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Theodore Hall

At 18 years of age, Theodore Hall was the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, hired as a junior at Harvard and put to work at Los Alamos in 1944.

For over four decades, Klaus Fuchs was thought to be the only spy who was a physicist at Los Alamos. In the mid-1990s, release of the VENONA intercepts revealed an alleged second scientist-spy: Theodore Hall. Like Fuchs, a long-time communist who volunteered his services, Hall made contact with Soviet intelligence in November 1944 while at Los Alamos. Although not as detailed or voluminous as that provided by Fuchs, the data supplied by Hall on implosion and other aspects of atomic weapons design served as an important supplement and confirmation of Fuchs's material. The FBI learned of Hall's espionage in the early 1950s. Unlike Fuchs, however, under questioning Hall refused to admit anything. The American government was unwilling to expose the VENONA secret in open court. Hall's espionage activities had apparently ended by then, so the matter was quietly dropped.

The Washington Post identified Theodore Alvin Hall as an atomic bomb spy codenamed, “Mlad,” in an article in its 25 February 1996 edition. The article used information from deciphered KGB messages released by the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA program, actually started by the US Army’s Signal Intelligence Service on 1 February 1943, was a small, highly secret program, codenamed VENONA. The object of the VENONA program was to examine, and possibly exploit, encrypted Soviet diplomatic communications.

In one of the encrypted messages, dated 12 November 1944, Hall is identified by name and says that a KGB officer visited Hall, who provided information on Los Alamos and its key personnel to the officer. The message read: "BEK77 visited Theodore Hall, 19 years old, the son of a furrier. He is a graduate of Harvard University. As a talented physicists he was taken for government work. He was a (member of the Young Communist League) and conducted work in the Steel Founders Union. According to BEK’s account HALL has an exceptionally keen mind and a broad outlook, and is politically developed. At the present time, H. is in charge of a group at “CAMP-2”.78 H. handed over to BEK a report about the CAMP and named key personnel employed on ENORMOZ. He decided to do this on the advice of his colleague Saville SAX, a GYMNAST living in TYRE. SAX’s mother is a FELLOWCOUNTRYMAN and works for RUSSIAN WAR RELIEF. With the aim of hastening a meeting with a competent person, H. on them following day sent a copy of the report to S. to the PLANT.

"ALEKSEJ84 received it. H had to leave for CAMP-2 in two days time. ALEKSEJ was compelled to make a decision quickly. Jointly with MAJ85 he gave BEK consent to feel out H., to assure him that everything was in order and to arrange liaison with him. BEK met S (1 group garbled) our automobile. We consider it expedient to maintain liaison with H. (1 group unidentified) through S. and not bring in anybody else. MAJ has no objections to this. We shall send the details by post."

In another VENONA message, from KGB New York to Moscow, number 94, on 23 January 1945, it appears the KGB is running an investigative check on Hall and Sax: "The checking of STAR and MLAD we entrusted to ECHO a month ago, the result of the check we have not yet had. We’re checking STAR’s mother also.... BEK is extremely displeased over the handing over of STAR to ALEKSEJ. He gives a favorable report of him. Aleksej has met STAR twice but cannot yet give a final judgement. MLAD has been seen by no one except BEK. (On the 8th of January) MLAD sent a letter but never (made arrangements) for calling to a meeting. He has been called into the army and left to work in the camp. STAR intends to renew his studies at Harvard University at the end of February."

Hall was subsequently investigated in the early 1950s for espionage by the FBI but was not prosecuted. He left the United States in 1962 to reside in Cambridge, England. Washington Post contacted Hall on several occasions but Hall declined to comment on the story that he is Mlad or to answer any questions about his possible involvement with Soviet intelligence.

A new book, Bombshell: The Secret Story of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy, published on 1 October 1997, quoted Hall as saying that he passed nuclear secrets to the Soviets. According to Hall, he concerned about the US monopoly of atomic weapons so in 1944, “to help prevent the monopoly I contemplated a brief encounter with a Soviet agent, just to inform them of the existence of the A-bomb project.” Hall anticipated only limited contact with the Soviets but things did not go as he planned. He notes that at the time of his espionage activities, the Soviet Union “was not the enemy but the ally of the United States; the Soviet people fought the Nazis heroically at tremendous human cost, and this may well have saved the Western Allies from defeat.”

Hall wrote two statements to the authors. In one of them he said that his “decision about contacting the Soviets was a gradual one, and it was entirely my own. It was entirely voluntary, not influenced by any other or by any organization…. recruited by anyone.” Hall’s acknowledgment of his spying activities further confirms the VENONA transcripts, which identified him as a Soviet spy.