Helen Kroger

Lona Cohen died in Moscow on December 23, 1992. She was 79 years of age. Her husband, Morris, lived for three years following her death. They were both buried in the KGB's Novokuntsevo Cemetery.

In 1983, the British playwright Hugh Whitemore dramatized the case as Pack of Lies, which was performed in London's West End theatre district starring Judi Dench and Michael Williams. It played on Broadway for 3½ months in 1985, for which Rosemary Harris won the best actress Tony award for her portrayal of the British neighbor of the Cohens/Krogers. It was made into a TV movie starring Ellen Burstyn, Alan Bates, Teri Garr and Daniel Benzali (as "Peter Schaefer", i.e., "Peter Kroger", i.e., Morris Cohen) which aired in the U.S. on CBS in 1987. The plot centered on the neighbors (and seeming friends) whose house was used as a base from which the security services could spy on the Cohens, and the way paranoia, suspicion and betrayal gradually destroyed their lives during that time.

In 1969 the British arranged a prisoner exchange, trading the Cohens with the Soviet Union for a British subject, Gerald Brooke. Once in Moscow, the Cohens continued training colleagues for illegal intelligence operations. Later the Cohens were provided with pensions by the KGB.

They were both arrested in Britain in 1961, and convicted of espionage the following year for the Soviet Union. After serving part of a prison sentence, Lona Cohen and her husband were exchanged by the British in 1969. They lived the remainder of their lives in Moscow, teaching spy skills.

In January 1961 they were arrested for espionage; in March she was convicted and received a sentence of 20 years. Her husband Morris Cohen was sentenced to 25 years.

In 1954, the pair resurfaced in Ruislip, west London, under the names Helen and Peter Kroger. They used the New Zealand passports they had received in Paris and claimed to be native Canadians. They set up an antiquarian book business which was cover for their activities of running the London Illegal Rezidentura. Gordon Lonsdale worked with them as part of the Portland Spy Ring.

After the defections of Elizabeth Bentley and Igor Gouzenko, the Cohens ended contact with Soviet intelligence until 1949, at which time they began working with Col. Rudolph Abel, a U.S.-based illegal resident. After Klaus Fuchs was arrested in the United Kingdom in 1950, Cohen and her husband had no choice but to flee to Moscow. They left their home in New York and never returned to America, passing the southern border and travelling through Mexico. They were placed in Lublin, Poland, until 1954. There, Morris worked as an English teacher. The Cohens went on many foreign missions for the Soviets during this time, traveling to Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands. They received New Zealand passports in Paris from the New Zealand embassy, and also made trips to Canada. In Moscow, Lona had received additional training as a radio operator and cipher clerk.

Lona met with Hall for the first time in late August 1945, outside a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She had been to this church the previous four Sundays, but Hall had been confused about the date of their meet and did not show up until nearly a month after originally scheduled. Hall gave her the report that she had traveled for, and she was sent back to New York. To avoid detection she concealed the report inside a Kleenex box, a move which became somewhat famous within Soviet spy circles for its cleverness. After making it back to New York, it was discovered that the report she had helped deliver contained a complete diagram of the first atomic bomb.

After Morris was drafted in 1942, Lona took over the expanding Volunteer Network that Morris had been maintaining and managed seven agents. Their work was titled Line X. As part of Line X, Lona conducted "technical, scientific, and industrial espionage", delivering and receiving documents along the East Coast. She frequently received documents from seamen from South America and Europe, using her charm to persuade dock-workers to permit her access to the ships. Later, Semyonov wrote an appraisal of Cohen, commending her love of the Soviet Union and her work with agent Link, eventually identified as Bill Weisband.

While conducting her Line X work, she worked at two defense plants. First, in 1942, at Publix Metals as a machine operator, and then in 1943 at Aircraft Screw Products. While working at Aircraft Screw Products, Lona was in an accident and had part of her hair ripped from her head. A supervisor she worked under accused her of preaching Communism.

At the time of her marriage to Morris Cohen in 1941, she did not know that her husband was a spy for the Soviet Union. That year he recruited her into Soviet espionage out of the New York rezidentura. She and Morris first worked for Soviet control officer Semyon Semyonov until Semyonov was identified to the FBI in an anonymous letter, after which he was recalled back to Moscow. After four months Lona and Morris were assigned to a new control officer, Anatoli Yatskov.

Lona Cohen was born Leontine Theresa Petka in Adams, Massachusetts, the daughter of Polish Catholic immigrants. At the age of 15, Lona left her parents' home in Taftsville, Connecticut and moved to New York City. By 1928 she had joined the Socialist Party. While in Greenwich Village, Lona had left her parents' Catholic faith and had become an atheist. She also separated from the Socialist Party at this time, becoming a member of the Communist Party. George Blake, a British mole for the Soviet Union, claimed in an interview that Lona was a "very, very resolute woman, very determined".

Lona Cohen (January 11, 1913 – December 23, 1992), born Leontine Theresa Petka, also known as Helen Kroger, was an American who spied for the Soviet Union. She is notable for her role in smuggling atomic bomb diagrams out of Los Alamos. She was a communist activist before marrying Morris Cohen. They became spies because of their communist beliefs.