The timeline of treason
To illustrate that leaking secrets is neither new nor peculiar to our Wikifreak generation, in a recent column I listed some spy highlights — spylights, to save a syllable — from the decade leading up to the Second World War. Such lists amount to raw data, unedited footage. Some readers may find them boring, but for others they’re like mixed nuts in a bowl, irresistible. They’ve asked for more, and I’m happy to oblige.
The 1930s saw the “Cambridge Spies” recruited. By the time war broke out, they and like-minded colleagues could sing for their supper. Deeply embedded in the defence, diplomatic and intelligence establishments, they had no need for cyberspace.
1940 Roger Hollis (eventually Sir Roger Hollis, head of MI5, Britain’s counterintelligence, posthumously accused of having been a Soviet agent) becomes Acting Head of MI5’s “F” division, overseeing proSoviet communist activities in the U.K.
In Russia, Igor Gouzenko, with the rank of lieutenant, is being trained as cipher clerk. One of his colleagues, a Lieutenant Panchenko, is executed for mistakenly throwing a coded telegraph from Molotov into the garbage.
In Britain, the Cambridge spies join the war effort. Anthony Blunt goes on the temporary (wartime) staff of MI5. So does Guy Burgess. Leo Long is in M14 (a more technical section, involved in logistics evaluation.)
Donald Maclean marries an American, Melinda Marling.
Bruno Pontecorvo, by then a nuclear physicist living in France with his Swedish-born wife, finds refuge in the U.S. shortly before the Germans reach Paris.
The Soviets invade Finland. France falls; the Battle of Britain begins.
1941 Disenchanted Soviet GRU officer Walter Krivitsky, in Britain, exposes two code clerks (Capt. John Herbert King and Tyler Kent) but has only imprecise clues to give about moles in high places in the U.S. and Britain. (Volumes of his documents are stored by the French in a barge on the Seine, but documents are lost when the bottom of the barge inexplicably rots away.) Despondent about the failure of British and U.S. authorities to follow up his leads, Krivitsky commits suicide in Washington — or, as some claim, is killed there by the Soviets.
In the same year Ruth “Sonia” Kuczynski, who had been working in Switzerland in a spy-ring named “Lucy”, is sent by GRU to establish the British branch of “Rote Capelle” (the famous Soviet spy-ring “Red Orchestra”). She is to recruit spies and send intelligence to Moscow through dead-letter boxes as well as radio transmissions. Her assignment coincides with MI5’s move from London to Blenheim Palace, near Oxford.
Sonia also settles near Oxford, just a few miles from
Cold War Canada didn’t know what to do with a defector from the (theoretically)
friendly Soviet Union. We almost sent him home
Blenheim Palace where Hollis works and the town of Oxford where he lives. During this time Sonia and her brother Jeurgen meet and enlist a fellow German refugee, the scientist Klaus Fuchs (later code-named “Charles”) who is working for the British on something named “Tube Alloys Project.” It is, in fact, the joint U.S.-British effort to develop the atomic bomb.
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; Germany invades the Soviet Union.
1942 The GRU recruits Cam- bridge-educated British scientist Allan Nunn May, who is soon assigned to the British side of the “Manhattan” (atomic bomb) project.
Sonia moves to the town of Oxford itself, where she now lives less than a mile from Hollis’ residence.
Gouzenko, 23, is assigned to GRU headquarters in Moscow. The same year he marries his teenage sweetheart, Svetlana.
Disenchanted ex-Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers goes to the FBI, but still reveals no names.
The Allies institute a ban on decoding Soviet traffic (presumably for the duration.) Soviet radio messages are copied and stored, but not decoded or analyzed.
1943 The Soviets, through the web of KGB spymaster Pavel Sudoplatov (Department S), start penetration operations against Los Alamos and other American nuclear labs. They target, in particular, the scientists Robert Oppenheimer (code-named “Star”), Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi (“Editor”). Influ- enced by ideals of “scientific internationalism,” these scientists, along with the physicist Niels Bohr, begin to act as sources or agents of influence for the Soviets — whether unwittingly or, as in the case of Oppenheimer, wittingly.
On Oppenheimer’s suggestion, the Americans invite Fuchs to work on the “Manhattan” project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Bruno Pontecorvo (“Mlad”) joins the British atomic team in Canada at the Chalk River nuclear research project.
Gouzenko is given a “legend” (false identity) and is posted as a cipher clerk to Ottawa. He goes by air; his wife Svetlana follows him by ship after the birth of their first child.
At Roosevelt’ request to Stalin, Moscow announces the dissolution of the Comintern.
1944 The Cambridge contingent flourishes. Blunt is named MI5’s liaison with Allied High Command, while Kim Philby is named to head Section IX (Soviet counterintelligence) of MI6 (Britain’s espionage agency.) Donald Maclean is appointed First Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington.
Meanwhile Fuchs transmits to the Soviets key secrets of the atom bomb (specifically the implosion design and data on U-235.) Although Fuchs belongs to Sonia’s GRU spy-ring in Britain, in their eagerness for Fuchs’ material the Soviets transfer him to their KGB controller in the U.S., Anatoli Yakovlev. The Soviets use their U.S. couriers, including Lona Cohen as well as a communist named Harry Gold, to contact Fuchs. Gouzenko and his family are recalled to Moscow.
1945 The Second World War ends with atomic bombs exploding over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Gouzenko is still in Ottawa because his masters extended his tour of duty by a year, but is now recalled to Moscow again. A month later he defects with his 2-year old son and pregnant wife. (At first Canada is at a loss about what to do with a defector from a wartime ally, and very nearly sends Gouzenko back.)
In the U.S., a disillusioned communist, Elizabeth Bentley, tells the FBI about a GRU technology theft spy ring operating in the U.S., and gives the name of one contact as “Julius.”
The Cold War begins. KGB officer Konstantsin Volkov attempts to defect in Turkey, but the information ends up on Philby’s desk. The Soviets kidnap and kill Volkov.
The Soviets are having problems with their first nuclear reactor. The KGB sends the scientist Yakov Peytrovich Terletsky to Denmark to meet Niels Bohr and ask for some tips. The meeting is facilitated by the Danish fellow traveller writer Martin Andersen Nexø. (Bohr probably recognizes the purpose and likely result of this “scientific exchange.”)
The Soviets permit Blunt to leave MI5 and devote himself to his art work, but Blunt stays in touch with his former colleagues in intelligence as well as with the KGB.
President Roosevelt dies. Gouzenko’s second child is born in a town near their RC - MP hideout, “Camp X.”