Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy

by Close, Frank

  Because the Pontecorvos no longer had passports, and there was no record of them staying at any hotel in Finland, it was assumed that they had escaped to Russia on the ship. More careful reporters, however, found that the vessel had actually departed some hours before their plane had arrived. Nonetheless, the debunked theory has remained part of the folk wisdom about the affair.

  Anthony Gardner recalled that “everyone at school who knew Gil was excited. The speculation that he and his family had gone to a communist country behind the Iron Curtain, and indeed that they were now in the USSR, was like reading a spy thriller and taking part in it.” Anthony was already interested in languages, and considered Gil to be lucky in a way: “My goodness! He speaks English and Italian, and now he’s going to learn Russian.”31

  GILLO PONTECORVO’S SON, LUDO, HIMSELF A PHYSICIST, LATER recalled, “Dad said that when he heard that Bruno had disappeared, ‘I knew at once where he’d gone: to USSR.’”32 Ugo Amaldi told me that his father, Edoardo, said as much also.33 But none of them could explain why it all happened so suddenly and catastrophically; everyone who had seen Bruno and Marianne in the dog days of August 1950 remarked how relaxed they had seemed.

  Bruno’s son Gil told me, “I thought [my aunt] Giuliana was involved. When I stayed with her in Rome in the 1980s, I asked, ‘Did you know anything?’ She said, ‘Of course I didn’t.’” Then Gil added, laughing, “But that means nothing.”34 Gil may be perceptive, as Giuliana’s responses to inquiries by the Italian police, made in 1950 on behalf of MI5, suggest that she knew more than she admitted.

  When the Italian police interviewed Giuliana, early in October, she told them a story whose chronology was demonstrably wrong. She said that Bruno had “put his car in the garage on the 31 August for minor repairs.” On the “5 or 6 September” the Pontecorvo family had, in her version, “risen early and said they wanted to return to England in stages.” She claimed that “somewhere about the middle of September” she received letters from Bruno “datelined Rome,” asking her to pay the garage expenses and send the car on to England. She could not remember the date or the postmark.

  MI5 learned from their Italian colleagues that Giuliana had appeared “evasive” while giving answers. The director general of MI5 now asked the Italians to visit her again to clarify this misleading information.35

  When the inconsistencies in her story were pointed out to her at this second interview, which occurred around October 10,36 she apparently replied, “Oh, I must have got the dates confused.”37

  Other members of the family share Gil’s suspicion that Giuliana was party to the flight, although none admitted that she had ever said as much. In 1950, Guido remarked to Ronnie Reed that “Giuliana and her husband Tabet . . . might have influenced Bruno but could not have organised anything, whereas Emilio Sereni was powerful enough to do so and quite possibly may have done.”38 Ronnie Reed was also convinced that Emilio Sereni, Bruno’s well-placed communist cousin, was involved.39 The possibility that Giuliana, his communist sister, was ignorant of his plans seems most unlikely.

  DAMAGE CONTROL

  Whereas for Gil’s friends in Abingdon this was a spy story come true, for others the implications of Pontecorvo’s defection were more serious.

  When news of Pontecorvo’s disappearance finally broke on the weekend of October 21, and suspicion grew that he had defected to the USSR, the strategy of the British authorities was to minimize the damage. Given Fuchs’s exposure earlier that year, and the resulting strain on Anglo-American relations, this was no time to admit that another spy had slipped through the net.

  A telegram sent from the Cabinet Office to the British embassy in Washington on October 20 proposed responses to the anticipated press stories. Marked “TOP SECRET,” it concludes, “There is no definite proof he was bound for Russia and we shall do everything to play down the fact. Please inform State Department and AEC immediately and ask them to reply to any press enquiries on same lines as we are. It is just possible the press here may refrain from publishing anything through fear of libel action if Pontecorvo should turn up here again.”40

  Meanwhile Guy Liddell, the deputy director general of MI5, continued to write in his diary. It records that on October 21 he received “the latest news about the disappearance of PONTECORVO a scientist at Harwell.” At this same time, Liddell apparently first became aware of the fact that in 1943 the FBI had written to the British Security Coordination in New York to report finding communist literature in Pontecorvo’s house. Liddell noted, “No one knows what happened to these reports, since the records of BSC have been destroyed.”41 As we shall see, these letters later became central to the affair.

  WITH PONTECORVO ALMOST CERTAINLY IN THE USSR, AN URGENT review of his files began. Harwell security had described him in 1948 as “a straightforward fellow with no political leanings.” The records stated that he was “Not politically minded. Expresses no political views. Dr Cockcroft has confirmed these opinions.” Bruno had been naturalized as a British citizen while in Canada, rather than the United Kingdom. “Had he been in the UK,” the record notes, “he would have been submitted to the naturalization enquiries by the police.”42 The British authorities were already maneuvering to deflect blame toward anyone but themselves.

  There was one troubling aspect of the case, however—the mislaid letters, which the FBI had sent to the British Security Coordination Office in 1943. The MI5 minutes state, “FBI had reported to BSC on 2/2/43 and again on 19/2/43 about the search of Pontecorvo’s home in Oklahoma. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were asked for any adverse information. On 31/12/46 they sent three names but not Pontecorvo. Therefore the Canadians had nothing negative on him in Dec 46.”43

  London here is attempting to pass any possible blame over to Canada. Meanwhile the Canadian authorities’ strategy was to stress their innocence. They noted that Pontecorvo’s name had not been mentioned in any of the documents handed over by Gouzenko in 1946, and that “at no time prior to his disappearance had Canadian authorities received any information [from UK or US sources] indicating him to be a security risk.” Then came the coup de grâce: “Pontecorvo was cleared by British security authorities when he came to Canada . . . in accordance with agreed procedure.” The fact that Bruno was employed by the British atomic energy team, which “was sent to Canada,” meant that he should have been “the responsibility of British authorities for screening.”44

  With Canada off the hook, concern grew in London and Washington that something had gone seriously amiss. The British embassy in Washington sent a secret telegram to London on October 21:

  Patterson who has been in touch with the FBI tells us that there have been communications from the FBI in 1943 and [again] recently asking for information about reports that Pontecorvo had communist sympathies.

  If this is so, the FBI may well in response to enquiries from the press here admit that they have been in touch with the British Security Authorities about Pontecorvo. If this happens it will inevitably be concluded that he was under suspicion.

  The question will then be asked over here is why he was allowed to leave the UK if he was under suspicion. This will be a very awkward one to deal with. We are not sure about the exact legal position but presumably it is not feasible to detain persons or to prevent their travelling merely on suspicion. At the same time American public opinion puts the protection of atomic secrets as top priority in the national security. Coming after the Fuchs case it will be hard to persuade them that we were not lax in letting Pontecorvo go if we had suspicions about him.45

  IMAGE 12.1. Secret telegram of October 22, 1950, requesting that “Philbey” [sic] spearhead the Washington office’s efforts to manage the Pontecorvo fallout. Paragraph (2) again refers to the missing FBI communication of 1943. (AUTHOR, THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.)

  The reply, which came on October 22, is shown in Image 12.1. The request that the matter be handled by Kim Philby, who was later exposed as a Soviet double agent, is ironic.

 
; By October 23, the British and American authorities were both reviewing their records, to see if they had overlooked anything. As the full implications of the mislaid FBI report were realized, MI5 set in motion what amounts to a cover-up. The strategy was to downplay Pontecorvo’s significance not only to the public, but also to the British prime minister.

  Immediately after Pontecorvo’s disappearance was confirmed, Cockcroft reported that “for past several years he has had hardly any contact with secret work and has mainly been concerned with Cosmic Ray studies. In the early period in Canada he had access to information about the Pile there and in so far as he has recently had any secret work it has been on detailed problems.”46 This narrative was used to brief Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Guy Liddell wrote in his diary about his briefing of Attlee: “The PM asked how far Pontecorvo had had access to vital information. I said that, according to the answer to the Question to be put down in the House today, D At En [Director of Atomic Energy, Cockcroft] had expressed the view that for several years Pontecorvo had hardly had any contact with secret work.”47

  Chapman Pincher, who, as scientific correspondent for the Daily Express, covered the Pontecorvo affair in 1950, and has zealously investigated British intelligence for half a century, described Liddell’s brief to the prime minister as having “grossly understated” Pontecorvo’s access to secrets.48 The statement that “for several years he had hardly any contact with secret work” is disingenuous, given what we know about his research. Moreover, it utterly contradicts MI5’s own statement to Harwell on April 25 that Pontecorvo was a security risk due to his “access to top-secret information”!49 A line in a report to the Foreign Office, which initially stated, “Bruno Pontecorvo had access to top secret information,” was changed to “From the security standpoint a potential security risk existed.”50 This duplicity reveals the pressure that MI5 was under to keep a lid on an internal disaster.

  On Monday, November 6, the UK House of Commons began a debate about Pontecorvo, “who might have atomic secrets of value to an enemy.”51 On Monday morning, before the debate began, Michael Perrin briefed Sir Roger Makins, deputy undersecretary at the Foreign Office, a “most courteous man, tall and thin with a commanding presence, like a great Norman knight.”52 Perrin’s briefing to him went as follows:

  Pontecorvo’s main value to the Russian atomic energy project would result from his knowledge of the main NUCLEAR features of the Canadian Heavy Water Research pile. He was unlikely to have expert knowledge of the important technological features of the pile, such as heavy water purification and recombination system; canning procedures etc. He has a good general picture of the possibilities of different types of future reactors likely to be important in a power programme though he would not be able to write out a detailed specification for anyone. He had no contact with atomic weapons work. An outstanding nuclear physicist as he is would, however, be of great general value if he were admitted freely to the project. Previous experience suggests that he is more likely, however, to be interrogated and consulted but not allowed to work on the main project.53

  While the Foreign Office and prime minister were being presented with political spin, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI in Washington, and his counterpart in London, Sir Percy Sillitoe, director general of MI5, formed their own conspiracy. They agreed to cover up possible failures in their respective agencies relating to the handling of the now-infamous FBI letters.

  On the day of the debate, Roger Hollis of MI5 spoke to his senior colleagues about his briefing of the Minister of Supply, George Strauss. Strauss wanted to know how to respond if he was asked questions during the debate about items in his briefing that were marked “not for disclosure.” Hollis told his colleagues that Director General Sillitoe had recently seen J. Edgar Hoover and the two had agreed: “Neither [would] make press statements about the other’s office without first clearing with the other. It was important that nothing be said that give any indication that the FBI had not passed on their information to the British authorities.” This was an outrageous statement by Hollis, implying that the FBI was to blame. A bland response was concocted for Strauss: “The British and American security authorities are constantly exchanging information on matters of security interests.”54

  In the ensuing debate in the House of Commons, Strauss claimed that Pontecorvo had had no direct access to secret subjects for some time, “except in a very limited way.” However, he admitted that it was impossible to be sure that he had not obtained information from Harwell or Canada that would be of “value to an enemy.” He added, “I have no conclusive evidence of his present whereabouts but I am sure that he is in Russia.”55

  Although the FBI and MI5 were “constantly exchanging information” with each other, they were misleading officials in other branches of government. For example, a letter sent on November 29 from Sir Oliver Franks (the British ambassador in Washington) to Roger Makins referred to a memo that had been shared with the FBI. The version of Franks’s letter that was sent to Gordon Arneson in the US State Department, however, omitted a crucial paragraph. The missing passage mentioned that in February 1943 the FBI had sent the damaging memo about Pontecorvo to the British security services, and that the two nations’ intelligence agencies had been discussing possible reasons that the memo had been discounted or overlooked. An annotation in the minutes attached to the letter notes, “It is naturally desirable that these facts should not become public.”56 In this the agencies succeeded. These machinations remained secret for nearly half a century.

  IMAGE 12.2. Part of a letter showing attempts to cover up alleged failings on the part of MI5 and the FBI, linked to the loss of information about Pontecorvo’s communist background. (AUTHOR, THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.)

  There would be an ironic postscript to this fiasco. In 1951, two senior Italian intelligence officers visited Liddell. They confirmed that Bruno Pontecorvo’s activities with Emilio Sereni and other prominent communists in 1930s Paris had not gone unnoticed. The Italians had a file on Bruno, which recorded his communist affiliations. Why had no one consulted them in 1943 when Bruno’s security was vetted? As Liddell remarked, with a sigh: in 1943 Britain had been at war with Italy, so “consultation would have been rather difficult.”57

  FALLOUT

  On October 23, Guido Pontecorvo wrote his parents about his suspicions that Bruno had gone to the USSR. They replied, “The whole thing seems mad to us and we cannot believe that our Bruno could have gone entirely of his own free will. Whatever theory one produces comes up against insuperable objections, especially for those, like us, who know him. We seem to be living in a dream.”

  The press had besieged them; their letter to Guido refers to the “loathsome press campaign.” His father wrote, “I will not tell you about the siege of journalists but we were unable to get away from flash photographs.” Bruno’s mother added, in anguish, “What has happened to our boy and his dear ones?”58

  Guido responded to his parents with a sober assessment of the implications of Bruno’s disappearance. They wrote back to him, in turn: “We do hope they are treated well and that Bruno is not too unhappy. It is all a great and most painful mystery. The fact that we cannot know or receive even one word is insupportable. But you say that with this we must be prepared and we must do everything to assure ourselves that one day everything will be cleared up in the best possible way even though today it is not understandable.”

  And finally his mother added, “I think so much about the three children of Bruno with anguish. They were so happy and it was such a serene little family.”59

  Marianne’s family was devastated as well, and deeply hurt once it became clear that their daughter and grandchildren had passed through Stockholm without contacting them. Marianne was the favorite sibling of her older brother. Nothing was known of her fate for several years. In 1954 her brother and his wife had a daughter. They baptized her Ann Mari Helen. Her missing aunt’s forenames were Helene Marianne.

  THE SECURITY SERVICES
CONTINUED TO KEEP A CLOSE WATCH ON members of Bruno’s extended family. On April 6, 1952, when Guido and his wife returned to Glasgow from Copenhagen, their arrival at Prestwick Airport was reported to the intelligence authorities.60

  On September 6 of that year, Bruno’s parents, Massimo and Maria, arrived in Folkestone, England, having crossed the English Channel from Calais. MI5 were informed that “the examinations showed they were parents of the missing scientist. They said there had been no news of him despite attempts they had made to trace him through the Italian Communist Party. They were here to spend 4 to 6 weeks with David Guido and Anna.” The record then bears the cozy addition: “They appeared to be a decent old couple, and were therefore landed conditionally as above.” Nonetheless, MI5 was informed.61

  At least these actions were discreet and had no effect on the couple’s lives. However, for Bruno’s brother Paolo, who was living in the United States under the anglicized name of Paul, the fallout was severe.

  Paul was working for Raytheon, an electronics company involved in national defense. He was on track to become a senior executive in the company, but, after Bruno’s disappearance, Paul’s promising career mysteriously stalled.62 This was not his imagination, but the result of government interference. The British had learned that Paul Pontecorvo was employed in the US “on research work connected with radar,” and MI5’s director general decided that this “should be reported to the FBI.” The FBI took note. An FBI file dated December 11, 1950, remarks that Paul Jacob Pontecorvo, a radio engineer at Raytheon with “access to restricted information,” is the brother of Bruno, who “allegedly fled to the USSR on or about 2 September.”63 The remainder of the file is blacked out.