The story in brief
A weather plane finds the Soviet bomb in the air, years early. Codebreakers find the physicist who gave it away, and the trail leads to a New York couple. Then a senator holds up a list nobody ever reads, Hollywood blacklists its writers, and one question on live television breaks the spell. The spies were real. So were the ruined lives.
The chapters
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Chapter 1 · 5 min · Free
The Atom Spies
A weather plane finds radioactive dust. Moscow has the Bomb, years early. How?
Sources: Venona decrypts (NSA, released 1995); Truman, 23 September 1949; Fuchs, statement of 27 January 1950
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Chapter 2 · 5 min · Free
The Rosenbergs
Half a Jell-O box, a sketch from memory, and a couple who would not talk.
Sources: Trial record, United States v. Rosenberg (1951); Venona decrypts (NSA, 1995); Eisenhower, 1953
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Chapter 3 · 5 min
The List
A senator holds up a sheet of paper. Nobody gets to read it.
Sources: Congressional Record, 20 February and 1 June 1950; Senate Report 2108 (Tydings, 1950)
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Chapter 4 · 5 min
Hollywood
An Oscar for a writer who was not allowed to work, under a name that was not his.
Sources: HUAC hearings, October 1947 (printed record); Academy Awards records; Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)
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Chapter 5 · 5 min
Have You No Sense of Decency?
One question, asked quietly on live television, and a senator’s power breaks.
Sources: Army-McCarthy hearings, printed record (1954); Murrow, See It Now (1954); Senate Resolution 301
Who’s who
The people you meet. Each one is a hero card you can collect.
- Klaus FuchsPhysicist · Soviet Agent · The Spy Who Confessed
- Ethel RosenbergNew Yorker · Mother of Two · A Case Still Argued
- Margaret Chase SmithSenator from Maine · Declaration of Conscience · First of Her Kind
- Dalton TrumboScreenwriter · One of the Hollywood Ten · Robert Rich
- Joseph WelchBoston Lawyer · Counsel for the Army · The Question
- Joseph McCarthySenator from Wisconsin · The List · McCarthyism
What you’ll be able to tell
This story belongs to the journey “Dividing the World”. By the end of it, you can tell where the iron curtain came from, and why the spies were real but the list was not.
Stories in this journey
- The Iron Curtain: How the Cold War Began
- The Red Scare: Spies, Lists and Witch Hunts
Sources
- Venona decrypts (NSA)
- Trial and hearing records
- Congressional Record
- Senate Report 2108
- S. Res. 301
