Russia Honors the Spy Who Stole the A-Bomb

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."

Comments

A lot of bias

[houghi]

Koval was born in Iowa, spoke fluent American English

So why is it importand to mention that he, as a born American, spoke American Enlish? It would be more surprising would he have talked with a russian dialect.

Sped up the process by perhaps one year or two

[gelfling]

The Soviets understood what to do - they were missing the engineering of how to do it. Similarly while the Rosenbergs go down in history as the greatest traitors, even the Soviets admit that their information sped up the development of the H Bomb by less than 2 years. Sakharov came at the problem from a completely different direction than Teller-Ulam and essentially invented a brand new branch of nuclear physics on his own.

Re:Mixed up story, I don't recall him being a trai

[dillon_rinker]

"Would you have trusted the US as the only country with nuclear weapons?"

For several years, the United States WAS the only country with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The United States under had the means to directly dominate the entire world. It refrained from doing so.

Re:that's awesome

[miletus]

Interesting that so many prominent American military leaders at the time didn't agree with your views on the atomic bombs:
From http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=9443

Many Army leaders had similar views. Author Norman Cousins writes of Gen. Douglas MacArthur:

"[H]e saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."[6]

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, was also against the bomb. Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose writes:

"There was one additional matter on which Eisenhower gave Truman advice that was ignored. It concerned the use of the atomic bomb. Eisenhower first heard of the bomb during the Potsdam Conference; from that moment on, until his death, it occupied, along with the Russians, a central position in his thinking. ...

"When [Secretary of War] Stimson said the United States proposed to use the bomb against Japan, Eisenhower voiced '... grave misgivings....' Three days later, on July 20, Eisenhower flew to Berlin, where he met with Truman and his principal advisors. Again Eisenhower recommended against using the bomb, and again was ignored."[7]

These are a few of the many quotes in Alperovitz from military leaders who thought the bomb's use on Japan unnecessary and/or immoral.

Re:Mixed up story, I don't recall him being a trai

[dadragon]

For several years, the United States WAS the only country with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The United States under had the means to directly dominate the entire world. It refrained from doing so.

According to the Quebec Agreement, the USA was bound to not use them without the consent of Canada and the United Kingdom.

That also means that Canada and the UK were just as guilty as the USA for the bombing of Japan.