Judith Coplon

Judith Coplon Socolov (May 17, 1921 – February 26, 2011) was an alleged KGB spy whose trials, convictions and successful appeals had a profound influence on espionage prosecutions during the McCarthy era.

Work and arrest
Coplon obtained a job in the Department of Justice shortly after she graduated from Barnard College, cum laude in 1943. She transferred to the Foreign Agents Registration section in 1944, where she had access to counter-intelligence information, and was allegedly recruited as a spy by the NKGB at the end of 1944.

She first came to the attention of the FBI as a result of a Venona message in late 1948. Coplon was known in both Soviet intelligence and the Venona files as "SIMA". She was the first person tried as a result of the Venona project&mdash;although, for reasons of security, the Venona information was not revealed at her trial.

FBI Special Agent Robert Lamphere testified at her trial that suspicion had fallen on Coplon because of information from a reliable "confidential informant". An extensive counter-intelligence operation planted a secret document for her to pass to the Soviets. FBI agents arrested Coplon on March 4, 1949 in Manhattan as she met with Valentin Gubitchev, a KGB official employed by the United Nations, while carrying what she believed were secret U.S. government documents in her purse.

Trials and appeals
Coplon was convicted in two separate trials, one for espionage that began on April 25, 1949, and another for conspiracy along with Gubitchev in 1950; both convictions were later overturned in 1950 and 1951, respectively in appeal.

The appellate court, sitting in New York, concluded that, while the evidence showed that she was guilty, FBI agents had lied under oath about the bugging. Moreover, the opinion said, the failure to get a warrant was not justified. The court overturned the verdict, but the indictment was not dismissed. In the appeal of the Washington trial, the verdict was upheld, but, because of the possible bugging, a new trial became impossible. For political and evidentiary reasons it never took place. Due to these legal irregularities, she was never retried and the government ultimately dropped the case in 1967.

National Attention
The Coplon trials commanded nationwide attention. After her arrest but before her trials, Coplon received earnest attention from the media. For example, Gertrude Samuels wrote for the New York Times, questioning the situation:"Why do some people become traitors? What turns some native-born Americans, as well as naturalized citizens, into Benedict Arnolds and Quislings? What motivates them to betray their country and themselves?..." Samuels examines four kinds of traitors: professional, people loyal their birth lands, crackpots, and idealists. In this last group, she named Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers. To understand this group, she argues, one must understand their drive for social justice—reasons "beyond FBI jurisdiction", while "few judges are bothered by motivations."

NYT Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus wrote in March 2011: "At the time of her trial, Ms. Coplon drew a great deal of interest, particularly in the lively tabloid press of the day. A 27-year-old cum laude graduate of Barnard, employed in the internal security section of the Justice Department, she seemed the model postwar “government girl,” fetchingly clad in snug sweaters and New Look skirts . . [with] sort of attention Lindsay Lohan's courtroom appearances attract today."

Coplon's death in 2011, aged 89, received wide syndication via AP, mostly in the United States.

Personal life
She was the daughter of Samuel and Rebecca Moroh Coplon. She married one of her attorneys, Albert Socolov, and they remained married until her death in 2011. The couple had four children. She went to public school Joseph F. Lamb (p.s./i.s. 206) in Brooklyn, New York.

Images

 * Getty Images
 * Corbis Images - Bettmann Archive