User:Adrian829/Portland Spy Ring

= Portland Spy Ring = The Portland Spy Ring was a Soviet Spy Ring that operated throughout England from the late 1950s up until 1961, falling after the arrest of core members of the network by the Special Branch. The reason the Ring was called the Portland Spy Ring was that it was named after the location in which most of the information was taken, in Portland England. The Spy Ring was operated and created by the infamous American Spy Couple Morris and Lona Cohen. The couple moved to England after fleeing the United States, after the sentencing of the Rosenbergs, fearing they would follow the same fate. Other members of the Ring included Harry Houghton, Ethel Gee, Gordon Lonsdale (real name: Konon Molody). This Ring is one of the most famous examples of the use of resident spies, who operate in a foreign country without the cover of their embassy. The Ring was known for its intel gathering on English submarines.

Operation
The Portland Spy ring was run and created by Morris and Lona Cohen. The Cohens were a well-renowned spy couple that served the Soviet Union, working first for the Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del(NKVD) and later for the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) once they started the Ring. They are known for stealing a fully detailed blueprint of the first nuclear bomb from the Americans. The Cohens disguised themselves as antique booksellers named Peter and Helen Kroger. The Krogers were the ones with direct contact with Moscow and would relay any data that their operatives had discovered within England. This Spy Ring was very similar to the one that the Krogers had built in the United States a few years before escaping. Both relied on two different tiers of operatives, one that would directly contact the Krogers, and the others that reported to the Krogers operatives. Both rings also specialized in gathering information that was transmitted through radio and information that was about technological advancement such as the designs of nuclear warheads.

The Portland Spy Ring began sometime in the late 1950s with the arrival of the Krogers from Poland. The Krogers began to recruit operatives, specifically looking for people working with or in government offices. After they had recruited some operatives, their operatives had the possibility to continue to recruit others. This work through middlemen gave some safety to the Krogers who were already being persecuted by the United States. Some of their recruits include Ethel Gee, Harry Houghton, and Gordon Lonsdale all of which would later be arrested around the same time as the Krogers.

In the case of Gee, Houghton, and Lonsdale, the way that they reported back to the Krogers was by Houghton and Gee acting as a married couple visiting London on weekends to meet Lonsdale. After reporting to Lonsdale, he would go onto report back to the Krogers, sending the collected information through microdots back to Moscow. The Krogers were trained on how to develop microdots, so much so that in Portland they developed them in their own bathroom at their house in Ruislip. The way that the Krogers operated the Ring and stayed in plain sight was similar to the way they operated in the United States.

Tracking the spy ring
Before 1960, the Portland Spy ring gathered much intel on the British. Although it is not clear to tell how much intel the Ring gathered, but in the case of Houghton it was said that he gave around 350 records. Most of which was about British submarine data, such as anti-submarine equipment and some on their nuclear submarine fleet. It was believed that as a result of this intel, Soviet submarines would improve. Suspicion began to arise of a Spy Ring in the United Kingdom.

It was not until 1959 that MI5 get any solid leads on any of the members of the Ring. In 1959, a Polish defector Michael Goleniewski by the codename Sniper leaked covert information to the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA). This information was sent to British Secret Service(MI5) since it included information on the identity of some key members of the Portland Spy Ring. One of these leaked members was Lonsdale. Sniper also leaked information on where there were spies in the United Kingdom. This being information from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment and HMS Osprey at Portland, England, where the Royal Navy tested equipment for undersea warfare. As a result of the leak, MI5 conducted several surveillance operations on Lonsdale and in the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment and HMS Osprey, in order to discover other members of the Ring. These surveillance operations led to the discovery of many operatives of the Ring, the first of whom was Houghton. Houghton was a former sailor who was a civil service clerk at the base, as his spending seemed to have an unusual pattern.

With these new discoveries, MI5 put Houghton under surveillance. This also led to the discovery of Houghton's mistress Gee, who was a filing clerk who handled documents to which Houghton did not have access. MI5 soon discovered the connection between Houghton and Lonsdale due to their meetings in London, where they exchanged documents.

With Lonsdale under surveillance, MI5 saw that he had a pattern of not only going to London but also to 45 Cranley Drive Ruislip in Middlesex, where he would always go to visit an antiquarian bookstore, owned by Peter and Helen Kroger. This led to the Krogers also being put under surveillance. As a result, they were given the codenames Killjoy (Peter) and Mrs. Killjoy (Helen) by MI5.

The arrests
Thanks to the surveillance operations by MI5, some of the members of the Portland Spy Ring were found. After two years of surveillance, it was decided to arrest the members that they had discovered. This led to the Special Branch arresting those they had discovered to be spies. So, on January 7, 1961, in London England, Houghton, Gee, and Lonsdale were arrested during their meeting by Detective Superintendent George Gordon Smith. During this arrest, the spies were caught with shopping bags that contained film and photographs of classified material, including information on the HMS Dreadnought, and the stalling speed specifications of the Borg Warner torque converter.

On that same day, in 1961, the Krogers were also arrested in their home in Ruislip. Detective Smith and two other Special Branch officers came to the Krogers neighborhood saying that they were conducting an investigation into local burglaries, which allowed them access into the Krogers home. Once they entered the home, they identified themselves as Special Branch officers and requested that the Krogers come with them to Scotland Yard for questioning. Soon after Helen Kroger asked if she could go to the basement to stoke up the boiler before their departure, but before she could leave Detective Smith stopped here and proceeded to pat her down and look into her purse. Whilst looking into her purse Smith discovered several microdots. It was assumed that Mrs. Kroger's intention was to go to the boiler and destroy the microdots before the house could be inspected.

These microdots that were discovered in Mrs. Kroger's purse were letters sent between Lonsdale and his wife and children in Poland. Kroger had used the print in his antique books to hold the microdots and smuggle them between Britain and the Soviet Union. They would have included the secrets passed on by Houghton and Gee, such as information on British submarines. After an investigation on the Kroger's house was conducted, it was discovered that they contained spy equipment, such as equipment to produce microdots, code pads for coding messages, a long-range radio transmitter-receiver for communicating with Moscow, and photographic material. The MI5 intelligence officer Peter Wright said that the Krogers' radio transmitter was not located until after nine days of searching. Over the years, during subsequent renovations, several other radio transmitters were unearthed.

Sentences and later lives
Lonsdale would go on to offer to betray the Union by revealing what intel they had recovered at the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment and at the HMS Osprey, but that he would never tell everything he knew out of fear of being killed in Moscow. This was all in an effort to return to Moscow, the only thing that he rumored to not do was out any Russian spy active in England. He did however offer to become a double spy, as long as he returned to Moscow and also be secured protection in case he was discovered. However, none of this ever happened since Lonsdale was later used in a prisoner exchange and returned to Moscow in 1964.

For the Cohens, they returned to Moscow in a prisoner exchange of a British citizen in 1969. Consequently, the Soviets had to confirm that the Cohens had been spies. Morris Cohen would later be rewarded with his devotion to serving the Soviet Union by being placed on a Stamp.

In the case of both Houghton and Gee, they were also released early. Unlike the other two members, both Houghton and Gee were not released due to a prisoner exchange, instead, they were simply released early due to good behavior. Whilst in jail, they got married. Leaving jail together, with no records on when they were released or where they went to after.