Norman J. Rees

Norman John Rees, (ca. 1906 – 1 February 1976) was an Italian-American oil engineer who worked as a spy for both Soviet Intelligence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.^[1] Rees committed suicide after a newspaper article was published that revealed his spying activities.

Early life and career

Rees was born Nuncio Ruisi in Sicily ca. 1906.^[2][3] He worked as an engineer for the M.W. Kellogg Company and then the Socony Mobil Oil Company where he specialized in metallurgy, piping and pressurized tanks for oil.^[1] In 1956, he received credit for the co-patent of a gas lift.^[4]

Spying

According to Rees, he became a "communist sympathizer" during World War II and began supplying oil industry trade secrets to the USSR in 1942.^[5] In 1950, he gave the Soviets a newly developed design for a catalytic cracking converter for which he earned a Soviet medal.^[5] In addition, he said he supplied Soviet agents with designs for a petroleum plant, natural gas processes and pressurized holding tanks.^[1] A newspaper report said he earned $30,000 over the years for providing information.^[1] After the FBI approached him about his activities, Rees worked as a double agent for the FBI from 1971 to 1975.^[1]

Exposure and death

In 1976, during a three-month-long investigation, the Dallas Times Herald newspaper twice flew Rees to Dallas for interviews.^[1] After the investigative journalist Kenneth_P._Johnson told Rees that the newspaper planned to print a story that would expose his activity as a double agent, Rees asked Johnson not to run the story or else Rees would commit suicide.^{[6] [7]} Ten hours after the story was published, Rees died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.^[8][9] In the aftermath, newspapers debated whether the threat of suicide should supersede the right of the journalist to publish the story.^[10]

References