Felix Bloch (diplomatic officer)

Felix Stephen Bloch ( born July 19, 1935 in Vienna ) is a retired American diplomat. In 1989, he was accused to have the KGB passed secret documents, which caused a scandal and led to his dismissal. However, the allegations could be proved against him never, which meant a large loss of image for the counterintelligence of the FBI.

Life

Bloch was born into a Jewish family in Vienna. Together with his parents and his sister, he managed to escape from Austria, one year after the Anschluss in April 1939. They went to the U.S. and settled in Manhattan. There he attended elementary school and high school. His mother joined a Presbyterian church there, and educated the children in a Christian. They attended the same church in Manhattan as John Foster Dulles and Laurence Rockefeller. Later, Bloch studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1957. Then he followed a year to study in Italy, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna. There he met his native of North Carolina wife, whom he married in 1959. At the same time was also the student Alois Mock, Austrian who later became Secretary of State, at this university and between the two men became friends.

After Italy, he began to work for the State Department and was sent to Dusseldorf in 1960, also two daughters were born. Later he was sent for two years to Caracas in Venezuela. Then the family went back to the U.S., where Bloch completed a master's degree in International Relations. In 1970 he was transferred to the U.S. Embassy in West Berlin, then to East Berlin. After that he went to Singapore in 1980 and finally he managed to be transferred to Vienna. In 1983 he was promoted to Deputy Chief of Mission, so the Deputy Chief of Mission, under the derived also from Austria, Helene von Damm. Bloch enjoyed life in Vienna, his former hometown. The family lived in the finest district, he often attended the opera and used many acquaintances. 1986, however, a new ambassador was appointed, the billionaire Ronald Lauder, with whom he quickly came into conflict. This suspected him of divulging secrets, while Bloch kept his superiors incompetent. In 1987 he was finally ordered back to Washington. There he worked for the government and Bush Sr. arranged for state visits.

Spy scandal

At the beginning of 1989, the Frenchman Pierre Bart contacted him by telephone and asked the avid stamp collector Bloch for a meeting. Bloch was interested and agreed. In fact, it was this man to Reino Gikman, originates in East Karelia Finns, who worked as an agent for the KGB. On 14 May 1989, the two finally met at the Hôtel Le Meurice in Paris and talking at the bar. However, the French counter-espionage, the DST was the agent Gikman already behind and filmed this meeting secretly. On the video recordings was to realize that Bloch handed a suitcase to Pierre Bart / Reino Gikman. Following this meeting, Bloch flew to professional appointments to Madrid and then back to the U.S.. The end of May, he traveled to the state visit of President Bush to Brussels. There, too, he met again with beard / Gikman and handed this stamps. But this time already supervised the CIA this meeting. Back in the U.S., he received a call from Bart / Gikman from Europe, which was bugged by the FBI in June. The listener had the impression that in the otherwise innocuous conversation codewords were used. They concluded that the two had been forewarned by a mole in the U.S. intelligence apparatus. In conjunction with other evidence from his time in Vienna, the FBI decided to arrest Bloch. He was interrogated and confronted with the surveillance photos from Paris and Brussels. Bloch, insisted, however, to have met with the alleged French only out of personal interest in stamp collecting.

Up to this point, all investigations were run hidden, but on July 21, 1989 suddenly told the ABC television about the case. On the same day confirmed the State Department, the allegations publicly. The case was kicked wide range of media and Bloch was in the public as a convicted spy. Suspicions were raised, the FBI had let the charges against Bloch deliberately leaked to force him to confess. However, further examination revealed only weak evidence to light and Bloch refused to have anything to confess. In December 1989, the FBI finally terminated the investigation, without, however, to close the case. Bloch was set free, but suspended from duty. Also, all pension claims were canceled the 54 -year-olds. In May 1990 the New York Times published an extensive interview with Bloch, in which this publicly on the allegations took place for the first time.

The event was a great loss of image for the FBI, as the public suspected spy could not be transferred. The blame for this failure was between the FBI and CIA back and forth, which is why in October 1989 even the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. Senate dealt with it. Fearing leaks eventually other employees of the FBI were dismissed. The Finn Reino Gikman, however, was already fled from Paris in June 1989 and never reappeared. Even his partner, with whom he had lived in Paris for a short time together, could make no statements about his whereabouts. She had met him only as a computer expert who worked for IBM. It has been suggested that Reino is Gikman (controller ) have been already since Bloch's time in Vienna his shadow, which had been explicitly recognized by the KGB on it.

After the media campaign Felix Bloch had trouble way back to a normal life. He finally went in 1992 to North Carolina and took a job as a bus driver. In 2001, the case was again on the agenda. The FBI had been able to make the time suspected mole within the ranks and now find Robert Hanssen unmasked as a former spy for the Soviet Union. This admitted during interrogation to have Reino Gikman and Bloch warned in the summer of 1989. Bloch was then detained and interrogated again. Again he denied all the allegations and was eventually set free again. The case has never been closed by the FBI.