Theodore Hall: Difference between revisions
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===Death=== |
===Death=== |
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On November 1, 1999, Theodore Hall died at the age of 74, in [[Cambridge, England]]. Although he had suffered from [[Parkinson's disease]], it was not what ultimately killed him, succumbing instead to [[renal cancer|renal]] [[cancer]].<ref name=nytobit>{{cite news |author=[[Alan S. Cowell]] |coauthors= |title=Theodore Hall, Prodigy and Atomic Spy, Dies at 74 |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E7DE103AF933A25752C1A96F958260 |quote=Theodore Alvin Hall, who was the youngest physicist to work on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos during World War II and was later identified as a Soviet spy, died on Nov. 1 in Cambridge, England, where he had become a respected, if not a truly leading, pioneer in biological research. He was 74. |publisher=[[New York Times]] |date=November 10, 1999 |accessdate=2008-06-26 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=[[Harold Jackson (writer)|Harold Jackson]] |coauthors= |title=Theodore Hall. US scientist-spy who escaped prosecution and spent 30 years in biological research at Cambridge |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/1999/nov/16/guardianobituaries.haroldjackson |quote=Theodore Hall, who has died at the age of 74, was the American atomic scientist discovered by the United States authorities to have been a wartime Soviet spy – but who was never prosecuted. The information he gave Moscow was at least as sensitive as that which sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair. But the Americans decided not to charge Hall because of the security and legal difficulties of disclosing that they had penetrated some of the Soviet Union's most secure diplomatic codes. Subsequently, and with the tacit consent of the British security authorities, Hall spent more than 30 years as a respected researcher at Cambridge University until he retired in 1984, aged 59.|newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=November 16, 1999 |accessdate=2010-12-19 }}</ref> |
On November 1, 1999, Theodore Hall died at the age of 74, in [[Cambridge, England]]. Although he had suffered from [[Parkinson's disease]], it was not what ultimately killed him, succumbing instead to [[renal cancer|renal]] [[cancer]].<ref name=nytobit>{{cite news |author=[[Alan S. Cowell]] |coauthors= |title=Theodore Hall, Prodigy and Atomic Spy, Dies at 74 |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E7DE103AF933A25752C1A96F958260 |quote=Theodore Alvin Hall, who was the youngest physicist to work on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos during World War II and was later identified as a Soviet spy, died on Nov. 1 in Cambridge, England, where he had become a respected, if not a truly leading, pioneer in biological research. He was 74. |publisher=[[New York Times]] |date=November 10, 1999 |accessdate=2008-06-26 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=[[Harold Jackson (writer)|Harold Jackson]] |coauthors= |title=Theodore Hall. US scientist-spy who escaped prosecution and spent 30 years in biological research at Cambridge |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/1999/nov/16/guardianobituaries.haroldjackson |quote=Theodore Hall, who has died at the age of 74, was the American atomic scientist discovered by the United States authorities to have been a wartime Soviet spy – but who was never prosecuted. The information he gave Moscow was at least as sensitive as that which sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair. But the Americans decided not to charge Hall because of the security and legal difficulties of disclosing that they had penetrated some of the Soviet Union's most secure diplomatic codes. Subsequently, and with the tacit consent of the British security authorities, Hall spent more than 30 years as a respected researcher at Cambridge University until he retired in 1984, aged 59.|newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=November 16, 1999 |accessdate=2010-12-19 }}</ref> |
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==List of Publications== |
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* {{cite journal |
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| last = Dunne |
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| first = Gerald |
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| last2 = Hall |
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| first2 = Theodore |
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| date = 1997 |
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| title = Renormalization in coupled-abelian self-dual Chern-Simons models |
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| url = |
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| journal = Physics Letters B |
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| publisher = |
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| volume = 392 |
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| issue = 1 |
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| pages = 123-128 |
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| doi = 10.1016/S0370-2693(96)01541-9 |
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| accessdate = |
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}} |
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* {{cite journal |
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| last = Bent |
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| first = Garyd |
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| last2 = Rasamny |
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| first2 = Marwan |
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| last3 = Hall |
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| first3 = Theodore |
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| date = 1994 |
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| title = Quantum chemistry and density functional calculations of formyl chloride |
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| url = |
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| journal = Molecular Physics |
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| publisher = Taylor & Francis Group |
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| volume = 82 |
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| issue = 4 |
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| pages = 825-829 |
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| doi = 10.1080/00268979400100584 |
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| accessdate = |
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}} |
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* {{cite journal |
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| last = Steveninck |
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| first = Reinhard |
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| last2 = Steveninck |
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| first2 = Margaret |
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| last3 = Hall |
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| first3 = Theodore |
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| last4 = Peters |
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| first4 = Patricia |
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| date = 1974 |
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| title = A chlorine-free embedding medium for use in X-ray analytical electron microscope localisation of chloride in biological tissues |
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| url = |
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| journal = Histochemistry |
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| publisher = |
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| volume = 38 |
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| issue = 2 |
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| pages = 173-180 |
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| doi = 10.1007/BF00499664 |
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| accessdate = |
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}} |
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* {{cite journal |
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| last = Normann |
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| first = Tom |
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| last2 = Hall |
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| first2 = Theodore |
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| date = 1978 |
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| title = Calcium and sulphur in neurosecretory granules and calcium in mitochondria as determined by electron microscope X-ray microanalysis |
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| url = |
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| journal = Cell and Tissue Research |
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| publisher = |
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| volume = 186 |
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| issue = 3 |
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| pages = 453-463 |
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| doi = 10.1007/BF00224934 |
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| accessdate = |
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}} |
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* {{cite journal |
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| last = Civan |
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| first = Mortimer |
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| last2 = Hall |
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| first2 = Theodore |
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| last3 = Gupta |
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| first3 = Brij |
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| date = 1980 |
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| title = Microprobe study of toad urinary bladder in absence of serosal K+ |
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| url = |
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| journal = The Journal of Membrane Biology |
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| publisher = |
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| volume = 55 |
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| issue = 3 |
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| pages = 187-202 |
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| doi = 10.1007/BF01869460 |
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| accessdate = |
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}} |
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* {{cite journal |
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| last = Dow |
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| first = Julian |
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| last2 = Gupta |
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| first2 = Brij |
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| last3 = Hall |
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| first3 = Theodore |
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| last4 = Harvey |
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| first4 = William |
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| date = 1984 |
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| title = X-ray microanalysis of elements in frozen-hydrated sections of an electrogenic K + transport system: The posterior midgut of tobacco hornworm ( Manduca sexta) in vivo and in vitro |
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| url = |
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| journal = the Journal of Membrane Biology |
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| publisher = |
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| volume = 77 |
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| issue = 3 |
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| pages = 223-241 |
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| doi = 10.1007/BF01870571 |
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| accessdate = |
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}} |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
Revision as of 15:19, 5 April 2014
Theodore Alvin Hall | |
---|---|
![]() Hall's ID badge photo from Los Alamos | |
Born | Theodore Alvin Holtzberg October 20, 1925 New York City, USA |
Died | November 1, 1999 | (aged 74)
Cause of death | Cancer |
Education | Harvard University University of Chicago[1] |
Employer | Manhattan Project |
Known for | Atomic spy |
Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925 – November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on US efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II (the Manhattan Project), gave a detailed description of the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, and of several processes for purifying plutonium, to Soviet intelligence.[2] His brother, Edward Hall, was a rocket scientist who worked on ICBMs for the United States government.
Biography
Early Years
Theodore Alvin Holtzberg was born in Far Rockaway, New York City to a devout Jewish couple. His family soon moved to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan.
While his father struggled to find work during the Great Depression, he changed both his and Theodore's last name to Hall in an effort to avoid anti-Semitic hiring practices.
Hall attended Public School 173 in Washington Heights during the Great Depression and later graduated from Harvard University at the age of 18.
Manhattan Project
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Los_Alamos_aerial_view.jpeg/220px-Los_Alamos_aerial_view.jpeg)
At the age of 19, Hall was the youngest scientist to be recruited to work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.[3] While on a vacation in his hometown, New York City, he entered the Soviet consulate and volunteered to pass information on the Manhattan Project to the Soviet government. (After his death, Hall's wife Joan said that he had begun to adopt strong feelings, current at the time, against the possibility of a militarized United States having a nuclear monopoly very early in his time working at Los Alamos.)
Unbeknown to Hall, Klaus Fuchs, a Los Alamos colleague, and others still unidentified, were also spying for the USSR; none seems to have known of the others. Harvard friend Saville Sax and Lona Cohen acted as Hall's couriers. Igor Kurchatov, a brilliant scientist and the head of the Soviet atomic bomb effort, probably used information provided by Klaus Fuchs to confirm corresponding information provided earlier by Hall.
Hall, with the help of Sax (who had open communist sympathies), visited New York, where, after some searching, arranged a meeting with a Soviet diplomat. He presented a detailed sketch of the "Fat Man" atomic device to the official, who later transmitted the information to the NKVD using a one-time pad cipher. Hall's code-name was MLAD, a Slavic root meaning "young".
FBI investigation
Until the release of the Venona decrypts in 1980, nearly all of the espionage regarding the Los Alamos nuclear weapons program was attributed to Klaus Fuchs. Hall was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March 1951 but wasn't charged. Alan H. Belmont, the number-three man in the FBI, decided that information coming out of the Venona project would be inadmissible in court, as hearsay evidence, and so its value in the case was not worth compromising the program.[citation needed]
Later career
Hall left Los Alamos for the University of Chicago, where he switched to biology. There he pioneered important techniques in X-ray microanalysis. He went to work at Cambridge University in England in 1962. Hall later became active in obtaining signatures for the Stockholm Peace Pledge.
Statements in 1990s
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Decision_to_maintain_contact_with_Theodore_Hall_1944.gif/150px-Decision_to_maintain_contact_with_Theodore_Hall_1944.gif)
The Venona project became public knowledge in 1995.
In a written statement published in 1997, Hall came very close to admitting that the accusations against him were true, although obliquely, saying that in the immediate postwar years, he felt strongly that "an American monopoly" on nuclear weapons "was dangerous and should be avoided":
- To help prevent that monopoly I contemplated a brief encounter with a Soviet agent, just to inform them of the existence of the A-bomb project. I anticipated a very limited contact. With any luck, it might easily have turned out that way, but it was not to be.
He repeated this near-confession in an interview for the TV series Cold War on the Cable News Network in 1998, saying,
- I decided to give atomic secrets to the Russians because it seemed to me that it was important that there should be no monopoly, which could turn one nation into a menace and turn it loose on the world as ... as Nazi Germany developed. There seemed to be only one answer to what one should do. The right thing to do was to act to break the American monopoly.
Death
On November 1, 1999, Theodore Hall died at the age of 74, in Cambridge, England. Although he had suffered from Parkinson's disease, it was not what ultimately killed him, succumbing instead to renal cancer.[3][4]
List of Publications
- Dunne, Gerald; Hall, Theodore (1997). "Renormalization in coupled-abelian self-dual Chern-Simons models". Physics Letters B. 392 (1): 123–128. doi:10.1016/S0370-2693(96)01541-9.
- Bent, Garyd; Rasamny, Marwan; Hall, Theodore (1994). "Quantum chemistry and density functional calculations of formyl chloride". Molecular Physics. 82 (4). Taylor & Francis Group: 825–829. doi:10.1080/00268979400100584.
- Steveninck, Reinhard; Steveninck, Margaret; Hall, Theodore; Peters, Patricia (1974). "A chlorine-free embedding medium for use in X-ray analytical electron microscope localisation of chloride in biological tissues". Histochemistry. 38 (2): 173–180. doi:10.1007/BF00499664.
- Normann, Tom; Hall, Theodore (1978). "Calcium and sulphur in neurosecretory granules and calcium in mitochondria as determined by electron microscope X-ray microanalysis". Cell and Tissue Research. 186 (3): 453–463. doi:10.1007/BF00224934.
- Civan, Mortimer; Hall, Theodore; Gupta, Brij (1980). "Microprobe study of toad urinary bladder in absence of serosal K+". The Journal of Membrane Biology. 55 (3): 187–202. doi:10.1007/BF01869460.
- Dow, Julian; Gupta, Brij; Hall, Theodore; Harvey, William (1984). "X-ray microanalysis of elements in frozen-hydrated sections of an electrogenic K + transport system: The posterior midgut of tobacco hornworm ( Manduca sexta) in vivo and in vitro". the Journal of Membrane Biology. 77 (3): 223–241. doi:10.1007/BF01870571.
See also
References
- ^ Read Venona Intercepts
- ^ Albright, Joseph (1997). Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown American Spy Conspiracy. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8129-2861-X.
{{cite book}}
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ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ a b Alan S. Cowell (November 10, 1999). "Theodore Hall, Prodigy and Atomic Spy, Dies at 74". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
Theodore Alvin Hall, who was the youngest physicist to work on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos during World War II and was later identified as a Soviet spy, died on Nov. 1 in Cambridge, England, where he had become a respected, if not a truly leading, pioneer in biological research. He was 74.
{{cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=
(help) - ^ Harold Jackson (November 16, 1999). "Theodore Hall. US scientist-spy who escaped prosecution and spent 30 years in biological research at Cambridge". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-12-19.
Theodore Hall, who has died at the age of 74, was the American atomic scientist discovered by the United States authorities to have been a wartime Soviet spy – but who was never prosecuted. The information he gave Moscow was at least as sensitive as that which sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair. But the Americans decided not to charge Hall because of the security and legal difficulties of disclosing that they had penetrated some of the Soviet Union's most secure diplomatic codes. Subsequently, and with the tacit consent of the British security authorities, Hall spent more than 30 years as a respected researcher at Cambridge University until he retired in 1984, aged 59.
{{cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=
(help)
External links
- FBI: Memo Prosecution: Disadvantages (1 February 1956)
- "A Memoir of Ted Hall" (by Joan Hall, wife)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory: History: Spies
- Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues: Annotated bibliography for Theodore Hall
- 1925 births
- 1999 deaths
- People from Queens, New York
- Jewish American scientists
- Nuclear secrecy
- Nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union
- Manhattan Project people
- Harvard University alumni
- University of Chicago alumni
- People from Manhattan
- American spies for the Soviet Union
- American people in the Venona papers