Helen Koral was the wife of
Alexander Koral
Alexander Koral (1897 – 1968) was an American member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) who headed a network of spies for Soviet intelligence during World War II called the "Art" or "Berg" group. Koral's wife, Helen Koral, also ...
. Both were Americans who, allegedly, worked for
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 In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names.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 ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The Koral's headed the "Art" or "Berg" group of Soviet spies. The Berg group acted as couriers for various Soviet contacts, including the
Silvermaster ring. Helen Koral received a regular stipend of $100 per month from the KGB and work closely with
Helen Lowry Elza Akhmerova, also Elsa Akhmerova was an American citizen, born Helen Lowry. She is a niece of Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). She died of leukemia.
From 1936 to 1939, Lowry was an equal part ...
, the wife of
Iskhak Akhmerov
Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov (russian: italic=yes, Исха́к Абду́лович Ахме́ров, tt-Cyrl, Исхак Габдулла улы Әхмәров, translit=İsxaq Ğabdulla ulı Əxmərov) (1901–1976) was a highly decorated OGPU/NK ...
, the KGB
Illegal Rezident A resident spy in the world of espionage is an agent operating within a foreign country for extended periods of time. A base of operations within a foreign country with which a resident spy may liaise is known as a "station" in English and a (, 're ...
during World War II. Her code name in the Soviet intelligence according to materials from 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 ...
was "Miranda", and later changed to "Art".
Venona
*1251 KGB New York to Moscow, 2 September 1944;
*1524 KGB New York to Moscow, 27 October 1944;
*1582 KGB New York to Moscow, 12 November 1944;
*1636 KGB New York to Moscow, 21 November 1944;
*1791 KGB New York to Moscow, 20 December 1944;
*1052 KGB New York to Moscow, 5 July 1945;
*337 KGB Moscow to New York, 8 April 1945.
References
*Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, ''The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era'' (New York: Random House, 1999).
*
* John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'', Yale University Press (1999), pgs. 152, 353, 455.
External links
The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)has the full text of former KGB agent Alexander Vassiliev's Notebooks containing new evidence on Koral's cooperation with the Soviet Union
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koral, Helen
American spies for the Soviet Union
American people in the Venona papers
Espionage in the United States