- -- A18 WEDNESDAY, DEMBER 25,1996 a Unlocking the ts: Spies Revealed In Venona Code Mostly Eluded ges '.1;11951, FBI Confronted Hall and Sax, but Couldn't Show Its Proof

theit80 or so people who were iclenti- aviet agent corned "Mlact" (Kus- By Michael Dobbs fien as Soviet agents, fewer than 10 . ahjIfor 'youngster"). According to So- t Washington Post StaffWriter. were ever successfully prosecuted. . wet intelligence documents, "Mlad" ±- The Fl3rs failure to bring charges agent Robert McQueen was • tip-lied off the Kremlin about the test- Coim that the young man he had , *gains! Hail and others raises ques- , i of the first American atomic bomb. *heed to accompany him to FBI head- tions about the value of top secret in thily 1945 and handed over a rough %afters in Chicago was a Soviet spy. fennation. In the, len tun, some ex!. theprint of the device to his Soviet Burgle aho knew that proving the WO believe, Vellnin MaY:Prove,t0 be contacts. More useful. to historians seelon -tharge of in front of a jury - g to =tmerican and Russian documents write the defuitive story of a canto- could be enormously difficult Skate that the Soviets had five or six ,The case against Theodore Alvin ierwal period in American history than illtirmants at Los Alamos, the most IRA-seemed clear enough. Intercepted irvias to the US. government at the important of whom was the British nu- tiCreinlin cables showed that he had clear physicist , who con- handed over top secret information to Venona shiiiis is that prose: Itoiiesed to espionage in 1950 and was entF8 spies n§ the Soviets while working on the verY, very-tough," said to 15 years in prison by a !atomic bomb project, at Los Alamos, Ivey ICIehr, author of "The Seaet 88tish court The documents suggest Worfil of American Communism" and a t, t; provided the Soviets with 41.M., during the, last, few months of professor of political science at Emory ...WOW. War IL The information provid- urufloantly more information ahout thlletrsity. "Unless you catch them in the bomb than convicted ed by Hall and other spies had heltied grer t, or have someone hire [the for- American at- ; ..,the, Russians build their own bomb, . 4 spies such as ; or j Mei Communist agent] 'Whittaker which turned out to be a carbon copy — DI* and Ethel Rosenberg, who were Chambers who produced, typewritten maned for treason in 1953. Another ricilie American Original. iiad handwtitten material that could be 14., March 1951, when he ccefront- rtant informant,' Imown by the iced. to [Alger] Hiss, it is very diffi- "Pas," has never been iden- '8d"Hall with the espionage allegations, Olt to wage convictions." )AcQueen had amassed a great deal of "FBI records made public in recent aecently released FBI docuMents information about the Harvard physics maxnths show that McQueen and other iodigy who had been recruited to join .' 4114 interviews with investigators and FBI 'agents attempted to get Hall and members have helped to re= ' PrOject at the age of lfiX alleged collaborator to confirm in- 18. An, experienced investigator who e several lingering mysteries ' ling details contained in the Mut the government's handling of hirr, worked on some of Amerimi's t , intercepts, but were unable to loughest espionage cases, he had . a Hall case, including the failure to Rtract confessions. Now 71, Hall igesecute. The 'new information also ,;! spent months sifting through Hall's '. not on to have a distinguished career tom keeping an eye on his left-wing *Ods light on the reasons many ' *a microbiologist and was permitted ljnIericans of Hall's generation felt at- 4riends, and observing his 'Irregular" ; $stlivave the United States in 1962. In- -we* habits at the University of Chico- tracted to Communist ideology, to the terviewed at his home in Cainbridge, eiVent that some of them were pre- 80- rugland, last February, Hall refused to -..,Ant McQueen faced a problem that pad to spy on behaff, of the Soviet miss the espionage allegations on Union. l)ecome very familiar to investiga- maids that it would be "detrimental' lots,seeking to exploit what officials , health. now descrthe as one of the biggest w.,01 was convinced that Hall was One of the key pieces of evidence 1:eriffierinteffigence breakthroughs of guilty, but I could never develop against Hall is contained, in a coded the , The very existence of eirough evidence to prosecute lira,' message sent by the head of the Soviet _the:Pude-breaking program known as ailid McQueen, who has since retired. espionage network in New York to his "{Tenons" was one of the nation's most I* described the Hall matter as one of superiors in Moscow in November,. closely guarded secrets. Without cm- two unresolved cases that continue to 1944. The message, which was decod- -Aerating evidence, MCQueen would Saber him after 25 years as an FBI ed by American cryptographers in *forced to let a Soviet agent go free. merit and 12 years as a judge. 1948 or 1949, referred to Hal by I Out of the several hundred Soviet The charges against Hall first sor- name as .a "talented physicist" recruit- ,hgents mentioned in the Venona inter- ed earlier this year when the Na- ed from. Harvard to work on the atom- cepts, pubficly released early this year, tional Security Agency, the U.S. gov- ic bomb project at Los Alamos. It de- 'fewer than half have been identified by iiiMient entity responsible for code scribes him as having "an exceptionally U,Si counterintelligence. And out• of bitaldng, publicly identified him as the keen mind" and being "politically de- velcoPee '

"We consider it edient to maintain liaison with H [Theodore . According to the message, Hall de- Alvin Hall] through cided to cooperate with Soviet intelli- gence on the advice of his former Har- S [] and vard roommate, Saville Sax. We consider it to maintain. liai- not bring in son with Mall through Siaxl and not bring -in anybody else," the message anybody else." continued.; Subsequent messages referto message from head of Soviet spy to Hall by the code name Miad and network in New York decoded by the Sax by the code name Star (Russian U.S. military's Venona project for "old man")'. Sag died in 1980 at age 56. While there is nothing iii Hall's fanr FILE PNOTOME GUARW1 See MLAD, A19, CoL 1 THEODORE ALVIN HALL

sponsible for persecuting Jews in, IHLAD, From Al8 . czarist Russia." fly background to suggest an obvioui • Boria Sax said' his grandparents vita Soviet connection, his friend Saville tually "barricaded themselves" into Sax could almost serve as a case study their New York apartment building, in KGB recruiting techniques. He and spent much of their time dreaming :::Came from a family of poor Jewish im- about an idealized Russia that they had ::migrants, who left Russia in 1914 dur: left behind.' They welcomed- the Bol- `Ing one of the periodic antisemitic pa- shevik Revolution of 1917, viewing ::trams carried out under the czars. His the Communiats as the enemies of the 'parents settled in New York, living in hated czarist oppressor. This romanti- an apartment bloC with dozens of other cized view of Russia blinded the family . .4ewish families and never really assim- to the new waves of antisemitic perse- . Hating into American society. , cution under Josef Stalin. "It was- a very closed community," The Venona transcripts 'indicate recalled Boria Sax, Saville Sax's oldest that Saville Sax was introduced to So- son, a teacher in upstate New York. viet agents by his mother, Bluma Sax, They had a rather paranoid view of who worked for a Conunimist front or- Ainerica. They identified American so- ganization. "She was basically. a peas- - „ciety with the people who were re- ant woman who . . looked up to Stalin

. VU PHOTO SAVILLE SAX

very highly, and thought that his re- He could be a very impressive intellec- • employees said Hall made no attempt ' gime would put an end to antisemi- teal conversationalist, but he was un- to hide his left-wing sympathies or his tism," recalled Saville Sax's former disciplined and prone to violent fits of contempt for the U.S. Anny. wife, Susan Peters. • temper." Hall and Sax remained friends after The FBI opened a major investiga- Saville Sax's intuitive intelligence the war, when both moved to Chicago. tion into the Sax family in 1949, after helped get him accepted to Harvard at Hall got a job in the biophysics depart the names of Bluma and Saville Sax the age of 17, where he struck up a ment of the University of Chicago. Sax showed up in intercepted Soviet intelli- friendship with Hall. Their former drifted from job to job. When the FBI gence documents. Peters said she at- Lowell House roommate, Roy Glati-, - hauled them, in for questioning on tributed the FBI's interest in her hus- bet', who went on to work at Los Ala- March 16, 1951, Sax was a taxi driver. band to the McCarthyite paranoia that mos and become a professar of theo- Having worked on other espionage • turned American society upside down retical physics at Harvard, recalled cases, McQueen knew that Iris best in the early '50s M a hunt for. Soviet that Sax exercised a "mysterious influ- chance of getting Hai to confess was Wies- ence" over Hall. Socially awlcward and to obtain corroborating information Boria Sax described his father as a withdrawn from other students, Hall from other members of the spy ring. , "person full:of COntradictions." "He had and Sax became natural soul meet. This was the technique used to build a a very strong, vivid imagination," he A former Los Alamos colleague, Ar'. case against the Rosenbergs, who reCalled. "He had all kinds of ideas nold Kramish, remembered Hall as be- were also mentioned in the Venone in- about everything. A lot of them were ing into "screwball ideas," such as mys- tercepts. The key figure here was crackpot, some of them were inspired. ticism and communism. Other ,, who served as the inter-

mediary between Soviet agents in He was able to get Hall to idelit New York and the .atomic bomb Pro- that, while working in Los Alamo% he -I ject in Los Alamos. had met Sax in the nearby city of Albu- "In order to get convictions [against querque, McQueen recalled. Hall and Sax], we needed someone like This was a potentially damagintac; Harry Gold," McQueen recalled. "Un- knowledgment, suggesting that. Sax, fortunately, we were unable to corrob- may have served as the initial coulier,: orate the information contained...in to Hall, but it was not needy enouglito mount• a prosecution. Aecording. to recently released FBI In retrospect. McQueen said he •fii07. records, the showdown with Halt and lieves that it would have been verx,dif Sax , took" place On the afternoon, of ficult to secure convictions ' 'March 16, 1951, in Chicago. The* Hall and Sax even if behad beenler, men were picked up separately bytWo mitted to !nuke use of the y4 teams of FBI agents and invited to ono intercepts. . cuss "a matter pertaining to theNsecu- • "Asi former prosetutor, I cau see • rity of the United States." For the next real problems in getting this kindlif 'three hours; the agents sought to-trap evidence admitted, into court," •,them in inconsistencies or unguarded McQueen Said. "The court would want admissions that could be used to.build to know who intercepted:the messag •a case' pent them. . - es, how they:Were decoded. It *lad They made little headwaY. ••7-•' • be very difficult to prtwe.": Both men denied any involvement Hall has zefused to discuss details of • in espionage and would admit only the case.: But Salt family members said ; vague recollections about their activi- that the' FBI'S interest in them slack- ties in 1944-45. • - ened noticeably after -1951, and' ox Sax conceded he had visited the-So-, was never called back for questioning; viet Consulate in New York, but Mist- "When I was growing uP, there-VMS ed that he had only been always a kind of siipercaution the about the fate of his relatives biek in family," said Boria Sax. "We we'Cit- Russia. Ways careful about the publicatioOkWe He denied ever meeting the Saida subscribed to, about the mailing',„. `diplomat,. Anatoly Yatskov, who _was. we got on. about not getting our name named in the Venona documents as in the papers. I was perplexed by,this. controller. I thoueht it excessive and strange:" As the agent in charge of the case, McQueen had the task of interrogating