The Hollow Nickel Case

Gary Powers

 

Today in class, we discussed Gary Powers and the May 1,1960 U-2 spy plane incident that occurred during the height of The Cold War with the USSR.  Gary Powers (a CIA spy/ pilot) was shot down over Soviet airspace near Degtyarsk, Russia.  The United States government denied the plane's purpose (claiming it was a weather plane that accidentally flew off course) and mission, but later admitted the plane was a spy plane when the Soviet government produced photographs and pieces of the wreckage, film from the plane cameras, and the surviving pilot. 



The Hollow Nickel and Microfilm

Gary Powers was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 10 years in a Siberian work prison.  But, he served less than 2 years because of a strange twist of fate commonly referred to as "The Hollow Nickel Case."  On June 22, 1953, a NYC newspaper boy was paid with a nickel that felt too light to him. When he threw it on the ground, it surprisingly popped open.  Inside the nickel was a small piece of microfilm.  He told his friend (whose father was a NYC policeman) about the microfilm and then took it to the FBI 2 days later.  The FBI spent nearly four years trying to find the origin of the nickel and the meaning of the microfilm.  Then in 1957, a Soviet KGB agent (spy) wanted to defect from the USSR.  He gave the FBI the information it needed to crack the code and uncover the identity of the Soviet spies in NYC who were responsible for the hollow nickel and microfilm.  These spies were in the United States trying to gather information on the U.S. atomic program and U.S. Navy submarines.

 



Microdot Technology

When one of the spies, Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolph Abel had been "living" in America since 1949 to steal atomic bomb secrets) was arrested, the room he lived in contained cameras and film for producing microdots, cipher pads, hollow "trick" containers, and shortwave radios.  In October of 1957, he was found guilty as a KGB spy and sentenced to 45 years.




Rudolph Abel

On February 10, 1962, thanks to the break in the Hollow Nickel Case, Gary Powers was exchanged for Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolph Abel) in Berlin, Germany.

Watch clip on U-2 Incident- 50th Anniversary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McmyNBRx3SU