MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2020) Rudolf Abel, the legendary Soviet spy, who worked in the United States after World War II, was able to obtain crucial information about Washington's plans to launch a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin revealed the previously unknown historical fact on Thursday.
The centuries-old history of Russian foreign intelligence was written by several generations of its officers, one of whom was Abel, Naryshkin, who is also the chairman of the Russian Historical Society, said during the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the legendary spy.
"He had a difficult mission to create and develop an intelligence network, which was tasked with obtaining the most crucial military-strategic, military-political information about the United States' aggressive plans in relation to the Soviet Union, including the plans to attack Soviet with atomic bombs. William Fisher [Abel's real name] and his colleagues handled this task brilliantly," the SVR director noted.
Abel, whose real name was William August Fisher, illegally entered the United States around 1948 and opened an art studio in Brooklyn. He was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1957, after being exposed by his courier. Abel was sentenced to 30 years in prison for espionage but was later exchanged for the US U-2 spy jet pilot Francis Gary Powers. After his return to Moscow, Abel continued to work as an instructor for the KGB and was awarded the Order of Lenin, the highest award in the then Soviet Union. He died on November 15, 1971.
