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

by Close, Frank

  Her isolation soon began to deepen, even within her own home. Every morning a fat maid with bleached hair and a gregarious personality came to take care of the family’s needs. She cleaned the children’s rooms and the kitchen, and prepared food. That much was fine. The problem was that she was very voluble, and tried to talk with Marianne in Russian, asking what she wanted to eat. Marianne generally opted out, wanting to let the maid decide, but the maid kept on asking during every visit. After a few weeks, Marianne found this unbearable, and began locking herself in her room when the woman arrived.11

  Bruno arranged for the maid to be replaced by a younger woman, who didn’t talk so much and made her own decisions. Nonetheless, Marianne continued to stay in her room for long periods, incommunicado. Like the rest of the family, she was restricted to staying indoors, based on the KGB’s insistence that their whereabouts remain secret, as well as the fact that she did not understand enough Russian to go to the grocery store anyway.

  The difficulty of keeping three young boys occupied added to the family problems. One day, Gil left the apartment and crossed the street. Years later, he still recalled what happened next: “I bumped into a lady who had a bag full of eggs. I think one of the eggs must have smashed. I didn’t understand any Russian and spoke in English.” One can imagine the scene from the Muscovites’ perspective. In 1950, the USSR was tightly controlled, foreigners were regarded with suspicion, and contact with them was restricted. So the appearance on a busy street of a strange boy speaking a foreign language must have created quite a stir. Gil continued: “A crowd gathered. Someone started shouting. I didn’t know what they were saying. A policeman came and dispersed them.”12 The incident was so singular that it stayed in Gil’s memory, but he has no recollection of his parents’ reaction. In any case, the incident can hardly have improved the family’s chances of liberation.

  Such events spurred Gil and his younger brothers to ask more and more questions: “What is happening? Why are we here? When are we going home?” The family had left Abingdon on July 25, at the end of the summer term at Roysse’s. The new school year was due to begin on Tuesday, September 19. Gil remembers being “promised I would be at school in England by the 16th.”13 This deadline was fast approaching, and Gil was getting anxious. After two weeks in Moscow, the date finally came and his fears were confirmed: “I was hysterical because I was sure I was not going back.” He threw a fit.

  It is intriguing that, forty-three years later, when father and son were reminiscing, Bruno had no recollection of this event, which to Gil had been one of the singular moments of his life. Gil recalled, “He seemed well, and I reminisced with him, asking if he remembered my tantrum. I am a placid person and that is the only time in my entire life that I made such a scene. It is surprising how different people remember events. Bruno did not even remember my hysteria.”14

  Initially Bruno and Marianne may have seen their move to the USSR as simply another stop on the peripatetic path their lives had taken up until then. After all, they had already left their homelands for France, escaped the Nazis by fleeing to the United States, spent three years in Canada, then moved back to Europe when Bruno joined the team at Harwell. Their relocation to the USSR, the mecca of communism and the home of a new atomic laboratory at Dubna, made some logical sense. Bruno’s cousin Emilio Sereni traveled to and from the Soviet Union regularly, so there was initially no reason for Bruno to suppose that he would be treated differently. It seems Bruno thought he could work at Dubna without a major disruption to his life. Once the family was settled in their new home, their friends and relatives in the West could be contacted, Gil’s schooling could be dealt with, and life would carry on as before. Unfortunately, life in the USSR of the 1950s was not so simple.15

  As we have seen, the first signs of the restrictive environment that awaited the Pontecorvos came soon after their arrival in Moscow, when the authorities refused to allow Bruno to make a statement. He was stranded, unable to explain his reasons for fleeing to the Soviet Union, or even to let his family know that he was safe. This incident, along with a summons to the Kremlin during the family’s first few days in Moscow, changed Bruno’s view of his situation.

  IN 1950, BORIS IOFFE WAS A YOUNG THEORETICAL PHYSICIST WORKING in Moscow at “Laboratory Number Three.” Today this lab is home to the Institute of Theoretical Physics, but at the time it was dedicated to the development of nuclear reactors—and thus, indirectly, to the physics of atomic and hydrogen bombs.16

  Ioffe had joined the lab on January 1, and for a few months he worked purely on theoretical problems. In May, however, an order suddenly came “from the highest level”—in Ioffe’s opinion, from Beria or “probably even Stalin himself.” The young scientist was to help design a heavy-water nuclear reactor, using enriched uranium, for the purpose of producing tritium in the shortest possible time. “All theoreticians were mobilized to make the physical design,” he recalled later. “From that time, for years, I worked on pure science in parallel with the physics of nuclear reactors.”17

  A hydrogen bomb’s explosive power comes from the fusion of tritium and deuterium, two isotopes of hydrogen. At the start of the 1950s, when the possibility of creating this weapon arose, there was practically no tritium in the USSR. The isotope is unstable, with a half-life of twelve years. Only trifling amounts of tritium are found in nature, but it can be made in nuclear reactors, using heavy water and enriched uranium. However, there were no such reactors in the USSR at the time, and design plans had barely begun. The government hoped to produce enough tritium for a weapon in two to three years; it was clear to scientists that this was out of the question, but Stalin insisted that they succeed.18 Thus there was an urgent push in the Soviet Union to build nuclear reactors, or to find some alternative to tritium. The arrival of Bruno Pontecorvo could hardly have been more opportune.

  The Soviets already had some clues to help them design a heavy-water reactor, including “blueprints of the Canadian heavy water research reactor.”19 Ioffe doesn’t know exactly when this information arrived, but he believes it was shortly before he started working at the laboratory at the start of 1950.20

  How did the Soviets get hold of these design plans? Nunn May was not the source—he had been jailed in 1946, and his deathbed confession made no mention of the plans. The available facts are consistent with the theory that Pontecorvo was the source, although there is no proof. All we can be sure of is that there was some well-placed collaborator, in addition to Nunn May, who passed information about the Canadian reactor to the USSR.

  The senior theoreticians in the Soviet reactor program included Isaak Pomeranchuk, who was Ioffe’s supervisor, and A. D. Galanin, a reactor expert. Ioffe later recalled how, from the middle of 1950 until early 1951, Pomeranchuk was away from the lab, working at Arzamas-16, the Soviet equivalent to Los Alamos. During his absence, one day in the fall of 1950, Galanin was “summoned to the Kremlin.” This was a singular occurrence, as, in Ioffe’s words, “People were summoned to various places, but never the Kremlin.”21

  When Galanin returned to the lab, he said nothing. Ioffe and his colleagues followed the standard rule of life in the USSR: don’t ask; if you need to know, you will be told. It wasn’t until several years later, after Pontecorvo’s presence in the country had become public knowledge, that Galanin revealed what had taken place.

  Sometime in mid-September, Bruno Pontecorvo’s KGB minders ushered him into one of the ubiquitous black sedans with curtained windows, and took him to the Kremlin. There he met with a group of physicists, which included Galanin. Their goal was to find out what Pontecorvo knew about the “atomic problem” and Western nuclear technology in general.

  The USSR had no shortage of first-rate scientists. The central problem for the Soviet nuclear program in the postwar years was not a lack of technical know-how, but a lack of access to uranium. The nation’s first nuclear reactor, built in 1946, only succeeded due to the Soviet army’s chance discovery of one hundred tons of uranium
in a German repository during the war. Although the meeting with Pontecorvo taught Soviet scientists nothing significant about nuclear technology (they already had the blueprints of the Canadian reactor), it confirmed their hopes that Pontecorvo’s unique expertise in uranium prospecting could be of considerable value to Stalin’s nuclear strategy.

  It is interesting, therefore, that during the next five years stories appeared periodically in the Western media claiming that Pontecorvo had been seen at various uranium mining sites in Eastern Europe. At the time, the significance of uranium for the Soviet program was not generally known in the West, nor did anyone know of the Kremlin debriefing, which suggests that these rumors may have had a basis in fact.

  WHAT IS HARDER TO EVALUATE IS THE CLAIM THAT PONTECORVO was cross-examined at the Kremlin meeting about matters unrelated to science—including security issues and his reasons for coming to the USSR. The accuracy of this claim, which originates with an anonymous former KGB source, is impossible to assess.22 However it seems very plausible under the circumstances.

  It is obvious that the KGB would need answers to some big questions. They knew that Pontecorvo had been interviewed by MI5 in April; they needed to find out what he had been asked, and what he had said in response. If he had been spying for the Soviets, they would want to know if he had confessed to the UK. In any case, the KGB would be very interested in finding out what MI5 knew about the spy trail linking Canada to Moscow—and whether the West knew anything about the Cohens, whom the Soviets had rescued from the United States just a few weeks earlier.

  Bruno had expected to be debriefed about his atomic research in the West, but he was not prepared for this aggressive inquisition into his motives. In a featureless room, lit by low-wattage bulbs, with walls painted dull gray and mustard, the emotionless interrogators pointed out that a spy for the Soviet Union, whose colleagues have been exposed, might obtain immunity from prosecution by agreeing to work for the other side.

  Whether or not Pontecorvo was a spy, it is probable that the KGB also had another worry—this one involving the letter composed by Geoffrey Patterson in July, which alerted Philby to the FBI’s interest in Pontecorvo. Was this a genuine document, showing that the game was up for Pontecorvo in the West? Or was it an elaborate trap devised by the British, using Pontecorvo as bait to expose Philby and other Soviet agents? After all, if the Soviets were to express a sudden interest in Pontecorvo, this could confirm that Patterson’s letter was known in Moscow, allowing the British to reel in Philby.23

  If the Soviets truly questioned Bruno about the Cohens, there was no possibility of letting him go. He now knew too much, even if he hadn’t before. Furthermore, it’s doubtful that Bruno would have been welcome in the West. By this point, Philby’s news that the FBI was investigating Bruno and his communist associations had presumably reached him. Having been confronted with this news, Pontecorvo could hardly expect the British to take him back, except perhaps in order to put him in a noose.

  This mention of the death penalty may sound like the stuff of a spy novel, but it is sadly based in reality. Bruno Pontecorvo had worked closely with Alan Nunn May in Canada, and had even helped him pry classified information from the US team in Chicago—some of which had ended up in the USSR. This could easily constitute grounds for a capital charge in the United States. Klaus Fuchs had prepared himself mentally for execution by the British, only to discover that, because he had not passed secrets to an enemy (the USSR was an ally at the time), he was not guilty of a capital offense in the UK. The possibility that he might be extradited to the US, where he could face execution in the electric chair, was a serious concern. This encouraged Fuchs to plead guilty in the British court. While researching this book, I interviewed the immediate relatives of two other confirmed atomic spies from that era—Alan Nunn May and Ted Hall. In both cases, the relatives confirmed that the fear of execution had been very real. Nunn May’s stepson stated that the possibility of extradition to (and execution by) the US is what led Nunn May to cooperate so readily with British prosecutors. Ted Hall’s wife, Joan, confirmed that he too had feared execution for treason. I asked, “If Ted had been threatened with exposure in 1950, would you have gone to the USSR?” This elicited an instant response: “For sure we would!”24

  Bruno would always claim that his decision to enter the USSR was made purely for idealistic reasons, based on his profound belief in communism and a wish to use his scientific knowledge for peace, away from the perceived persecution of the West. However, none of this explains why he left on a whim, in the middle of his summer vacation, rather than making an organized transition to the USSR, which would not have been difficult for a man of Bruno’s intelligence.25 In 1946, Bruno had refused to join Harwell unless he was given the freedom to travel; now, by going to the Soviet Union, he had lost all freedom—not only to travel but also to communicate with his parents, siblings, friends, and scientific colleagues. Parting the Iron Curtain in 1950 was like entering a black hole, where people and information could be lost forever. Gil could not return to school in England; Bruno and Marianne could not contact their families in the West; the very fact of the Pontecorvos’ presence in the Soviet Union would remain a closely guarded secret for five years. During this period, they were referred to by their relatives as “the dear departed.”26

  BY THE END OF SEPTEMBER, BRUNO, MARIANNE, AND THE CHILDREN were allowed to leave the apartment, as long as they were accompanied by bodyguards. It was not yet winter, but the weather was very cold and the Pontecorvos had only summer clothing. One morning, their Russian teacher arrived with a girl carrying packages of fur-lined coats, hats, gloves, and boots. No wonder Bruno, years later, recalled that they felt like “privileged guests, protected” and that these early days in Moscow were “very peaceful.” However, it would seem that Marianne might not have shared this positive impression, if the family’s first trip out is any guide.

  The Pontecorvos’ apartment was close to several of Moscow’s major stores, whose windows displayed a range of goods available for the home. On this initial excursion, the family entered one of the shops, where Marianne was “discontented” by the sparse offering of products, the long lines, and the sullen attitude of the staff. According to Bruno’s recollections, he and Gil scolded Marianne. They told her that in Paris or London the stores were less crowded “because only the rich could buy and the staff were forced to smile in order not to be made redundant.” Bruno admitted that the goods were of lesser quality than those in the West, and were poorly packaged and presented, but he argued that this drawback was outweighed by the fact that “everyone could buy everything,” and the goods were not merely available to the well-off.

  Bruno later recalled that Marianne “did not seem convinced,” but chose not to discuss the episode further.27

  AT THE END OF OCTOBER, AFTER SPENDING NEARLY TWO MONTHS marooned in their Moscow apartment, the Pontecorvos were on the move again, being driven for miles on unpaved roads through dark woods of fir trees. They passed a few villages filled with rustic houses, some abandoned and decaying at the side of the road. After two hours they reached Dubna, a village some seventy miles north of Moscow, on the banks of the Volga—the home of a secret nuclear physics research center.

  In former times, Dubna had been a peasant village, far away from the cities, an ideal spot for rest and relaxation. Even after the laboratory took over, it retained a rustic charm, with its quaint streets cut through the forest. Gil recalled, “In 1950 when we arrived, Dubna was little more than a Russian village, with two or three gravel roads and log cabins. These were similar to what I remembered in Canada.” He added, with a laugh, “All governments put nuclear research laboratories in the backwoods.”

  One of the first things Gil noticed about Dubna was the mosquitoes: “I had grown up in Canada where they were everywhere, so I was used to them, but Bruno hated them.”28 Mosquitoes thrived at Dubna because the village and laboratory were built on reclaimed swampland, formerly part of the Gulag Arc
hipelago. The village itself is situated on an island at the junction of the Volga River, the Dubna River, and a canal that links the Volga to the Moskva. This canal had been dug in the 1930s by inmates from prison camps, who provided forced labor for the laboratory after the war. They dug the foundations, broke rocks, and built the entire edifice of the lab.

  In addition to the town’s basic bungalows, there were some more substantial homes where senior scientists lived. The Pontecorvos were presented with an elegant detached house, painted in ocher. It was two stories high, with a third-floor gable at one end. The front door opened on to a stone patio, fringed by an elegant low wall. The property was surrounded by a green wicker fence, which enclosed numerous tall fir trees and a garden. Compared to the brick estate house in Abingdon, this was a land of enchantment. In Dubna the Pontecorvos had space, and a house such as one might find in the forests of North America. After the privations of Moscow, Marianne felt very positive about her new home. Its surroundings reminded her of her native Sweden.

  No one could enter Dubna without special permission, and its entire population was specially selected. One might hope to enjoy a certain amount of freedom within such a protected environment, yet Bruno could not leave his home, even for the short walk to the laboratory, without being accompanied. His protests were met with the explanation that the physicists employed in important research work “need protection.”29

  Bruno was beginning to discover the strange reality of his new life in Dubna. Even today, visiting the area can feel like passing through a time warp. Two security fences reminiscent of the Berlin Wall still surround parts of the site. After you pass through the first fence, the door to the outside world closes behind you. Armed guards examine your papers before allowing you to continue. Beyond the second fence, there is nothing other than the laboratory, hidden in the woods, and the mosquitoes.