Tuesday, January 4, 2011

THE INVISIBLE HARRY GOLD : THE MAN WHO GAVE THE SOVIETS THE ATOM BOMB
by Allen M. Hornblum

The qualifications to be a Soviet spy are: above-average intelligence, very good memory, detail-oriented, extremely motivated and a large capacity to lie. All of these attributes encompassed Harry Gold who spent fifteen years as an espionage agent supplying the Soviet Union with both industrial and military secrets. Physicist Klaus Fuchs, who worked on the atom bomb, gave Gold the plans which were then handed over to the Russians.
Gold was arrested in 1950 and spilled the beans. His testimony and confession were huge. Forty-nine people were named and brought to justice. His knowledge of all the Americans who had spied for the USSR during the 1930s and 1940s was a godsend to the FBI. For all of Gold's willingness to comply with the government, coming clean and telling everything he knew, his sentencing was severe.
How and why an innocuous, mild-mannered, shy, introverted, chemist became a master spy is finally brought to light in The Invisible Harry Gold. Scrupulous research from archives, congressional hearings, articles, books (sixty-one pages of Notes) plus interviews and a comprehensive Index shows that this is a serious portrait of a gullible man who went down the wrong path so that he could help out his family in a time of need.
An important read that is a real eye-opener. There has been no other book ever written on Harry Gold before. If you're nuts about spies, you won't be disappointed.
Recommended.

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