[edwin hubble]

My comments: There were actually many spies. They did give Russia our atomic secrets. The FBI had the information by the time of the McCarthy hearings, but McCarthy knew nothing of the codebreaking. Much of this was confirmed by information from Russia after the end of the cold war.

This program vindicates the charges against Alger Hiss, among others.

Look for this to be re-broadcast within the week on many PBS stations.

[detsaoT]

PBS just made the *shocking* discovery that McCarthy Was Right?! Am I the only one to see the juicy irony here?

:) ttt

[edwin hubble]

Remarkably balanced for PBS

[Rain-maker]

Next week on NOvA: China Deja-Vu Atomic Voodoo?

[TonyInOhio]

Excellent program. I had remembered it this morning, but needed your "heads-up". Thanks!

Joan Hall's comments made me very angry. Ted Hall deserved what one of his colleagues recommended - that he be extradited to the United States, called back to military service, tried at court martial, and shot.

[keithtoo]

Most, if not ALL of the Leftist martyrs are and were COMMIES!! just like the Right said they were!!

Expect this story to be remarkably UNreported everywhere.

[RaceBannon]

I saw this tonight, I was too late to put in the tape in the VCR.

THIS IS DEFINITELY A KEEPER. It is being replayed on Friday night at 11PM here in Connecticut on Channel 24, the Hartford PBS station.

[Kryptonite]

That was an outstanding program. It concluded that Ted Hall and Claus Fuchs should be regarded as the two most destructive spies to our secret nuclear weapons program. Hall gave away secrets from the Los Alamos program, including the formulas for processing uranium, and Fuchs provided, among other secrets, diagrams for the core activator. The concept of implosion had been so foreign to the Russians they didn't even have a word for it.

The program also revealed that FDR's administrative assistant himself showed up on Russian spy code messages, and flatly stated that every major government agency had been infiltrated with Russian spies. The US broke the Russian code because of a mistake -- the Russians used code panels for more than one message. While less than 1% of the messages were actually decoded, there were hundreds of spies that had been given cover names by the Russians. But alas, NOVA concluded that perhaps less than 5 people identified by McCarthy as communist spies were discovered on Venona Project code messages.

Definitely worth watching IMO.

[NatureGirl]

It's interesting, seeing this thread here tonight. My husband picked up a video copy of this program from the newspaper where he works (their reviewer routinely throws out advance screenings). We watched it just last weekend.

I was struck by the difference between Hall's wife, and Sach's (the courier?) son. Sach's son said that, in later years, his dad realized that, if an atomic bomb was dropped on America, it would have been partly his fault.

Compare that to Hall's wife, who still considers her husband's treason as "the right thing to do" and "humanitarian".

The codebreaking part was fascinating. Amazing puzzle-solving skills!

PS If I got the courier's name wrong, I'll put the blame on the tape! Because it was a preview copy, it didn't have the subtitles that show the viewer the names of the people being interviewed.

[Free the USA]

FYI

[Yougottabekidding]

Good (real)SPY Books: "Master Of Disguise" -A. Mendez; & "First Directorate"- Oleg Kalugin

I would not want to be a spy, even a pro. Someone ultimately turns and gives all the names.

[Waco]

Wouldn't it be accurate to consider the democrat party a communist front group now? (Probably a hellofva lot more accurate than we suspect?)

[Buckeroo]

I love re-writes of history. It creates an automatic action to "slap my knees."