to as “Pers” (Perseus) in Soviet intelligence traffic was a key source
for the New York rezidentura. He could be identified by this code
name by American cryptographers. After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, a Soviet historian hinted that the name was chosen because
Perseus was the person in Greek mythology who went into the under-
world to obtain fire. See also ENORMOZ; VENONA.PETERS, IAKOV KHRISTOFOROVICH (1886–1938).At the age
of 19, Peters took part in the Revolution of 1905and was imprisoned
and tortured by tsarist authorities. Released in 1908, he made his way
to London, where he became engaged in émigréanarchist circles. He
took part in a botched robbery of a jewelry store, which ended with
the killing of three London police officers. Peters was acquitted of the
crime, however, and married an English woman. He returned to Rus-
sia immediately following the fall of the tsar and joined the Bolshe-
vik Party. He was appointed to the first Chekagoverning council
(collegium) in early 1918. During the civil war, he often deputized
for Feliks Dzerzhinskyand gained a reputation for mercilessness.
He was given ultimate responsibility for the security of Leningrad,
Moscow, and Kiev during the most difficult days of the civil war. A
competent administrator, Peters went into party work in the 1920s,
serving as head of the Moscow city and regional governments. He
was arrested in 1937 and shot in 1938.PETERS, JOSEF (c. 1895–?). This man who left a long shadow across
American and Soviet intelligence history had a number of aliases:
Alexander Goldfarb, Isador Boorstein, and Alexander Stevens, as
well as Josef Peters. He was born in Cop, then part of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. He immigrated illegally to America after World
War Iand served as a militant in the Communist Party of the United
States (CPUSA). In 1931 he was recalled to Moscow and trained to
be head of the Comintern’s illegalsection inside the CPUSA. For
the next six years, he served as a conduit between the American party
and the Soviet intelligence services, traveling monthly to meet with
agents in Washington. During this time, he ran Whittaker Cham-
bersand helped establish a number of intelligence rings in Washing-
ton and New York. In 1938, when Chambers left the Communist
Party and his life as a Soviet agent, Peters was blamed by Moscow192 •PETERS, IAKOV KHRISTOFOROVICH (1886–1938)06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 192