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Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
- AndrewBissell 7y agoThe Soviet regime under Stalin was terrible, but it was probably a good thing for the world that they managed to come up with an atomic bomb as quickly as they did. A twentieth century dominated by an American empire as the sole nuclear power is a terrifying thing to contemplate.
- flyinglizard 7y agoDo you think the hundreds of millions who lived under communism and Soviet oppression would agree?
- underdown 7y agoOr the 25-50m people killed by Mao?
- FpUser 7y agoWhy of course they would very much prefer to burn under democratic nuclear sunshine instead.
- Iv 7y agoWhy would they have to?
- pinkfoot 7y agoEr, because the USA was quite happy to start a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis regardless of what the rest of us on the plant thought. All because of missiles in Cuba - when the USA quite happily had similar weapons in Turkey.
- Iv 7y agoWhy would there have been a missile crisis in Cuba if USSR was not a nuclear power?
- pinkfoot 7y agoOf course not, but it doesn't change the fact that the USA unilateraly committed itself to ending the entire planet if they didn't get what they wanted. The USSR were the adults in that conflict. So, yeah - the rest of us consider it entirely likely that Democracy will nuke us.
- Iv 7y agoIf you have credible source to this version of the Cuban missiles crisis, I'd be interested to hear about that. I have seen insanity on both sides but from reading both US and USSR propaganda, the latter was even less rooted in fact than the American one.
- pinkfoot 7y ago1. the planet came within a stray bear of a nuclear war [1] 2. the USSR backed-down and withdrew from Cuba 3. the USA kept their nuclear weapons in Turkey [2]. https://lacrossetribune.com/news/false-alarm-how-a-bear-nearly-started-a-nuclear-war/article_bc6f4da6-a89c-5d7d-bf0a-e41150753b62.html https://lacrossetribune.com/news/false-alarm-how-a-bear-near... [1] https://turkeywonk.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/turkeys-nuclear-missiles-an-important-player-in-the-cuban-missile-crisis/ https://turkeywonk.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/turkeys-nuclear-... [2]
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoAnd since then, moved them even closer.
- Iv 7y agoNone of this comes to validate the opinion that "USA unilaterally committed itself to ending the entire planet if they didn't get what they wanted." and that "The USSR were the adults in that conflict". The first link is about a near miss. There were a dozen of these on both sides during the Cold war. The second link is about the equivalence USSR saw between missiles in Turkey and missiles in Cuba. This is not about being adults in the room. This is about Russia failing to being stealthy enough in Cuba. Seriously. They would have done it if they could have gotten away with. And US would have simply bombed Cuba with conventional weapons. Something neither country wanted.
- FpUser 7y agoThe US has quite proven itself at starting wars without hesitation to enforce their version of the world order. And lacking a restraint like MAD I think there would be a good chance of them dropping nukes here and there, USSR being prime target.
- black_puppydog 7y agoWow, you didn't even read the first sentence eh?
- tgv 7y agoI infer you didn't experience the Cold War.
- AndrewBissell 7y agoI infer you've never lived in one of America's colonial vassal states. Both empires probably had to treat their subject populations a bit better in the presence of a geopolitical alternative.
- tgv 7y ago> Both empires probably had to treat their subject populations a bit better in the presence of a geopolitical alternative. That's not quite sane: you're (1) placing this as an alternative to a full out nuclear war, and (2) placing the US' and the USSR's influence at equal footing.
- jbay808 7y agoI infer you didn't experience the hot war that would have been, if the US had a nuclear monopoly! Curtis LeMay was seriously pushing for using the US nuclear arsenal on multiple occasions, including against Moscow and in Vietnam. He pushed for this even knowing that there was a near certainty of nuclear retaliation. How influential do you think his voice would have been without MAD?
- tgv 7y ago> would have been Why? I guess the Vietnamese communists would have surrendered to the US and the country would have lived under its influence instead of the Soviets', and that's assuming Ho Chi Min would have received enough support in the first place. There's no reason to assume the US would have nuked at someone's whim. BTW, the French and the Brits also have their nuclear arsenal. There would not have been a "monopoly".
- jbay808 7y agoThis isn't just "someone's whim", but the Air Force chief of staff, the guy entrusted with the authority to make such recommendations. See here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay > Towards this aim, LeMay delivered the first SAC Emergency War Plan in March 1949 which called for dropping 133 atomic bombs on 70 cities in the USSR within 30 days. [...] Air power strategists called this type of pre-emptive strike "killing a nation". However, the Harmon committee released their unanimous report two months later stating such an attack would not end a war with the Soviets and their industry would quickly recover. This committee had been specifically created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the effects of a massive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, within weeks, an ad hoc Joint Chiefs committee recommended tripling America's nuclear arsenal, and Chief of Staff Vandenberg called for enough bombs to attack 220 targets, up from the previous 70. Note that March 1949 was 5 months before the USSR's first atomic bomb test. It's not a leap to suggest that if the USSR didn't obtain nuclear weapons in 1949, the US would have shown much less restraint than they did. And "restraint" is already not the first word that comes to mind to describe American foreign policy in the 20th century. (As for France and the UK, I don't think the US president would have worried about the UK nuking Washington in retaliation for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USSR).
- Iv 7y agoAs someone who very often criticize US's international decisions, I tend to disagree. I think that the US-USSR opposition radicalized USA, fed its nationalism and its paranoia and led it to develop an empire, something that is simply not in its culture (when you compare to typical colonial empires)
- voldacar 7y agoWasn't the united states already developing an empire long before the cold war? things like the philippines and hawaii come to mind
- Iv 7y agoIt was a short period and basically stopped after WWII. They could have occupied Japan and a thousand island if they wanted to and did not (now please just give state status to Puerto Rico) USA is more interested in free trade than in military conquest. Something I dare say, that is totally unlike USSR. Being an "ally" of USSR meant something totally different than being an ally of USA.
- daseiner1 7y agoi’m strongly convinced, but would genuinely love a strong counterargument, that the single clearest US foreign policy priority since WW2 has been the establishment of free markets. My perception is that we are supremely confident that we can outcompete anyone, anywhere. We just want a market where we’re free to go head-to-head
- ethelward 7y agoThe US want ‶free″ markets, but with bonus if they are using dollars, have no problem taking bribes from US firms, respect US sanctions and give a few oh-so-subtle advantages to US firms there and there. Note that I don't blame them, any world power would do the same.
- 7y ago
- doe88 7y agoMore than money what I think was terribly effective in recruiting moles in western countries was the appeal to -then- popular communist ideology.
- gokhan 7y agoTheodore Hall says his motive is neither: "In 1997, Hall admitted that he felt strongly that an American monopoly on nuclear weapons was perilous and that atomic information should be shared between countries." https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/theodore-hall https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/theodore-hall
- MichaelMoser123 7y agoInteresting, just like Klaus Fuchs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/20/atom-spy-klaus-fuchs-was-motivated-by-conscience https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/20/atom-spy-klaus...
- skrebbel 7y agoThat's exactly what I'd tell myself if I had done it for the money.
- jimbob45 7y agoHe was arguably right though. MAD has never failed to prevent a purposeful casualty from an A/H-bomb.
- craftinator 7y agoAnd we'll never have to live in a world where it has failed.
- colechristensen 7y agoThere was a transition from early idealists imagining the wonder of the Soviet utopia which were quite prevalent into many of the more center-minded people realizing what was actually happening in the USSR souring on the whole idea in general. By the time the Manhattan Project was underway much of that transition was done. There was another motivation which was strongly advocated by Oppenheimer and others to officially share nuclear secrets and bring the USSR to the table and establish controls in order to prevent secret competition and escalation. There were others who along those lines were motivated to use back channels to supply that same information for similar goals.
- Animats 7y agoOh, is that the additional spy mentioned in the VENONA intercepts? Those have been declassified, and there's an additional spy identified only by a code name.
- JorgeGT 7y agoI think not, his codename was Godsend and VENONA's missing one was 19 AFAIK.
- black_puppydog 7y agoThat idealogoy never went away. It just morphed and developed. After all, nobody in their right mind thinks Stalin's USSR is a good thing to repeat. But many also think we can do better than neoliberalism, and practice seems to bear that out. Look up "The people's Republic of Walmart" for a recent book on the calculation debate for example.
- 2stop 7y agoI love this straw man. You know North Korea is a democratic people’s republic... we wouldn’t want to repeat that... yet democracy persists!
- VvR-Ox 7y agoOf course we can do better than neoliberalism (and this does not lead to communism or socialism automatically). In Europe they have some interesting models in between that provide social security, health care and a lot of other great things for their citizens so even the people who don't have enough money to buy / invest in such services can enjoy a good life. In the US there is people who do 3 jobs and don't have enough money to live a life I personally would consider a "good enough" one. Yes I know this also stems from my perspective and the standards I would label "poor" could be very high for an Asian child sewing clothes for us. Now neoliberalism is trending there as well and we can observe how it "drags them down". Look at Germany for example - I don't think it's easy living there when you knew the 70ies and still be optimistic about the future if you don't happen to be a millionaire. They had a good employment rate (now it's being faked as a friend told me) low poverty and a middle class with a high status of living and they were leaders in several disciplines. Now look how they lose all of that while some private companies take the money out of their public hand without even paying taxes. That's what neoliberalism brought them and I bet some of these Germans are very angry about it. I can understand them because who want's to lose the prospects of a good life? In '94 for example they sold out their train infrastructure and now look at the development: ~16% of tracks where given up because it was not profitable for them. Now they would love to have it back because of the climate change etc. There is a lot of examples and I could go on like this all day but I just wanted to contribute some facts about the EU to this discussion because I always thought they have some different but very interesting ideas.
- Merrill 7y ago"On the Trail of a Fourth Soviet Spy at Los Alamos" https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-63-no-3/pdfs/Fourth-Soviet-Spy-LosAlamos.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
- Havoc 7y agoLove the fact that it's so retrospective. Very data archaeology-like
- stuff4ben 7y agoAs fascinating as I find "how" the spies did it, I'm more interested in "why" they did it? Was it dissatisfaction with something in their lives? For the money (boring)? Because they didn't want to see the US so far ahead of the USSR?
- napsterbr 7y agoI guess for the same reason a soldier puts his life at risk in a war. Patriotism, keep their family safe etc.
- Haga 7y agoThey knew game theory and wanted to prevent another war.
- maxmalysh 7y agoMoney rules the world. Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames did this purely for the money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames
- everybodyknows 7y agoMoney, Ideology, Compromise+Extortion, Ego. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying In the case of the early Los Alamos scientists: Ideology
- 7y ago
- fwxwi 7y ago>the youngest child of Jewish immigrants
- redwood 7y agoDo you think there's something interesting about the fact that he was the youngest?
- mandukya 7y agoThere is always a Jew involved in these kind of world changing conspiracies.
- H_Pylori 7y agoJust because most (all?) of the "atomic spies" were of jewish descent, doesn't mean that it was some sort of jewish conspiracy. Most of these spies were also of russian/lithuanian descent and/or had communist parents. This could be on of the reason of the red scare that would sweep the US a few years later.
- lscotte 7y agoI'd really like to see a suffix in the title for links to articles that are not free and cannot actually be read. Something similar to the date in parentheses. Lately, a huge number of HN stories can't be read without paying money or using a workaround.
- Peckingjay 7y agoI would recommend this extension: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox (there's a chrome version as well)
- jaclaz 7y agoWell, cannot say for others, but this one can be read by simply disabling javascript.
- michaelangerman 7y agoThis is really vital information as I personally had no idea it was that easy... What a great idea ! Is this true for all articles on the NYT ?
- jaclaz 7y agoYep, AFAIK. Personally I use a good, ol' simple browser (QTweb) with javascript disabled to browse/read HN, then I try opening the linked articles with it. If it works, it works, if it doesn't (not only because of paywalls or similar but often because the site has been overcomplicated/overengineered and/or uses some new features that QTweb doesn't support) I may try with a more "recent" browser. Of course with javascript disabled a number of things (like dinamically loading images) won't work and you won't be experiencing the full design of the site, but as long as the article text is readable, that does it for me most of the times.
- michaelangerman 7y agoThanks so much for your reply, you opened up my eyes and knowledge to something that is so trivial; its amazing it took me this long to figure out such a simple thing. There are so many things in life that are like that, and that is why I enjoy it :)
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoEr... looks like an insightful discussion about US vs USSR missile crisis by @pinkfoot perished in (@dong's?) attempt to shut down jews vs nazis flamebait. I can not find my own reply there anymore.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoI assume you meant @dang, HN moderator.
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoYes!
- andrewflnr 7y agoYou can see it if you have showdead on in your profile.
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoI can't. Some content seems to be removed for everyone and shows only on user's profile. That's different from showdead.
- andrewflnr 7y agoWell, maybe, but I have showdead on and specifically saw your comment under pinkfoot's, so I don't think your thread got ultra-killed or whatever. FWIW, I also had to open a collapsed-by-default thread.
- pvg 7y agoAn interesting thread by nuke historian Alex Wellerstein that provides some context and pushes back a little on some of the claims about the importance of the information obtained through espionage to the Soviet nuclear weapons program: https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1198668231457812482 https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1198668231457812482
- jonnydubowsky 7y agoThere are obviously dedicated accounts that intelligence services and the military keep for covering costs associated to espionage and counterespionage. I wonder what kind of cost-benefit analysis and financial projections are done in considering the value of assets and espionage operations? Do you think they model for outcomes? John Carlos Baez has rode a really interesting blog series on network operads and process calculus, is the basis for multi agent modeling for complex military tactical scenario modeling and contingency planning. I wonder what the models would look like for evaluating intelligence assets? https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex-adaptive-system-design-part-1/ https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex-adap...