Russia is named principal in atomic bomb intrigue
Major and minor government employees reported involved – Soviet agent said to have been allowed leave Canada with data – Truman and Bevin slated taken into consultation by Prime Minister King – Conflict alleged between Justice and State Departments in United States and Dominion
By Drew Pearson
WASHINGTON (Feb. 15) – Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s announcement in Ottawa today that highly confidential state secrets have been disclosed to a foreign power touches off the most sensational story of espionage and intrigue since the end of the war.
I am able to reveal its amazing details.
The foreign power is Russia.
Involved are both major and minor employees of the Canadian government – one of the three powers which guard the secrets of the atomic bomb.
High Canadian officials had been trying for weeks to make up their minds whether to hold a public trial of the Canadians charged with conspiring with the Soviet government.
Sensational evidence regarding these officials came to light when a Russian agent in Canada was about to be transferred back to Moscow.
He gave himself up to Canadian authorities.
One day after he was taken into protective custody by the police, his room was entered, presumably by other Soviet agents, and made a shambles.
Before Prime Minister King made the decision which resulted in today’s announcement, he came to Washington and discussed the entire matter with President Truman.
Later, he referred it to Foreign Minister Bevin in London.
He asked Bevin whether prosecution of the Canadians involved would embarrass British relations with Russia.
Bevin replied that the trial was a police matter involving the safety of the realm, and for the Canadian government to proceed.
The Russian agent taken by the Canadians has given the names and locations of about 1,700 other Soviet agents operating not only in Canada but also in the United States.
He has put the finger on certain officials inside both the American and Canadian governments as persons cooperating with the Soviet.
He has also named certain American labor leaders, including some in New York City.
Photostats showing payments made to U.S. and Canadian officials have even come to light.
Serious secret differences inside the U.S. government have resulted from these revelations, with the State Department anxious not to disrupt Russian relations, but the Justice Department anxious to arrest and prosecute.
One Russian agent named Shimishenko was negotiating for the purchase of the blueprints of an American jet-propelled plane.
The FBI detected him, proposed arresting him. After considerable internal debate, the State Department ruled against the arrest, Shimishenko sailed with wife and child January 6.
He did not get the blueprints, found in Bremerton, Washington. He not only had plans of the atomic bomb, but samples of the metal from which the bomb is made.
U.S. agents were covering him, all ready to make an arrest, but the State Department ruled otherwise.
The agent sailed for Russia. It’s hard to believe, but he took his atomic information with him.
State Department officials make no comment, but apparently they figure that seizing a Russian agent was less important than upsetting the diplomatic applecart with Russia; also that the Russians probably had the atomic bomb already.
This confronts the USA with the most serious foreign-relations crisis since Pearl Harbor. One of our major Allies has been caught attempting to seal military secrets and undermine American officials.
The British also maintain agents in the U.S., but most are registered with the Justice Department and others operate peacefully, though sometimes very effectively.
In other words, British agents operate to win American friendship, not to buy military secrets. They want to put us in their corner for the Empire’s eventual showdown of strength with Soviet Russia. … They consider that showdown unavoidable. A lot of other people, including this columnist, don’t agree.
All of this, however, illustrates the basic difference between the friendship of the British and American people and the unabridged void between the American and Russian people. It’s our greatest failure of the war – in fact, of the last two decades. We have failed miserably to get acquainted with the Russian people. Instead, we’ve left all our cards in the hands of Joe Stalin.
There can’t be any serious trouble between the British and American people. We know each other.
The opposite is true in Russia. The Russian people can be led into war, blindly, without knowing what it is about… they are not permitted to read American newspapers, hear American radio programs or meet American visitors.
They live in a vacuum as far as American cultural relations are concerned.
The Russian people are fine people. Whenever American troops come into contact with them, both sides like each other. But contacts to get acquainted are studiously avoided by Moscow.
This puts the military Communist clique which rules Russia in the same dangerous position as Hitler. He could take his country into war almost at all. So can Stalin.
It also emphasizes our greatest wartime error. For, while we gave the Russians tanks, airplanes and munitions, we did not insist that American good-will go with it.
They insisted that their pilots fly U.S. lend-lease planes from Alaska over Siberia. We yielded. No American pilot was permitted to fly over Russian territory.
They sent their drivers to pick up American trucks in Iran. No American truck-driver could enter Russian territory.
They wanted our goods but not the danger of rubbing shoulders with American democracy… and when we finally established two air bases on Russian territory so our bombers could rest one night before flying back over Poland, the Russians suddenly, without warning, ordered us out of these bases.
As far as the Russian people were concerned, both countries fought the war in a vacuum.
Today, this vacuum has become worse, not better. Russians are permitted to enter this country almost at will, but not even an American orchestra can enter the Soviet Union without having every drummer and saxophone player scrutinized for months, and even then probably refused a passport. Some of this is the fault of the policy of isolating Russia. We are now paying for that mistake. We are reaping a 17-year harvest of suspicion.
But if this suspicion is not broken down, if the Russian people are not permitted to understand that we are peaceful and friendly, the British will be proved right. Another war will be inevitable. That is the biggest problem facing the State Department. So far nothing has been done about it. The Canadian disclosures, however, may force a showdown.