled shortly after the Rosenberg ring started to unravel. Sarant was assigned a new identity, Philip Georgievich Staros, claiming a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
background to explain his accent. From Moscow, Barr and Sarant were resettled in
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
and put to work as electrical engineers. They led a team that designed and built a prototype of the Soviet bloc's first automated anti-aircraft weapon. Their technology was quickly deployed and was in use, with some minor modifications, into the 1980s.
In 1956 Sarant and Barr moved to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
where they were placed in charge of a military electronics research institute. They have been credited with being the founders of the Soviet
microelectronics
Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-sc ...
industry, in part because Sarant and Barr conceived of, designed and won political backing for the creation of
Zelenograd
Zelenograd ( rus, Зеленогра́д, p=zʲɪlʲɪnɐˈgrat, lit. ''green city'') is a city and administrative okrug of Moscow, Russia. The city of Zelenograd and the territory under its jurisdiction form the Zelenogradsky Administrative O ...
, the Soviet Union's
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
. Sarant was the scientific director of Zelenograd until
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
's forced retirement. In 1969 Sarant received a state honor for the UM-1, a computer that was widely used in Soviet industry.
He led the team that created the
Uzel
Uzel (; or Uzel-près-l'Oust) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is about west-northwest of Rennes and north-northwest of Loudéac.
The old school, in the centre of Uzel, was the scene of tor ...
, the first digital computer installed in a Soviet submarine. The Uzel was integrated into the
Kilo-class submarine
The Kilo class, Soviet designation Project 877 ''Paltus'' (russian: Па́лтус, meaning "halibut"), NATO reporting name Kilo, is a class of diesel-electric attack submarines originally designed in the 1970s and built in the Soviet Uni ...
s and as of 2007 was still in use in the Russian, Iranian, Chinese and Indian navies. In 1979 Sarant died of a heart attack.
Carol Dayton, the woman who fled with him, returned to the United States in 1991.
It was not until 1983, thirty-three years after Sarant's flight to Mexico, that the full story of Sarant's life was told. A Russian émigré working at Harvard, Mark Kuchment, who had read ''The Rosenberg File'' linked Barr and Sarant to two prominent Soviet scientists, both native speakers of English.
Sarant's cover name in Soviet intelligence and in the
Venona project
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
is "Hughes".
See also
*
Atomic spies
Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early ...
*
Julius Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...
*
Joel Barr
Joel Barr (January 1, 1916 – August 1, 1998), also Iozef Veniaminovich Berg and Joseph Berg, was part of the Soviet Atomic Spy Ring.
Background
Born Joyel Barr in New York City, to immigrant parents of Ukrainian Jewish origin. He attended C ...
Notes
Sources
* Steven T. Usdin, ''Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin And Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley'', Yale University Press (October 10, 2005), hardcover.
* Tracking Julius Rosenberg's Lesser Known Associate
*
John Earl Haynes
John Earl Haynes (born 1944) is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti- ...
and
Harvey Klehr
Harvey Elliott Klehr (born December 25, 1945) is a professor of politics and history at Emory University. Klehr is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America (many written jointly with ...
, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'' (New Haven:
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
, 1999).
* Feklisov, Alexander, ''The Man Behind the Rosenbergs: Memoirs of the KGB Spymaster Who Also Controlled Klaus Fuchs and Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis'' (New York,Enigma, 2001)
FBI Venona file* EngineeringCommunism.co
Further reading
*
Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, ''The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth'', Henry Holt (1983), hardcover,
* Richard C.S. Trahair and Robert Miller, ''Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations'', Enigma Books (2009), paperback,
* Podcast interview with author of ''Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley'
Part IPart II
External links
An Interactive Rosenberg Espionage Ring Timeline and Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarant, Alfred
American communists
American defectors to the Soviet Union
Espionage in the United States
Soviet engineers
20th-century American engineers
Soviet computer scientists
American expatriates in Czechoslovakia
1918 births
1979 deaths
American spies for the Soviet Union
American people in the Venona papers
Russian people of American descent
People granted political asylum in the Soviet Union