Boris Morros

Boris Morros (January 1, 1891 - January 8, 1963) was an American Communist Party member, Paramount Studios producer and Soviet agent.

Morros was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated with his family to America in 1922. He was recruited as a Soviet spy in 1934, and Vasily Zarubin first became his contact in 1936.

The mysterious "Mr Guver" letter, sent to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1943 from an anonymous source now widely believed to be KGB Officer Vassili Mironov, named Morros as an agent working with Soviet intelligence and identified Elizabeth Zarubina as Morros' contact.

In December Zarubin drove with Morros to Connecticut, where they met with Alfred Stern and his wife Martha Dodd Stern. Soviet intelligence wanted to use an investment from the Sterns in Morros' sheet music company to serve as cover for espionage. The Sterns invested $130,000 in the Boris Morros Music Company.

In 1947 Morros became a counterspy for the FBI. He then reported on Jack Soble and members of the Soble spy ring, while also passing low-level secrets and misinformation back to Moscow. Morros' codename in Soviet intelligence and the Venona files is "FROST."

In 1960 "Man on a String" a feature film, loosely based on Morros' adventures as a counterspy, and played by Ernest Borgnine, was released with little interest by the public.

His credits include "The Flying Deuces" (1939) with Laurel and Hardy and "Second Chorus" (1940) with Paulette Goddard and Fred Astaire. Morros also worked with Bing Crosby, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, and Rudy Vallee.

Internet links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0607448/ Listing at Internet Movie Database]

Source

*Boris Morros, "My Ten Years as a Counter-Spy" (London: Werner Laurie, 1959).
* [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/soble_j.htm "The Mocase Case"] .