Deutsch, Arnold

(1904–?)

   One of the most gifted of the Soviet illegals, Deutsch received a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna at the age of 24. While a graduate student, Deutsch was active in Austrian Communist Party and Comintern business. A brilliant student who mastered French, English, and other languages, Deutsch was recruited by the NKVD to act as an illegal recruiter and agent handler in the early 1930s.

   Operating under the pseudonym “Otto,” Deutsch recruited and ran 16 agents in Great Britain, including Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and Anthony Blunt during the mid-1930s. Deutsch had a reputation as a skillful street case officer, capable of both inspiring and teaching his agents. In 1938 he was pulled out of contact with his British agents and recalled to Moscow. Unlike so many of the illegals who were summarily executed, Deutsch was relegated to a desk job. He reportedly perished in 1942 when his ship was torpedoed by a German U-Boat while he was on the way to an undercover mission in the United States, where he would have acted as illegal rezident. He reportedly died heroically trying to save other passengers on the ship. DEZA. Disinformation, or deza, was used as a tool of Soviet active measures during the Cold War.