Alexandre Feklisov

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Aleksandr Semyonovich Feklisov (born 1914) was the KGB Case Officer who recruited Julius Rosenberg and Klaus Fuchs, among others. Feklisov worked as a KGB case officer in the Russian consulate office in New York from 1940-1946. His supervisor was Senior Case Officer Anatoli Yatskov (alias Yakovlev). Part of Feklisov's duties included recruitment of agent prospects from among sympathetic Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and its auxiliary secret apparatus to engage in espionage. Rosenberg was among these recruits. In the period from 1943 to 1946, Feklisov would report at least 50 meetings with Julius Rosenberg. He stated that Julius Rosenberg provided important top secret information about electronics and helped organize an industrial espionage ring for Moscow, but "didn't understand anything about the atom bomb."

Feklisov stated Ethel Rosenberg, as a "probationer", did not meet directly with Soviet Agent handler. He also said she "had nothing to do with this" and was "completely innocent." In August 1946 Feklisov returned to the USSR. By the late 1940's, Feklisov was transferred to the London Rezidentura. Eventually Feklisov was transferred back to the United States and became the Washington, D.C. Rezident, or KGB Station Chief from 1960–1964. His cover name at that time was Aleksandr Fomin. As KGB Rezident, Feklisov (Fomin) proposed what became the basis for resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the removal of missiles from Cuba in exchange for a promise that the United States not invade the island nation.

Feklisov was portrayed by Harris Yulin in the 1974 film The Missiles of October, and by Boris Lee Krutonog in the 2000 film Thirteen Days.

[edit] Reference

• Feklisov, Alexandre, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs: Memoirs of the KGB Spymaster Who Also Controlled Klaus Fuchs and Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis, New York: Enigma, 2001