Arvid Werner Jacobson (November 12, 1904 – April 1, 1976) was a

Finnish-American Finnish Americans ( fi, amerikansuomalaiset, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots from Finland or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population numbers a little bit more than 650,000. Man ...

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

who spied for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in the 1930s.

Biography

Jacobson's parents were Finnish immigrants from

Lapua Lapua (; sv, Lappo) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located next to the Lapua River in the region of South Ostrobothnia. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The mun ...

, Ostrobotnia. Jacobson was born in

Covington, Michigan Covington is an unincorporated community in Covington Township of Baraga County in the US state of Michigan. It is located along US Highway 141 (US 141) near the junction with M-28, which is a few miles west of US 41. Covington use ...

and was working as a high school teacher in Northville when, in the fall of 1932, he was recruited to work for the

Soviet Military Intelligence The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...

by the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...

agent "''Mrs. Morton''", a pseudonym of

Aino Kuusinen Aino Maria Kuusinen (née Turtiainen, subsequently Sarola; 5 March 1886 – 1 September 1970) was a Finnish Communist who worked for Comintern around the world in the 1930s, and was imprisoned in the gulag before she escaped to the West. Aino Ku ...

, the wife of the Finnish communist leader

Otto Wille Kuusinen Otto Wilhelm "Wille" Kuusinen (; russian: О́тто Вильге́льмович Ку́усинен, Otto Vilgelmovich Kuusinen; 4 October 1881 – 17 May 1964) was a Finnish-born Soviet communist and, later, Soviet politician, literary his ...

. With his wife Sally, he traveled to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, where the fledgling GRU agent

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...

was assigned the task of meeting Jacobson and making a fitness report. Chambers advised against using Jacobson as an underground agent because of his truculent temperament and the fact that he was missing

finger A finger is a limb of the body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of most of the Tetrapods, so also with humans and other primates. Most land vertebrates have five fingers ( Pentadactyly). Chambers ...

s on one hand. Nevertheless, the GRU sent him to Europe as part of an apparatus of Soviet agents, led by the wife of

Alfred Tilton Alfred Tilton or Alfred Matisovich Tyltyn (russian: Альфред Матисович Тылтынь, lv, Alfrēds Tiltiņš; 4 March 1897 – 11 February 1942) was the head of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) in the United States in the late 19 ...

, that operated in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The

Finnish police The Police of Finland (, ) is a national government agency responsible for general police and law enforcement matters in the Republic of Finland. The Police of Finland is subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and consists of the National ...

uncovered the group after the suspected army officer

Vilho Pentikäinen Vilho is a given name, and may refer to: * Vilho Luolajan-Mikkola (1911–2005), Finnish composer * Vilho Niittymaa (1896–1979), Finnish athlete * Vilho Petter Nenonen (1883–1960), Finnish general * Vilho Rättö (1913–20 ...

fled to the Soviet Union with military secrets. Jacobson was arrested in October 1933, along with his wife Sally, and he promptly confessed to his role as an agent and revealed the existence of another Soviet apparatus working in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, which included

Lydia Stahl Lydia Stahl (1885-?) was a Russian-born secret agent who worked for Soviet Military Intelligence in New York and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Early life Lydia Stahl was born Lydia Chkalova in Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire, in 1885. Personal li ...

and

Robert Gordon Switz Robert Gordon Switz (born 1904) was a "wealthy American who converted to communism" and served as spy for Soviet Military Intelligence ("GRU"). Background Robert Gordon Switz was born in 1904 in East Orange, New Jersey, the son of Theodore S ...

. After a secret trial, the Finnish court sentenced Jacobson to six years imprisonment in April 1934. He was subsequently pardoned in July 1935 and extradited to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Career

Jacobson was hired to teach mathematics at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

in 1944. He became active in the field of computing, and in the late 1950s directed a program at Wayne State to develop a computer capable of translating between human languages. Jacobson was a member of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM), and in 1958 he served with

Saul Gorn Saul Gorn (10 November 1912 – 22 February 1992) was an American pioneer in Computer science, computer and information science who was a member of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 30 ye ...

, Melvin A. Shader, and

Edmund Berkeley Edmund Callis Berkeley (February 22, 1909 – March 7, 1988) was an American computer scientist who co-founded the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1947. His 1949 book ''Giant Brains, or Machines That Think'' popularized cognitiv ...

on an ACM committee investigating the social responsibilities of computer scientists. He retired in 1966 and died in

Novi, Michigan Novi ( ) is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 66,243, an increase of 20% from the 2010 census. A northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Novi is located about northwest of the city of D ...

in 1976.

References

Sources

* *John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'', Yale University Press (1999), pgs. 375, 469. *Aino Kuusinen, ''The Rings of Destiny: Inside Soviet Russia from Lenin to Brezhnev'', Morrow, 1974. *Allen Weinstein, '' Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case'', New York: Random House, (1997), pg. 106 {{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobson, Arvid American people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union American people of Finnish descent 1904 births 1976 deaths