MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case

MI5-FBIGoodman Relations and theKlaus Fuchs Case

Who Is Trying to Keep What Secret from Whom and Why? MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case

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The best and most successful spies are the quiet, apparently boring and dull people who go on doing the same thing in an unostentatious way year after year. Former MI5 Director-General Dame Stella Rimington

I attended the trial of Klaus Fuchs at the Old Bailey, and, watching that unas- suming, unimpressive ªgure in court, I was shocked and appalled. This single foolish individual had, by a curious trick of fate, found himself in a position to alter the whole balance of world power. Former MI5 Director-General Sir Percy Sillitoe1

In May 2003 the British Security Service, MI5, released a series of previously top-secret ªles on Klaus Fuchs, the German-born physicist who worked for the Manhattan Project and secretly provided highly sensitive information to the Soviet Union.2 The release of these ªles was remarkable not only because they were some of the ªrst postwar materials to be declassiªed by the counterintelligence service but also because of what they revealed about the Fuchs case and the broader picture of relations between MI5 and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the early Cold War. The documents indicate that high-level bilateral discussions began as soon as the British authorities learned of the suspicions about Fuchs. They

1. Dame Stella Rimington, Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5 (London: Arrow, 2002), p. 126; and Sir Percy Sillitoe, Cloak without Dagger (London: Cassell, 1955), p. 165. 2. For details of the release, see the UK National Archives website (http://www.pro.gov.uk). See also Jamie Wilson, “How MI5 Cracked Nuclear Traitor,” The Guardian (London), 22 May 2003, pp. 1, 3; and “MI5 Unable to Prove Guilt of Soviet Agent,” The Independent (London), 22 May 2003, p. 1. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 7, No. 3, Summer 2005, pp. 124–146 © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

124 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case also reveal that Fuchs, far from “slipping through the net,” was deliberately given special security dispensations because British ofªcials believed that his immense talents as a physicist outweighed the security risk. Even after the true extent of Fuchs’s espionage was disclosed, some in MI5 and the British nuclear weapons program were still convinced that Fuchs’s abilities could be of beneªt. The new material also sheds fresh light on the role of

J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, and his relationship not only with Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 the intelligence agencies in his own country but also with the British Security Service.

Background

Klaus Fuchs left Germany for Britain in 1933, having escaped Nazi persecu- tion. He completed his doctorate at Bristol University in 1936 and then moved to Edinburgh to undertake postdoctoral work. In 1938 he was granted an unlimited residence permit, though only two years later he was interned and deported to Canada as an enemy alien. However, given the urgent need for competent scientists during the war, Fuchs was brought back to England. Under the tutelage of Sir Rudolf Peierls he became engaged in secret projects for the British government, working ªrst on intelligence estimates of the Ger- man nuclear bomb program and then on “Tube Alloys,” the codename given to Britain’s own bomb efforts. His security clearance was rushed through the approval process, and he became a naturalized British subject. In 1943 Fuchs was part of a team of British scientists who were sent to the United States to take part in the Anglo-American nuclear weapons program. A year later he was sent to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Proj- ect. He remained there until 1946, when he returned to Britain to take up the position of head of theoretical physics at the Atomic Energy Research Estab- lishment at Harwell, the main British nuclear weapons laboratory. In late 1949 British ofªcials learned that he had been spying for the Soviet Union, and in December 1949 he confessed to engaging in espionage. In early 1950 he was sentenced to the maximum term of fourteen years imprisonment, but in 1959 he was released early and allowed to depart for East Germany, where he remained until his death in 1988.

Venona and Arrest

The release in the mid-1990s of the Venona documents—the codename given in 1961 to the Anglo-American decryption of Soviet wartime intelligence and

125 Goodman

diplomatic communications—provided the ªrst ofªcial evidence of how Fuchs was caught. Although the existence of Venona had been discussed in memoirs as far back as the 1970s, not until the release of the documents was it possible to see how extensively the Manhattan Project had been penetrated by Soviet spies.3 The new MI5 documents also reveal something of the internal debate at that time about how to proceed with the handling of the Fuchs case.

In particular, they reveal that Fuchs was deliberately misled into a false sense Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 of security to ensure he was as cooperative as possible. Clues concerning one of the Manhattan Project spies discussed in the Venona trafªc suggested that the perpetrator had to be Fuchs. According to MI5 Director-General Sir Percy Sillitoe, the ªrst suspicions of Fuchs arose in August 1949, and they were conªrmed the following month.4 In a meeting on 7 September 1949, J. C. Robertson (the head of MI5’s B2a division, which was responsible for counterespionage) and Arthur Martin (the MI5 liaison ofªcer with Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ) informed Michael Perrin (the deputy controller of atomic energy within the Ministry of Supply) of MI5’s suspicions. The three men decided to allow Henry Arnold, the security ofªcer at Harwell, to investigate Fuchs’s background in order to determine conclusively whether Fuchs was actually culpable.5 To complement Arnold’s investigation, MI5 began monitoring Fuchs’s phone calls and following his every move, as well as those of his close associates at Harwell. These included Professor Herbert Skinner, Harwell’s head of general physics, and Professor Sir Rudolf Peierls, one of Fuchs’s closest friends and colleagues.6 Because the latest evidence against Fuchs—the Venona messages—was so sensitive, the ofªcials agreed that they would not disclose any of it to Arnold. Instead, they told Arnold that the investigation was taking place because MI5 was “anxious to re-investigate the case of Fuchs whose past, as he knows, is not entirely above suspicion.”7 This was something of an understatement— suspicions about Fuchs had long existed but had been deliberately down- played because of the advantages Fuchs offered to the British nuclear weapons

3. Perhaps the earliest account that discusses the arrest of Fuchs and the breaking of Soviet codes is David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper and Row, 1980). See also Chapman Pincher, Their Trade Is Treachery (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1981), pp. 46–50; and Chapman Pincher, Too Secret Too Long (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1984). 4. “Klaus Fuchs,” memorandum, February 1950, from Sillitoe to Prime Minister, in United Kingdom National Archives, Kew Garden (hereinafter UKNA), PREM 8/1279. 5. J. C. Robertson, “Fuchs Investigation: Collaboration with Harwell Security Ofªcer,” 7 September 1949, in UKNA, KV 2/1246. 6. For more details, see “Fuchs Investigation,” in UKNA, KV 2/1246. 7. “Fuchs Investigation.” See also Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War, 1935–90 (London: Heinemann, 1996), p. 95.

126 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case program. An earlier investigation in 1948 had made this explicit: “It has been decided that the advantages gained by Harwell through the undoubted ability of Dr Fuchs outweigh the slight security risk.”8 As with other foreign nationals, Fuchs had undergone security screenings a number of times on each occasion had been given a clean bill of health. Evi- dence from Venona that the spy codenamed “Charles/Rest” was Fuchs ªrst

became known to the British in late 1949, and this information, according to Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, was sufªcient to convince the British of his guilt.9 By contrast, Nigel West has argued that this connection to Fuchs is far more obvious with hindsight, even though the evidence indicated that “Charles/Rest” was certainly a nuclear physicist.10 It is interesting to consider who within the British establishment was privy to the Venona material. GCHQ had initially become involved with Venona in 1947 through a complete integration with the U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, the agency responsible for the decryption operation. This bilateral arrangement predated even the FBI’s involvement with Venona material.11 When the evidence of Fuchs’s espionage was conveyed to the Brit- ish, only a handful of people within the British intelligence community knew of the information’s origins.12 West mentions that these included the depart- ing representative in Washington of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Peter Dwyer; the director-general of MI5, Sillitoe; MI5’s assistant director, Guy Liddell; and the head of the specialist B2(a) branch of MI5’s counterespionage division, J. C. Robertson.13 Also included were the MI5 representative in the British embassy in Washington, Geoffrey Paterson; his predecessor, Dick Thistlethwaite; and the embassy’s security ofªcer, Sir Rob- ert Mackenzie.14 Both Dwyer and Paterson of MI5 were regularly consulted by the chief Venona cryptanalyst, Meredith Gardner, but were careful not to reveal the existence of the project to other U.S. intelligence agencies.15 Not

8. “Note by J. S. McFaden [Ministry of Supply] to Major R. A. A. Badham [MI5],” 14 August 1948, in UKNA, KV 2/1245. 9. John E. Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (London: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 305. The authors incorrectly state that this information was conveyed in late 1948. 10. Nigel West, Venona: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War (London: HarperCollins, 1999), p. 151. 11. Christopher Andrew, “The Venona Secret,” in Ken G. Robertson, ed., War, Resistance and Intelli- gence: Essays in Honour of M. R. D. Foot (Barnsley, UK: Leo Cooper, 1999), p. 209. 12. In fact following Pearl Harbor all Venona messages were obtained legally as part of special war measures granted to the President. I am grateful to Robert Louis Benson for clariªcation on this point. Personal communication, 13 February 2003. 13. Nigel West, MI5 1945–72: A Matter of Trust (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982), p. 37. 14. West, Venona, p. 46. See also Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 91. 15. Andrew, “The Venona Secret,” p. 209.

127 Goodman

mentioned in this list but also involved was the MI5 liaison ofªcer with GCHQ, Arthur Martin.16 The obvious exception in the list of Britons with access to Venona was any member of Britain’s nuclear intelligence unit, an omission especially nota- ble in that its head—Eric Welsh—had an ofªce in the British embassy, as did his representative and liaison with the U.S. nuclear intelligence unit, Wilfrid

Mann. Nigel West has suggested that, in the ªrst instance, circulation was Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 likely to have excluded Welsh, Perrin, and William Skardon of MI5.17 How- ever, the recent MI5 releases reveal that in fact a meeting was held as early as 15 September 1949 at Shell Mex House in London, the home of the nuclear intelligence directorate. Present at the meeting and “informed of the evidence relating to Dr Fuchs” were Perrin, Welsh, Robertson, Martin, and two new ªgures—Sir John Cockcroft, the director of Harwell, and Dick White, the fu- ture head of both MI5 and MI6 who at that time was director of B Branch within MI5.18 Even as suspicions about Fuchs mounted, his services ordinarily would still have been needed. In August 1949 the Soviet Union had shocked the West by testing a nuclear bomb much earlier than expected.19 The United States had asked the British to analyze some of the debris from the radioactive cloud, a task that fell to Harwell’s radiochemical scientists. Although Fuchs was not a radiochemist, he normally would have been included among the scientists who examined the results of such analysis. For obvious reasons, however, senior ofªcials decided that Fuchs should not be asked to take part.20 When Peter Dwyer stepped down as the MI6 representative in Washing- ton in late 1949, his replacement was the infamous spy Kim Philby, who at that time was a rising star in the Service. Philby, it appears, warned Moscow that Soviet overseas communications had been compromised, although by this time the Venona operation had already been disclosed to Soviet foreign intelligence ofªcials by William Weisband, a U.S. signals intelligence (SIGINT) analyst. Whether Philby warned Moscow of Fuchs’s impending in-

16. Nigel West, personal communication, 1 August 2002. West writes that “Martin told me that when, late one evening, he received the signal from GCHQ identifying CHARLES/REST, he was un- sure what to do with it because he was concerned that if he was run down by a bus on the way home nobody else would ever learn that Fuchs was a spy!” See also Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Au- tobiography of a Senior Intelligence Ofªcer (Victoria, Australia: Heinemann, 1987), pp. 122, 186. 17. Nigel West, personal communication, 1 August 2002. Skardon was certainly excluded at the time he interrogated Fuchs; he even initially believed Fuchs to be innocent. Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 95. 18. A. S. Martin [B2c in MI5], “Note,” 15 September 1949, in UKNA, KV 2/1246. White certainly already knew of the investigations by this point. Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 91. 19. See Michael S. Goodman, “British Intelligence and the Soviet Atomic Bomb, 1945–1949,” Jour- nal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (June 2003), pp. 120–151. 20. Interview with a former nuclear weapons scientist who asked to remain anonymous, August 2002

128 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case vestigation is not entirely clear. West argues that Philby tried to warn Fuchs directly but was delayed, whereas Richard Rhodes claims that Fuchs probably was warned.21 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin maintain that Soviet intelligence ofªcials were aware of the investigation but did not try to warn Fuchs, though they did warn other agents who had been in contact with Fuchs.22 This version is partly contradicted by the former chief of East Ger-

man foreign intelligence, Markus Wolf, who has expressed amazement that Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Moscow did not try to rescue Fuchs.23 Wolf’s testimony seems credible insofar as Fuchs was not immediately arrested and presumably would have tried to ºee if he had been tipped off in time. Richard Rhodes has stated that because Venona was illegally obtained, it was necessary to make Fuchs confess.24 It seems far more likely, however, that the delay arose because British ofªcials did not want to reveal the method— the breaking of Soviet codes and ciphers—by which the evidence had been gathered.25 Senior ªgures in MI5 were so keen to protect the secret that they were even prepared to announce publicly, in a statement by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, that Fuchs had been caught only after his identiªcation by the FBI, a claim that clearly would have rankled those at MI5 who knew otherwise.26 Robert Lamphere—the FBI agent involved in the Fuchs case— comments in his memoirs that U.S. ofªcials became impatient at what they felt was the inordinate delay in arresting Fuchs.27 In the end, MI5’s surveillance activities were largely unnecessary. In October 1949, Fuchs went to Henry Arnold to discuss the appointment of Fuchs’s father to a chair at Leipzig University in East Germany, discussions that ultimately led to Fuchs’s confession of espionage in January 1950.28

21. West, Venona, p. 46; and Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (London: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 377. 22. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 204. 23. Markus Wolf, Memoirs of a Spymaster (London: Pimlico, 1998), p. 231. 24. Rhodes, Dark Sun, p. 411. 25. This is explicitly stated in an undated letter from Michael Perrin to one of Fuchs’s biographers, Robert Williams. Michael Perrin to Robert Williams, n.d., in Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics, Robert C. Williams Papers, Box 2, Binder 1. See also, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence (London: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 272. Protec- tion of methods was particularly important with regard to continuing investigations into other Soviet spies, such as Theodore Hall and Donald Maclean. See Sheila Kerr, An Assessment of a Soviet Agent: Donald Maclean, 1940–1951 (Ph.D. diss., London School of Economics, 1996). 26. See “Klaus Fuchs,” in UKNA, PREM 8/1279. 27. Robert J. Lamphere and Tom Schactman, The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent’s Story (New York: Random House, 1986), p. 140. 28. In a fascinating psychological examination of Fuchs, Richard Trahair has stated that in fact Fuchs at the point of his confession to Arnold was in the middle of a breakdown. See Richard Trahair, “A

129 Goodman

Arnold put Fuchs in touch with Skardon and Perrin, who sought to extract a confession and then, after Fuchs admitted to spying, interrogated him about what he had turned over to the Soviet Union. Interestingly, the recent MI5 documents reveal that Fuchs had disclosed his espionage to Erna Skinner, the wife of Herbert Skinner (deputy head of nuclear research at Harwell), seven days before his confession to Arnold.29 The new documents also suggest that 30

Fuchs was almost certainly having an affair with Erna Skinner at the time. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Given the extremely delicate nature of the Venona material, every effort was made to convey the impression that Fuchs’s guilt had been established solely through his confession.31 Fuchs himself was convinced of this.32 The new releases indicate that British counterintelligence ofªcials deliberately gave Fuchs that impression by manipulating him from the start.33 Among other things, Fuchs was led to believe that even if he confessed to espionage he would not be imprisoned.34 Fuchs apparently never doubted this claim, and indeed some ofªcials at Harwell initially seemed to take it seriously themselves. Prior to Fuchs’s arrest there had been worries, continually stressed by Perrin and others at the Directorate of Atomic Energy, that Fuchs might try to escape to the Soviet Union.35 On 16 November 1949, Perrin, Sillitoe, and other senior MI5 ªgures held a meeting in the ofªces of Lord Portal, the controller of atomic energy within the Ministry of Supply. They decided that the case should be deliberately buried, in part because of the impact that any disclosure might have on Anglo-American relations, and in part because they felt that Fuchs could continue to play a key role in the British nuclear weapons program. Although Cockcroft was not present at the meeting, the participants were aware that he believed Fuchs’s value to British nuclear research was “ex- treme.” The consensus was that Fuchs should be told that if he admitted to

Psychohistorical Approach to Espionage: Klaus Fuchs (1911–1988),” Mentalities, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1994), pp. 28–49. 29. Arnold to J. C. Robertson, 7 October 1952, in UKNA, KV 2/1259. 30. This inference is from the surveillance records of Fuchs. “Note,” in UKNA, KV 2/1246. 31. J. C. Robertson, “Meeting with Mr. Perrin of D. At. En—25 January 1950,” in UKNA, KV 2/ 1250. For example, cables were sent to all British embassies claiming that “until Fuchs made his statement there was no evidence on which he could have been arrested.” See “Comments on Fuchs’s Trial,” 2 March 1950, in PRO FO 953/642. The vast majority within Whitehall thought this to be the case anyway. 32. Norman Moss, Klaus Fuchs: The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb (London: Grafton Books, 1987), p. 136. 33. “Note by Skardon,” 8 February 1950, in UKNA, KV 2/1251. 34. “Note by Robertson,” 27 January 1950, in UKNA, KV 2/1250. 35. Perrin to Williams, n.d. See also “Klaus Fuchs,” in UKNA, PREM 8/1279.

130 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case his crimes he would not be charged with espionage. Furthermore, they decided he could remain at Harwell, though the notes to the meeting indicate that if the United States raised any objection to this, Fuchs should be found a university chair.36 Following up on these proposals, Skardon informed Fuchs that if he confessed he could remain in his job.37 Even as late as January 1950 some British ofªcials seemed to be toying

with the possibility that Fuchs could stay at Harwell. In a letter to Sir Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Archibald Rowlands (the permanent undersecretary at the Ministry of Sup- ply) Sillitoe wrote that MI5 was increasingly frustrated by the lack of urgency Harwell was showing in releasing Fuchs from his post.38 Under these circumstances, it is not wholly surprising that Fuchs himself believed he would be kept on even if he confessed to espionage. This misjudgment clearly contrib- uted to his downfall: “If Fuchs asks Arnold any questions about the likelihood or otherwise of his remaining at Harwell, Arnold must state that such matters are out of his hands, and profess ignorance. If Fuchs asks any questions as to the possibility of a prosecution, Arnold must equally profess ignorance.”39 Close friends like Peierls could not believe that Fuchs’s admission was the only evidence. Initially Peierls was convinced that there had been a serious mistake—until Fuchs admitted it to him personally.40 At Harwell the reaction was one of shock and amazement—not only at his crimes but also at how he had acted while there. Herbert Skinner recalled that when he had discussed the ªrst Soviet nuclear bomb with Fuchs, the latter had not reacted at all.41 One major impact of the case on the scientists was to increase suspicion of fellow workers—and this was felt in both Britain and the United States.42

36. “Meeting to discuss the Case of Dr Fuchs,” in UKNA, PREM 8/1279; and Sillitoe, Cloak without Dagger, pp. 173–174. Sillitoe also comments that “Fuchs was doing original work for us that was of immense value” (p. 172). Cockcroft suggested there was a suitable position at the University of Adelaide. “Note by J. H. Marriott [B2 of MI5],” 13 January 1950, in UKNA, KV 2/1250. 37. Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 96. Nigel West has even suggested—though no documentary proof is available—that MI5 hoped to use Fuchs as a double agent and thus did not want to arrest him. See West, MI5 1945–72, p. 37. 38. Cited in Wilson, “How MI5 Cracked Nuclear Traitor.” 39. “Note by Robertson,” 1 February 1950, in UKNA, KV 2/1250. 40. See the correspondence in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Peierls Papers, Boxes A18, D52. 41. Professor Lord Brian and Lady Mary Flowers, interview, London, 23 September 2002. Lord Flowers succeeded Fuchs as head of the theoretical division at Harwell. Lady Flowers had previously been married to Fuchs’s deputy. 42. On the British side, Lord Flowers mentioned that this lasted for six months and was a “dreadful morale breaker.” See also Moss, Klaus Fuchs, p. 148. Norris Bradbury recalled that “for the ªrst time Fuchs raised the question among scientists, ‘Who can you trust?’” Cited in Lansing Lamont, Day of Trinity (London: Hutchinson, 1966), p. 283.

131 Goodman

Fuchs’s Trial and the Emergence of FBI-MI5 Animosity

At the end of January 1950 Fuchs dictated a long statement to Skardon con- fessing his work on behalf of the Soviet Union.43 Three days later he dictated a second statement to Perrin, this one more technical in content. Fuchs was

tried on 1 March 1950 in proceedings that lasted only ninety minutes. He Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 was convicted of four counts of breaking the Ofªcial Secrets Act by “commu- nicating information to a potential enemy.”44 Fuchs ended up serving his sen- tence at Wakeªeld jail in Yorkshire, where an earlier nuclear weapons spy, Allan Nunn May, had also been imprisoned.45 The new documents reveal the British side of relations with the FBI during Fuchs’s trial and incarceration. They suggest that although the British gave the appearance of cooperating fully with the FBI, certain key information was in fact withheld. The FBI records of the “Foocase,” as the bureau’s investigation was known, reveal a good deal of unhappiness at the delay in arresting Fuchs. The trial itself, by contrast, was conducted with remarkable speed in what seems to have been a deliberate ploy undertaken by MI5. Henry Arnold once remarked how “the trial was rushed through so that as little as possible came out in court.”46 Two motivations lay behind the concealment: The British were keen to keep publicity of the case to a minimum so that Anglo-American relations would be least impaired; and the British had repeatedly pumped Fuchs for information on the U.S. nuclear weapons program.47 These considerations, it appears, were not lost on Fuchs himself, who “had refused to recognise the fact that espionage is properly to be considered as an offence, in which connection he had drawn attention to the information he himself had supplied to the British, after obtaining it in the United States.”48 FBI ofªcials had also been annoyed when the British declined to extradite Fuchs to the United States. These irritants, however, were only the start of a

43. For details of this and subsequent meetings between Fuchs and Skardon, see the materials in UKNA, KV 2/1249. See also UKNA, KV 2/1253; and UKNA, KV 2/1250. 44. “Hearing, before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard, at the Old Bailey on 1st March, 1950, of the case against Klaus Emil Julius FUCHS, arraigned on indictment (four counts) under the Ofªcial Secrets Act, 1911, Section 1,” in University of New Mexico, Ferenc M. Szasz Papers, FBI “Foocase” File 65–58805, Serial 899 (hereinafter referred to as Foocase File, with appropriate reference numbers). 45. Robert C. Williams, Klaus Fuchs: Atom Spy (London: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 121– 135. 46. Arnold said this to veteran journalist Reginald Turnill. Turnill, personal communication, 28 April 2003. Turnill had covered the hearing in 1950 for a British newspaper. 47. For more details see Michael S. Goodman, “The Grandfather of the Hydrogen Bomb? Anglo- American Intelligence and Klaus Fuchs,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Vol. 34, No. 1 (September 2004), pp. 1–22. 48. “Note by Robertson,” 27 January 1950.

132 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case deteriorating relationship with MI5 that was to grow increasingly acrimoni- ous. Before Fuchs’s trial was to begin, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had con- tacted Sillitoe asking that a U.S. representative be allowed in the court. Sillitoe had initially refused, a turndown that Robert C. Williams has labeled as an attempt by the British to “divulge as little as possible.”49 If nothing else, Sillitoe’s response was in line with the previous decision to conclude the trial

as fast as possible. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 In the end, however, the British proposed that John Cimperman, who was serving under cover as the legal attaché to the U.S. embassy in London, could attend under the guise of a State Department attaché. This move was vetoed by the U.S. attorney general because Cimperman was the FBI’s liaison at the embassy and was deemed too important to take on a public assignment that could “compromise his position.” As a result, FBI Special Agent Lish Whitson was used instead.50 The bureaucratic maneuvering came as a disap- pointment to Cimperman, who sent a memorandum to Hoover before the trial complaining about his status and the situation as a whole: “It was embar- rassing not only to MI5 but also to this ofªce that the MI5 representative in Washington was kept informed of developments and selected by the Bureau to work on this case in preference to me.” When Hoover received the memorandum, he scrawled a terse putdown of MI5 at the bottom, noting that he was “[astonished] at the atrocious handling of this matter.”51 The existence of such hostile feelings was certainly known to the British. Hoover and General Leslie Groves, the director of the wartime Manhattan Project, had both testiªed to various congressional committees about the deªciencies of the British security services. General Sir Frederick Hoyer Millar, the head of the British Joint Services Mission in Washington, surmised that Hoover was using the situation to procure greater funds for an enlarge- ment of the FBI.52 Although Hoyer Millar was irritated that “Hoover has be- haved like an elderly and temperamental prima donna,” he told his superiors that “anything we can do to keep the FBI sweet would be helpful.”53 In this way, crucially, Hoyer Millar had earlier concluded, “it is most important that they should be able to say that they are getting all available information.”54

49. Williams, Klaus Fuchs, p. 129. Rhodes, by contrast, argues that this was in order to conceal the breaches of security that had occurred. Rhodes, Dark Sun, p. 421. 50. “Attorney General to Director, FBI,” 10 February 1950, in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 244. 51. “Cimperman to Hoover,” 21 February 1950, in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 705. 52. Washington to Foreign Ofªce, 6 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 134/31; and Ofªcial Commit- tee on Atomic Energy (0)(50)11, “Disclosure of information by Dr K. Fuchs,” 7 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 134/31. Also Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 90. 53. ANCAM 307, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 16 May 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338. 54. Washington to Cabinet Ofªce, 6 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 134/31.

133 Goodman

Consequently, copies of Fuchs’s two statements, which had not previously been provided to the FBI, were transmitted.55 Despite the presence of an FBI representative at Fuchs’s trial and the seemingly full cooperation of the British, Hoover remained unhappy about the Anglo-American partnership. The Soviet nuclear bomb test the previous year had provided the ªrst concrete evidence of just how efªcient the Soviet

nuclear weapons program was, and it also highlighted, in stark clarity, how Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 inefªcient Western intelligence estimates had been.56 The Fuchs case, in Hoo- ver’s view, provided good evidence of why the Soviet Union had succeeded so much sooner than had been predicted. A vital requirement of intelligence is not only to know what the enemy is doing but also to discover what the enemy knows about you. The capture and conviction of Fuchs thus provided a potential windfall for the British intelligence services, which undertook a detailed interrogation. Complications arose, however, when the United States also sought to beneªt from the windfall. In early February 1950 the FBI sent Special Agent Whitson to Britain to interrogate Fuchs. Under British law, however, no interrogation could take place until after a conviction in order to avoid prejudicing any legal judg- ments. British law also stipulated that unless a prisoner was willing to submit to the interrogation, it could not begin until after the sentencing.57 Hoover’s reaction was one of exasperation: “I think this is an outrageous attitude after all of the cooperation we have extended to the British over the years.”58 The U.S. attorney general expressed a more conciliatory view, arguing that “we must be most cautious and avoid anything which would prejudice the English prosecution of the Fuchs case.”59 British ofªcials explained to Whitson that the matter was outside MI5’s jurisdiction and that inquiries should be directed to the Home Ofªce. In an attempt to improve MI5-FBI relations, Sillitoe himself intervened to persuade the Home Ofªce to permit an interrogation, but was met with rejection by the permanent undersecretary, Sir Frank Newsam.60 However, Newsam was

55. For more information, see the documents in UKNA, KV 2/1263. 56. For more on this, see Goodman, “British Intelligence and the Soviet Atomic Bomb,” pp. 120– 151. Also Charles A. Ziegler and David Jacobson, Spying without Spies: Origins of America’s Secret Nu- clear Surveillance System (London: Praeger, 1995). 57. “Interrogation of Fuchs by FBI Representative,” D. M. Ladd to Hoover, 13 March 1950, in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 713. See also Kim Philby, My Silent War (London: Grafton Books, 1990), pp. 231–232. 58. “Interrogation of Fuchs by FBI Representative,” p. 5. 59. “Attorney General to Director, FBI,” 10 February 1950, in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 231. 60. This it appears was largely for legal reasons: “First, that the 21-day period for appeal had not yet run; second, that the present place of detention was only temporary; third, the case was a matter of Parliamentary questions and debates in the House of Commons and the Home Ofªce felt that these

134 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case willing to let a British interrogator meet with Fuchs, and Sillitoe instructed the FBI to provide a list of questions to be put to Fuchs. The situation was considered especially delicate because Fuchs initially refused to meet U.S. representatives.61 Although Sillitoe had not been directly involved in the Fuchs investigation, his intervention at this juncture was intended to prevent any further de- 62 terioration of MI5’s relationship with the FBI. Sillitoe had ªrst met Hoover Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 in 1933 at a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in New York, and they had remained in contact ever since.63 Sillitoe, much to the consternation of his senior staff, attended Fuchs’s trial and even visited Hoover in connection with the case.64 Sillitoe was “cordially welcomed” by Hoover, but the visit did nothing to dissuade the FBI director of his jaundiced view of British security. Hoover had also been on friendly terms with Sillitoe’s deputy, Guy Liddell, though again this did not forestall the growing animosity.65 In a meeting with FBI ofªcials in June 1950, Sillitoe let his true feelings be known, complaining vigorously about the FBI’s handling of the case and about Hoover’s constant complaints.66 Sillitoe also recommended that Prime Minister Clement Attlee offer a statement in parliament defending the ac- tions of MI5 in repeatedly clearing Fuchs. However, the memorandum to Attlee that outlined the security aspects of Fuchs’s clearance was deliberately misleading: MI5 attempted to deceive not only Fuchs and the FBI but the prime minister in an attempt to maintain credibility.67

The Bureaucratic Politics of Fuchs’s Interrogation

Although many U.S. intelligence ofªcials were eager to interrogate Fuchs, the FBI served as the lead agency on the matter. The bureau itself was still preoc-

matters would have to be out of the way before a foreign intelligence agency could be permitted to interrogate Fuchs.” “Interrogation of Fuchs by FBI Representative,” p. 3. 61. Ibid. 62. See for example, Michael S. Goodman and Chapman Pincher, “Research Note: Percy Sillitoe, Clement Attlee and the Fuchs Case,” Contemporary British History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 67–77. 63. Sillitoe, Cloak without Dagger, p. 110; and A. W. Cockerill, Sir Percy Sillitoe: The Biography of the Former Head of MI5 (London: W. H. Allen, 1975), p. 117. 64. Sillitoe, Cloak without Dagger, p. 175. 65. Anthony Summers, Ofªcial and Conªdential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (London: Corgi, 1994), p. 164. 66. Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 99. 67. See “Klaus Fuchs,” in UKNA, PREM 8/1279; and Goodman and Pincher, “Research Note.”

135 Goodman cupied with identifying and locating Fuchs’s American handler, known as “Raymond,”68 but British ofªcials stressed that it was more important to iden- tify what information Fuchs had passed to the Soviet Union and to reassess intelligence estimates accordingly.69 Following Perrin’s ªrst interview with Fuchs, the U.S. Joint Atomic En- ergy Intelligence Committee (JAEIC), comprising departmental representa-

tives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, State Department, Atomic Energy Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Commission (AEC), and CIA, compiled a list of questions to be put to Fuchs. The CIA, on behalf of the JAEIC, gave the list to the FBI. In late March 1950 Perrin drew on a further list of questions from both the U.S. and British nuclear intelligence units in his interrogation of Fuchs.70 Ironically, though, the questions the U.S. agencies could ask were severely constrained by the 1946 McMahon Act, which forbade the sharing of most nuclear weapons–related information with other countries. Consequently, as the FBI memorandum stated, questions were “limited to information already in the possession of the British.”71 The records do not indicate, however, precisely how the JAEIC determined what the British already knew. Although Perrin put all the U.S. questions to Fuchs in March, the results did not reach the United States until mid-May.72 In light of this delay and other problems, U.S. ofªcials increasingly pressed to interrogate Fuchs for themselves. The State Department requested the British to allow the FBI to have access to Fuchs, and the U.S. ambassador in London followed up with a separate request. Ultimately the matter resided with the British Home Secre- tary, who “in exceptional circumstances” ªnally agreed to such a visit.73 But

68. See J. Edgar Hoover, “The Crime of the Century: The Case of the A-Bomb Spies,” Reader’s Digest, No. 58 (May 1951), pp. 113–148. Lamphere commented that “Hoover was on a rampage....Fuchs, Hoover told his associates, was a British security blunder. But Raymond was an FBI responsibility.” Robert J. Lamphere, “At All Costs (Klaus Fuchs),” in Georgetown University, Robert J. Lamphere Collection, Box 1, Folder 61, pp. 1, 5. This is a chapter from a book by Lamphere that was never completed. 69. ANCAM 277, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 21 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338. For more on this, see Goodman, “Grandfather of the Hydrogen Bomb?” 70. For the U.S. questions, see “List of Questions Given to the British for Submission to Dr Klaus Fuchs,” in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 121. For the answers to these, see “Record of Interview with Dr K. Fuchs on 22nd March, 1950 by M. W. Perrin,” in UKNA, AB 1/695. 71. See “List of Questions Given to the British.” For details on the McMahon Act, see Gilman G. Udell, ed., Atomic Energy Act of 1946 and Amendments (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Ofªce, 1966), pp. 1–22. In fact this was to be a continual problem. At various points in the 1950s, the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies wanted to reinterrogate Fuchs but refrained from doing so for fear of what might be revealed to the British. See for example, “Joint Committee Suggestion That Fuchs Be Interviewed Again,” 31 July 1953, in National Archives II (hereinafter NAII), Record Group (RG) 59, Entry 5181, Box 7. Also, “Lewis Strauss to Sterling Cole [Chairman Joint Commit- tee on Atomic Energy],” 24 July 1953, in NAII, RG 326, Box 172. 72. “D. M. Ladd to A. H. Belmont,” 18 May 1950, in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 1260. 73. For details, see ANCAM 301, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 3 May 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338.

136 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case his offer was conditional on the stipulation that any FBI ofªcials visiting Fuchs be accompanied by a representative of MI5. The FBI wished to question Fuchs in regard to scientiªc (nuclear) intelligence, security, and counterintelligence, thus fulªlling the requirements for the other U.S. intelligence agencies. However, Perrin argued that the system had worked sufªciently well in regard to the provision of information on questions of scientiªc intelli- 74 gence and that the interrogation should be limited to counterintelligence. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 The FBI, in response, stressed that it would be impossible to limit the interrogation to questions of a purely counterintelligence nature. Sir Roger Makins at the British embassy in Washington replied on behalf of the government that nuclear bomb–related questions would have to be framed within the constraints of counterintelligence. He indicated that the FBI could ask “what particular information Fuchs had given to a particular contact if such a question was essential to achieving the objective of obtaining the maximum counter-espionage information.”75 British sensitivities about this matter evi- dently stemmed from a desire to ensure that the Americans did not learn the full extent of Fuchs’s knowledge. If they were to ªnd out this information, they would also, by extension, be able to gauge the extent of British knowledge of nuclear weapons technology. Although some information on this topic had been shared even after the war, both governments had restricted the exchange of technical information. The FBI wanted the additional leeway to ask questions of Fuchs, but Hoover was wary of probing too deeply on technical issues, for fear that the bureau would have to cede its central role on the Fuchs case to the AEC. In February 1950 R. Gordon Arneson, the State Department’s special assistant for atomic energy, informed the British Joint Services Mission that Hoover had been furious about the AEC’s requests to the British for further technical information regarding Fuchs’s confession. Arneson added: “Hoover regards himself as the king pin in this matter on the American side and is very jealous of intervention by other agencies.”76 Arneson’s reaction was typical of the prickliness felt toward the FBI by other U.S. agencies. In fact, soon afterward Hoover wrote to the acting chairman of the AEC, Sumner Pike, that “such requests as have been made by the Commission deªnitely do duplicate, interfere with, and impede the investigative steps necessary to this case.”77 Hoover’s determination to ensure that the

This contains a copy of the memorandum left for the Americans detailing the exceptional circumstances and the decision reached by the British government. 74. “The Fuchs Case, A.E.(0)(50) 6th Meeting,” 8 May 1950, in UKNA, CAB 134/31. 75. ANCAM 307, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 16 May 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338. 76. ANCAM 277, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 21 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338. 77. “Hoover to Pike,” 1 March 1950, in Niels Bohr Library, Williams Papers, Box 2, Binder 2C.

137 Goodman

FBI would retain full control may have had something to do with his steadfast yet erroneous belief that “but for the work of the FBI Fuchs might never have been caught,” a belief that, as British ofªcials were aware, induced him to “claim the credit for the discovery of Fuchs’s espionage.”78 Oddly enough, Hoover held to this view even though the FBI itself had acknowledged, in a report discussed at a March 1950 meeting of the JAEIC, “that the [bureau]

did not know of the Fuchs case until a few days before the disclosure was re- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 leased to the press.”79 One of the ironies of the interrogation, then, was that it brought to the surface and magniªed the tensions among the various U.S. intelligence agencies, tensions sparked largely by widespread resentment toward Hoover and the FBI. Christopher Andrew has commented on the “bitter and at times farcical, internecine rivalries within the US intelligence community at the beginning of the Cold War.” Andrew also highlighted Hoover’s position: “Hoo- ver regarded the CIA as a dangerous upstart which prevented him [from] achieving his ambition of extending Bureau operations into the ªeld of foreign intelligence.” The evidence from the Fuchs case not only corroborates Andrew’s contention but also extends it in regard to the AEC and the rest of the U.S. intelligence establishment.80 Such a precarious situation was made worse by the relative inefªciencies and inadequacies of Rear Admiral Hillenkoetter as director of central intelligence—in theory the overall head and uniªer of the various intelligence agencies.81 Toward the end of May 1950, FBI agent Robert Lamphere and FBI Assistant Director Hugh Clegg arrived in England. Lamphere, although a junior ªgure in the bureau, seems to have been chosen not only because of his familiarity with “Foocase,” but also because he had maintained good relations with MI5—in direct contrast to Clegg who, Lamphere recalled, was disliked by many in the Security Service.82 Lamphere’s instructions were thus twofold: to conduct a thorough interrogation of Fuchs, and to do so without causing any further damage to relations with MI5.83 John Cimperman, as the

78. ANCAM 263, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 8 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338. One of Hoover’s biographers even claims that “the investigation that uncovered the Fuchs-Gold espionage operation was one of Hoover’s proudest accomplishments.” Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (London: Collier Macmillan, 1987), p. 303. 79. “JAEIC Minutes,” 29 March 1950, in NAII, RG 341, Entry 214, Box 35. 80. Andrew, “The Venona Secret,” p. 205.. 81. Russell J. Smith, The Unknown CIA: My Three Decades with the Agency (New York: Berkley Books, 1992), p. 51. 82. Lamphere and Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War, pp. 149–150; and Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 99. 83. Lamphere and Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War, p. 151.

138 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case

FBI liaison in London, met Lamphere and Clegg in London on 20 May, and they proceeded to Wormwood Scrubs to interrogate Fuchs.84 From 20 May to 2 June, Clegg and Lamphere met with Fuchs a total of ªfteen times. They managed to get Fuchs to dictate a further confession,85 and they eventually produced a 51-page report recounting what he had turned over.86 When the two FBI ofªcials returned to the United States at the

beginning of June, they were conªdent not only of their information but also Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 of having put one over on MI5. Senior ofªcials at the bureau also sensed an opportunity to increase their own leverage vis-à-vis other U.S. intelligence agencies. The FBI distributed only a highly condensed version of the Clegg/ Lamphere report, a move that exasperated ofªcials elsewhere, particularly at the AEC. Arnold Kramish, a senior intelligence ofªcial at the AEC and a liaison ofªcer with the British, has recalled how he “complained to Charles Bates, the FBI liaison to the AEC. Charlie replied that Hoover wanted to keep the case as ‘his show.’ That was not the only time that Hoover sabotaged cases, blocking fuller disclosure of vital intelligence.”87 It is unclear to what extent the British were aware of these internal rivalries within the U.S. intelligence community, but the rivalries must have caused some repercussions for intelligence liaison.

Doubts about Fuch’s Information

Lamphere indicates in his memoirs that the FBI’s primary goal was achieved when Fuchs provided positive identiªcation of his American handler—Harry Gold—thus conªrming investigations that had been under way in the United States.88 However, as Brian Cathcart has asked, is “it possible that in his con- fessions Fuchs was not telling the whole story”?89

84. This was before Fuchs’s departure to his permanent “home” until his release in 1959 from Wakeªeld jail. 85. For a copy, see Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 1396. 86. See “Report of Hugh H. Clegg and Robert J. Lamphere Covering Interviews with Klaus Fuchs in London, England,” in Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 1412 (hereinafter “Clegg/Lamphere Report”). 87. Arnold Kramish, personal communication, 12 February 2003. 88. Lamphere and Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War, p. 158. Lamphere saw this as a personal triumph for the FBI over MI5 because Fuchs had not admitted such details to the British. But the available evidence does not suggest that this was actually one of the primary aims of the British investigation. See also the investigative materials in UKNA, KV 2/1252. 89. Brian Cathcart, Test of Greatness: Britain’s Struggle for the Atom Bomb (London: John Murray, 1994), p. 106.

139 Goodman

Fuchs initially had refused to meet with the FBI investigators, and even when he did consent to meet with them, he was, as Lamphere recalled, “reluc- tant to furnish any information.”90 Lamphere speculated that this may have been because Fuchs was trying to protect his sister from prosecution for having taken part in at least one meeting with Gold.91 Fuchs’s reluctance had— perhaps conveniently—compelled Lamphere to concentrate mainly on iden- 92

tifying Raymond. An indication of Fuchs’s early antipathy toward the FBI Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 can be seen in Lamphere’s recollection of their ªrst meeting: “In a small room at the end of the hall Klaus Fuchs sat waiting, slouched in a chair at a wooden table. His dark eyes, magniªed by thick rimless glasses, betrayed no emotion, no real interest in his visitors.” Lamphere was aware that “Fuchs had been extremely cooperative with his British interrogators,” but he could sense right away that the German physicist “disliked and distrusted the FBI.”93 The newly released evidence conªrms that Fuchs admitted far less to his American interrogators than he did to the British. The evidence also shows that even when he did admit to something, he was not entirely truthful in what he said.94 Glaring discrepancies arose in his testimony, particularly concerning his role in the development of the hydrogen bomb. To cite one example, Fuchs consistently lied to the FBI about his relationship with renowned physicist Edward Teller. Teller and Fuchs—both refugee scientists from Nazi- occupied Europe—had ªrst met in 1928 and, by all accounts, had become good friends at Los Alamos.95 Fuchs claimed that after leaving Los Alamos in 1946 he had not seen Teller. Yet Fuchs also admitted that he had been in the United States for a declassiªcation conference in 1947 and had stopped at the Tellers’ house. Fuchs claimed he had seen Teller’s wife, but not Teller himself, during his visit to the house.96 Unbeknownst to Fuchs, however, FBI investigators had been questioning his former associates at Los Alamos. Interviews with both of the Tellers had conªrmed that Fuchs met Edward Teller not only

90. “Interview with Robert Lamphere,” 1999, available online at http://www.pbs.org/redªles/kgb/ deep/interv/k_int_robert_lamphere.htm. The interview was conducted for the ªlm Red Files: Secret Victories of the KGB (1999), part of the series Red Files.. 91. Lamphere and Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War, pp. 154–155. 92. A note by Skardon, who was present at the numerous interrogations by the FBI, conªrms that almost every session was concerned with this. W. J. Skardon, “Interrogation of Dr Fuchs by Ofªcers of the FBI,” 9 June 1950, in UKNA, KV 2/1255. 93. Lamphere, “At All Costs,” pp. 7, 3. 94. In fact, according to Fuchs’s British interrogators, the only point on which he was not entirely truthful was the identity of Feklisov. Yet the evidence suggests that Fuchs actually did not know Feklisov’s identity. See “E. McBarnet [B2b in MI5] to Robertson [B2],” 23 September 1952, in UKNA, KV 2/1259. 95. “Clegg/Lamphere Report,” p. 44. The Tellers had also gone on holiday with Fuchs and the Peierlses at this time. Foocase File 65–58805, Serial 915, p. 35. 96. “Clegg/Lamphere Report,” p. 40.

140 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case during the trip for the declassiªcation conference but also on another occasion that same year. Teller conªrmed that he had also met with Fuchs in Eng- land in 1949 on several occasions.97 Oddly, though, the FBI did not learn of a further meeting between Fuchs and Teller in 1948.98 Why did Fuchs lie? One obvious answer could be that he was trying to protect Teller. Although there is no direct evidence that the two men dis-

cussed scientiªc matters, it is highly unlikely that they would not have done Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 so: Teller later recalled about their wartime association that Fuchs “talked with me and others frequently ...itwaseasy and pleasant to discuss my work with him. He also made impressive contributions and I learned many technical facts from him.”99 A second plausible explanation is that Fuchs was unhappy about the level of scientiªc exchange between the British and the Americans and had been working to expand exchanges that were illegal under U.S. law after 1946. This seems to be what Harry Gold had in mind when he commented that “the two countries had worked together before 1940. Then there was a lapse till 1942 and, even now K[laus] says, much is being withheld from the British.”100 Did the Americans know that Fuchs had lied? Lamphere asked Fuchs at their last meeting whether he had cooperated fully, to which “he answered that he had made full disclosure to us, and that he believed in some small way this was restitution for what he had done.”101 However, in a memorandum written after Clegg and Lamphere had ªnished their interrogation, Hoover commented that “Fuchs declined to furnish the details of what he had given to the Soviet Union after his return to England regarding the hydrogen bomb because of the lack of cooperation between the United States and Great Brit- ain at the present time with regard to atomic energy research.”102 Perrin had reached a far more generous assessment after his interviews with the convicted spy: “Fuchs was genuinely trying to remember and report all the information that he had given to the Russian agents with whom he had been in contact and that he was not withholding anything.”103 Some other British ofªcials

97. Foocase File, Serial 915, p. 36. 98. “Note to Dr Fuchs,” 17 September 1948, in UKNA, AB 6/416. 99. Cited in Stanley A. Blumberg and Gwinn Owens, Energy and Conºict: The Life and Times of Ed- ward Teller (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1976), p. 228. 100. Cited in Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets Exposed by the KGB Archives (London: HarperCollins, 1999), p. 237. In fact, this desire to ensure that the United States would not enjoy a monopoly on nuclear weapons seems to have been a major factor helping the Soviet Union. 101. Lamphere and Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War, p. 164. 102. “Hoover to Admiral Sidney Souers [Special Consultant to the President],” 16 June 1950, Declassiªed Document Reference System, 1976–40E, p. 2. 103. “Record of Interview with Dr K. Fuchs on 30th January, 1950,” in UKNA, AB 1/695, p. 5.

141 Goodman

were less sanguine than Perrin, but even if they had all been upbeat, U.S. ofªcials clearly believed that Fuchs had failed to disclose key information.

Conclusion

When the Fuchs case broke in late 1949, it could not have come at a worse Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 time for the British. The test of a Soviet nuclear bomb in August 1949 had been a deªning moment in Anglo-American collaboration on nuclear weapons intelligence. Until the Soviet bomb test was detected, the United States and Britain had exchanged a considerable amount of information on the So- viet program, even though this had not prevented the two countries from pro- ducing divergent sets of intelligence estimates. More important, during the detection of the Soviet nuclear test, U.S. and British ofªcials had cooperated not only in collecting radioactive samples but also in analyzing them. The pal- pable beneªts of this teamwork had led to renewed calls in both countries to work more closely together on nuclear weapons intelligence and scientiªc exchanges. The U.S. and British governments even planned to hold Anglo- American conferences on these matters in late 1949, though the British subse- quently requested that they postpone the intelligence conference in favor of a technical-exchange meeting.104 Talks on resuming some level of technical exchange began in earnest in late September 1949 with the British represented by Sir John Cockcroft and Oliver Franks, the British ambassador.105 Bilateral talks continued into De- cember when Cockroft and Franks were joined by William Penney, the head of Britain’s nuclear weapons program. During these talks Cockcroft was well aware of the suspicions surrounding Fuchs, though it is less clear whether Penney was.106 The discussions went so favorably that U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson conªded to Franks that “it should be possible to get Congress to make the necessary changes in the [1946] law.” The British Cabinet met in late December 1949 to discuss the situation and approved the cooperation, but at that very moment the Fuchs case broke.107 The situation was aptly summed up by Gordon Arneson of the U.S. State Department: “We were get-

104. WEL 201, “Cabinet Ofªce to BJSM,” 4 November 1949, in UKNA, CAB 126/140. 105. For details see “Tripartite Talks: BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 27 September 1949, in UKNA, CAB 126/140. 106. On Cockcroft’s reaction, see Denis Richards, Portal of Hungerford: The Life of Marshall of the Royal Air Force Viscount Portal of Hungerford (London: Heinemann, 1977), p. 368. Cathcart states that Penney probably knew. Cathcart, Test of Greatness, p. 113. 107. Moss, Klaus Fuchs, p. 169.

142 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case ting very close to really going into bed with the British, with a new agreement. Then the Fuchs affair hit the fan and that was the end of it.”108 The Fuchs case destroyed any British hopes for a resumption of the wartime nuclear partnership, a fact admitted on both sides of the Atlantic.109 At a subsequent meeting in February 1950, the AEC received ªrm instructions that “no new areas of collaboration were to be opened.”110 The case raised

many questions about MI5, in particular about the agency’s vetting proce- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 dures, and this appears to have been a contributing factor to the U.S. decision. Also, unfortunately for the British, the uproar lent weight to the views of those within the Truman administration who were never happy about in- creased cooperation. As Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the AEC, commented at the time: “Britain is far to our left and therefore may give away the secrets to the communists, some of whom already sit in Parliament.”111 Such fears may have been reinforced by reports that the “socialist” Labour member of parliament John Strachey was in charge of a British investigation into the security aspects of the Fuchs case.112 Curiously, no records apparently exist that even refer to Strachey’s investigation. Although Strachey at this time was minister for war, he still appears to have been a peculiar choice to head any investigation, especially considering his earlier Communist sympathies (which were well known) and the fact that he inadvertently knew the Kuczynskis—Fuchs’s initial recruiters in Britain. In fact Strachey had in 1940 been among those demanding Fuchs’s release from wartime internment in Canada.113 British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin told Acheson that he hoped the case would not result in an “anti-British feeling arising in this country [the United States] in so far as security is concerned.”114 In June 1950 Washington

108. Neil M. Johnson, interview with Arneson, Washington, DC, 21 June 1989, in Harry S. Truman Presidential Library (hereinafter HSTL), Papers of R. Gordon Arneson, Box 1. 109. “Interview with Sir Roger Makins by Alfred Goldberg,” 8 August 1963, in UKNA, AB 48/252. Hoyer Miller commented that Acheson had conªded this view to him. “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 8 February 1950, in UKNA, FO 371/82902. 110. John Cockcroft, Atomic Energy History: A Typescript, n.d., in Churchill College Archives, Cam- bridge University, Professor Sir John Cockcroft Papers, Box CKFT 25/8, p. 70. 111. Ibid., p. 68. See also Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002), p. 218. 112. See “Hoover to Rear Admiral Sidney Souers [Special Consultant to the President],” 10 March 1950, in HSTL, Presidential Secretary’s Files Series, Subject File: FBI, Box 147. Strachey was considered by many to be on the verge of holding Communist beliefs. 113. Williams, Klaus Fuchs, pp. 28, 34. 114. “Memorandum of Conversation by L. D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State,” 13 February 1950, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. I, pp. 527–528.

143 Goodman

hosted a tripartite conference on security standards. British participation at the conference was effectively an attempt to repair security relations with the Americans and to convince them that the British could still be trusted. The Fuchs case had made clear to Sillitoe that something needed to be changed in terms of security screenings for potential government employees.115 U.S. ofªcials had repeatedly urged the British to adopt positive vetting—a system

whereby instead of assessing the particular person’s ªles for any security risks Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 (negative vetting), active steps were taken to interview not only the individual in question but also friends and colleagues.116 British ofªcials planned to inform the Americans at the June 1950 conference that they would henceforth be using a positive system.117 Following an “informal hint,” Perrin raised the question of the Fuchs case on the ªnal day, a move that was welcomed by the U.S. participants, who received the presenta- tion “sympathetically and expressed their gratitude for having been given a ªrst-hand explanation.”118 The only lingering concern on the U.S. side was why Fuchs had never been directly asked whether he had been a Commu- nist.119 The meeting resulted in the eventual adoption in Britain of positive vetting for all sensitive posts.120 Nonetheless, the British were less than happy with U.S. views of MI5’s security procedures—views ªrst expressed after Fuchs’s arrest in February 1950. Most British ofªcials, by contrast, had believed that their procedures were satisfactory.121 Leslie Groves reminisced that Fuchs “was a British responsibility...theUnited Kingdom not only failed us, but herself as well.”122 In 1951 this assessment was ampliªed by the publication of Soviet Atomic Espio- nage—a record of the U.S. congressional committee report on the matter. Perrin regarded it as an effort by the Americans to “throw all the blame on the British.”123 Perrin’s view that Fuchs’s greatest successes in spying had actually

115. Peter Hennessy and Gail Brownfeld, “Britain’s Cold War Security Purge: The Origins of Positive Vetting,” The Historical Journal, Vol. 25, No. 4 (December 1982), p. 968. See also Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (London: Penguin, 2002), p. 90. 116. Pincher, Too Secret Too Long, p. 200. 117. Hennessy and Brownfeld, “Britain’s Cold War Security Purge,” p. 969. 118 “Extract from Security Conference Notes Prepared by UK Representatives Concerning Tripartite Talks on Security Standards at Washington,” 19–21 June 1950. I am grateful to Chapman Pincher for a copy of this document. See also ANCAM 328, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 21 June 1950, in UKNA, CAB 126/338. 119. “Security Talks, A.E.(0)(50)8th Meeting,” 5 July 1950, in UKNA, CAB 134/31. 120. For more information, see Hennessy, The Secret State, pp. 90–98. 121. “Foreign Secretary to Hoyer Miller,” 9 February 1950, in UKNA, FO 371/82902. See also Moss, Klaus Fuchs, p. 167. 122. Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project (New York: Harper’s, 1962), p. 144. 123. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Soviet Atomic Espionage (Washington, DC: United States

144 MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case occurred on American soil was shared by many of his British colleagues.124 Al- though no records directly conªrm this, MI5 ofªcials must have gained some indirect satisfaction when David Greenglass, an American who had worked on the Manhattan Project, was also arrested soon afterward.125 MI5’s reaction throughout was to play down the lapse in security. In March 1951 Perrin conªded to Bernard Hill, MI5’s legal adviser, that Alex

Longair of the British Joint Services Mission had mentioned “that the Fuchs Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 case keeps popping up every now and again here [in Washington] and I must say that we are doing ourselves a great deal of harm by being ofªcially silent on it. Isn’t there any chance of someone making an informed statement about it?”126 In due course MI5 “authorized” a somewhat misleading account of the nuclear weapons spies to be published in 1952 by the journalist Alan Moorehead as The Traitors.127 This in fact mirrored the Security Service’s handling of the earlier defection of Harwell scientist Bruno Pontecorvo in 1951, a case that was also deliberately muted.128 MI5’s handling of these matters merely worsened the ªasco for the Brit- ish. As Brian Cathcart has argued: “The British atomic weapons program had its Annus horrendus; it was 1950. The year began in hope, with the secrets of Los Alamos almost within reach, but the Fuchs affair put pay to that.”129 The Fuchs case continued to hinder Anglo-American nuclear collaboration for years afterward. When Fuchs’s father applied for a visa in 1952 to visit his son from East Germany, he was rejected for fear of the U.S. reaction if the visa

Government Printing Ofªce, 1951). Perrin’s views cited in “H. W. B. Skinner to Cherwell,” 13 June 1951, in Nufªeld College Archives, Oxford University, Lord Cherwell Papers, Box J117. 124. CANAM 123, “Foreign Ofªce to Washington,” 2 February 1950, in UKNA, CAB 134/31. 125. Eugene Rabinowitch, “Atomic Spy Trials: Heretical Afterthoughts,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 7, No. 5 (May 1951), p. 141. The only exception is in a letter from Eric Welsh to Sam Goudsmit: “If only I could [track down] all the others of the same ilk—I feel sure that some of them are hiding about the 48 stars and 13 stripes.” “Welsh to Goudsmit,” 20 March 1950, in Niels Bohr Li- brary, Samuel Goudsmit Papers, Box 23, Folder 254. Of course we now know that the U.S. physicist Theodore Hall was a crucial asset for Soviet intelligence, but this was not known at the time. See Jo- seph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, Bombshell: The Secret History of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy (New York: Random House, 1997). 126. “Perrin to B. A. Hill,” 12 March 1951, in UKNA, KV 2/1257. 127. Alan Moorehead, The Traitors: The Double Life of Fuchs, Pontecorvo and Nunn May (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952). For details I am grateful to Nigel West for a copy of his unpublished paper, “Fiction, Faction and Intelligence.” I am also grateful to Chapman Pincher for further elucidation. See UKNA, KV 2/1257 for correspondence and details about MI5’s enthusiasm for Moorehead to write such an account. See also UKNA, KV 2/1259. 128. Simone Turchetti, “Atomic Secrets and Governmental Lies: Nuclear Science, Politics and Secu- rity in the Pontecorvo Case,” British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 36, No. 4 (December 2003), pp. 389–415. This was reafªrmed in one memorandum: “Pontecorvo has now broken over here. . . coming after the Fuchs case it will be hard to persuade them [the U.S.] that we were not lax in letting Pontecorvo to go [to Rome] if we had suspicions about him.” ANCAM 369, “BJSM to Cabinet Ofªce,” 21 October 1950, in UKNA, PREM 8/1273. 129. Cathcart, Test of Greatness, p. 115.

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were approved.130 The case also had negative effects on interactions within the U.S. intelligence community. Although the newly released documents conªrm that MI5 and the FBI obstructed each other, they also show that the FBI readily misled other U.S. intelligence agencies in order to increase its own prestige. That makes it all the more interesting to see how far these other agencies were willing to go in accommodating Hoover’s demands. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/7/3/124/1102551/1520397054377160.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Board for its ªnancial sup- port in the research and writing of this article. I am also grateful to the Harry S. Truman Library for a travel grant that was invaluable in the research for this article. I am indebted to the numerous people I corresponded with in the preparation of this article (not all of whom are mentioned), in particular Richard Aldrich, Chapman Pincher, Gregg Herken, Arnold Kramish, Kate Pyne, Len Scott, and Stephen Twigge. The quoted portion of the title of the article (“Who Is Trying to Keep What Secret from Whom and Why?”) comes from Lt.-Gen. Sir F. Morgan, Peace and War: A Soldier’s Life (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1961), p. 308.

130. “Home Secretary to PM,” 14 July 1952, in UKNA, PREM 11/2079.

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