British Atomic Scientist Is Said To Have Given Russia Highly Secret Information

Wanganui Chronicle, 8 February 1950, Page 5

British Atomic Scientist Is Said To Have Given Russia Highly Secret Information

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6. —The British atomic scientist Klaus '•’uchs had “transmitted highly secret information to the Soviet i'nion,” Senator Brien McMahon, chairman of the Congressional Atomic Energy Committee, alleged today.

Senator McMahon reviewed the testimony given by Mr. J., Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at a closed session today. I Mr. McMahon said there could "be’ no doubt as to the general extent and' knowledge of atomic and so-called hydrogen weapons. Fuchs helped to ! develop the atomic bomb in the; United States from 1943 to 1946. Mr.; Hoover had stated that he had not: been notified at the time by the atomic project authorities that Fuchs! or a British atomic mission were in* the United States working m the atomic bomb. "Further rami # lions! of this matter are’being wor .d on by the F. 8.1. and the British intelli-1 gence service.” Mr. McMahon said the F. 8.1. did not • investigate any atomic bomb project; employees from March, 1943, until t January 1, 1947, when the United; States Atomic Energy Commission j took over. "We were advised that the| background of Fuchs’ family had been• Communistic. Fuchs since he was a. young man had been definitely sym-| pathetic to the Communist ideology. • Most of his relatives have either been members of the party or fellow travellers.” BRITAIN INFORMED Mr. McMahon said that Fuchs was not under suspicion until information , was sent from the United States Gov-. ernment to the British authorities toward the end of last December. Mr. McMahon said he assumed the British ;

had been unaware of Fuchs’ political background. f Mr. Hoover had told the committee that there was a necessity for better security in highly-secret work. He ; realised it was possible that security i consciousness could impede the pro- ' gress of work. ! The Canadian Press says it was learned in Ottawa today that Fuchs j was interned in Canada for some time j during the war. He was released to ’participate in the atomic bomb projects. Fuchs was one of many Germans rounded up by the British ' authorities in 1939-40 and sent to i Canada lor safe-keeping. THE “RED FOX.” . Reuter's Berlin correspondent says i that Fuchs was known in his youth as i the "Red Fox,” because of his red hair ! and his Socialist opinions. He grew up in Kiel, where his father was one | of Germany’s few Quakers and taught [theology. Fuchs, who with his sisi ter and brother were active in Left ■ Wing student politics, emigrated to ■England soon after Hitler came to I power in 1933. Fuchs ’father was re- ' moved from his job by the Nazis and imprisoned for one -month for “insult- ; tag the State.” His brother served a (long prison sentence and his sister ; committed suicide after her husband i was sent to a concentration camp, j Fuchs’ father spent the last two years iof the war in Switzerland, but reI turned to Germany after the war and I now occupies a university chair of | theolgy in the Soviet Zone.