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

Re:Pride?

[smittyoneeach]

Motive in the grave,
Keep world balance in place?
Can't his name save.
Treachery on his face.
God have mercy on the knave,
And lather this disgrace:
Burma Shave

You are forgetting something.

[Anonymous Coward]

One man's hero is another man's terrorist.

Re:You are forgetting something.

[Pecisk]

And, most ironic of that, that it fits ohh so perfectly to Cold War, it could be even a tagline for it.

that's awesome

[circletimessquare]

how you can find only one side responsible in a two sided fight

you do realize the japanese were slaughtering millions themselves in the name of imperialism? you do realize that if no A bomb was dropped, that more japanese and americans would have died in a land invasion of japan?

Re:that's awesome

[ushering05401]

I really apologize, but I have to mod you down. Do you even realize that you just tried to use logic on /.?

Re:that's awesome

[PortHaven]

Actually, they weren't ready to capitulate. What you had were two factions. One who were in control wanting to dig-in and die to the last man. (Like they were doing on numerous islands in the Pacific.)

The other faction realized they had lost, and that they could not hope to win. And that if they continued to fight then millions would die on both sides.

The atomic bombs gave them the leverage to displace the controlling faction.

****

Mind you, anyone who thinks that Japan was ready to surrender is easily disproved by history. If that was the case, we would not have to have used "two" bombs.

It's an absolute proof they were not ready to surrender.

Re:that's awesome

[p0tat03]

The excuse for dropping the bomb was to force Japan's capitulation, in order to avoid a costly land invasion. This, while partially true, is mostly a matter of the victors writing the history books. Many modern historians do not believe in this interpretation, as Japan was already defeated by then. The oil fields of China were retaken, the islands of southeast Asia had been reconquered. Japan was back to its pre-war territorial borders, which contain precious few resources (they couldn't even produce enough high-quality steel to fuel their own war effort, which was the original reason for their invasion of China, to secure the necessary resources ), and certainly at that point wasn't a real danger to anyone.

No, the bombs were dropped for the Russians. The Soviets showed a large interest in taking over the recently-vacated Manchuria, which as an industrial heartland of China the US simply could not allow, not to mention access to an all-year east-Asia port. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were warning shots that began the Cold War, it's just that the Japanese had the unfortunate luck of being the most convenient and justifiable party to nuke, at that moment in time.

Re:that's awesome

[ByOhTek]

They were ready to capitulate after the A-Bomb at Nagasaki I believe. Hiroshima might have been unnecessary, but dissolved any second thoughts.

As the GP said, the A-Bombs probably saved more Japanese lives than they killed (considering the alternative was a land invasion). Of course, the US intent was only the US lives, which it also saved in much greater number.

Re:that's awesome

[Kjella]

you do realize that if no A bomb was dropped, that more japanese and americans would have died in a land invasion of japan? A lot of soldiers would have died, including a lot of US soldiers too. I doubt as many as were killed by the bombs though. In total during WWII, including the whole campaign in Europe the US lost 400,000 and the bombs killed 220,000. In short, they made a choice to nuke civilians rather than sacrifice more soldiers. Soldiers die in war, unpleasant but true. Deliberately targetting civilians? Why, I do know what the US would call that these days. I don't know what kind of moral compass that would possibly make it right to kill a hundred thousand or more women and children. Except "We're americans, they're the enemy so they don't count."

Re:that's awesome

[darkmeridian]

I am sick and tired of revisionists coming up with this tripe every time the nuclear bombings of Japan are discussed. It might be true that the Japanese were unable to continue their existence. After the war, debriefed Japanese leaders said that the mining of Japanese harbors as part of Operation Starvation was singlehandedly winning the war for the Allies. He said that if the Allies had continued the operation for another few months, the Japanese would had to have surrendered. But how many Japanese civilians would have died before the leadership would quit? The Japanese military leadership wanted to force an invasion that they were going to lose, so they could at least dictate some conditions of peace.

In spite of all this, the Allies were ready to invade Japan. After the nukes were dropped, they revised the plan to include "softening up" the beachheads with nukes three days before GIs would hit the shores. (They didn't know too much about fallout back then.) The plans were for deaths in the hundreds of thousands. The order for Purple Hearts, the military honor for being wounded in combat, in preparation for this invasion was so large that the supplies did not run out until recently in the new Iraq War. Despite what we now may know, Allied leaders were planning on invading Japan, and the nuclear bomb stopped this from happening, and saved many lives on both sides of the table. In the documentary "The War," an American infantryman that was going to be sent to Japan, when asked about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said that he was relieved and glad, and that he knew this was horrible, but that the news meant that he wouldn't have to die. The troops tasked to invade Japan had no illusions of getting out alive; they assumed there were going to die because the Japanese were ruthless soldiers who fought to the death and mistreated the few prisoners they took.

The Japanese were not innocent victims in World War II. They committed all sorts of atrocities such as vivisection, raping and pillaging, and testing biological weapons on civilian populations. Japanese soldiers in the Phillippines were actually cannabalizing American GIs. (Read "Flyboys.") The Japanese still had a dominion over a large civilian population in occupied territories at the time the nuclear bombs were dropped. The civilians there were dying at a very high rate due to Japanese mistreatment. And the Japanese had said they were going to execute all the POWs they held (about a hundred thousand or so) if there was an invasion.

The bombings saved lives. Even if it didn't, the Allied leaders thought that they were saving lives by dropping the bombs. Sixty years later, it's easy for us to sit back and second guess them. But the leaders truly believed Japan had to fall. No one planned for the Japanese to surrender peacefully, even if their situation was screwed. Everything else is revisionist history ignoring who started the war, who committed the true atrocities, and who refused to quit fighting a war they had lost.

Re:that's awesome

[dave420]

Exactly. It was an easy way out, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of civilians to spare US troops (who had volunteered to be used in such a fashion, unlike the civilians who had no such luxury).

I guess the same folks who say it's OK to drop the bomb on Japan (twice) wouldn't mind if the war took a different path and Japan dropped two nukes on the US - after all, it would save lives, wouldn't it?

Re:that's awesome

[dreamchaser]

Up until quite recently in modern terms it was not only acceptible to target civilians, it was part of war doctrine. Civilians are part of the effort in a total war. They man the factories, they pay the taxes and produce the goods that fuel the war effort.

War is ugly on all levels. Killing civilian members of the enemy's society is part of it. Note that I am not excusing it, just pointing it out.

Re:that's awesome

[dreamchaser]

My opinion about war is that if a war is worth fighting then it should be fought all out. No holds barred. End it as quickly as possible. If the cause du jour is not worth doing that then the war shouldn't be fought at all.

Re:that's awesome

[GeckoX]

Everyone knows it was horrible. NO one in their right mind has ever stated that it wasn't.
The only disputable fact is whether it was the lesser of the evils to do so or not.

Yes, Japan had lost the war. Anyone that has done any real research on the subject knows this. But in the same vein, it is also a fact that Japan was NOT going to surrender, despite the fact that they had already lost. We're talking about a country with a mentality that allowed for using it's citizens as suicide bombs. They simply could not surrender. They had to save face. There are interviews out there with Japanese officials that stated that being Nuked was the only way to end the war without mass casualties on both sides. A land invasion of Japan would have been an all out fight for honor, to the death. Period.

Noting is ever Black And White, especially in war. But your argument tries to make it into such a beast. There is little doubt that there was some incentive to beat the Soviets in the nuke arms race. But trying to say that that is WHY those bombs were dropped, well, it's ignorant at best.

Want more proof? What do arguments like yours conveniently overlook? Hint: How many nukes were dropped? If it was as your argument suggests, then why was the 2nd one dropped?

The answer is that the Japanese STILL refused to surrender even after the first one fell. It took TWO for them to finally suck it up and admit defeat, to realize that this was the only easy way out of the war. It's horrible, for sure. But anything less would have required a full on invasion of Japan, and along with it, HUGE casualties well over and above the losses incurred from the two nukes being dropped.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the nukes would have been dropped even if Russia hadn't been working on the bomb as well.

Re:that's awesome

[GeckoX]

Again, you really haven't any clue as to what you are talking about.
I strongly suggest before you post again that you look into what the Japanese did as policy to civilians in the places they invaded. To the POW's they took. Further, look in to how they treated their own civilians, women, children.

You have a lot of enlightenment ahead of you if you'll only look for it.

PS: Please don't mistake this for an argument towards stating that what the US did was Just and Good. War sucks. Many innocents died. But to make it out as black and white as you are trying to do is ignorance at best. Remember, Japan was not invaded. Japan had no reason to enter WW2. No one was attacking them. Now look into what they did and why and see the truth from all sides please.

Re:that's awesome

[professionalfurryele]

As it turns out supplies of the new purple hearts didn't even run out. They changed the design and produced a new batch. They could still be handing out WWII purple hearts if they wanted to.

Although I agree with the thrust of your argument it is worth keeping in mind that the Japanese were keen to surrender to the Americans than they were to the Soviets, who had just entered the Pacific War. Problem with deciding what the main cause of the Japanese surrender was is that you hear different things from different people.

I tend to view things this way. The reasons that were at the forefront of the mind of those who decided to drop the bomb were reprehensible. Showing the power of the bomb to the Soviets and American willingness to drop it were not good or moral reasons for the bombs use. That doesn't change the fact that the justification for dropping the bomb holds water. Just because many of the leaders of the day viewed the bomb primarily as a tool for diplomacy with the Soviets doesn't mean that the other reasons they had in mind were not justification enough.

Everyone who criticizes the decision to drop the bomb likes to forget that Truman and his advisors were working with incomplete information. The Soviets had essentially black balled the Japanese and refused to pass on their peace offerings in anticipation for the Soviet invasion. What the Americans knew about Japanese desires for peace that had obtained from code cracking efforts. The Japanese leadership was split, and even if the Emperor sided with the peace party a coup was entirely possible (more than this, when the Emperor did side with the peace party there was an attempted coup).

What can we say for sure? The Soviet invasion was more of a fear for the Japanese than the bomb was. The bomb did not cause as many deaths as fire bombing. What was happening in Eastern Europe (especially Poland) was no secret. If the bomb had been dropped a few more times (hard at the time since after Nagasaki there would be no more bombs for a while) then perhaps it would have been a bigger factor. What the bomb offered was an excuse for the Japanese leadership, particularly the Emperor to surrender.

"The enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage."

That sounds much better than something like:

"A new power has entered this war who will do untold cruelty to our people"

The first provides an excuse. This weapons is new, it is totally devastating. Surrender may bring dishonor, but we are surrendering because of a new and terrible weapon. The second sounds like the Emperor was prepared to sell out Japan because he could not bring himself to have his subjects do their duty in a conventional fight.

If the Americans had not dropped the bomb (assuming humanity would be alive to debate the issue) can we say for certain the hardliners would no have mounted a successful coup? Would Japan be split in two like Korea? How many more Americans and Japaneses would be dead? I cannot in all honesty answer that question. I don't know if the dropping the bomb saved lives. And I have the benefit of hindsight, something Truman did not have.

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:that's awesome

[Man On Pink Corner]

there was no reason to drop the second bomb.

Well, duh. If you drop one atomic bomb and they still don't surrender, what else are you supposed to do? You have to convince the Japanese (and, yes, the Soviets) that Hiroshima wasn't just a one-shot parlor trick. The idea of losing one major city wasn't enough to convince everyone in Japan not to fight. The idea of losing one major city every three days, though, was.

It's hard for people like you to realize that nobody considered it that big a deal back then. A-bombs didn't have the totemic power they have today. All they offered at the time was one-stop shopping convenience; you could carry out a Dresden- or Toyko-scale firebombing campaign with a single plane. The idea that atomic explosions represented something radically new, different, and immoral didn't gain widespread traction until they became a hundred times more powerful.

Re:that's awesome

[Loki_1929]

"The reason you dropped two bombs was that one was a uranium based device, the other a plutonium device of radically different design.
You just had to try both designs out, didn't you?"

Prior to being dropped on its target, the Uranium bomb wasn't even tested. The mechanics of it were so simple that it was assumed to be every bit as reliable as a conventional bomb. The Plutonium bomb had been tested previously, so we knew it worked. The physics were solid, but the mechanics of the implosion device were in question until it was tested (at the Trinity test site).

So in one hand you've got a bomb we knew would work, and in the other you've got a bomb we'd tested already. Just had to try out both designs? That's just stupid.

Both were dropped because they didn't surrender immediately. Had they continued their refusal to surrender, we would have kept dropping nuclear weapons until no one was left alive from that country to threaten the world. The United States did not start that war, we ended it. We ended it by hitting two military targets, one of which was chosen because of the military value combined with the fact that the surrounding topography drastically limited the blast radius to minimize civilian casualties. You just can't drop bombs that big without civilian casualties. On the other hand, there was no way to convince Japan that continuing the fight was futile without dropping bombs that big. Until they believed that they would be completely annihilated without even the honor of taking as many of their enemy down with them, they were committed to a land war where every man, woman, and child would fight to the death.

Re:that's awesome

[servognome]

Yes there were factions... but none of them were stupid enough to think that they could continue the fight under existing conditions.

Then why was there a coup attempt after the surrender was agreed to.

Re:that's awesome

[GeckoX]

The debate isn't whether it was horrible or not, getting tired of stating that. The debate is whether it was the lesser evil.

Look up Operation Downfall. All estimates are that Japan would have suffered more casualties simply leading UP to an allied invasion than they did in the two bombings. At that time there were more than 200,000 casualties per month in the pacific theatre. Further, the casualty rate for Operation Downfall, once initiated, was at least as high as that of the bombings at best, and that's not including casualties leading up to invasion.

Next, Japan was in a state of Total War. Do you know what that means? It is not clear whatsoever that those killed in the bombings can be considered simply as innocent civilians.

Again, horrific, terrible, nothing good came of any of it. Such as war. But in light of how the Japanese had conducted war up to that point and the atrocities they committed, combined with the prospect of an invasion of Japan, it is certainly not any more horrific or terrible than any other possible outcome. Numerous Japanese leaders from the time have come out and stated that that was the least horrific outcome of the pacific war. Anything else would have been much much worse for all sides.

What would be better than trying to stuff an obviously huge gray mess of a war into nice little black and white boxes would be to simply accept the horror that war is, learn from our mistakes in the past, and ensure that it never happens again.

Re:that's awesome

[mfrank]

They wanted to keep the emperor, and a couple of other things. No war crimes trials, and no occupation troops. They weren't trying to surrender, they were trying to call "time-out".

Re:that's awesome

[mantito]

Actually, they weren't ready to capitulate. What you had were two factions. One who were in control wanting to dig-in and die to the last man. (Like they were doing on numerous islands in the Pacific.)

The other faction realized they had lost, and that they could not hope to win. And that if they continued to fight then millions would die on both sides.

The atomic bombs gave them the leverage to displace the controlling faction.

****

Mind you, anyone who thinks that Japan was ready to surrender is easily disproved by history. If that was the case, we would not have to have used "two" bombs.

It's an absolute proof they were not ready to surrender.

Some people (who knew better than you) would like to disagree with your opinion (this was mentioned on slashdot before): "In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives." - then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. "The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

Re:that's awesome

[xhrit]

The reasons that were at the forefront of the mind of those who decided to *invade iraq* were reprehensible. Showing the power of the US to the *islamic nations* and American willingness to *retaliate* were not good or moral reasons for the *iraq invasion*. That doesn't change the fact that the justification for *invading iraq* holds water. Just because many of the leaders of the day viewed the *iraq invasion* as a tool for *consolidating political power* doesn't mean that the other reasons they had in mind were not justification enough.

Everyone who criticizes the decision to *invade iraq* likes to forget that *Bush* and his advisors were working with incomplete information...

Elections is coming...

[Pecisk]

Said already enough. All these actions - playing Antiamerican cards, claiming Russia "best nation in the world", trying to "correct" international thinking about Stalin etc. etc. at absurdum - is to get already tired people from all this bullshit to vote for Putin comrades. Economy is going down (nevermind huge sales of oil and gas), inflation goes trough the roof, common people only see that one type of oligarchs have been replaced by another, more nationalistic/militaristic, but still don't caring much about nation. But Russians dies out as a people, trough heavy drinking/hunger/strong disillusion about the country. They become more dangerous than any radical Islamists, who cause at least could be understood.

Imperialists don't want to admit simply that Russia as "strong arm dictarionship" is dead horse, which will never work in modern time settings. I just hope their last resort won't be trying to play "hard" with the rest of the world. As we easily know how it is to have people who have nothing to loose.

Re:Elections is coming...

[Notquitecajun]

Some of the new bosses in Russia are the EXACT same old bosses - old party members who made good when the Soviet Union fell. Democracy takes time, but Putin is trying to take a twenty-year step back. At first I liked the guy - he's tough, proud of his heritage, hates traitors from both sides of the aisle - but as time went on he kept getting worse and worse on liberties and on trying to maintain his stranglehold on power. It's going to take years - if ever - for the Russians to get out of the mentality that they need a near-dictator in charge.

Re:Elections is coming...

[Pecisk]

As it is not only Russians problem (almost all post-Soviet nations share similar sentiment. I know, as citizen of Latvia), I think problem hides in that people thought democracy is a miracle - it will come and it will work. Wow, corruption. Wow, hunger, lies, rising crime. Ahh, nah, democracy just doesn't work. Let's go back to Soviet times? Damn, USSR is gone? What a shame. Heck, let's have supreme lea...errr, strong president then.

Let's remember how it was in US 100 years _after_ their Constitution was created. KKK, crime by army and police, religious nuts, US Indians issue. Capitalism wasn't rosy game altogether. Even now they still have problems. But heck, they are trying, even if there is some nuts like Bush who trying to undo all achieved.

People simply need to be more patient, and work on democracy to achieve it best. However, people want to have miracle already. Lot of problems, including huge bribery and corruption in post-Soviet countries, are just consequences of so called "fall out generation", which were in their best years when USSR felt. Generation which knew that they won't see fruits of huge work in democracy today, so they want everything NOW.

Just my humble opinion,
Peter.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[4D6963]

This man was a thief, a traitor

No, that's the nuance between a traitor and a spy. From the Russian point of vue, this guy helped shape history in their favour, by tremendously helping them get the tool required to afford to make the USA crap their pants for about 40 years.

Re:youre a dirty damn hippy

[name*censored*]

The GERMANS started it (believe it or not the US wasn't the only country fighting), the only thing the Japanese did was force the US's involvement (which is ironic, when your ilk attack France for not getting involved in a war that didn't involve them, when you wouldn't have "saved their asses in dubya dubya two" if the Japs hadn't attacked). Also, I wasn't expressing an opinion on whether dropping The Bomb was the right move, I was merely pointing out the irrational bias in overly-patriotic morons; thank you for so eloquently proving my point.

Re:Pride?

[sinclair44]

If you're feeling like a jerk
'cuz your A-Bomb just won't work
Go ahead and steal the thing
Then you'll finally have the US's bling.
BURMA SHAVE

eh hem....

[djupedal]

'he was also recruited and trained by the GRU, Russia's largest intelligence agency'

When you're an English-speaking, baseball-playing, corn-on-the cab chewing, native-Iowan, those young Prussian female recruiting babes, I mean 'agents', are pretty hard to resist.

They should be the ones getting the honors, actually...

In Soviet Russia...

[SyscRAsH]

Putin honors YOU!

Re:Pride?

[baldass_newbie]

I did notice that parent read and interpreted this story from an "American Victm" perspective.

Are you saying if I take your car you would not be the victim?
Something was stolen from someone. How are they not a victim of the theft? Or is that not a crime in your world?

surely a hero to the whole World

[BoxRec]

The man is possibly one of the greatest heroes of all time, he equalised the power balance and prevented the Americans from bombing whoever they wished.

Re:surely a hero to the whole World

[Ash Vince]

The man is possibly one of the greatest heroes of all time, he equalised the power balance and prevented the Americans from bombing whoever they wished. I wish I had mod points for this but I don't so I will have to just repost it with a higher score (until some pro-us looneys mod this down as a troll or whatever).

The one thing that history has taught us is that power corrupts. If we in the west had the ability to make communism go away with one button and no chance of any reprisals we may have done it (or our policians may have done it for us without asking).

Also note that the Russia had a policy of never striking first with Nuclear weapons unless we deployed them first, we (NATO) had no such policy. We held on to Nukes as way to discourage a conventional invasion so we had a policy that allowed us to strike first with WMD's, otherwise this policy would not have been effective.

The rulers of the west had one thing in common with Hitler, they both despised the idea of Socialism in the form adopted by Russia. The fact is that in the cold war we came very close to a nuclear exchange anyway, and this was when we knew the opposing side could match us.

If we knew they had no chance of retaliating except with a conventional attack I could see us in the west having taken things a lot further. I also believe that Russia would probably have not stopped the tanks when they did, if not for us demonstrating our nuclear ability against Japan.

Re:surely a hero to the whole World

[xcaverx]

The USSR had a policy of no first use because it served their propaganda purposes and convinced western stooges that the Soviets were morally superior to us, this after exterminating 20+ million of their own people. No first use cost them nothing, gained the admiration of weak-minded individuals, and, most importantly, could be discarded any time they saw fit to attack.

The level of historical and political sophistication on /. is appalling. I expect and excuse this stuff from high school freshmen, not from educated adults.

Re:surely a hero to the whole World

[Seraphim_72]

I also believe that Russia would probably have not stopped the tanks when they did, if not for us demonstrating our nuclear ability against Japan.

And General Patton would have loved to see them try that too. The perfect quote for this was Patton to the Under Sect. of War: "I would have you tell the Red Army where their border is, and give them a limited time to get back across. Warn them that if they fail to do so, we will push them back across it." It would have been bloody, but in the end we still had more fight left in us than the Soviets did, and they were using our equipment and money to run their war machine, call Tehran and ask how finding fighter parts is treating them these days. And given the chance Patton would have put the Germans back in uniform for the fight.

No quite frankly we could have taken the soviets at the time and won, though at a terrible cost, which is part of the reason we didn't. Even for years after we could have fought and won a war - yet we didn't. At the time we had no desire for Empire and in fact had to be dragged (some even say tricked) kicking and screaming into the war. Creating MAD was by no means a great thing, a sole nuclear America on the world stage with a 'mind your own business, each of you' might have been a good thing. And certainly many US wars - Korea, Vietnam and other smaller ones around the globe might have been prevented. Not to mention the millions of Russians killed by Stalin.

Would I want Shrub and his ilk in the position that would create? Hell no, but at the same time half the reason for what they are doing now is to create that very thing. Without the reason to create it, would he and his type even exist? Do not confuse all American presidents and presidential hopefuls with Bush, great things *could* have been done. Like it or not there is One Government in the earths future. I would rather it had been started by men that had just gone through the greatest war in history, rather then the type we now have.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[drgonzo59]

That's alright, as long as all spies are thieves and traitors regardless of the government they are working for. Or let me guess, the American spies are heroes and anti-American spies are traitors and thieves? Of course, because we are "God's" country and we are special. Our killings are always "fights for freedom" and "wars on terror".

What's the news for nerds angle here?

That Russia Honors the Spy Who Stole the A-Bomb . Duh...

Yeah, some nerds like to take a break from playing D&D and are actually interested in what's happening in the real world.

Nice trolling

[SmallFurryCreature]

Millions of japanese? 140.000 at Horishima 80.000 at Nagasaki, several thousand afterwards. That is a quarter million from the results of the way. The cities in question would have had to been wiped out from fallout and after effects SEVERAL times to even reach one million.

So where do you get your millions from? The total death toll of WW2 is estimated around 50 million, the americans accounted for a small fraction of that. Major culprits where the germans, the russians and the japanese. It is often forgotten but they had a regime as brutal as the holocaust.

The A-bombs are noteworthy because they killed a lot of people with just one device. Before that you needed large bomber formations or massive organisation to achieve the same amount of killing, but compare it to the slaughter on the eastern front, the japanese death camps, the german concentration camps or even carpet bombing, and they were just a small note on that huge ledger of lost lives that we call WW2.

Millions of japanese lives, geez. Grow up and read a book.

Re:Nice trolling

[gerilart]

Poland had highest causalities as percentage of population. Japan is not even in the same league http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WorldWarII-DeathsByCountry-Barchart.png

Re:Nice trolling

[slashdime]

While I agree the original author should have taken 30 seconds to look up figures on Wikipedia, does it really matter? There's quite a difference between a quarter million and millions when you're talking about dollars, but human civilian lives?

Prussian?

[Nursie]

I suppose they could have used east germans, but I think for something that impoatant they would have used their own people.

Re:Prussian?

[anaesthetica]

At the time, East Prussia was not German territory, it was directly incorporated into the Soviet Union. It was actually (and remains today) an exclave of the Russian SFR. What was once East Prussia (about 300 years ago) is now Kaliningrad. The state of Prussia proper (of Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck fame) is divided up between Kaliningrad, Poland, and Germany now.

An American traitor is just as bad as a

[lena_10326]

....Russian traitor, imo. Assuming your home country isn't nazi Germany or the equivalent.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[Pecisk]

As I dislike arm race of Cold war, we must admit that US started it, because they hated Commies so much. If Russia won't have nuclear arsenal, I think it would be matter of time before US would try to sweep them out. And then lot of people would be dead for sure.

So this man somehow bring balance (yes, rather unpleasant, but still) in the world again. USSR having nukes stopped any other nuclear attacks just because US didn't want to risk with it.

I don't admire or celebrate what he did, but definitely it wasn't easy time for anyone, because both countries were at constant readiness to blow each other in pieces.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[opencity]

> I see nothing in this story that could be considered geeky

Trinity was the biggest physics experiment ever until George. Your definition of 'geeky' must be very sectarian.

So, you know...

[orionop]

watch out for people. Keep an eye on your fellow Americans and do your duty to the Government. Do not trust anyone, not even your loved ones! In fact, the terrorists will probably dress up like someone you love, just to make it worse when they kill you. They are everywhere, they even play baseball. Do your part and report non-baseball activities to your local authorities right away.

Re:Pride?

[richie2000]

Something was stolen from someone. I do believe the US still had the A-bomb after this so-called "theft".

Well, not so much

[Ancient_Hacker]

Er, um, we don't really know what this guy found out, do we?

Chances are, given the considerable security, he did not learn a whole lot.

Even the top designers of the Oak Ridge gas separation plant did not know exactly what they were doing. What are the chances this guy got the goods?

And half of what they did at Oak Ridge was electromagnetic separation, which turned out to be way too inefficient. If he gave the Soviets that info, he did us a huge favor.

The Polonium separation that went on at a scientist's mother's house in Dayton was straightforward chemistry, nothing particularly novel or secret.

No James Bond here.

Article text

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what a sucky article. After logging in (cheers bugmenot), the article is on multiple pages. Well, here's all of TFA. Please mod this post up if you can.... it might make some slashdotters RTFA ;)

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

November 12, 2007
A Spy's Path: Iowa to A-Bomb to Kremlin Honor
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

He had all-American cover: born in Iowa, college in Manhattan, Army buddies with whom he played baseball.

George Koval also had a secret. During World War II, he was a top Soviet spy, code named Delmar and trained by Stalin's ruthless bureau of military intelligence.

Atomic spies are old stuff. But historians say Dr. Koval, who died in his 90s last year in Moscow and whose name is just coming to light publicly, was probably one of the most important spies of the 20th century.

On Nov. 2, the Kremlin startled Western scholars by announcing that President Vladimir V. Putin had posthumously given the highest Russian award to a Soviet agent who penetrated the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb.

The announcement hailed Dr. Koval as "the only Soviet intelligence officer" to infiltrate the project's secret plants, saying his work "helped speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own."

Since then, historians, scientists, federal officials and old friends have raced to tell Dr. Koval's story -- the athlete, the guy everyone liked, the genius at technical studies. American intelligence agencies have known of his betrayal at least since the early 1950s, when investigators interviewed his fellow scientists and swore them to secrecy.

The spy's success hinged on an unusual family history of migration from Russia to Iowa and back. That gave him a strong commitment to Communism, a relaxed familiarity with American mores and no foreign accent.

"He was very friendly, compassionate and very smart," said Arnold Kramish, a retired physicist who studied with Dr. Koval at City College and later worked with him on the bomb project. "He never did homework."

Stewart D. Bloom, a senior physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, who also studied with Dr. Koval, called him a regular guy.

"He played baseball and played it well," usually as shortstop, Dr. Bloom recalled. "He didn't have a Russian accent. He spoke fluent English, American English. His credentials were perfect."

Once, Dr. Bloom added, "I saw him staring off in the distance and thinking about something else. Now I think I know what it was."

Over the years, scholars and federal agents have identified a half-dozen individuals who spied on the bomb project for the Soviets, especially at Los Alamos in New Mexico. All were "walk ins," spies by impulse and sympathetic leaning rather than rigorous training.

By contrast, Dr. Koval was a mole groomed in the Soviet Union by the feared G.R.U., the military intelligence agency. Moreover, he gained wide access to America's atomic plants, a feat unknown for any other Soviet spy. Nuclear experts say the secrets of bomb manufacturing can be more important than those of design.

Los Alamos devised the bomb, while its parts and fuel were made at secret plants in such places as Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Dayton, Ohio -- sites Dr. Koval not only penetrated, but also assessed as an Army sergeant with wide responsibilities and authority.

"He had access to everything," said Dr. Kramish, who worked with Dr. Koval at Oak Ridge and now lives in Reston, Va. "He had his own Jeep. Very few of us had our own Jeeps. He was clever. He was a trained G.R.U. spy." That status, he added, made Dr. Koval unique in the history of atomic espionage, a judgment historians echo.

Washington has known about Dr. Koval's spying since he fled the United States shortly after the war but kept it secret.

"It would have been highly embarrassing for the U.S. government to have had this divulged," said Robert S. Norris, au

Mixed up story, I don't recall him being a traitor

[SmallFurryCreature]

Although lots of people seem to think him a traitor, he really wasn't (although it depends heavily on how your read the history). His father at one point emigrated to the US, then moved back to russia, taking his american born son with him. So while the guy was american born, when he became an agent he was a soviet citizen.

Using people as agents who have lived in the country they are supposed to work in is nothing new. But he worked as an agent for the country of which he was a citizen. He entered the US as a spy and as such did NOT commit treason.

That is an important difference to make.

Odd by the way that a lot of americans seem to condemn hailing this guy as a hero, when their own space program was built upon a nazi war criminal. Russian spy vs nazi, oh yeah the ruskies are the baddies alright. Working people to their death vs taking a dangerous mission to protect your home country.

For those of us with a mind (american, Idol is on) this guy and others helped created the policy of mutually assured destruction. While nukes are scary, they ain't half as scary as they would have been if only one side had them. Would you have trusted the US as the only country with nuclear weapons?

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[arivanov]

Let's balance things a bit, shall we?

If he did not steal it USSR would have had no bomb for 3-4 more years until the early 50-es. USA may have probably stated WW3 by that time. Just around the time the bomb was ready. I would rather not guess the location for "testing" the prototype under those circumstances.

It is the same as with Beria. Regardless of what do I think about him and regardless of the fact that he sentenced to death many millions he has to be given the credit for "Stalin passing away in his sleep from a stroke". If that did not happen Koba would have started WW3 around 54.

So morals aside as a result of such happy or less happy circumstances we are not all glowing in the dark. Let's drink to that.

Anticommunist sentiment in the US goes back to...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

at least 1917, well before the "Cold War".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Communism

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.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[4D6963]

A spy works works for their government, their country, and works to benefit their country by being engaging in authorized missions. A traitor betrays their country, by selling their own people out for financial gain, ideological drive or whatever.

Well in this case, it all depends on which country we consider was that man's.

Don't forget it wasn't just the Americans that were "crapping their pants" during the Cold War.

Thanks I know but it's irrelevant. My point was that thanks to his work, USSR could enter the pissing contest against the USA and thus scare them, despite their might. I wasn't trying to establish an exhaustive list of countries who were scared of USSR.

No you are WRONG.

Thanks for rubbing that undoubtful fact in my face.

Re:hmmmm

[jdunn14]

I wouldn't want to be born there either, but don't you think the death penalty is a bit harsh for being an Iowa native?

you're not a historian, you're an anti-american

[circletimessquare]

which is fine, go ahead, hate america. but hate america for genuine bad american intentions, not propagandistic misreadings of intentions

the japanese, in their actions throughout southeast asia and the island hopping campaign, made it abundantly clear time and again that they were not going to give up one inch of land without fierce resistance to the death, even when that meant suicide by the thousands of personnel, down to the individual decisions of individual japanese soldiers

consider japanese actions on iwo jima, saipan, etc, by the truckload of examples. now ask yourself at the time what any level headed allied personnel would have prudently gauged the japanese attitude to be like in reaction to a land invasion of their mainland

now ask yourself, when faced with the decision to drop this bomb, compared with the number of certain deaths, of americans AND japanese, in a mainland invasion, what YOU would have decided (as opposed to what a "typical american" would have decided)

and now you want to say that some future cold war, that no one knew was coming, that geopolitical posturing, was going to be more prevalent in the minds of allied personnel in making that decision than simply considering the number of lives lost in a mainland invasion?

that's called a hindsight bias

what nationality are you? because i want to call you a "typical {}ian" for your idiotic propagandized thinking

which would of course be a grave insult to your fellow countrymen, who are most probably a lot less propagandized and jingoistic than you are. but it would be fitting to hurl that insult at you anyways, to make you aware of how stupid and unfair your propaganda is

Re:you're not a historian, you're an anti-american

[db32]

Oh hush. These type of people have no concept of cultural differences and are just as ignorant and arrogant as the people they pretend to oppose. Seriously... Oh no it's just the evil conniving Americans! Yeah... well those evil conniving Americans weren't teaching 12 yr olds how to operate artillery instead of sending them to recess at school. The Japanese culture was entirely different, shame is worse than death, and completely alien to American thinking. Americans were horrified by this, because to an American shame is not worse than death. There is a HUGE cultural significance in bringing baseball to Japan. We were giving them sports heroes to follow instead of warrior heroes to emulate.

Go ask Korea or some of the other surrounding neighbors about how vicious Japan was to fight against. The Japanese believed they were doing you a favor by killing you instead of letting you return home shamed. They didn't understand how Americans could surrender. To them surrendering made you a non person.

I swear...I am pretty pissed about a lot of things that America has done over the years, but this is one of those areas that people need to wake up, read their history, and attempt to understand the cultural differences that lead to that horrific event. "America is eeevil" card gets so overplayed, now that we actually need it to fix things no one takes it seriously. Catapult the propoganda and all... But hey, good luck explaining that to the folks you are chastising for believing the anti-American propoganda. That's kinda the point of propoganda. :)

Re:youre a dirty damn hippy

[hasbeard]

Yes, let's remember the Marshall Plan in Europe. Not too many countries have helped rebuild countries that that they have had to fight.

Re:youre a dirty damn hippy

[ByOhTek]

Actually both were very much military targets - Nagasaki was a major Naval base/HQ, and Hiroshima was Army. There just happened to be civilians within range of the bomb.

That doesn't make it right, but considering the density of Japan, there aren't a whole lot of options. Cosider what would have happened if they had gone for Tokyo and Kyoto instead?

Re:youre a dirty damn hippy

[ByOhTek]

Not at all alike actually. Very bad analogy.

Both cities had relatively small populations in comparison to other locations in Japan with major military installations. They probably could have made a good case for a military installation in Tokyo, but they didn't. They could have gone for minor installations, but that would have been ineffective.

Sometimes you can't avoid colatteral damage, but you can minimize it, and this does appear to be the case.

Re:The US did it so they won the war

[falcon5768]

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a title used herein as named for its negotiators, the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, refers to the officially-titled Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, signed in Moscow in the early hours of August 24, 1939, dated August 23.

Wikipedia is your friend... maybe you should use it.

Mod parent down, he is lying

[nunyadambinness]

(who had volunteered to be used in such a fashion, unlike the civilians who had no such luxury).

They did not volunteer, they were drafted.

If you're going to comment on something like this as though your opinion should be considered, you'd better make sure you don't make an obvious and glaring mistake like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#World_War_I_and_World_War_II

"Conscription was next used after the United States entered World War I in 1917. The first peacetime conscription came with the Selective Service Act of 1940, which established the Selective Service System as an independent agency. The duration of service was originally twelve months. It was expanded to eighteen months in 1941. When the United States entered World War II, service was required until six months after the end of the war."

Learn about the subject before you pretend to knowledge you obviously don't have.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[Alex Pennace]

Actually, nothing got the United States more focused than the Soviet bomb. I submit that the United States would not have "started World War III" under those circumstances.

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

[dfenstrate]

While nukes are scary, they ain't half as scary as they would have been if only one side had them. Would you have trusted the US as the only country with nuclear weapons?

It's worth noting that it would be far worse if the USSR was the sole nuclear power in the world. Any rational evaluation of the mass starvations and outright idealistic purges that mark communism can only conclude that it's wrong and evil.

Even today, 20 years after the fall of the wall, Ex-soviet bloc countries continue to pay the price of a soviet legacy.

"The United States is the source of all evil" passes for 'enlightenment' and 'educated' these days, but such a shallow stance doesn't hold up to any serious scrutiny.

"Wrong" exists. "Evil" exists. Both exist outside of and regardless of the United States. It's not nuanced, it's not sophisticated, but when you take a look at Pol Pot's killing fields, Mao's mass starvation or soviet gulags there is no other conclusion.

There is a tendancy in these comments to paint the Soviet Union as a cuddly, legitimate alternative to the 'nasty US capitilistic-imperialistic hegemon of doom.' Such a stance is utterly naive and either blind to history or indifferent to communism's millions of internal victims.

Re:that was incoherent

[db32]

I think all propoganda is deplorable as it rarely has any kind of objective truth to it. Herman Goering was on the money in his quote about the common people do not want war. Propoganda's only purpose is to drive the fear and nationalistic behavior of people into justifying war. It also serves an outstanding purpose in keeping people from learning about what really happened or how we got there.

Do I believe the bomb was bad? Absolutely. Do I believe dropping it on civilians was bad? Absolutely. Do I believe that the first one probably had to happen? Probably. Do I believe the 2nd one was a horrific mistake? Most likely. Do I belive nuclear disarmament is a silly and pointless venture? Absolutely a moronic, pitiful, and ultimately futile attempt at closing Pandora's Box.

Cat is out of the bag folks. Humans do bad things to eachother and frequently only cease doing bad things to eachother when the cost of getting caught or retaliation is to high. Welcome to reality...we can't all hold hands and sing kumbaya. What we can do is attempt to minimize the damages by squelching silly propoganda crap and understanding that bad shit happens, violence is unfortunately sometimes necessary, and we need to work to prevent it from happening again rather than pointing fingers and beating the drums of war. I'm sure Stalin, or Hitler, or everyones favorite 'wronry' Kim Jong Il would have stopped murdering and oppressing people if we just asked nicely, threw some flowers, and sang on their doorsteps... To unilaterly point the finger at one side for war is stupid, ignorant, and is only self serving rhetoric used to fire up the people to start the war machine up again.

Hitler was working on the bomb too

[MichaelCrawford]

But there was no way the Nazis could get enough electricity to refine Uranium with Calutrons as the US did (they are large mass spectrometers), so they were trying to build a reactor to synthesize plutonium.

One can fuel a reactor with unrefined uranium if one uses heavy water as a moderator, but they were unable to get enough heavy water because some commandos blew up the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant in Norway, then when they were trying to ship their existing inventory to Germany, the commandos sunk the ship it was on. Their heroics were portrayed in the movie The Heroes of Telemark.

After the war, the Allies found a sub-critical heavy water reactor in Germany.

Saddam Hussein really was trying to build a bomb before the first Gulf War - arms inspectors found calutrons, as well as buried power cables going from power plants to the calutrons (they require prodigous amounts of electricity to power their electromagnets).

The arms inspectors also found copies of World War II-era US patents on improvements to Calutron technology. They had been declassified, you see.

I discuss these and other fun facts in my essay Kiss Your Sorry Ass Goodbye, The Atom Bomb Is Gonna Fly.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[JavaLord]

USA may have probably stated WW3 by that time.

Very unlikely, since the citizens were pretty anti-war back then. You might have noticed how long it took us to get into WW2, and what circumstance it took?

=

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:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[Thyamine]

I'm glad someone else mentioned this. Some people seem to think that all we (nerds, geeks, whatever you call yourself) can possibly be interested in is science news. This is news for nerds, not science news for nerds, not space news for nerds, but all news. Certainly science and related fields are what we primarily expect to see, but I get tired of the !news tags accompanying all sorts of stories just because someone wasn't interested in it. I agree that some are very fluff-a-licious or are more advertising than news, but just like most news outlets have fluff pieces to break up the monotony, I don't mind a change of pace.

Re:youre a dirty damn hippy

[GeckoX]

And how is it that the rest of the world came around to these higher standards?
The US of today is not the same US of the 1940's. Nobody's trying to say 'What the US did then was good, and thus everything they do now is golden'. The world has changed.

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[808140]

Yeah! And then, how long it took us to get involved in Korea! ... oh, wait.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

"Several" meaning "four" (1945 to 1949). "It" meaning "Harry".

The four years were entirely within the administration of one president. Also, four years during which America was not yet at war again -- it would be another year after the Russians tested Joe-1 that Americans and Soviets were facing off in Korea.

So maybe a better question to ask would be:

"Would you have trusted the US as the only country with nuclear weapons during the Korean and Vietnam Wars?"

Re:Anticommunist sentiment in the US goes back to.

[shutdown -p now]

You forgot the most important one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War

Re:News for Nerds How?!!!!

[tenchiken]

Please do yourself a favor, and go read even a basic history of the start of the cold war and World War II. I recommend "The Making of the hydrogen Bomb" and "Dark Sun". Among other things you will find out:

• That Stalin had started a nuclear program well before the end of World War II.
  
• That American fear of Stalin was very well justified.
  
• That there was not just one or two, but more spies then you could shake a stick at in the Manhatten Project.
  
• That this was not just a fortunate occurrence for the USSR.
  

This kind of mindless rhetorical "The US hated the USSR, so the cold war was justified" crap is tragic in the extreme. We had a 4 year window to get rid of nuclear weapons. That window closed when the USSR blockaded Berlin, and refused International control... and the rest of mankind has suffered ever since.

Hate to burst your bubble...

[Ga_101]

But you have to remember something. The way the US treated the political class of both Britain and France after world war two, your two best buddies in the whole wide world at the time, directly resulted in them developing independent nuclear deterrents.

Even you have to admit that insulting the British foreign minister to the point where a generally anti-nuclear democratic socialist cabinet will spend a significant portion of a wreaked economy by going for the bomb takes some doing.

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

[vux984]

It refrained from doing so.

So what? One or two presidents were either smart enough or lacked the motivation to use them or both. How long do you really think that would have kept up? How long before we had a dim bulb in power with an enemy to provoke him? We'd have never lasted until now, without using them.

Remember, the US was involved in several wars after WW2, and one the the big reasons it refrained from using nukes, or even fully committing to those wars for that matter was the threat of nuclear retaliation from the USSR if they pushed too hard.

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.

Tragedy: A Tale of Two Russians

[reporter]

Contrast the response of Vladimir Putin (and the rest of the Kremlin) to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and his response to the death of George Koval.

Politkovskaya had spent most of her career in helping the victims of horrific human-rights abuses. She was their only voice in an icy land of indifference. Commenting on the murder of Politkovskaya, Putin insulted her, "The level of her influence on political life in Russia was utterly insignificant."

By contrast, Koval helped the Soviet Union to develop weapons of mass destruction. They included nuclear weapons that can incinerate millions of victims within seconds. Commenting on his death, Putin heaps lavish praise and posthumously gives him the "Hero of Russia" medal, the highest Russian award.

I am almost at a loss for words to describe my utter disgust at the Kremlin.

Re:sputnik?

[Shakrai]

you mean the rocket and missile technology they stole from the germans?

Uhh, yeah, you realize that we did the same thing, right?

Don't underestimate Russian technology or engineering. It's easy to make light of it (vacuum tubes in their fighters, Chernobyl, In Soviet Russia.... jokes, etc, etc) but in so doing you miss some of their real accomplishments.

Russian rocket/missile technology is every bit as advanced (in some cases more so) as Western technology. There is no Western version of this for example. Their ICBM technology was sufficiently advanced to scare the hell out of NATO and encourage arms-reduction treaties and talks.

And while Russian engineering practices may leave a little bit to be desired, it was those same engineering practices that produced this and defeated Nazi Germany.

People underestimate Russia at their own peril.