The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

72. The use made by Stalin of intelligence from Britain during the Tehran Conference remains more problematic, given the Centre’s unwarranted suspicion at that time of its main British sources.

73. vol. 6, ch. 5, part 2.

74. vol. 7, ch. 2, para. 2; appendix 3, n. 21.

75. vol. 7, ch. 2, para. 5.

76. vol. 7, ch. 10, para. 15.

77. Philby, My Silent War, pp. 49-50, 67-8.

78. vol. 7, ch. 10, para. 5.

79. Borovik, The Philby Files, pp. 196-7. On SIS’s lack of a Moscow station in the 1930s, see Andrew, Secret Service, p. 573.

80. The text of the report was first published, along with other KGB documents on atomic espionage, in Voprossi Istorii Estestvoznania i Tekhniki (1992), no. 3. This issue was withdrawn shortly after publication, but the documents are reprinted in Sudoplatovs, Special Tasks, appendix 2. Cf. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, p. 218.

81. According to the minutes of the Scientific Advisory Committee, Cairncross briefly served as its joint secretary; SAC (DP)(41), CAB 90/8, PRO. In his memorably mendacious memoirs, Cairncross denied that he ever held this post. Even if he is correct in this instance (and Whitehall committee secretaries were, almost invariably, capable of ensuring that their names were correctly recorded), this would not have affected his access to SAC minutes since, by his own admission, he “had no difficulty in having access to the secret papers in Hankey’s office.” Cairncross, The Enigma Spy, pp. 9-10, 88-92.

82. The revelation that Cairncross, thanks to his access to Scientific Advisory Committee papers, was the first to warn the Center of the plan to construct the atomic bomb first appeared in 1990 in Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 321. Probably because Cairncross was then still alive, a series of KGB/SVR-sponsored publications suggested that the report of the Scientific Advisory Committee had come instead from Maclean. (See, e.g., Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, p. 218; Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, pp. 31, 60.) Following confirmation by Yuri Modin, who was given responsibility for Cairncross’s file in 1944 and became his controller in 1947, that the Scientific Advisory Committee report came from Cairncross, the SVR changed its tune. In 1998 it released documents from Cairncross’s file proving that he supplied the report and giving further details of his role as the first of the atom spies. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, pp. 228-9, 234; Michael Smith, “The Humble Scot Who Rose to the Top—But Then Chose Treachery,” Daily Telegraph (January 12, 1998).

83. The text of Beria’s report of March 1942, first published in Voprossi Istorii Estestvoznania i Tekhniki, 1992, no. 3, is reprinted in Sudoplatovs, Special Tasks, appendix 2, pp. 439-41. On the background see Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, pp. 82-4.

84. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, pp. 84-9.

85. vol. 6, ch. 6. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed verbally on unrestricted exchange of information on the atomic project, but did not commit the agreement to writing. The Americans in charge of the MANHATTAN project afterwards claimed to be ignorant of the agreement. Not till the Quebec agreement of August 1943 was “full and effective collaboration” between Britain and the United States agreed in writing.

86. vol. 6, ch. 6.

87. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 85.

88. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 321-2.

89. West and Tsarev, Crown Jewels, pp. 231-3.

90. Fuchs preferred meeting in London Underground stations. He later complained to Markus Wolf that Kremer’s habit of constantly looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed “seemed to attract more attention to us than simply getting on with it.” Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 322-4; Wolf, Man without a Face, p. 230. The best biography of Fuchs is Williams, Klaus Fuchs, Atom Spy.

91. The references to FIR in Mitrokhin’s notes, including her involvement with Fuchs, identify her as SONIA (vol. 7, ch. 14, item 17). She is not to be confused with a British NKGB agent also codenamed FIR, an official of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) recruited in China in 1943 (k-24,126).

92. Werner, Sonya’s Report, pp. 250-3; Wolf, Man without a Face, p. 230.

93. Wolf, Man without a Face, p. 229.