JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SPIES FOR THE SOVIETS IN THE 1940s AND 1950s – THE STORY OF URSULA BEOURTON ASSISTING PHYSICIST KLAUS FUCHS IN BRITAIN - ATOMIC SECRETS REVEALED – THE CAMBRIDGE CIRCLE AND OTHERS INCLUDING MI5’S GUY LIDDELL – THE SOVIETS WERE REMARKABLY SUCCESSFUL IN RECRUITING HIGH-LEVEL AGENTS ABROAD BECAUSE OF A STRONG APPEAL TO IDEALISM AND FEARS OF AMERICA AS AN ATOMIC MONOPOLY – RATHER THAN FOCUSING ON THE NOTION OF TREACHERY, I THINK THE WORLD OWES THEM THANKS FOR PREVENTING AN AMERICAN NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN THE POSTWAR PERIOD

John Chuckman


COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE ON SCOOPY WEB


“Did a staggering British blunder hand Stalin the atomic bomb? Startling new evidence suggests Agent Sonya who passed nuclear secrets to Moscow was recruited to work here by MI6”

http://www.scoopyweb.com/2020/06/did-staggering-british-blunder-hand.html



“Ursula Beurton presented herself as a bicycling housewife and mother of two

“She was a well-respected Soviet Union intelligence officer called Agent Sonya

“She acted as a courier for Dr Klaus Fuchs and at least two other British traitors

“Agent Sonya transmitted messages back to Moscow from a home-made radio

“Analysis of files suggests it was MI6 that brought her to Britain in the first place


“It blew up in the face of both services [MI5 and MI6]”


Well, it wouldn't be the first time.

The entire notorious Cambridge Circle of spies – Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and three others - operated right under the security services' noses for years and provided the USSR with immense amounts of information on many topics.

It is also believed that MI5’s Guy Liddell, who rose in the service almost to becoming its director, was a double agent.

And in Japan, the Soviets had the extraordinary Richard Sorge, a German journalist secretly working for Soviet military intelligence.

The Soviets were exceptionally good at recruiting high-value agents abroad. Their flow of what today is termed “humint” was so extensive, sometimes Stalin became suspicious and ignored things to which he should have paid attention.

I do believe there was far more than "treachery" involved in this work, just as was the case for the physicist, Klaus Fuchs. Soviet success involved genuine appeals to idealism and to fears about America.

Many of these spies were concerned about America having a postwar monopoly on atomic weapons and what they might do with it.

Which was exactly America's secret aim, to have a monopoly, effectively rule the planet, and be able to eliminate challengers.

The more thoughtful spies could see the frightening anti-communist fanaticism in America.

And we know that on more than one occasion the Pentagon did plan a pre-emptive, all-out attack on the USSR, even after the Soviets had nuclear weapons.

I sometimes think the Soviet spies did humanity a great service, preventing America from creating a nuclear holocaust, something it was perfectly capable of. Consider its fire-bombing and atomic-bombing later in Japan and, a little later still, its horrific three-year campaign of carpet-bombing in North Korea, something few Americans even know about.

Literally one-fifth of that country’s entire population was exterminated, and that is a Pentagon estimate. It should be no mystery today why a country like North Korea wants to keep its atomic weapons.