He promptly leaked the information to Moscow agents. In his position as secretary to the chairman of Britain's scientific advisory committee, Cairncross gained access to a high-level report in the fall of 1941 that confirmed the feasibility of a uranium bomb. Here are some of the ones we know about:Ĭonsidered the first atomic spy, John Cairncross was eventually identified as one of the Cambridge Five, a group of upper-middle class young men who had met at Cambridge University in the 1930s, became passionate communists and eventually Soviet spies during World War II and into the 1950s. Investigations resulted in the execution or imprisonment of a dozen or more people who had passed atomic secrets to the Soviets, but no one knows how many spies got away. As Venona decryption improved in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it blew the cover of several spies. Because government authorities did not want to reveal that they had cracked the Russian code, Venona evidence could not be used in court, but it could trigger investigations and surveillance hoping to nail suspects in the act of spying or extract a confession from them. Venona, as the decoding project was named, remained an official secret until it was declassified in 1995. The big breakthrough began in 1946 when the United States, working with Britain, deciphered the code Moscow used to send its telegraph cables. Others were motivated by the notion of nuclear parity one way to prevent a nuclear war, they reasoned, was to make sure that no nation had a monopoly on that awesome power.įor many years, the depth of Soviet spying was unknown. What drove these college-educated Americans and Britons to sell their nations' atomic secrets? Some were ideologically motivated, enamored of communist beliefs, explains Haynes. The Soviets did not lack for available recruits for spying, says John Earl Haynes, espionage historian and author of Early Cold War Spies. Barely four years after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, the Soviet Union detonated its own in August 1949, much sooner that expected. As the top-secret plan to build the bomb, called the Manhattan Project, took shape in the United States, the Soviet spy ring got wind of it before the FBI knew of the secret program's existence. Within days of Britain's highly classified decision in 1941 to begin research on building an atomic bomb, an informant in the British civil service notified the Soviets. ![]() Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine.Despite being an ally during World War II, the Soviet Union launched an all-out espionage effort to uncover the military and defense secrets of the United States and Britain in the 1940s. It also claimed that, if necessary, measures to prevent Russian agents from entering Switzerland’s territory will be taken.Ī year later, Swiss intelligence stated that the threat to Switzerland from Russian spies only increased. Last year, Swiss intelligence also indicated that Russian espionage was "flourishing" in the country after waves of expulsions of Russian diplomats from European countries. "These foreign agents threaten Switzerland's internal and external security," Fabian Molina, a member of the Swiss National Assembly (the lower house of parliament), said in an interview with NZZ. Such Swiss cities as Geneva and Bern have always attracted the attention of intelligence because of the location of international organisations and companies there, the problem of Russian espionage has become a hot topic of debate among Swiss politicians. Quote: "When Switzerland expels diplomats, it does so for internal security reasons, and these cases are not reported publicly," the source added. The estimates of the intelligence service, shared with members of parliament in September, indicate that there are currently about 80 Russian agents in the country.Ī representative of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs in an interview with NZZ emphasised that the country's government "does not impose any sanctions in the form of expelling diplomats", adding that communication channels with Russia should be preserved. However, Switzerland did not resort to such a step due to the long tradition of neutrality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |