UNITED STATES F.B.I. TELLS OF SPY CONTACTS

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 June 1950, Page 5

UNITED STATES F.B.I. TELLS OF SPY CONTACTS

Arrest Of Chemist Leads To Several Further Discoveries WASHINGTON, June 16 (Rec. 6 pm).—The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, said today that, an American chemist, Alfred Dean Slack, who was arrested on espionage charges, has been identified as a contact, who supplied classified information to Harry Gold, at Kingsport in

1943 and 1944. Gold, a Philadelphia chemist,! was arrested on May 23, charged! with passing atom bomb secrets from Doctor Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist, who i? now serving a prison sentence in England. Slack, at the time of his alleged offence, was employed in Holston Ordnance works at Kingsport. Mr Hoover said Slack had admitted turning over a sample of a powerful new explosive which was being manufactured at Kingsport and had also confesed to furnishing Gold with highly classified information on the manufacturing involved. The Justice Department's announcement of Slack’s arrest said Gold in turn passed data and explosives samples “to his Soviet principal, Semen M. Semenov.” The announcement served to identify Semenov as the mysterious Richard Roe, alias “Sam,” who was named in the spying indictment returned by a Brooklyn

grand jury against Harry Gold several days ago. Mr Hoover said Gold knew Semenov only by the name of “Sam,” and that “Sam's’’ real identity was subsequently established through the F. 8.1. as Semenov. Semenov at the time, according to the announcement, was an employee of the Amtorg Trading Corporation, a Soviet business contact in the UnMed States. Semenov left the United States in September, 1944. The announcement also identified “John Doe,” alias “John,” also named in the Harry Gold indictment, as Anatoli Antonovich Yakovlev, who was Vice-Consul in the Russian Consulate in New York City until his departure on December 27, 1946. Gold, according to the F. 8.1., made his contacts [with the Soviet espionage service . through Yakovlev, after Semenov’s departure in 1944. Yakovlev, the ! F. 8.1. said, was known to Gold only 1 a a “John.” | Slack, since September, 1948, had •been employed as a chemist with the [Paint Manufacturing Corporation in 'Syracuse.