KGB Man by Cecil Kuhne

Author:Cecil Kuhne [Kuhne, Cecil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637585931
Publisher: Knox Press
Published: 2022-10-17T13:01:38+00:00

Chapter Nine

Abel’s trial began as the bailiff entered the New York City courtroom and sharply announced to the lawyers, jury members, and spectators gathered there: “All rise. The federal district court for the eastern district of the state of New York calls to order case number 45094, United States of America versus Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, also known as ‘Mark,’ and also known as Martin Collins and Emil R. Goldfus, with the Honorable Judge Mortimer W. Byers presiding.”

Judge Byers, who was eighty-one years old, had served as a federal judge for twenty-eight years and had presided over Nazi spy trials in 1941. He was known as a stern judge with strong convictions. The judge nodded to the prosecution to begin.

William F. Tompkins, a slender forty-four-year-old who had been a military prosecutor and a prolific prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Internal Security division, would argue the case for the government, along with assistant attorneys Kevin J. Maroney, James J. Featherstone, and Anthony R. Palermo. Tompkins walked toward the jury.

“May it please the court, ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

“It is our duty to present the evidence that has been assembled by the investigative agencies of the government and to prove the truth of the charges set forth by the grand jury. My colleagues and myself are conscious of our obligation to represent the government of the United States and the people of the United States, and conscious of the obligation to protect the rights of the individual defendant as well as the rights of all American citizens by proceeding diligently against those who have transgressed our law and who, perhaps, have dedicated themselves to the destruction of our country.

“I want to make this very clear. The interest of the government is not that we shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. In other words, that innocence shall not suffer, nor guilt escape. In accordance with that, I want to pledge to you on behalf of my colleagues and myself that we will conduct ourselves in such a fashion that this defendant will be insured a fair trial.

“The nature of the charge is one of unusual significance, and it takes on added significance when you consider that it occurred during critical years of our history. However, the seriousness of the charge does not make it a difficult one. The grand jury indictment is simple, and I just want to talk to you about that for a few minutes. I first of all say this: The indictment is a charge; it is not proof of anything.”

Tompkins then summarized the indictment, beginning with the fist count, in which the grand jury charged the defendant with “conspiracy to commit espionage and with conspiring with other conspirators to transmit information relating to our national defense.” Tompkins listed the defendant’s spying devices and techniques—the short-wave radio, the hollowed-out containers, the “drops” in the city parks, large sums of money, forged birth certificates, and fake passports. And he mentioned, “And it was also charged by the

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