Bill Weisband William Weisband , Sr . ( August 28 , 1908 – May 14 , 1967 ) was an American cryptanalyst and NKVD agent ( code name ' LINK ' ) , best known for his role in revealing U . S . decryptions of Soviet diplomatic and intelligence codes to Soviet intelligence . Background . Weisband was born in Odessa , Russia , in 1908 of Russian Jewish parents . He emigrated to the United States in the 1920s and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1938 . He was drafted into the United States Army in 1942 , and was assigned to signals intelligence duties . Espionage career . From 1941 to 1942 , Weisband was the NKVD agent handler for Jones Orin York , who worked at the Northrop Corporation . After joining the U . S . Army ' s Signals Intelligence Service ( SIS ) in 1942 , he performed signals intelligence and communications security duties in North Africa and Italy , where he made some important friends before returning to the " Russian Section " at Arlington Hall , where SIS had established its headquarters in June 1942 . Although not a cryptanalyst himself , as a " linguist adviser " who spoke fluent Russian , Weisband worked closely with cryptanalysts . The gregarious and popular Weisband had access to all areas of Arlington Hall ' s Soviet work . The codebreaker Meredith Gardner recalled that Weisband had watched him extract a list of Western atomic scientists from a December 1944 NKVD message . The Soviets apparently had monitored Arlington Hall ' s " Russian Section " since at least 1945 , when Weisband joined the unit . Weisband ' s earliest reports on the work being done by U . S . cryptanalysts on the Soviet diplomatic code were probably sketchy , but after Weisband began passing information on the work of the Russian Section , Soviet authorities changed their diplomatic code and the Venona project decryptions dried up . Weisband ' s role as a Soviet agent was not discovered by counterintelligence officers until 1950 , by which time the damage had been done . Where Weisband had sketched the outlines of U . S . cryptanalytic success , British liaison officer Kim Philby received actual translations and analyses on a regular basis after he arrived for duty in Washington , D . C . , in autumn 1949 . Until a thorough review of Soviet KGB archives is made , the full scope of Weisband ' s role as a Soviet spy will probably not be known . In 1950 Jones Orin York told the FBI that he had passed secrets to the Soviets and that his handler was Bill Weisband . The Venona messages do not hold a definite reference to Weisband . Nevertheless , three messages mention a " ZVENO " ( the Russian word for " link " ) and one of them suggests procedures for the London residency to use in contacting ZVENO , who was awaiting a transfer to England . ZVENO , according to one message , had spent the last four weeks in an Italian - language course in Virginia and would leave for Britain by mid - July . In fact , Weisband spent that June honing his skills in a language ( probably Italian ) at Arlington Hall , shipped out on 17 July , and arrived in London by 29 July . While suspended from SIS on suspicion of disloyalty , Weisband failed to appear for a federal grand jury hearing on the Communist Party USA , for which he had received a summons . As a result , in November 1950 Weisband was convicted of contempt and sentenced to a year in prison . Weisband escaped prosecution for espionage , as authorities feared that a trial would divulge yet more information to Soviet intelligence on U . S . intelligence " sources and methods " . Weisband never revealed his status as an NKVD agent to anyone , and he remained in the United States , living quietly , and working as an insurance salesman until his death . Death . He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1967 . His son describes his death : [ My ] It was Mothers Day , May 14th 1967 my Father was taking me and my sisters to the Smithsonian Institute for a traditional Sunday afternoon outing . We were driving down the George Washington Memorial Parkway , and he had a massive cardiac arrest . He literally died driving the car . It was horrifying , I grabbed the wheel and pulled the car over to the side of the road , an old ' 56 Pontiac , and turned the key off . I stood out in the middle of the George Washington Memorial Parkway and stopped traffic , I ran in between the two lanes knocking on windows and doors looking for a doctor or someone to help . Two men helped pull my father out of the car , they laid him on the ground and tried to resuscitate him . An ambulance arrived on the scene and took my Father to the hospital . He was pronounced dead on arrival . My Father was a great Father and I ' ve missed him very much .