Quick Facts
Biography
Anatole Boris Volkov (October 29, 1924 – November 28, 2000) was an American physicist, allegedly serving as a courier for the Silvermaster spy ring between Washington, D.C. and New York City. Volkov taught both abroad and in America, retiring in the United States 1989. Though Volkov's name appears in the FBI's files, he was never convicted of any espionage by the U.S. government.
Ancestry
He was related to Count Sergei Witte, who was of Czar Nicholas II's Finance Minister of Russia from 1892 to 1903. His mother, Elena Witte, was a baroness. In 1923 the Wittes emigrated to San Francisco, California.
Birth and education
Anatole Boris Volkov was born on October 29, 1924 in San Francisco, California. After her divorce his mother married Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, head of the Silvermaster group who spied for the Soviet Union during World War II. Volkov spent two years as a radar operator in the United States Navy in the Pacific.
Volkov earned a B.S. in science at North Carolina University in 1948 and M.Sc/Ph.D degrees from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1950. After World War II, he moved to Israel and did research at the Technion in Haifa, and at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. From there he moved to Copenhagen in 1963 and worked at the Niels Bohr Institute. In 1964 he moved to Canada and taught at McMaster University until his retirement in 1989.
Death
He died on November 28, 2000, aged 76, in Lakeland, Florida.