Kim Philby ‘tipped off USSR’ as FBI closed in on nuclear physicist
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Version 0 of 1. More than 60 years ago, a prominent nuclear physicist in Britain, Canada and America shocked the world by defecting to the USSR. Disappearing without trace, Bruno Pontecorvo cited ideological reasons when he eventually resurfaced five years later in Moscow, but precisely what precipitated his abrupt defection – during a family holiday in Italy – has always been unexplained. Now a new book claims to have the answer: Kim Philby, the infamous double agent, discovered that the FBI was on Pontecorvo’s trail, suspecting him of involvement in communist activities. Philby tipped off the Russians, who in turn warned the scientist. Frank Close, a scientist himself who believes that Pontecorvo would have won a Nobel prize had he not jumped ship, has obtained a previously classified letter that reveals the FBI’s suspicions. The letter – written on 13 July 1950, shortly before Pontecorvo set off on holiday – was sent from the British embassy in Washington to MI5’s director-general in London. It reads: “The [FBI] now ask [for] any information which may be available to us which would indicate that Pontecorvo may be engaged in communist activities at the present time or [previously] during his residence in the United States.” It also explicitly mentions that the local Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) representative in Washington had been unable to find three earlier “communications” on the subject, sent by the FBI in February 1943 to British intelligence. That SIS representative was none other than Philby, whose treachery led to the deaths of many British agents before he defected in 1963, fearing that MI5 had rumbled him. In 1951 his co-agents within the Cambridge spy ring, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, had also escaped to the Soviet Union. The letter now reveals that Philby was fully aware of the FBI’s suspicions about Pontecorvo. “One might imagine that the failure to find the [FBI] letters occurred because he had destroyed the evidence,” said Close, and knowing that the FBI was interested in Pontecorvo, “it’s 99.9% certain that Philby would then have informed [the Russians]”. Close is including the letter in his book, Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, which will be published in March by Oneworld Publications. He also has evidence – including that from former Soviet scientists – suggesting it was likely Pontecorvo had been passing atomic information to the Russians. Pontecorvo, an Italian-born physicist, who died in 1993 aged 80, received numerous awards from the Soviet Union. Previously, he had worked at the Anglo-Canadian nuclear research team at Chalk River, Ontario, focusing on the world’s first nuclear reactor using heavy water as a neutron moderator. In 1948 he became a British citizen and, the following year, joined the Atomic Energy Authority research station at Harwell, in Berkshire. While in Italy in 1950, with his wife and three sons, the family suddenly disappeared. That all their belongings were left behind at their house in Abingdon further confirms that this had not been planned beforehand. “You don’t leave your fur coat behind if you’re going to spend the rest of your life in Moscow,” said Close. He interviewed one of Pontecorvo’s sisters, Anna, who was on holiday with them. She told him she had never understood what happened, because everything about the holiday was idyllic. There was not a hint of anything at all. She left the day before the family disappeared. She thought her brother had been kidnapped. Close also interviewed Pontecorvo’s son, Gil, now a 77-year-old retired nuclear physicist in Moscow, who was 12 when the family fled. Agreeing that their escape was sudden, after what had been a wonderful camping holiday in Italy, he recalled their furtive journey. The family flew from Rome via Stockholm and Helsinki to Moscow. Close said: “In Helsinki, they were in two cars and his father was in the trunk of one car. [The son] said, in a huge understatement, ‘I knew something was up’.” Close also discovered the flight manifest, which reveals what little luggage they carried – barely more than hand-baggage – and the seating plan. While Pontecorvo’s wife sat with their three boys, which is confirmed by their ticket numbers, Pontecorvo’s ticket number tallies with those of the only two passengers who also changed flights at Stockholm. MI5 noted these people, but never identified them. “It is very clear that these are the two KGB minders,” Close said. |