Arvid Werner Jacobson (November 12, 1904 – April 1, 1976) was aFinnish-Americancommunist who spied for theSoviet Union in the 1930s.
Jacobson's parents were Finnish immigrants fromLapua,Ostrobotnia. Jacobson was born inCovington, Michigan[1][2] and was working as a high school teacher inNorthville[3] when, in the fall of 1932, he was recruited to work for theSoviet Military Intelligence by theComintern agent "Mrs. Morton", a pseudonym ofAino Kuusinen, the wife of the Finnish communist leaderOtto Wille Kuusinen.
With his wife Sally, he traveled toNew York, where the fledgling GRU agentWhittaker Chambers was assigned the task of meeting Jacobson and making a fitness report. Chambers advised against using Jacobson as an underground agent because of his truculent temperament and the fact that he was missingfingers on one hand.[4][5]
Nevertheless, the GRU sent him to Europe as part of an apparatus of Soviet agents, led by the wife ofAlfred Tilton, that operated inFinland.
TheFinnish police uncovered the group after the suspected army officerVilho Pentikäinen fled to the Soviet Union with military secrets. Jacobson was arrested in October 1933, along with his wife Sally,[3] and he promptly confessed to his role as an agent and revealed the existence of another Soviet apparatus working inParis, which includedLydia Stahl andRobert Gordon Switz.[3]
After asecret trial, theFinnish court sentenced Jacobson to six years imprisonment in April 1934. He was subsequently pardoned in July 1935 and extradited to theUnited States.[4]
Jacobson was hired to teach mathematics atWayne State University in 1944.[4] He became active in the field of computing, and in the late 1950s directed a program at Wayne State to develop a computer capable of translating between human languages.[6]
Jacobson was a member of theAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM), and in 1958 he served withSaul Gorn, Melvin A. Shader, andEdmund Berkeley on an ACM committee investigating the social responsibilities of computer scientists.[7]
He retired in 1966 and died inNovi, Michigan in 1976.[8]
