Russian-born Jacob Golos (birth name Jacob Rasin orJacob Raisin) (died 1943) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet secret police operative in the USSR an longtime senior official of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) involved in icovert work and cooperation with Soviet intelligence agencies. During World War II he developed several large espionage networks of secret Communist party members who worked for the United States government and linked them to the Soviet intelligence. They are commonly referred to as the "Golos ring" of Soviet espionage agents. Jacob Golos was the "main pillar" of the NKVD intelligence network and they disliked his refusal to allow them contact with his sources. The code name "Sound" appears in the Venona decryptions as a Soviet source and was identified as Jacob Golos. Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ... The government of the United States, established by the United States Constitution, is a federal republic of 50 states, a few territories and some protectorates. ... Black Ravens by Boris Vladimirski, a depiction of the cars used by NKVD agents. ... The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between the United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdoms MI5 that involved the cryptanalysis of Soviet messages. ...

Golos was not merely a CPUSA official assisting the NKVD (an agent or “probationer” in KGB slang) but held official rank in the NKVD. The reference to Golos in the Venona decrypts as an “illegal colleague” corroborates Elizabeth Bentley's testimony. According to Douglas Linder [1], Elizabeth Terrill Bentley, one of the most interesting witnesses to take the stand in the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the so-called Red Spy Queen. ...

The term “nelegal’ny sotrudnik” can be translated as “illegal colleague,” “illegal associate” or “illegal operative,” was Soviet espionage terminology for a Soviet officer or professional agent who operated without the protection of diplomatic or official status with a Soviet embassy, consulate or agency and usually with false documents. Soviet officers with the latter status were said to be “legal.” Golos also was head of an organization called World Tourists, which while posing as a travel agency actually facilitated international travel to and from the United States by Soviet agents and CPUSA members. World Tourists was also deeply involved in passport fraud.

The NKVD suspected him of Trotskyism and tried to lure him to Moscow, where he could be arrested. The US government got to him first, prosecuting him in 1940 for being an unregistered foreign agent. But even then, he would not surrender his agents.

In the fall of 1942, a Communist cell of engineers was turned over to Golos for Soviet espionage purposes and Julius Rosenberg was the contact between Golos and the group. Golos believed this cell of engineers was capable of development. The Rosenbergs Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) were American Communists who captured and maintained world attention after being tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. ...

He died in 1943, thus the reference to him as a “former” colleague. His lover, Elizabeth Bentley then took over the operation after Golos's death from a heart attack in November 1943.

External link

• The Atom Spy Case, famous FBI cases (http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/atom/atom.htm)
• Cold War Counterintelligence (http://www.nacic.gov/history/CIReaderPlain/Vol3Chap1.pdf)
• John Earl Haynes interpolations and annotations on selections from Alexander Vassiliev’s Notes on Gorsky’s December 1948 Memo (http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page44.html#_ftn39|)
• The Spies Who Loved Us? article by Ellen Schrecker, The Nation, May 24, 1999 (http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=19990524&s=schrecker)