Selmer Nilsen

Who was Selmer Nilsen?

Selmer Nilsen was a Norwegian fisherman spying for the GRU during the Cold War.

He was active in Bodø from 1956 to 1963, and reported Bodø landings and take-offs of the American espionage plane Lockheed U-2 to the Soviet Union. These operations culminated with the U-2 Crisis of 1960, when one of the U-2 planes was forced down over Soviet Union on 1 May 1960.

Nilsen, originally from Bakfjord, Finnmark, was recruited in 1948 after threats from Soviet agents towards his family. The 17 year old boy was sent for training in the Soviet Union. He returned seven months later, with a radio transmitter and knowledge of telegraphy. After more than seventeen years as foreign agent he was arrested in 1967, and sentenced to seven and a half years imprisonment in a trial held behind closed doors in the court of Bodø. The conviction was eventually confirmed in the Supreme Court, in April–May 1968. He was however pardoned from further imprisonment after 3 years. The disclosure shocked Norway, as well as its NATO allies, as the espionage had been carried out through the peak of the Cold War.