Athol, Justin. How Stalin Knows: The Story of the Great Atomic Spy Conspiracy. Norwich, UK: Jarrold, 1951. [Petersen] 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. 2005. [pb]
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.
Brown, Andrew. "The Viennaese Connection: Engelbert Broda, Alan Nunn May and Atomic Espionage." Intelligence and National Security 24, no. 2 (Apr. 2009): 173-193.
The author explores the linkages between Austrian expatriate scientists May and Broda (who may have recruited May for espionage) in relation to their work for Soviet intelligence.
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.
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, (Mar.-Apr. 1995), 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 also, 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. New York: Berkley, 1986. [pb] 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," and "strongly recommends" it.
To Powers, NYRB (13 May 1993) and Intelligence Wars (2004), 295-320, 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." Commenting in an article published in 2003, Robarge, Studies 47.3/fn.4, says that this "remains the best book on the FBI and counterintelligence."
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.
McMillan, Priscilla J. The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race. New York: Viking, 2005.
Powers, NYRB 52.14 (22 Sep. 2005), says that this "short, lucid, and intense book" places the "final episode in Oppenheimer's life on a dissecting table in order to separate and identify, as if it were the nervous system of a rat, the filaments of ambition, rancor, and collusion of the three brooding men who cut Oppenheimer down." The author "writes for the most part with quiet lucidity, letting each act or utterance speak for itself, but from time to time there shoots up from her prose something like a tongue of flame."
According to Freedman, FA 84.5 (Sep./Oct. 2005), the author focuses "on the policy issues at the heart of the [Oppenheimer] drama and illuminates well the surrounding cast of characters, with lots of fascinating detail about the interaction between scientific politics and Washington politics."
Schecter, I&NS 21.4, notes that McMillan "hedg[es] and shy[s] away from" the question of whether Oppenheimer was ever a member of the Communist Party. The author "appears" to have "chosen to ignore" Soviet documents that identify Oppenheimer as "an unlisted member of the CPSU." This "is a powerful book," but at times McMillan's "anger [at the way Oppenheimer was treated] is so hot it distorts the record."
Meyerhoff, Hans. "Through the Liberal Looking Glass -- Darkly." Partisan Review 22 (1955): 238-245.
For a flavor of the passions of the times, this article should be read in conjunction with Diana Trilling's defense of J. Robert Oppenheimer in "The Oppenheimer Case: A Reading of the Testimony," Partisan Review 21 (1954): 604-635. See also Diana Trilling, "A Rejoinder to H. Meyerhoff," Partisan Review 22 (1955): 248-251.
Moorehead, Alan. The Traitors: The Double Life of Fuchs, Pontecorvo and Nunn May. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952.
According to West, I&NS 19.2/277, Moorehead was fed "sanitised versions of MI5's files on Allan Nunn May, Klaus Fuchs and Bruno Pontecorvo..., thus ensuring The Traitors provided a less than accurate version of the atomic spies."
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