01x02 - The End of Innocence

[bunniefuu]

These pictures were shot
by the East German secret police.

They show a spy called
Alexander Feiklisov,

visiting the grave of
a person he regards

as one of the Soviet Union's
greatest heroes.

He was a real hero, you know,

because he risked his life in order

lives of tens of thousands of people,

Americans, Soviet, British
and others were saved.

Colonel Feiklisov was one of the most
important agents in the KGB's history,

at one time in charge of the
North American spy network.

His hero is Klaus Fuchs,

the German scientist

who passed the secrets of
America's atom b*mb, to Moscow.

The first Soviet b*mb had
gone down well in the Kremlin.

The top men, Stalin and Beria,
were reportedly ecstatic.

The scientists who built it
certainly were.

Yuli Hariton,

a key man in the team
which built the b*mb,

became part of
the privileged minority,

limousines, parties and all the
perks the bureaucracy could provide.

He and his boss, Igor Kurchatov,

had delivered at least
a year ahead of schedule,

and their political paymasters
were duly grateful.

But the leadership knew the biggest
debt they owed was to their spies.

While the Americans spent

{an8}the equivalent of some 20 to 30
billion rubles to develop the b*mb,

{an8}we spent far less,

{an8}and that was certainly thanks to
the Soviet intelligence services.

One of the many spies
to whom they owed such thanks

was Alexander Feklisov.

After a gap of over 40 years,

he agreed to retrace his steps

to the center of one of his
most important assignments.

His destination was London,

just as it had been in 1947,

when a message had reached the KGB

that Klaus Fuchs
wanted to reopen contact.

Feklisov had been sent off
with a special briefing

from the KGB's
chief of intelligence.

Chief of the intelligence,

he instructed me, he said,

First of all, you should
remember that Klaus Fuchs,

he is one of the best
of our agents,

and he showed that he can
observe secrecy very well.

The man the KGB admired so much

was now working at Harwell,

Britain's new top-secret
nuclear research center.

All day long, lorries come and go.

They're stopped at the gates too.

Surely they don't think
there's a spy in there.

He was once again at the
cutting edge of the nuclear industry,

theoretically for peaceful purposes,

but really, as he later told
East German intelligence,

still working on the b*mb.

{an8}Harwell itself was concerned mainly
with developing nuclear reactors.

Naturally, most of the staff emphasized
the future of peaceful applications.

But the senior staff knew that
the first reactor to be developed

would be used to produce
plutonium for military purposes.

Feklisov's job was
to make contact in London

and pick up a package of information

which Fuchs thought would be
useful to the Soviet Union.

Their first rendezvous
was arranged outside a pub

in North London
called the Nag's Head.

When you have a meeting
with an important person,

person which will pass you

materials of the outmost secrecy,

It certainly could be hold it up,

could be arrested,
could be beaten up,

but certainly it was
a very tense moment.

Thank you.

Feklisov didn't have to wait long.

Once he and Fuchs
had identified each other,

they slipped out into the street.

He told me that he brought with him
very important information

about reactors and chemical
plants to produce plutonium.

And I told him that
at the end of the meeting,

while we will turn
around the corner,

he will quickly pass it to me

and then we will depart.

Feklisov got to know the pubs
and parks of London well,

as a succession of meetings
followed.

But both men were nervous.

They knew that British and
American counter-espionage

was stepping up the pressure.

In April 1949,

Fuchs failed to turn up
for his meeting.

The FBI had picked up his trail
and tipped off British security.

Concrete suspicions
had been directed at me.

From the questions
that were asked,

I had to assume that the material
I had passed on from New York,

that some kind of
information about it

had reached
the American authorities.

And then came the day when
the deputy director, Dr. Skinner,

a very close personal friend,
he said to me,

Klaus, accusations have been
made against you.

If you can assure us
there's nothing in them,

we'll stand by you to a man

and fight it through with you
to the end.

I simply wasn't equal to that.

As someone involved
with intelligence,

I should have been delighted.

But as a human being,
I was suddenly struck

by the human relations aspect,

the fact that one can feel
such a close bond with one's friends,

that they can place
such trust in one.

And that was the moment
I betrayed myself.

Fuchs was arrested.

His old friend and mentor,
Rudolf Peierls, like Fuchs,

a refugee from n*zi Germany,

went to visit him in jail.

When I said that I found it
hard to believe that

he accepted all the orthodoxy
of Marxism and so on,

{an8}and of the Soviet regime,
he said, well,

you must remember
what I went through

as a young man in Germany.

But also,
it was always my intention,

when I had helped the Russians
to take over everything,

then I would get up and tell them
what was wrong with their system.

It seems to me a fantastic
arrogance and naivete.

He was prepared to meet death.

And when he was later arrested,

he expected that
he would be ex*cuted.

But Fuchs was sentenced
to just 14 years,

technically the Soviet Union
had not been an enemy

for much of the time
he was spying.

When the fuss died down,

Alexander Fiklisov
slipped back to Moscow,

dismayed at the loss of a top spy.

In a series of dawn raids,

FBI agents swooped down
on communists,

indicted on charges of advocating
the violent overthrow of the government.

But in America, the arrest
fueled anti-communist feeling.

{an8}There is no doubt as to where
a real communist loyalty rests.

Their allegiance is to Russia,
not the United States.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
asked for funds

to hire 300 more special agents.

But already, the Soviets were getting
far less dependent on their spies.

In October 1951, Oleg Kiryushkin
was given special instructions.

Now a bemeddled veteran,

he was then a navigator
on a Tupolev IV

that had been detailed
to test-drop an atom b*mb.

It was October 19, 1951.

The test center chief
called us together and said,

Comrades, today you are
making an important test flight.

Fine, we lined up
to get the final briefing

from the deputy minister
of the interior.

He warned us that
if we told anybody,

it would be the death of us.

It would be the death of us
because we were pioneers,

we and our families would all die.

But as he tried to intimidate us,
we smiled, but our hearts sank.

Who knew how it would go?

It was the first airdrop.

In the atmosphere of those days,

the Soviet Union was
working flat out

to build an atomic arsenal that
could threaten credible retaliation.

They knew that the US had
targeted all their major cities.

The plane headed out towards
the same test site in Kazakhstan

where the first Soviet
b*mb had been tested.

How would the plane behave
after the expl*si*n?

What would we feel like ourselves?

We dropped the b*mb.

You can picture it.

The plane lost six tons

and bucked upwards, climbing

because it had lost that weight.

{an8}Then for 56 seconds
we waited for the flash to come.

It was worse
when the shock wave hit.

The plane began to creak and grow.

Just imagine,
it's a heavy plane.

There were three almighty shocks,
very powerful shocks.

We've got an instrument
called a variometer

that shows the rate of climb
and descend.

Now that variometer needle
went round the clock three times.

It didn't register
just 10 or 15 meters.

It went round three times.

The shock was so violent.

The plane was just hurled upwards.

The plane could have broken up
or caught fire from the flash.

We were relieved and happy
to make it safely back to base.

Before we took off
to make the bombing run,

we were shown
what we would be bombing.

A factory had been built there,

and a railway station, an airport.

There were tanks on the ground,

a*tillery pieces,
residential housing blocks,

and all the structures
were real, solid.

And after we dropped the b*mb,

we were shown what we had done.

Everything was destroyed,
smashed, demolished.

So they were right
to claim that the b*mb

is the most horrible weapon.

We were all against it,
and we wanted it banned.

But there was no chance of that.

The production of a nuclear
arsenal to match the Americans

was now involving more and more

of the Soviet Union's
scarce resources.

At various places in the vast
expanse of the country,

special troops were patrolling

a network of secret
nuclear work centres.

To this day, they remain
forbidding places to any visitor.

Ours was the first Western team they'd
ever allowed through these gates,

and that took months
of delicate negotiation.

By 1950,

these work centres were
rapidly expanding into cities,

as thousands of people
were drafted in

to work on nuclear weapons.

Gone were the days when atomic
scientists worked in freezing tents

with minimal help from above.

Now they were top of the pile,

all the resources of the state
at their command.

Inside these atomic cities,

life was portrayed by the internal
propaganda as an idealised collective.

Work together,
live together, stay together,

and enjoy the rewards.

But it was a privilege
in a world of mirrors.

These cities had no postal address,

no place on a map,

no contact with the outside world.

Then they gave us
free airline passes,

we called them magic carpets,

allowing free and unlimited
travel on all forms of transport,

planes, boats, and trains.

But of course,

{an8}since we weren't allowed
out of the city,

{an8}there wasn't much
we could do with them.

Altschuler knew that beyond
the barbed wire and the guards,

there was another side
to this story.

He'd only been saved from the Gulag

because his boss told Beria

he was too good
a scientist to lose.

But other victims of the
program were now legion.

Some of them lived by
the Irtysh River in Kazakhstan.

The ferry there is meant
to run every second day.

But the local population
is dwindling now,

and more often than not,
the service is cancelled.

The people around here are
among the many Soviet citizens

who suffered because their
government wanted nuclear parity

at virtually any price.

The villagers of Dalon
live within the fallout zone

of the Soviet Union's
main test site.

Their first brush with radiation
had come back in 1949

when the first red b*mb was tested.

The authorities today admit that

not enough precautions
were taken to protect them.

{an8}Naturally, when it exploded,

{an8}it sucked up a large
quantity of dust from the ground.

And all this dust was
dispersed by the wind

and it settled on
the area roundabout,

causing radioactive contamination.

We ought to have evacuated people
from the populated areas downwind.

But that just didn't happen.

Over the next few years,

they would see
many such explosions,

many such dust clouds.

The local doctor tracked
the consequences.

We have a very high rate
of infant mortality here.

Apparently, this is linked to genes

which were damaged
during these radiation tests.

{an8}And this infant mortality
is specifically connected

{an8}with the effects of
radiation on the genes.

{an8}We also get children
born with birth defects,

{an8}a great many.

But in my opinion, it is reflected
not in the first generation,

which suffered the radiation,

nor to such an extent
in the second generation,

but in the third and fourth.

Others suffered more directly
from Stalin and various ruthlessness.

In 1993,

there was an unusual reunion
in the Czech mining town of Jakimov.

Back in 1950,

these men were political prisoners
of the new communist regime in Prague.

They became unwilling
components of the Soviet b*mb.

Beneath the surface
of the bleak countryside,

the rock carried seams of uranium.

When the Russians
wanted supply stepped up,

political prisoners were
drafted in to do the work.

The conditions in the mines
are very difficult,

because there is cold,
there is water,

there is danger of falling down,

of boulders,
of fragments of the rock.

And then also, especially
in the uranium mines,

{an8}there was radioactivity,

{an8}because it was the radiation

{an8}either from the ore veins,
from the uranium ores,

or also, and it was
far more dangerous,

the breathing of radon,
of the gassed radon.

This is mill number one,

the town of the death.

The material was milled down

and brought through the elevator

to the top of the tower.

This very strong radioactive material

was very dangerous

for the health of the people
who have been working here.

This tower of the death

was full of dust

{an8}and radioactive danger.

The most dangerous place
in all this plant.

When the snow melted,
the survivors reassembled.

One of them told us how
disobedience was punished.

Yes, there was one priest,
the Parson.

He was put into
what they call correction.

And they force-fed him
using a hose and a funnel.

The hose was put down his throat,

and they poured food
into the funnel.

That was how they fed people
who went on hunger strike

and who didn't want to work here.

Afterwards,

they were driven away,
and they disappeared.

Some of the men
then decided to show us

the way they'd had to march
three miles to work each day.

The difference, 50 years ago,

was that they were
badly fed, badly clothed,

and tightly bound together
by sharp wire

which cut into their flesh.

It's the official statistic
from the Ministry of Interior

They have been together,


The reason?

Illness, 84.

Suicide, 26.

Mortal injury, 134.

Shut down when attempting
to escape, 24.

One m*rder,

and the unknown reason, 31.

They were the victims
of the ever colder w*r.

{an8}I am holding in my hand a microfilm,

{an8}a very highly confidential secret.

State Department documents.

These documents were fed out of the
State Department over ten years ago

by Communists who were
employees of that department

and who were interested in seeing

if these documents were
sent to the Soviet Union.

The w*r of propaganda
between East and West

was now reaching a crescendo.

I was determined, as far as
it was humanly possible,

to see that no disloyal person

should be employed
by our government.

President Truman's post-w*r
philosophy had taken root.

Communism should be resisted
wherever it showed its force.

Have you ever been a member
of the Communist Party?

It is perfectly clear to me,
gentlemen,

that if you continue
in this particular fashion...

I'll answer the question.

You have only one right
to answer the question,

and that was it...

In Moscow, the propaganda machine
was pushing the same message.

One crucial difference, of course,

the aggressor was America,

the intended victim,
the Soviet Union.

This film shows how the authorities
were preparing the population

for nuclear attack from America.

Just as Londoners had
sheltered from German bombing

in the city's underground system,

so Muscovites were now taught

how to survive bombardment
in their own underground shelters.

The country had lost
over 20 million people

during the w*r against Hitler.

With the new w*r now
raging in Korea,

it was not hard to convince them

that the threat from America
was serious.

The Pacific is the chosen proving ground
for the United States H-b*mb experiment,

here amid vast ocean spaces
far from human habitation.

Both sides were fast
approaching the moment

when they could threaten each other

with a weapon


than any they tested so far.

In November 1952,

the Americans prepared to explode

a massive device
on an atoll in the Pacific.

In less than a minute,
you will see

the most powerful expl*si*n
ever witnessed by human eyes.

The flash will come out of
the horizon just about there.

And this is the significance
of the moment.

This is the first full-scale test
of a hydrogen device.

If the reaction goes,

we are in the thermonuclear era.

The expl*si*n showed the terrifying
power of thermonuclear fusion.

The shockwaves of
the world's first H-b*mb

rushed towards the onlookers
and spellbound

they watched something
never seen before.

But the device was so cumbersome

that it could never have been
dropped from a plane

or in that sense regarded
as a usable weapon.

So the race was on to turn
that technology into a b*mb

and two new figures were
dominating the picture.

In Los Alamos, Edward Teller was
leading the American research team.

Like so many other
nuclear scientists,

a refugee from the Nazis,

but untroubled
by doubts that communism

now needed to be fought
at every turn.

In the secret city of Azemas XVI,

Andrey Sakharov,

later to be the great dissident
against communism,

but now the wonder boy
of Soviet science.

A close colleague of his
at that time was Yuri Trutnev,

now scientific director at Azemas,

then one of the team
working on the hydrogen b*mb.

{an8}The atmosphere was very creative.

{an8}Fresh ideas were valued

and somehow the way it went was

that the young specialists
who had arrived here

worked with enthusiasm

and the fresh ideas
came tumbling out.

We actually had this concept
of a fresh idea.

A few months later,

the Soviets were back
at the Kazakhstan test site

preparing to explode
Sakharov's latest fresh idea.

A b*mb using a layer of a light
hydrogen isotope called lithium.

They felt certain this was an
advantage over the Americans

because they'd seen
early American plans

courtesy of various spies.

Zildovich was the one
who examined the materials,

which, it subsequently turned out,

were Teller's work.

But after analysis by Zildovich
and his colleagues,

they turned out to be flawed.

Then, not for the first time
in this saga,

the unexpected intervened.

Stalin died.

In the power struggle which followed,

his apparent successor and
head of the atomic program

Lavrentiy Beria lost out.

Nikita Khrushchev
emerged as the new leader

and Beria was ex*cuted.

Many of his associates
in the Lubyanka lost their jobs

or were dispatched to prison,

including some in the spy network

which had accumulated
the secrets of America's b*mb.

Only the importance
of the nuclear program

stopped his proteges at Azemas
going the same way.

It was September before
preparations resumed in Kazakhstan.

The American test the previous year

had demonstrated the awesome
potential of such a device.

But theirs was more of
an exploding laboratory

than a weapon.

Although Sakharov's would be
exploded from a tower,

it was small enough
to be dropped from a plane.

So if it worked,

Sakharov and the Russians
could claim

that they had overtaken
the Americans

in the race to build
a usable hydrogen b*mb.



Ilya Radugin was a young
lieutenant in the Red Army.

His task had been
to build this house,

especially to test the destructive
power of the expl*si*n.

He was watching from
only a few miles away

when the b*mb went off
and the house disintegrated.

It's difficult to put it into words.

You have to see it.

This crackling sound.

You get the impression
that the material explodes

in one or two seconds.

It's a drawn-out period.

The crackling goes on
for several tens of seconds.

{an8}And that has a powerful effect

{an8}on the nerves, the ears,
on everything.

And then afterwards
comes the shockwave,

and then the secondary shockwave.

It's all very unpleasant,

very unpleasant at a short distance.

And this was a b*mb which had
not relied on American secrets.

The Russians' effort had paid off.

They had overtaken the Americans.

All the evidence there is shows that

this was an independent
Soviet design.

It was not a copy of anything

that had been received
from the United States.

{an8}And in fact,
all the early intelligence,

{an8}or all the intelligence
we know about

{an8}on the hydrogen b*mb
from the United States

would have been quite misleading

because it was all
leading down to dead ends

in thinking about
how you would design

such a weapon.

You can judge
the power of the expl*si*n,

at least from the wrecked basement
where we are standing.

This was supposed to be
a b*mb shelter

with a reinforced concrete capping.

There are some steel rods
sticking out.

It's as if they've been
cut off with a knife.

There's concrete under our feet.

And that's not to mention
the fact that

there were three
brick stories above.

They were swept away.

They've gone.

The shockwave of the expl*si*n
on those remote planes

was also felt in Washington.

The US really had underestimated
Soviet progress.

The b*mb was tested

three years
before the CIA estimated

was the earliest
it could be tested.

So there was a very unstable
and dangerous situation

in which you had some people

arguing for a preventive w*r
against the Soviet Union

before the Soviet Union
really developed the capacity

to strike with nuclear weapons

at the United States.

Both sides knew that
the cost of fighting a w*r

with such weapons
would be fearsomely high.

But it wasn't beyond imagining.

And it was for that
both sides now planned.

The bridge over the river Ural

near the town of Orenburg
in central Russia

is technically the dividing line
between Europe and Asia.

In September 1954,

Vasily Kovalev and Ivan Skvortsov

were privates in a unit
of the Red Army

stationed nearby.

They were told to report
for special maneuvers

near the town of Todsk,
some 50 miles away.

As a young communist leader,

I was given the job of
organizing preparations.

I had to see to it that Skvort
personnel kept strict discipline

and to check their morale

{an8}because we had to carry out a very
important government mission.

The area had been chosen
because it had some similarities

with the Fulda Gap in West Germany

where Soviet forces planned

to drive through NATO lines
in the event of w*r.

Everything that happened
was kept secret for years.

Records of who took part
were suppressed

and this film was locked
in the military archive

until the Soviet Union collapsed.

But we have found witnesses

to what was an extraordinary
rehearsal for nuclear w*r.

Some of the preparations
were unsurprising.

Trenches had been dug
across the plain,

as though for an infantry battle.

Tanks were left camouflaged.

And aircraft positioned
for take-off.

Less expected were the livestock

tethered round the b*ttlefield
in the autumn sun.

And this was the reason.

An atomic b*mb
was going to be exploded

over the site
as part of the exercise.

And the Soviet leaders wanted
to find out how close

a living creature could go

and still survive.

Military chiefs from
the communist countries

turned up to watch what happened

from the bunker.

The code word to start the exercise

was Molnya, or lightning.

The command came
at nine o'clock in the morning.

September 14th.

Enemy air attack
and then atom.

Atomic alert.

That is, an atomic attack.

We took to the trenches
and we took cover.

For some 25 to 30 minutes

we remained in the trenches,

waiting for the next signal.

At that point there was a flash

that blinded the men
in the trench.

Then the expl*si*n took place.

It was unusual.

{an8}Now I'd fought in the w*r

{an8}and I'd seen explosions
of conventional ammunition

{an8}during the Second World w*r.

But that expl*si*n was very sharp,

very abrupt.

And when the expl*si*n went off

there was a blinding
lightning, so to speak.

A powerful beam,
a very powerful beam.

We had black pieces of glass
installed in our gas masks.

You could hardly even see
the sun through those glasses.

But that light was stronger
than an electric arc welder.

It was a few seconds
before the blast hit them.

Of course we covered
our eyes with our hands,

as we had been told to do.

We crouched
in the bottom of the trench.

This was followed by a sensation
like an earthquake.

It was as if we were on board

a large sea-going ship
with a ground rock.

Some animals died instantly.

Others survived the attack,

and in that bleak sense

the experiment yielded
useful data.

The cloud was still rising

when 40,000 troops were
ordered to start their mock battle

under its deadly shadow.

We received the order
to break cover,

board the trucks

and move forward
to the firing position.

The site of stage two
of the exercise,

followed up by an attack
on the enemy defensive positions.

The moment
we got out of the trenches,

we saw a gigantic mushroom cloud

rising in the distance.

Then, as now,
people lived and farmed

in the countryside around
where the exercise was held.

A few days before,

they'd been evacuated
from their land.

But they were allowed back

almost before the dust had settled.

When we returned,
the village was still burning.

There was
military equipment ablaze.

The fire engines were
putting the fires out.

Bulldozers were working away.

But they actually allowed us
to eat everything right away.

We'd got cucumbers, tomatoes, melons
in our vegetable garden.

And when we got back,

all this vegetable crop
was ripened,

the tomatoes and such.

They were all red.

{an8}And they said, go ahead,

{an8}you can eat everything,
it's not dangerous.

{an8}Of course, we and the children
began eating.

Forty years later,
in the long grass nearby,

a moth emerged from its chrysalis
into the summer sun.

But it will never fly.

Its right wing has
inherited a genetic fault

from the poisoned earth
around Totsk.

On the surface,
most of the scars have healed.

Kovalyov and Skvortsov have never
been back to the epicenter before.

There is no official record
to prove that they,

or any of the other


actually took part
in the exercise.

But at the local hospital in Totsk,

the truth has been
harder to obliterate.

Despite opposition
from his superiors,

Dr. Nikolai Sidorov

kept a record of how
the local population fared.

In the 1960s,

there was a definite
expl*si*n of tumorous illnesses

in both the region and
in the whole province.

{an8}I should mention here that
at the end of 1991,

we had 28,000 people

suffering from tumorous
illnesses in the province.

And this trend is growing
stronger every year.

If we compare the statistics

relating to 1950
with those for the current years,

we will see that
the number of cases

has gone up 500%.

And the mortality rate has gone up
accordingly as a consequence.

Despite the damage to humans
and to the environment,

the testing went on.

And Sakharov in those days

was a loyal servant
of the Soviet arms race.

After his expl*si*n of August 12th,

Sakharov racked his brains

to see if it was
feasible to make a b*mb

that was more powerful
and more efficient.

Towards the end of 1954,

there was an idea for a new
type of hydrogen b*mb,

on a far more economic
and efficient principle.

The device carried in this plane
in 1955 was, to that date,

the most powerful b*mb
ever tested in the atmosphere.

It was called
Sakharov's third idea.

It should have been a moment
of triumph for Soviet science.

But it wasn't entirely.

At least not for the very
scientists who had created it.

Just as their counterparts
in Los Alamos had been shocked

when the first atom b*mb
was actually tested,

so too were the Soviet scientists

when they saw
what they had done.

Igor Kurchatov,

the man who led
the Soviet team from the start,

returned to Moscow
two days after the expl*si*n.

Friends said he was appalled
by the implications of the test.

Kurchatov was terribly depressed

by everything that had occurred.

I asked him, how did it all go?

Was it difficult?

Very difficult, he replied.

And from that point on,

he devoted himself completely
to peaceful applications.

By the time of his
public funeral in 1960,

the military men had taken
complete control of the project.

They and their counterparts
in the West

had devised a policy
for peace of a sort.

It was called MAD,

Mutually Assured Destruction,

a far cry from the vision
Kurchatov had inherited

from pioneers of physics like

Rutherford, Bohr and Einstein.

Kurchatov had died in the arms of
his old friend and colleague,

Yuli Khariton.

Khariton was the man who had
actually built the first red b*mb.

He is 90 now.

More out of habit than need,

he still lives in isolation
and secrecy.

Only his closest friends know

the toll it has taken
on his personality and life.

When he was young,

he liked to dance, to sing,
to go to theater,

to have many friends.

He was interested
in beautiful women,

{an8}but his science was too serious,

{an8}and she made...
the science made him

{an8}also so serious,

because it was a secret,
secret, secret.

Andrey Sakharov,

the genius who built
the hydrogen b*mb,

turned against the system
which required it to survive.

He became communism's
most famous dissident,

believing that building bombs
to protect a nation

was pointless unless the nation
first protected human rights.

It was a fight he continued
until his dying day.

Klaus Fuchs
was released from prison

after serving just 8 years
for what he'd done.

He returned to his communist
homeland, East Germany,

where he remained till he died.

To the end,

he believed he'd acted

in the interests
of peace on earth.