Ikal, Arnold Adamovich (1906-1942?)

An operative of the Soviet military intelligence known in the United States as “Robert,” “Ewald” and under the surnames of Rubens and Robinson.

Arnold Ikal was born on November 24, 1906 into a poor rural artisan’s family in the Liflyandskaya gubernia of the Russian Empire (now Latvia.) His father changed many trades, but most often worked as a shoe repairman and a farmhand; his mother was a seamstress. In the year Arnold was born his father joined the Latvian branch of the Russian Social Democratic Party and took part in the revolutionary movement. In 1914, Arnold Ikal went to a district school and later transferred to an elementary school in Riga, from which he had to drop out in 1918, when during the German occupation of Latvia his father was imprisoned for participation in the revolutionary movement. Until 1921, Arnold worked as a laborer, before he resumed schooling in the fall of 1921. In the next year Ikal joined the revolutionary movement. He began with organizing an underground circle, “Lukajs Prometejs,” which soon joined the Latvian Communist Youth Alliance (Komsomol.) In March 1923, he was elected member of Vidzeme committee of Latvian Komsomol, where he became an organizer. In early 1924, he was kicked out from school for revolutionary activities and as well for non-payment for his tution. Soon, he was co-opted as member of the Central Committee of Latvian Communist Youth Alliance, but in November of the same year he had to flee to Moscow, running away from an in imminent arrest.

In Moscow, Ikal soon became a student at the Comintern’s The Communist University for National Minorities of the West (KUNMZ), but studied only for a few months. In July 1925, the Latvian section of the Comintern sent him back to Latvia on a Comintern secret mission to work underground. However, on September 1925 Ikal was arrested in Riga and was heavily wounded during his failed escape attempt. He was convicted by Riga district court on charges of gathering intelligence information for the Soviet Union and sentenced to four years of hard labor. However, in late 1926 Ikal was freed as part of an exchange of political prisoners and returned to the USSR on December 31, 1926. On January 10, 1927, Ikal applied for the transfer to the Soviet Communist Party [(VCP (b)], which was satisfied. In the same year he was recruited into the Soviet military intelligence (RU RKKA), and remained in its service until late 1937.

From November 1928 until December 1930, Ikal was posted to Germany as an “illegal” intelligence operative. From May 1932 to October 1937, he was the RU’s illegal resident, or operative, in the United States. In May 1935, he married an American Communist, Ruth Marie Boerger, who assisted him in his work. In 1936, he was promoted to the rank of Battalion Commissar. Ikal returned to Moscow with his wife in November 1937 but was arrested on December 2, 1938 and later sentenced to 10 years of incarceration. The arrest of Ikal and his wife in Moscow created a diplomatic scandal known as the Rubens-Robinson case. Ikal was convicted of espionage and sentenced to “10 years without the right to correspondence,” which in those years was often equivalent to a death sentence. He was rehabilitated posthumously in September, 1956. [[1. Arnold Ikal’s personal history written in Moscow on January 10, 1927, in “Ikal, Arnold Adamovich” “transfer” file, Fond 17, opis’’ 98, file 6314, p. 1, RGASPI; V. M. Lurie, V. Ya. Kochik. GRU: Dela i Ludi. Moskva: Olma-Press, 2003, s. 397 (V.M. Lurie and V. Ya. Kochik, The GRU: The Deeds and the People, Moscow: “Olma-Press,” 2003, p. 397)]]

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look into the once famous Rubens-Robinson case in the Russian diplomatic files