The Soviet Atomic Spy Who Asked for a U.S. Pension
For three years Koval worked for an electric company run by a Soviet agent. Then, in 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was sent for special wartime training at City College in Manhattan. The Manhattan Project was suffering manpower shortages and asked the Army for technically adept recruits. In 1944, Koval was assigned to the top secret atomic bomb program headquartered at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The confidential FBI report stated, “Koval was very popular among servicemen and also students… as indication of his popularity, he was elected either president of his class or a member of an honorary fraternity.”
Koval proved to be a very successful Soviet spy. He penetrated one of the most sensitive sectors of the U.S. government at the time and smuggled out vital secrets that led directly to the Soviet acquisition of the bomb.
In 1949, Koval went back to the Soviet Union, and almost at once was discharged from the military intelligence as private, for reasons still unknown, possibly having to do with an intercepted phone call. He had nothing to do but to join the Moscow Technical Chemical Institute he had graduated from before the war. He spent decades there as a chemist, surrounded by students (his portrait still hangs there on the wall among those of other prominent professors).
In 1999, desperate with his small state pension, Koval approached the U.S. embassy in Moscow and, amazingly, applied for his U.S. pension. He heard somewhere that all who had served in American army during the Second World War could apply for a special social security benefits, and, well, he had served for three years, from 1943 to 1946. The embassy was astonished. The FBI file on Koval was carefully preserved in the agency and his espionage was bureau lore.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-soviet-atomic-spy-who-asked-for-a-us-pension
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than 0range 45, who still serves with approval of the Senate and House.
