CWIHP Bulletin nr 5 part 3 The polish crysis 1980 81

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nent American scientists whom she fre- tific community. Anfeld met the TASS progress in the British program, recently
quently met in Princeton from 1943-1945. correspondent in Sweden, M. Kosoy, a So- confirmed by Vladimir Barkovsky, that
There are photographs of Margareta with viet intelligence officer, who promptly in- pushed us to initiate our efforts in 1942.
Oppenheimer and Einstein in the Konenkov s formed Moscow. On the basis of this news Both the Soviet and the American gov-
family museum in Moscow. When they the NKVD initiated the famous letter from ernments did not fully believe in the possi-
returned from the USA to Russia in Decem- Kapitsa to Bohr, inviting him to come and bility of nuclear weapons before the first
ber 1945 the Konenkovs were granted spe- work in the Soviet Union. explosive test in July 1945. My colleagues
cial privileges by a government enactment In Sweden our intelligence officer, Zoya reminded me recently that apart from scien-
158 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN
tific information provided by senior scien- Special Tasks I have described can be denied Bohr s providing of information, Sudoplatov
tific personnel of the Manhattan Project we simply because they have never before been was already on record in July 1982. Again,
also channeled to our government reports revealed. That something has not been told one comment, by Smirnov, faults Sudoplatov
about security rules in Los Alamos and code before does not mean it is not true. for shoddy research in getting wrong a
names used in internal U.S. government highly peripheral detail (on the dates and
correspondence on the matter of atomic signed/ Pavel A.Sudoplatov reasons for Bohr s trip to Russia). But
research. My colleagues recalled that in research is not the point of such memoirs.
1946, under direct orders from Beria and * * * * * Look at, for example, Khrushchev Remem-
Vannikov, I transferred from Lefortovo and bers, where the original material (Strobe
Lubyanka all technical intelligence infor- 6 February 1995 Talbott tells us in his Editor-Translator s
mation on the atomic problem to the admin- note) was quite disorganized when it came
istration of the Special Government Com- To the Editor: into his hands; and which is full of
mittee on Atomic Energy. The sources of misremembered (and uncorrected) detail
that information were very closely held un- Your treatment of the Bohr document muddling up different plenums, confusing
der Beria s direct personal control and when [in CWIHP Bulletin #4], highly interesting Lominadze s suicide with that of
he was arrested in 1953 his files were moved in many respects, nevertheless is peculiar in Ordzhonikidze three years later, etc., etc.,
to the Kremlin under Malenkov s orders. others. Most of your contributors are con- while remaining, in Talbott s words devas-
Beria s intelligence records, which contain cerned to defend Niels Bohr s moral integ- tating and authoritative. (As to such dis-
the names of sources of secret atomic bomb rity. But this is not at issue, though his crepancies, we may note them in highly
information, have not been released and political attitudes may be. Whatever infor- reputable or accepted sources: for example,
their location remains uncertain. Beria s mation he did or did not give was certainly in the very venue of the wartime Bohr-
atomic intelligence materials are not in the accord with his principles. The question is Heisenberg meeting is disputed. And inci-
Enormous File of the Federal Intelligence merely a factual one. Some of your con- dentally it seems odd that the Bohr-Terletsky
Service. Perhaps the most secret parts of the tributors say he did not have any secrets, so meeting is not referred to all at in Abraham
Enormous file are in Beria s personal file in could not give any to the Soviets; others that Pais massive biography of Bohr.)
the Ministry of Security archives from that he had some, but would not have given them. With all its errors it seems clear that on
period. The Bohr documents were not found And did he only say what was already in the the substance of the Bohr incident the fact
in the Enormous File, which contains the Smythe Report? Yuri Smirnov puts it that of and the organization of the physicist s
atomic espionage materials, but in the Rus- practically everything he told was in the meetings and discourse with a Soviet repre-
sian State Archives files of the Interior Min- Report. Kurchatov s comment says that two sentative Sudoplatov s previously much-
istry. points were of use. A British and an Ameri- challenged account has been confirmed by
My story is based on what I remember. can physicist are lately on record to the the document. There is more to be said.
I had no direct access to archives which in effect that his replies were clearly helpful. A And, given a reasonably critical attitude,
small details may be more or less correct layman, while thus noting that professional more remains to be discovered in support or
than my memory. However, the thrust and opinion is by no means as one-sided as refutation of our present imperfect under-
important facts of my story are irrefutable implied in your pages, is not in a position to standing of this and similar matters.
and it was my duty to reveal the hidden judge. (Even a layman can indeed note Your update (p. 93) is also unsatisfac-
motives of tragic events in Soviet history. I remarks for example on the vast number tory, citing some but omitting other letters
am glad that my explanation of the death of of spectrographs which are not in the Re- on the subject in leading U.S. journals, and
Raoul Wallenberg in Special Tasks will be port, though perhaps not of great use.) In any failing to mention major reviews in Le [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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