Athol, Justin. How Stalin Knows: The Story of the Great Atomic Spy Conspiracy. Norwich, UK: Jarrold, 1951. [Petersen]Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness -- A Soviet Spymaster (New York: Little, Brown, 1994), created a flurry of charge and countercharge surrounding the naming of Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and Niels Bohr as "voluntary sources" for Soviet intelligence. The large body of review literature on Sudoplatov's book is presented under its own heading (Sudoplatov). Should greater access be gained to the files of the KGB and its predecessor organizations the story of the Atomic Bomb spies of the 1940s could either be rewritten or essentially confirmed.
H. B. Laes, "Theory of Fielding," 14 Jan. 2001, at http://www.tof.blogspot.com/ has a monograph-length article in which he argues that J. Robert Oppenheimer's "career, actions and words are very consistent" with Vladimir Chikov's "story of an American atomic physicist recruited by Soviet agent Morris Cohen before Cohen went in the US Army in July, 1942."
Athol, Justin. How Stalin Knows: The Story of the Great Atomic Spy Conspiracy. Norwich, UK: Jarrold, 1951. [Petersen]
Bernstein, Jeremy. Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. [pb] 2005.
From publisher: A former colleague of Oppenheimer's, Bernstein "has composed a book that is both personal and historical, bringing the reader close to the life and workings of an extraordinary and controversial man."
Powers, NYRB 52.14 (22 Sep. 2005), calls this work "an excellent introduction" to Oppenheimer's story. The author is a "lively writer as well as a physicist."
Bird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Freedman, FA 84.3 (May-Jun. 2005), calls this work a "stunning blockbuster" based on "a daunting amount of research." The authors "do full justice to the complexity of Oppenheimer's story."
To Powers, NYRB 52.14 (22 Sep. 2005), this work "is clear in its purpose, deeply felt, persuasively argued, disciplined in form, and written with a sustained literary power."
Broad, William J. "New Books Revive Old Talk of Spies." New York Times, 11 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
This article focuses on comments from authors of works dealing with the Soviet atomic spying effort, including Jerrold L. Schecter, Robert Louis Benson, Gregg Herken, Pavel Sudoplatov, Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, and Jeremy J. Stone.
Cassidy, David C. J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century. New York: Pi Press, 2004.
Powers, NYRB 52.14 (22 Sep. 2005), calls this work "the best account of Oppenheimer's life in science.... The book's chief strength is the way it tracks Oppenheimer through the later years of the quantum revolution.... But Cassidy's grasp of Oppenheimer's character seems once removed, probably because few who knew him remain to be interviewed."
Cochran,
Thomas B., and Robert S. Norris. Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.
Surveillant 4.2: "Based on KGB archival information," this book reveals the "extent of Soviet espionage in its search for the secrets of the A-bomb."
Conant, Jennet. 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Peake, Studies 49.4 (2005), finds that the author tells the story of the building of the atomic bomb "in non-technical terms, but her focus is on life in the 'secret city' as it was then.... Conant provides a new look at how army intelligence and the FBI attempted to prevent breaches" of security.
Feklisov, Alexandre. Confession d'un Agent Soviétique. Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 1999. Feklisov, Alexander, and Sergei Kostin. Intro, Ronald Radosh. Tr., Catherine Dop. The Man Behind the Rosenbergs: Memoirs of the KGB Spymaster Who Also Controlled Klaus Fuchs and Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Enigma, 2001.
Commenting on the French-language edition, Kiracofe, AFIO WIN 24-99 (18 Jun. 1999) and Intelligencer 10.2, notes that Feklisov served as the case officer for both Julius Rosenberg (1943-1946) and Klaus Fuchs (1947-1949). The author "reveals significant details concerning his long career in Soviet intelligence, including a definitive presentation of the Rosenberg case.... There are also accounts of the successful exfiltration to the Soviet Union of Rosenberg colleagues Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant." Feklisov "includes much interesting commentary" about the Fuchs case. According to the reviewer, the author's "comments on his behind-the-scenes contacts, via John Scali, with the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis are particularly interesting."
Haynes, I&NS 17.3, finds that, with regard to the Rosenbergs, Feklisov "corroborates, fills in gaps, or fleshes out the story told in Radosh and Milton's The Rosenberg File." Feklisov is, however, "detailed and candid only in regard to Julius Rosenberg and the impressively large network of Communist engineers that Rosenberg brought into espionage. He describes other sources and agents, but in vague terms."
For Unsinger, IJI&C16.3, Radosh's introduction is "an interesting critique of Feklisov's revelations." However, Radosh "gives the impression that the entire book was about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but it is about far more than them alone."
Goodman, Michael S. "Grandfather of the Hydrogen Bomb? Klaus Fuchs and Anglo-American Intelligence." Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 34, no. 1 (2003): 1-22.
Goodman, Michael S. "Who Is Trying to Keep What Secret from Whom and Why? MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case." Journal of Cold War Studies 7 (Summer 2005): 124-146.
Herken, Gregg. Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller. New York: Holt, 2002.
Hershberg, I&NS 19.2, says that this work "merits required reading for anyone seriously interested in nuclear history -- or nuclear espionage." The author's exploration of how Moscow's spy networks functioned during the Manhattan Project "is especially enlightening.... Herken firmly rebuts the charge" that Oppenheimer "spied for Moscow, or that his [earlier] communist activities disqualified him for wartime service for the US government."
Holloway,
David. Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic History, 1939-1956. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
Legvold, FA 74.2, says this "account is ... utterly engrossing. To be able at last to glimpse the people at work behind the shroud ... makes this a hard book to put down. As for spies..., only one seems to have been important: the British atomic scientist, Klaus Fuchs. His contribution to the Soviet atomic bomb, however, was large and direct. The hydrogen bomb the Soviets developed on their own."
Surveillant 4.2 calls Holloway's work a "spellbinding ... history of Soviet nuclear policy."
See David Holloway, "Soviet Nuclear History: Sources for Stalin and the Bomb," CWIHPB 4 (Fall 1994), pp. 1-9.
Hyde,
H. Montgomery. The Atom Bomb Spies. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980. New York: Ballantine, 1981.
This story is told better and with more reliable sourcing elsewhere.
Lamphere,
Robert J., and Tom Shachtman. The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent's Story.
New York: Random House, 1986. [pb] New York: Berkley, 1986. New Ed., with
Post-Cold War Afterword. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995. [pb]
Petersen calls The FBI-KGB War "a particularly revealing first-hand account of counterintelligence operations in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s."
Miller, IJI&C 1.3, agrees, finding it a "masterful presentation of the reality of counterespionage activities." The reviewer "strongly recommends" it.
To Powers, NYRB 40.9, the book is the "best account of th[e] still fragmentary story [of the Venona material].... Lamphere's book adds much important information to the stories of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,... Klaus Fuchs,... and of the Soviet spy ring which included Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, and Kim Philby."
Cram says Lamphere tells the "story about breaking the KGB ciphers during World War II and the resulting consequences of that achievement in the struggle against Soviet espionage and subversion." This "otherwise excellent history" is marred by the "egregious error" of accepting Pincher's tagging of Hollis as a Soviet agent. The author discusses Hoover's "vengeful actions" against the early CIA and liaison with it. "Although this book has a few errors and the story has perhaps been gilded a bit by Lamphere, it nevertheless remains one of the best histories of US counterintelligence."
According to Surveillant 4.4/5, the 1995 edition includes a 27-page Afterword where Lamphere "reviews the KGB-FBI wars using the latest releases from KGB and U.S. archives."
For a report on some of the difficulties Lamphere experienced in publishing his book, see George Lardner, Jr., "Ex-Agent's Spy Book Tests Secrecy," Washington Post, 27 Oct. 1977, A1.
Lee, Sabine. "The Spy That Never Was." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 77-99.
"Though it will not be possible to prove that the late Rudolf Peierls and his wife were not involved in espionage for the Soviet Union so long as the relevant Soviet files remain closed to research, the evidence which is accessible to date leaves little doubt about the couple's allegiances" to Britain and the West.
Forward to A-Bomb Spies M - Z
Return to A-Bomb Spies Table of Contents