Atomic Spies and Atom Spies are terms that refer to various people in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada who are thought to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold War. Exactly what was given, and whether everyone on the list gave it, is still a matter of some scholarly dispute, and in some cases what were originally seen as strong testimonies or confessions were admitted as fabricated in later years (such as David Greenglass's testimony against his sister Ethel Rosenberg). Overwhelmingly Jewish, their work constitutes the most publicly well-known and well-documented case of nuclear espionage in the history of nuclear weapons. There was a movement among nuclear scientists to share the information with the world scientific community, but that was firmly quashed by the American government. The current case of the apparent sharing of nuclear technology with Iran, Libya, and North Korea and possibly other regimes on the part of A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist considered a national hero because of his role in the construction of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, has yet to be fully explored, and it is an open question whether the term "atom spy" will be applied to those operating outside the Cold War orbit. Spy and Secret agent redirect here. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 kilometers (11 mi) above the hypocenter A nuclear weapon derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of fusion or fission. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... David Greenglass (b. ... The Rosenbergs Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) were American Communists who captured and maintained world attention after being tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. ... Nuclear espionage is the purposeful giving of state secrets regarding nuclear weapons to other states without authorization (espionage). ... A nuclear fireball lights up the night in a United States nuclear test. ... Abdul Qadeer Khan (born 1935, Bhopal, India) is a Pakistani engineer widely regarded as the father of Pakistans nuclear weapons programme. ...

Whether the espionage information significantly aided the speed of the Soviet atomic bomb project is also disputed. While some of the information given, such as the highly technical theoretical information given by Klaus Fuchs, would be thought to have certainly aided in developing a nuclear weapon, the manner in which the heads of the Soviet bomb project, Igor Kurchatov and Lavrenty Beria, actually used the information has led later scholars to doubt its having had a role in increasing the speed of development. According to this account, Kurchatov and Beria used the information primarily as a "check" against their own scientists' work and did not liberally share the information with them, distrusting both their own scientists as well as the espionage information. Later scholarship has also shown that the decisive brake on early Soviet development was not problems in weapons design but, as in the Manhattan Project, the difficulty in procuring fissile materials, especially since the Soviet Union had no uranium deposits known when it began its program (unlike the United States). Andrei Sakharov (left) with Igor Kurchatov (right) The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb began during World War II in the Soviet Union. ... Klaus Fuchs ID badge at Los Alamos. ... Igor The Beard Kurchatov Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (И́горь Васи́льевич Курча́тов) (January 8, 1903 – February 7, 1960), Soviet/Russian physicist. ... Lavrenty Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; (29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953), was a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus. ... The Manhattan Project resulted in the creation of the first nuclear weapons, and the first-ever nuclear detonation, known as the Trinity test of July 16, 1945. ... General Name, symbol, number uranium, U, 92 Chemical series actinides Group, period, block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery gray metallic; corrodes to a spalling black oxide coat in air Standard atomic weight 238. ...

Some of the most prominent Atom Spies include:

Klaus Fuchs

• Klaus Fuchs – German refugee theoretical physicist who worked with the British delegation at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. He eventually confessed and was sentenced to jail in Britain. After his release, he emigrated to East Germany.

Theodore Hall's ID badge photo from Los Alamos National Laboratory

• Theodore Hall – a young American physicist at Los Alamos, whose identity as a spy was not revealed until very late in the twentieth century. He was never tried for his espionage work, though he seems to have admitted to it in later years to reporters and to his family.

Mugshot of David Greenglass.

• David Greenglass – an American machinist at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. Greenglass confessed that he gave crude schematics of lab experiments to the Russians during World War II. Some aspects of his testimony against his sister and brother-in-law (the Rosenbergs, see below) are now thought to have been fabricated in an effort to keep his own wife, Ruth, from prosecution. Greenglass confessed to his espionage and was given a long prison term.

Police Photograph of Julius after his arrest.

Mugshot of Ethel Rosenberg.

• Ethel and Julius Rosenberg – Americans who were supposedly involved in coordinating and recruiting an episonage network that included David Greenglass. While most scholars believe that Julius was likely involved in some sort of network, whether or not Ethel was involved or cognizant of the activities remains a matter of dispute. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried for conspiracy to commit espionage, since the prosecution seemed to feel that there was not enough evidence to convict on espionage. Treason charges were not applicable, since the United States and the Soviet Union were allies at the time. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover referred to their alleged espionage as the crime of the century.

The Rosenbergs denied all the charges but were convicted in a trial in which the young prosecution lawyer Roy Cohn later said he was in daily secret contact with the judge, Irving Kaufman. In later years some FBI agents said that although evidence against Ethel was slight, asking for the death penalty for her would lead Julius to confess in order to save her. Despite an international movement demanding clemency, and appeals to President Eisenhower by leading European Intellectuals and the Pope, the Rosenbergs were executed at the height of the Korean War. President Eisenhower wrote to his son, serving in Korea, that if he spared Ethel (presumably for the sake of her children), then the Soviets would simply recruit their spies from among women.

• Morton Sobell: American engineer tried and convicted along with the Rosenbergs, was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment but released from Alcatraz in 1969.
• Harry Gold – American, confessed to acting as a courier for Greenglass and Fuchs. Gold has been considered an unreliable informant, however.

Much of the information about this espionage work came from the VENONA project, which intercepted and decrypted Soviet intelligence transcripts during and after World War II, and later records from Soviet archives, which were briefly opened to researchers after the fall of the Soviet Union. Some information, and its interpretation, is a matter of scholarly dispute, however. Image File history File links Klaus_Fuchs_ID_badge. ... Image File history File links Klaus_Fuchs_ID_badge. ... Klaus Fuchs ID badge at Los Alamos. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... The Manhattan Project resulted in the creation of the first nuclear weapons, and the first-ever nuclear detonation, known as the Trinity test of July 16, 1945. ... Anthem Auferstanden aus Ruinen Capital East Berlin Language(s) German Government Socialist republic Head of State  - 1949 – 1960 Wilhelm Pieck  - 1960 – 1973 Walter Ulbricht  - 1973 – 1976 Willi Stoph  - 1976 – 1989 Erich Honecker  - 1989 Egon Krenz  - 1989 - 1990 Manfred Gerlach Head of Government  - 1949 – 1964 Otto Grotewohl  - 1964 – 1973 Willi Stoph... Image File history File links Theodore_Hall_ID_badge. ... Theodore Halls ID badge photo from Los Alamos. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... David Greenglass (b. ... Image File history File links Julius_Rosenberg_mugshot. ... Image File history File links Julius_Rosenberg_mugshot. ... Image File history File links Ethel_Rosenberg_mugshot. ... Image File history File links Ethel_Rosenberg_mugshot. ... The Rosenbergs Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) and Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens and CPUSA members who were thrust into the world spotlight when they were tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. ... John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an influential but controversial director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). ... Roy Marcus Cohn (February 20, 1927 – August 2, 1986) was an American lawyer who came to prominence during the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into Communism in the government and especially during the Army-McCarthy Hearings. ... Dwight David Ike Eisenhower (October 14, 1890–March 28, 1969), American soldier and politician, was the 34th President of the United States (1953–1961) and supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, with the rank of General of the Army. ... Combatants United Nations:  Republic of Korea,  Australia,  Belgium,  Luxembourg,  Canada,  Colombia,  Ethiopia,  France,  Greece,  Luxembourg,  Netherlands,  New Zealand,  Philippines,  South Africa,  Thailand,  Turkey,  United Kingdom,  United States Medical staff:  Denmark,  Australia,  Italy,  Norway,  Sweden Communist states:  Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,  Peoples Republic of China,  Soviet Union Commanders... Morton Sobell (born April 11, 1917 in New York City) was an American engineer who worked for General Electric and Reeves Electronics on military and government contracts. ... Harry Gold Harry Gold (b. ... The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between the United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdoms MI5 that involved the cryptanalysis of Soviet messages. ...

References

• Alexei Kojevnikov, Stalin's Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists (Imperial College Press, 2004). ISBN 1-86094-420-5 (use of espionage data by Soviets)
• Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002). ISBN 0-8050-6588-1 (details on Fuchs)
• Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995). ISBN 0-684-80400-X (general overview of Fuchs and Rosenberg cases)

Richard Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American author of fiction and verity, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb in 1986, and most recently, John James Audubon: the Making of an American in 2004. ...

External links

• Website explaining Soviet espionage in the United Kingdom
• Article describing Klaus Fuchs Role