The First War of Physics (77 page)

Cockcroft, John Douglas.
British physicist and Nobel laureate. Director of the Anglo–Canadian atomic energy project in Montreal from 1944 until 1946, when he returned to set up Britain’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. Knighted in 1948.

Cohen, Lona Theresa.
Soviet spy, recruited by her husband, Morris Cohen. Acted as courier for Theodore Hall from 1945.

Compton, Arthur Holly.
American physicist and Nobel laureate. Directed the OSRD’s S-l programme, which became the Manhattan Project in 1942. Thereafter Compton was responsible for work at the Met Lab in Chicago.

Compton, Karl Taylor.
American physicist. Older brother of Arthur Compton. President of MIT. Karl contributed to the Interim Committee deliberations on the first use of the atomic bomb.

Conant, James Bryant.
American chemist and administrator. President of Harvard University. Became chairman of the NDRC when Vannevar Bush established the OSRD. Member of the US Atomic Energy Authority’s General Advisory Committee.

Condon, Edward Uhler.
American physicist. Served as deputy director of Los Alamos for a short time until conflicts with Leslie Groves led to his resignation.

Daghlian, Harry Krikor, Jr.
American physicist. Suffered a fatal dose of radiation in an accident at Los Alamos in 1945.

Debye, Pieter Joseph William.
Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate. Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin at the outbreak of war. Left Germany for America in 1940.

Diebner, Kurt
German physicist. Administrative director of the German atomic project. Pursued experimental work on nuclear reactors at the German Army Ordnance laboratory in Gottow. Captured by the Alsos mission and detained at Farm Hall.

Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice.
British physicist and Nobel laureate. Advised the MAUD Committee on aspects of isotope separation and bomb physics.

Döpel, Georg Robert.
German physicist. Worked in Leipzig with Werner Heisenberg on experimental nuclear reactors.

Donovan, William Joseph ‘Wild Bill’.
American wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Dunning, John Ray.
American physicist. Worked on the fission properties of U-235 and gaseous diffusion.

Eifler, Carl F.
American Army officer. Commanded the OSS Detachment 101 in Burma from 1942 until 1943. Assigned to capture or assassinate Werner Heisenberg in 1944 but the mission was scrubbed.

Einstein, Albert.
German-born physicist and Nobel laureate. His special theory of relativity identified the equivalence of mass and energy. With prompting from Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, Einstein wrote to US President Franklin Roosevelt warning of the dangers of atomic weapons.

Eisenhower, Dwight David.
US Army Chief of Staff 1945–48. President 1953–61.

Eltenton, George C.
British chemical engineer and Soviet spy. Worked at the Shell Development Company’s Emeryville laboratory in San Francisco. Approached Haakon Chevalier with a view to recruiting J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Esau, Robert Abraham.
German physicist. Head of the physics section of the Reich Research Council in the months before the outbreak of war. Convened the first meeting of the Uranverein in 1939. Plenipotentiary for nuclear physics 1942–43.

Feklisov, Alexander Semyonovich.
Soviet diplomat and NKVD spy. Managed the Rosenberg network in New York before becoming Klaus Fuchs’ controller in London. Returned to the US as station chief in Washington in 1960.

Ferebee, Thomas.
Bombardier aboard the
Enola Gay
B-29 Superfortress.

Fermi, Enrico.
Italian physicist and Nobel laureate. Supervised the first successful nuclear reactor in Chicago in December 1942.

Feynman, Richard Phillips.
American physicist. Joined Hans Bethe’s Theoretical Division at Los Alamos in 1943. Won the Nobel prize for physics in 1965.

Fitin, Pavel Mikhailovich.
Head of the NKVD’s First Chief Directorate, responsible for foreign operations and intelligence, from 1939 to 1951.

Flerov, Georgei Nikolayevich.
Soviet physicist. Verified nuclear fission and codiscovered spontaneous fission in uranium. Went on to become a prominent member of the Soviet atomic bomb project.

Franck, James.
German émigré physicist and Nobel laureate. Directed the Met Lab’s chemistry division. Chaired the committee on political and social problems and together with other Met Lab physicists drafted the Franck report in 1945.

Friedman, Max.
American physicist. Worked on electromagnetic isotope separation at the Rad Lab until 1943.

Frisch, Otto Robert.
Austrian émigré physicist. Co-discovered the origin of nuclear fission in uranium with his aunt, Lise Meitner. Independently discovered spontaneous fission. With Rudolf Peierls, co-authored the Frisch–Peierls memorandum on critical mass. Joined the British Tube Alloys delegation to the Manhattan Project in late 1943.

Fromm, Friedrich.
German chief of the reserve army.

Fuchs, Klaus Emil Julius.
German émigré physicist and Soviet spy. Provided the Soviet Union with information on the design of the Fat Man plutonium bomb and the ‘classical’ Super thermonuclear bomb. Unmasked by the Venona project decryptions in 1949. Arrested and tried in 1950. Sentenced to fourteen years in prison.

Furman, Robert Ralph.
American civil engineer and chief of foreign intelligence for the Manhattan Project. Co-ordinated the AZUSA project aimed at gathering intelligence on German physicists and, ultimately, kidnapping or assassinating Werner Heisenberg.

Gamow, George.
Russian-born physicist. Proposed the ‘liquid-drop’ model of the nucleus. Contributed to work on the design of the Super thermonuclear bomb. Known for his popular ‘Mr. Thompkins’ science series, work on the cosmic microwave background radiation and the big bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Gardner, Meredith Knox.
American linguist and code-breaker. Joined the US Army’s Signals Intelligence Service in 1942. His decryption of Soviet messages
led to the identification of several Soviet spies that had worked on the Manhattan Project.

Garrison, Lloyd.
American lawyer. Chief defence council in J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing.

Gerlach, Walther.
German physicist. Became the plenipotentiary for nuclear physics in late 1943 following the resignation of Abraham Esau. Captured by the
Alsos mission and detained at Farm Hall.

Ginzburg, Vitaly Lazarevich.
Soviet physicist. Worked on the early design of the Soviet Super in Igor Tamm’s group. Won the Nobel prize in 2003.

Gold, Harry.
Swiss-born American chemist and Soviet spy. Acted as courier for Klaus Fuchs.

Golos, Jacob.
Soviet NKVD operative. Senior official in the American Communist Party. Managed Elizabeth Bendey and other intelligence networks.

Goring, Hermann Wilhelm.
German politician and military leader. Commander of the Luftwaffe. Placed in charge of the Reich Research Council in 1942.

Gorsky, Anatoly Veniaminovitch.
Attaché at the Soviet Embassy in London, and NKVD station chief. Controlled the Cambridge spy ‘ring’ and was involved with early Soviet penetration of the British atomic project. Became the NKVD station chief in Washington in 1944.

Goudsmit, Samuel Abraham.
Dutch physicist. Emigrated to America in 1927. Scientific head of the second Alsos mission.

Gouzenko, Igor Sergeyevich.
Cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. Defected in 1945. Gouzenko’s defection led to the arrest of Alan Nunn May.

Greenglass, David.
Machinist assigned to Los Alamos as part of the Special Engineering Detachment. Was also a Soviet spy recruited by Julius Rosenberg.

Gromyko, Andrei Andreyevich.
Soviet politician and diplomat. Soviet representative on the UN Security Council, 1946 . Became Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1957.

Groves, Leslie Richard.
US Army engineer. Became the military head of the Manhattan Project in 1942.

Gyth, Volmer.
Captain in the Danish General Staff intelligence section. Helped Niels Bohr escape from occupied Copenhagen.

Hahn, Otto.
German chemist. Discovered (with Fritz Strassmann) evidence for nuclear fission in uranium. Joined the Uranverein in 1939. Captured by the Alsos mission and detained at Farm Hall, where he learned he had won the 1944 Nobel prize for chemistry.

Halban, Hans von.
French physicist, of Austrian descent. Verified nuclear fission in Paris in 1939. Escaped from France with a quantity of heavy water in 1940 and joined the British Tube Alloys project. Helped to establish the nuclear research laboratory in Montreal in 1942.

Hall, Theodore Alvin.
American physicist. Became a Soviet spy in 1944, just eight months after joining the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Hall continued spying for the Soviet Union until 1953, and was only revealed when the Venona decrypts were published by the NSA in 1995.

Hallock, Richard.
Made the first breakthrough on the Venona project when he discovered that Soviet messages had been enciphered using one-time pads that had been used more than once.

Halperin, Israel.
Canadian mathematician. Arrested in 1946 and accused of espionage as part of the Royal Commission investigation following the defection of Igor Gouzenko. Cleared of charges following his trial in 1947.

Hanle, Wilhelm.
German physicist. Contributed to the work of the Uranverein, primarily through the measurements of the properties of potential reactor moderators.

Harteck, Paul Karl Maria.
German chemist. Alerted the German War Office to the possibilities of nuclear weapons and joined the Uranverein in 1939. Captured by the Alsos mission and detained at Farm Hall.

Haugland, Knut.
Norwegian commando. Member of the advance Grouse/Swallow party parachuted onto the Hardanger Plateau in 1942. Supported the successful Gunnerside raid on the Vemork heavy water plant. In 1947 Haugland joined Thor Heyerdahl on the
Kon-Tiki
expedition.

Haukelid, Knut.
Norwegian commando. Member of the successful Gunnerside team. Subsequently sabotaged the
Hydro.

Heineman, Kristel (née Fuchs).
Klaus Fuchs’ sister. Living in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the war.

Heisenberg, Werner.
German physicist and Nobel laureate. Joined the Uranverein in 1939. Worked on experimental nuclear reactors in Leipzig, Berlin and Haigerloch. Captured by the Alsos mission and detained at Farm Hall.

Helberg, Claus.
Norwegian commando. Member of the advance Grouse/Swallow party parachuted onto the Hardanger Plateau in 1942. Supported the successful Gunnerside raid on the Vemork heavy water plant.

Hida, Shuntaro.
Japanese Army medical officer at Hiroshima Military Hospital.

Himmler, Heinrich Luitpold.
German politician and head of the SS.

Hirohito.
Emperor of Japan 1926–89.

Mollis, Roger Henry.
MI5 chief of counter-intelligence. Became Director General in 1956.

Houtermans, Friedrich Georg ‘Fritz’.
German physicist. Worked on nuclear problems in Manfred von Ardenne’s private laboratory. Alerted physicists in America to German progress.

Howard, Charles Henry George.
Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire. Worked for the DSIR as liaison to the French Ministry of Armaments. Helped French physicists Hans von Halban and Lew Kowarski to escape to Britain.

Idland, Kasper.
Norwegian commando. Member of the successful Gunnerside team.

Ioffe, Abram Fedorovich.
Soviet physicist. Founder of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology.

Ivanov, Pyotr.
Soviet diplomat and NKVD spy. Third secretary at the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco.

Jensen, Johannes Hans Daniel.
German physicist. Worked on isotope separation as part of the Uranverein.

Jensen, Peter Herbert.
German physicist. Worked on the German atomic project with Walther Bothe.

Johnson, Lyall.
American counter-intelligence officer. Former FBI agent working for Army G-2 on the Berkeley campus.

Joliot-Curie, Frédéric.
French physicist and Nobel laureate. Verified nuclear fission in uranium in 1939. Active in the French resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

Kapitza, Peter Leonidovich.
Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate. Got involved with the Soviet atomic project in 1945 but disagreed with Lavrenty Beria about how the project was being run. Resigned from the project later that year.

Kayser, Fredrik.
Norwegian commando. Member of the successful Gunnerside team.

Kennan, George Frost.
American diplomat. Author of the ‘long telegram’ and a 1947 article on Soviet politics under the pseudonym ‘X’.

Kharilon, Yuli Borisovich.
Soviet physicist. Scientific head of the Soviet weapons laboratory Arzamas-16. Worked on weapons design.

Kheifets, Gregori.
Soviet diplomat and NKVD spy. Vice Consul at the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco.

Kikoin, Issak Konstantinovich.
Soviet physicist. Worked on isotope separation.

Kistiakowsky, George Bogdan.
Ukranian-born chemist and explosives expert. Worked at Los Alamos on implosion. Headed X Division.

Kjelstrup, Arne.
Norwegian commando. Member of the advance Grouse/Swallow party parachuted onto the Hardanger Plateau in 1942. Supported the successful Gunnerside raid on the Vemork heavy water plant.

Konopinski, Emil John.
American physicist of Polish descent. Contributed to Oppenheimer’s summer study group at Berkeley and worked with Teller on the early theory of the Super thermonuclear bomb.

Korsching, Horst.
German physicist. Worked on isotope separation as part of the Uranverein. Captured by the Alsos mission and detained at Farm Hall.