The Invisible Harry Gold: The Man Who Gave the Soviets the Atom Bomb

Although labeled a "master Soviet spy," Harry Gold (1910–1972) was never a Communist but an often reluctant courier who carried documents from spies to his Soviet handler. Journalist Hornblum (Sentenced to Science) has absorbed masses of documents and interviewed survivors to paint a vivid picture of a sad yet oddly likable figure. Feeling indebted to a Communist friend who found him a job at a sugar refinery during the Depression, Gold—extraordinarily generous and eager to please—agreed at first to provide the Soviets with information from the refinery on modern industrial processes. Then, for 15 years, though doubting the Soviet project, he performed tedious, unpaid assignments including carrying packages from Manhattan Project physicist-spy Klaus Fuchs to Soviet agents in New York. As enigmatic as his reasons for spying were his reasons for confessing when arrested in 1950. Gold named names, devastating Soviet espionage in America and leading to many convictions and, most notably, to the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But Gold's confession did not keep him from serving 15 years in prison. Gold is now obscure, but Hornblum's biography does justice to this mysterious man and recreates a bizarre era when communism was a national obsession. (Sept.)