George Koval

George Koval
Born	George Abramovich Koval (1913-12-25)December 25, 1913 Sioux City, Iowa, U.S.
Died	January 31, 2006(2006-01-31) (aged 92) Moscow, Russia
Education	D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia (BS) Columbia University City College of New York
Awards	Hero of the Russian Federation
Espionage activity
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Service branch	GRU
Codename	Delmar
Operations	Manhattan Project infiltration

George Abramovich Koval (Russian: Жорж (Георгий) Абрамович Коваль, IPA: [ˈʐorʐ (ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj) ɐˈbraməvʲɪtɕ kɐˈvalʲ] ^ⓘ, Zhorzh Abramovich Koval; December 25, 1913 – January 31, 2006) was an American engineer who acted as a Soviet intelligence officer for the Soviet atomic bomb project. Koval's infiltration of the Manhattan Project as a GRU (Soviet military intelligence) agent reduced the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons.

Koval was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Sioux City, Iowa. As an adult, he traveled with his parents to the Soviet Union to settle in the Jewish Autonomous Region near the Chinese border. Koval was recruited by the GRU, trained, and assigned the code name DELMAR. He returned to the United States in 1940 and was drafted into the U.S. Army in early 1943. Koval worked at atomic research laboratories and, according to the Russian government, relayed back to the Soviet Union information about the production processes and volumes of the polonium, plutonium, and uranium used in American atomic weaponry, and descriptions of the weapon production sites. In 1948, Koval left on a European vacation but never returned to the United States. In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Koval the Hero of the Russian Federation decoration for his service.