Talk:Klaus Fuchs/Archives/2013

Untitled

It appears that "Fuchs" has been replaced with profanity throughout the article. Someone should probably fix that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drbonesandwich (talk • contribs) 00:58, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

This page seriously needs to be tagged for citations... there are three sources and they're all in the last 4 or 5 lines of text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EnzoRoyale (talk • contribs) 07:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Nationality

(William M. Connolley 21:27, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)) For some odd reason, KF's nationality seems to be in dispute. It seems to me fairly clear that he is german: he was born there; and he was interned in UK during ww2 as a german citizen. The page says nothing about his being naturalised UK.

---

I'm new to this and I'm not sure how to edit the page. There is a mistake in it. I corrected this and was accused of vandalism. Please advise me. The mistake is in the first paragraph. Fuchs was not born into a Jewish family. His father was a Lutheran clergyman. My source is my own book, 'Klaus Fuchs. The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb.' - Norman Moss

(Moved from article. -b 20:34, 24 August 2005 (UTC))

I don't understand this one. I have changed the article to state the truth that Fuchs was not Jewish. Is it antisemitism or false association of a Jewish-sounding name and the Jewish Rosenbergs that is responsible for this being asserted? (Norman Moss, by the way, is probably the foremost expert on Fuchs so it's great that he's commented.)

On his citizenship, the page states he became a British citizen in 1942. After all, he had top security clearance with the British nuclear industry. My understanding from Moss's book is that he was charged with treason - so he was British. Don't follow cobbled together Internet sources - they only regurgitate misinformation and misunderstandings.--Jack Upland 22:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure who put that in there, but it was probably just a confused error. Emil Fuchs actually is noteworthy enough in his own right to have his own article (which he does here). --Fastfission 18:47, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

So out of the 76 years of his life he held the Britsh citizenship for glorious and epic EIGHT years... So that makes him a "German-born British physicist"? That's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Asdf01 (talk) 18:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Beria or Kurchatov?

In "Dark Sun," Richard Rhodes said it was Kurchatov, the science head of the Soviet A-bomb project, who didn't let his charges access the espionage-derived data directly because (a) it may have been disinformation and (b) if the Soviets were to do any better than copy, they had to build up their own team of experts. Beria probably didn't think that deeply; he was all about survival and taking advantage, from what I've read. --MWS 21:00, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

• Kojevnikov's book is newer and based on newly declassified sources, and I'm pretty sure he fingers Beria as responsible for this policy, but I can check. Beria wasn't a deep thinker but he knew how to run a business, so to speak, and he knew how to be suspicious. --Fastfission 22:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The Gentlemen of Venona

Anyone who has any awareness of the "Soviet atom spies" and the Venona transcripts knows this issue is very confused. It is also politically charged. I query whether this much assertion should be placed in an open encyclopedia like this one.

I don't have time to go into the full complexity here - and I think this needs to be the subject of genuine scholarship - suffice it to say that the official sources are not even clear on how the Venona transcripts were obtained (cipher clerk error, captured codebook, blackbag job, telecommunications intercept etc). Then there is the question of why they were only released in the 90s. After all, Kim Philby saw them in the 50s (see his book, The Secret War)!

And that's the other point: much of the official discourse on the "atom spies" centres round the Rosenbergs, overtly or not. A quite different view can be obtained by viewing the Fuchs case or the Cambridge Spies in their own terms. The Soviet sources are tainted in that they are attacked magpie-fashion in order to bolster the official American discourse on this issue.

Overall it is not the accummulation of evidence but the accummulation of assertions.

Bottom line: much of the page on Fuchs is speculation and assertion. The fact that he was a physicist in the Manhattan project spying for the USSR gets buried. The celebrated Rosenbergs never went near Los Alamos!--Jack Upland 22:47, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what your objection is here -- this article, though it could use more detail, basically says "Fuchs was born; he worked on the project; he testified that he gave secrets the Soviets; a major result of his testimony was the whole famous Rosenberg thing; the data he gave the Soviets may or may not have been extremely helpful." Obviously VENONA is problematic for various reasons but this article isn't really the place to go into that in full detail, and mainstream historical opinion is of the opinion that Fuchs really did do what he said he did (which you seem to agree with). The Rosenberg stuff is complex but I don't think it is asserted too strongly here one way or another, and is covered in plenty of detail on the Rosenberg article.

If you could clarify more specifically which parts of this page you think are "speculation and assertion", it would be very helpful. I think it does a good work of reflecting mainstream critical historical scholarship. --Fastfission 01:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, of course I accept Fuchs was a spy! But seriously, assertions and speculations include:

• Fuchs' identification of Harry Gold. As Norman Moss's Klaus Fuchs states, Fuchs only identified him after he was pressed to do so based on photos and film. Hence this is dubious, and it is clear that he did not - as is often stated - lead to Gold and hence the Rosenbergs. Gold was already a suspect at the very least. As a physicist Fuchs' spying would have been far more useful than the Rosenbergs' (who didn't even go to Los Alamos!), so implying that he's important only as a link to the Rosenbergs is perverse.
• Meeting with Donald Maclean. Just bizarre. Maybe he met Alger Hiss and Jane Fonda too.
• Venona identifying him. As outlined above, Venona is questionable. It is hard to know how much is 'inferred' after the fact.
• The detailed discussion about Soviet use of his spy work. Speculation.

Myself, I would give more indication of the tenuousness of links with other spies alleged or real. After all Fuchs gave a cogent confession which stated he worked alone (which is the most secure policy).--Jack Upland 23:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Duh, correct me if I'm wrong but User:Jack Upland is the editor who claims Fuchs identified Harry Gold.[1]; really, not to be impolite, but all you've posted now in three articles is what the meaning of is "is" "is is" is. nobs 18:02, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

My only change to the page was to correct the assertion that Fuchs was Jewish. I think you're the one posting nonsense.--Jack Upland 03:21, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

This here [2] says User:Jack Upland posted this phrase: "was used to identify Harry Gold, a key witness". Now, this could (a) a mistake (b) bad faith (c) something else I don't understand. Help me out here, what is it? nobs 03:45, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

A regrettable lapse in memory, I'm afraid, compounded by my inability to understand the relevance your comment about the meaning of 'is' - I'm not an American, you see, and don't share your obsession with Clinton. As you have pointed out, in addition to correcting Jewish comment, I made two light edits. In the relevant case, the original said Fuchs 'led to' the Rosenbergs etc. I chose my words carefully and said that Fuchs was used to identify Gold. As I have stated above, I consider this to be a dubious identification but I did not unilaterally insert that into the article. I hope this clarifies the matter.--Jack Upland 10:33, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Technical Work

Fuchs is presumably the K Fuchs of the Fuchs-Nordheim equation, still used today to work out the kinetics of superprompt critical excursions (similar to Bethe-Tait model I think). Anyone confirm please? Linuxlad 20:21, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I think that reference to Fuchs high technical competence (eg with Fuchs-Nordheim equation) deserves mention in intro (where I put it), not in the middle of the rammle later on.Linuxlad 23:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

If there is going to be an extended introduction, it would include a variety of other things as well. I put it not in the middle but on the section related to work he did on the Manhattan Project, which is what it most specifically pertains to. Why should this one aspect be noted in the intro and not, say, the work he did on the hydrogen bomb, or the details about his East German work? I'm not trying to be difficult, but I didn't see why this was particularly more important than his other things, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, as I'm not a physicist. --Fastfission 23:17, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, I'd be more convinced of the importance of the Fuchs-Nordheim equation if we had an article about it. ;-) --Fastfission 23:18, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I chose the Fuchs-Nordheim equation because it's the piece of nuclear work that most often comes up under Fuchs' name on Google, (and is clearly related to bomb work!). Though I am a physicist, this isn't quite my area, but I've certainly heard of Bethe-Tait, to which F-N is broadly comparable. The point is to show that Fuchs had class, and was respected as a hard worker for the project by people like Pieirls (and Bethe) - the intro at present plunges into the espionage as if that were all he did at work - but the irony is he probably also made a significant contribution to making the bomb possible. (And his confused loyalties to the USSR were also not uncommon in European circles - I met several people after Chernobyl who believed that Soviet firemen were braver than UK ones!). Fuchs was not just a supporting act to an American tragedy...Linuxlad

Okay, I'm not fundamentally opposed to putting a note about his technical competence. My only confusion with the current version is the use of the word "ironically" -- what's ironic about it? And I'm not sure that the text of the article bears out your assertion that he significantly aided in the speed of bomb production. --Fastfission 11:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)q

Google on 'Bethe Fuchs' 'Pieirls Fuchs' to find him described as amongst the leading atomic scientist of his generation. You will also (can't retrace easily) find remarks from Bethe on how the theoretical support for Manhattan was originally surprisingly thin. Then find a (Robert ????) article describing Fuchs in the terms I've indicated. Also read Fuchs confession - the early work he gave was his own. Why ironical? because he is not now given credit for this side of his work. Your remark that he was the most technically competent of all the spies doesn't really cut it - none of the others came anywhere near Fuchs' technical credentials.

Well, I'm happy with what it is now. I was objecting primarily to the most recent version because it specified that he had saved the Soviets a good deal of time on the bomb, which is less historically certain (it wasn't the lack of technical information that determined their timescale, a number of people have argued persuasively). --Fastfission 18:46, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

No! I was trying to say he saved the UK/USA project quite a bit of time! Hence the irony.( And Fuchs himself thought he was indispensible, certainly at Harwell, so would get let off)!

I don't think so much weight should be placed on Fuchs' thoughts at the time of exposure (also expressed in next section). Obviously the shock was very great, considering the duration of his deception. It seems he had psychologically normalised his crime, to the extent that he no longer realised how seriously other people considered it. In addition, the world situation had shifted around him. He had been leaking secrets to a wartime ally, but that had become exposed in the context of the so-called Cold War. Complicating his psychological viewpoint are the facts that he was originally an opponent of Nazism (i.e. legitimised in postwar Britain and America) and that he had abandoned his support for Communism (i.e. he was no longer ideologically "criminal"). Sure, put on the spot he looks like a twit, but the issue from his point of view was complicated and he didn't have the opportunity to review the issue before being charged...--Jack Upland (talk) 10:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Death Penalty

Bit confused over new bit saying confessing to (he hoped) avoid the death penalty... but sources imply Fuchs was under the _opposite_ delusion, and thought he would be allowed back to work after the confession...Linuxlad 21:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

this page needs work, particularly in grammar.

UNCORRECT INFORMATION! Fuchs did have no risk of death penalty although he thought that this could be the sentence. Up to british law, Fuchs did not give any information to an enemy but to an allied country at the moment when the information was transferred to the USSR. This was the case and so he was sentenced to the maximum of 14 years of emprisonment. Information comes from the book "Top Spione" by Guido Knopp on page 123 (ISBN 3-570-12152-6). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emilechris (talk • contribs) 08:48, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Tuberculosis

it's misspelled in the article, or maybe it's spelled differently in England. I'll research it, and then change it if needed. Take Care! --Will314159 16:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Some inconsistencies

Value of Fuchs' data

In section 3 of the article (Value of Fuchs' data to the Soviet project):

[...] it is unknown whether Fuchs' fission information had a substantial impact
(and considering that the pace of the Soviet program was set primarily by the
amount of uranium they could procure, it is hard for scholars to accurately
judge how much time this saved the Soviets).
Some former Soviet scientists said they were actually hampered by Fuchs' data,
because Beria insisted that their first bomb ("Joe 1") should resemble the
American plutonium bomb ("Fat Man") as much as possible [...]

However, the text accompanying the image in that section states:

As a result of Fuchs' information, the first Soviet bomb, RDS-1 (above)
closely resembled, even in its external shape, the U.S.-developed Fat Man bomb.

[The problem with this issue is that responses from the Western media-information complex are guided by the point they're trying to score at any given time. Hence sometimes the CPer Rosenbergs are credited for Soviet A-bomb research, sometimes captured Nazi scientists (guilty conscience there, perhaps!), sometimes Soviet "dissidents" like Andrei Sakharov...all depending on the spurious "point" being made on the given occasion. To the best of my knowledge, the biggest and most unambiguous tip-off was that US and Brit nuclear physicists stopped publishing their research. But yeah having an inside man at Los Alamos was definitely a plus...!--Jack Upland (talk) 10:19, 16 February 2008 (UTC)]

Date of confrontation

In the article:

In 1946 when Fuchs returned to England and the Harwell Atomic Energy Research
Establishment, he was confronted by intelligence officers as a result of the
cracking of Soviet ciphers known as the VENONA project

According to atomicarchive.com (see http://www.atomicarchive.com/Bios/Fuchs.shtml):

But it was not until 1948 that it was discovered that the Manhattan Project
security had been breached, and not until 1949, when Fuchs had returned
to England and the Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment,
that he was confronted by intelligence officers as a result of the cracking of
Soviet ciphers known as the VENONA project.

Death place

In the article:

He died near Dresden [...]

According to other language versions of this article and atomicarchive.com:

He died in East Berlin [...]

Date of death

MI5 states in Fuchs' case page that Klaus Fuchs died in 1989. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nowhere man (talk • contribs) 16:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone verify these, from reliable sources? Thanks in advance :-)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

moving commentary out of article

An anonymous contributor added the following comment to the section "Later life and death" (diff) FreplySpang 14:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(This paragraph is misleading; Fuchs' crime of passing secrets to an ally during wartime never warranted a tarrif of death, unlike passing secrets to an enemy. See The Traitors: The Double Life of Fuchs, Pontecorvo, and Nunn May (1952) by Alan Morehead for example).

American?

How was Fuchs American? He worked on the bomb project but that was not a project of just the US: Canada and Britain were also involved.

Does he belong in categories: American scientists of German descent, German immigrants to the United States? I don't think he immigrated or was naturalized.

Does he belong in the category: Germans of English descent? His parents appear to be German and the article doesn't mention other ancestors.

Does he belong in the category: Columbia University alumni? He had a doctorate when he got to Columbia so he was probably not a student there. DHR (talk) 04:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Fuchs was a German, and his parents were German - his father a Lutheran Minister. They both ended up living in East Germany. (Not sure about the mother.) Fuchs is often assumed to be Jewish because of the name, but I think this is a false assumption. While German Jewish names are often minerals, plants, or animals; this does not imply that someone with the name Fuchs is Jewish any more than if the name was Fox (the English translation). Klaus Fuchs clearly didn't have a family background in Judaism. He was accepted as a refugee by Britain after first being interred as an enemy alien, and became a naturalised British subject in 1942, as stated in the article. As for his involvement in the Manhattan Project it would be misleading to call him a immigrant to the USA, since he left with the other foreigners at the end of the project.--Jack Upland (talk) 15:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

declassification

When the British government declassified the Klaus Fuchs files twenty years ago it was noted at the time that three of the files were missing from the rest.

There were also comments in the press, at the time of file release, that Fuchs was asked to undertake work of a very technical nature. With Ultra then still a secret but a checkable source of information, was Fuchs given this work so that Ultra could check from their sources what information from Fuchs was reaching the Russians? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.199.154 (talk) 09:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ultra is the term given to Britain breaking German code. Venona was the American breaking of Soviet code. It consisted of breaking the code for a limited period of past communication, however. This prompted the search for Soviet agents, but it did not allow the reading of secret communications on an ongoing basis. Hence the entrapment suggested above could not take place. Moreover, at the time of his arrest Fuchs had ceased spying. And finally, according to the account I have read the British Government had no notion of the extent of his activities until he admitted them.

As to the missing files, they are probably just missing. With the Cold War over, and Venona declassified, it is hard to see what they would be sitting on.--Jack Upland (talk) 15:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Death of Fuchs

According to the BBC programme about Fuchs,

"He was a chain smoker"

and somebody who'd worked with him "he was a heavy smoker".

The usual TV footages of Fuchs show him smoking, so if the place of his death may be in some dispute, the probable cause of death may be fairly obvious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.199.154 (talk) 10:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Quaker?

I note someone has added the details that he was a Quaker. I query how this fits with his membership of the Communist Party and how the traditional Quaker pacifism would fit with his participation in the Manhattan Project.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:38, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

and an an-Nazi.

"and an an-Nazi." -- I'm assuming this should be "anti-Nazi" but didn't want to make the change without checking. Cheers -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I've fixed it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Klaus Fuchs/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Dwaipayanc (talk · contribs) 17:52, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• Will start the review soon. My background knowledge in physics is only up to high school level, and I sincerely hope I won't irritate you by asking silly questions! This personality, however, I found to be quite fascinating when I read a book about the Manhattan Project several years ago; so decided to do the review. Will be back soon! Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:52, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• "Fuchs entered the University of Leipzig,.." Do we know which year?
  • Yes, it was in 1930. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• "When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, Fuchs decided to leave Kiel, enrolling at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin" Just curious, are these two events related by cause-effect? It seems from reading the sentence as if Hitler's becoming Chancellor was the reason for Fuchs' leaving Kiel.
  • Yes, that's right. Re-worded to make this clearer. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• " In August 1933, he attended a conference in Paris chaired by Henri Barbusse..." I think you can mention what kind of conference it was? I guess it was a political conference, and perhaps related to communism?
  • The source just says "anti-fascist", so we'll go with that. I note in passing that Richard Rhodes doesn't have the same strictures against close paraphrase that we do. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• " where he joined a communist discussion group led by Hans Kahle. His sister Kristel arranged for Israel Halperin to bring him some magazines..." These names (Kahle and Halperin) may benefit from short descriptors. For Kahle, at least we can presume that he was also perhaps interned, and was the leader of the communist discussion group. But, we know nothing on Halperin.
  • Friend of a friend. And another Communist. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• "...who worked for the GRU" perhaps the full form of GRU, since this is the first occurrence?
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• "was transferred to the NKGB when he moved to New York..." A descriptor for NKGB is needed, as the reader may not know what is NKGB (as an example, you told what is GRU earlier).
  • Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• The second paragraph of the section "Value of Fuchs' data to the Soviet project" has only one citation at the very end of the paragraph. Does that reference cover everything discussed in this paragraph? This paragraph is quite vital, and seems that might benefit with some more references, if available.
  • Added another reference. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:20, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

All points addressed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• wow, great. The article is an exhilarating reading, I liked it immensely. Just one small query. In many articles on physicists, we see more discussion on their discoveries. Equations, or, names of theories etc, and some elucidation of those. In this article, although there is the name of a theory named after him, we don't see what it was, I mean the theory was. Although I won't understand anything of the theory, do you think adding some description of the theory would be beneficial. I understand it would be too technical, but still...--Dwaipayan (talk) 02:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The article says techniques (such as the still-used Fuchs-Nordheim method) for calculating the energy of a fissile assembly which goes highly prompt critical. It's a differential equation, and there are whole books on the subject, but I'll have to read one of them before attempting to update its article. Here's the Fuchs-Nordheim equation:

${\phi }'(t)={(-{\beta }+{\rho }(t)){\phi }(t) \over {\Lambda }}$

I do understand the need to have physics in an article about a physicist, which is why I've mentioned Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• In my opinion, the article meets GA criteria.--Dwaipayan (talk) 22:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Early Life - Undue Weight?

There is now more information about his early life than anything else, including the stories of members of his family etc. Do we really need this much detail in an article like this?--Jack Upland (talk) 04:33, 30 December 2013 (UTC)