I was purusing the History Channel for some mindless fun, in my opinion the history channel's website is near useless. Anyway for some reason I ended up in their shop, and was looking at shows to buy. I like their shows, just not their website. Anyway I cam accross something, I had never heard of before. Of course I tried to look it up there, but that didn't work. So I went to Wikipedia and found this. Until today I had never heard of any of this. I was a little shocked.

Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925-November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy who, during his work on Allied effort to develop the first atomic bombs during World War II (the Manhattan Project), gave a detailed description of the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, and of processes for purifying plutonium, to the Soviet Union.
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Biography
Theodore Alvin Holtzberg was born in Far Rockaway, New York City, but his family soon moved to Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. While his father struggled to find work during the Great Depression, he changed both his and Theodore's last name to Hall in an effort to avoid anti-Semitic hiring practices.

Hall attended Harvard University, graduated at the age of 18, and at the age of 19 was recruited to the Manhattan Project, where he was the youngest scientist at Los Alamos. While on a vacation back to his hometown, he entered a Soviet consulate in New York City and volunteered to pass information on the bomb project to the Soviet government. His wife Joan said after his death that he had begun to adopt strong feelings current at the time against the possibility of an emerging, militarized United States with a nuclear monopoly very early in his Los Alamos work.

Unbeknownst to Hall, Klaus Fuchs, a Los Alamos colleague, and others still unidentified were also spying for the USSR; none seems to have known of the others. Lona Cohen acted as Hall's courier. Some of their information provided an independent and confirming source for the others.

Hall, with the help of his Harvard friend Saville Sax, who had open Communist sympathies, together visited New York, where Hall, after some searching, arranged a meeting with a Russian diplomat. He presented a detailed sketch of the "Fat Man" nuclear device to the official, who transmitted the information to the NKVD from New York using a one-time pad cipher. His code-name was MLAD, a Slavic root meaning "young".

Until recently, nearly all of the severely damaging espionage regarding the Los Alamos nuclear weapons program was attributed to Klaus Fuchs. Hall was questioned by the FBI in 1951 but wasn't charged. Alan H. Belmont, the number-three man in the FBI decided that the Venona project would be inadmissible hearsay and not worth compromising the program. Despite being more damaging to U.S. security than Soviet collaborators Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and other members of the Rosenberg ring (many of whom received severe sentences), Hall was never charged.

In a written statement published in 1997, he came close to admitting that the accusations against him were true, although obliquely, saying that in the immediate postwar years, he felt strongly that "an American monopoly" on nuclear weapons "was dangerous and should be avoided."

"To help prevent that monopoly I contemplated a brief encounter with a Soviet agent, just to inform them of the existence of the A-bomb project. I anticipated a very limited contact. With any luck it might easily have turned out that way, but it was not to be."
Hall left Los Alamos for the University of Chicago, where he switched to biology. There he pioneered important techniques in X-ray microanalysis. He went to work at Cambridge University in England in 1962. Hall later became active in obtaining signatures for the Stockholm Peace Pledge.

In November of 1999, Theodore Hall died in Cambridge, England. He had suffered from Parkinson's disease, although he died of renal cancer at the age of 74.

In a written statement published in 1997, he came close to admitting that the accusations against him were true, although obliquely, saying that in the immediate postwar years, he felt strongly that "an American monopoly" on nuclear weapons "was dangerous and should be avoided." sounds like a smart man. He came up with the idea of MAD before it was even a possibility...

I am just wondering why do you think the Rosenberg's were bad?

This is a world full of spies and people everywhere selling secrets from their own countries to others.

Now, what would you think of those Soviets who sold secrets to the US or to the British?

The Rosenbergs were traitors to the country in which they were born and raised.
This makes them bad.
They were also cowards, refusing to even admit they were members of the Communist Party while under oath, pleading Fifth Amendment.
They suck.

They were also cowards, refusing to even admit they were members of the Communist Party.
Maybe they were afraid of something if they admitted to belong to the Communist Party, anyway they were assassinated in the electric chair (if I am not wrong, or was it in the gas chamber).

Now, is there anything wrong is they or anybody else belongs to a Communist Party?, or to a Socialist Party, or to a Capitalist Party?, here most liberals belong to the Democrat Party, and the reactionaries surely belong to the Republican Party, and so in other countries people belong to whatever Party they pleased to. So what was wrong if they belonged to the Communist Party?

If Julius and Ethel had contented themselves with marching in the streets, handing out leaflets, or done any other peaceful thing to show disapproval of our government, few would have bothered them.

Instead, they sold secrets of the world's most fearsome weapon to the biggest and most implacable enemy of the US at that time--the USSR.

Here is what President Eisenhower had to say about this couple when he denied them executive clemency:

"These two individuals have been tried and convicted of a most serious crime against the people of the United States. They have been found guilty of conspiring with intent and reason to believe that it would be to the advantage of a foreign power, to deliver to the agents of that foreign power certain highly secret atomic information relating to the national defense of the United States. The nature of the crime for which they have been found guilty and sentenced far exceeds that of the taking of the life of another citizen; it involves the deliberate betrayal of the entire Nation and could very well result in the death of many, many thousands of innocent citizens. By their act these two individuals have, in fact, betrayed the cause of freedom for which free men are fighting and dying at this very hour."

President Eisenhower continued, "The courts have provided every opportunity for the submission of evidence bearing on this case. In this time-honored tradition of American justice, a freely selected jury of their fellow citizens considered the evidence in this case and rendered its judgement. All rights of appeal were exercised and the conviction of the trial court was upheld after full judicial review, including that of the highest court in the land. I have made a careful examination into this case, and I am satisfied that the two individuals have been accorded their full measure of justice. There has been neither new evidence nor have there been mitigating circumstances which would justify altering this decision and I have determined that it is my duty, in the interest of the people of the United States, not to set aside the verdict of their representatives."

For further reading, and the fact that there should be no doubt as to this couple's guilt. please see:

The Rosenberg File: a Search for the Truth by Ronald Radosh

Still I have another question, did anybody die because of those secrets? (if they were indeed passed to the USSR), as far as I know, the only country that has used this kind of weapons has been the USA against Japan, and before any other country ever developed their own nuclear devices. The USSR, the UK, France, China, Pakistan or India, none of them have used any nuclear device against any group of Human beings.
So, I don't see that they killed anyone direct or indirectly.
It is said the Israel has some nuclear bombs, but not even them have used any either.
I didn't get your answer, if there is anything wrong for any individual to belong to a Political Party, whether Communist, Socialist, Capitalist, or whatever. (Now if one belongs to a certain Political Party for personal or group (Elite) gain, by taking what belongs to all the individuals of a particular country, then that would be wrong, and I wouldn't disagree if that or those individuals are executed, even though I am against the death penalty, perhaps they could just go to prison for life in a place similar to "Guantanamo".

So, I don't see that they killed anyone direct or indirectly.

No, but then again you can't wait until millions are vaporized, either.

It's hard to know how things would've gone had they not given the bomb to the USSR. I forget now, but either the Soviets were very close to getting it on their own or they already had it. And there's certainly the argument to be made that the world was better off with a balance of power. But I don't think those are relevant, because you can't wait 20 years to decide what someone's punishment is going to be.

No, but then again you can't wait until millions are vaporized, either. It's hard to know how things would've gone had they not given the bomb to the USSR. I forget now, but either the Soviets were very close to getting it on their own or they already had it. And there's certainly the argument to be made that the world was better off with a balance of power.

I used to work with the Soviets, giving them Touristic services in the 80's, and even worked with the Soviet Embassy personnel, many times I had a chance to talk to some high ranked member of this Embassy, though not high ranked in the very USSR, many of these people the old guys were young during WWII, and fought against Germany. Anyway, they told me that they already had the "BOMB" before those secrets reached them, they too had German scientists with them after the victory over Germany and at the same time many Soviet scientists had already been working in a similar project like the Manhattan project, though a few years after the USA started theirs.

I do agree with a balance of power, as it was during the "Cold War". Unfortunately the Soviet Union run out of money, because they were sending millions and millions to foreign causes of the leftist governments or guerrillas that wanted to overthrow Dictatorships. I had a Russian girlfriend that was always telling me that they had to stand on long lines of people since early hours, sometimes all night to be able to buy this or that product from a particular store that they new a shipment was coming. Products such as food and clothing were scarce, though they always managed to get what they needed, the Government was sending most of the production to foreign countries. All that investment never returned, something different as what has happened with the USA and the money they have spent on foreign countries to support Dictatorships, that money always came back with a high interest.

For the record, my headline was only meant to be amusing, nothing serious was intended. It was meant to get your attention and give a clue as to what this would be about. I began reading about this Hall guy and the first thing I though of was the Rosenberg's. Then later in the article it even mentioned them.

As for what's wrong with belonging to another party, again nothing as long as you abide by the laws of the country you reside. When you break the law then you should expect consequences. whether your liberal, republican, communist, socialists, or green party.

As for the what's wrong with spying. Nothing if your the spy or the country benefiting from the info. What would you expect the Russians to say, "Oh thank Stalin for the Rosenbergs and that Hall guy, we had no idea what to do until they came around."

Yes the Russians had access to german scientist as well and had their own project, and in time would've detonated. Hell on a diff. note, but remember it was the Russians who got into space first. As I understand it the info. from the spies helped them know they were on the right track and propelled the project to success faster than expected otherwise.

Yes the Russians had access to german scientist as well and had their own project, and in time would've detonated. Hell on a diff. note, but remember it was the Russians who got into space first. As I understand it the info. from the spies helped them know they were on the right track and propelled the project to success faster than expected otherwise.

So did the Chinese with their Bombs, without any spying, it would have taken them a lot lot longer..............
And about laws, hey I am the first one to follow them, even when I don't agree with some of them, as I did in the country where I come from, there is always the chance to have a new next government that might change things to a level where more people are happy, than just a little group or elite.
Life has been good to me, even when I was really down, for when you are down, you learn how not to be there again..... Most of the time in my talks or posts, I like to be the Devils advocate. Just for the fun of bringing out all kinds of responses, and get the debate more interesting..... it wouldn't be interesting if everyone thinks the same, it is a good thing to have a different music every now and then.

Live and let live..... Live and let die.....

or posts, I like to be the Devils advocate. Just for the fun of bringing out all kinds of responses, and get the debate more interesting..... it wouldn't be interesting if everyone things the same, it is a good thing to have a different music every now and then.

Live and let live..... Live and let die.....

Well if that is truly the case, fair enough. I understand the urge to play the part of devil's advocate, I've done it myself more than once. If I overreacted, my bad.