Reino Häyhänen

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Reino Häyhänen
Lieutenant Colonel
Battles / warsWorld War II

Reino Häyhänen (

FBI, and led to the arrest of his KGB partner Rudolf Abel and other Soviet spies in the United States and Canada
.

Early life

Reino Häyhänen born on May 14, 1920, in the village of Kaskisaari in

interpreter for an NKVD group due to his Finnish background and fluency in the Finnish language, and sent to the combat zone to translate captured Finnish documents and interrogate Finnish prisoners. At the end of the Winter War in March 1940, Häyhänen was assigned to check the loyalty and reliability of workers in the occupied territory of Karelia, and to develop informants and sources of information in their midst. His primary objective was to identify pro-Finnish and pro-Capitalist elements among the intelligentsia.[1]

Häyhänen became a respected expert in Finnish intelligence matters and in May 1943, was accepted into membership in the

Karelian ASSR, set about the task of identifying dissident elements among the local citizens.[1]

In the summer of 1948, Häyhänen was called to Moscow by the Ministry of State Security (MGB), the successor agency of the NKVD, where he met his wife, Akulina Pavlova. The Soviet intelligence service had a new assignment for Häyhänen - one which would require him to sever relations with his family, to study the English language, and to receive special training in photographing documents, as well as to encode and decode messages.[1]

While his training continued, Häyhänen worked as a mechanic in the city of Valga, Estonia. In the summer of 1949, Häyhänen entered Finland via the Soviet naval base in Porkkala as Eugene Nicolai Mäki, an American-born laborer, and would later be stationed in the United States.[1]

Defection

Häyhänen

defected from the Soviet Union in Paris on the way back to Moscow after being recalled from the United States for good. In May 1957, Häyhänen telephoned the United States Embassy in Paris and arrived at the Embassy for an interview. He said: "I'm an officer in the Soviet intelligence service. For the past five years, I have been operating in the United States. Now I need your help." He had been ordered to return to Moscow, after five years in the United States, and now wanted to defect.[1]

Hollow Nickel Case

Häyhänen's defection allowed the

bigamist, and a thief” during his defence in court. Häyhänen avoided charges of espionage despite efforts from Donovan, and later lived in New Hampshire under the protection of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA).

Death

Häyhänen died in an automobile accident on the

obituaries for Häyhänen stating that he died in an accident in Pennsylvania, but author Phillip J. Bigger described the circumstances as "mysterious" in his book Negotiator: The Life and Career of James B. Donovan. Häyhänen's death has been theorized to be an assassination
committed by Soviet intelligence agencies.

See also

References

  1. ^
    FBI
    . Retrieved 2008-07-01. Häyhänen was born near Leningrad on May 14, 1920. His parents were peasants. Despite his modest background, Häyhänen was an honor student and, in 1939, obtained the equivalent of a certificate to teach high school.
  2. ^ "Artist in Brooklyn". - TIME. - August 19, 1957. - Retrieved: 2008-07-03
  3. ^ "Pudgy Finger Points". - TIME. - October 28, 1957. - Retrieved: 2008-07-03
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