Norman John Rees, (c. 1906 – February 29, 1976) was an Italian-American oil engineer who was an agent for
Soviet intelligence, then became a double agent for the FBI. Rees committed suicide when a newspaper revealed his spying activities.[1]
Early life and career
Rees was born Nuncio Ruisi in Sicily c. 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]
Patents
In 1956, Rees received credit for the co-patent of the 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.[2] In 1950, he gave the Soviets a newly developed design for a catalytic cracking converter for which he earned a Soviet medal.[2] 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.[5][6] Ten hours after the story was published, Rees died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.[7][8] In the aftermath, newspapers debated whether the threat of suicide should supersede the right of the journalist to publish the story.[9]
