Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (22 page)

`Eric' continues to work willingly with us, but he still balks at even the
slightest hint about mater. assistance. We once gave him more than he asked
to cover his expenses. He was displeased by this and said that lie suspects
we want to give him a certain kind of help. He asked us to give up any such
thoughts once and for all. In such circumstances, we fear that any gift from us
as a token of appreciation for his work will make a negative impression. `Eric'
is completely selfless in his work with us and extremely scrupulous when it
conies to anything that could be seen as `payment' for his work."

Among the specific information Broda was credited with delivering were
Miles Leverett and Tom Moore's plans for one of the Manhattan Project's
early nuclear reactors. (Leverett and Moore, lead engineers at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, designed larger and
more practical reactors to replace the first experimental reactor built by
Enrico Fermi.) The plans he delivered were described as including "all
the necessary information to build a plant, and [it] is exceptionally valu-
able."so

In 2007 the British Security Service opened its investigative files on
Engelbert Broda. They showed that the Security Service had become
aware of Broda's Communist association as early as 1939 and had advised
caution to Britain's Department for Scientific and Industrial Research
(DSIR) when he was offered employment at the Cavendish Laboratory.
DSIR disregarded the warning. The Security Service kept an intermittent
watch on Broda thereafter but never detected his contacts with the KGB
documented in Vassiliev's notebooks.

In 1947 Broda resigned from the Cavendish Laboratory and returned
to his native Austria and a career as a professor of physical chemistry at
the University of Vienna. The Security Service's suspicions about Broda
increased when physicist Allan Nunn May, imprisoned as a Soviet spy in
1946, refused in 1949 to provide the name of his recruiter to a Security
Service interrogator but said the man who had recruited him into espionage had done so in Britain shortly before he, May, left for Canada and
was no longer within reach of British authorities. M15 thought the man
in question was Broda, then beyond its reach in Austria, because of the
close association of Broda and May at Cambridge University. This suspicion increased when May was released from prison in 1952 and within a
few months married Hildegarde Broda, Engelbert's former wife. Eventually the Security Service concluded: "We feel sure that BRODA was engaged in espionage during the war, although we have no proof of it." Vassiliev's notebooks provide the proof that the Security Service was unable
to find. Broda died in Austria in 1983.5'

Allan Nunn May himself likely was the subject of a cable from
"Vadim" (Anatoly Gorsky, then KGB London station chief) to Moscow
Center, dated 29 November 1942. Vassiliev's summary of the cable states:
"Three young scientists are leaving for Montreal to conduct work on nuclear fission. Their work will be overseen by Professor Chadwick, who is
in England. These scientists are illegal fellowcountrymen. In view of this,
Vadim proposed recruiting one of them with giving rendezvous terms in
Canada."52 "Illegal fellowcountrymen" in this context was KGB jargon
for secret members of the Communist Party, not that such membership
was illegal under British law (it wasn't).

Allan Nunn May was part of the British atomic program at Cambridge
University and also a secret member of the Communist Party of Great
Britain (CPGB). In late 1942 British authorities decided to send him to
the atomic laboratory at Chalk River, Canada, and he arrived there in
January 1943. This itinerary fits with his being the one of the three picked
by the KGB for recruitment. While he worked chiefly in Canada, May also visited American atomic facilities. His role as a Soviet spy was revealed when Igor Gouzenko defected in September 1945, carrying documents that identified May. Security officials allowed May to return to
the United Kingdom, placed him under surveillance, and arrested him in
March 1946. He quickly confessed and pled guilty to a charge of violating Britain's Official Secrets Act. Sentenced to ten years in prison, he was
released in 1952 after his term was reduced for good behavior.

The only anomaly in the fit between Allan Nunn May and "Vadim"/
Gorsky's November 1942 cable and plan to recruit a young British scientist on the way to Canada is that May reported to GRU rather than the
KGB in Canada. Possibly the KGB did not have sufficient assets in
Canada to maintain contact with May and turned him over to GRU,
which had extensive Canadian networks. In addition, General Fitin in an
August 1943 report on atomic intelligence noted sources who had been
"cultivated and recruited" by both GRU and the KGB and referred to
"May, Henry Norman" in Britain. Probably Fitin was referring to two
persons, a "May" (likely Allan Nunn May) and a "Henry Norman," but
possibly "May, Henry Norman" was an error on Fitin's part for "May,
Allan Nunn." In either case, if GRU had been cultivating May in Great
Britain before he left for Canada, it may have made an independent approach to him, so its taking him over in Canada makes more sense.53

In addition to Broda, General Fitin in 1945 identified "Tina" as a
major atomic intelligence source in Great Britain. "Tina" was Melita Stedman Norwood, a fervent Communist who had been recruited for espionage against Britain in the mid-1930s, working chiefly as a courier between British sources and KGB officers. She was employed at the same
time as a secretary in the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, not then a Soviet espionage target. But once the British atomic program got under way, it became one of the agencies employed by the
British government for atomic research. Norwood used her position as
secretary and personal assistant to the director of the association to steal
and copy much of the technical data produced by the British program, as
well as copies of reports received from the Manhattan Project in the
United States. For example, in 1945 KGB London station reported "the
second removal of documents via "Tina" [Norwood]. 20 new reports were
obtained, as well as a scientific correspondence among specialists working on these questions at the institute. As a result, all the materials on E.
["Enormous"] that were in "Tina's" office-over 35 reports and a scientific correspondence-have been obtained. In the fall, we intend to organize a new removal, using specially prepared keys to the safe where materials are kept. By that time, new materials and reports will have accumulated." Melita Norwood's role as a Soviet source inside the British
atomic program became public in 1999 with the publication of Andrew
and Mitrokhin's The Sword and the Shield. Norwood was still alive and
still a Communist. She told reporters, "I did what I did not to make
money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had at great
cost given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good
education and health service," and "in the same circumstances I know
that I would do the same thing again.""

The KGB's sources in Great Britain were important not only for information about Britain's Tube Alloys atomic project but also because
they acted as conduits in 1942 and 1943 for reports about the Manhattan
Project at a time when KGB efforts in the United States were falling far
short of Moscow's hopes.

The first KGB message out of America regarding atomic intelligence
noted in Vassiliev's notebooks came early, in November 1941. Senior
KGB officer Pavel Pastelnyak sent a ciphered telegram to Moscow with
news that a team of American scientists headed by Columbia University
chemist Harold Urey (winner of the Nobel Prize in 1934) was visiting
London to discuss their work on "`an explosive of enormous power."' The
news had come from Emil Conason, a Communist medical doctor in New
York who was friendly with Davrun Wittenberg, described as Urey's assistant. (Wittenberg has not been independently identified, and the
spelling of his name in English is uncertain.) Conason vouched for Wittenberg's reliability and noted that Wittenberg's wife had been a Communist and his mother still belonged to the party. Conason told the KGB
that Wittenberg was not a man given to exaggeration, despite having said
the explosive was potentially so powerful that an airplane dropping it
might need to fly hundreds of miles to avoid being damaged. Pastelnyak
asked that the information be checked in London. The KGB London station via Cairncross verified that Urey, along with George Pegram, one of
America's most influential science administrators, had visited London on
a mission dealing with Uranium-235 but was unable to learn any details
about the trip.55

Four months later Moscow sent the New York station an urgent
message about a new high-priority intelligence task, stating that scientists "`in England, Germany, and the USA are frantically working to ob tain Uranium-235 and use it as an explosive to make bombs of enormous destructive power, and to all appearances, this problem is quite
close to its practical solution. It is essential that we take up this problem
in all seriousness."' It listed Urey and ten other senior American scientists thought to be working on the atomic problem and instructed the
KGB New York station to seek contact with them or access to their work.
But the KGB was never able to establish productive contact with any of
them. The scientists were Harold Urey, Peter N. Bragg, Glenn Fowler,
Aristid Grosse, John Dunning, Alfred O. Nier, Robert Van de Graaff,
George Gamow, Davrun Wittenberg, E. T. Bute, and Tramm (first name
unknown) .56

Attempts to gain access to Urey and his work through Conason's relationship with Wittenberg foundered. A frustrated Moscow Center complained in 1943: "All in all, there is a lot of talk about "Invalid" [Conason]
and "Sarin" [Wittenberg], but nothing has been done." Given Conason's
ineffectiveness, the KGB also had one of its veteran technical sources,
William Malisoff, make an attempt. The Russian-born Malisoff ran his
own company in New York, United Laboratories, which carried out technical intelligence tasks for the KGB. He held a PhD from Columbia and
knew both Urey and Wittenberg. But Wittenberg rebuffed his attempt to
discuss nuclear fission during a meeting, and this approach also came to
nothing.57

In addition to Malisoff and Conason, the KGB attempted to use another Russian-born scientist, "Catalyst," to approach one of its priority
atomic targets. "Catalyst" was unidentified, although he was described as
having daughters living in the Soviet Union and having worked on radioactive substances at a German university in the 19305 in association
with Moscow Center's real target: another refugee Russian chemist, Aristid Viktorovich Grosse. Grosse by the early 1940s had established a worldwide reputation as a leading physical chemist and was on Moscow's priority list along with Harold Urey. (Grosse later worked at the Manhattan
Project's gaseous diffusion plant, K-25, at Oak Ridge.) Moscow Center
suggested that a New York station officer approach "Catalyst" and tell
him that if he "`successfully obtains information and materials that interest us, we can provide material assistance to his daughters."' Moscow
Center thought "Catalyst" might be able to appeal to Grosse because
Grosse's brother, living in Shanghai, China, had twice asked for permission to return to the USSR and gain Soviet citizenship, once implying
that Aristid also was interested. Moscow Center suggested meeting with
Grosse, giving him a letter from his brother that the KGB had obtained, and telling him "that such a move could only be possible after the war,
and for now he should demonstrate his best intentions toward us"-that
is, assist Soviet intelligence. 58

It does not appear, however, that "Catalyst" or any other KGB agent
made such an approach to Grosse (given the cover name "Neutron").
Grosse visited Moscow in late 1942 as part of an American scientific delegation discussing the wartime production of artificial rubber and related
matters. Moscow Center informed its New York station that in discussions with Soviet officials in Moscow, Grosse had spoken with "great reserve" and did not indicate that any sort of covert contact was established
or even attempted. But it still held out some hope that an approach might
be made in the United States. Eventually, however, Moscow Center gave
up, in November 1943 instructing the KGB New York station: "Clearly,
there is no need to focus on `Neutron' [Grosse]. More interesting opportunities have come up."59

Yet another refugee Russian scientist of interest to the KGB was
George Gamow. Born in the Ukraine, Gamow had made a worldwide
reputation for his work on radioactivity and quantum mechanics. After
two foiled plots to escape the USSR, he secured an invitation to a conference in Europe in 1933 and defected along with his wife. He began
teaching at George Washington University in the District of Columbia in
1934 and became an American citizen in 1940. (Although Moscow
thought Gamow was working on the Manhattan Project, he was not.
While he was consulted by project scientists on some matters, American
military security insisted that although he was a defector from the USSR,
the fact that he had also been a Red Army officer was simply too much
of a risk for him to be included in the project.) "Catalyst" knew Gamow,
but as with Grosse, there is nothing to suggest that he ever approached
Gamow. In September 1945, however, a Soviet diplomat in Washington
who was assisting the KGB succeeded in meeting Gamow with the help
of a mutual Russian acquaintance. Gamow, who had been savagely denounced by the Soviets when he defected, was startled at meeting a Soviet official, but the diplomat carefully kept the conversation on Russian
literature and matters that might arouse Gamow's nostalgia for his native
land. He succeeded in winning an invitation to Gamow's home, and
Leonid Kvasnikov, the KGB officer overseeing the matter, had high hopes
that the diplomat could prepare Gamow for a meeting with a KGB officer. However, as with Grosse, these hopes led to nothing. By 1950
Gamow was on a KGB list of "leading reactionary scientists working on the atomic problem in the USA and England" who were to be discredited
by a KGB disinformation program.60