Bridge of Spies to tell story of Cold War’s Rudolf Ivanovich Abel dealer Jim Donovan
Powers, and a young American student and future economics professor Fred Pryor, held by the East Germans on a charge of alleged espionage, were exchanged by the Soviets for their British-born agent, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, who was imprisoned in America.
Steven Spielberg directs the movie, filmed in New York and Berlin with Tom Hanks in the role of the Irish American lawyer who risked his life in June 1962 to bring off one of the most dramatic spy swops of the 20th century.
The Jesuit-educated Donovan, whose grandfather emigrated to the United States from Clonakilty, was thanked by President John F Kennedy for conducting an unique type of negotiation with “the greatest skill and courage.”
Donovan, a former amateur boxer, varsity tennis player, and collector of rare books and illuminated manuscripts, was presented with the Distinguished Intelligence Medal by the CIA and his book, Strangers on a Bridge became a bestseller.
It was translated into nine languages, was recently re-issued and is the basis of Spielberg’s critically acclaimed film which cost $40 million to make and has grossed over $130 millon in box office receipts since being released in October.
The Strangers on a Bridge e-book topped the New York Times best seller list earlier this month while the re-issued print version has also gone to number one in the NYT espionage category.
Donovan grew up in the Bronx.
His father John was a prominent surgeon while his mother, the former Harriet O’Connor, was a pianist and music teacher, whose people are believed to have hailed from Galway.
Education, public service and their Catholic faith were core values.
The family was active in Democratic politics.
Governor Al Smith, who stood for the US presidency in 1928, was a family friend.
Jm Donovan studied at Fordham, the celebrated Jesuit university in New York, but abandoned his early ambition to become a journalst and went to Harvard Law School where he graduated in 1940.
He met and later married Mary McKenna, whose parents were from Monaghan.
They had a son, John, who visited Dublin with his father in 1960, and three daughters, Jane, Mary Ellan and the late Clare.
One of Mary’s relatives was New York’s first Catholic Archbishop, John J Hughes (1797-1864), a farmer’s son from Aughnacloghan, Co Tyrone.
He was founder of the landmark St Patrick’s Cathedral, on 5th Avenue, where he is buried in the crypt beneath the high altar. He also established Fordham University and his advice was often sought by President Abraham Lincoln.
Jim Donovan, an officer in the US Naval Reserve, served as general counsel to the Office of Strategic Services - predecessor of the CIA — led its war crimes division and helped negotiate the treaty that established the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Promoted to full commander rank, he was an assistant prosecutor at the principal Nuremberg trial, and was responsible for presenting all the harrowing visual evidence of Nazi war crimes.
Afterwards, he became one of America’s most renowned insurance lawyers as a partner in the New York firm of Watters and Donovan.
But his life and that of his family was about to take an unexpected turn.
Brooklyn Bar Association asked him to represent the Soviet spy, Abel, who had been charged by the United States with conspiracy to commit military and atomic espionage, a crime punishable by death.
Donovan took the case, knowing how unpopular his task would be in a country obsessed with the threat of Communism.
But he strongly believed it was the right thing to do in the interest of his country and his profession.
His stance and the global focus it is now being given by Spielberg’s film is seen by many observers as highly relevant in today’s era of growing international terrorism and how governments deal with detained suspects.
“Everyone deserves a defence. Our principles are engraved in the history and the law of this land,” Donovan said in 1962.
“If the free world is not faithful to its own moral code, there remains no society for which others may hunger.”
He bravely represented Abel all the way from the District Court in Brooklyn to the US Supreme Court where Chief Justice Earl Warren paid him a remarkable tribute: “I think I can say that in my time on this Court no man has undertaken a more arduous, more self-sacrificing task.”
Abel was sentenced to 30 years in prison but Donovan saved him from execution, arguing it was possible in the foreseeable future that an American of equivalent rank would be captured by Soviet Russia or an ally.
At such time, he said, an exchange of prisoners through diplomatic channels could be considered to be in the best national interests of the United States.
It was a prophetic statement. On May 1, 1960, US pilot Francis Gary Powers was captured in the Soviet Union, after his U-2 surveillance plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Ural mountains.
Powers was sentenced to ten years by the Soviets, but four years later efforts were underway to swop him with Able.
Jim Donovan was at the heart of the drama, with US government permission.
He travelled alone into dreary East Berlin to negotiate with the KGB for the release of Powers and two American college students, Pryor, who was being held by the East Germans, and Marvin Makinen, who was in a Soviet prison in Kiev, also on an alleged spying charge.
The American State Department feared Donovan might be held hostage but he replied that the best possible medicine for that worry was a 12-year-old Scotch.
Powers and Abel were eventually exchanged on February 10, 1962.
The location was Glienicke Bridge, connecting West Berlin with the East German city of Potsdam.
At the same time Pryor was released at Checkpoint Charlie, 20 miles away. Makinen was ultimately freed in 1963.
Donovan’s alma mater Fordham University hailed him as “the most successful American practitioner of metadiplomacy” during the Cold War.
It said he was someone who could operate above and beyond the usual diplomatic channels to disarm “the world’s best jugglers of words and ideas” and win “a striking victory for his country.”
Frank DeRosa, a young CIA lawyer, who later became general counsel with General Electric, worked with Donovan and regarded him a hero.
“I think Donovan had the ability to get down to everybody’s level,” he said, noting that he was “steeped in Brooklyn Irish politics and brought a certain toughness and frankness” and a sense of humour to conversations.
“He could be a street fighter if he had to be, but he was also an educated bibliophile, a student of all things, including religion, and a fellow interested in helping the poor. He was a Renaissance man.”
Jim Donovan’s family members met with the Bridge of Spies film makers at the premier in New York in October and were delighted with the outcome.
His granddaughter, Beth Amorosi, told the Irish Examiner they are all very proud of her grandfather and just thrilled with the tribute paid to him by Steven Spielberg’s wonderful film.
“I have been successful in the re-issue of my grandfather’s book Strangers on a Bridge.
“Between those two things and all the recent press, it is just wonderful that people are now learning more about him,” she said.
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