Half-life: the divided life of Bruno Pontecorvo, physicist or spy PDF
Preview Half-life: the divided life of Bruno Pontecorvo, physicist or spy
H A L F - L I F E THE DIVIDED LIFE OF BRUNO PONTECORVO, PHYSICIST OR SPY F R A N K C L O S E HALF-LIFE ALSO BY FRANK CLOSE The Infinity Puzzle Neutrino Nothing Antimatter The Cosmic Onion HALF-LIFE The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy FRANK CLOSE A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP New York Copyright © 2015 by Frank Close Published by Basic Books A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Designed by Trish Wilkinson Set in 11 point Minion Pro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Close, F. E. Half life : the divided life of Bruno Pontecorvo, physicist or spy / Frank Close. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-465-06998-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-465-04487-0 (ebook) 1. Pontecorvo, B. (Bruno), 1913–1993. 2. Nuclear physicists—Soviet Union— Biography. 3. Nuclear physicists—Italy—Biography. 4. Spies—Soviet Union— Biography. 5. Spies—Italy—Biography. I. Title. QC774.P66C56 2014 530.092—dc23 [B] 2014041019 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Abingdonians, present and past Contents Preface ix Prologue: Midway on Life’s Journey xi FIRST HALF ONE From Pisa to Rome 3 TWO Slow Neutrons and Fast Reactions: 1934–1936 12 THREE Paris and Politics: 1936–1940 28 FOUR The First Escape: 1940 53 FIVE Neutrons for Oil and War: 1940–1941 66 SIX East and West: 1941–1942 77 SEVEN The Pile at Chalk River: 1943–1945 87 EIGHT Physics in the Open: 1945–1948 105 NINE Maneuvers: 1945–1950 117 INTERLUDE West to East 127 HALF TIME TEN Chain Reaction: 1949–1950 147 ELEVEN From Abingdon—to Where? 1950 160 TWELVE The Dear Departed: 1950 180 THIRTEEN The MI5 Letters 200 vii viii Contents SECOND HALF FOURTEEN In Dark Woods 213 FIFTEEN Exile 225 SIXTEEN Resurrection 243 SEVENTEEN Mr. Neutrino 253 EIGHTEEN Private Bruno 275 AFTERLIFE NINETEEN The Right Road Lost 299 Afterword 307 Acknowledgments 315 Acronyms 318 Notes 319 Bibliography 363 Index 367 Preface “Did MI5 get back to you after I forwarded them your letter?” When I started to research the life of Bruno Pontecorvo, the nuclear physicist who disappeared through the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War in 1950, I didn’t anticipate receiving such an inquiry, let alone replying in the affirmative. Nevertheless, my correspondence with the British intelligence agency led me to solve a sixty-year-old enigma: Why did Pontecorvo flee so suddenly, just a few months after the conviction of his colleague, atomic spy Klaus Fuchs? The obvious answer—that Ponte- corvo was “the second deadliest spy in history,” as the US Congress later described him—has hung around for decades, but no proof that he passed atomic secrets to the Soviets has ever been presented, nor has there been any suggestion of the information he might have disclosed. Contrary to popular wisdom, neither the FBI nor MI5 ever located evidence against him. So if Bruno Pontecorvo was a spy, he was most successful. Ponte- corvo, a communist who had managed to evade detection and join the Manhattan Project, always insisted that he fled for idealistic reasons, hav- ing felt persecuted following Fuchs’s arrest. Bruno Pontecorvo’s passage through the Iron Curtain split his life into two almost-equal halves. This chronological split defined his scientific life: great insights at the end of the first half were frustrated by his move to the Soviet Union and may have cost him his share of a Nobel Prize. His person- ality was also divided into two complementary halves. On one hand there was Bruno Pontecorvo, the extroverted, highly visible, brilliant scientist, ix
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