Despite the English dismissing the information the Americans gave them about "Fuchs", they exerted their utmost according to the rules, in order to verify the matter.. and "Fuchs" had been summoned a second time to London, to work on the English nuclear project.
And in England, while he was working, "William Skardon", the head of the counter-espionage department at British intelligence, summons him.. and interrogates him.
And the interrogation ends without convicting "Fuchs".. because there is not a single piece of evidence against him.. and the interrogator becomes convinced that he may be an innocent man, but before he leaves, he gives him a paper containing several names and persons, and asks him to verify whether he has met any of them or heard their names before.
And "Fuchs" casts one look at the paper, in a fraction of a second, and hands it back to the interrogator denying it, so the interrogator asks him irritably to review the paper well.. so "Fuchs", with similar irritation, repeats back to him the names on the paper and tells him that he has checked well and indeed does not know them.
And as "Fuchs" departed, the interrogator was struck by extreme amazement.. which made him send one of the agents, to stop "Fuchs" in the street, and present him with another paper, containing an extremely complicated address, and ask him about it like any passer-by.. and "Fuchs" cast a quick look at the paper in a quarter of a second, and described the complicated address to the man.
And this was "Fuchs's" mistake that made the suspicions come back to hover around him with force.
For among the questions that baffled the intelligence men, was how the information got out of the headquarters of the Manhattan Project, especially since in this age there was no flash memory and no mobile phones and that sort of thing.. so how did drawings and information and long complex equations get out, when everyone was subject to searching?
And the matter suddenly becomes clear to British intelligence.. with "Fuchs's" mistake.
The brother "Fuchs" possesses an amazing "photographic memory, eidetic memory".. which enables him to cast a glance at a whole page, and store it in his memory like a camera, with a strange gift, that is available to only about 3% of the world's population.
And at the same time, the Americans break the cipher of two more messages of an old date, which make their nights even blacker.
The messages this time speak of a mysterious, unknown agent.. whose code name is "calibre".. working in the Manhattan Project.. and this "calibre" is apparently an important thread.. it begins with him and ends with the names of several other spies.
And "calibre" was working in cooperation with another agent whose code name is "wasp".. with a reference to a fourth spy, whose code name is "Goose".. and this is the courier who takes the information from "calibre" and others.. and delivers it to the Soviets.
And since the previous message referred to another agent by the name "Rest", this means that the Manhattan Project.. the most secret and most dangerous of the earth's projects, is penetrated by the Soviets, by more than one spy...!
And this time the search through the files takes long, and a tremendous confusion occurs for American intelligence.. and they do not know who is with whom exactly.. and who might be a suspect.. and who is innocent.
And during this difficult situation, and amid all the nonsense of papers and documents.. and precisely on 29 August, of the year 1949, another disaster occurs.
The Soviet Union successfully tests its first atomic bomb "RDS-1".. in Kazakhstan.
And this means that the United States is no longer the only nuclear power in the world. And that the Manhattan Project was penetrated with overwhelming success.
And while the Americans stay up through black nights that stretched until they became weeks, then months, amid dozens of cups of coffee and hundreds of rolls of tobacco, the case is solved by itself.
For while "Fuchs" is in London, the English intelligence plays with him a game more professional than the American game.. so it makes him notice that he is being watched the whole time, and that they are counting his every breath.. and this caused him tremendous confusion.. because he had imagined that his cooperation with the Soviets would not harm the English or the Americans in anything, since they were allies.. on the contrary, it was thus helping them to defeat the Nazis.
And with his confusion and his tension, he turns of his own accord to English intelligence in the year 1950, and meets for the second time with the officer "William Skardon".. and makes a complete confession to him.
And the confession was astonishing.. in it "Fuchs" told everything.
"Fuchs", with his amazing memory, used to memorise any information that his sight fell upon, and then he would leave the project and be searched in calm, and at his home, he would type everything on the typewriter, just as he typed his research, and draw the engineering diagrams of the bomb and its devices, with precise dimensions, and then he would fold the papers into a small green booklet, and go out, and make sure that he was not being watched, and head for the meeting point.
And the "tennis ball" was the sign by which the Soviet agents identified him, and realised that he had new information ready, and that he was not being watched.. so one of them would come up to him, in a restaurant or a bar or the like, and sit beside him, and display a green booklet in his turn, an exact copy of the booklet that "Fuchs" had, and this is the sign by which "Fuchs" knew that he was a Soviet agent.
And the two booklets are exchanged in calm and simplicity.. without anyone feeling a thing.
And the agent who used to meet "Fuchs".. was the holder of the code name "Goose".. "Harry Gold".. and with "Fuchs" giving the name "Gold" to the authorities, English intelligence cooperates with the American, and they descend on "Gold" at his home.
And "Gold" was a chemist and an industrial spy for the Soviets since long ago.. of two Russian parents who had originally emigrated to Switzerland, and he worked there in trivial jobs.. until he travelled to the United States, and worked in a wood factory, and from it he jumped to a lucrative job in a sugar factory.
And with the good salary at the sugar factory, "Gold" completed his education and studied chemistry alongside his work.. and he began to live a good life, but the Great Depression at that time was revealing itself.. so after years he found himself like millions of others, jobless with his money gone.. without any opportunity.. so he fell into the claws of the Soviets.. who employed him on their account as an industrial spy.. stealing for them inventions and the engineering drawings of equipment and the machine documents of factories, and they, by reverse engineering, would copy them and develop them.
And the American intelligence men pounce on "Gold" at his home, and he does not resist at all.. and he puts on his clothes and goes with them in calm.
And without any pressure.. with a cup of coffee and a roll of tobacco, he asks them for a deal, that he confesses everything, and is not executed.
The deal is done quickly, and "Gold" confesses in his striking calm, that he has been a spy for the Soviets since the year 1933, the last years of the Great Depression.. and that he used to take information from "Fuchs" and deliver it to the Soviets.. and "Fuchs" was not the only one.. he also confessed about "calibre" and "wasp".. and declared their real identities to the authorities.
And it was a violent shock to the intelligence men.. when the identity of the mysterious "calibre" was revealed.. and his position in the project.. and how he was recruited.
And it seems that the talk has carried us away today, so we will continue talking about this story later.
And the conversation has a remainder.
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