The Invisible Harry Gold: The Man Who Gave the Soviets the Atom Bomb - Softcover

Hornblum, Allen M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300177577 ISBN 13: 9780300177572

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2011

Synopsis

The first account of one of the most important and enigmatic spies in U.S. history: the man who delivered the plans for the atom bomb to the Soviets

In the history of Soviet espionage in America, few people figure more crucially than Harry Gold. A Russian Jewish immigrant who spied for the Soviets from 1935 until 1950, Gold was an accomplished industrial and military espionage agent. He was assigned to be physicist Klaus Fuchs’s “handler” and ultimately conveyed sheaves of stolen information about the Manhattan Project from Los Alamos to Russian agents. He is literally the man who gave the USSR the plans for the atom bomb. The subject of the most intensive public manhunt in the history of the FBI, Gold was arrested in May 1950. His confession revealed scores of contacts, and his testimony in the trial of the Rosenbergs proved pivotal. Yet among his co-workers, fellow prisoners at Lewisburg Penitentiary, and even those in the FBI, Gold earned respect, admiration, and affection.

In The Invisible Harry Gold, journalist and historian Allen Hornblum paints a surprising portrait of this notorious yet unknown figure. Through interviews with many individuals who knew Gold and years of research into primary documents, Hornblum has produced a gripping account of how a fundamentally decent and well-intentioned man helped commit the greatest scientific theft of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author

Allen M. Hornblum has been executive director of Americans for Democratic Action, chief of staff of the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office, and a college lecturer. His previous books include Sentenced to Science, Acres of Skin, and Confessions of a Second Story Man. He lives in Philadelphia.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Although labeled a "master Soviet spy," Harry Gold (1910–1972) was never a Communist but an often reluctant courier who carried documents from spies to his Soviet handler. Journalist Hornblum (Sentenced to Science) has absorbed masses of documents and interviewed survivors to paint a vivid picture of a sad yet oddly likable figure. Feeling indebted to a Communist friend who found him a job at a sugar refinery during the Depression, Gold--extraordinarily generous and eager to please--agreed at first to provide the Soviets with information from the refinery on modern industrial processes. Then, for 15 years, though doubting the Soviet project, he performed tedious, unpaid assignments including carrying packages from Manhattan Project physicist-spy Klaus Fuchs to Soviet agents in New York. As enigmatic as his reasons for spying were his reasons for confessing when arrested in 1950. Gold named names, devastating Soviet espionage in America and leading to many convictions and, most notably, to the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But Gold's confession did not keep him from serving 15 years in prison. Gold is now obscure, but Hornblum's biography does justice to this mysterious man and recreates a bizarre era when communism was a national obsession.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0300177577
• ISBN 13: 9780300177572
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464