next on american history tv nancy thorndike greenspan talks about her book, atomics by the dark lives of klaus fuchs which looks at the life of this by the cape soviets american planes for petroleum bombs. the levi center for -- universe if new york hosted the venue provided video. miss green span talks by how she discovered klaus fuchs, welcoming over her book about max born. >> let's go at it. >> i was asking you why klaus fuchs instead of ted hall? he was the student of max born? >> yes, i actually got interested in him when i was doing work on max born. i had a lot of family papers from them. huge numbers of letters and

diaries. in those during the late thirties when klaus fuchs was there he was always showing up in some little piece of paper i had from the boards. he was showing up is a nice person. he was taking their children out to the movies. he played cards with them. he was in there a little ensemble that they had at their house. and people like him. he was very quite anti. he was a nice person. all of a sudden he was a spy. they were dumbfounded. and i came into this information because i did not know much about him when i was first working on it. so at that point as i was writing about it, i was like, i should find out more about fuchs, an interesting person to put in the book. i went into the archives in london. and there were three little skimpy files. the very last when i looked at had a letter, a memo in it,

from somebody in the administration saying where my supposed to do with all of these fuchs files, his trial? the person who received said throw them away. when i saw this i thought, oh no! >> oh dear! >> yes, there isn't anything. for the born book, it was when it was. i had a little bit of information. i had a lot from the boards. newspapers, things like that. that's where they used. when i finished about a year after a friend of mine in germany said why don't you think about writing about fuchs? this person was interested in him as well. and i thought that is interesting. and i said, i'm not sure there's enough information to read about him. about a year -- so, you know, when i looked, it was the early 2000s. my book came out in 2005. so i hadn't gone back. it was when it was. i went back to the archives in london. i looked and in between time, mi5, declassified hundreds, and

hundreds, officials. not only on fuchs, but all of the people from the thirties, forties, fifties. many, many of these files. there were pages missing that they would not let you see. but basically, thousands of pages. i thought, well, this is a good start. yes, i can do this. he was an inherently interesting, he became more so as i met his family, family papers, heard other stories. read all the other -- i was able to find a huge number of archives. nobody had ever found them. and i like being a detective. so that set me on a path, in fact i found so much i did not know what to do with adult. it was, you know, this is what happens. at some point if you don't stop you will never finish. so this is it. >> biographers are detectives. that is what we do. it's detective work. i was astonished at the end of

your book. you list over 25 or almost 30 archives you visited. they're all over the world. so which was your favorite one? which was the most productive in the treasure hunt? >> the most productive with the university of teal. and i was told by a friend in germany not to even bother to go there. there was one file there about -- it was on the father. just don't bother and i thought i cannot do that. i need to go. i needed to have somebody else tell me that. being an american sitting here, i went to the archivist. many people don't do that if it's your country. you go to the archives yourself, you look. so i wrote to the archivist who was a lovely lady. and it had done it in german, i had enough german to do with. it's not great but good enough. and she wrote me back. she said, i think you might

find a gold here. she sent me the numbers of files they had that were labeled miscellaneous disciplinary matters. nothing to do with klaus fuchs. she was right, she obviously peak. she knew what was in them. i went to the archives, this sweet, little town. it's not even keel, it's up above it. and it was all about the fuchs, about klaus fuchs in his brother, all the nazis they fought. all the problems that occurred and once i get the idea of how to find things i could go through the files myself. i found lectures they were giving. you know? pulling their group together. all kinds of stuff. i found hundreds, and hundreds

of pages. >> so that is a good point. let's have you talk a little bit about klaus himself as a young man. how he became an anti fascist. tell us that story. because obviously that gets into the motivation for what comes next. >> it does. it was the key part of his life. to me one of the most fascinating because nobody else -- well, let me say, he started off in a family of four children. he was number three. he was born right before world war i. in 1911. and he had a very politically active father. the father was extremely liberal. he was a minister. he was in the very conservative lutheran church. the two did not match. and his mission in life was to

support the working class. he was a socialist. he joined the social democratic party, the socialist party in germany. he was not a communist. it was very distinct, a strong distinction between those two things. and all his children became socialists. where as klaus was extremely preserved, his father was a very outspoken. but they both had the same steely, unbending determination inside of them. they were both the same in that way. the espoused in different ways. but klaus when was a teenager, he was the scholar in the family. he was famous in the area. for his mathematical gifts and talents. when he was a senior in high school he won the original prize from the republic, the best student, given out once because it was a celebration. of the best student in the whole area.

and he didn't talk about politics at all. his brother and two sisters, his father, did all the talking that was needed. they did all the time. they were all activists. he goes off in 1932 university of life sick, studying mathematics. at this when he wanted to do. his brother was they're studying law. and he went to live with his brother. and the first thing he and his brother had him do was join the socialist party, the student socialist party there. already in 1930 there were fights in the streets, the nazis got their grips in the german universities really early. most of the students were from well, you know, well to do families. they're not rich. but government officials, they were not a working class. they went on to pour. those people could not go. there are not many socialists and there are not many communists. there were a lot of nazis. and they were having fights in the streets and close set at

one point i learned more in the streets than i did in the classroom at that point. he was only there for one year. and he and his brother both moved to the university of kyle. and they started their own socialist student group with both communist and socialist there. they thought there should be emerging of the two. it was the only way they could have a big enough concentration to fight the nazis students. the nazis students at the university were much more entrenched they had been before. there were taking over the student government. all of it. they started -- the way the students thought at that time initially was by making incendiary speech is, handing out panelists, calling each other names. doing things like that. newspapers people wrote. that was the level of discourse. but they could cause turmoil. it could cause a pews fisticuffs. the administration, it was not

a nazi administration and all at that point. they gave the fuchs brothers a lot of leeway to a large degree. but in 1932, the turning point for fuchs, it sets up the platform for the rest of his life, 1932 was a presidential election. hindu burke was running for a second term. the social lists decided they were going to support him didn't bergh they did not want to split the vote. there was another candidateyzyy running for president, they wanted to make sure that candidate did not get in. so, the basically klaus fuchs and his brother gerhardt, they learn this and hendon bergh being very conservative, they were fighting all of these policies so they started supporting the communist

candidate so immediately the socialist party kick them out and the communist said come meet with us and then they hesitated because of other things but eventually they both joined in the never looked back and they didn't join because they were communists, they were for the working class but they joined because they wanted to fight the nazis. and they saw the socialists were not fighting the nazis and it was true the socialist fought the communist in the communist fought the socialist they hated each other. so he was traumatized eventually by this whole experience. >> yes yes they tried to kill the nazi students and they voted secretly to kill them and that was in 1933 there was a riot and they beat him up and the students around the

university were yelling throw him in the fjord. the fjord was a piece of the baltics sea, and this was in february. you couldn't be in there a few minutes before it would kill you. and they threw him in. he swam out. that's the only information one has. but he survived and they did do it. so it was very dramatic. then he ended up in berlin a few weeks later. and the gestapo was after him. and there were resisted through sisters, and the underground and they're trying to get people to mobilize against the nazis. and the gestapo was you know they were in search of them all. it was terrible. so it was a terrible life for those three years. and it did have an effect on him. >> yes so this is obviously part of his motivation for what he does later. >> yes exactly.

>> at one point in your narrative, you quote dick white, the head of british mi5. this is after the case breaks and they have caught klaus fuchs. so dick white, as you say thought that klaus fuchs his motives were relatively pure. meaning he didn't do it for money, it was all ideology. >> yes. >> and he saw that the british and the americans by this time he had become a british citizen after staying in germany. so he was angry with the british and he was giving science and scientific information from an ally. the soviets. so he just wanted to balance the table right? >> yes that is true.

>> also dick white was also the head of mi6. so he was really involved and he was there when they were prosecuting klaus fuchs. he was right at my five at that time so people liked fuchs. they didn't think what he did was right, but they liked him as a person. because some people didn't like him because he was to reserved and made them feel creepy. you know there was women that were just he never said anything. but others like him very much. he was a very very generous person to his friends with his time and he helped. his motives were completely ideological, he was very angry as the war started, in 1939, he was reading the newspapers. in his mind, would it look like

was and there was some truth to this, especially in the upper class is a british aside a. it would be nice if germans and the russians just fall each other and each other in, and the germans one it was okay with them. there was a lot of sentiment along those lines. and there was very little in the newspapers about we have to help our allies the russians. and at that point they weren't, this was after we made them that. after the molotov packed for a year. but after that they got attacked. the russians got attacked, the brits did nothing to help them. so that he just felt that they really hated the communists and they were going to do whatever they could to get rid of him. and by that time, he was a communist. when he first joined he was not, but by then he had decided and

he had gone full into it ideologically. >> he became a real true believer. >> yes true believe. or >> he joined the party and defended it. >> yes completely. >> yes. >> and he was always talking about two friends, at the time when he was open about being a communist. when he was first there as a young student in bristol, in edinburgh. and one of the daughters said, you go to the movies with him and the whole way back and forth he would tell you about communism. so he did not keep it a secret. at that point he didn't needed later but at that point he didn't. >> so moving along in your story, klaus fuchs is a very good scientist, he begins working for the british in britain and he worked on the early -- project. and then he gets transferred in

1944 and there he meets oppenheimer and all of these other noted scientists. and at this point he is he's been passing things on to the soviets for like when did this start? 1942? >> august of 1941. that's when he started. >> he is very successful at it, very calm and no one suspects him. >> right. >> he slips right under the radar, and as you say people either like him because he's friendly and he's not a big ego. >> no. >> in this way he's a perfect spot in some ways. >> exactly. >> but then what really struck me about the narrative, is when he moves back to britain after the war is over. he is working at a scientific

institute there, and you found these surveillance transcripts, he came under suspicion, and they started following him and tapping his phones and his house. and you have the transcripts of these conversations. >> yes. >> this is really wow, what a rich resource. >> hundreds of pages. and all of his friends, they tapped his friends phones to. so it was coming and going. you have both sides twice. >> i know this is a very unusual rich source for a biographer, to actually have telephone transcripts. you know a diary is good, and a telephone transcript is in the moment. >> yes. >> so were these transcripts because where the classified fairly recently? in the last ten years? >> i think they mostly came out around 2005.

2003 to 2008. gradually. not only were they telephone, they had them they had bugs in his house and his office. so people sitting around the table or if they ask him question, or being on the telephone and somebody that they would get all of it i would get everything. so they had almost every inch of his life covered. for three to four months. but he was not spying, so there wasn't anything. >> so that is really the mystery of course, they have good evidence from the nonna, you can explain what that is. but they had not caught him in the act. >> right. >> so then there is this little delicate dance, between his interrogators and fuchs and

this is just a marvelous story. i'm struck by how naive he is. he is willing to sort of say yes i did do that, but it wasn't really important and he didn't consider it spying apparently. >> he didn't consider it spying, he thought you know because they were allies, and we had promised to cooperate with them, and he was just helping out the uk and the u.s. the information they were supposed to give it didn't. >> so how did he actually get caught? >> well there was all this information about him and he wasn't spying so they couldn't use it. so the nonna was done here in arlington virginia, it was a big decoding center and the u.s. and the uk had people there, and they had russian

edges from the early forties and for various reasons they had tried for years to try to decode them, and they finally found the code and they deciphered punches in bunches of them. and when they did they saw that there was a spy involved in the manhattan project. and it was called rest but they didn't know who rest was but they knew that somebody was involved and they also said things that he had a sister, and they may have gone here and there. so take a look at timeframes and that's how they knew there was somebody. and in two weeks they figured it was probably klaus fuchs. they were 100% sure but he fit everything. so but what is interesting and, to be the interesting piece in this is that he knew that he was going to be uncovered. he knew it, they did not know

this or find this out until august of 1949. these messages and this information was in it. in april of 1949, he's stop spying. and i go through this the evidence of what was going on and it was a bit complicated. but basically the only thing they ever said about it, was he wrote a note to his father when he was in prison, and his father had come to visit him in the summer of 1949, at that time there was interest in having a nephew come and live with us klaus fuchs and he would take care from. and he said to his father when he was in prison, he said now you understand why i couldn't take care of this little boy. and it implying that this was all going on, but in july when

his father and nephew were there, mi5 and the fbi did not know that when he was a spy. they did even know there was a spy that point. but he knew they were getting close to figuring it all out. how i do not know, but anyway they did that that didn't work, so they then decided after much discussion, they didn't know what he would do they decided mi5 decided to interview him, and they did so several times maybe four times. >> will you tell this great story but jim -- the mi5 officer who was a great interrogator very gentle and calm and hours an hours of discussions and then he finally at one point he just you know klaus fuchs just works out and says yes i do that. >> yes and at the time he decided himself to confess.

and another friend had convinced him that he had to consists. to make sure his friends didn't fall under suspicion. and that is why he confessed. there were other pieces to that, but that was a big one. he felt extremely guilty that he had done this and not realized that he had never been aware of these problems that he could cost his friends. because if it wasn't klaus fuchs it had to be somebody else close to him. so would be one of his friends. >> will he confesses, in february of 1950. >> yes the end of january. yes. >> so this is 90 50, so the korean war has not yet broken out. >> no. it hasn't. >> but there is the whiff of mccarthy-ism, and the cold war is strengthening. and the soviets finally four

years after hiroshima, they tested their own atomic bomb. and this batches up the cold war two new frightening stage. so he is uncovered, he's unmasked. at a very delicate time. and, so, the surprising thing to me is that, you know, both of the russell birx get caught a few years later. to get executed. but fuchs gets a 14 year sentence? >> yes, that's what it was. >> why did this happen in british justice? >> they tried him for espionage, not treason. if it was treason he would've been hung. he is assuming he would be hung. that's what he thought would happen to him. he confessed.

he thought maybe would happen to him. but they tried him for espionage. as far as i can tell because the time he was spying he was spying for a friendly nation. they were allies. the russians were. so it made a difference in their own laws on how they defined espionage versus treason. so that is all. the 14 years was the maximum for espionage. he got out nine for good behavior. we are our definitions are different. there was a lot of other politics involved. as he forgot, mccarthy-ism, he did is west virginia speech, fuchs confessed and he had information. the arrested him on february 2nd. i think mccarthy was mid february. he went to west virginia.

it was just weeks. all of a sudden this information that came out of that moment. just as mccarthy had these lists of names, those things. it was exactly when fuchs was arrested. just a tremendous whirlwind of communism. and the year before that, 48, 49. just a few years before. that is been going on for quite some time. so it really, in the u.s., there was much more in the news. britain kind of wrote about it. they were like, let's go into the next story. they did not make a big deal out of it. they also have a different legal system. they cannot make a big deal of it because of too much information coming out, it jeopardizes the trial. you have to, in fact, when the brits gave the fbi information it always seemed to leak out. and it would end up in the u.s. news.

and then in england. the mi5 said if it comes in here it can mess up our trial. we will lose. we have to not even have a trial if we are jeopardizing the information put in the british press. it was a big concern to the mi5 in the british. it's hard for them to whip things up. with those particular laws. because they cannot put a lot in the news. >> right, so the other surprising thing about the story of klaus fuchs, he goes to prison and spends nine years there. and i guess he's paroled. in exchange for -- he's allowed to go to the eastern bloc. he spends the rest of his life in east germany. and a member of the continental party. a member of the elite.

he's given as such privileges as a party member. and it goes back to working, he tries to start a reactor program. he works as a physicist, he believes in the idea nuclear energy can, you know, provide electricity, that it's a force for good. of course east germans have no interest in doing that. they have all this black coal they think they can rely on. >> yap. >> so he had a rather frustrating career after this. he is still loyal to the ideology of the party. >> he was loyal to the ideology but he was not loyal, so much,

to the party. he was a person who never complained. he kept his mouth shut. but he did decide, he thought stalin-ism was terrible. a real i say shun of communism, not real communism. i will say he got to the same point with the east german. didn't quite say it but he was devastated they would not let him get the reactor program going. a huge disappointment. >> you got to know his son as a source, right? >> his nephew. yes, i do know him, very well. >> he became a very important source for the book, now? >> very important, he had all the family papers. one day after i had been visiting for years, i visited several times a year, we sat, we had a lunch, chitchatted. >> this is in germany? >> in berlin, yes.

he had this whole closet full of information i had no idea of. at the very last minute when he was about to ship it to an archive to have the morgue on it, to catalog it, which means i wouldn't have gotten my hands on it for forever, it turns out i said, oh, i sat there and took pictures with my ipad four days until i was just barely moving. that's where i found so much of the information. that and in the archives where i had the information would happen to him in his later years. also the stories from the family. because whereas the earlier times no one was around then. and these times he had a niece who had been going, and america needs, to school. she went to university. she gave me a lot of information as well. choose to go visit on weekends. i get real firsthand knowledge

of what he was like during that time. >> it's ironic you get these surveillance transcripts from the british intelligence. and you get the stars he archives. to what he was doing in his life after prison. it's remarkable. >> let me say everybody, in east germany, with an informant for the most part. if there were there, there were informing on you. that's why they were there. there was a lot of information from a lot of different people. >> coming back to his father, and we'll, who was really important his whole life. you quote klaus fuchs saying of his father, quote, he was never a man of the church but of faith. and you write the same could be said about the sun. so tell us a little bit more about the father.

>> [inaudible] we are coming back to a problem. let me move closer. that seems to do it. he had his own way, his own ideas about religion. he was very grateful to the bible. those principles. but it was not, his ethics and personal attitude towards the social side of him, the sense of equality, you know, we're not part of the lutheran church in germany. he made his own way in that church with his own principles, his own ethics. so he took what he saw as the

fate. that is what he preached. it was not wet the lutheran church preached. it was not their dogma. he expanded it. that was his father. he was also very involved in education. he helped reform adult education in germany. he was i was out doing something. he never stayed still. he was always advocating for something. he was writing pieces in the newspaper. he hated -- he was railing against the right wing militia that was going on. and when he -- he made it to the war. he was imprisoned for a while. he always was talking to much. his children get nervous about what he might say. about them as well. so they did not tell him much so he could not repeated. he always seem to. not to be mean.

he ran his mouth. and he said something about the nazis to a person who had been part of a prayer she was involved with. she went and told the police. they put him in prison for six weeks. he was found guilty and the used, he was lucky to be 1933 when there was still decent judges. they gave time served. so six weeks. he was always pushing. that's who he was. yet he never gave up. it was one of the most determined people. he lived until 97. i think even at that age he was still out there. writing letters, pushing people. that was him. >> a very strong influence on his son. >> and the other people on the family as well. >> so coming to the end of the story, the point of it all,

there's always in every spy story in argument about did the spy make any difference? did he change history? and you make an argument at the end of the book, it is only speculation. but you point out in terms of chronology of events that fuchs, his spying may have helped the soviets advance their own atomic bomb program by a year or two. if so, they get the bomb in 1949. so it was available at such on the shelf there. when the korean war breaks out. if they had not built the bomb in 49, and had been delayed until 51, 52, well there is a possibility the korean war

would've started and there would've been a temptation by the americans to use an atomic bomb again against chinese troops intervening, pushing back the americans. in that sense what klaus did may have actually changed history, and prevented the use of another atomic weapon. >> yes, that is true. you can also argue did did means justify the end? there is that question. there were other factors of why we did not drop a bomb. we had bombs sitting on an island ready to go with planes there, mcarthur wanted to do that, truman said no. there were a number of factors. you cannot say it was just a fact the russians were afraid. it had to be piece of it. along with the other factors.

from a military point of view it had that consequence. from a point of view in the u.s. is certainly helped fire up mccarthy in particular, and, you know, newspapers. that had a profound effect on us, i think. >> in the book, you end with the question. about fuchs, was he good or evil, a traitor or a hero? you even ask the question, that you do, is kind of shocking. we think of him as a spy. yet you can ask, was he a traitor or a hero? i guess it's an open question at the end of the book. >> right, in terms of someone

asked me if he was evil. which is why. it made me think about the moral ambiguity, the accountability of people. and they have, we all have, none of us are perfect. and we all have things we do that are not consistent with our personality as some people would see it. although he was fairly consistent. you can read in his principles, the way he carried them through, the way he saw it. but, you know, if in fact what he did help us, convinced us in part not to drop a bomb? to my mind, probably two years, that is a good thing. you know? >> it is a little ambiguous but -- >> so many of us, people were talking about now, but we are

doing with their own history, this person did this, they also did something decent. it's not an usual type of question. you know? even thomas jefferson, people like that, there were many facets to people's personality. how do you grapple with them? is it all or nothing? are they either just no good or all bad? my one dimension, or can you somehow put these things in a fuller way, and maybe you won't have the answer, but you can appreciate the fact that there are different perspectives and a person. in all of us. so. >> that's true. >> well i want to move to some questions that we've got. in the queue unable ox here. before i do so just following up on that, so at the end you have a funeral seen one close dies.

so who is in attendance? vladimir putin was there? incredible? >> and there's a picture of him, it was a newspaper pitcher but he was the russian representative, because he was the kgb agent in dresden and that is where klaus fuchs was living. >> and he thought he was a hero right? >> yes he probably did, but the russian government has never acknowledged that he spied for the most part. that basically that klaus fuchs spied for them. >> so let's mute let's move to some questions for the on from the audience. >> so was klaus fuchs outraged by nazi scientists like vaughan brown by the u.s.. >> assuming he heard about it in prison, he never made any mention of it, so i honestly

don't know the answer to that one. neither one way or the other i don't know if he knew about it, i don't know you know if they had a lot of newspapers for things like that redone prison. >> right right. >> so here's another question, did he express regret about his spying. other than the risk he had to his friends at the time. did he later issue an apology? did he ever. >> no never. he never said i shouldn't have spied. except in connection with his friends he did not feel that he had done anything wrong by giving the information to the russians. end of story. except effect on his friends. >> well he's like his father. very loyal to his beliefs. >> yes. exactly. >> so another question here, could you say a few words about his relationship with his one

handler. her alias was sonia. >> yes he started working with her in about 1942, so is 1942 or 43 before he went to the u.s.. she was part of this interesting family of german communists. all of whom came over to london, her brother was a very close i don't know if they were friends, but they were compatriots his name was jurgen. he was here in the u.s. for a while and he it was him who put his sister in touch with this close in order to be his handler.

and i don't know if klaus fuchs new jurgen but he didn't mean he didn't seem to know ursula. so he didn't identify her as a member of the family, and they had a very professional relationship. she is one of the top spies for the communists. and she worked in a few different countries. she and he would meet and they would walk along the lane, and pretend they were boyfriend and girlfriend and he would hand her whatever information he had. and she had a special place to put it behind the tree, and someone else would come and fetch it. they had the whole thing worked out. they did that for a year and a half about. it was about that moment of time i think. so they did not have a long relationship, but it was very professional. and she was one of the best.

there is no doubt. and when he was supposedly he never got back in touch with her. but it turns out that when he was in oxford, she was in a little town maybe 20 or 30 miles away, and i wonder if perhaps they had gotten in touch just themselves and she was perhaps the person who told him that the arlington people, we're working on the messages and that there was a possibility that they could come up and find out about him. because they were just right there, the first night he was interviewed he disappeared for hours and mi5 did not know where he was, and he had a car he could've driven to see her. no one was following him at that moment. so i don't know if they ever saw each other again or not. i don't know the full

relationship, but her family i would have been interested in talking to her family but there is a certain narrative that they had and that she wrote an autobiography and a memoir and it doesn't say anything other than what we already know. i was not able to get to the family. i don't think there was any information to get but, they have a professional relationship is the answer. and if they had more which could've been possible, nobody knows. >> so mysteries remain. >> yes mysteries remain. >> so if you could ask klaus fuchs one question what would be? >> well there's two questions i would want to ask him, i would ask how he knew that what was

going on in arlington, and that he was close to being uncovered? i just you know he never says anything about it. so yes. there is another story and it turns out it's a piece of british history that people don't know much about, is they in turn 30,000 and mostly german rough refugees and 90% of them were jewish. they decided these jews would be a fifth column and help the germans invade and this is what they said in the cabinet meetings. so they wrap them all up. and some of those, they sent to canada and in canada. so in canada he was free about his communism, and he came under the influence of a charisma charismatic person by the name of hands.

and there was a small click ofiv communists in this camp in canada and one of those people, and these are all many of the people were young university students or as one of the camp commander said, i'm the smartest person in any place in canada. and he was noble prize winner and they did all kinds of amazing discoveries people later on their life. and just like folks he was in edinburgh and he was working with max warren and he was taking off. and that's what happened to all of them. one of those people was another physicist. and it turned out and turned out.

but this person worked for him. i knew that clause was a communist because he did not hide his feelings when he was in the camp. and you work for him and there was a lot of tension between them and i would like to know what the relationship was and how they bridge this this problem. because cost did not say he was a communist and he was saying he was a social democrat at that time. so how did they how did they work this out? i had no idea and i know that feeling >> another person asks

can you outline the information of what close shared. >> he first worked on the fusion gaseous diffusion which takes the isotopes you want to use uranium and iranian bomb ten reaction in the arena. that was his first reaction. a lot of the theory behind it and when he came to the u.s. he worked out all of the controls of the whole plant at the u.s.. so if you had this problem or that problem this is what you would do. he was highly technical getting one of these things to work, the diffusion plant was the size of three football fields or something in there were thousands of fixers that had to

go through. so that was one piece and they had all of that information. when he won that all he had a first because it's all that he did. when he went to west alamo's he worked on the plutonium bomb and he worked on the lenses that were explosive, and they had to compress it a certain time, it was 1 millionth of a second was the timing on these lenses to compress the core and read the chain reaction with plutonium he gave this whole plans to the russians on june 2nd of 1945. and they may have been more theoretical, but we have a lot of the drawings and things here to. >> that was really useful. information. >> there were other people there, ted hall being one of them, supposedly also gave them that similar kind of

information but i don't think that he would have been at a position to know as much as coasted because close was right in the thick of things, and he had a lot more. they were both very, very smart, no doubt about it but clouds had no doubt about it even if you're at 18 there's something you don't, no no matter how smart you are. >> 18 or 19. >> yeah he was varying at that point. >> access to much more information. >> he did have much, more he was creating, providing something for himself as well on the lenses. >> okay. listen nancy, this has been a delightful conversation. we are a little bit over the hour. so i think will end on that note. i want to thank you for being willing to do this. i hope that our audience will come back in a few weeks, and a week for august 13th, for a

biography of yet another scientist, jbs, holiday inn. written by super mania. we will have that conversation conducted by curl zimmer, the new york times science reporter. sorry, nancy you wanted to. >> i just wanted to add the person to close was involved with in the camps, ended up being, i mentioned hamas, he was a recruiter, an agent for the russian military intelligence, and i'm pretty sure that he did work for him, he was amazing, so i'm pretty sure, i may have gotten, not pretty sure it was holiday. >> hold in was a member of the

communist party himself. >> no. i don't think so either. but if you are going, to call and would have convinced me, believe me. >> i have another question. i'm curious to, no have you joined another project, are you doing another biography? or are you uncertain? >> i'm looking. -- through a few breaks in so you're trying to just figure out the landscape, it takes a while with all of this so i'm just going to kind of just get through this phase, and then i'm hoping that something will fall into my law because that is what happened with the other two. there's anything you think i .hould do, let me know >> i hope you find a new project. >> thank you very much. protective as this one was. >> anyway, thank you very much.

>> i thank you. sutter at 8 pm eastern on lectures of history, virginia tech, professor jessica taylor on trade between native americans and the virginia colonists, sunday at 6 pm eastern on american artifacts. a tour of richard's birthplace, look at it on the grounds of the return nixon a library. sunday at 8 pm eastern on the presidency three programs on top of jefferson on the presidents view of education, an interpretation conversation between jefferson and abigail adams, and a tour of his gardens at monticello, exploring the american story, watch american history tv this

weekend on c-span 3. next american history tv, historian, stephen austin, alex but his book, the bureau of he secret connection between espionage and journalism in washington, and journalism that took place