Spy Pays Lawyer With Rare Books

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30107, 16 April 1963, Page 11

Spy Pays Lawyer With Rare Books

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, April 14. The New York lawyer, Mr James Donovan, has received payment of a legal fee from a Russian client, but he has no idea how much it is worth, according to United Press International.

The lawyer, who is currently engaged in getting permission for refugees to leave Cuba, revealed today that Colonel Rudolf Abel, the Russian spy who was exchanged for the U2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, had sent him a priceless gifttwo volumes of sixteenth century commentaries on the

Justinian law codes, bound in vellum.

Mr Donovan defended Abel on spy charges. He did not ■ succeed in winning an acquittal for the spy, but be saved him from the death penalty by obtaining a prison sentence

Subsequently. Mr Donovan negotiated the exchange of Abel and Powers. When Mr Donovan said goodbye to Abel on a bridge leading to East Berlin, he assumed be would never hear from him again. Last August, Mr Donovan said today, a Russian courier showed up at Checkpoint Chartie in Berlin, whore American and Soviet forces confront each other, and handed a package to the United States officer in command He stipulated that it should be delivered to Mr Donovan.

When Mr Donovan opened the package, he found it contained a letter from Abel, which said in part: “While neither a lawyer nor a book collector. I believe that the enclosed package should bo a welcome addition to the library of any lawyer who collects rare books .. . please accept them as a mark of my gratitude for al! that you have done for me.” Mr Donovan was unable to place a valuation on the two books. He has no intention

of selling them. He said that a piece of paper bad been pasted over a book plate in the volumes. Underneath the paper there was an inscription showing that the volumes originally were in the library of ths Duke of Saxony. The assumption was that the Russians seized the library when they occupied Germany near the end of World War IL United Press Internationa] Mid. Mr Donovan has no knowledge of Abel’s whereabouts or what he is doing.