Gaik Ovakimian

Gaik Badalovich Ovakimian (b. 1898) was of Armenian background and he joined the KGB in 1931 while a graduate student at Moscow's Bauman Higher Technical School and went immediately into foreign intelligence.

Ovakimian was sent to Germany on an assignment emphasizing scientific-technical espionage. In 1932 he returned to the Soviet Unionin for advanced technical training at the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Military-Chemical Academy. In 1933 Ovakimian was sent to the United States as deputy head of the KGB's scientific-technical intelligence section, operating under the cover of being an engineer for Amtorg. He was Jacob Golos primary contact. Ovakimian also recieved material from Klaus Fuchs through Harry Gold. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were recruited by Ovakimian in 1938.

In 1939 Ovakimian became chief of scientific intelligence in the United States while at the same time began studying for a doctorate in chemistry at a New York University.

Ovakimian was arrested during a meeting on 5 May 1941 with an agent who had been turned by the FBI. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, he was traded back to Moscow for the release of several Americans and left the United States 23 July 1941.

Ovakimian became deputy chief of the KGB's foreign intelligencein 1943 and attained the rank of major-general. A heretofore unknown memo from Gaik Ovakimian, head of the KGB's American desk, notes that "following our instructions," Harry Dexter White "attained the positive decision of the U.S Treasury Department to provide the Soviet side with the plates for engraving German occupation marks."[1]

In 1946 Ovakimian left the KGB to engage in full-time scientific work.

Ovakimian is identified in the Venona project as "Gennady".

Reference

• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (1999).