“To what extent did Soviet spying by the Rosenbergs, David Greenglass, and

Klaus Fuchs in the Manhattan Project contribute to the Russian military

developing their nuclear bomb before 1949?”

Candidate Number: jbv567

Word Count: 2113

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Table of Contents

Section A: Research Question and Identification and Evaluation of Sources ………………… 2

Section B: Investigation and Bibliography ……………………………………………………. 4

Section C: Reflection ………………………………………………………………………….. 9

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SECTION A: 499 words

“KGB Investigative Assets: Insights.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service,

https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/kgb/inv/kgb_inv_ins.htm. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.

This article originates from pbs.org and is a Liberal view on the Rosenbergs and their spy

work during the Cold War. The article was written by a collection of editors who work for the

organization, and has had the information presented through a retrospective lens. The article’s

purpose is to provide a summary of “the complete Soviet penetration of The Manhattan Project,”

and to prove the innocence of the Rosenbergs. The article contains descriptions of the nature of

Soviet espionage in the Manhattan Project as it related to Project ENORMOZ, as well as an

argument as to the Rosenberg’s limited involvement in it. The value of such a work is that it

allows for an alternate perspective on the Rosenberg’s involvement in Soviet espionage. It also

compiles the knowledge of numerous historians in order to create a more historically accurate,

and insightful summary as to the impact of Soviet spying and the Rosenbergs in the Manhattan

Project. This holds relevance to the investigation because it simultaneously highlights the

consensus of historians as to the importance of espionage to Project ENORMOZ, as well as the

way modern views can skew perspective on history. The limitations of this source, however, are

that it does not strongly consider the actions of the Rosenbergs prior to their retirement from spy

work. This is due to the very narrow liberal and revisionist lens through which the authors wrote

their description of Soviet infiltration into the Manhattan Project.

West, Nigel. Mortal Crimes. Enigma Books, 2013, pp. xv and 141.

This documentary realistic-style book is a nonfiction narrative of Soviet infiltration of the

Manhattan Project originating from Nigel West, an author known for his nonfiction texts about
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pre and post World War II espionage. The purpose of the book is to give a completely accurate

description of the events that transpired during Soviet spying on the Manhattan Project. The

book contains summarizations of important events such as the involvement of the Rosenberg

family in gaining intelligence from the Manhattan Project and incorporates primary source

extracts, such as a description of the communications between the Rosenbergs and David

Greenglass. This source’s value is its objectivity on the description of events that made up

“Soviet efforts to acquire the Allies’ atomic secrets,” as well as its detail in describing said

events. It also benefits from West’s base knowledge of the events that transpired during this time

period, meaning that he can better compile objective information as to the true historical events.

This increases its relevance to the investigation since it allows for a completely factual recount of

Soviet espionage, so that it is possible to respond to the inquiry in favor of whatever has the most

factual evidence. The limitations of this work is that it does not provide a single perspective on

the events, and thus leaves a lot of information that may not mean anything. West’s purpose of

writing also may invalidate other first hand accounts since it does not provide for human emotion

in historical events.
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SECTION B: 1300 words

From the beginning of World War 2, America researched nuclear technology in order to

create a bomb unlike anyone had ever seen. This nuclear bomb research and testing was top

secret, and was called the Manhattan Project. This project wasn’t as secret as previously thought,

however, since Russia had been sending spies into the program for years before they were

caught. These spies were the biggest driving factor in Russian development of a nuclear bomb

during the Cold War.

Russian spying in the Manhattan Project was a very delicate, but important factor in

gaining information about American nuclear technology. There were many spies inside the

Manhattan Project, and many ways that they smuggled information to Russia. For example, the

CIA documented some espionage in the Manhattan Project, and discovered participants like

David Greenglass, a head scientist at Los Alamos, who gave secrets to his brother-in-law, Julius

Rosenberg, head of a Soviet spy ring (cia.gov). These spies were instrumental in gathering

information from the Manhattan Project, and sending it to Russia. Without them gathering

information for the Soviets, they wouldn’t have created their nuclear weapons as quickly as they

did.

Additionally, Rosenberg and Greenglass had access to highly classified information in the

Manhattan Project, with Greenglass even knowing about the plans of J. Robert Oppenheimer, top

scientist in the Manhattan Project, himself. Spies CALIBER, WASP AND LIBERAL all

communicated about CALIBER’s findings, with him even reporting “OPPENHEIM from

California and KISTIAKOWSKY… are working at the Camp” and asking if he should look

more closely into them (West 141). Spies in the Project all used code names and codewords for

different areas of their espionage, so to clarify: CALIBER is David Greenglass, WASP is his
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wife, LIBERAL is Julius Rosenberg, and the Camp is the Los Alamos testing site (pbs.org). This

displays the remarkable ability of spies to get into almost any facet of the Manhattan Project that

they wanted for information. Being this close to the head nuclear scientist in the Project also

shows that Soviet spies were able to give indispensable information to Russia during their time

performing espionage.

The kind of information that Soviet spies were able to steal from the Manhattan Project

consisted of notes and drawings that would have allowed for the Soviets to make large leaps

forward in their research in very little time. For instance, David Greenglass disclosed to Russia

how Oppenheimer was doing research on “the thermodynamic process,” and this was how the

bomb would be so devastating (West 141). Since this was research that was successfully given to

the Soviets, it is undeniable that this information benefited Russian researchers. Another piece of

information that Greenglass and Rosenberg successfully leaked to the Soviets was a sketch of a

cross section of a bomb. Greenglass provided Rosenberg with a full report, with sketches of

experiments detailing the exact materials used in them, and a description of the American bomb

itself. (fbi.gov). If the Soviets gained any information that would have greatly advanced their

research, it would have been this. They no longer needed to do much testing of ingredients for a

bomb, since Greenglass had just provided them with a blueprint of American bombs.

Another scientist who gave the Soviets information was Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs was a higher

ranking scientist in the Project than Greenglass, but he was also arrested and imprisoned for the

information that he gave over to the Soviets. After moving to the Los Alamos testing sight,

Fuchs provided the Soviets with information about “the theory and design” of an American

bomb (britannica.com). This information alone was credited with saving the Soviets at least a

year of work to create their first atomic bomb. The kind of information that Klaus Fuchs sent to
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the Soviets was extremely important to their effort, and when combined with other information

from people like David Greenglass and the Rosenbergs, there is a substantial amount of work

that the Soviets were able to steal from the Manhattan Project, and not do themselves.

With all of this information provided to them by their spies in the Manhattan Project, the

Soviets were able to create a nuclear bomb extremely quickly. Without this information, it is

estimated that it could have possibly taken the Soviets many more years to create their own

nuclear bombs. In addition to Fuchs’ work saving Russia about a year of research, the judge who

sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg stated that information they gave to Russia put them years

ahead of schedule when compared to estimates at the time (pbs.org). This head start for Soviet

scientists was significant because it allowed the arms race of the Cold War to escalate

exponentially quicker than it would have if information from the Manhattan Project had been

kept secret.

However, some historians still claim that Russia was able to pull a lot of their own weight

in their quest to harness nuclear technology. For example, some claimed that Igor Kurchatov,

head of the Soviet development for a nuclear bomb, was the Russian equivalent of J. Robert

Oppenheimer. They said that he was able to come up with many of his own ideas, ignoring how

similar they were to smuggled Manhattan Project intel. As a matter of fact, Igor Kurchatov

gained most of his ideas from ones “stolen from the West,” and wasn’t actually the

Oppenheimer-level scientist that Russia claimed him to be (cvod.infobase.com). While

Kurchatov was extremely intelligent, and earned a doctorate degree for his studies into nuclear

technology, much of his work on Soviet nuclear technology was just parroted from information

gained from his connections in the Manhattan Project. Without intel from spies, Russia would

still have only created their own bomb a few years later than they did; this is despite Stalin’s
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orders for “triple time” work for “five years” to gain enough enriched uranium for their bombs,

and numerous scientists abandoning their espionage duties (pbs.org).

Another common counterargument against the impact of Soviet spying was that estimates

used to compare their nuclear progress with were inaccurate. These historians claim that Soviet

research was underestimated by the West, and that “they did not know” how much of an impact

Russian scientists had on discovering “the mystery of the atom’s construction” (Schwartz 106).

While it may be true that Russian scientists did make some progress on their own in nuclear

research, it is undeniable that a lot of work done by the Soviets wasn’t at least supplemented by

smuggled nuclear secrets. Kurchatov even admitted that when they received information

describing a method of isotope separation for the bomb’s materials, he stated that that

information “came as a surprise to our physicists and chemists” (Schwartz 106). Despite this

breakthrough not coming from Russia, they were still interested in implementing the information

into their own atomic bomb. This additional knowledge went against even the most researched

estimates about the completion date of a Soviet atomic bomb.

Russia’s quest for a nuclear bomb was very strongly advanced by information gained by

spies in the Manhattan Project. If it weren’t for that intel, it is very unlikely that Russia would

have had an effective nuclear technology as soon as they did. There were so many sources of

information regarding the American bombs, that it is impossible for all research to have been

done without at least some outside knowledge. While there was a lot of work being done inside

Russia, such as acquisition of resources for the bombs, most information about how to build the

bomb itself was taken directly from the Manhattan Project, or other American nuclear research.

The search for the Red Bomb was very actively accelerated by information gained from Russian

spying in the Manhattan Project.

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Works Cited

“Atom Spy Case/Rosenbergs — FBI.” Federal Bureau of Investigation, 18 May 2016,

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/atom-spy-caserosenbergs.

“Cvod.Infobase.Com.” Log In - Classroom Video On Demand,

https://cvod.infobase.com/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=50026&loid=182856&tScript=0#.

Ernst Peierls, Rudolf, et al. “Klaus Fuchs.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia

Britannica, 25 Dec. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Klaus-Fuchs.

“KGB Investigative Assets: Insights.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service,

https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/kgb/inv/kgb_inv_ins.htm. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.

“KGB Investigative Assets: Vocabulary.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service,

https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/kgb/inv/kgb_inv_voc.htm.

“PERSONS CONVICTED IN THE U.S. OF ESPIONAGE AGAINST THE U.S.

ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM.” Cia.Gov, CIA, 12 July 1951,

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000014637.pdf.

Schwartz, MichaelI. “The Russian-A(Merican) Bomb: The Role of Espionage in the

Soviet Atomic Bomb Project.” Hcs.Harvard.Edu, 1996,

https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jus/0302/schwartz.pdf.

“Secret Rosenberg Grand Jury Testimony.” The National Security Archive, The National

Security Archive, 2008, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20080911/index.htm.

The Cold War. “Rosenberg Spy Affair - How the USSR Got Nuclear Weapons - COLD

WAR.” Youtube, YouTube, 25 Jan. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDCRzxpcIcE.

West, Nigel. Mortal Crimes. Enigma Books, 2013, pp. xv and 141
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SECTION C: 393 words

The role of historians is to help determine the truth in the things said about past events, as

well as to help determine the importance of these events, meaning that they have to study and

evaluate numerous sources in order to come to a conclusion as to the truth of the past. In order to

find this truth, historians have to deal with different perspectives surrounding their

investigations, and are sometimes bombarded with information that isn’t relevant, or possibly

misleading about their field of research. Other times, a historian may be totally lacking in

information as to what actually occurred in a historical event. This can be contrasted with

science, where there is no perspective, since it is an objective field of study. For example, a

biologist can tell the exact skeletal structure of a dinosaur because they can see the skeleton in

archeological sites, whereas a historian could only assume the life the dinosaur lived, based on

the scarce amount of evidence left around the skeleton. Now, while it is possible to describe

historical events in an unbiased way, which is called documentary realism, historians often face

the challenge of finding this unbiased information among the large amount of information that

might be opinionated. I attempted to utilize this kind of writing in my investigation since it made

it easier to answer my research question when opinion was lacking in my evidence and analysis.

Archive-based history, such as what I had to do for my investigation, also presents the unique

challenge of finding information about an event that hasn’t been slanted by opinion. Another

challenge of archive-based history is that objective facts are often buried under lots of inaccurate

information, or has had its content lost to time. To help circumvent this problem, I searched for

primary sources, then cross-referenced my secondary sources with those to determine their

credibility. I also tried to look for sources that were more reputable, such as official government

documents instead of blog posts. By using this method, my investigation proved to me how
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difficult it is to find primary sources, and once those sources have been acquired, to sort through

all of the presented facts to find information relevant to my investigation. It was also difficult to

judge secondary sources sometimes since they were less direct in stating their facts.