Robert J. Lamphere (February 14, 1918 - January 7, 2002) was a former agent of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI) involved in the cases of atomic spies

Klaus Fuchs Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly aft ...

Harry Gold Harry Gold (born Henrich Golodnitsky, December 11, 1910 – August 28, 1972) was a Swiss-born American laboratory chemist who was convicted as a courier for the Soviet Union passing atomic secrets from Klaus Fuchs, an agent of the Soviet Union, ...

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 ...

, and

Ethel 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 ...

, as well as British spy

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...

. "He had a hand in every major Soviet spy case from the end of World War II through the mid-1950s."

Background

Robert Joseph Lamphere was born on February 14, 1918, in

Wardner, Idaho Wardner is a city in Shoshone County, Idaho, United States. Located in the Silver Valley mining region, the population was 188 at the 2010 census, down from 215 in 2000. Geography Wardner is located at (47.523164, -116.134190), at an elevation ...

and grew up in

Mullan, Idaho Mullan is a city in the northwest United States, located in the Silver Valley mining district of northern Idaho. The population was 646 at the 2020 census and 692 at the 2010 census, and 840 in 2000. In Shoshone County at the east end of the ...

, where his father had mining rights. He graduated from the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The University ...

and attended its law school before finishing his degree at the

National University School of Law National University School of Law was an American law school founded in Washington, D.C. in 1869. Originally intended as part of a larger design for a national university in the United States, the school was the principal component of National Unive ...

(now

George Washington University Law School The George Washington University Law School (GW Law) is the law school of George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Established in 1865, GW Law is the oldest top law school in the national capital. GW Law offers the largest range of cou ...

) in Washington, DC.

Career

FBI

In September 1941, Lamphere joined the FBI and worked for half a year in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. Transferred in 1942 to New York City, he arrested more than 400 people over the next three and a half years. Transferred in 1945 to Washington, DC, to work on the Soviet espionage squad, he helped investigate Soviet atomic espionage into the top-secret

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 ...

. In 1947, he became a supervisory special agent and worked with other FBI agents in analyzing Soviet code and other intelligence involving the USSR and its satellites in the

Soviet Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

. By October 1948, he was working with Meredith Knox Gardner on what became known as 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 ...

full-time. At that point, Gardner began decoding specific messages for Lamphere to investigate. In 1949, Lamphere briefed

about VENONA. In 1950, deciphered code led Lamphere to interview German-born physicist

, attached to research at Los Alamos and later the British atomic energy research center. Fuchs confessed, which led to

in the US, which led to more spies including

David Greenglass David Greenglass (March 2, 1922 – July 1, 2014) was an atomic spy for the Soviet Union who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was briefly stationed at the Clinton Engineer Works uranium enrichment facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and then ...

, his wife

Ruth Greenglass Ruth Leah Greenglass (née Printz; April 30, 1924 – April 7, 2008) was an American citizen who acted as a spy for the Soviet Union along with her husband, David Greenglass. Early life Ruth Leah Printz was born to a Jewish family on April 30, ...

, and the

Rosenbergs 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 ...

. (FBI historian John F. Fox Jr. provides a detailed account of Lamphere's FBI career, available online.)

Later life

In 1955, Lamphere left the FBI to work in the

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and ...

, where he became a deputy administrator. In 1961, he became an executive at the

John Hancock Mutual Insurance Company John Hancock Life Insurance Company, U.S.A. is a Boston-based insurance company. Established April 21, 1862, it was named in honor of John Hancock, a prominent American Patriot. In 2004, John Hancock was acquired by the Canadian multinational li ...

and retired in 1981.

Personal life and death

Lamphere married Martha. In 1996, Lamphere stated that both he and

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

opposed the death penalty for Ethel Rosenberg because (1) she had acted under her husband's direction and (2) her death would draw sympathy. Lamphere criticized US Senator

Joseph R. McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...

: "McCarthy's

star chamber The Star Chamber (Latin: ''Camera stellata'') was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judic ...

proceedings, his lies, and overstatements hurt our counterintelligence efforts." Lamphere died age 83 in Tucson, Arizona, from a combination of

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

and

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...

Works

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

archives Lamphere's papers. ''The FBI-KGB War'', Lamphere's book (written with Tom Shachtman) on his involvement in the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, is an oft-cited source, deemed "very readable." Historian

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 ...

, reviewing the book, noted Lamphere's criticism of

: "Although Lamphere clearly admires Hoover, and praises his political acumen, it is evident that Hoover’s fondness for draconian punishments of underlings, his encouragement of excessive flattery, and his often petty demands sometimes prevented the FBI from making full use of its resources." * ''The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent's Story'' (1986) with Tom Shachtman

Background

Career

FBI

Later life

Personal life and death

Works

See also

References

External links