While studying in Berlin during the partition of the city in 1961, he was imprisoned in East Germany for six months, then released in a Cold War "spy swap" that also involved downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. Even in 141 minutes of runtime, Bridge of Spies doesn’t really have enough space to flesh out the parallel story of Frederic Pryor, an American student imprisoned in E… [2][5] Pryor's cell was directly above an East German torture room. But while the movie talks about Pryor being the unlikely prisoner freed along with Powers, Makinen was actually the one that got away. Pryor, 82, said Friday in a phone interview. Still, the East German prosecutor in charge of his case planned to put him on trial and declared that he would seek the death penalty. The Stasi (East German secret police) arrested Pryor on charges of aiding the woman's escape; after the police fo… "[5], Pryor received his doctorate from Yale in 1962, but his purported involvement in espionage and his imprisonment limited job opportunities in government—his preferred career—or industry. By the summer of 1961, Mr. Pryor had been living in West Berlin for two years. Ted Russell/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images. Steven Spielberg 's Bridge of Spies dramatizes an incredible spy exchange that took place at the height of the Cold War. Im August 1961 wurde Pryor von der Stasi verhaftet. Dr. Pryor, who was denounced as a spy … Frederic Pryor, released in 1962 'Bridge of Spies' prisoner exchange, dies at 86. When and where was the prisoner exchange made? [1] He won research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Council of Soviet and East European Studies, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Pryor became known mostly for his research, whether he was comparing capitalism to socialism or examining the economics of agricultural and primate societies. They were the key pieces in the exchange orchestrated by James Donovan, the lawyer played by Tom Hanks in “Bridge of Spies.” Although Mr. Pryor was not a spy, his release was a priority of Mr. Donovan’s. I accepted my situation and tried to make the best of it.”. Arrested as a spy inn 1961, Makinen was in prison at the time Donovan was attempting to free Powers in 1963, depicted in the film Bridge of Spies. “The range of his curiosities and interests was wide, and he always put a distinct spin on a debate,” Stephen O’Connell, chairman of Swarthmore’s economics department, said by phone. Rated PG-13 (for some violence and brief strong language). "In fact, I think the students kind of got a kick out of having an ex-con teaching them". He joined the economics faculty at Swarthmore College in 1967;[2] "Swarthmore didn’t care" about his imprisonment, Pryor recalled. Soon after his release from prison, the University of Michigan hired him to teach economics. Donovan successfully negotiates the exchange of Abel for both Powers and Pryor. Donovan. It stars Tom Hanks as attorney James … Mr. Pryor on the Swarthmore College campus in 2006. The men on both sides meet on the Glienicke Bridge. But now its buttons were gone and its fabric threadbare. So even though Pryor hasn't been present in the publicity surrounding Bridge of Spies, he definitely hasn't been bored. In 1959, as part of his doctorate studies, Pryor went to Berlin, where he was finishing his doctoral thesis and also taking classes at the Free University of West Berlin. Afterwards, when pressed by other moviegoers why he thought the movie was 'good but inaccurate' he responded "I'm Frederic Pryor… He taught economics there for many years and, after retiring in 1998, kept an office and continued his research. 135 mins. An der Yale University erhielt er 1957 einen M.A. Mr. Pryor retired from Swarthmore in 1998 but kept an office there and continued his research. He left for Swarthmore in 1967. [1] Pryor specialized in comparative economics;[1][4] he retired from active work at the college in 1998, but remained a professor emeritus. Arrested and jailed on an espionage charge in East Berlin in 1961, Mr. Pryor, an economics student, became part of a famous prisoner exchange. He then spent a year in South America and Europe, which included three months living and working on a commune in Paraguay. The Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, which had been staking out her home, arrested Mr. Pryor for aiding in her escape to the West. Frederic Pryor, who has died aged 86, was an expert on comparative economies and the author of 13 books who, as a 28-year-old graduate student became caught … To watch a trailer click on the video player below. Mr. Pryor was confined to a cell that he described as “six paces long by two paces wide,” interrogated nearly every day for most of his time in prison and informed on by a cellmate, who had apparently been planted by the Stasi. “Bridge of Spies,” Steven Spielberg’s new Cold War thriller, tells the gripping story of New York corporate attorney James Donovan’s leap into the labyrinthine world of high-stakes diplomacy. “In that reading room," he added, “I began to have difficulties in maintaining my objectivity, and I had to remind myself that 31 years had passed since these events took place.”, Frederic Pryor, Player in ‘Bridge of Spies’ Case, Dies at 86. In addition to his son, Mr. Pryor is survived by three grandchildren. graduate student, Frederic Pryor, is imprisoned by the East Germans. Bridge Of Spies by Steven Spielberg with Tom Hanks Berlin Wall - Cold War Frederic Pryor - Will Rogers “He also dove into issues in public policy with papers, like one about the geography of hate.”. Nothing in his dissertation — with its analyses of Soviet trade and charts on commodity pricing — could have been construed as evidence of espionage. “I wasn’t worried about being brainwashed, and I didn’t think I would be tortured,” he told Michigan Today magazine in 2016, “since whatever ‘crime’ they thought I was guilty of wasn’t very important. When he returned to a reunified Germany in the early 1990s, he found the Stasi’s 5,000-page file on him but no complete answers for his arrest. Frederic Pryor, an American graduate student who was jailed in East Germany in 1961 on suspicion of espionage but later freed as part of the famous prisoner trade between the United States and Soviet Union dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s film “Bridge of Spies,” died … “I said, ‘But it was the Commies!’” he recalled responding in a 2015 interview for the website of Swarthmore College, where he taught for many years. [1], In 1959, as part of his doctorate studies, Pryor went to Berlin, where he was finishing his doctoral thesis and also taking classes at the Free University of West Berlin. He stayed until 1964, when he became a staff research economist at Yale. For decades he preferred to discuss his latest paper rather than his role in a long-ago Cold War saga. When he returned to the United States, Mr. Pryor was wearing the same suit he had been captured in. All along, Mr. Pryor said he had not been a spy. He served as a trustee at historically black colleges such as Miles College, Wilberforce University, and Tougaloo College. [4] While jailed, Pryor was intensively interrogated,[2] although not tortured. It covered 5,000 pages. Frederic Pryor, an American graduate student who was jailed in East Germany in 1961 on suspicion of espionage but later freed as part of the famous prisoner trade between the United States and Soviet Union dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s film “Bridge of Spies,” died on Sept. 2 at his home in Newtown Square, Pa. [5] Actor Will Rogers depicted Pryor. Er studierte zunächst Chemie am Oberlin College (B.A. THE WASHINGTON POST. After they found a copy of the thesis in his car, they charged him with being a spy. [1][2] He studied economics at Yale University, where he received a master's degree in 1957, then undertook a doctorate program. First, college student Frederic L. Pryor was released to his parents at Checkpoint Charlie, the most well-known Cold War crossing point through the Berlin Wall … Pryor was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, he says, and that was that. His wife, Zora Prochazka, who was also an economist, died in 2008. Donovan is sent to Berlin to negotiate a prisoner exchange: Abel for Powers. "I don't think I was an important part, I was just a throwaway." James Donovan wrote an account of the incident in 1964 under the title Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers. It was so cold that morning in February 1962 that cigarette smoke hung in the air over the officials huddled at opposite ends of the Glienicke Bridge on the Havel River in southwest Berlin. [1], On March 26, 1964, Pryor married Zora Prochazka, who was also an economist. “I felt again what it was like in my cell and the efforts I took to maintain some mental equilibrium — for instance, trying to remember everyone in my third grade class,” he wrote in The National Interest magazine in 1995. [1][9], Pryor worked as an economic advisor in Ukraine and Latvia, was employed as a consultant to the World Bank in Africa, served as a Research Director to the Pennsylvania Tax Commission, and was a research associate at both the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, California, and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.[1] He twice served as judge of elections, a local elected position in Pennsylvania. During the height of The Cold War, New York City insurance lawyer James B. Donovan ( Tom Hanks) is approached to defend Rudolf Abel ( Mark Rylance ), a Soviet spy who has been arrested for espionage. Frederic LeRoy Pryor (April 23, 1933 – September 2, 2019)[1][2] was an American economist. [3] Durch Bemühungen von James B. Donovan wurde er am 10. [3] Man unterstellte ihm, er habe persönliche Dinge von Flüchtlingen aus der DDR beiseiteschaffen wollen. Bridge of Spies is an American-German co-production based on a script written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers. Mr. Pryor was unaware of a larger drama going on involving negotiations to trade prisoners already known as Cold War proxies: Francis Gary Powers, the Air Force pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 on a U-2 reconnaissance mission for the C.I.A., and Rudolf Abel, a K.G.B. Oktober 2015 in die amerikanischen Kinos kam. Der Kinostart in Deutschland war am 26. Like in the Bridge of Spies movie, the Americans and Soviets exchanged prisoners at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie on the morning of February 10, 1962. Frederic Pryor, Player in ‘Bridge of Spies’ Case, Dies at 86. “They said, ‘Tough.’”. It depicts Pryor being freed just before American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was swapped for Soviet KGB spy Rudolph Abel, hinging on the negotiations of attorney James Donovan. In August 1961, days after the Berlin Wall was erected, he visited East Berlin to deliver a copy of his dissertation to a professor there, and to contact a friend's sister, an engineer who – unknown to Pryor – had just illegally fled to West Germany. Despite worsening Cold War tensions, he crossed regularly into East Berlin to interview economists and government officials for his doctoral thesis about the Soviet bloc’s foreign trade system. [1], Pryor died on September 2, 2019, in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where he had lived the final 11 years of his life. The dramatic events behind the Oscar-winning film, Bridge of Spies, tracing the paths leading to the first and most legendary prisoner exchange between East and West at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie on February 10, 1962. At a news conference, he told reporters he would not criticize East Germany to score propaganda points. TIL that Frederic Pryor [Bridge of Spies] was never consulted by producers about his experiences in the 1962 prisoner exchange and went to see the movie with his family. He spent the bulk of his career as a member of the Swarthmore College faculty, as a professor of economics. [2], Pryor's involvement in this incident is dramatized as a subplot in the 2015 film Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks as Donovan. [3][4] In August 1961, days after the Berlin Wall was erected, he visited East Berlin to deliver a copy of his dissertation to a professor there, and to contact a friend's sister, an engineer who – unknown to Pryor – had just illegally fled to West Germany. Pryor saw Bridge of Spies when it hit screens, declaring the movie a good thriller but inaccurate as to his life. -Strangers on a Bridge. The trips inspired his interest in economics, which he studied at Yale, where he earned a master’s degree and the Ph.D. he would receive after leaving East Germany. While the Berlin Wall was being built, Mr. Pryor drove into East Berlin on Aug. 25, 1961. Frederic Pryor arriving in New York in 1962 from East Berlin, where he had been held prisoner and later freed as part of a prisoner exchange. [2] They remained together until her death in 2008. The historical background to the U-2 incident and the story of former West Berlin CIA chief William King Harvey and Operation Gold was published in Rory MacLean's Berl… Bridge of Spies – Der Unterhändler (Originaltitel: Bridge of Spies) ist ein US-amerikanisch-deutscher Historienfilm von Steven Spielberg aus dem Jahr 2015, der am 4.Oktober 2015 auf dem 53.New York Film Festival uraufgeführt wurde und am 16. [1] He attended Oberlin College, where he received a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1955. Bridge of Spies is a 2015 historical thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay co-written by Matt Charman and The Coen Brothers. Although he was reluctant to teach, he found academia welcoming. That prisoner was Frederic Pryor, a 28-year-old graduate student who had been detained in East Berlin for nearly six months. Then along came Bridge of Spies, a film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, which was released to critical acclaim on Friday. [2][5] The Stasi (East German secret police) arrested Pryor on charges of aiding the woman's escape; after the police found a copy of Pryor's doctoral dissertation (an analysis of Soviet bloc foreign trade), he was accused of espionage and detained without charge. und besuchte dann 1959 bis 1961 die Freie Universität Berlin (Osteuropakunde). If Pryor is not released to them, the whole deal is off, and Abel would be interrogated, leaving bad blood between Germany and the USSR. Why the real life Jim Donovan was so unpopular. Februar 1962 im Zuge des Gefangenenaustausches des russischen Spions Rudolf Iwanowitsch Abel ge… He felt queasy, however, he said, as he read about the collusion between his cellmate and the Stasi, and about an accusation that he had worked for the C.I.A., and about the interrogation strategies used against him. Powers's buddy Joe Murphy (Jesse Plemons) is brought over to confirm that it is definitely Powers on the other side. Frederic LeRoy Pryor[2] and his twin brother Millard were born April 23, 1933, in Owosso, Michigan, to Millard H. and Mary S. Pryor,[citation needed] but spent most of their childhood in Mansfield, Ohio, and graduated in 1951 from Mansfield Senior High School. Bridge of Spies is a mix of personal lives, strategic intelligence programs, spies, and diplomats culminating in a nail biting spy swap in the spy capital of the Cold War world, Berlin. After graduating from Oberlin College in Ohio with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry — a subject he came to dislike after spending a summer working for Dow Chemical — Mr. Pryor took a year off to travel, living on a commune in Paraguay and working on a freighter to Europe. colonel, who was serving a 30-year prison sentence in a federal prison in Atlanta after a Brooklyn jury convicted him in 1957 of spying. He became a full professor, and chaired the department for three periods in the 1980s. Frederic L. Pryor, 86, Swarthmore College professor snared in the 'Bridge of Spies’ case in 1962. The Powers-for-Abel swap occurred at the Glienicke Bridge, a border crossing between Potsdam, in East Germany, and West Berlin. Studio Babelsberg co-produced and oversaw production services for the film. Mr. Pryor wanted to work for the government, but his arrest on an espionage charge made him unwanted. [1], "In Honor of Professor Emeritus of Economics Frederic L. Pryor", Frederic Pryor, Player in 'Bridge of Spies' Case, Dies at 86, Swarthmore prof was snared in 'Bridge of Spies' case, Economist Frederic Pryor Recounts Life as a 'Spy', "Powers is Freed by Soviet in an Exchange for Abel; U-2 Pilot on Way to U.S.", Spielberg Takes On The Cold War In 'Bridge Of Spies', https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frederic_Pryor&oldid=983636997, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using infobox academic with unknown parameters, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2019, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 15 October 2020, at 10:54. 1955). As the spies waited, negotiators talked in the center of the bridge where a white line divided East from West. But they took a lot of liberties with it. Mr. Pryor’s mother, Mary (Shapiro) Pryor, had been a journalist before becoming a homemaker. The exchange of Abel for Powers takes place at the Glienicke Brücke in Berlin, popularly known as the “Bridge of Spies.” Meanwhile, Pryor is simultaneously released through “Checkpoint On Feb. 10, 1962, after nearly six months in jail, Mr. Pryor was driven to Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and released. He was 86. Bridge of Spies keeps up its brisker-than-true-events pace by chucking up the Berlin Wall immediately – though it was really constructed in August 1961, over a year after Powers’s capture. “I enjoyed the movie,” he told Michigan Today. “But the person with my name in the film has nothing to do with me.” He added, “I resent the fact that Steven Spielberg never contacted me to find out what really happened.”. MATT SCHUDEL. [8] Pryor was not consulted for the film, about which he commented, "It was good. Frederic LeRoy Pryor was born on April 23, 1933, in Owosso, Mich., and grew up mainly in Mansfield, Ohio, where his father, Millard, was chairman of the Barnes Manufacturing Company; he later worked with the United States Agency for International Development. He had a beer with a former interrogator, who had remained certain that Pryor was a spy. Bridge of Spies (2015) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. In the film, the CIA is angry about the … He arrives in the dead of winter, so you may assume another few months have passed. At General Motors, where he had been a consultant before his arrest, an official said he would not consider him because of his prison record. Richard … "Bridge of Spies," distributed by Touchstone Pictures, opens October 16. [2][1] Pryor published 13 books and more than 130 scholarly articles. But with the release of “Bridge of Spies” (he was played by Will Rogers), Mr. Pryor began giving interviews, reflecting on his imprisonment and pointing out errors in the film — for example, its depiction of his being arrested while trying to help a woman and her father escape as the Berlin Wall was rising. Bridge of Spies: The true story behind Jim Donovan's defence of a Soviet spy in an American court. The last transaction at the “Bridge of Spies” arguably garnered more international attention than any other. [5][1] Pryor did not want to teach but went to work in academia, as an economics instructor at the University of Michigan until 1964 and as a staff research economist at Yale until 1967. He tried to visit an engineer who had helped him on a research project, but when he reached her apartment she was gone. “The reader can judge the nature of my ‘spying’ for himself,” he wrote in the preface to the version of his dissertation that was published as a book in 1963, “for this book is essentially the ‘spy document’ which was found in my car upon my arrest.”. [4], On February 10, 1962, after almost six months of detention, Pryor was freed at Checkpoint Charlie, just before American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was swapped for Soviet KGB Colonel William August Fisher at the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam, East Germany,[2][6][7] as a result of negotiations conducted by James B.