Last of the Cold War Spies

by Roland Perry

  Days later, on December 15, 1948, Hiss was indicted for perjury. A few weeks later, worry, bordering on hysteria, increased about the communist menace, real and imagined.

  Mao’s victory over Chiang Kai-shek’s retreating forces was confirmed.

  15

  BARKOVSKY AND THE BOMB SPIES

  Vladimir Barkovsky was easy to pick out in the foyer of the Belgrade Hotel, Moscow. He walked with a forward slope, his hands thrust into the pockets of an off-white, knee-length trench coat to keep the early autumn winds of October at bay. Another telltale sign of the spy’s garb was his dark glasses. He seemed a little startled when I greeted him and took him up in an elevator to a room on the eleventh floor where British film director Jack Grossman was waiting to do a video interview. From that moment the 83-year-old, elfin Barkovsky never missed a beat. With a deadpan manner, punctuated by spots of dry humor, he delivered the minimum of information in response to questions. Although practiced at handling Western media, there was none of the easy style and joviality of Yuri Modin, or the machine-gun directness of Oleg Kalugan. Yet Barkovsky’s long record was impressive. Like Yuri Modin who followed him, Barkovsky was young when he took over the demanding task of running the leading British spies in England after Stalin’s purges had liquidated the older brigade of KGB intelligence officers. Among scores of others, Barkovsky had handled espionage agents Donald Maclean and Klaus Fuchs in England and had “known” Victor Rothschild, who, he said, was always popping into the Soviet embassy during the war. Barkovsky was a mechanical engineer who had to get himself up to speed on all matters nuclear as early as 1941 when he became the KGB’s case officer for technical intelligence, a job he held until 1947.

  When I asked him about his main role there, he replied with a twinkle in his eye: “I was the resident photographer.”1 This was correct but a great understatement. He remembered microfilming Mark Oliphant’s magnetron—the basis of his war-winning radar invention—which Barkovsky had received from Anthony Blunt. Rothschild had “stolen” it from Oliphant’s Birmingham laboratory while on a visit in late 1942 as MI5’s security inspector and had given it to Blunt. Once Barkovsky had photographed the three-inch-diameter device, it was given back to Rothschild, who returned it to Oliphant with a note that told him to tighten up his security.2

  Barkovsky was part of the team that collected the Maud report (the initial British report on the feasibility of creating an atomic weapon) in the summer of 1941. His first big role was as Maclean’s case officer from 1941 to 1944, under Gorsky, the KGB operations control. In 1941 Maclean gave Barkovsky an analysis showing that the uranium bomb might be constructed within two years by Imperial Chemical Industries with U.K. government support.3 Early in 1943, Barkovsky also microfilmed information and technical drawings about the plutonium route to the bomb, which had been stolen by Rothschild (and articulated with words and sketches by him and Blunt) from Professor G. P. Thompson’s laboratory at London’s Imperial College.

  Rothschild was close to the agent codenamed ERIC—who was exposed in early 2003 as Sir Eric Rideal, a leading Cambridge chemist and a senior figure in the British team working on the A-bomb Manhattan Project. Barkovsky became his contact in 1942. After that, Rideal supplied 10,000 pages of spy material, much of it from the atomic research facilities in the United Kingdom. So prolific was ERIC that the code name may have referred to Rideal plus several other agents.

  Barkovsky would not confirm this agent’s identity (because, he said, he was forbidden to do so under Article 19 of the Russian Secret Service Act). Yet he did admit that when he first met ERIC, he was intimidated by his knowledge of all the atomic physics that was needed to keep up with the information. Barkovsky wanted to be replaced with another KGB agent who had a background in physics. But the dictatorial ERIC would have none of it. He had begun with Barkovsky and wanted to stay with him.

  “Get a copy of Applied Nuclear Physics by Pollard and Davidson and study it,” ERIC commanded. Barkovsky obeyed. The textbook was still in his library a half a century later.

  Given Rothschild’s history of close contact with Russian spies, and his strong link to Rideal as a fellow scientist at Cambridge, it is likely that he fed him with as much as he could for passing on to Barkovsky. Another British scientist operating as a spy for the Russians, Allan Nunn May, made a deathbed confession in January 2003, which exposed Rideal as ERIC.

  Barkovsky also came into contact with Melitta Norwood—code named HOLA and TINA. Living at Bexleyheath, London, she worked for the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research. There she had access to vital technical data on atomic weapon construction.

  Another coup for Barkovsky in the atomic espionage field was the successful running of Fuchs from 1944 to 1947.4 By the time Barkovsky had finished with him and returned to Moscow, Fuchs was set up to supply vital information on the so-called superbomb that would supersede the atomic bomb and be a thousand times more powerful. Barkovsky’s understudy, KGB agent Aleksandr S. Feklisov, met Fuchs in London on February 28, 1947, and asked him questions.5 Fuchs told him about the theoretical superbomb studies being directed by Hungarian-born Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago. Fuchs described certain structural characteristics of the superbomb and its operating principles and maintained that Fermi and Teller had proved the “workability” of this new nuclear weapon. However, Feklisov was not a physicist or even an engineer like his boss Barkovsky. His report back to Moscow “could only very roughly reproduce” the structural details of the superbomb and its operations.6 According to German A. Goncharov, a Russian physicist who worked on the eventual Soviet thermonuclear (or super-bomb) project, “Fuchs did not know if practical efforts had begun in the US on construction of a superbomb or what their results were.”7

  Consequently, the Soviets redoubled their efforts in the United States in the two-pronged strategy of delaying any future developments in new weaponry while stealing as much as they could and forging ahead with their own new bombs. The Fuchs material was a useful start but not enough. He was helpful in “planting the idea” that Fermi, Leo Szilard, and J. Robert Oppenheimer opposed the development of any hydrogen superbomb. The KGB, led by Department S Director Pavel Sudoplatov, still regarded them as de facto agents and “political advocates of the Soviet Union.”8

  Barkovsky and his fellow KGB scientists in Moscow were contacted by an excited Moscow Center in mid-March 1948 to be told about the results of a recent second meeting between Fuchs and Feklisov in London. Fuchs handed over material he had been sent from the United States. It included pertinent information about the theory of a superbomb that had advanced rapidly. The documents described the operating principle of the “initiator”—the technology to trigger the weapon—and several graphs about its performance. The data substantiated that the superbomb could be made.

  A month later, a digestible analysis of the material was sent to Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lavrenty Beria, who were still skeptical about the chances of the Soviet Union detonating their first atomic bomb—an event at least a year away. Yet Stalin appreciated this new intelligence was direct evidence that the United States was going ahead with superbomb developments. He demanded drastic measures to speed through feasibility studies and imparted official status to the Soviet’s own attempts to make a new, much more powerful nuclear weapon.

  It was the beginning of the race for the superbomb. The Russians were confident they had the scientists to develop their own this time rather than make a carbon copy of a U.S. design, which they had done with the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki—Fat Man. But they still needed to keep abreast of U.S. developments to give themselves the option of copying or incorporating any requirement. This meant a full-scale spying operation to keep the data flowing back to the Soviet version of Los Alamos at Dubna near Moscow.

  Barkovsky became KGB station chief in New York early in 1949 in order to coordinate the flow of information. The FBI was intensifying its efforts to find communist agents inside and outside the admi
nistration, making it the toughest period ever for espionage. He had to reactivate some agents, give new directives to others, and always encourage division within the U.S. scientific ranks in efforts to stall progress. Officially the United States had not yet decided to produce a superbomb, although its theoretical physicists had already produced several alternative routes to this most terrible weapon. Teller remained the most enthusiastic; whereas Fermi, Szilard, and Oppenheimer were against further developments, he was obsessed with producing a thermonuclear explosive based on hydrogen fusion.

  Barkovsky remarked in our interview that he was an avid reader of The New Republic. He said he knew Straight and that he believed he “met him at some embassy functions.”9

  Barkovsky’s subscription to The New Republic was understandable. Straight had focused the magazine in the late 1940s on everything to do with nuclear weapons and atomic energy, the key issue of the day. Straight hired specialist writers and ex-scientists. He tackled editorials on everything from disarmament to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the civilian body that had taken over and resuscitated the remnants of the Manhattan Project after the war. Straight used his great skill at making and charming contacts to glean everything he could. The magazine, despite being a pale imitation of former years, was still a useful vehicle for meeting everyone from David Lillienthal and other AEC directors to the best-placed scientists at key research centers. Straight maintained his links to the key players such as Szilard and Oppenheimer, offering them adequate space in The New Republic to air their views, which they took up. Szilard submitted his pacifist, disarmament views, while Oppenheimer used the magazine as a forum for arguing against the FBI screening of AEC employees to weed out communists.10

  The early months of 1949 saw Straight helping his sister Beatrice extricate herself from a failed marriage to KGB agent Louis Dolivet, alias Ludovic Brecher. He had moved to a hotel in New York. Straight, with his attorney Milton Rose doing most of the negotiating, made him a divorce offer based on a separation agreement that he found impossible to refuse. He and Beatrice would share custody of their young son, Willard. The divorce was granted in May, about the time his paper, United Nations World, went bankrupt. It lost the family interests at least $250,000, which was the amount Dorothy agreed to put into it. Dolivet failed to obtain $1 million from a new backer, Richard Mellon, then he left for France. (Three years later, young Willard drowned in a boating accident. Dolivet had been exposed as a KGB agent and had difficulty securing a short-term visa to return to the United States for his son’s funeral. He went back to France and became a successful film producer.)

  In June 1949 Straight and Bin flew to the United Kingdom for a visit to Dartington Hall and a reunion with the family and such friends as Michael Young, a frequent visitor to his old alma mater.11 Young had renounced his links to the communists but still held radical views, which he inculcated into his work in the Labour Party’s research department and in the occasional article in left-wing magazines, such as The New Republic. Straight managed to slip away to London on his own for a few days where he again met Burgess and Blunt without Bin’s knowledge.12 They and other Apostles, including Rothschild, gathered at an annual reunion dinner. It was arranged by Burgess, who chaired the event in private rooms at his RAC Club in Pall Mall close to Carlton Gardens.

  Thirty Apostles sat down to dine at two tables. Burgess was next to the speaker, drama critic Desmond MacCarthy, at the head table. Straight said he became embroiled in an argument over “Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia” with a young Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawn—a most unlikely claim, which was a further attempt to portray himself as at odds with his fellow Apostles.

  The trio of Burgess, Blunt, and Straight decided to meet again the next morning at the RAC Club to talk about what each had been doing. Straight claimed in his autobiography that Burgess had arranged the meeting to determine if he had double-crossed him and turned him in to the authorities.

  Straight admitted that the discussions reflected his continuing inability to break completely with his past. The old Apostles were hanging on. Yet he was not unfriendly to his old comrades and Marxist mentors, which was the reassurance Burgess (according to Straight) needed. He would not be double-crossing them; his apostolic oath not to betray his comrades would see him remain silent about their continuing espionage work for the KGB.

  Straight alleged that Burgess asked him if he still had allegiance to the Cambridge ring. Straight further claimed that he asked him in return if he (Straight) would be here if he did not have that allegiance. This was meant to give the impression to his FBI interrogators that he was prevaricating and not strong enough to inform on Burgess.

  This spin on events was to appease the FBI twenty years later. In reality, Straight was still a fully fledged agent. He had turned up at the Apostles meeting to be with his fellow spies in an environment he would have considered a perfect cover—a reunion with his old university friends. His feeble explanation under the circumstances was not credible. Had he been trying to avoid KGB agents, he would have stayed well clear of such a meeting.

  Back at Dartington, the family was preoccupied with Beatrice’s problems, and Straight was under no pressure to explain the situation at The New Republic to Dorothy. He was the family favorite, worshipped for his gallant fight for liberal positions in the United States, which she feared was turning hard right. Whitney, based in the United Kingdom and moving into business with the skill and dynamism he showed as an air ace, had ignored developments in the family Trust set-up and the Whitney Foundation in the United States.

  Whitney visited Straight at Weynoke in 1948 and saw him again at Whitney’s club on this trip in London. They had grown a long way from each other and had little in common except for flying and photography. Whitney was a confirmed conservative, bent on making his way in the business world. His natural attraction was to planes. After the war, he had joined the board of British European Airways. Then he formed Alitalia. Whitney was married but kept a rich playboy image with a mistress and his interests in sports. If he wasn’t on the ski slopes of Switzerland, he was scuba diving in the Caribbean or indulging his love for photography, good food, and wine. His adventurous lifestyle and endeavors were not appreciated by Dorothy as much as those of Michael, who appeared to have sacrificed much for liberal causes she held dear. Straight could talk her language. She read The New Republic editorials and features and loved discussing them with him. Whitney was disdainful of the magazine. He was not ashamed of his privileged life or guilty about being rich; he enjoyed the trappings of wealth but was not idle or a dilettante. Whitney was able to apply himself to a business he knew and be comfortable with it. By contrast, Straight had lived a double life and had not been capable so far of sustaining a lasting interest in a profession or job.

  Whitney’s easy nature, pragmatic intellect, and good humor had endeared him to the English elite in which he circulated—so much so that he too had a secret. Whitney had been approached by MI6 to “make observations of interest whenever he traveled abroad on business,” a not uncommon practice by British executives.13

  In effect, he too had become a spy.

  Straight stayed in the United Kingdom until August 1949, then spent a short time in Rome from where he filed a report to The New Republic that appeared on August 22. It was here that the FBI pressured the magazine’s Rome correspondent to spy on him. Yet he expected the bureau to use some of his staff in this way. The magazine had been critical of the United States’ ECA program in Italy to aid postwar reconstruction.

  Straight spent the next ten weeks back in the United States before returning to Dartington Hall with Rose on November 8. Dorothy was considering the reorganization of the family trust setup. That would see her “trustee,” the Royal Trust Company of Canada (managed by Rose), succeeded by Trust 11, with Rose and a family member, either Whitney or Straight, as “successor” trustees. This arrangement would give the selected family member control over the considerable funds and a big say in
how they were used. Rose was urging Dorothy to select Straight. The suggestion may well have been planted in her mind at this moment, for she would have been more influenced by Rose than any other trustee. He had worked on the creation of the split-up of the estate into the several trusts in 1936. The details had taken him a year, and in that time he and his wife Emily had become “very close friends” with Dorothy. He was the one most responsible for investment of the working capital and its dividends for each of the five children.

  However, Rose’s recommendation of her son as a fellow successor trustee presented her with a problem. There was something to be said for the trust being run by two friends who had now had a close working relationship over a decade. And Dorothy would have been pleased to know that Rose, then a decade older than Straight, had such confidence in him. Yet Whitney was the elder brother, and he had proven himself a more natural businessman than Michael. He was also a better decision-maker through wider experience.

  Once again the words—relayed to her via a medium—from her first husband would have been prominent in her thoughts: “Whitney . . . will mix in the world—stand out but more as a good businessman and good fellow . . . ”

  The decision gave Dorothy much to ponder over the next year. In Straight’s favor was his seeming effort to make The New Republic a liberal standard bearer once more. He was clearly far more interested than his brother in the trust’s main activities.

  Dorothy had started the “old role” of the magazine, with its liberal, intellectual approach. Straight had turned it into a radical political pamphlet and had brought it close to ruin. By returning The New Republic back to what it once was, Straight was trying to show his mother that he had matured.