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Judith Coplon

Judith Coplon was young and pretty, and a spy for the Soviet Union when she was arrested in 1949 for espionage. Coplon was a communist when she graduated from Barnard College during World War II. She soon went to work for the Justice Department as an analyst, and for the Soviet NKGB as an agent. One VENONA message, dated 1944, described a young woman with a communist background who was moving from New York to Washington to work for the Justice Department. In the message, the KGB reported that it wanted permission to recruit her. Her codename was to be SIMA.

An FBI supervisor, Robert Lamphere, thought this SIMA might still be active and on 31 December 1948 informed his supervisor, Howard Fletcher, then Number 1 Man in the Espionage Section. Fletcher told Lamphere to wait right there, left his office, and returned a half hour later. The only possible match for SIMA, he reported, was Judith Coplon, an analyst still working in the Department’s Foreign Agent Registration Office. She had access to FBI documents.

Judith Coplon was born in Brooklyn on May 17, 1922, the daughter of Samuel and Rebecca Moroh Coplon, a toy manufacturer and milliner, respectively. Her great- grandfather, a peddler who had emigrated from Prussia, was a prisoner during the Civil War at Andersonville, the infamous Confederate prison camp. Coplon won a good-citizenship award in high school and a full scholarship to Barnard, where she majored in history and was a member of the Young Communist League. She graduated cum laude in 1943, joined the Justice Department in 1944 and, according to the government, was recruited by Soviet intelligence later that year.

Judith Coplon became an employee of the Department of Justice in New York City on June 15, 1943. On January 16, 1945, she was transferred to Washington, D. C., as a political analyst in the Foreign Agents Registration Section of the Department. The function of that section is to administer the Foreign Agents Registration Act,* to obtain the registration thereunder of persons subject to its provisions, to review for accuracy and compliance with statutory requirements registration statements filed by such persons, and to review propaganda filed in accordance with the Act.

In October, 1948, Coplon was assigned to the Internal Security Section to examine FBI reports relative to the activities of Russian agents or Communists so as to determine whether there was any indication of a violation of federal law. William E. Foley, who was head of the Foreign Agents Registration Section and of the Internal Security Section as well, testified that early in January, 1949, Coplon discussed with him reports concerning certain Russian agents in the United States. When he mentioned that he had received an additional report on that subject, appellant asked if and when she could see it and Foley replied that it was top secret. A week later appellant again asked him when she could see the top secret report and was told that he did not know. About a month later appellant visited Foley's office and for the third time asked to see the top secret report. Foley replied that it had passed into the custody of another official.

The FBI worked the SIMA/Coplon case, investigating her background, her access at Justice to FBI records and other sensitive material, and her contacts in and out of the office. Physical and technical surveillance quickly revealed that she was likely an active spy and, given her access to classified material, something had to be done immediately. Since much of her access came from temporary duties she had volunteered for, Coplon was asked to devote her full time to her regular position. Unaware that she had been identified, Coplon maneuvered to continue her access to FBI material.

Given her role in Justice and closeness to the Bureau, the FBI appears to have rejected the option of doubling her and so needed to catch her in the act of spying in order to have a chance to arrest her. Lamphere drew up a dummy FBI report on Amtorg that suggested that the company’s attorney, Isidore Needleman, was an FBI source. Coplon’s supervisor ensured that she would have access to it and she readily took the bait. When, FBI wiretaps revealed her travel plans to travel to New York City in order to pass what she had collected to her control, the Bureau was ready. From a legal point of view there were a number of pitfalls in this. AAG Peyton Ford told the Bureau that there wasn’t enough evidence for a warrant, but that Coplon could be arrested if she was seen giving something that looked like a document to someone else or if the Agents surveilling her had probable cause to think a crime had occurred. The FBI thought this was sufficient and planned to be in a position to make such determinations.

On or about February 1, 1949, Foley, having been informed that appellant was under suspicion, directed her no longer to examine internal security reports. A new employee was assigned to that task. Appellant objected to giving up this work and told Foley she was very disturbed over the change. Soon after a Mrs. Rosson had taken over such work, appellant visited her successor's office, said she wanted to look through the F. B. I. reports, and removed some of them. A few days later appellant again went to Mrs. Rosson's office and asked that she send her "any reports relating to foreign embassies, legations, or consulates, and especially the reports that were marked `Internal Security — R.'" Mrs. Rosson sent appellant some fifty reports of that nature.

Coplon went to New York City on January 14, 1949, first informing Foley that she intended to do so. Because she was under suspicion, F. B. I. agents followed her and observed her movements. She reached New York about 5:00 p.m. and, after following a circuitous route to Broadway and 193rd Street, she was joined there shortly after 7:00 p.m. by a man afterwards identified by the F. B. I. agents as Valentin A. Gubitchev, a Russian national employed by the United Nations. She and Gubitchev were together for some time, during which their movements were such as to indicate they were trying to elude observers.

Again on February 18, 1949, Judith Coplon went to New York and met Gubitchev. Once more they engaged in furtive behavior for a considerable period of time. During the surveillance by the F. B. I. agents that evening, while the two were on Broadway near 192nd Street, Coplon was seen to reach into her open purse and at that time Gubitchev, who had been behind, stepped up beside her and reached in front of her with his right arm. After a few steps together, he stopped and Coplon continued walking.

On the afternoon of March 3, 1949, appellant informed her superior, Foley, that she intended to leave for New York the next day on the 1:00 p.m. train. Late in the afternoon of March 3, Peyton Ford, The Assistant to the Attorney General, handed to Foley three office memoranda, one of which was marked "Strictly Confidential" and had as its subject "Amtorg Trading Corporation Internal Security — R." The memorandum referred to the efforts of Amtorg to obtain equipment relative to atomic research and expressed the Department's intention of determining whether Amtorg was sending out of the United States information and equipment relative to that highly secret subject. Foley did not know, but may have suspected, that this memorandum was to be used to ascertain what appellant would do with it. About 9:00 a.m. the next day, March 4, Foley handed the memorandum to appellant, telling her that it was "quite hot and very interesting."

Coplon left for New York on the 1:00 o'clock train according to plan and reached there about 5:00 p.m. The testimony of the agents who kept her under surveillance for four hours thereafter discloses the most remarkable conduct on the part of Judith Coplon and Valentin Gubitchev. They met, separated, met again; they travelled on foot, by subway and by bus, sometimes together and sometimes separately. At all times the two acted in a furtive manner, apparently taking the greatest care to elude any persons who might be following them. They wandered from as far uptown as Broadway and 193rd Street to a point on Third Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets. There they were arrested by an FBI agent at 9:35 p.m.

Judith Coplon was participating in the commission of a felony in the presence of the FBI agent when he took her into custody. That being true, any private person situated as the agent was would have been justified in arresting the appellant without a warrant. "This situation appears to us to have given ample reason to suppose that these meetings were in pursuance of a concerted venture whose object was the delivery of information prejudicial to the national security: in short, that a criminal conspiracy was in progress before the eyes of the agents."

A number of items found in appellant's purse after her arrest were introduced in evidence, including twenty-two data slips which were memoranda of information contained in F. B. I. reports on file in the Department of Justice. Another document consisted of four pages typed on appellant's portable typewriter. It was dated March 3, 1949, and included the following paragraph: "I have not been able (and don't think I will) to get the top secret FBI report which I described to Michael on Soviet & Communist Intelligence Activities in the US. When the moment was favorable, I asked Foley where the report was (He'd previously remarked that he'd had such a report); he said that some department official had it and he didn't expect to get it back. Foley remarked there was nothing `new' in it. When I saw the report, for a minute, I breezed through it rapidly, remember very little. It was about 115 pages in length; summarized first Soviet `intelligence' activities, including Martens, Lore, Poyntz, Altschuler, Silvermaster et al. It had heading on Soviet UN delegation but that was all I remember. The rest of the report I think was on Polish, Yugo, etc. activities and possibly some info on the CP, USA."

Hoover was furious, as he had strongly opposed the release of the additional data slips and, especially the release of the reports behind them. He had argued that the case should be dropped rather than reveal the FBI materials behind them. And he was right. The press had a field day as the reports, which Palmer insisted should be read into the record, revealed a number of things including FBI surveillance of Soviet nationals at the UN, FBI interest in a number of Hollywood leftists who had communist contacts, and other content from the FBI’s files unfairly categorized by the media as a farrago of gossip and unverified rumor. Perhaps the FBI was lucky in that it had avoided a more serious issue. Palmer had not explored the predicate to the FBI’s investigation. Had he done so, the security of Venona would have been seriously threatened and even the disclosure that Justice would give up the case rather than compromise the source would have focused attention on that undefined predicate. That Palmer did not raise the issue was the only luck the Bureau had in the trial.

Coplon endured two trials. Her defense: she was meeting a Soviet intelligence officer because she was writing a book and gathering firsthand experience during pillow talk. She was convicted twice: Neither the juries nor the appellate judge believed her. After her second trial, Judy Coplon married one of her lawyers, whom she convinced of her innocence.

A grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a two-count indictment against Judith Coplon on March 16, 1949. The first count charged that from about December 10, 1948, to March 4, 1949, Coplon copied, took, made and obtained documents, writings and notes which were parts of the official files and records of the Department of Justice containing intelligence reports relating to espionage and counter-espionage activities, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense and with intent and reason to believe that it would be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793.

The second count charged that during the same period Coplon, being an employee of the Department of Justice and as such having custody of records, documents and papers filed with the Department, willfully and unlawfully concealed and removed therefrom certain extracts and summaries of reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation containing intelligence data relating to espionage and counter-espionage activities, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2071.

After a trial which lasted about two and one-half months, the young woman was found guilty on both counts on June 30, 1949, by a jury in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and on July 1 was sentenced to imprisonment for ten years on the first count and three years on the second, to run concurrently. She appealed.

In the tradition of Alger Hiss, to this day they adhere to this position, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The smoking-gun evidence of Coplon’s guilt became public in 1995 when the VENONA decrypts were declassified. These intercepted MGB cables described real espionage cases and provided clues to nearly 200 Americans who were spying for the Soviet Union—the Rosenbergs, Klaus Fuchs, and Ted Hall, to name just a few. Originally decrypted by the Army in the late 1940s, they revealed that Judith Coplon had indeed been a very productive Soviet agent, originally recruited by a college classmate, Flora Wovschin.

Analysis of the VENONA intercepts sugests that some of the material that Wovschin passed to the Soviets came from Coplon. Coplon’s first Soviet handler was one of the MGB’s most important officers, Vladimir Pravdin; [ ] later she was turned over to Valentin Gubitchev, with whom she was arrested. Without the VENONA breakthrough, Coplon probably would have escaped notice. In order to protect the sensitive VENONA project, the decrypts could not be produced as evidence at trial. But they could be used as a basis for action. The FBI put Coplon under surveillance and buged her office and home to collect corroborating evidence. Not wishing to admit to the buging, which was continued after her arrest and included conversations with her lawyer, the source was euphemistically identified in court as a confidential informant.

The FBI soon learned from the confidential informant that Coplon was having an affair with a Justice Department lawyer who later became part of the prosecution team at her trials. Coplon admitted, under oath that she had spent the night in a Baltimore motel room with the lawyer, but she denied sleeping with him. The admission had nothing to do with her espionage charges but did influence judgments about her credibility and moral character—she also claimed to be having an affair with Gubitchev at the same time. After surveillance established that she was in regular contact with an NKGB officer in New York City, the FBI planned to arrest them when she passed classified documents to him.

However, two problems arose. First, at the time of arrest, she had not passed the documents, although they were in her possession. Second, she was arrested without a warrant, although the FBI had had plenty of time to get one. These details would figure significantly in her appeals.

For financial reasons, she accepted the pro bono offer of an inexperienced buffoon of a lawyer, Archie Palmer, whose eccentric behavior was tolerated by a feebleminded judge. Nevertheless, Palmer managed to raise the specter that the evidence from the confidential informant was in fact from illegal telephone taps. Then, over the strenuous objections of the FBI, he succeeded in getting raw FBI data collected on many famous people admitted as evidence, although they had nothing to do with the case. Actors Frederick March, Helen Hayes, Danny Kaye, and Edward G. Robinson, inter alios, were mentioned as members of the Communist Party—although they were not. Singer Paul Robeson and writer Dalton Trumbo were similarly identified—and they were. Needless to say, none of them were pleased with the testimony and the newspapers went ballistic.

The alleged telephone taps became a major element in the second trial in New York, when Coplon and her case officer, Gubitchev, were convicted together. During the first trial, FBI special agents had denied direct knowledge of the taps. At the second, however, one of them admitted that taps had been used to collect evidence presented at trial. In the appeal of the Washington trial, the verdict was upheld, but, because of the possible buging, a new trial became possible.

The prosecution was in a difficult position. The key evidence was the decrypted Soviet telegrams, but they were kept secret and could not be presented to the court. Without the evidence obtained under Venona, there was clearly not enough evidence. The attorney general's office did not want to risk a new trial, but Hoover persuaded the attorney general not to drop the charges against Coplon.

For seventeen years, before the charges were finally dropped in 1967, she was considered free on a $40,000 bond raised by her family. Coplon was not allowed to vote, drive, or leave her New York City residence. She could not even cross the Hudson River to visit her father's grave. Yet she worked successfully, married, and had four children. There was a 17-year wait for the third trial, until the government officially decided to drop the case in 1967.

But at the outset, Marcia Mitchell believed Coplon was a victim of anti-communist hysteria, and she would prove it. Only after doing the research for this book did Mitchell realize that, despite what she called “perjured testimony from FBI special agents” and a “lack of physical evidence,” Coplon was indeed guilty.

Mitchell’s co-author and husband, retired FBI special agent Tom Mitchell, held different views before and after working on the book: Coplon was guilty — the evidence made that clear. Novelists do not execute lengthy, complicated, anti-surveillance maneuvers with classified documents in their possession before meeting with Soviet espionage officers. He agreed, in part, about the lack of physical evidence — Coplon never produced any book notes, a book outline, or a manuscript. However, he took a more sanguine and realistic view of the perjury claims. In the context of the times — more than 50 years ago — he concluded that the FBI agents were merely evasive, as directed.