Putin at award ceremony
Photo: AP
Russia honors Jewish Cold War spy
Award of nation's highest medal goes to Iowa native George Koval, for helping Soviets develop atomic bomb
Russian intelligence has honored two of Moscow's most important Soviet-era spies.
On Monday, the award of the nation's highest medal went to British double agent George Blake and Sioux City, Iowa, native George Koval. President Vladimir Putin, himself a KGB veteran, speaks proudly of his record, and the tributes to Blake and Koval appear aimed at boosting patriotism as Russia heads into parliamentary elections December 2nd.
Few outside the espionage world knew of Koval until Putin posthumously gave him the Hero of Russia medal on November 2 for helping the Soviets develop the atomic bomb.
Koval was born to Jewish parents who emigrated from Czarist Russia. In the early 1930s, the family returned to the Soviet Union, lured by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's promise of a Jewish homeland in the Far East.
After he graduated from a Moscow university, Soviet intelligence sent him back to the US in the 1940s. He was drafted and assigned to the Manhattan Project to build the world's first atomic weapons.
He died in Moscow last year, aged 93.
