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Oct 02, 2021

In 1948, FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was sharply focused on the Communist Party of the USA to root out Russian espionage — and with his attention concentrated there, missed the escape of a highly accomplished Soviet spy hiding in plain sight.

Born into a Jewish family that had immigrated from czarist Russia to the United States, George Koval habitually joined groups and clubs — a bowling league, bridge-playing circles, an honorary fraternity of electrical engineers. He also joined the US Army and conducted top-secret work at two locations of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs that exploded over Japan in 1945.

In 1949, the year after Koval’s return to the USSR, the Soviets successfully and shockingly detonated their own atomic bomb.

Now, Koval’s life is the subject of a new book, “Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away,” by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ann Hagedorn.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-a-jewish-manhattan-project-scientist-quietly-helped-the-soviets-get-the-bomb

https://archive.is/jq1lp