What exactly did he do to be called the most dangerous spy in history ?

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In our impression, mention "spy".

Most of the images of "007" come to mind.

A gun in one hand and a wine in the other.

Everywhere is not chaotic, and the red sleeves add fragrance.

But if one of the "most dangerous spies in history".

Is it a helpless scientist?

March 1, 1950

Klaus Fox on trial

Let's go back to July 24, 1945.

In the small German city of Potsdam, the "Potsdam Conference" between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain was being held, and one of the important topics was "when the Soviet Union would send troops to attack Japan."

For the Soviets, who had been flickering their words, the American ** Truman decided to give Stalin a "subtle" reminder during this one-day recess:

The United States has now mastered a very powerful new **.

What Truman was referring to was that the Americans had successfully tested the world's first atomic bomb eight days earlier.

According to Truman's idea, Stalin should have at least had a look akin to "surprised".

But Stalin didn't move his eyebrows when he heard his words, and replied lightly:

It's good, and I hope it can be used to hit the Japanese well. ”

Truman was somewhat disappointed that "Stalin did not even raise a single question." Truman attributed Stalin's reaction to the quietness and composure of a veteran politician, but what Truman didn't know was that, in a sense, Stalin knew far more about the "Manhattan Project" than he did.

Churchill, Truman, Stalin at the Potsdam Conference (from left to right).

And what about Stalin? He knew this from the time the Manhattan Project was launched.

Why? Because he "has someone inside." ”

An important figure in the "Insider" is called Klaus Fox.

Klaus Fuchs was born in Germany on December 29, 1911, and showed an amazing talent in mathematics and physics as early as his secondary school years. Fox's father, older brother and sister were all supporters of the Communist Party, and he himself joined the German Communist Party while still in college.

In 1933, Hitler began a purge of the German Communist Party through the "Reichstag Arson", and Fox's relatives were framed and his family was destroyed. Grief-stricken, Fox had no choice but to apply for asylum in the UK and apply for British citizenship.

At the time, the Communist Party of Germany was the second largest party in Germany, accounting for 17% of the seats in the German parliament. Hitler called the "Reichstag arson" the work of a German Communist Party member, and thus began the purge of other parties, led by the Communist Party80,000 members of the German Communist Party were imprisoned. On December 31, 1981, the West Berlin court formally overturned the original verdict in the "Reichstag arson case", declaring it a wrongful trial and miscarriage of justice.

His years in the internment camp had a profound impact on Fox, who was locked in a cell with Hans Karl, a veteran member of the German Communist Party. Under the influence of Hans Karl, Fawkes's outlook on life and ideals were once again consolidated.

On Christmas Day 1940, Fox suddenly received a notice from Britain** that he had been released and asked to return to England as soon as possible.

The reason why Britain "preferentially" Fox was not out of guilt, but because he wanted to be of great use - the British launched the "Alloy Tube Project" and began to study the possibility of creating an atomic bomb.

Upon his return to England, Fox was immediately assigned to work on the atomic bomb at the University of Birmingham. With a great aptitude for mathematics and physics, Fox quickly solved some important mathematical problems necessary to clarify the basic parameters of the atomic bomb.

The British ** also gave Fox official British citizenship soon after, and signed a non-disclosure agreement with him, allowing him to officially enter the core of the "Alloy Pipe Project".

However, Fox did not intend to "keep it secret".

Klaus Fox.

Shortly after the launch of the British "Alloy Tube Project", a worrying news came: Germany had also begun research and engineering on the atomic bomb long ago. Considering Germany's superiority in resources and talents, and the fact that Britain has been under German bombing, the British themselves are not sure who will build the atomic bomb first.

Just after joining the British atomic bomb research team, Fox spent a lot of trouble finding the secretary of the military attache of the Soviet embassy in London, and took the initiative to reveal the information that Britain had begun to develop the atomic bomb, hoping that the Soviet Union would start this research as soon as possible. The Soviets took this information very seriously and immediately sent a major to serve as Fox's liaison. Fox later learned that the major was a core member of the well-known "Zolga Intelligence Network".

Richard Sorge, a German member of the German Communist Party and known as the "King of Spies of World War II", successfully predicted that Germany would invade the Soviet Union and that Japan would attack the United States but not the Soviet Union. He was secretly hanged by Japan in 1944.

Markus Wolff, the former head of the East German Intelligence Directorate, specifically mentioned Fox in his later memoirs, The Hidden Man, and he believed that Fox did this because:

He was convinced that only with the help of the USSR could defeat Hitler. ”

When the "Alloy Tube Project" was carried out until 1942, Britain, which had been under the threat of Nazi Germany, made an important decision: to suspend the "Alloy Tube Project" and send its own scientists to join the team of American scientists to jointly accelerate the "Manhattan Project" and build an atomic bomb for the United States.

As the outstanding figure of the British atomic bomb scientists' group, Fox was also the first to be sent to the United States along with other British scientists. Fox worked in a Wall Street building in New York to study the dispersion of gases associated with the atomic bomb, and then, beginning in the spring of 1944, when the Manhattan Project was in its final sprint, he went straight to Oppenheimer's main laboratory in the Los Alamos Desert.

Even in the Los Alamos Laboratory, where Nobel laureates gather, Fox still won the praise and trust of many colleagues for his outstanding ability, and many tedious and difficult physical and mathematical calculation problems were entrusted to him.

In this process, Fox has been revealing all aspects of the United States' manufacturing of atomic bombs to the Soviet Union through various forms, and has even given detailed designs for atomic bombs. As early as June 1945, Fox told the Soviets that the United States would test the first atomic bomb in early July – so it is completely understandable that Stalin was expressionless behind Truman's words.

Fox.

And what makes it difficult for some to understand is that Fox never receives a payment after completing these difficult and even dangerous tasks.

In February 1945, Leonid Kvasnikov, the second person in the Soviet intelligence agency in New York (responsible for scientific and technological reconnaissance), noted in a report to the Soviet Union:

The intelligence network is basically quite capable of working, with a fairly high level of technology, and most of the spies work for us not for money, but on the basis of a friendly attitude towards our country. ”

On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb in human history was used in combat over Hiroshima, Japan**.

When the United States became the only nuclear-armed country in the world, other countries, including the United Kingdom, an ally of the United States, felt noticeably uneasy.

Since the United States was not happy to share atomic bomb technology with Britain, and London did not want to be completely dependent on Washington because it did not have an atomic bomb, as soon as World War II ended, Britain resumed the "Alloy Tube Program" and allocated 100 million pounds to start developing its own atomic bomb.

As one of the key British scientists who participated in the "Manhattan Project", Fox was once again invited back to the UK to serve as the director of the theoretical physics division of the Haruel Atomic Center in the United Kingdom.

Of course, it makes sense for the British to reuse Fox, because when the United States refused to disclose the atomic bomb technology, Fox, who had worked at the core of the "Manhattan Project," was a "human intelligence machine," and he could reveal to Britain all kinds of experience, data, and intelligence on the development of the atomic bomb that he had come into contact with in the United States.

Fox did exactly that. However, while he vigorously pushed Britain to develop the atomic bomb, he was also helping the Soviets in the same way.

At 4 a.m. on August 29, 1949, an atomic bomb named "Tiekva" (Russian for "pumpkin") was successfully launched at a nuclear test site in eastern the Soviet Union, making the Soviet Union the second country in the world to possess nuclear weapons.

The scene when the Soviet Union tested the first atomic bomb.

This is not only because the "nuclear monopoly" that they have worked so hard to build has been broken in just four years, but also because the Americans are well aware of the complexity of the "Manhattan Project", and General Graveis, who is in charge of the lead, once asserted: "No country will be able to build an atomic bomb for at least ten years." (But Oppenheimer, the chief scientist of the Manhattan Project, also said at the time: "The Soviets will soon be able to build an atomic bomb if they want to.") ）

After thinking about it, the Americans only came up with one reason: there were spies inside.

Under the personal leadership of FBI Director Herbert Hoover, a meticulous investigation of all the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project began.

After passing through layers of scrutiny, surveillance, and analysis, the circle of suspicion shrank smaller and smaller, and finally fixed on a few scientists.

Fox is one of them.

The FBI investigates Fox's documents.

One theory is that after deciphering a series of telegrams, the FBI obtained conclusive evidence that Fox provided intelligence to the Soviet Union and reported it to the British Intelligence Division 5. MI5 immediately arrested Fox, who confessed to everything he had done.

According to him, the British only suspected Fox at the time, but there was no conclusive evidence at hand, and in the end Fox was "induced" by a set of "psychological tricks".

At that time, British intelligence found the deputy director of Fox's research center, who was also a close friend of Fox, and told Fox that if Fox really decided to deny the espionage charges against him, then the entire center staff would trust him and be willing to stand with him to maintain his innocence.

But a commitment from Fox is needed.

Faced with his friend's "standing up", Fox retreated. He turned out to be confident, and he was completely ready to answer the interrogation of the intelligence officers. But in the face of his friend's trust, he couldn't say any more after answering a few words.

After doing so, British intelligence arrested Fox on February 3, 1950. After Fox was beaten after what he did, Britain made a big fuss, calling him "the most dangerous spy in history."

On March 1, 1950, Fox's trial began.

In fact, until the trial, Fox had no idea how his crimes would be punished, and he estimated that he would be sentenced to death, because as far as he knew, being a spy was punishable by death.

Although the Soviet Union was not a hostile country to Britain at the time, the court convicted Fox of "leaking key information to the enemy," but Fox was relieved by the verdict: 14 years in prison.

As for why the penalty was lighter than expected, there were ** people at the time who believed that although Fox leaked information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union was not a German fascist after all. And most importantly, Fox also told Britain the information about the American atomic bomb, which greatly promoted the British atomic bomb development process.

Just two years after Fox was imprisoned, on October 3, 1952, Britain successfully tested its first atomic bomb, becoming the third country in the world to possess nuclear weapons.

Fox served his sentence well, having his sentence reduced by five years, and was released from prison in 1959.

Scene from Britain's first atomic bomb**.

The Western world, including Britain**, wanted him to stay and engage in scientific research in related fields, but he turned down all invitations and came to East Germany at that time, where he became deputy director of the East German Institute of Nuclear Physics and also taught physics and philosophy. Later, he became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, where he was awarded the State Prize of the First Class and the Order of Karl Marx.

It should be said that Fox's life in the second half of his life was still good, but people who know what he did always have one question: what did the Soviets think of him and treat him?

Fox.

Fox died on January 28, 1988, when it was noted that not a single Soviet was present at his funeral.

However, in the year of Fox's death, Soviet television ** produced a movie called "Adventure-1", which mentioned a person named Fox who provided the Soviet Union with American nuclear intelligence.

It was not until 1992 that an article appeared in the Russian newspaper "Izvestia", openly admitting that the Soviet Union had referred to the detailed information provided by Fox during the development of the first atomic bomb, and said that Fox enabled the Soviet Union to develop a nuclear ** in a very short time, and the Soviet Union should express its deep gratitude to Fox.

And Kurchatov, the nuclear physicist who led the development of the first atomic bomb in the Soviet Union, later said:

The first atomic bomb of the USSR **, half credit to scientists and intelligence services, is equally due. ”

[Aqiu said].

For a long time, Fox's motives for being a spy have been a topic of conversation for many people.

It is true that Fox's communist beliefs are one of the important reasons, but is this really the only reason?

Fox himself once said this:

I never thought I was a spy. I don't understand why it was in the interests of the West to keep the atomic bomb secret from the USSR. Something like this, with unimaginably enormous potential for destruction, should be available to all great powers.

If one party can threaten the other with such power, I think it is a very abomination, no different from a giant doing whatever he wants in Lilliputia.

I never thought it was a big perverse thing to tell Moscow the secrets of the atomic bomb. I do think that failure to do so would be an unforgivable dereliction of duty. ”

From the meaning of his words, at least in the face of the atomic bomb, which can destroy all mankind, his understanding has transcended national boundaries. And this would also explain why he would be willing to push forward with British nuclear research and development if he was loyal to the Soviet Union.

In fact, many of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project at the time had similar views to Fox. In fact, they may not have a good impression of the Soviet Union at that time (Fox once said that he did not like Stalin very much), but in the face of the huge power of the atomic bomb, they were terrified to realize that the ** that could lead to the extinction of the entire human civilization had been born, and there was a desperate way to avoid this threat:

Everybody has a nuclear **.

When everyone has a ** in their hands that can take each other's lives lightly, a kind of "balance of terror" arises instead.

Therefore, at that time, many scientists were willing to provide the Soviet Union with information on the research and development of nuclear **, some of them were of course out of faith, but at the same time, they also did not want the United States to have nuclear **.

Hans Bate, a famous Jewish-American physicist who worked with Fox on the Manhattan Project (winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics), once said of Fox:

He was the only physicist who really changed history."

Whether such an evaluation is appropriate or not is a matter of opinion.

Still, there is one question that can be asked:

Is Fox really "the most dangerous spy in history"?

2. "The First Atomic Bomb of the Soviet Union" (Zhang Xiangquan, Zhao Xueping, International Outlook, September 15, 2003).

3. "How the Former Soviet Union Obtained Western Atomic Information" (Liu Shougong, *Communications, February 15, 1999).

4. Analysis of the Reasons for the Soviet Union's Rapid Breaking of the U.S. Nuclear Monopoly (Wang Wenqing, Eastern Europe and Central Asian Studies, June 25, 1994).

5. "Stolen" or self-developed? - The Inside Story of the Soviet Union's Development of the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Yuri Hariton, International Press, 30 June 1993).

6. "The Most Dangerous Spy of the Century: Fox" (Li Xuehua, China National Defense News, March 3, 2017).

7. "The Hidden Man" (Marcus Wolfe (Germany), International Culture Publishing Company, July 1, 1999, quoted from "Douban Reading" "Klaus Fox - The Abandoned Prometheus").

8. Wikipedia, Encyclopedia "Klaus Fox" entry.