7 ms·

Why did the atomic spy do it?

30 points by Petiver 6y ago

bfuclusion 6y ago
A few things I like to keep in mind about soviet spies of this era, especially in regard to nukes. 1) The USSR was the UKs and the USs ally in WWII, and all the propaganda was saying as such. 2) It would not be a stretch to think that having only a single nation, no matter how benevolent, with nukes is a bad idea. There's a lot of temptation when you're the only guy with the giant mushroom cloud backing you.
- lambdasquirrel 6y ago
  Not to mention that Russia bore the brunt of human loss in the war for the Allies. It's quite staggering that in 1945, most people in Europe felt that the Soviet Union had done the most to defeat the Nazi regime, but that by modern day, most people think it was the U.S. To be sure, the Soviets would have lost the war if it were not for the U.S. The Russian breadbasket had been taken by the Nazis, and the retreating Russians burned everything to the ground as they gave ground. But when you look at the erasure of the Russian role in fighting the Nazis, as well as the troublesome views of leaders like Churchill, you wonder not only about Fuchs, but also about the clean version of history we're taught about that war.
  - nappy 6y ago
    Is it "staggering" though? In the short term, it is more simple to point to human lives and deaths. In the longer term, the more complex contribution of industrial forces is easier to understand. At least some shift in public opinion is natural.
    - jmnicolas 6y ago
      > At least some shift in public opinion is natural. Of course propaganda has nothing to do with it /s
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    the erasure of the Russian role in fighting the Nazis, as well as the troublesome views of leaders like Churchill I'm curious as to which of Churchill's views (or acts) you think were more problematic than Stalin's. And in the aftermath of WW2, which countries prospered more, those liberated by and/or occupied by the West, or by the Soviets?
  - Lio 6y ago
    I wonder how many of those deaths were down to Stalin not caring whether his own people lived or died? Having a high death toll in itself is not a sign of good leadership or self sacrifice. It’s a sign that some bugger is ordering someone else to put themselves in danger on pain of being shot if they don’t.
    - AniseAbyss 6y ago
      I find this line of reasoning strange. The USSR was invaded by evil Nazis who wanted to enslave them for a thousand years. Somehow we spin this into "Stalin didn't care". And the idea that Russians had to be forced at gunpoint to defend their country is so ludicrous and offensive I have no words.
      - jsiepkes 6y ago
        A lot of the Russian people didn't have much love for the Russian regime (ie. Stalin). The Nazi's were in a lot of places in Russia initially greeted as liberators. If the Nazi's hadn't turned out to be even more brutal then Stalin history might have taken a different path. See for example sources like: https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/news-and-events/news/2018/many-russians-hoped-that-hitler-would-free-them-fr.html https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/news-and-events/...
      - sassypotato 6y ago
        On the other hand the USSR allied itself with the evil Nazis so they would both invade Poland. The USSR was clearly an expansionist and imperalist power and given the gulag system reached it's peak well before the start of the war, we know Stalin did not care at all about human life.
      - thrwway34 6y ago
        That's not just an idea. Order No. 270 ordered to shoot any deserters (or anybody who's not 'organizing resistance') on the spot and promised imprisonment for families of those who surrendered to the Germans. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270
      - 6y ago
  - Craighead 6y ago
    No reason to bring up the whole communism part of the soviet union that brought a similar number of deaths to ww2
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    We don't feel the US did more in terms of quantity of dead men, we know more Soviet-affiliated troops died there. However with hindsight we now know the real plan of the Soviet Union - it never was to help Europe, but to conquer it. So in conclusion the US government helped us more (and not just during the war), while the SU government sent more people to die for their shady goals here. Nobody is discounting the heroism of the individual soldiers. The sad thing is that the current Russian government is using their legacy to pursue their shady goals again.
    - cycomanic 6y ago
      That needs some serious citations. If you're saying it's evidenced by the soviet military in the Eastern block I encourage you to look at the US presence in Nato countries. I know that history in the US is largely a picture of American exceptionalism and "we were always the good guys", but actual history has many more shades of gray. This is one thing that the allies (in both parts of Germany) did reasonably well, break the circle of history as a means for teaching patriotism.
      - TomMarius 6y ago
        I know of the US presence in NATO countries and we welcome it. It is absolutely incomparable to the Warsaw Pact occupation of our country (for example, the US forces didn't shoot anybody nor ran over people with a tank) which is the reason why we welcomed the US forces and joined NATO as soon as we could after 1989. Not sure what citations should I send you, I live here (Czechia). You can probably read about it on Wikipedia, I'd do the same.
        TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        US forces tend to do their shooting and running over in Central/South America and the Middle East. Many countries in those areas are less impressed by US benevolence. The US is an empire. So was the USSR. So are China and modern Russia. Some provinces are treated better than others, but empires are empires, and propaganda, political manipulation, corruption, violence, and torture are how they roll - together with resource capture, labour management, and various levels of market development. Europe had a notable level of propaganda and political manipulation, and still does, and not so much of the overt violence. But just because the corruption, violence and torture were happening elsewhere doesn't mean they weren't happening at all.
  - thrwway34 6y ago
    If you will March your troops through minefield 'like it's not there' (e.g. Zhukov's revelations) it will definitely lead to losses.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  A lot of the double agents who defected did say they were doing it for vaguely benevolent reasons, although it gives me some satisfaction to say that many (e.g. Philby) died depressed, allegedly suicidal alcoholics upon facing the realities of house arrest in the Soviet Union. Aldrich Ames seems to genuinely believe that what he did is morally equivalent to doing for ideological reasons.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
Does anyone know how effective his intel was? Did he transfer key secrets, or crude napkin drawings? Put another way: did he change the world? That’s the goal of idealism, after all. It seems absurd to say that the USSR developed nukes thanks to his help. And yet, I can’t help but wonder... Could one person have made all the difference?
- mabbo 6y ago
  It's about 'when' more than anything. We live in a world today with mostly free information sharing on most scientific subjects. But picture a time when cutting edge science like the nuclear programs were veiled heavily in secrecy. Every single development took time, effort, work, science. And the result is... an answer that can probably be written down in a single piece of paper. Easily shared. The USSR would have developed the same bombs eventually, but not as quickly, I would guess.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Once there's knowledge of the possibility, it becomes inevitable.
    - ant6n 6y ago
      Like fusion. It’s just 10 years away. For the last 50 years.
      - mabbo 6y ago
        We have not yet figured out how to make fusion work yet. A lot of money and scientific effort is being spent to find out. We aren't talking about things that are 10 years away, we're talking about research that has succeeded being shared. But as soon as someone does figure out fusion (ITER looks good) and publishes, everyone will know, and everyone will have it.
        ant6n 6y ago
cryptonector 6y ago
Oddly, one of the worst leaks to the soviets was the press release announcing the A-bomb drop on Hiroshima. It specifically revealed the use of diffusion for uranium enrichment, IIRC.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pauljurczak 6y ago
Setting aside the long term ideological goals of worldwide spread of communism by Soviet Union, they were not in position to do so in Western Europe after U.S. acquired nuclear weapons. Soviet westward expansion stopped after assimilating most of the Eastern Europe. Acquisition of nuclear weapons by Soviet Union and later reaching parity with the USA, was a major factor stopping WWIII from occurring. Long list of characters, including Winston Churchill, Curtis LeMay, John von Neumann and countless other were advocating a preemptive nuclear strike on Soviet Union. Clearly Fuchs was played by Soviet spies, but in the greater scheme of things, he may have contributed to saving tens of millions of lives.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Worth noting that US estimates of the effects of them attacking with nuclear weapons in the early 1960s was 600 million dead - a lot in Western Europe and elsewhere. This was known to be an underestimate as US planning did not take into effect the thermal effects of nuclear weapons due to a degree of variability from cloud cover etc. So probably about a billion would have died - then there is the effect of Soviet weapons... I can recommend Daniel Ellsberg's book on the topic: https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/confessions-nuclear-war-planner https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/confessions-nuclear-war...
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    but it never did happen, who's to say the US being the only super power with nukes, could've had a despot rise (one might be now), who if there were no other countries with nukes, might decide to use a few for the purpose of conquest. Sure, nukes are bad, all mankind should probably ditch the tech, but it's like a gun... i'd rather be in a mexican standoff, than empty handed staring down the barrel of a gun. Currently, I'm not very trusting of our (US) government and their 'goals'. Trump may or may not have known Putin was murdering our soldiers. The fact is, at least there's some solace knowing nukes will probably never be used (except maybe by N.Korea - but as a suicide action by a crazy neurotic dictator), and that there's a sort of checks/balances system as far as they are concerned. Nobody rational, wants a nuclear war or fallout or nuclear winter. Russia never building their own, also allows one side dominate in power, and power corrupts, so maybe it helped even the equilibrium. Not saying them having weapons is great, but who's to know what future would await a nazi army rising in America and being the only country with nuclear capabilities. We still might get that future, but at least there's some balance from other countries in case certain scenarios happen. It's naive to think 'our country' will always be benign and have everybody's best interests in mind... just as it would've been naive for Germans to think that in 1930.
gok 6y ago
I think the interesting question is how much the spying led to the failure of the Baruch Plan. A few years of delay in the Soviet weapons program would have meant they had no weapon by the time Stalin died, and Khrushchev was open to bilateral demilitarization.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pottertheotter 6y ago
A recent episode of the Spycast Podcast was a discussion with the author. It's an interesting podcast. https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/episode/atomic-spy-a-conversation-with-nancy-greenspan/ https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/episode/atomic-...
opwieurposiu 6y ago
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb goes into a lot of detail about what was taken and how it was used. What astonished me is that using lend-lease, the soviets were sending back literal plane loads of documents every week through alaska. The sheer scale of the spying was amazing. The USA mostly let it slide during the war, bigger fish to fry and all that.

30 points by Petiver 6y ago

A few things I like to keep in mind about soviet spies of this era, especially in regard to nukes. 1) The USSR was the UKs and the USs ally in WWII, and all the propaganda was saying as such. 2) It would not be a stretch to think that having only a single nation, no matter how benevolent, with nukes is a bad idea. There's a lot of temptation when you're the only guy with the giant mushroom cloud backing you.

lambdasquirrel 6y ago
Not to mention that Russia bore the brunt of human loss in the war for the Allies. It's quite staggering that in 1945, most people in Europe felt that the Soviet Union had done the most to defeat the Nazi regime, but that by modern day, most people think it was the U.S. To be sure, the Soviets would have lost the war if it were not for the U.S. The Russian breadbasket had been taken by the Nazis, and the retreating Russians burned everything to the ground as they gave ground. But when you look at the erasure of the Russian role in fighting the Nazis, as well as the troublesome views of leaders like Churchill, you wonder not only about Fuchs, but also about the clean version of history we're taught about that war.
- nappy 6y ago
  Is it "staggering" though? In the short term, it is more simple to point to human lives and deaths. In the longer term, the more complex contribution of industrial forces is easier to understand. At least some shift in public opinion is natural.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    > At least some shift in public opinion is natural. Of course propaganda has nothing to do with it /s
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  the erasure of the Russian role in fighting the Nazis, as well as the troublesome views of leaders like Churchill I'm curious as to which of Churchill's views (or acts) you think were more problematic than Stalin's. And in the aftermath of WW2, which countries prospered more, those liberated by and/or occupied by the West, or by the Soviets?
- Lio 6y ago
  I wonder how many of those deaths were down to Stalin not caring whether his own people lived or died? Having a high death toll in itself is not a sign of good leadership or self sacrifice. It’s a sign that some bugger is ordering someone else to put themselves in danger on pain of being shot if they don’t.
  - AniseAbyss 6y ago
    I find this line of reasoning strange. The USSR was invaded by evil Nazis who wanted to enslave them for a thousand years. Somehow we spin this into "Stalin didn't care". And the idea that Russians had to be forced at gunpoint to defend their country is so ludicrous and offensive I have no words.
    - jsiepkes 6y ago
      A lot of the Russian people didn't have much love for the Russian regime (ie. Stalin). The Nazi's were in a lot of places in Russia initially greeted as liberators. If the Nazi's hadn't turned out to be even more brutal then Stalin history might have taken a different path. See for example sources like: https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/news-and-events/news/2018/many-russians-hoped-that-hitler-would-free-them-fr.html https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/news-and-events/...
    - sassypotato 6y ago
      On the other hand the USSR allied itself with the evil Nazis so they would both invade Poland. The USSR was clearly an expansionist and imperalist power and given the gulag system reached it's peak well before the start of the war, we know Stalin did not care at all about human life.
    - thrwway34 6y ago
      That's not just an idea. Order No. 270 ordered to shoot any deserters (or anybody who's not 'organizing resistance') on the spot and promised imprisonment for families of those who surrendered to the Germans. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270
    - 6y ago
- Craighead 6y ago
  No reason to bring up the whole communism part of the soviet union that brought a similar number of deaths to ww2
- TomMarius 6y ago
  We don't feel the US did more in terms of quantity of dead men, we know more Soviet-affiliated troops died there. However with hindsight we now know the real plan of the Soviet Union - it never was to help Europe, but to conquer it. So in conclusion the US government helped us more (and not just during the war), while the SU government sent more people to die for their shady goals here. Nobody is discounting the heroism of the individual soldiers. The sad thing is that the current Russian government is using their legacy to pursue their shady goals again.
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    That needs some serious citations. If you're saying it's evidenced by the soviet military in the Eastern block I encourage you to look at the US presence in Nato countries. I know that history in the US is largely a picture of American exceptionalism and "we were always the good guys", but actual history has many more shades of gray. This is one thing that the allies (in both parts of Germany) did reasonably well, break the circle of history as a means for teaching patriotism.
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      I know of the US presence in NATO countries and we welcome it. It is absolutely incomparable to the Warsaw Pact occupation of our country (for example, the US forces didn't shoot anybody nor ran over people with a tank) which is the reason why we welcomed the US forces and joined NATO as soon as we could after 1989. Not sure what citations should I send you, I live here (Czechia). You can probably read about it on Wikipedia, I'd do the same.
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        US forces tend to do their shooting and running over in Central/South America and the Middle East. Many countries in those areas are less impressed by US benevolence. The US is an empire. So was the USSR. So are China and modern Russia. Some provinces are treated better than others, but empires are empires, and propaganda, political manipulation, corruption, violence, and torture are how they roll - together with resource capture, labour management, and various levels of market development. Europe had a notable level of propaganda and political manipulation, and still does, and not so much of the overt violence. But just because the corruption, violence and torture were happening elsewhere doesn't mean they weren't happening at all.
- thrwway34 6y ago
  If you will March your troops through minefield 'like it's not there' (e.g. Zhukov's revelations) it will definitely lead to losses.
mhh__ 6y ago
A lot of the double agents who defected did say they were doing it for vaguely benevolent reasons, although it gives me some satisfaction to say that many (e.g. Philby) died depressed, allegedly suicidal alcoholics upon facing the realities of house arrest in the Soviet Union. Aldrich Ames seems to genuinely believe that what he did is morally equivalent to doing for ideological reasons.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

Does anyone know how effective his intel was? Did he transfer key secrets, or crude napkin drawings? Put another way: did he change the world? That’s the goal of idealism, after all. It seems absurd to say that the USSR developed nukes thanks to his help. And yet, I can’t help but wonder... Could one person have made all the difference?

mabbo 6y ago
It's about 'when' more than anything. We live in a world today with mostly free information sharing on most scientific subjects. But picture a time when cutting edge science like the nuclear programs were veiled heavily in secrecy. Every single development took time, effort, work, science. And the result is... an answer that can probably be written down in a single piece of paper. Easily shared. The USSR would have developed the same bombs eventually, but not as quickly, I would guess.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Once there's knowledge of the possibility, it becomes inevitable.
  - ant6n 6y ago
    Like fusion. It’s just 10 years away. For the last 50 years.
    - mabbo 6y ago
      We have not yet figured out how to make fusion work yet. A lot of money and scientific effort is being spent to find out. We aren't talking about things that are 10 years away, we're talking about research that has succeeded being shared. But as soon as someone does figure out fusion (ITER looks good) and publishes, everyone will know, and everyone will have it.
      - ant6n 6y ago

cryptonector 6y ago

Oddly, one of the worst leaks to the soviets was the press release announcing the A-bomb drop on Hiroshima. It specifically revealed the use of diffusion for uranium enrichment, IIRC.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pauljurczak 6y ago

Setting aside the long term ideological goals of worldwide spread of communism by Soviet Union, they were not in position to do so in Western Europe after U.S. acquired nuclear weapons. Soviet westward expansion stopped after assimilating most of the Eastern Europe. Acquisition of nuclear weapons by Soviet Union and later reaching parity with the USA, was a major factor stopping WWIII from occurring. Long list of characters, including Winston Churchill, Curtis LeMay, John von Neumann and countless other were advocating a preemptive nuclear strike on Soviet Union. Clearly Fuchs was played by Soviet spies, but in the greater scheme of things, he may have contributed to saving tens of millions of lives.

arethuza 6y ago
Worth noting that US estimates of the effects of them attacking with nuclear weapons in the early 1960s was 600 million dead - a lot in Western Europe and elsewhere. This was known to be an underestimate as US planning did not take into effect the thermal effects of nuclear weapons due to a degree of variability from cloud cover etc. So probably about a billion would have died - then there is the effect of Soviet weapons... I can recommend Daniel Ellsberg's book on the topic: https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/confessions-nuclear-war-planner https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/confessions-nuclear-war...
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  but it never did happen, who's to say the US being the only super power with nukes, could've had a despot rise (one might be now), who if there were no other countries with nukes, might decide to use a few for the purpose of conquest. Sure, nukes are bad, all mankind should probably ditch the tech, but it's like a gun... i'd rather be in a mexican standoff, than empty handed staring down the barrel of a gun. Currently, I'm not very trusting of our (US) government and their 'goals'. Trump may or may not have known Putin was murdering our soldiers. The fact is, at least there's some solace knowing nukes will probably never be used (except maybe by N.Korea - but as a suicide action by a crazy neurotic dictator), and that there's a sort of checks/balances system as far as they are concerned. Nobody rational, wants a nuclear war or fallout or nuclear winter. Russia never building their own, also allows one side dominate in power, and power corrupts, so maybe it helped even the equilibrium. Not saying them having weapons is great, but who's to know what future would await a nazi army rising in America and being the only country with nuclear capabilities. We still might get that future, but at least there's some balance from other countries in case certain scenarios happen. It's naive to think 'our country' will always be benign and have everybody's best interests in mind... just as it would've been naive for Germans to think that in 1930.

gok 6y ago

I think the interesting question is how much the spying led to the failure of the Baruch Plan. A few years of delay in the Soviet weapons program would have meant they had no weapon by the time Stalin died, and Khrushchev was open to bilateral demilitarization.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pottertheotter 6y ago

A recent episode of the Spycast Podcast was a discussion with the author. It's an interesting podcast. https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/episode/atomic-spy-a-conversation-with-nancy-greenspan/ https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/episode/atomic-...

opwieurposiu 6y ago

Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb goes into a lot of detail about what was taken and how it was used. What astonished me is that using lend-lease, the soviets were sending back literal plane loads of documents every week through alaska. The sheer scale of the spying was amazing. The USA mostly let it slide during the war, bigger fish to fry and all that.