Cold War, Lona and Morris Cohen played a critical role in the Julius
Rosenbergand Konon Molodycases. Morris Cohen, a communist
since his high school years, served in the Republican Army in Spain,
was wounded, and was subsequently recruited there by the NKVD.
On his return to the United States, he married Lona Petka, a commu-
nist activist. During World War II, Lona served the NKVD reziden-
turain New York as a courier between Soviet intelligence officers
and their agents in Los Alamos. She traveled to New Mexico to meet
agents and take nuclear weapons information to Soviet case officers
in New York. On one occasion, when she was being searched by a
counterintelligenceofficer, she gave a box of tissues containing the
documents to the officer to hold. Since tuberculosis was common in
New Mexico, the officer never inspected the box or found the docu-
ments. The Cohens later became important players in the Rosenberg
spy network in the late 1940s and were forced to flee to Moscow via
Mexico when their roles were discovered.
In 1954, under cover as Peter and Helen Kroger, they traveled to
London to support Soviet intelligence. Operating from an antiquarian
bookshop in a London suburb, they worked closely with Konon
Molody (Gordon Lonsdale), who was running important agents
within the British navy. They served as clandestine radio operators
for several years with the KGB code name “dachatniki” (the vaca-
tioners). In 1961 they were arrested with Molody and sentenced to 20
years imprisonment. Eight years later, they were exchanged for a
British agent. The Cohens’ life after their release from prison is a
mystery. They may have served in Japan as illegals; they almost cer-
tainly worked to train a new generation of Soviet illegals in Moscow.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cohens surfaced in
Moscow and gave interviews to both the American and Soviet press.
They were of a generation of ideological recruits who had served
Moscow and Joseph Stalinwithout question. Morris Cohen was dec-
orated for service to Russia by President Boris Yeltsinshortly before
his death.COLD WAR. The Cold War—an ideological struggle between the
Bolshevikregime and its enemies—lasted from 7 November 1917
until the collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991. It has been
more narrowly defined as lasting from 1947 until 1991 between theCOLD WAR •4906-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 49