Rabinovich, Grigorij [Gregory] Lvovich (1892 – ?)

A Soviet medical doctor and healthcare official who served in the United States as a Soviet representative to the Red Cross from 1934 to 1939 – and used that position as a cover for intelligence activity.

Grigorij Rabinovich was born in 1892 to a medical doctor’s family in the Jewish settlement of Khislavichi, in the western part of the Russian Empire. In 1911, he finished gymnasium (the equivalent of secondary and high school) in the town Roslavl’ in the Smolenskaya gubernia. In 1915, he finished his studies at the medical department of Moscow State University but did not graduate because he was drafted into the army. From May 1915 to November 1917, he served in the Russian army as a military doctor during World War I. After the Bolsheviks proclaimed Russia’s withdrawal from the war in October 1917, Rabinovich left the army the next month to return to Moscow and take his final examinations. After graduating in May 1918, he went back to his native Khislavichi and worked as a local school director until May 1919, when he went to the front again – this time as a military doctor with the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. From February to August 1920, he took part in the Red Army’s Polish campaign, and in April he joined the VCP (b). During the Red Army retreat from Warsaw in August 1920, Rabinovich was taken prisoner of war and confined in a POW camp until April 1921.

Returning to Soviet Russia, Rabinovich became a healthcare official. By May 1924, he was promoted to head of the regional health authority in Smolensk, where he worked until April 1928; after that, he worked in Rostov-on-Don. At this point, his career took a sudden turn, and we next see him in 1928-1929 as director of the Resort Authority in the Black Sea resort ofSochi, the favorite vacation spot for the Soviet elite. After a year in Sochi, we find him in Moscow as head physician at the prestigious Pirogovsky hospital. In December 1930, he made another move up the Soviet career ladder – this time becoming head of the remedial department of the Moscow healthcare authority. Less than five months later, he climbed another rung to become head of the department of preventive medical examinations in the Kremlin healthcare authority, which served the Soviet elite. Less than seven months later, in October 1931, he transferred to a similar position at the NKVD, where he worked until September 1934. ¹

In September 1934, Rabinovich was sent to the United States as the Soviet representative to the Red Cross. ² Under this cover he simultaneously served as the OGPU foreign intelligence (INO) “legal” operative, with the cover name “Luch” (Beam), and carried out the task of talent-spotting for potential recruits. ³ Reportedly, his major task was to supervise penetration of the Trotskyist movement. ⁴

In 1936 or 1937, Rabinovich was recalled to Moscow – only to be sent back to the United States in the end of 1937, ⁵ this time with the cover name “Garry” (“Harry”). Throughout his time in the United States, Rabinovich served as a liaison with NKVD agent Jacob Golos (“Sound”). According to the report he wrote after he returned to Moscow, on his second mission alone Rabinovich had “500 to 600 meetings with ‘Sound’,” whom he described as “the major agent of the American station for [the last] ten years.” ⁶

Rabinovich was recalled to Moscow in December 1939 and subjected to a thorough vetting both by NKVD foreign intelligence and by the Communist Party cadre department. However, it is clear from his Soviet Communist Party “vetting” file that Rabinovich survived and continued his career as a healthcare official. At the time the party’s vetting case against him was dropped (April 20, 1940), he worked at the People’s Commissariat (Narcomat) of Healthcare. ⁷ In 1948, he became the first Head Physician of the new “special out-patient hospital” created to serve the healthcare needs of the diplomatic corps and other foreign citizens. He remained in that job until the end of 1950. To date, no further information on Rabinovich has been discovered.