Soviet Spies in the 1940s

Klaus Fuchs: What One Evil Man Can Do

The Soviets began an active spying campaign while they were still our “allies” in WWII, beginning as early as 1941, when a British traitor informed the Soviets about America’s attempt to create an atomic weapon. Dozens of people were tried, convicted, and often executed for passing nuclear secrets to Russia.  There is no estimate as to how many escaped justice such as John Cairncross, who lied an said the material he gave the Soviets was “nominal”.  When the Kremlin released their records, they found out Cairncross had lied and had actually given the Soviets crucial information about America’s atomic research.

Some spies were from America and Western Europe, who believed in communism and under the false pretense of being pro-democracy and capitalism, did serious damage to their nations. Some believed that only nuclear parity would avert an atomic was. I found a list of some of these people in an article entitled Spies Who Spilled Atomic Bomb Secrets, published by the Smithsonian and written by Marian Smith Holmes in 2009

John Cairncross- was the first atomic spy, John Cairncross was eventually identified as one of the Cambridge Five, a group of upper-middle class young men who had met at Cambridge University in the 1930s, became passionate communists and eventually Soviet spies during World War II and into the 1950s. In his position as secretary to the chairman of Britain’s scientific advisory committee, Cairncross gained access to a high-level report in the fall of 1941 that confirmed the feasibility of a uranium bomb. He promptly leaked the information to Moscow agents. 

Klaus Fuchs is known as the most important atomic spy in history.  He was a physicist on the Manhattan Project and a lead scientist at Britain’s nuclear facility by 1949. Just weeks after the Soviets exploded their atomic bomb in August 1949, a decryption of a 1944 message revealed that information describing important scientific processes related to construction of the A-bomb had been sent from the United Sates to Moscow. FBI agents identified Klaus Fuchs as the author.

Born in Germany in 1911, Fuchs joined the Communist Party as student, and fled to England during the rise of Nazism in 1933. By the time he became a British citizen in 1942, he had already contacted the Soviet Embassy in London and volunteered his services as a spy. He was transferred to the Los Alamos lab and began handing over detailed information about the bomb construction, including sketches and dimensions. 

When he returned to England in 1946, he went to work at Britain’s nuclear research facility, and passed information on creating a hydrogen bomb to the Soviet Union. In December 1949, authorities questioned him. In a matter of few weeks, Fuchs confessed all. He was tried and sentenced to 14 years in prison. After serving nine years he was released to East Germany, where he resumed work as a scientist. He died in 1988. 

When he became a British citizen, he would have had to promise by covenant to support and defend Great Britain.  By knowingly violating that covenant, I would call him an evil, not just misguided, man. Considering that there would not have been a nuclear Soviet Union (at least not so quickly) without him I am surprised he escaped the death penalty.  Fuchs is a perfect example of the damage one evil man can do.  

Theodore Hall (Holtzberg) was a young Jewish boy who had become a Marxist when he entered Harvard (from which he graduated at 18.)  He was also assigned to the Manhattan Project and passed on secrets to the Soviets years before Fuchs, but he flew under the radar.  He felt such guilt after seeing what the bomb could do in 1945, he was motivated to give secrets to Russia in order to create nuclear parity and avoid another atomic was.  The bomb the Soviets tested in 1949 was an exact copy of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. He was never convicted, but confessed in 1995 when old, encrypted documents were translated. He lived out his in England and died two years after he was revealed to be a spy, at the age of 79.

Harry Gold was an American chemist who had been spying for the Soviets since 1935.  He was named by Fuchs when he eventually confessed. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

David Greenglass was the third “mole” in the Manhattan Project. Working with Hill and Fuchs, he began passing information from Los Alamos, where he began work as a machinist in 1944. He also went to prison but escaped the death penalty because, like Gold, he confessed and cooperated with the authorities and named names.

Lana and Morris Cohen – were professional industrial spies.  They gathered leaked secrets from Los Alamos in 1945.  When the arrests of spies began in 1949, the fled to Moscow. In 1961, they resurfaced in England where they continued to spy for Moscow under their new aliases. When they were finally convicted, they were sentenced to 20 years, but were released early in an exchange for a British spy incarcerated in Moscow.

Ethel Rosenburg (sister to Greenglass) and her husband, Theodore are the only spies I actually remember.  They were arrested in the same group with Hall, Greenglass, and Gold.  Unlike their colleagues, they refused to give any information or names.  They claimed to be innocent.  A jury found them guilty.  They were convicted in 1951 and sentenced to death.  They died in the electric chair at Sing-Sing prison in 1956. 

I remember reading about them in the newspaper and seeing a picture of them with shaved heads just prior to their execution. I remember having a really sick feeling, not only about them betraying their nation, but because of their grisly deaths. I was about 6 at the time.  That picture traumatized me for a long time.

They left behind two young sons, which is heartbreaking to me now.  They continued to claim their innocence right to the end.  Another example of otherwise sane people doing inhumane things by reacting in anger and retribution.

This would lead into the McCarthy Era and the communist witch hunts of the 1950s.  I’ll talk about them in my next installment.

Aunt Kath