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

Page 44

by Close, Frank


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  Laucht, Christoph. Elemental Germans: Klaus Fuchs, Rudolf Peierls and the Making of British Nuclear Culture, 1939–59. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

  Lipkin, Harry J. Andrei Sakharov: Quarks and the Structure of Matter. Singapore: World Scientific, 2013.

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  Macintyre, Ben. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.

  Mafai, Miriam. Il lungo freddo: storia di Bruno Pontecorvo, lo scienziato che scelse l’Urss. Milan: Arnondo Mondadori Editori, 1992.

  Manham, Patrick. Snake Dance: Journeys Beneath a Nuclear Sky. London: Chatto and Windus, 2013.

  Marten, Michael. Tim Marten: Memories. Raleigh, NC: Snipe Books, 2009. Moorehead, Alan. The Traitors: The Double Life of Fuchs, Pontecorvo, and Nunn May. New York: Dell, 1952.

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  Pincher, Chapman. Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain. New York: Random House, 2009.

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  Pontecorvo, Bruno. Autobiographical notes (in Russian), 1988. Italian version: “Una nota autobiografica.” In Enciclopedia della Scienza e della Tecnica. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1988–1989.

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  Index

  Abelson, Philip, 67

  Abingdon, England, 160–161

  Adams, Arthur, 311

  Age (Melbourne), on Bruno’s disappearance, 188

  Ageno, Mario, 173

  Agip oil company, 115

  Akers, Wallace, 80, 314

  Alexander, Serge. See Scherbatskoy, Serge Alexandrovich

  Allegrini, R., 177

  Allier, Jacques, 51–52

  Alpha radiation, defined, 12

  Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS), 264

  Alvarez, Luis, 252

  Amaldi, Edoardo Amaldi-Fermi (AF) curves, plotting of, 74

  CERN, witness to construction of, 250

  contact by MI5 about Bruno’s disappearance, 185–186

  induced radioactivity, experiments with, 18–22

  at International Conference on High Energy Physics in Kiev (1959), 252

  seventieth birthday celebration, 285–286

  as signer of greeting card for Bruno, 288

  slow neutron phenomenon, patent of, 22

  Via Panisperna Boys, inclusion in, 15–16, 22 (photo)

  Amaldi, Ugo, 188, 286–287, 289, 300

  Amaldi-Fermi (AF) curves, 74

  Amendola, Giorgio, 64

  Amiredzhibi, Rodam, 278, 282

  Anderson, Herbert, 97, 101, 103

  Andrew, Christopher, 130

  Andropov, Yuri, 284

  Angelov, Pavel, 135–136

  Anglo-Canadian project

  access to uranium deposits by, 89

  Cockcroft’s appointment as director, 96

  Halban, as director of, 80

  members of, 88

  origin of, 80

  relocation to Chalk River, 96

  sharing of data in, 91–94, 96–98

  tension between US and UK in, 93, 95

  travel, restrictions on non-British members, 118–119

  Angus, John, 114

  Anti-K-zero, 255

  Anti-Semitism, 6, 29

  Antielectrons, 110

  Antifascism, 4, 6

  Antimatter, 110

  Antineutrinos, 107, 109, 250, 255, 293

  Appleton, Edward, 88

  Argon, 106, 254

  Arneson, Gordon, 194

  Arnold, Henry, 151–154, 185

  Arnold, Lorna, 151, 210

  Artsimovich, Lev, 229

  Arzamas-16, 219, 229

  Associated production, 236

  Atmospheric neutrinos, 260

  Atom smasher, 26

  Atomic bomb, 10, 77, 79, 87, 93, 128

  Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 149, 198–199

  Atomic Energy Research Establishment. See Harwell

  Atomic nuclei, composition of, 9–10

  Attlee, Clement, 120, 192

  Auger, Pierre, 84, 88, 93, 99, 133 (photo), 288

  Badham, R., 158–159

  Barker, Royd “Doggie,” 162–164

  Benedetto, Sergio de, 149

  Beria, Lavrenti, 79, 135, 137, 141, 209, 226

  Beta decay, 12–13

  Beta radiation, defined, 12

  Bethe, Hans, 11, 118, 121

  Bideault, Georges, 157

  Bilenky, Samoil, 228

  Blokhintsev, Dmitri, 287

  Blokhintseva, Tania, 287, 292

  Blum, Léon, 30, 31

  Bohm, David, 281

  Bohr, Aage, 97

  Bohr, Niels, 9, 24–25, 37, 41, 51, 184

  Bretscher, Egon, 67, 161, 181, 185

  Bretscher, Mark, 161–162, 184

  Brezhnev, Leonid, 283

  Britain. See United Kingdom

  Brod
a, Paul, 136

  Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, 108, 226, 264

  Burgess, Guy, 201–204, 210, 239

  Caldirola, Piero, 167, 184

  Cambridge Five spy ring, 201–202

  Canada, radium and uranium deposits in, 83–84, 89

  Candy, John, 183

  Carbon tetrachloride, 106

  CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research), 250

  Chadwick, James, 9, 26, 79–80, 118–120, 139

  Chain reaction, 46, 66, 68, 81, 92

  Chalk River experimental facility, 89, 96–104, 107–109, 113–115, 133 (photo), 142

  Chevalier, Haakon, 129

  Chicago, Fermi’s laboratory in, 81–83, 94, 97, 98–101, 103, 112, 129

  Chlorine, as target for neutron bombardment, 106, 254, 267

  Churchill, Winston, 80, 87, 95, 118

  Clermont-Ferrand, France, emergency laboratory at, 53, 56, 59–60

  Cloud chamber, 266

  Cobban, James, 160, 163

  Cockcroft, John, 26, 96, 101, 117, 151, 185

  Cohen, Lona (aka Helen Kroger), 140–143, 203, 245, 302, 304

  Cohen, Morris, 140–142, 203, 245

  Collard, John, 153, 155, 185

  Communists

  in France, 30–32

  in Italy, 3, 6, 283

  persecution of in US, 148–149, 203

  UK as refuge for, 281

  anticommunist hysteria in West, xii, xiv, 121, 150, 203, 311

  Compton scattering, 229

  Corbino, Orso, 15, 20–21, 24

  Cosmic radiation, 109–112

  Cosmotron, 226, 237

  Cowan, Clyde, 107, 250, 254, 261

  Curie, Marie, 13, 29, 31, 35

  Curie, Pierre, 31, 35

  Curran, Samuel, 114

  Cyclotron, 26, 131

  Czechoslovakia, invasion of by Soviet Union, 279

  D’Agostino, Oscar, 17, 22 (photo), 23

  Daily Mirror, on scientists’ concerns about nuclear weapons, 244

  Dautry, Raoul, 53

  Davis, Ray, xvii, 108–109, 250, 255–256, 267–269, 272, 293–294

  Deuterium, 118, 141, 229

  Deuterons, 10–11, 131

  Doctors’ Plot, 240–241

  Dozza, Giuseppe, 32

  Dubczek, Alexander, 279

  Dubna, USSR, particle accelerator in, 225–226

  Dzhelepov, Venedict, 227

  Eightfold Way, 237

  Electromagnetic force, 258

  Electron-neutrinos, 259–260, 264, 293, 294

  Electrons, 7, 9, 12–13, 16–17, 36–37, 42–43, 106, 111–114, 229–230, 233, 251, 254–269, 272–273, 300

  Electrostatic accelerator, 42

  Eltenton, George, 128

  Enrichment of uranium, 51, 67–68

  Escher, M. C., 269

  European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), 250

  Fakirov, Docho, 261

  Fascism, 29

  FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), 86, 118, 149–150, 172, 190–192, 197, 205–208

  Feather, Norman, 67

  Feinberg, Gerald, 258

  Fermi, Enrico at University of Chicago, 81–83

  at Columbia University, 69

  control of British-American collaboration by, 93

  hydrogen bomb, interest in, 141

  neutron bombardment, use of in inducing radioactivity, 17–18

  nuclear reactor, construction of, 81

  slow-neutron phenomenon, discovery of, 19–22

  slow-neutron phenomenon, patent of, 22

  theory about neutrinos, 105–106

  theory of beta decay, 13

  theory on behavior of spectra of gases, 16

  University of Rome, professorship at, 7–8

  Via Panisperna Boys and, 15–16, 22 (photo)

  Fermi, Laura, xv, 8, 20–21, 70, 121–122

  Fidecaro, Giuseppe, 173

  Fission, 10, 43–46, 50–51

  Fission, spontaneous, 68, 128

  Fitin, Pavel, 138

  Flavored neutrinos, 257–265

  Flerov, Georgii, 68–69, 77–79

  France, 30–32, 53, 59–60, 288

  Franks, Oliver, 194

  Frisch, Otto, 66, 69, 107, 119, 300

  Fuchs, Klaus

  arrest of, xii, xiv, 148, 150, 202–203

  Bruno’s opinion of, 281, 310

  communist affiliation, failure of MI5 to identify, 134

  confession, consequences of, 308, 314

  as “deadliest spy” in US history, 228

  effect of Fuchs’ arrest on Bruno, 281

  fear of execution in US, 221

  at Harwell, 139

  at Los Alamos, 87

  mentioned, 157, 158, 162, 172, 190, 244, 285, 305, 311, 312

  Peierls, friendship with, xvi

  Philby’s alert of Soviets about MI5 suspicion of, 202

  post-prison life, 281–282, 304

  reason for spying, 241

  as spy for Soviet Union, xiii, 78, 87, 127, 132, 135, 141

  Furnival Jones, Martin, 155

  Galanin, A. D., 219

  Gamma radiation, 12, 42

  Gardner, Anthony, 161–162, 164–165, 182–183, 187–188

  Gardner, John, 161, 164

  Gardner, Meredith, 202

  Gardner, Paul, 161–162, 167, 183, 186–187

  Gardner family, 183–184

  Gaseous diffusion, 132

  Geiger counters, 101

  Gell Mann, Murray, 237

  Germany, 53, 59–60, 80

  Gershtein, Semen, 249, 280–282, 300

  Giannini, Gabriello, 197–199

  Gold, Harry, xiv, 203

  Goldhaber, Maurice, 25

  Goldschmidt, Bertrand, 84, 94, 133 (photo)

  Gordievsky, Oleg, 117, 130, 134, 309

  Gouzenko, Igor, 103, 135, 137, 314

  Gramsci, Antonio, 31

  Graphite, 23, 81, 131

  Greenglass, David, xiv, 172

  Gribov, Vladimir, 268–269, 272, 281

  Groshev, L. V., 229

  Groves, Leslie, 87, 91, 93, 103, 118, 119, 131

  GRU (Soviet military intelligence agency), 134–137, 139, 141

  Guéron, Jules, 107, 115, 133 (photo), 300

  Guidi, Guido Buffarini, 4

  Hahn, Otto, 41, 43–44

  Halban, Hans von

  at Chalk River, 133 (photo)

  detection of liberated neutrons by, 45

  as director of Anglo-Canadian project, 80

  experiments with chain reactions, 66, 92

  hiring of Bruno for Anglo-Canadian project, 84–85, 88

  personality, 38–39, 94–95

  resignation as director of Anglo-Canadian project, 96

  splitting uranium atoms, experiments with, 46

  transfer of heavy water to Canada, 52, 53, 59–61

  visit to Joliot-Curie, 118–119

  visit with Bruno and Fermi, 82–83

  Hall, Joan, 142, 221–222

  Hall, Ted, xiv, 135, 139–142, 207, 221, 314

  Harwell, xii, 117, 147–148

  Hassler, Berger, 49

  Hatton, Joe, 183, 184

  Heavy water, 11, 23, 51–52, 56, 59–61, 94–95, 273

  Helium-3, 266

  Hennessy, Peter, 308

  Henrietta. See Pontecorvo, Henrietta

  Hideki Yukawa, 110

  Higgs boson, 270

  Hincks, Ted, 97, 112, 122–123

  Hiroshima, Japan, US bombing of, 116

  Hitler, Adolf, 49

  Hollis, Roger, 155, 159, 194, 200, 207

  Hoover, J. Edgar, 194, 207–208

  House Un-American Activities Committee, 121

  Hydrogen, isotopes of, 11

  Hydrogen bomb, xii, 141, 142, 218, 229–231, 312

  Independent (London), interview with Bruno, 290, 313

  Inverse beta process, 266

  Ioffe, Boris, 218–219, 228–229

  Ion pairs, 114

  Io
nization chambers, 101–102

  Isomerism, 36–38, 42–43

  Isotopes, defined, 10

  Isvestia, on nuclear nonproliferation campaign, 243

  Italy, 4, 6–7, 28, 29

  Ivanov, Peter, 128

  Ivry-sur-Seine, laboratory at, 38, 42–43, 50–51

  Jackson, J. David, 276

  Jackson, Maureen, 277 (photo)

  Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), 250, 262

  Joliot-Curie, Frédéric

  as active communist, 29

  alpha particles, use of to induce radioactivity, 13–14

  background of, 35–36

  chain reaction, patents on, 46

  Clermont-Ferrand, France, emergency laboratory in, 53, 59–60

  dismissal as head of French atomic energy commission, 157

  fiftieth birthday celebration, 157

  in French Resistance, 52

  heavy water, acquisition of, 51

  inverse beta process, experiments with, 265

  laboratory at Ivry-sur-Seine, work at, 38, 42–43, 50–51

  Nobel Prize, award to, 14, 27

  nuclear fission, experiments with, 44–45

  nuclear weapons, opposition to, 157

  as professor at Collège de France, 38

  Joliot-Curie, Hélène, 45, 289

  Joliot-Curie, Irène

  alpha particles, use of to induce radioactivity, 13–14

  communist sympathies of, 29

  Nobel Prize, award to, 14, 27

  secondary neutrons in fission process, detection of, 44

  Jones, Evan, 157

  K-zero or neutral kaons, 255

  Kaons or K-mesons, 235–236

  Kendall, James, 121

  KGB

  Bruno’s defection and, 176–177

  Beria as head of, 135

  cross-examination of Bruno, 209, 220–221

  interest in Patterson letter, 221

  knowledge of communists at Chalk River, 134

  Lona Cohen and, 141–142

  possible association with Bruno, 309–310

  spy network of, 137, 139–140

  surveillance of Bruno and family, 214–216

  Khariton, Yulii, 69

  Khrushchev, Nikita, 245, 248, 284

  Kowarski, Lew, 38–39, 45–46, 52, 53, 56, 59–60, 66, 80, 102–103

  Krasnikov, V. N., 142

  Kroger, Helen. See Cohen, Lona

  Kurchatov, Igor

  agents in North America, importance of, 100, 127–129, 132, 134, 309

  atomic bomb, quest for, 79

  attempt to gain access to reactor for Bruno, 249

  chain reaction, quest for, 44, 68–69

  cyclotron, construction of, 131

  as father of atomic bomb, 26

  isomerism, interest in, 36

  need for uranium, 142

  personality, 25

  provision of helium-3 for Bruno, 266

 

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