The Invisible Harry Gold
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The Man Who Gave the Soviets the Atom Bomb
Allen M. Hornblum
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Format: PaperPrice: $22.00
The first account of one of the most important and enigmatic spies in U.S. history: the man who delivered the plans for the atom bomb to the Soviets
In the history of Soviet espionage in America, few people figure more crucially than Harry Gold. A Russian Jewish immigrant who spied for the Soviets from 1935 until 1950, Gold was an accomplished industrial and military espionage agent. He was assigned to be physicist Klaus Fuchs’s “handler” and ultimately conveyed sheaves of stolen information about the Manhattan Project from Los Alamos to Russian agents. He is literally the man who gave the USSR the plans for the atom bomb. The subject of the most intensive public manhunt in the history of the FBI, Gold was arrested in May 1950. His confession revealed scores of contacts, and his testimony in the trial of the Rosenbergs proved pivotal. Yet among his co-workers, fellow prisoners at Lewisburg Penitentiary, and even those in the FBI, Gold earned respect, admiration, and affection.
In The Invisible Harry Gold, journalist and historian Allen Hornblum paints a surprising portrait of this notorious yet unknown figure. Through interviews with many individuals who knew Gold and years of research into primary documents, Hornblum has produced a gripping account of how a fundamentally decent and well-intentioned man helped commit the greatest scientific theft of the twentieth century.
“Allen Hornblum's detailed and fascinating portrait of Harry Gold makes readers understand how and why he became a spy. Without attempting to justify Gold's betrayals, Hornblum humanizes him and presents a sad yet oddly appealing human being.”—Harvey Klehr, Emory University
"Solidly researched, seamlessly plotted, and expertly written, The Invisible Harry Gold is a page-turning account of one well-intentioned soul's descent into espionage and treachery. Readers in search of a dramatic piece of American history will not go wrong with Hornblum's gripping narrative of the twentieth century's most improbable spy.”—Jeffrey Ian Ross, author of Dynamics of Political Crime
“No one, until now, has given Harry Gold his due. Allen Hornblum has shown convincingly the importance of Harry’s place in this story, and in the process revealed his humanity, his kindness, his many struggles, personal and legal, and his desire for freedom—all of them overlooked in the all-too-frequent caricatures of the man that have for too long passed as historical analysis.”—Katherine Sibley, author of Red Spies in America: Stolen Secrets and the Dawn of the Cold War
"In this fresh and extraordinarily insightful look at a pivotal spy case, Allen Hornblum digs beneath the simplifications of ‘good versus evil’ to show how a decent and kind person could be led into what his contemporaries called "the crime of the century." In the process he throws a bright light on the tradecraft used to steal the hottest secrets of the Cold War."—Tennent H. Bagley, author of Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games
Publication Date: September 27, 2011
38 b/w illus.
