page_title: Rudolf Abel
section_title: Release and later life
hierarchical_section_title: Rudolf Abel / Release and later life
caption_attribution_description: English: “Vladimir Semichastny with intelligence officers”. Vladimir Semichastny, chairman of the KGB, talking to Soviet intelligence officers Rudolf Abel (second from left) and Konon Molody (second from right). Русский: «Семичастный принимает советских разведчиков». Председатель КГБ при Совете министров СССР В. Е. Семичастный (1-й слева) принимает советских разведчиков Р. Абеля (2-й слева) и К. Молодого (2-й справа). Россия, Москва
context_page_description: Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, real name William August Fisher, was a Soviet intelligence officer. He adopted his alias when arrested on charges of conspiracy by the FBI in 1957.
  Fisher was born in the United Kingdom to Russian émigré parents. He moved to Russia in the 1920s, and served in the Soviet military before undertaking foreign service as a radio operator in Soviet intelligence in the late 1920s and early '30s. He later served in an instructional role before taking part in intelligence operations against the Germans during World War II. After the war, he began working for the KGB, which sent him to the United States where he worked as part of a spy ring based in New York City.
  In 1957, the U.S. Federal Court in New York convicted Fisher on three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy for his involvement in what became known as the Hollow Nickel Case and sentenced him to 30 years' imprisonment at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Georgia. He served just over four years of his sentence before he was exchanged for captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. Back in the Soviet Union, he lectured on his experiences. He died in 1971 at the age of 68.
context_section_description: Fisher served just over four years of his sentence. On February 10, 1962, he was exchanged for the shot-down American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. The exchange took place on the Glienicke Bridge that linked West Berlin with Potsdam, which became famous during the Cold War as the "Bridge of Spies". At precisely the same time, at Checkpoint Charlie, Frederic Pryor was released by the East German Stasi into the waiting arms of his father. A few days later Fisher, reunited with his wife Elena and daughter Evelyn, flew home. For the sake of its own reputation it suited the KGB to portray "Abel's" nine years of being an undetected agent in the United States as a triumph by a dedicated NKVD member. The myth of the master spy Rudolf Abel replaced the reality of Fisher's illegal residency, even as the party hierarchy was well aware that Fisher had achieved nothing of real significance. During his eight years as an illegal resident he appears not to have recruited, or even identified, a single potential agent.
  After his return to Moscow, Fisher was employed by the Illegals Directorate of the KGB's First Chief Directorate, giving speeches and lecturing school children on intelligence work, but became increasingly disillusioned. He made a notable appearance in the foreword to the Soviet spy film Dead Season and also worked as a consultant on the film. Fisher, who was a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer on November 15, 1971. His ashes were interred at the Donskoye Cemetery under his real name, and a few Western correspondents were invited there to view for themselves the true identity of the spy who never "broke".
caption: Vladimir Semichastny, chairman of the KGB, talking to Soviet intelligence officers Rudolf Abel (second from left) and Konon Molody (second from right) in September 1964
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