Reino Gikman (allegedly born March 27, 1930, Ino, Terijoki, Finland) was the alias used by an undercover agent for the Soviet

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 ...

who operated in Western Europe. Gikman used a Finnish

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

and spent several years 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 ...

developing his illegal residence cover by posing as a Finn. The

was able to create fake

Finnish citizen Citizenship of Finland can be obtained on the basis of birth, marriage of parents, adoption, or the place of birth. In addition, it may be acquired by application or by declaration to authorities. Finnish citizenship acquisition is based prim ...

ships by inserting fake births into the church records with the help of a priest of the

Finnish Orthodox Church The Orthodox Church of Finland ( fi, Suomen ortodoksinen kirkko, lit=Finnish Orthodox Church; sv, Ortodoxa kyrkan i Finland, lit=Orthodox Church in Finland; ) is an autonomous Eastern Orthodox archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Consta ...

. Gikman's fake personality was however the result of the theft in 1952 of four registry books of church records from the Orthodox repository in

Kuopio Kuopio (, ) is a Finnish city and municipality located in the region of Northern Savonia. It has a population of , which makes it the most populous municipality in Finland. Along with Joensuu, Kuopio is one of the major urban, economic, and cult ...

. He received his first Finnish passport at a Finnish embassy, before ever entering Finland. He moved to Finland in 1966, and held various jobs in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

in the 1960s, working e.g. in the Suomalainen Kirjakauppa bookstore. In 1968 he "married" a fictitious woman named ''Martta Nieminen'', with whom he had an equally fictitious son named ''John Robert Gikman'', who was reported to have been born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

on 10 June 1968.

Disappearance

From 1979 until his disappearance in June 1989 he was living in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and reportedly working for the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

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 ...

. A wiretapped telephone conversation on April 27, 1989, between Gikman and

Felix Bloch Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of ne ...

, a

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

official stationed in Vienna from 1980 to 1987, was the original cause of espionage suspicions on Bloch.

Similar cases

The

Finnish Security Intelligence Service The Finnish Security Intelligence Service ( fi, Suojelupoliisi, Supo; ), formerly the Finnish Security Police, is the security and intelligence agency of Finland in charge of national security, such as counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism, ...

estimates that Russian intelligence had several dozen fictitious Finnish identities at their disposal. One such example was ''Veikko Pöllänen'', allegedly born January 12, 1943, in

Sortavala Sortavala (russian: Сортавала; Finnish and krl, Sortavala; sv, Sordavala); till 1918 Serdobol (russian: Сердоболь) is a town in the Republic of Karelia, Russia, located at the northern tip of Lake Ladoga near the Finnish bord ...

, who married a second adopter of a fictitious personality named ''Sirkka-Liisa Reponen'', allegedly born April 3, 1945, in

Suonenjoki Suonenjoki (; literally means "vein's river") is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the Northern Savonia region, southwest of the Kuopio city. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The popu ...

. The couple fled Finland in 1985, apparently due to fears of being exposed due to

Oleg Gordievsky Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...

's defection.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gikman, Reino 1930 births 1980s missing person cases Cold War spies Finnish spies KGB officers Missing people Missing person cases in Austria Soviet spies

Disappearance

Similar cases

See also

References