
Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project - NN88
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/science/manhattan-project-atomic-spy.html
======
Merrill
"On the Trail of a Fourth Soviet Spy at Los Alamos"

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-63-no-3/pdfs/Fourth-
Soviet-Spy-LosAlamos.pdf)

------
stuff4ben
As fascinating as I find "how" the spies did it, I'm more interested in "why"
they did it? Was it dissatisfaction with something in their lives? For the
money (boring)? Because they didn't want to see the US so far ahead of the
USSR?

~~~
yodon
The British during WWII had probably the most successful counter-espionage
program in history, because they understood the personal motivations of the
people who were interested in spying on them and used those motivations to
their advantage. There are many books on the subject, my favorite of which is
[0].

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Double-Cross-Story-D-Day-
Spies/dp/030...](https://www.amazon.com/Double-Cross-Story-D-Day-
Spies/dp/0307888754/)

~~~
mcguire
On the other hand, the British intelligence community was riddled with Soviet
agents because of their trust in "the right sort of people" like Kim Philby.

~~~
yodon
While true, that was a post-War phenomenon, very different from the state of
British counter-intelligence during the war.

------
jonnydubowsky
There are obviously dedicated accounts that intelligence services and the
military keep for covering costs associated to espionage and counterespionage.

I wonder what kind of cost-benefit analysis and financial projections are done
in considering the value of assets and espionage operations? Do you think they
model for outcomes?

John Carlos Baez has rode a really interesting blog series on network operads
and process calculus, is the basis for multi agent modeling for complex
military tactical scenario modeling and contingency planning. I wonder what
the models would look like for evaluating intelligence assets?

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex-
adap...](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex-adaptive-
system-design-part-1/)

------
Animats
Oh, is that the additional spy mentioned in the VENONA intercepts? Those have
been declassified, and there's an additional spy identified only by a code
name.

~~~
JorgeGT
I think not, his codename was Godsend and VENONA's missing one was 19 AFAIK.

------
pvg
An interesting thread by nuke historian Alex Wellerstein that provides some
context and pushes back a little on some of the claims about the importance of
the information obtained through espionage to the Soviet nuclear weapons
program:

[https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1198668231457812482](https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1198668231457812482)

------
doe88
More than money what I think was terribly effective in recruiting moles in
western countries was the appeal to -then- popular communist ideology.

~~~
gokhan
Theodore Hall says his motive is neither: "In 1997, Hall admitted that he felt
strongly that an American monopoly on nuclear weapons was perilous and that
atomic information should be shared between countries."

[https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/theodore-
hall](https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/theodore-hall)

~~~
skrebbel
That's exactly what I'd tell myself if I had done it for the money.

~~~
jimbob45
He was arguably right though. MAD has never failed to prevent a purposeful
casualty from an A/H-bomb.

~~~
craftinator
And we'll never have to live in a world where it has failed.

------
Havoc
Love the fact that it's so retrospective. Very data archaeology-like

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lscotte
I'd really like to see a suffix in the title for links to articles that are
not free and cannot actually be read. Something similar to the date in
parentheses. Lately, a huge number of HN stories can't be read without paying
money or using a workaround.

~~~
jaclaz
Well, cannot say for others, but this one can be read by simply disabling
javascript.

~~~
michaelangerman
This is really vital information as I personally had no idea it was that
easy... What a great idea ! Is this true for all articles on the NYT ?

~~~
jaclaz
Yep, AFAIK.

Personally I use a good, ol' simple browser (QTweb) with javascript disabled
to browse/read HN, then I try opening the linked articles with it.

If it works, it works, if it doesn't (not only because of paywalls or similar
but often because the site has been overcomplicated/overengineered and/or uses
some new features that QTweb doesn't support) I may try with a more "recent"
browser.

Of course with javascript disabled a number of things (like dinamically
loading images) won't work and you won't be experiencing the full design of
the site, but as long as the article text is readable, that does it for me
most of the times.

~~~
michaelangerman
Thanks so much for your reply, you opened up my eyes and knowledge to
something that is so trivial; its amazing it took me this long to figure out
such a simple thing. There are so many things in life that are like that, and
that is why I enjoy it :)

------
black_puppydog
That idealogoy never went away. It just morphed and developed. After all,
nobody in their right mind thinks Stalin's USSR is a good thing to repeat. But
many also think we can do better than neoliberalism, and practice seems to
bear that out. Look up "The people's Republic of Walmart" for a recent book on
the calculation debate for example.

~~~
VvR-Ox
Of course we can do better than neoliberalism (and this does not lead to
communism or socialism automatically).

In Europe they have some interesting models in between that provide social
security, health care and a lot of other great things for their citizens so
even the people who don't have enough money to buy / invest in such services
can enjoy a good life.

In the US there is people who do 3 jobs and don't have enough money to live a
life I personally would consider a "good enough" one. Yes I know this also
stems from my perspective and the standards I would label "poor" could be very
high for an Asian child sewing clothes for us.

Now neoliberalism is trending there as well and we can observe how it "drags
them down". Look at Germany for example - I don't think it's easy living there
when you knew the 70ies and still be optimistic about the future if you don't
happen to be a millionaire.

They had a good employment rate (now it's being faked as a friend told me) low
poverty and a middle class with a high status of living and they were leaders
in several disciplines. Now look how they lose all of that while some private
companies take the money out of their public hand without even paying taxes.
That's what neoliberalism brought them and I bet some of these Germans are
very angry about it. I can understand them because who want's to lose the
prospects of a good life?

In '94 for example they sold out their train infrastructure and now look at
the development: ~16% of tracks where given up because it was not profitable
for them. Now they would love to have it back because of the climate change
etc.

There is a lot of examples and I could go on like this all day but I just
wanted to contribute some facts about the EU to this discussion because I
always thought they have some different but very interesting ideas.

~~~
black_puppydog
Thanks for engaging in a civil manner. :) Doesn't seem to be a given in this
thread, reading some of the other comments.

You're actually speaking to a German living in France right here. And yes, I'd
largely share your analysis. People are angry, and for good reason. To add
insult to injury, many of these changes were made by the social democrats,
which really cemented the idea in people's head that none of the mainstream
parties see an alternative. "Alternativlos" (Merkel's german equivalent of
Thatcher's "There is no alternative") is the mantra that has prevented any
real changes from being made. The Market is seen as the beginning and end of
all discussion, and if it has inherent flaws, well, you can curse them, but
you cannot argue against it. It's like the weather.

There are similar examples in other countries of course.

Personally I'm seeing this here in Grenoble. France has a reputation for an
overpaid and "too comfortable" public sector, but that has only really become
a problem since the government has decided to drastically reduce spending. I
live in Grenoble (a ~400K metropolitan area, so a small town for french
standards) and the _federal_ government has unilaterally decided to reduce the
city's budget by ~30% over the last 3-4 years. The effects are things like
public baths closing or reducing service (disproportionally affecting poorer
people) and even blatant violations of unalienable rights of the poorest of
poor. This is not a metaphor or something: there is no more money to provide
emergency shelter to asylum seekers, which is, by law, guaranteed to everyone
in any situation of need, no questions asked. Now they live in tents next to
the train station. It's shameful.

On a less personal note: the NHS in the UK seems to be a good natural
experiment. It is described in some detail in the book I mentioned in the GP.
Since Scotland and other regions had some leeway in how to run their NHS, they
didn't follow along with all the neoliberal policies of the 90s. The result is
that the English NHS has longer waiting times, worse health outcomes, and a
drastically increased administrational overhead (went from ~5% to ~14%!) while
the Scottish NHS fares better in all of these aspects.

This all happens within a European framework of course. I like the idea of
open borders and shared prosperity, I have personally been very lucky to
profit from these (via Erasmus and the possibility to "just move to another
country" twice) but the entire idea of the European Union, as I have come to
realize over the last years, is not to unify people and build bridges across
borders. The idea of the EU is to open markets, and let The Market figure out
the "shared prosperity". It is a fundamentally neoliberal institution. And
that is not even talking about many of its practical
(transparency/electoral/etc) flaws. For any practical changes that affect the
individual (roaming/open borders/shared currency) the liberalization for
companies vastly outsizes that given to the individual. And then there are
tons of examples where EU border-opening does nothing for the individual, and
_only_ liberalizes the markets to allow corporations more freedoms. An example
is the liberalization of the railroad systems. After harmonizing the technical
level, the EU liberalized access of e.g. companies to operate on other
nations' railroad networks. But despite knowing that there is not enough
market incentive for The Market to offer decent cross border offers, the EU
governments declined to force their (largely politically controlled) railroad
companies to do so. For the individual, crossing borders for vacation/work has
become easier (because of the shared currency) but e.g. commuting across
borders by train remains a financial and practical nightmare. Direct
social/economic interaction would really have the potential to fuse European
citizens into a real union, but that was never the idea.

So yeah, you're right, the EU and its nations had (and to a degree still have)
some interesting middle ground ideas. And you're also right that they are
being eroded away by a neoliberal project. We can see the effects in near
realtime, and it's not heading in a good direction...

edited to add example.

~~~
andreskytt
You are at least partially right in saying the goal of the EU is to unify the
markets. But not, I think, in attributing this to neoliberalism. There’s a
much simpler explanation that was very much in the minds of the architects of
EU back in the day: to avoid another war. Making sure as much people as
possible stand to lose as much as possible from a conflict with anybody is a
pretty good way to avoid conflict. It has worked, too. Yes, it has
consequences like everything. But I suppose it’s one of the most effective
ways of conflict avoidance there is.

~~~
black_puppydog
I should have really mentioned "there hasn't been an intra-european war in a
long time" as one of the definite upsides. So I'll happily concede that this
was _one_ of the driving forces behind the very beginnings of the European
project. But for the last 30-40 years, there has been a very clear neoliberal
agenda throughout Europe, and as detailed above, it's not a good development
for most people. For now, the nationalists have mostly focused on "non-
Europeans" as the scapegoats, but e.g. in Germany, the "lazy Greeks" have had
their (un)fair share of xenophobia too, and I don't see that getting better as
we keep pitting the poor against the even poorer. So now we stand to lose what
little unity we have to a market "religion" and its fallout.

~~~
jacquesm
> there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time

Former Yugoslavia aside, this is no guarantee there won't be and with the rise
of nationalism things are not looking good.

~~~
svara
While you're certainly right that there is no guarantee in the strictest
sense, do you really believe that?

I'm German-French. I honestly believe I've never met anyone in my life in my
age group (that I've talked to enough to say this) who would be willing to go
fight a neighboring country.

Where would these people, and support for them, come from?

~~~
vasac
You would be surprised how fast things played out in Yugoslavia. I clearly
remember 15 years old me at 1989 when I become aware how expensive weapons
really are and how stupid is to spend such large amount of money on something
that we obviously will never need. War started two years later, I got drafted
couple of years later and ended using same weapons that I firmly believed
we'll never need.

You can argue that I was naive kid but war came as a big surprise to large
percentage of adults too. From memoirs of various politicians it's clear that
they had much better grasp on reality but for general public things moved from
bad to worse really, really fast.

~~~
svara
Thanks for your comment, it's really interesting and helpful to hear from
someone who's actually seen this play out in real life. I suspect it's not
you, but me who's sounding naive here.

I do believe, though, that there's something about stable, market-oriented
democracies that makes violent conflict unlikely, and there's quite some
empirical evidence for that, too. See Steven Pinker and so on. The history of
Yugoslavia may therefore not generalize to today's Europe.

Also, attitudes of people do matter, and they certainly do in a democracy.
Many of the young men who went to fight in WW1 truly believed they were taking
part in some great, noble, adventure of historic proportions. This world view
just does not exist anymore, it seems about as close to my life as, say, the
Spanish inquisition, and I'd wager that's true for most people in Europe
today.

~~~
vasac
> that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies

Yeah, things are stable when economy is good (worked for Yugoslavia too) but
what's going to happen in case of huge economic downturn like in the 30thies
with millions out of work?

Attitudes of people change as a reaction to the changes in their environment
(real or perceived). And you don't need a majority, you just need a critical
mass of people to stray and start chain of events that effects everyone.

I certainly believe that market-oriented democracies are more stable than
Yugoslavia, I'm just not sure how much more stable they are.

Maybe I'm just to pessimistic after everything that happened in the last 30
years here.

------
AndrewBissell
The Soviet regime under Stalin was terrible, but it was probably a good thing
for the world that they managed to come up with an atomic bomb as quickly as
they did. A twentieth century dominated by an American empire as the sole
nuclear power is a terrifying thing to contemplate.

~~~
Iv
As someone who very often criticize US's international decisions, I tend to
disagree.

I think that the US-USSR opposition radicalized USA, fed its nationalism and
its paranoia and led it to develop an empire, something that is simply not in
its culture (when you compare to typical colonial empires)

~~~
voldacar
Wasn't the united states already developing an empire long before the cold
war? things like the philippines and hawaii come to mind

~~~
Iv
It was a short period and basically stopped after WWII. They could have
occupied Japan and a thousand island if they wanted to and did not (now please
just give state status to Puerto Rico)

USA is more interested in free trade than in military conquest. Something I
dare say, that is totally unlike USSR. Being an "ally" of USSR meant something
totally different than being an ally of USA.

~~~
daseiner1
i’m strongly convinced, but would genuinely love a strong counterargument,
that the single clearest US foreign policy priority since WW2 has been the
establishment of free markets. My perception is that we are supremely
confident that we can outcompete anyone, anywhere. We just want a market where
we’re free to go head-to-head

~~~
ethelward
The US want ‶free″ markets, but with bonus if they are using dollars, have no
problem taking bribes from US firms, respect US sanctions and give a few oh-
so-subtle advantages to US firms there and there.

Note that I don't blame them, any world power would do the same.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The US wants free markets its business class can benefit from. Just as it
wants democracy its business class can benefit from.

It's almost as if what the US really wants is an old-fashioned hegemonic
empire that benefits its ruling class, and rhetoric about democracy and free
markets is an expedient wrapper for that.

------
sam_lowry_
Er... looks like an insightful discussion about US vs USSR missile crisis by
@pinkfoot perished in (@dong's?) attempt to shut down jews vs nazis flamebait.
I can not find my own reply there anymore.

~~~
andrewflnr
You can see it if you have showdead on in your profile.

~~~
sam_lowry_
I can't. Some content seems to be removed for everyone and shows only on
user's profile. That's different from showdead.

~~~
andrewflnr
Well, maybe, but I have showdead on and specifically saw your comment under
pinkfoot's, so I don't think your thread got ultra-killed or whatever. FWIW, I
also had to open a collapsed-by-default thread.

