Alexander Ulanovsky

Early Soviet GRU spy

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Alexander Ulanovsky

Alexander Ulanovsky

Born|

Izrail Khaykelevich Ulanovsky

1891

Chişinău, Bessarabia

Died| 1970

USSR

Occupation| Intelligence officer
Spouse| Nadezhda Ulanovskaya
Children| Maya Ulanovskaya
Espionage activity
Allegiance|  Soviet Union
Service branch| GRU
Service years| 1923-1948
Codename|

* Ulrich
* William Joseph Berman
* Bill Berman
* Felik
* Long Man
* Nathan Sherman

Alexander Ulanovsky (1891–1970) was the chief illegal "rezident" for Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU), who was rezident in the United States from 1931 to 1932.

## Early life

[edit]

Born Izrail Khaykelevich Ulanovsky to a Jewish family in Chişinău, (Bessarabia), he joined the anarchists as a young man. In 1907, his family moved to Kerch (Crimea). Arrested for radical activity, he was deported to Siberia, where he was confined to the same village (Turukhansk) as Joseph Stalin. While in exile, he made a daring escape and "on his way out" entered Stalin's flat and took his fur coat, as was customary among fellow-exiles in such a situation..[1]

Red Guards unit of Vulkan factory

Following the October Revolution, Ulanovsky returned to Russia and enlisted in the Red Army. He served as the deputy-commander of an armored train (under anarchist revolutionary Anatoli Zhelezniakov) and took part in fighting against White armies in Ukraine and Crimea. After the Russian Civil War, he joined Soviet military intelligence and served as a secret agent in, among other places, Buenos Aires and Shanghai.[1]

## Espionage

[edit]

Whittaker Chambers reported to Ulanovsky in New York

Together with his wife Nadezhda, Ulanovsky came to America on the maiden voyage of the SS Bremen in 1931. His mission was to take over the GRU (military intelligence) apparatus assembled by his predecessor, Manfred Stern, who was moving on to China. Some of the known members of the group were Lydia Stahl, Robert Gordon Switz, Leon Minster, Robert Osman, Joshua Tamer, and Whittaker Chambers.[1]

In his memoirs, Witness, Chambers provided an insider's view of the workings of the apparatus and a deferential portrait of Ulanovsky, whom he called "the only Russian who was ever to become my close friend."[2]

The spy Hede Massing also knew Ulanovsky at this time under the alias "William Joseph Berman" ("Bill Berman"—also "Felik" and "the Long Man"). In her memoirs, she picked up on his anarchist tendencies without understanding where they came from. Thus, she describes him as a "nice enough man," a "simple man," and "one of the least ambitious and offensive" Russian agents she ever knew, but also "confused and inept." When Massing mentions that Ulanovsky had told her he was not her boss and that they were "both waiting for the boss", she implies that he ranked closely to her. However, Ulanovsky meant not that "the" (their) boss but that "her" boss was coming (Valentin Markin). Despite all this, she notes, "But one thing he did know expertly: This was conspiracy."[3]

The group's principal activity was securing patent applications, blueprints, and technical manuals which they would pack into a large crate and ship to the Soviet Union. Ulanovsky returned to Europe after the failure of several GRU operations, notably a bungled scheme to counterfeit U.S. currency and the arrest of Robert Osman in Panama on espionage charges. An NKVD illegal, Valentin Markin, came to America and took control of GRU operations in 1934.[1]

Map of various Gulag prison-camps (1923–1961), based on data from Memorial (human-rights group)

## Personal life and death

[edit]

Ulanovsky's daughter was Soviet dissident Maya Ulanovskaya (circa 1955)

By 1922, Ulanovsky married Esther Markova Fridgant (Party name Nadezhda Ulanovskaya). They had a son and a daughter named Maya Ulanovskaya. In 1970, Ulanovsky died in the Soviet Union. In 1983, wife Nadezhda, daughter Maya, son-in-law Anatoly Yakobson, and grandson Alexander Yakobson emigrated to Israel.[1]

## See also

[edit]

* Nadezhda Ulanovskaya
* Maya Ulanovskaya
* Alexander Yakobson
* Whittaker Chambers
* Hede Massing
* Valentin Markin
* Richard Sorge
* Ignace Reiss

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e Улановская Н. М., Улановская М. А. История одной семьи [The story of one family.]
2. ^ Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. Random House. pp. 290–300 and others. ISBN 0-89526-571-0.
3. ^ Massing, Hede (1951). This Deception. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. pp. 143–145 (description), 147–148, 158, 162. LCCN 51002483.

## External sources

[edit]

* Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. Random House. ISBN 0-89526-571-0.
* Hede Massing, This Deception, Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1951.
* Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers, Random House, 1997.
* Maya and Nadezhda Ulanovskaya, Istoriya Odnoi Semyi (One Family's Story), Chalidze Publications, 1982.
* Louis Waldman, Labor Lawyer, E.P. Dutton, 1944.
* Weinstein, Allen (1978). Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case. New York: Ballantine Books. LCCN 77075009.
* Улановские Надежда и Майя: История одной семьи. С.-Петербург : Инапресс, 2005.

* v
* t
* e

Soviet and Russian spies

In the US|

| 1940s and before|

* John Abt
* Joel Barr
* Elizabeth Bentley
* Earl Browder
* Boris Bukov
* Whittaker Chambers
* Lona Cohen
* Morris Cohen
* Judith Coplon
* Noel Field
* Klaus Fuchs
* Harold Glasser
* Harry Gold
* David Greenglass
* Theodore Hall
* John Herrmann
* Donald Hiss
* George Koval
* William Malisoff
* Hede Massing
* Boris Morros
* Isaiah Oggins
* William Perl
* Victor Perlo
* J. Peters
* William Ward Pigman
* Lee Pressman
* Vincent Reno
* Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
* Alfred Sarant
* Saville Sax
* Morton Sobell
* Alexander Ulanovsky
* Nadezhda Ulanovskaya
* Julian Wadleigh
* Harold Ware
* Bill Weisband
* Nathaniel Weyl
* Harry Dexter White
* Maria Wicher
* Nathan Witt
* Flora Wovschin
* Anatoli Yatskov

|

Cold War|

* Rudolf Abel
* Aldrich Ames
* David Sheldon Boone
* Christopher John Boyce
* Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh
* Jack Dunlap
* James Hall III
* Robert Hanssen
* Reino Häyhänen
* Edward Lee Howard
* Robert Lee Johnson
* Karl Koecher
* Andrew Daulton Lee
* Robert Lipka
* Clayton J. Lonetree
* Richard Miller
* Ronald Pelton
* Earl Edwin Pitts
* Jack Soble
* Myra Soble
* Robert Soblen
* Oscar Seborer
* Robert Thompson
* George Trofimoff
* John Anthony Walker
* Jerry Whitworth

Post-Soviet|

* Evgeny Buryakov
* Anna Chapman
* Peter Debbins
* Robert Hanssen
* Harold James Nicholson
* Illegals Program

In the UK|

| Cambridge Five|

* Anthony Blunt
* Guy Burgess
* John Cairncross
* Donald Maclean
* Kim Philby

|

Portland spy ring|

* Lona Cohen
* Morris Cohen
* Ethel Gee
* Harry Houghton
* Konon Molody

* Michael Bettaney
* George Blake
* David Crook
* Litzi Friedmann
* Klaus Fuchs
* Percy Glading
* Melita Norwood
* Alan Nunn May
* John Peet
* Geoffrey Prime
* Goronwy Rees
* Michael John Smith
* Dave Springhall
* John Alexander Symonds
* Edith Tudor-Hart
* John Vassall
* Arthur Wynn

In Canada|

* Sam Carr
* Jeffrey Delisle
* Igor Gouzenko
* Elena Miller
* Gerda Munsinger
* Stephen Joseph Ratkai
* Fred Rose

In Japan|

* Hirohide Ishida
* Yotoku Miyagi
* Sanzō Nosaka
* Hotsumi Ozaki
* Ryūzō Sejima

Elsewhere /
in combination|

* Alexander Gregory Barmine
* Stig Bergling
* Dieter Gerhardt
* Walter Krivitsky
* Kerttu Nuorteva
* Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov
* Fyodor Raskolnikov
* Alfred Redl
* Ignace Reiss
* Vitaly Shlykov
* Herman Simm
* Siddiq Ghouse
* Richard Sorge
* Arne Treholt
* Stig Wennerström

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