Reino Häyhänen

Reino Häyhänen (; May 14, 1920 – February 17, 1961) was a Soviet intelligence officer of the KGB who defected from the Soviet Union to the United States in May 1957. Häyhänen surrendered information on Soviet espionage activities that solved the Hollow Nickel Case for the FBI, and led to the arrest of his KGB partner Rudolf Abel and other Soviet spies in the United States and Canada.

Early life Reino Häyhänen was born on May 14, 1920, in the village of Kaskisaari in Saint Petersburg Governorate, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, into an Ingrian Finnish peasant family. Häyhänen rose above his modest background to become an honor student and, in 1939, obtained the equivalent of a certificate to teach in high school, and in September was appointed to the faculty of a primary school in the village of Lipitsy. However, two months later, Häyhänen was conscripted by the NKVD, the secret police of the Soviet Union, following the Soviet invasion of Finland starting the Winter War. Häyhänen was assigned as an interpreter for an NKVD group due to his Finnish background and fluency in the Finnish language, and sent to the combat zone to translate captured Finnish documents and interrogate Finnish prisoners. At the end of the Winter War in March 1940, Häyhänen was assigned to check the loyalty and reliability of workers in the occupied territory of Karelia, and to develop informants and sources of information in their midst. His primary objective was to identify pro-Finnish and pro-Capitalist elements among the intelligentsia. James B. Donovan, the lawyer of Rudolf Abel, referred to Häyhänen as a "a professional liar, a pathological alcoholic, a bigamist, and a thief" during his defence in court. Häyhänen avoided charges of espionage despite efforts from Donovan, and later lived in New Hampshire under the protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Death Häyhänen died in a car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on February 17, 1961. The New York Journal-American and other newspapers published obituaries for Häyhänen stating that he died in an accident in Pennsylvania, but author Phillip J. Bigger described the circumstances as "mysterious" in his book Negotiator: The Life and Career of James B. Donovan. Häyhänen's death has been theorized to be an assassination committed by Soviet intelligence agencies.