Sergey Nikolaevich Kurnakov or Sergei N. Kournakoff (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Сергей Курнаков; 1892 – 1949) was a former tsarist cavalry officer who had

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

to the U.S. and later became an ardent ideological

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

. Kurnakov was born at Aladino in the Russian

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

in 1892 into a landed family of Circassian descent. After serving as an imperial page under Tsar Nicholas II, he joined the Circassian cavalry regiment and served in Galicia and

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

1914-17, being wounded in the hand. During the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, he fought for the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

. He described his experiences in ''Savage Squadrons'' (1935). He subsequently emigrated to

America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and became a journalist who wrote on military affairs for the

Communist Party of the United States of America The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

(CPUSA) paper, the ''

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in Chicago founded by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists. Publication began in 1924. It generally reflected the prevailing views of members of the Communist Party USA (CPU ...

'', and other publications Kurnakov served as a courier to various

Soviet intelligence This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...

sources, and acted as both a talent-spotter and a vetter of potential recruits. Kurnakov was a highly active liaison agent. He was accused of Communism in ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' in January 1944 after teaching at a Russian course at Cornell University in the summer of 1943. He was posthumously named as a communist agent in senate hearings in 1953. His activities as an agent were revealed when the Venona decrypts were made public in 1995. He was the contact for Flora Wovschin's father,

Enos Wicher Enos Regnet Wicher was an American professor of physics at Columbia University. He had been married to Rae Kidd, future star of the 1938 nudist movie "The Unashamed," while both were students at the University of Wisconsin 1935-37. During World War ...

. Kurnakov also took over

Mary Jane Keeney Mary Jane Keeney (1898–1969) and her husband Philip Olin Keeney were librarians and charter members of the liberal The Progressive Librarians Council. She worked at the Board of Economic Warfare in Washington D.C. during World War II. In No ...

who worked for the

Board of Economic Warfare The Office of Administrator of Export Control (also referred to as the Export Control Administration) was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July ...

and later the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

from Soviet Military Intelligence (

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

). Her husband

Philip Keeney Philip Olin Keeney (1891–1962), and his wife, Mary Jane Keeney, were librarians who became part of the Soviet Silvermaster spy ring in the 1940s.Rosalee McReynolds, Louise S. Robbins: ''The Librarian Spies: Philip and Mary Jane Keeney and Cold War ...

, who worked for what became the

OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...

also was taken over by Kurnakov and the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

. Kurnakov was the contact between

Saville Sax Saville Sax (July 26, 1924 – September 25, 1980) was the Harvard College roommate of Theodore Hall, who recruited Hall for the Soviets and acted as a courier to move the atomic secrets from Los Alamos to the Soviets. Biography Saville Sax was ...

and

Theodore Hall Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925 – November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on United States efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II (t ...

. Kurnakov reported Hall to have "an exceptionally keen mind and a broad outlook," and to be "politically developed." At their first meeting, Hall gave Kurnakov a report he had prepared on the Los Alamos facility, the progress of the research, and the roles of the chief scientists working on the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

. Kurnakov immediately reported to

Officers

Anatoly Yatskov Anatoly Antonovich Yatskov (; – 26 March 1993), also known as Anatoli Yatzkov ( alias in the U.S. Anatoly Yakovlev) – was a Soviet consul in New York as well as an NKVD foreign intelligence officer handling American agents and couriers l ...

and

Stepan Apresyan Stepan (; ; ) is a rural settlement in Sarny Raion (district) of Rivne Oblast (province) in western Ukraine. Its population was 4,073 as of the 2001 Ukrainian Census. Current population: The settlement is located in the historic Volhynia reg ...

on his meeting with Hall. His son, Nick Kurnakov, served in Europe with the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

until he defected to the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and was given an officer's rank. He joined

Radio Moscow Radio Moscow (), also known as Radio Moscow World Service, was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993, when it was reorganized into Voice of Russia, which was subsequently reorga ...

after the war.

Venona

Sergey Kurnakov is referenced in the following

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 and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, u ...

decrypts: 833 KGB New York to Moscow, 10 June 1942; 929–930 KGB New York to Moscow, 17 June 1943; 936 KGB New York to Moscow, 17 June 1943; 952 KGB New York to Moscow, 21 June 1943; 985–986 KGB New York to Moscow, 23 June 1943; 1120 KGB New York to Moscow, 10 July 1943; 1251 KGB New York to Moscow, 2 September 1944; 1322 KGB New York to Moscow, 15 September 1944; 1404 KGB New York to Moscow, 5 October 1944; 1438 KGB New York to Moscow, 10 October 1944; 1449 KGB New York to Moscow, 12 October 1944; 1584 KGB New York to Moscow, 12 November 1944; 1585 KGB New York to Moscow, 12 November 1944; 1586 KGB New York to Moscow, 12 November 1944; 1699 KGB New York to Moscow, 2 December 1944; 1714 KGB New York to Moscow, 5 December 1944; 18–19 KGB New York to Moscow, 4 January 1945; 94 KGB New York to Moscow, 23 January 1945; 243 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 March 1945.

Notes

References

*Sergei N Kournakoff, '' Russia's Fighting Forces''. New York: International Publishing, 1942. *

FBI Silvermaster File The Silvermaster File of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation is a 162-volume compendium totalling 26,000 pages of documents relating to the FBI's investigation of GRU and NKVD moles inside the U.S. federal government both before ...

, serial 938 and 2661. *

John Earl Haynes John Earl Haynes (born 1944) is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti- ...

and

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 ...

, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pgs. 179, 198, 259, 315. *

Allen Weinstein Allen Weinstein (September 1, 1937 – June 18, 2015) was an American historian, educator, and federal official who served in several different offices. Under the Reagan administration, he was cofounder of the National Endowment for Democracy i ...

, ''Bombshell'',

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

(28 September 1997).

External links

John Scott
''How Russians Fight''
''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'', Volume: 155 Issue #: 0001, 4 July 1942 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kurnakov, Sergey 1892 births 1949 deaths American communists American spies for the Soviet Union American people in the Venona papers American people of Circassian descent American people of Russian descent Espionage in the United States White Russian emigrants to the United States American emigrants to the Soviet Union