“The 18-Year-Old Soviet Spy on the Manhattan Project: Ted Hall” – with Director Steve James

Summary

Steve James (IMDb) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss his new film, A Compassionate Spy. 18-year-old Ted Hall was the youngest physicist working on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. 

What You’ll Learn

Intelligence

• Soviet-American relations during WWII
• The Manhattan Project and the development of the Atomic Bomb 
• Motivations for atomic espionage
• The life and story of Theodore Hall

Reflections

• With great power … comes great responsibility
• State allegiance vs. personal conscience

And much, much more 

And…

Steve James has been nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Documentary Feature in 2018 for Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, and Best Film Editing in 1995 for Hoop Dreams. Steve is the first Oscar nominee to join us on SpyCast since Robert de Niro sat down with our first host Peter Earnest in 2009! 

Quotes of the Week

“Ted was young and naive in some ways, but his reasons for what he did were not grounded in fantasy … Whether you support what he did or not, I don't know that the U. S. having the bomb all to itself would have been a great thing, given that we are the only nation to have actually dropped the bomb on anyone, period.” – Steve James.

Resources 

SURFACE SKIM

*Headline Resource* 

• A Compassionate Spy, Steve James, Magnolia Pictures (2022)
• Available in select theaters and streaming on August 4th

*SpyCasts*

• Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East vs. West with Calder Walton (2023)
• St. Ermin’s Hotel, London – The History of a Legendary Spy Site with Stephen Duffy (2023)
• Becoming a Russian Intelligence Officer with Janosh Neumann (2022)
• The Nuclear Doomsday Machine with Sean Maloney on Cold War Emergency Plans (2022)

*Beginner Resources*

• What Was the Manhattan Project?, T. Metcalfe, Scientific American (2023) [Article]
• U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control (1949-2021), Council on Foreign Relations (n.d.) [Timeline]
• Theodore Hall: American-born physicist and spy, Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) [Encyclopedia entry]

DEEPER DIVE

Books

• Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away, A. Hagedorn (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
• The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians, C. C. Kelly (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2020) 
• Atomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs, N. T. Greenspan (Penguin Books, 2020)
• Bombshell: The Secret Story of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy, J. Albright & M. Kunstel (Times Books, 1997) 

Video

• Modern Marvels: The Manhattan Project, The History Channel, YouTube (2020) 
• Science Behind the Atom Bomb, Nuclear Museum, Atomic Heritage Foundation (2013)

Primary Sources 

• Report by the Ad Hoc Committee to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Evaluation of Effect on Soviet War Effort Resulting from the Strategic Air Offensive,” National Security Archive (1949)
• The Evaluation of the Atomic Bomb as a Military Weapon, Harry Truman Presidential Library (1947)
• A Petition to the President of the United States from Los Alamos Scientists, Harry Truman Presidential Library (1945) 
• Albert Einstein to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman Presidential Library (1945)
• Decision to Maintain Contact with Theodore Hall, National Security Agency (1944)

*Wildcard Resource*

• The development of nuclear weapons not only had a massive impact on history and science – It also inspired new architectural designs and art. Read this Architectural Digest article on the Atomic Age Design and why our brains still register it as “futuristic” 75 years later!