Artifact Details

Title

Joel Barr interview, part 1

Catalog Number

102717275

Type

Audio

Description

Joel Barr (1916-1998) was an American electrical engineer. While working for the US Army Signal Corps, Barr participated in espionage for the Soviet Union in a group including Alfred Sarant, Julius Rosenberg and others. In the 1950s, Barr and Sarant fled to Yugoslavia and then to the Soviet Union, where they lived under assumed identities. In the Soviet Union, the pair created a solid-state electronics and microelectronics research institute that eventually evolved into Zelnograd, a center of microelectronics and electronic computing work employing thousands of technical personnel. Ousted from leadership of Zelnograd in the mid 1960s, Barr pursued a number of electronics firms in the Soviet Bloc through the early 1990s. From 1992-1998, he resumed his identity and lived in both the US and Russia.

These audio cassettes contain interviews of Joel Barr with television producer Edward Wierzbowski during a September 1991 visit to Massachusetts, and audio-recordings of video interviews of Joel Barr conducted in various locations c. 1991-2 associated with an ABC News “Nightline” episode on Barr that aired in 1992.

Date

1991-09-14

Credits

Barr, Joel

Format

Standard audio cassette

Category

Interview

Credit

Gift of Edward Wierzbowski

Lot Number

X7950.2017