Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (29 page)

Julius then instructed her under no circumstances to discuss any of these
things inside a room or indeed anywhere except out-of-doors and under no circumstances to make any notes of any kind. She was simply to commit to memory as much as possible. Ethel here interposed to stress the need for the utmost care and caution in informing David of the work in which Julie was
engaged and that for his own safety all other political discussion and activity on
his part should be subdued. At this point we asked Ruth to repeat our instructions which she did satisfactorily." "6

The New York station chief cabled Moscow center on 15 December
1944 that Ruth had returned with welcome news:

Anton [Kvasnikov] reports that Wasp [Ruth Greenglass] is back from a visit to
her husband. Caliber [David Greenglass] told her that he had given some thought to the question of covering the work being done in Camp-z [Los
Alamos], and now he expressed his willingness to do so. He reported that the
camp leadership was openly taking measures to keep information on En-s
["Enormous"] from falling into Russian hands. The progressive constituent
among the camp's workers is very displeased with this. According to Caliber,
he knows people who find it necessary to keep the main ally-the Sov. Union
-informed about the work being done.

Caliber will be in NY in the middle of January. In view of this, Liberal
[Rosenberg] said that he wants our worker to contact Caliber in order to conduct a personal conversation, basing this on a lack of knowledge about the
problem. He says he is firmly convinced that Caliber would be glad to have
such a meeting.... Anton has inquired about the possibility of such a meeting.
If it is impossible, he intends to put together a questionnaire for Liberal. He
therefore asks that we give him a list of the questions that interest us most.""

The Center sent along a list of questions, ranging from physical descriptions of Los Alamos to information on its employees, including those
who were "progressives." In New York on leave from 3o December to i8
January, Greenglass met with Julius, confirmed his willingness to work
for the Soviets, and handed over a description of Los Alamos. A report
sent to Moscow in February 1945 explained:

"He (Caliber [David Greenglass]) was in Tyre [New York] from December
Both to January 18th and obtained the leave to which he was entitled. During
the first five days of his stay in Tyre, no one contacted him. Meanwhile, 'Liberal' [Rosenberg] did not meet with any of his probationers for io days. 'Liberal' and `Caliber' subsequently met at his mother-in-law's apartment, that is,
`Caliber's' mother, b/c `Liberal's' wife and `Caliber' are brother and sister. After
speaking with "Caliber' and receiving confirmation of his agreement to send
us information known to him about the work being done in camp No. z [Los
Alamos], `Liberal' gave him a list of questions to which it would be preferable
to get a reply. These were general questions to determine the type of work
being done there.

`Caliber' holds the rank of sergeant. He works at the camp as a mechanic
and carries out various tasks assigned by the leadership. The actual place
where `Caliber' works is a factory that manufactures various devices for measuring and studying the explosive force of various explosive substances in their
various forms (lenses). Test explosions are set off at testing areas ('C' calls
them sites). In order to gain access to one of these areas, one needs a special
pass. `C.' says that he has observed that there are at least four sites to which
they send various materials and things (see 44 pp. materials). As far as we can
tell, these testing areas are the sites of the research and selection of explosive substances that will impart the necessary velocity to `Enormous's' neutrons to
obtain fission (explosion). It seems to us that `Caliber' himself does not know
all the details of this project. At the end of his report, he lists individuals whom
he thinks of as progressive and pro-Soviet.

At the end of February, as soon as she gets her RR ticket, `Wasp' [Ruth
Greenglass] will move permanently to Albuquerque, which is home to most of
the wives of the workers in the camp. In Albuquerque, "Wasp' intends to find
a job as a secretary. She is a typist/stenographer. She intends to live there for
6-7 months and return to Tyre for the birth of her child. Before she leaves, we
will get a material and oral password from her, in case the need should arise to
contact her. When she arrives at her destination and finds an apartment, she
will inform us of her address in a letter to her mother-in-law. We think that
having `Wasp' in Albuquerque will give us the opportunity to make a more
careful study of the kinds of work and people that exist in the camp, and if
`Caliber' has valuable information, she could come to Tyre and report it to us."

After he began cooperating with the FBI in 1950, David also claimed
that toward the end of his leave, he met Julius and they entered a car
with a mysterious man he assumed to be Russian who questioned him
about his work. Alexander Feklisov later confirmed that this was Anatoly
Yatskov.118

When originally notified of the possibility of recruiting the Greenglasses, Moscow had cautioned New York not to have Julius Rosenberg
directly involved and suggested using Harry Gold. The New York station
responded by warning General Fitin: "We consider it risky to concentrate all contacts on Enormous to Arno [Gold] alone." It was a warning
that Moscow, eager to collect as much information about the Manhattan
Project as quickly as possible, tended to ignore, but in the case of Greenglass it did agree that it was safer to have Julius continue as intermediary
since they were relatives and their meetings would appear to be normal
family affairs. In late February, in response to Julius Rosenberg's firing by
the Signal Corps and concern he might be the object of American security interest, Moscow suggested Kvasnikov transfer Russell McNutt to
Gold's control. Although no direct response is in the Vassiliev files, Kvasnikov clearly had doubts, because he assigned Yatskov, not Gold, to meet
with McNutt. He was not as cautious a few months later when he received word that Ruth Greenglass had written a letter hinting that David
had information ready to be conveyed to the Soviets. The original plan,
discussed in January 1945, when David had been in New York on furlough, was that Ann Sidorovich would serve as a courier. She was unavailable for some reason-perhaps related to Julius's dismissal and So viet concerns that contact be made by someone unconnected to Rosenberg's network. In any case, Kvasnikov asked Moscow's consent to have
Gold, already scheduled to visit Fuchs in Santa Fe in June, also pick up
Greenglass's materials in Albuquerque. Moscow agreed.rry

Gold made the trip. In a report he wrote for the KGB he noted that
he arrived at the Greenglasses' apartment on z June 1945, but

`By that time it was 8 o'clock and they had left for the whole evening-he
came home for the weekend. Therefore, so as not to seem too anxious, and b/c
it was already too late to leave `S.' ["Sernovodsk"/Albuquerque], I came back
the next morning. I identified myself, and they gave me a very warm welcome.
`D' [David Greenglass] asked me to come back in the latter half of the day, b/c
he had very important material for me. He said that they had not been expecting me for another two weeks, but that he would get the material ready in a
few hours, as was understood. I left them a considerable sum of money, which
they were both happy to receive.... I met with `D' in the afternoon, received
the materials from him."izo

Gold's trip, Kvasnikov told Moscow, "went well. Very interesting information was received from all the probationers [sources]." A few weeks
later he was less enthusiastic about Greenglass's material: "`Although it
does contain some information, Caliber's [Greenglass's] material is unqualified and far from polished. We believe this is a result of, on the one
hand, Caliber's insufficient qualifications, and on the other hand, the unexpectedness of Arno's [Gold's] visit to him, when he did not have materials ready."' While he never handed over anything as valuable as that
provided by Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall, both well-trained, brilliant
physicists, Greenglass was not without value. In one report Kvasnikov explained about the information given by all three-"for the most part they
mutually overlap"-giving the KGB additional reassurance that it was
not being fed disinformation or exaggerated misinformation. A summary
of a KGB New York station report on Greenglass's material read: "1. Report on a scientific experimentation center for preparing a uranium
bomb, with a general floor plan and sketches of individual buildings attached-4 pp., 5 sketches. z. Material on the preparation of a uranium
bomb; calculations and information regarding a structural solution to the
problem of a uranium bomb; information on an electro-magnetic method
for obtaining the element Uranium-235.33 PP - (Assessment: highly valuable.) 3. On the problem of obtaining Uranium-235. 4. Description of
the atomic bomb. zz pp." It was an impressive list of materials from an
Army sergeant with only a limited technical education.121

The next scheduled meeting was in New York, when Greenglass
(once more on leave) met with Julius Rosenberg on zo September 1945
and gave him a written description of the bomb that was promptly turned
over to Anatoly Yatskov. Moscow Center was sufficiently impressed to authorize a payment of $300 to the Greenglasses. Yatskov also met briefly
with Greenglass on the next day and reported to Moscow:

"'Caliber' [David Greenglass] and `Wasp' [Ruth Greenglass] came to Tyre
[New York]. In the present mailing, we are sending you Caliber's materials on
the balloon [atomic bomb]. On September zist, Aleksey [Yatskov] met with
Caliber in Tyre. The meeting was very short, because Caliber was supposed to
have been home that evening (it was the eve of his departure) and had gotten
out of the house only for a short time. During the conversation, it was established that Caliber works in the Preserve's [Los Alamos's] subsidiary workshops, which manufacture instruments and devices for Preserve and, occasionally, parts for the balloon. For instance, the detonator for the fuse of the
balloon's explosive substance was manufactured in their workshops, and Caliber gave us a model of such a detonator. Caliber does not have access to the
balloon itself or to the main workshops. He compiles the information he gives
us about the balloon on the basis of what he hears from his friends who work
on the Preserve and who belong to the personnel that has access to scientific
materials (the so-called `red button personnel.' Caliber belongs to the `blue
button personnel,' i.e., the subsidiary personnel).

Caliber has been instructed to compile detailed profiles of people he
thinks would be suitable for recruitment to our work. In addition, he was assigned to gather samples of materials that are used in the balloon, such as
tuballoy, explosive substances, etc. Materials occasionally end up in Caliber's
workshop. The next meeting with Caliber (or rather, with his wife, "Wasp") is
scheduled for December zi in Sernovodsk [Albuquerque]. We think Leslie
[Lona Cohen] is a suitable candidate for making the trip there. We asked for
approval of this trip by telegraph .11122

Cohen's trip to Albuquerque, however, was canceled. Increased worries about counterintelligence activity prompted Lavrenty Beria himself
to order a temporary halt to the KGB's contacts with its most valuable
agents linked to atomic intelligence, including Greenglass, and she never
made the trip. (The others named in Beria's order were Klaus Fuchs,
Theodore Hall, Julius Rosenberg, and Harry Gold.) The next report on
Greenglass was not until 3 June 1946, when the KGB noted that he had
been demobilized in March, moved back to New York in April, and gone
into business with Julius Rosenberg. Greenglass also asked for KGB advice about where to use his GI Bill benefits for college education.'23

Greenglass's request for advice came during the period when KGB
operations were being pulled back. Feklisov had visited Julius in December 1946 to inform him that operations were shutting down for an indefinite period. In a report on his work in the United States, written in
February 1947, Feklisov praised David and Ruth Greenglass as "`young,
smart, able and politically developed people who believe strongly in the
cause of communism and are full of desire to do everything in their power
to provide as much assistance to our country as possible. They are indisputably people who are devoted to us."' He urged that they be recontacted through Julius Rosenberg "`at the very first opportunity"' with
"`the goal of educating this young couple into qualified agents and making them securely covert in the country"' He thought they should be separated from Julius and that the KGB should "`move them to some other
city that has our agents, whom they could work for. "Caliber" [David
Greenglass] and "Wasp" [Ruth Greenglass] will obviously need our finan.
assistance in the future in connection with the birth of their baby (expected in 1946)."'124

The New York station of the KGB was in bad odor with Moscow in the
early fall of 1944. The Center had repeatedly made clear that obtaining
information about "Enormous" was the major priority of its intelligence
work in America, but the New York station had fallen well short of
Moscow's expectations. Several promising leads had fizzled or were in
abeyance. It knew that a number of the scientists working on the project
were Communists, but they could not be reached, were already under
American security scrutiny, or were too nervous to help. The most useful source, Klaus Fuchs, had been recruited in Great Britain by GRU and
handed to the American station, but the New York station had lost touch
with him by August 1944 and was not even sure he was still in the United
States. Russell McNutt had been recruited, but after a brief flurry of excitement, it became obvious that while he supplied some useful material, his unwillingness to move to Oak Ridge diminished his value. Julius
Rosenberg had not yet identified his brother-in-law David Greenglass as
a possible recruit.