Fresh off a book about Benedict Arnold, my brand new title
is full of, well, more traitors.
Bomb: the Race to Make—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon features a cast of thousands!
Okay, dozens. Anyway, there are a quite a few who betray their country in one
way or another.
The German-born physicist, Klaus Fuchs, was attracted to
communism in the early 1930s, largely because communists were the only ones standing
up to Hitler. But when Nazi thugs beat Fuchs and tossed him in a river, he
realized it was time to leave his homeland. He fled to Britain, finished his
studies, became a citizen, and was recruited into Britain’s atomic bomb program
soon after World War II began. Almost immediately he started sharing atomic
secrets with Soviet spies, and continued doing so after he was transferred to
Los Alamos. He never thought of this as treason. To him, the Soviets were
allies of Britain and America, and were doing the bulk of the bloody fighting
against Germany. By his own admission, Fuchs never stopped to consider how he
was betraying his friends or his adopted country—until after he was caught.
Not a mug shot - Fuchs' Los Alamos ID badge |
Mild-mannered Harry Gold, the unlikeliest of spies, was
working at a Philadelphia chemical plant during the depths of the Depression.
Gold had what one friend called “an almost puppy-like eagerness to please,” and
when a pal asked him sneak out some documents with industrial secrets, Gold
agreed. He knew they’d be given to the Soviets, but didn’t see any harm, and
even liked the idea that these formulas might somehow help Soviet workers build
better lives. By the time he decided to quit pilfering the papers, it was too
late. A KGB agent met Gold on a dark street corner and warned him he’d be
ruined—exposed to his boss and family—unless he continued cooperating. Within a
few years, he became the courier who carried atomic bomb plans from Fuchs to
the KGB.
Thinking: "Yes, I'm smarter than you." |
Math and physics prodigy Ted Hall graduated Harvard at 18, and
was immediately assigned to the Manhattan Project. Thrown right into the
experiments and tests, he soon knew almost as much as anyone at Los Alamos
about atomic bomb construction. Though never recruited, he decided to share
these secrets with the Russians. Looking ahead to a post-war future, Hall
figured the world would be a safer place if two countries, rather than just
one, had atomic bombs. That way, he reasoned, both sides would be afraid to use
them. Years later he admitted to another motivating factor: “I was a very
arrogant teenager.”
They didn't give these to just anyone |
Some spies, like Massachusetts-born Lona Cohen, were simply committed
communists. She was a KGB courier during the war, continued spying for the Soviets
into the 1950s, and never expressed any regrets, even after being tossed in a
British jail. Others, most notably Robert Oppenheimer, were suspected of
treason on flimsy evidence. The FBI knew of Oppenheimer’s flirtation with
communism in the 1930s, and objected to his appointment as Los Alamos director.
Suspicious army intelligence agents tapped his phones and read his mail—even
Oppenheimer’s personal driver was a government agent. Though no evidence of
disloyalty ever surfaced, many in Washington continued to distrust the
physicist, especially after he began speaking out against the escalating arms
race. Was it really unpatriotic to oppose development of the hydrogen bomb? Maybe not, but the government publicly stripped him of his security clearance in 1954,
declaring him unfit to have access to American secrets.
I guess the real question is: why are traitors so compelling?
It’s partly that, as a writer, you get a character who’s doing something
dangerous, secret, and controversial, and that certainly helps create engaging
scenes. And also, these kinds of characters challenge us to see things from
multiple points of view, and maybe even force us to rethink our assumptions of
right and wrong.
In a 1938 essay, E.M. Forster famously declared, “If I had
to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should
have the guts to betray my country.” At first glance it’s a shocking suggestion,
but it sure makes you think. And that’s the whole idea.
2 comments:
Dear Readers:
Run, don't walk, to your nearest independent bookstore to buy a copy of BOMB! It's a heartstopping pageturner. Steve's cast of characters is thrilling and his narrative voice masterful!
Well done, Steve!
Thanks, Gretchen! As Barbara says in today's post, you can't make this kind of stuff up.
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