Story The Hollow Coin
Wording of this Handout:
A true story about a Russian spy and his capture.
The year was 1953, and the place is New York. On the street was a young American boy, selling newspapers. It happened that a lady tried to buy one off him, but all she had was a dollar bill, so Jimmy went to find someone who could give him some change.
He tried a door across the hall in the apartment building nearby, and a man swapped the bill for some coins.
Jimmy went back to the lady, and sold her the newspaper. He put the coins in his pocket.
A little later, Jimmy noticed than one of the coins didn't sound like the others when it jingled. He felt its weight, and found it was lighter than the other nickels he had.
Suddenly, he dropped it, and it fell in half. Inside the coin was a tiny photograph with some numbers on it.
Jimmy told his girl friend about the strange coin, and she told her father, who just happened to be a New York City Police detective.
He was very interested, so he passed the story on to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). They soon realized that the coin was a clue to a spy operation.
The com was being used by the spies to smuggle secrets about.
After some careful watching, the FBI arrested a man called Goldfus, the owner of a photographic shop.
When they searched his studio, they found shortwave radios, cypher pads for doing secret codes, micro-cameras and film. They also found many 'trick' containers, such as hollow cuff-links, shaving-brushes, pens, pencils, nails, screws and more coins.
Goldfus was soon unmasked. His real name was Colonel Rudolf Abel of the KGB. He was taken to trial, and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but later, he was exchanged for an American spy. Spy-swapping sounds like a funny thing to do, but it was not unusual in the 1950's.