George Koval

George Koval

George Abramovich Koval was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Sioux City, Iowa. He was recruited by the Soviet GRU and assigned the code name DELMAR. Koval worked at atomic research laboratories and relayed back to the Soviet Union information about the polonium, plutonium, and uranium used in American atomic weaponry. In 1948, Koval left on a European vacation but never returned to the United States.

About George Koval in brief

Summary George KovalGeorge Abramovich Koval was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Sioux City, Iowa. He was recruited by the Soviet GRU and assigned the code name DELMAR. Koval worked at atomic research laboratories and relayed back to the Soviet Union information about the polonium, plutonium, and uranium used in American atomic weaponry. In 1948, Koval left on a European vacation but never returned to the United States. In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Koval the Hero of the Russian Federation decoration for \”his courage and heroism while carrying out special missions\”. Koval’s father, Abram Koval, left his home town of Telekhany in Belarus to immigrate to the U.S. in 1910. He raised three sons: Isaya, born 1912; George, born Christmas 1913; and Gabriel, born 1919. The Koval family emigrated in 1932, traveling with a United States family passport. They settled in Birobidzhan, near the border of Manchuria. The family worked on a collective farm and were profiled by an American Communist daily newspaper in New York City. While attending Central High he was a member of the Honor Society and the debate team.

While at the university, he met and married fellow student Lyudmila Ivanova. He graduated with honors in five years and received Soviet citizenship. By the time he received his degree he had left Moscow under orders as part of a subterfuge. In 2000, he re-established contact with an American colleague he befriended and established contact with President George W. Bush. While Koval originally worked under a pseudonym, he decided to have him use his real name in his work in the beginning of World War II. He only ingratiated himself with everyone he met, and only told coworkers he was an only child and a native New Yorker. He assumed deputy command of the local GRU cell in San Francisco, California, under the alias of  Zhorzh Abramovich. His code name was DELMAR and he traveled to San Francisco under the cover of the Raven Electric Company, a supplier to such firms as General Electric. He died on January 31, 2006, at the age of 83. He is buried in a plot of land near the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia.