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Valentin Gubitchev

The first spy exposed at the UN was Valentin Gubichev. But he did not have a high diplomatic status and, in fact, did not have diplomatic immunity, being a simple employee. He lived them to a posh six-story apartment building at 64 West 108th Street between Manhattan and Amsterdam Avenues. In the lobby, the FBI agents read the tenants' names on the mailboxes, which meant nothing. Then they called the manager, who lived on the first floor.

When they described the person being pursued, the manager assumed that it must be Valentin Gubichev, who occupied a four-room apartment on the fifth floor with his wife. "He works for the United Nations," the manager added, as casually as if he were talking about a simple shipping agent. The confirmation that Gubichev was Russian and working for the UN immediately increased the FBI's interest in him: Judith Coplon's connection with Gubichev took on a sinister tone.

FBI Agents Gradsky and Brennan immediately notified their superiors of what they had learned. Gubichev's home was ordered to be under 24-hour surveillance by vehicles. When Gubichev left for the United Nations the next morning, the agents followed him. He boarded a bus, followed by several FBI agents in cars. One of the agents, John F. Malley, took a seat behind the suspect on the bus. At 42nd Street, Gubichev transferred to another bus to travel through Manhattan to the UN building under construction. Malley continued to accompany him.

Throughout the day, the FBI conducted discreet inquiries at the United Nations, then still headquartered in Lake Success, Long Island, establishing Gubichev’s precise functions within the organization. He was a civil engineer and served as the third secretary of the Soviet delegation. Having arrived in the United States from the Soviet Union in July 1946 as part of the Soviet delegation, he subsequently became an employee of the UN Secretariat with an annual salary of $6,600, tax-free. He was given the status of an international civil servant. This was done, as the FBI discovered, so that Gubichev, a talented engineer, could participate in the design of a new skyscraper for the UN headquarters on First Avenue, which was already nearing completion.

On September 26, 1946, Gubichev signed the oath required of all members of the Secretariat. It reads: "I solemnly swear to perform with complete devotion, honesty and conscientiousness all duties entrusted to me as a member of the international service of the UN. I promise to fulfill these duties and to measure my behavior with the interests of duty. I undertake not to seek or accept instructions regarding the performance of my duties from any government or other authorities not involved in this organization."

This oath was signed by countless Soviet citizens who were caught in espionage activities in the following years; fifteen years later, Khrushchev would declare that he did not recognize this oath.

Gubichev's every move was now under constant surveillance. Every time he emerged from the forest of structures of the UN building under construction, FBI agents were ready to follow him. From now on, he did not walk or ride public transportation without an escort; even when he got into a taxi or rode in a car, FBI agents followed him like a shadow.

The FBI learned that Gubichev also had a child, a 13-year-old daughter. She had lived in New York with her parents until the summer of 1948, when the Russian consulate that had sheltered the family was forced to close after the famous case of Mrs. Kosenkina. Oksana Kosenkina was a teacher at the consulate school at 7 East 61st Street. Gubichev's daughter was among the students at the school. When Kosenkina's husband was killed by his own people, she took refuge with Countess Alexandra Tolstoy in Rockland County, north of New York City. Russian agents kidnapped Mrs. Kosenkina, took her to the Soviet consulate, and held her there before sending her to Russia. She escaped by jumping out a window and was badly injured. She spent many months in Roosevelt Hospital, but achieved her goal of receiving asylum in the United States.

The FBI learned that in August 1948, when the incident with Kosenkina occurred, Gubichev and his family briefly went to Russia. A few weeks later, the couple returned, but without their daughter. "We sent her to school in Moscow," Gubichev explained to neighbors.

Digging into his biography, the FBI found out that Gubichev was born in the city of Orel on June 24, 1916, studied at the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute, joined the Ministry of Construction and rose through the ranks to become deputy director of the Ural Construction Trust in Chelyabinsk. He was then transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in July 1946, he came to the United States to work for the UN.

When the Soviet Union was given a quota in the Secretariat, Gubichev was chosen as the candidate. He left the Soviet mission to the UN and took up a new post, returning to his first love – civil engineering.

UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie called Gubichev one of the outstanding designers and engineers of the new UN complex. "He is a good man. He is doing a great job under the supervision of construction coordinator James Dawson," Lie told the FBI.

While Gubichev was kept under close surveillance, Judith Coplon was being followed just as diligently. Agents were hot on her heels. On the evening of her meeting with Gubichev, Coplon left her parents' house and went to Washington. The agents rode the same train, keeping an eye on her, then went to get a taxi that took her to McClean Gardens, the solid apartment building where she rented a two-room apartment. On February 18, Miss Coplon went to New York again and met Gubichev again in the same area where their first meeting had taken place. Only this time, everything was completely different. Everything played out according to the rules of a spy novel.

Some papers, containing secret but false information about the Amtorg trading corporation, the Russian trade mission in the United States, as well as data on the use of geophones to measure pressure during tests of American atomic bombs, were prepared as bait, landed on Ms. Coplon's desk at the Justice Department the day before her meeting with Gubichev, and for some insignificant reason remained on her desk much longer than they should have.

Coplon had been asking FBI data on embassies, consulates, and embassy personnel for no apparent reason. Then she finally asked her boss at the Justice Department, William Foley, for a classified file labeled “Homeland Security – Z.” The “Z” stood for Russia. The file contained information related to Soviet agents and national security. The meetings between Gubichev and Miss Coplon were in many ways consistent with the fantastic confession made in the summer of 1948 by Elizabeth Bentley and Whitaker Chambers, couriers for the Communist spy ring.

On 04 March 1949, at halfway between 15th and 16th Streets, adjacent to the avenue, after a long street chase FBI Agent Granville caught up with Gubichev and Miss Coplon, touched them lightly on the shoulders and announced sternly: "I am a special agent of the FBI. You are both under arrest." Coplon's purse was seized and examined at the scene. Agents found the very documents the suspect was said to have taken with her when she left her Justice Department office that day. Gubichev was quickly patted down.

Judge Simon Rifkind set Ms. Coplon's bail at $20,000 and Gubichev's at $100,000. Oscar Schechter, a UN staff lawyer who was present at the indictment said Gubichev was not on duty at the time of his arrest and therefore lacked immunity from prosecution for violating U.S. law. Because both defendants could not post bail, they were placed in federal custody. Her defense attorney put forward a funny version: Judith Coplon needed the documents to write a novel. And as for her meetings with Valentin Gubichev, she is simply head over heels in love with him.

The following day, UN Secretary-General Lie relieved Gubichev of his duties at the Secretariat, confirming that the Russian engineer could not enjoy diplomatic immunity under the circumstances. Lie said he was acting according to the rules clearly set out in agreements adopted at UN headquarters. A week later, in a response to Moscow, Secretary of State Dean Acheson finally sealed Gubichev's fate by declaring that the United States rejected demands to recognize the accused Soviet engineer's diplomatic immunity.

On 09 March 1950 Judge Sylvester Ryan sentenced Valentin Gubitchev to five years on the first count of the indictment and ten years on the third count of the indictment, the terms to run consecutively. No fine was imposed. The Court then announced that, on the basis of the Government’s recommendation, the Court would arrange for Gubitchev to be brought before it again, for resentencing under Article 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, if arrangements were made for Gubitchev to leave the United States. The Judge said that on resentencing he would suspend the sentence on condition of Gubitchev’s leaving the country within two weeks, never to return.

Judge Ryan said he suspended Gubitchevs sentence at the request of the Attorney General and the Secretary of State. The deportation to Russia, rather than a prison term, was decided upon for Gubitchev to avoid endangering Americans who are in Soviet dominated eastern Europe. The State Department said that the United States and Russia had been in disputeb over whether Gubitchev should have been granted diplomatic immunity.

On March 15, 1950, Gubichev cancelled the appeal of his conviction and agreed to leave the employ of the United Nations and to depart from the United States. He was scheduled to leave from New York on March 20 on the S.S. Batory destined for Gdynia, Poland. Arrangements were made so that on the day of departure Judge Ryan would change the original sentence to a suspended sentence. Then Gubichev would be taken under guard to a Coast Guard cutter, which would transport him to the limits of the territorial waters of the United States, where he would be put aboard the Batory on the open sea.

He and his wife were given a first-class cabin, paid for by the U.S. government. Gubichev was carrying ten pieces of luggage, including a large television. A group of Soviet officials saw him off at the pier, and representatives of the press arrived. When asked if television existed in Russia, Gubichev defiantly replied, "Of course it did, we invented television!" The convicted spy received his wages for the entire investigation and trial (about $6,000) when he left the shores of the United States forever.

While Judith Coplon, now a wife and mother, disappeared from view and Valentin Gubichev returned to the wing of his powerful agency, the reciprocal concessions the State Department had hoped for never came. Neither Robert Vogeler nor any other Americans in Soviet or satellite custody were released from the “labor camps.” Vogeler remained in custody for another year, and some Americans were released even later. America’s attempt to teach Moscow a lesson in ethics had failed.