Introduction
In the late 1930’s, Lavrenti Beria was head of the People’s Commissary for Internal Affairs (NKVD), a government organ encompassing state security police and foreign intelligence. In 1941 Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov became Beria’s NKVD deputy. Within the NKVD there were two separate intelligence services, the Foreign Department (also known as Inostrannye Otdel, INO) and the Administration for Special Tasks. In 1941, Pavel Sudoplatov, a rising officer in the Foreign Intelligence service, was appointed director of Special Tasks, replacing Yakov Serebryansky in that position. The INO was responsible for running intelligence stations (rezidenturas) abroad which comprised both legal and illegal personnel; Special Tasks conducted missions such as assassination, sabotage, disinformation, mole penetration and internal security. Due to war exigencies in 1943, the status of the Foreign Intelligence Department within the NKVD was elevated to a separate commissariat, the NKGB. Vsevolod Merkulov was made NKGB chairman. [1]
By early 1945, Soviet espionage against the Manhattan Project had reached critical mass and began producing a fire hose of virtually real time intelligence. An indication of the magnitude of the intelligence coup (and U.S. counter-intelligence failure) was revealed in the early 1990’s when Soviet intelligence archives were partially opened under policies of glasnost and perestroika. A result, albeit a long time in materializing, is the recent publication of the Notebooks of ex-KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev along with the companion book Spies. [2]
Atomic Espionage Documents
In 1992 the Russian Academy of Sciences published 28 pages of atomic documents from the archives of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service in its journal Voprossi Istorii Estesvoznania i Tekniki, (Questions of History of Natural Sciences and Technology). A number of these documents, signed by Vsevolod Merkulov and Igor Kurchatov (Soviet counterpart to Robert Oppenheiemr), were reproduced in appendices to the 1995 book Special Tasks, by Pavel Sudoplatov and Jarrold and Leona Schecter. In addition, a Merkulov report to Beria dated July 10, 1945, found in Kurier Sovetskoy Razvedki (Courier of Soviet Intelligence, 1991), was also excerpted in Special Tasks. Taken together these documents give a somewhat detailed picture of what Moscow knew about the atomic program in America and when they knew it. Moreover, when analyzed in relation to the Venona messages, the Vassiliev notebooks and other sources, the documents also have the potential to reveal information about the Soviet sources (spies) who supplied top secret information [3]
Merkulov Report to Beria, 28 February 1945
The end-of-February report from Merkulov to Beria appears to be a 3-page summary. A week later, atomic materials were forwarded to physicist Igor Kurchatov, the scientific leader of the Soviet atomic effort, under cover of a document dated 5 March 1945, and bearing the description, “from the ‘Atomic Bomb’ Section of the Report.” Ostensibly, “Atomic Bomb Section” refers to an unpublished section of the Merkulov report. (If not, there was another important atomic report closely dated to the Merkulov report.) Finally, there is a third document, a report by Kurchatov on materials he received on February 7, 1945. This document reveals highly technical discussion of uranium processing, which presumably was included or subsumed in the 2-week later Merkulov report. All three documents are fair game for assessing the atomic materials and sources acquired by Soviet intelligence by the February 1945 time frame. Excerpted below are portions judged most relevant for scrutiny and analysis.
Document 7 "To the People's Commissar of the Interior of the Union SSR, Comrade L. P. Beria, February 28, 1945
NKGB USSR presents intelligence information herein on the progress of work towards the creation of an atomic bomb of great destructive power: Research carried out by leading scientists of Britain and the USA on the utilization of inner atomic energy forth the creation of an atomic bomb has shown that this type of weapon should be considered practicable, and that the problem of building the bomb is at the present time confined to two main tasks: 1. The production of the necessary amount of fissionable elements, uranium 235 and plutonium. 2. The development of a system of activating the bomb.Document 8 “Report on Materials Accompanying Document No. 1/3/3920 of March 5, 1945, from the ‘Atomic Bomb’ Section of the Report.
Two ways of activating the atomic bomb are being developed: 1. The ballistic method and 2. the implosion method. …
No time frame of any certainty is available for the production of the [implosion] bomb since research or design work has not yet been completed. …
As for bombs of a somewhat smaller capacity [ballistic bombs], it is reported that within a mere few weeks one can expect the production of one or two bombs, for which Americans already have the necessary amount of the active substance. … The first experimental ‘combat’ explosion is expected in 2 or 3 months.
V. Merkulov”
(Reference note. A note original to the 1992 released Russian copy of the Merkulov report stated: “The document makes the first mention of the implosion method … .The margins of the document carry notes, possibly made by Beria.”) [4]
The materials pose a great deal of interest: alongside methods and schemes developed by us it also points to potentialities that have not been review here so far. These include: 1) the utilization of uranium-hydride 235 instead of metallic uranium 235 as the explosive in the atomic bomb; 2) the use of implosion for activating the bomb. …Document 9 “Report on Materials to Letter No. 1/3/2382 of February 7, 1945
It seems exceptionally important to establish whether the system described was studied through calculation or by way of an experiment. If the latter, that would mean that the atomic bomb has already been executed and that uranium 235 has been separated in major quantities. The materials contain a remark that seems to suggest that. In describing the implosion method it is pointed out that no experiments have yet been carried out with active material, but they are to be stage within months.
In light of the above, the top-priority task of exceptional importance is to obtain several tens of grams of uranium, strongly enriched with uranium 235 from laboratories, whose materials are being studied here. …
The materials contain stimulating remarks with regard to the insulation substance for the atomic bomb. They are in conformity with the views that have also been widespread here in recent time. Our designs also suggest the use of Beryllium for insulation, though in its metal form, and not an oxide, which is what the materials propose.
signed) Kurchatov, March 16, 1945”
(Reference note: Document 8 is a hand written note by Kurchatov. … The second part for the first time in Kurchatov’s notes reviews the implosion method.) [5]
The materials contain general ideas with regard to the uranium-graphite pile, which view uranium hexaflouride as the cooling medium. (Materials received earlier contained some data on this system.)
The uranium-graphite pile, incorporating a mass of graphite and tubes of uranium, through which liquid uranium hexaflouride flows, as the materials quite correctly suggest, possesses a number of advantages over other designs of uranium graphite piles.
In particular, the task of separating plutonium is rendered much easier in this system, and requirements to the cooling system are greatly simplified. Satisfactory cooling can be achieved at velocities of the flow of liquid uranium hexaflouride through the pipes at a mere 1.5 meters per second. The basic drawback of the new system is the great amount of uranium required, 250 tons, compared to 50 tons required by other systems using these piles.
(signed) Kurchatov, March 16, 1945” [6]
Enormous
As verified by Venona, and now Vassiliev’s Notebooks, "Enormous" was the covername assigned by the NKGB First Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) to refer to the Manhattan Project and, synonymously, the NKGB's operation to penetrate it. A Vassiliev document dated 1 February 1945 recorded the New York station’s Enormous sources as MLAD (Hall), CHARLES (Fuchs), CALIBER (Greenglass), and PERSIAN (McNutt). Thus, Vassiliev is entirely consistent with Venona, but with the bonus of the identification of Russel McNutt as FOGEL/PERS (Persian). The job at hand is to correlate, if possible, these confirmed atomic sources as of February 1945 with the atomic intelligence in Moscow as of February 1945. [7]
With regard to the atomic bomb per se, all the Enormous spies/sources are eliminated except Ted Hall: Fuchs' first espionage contact since arriving at Los Alamos in August 1944, was mid-February 1945; Greenglass, an enlisted machinist, had no first hand or personal bomb assembly knowledge; McNutt, a civil engineer, worked in New York (for Kellex) on Oak Ridge projects. Ostensibly, then, only Ted Hall can be considered the source behind the Merkulov reports. Hall’s first contact with the KGB was the middle of October 1944—his furlough home (NY) from Los Alamos. According to Vassiliev’s notebooks, Hall’s next KGB contact was Saville Sax’s courier trip to New Mexico in April 1945 (after the Merkulov report). Thus, if Hall is the KGB’s only source on the bomb during this period, then all of the bomb data in Moscow in February came from him—more precisely, it was contained in Hall's written report provided to Sergei Kurnakov (and Yatskov). The best description available of what Hall gave the Soviets in October is the following passage from Spies:
“Hall ‘took out a neatly written report and gave it to Kurnakov. Show this to any physicist,’ he instructed, ‘and he will understand what it’s about.’ While he didn’t know the structure of the bomb itself, he could find out. Hall also provided a list of the scientists working on the atom bomb and described the conditions at Los Alamos.” [8]
At this time, Hall worked in the Weapon Physics Division at Los Alamos, also known as G Division (G for gadget, code for the implosion weapon). This division was charged with experimenting on critical assemblies and methods for studying implosion. Hall was in the G-6, Ra La Method section under Bruno Rossi. Vassiliev’s notebooks do not reflect that Hall’s report described a plutonium weapon actuated by implosion detonation. Nonetheless, it is not unreasonable to surmise that Hall’s report could have been Moscow’s first knowledge of implosion-plutonium.
More problematical for a definitive finding that Hall was the Center’s only high-level bomb source in February 1945 is Kurchatov’s discussion of uranium-hydride 235. The uranium-hydride idea was proposed by Teller in connection with the ballistic weapon design. Kurchatov’s comment about the atomic bomb already being executed is almost certainly a reference to the so-called Dragon experiment. Such a reality would be a non-starter for any argument that Hall was Soviet intelligence’s only high level source at Los Alamos at the end of 1944. The Dragon experiment was conducted in December 1944 by Otto Frisch’s Critical Assemblies group in G Division. For a split second, it achieved a supercritical, explosive chain reaction. Hall, in October, obviously could not have reported on the Dragon. The foregoing, however, is probably moot in light of the statement in Bombshell that, “Ted Hall didn’t recall knowing anything about the uranium hydride option.” [9]
Merkulov Letter to Beria, 10 July 1945
Top Secret, Urgent July 10, 1945, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Commissar General of State Security, Comrade Beria, L. P.
From several reliable agent sources NKGB USSR received data that in the USA in July this year the first experimental explosion of the atomic bomb is scheduled. It is expected that the explosion will take place on the tenth of July.
The following data is available about this bomb: …
Hand written at the top left corner of the report was, “Sources: ‘Mlad,’ ‘Charles’”; underneath this were the numbers and dates of the cables reporting the information to Moscow: “18956/568 June 13, 1945; 9482/625 July 4, 1945.” Vassiliev’s notebooks suggest that the most logical interpretation of this Merkulov letter is that Ted Hall (Mlad) informed that a test was projected for July and, subsequently, Klaus Fuchs (Charles) passed the specific date of July 10. The matter begins in March-April 1945 when Oppenheimer established Project Trinity, TR, an organization with Division status that was given full responsibility for the test of Fat Man. Sometime in April-May, Project TR set an initial target date of July 4 for the weapon test.
The book Spies establishes three KGB contacts with Hall during the war: October 1944, April 1945, and August 1945. Thus, with respect to a bomb test date, Hall provided it to Sax either in their “mid-April” contact, or afterwards by mail drop. Vassiliev mentions such Hall-Sax mail drops (but not one advising a test date). Vassiliev’s notebooks detail a NY to Center message dated June 13, 1945, in which Anton (Leonid Kvasnikov) reported that, “according to information from Mlad, Charles and Caliber, this explosion will take place in July.” Noticeably, this was well after the May 26, 1945, New York telegram to Moscow (a Venona decrypt) which outlined information received from Hall but did not mention a bomb test.
When Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs met in Cambridge in February 1945 they scheduled their next contact for the first Saturday in June (June 3) at the Castillo Street Bridge in Santa Fe. Following this meet, Gold went to Albuquerque and conducted the fateful contact with Greenglass. Gold returned to NY on or before June 11. Thus, in the June 13 message to the Center, Kvasnikov also reported that Gold (Arno) had returned from New Mexico and provided material from Fuchs and Greenglass—but no reference to July 10 date. On June 20, 1945, Gold submitted his own trip report stating that Charles had "said that the test would take place around July 10 at a location known as 'I'." According to Vasiliev's notes, two weeks later, July 4, 1945, Kvasnikov cabled Moscow that a bomb test was scheduled for July 10. Vassiliev’s notebooks correlate for the most part with the facsimile of the 10 July 1945 Merkulov letter in Special Tasks. Nonetheless, there remain interesting questions and events. [10]
Reliable Other Sources
V. Chikov The Vassiliev Notebooks suggest comparison to another KGB officer who did research in historical Soviet archives in the early 1990’s, Colonel Vladimir Chikov. In that instance, of course, Chikov was constrained by the requirement to hide identities, particularly two identities. Nonetheless, much of what he wrote has proved correct. For example, Chikov was probably first to reveal that the KGB’s case file on atomic espionage was titled Enormous. He also revealed the covername for Los Alamos, the Reservation, subsequently confirmed by Venona. In the current matter, he wrote (pre-Venona) the following: “By the end of the war at least six Soviet agents were working on the Manhattan Project: PERSEUS, CHARLES, CASPAR, METHOD, IDEA and CALIBER. Supporting them were an equal number of contacts or couriers, such as OLDTIMER, RAYMOND and LESLIE. The reader is familiar with three of these figures: PERSEUS, CHARLES, and LESLIE. Of the others, CASPAR was the code name for Bruno Pontecorvo, CALIBER for David Greenglass, RAYMOND for Harry Gold the NKVD contact with Fuchs. The identities of OLDTIMER, METHOD and IDEA cannot be revealed.” Enter Mr. Vassiliev with second source validation of Chikov: Method and Idea were real covernames, those of Joseph and Merle Weinberg, respectively. Recalling that J. Weinberg's contact was Steve Nelson, it is noted that Nelson's FBI file reflects that one of his many pseudonyms was "Stari" (Oldtimer). [11]
Confidential Source In an essay at this website titled The Volunteer Group, published February 14, 2009, the following description of SERB was given: “SERB was a secret member of the CPUSA, participated in the Spanish Civil War, was recruited by Morris Cohen in 1942 and was an engineer in radio.” An endnote attributed the SERB description to a “reliable Confidential Source.” SERB has now been identified in Vassiliev’s notebooks as Joseph Chmilevski, whose background is a prima facie match with that of the essay. The confidential source’s reliability and bona fides are thus supported/established. [12]
Albright and Kunstel The book Bombshell by journalists Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel has, heretofore, been the definitive source on Ted Hall and Saville Sax. Its reporting is certainly characterized by due diligence. The authors interviewed Hall several times, along with many other principals. A significant discrepancy exists in that Vassiliev’s notebooks support only one trip to New Mexico by Lona Cohen, a courier agent for the New York KGB station’s Enormous line. This documented mission was in August 1945 to courier Hall. The following authorities, however, all posit that Lona made two trips (at least) to New Mexico to make contact with Los Alamos sources: Anatoli Yatskov, Leonid Kvasnikov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Vladimir Chikov and Lona Cohen herself. This inconsistency goes to a number of questions, one of which is the nature of the materials Cohen picked up from Hall in August. Bombshell described the Cohen-Hall meeting as follows: “They made their meet, talked as much as they needed, and Hall passed Cohen the papers he had prepared about the work at Los Alamos.” In interview, Hall affirmed to Albright and Kunstel that his information was “only five or six hand-written sheets.” This conflicts with other reporting which suggests that Hall handed over a 33-page report “about the entire construction of the atomic bomb.” There are two reasons for rejecting the latter possibility: (1) very reliable witness from several sources that Lona went to New Mexico to rendezvous with another physicist—not Hall or Fuchs; and (2) an unambiguous declaration from Ted Hall about what he did not give the Soviets, “I never had access to detailed data on the assembly of the bomb.” [13]
P. Sudoplatov In his memoir Special Tasks, Sudoplatov had much to recount on atomic espionage. What he wrote was based on personal knowledge stemming from his direct involvement in operations against the Manhattan Project. Sudoplatov’s witness has been mistakenly judged unreliable. An important revelation from Sudoplatov was the origin and purpose of Special Department S, an adjunct office of the Admistration for Special Tasks. As stated by Sudoplatov, Department S was an intelligence bureau created by Beria in 1943 to supervise atomic espionage activities of both the GRU and the NKGB. In February 1944, according to Sudoplatov, Beria appointed him director of the new autonomous Department S. There is support in the literature for the existence of Department S as well as Sudoplaov’s directorship. From Bombshell:
“Department S was named for its director, [NKVD] General Pavel Sudoplatov, who had guided clandestine work from the assassination of Leon Trotsky to guerilla warfare behind German lines. ‘Of course there was a panic here. So everything began to spin very fast,’ remembered Arkady Rylov, one of two physicists assigned to work with Department S in late September 1945. ‘The Central Committee sent me to Sudoplatov. He made the paper work go incredibly quickly.’ With six translators, two editors, two scientists, and a crew of helpers to copy, collate, and courier material, Rylov said Deparment S worked long hours inside Lubyanka spy headquarters every day until the Sudoplatov unit was disbanded ten months later. It worked always with copies [transcribed], rarely with handwritten documents, and never with anything showing the names of the sources of information, he said. Diagrams, drawings, mathematical formulas, and tests—all these documents were securely held in iron safes and carefully signed out by whomever was working on them before submission to Kurchatov. ‘The intelligence service greatly diminished the time for progressing on this problem [the bomb],’ said Rylov. ‘If we hadn’t had any piece of information on this problem, it would have probably taken fourteen years instead of four years. Maybe twenty. Who knows.’” [14]
Department S is intrinsic to a broader organizing principle that is key to understanding Soviet atomic espionage. Within the NKVD, the Administration for Special Tasks was separate and autonomous from the NKGB. Sudoplatov reported directly to Beria; organizationally, he was the equal of Merkulov. Moreover, by order of Beria, Special Tasks played the dominant role in atomic espionage in comparison to the NKGB's Foreign Intelligence Directorate headed by Pavel Fitin. Indeed, a number of Fitin’s officers (Semyonov, Kheifetz, Vasilevsky, the Zarubins) were co-opted to Special Tasks. This was Beria strategem and genius. He wanted two compartmented lines on atomic intelligence. Why? Not only could the intelligence/materials from one line be checked against the other to detect/exclude enemy disinformation, but if one line was compromised, the other should be safe. In such a dual attack, the possible existence of two Mlad-Star agent pairs is rationalized. Beria’s scheme was brilliant. And it is still serving the SVR (KGB) today. [15]
State of Play
• Lona Cohen made at least two courier "missions" to New Mexico. One of those trips was to meet Ted Hall, the other was to meet a second Los Alamos source who was not Klaus Fuchs.
• By definition, "Perseus" is a physicist recruited by Morris Cohen in 1942 before he went into the Army. Fake figure or real person, Perseus cannot be Theodore Alvin Hall.
• Either the Perseus story from the SVR in the 1990’s is a complete and utter falsehood, or the full extent of Soviet atomic espionage in America is not known: Two mutually exclusive propositions for historians to consider and reconcile.
• Remaining unidentified covernames linked to atomic espionage are, "Monti", MAR, SILVER, ANTA, ADEN, "Godsend." Since Perseus is not believed to be a real covername, notionally there is a possible seventh unidentified atomic spy. [16]
Notes, Sources, References
1. Special Tasks, Pavel and Anatoli Sudoplatov with Jerrold and Leona Schecter, 1995, pages xxix, 126, 184.
2. Spies, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, Yale University Press, 2009.
3. Special Tasks, Appendix Two, p.436; Appendix Four, p.474.
4. “Document 7. To the People's Commissar of the Interior of the Union SSR, Comrade L. P. Beria, February 28, 1945”: Special Tasks, p.456; Ref. Note, p.466
5. “Document 8. “Report on Materials Accompanying Document No. 1/3/3920 of March 5, 1945, from the ‘Atomic Bomb’ Section of the Report.”: Special Tasks, p.458; Ref. Note, p.466
6. “Document 9. Report on Materials to Letter No. 1/3/2383 of February 7, 1945”: Special Tasks, p.459.
7. “Vassiliev document dated 1 February 1945 recorded the New York station’s Enormous sources as MLAD (Hall), CHARLES (Fuchs), CALIBER (Greenglass), and PERSIAN (McNutt)”: Vassiliev Black Notebook, p.119. (Cold War International History Project, Vassiliev Notebooks)
8. “all the Enormous spies are eliminated as the source except Ted Hall… 'Fuchs had not yet reestablished contact with the KGB'”: Spies, p. 114; “Hall ‘took out a neatly written report … described the conditions at Los Alamos.”: Ibid., p.112.
Note The NY KGB station lost contact with Fuchs at the end of July 1944 when he suddenly went to Los Alamos instead of returning to England, as had been firmly decided earlier that month. In February 1945, Fuchs visited his sister in Boston. He met Harry Gold on Saturday, February 16, and reportedly gave him 8 pages of material. Gold returned to NY that same day and passed the material to Anatoli Yatskov. Moscow Center, aware that contact with Fuchs was about to be re-established after a long hiatus, sent the following message to the New York residentura on 27 February 1945: "Advise forthwith exactly where and in what capacity CHARLES [Fuchs] is working in the RESERVATION [Los Alamos] ... how in detail the meeting [with Gold] went off; ... What materials were received from [Fuchs]." (Venona, Moscow to New York, No. 183, 27 February 1945) This Venona message shows that Fuchs' report had not reached Moscow by 28 February 1945, the date of the Merkulov report to Beria.
9. “Weapon Physics Division … known as G Division (G for gadget, code for the implosion weapon) …., Ra La Method section under Bruno Rossi.”: Project Y, The Los Alamos Story, Part I Toward Trinity, David Hawkins, Tomash Publishers, 1983, p.197-9.
Note There is some evidence suggesting that Hall did not mention "implosion" in the report he handed over in October 1944. Depending on train and ship schedules, material pouched to Moscow from the East Coast of the U.S. took 4 to 6 weeks to arrive. Assuming time was of the essence, Hall's report could have reached Moscow by the end of December 1944. The literature contains another treatment of atomic intelligence documents being received and evaluated by Kurchatov in 1945, before Trinity. One item was described as follows: "Yet another long memo by Kurchatov ... evaluated a package received over three months ago, on 25 December of the preceeding year [1944]. The top page [of Kurchatov's evaluation] began: 'Very rich and in many respects instructive material. It contains theoretically valuable pointers, descriptions of technical processes and methods of analysis; it gives us an idea of the pace of work in separate laboratories and the time needed to put atomic units [bombs] into action." This seems to evoke Hall's report, and the dating would be as expected. Since the word or concept of implosion is not mentioned, it would support the notion that it was other materials in Moscow by February 1945 that were the basis of the reference notes to Documents 7 and 8, which indicate that those reports were the first to describe implosion.
“Hall was in the G-6, Ra La Method section under Bruno Rossi. … The foregoing … a moot discussion … anything about the uranium hydride option.”: Bombshell, Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, 1997, p.113.
Note In Special Tasks, Sudoplatov wrote, "a description of the design of he first atomic bomb [Little Boy] was reported to us in January 1945." (ST p.197) Corroboration for this claim comes from the fact that Julius Rosenberg and, by extension, the NY residency, had knowsledge of Little Boy in January 1945. There is no evidence that Ted Hall was privy to Little Boy information; there is some affirmative evidence that he was not informed on it.
10. “Top Secret, Urgent, July 10, 1945, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Commissar General of State Security, Comrade Beria, L. P.”: Special Tasks, Appendix Four, p.474.
"The matter begins in March-April 1945 ... July 4 for the weapon test.": Project Y, The Story of Los Alamos, Part I, David Hawkins, 1983, Tomash Publishers, p.234-7.
“Vassiliev’s notebooks detail ... June 13, 1945 ... will take place in July.”: KGB File 86192 V.1, p.28, A. Vassiliev, Yellow Notebook #1, trans., p.40.
"Gold returned to NY on or before June 11": Ibid.
"Kvasnikov also reported that Gold (Arno) ... from Fuchs and Greenglass": Ibid.
"On June 20, 1945, Gold submitted ... at a location known as 'I'.": KGB File 82702 V.1, p.363, A. Vassiliev, Yellow Notebook #1, trans., p.27.
"According to Vasiliev's notes ... was scheduled for July 10, 1945": KGB File 86192 V.1, p.30, A. Vassiliev, Yellow Notebook #1, trans., p.40.
"Vassiliev’s notebooks properly correlate ... Merkulov letter in Special Tasks ... interesting questions and events.": Special Tasks, Appendix Four, p.475.
Note As noted, the July 10 Merkulov letter is an appendix to Special Tasks, and Sudoplatov commented on it as follows: “Twelve days before the first atomic bomb was assembled in Los Alamos, we received a description of the device from both Washington and New York. I saw two documents relating to the intelligence information received from America a short time before the first atomic bomb explosion at Los Alamos. One cable came to the Center on June 13 and another on July 4, 1945. A week later it was reported to Beria that two intelligence sources, unconnected to each other, reported almost simultaneously the imminent explosion of a nuclear device. … However I can verify that the sources described in the cables as Charles and Mlad were Klaus Fuchs and Bruno Pontecorvo." (ST, p.200).
Trinity From The Los Alamos Story: "The July 4 date accepted in March was determined unrealistic. Delays in the delivery of full-scale lens molds and the consequent delay in the development and production of full-scale lenses, as well as the tight schedule in production of active material, made it necessary to reconsider the date. The Cowpuncher Committee tried to schedule the pacing components to determine when other components or developments would have to be completed so the test would not be delayed. By the middle of June, the Cowpuncher Committee agreed that July 13 was the earliest possible date, with the 23rd as a probable date. Because of the great pressure to have the test as early as possible, some of the experiments, tests, and improvements would not be ready, but the July 13 date was fixed so that essential components would be ready. On June 30 a review of all schedules was made by the Cowpuncher Committee and the earliest date for Trinity was changed to July 16 so as to include some important experiments." (p.239) An anecdote about Richard Feynman offers another look at the run-up to Trinity. Feynman’s wife Arline died in a TB sanatorium in Albuquerque on June 16, 1945. Feynman, from New York, had not been home since arriving at Los Alamos in April 1943. Hans Bethe, thinking that Feynman badly needed some R&R, sent him home on furlough in the weeks before the test. Feynman left Los Alamos on June 27, ostensibly for two weeks leave with the intention of returning for the then scheduled date of July 13. That was changed to Monday, July 16, at the June 30 Cowpuncher meeting. Feynman received a coded telegram notifying him of the new date. He left NY on Saturday July 14, arriving back at Los Alamos at noon on Sunday, barely in time to get on a bus to Alamogordo, NM.
Potsdam The July 10 question becomes more germane in the fact that it almost got Leonid Kvasnikov (ANTON) cashiered, or worse. The story comes from Vladimir Chikov in Stalin’s Atomic Spies: “In mid-June 1945 Leonid Kvasnikov sent an urgent message to the Center in Moscow reporting that the scientific team at Los Alamos was going to detonate an atomic device on 10 July. His information came from two sources—PERSEUS and CHARLES, both of whom independently notified their contacts on 13 June. The Center immediately reported to the Boss [Stalin] in the Kremlin. The day of Tuesday, 10 July, came and went but New York sent no confirmation of a nuclear explosion in New Mexico. To suspicious minds at the Center it appeared that the rezidentura in America had made a colossal blunder. The most suspicious mind of all belonged to the chief, Lavrenty Beria, and the object of his suspicion was his old bugaboo, Comrade Kvasnikov. The first nuclear explosion in history took place six days later, on Monday, 16 July, just before dawn.” The Postsdam Conference, a meeting between Truman, Churchill and Stalin to effectively redraw the map of Europe, began on July 17 lasting to August 2. On July 19, Truman informed Stalin that the United States possessed “a new weapon of unusual destructive force.” As has been much written about, Stalin exhibited no reaction, asked no questions. Not pleased with the new balance of power realities, Stalin was less pleased that he had not received confirmation of the successful atomic test from his intelligence service. According to Chikov, Stalin called Beria at his first opportunity. There happened to be an intelligence officer, a witness, in the room when the call came in. Stalin evidently asked Beria if he knew about the American test. Beria replied "yes, Comrade Stalin," and reminded him that he, Stalin, had been advised a couple of weeks back that the test was to occur on July 10, but that as yet the NKVD had “no report of a great explosion.” Stalin then laid into Beria, telling him the bomb had been successfully tested and that Beria had been "disinformed." Reportedly, the conversation was over when Beria belatedly and uncomfortably realized that he was no longer talking to Stalin, the Boss had hung up on him. Beria immediately called Fitin to his office and indicted Kvasnikov for the failure. Ostensibly, only a strong showing by Fitin prevented Kvasnikov’s recall to an uncertain future.
Comment/Analysis In contrast with the Vassiliev account, Vladimir Chikov wrote: “In mid-June 1945 Leonid Kvasnikov sent an urgent message to the Center in Moscow reporting that the scientific team at Los Alamos was going to detonated an atomic device on 10 July. His information came from two sources—PERSEUS and CHARLES, both of whom independently notified their contacts on 13 June." Ostensibly, this information came from the Cohens’ KGB dossier, File No. 13676. And, reportedly, Lona Cohen was to be used as a mail drop for Fuchs (Yellow #1, p.71, NY – C 23.02.45) . Sudoplatov’s assertion that the July 10 test date was received from Pontecorvo as well as Fuchs is curious. Pontecorvo's patron at Los Alamos was Fermi (VECTOR) and Fermi was assigned to Project TR. It is intriguing that, in the matter of the American bomb test, Sudoplatov twice mentioned the Washington station as the sender of atomic intelligence messages. Before dismissing out of hand, it should be recalled that the head of all Soviet espionage in America, both INO and Special Tasks (Illegals), was Vassili Zarubin at the embassy in Washington. Finally, an overarching concern is the notion that July 10 was evidently never a projected Trinity date, tentative or fixed. That date is not observed in Project Y: The Los Alamos Story produced at Los Alamos in 1947, or in Rhodes’ The Making of the Atom Bomb (1986). The scheduling from these sources is an original target of July 4; in mid-June this was modified to July 13 as the earliest possible date with July 23 as a probable date; “on June 30 a review of all schedules was made by the Cowpuncher Committee and the earliest date for Trinity was changed to July 16” (Project Y, p. 239).
11. “By the end of the war at least six Soviet agents were working on the Manhattan Project … The identities of OLDTIMER, METHOD and IDEA cannot be revealed.”: Comment Staline a vole la bombe atomique aux Americains: Dossier KGB No. 13676, How Stalin Stole the Atomic Bomb from the Americans; KGB Case No. 13676. (aka Stalin’s Atomic Spies ), Vladimir Chikov and Gary Kern, Editions Robert Laffont, Paris, 1996, p. 152-5.
Note The Chikov-Kern manuscript, Stalin's Atomic Spies, was published in the West in 1996, after the declassification/release of Venona which showed that Ted Hall's covername was MLAD. Since Chikov had written that Perseus' first real covername was MLAD, the publisher unilaterally decided to use "Mlad" in virtually all instances of "Perseus" in the manuscript. This resulted in countless non-starters, to wit, all Perseus events prior to the Fall of 1944 when Hall first contacted Soviet intelligence. Certainly, there could be no Morris Cohen involvement, the raison de'tre of the whole book. The credibility of Stalin's Atomic Spies, and its principal author, have been maligned ever since. This is no doubt just fine with the present day SVR.
"Recalling that J. Weinberg ... Steve Nelson ... many pseudonyms was 'Stari' (Oldtimer)": Essays The Volunteer Group and Stephan Mesarosh refer.
Note "STAR", paired with "MLAD", is also a pseudonym associated with the literary figure Perseus, an atomic physicst alleged to have been recruited by Morris Cohen prior to July 1942. Cohen is linked to Nelson in many ways: their respective involvement in the Spanish Civil War, mutual association with Joe Dallet (Kitty Oppenheimer's husband), both operatives of the CPUSA's Special Apparatus, both agents of the KGB in America, and reported to have known one another. It is significant that Robert Oppenheimer, Philip Morrison and Joseph Weinberg were fellow comrades in the UC Berkeley Communist Party cell controlled by Nelson.
12. “Confidential Source … essay at this website … reliability and bona fides are thus supported.”: Essays on Espionage, The Volunteer Group, SERB, February 14, 2009.
Joseph Chmilevski (SERB) From Vassiliev Notebooks: "Joseph Chmilevski. 26 years old, b. in the USA. Mother is Polish, father is Ukranian. Married (Helene). 1 child. A Fellowcountryman [Communist] since '37. He was in Spain from Jan. to Oct. '37. He was wounded, and his right leg was amputaged. Prosthesis. Recruited in Aug '42 by 'Volunteer' [Morris Cohen]. A radio operator and a jr. engineer at a sonar laboratory in Camden ('Hydro' [RCA]). Until July '44, 'Serb' worked with 'Twain' [Semenov], whom he knew as 'Norman.' Now - handled by 'Callistratus' [Feklisov], whom he knows as 'Alex.' Hot-tempered pesonality, shattered nerves. His wife use to know 'Twain.'" See Spies, p. 350; p. 609, n. 24.
13. "The following authorities … Lona Cohen herself.”: Anatoli Yatskov, The Washington Post, Michael Dobbs, October 4, 1992; Lona Cohen, Red Files PBS Interview, 1998.
A. Yatskov “By the time Yatskov was assigned to full-time work on the bomb project in early 1943, Morris Cohen had left New York and joined the Army. But his wife Lona agreed to cooperate with Soviet Intelligence. According to Yatskov, Lona Cohen undertook two courier missions to Albuquerque to meet Perseus on his behalf.” Michael Dobbs, The Washinton Post (1992).
L. Cohen Red Files PBS transcript of interview with Soviet historian Svetlana Chervonnaya regarding Lona Cohen:
Interviewer: Did Lona talk to you at all about the work as a courier? I mean how many places did she visit in the USA?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: It's interesting that Lona was always reverting to one and the same theme: how much she has done for the Soviet Union. And then she would sort of roll back and say "oh, and whether I have done anything worthwhile." And she said that during the war, she worked not only on the atomic line, but she was also working on the industrial line, or military line, and that she was traveling a lot over the United States. Out of the places she told me, I think that she was on the West Coast. She was in Washington state, I remember, Frankfurt, in one of the installations. I definitely remember Oakridge and I think that she traveled a lot in the East Coast as well. So that not to mention her trip, two trips at least, to Los Alamos.
Interviewer: Now when she went to Los Alamos, describe the meetings as far as we know, that she had in Los Alamos. Where was it, who was it with, what did the person look like?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: I think that her story was pretty much like the story which has been circulating over the years, so it might be correct. She told me that she made two visits to Los Alamos, and she spoke only about one visit when she stayed there over some period of time. And I remember asking her, because she was working at the plant, how has she managed to leave, and she said that she took sick leave for bronchitis, and since it was, there was a resort for lung diseases, that was rather logical that she was staying in some boarding house, and she had a pre-scheduled meeting at a square, not far from the church, but she never told any details like in Checkov [Vladimir Chikov] the book about some bag with herring.
Interviewer: Okay, so what we know is true?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: Yeah, so what she said that the meeting. There were several attempts to have a meeting, and she had to come to the place several times. She didn't remember how many exactly, but finally, it was all Sundays. Finally she saw a very young man, and what struck me that she was very young at that time, and that she specifically emphasized the youth of the man, so it didn't fit with the Pursues [Perseus] legend, which was in circulation at that time, because Pursues couldn't be much younger than Lona was at that time. And I think that that's practically all.
Interviewer: Did she describe what he looked like, how he was dressed?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: No, she just said that he was very tall and very young. That was all.
Interviewer: Did she meet another person at Los Alamos?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: That's what she said, that she met with two young physicists, but she never elaborated on whom the second young physicist was.
Interviewer: Could this second physicist be one of the unnamed atom bomb traders?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: She may, because I have a room for it. Because I remember Anatoly Yatzkov telling me that he had five sources. So since we have now, we know that among these five were Fuchs, then Theodore Hall, David Greenglass, then they had some very minor technical person, so there is still a room for one more whom Lona could have met. And then another, okay.
Interviewer: After all her meetings at Los Alamos, she told the famous story of the Kleenex box. Did you know what happened?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: Yeah, I was also wondering at that time whether it was true, so I asked Lona a couple of times about it, and she always told it the same way, as it's officially told. So I think that under those circumstances, she would make it up.
Interviewer: Can you tell us the story?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: Yes, it was rather, I would say story in Lona's style. That when Lona finally came to the train, she put all the materials she received from the young physicist, as she called him, on the bottom of a Kleenex box, with the napkins on top. And she had all her suitcases around. So, to produce her ticket, she just handed this box to the policeman, and asked him to hold it, and then she started looking into her bag for the ticket, then in the case, she went to the carriage, took all her luggage, and only then did she remember that she left the Kleenex box, but at this moment the man was handing her that box, and said that "madam you have left your box behind." So she was telling it absolutely as many people have already heard it. I hope that it's a real story and not an anecdote.
Interviewer: Did Lona meet this young scientist, that we now think is Ted, did she meet him again in 1949?
Svetlana Chervonnaya: Yes, she told me about it because we, again in the context, when we were telling about parity anti war feelings, she told me that, at that time, she was already run by Rudolph April [Abel], and they made that trip. As far as I remember, they went to Chicago. They went together, and their aim was to somehow ask this young scientist to continue his work with the Soviet Union. But I remember her saying that, just she was quoting his words saying that "now, after the war's over and the Soviet Union's won, and there is no longer fascism, I just will get back to my science and no more work," and well they just had to take it. There was nothing else to do. So, they were both very disappointed, and they went back. That's all she said.
“an unambiguous declaration from Ted Hall about what he did not give the Soviets, “I never had access to detailed data on the assembly of the bomb.”: Bombshell, p. 155.
14. “As stated by Sudoplatov, Department S … director of the new autonomous Department S.”: Special Tasks, p. 184.
Note Department S, not to be confused with the NKGB's Directorate S, Illegals. In the 1930's Directorate S was headed by Yakov Serebryansky.
"an intelligence bureau ... activities of both the GRU and the NKGB." Ibid.
Note As Sudoplatov explained, it was this unification of authority on atomic espionage that resulted in the transfer of control of Klaus Fuchs from the GRU in England to the KGB in America.
“Department S was named for … taken fourteen years instead of four years. Maybe twenty. Who knows?”: Bombshell, p. 155.
15. “Indeed, a number of Fitin’s officers (Semyonov, Kheifetz, Vasilevsky, the Zarubins) were co-opted to Special Tasks.”: Speical Tasks, p.185. (“I was not very pleased when Beria put me in charge of atomic intelligence, because my primary duties were still to direct guerrilla warfare in the rear of German armies. Besides, I had no background in physics. The only positive aspect was my absolute trust in Semyonov; Zarubin and his wife, Elizabeth; Eitingon’s moles; and in Kheifetz, who came back to Moscow in 1944 and described his impressions of Oppenheimer and other important people involved in nuclear research.”)
Semyonov At the end of Special Tasks, Sudoplatov made the following comment about Semyon Semyonov, "Semyonov, a hero of atomic espionage, was expelled without a pension." There is nothing in the existing literature, which now includes Vassiliev’s notebooks, to support this accolade. Semyonov was recalled at the end of summer 1944—along with Kheifetz, Vasilevsky, Shevchenko and the Zarubins. After an investigation, Semyonov was given desk officer duties at the Center. He was required to write a full report covering his two tours in America. Vassiliev's White Notebook contains extensive excerpts and notes from Semyonov's report (p.109-115). From them, Semyonov can be credited with only a single contribution to Enormous, FOGEL/PERS (Persian), a civil engineer who was a problem agent and peripheral source. (Semyonov did not recruit Fuchs; his involvement was limited to setting up the first contacts between Fuchs and Harry Gold in early 1944; according to Gold, no materials were passed in his initial contacts with Fuchs; shortly thereafter, Anatoli Yatskov became the Fuchs-Gold control officer and continued as such until after the war. Semyonov had returned to Moscow when Greenglass and Hall were recruited.) In his summary report, Semyonov mentioned Morris Cohen (“Volunteer”) and Cohen's wife, Lona ("Leslie”). But he provided no exposition on the fact that he was Cohen’s control officer before he went into the Army in July 1942, the period when Cohen is alleged to have recruited an important atomic spy: "Yatskov, as had Chikov, credited Morris Cohen with making the initial contact between Soviet intelligence and an American physicist who eventually supplied the Soviets with the most important American nuclear secrets." (The Secret World of American Communism, p.222) Posthumously, Morris Cohen was awarded Russia's highest national medal, Hero of the Soviet Union (Lona Cohen was not). Notwithstanding this fact, and that the spy ring that bears his covername (Volunteer Group) is credited with providing "to the Center super secret information concerning the development of the American atomic bomb," there is no atomic spy whose recruitment or activity is linked to Morris Cohen. Thus, Cohen and Semyonov, agent and case officer, are both atomic espionage heroes for unknown reasons, which begs the question, Why are Vassiliev's notebooks silent on their atomic deeds? The answer is that Semyonov, in his report, wisely obeyed mortal orders to keep his sacred atomic successes compartmented: "Under Beria's direct orders we forbade Kheifetz and Semyonov to tell anybody from the American section of the Foreign Directorate about this transfer of contacts [et al]." One of these was Bruno Pontecorvo: "At the end of January 1943, we received through Sam Semyonov a report on the first nuclear chain reaction from Bruno Pontecorvo, describing Enrico Fermi's experiment in Chicago on December 2, 1942." (ST, p.182)
Eitingon-Vasilevsky "Eitingon [Leonid Aleksandrovich] took advantage of the trip to resume contacts with two agents he had planted in California in the beginning of the 1930's. They were to become couriers in the network obtaining American atomic secrets from 1942 to 1945. ... Contrary to strict standard rules, when Eitingon went to the United States in 1939 he had been allowed to recruit agents without approval of or consultation with the Center. ... These moles were controlled by Vasilevsky, who was the only one in the Center informed about them in 1942. ... Early in 1943 Pontecorvo met Lev Vasilevsky, traveling as an elegantly dresssed Soviet diplomat, Tarasov, in Canada and New York and informed him that Fermi was prepared to provide information. ... Eitingon and I also instructed Kheifetz and Semyonov to turn over to our old moles all their confidential contacts with friendly sources around Oppenheimer in California. Vasilevsky took part in this operation." (ST, p. 85, 182, 187-8)
Kheifetz "Kheifetz was sent to the United States [1941] to monitor scientific and technological developments and to assess the intelligence potential of the American Communist Party. He was told about the moles Eitingon planted ... Kheifetz provided Elizabeth Zarubina with a rundown on all the members of Robert Oppenheimer's family ... he then introduce Elizbeth to Oppenheimer's wife, Katherine, who was sympathetic to the Soviet Union and Communist ideals, and the two worked out a system for future meetings." (ST, p.85, 190)
Zarubins "Vassili Zarubin, our Washington rezident, instructed Kheifetz to divorce all intelligence operations from the American Communist party, which we knew would be closely monitored by the FBI, and to have Oppenheimer sever all contacts with Communists and left-wingers. ... In developing Oppenheimer as a source, Vassili Zarubin's wife, Elizabeth, was essential ... Elizabeth Zarubina's other mission was to check on the two Polish Jewish agents established on the West Coast as illegals by Eitingon in the early 1930's. ... One of these agents' code name was Chess Player ... she was one of the most successful agent recruiters, establishing her own illegal networdk of Jewish refugees from Poland, and recruiting one of Szilard's secretaries, who provided technical data." (ST: p.187,189)
"In such a compartmented dual attack, the possible existence of two Mlad-Star agent pairs is fully rationalized.": ~ Special Tasks. "A detailed report from Fuchs (Charles) came from Washington via the diplomatic pouch after he met his courier, Harry Gold on September 19, I remember that later in September we receives a detailed report from Pontecorvo (Mlad), passed on by a mole to Lona Cohen. I do not remember which one was which, both these reports contained a thirty three page design of the bomb. I believe that this material was, in fact the chapter of the bomb’s construction that for security reasons was omitted fro the official publication for the American Congress, The Smyth Report, published August 12, 1945. Oppenheimer and General Groves edited the report, making rough notes on what should be deleted in the official publication. Fuchs reported that Oppenheimer declined to sign the Smyth Report because he believed it contained a piece of disinformation that would impede the progress of scientific research in other countries. What we received in September was the deleted parts, which included photos of the facilities in Oak Ridge, TN. I remember that a twelve-page summary of the report, with a description of the bomb, compiled by Semyonov and signed by Vasilevsky, was channeled by me to Beria and Stalin." (ST, p.201)
~ Confidential Source. “The [material] states directly that six months/a few months before Morris Cohen was called into the army, he had a meeting with a young man who was presented to him as a doctor of physics from Chicago. It does not say who presented the young man. LUKA [Pastelnyak] informed the Center of the meeting, but the Center thought the physicist was a plant. Kvasnikov, however, insisted that the opportunity should not be lost, and the order went out to TVEN [Semyonov] to do a check on the young physicist: does he really work at the Met Lab in Chicago, is he a specialist in uranium, does he have a doctor's degree? When the candidate passed, Cohen was assigned to carry out the recruitment. Yatskov directed the recruitment. It took place in the Spring of 1942. MLAD sent information on the Met Lab from that time to 1944.”
~ Stalin’s Atomic Spies. “MLAD was, in fact, the Center’s first code name for PERSEUS. For the Center, MLAD formed a logical pair with his initial courier, STAR.”
16. "Monti": The Man Behind the Rosenbergs, Alexander Feklisov, 2001, p.97-100. Mar: Spies, p.92; The Sword and the Shield, The Mitrokhin Archive, Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, 1999, p. 117; Venona, Unidentified Covername, San Francisco to Moscow, No. 297, 02065 (2 June 1945). Silver: The Sword and the Shield, p. 148. Anta, Aden: The Sword and the Shield, p. 148; Comment Staline A Vole La Bombe Atomique Aux Americains, p. 199-200, 204-5, 360. "Godsend": Vassiliev Notebooks Concordance File
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