Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (33 page)

"At the end of the conversation, Call-s thanked him once more for helping
us and said that although we knew about his refusal in the past to accept
mater. assistance from us, the situation had now changed: He was going to
support his father completely, his sick brother needed his help, the costs of liv ing had risen sharply; therefore we thought we might offer him our help as an
expression of our gratitude. Afterwards, Call-s handed Ch-s two packets of a
hundred pounds each. Ch. took them. After a brief silence, he said: `We were
given May's case to read, and it said that Sov. intelligence officers always try to
give money to foreigners who pass them info., so as to morally bind them to
continue working for them. But I am not afraid of that. On the contrary, I will
take the money you're offering in order to prove my loyalty to you.' He then
asked how much money Call-s had given him, and when Call-s named the
amount, he returned loo pounds, saying that it would be obvious if such a
large sum came into his possession."157

It was the first of six meetings the two held. The KGB asked Fuchs
to try to ascertain during his American trip information "`on the current
state of Amer. work in the field of atomic reactors and new types of atomic
bombs."' At a brief meeting with Feklisov in London on 13 March 1948,
he passed this information along, including data on "`a hydrogen superbomb."' Fuchs continued to provide the Russians with details about
atomic weapons and the now independent British atomic bomb program
through 1948 and 1949. In his autobiography Feklisov claimed he handed
over "ninety extremely sensitive documents." Fuchs missed several meetings in May 1948, leading two KGB officers to write a report for Beria and
Molotov warning that he might have come under investigation and asking for permission to devise a plan to bring him out of Britain to work in
a Soviet institution. That was not the only concern. A KGB officer wrote
Feklisov in April 1948 that he had just found out that Fuchs's original recruiter had been questioned by British counterintelligence. It is likely
this is a reference to Ursula Kuczynski, "Sonya," who had been approached by the Security Service in September 1947 and learned that
MI5 knew of her work in Switzerland for Soviet intelligence, although it
remained in the dark about her activities in Britain.158

Fuchs did show up for a meeting in July and explained that work on
a new reactor had prevented him from getting away. At later meetings
he reported that the British were receiving intelligence about Soviet construction of an atomic installation near Sukhumi and that British intelligence may have been in contact with a Soviet scientist. Feklisov then
pressed Fuchs, the Soviet spy within the British atomic program, to help
identify the British spy within the Soviet program. Fuchs promised he
would do what he could to identify whoever was assisting British intelligence inside the USSR but that his pursuing information on this subject
might call attention to himself. By early 1949 security concerns grew even more intense. The arrests of Judith Coplon and Valentin Gubichev in
New York on 4 March led Moscow to tell the London station that "`the
Echelon"' (higher Soviet authorities) regarded its practice of conducting
meetings with agents outdoors (Coplon and Gubichev had used that procedure) as a"`foolish working method that does not guarantee the safety
of our people and athletes [agents]."' Instead, the Center suggested giving Fuchs funds to buy a car and conduct meetings in it, arrange meetings at a girlfriend's apartment, or arrange for a KGB illegal officer to be
his contact (Feklisov was a legal officer working under Soviet diplomatic
cover in London). Reporting on his last meeting with Fuchs on 1 April
1949, Feklisov informed Moscow that Fuchs did not have a steady girlfriend and that Fuchs had observed that due to his "situation" (that is,
his intelligence activities) "`this is why I try not to fall too deeply in love."'
Feklisov got the impression that the women with whom he spent time
were prostitutes, whose apartments would not be secure. Fuchs delivered a verbal report and made arrangements to provide written materials at the next scheduled meeting, on 25 June, with a backup date of 2
July. But he did not show up on either date, and there were no more contacts before the KGB's worst fears were confirmed when British authorities announced Fuchs's arrest on 3 February X950.159

Moscow had premonitions that Fuchs, still its most valuable atomic
intelligence source, was in danger. Concerned that Harry Gold's knowledge of Fuchs's espionage in the United States represented a vulnerability, in 1949 the KGB decided to seek him out and persuade him to leave
the United States to protect Fuchs. Its concern was that Gold's ill-advised connection to Abraham Brothman, exposed as a technical spy by
Elizabeth Bentley in late 1945, might lead to Gold's exposure and, if he
broke, then it would lead to Fuchs. Ivan Kamenev, a KGB officer operating out of New York, met with Gold in September 1949 and learned
that the KGB's fears about Gold's connection with Brothman were well
based. Gold had not immediately left Brothman`s company, as he had
promised Yatskov in December 1946. Instead, he remained there until
1948. Even worse, Gold also told Kamenev that the FBI had questioned
Brothman about his relationship with Jacob Golos and Elizabeth Bentley
in May 1947. Brothman had told agents that Gold had been the person
who introduced him to Jacob Golos but that their discussions had been
entirely about innocent commercial matters. Although Gold had twice
been questioned-once before a grand jury-before he testified, he had
coordinated his story with Brothman and had insisted that his relationship with Brothman and Golos was purely business. Gold had even allowed
the FBI to look at materials he had in his apartment and was convinced
that he had assuaged any suspicions it had.1e0

Not fully persuaded, Kamenev urged him to plan on leaving the country, but Gold was reluctant. At another meeting, on 24 October 1949, he
agreed to consider fleeing but did not commit to anything because he
had never been followed or subjected to a follow-up investigation. The
KGB upped its incentive, offering to provide for his father if Gold agreed
to leave the United States (his mother had recently died). The New York
station told Moscow:

"As ["Arno's"/Gold's] interrogation and his mother's death left a deep imprint
and affected his morale, otherwise it would be difficult to explain the `memory
lapses' regarding past events and the fact that he had been forced to put out of
his mind the thought of everything that had happened to him. Time has undoubtedly wiped out the feelings of fear, b/c the interrogation was not followed by immediate punishment, and he was given a chance to work without
hindrance or persecution; his moral state, though, has changed nevertheless.
We have no doubt that A. has remained a loyal athlete [agent] to us and a
steadfast man to the extent that he can, but considering everything that has
happened to him recently, it is difficult to foresee how he would behave at an
interrogation if the union were to launch a further inquiry into this affair."

A third meeting was scheduled for 5 February 1950. But after Fuchs's
arrest was announced on 3 February, the KGB's first assumption was that
Gold had betrayed him. Moscow Center ordered the KGB New York station to find out if Gold was free or under arrest. The New York station
sent an operative unknown to Gold to the planned 5 February meeting,
not to make contact but to observe if Gold came and if he were under surveillance. Gold appeared and waited. The Soviet observer saw no obvious
sign he was being watched but departed without making contact.ISI

A report to Stalin a few days later recounted Fuchs's valuable service
to the Soviets, explaining that he had been the source of information on
the planning and assembly of the atomic bomb while he had worked at
Los Alamos and data on the hydrogen bomb, reactors, isolation of plutonium, theoretical calculations on explosions, and data on American testing of bombs after he returned to Britain. The report also summarized
Kamenev's efforts to persuade Gold to leave America and the reasons the
KGB believed he had betrayed Fuchs. An internal report on 5 February
concluded that Fuchs could not have been betrayed by other people who
had been peripherally involved but emphasized the need to investigate further since there was worry that Fuchs could betray others and lead to
further collapses of agent networks. Left unsaid but clearly in the minds
of KGB officers was that if Gold had been the source of Fuchs's failure
-or if Gold were betrayed by Fuchs-the agents with whom he had
worked were at risk, most obviously David Greenglass and, through him,
Julius Rosenberg and his large network of engineer spies .162

On 6 February, senior KGB officer Andrey Raina wrote another assessment, concluding that the most likely scenario was that Gold had betrayed Fuchs. And in a letter to the New York station dated 23 February
1950, Moscow announced that it had "`very serious suspicions"' that he
was the guilty party. But it also decided to investigate Ursula Kuczynski
and her brother Jurgen, as well as Fuchs's father and sister. Ursula
Kuczynski, however, fled Britain after Fuchs's arrest and arrived in East
Germany in early March, which removed her from the suspect list. On 28
February Raina ordered the KGB Berlin station to launch an investigation of Jurgen Kuczynski, Hans Siebert, and Hanna Klopstock. Raina focused on Siebert because of his ties to Noel Field, a former Soviet agent
whom the KGB had convinced itself was an American superspy who had
subverted the loyalties of Communists throughout the Eastern Bloc.rss

The KGB desperately tried to figure out what to do. TASS, the Soviet
news agency, published a statement in early March calling the charge that
Fuchs had passed information to the Soviet Union "a blatant lie" and declared that Fuchs was "unknown" to the Soviets. There was debate about
how to handle Fuchs's trial, how to deal with his father, and whether to
hire a better lawyer for him. By early April, the KGB concluded that
Fuchs had given the British "`all the information he knew about our work
and about people of ours who were connected with him through work"'
and learned that both prosecution and defense lawyers had spoken of
Fuchs's doubts about the Soviet Union's postwar policies. Moscow grew
concerned that his confession would be used "`to sow doubt in our active
agents' minds and to shake their devotion to our cause.... In this resulting extremely unfavorable period for conducting our work, there is
the danger that under the influence of the strengthening anti-Sov. campaign, some of our agents who are not constantly working to raise their
polit. level, and because of insufficient educational work with them in the
past, could change their polit. views. There is also the danger that under
the influence of a policy of intimidating and persecuting progressive elements, some of our less resolute agents could refuse to continue working with us."' The FBI, meanwhile, had been frantically attempting to
track down Fuchs's American courier, questioning the Heinemans, and poring over Fuchs's confession. To its great irritation, however, not until
after Fuchs was sentenced did British officials permit the FBI to interview him. Meanwhile, Gold had already come under FBI suspicion due
to his ties to Brothman. FBI agents began questioning him on 15 May,
and after Fuchs identified Gold's picture as the courier he had known as
"Raymond," the pressure increased. Gold confessed on zz May 1950.'64

One week later, Valerian Zorin, deputy minister of foreign affairs and
in 1950 also chairman of the Committee of Information (the KGB of that
era), wrote a memo to Stalin explaining what Soviet intelligence thought
had happened:

"As a result of checking and investigating the circumstances surrounding the
failure of our agent Ch-s ["Charles"] (form-r chief of the Theoretical Physics
Division at the Eng. atomic center in Harwell, Klaus Fuchs), the following has
been established: The Amer. decryption service worked for a long time on one
of the telegrams from New York's MGB station (subsequently the KI), dating
from 1944-45, during Ch-s's stay in the USA. Unable to decode this telegram
in its entirety, the Americans sent it in 1949 to Eng. counterintelligence, which
was able to decode it completely and ascertain that Ch. was a Sov. intelligence
agent who had passed us important information about work at Amer. and Eng.
atomic centers, where he worked.

This cipher telegram was processed using a one-time pad that had been
used for a different cipher telegram, which is what allowed counterintelligence
to decode its text. The investigation that was conducted revealed that during
the war, there had indeed been a vast cipher telegraph correspondence between our station in NY and the center about Ch-s's intelligence work; there
had been transmitted a summary of mater-als received from him on the atomic
bomb, and one of the telegrams even mentioned his last name and detailed information about him. Our experts allow for the possibility that the English
have decoded telegrams of ours that were processed with a used one-time pad.

From documents we obtained by agent means from French counterintelligence, it is known that when the English arrested Ch., he confessed to having
collaborated with Sov. intelligence, described the main points of his work with
us in the USA and England, and gave testimony about his intelligence contacts; in particular, he gave the address of our agent in Paris, `Mars' [unidentified], and of our agent in London, `Ref' [unidentified], which he had been
given in 1947 in case he needed to contact us.

On the basis of Ch-s's testimony 01 124 May of this year, in Philadelphia,
USA, Harry Gold-our longtime agent `Arno'-was arrested; he had received
mater-als from Ch. on the atomic bomb in 1944-45, and we stopped using
him to receive mater-al in December 1945. At the beginning of 1g5o, in the interest of preventing employees of the Committee of info. from being compromised, we recalled Feklisov, an employee of the London station who had
handled agent Ch., and Kamenev, an employee of the New York station who
had handled agent Arno. At pres., there are no Sov. workers in England or the
USA whom these agents might know. Measures have also been taken to get
out from the USA four agents who had previously been connected with Arno
and who are threatened with failure if the latter confesses."