7 ms·

interesting, it sounds that they had quite a bit of security around the Manhatan project, now how did they manage to ignore such a big number of real spies?

mywittyname 5y ago
Probably due to a good bit of misdirection aided by real spies. The obsession with "communists" always struck me as counter productive. What real Soviet spy would openly operate in communist/pro-Soviet circles? A spy who wanted to stay hidden would be a WASPy white supremacist who'd punch anyone that disrespected the flag. Intelligence operatives probably feed these communist groups with enough mundane operations to overwhelm the counter-intelligence and ensure they weren't looking under the correct rocks. All while the little old lady who says The Pledge to the flag every day before coming into the office is walking out with photocopies of top secret materials.
- creamynebula 5y ago
  To be thinking about such things makes me smile remember how much as a child I wanted to be a spy or a police investigator!
- mynameishere 5y ago
  Uh, no. The actual spies were pretty much the usual suspects.
- pvg 5y ago
  What real Soviet spy would openly operate in communist/pro-Soviet circles? Quite a few did since that was where ideologically-motivated recruits were more readily available. The obsession was misplaced and counterproductive not because the spies weren't there but because the overwhelming majority of people with left-leaning politics weren't any sort of spies or even 'disloyal' in any material sense.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Sure, but I'm arguing that they were mainly there to tie up counter-intelligence resources. We rarely captured the spies who actually stole damaging information. Of the few notable ones that were caught, most weren't running around rallies in Che t-shirts. They were milquetoast, stodgy coots who lived in suburbia. The CIA et al did eventually catch on to the personality traits and personal situations that make for a compromiseable target. But they clearly spent decades chasing their tail before figuring it out.
    - fishtockos 5y ago
      Ahh. Surely this explains Klaus Fuchs, the most important spy in the Manhattan Project and a long-time communist?
    - pvg 5y ago
      I think you're anachronistically conflating Che-t-shirt leftism with the political inclinations of plenty of educated, professional people of the period. Many atomic spies had political or ideological motives as did several of the Cambridge Five and their initial contacts with Soviet intelligence came about because Soviet intelligence specifically set out to recruit in such circles.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  You would be very wrong in British intelligence at least - lot's of the WW2 generation of Soviet spies in the UK were openly communist, but their bosses simply couldn't believe that a well-bred englishman could be a Soviet communist (Or simply a communist, for those who were more subtle). Vetting only began in a roughly modern form decades after the first signs of infiltration became apparent. The thing about many of these people is that they were very complex - they were very effective servants during the war, but would've gladly handed orders of battle to the KGB or GRU after the war. The case of Anthony Blunt is particularly interesting: If you read Peter Wright's account of his interrogation, Blunt was no longer the KGB man he once was but his allegiances remained with his friends (i.e. other double agents). Although most of these men were sharp, Philby in particular knew exactly what he was doing (e.g. in betraying potentially hundreds of soon-to-be victims of the KGB bullet), however they nearly all possessed a deranged view of a grand communist society awaiting them upon defection - this is ignoring the obvious naivete of (I believe Blunt) either believing or choosing not to question his handler's word that those who he betrayed would not be shot. Of those who did defect, they all lived out their days surveilled and unhappy - Philby died an alcoholic who missed the cricket greatly, for example. George Blake actually only died recently, although it's hard to be sure given that he was wheeled out when convenient, but he apparently converted to Putinism. There is probably a parallel with political extremism in these spies - beneath the ideologue (unlike Aldrich Ames, for example, these men were not doing it for the money although it is potentially worth considering the economic environment they were i.e. a rich life did not solely mean money unlike during the 80s) there is often a more complicated individual, dining on deceit. As for little ladies, Melita Norwood comes to mind. On the opposite side, although not a lady, Vasili Mitrokhin had a fairly dull and tightly managed job - luckily he was very brave and we have a lot of information because of him.
jessaustin 5y ago
This is probably related to the fact that Пе́рвая мо́лния was a carbon copy of Fat Man. Without another nuclear power, there would have been no reason to build so many weapons.
bsder 5y ago
> how did they manage to ignore such a big number of real spies? Because spies are rare you get too many false positives. Things which are far less rare than spies but still provoke suspicious behavior: divorces, mistresses, being homosexual, gambling debts, etc. Basically--human existence. You don't have the resource to chase everything, so the spies slip through. And that's before you start thinking about the fact that the spies are likely better at covering their tracks so you're even more likely to focus on the wrong stuff.
simplicio 5y ago
Well, no German or Japanese spies, which were presumably the primary worry at the time. Soviet spies were obviously more successful, but then they were operating in an allied country that had an active program of technology and material exchange with, so its not really surprising that they were able to infiltrate a project as massive and widespread as the A-bomb effort.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > Well, no German or Japanese spies, which were presumably the primary worry at the time. Funnily it seems it was not! My source is a book titled "Restricted Data" by Alex Wellerstein which chronicles the history of nuclear secrecy in the USA. It really seems that at least initially the biggest worry for those tasked to maintain the security were leaks to Congress/Senate. It seems there was a worry that if the wrong politicians get wind of the project they will shut it down. After all they spent a lot of money on something which sounded like a bad scifi at the time.

mywittyname 5y ago

Probably due to a good bit of misdirection aided by real spies. The obsession with "communists" always struck me as counter productive. What real Soviet spy would openly operate in communist/pro-Soviet circles? A spy who wanted to stay hidden would be a WASPy white supremacist who'd punch anyone that disrespected the flag. Intelligence operatives probably feed these communist groups with enough mundane operations to overwhelm the counter-intelligence and ensure they weren't looking under the correct rocks. All while the little old lady who says The Pledge to the flag every day before coming into the office is walking out with photocopies of top secret materials.

creamynebula 5y ago
To be thinking about such things makes me smile remember how much as a child I wanted to be a spy or a police investigator!
mynameishere 5y ago
Uh, no. The actual spies were pretty much the usual suspects.
pvg 5y ago
What real Soviet spy would openly operate in communist/pro-Soviet circles? Quite a few did since that was where ideologically-motivated recruits were more readily available. The obsession was misplaced and counterproductive not because the spies weren't there but because the overwhelming majority of people with left-leaning politics weren't any sort of spies or even 'disloyal' in any material sense.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Sure, but I'm arguing that they were mainly there to tie up counter-intelligence resources. We rarely captured the spies who actually stole damaging information. Of the few notable ones that were caught, most weren't running around rallies in Che t-shirts. They were milquetoast, stodgy coots who lived in suburbia. The CIA et al did eventually catch on to the personality traits and personal situations that make for a compromiseable target. But they clearly spent decades chasing their tail before figuring it out.
  - fishtockos 5y ago
    Ahh. Surely this explains Klaus Fuchs, the most important spy in the Manhattan Project and a long-time communist?
  - pvg 5y ago
    I think you're anachronistically conflating Che-t-shirt leftism with the political inclinations of plenty of educated, professional people of the period. Many atomic spies had political or ideological motives as did several of the Cambridge Five and their initial contacts with Soviet intelligence came about because Soviet intelligence specifically set out to recruit in such circles.
mhh__ 5y ago
You would be very wrong in British intelligence at least - lot's of the WW2 generation of Soviet spies in the UK were openly communist, but their bosses simply couldn't believe that a well-bred englishman could be a Soviet communist (Or simply a communist, for those who were more subtle). Vetting only began in a roughly modern form decades after the first signs of infiltration became apparent. The thing about many of these people is that they were very complex - they were very effective servants during the war, but would've gladly handed orders of battle to the KGB or GRU after the war. The case of Anthony Blunt is particularly interesting: If you read Peter Wright's account of his interrogation, Blunt was no longer the KGB man he once was but his allegiances remained with his friends (i.e. other double agents). Although most of these men were sharp, Philby in particular knew exactly what he was doing (e.g. in betraying potentially hundreds of soon-to-be victims of the KGB bullet), however they nearly all possessed a deranged view of a grand communist society awaiting them upon defection - this is ignoring the obvious naivete of (I believe Blunt) either believing or choosing not to question his handler's word that those who he betrayed would not be shot. Of those who did defect, they all lived out their days surveilled and unhappy - Philby died an alcoholic who missed the cricket greatly, for example. George Blake actually only died recently, although it's hard to be sure given that he was wheeled out when convenient, but he apparently converted to Putinism. There is probably a parallel with political extremism in these spies - beneath the ideologue (unlike Aldrich Ames, for example, these men were not doing it for the money although it is potentially worth considering the economic environment they were i.e. a rich life did not solely mean money unlike during the 80s) there is often a more complicated individual, dining on deceit. As for little ladies, Melita Norwood comes to mind. On the opposite side, although not a lady, Vasili Mitrokhin had a fairly dull and tightly managed job - luckily he was very brave and we have a lot of information because of him.

jessaustin 5y ago

This is probably related to the fact that Пе́рвая мо́лния was a carbon copy of Fat Man. Without another nuclear power, there would have been no reason to build so many weapons.

bsder 5y ago

> how did they manage to ignore such a big number of real spies? Because spies are rare you get too many false positives. Things which are far less rare than spies but still provoke suspicious behavior: divorces, mistresses, being homosexual, gambling debts, etc. Basically--human existence. You don't have the resource to chase everything, so the spies slip through. And that's before you start thinking about the fact that the spies are likely better at covering their tracks so you're even more likely to focus on the wrong stuff.

simplicio 5y ago

Well, no German or Japanese spies, which were presumably the primary worry at the time. Soviet spies were obviously more successful, but then they were operating in an allied country that had an active program of technology and material exchange with, so its not really surprising that they were able to infiltrate a project as massive and widespread as the A-bomb effort.

krisoft 5y ago
> Well, no German or Japanese spies, which were presumably the primary worry at the time. Funnily it seems it was not! My source is a book titled "Restricted Data" by Alex Wellerstein which chronicles the history of nuclear secrecy in the USA. It really seems that at least initially the biggest worry for those tasked to maintain the security were leaks to Congress/Senate. It seems there was a worry that if the wrong politicians get wind of the project they will shut it down. After all they spent a lot of money on something which sounded like a bad scifi at the time.