Reino Gikman

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Reino Gikman was the alias used by an undercover agent for the Soviet KGB who operated in Western Europe. Gikman used a Finnish passport and spent several years in Finland developing his illegal residence cover by posing as a Finn. He held various jobs in Helsinki in the 1960s, working among others in the Suomalainen Kirjakauppa bookstore. ^[1] His fake Finnish citizenship was created by the KGB, with the help of a priest of the Finnish Orthodox Church, by inserting fake births into the church records.^[2] He received his first Finnish passport at a Finnish embassy, before ever entering Finland. Until at least 1989 he was legally married to a Martta Nieminen, a suspected Soviet spy and also a holder of a Finnish passport.

Until his disappearance in June 1989, he was living in Vienna, Austria, and reportedly working for the United Nations in Paris^[3][4] A wiretapped telephone conversation on April 27, 1989, between Gikman and Felix Bloch, a U.S. State Department official stationed in Vienna from 1980 to 1987, was the original cause of espionage suspicions on Bloch. ^{[5] [6] [7]}

[edit] Trivia

• The choise of the surname Gikman in the planted fake birth certificate is peculiar. He is the only Finn ever to have the surmane Gikman, and maybe the only person in the world with the surname. The web site ancestry.com reports one Gikman family living in the US in 1920, in the state of Indiana^[8]

[edit] References

1. ^ Helsingin Sanomat
2. ^ Finland was an auxiliary country for top Cold War spies - Helsingin Sanomat 31 October 2000
3. ^ Taliban turning to foreign suicide bombers
4. ^ Canada arrests 'illegal' spy from Russian intelligence
5. ^ Spy Like Us? - Independent Weekly, March 7, 2001
6. ^ Charge: Hanssen foiled '89 spy pursuit
7. ^ USA v. Robert Philip Hanssen: Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint... PDF
8. ^ Distribution of Gikman Families in the US in 1920