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Russia Honors the Spy Who Stole the A-Bomb

Posted by kdawson on from the deep-cover dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports on the life of George Koval, codenamed Delmar, one of the most important spies to have infiltrated the Manhattan Project, the secret program that created the world's first nuclear weapon. President Putin recently granted Koval a posthumous Hero of the Russian Federation award, the highest honorary title that can be given to a Russian citizen. Koval was born in Iowa, spoke fluent American English, and played baseball. But he was also recruited and trained by the GRU, Russia's largest intelligence agency."

1 of 506 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Pride? by drgonzo59 · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    Imagine that he would have been a Russian scientist who knew that Russia was building a doomsday device and started spying for U.S. Eventually U.S. would have been able to build that device as well and a strategic equilibrium would be reached quickly.

    Let me guess, that guy would have been a hero, right? Why? Because he was working for "God's" country and not for the "evil" Soviets.

    Wake up! US is not the only country in the world and it doesn't have any sort of moral high ground. It might have had it before 2003, but it doesn't have it now after Iraq and Guantanamo and sending innocent people people to Egypt to be tortured ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition ).

    Yeah, all the spies are thieves and the best ones are traitors. Someone's hero is another one's villain...