Cohen, Lona (1913–1993)
Cohen, Lona (1913–1993)
American spy. Name variations: Helen Kroger. Born Lona or Leontina Petka in US to Polish Catholic parents but became estranged from family at early age; died 1993 in Moscow, Russia; m. Morris Cohen (American-Jewish Communist spy, b. 1910).
Soviet agent with husband Morris Cohen, worked for KGB in US during WWII; said to have been given the secrets of the A-Bomb by American physicist Ted Hall who worked on the Manhattan Project, but never implicated him; lived in England as Helen and Peter Kroger at 45 Cranley Drive in Ruislip (1954–1961), claiming they were Canadian booksellers; worked with fellow spy Gordon Lonsdale; activities monitored by M15 from the home of the Search family across the street; with husband, caught and tried in England (1961), sentenced to 20 years imprisonment; released to the Russians in a prisoner exchange (1969). The story of their English sojourn was dramatized in the play Pack of Lies (1983) and its film, and on tv in "Act of Betrayal."
See also Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy.