Nuclear Secrets
Encyclopedia
Nuclear Secrets, aka Spies, Lies and the Superbomb, is a 2007
BBC Television
docudrama
series which looks at the race for nuclear supremacy from the Manhattan Project
through to the Pakistani nuclear weapons.
.
passes a letter offering to share secrets with the U.S. Government to American students visiting Moscow
, but Washington
fails to respond.
Penkovsky later passes a letter to British Trade Delegation representative Greville Wynne
warning that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev
was planning an all-out nuclear attack. Penkovsky meets with MI6 officer Harry Shergold and Central Intelligence Agency
agent Joe Bulik a short time later on a trip to London and warns that the Soviets have been arming Cuba
. Penkovsky is instructed to gather info on missile strategy and is given British industrial secrets to help maintain his cover upon his return to Moscow.
Chief Marshall Sergei Varentsov tells Penkovsky of plans to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons in Berlin
. Penkovsky passes this along with other secrets that hardens U.S. President John F. Kennedy
’s stance against Khrushchev. KGB Lt-Gen Gribanov begins a surveillance sweep of Western embassy staff in Moscow including Penkovsky’s contact Janet Chisholm
. Wynne returns to Moscow to make contact and Penkovsky requests that he and his family are pulled out. CIA Chief John McCone
agrees but needs info on Cuba first.
Penkovsky learns of the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba but he is hospitalised before he can pass on the info. US surveillance photos reveal the build-up of missiles in Cuba that are identified from the materials previously supplied by Penkovsky. Penkovsky is arrested and confesses to Gribanov before signalling the Americans of an imminent Soviet attack in what Bulik suspects is an attempt to initiate a U.S. strike on Moscow. Penkovsky is convicted of spying and executed.
and his assistant Klaus Fuchs
are summoned to Los Alamos
to work on the Manhattan Project
. Fuchs was a German refugee who had joined the Communist Party of Germany
in 1932 to oppose the rise of Adolf Hitler
and was now a Soviet spy.
Project mastermind Robert Oppenheimer
only had enough uranium 235 for one bomb and Peierls and Fuchs were brought in to work on weaponising plutonium
. Cut off from his Soviet handlers Fuchs throws himself into his work until he is allowed to visit his sister, Kristel, in Cambridge, Massachusetts
where he re-establishes contact. The Soviet head of atomic research Igor Kurchatov
monitors the American progress through Fuchs. Following Nazi surrender Fuchs fears the weapon will be used against the USSR.
Fuchs passes the details of the plutonium bomb, Fatman
, to his Soviet contact, Raymond. The project’s tests are successful and the uranium bomb, Little Boy
, is dropped on Hiroshima
while Piles and Fuchs’s Fatman is dropped on Nagasaki. In the aftermath Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
orders Lavrentia Beria to construct a Soviet plutonium bomb based on the Fatman plans supplied by Fuchs. Recalled to England
, his adopted home, Fuchs returns with the nuclear secrets the U.S. is no longer willing to share. Fuchs passes the American secrets to the British as well.
Fuchs begins to doubt Stalin’s actions and decides to stop spying for Soviets, but it is too late as the Soviet Union detonates Joe 1
. FBI agent Robert Lamphere identifies Fuchs from decoded Soviet signals and MI5
commence surveillance. British security officer Henry Arnold coaxes a confession out of Fuchs who admits to having spied for the Soviets since 1941. Fuchs was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
briefs the team at Los Alamos
about plans to construct a hydrogen bomb but U.S. Presidential Advisor Robert Oppenheimer
opposes him. Oppenheimer is summoned to the White House
to discuss whether Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs
passed on info about the Super. Soviet Chairman Stalin instructs Andrei Sakharov
to work under Beria on the Soviet hydrogen bomb project. U.S. Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss supports Teller and U.S. President Harry S. Truman
commissions the project.
Kitty Oppenheimer fears her communist connections may compromise her husband and his moral objections to the project. Sakharov reviews Fuchs’ info on Teller’s Super but has his own plans for a simpler but less powerful bomb. Federal Bureau of Investigation
agent Robert Lamphere gets Fuchs to confirm his contact was Harry Gold
and this leads to the arrest of the Rosenbergs. Teller and Stan Ulam find an ingenious solution to the problems with their design, which is successfully tested following Teller’s resignation from the project.
A power struggle in the USSR following the death of Stalin results in the downfall of Beria shortly before the testing of the Soviet H-bomb. Strauss orders the FBI to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance under suspicion of spying for the Soviets. When U.S. testing runs out of control the American public are alerted to the power of this new weapon. Teller testifies against Oppenheimer at a security hearing and Strauss’s objections are upheld. Sakharov becomes a leading dissident after civilians are killed in a Soviet bomb test.
is assigned to work at the top secret Dimona
facility. In 1986 he reveals to journalists Oscar Guerrero and Peter Hounam
the presence of an underground plutonium plant there. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion
had commissioned construction of the plant in 1958. Vanunu had made the discovery after 7-years at the plant and had photos to prove his story. Hounam takes Vanunu to The Sunday Times
in London, where Nuclear Physicist Frank Barnaby
confirms the data, but Mossad
is tailing them.
Guerrero arrives in London and tries to sell the story to rival paper The Sunday Mirror. France, Britain and the U.S. had been complicit in the construction under a secret agreement between U.S. President Richard Nixon
and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
. The lonely Vanunu befriends intern Wendy Robbins
but she insists that they remain just friends. The discredited story in the Mirror causes the Times to delay their publication. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez forbids Mossad
from kidnapping Vanunu on British soil so they spring a honey trap to lure him to Rome
.
In Italy
Vanunu is abducted and shipped back to Israel but the Times decides to publish in the hopes of protecting his life. The Western powers that had professed a stance of non-nuclear proliferation while collaborating in the construction of Dimona were exposed as hypocrites and yet the press in those countries remained curiously silent on the subject. The Israelis confirm that they have Vanunu in detention but refuses to explain how. Convicted of treason Vanunu was sentenced to 18-years in prison.
Khan’s Muslim family had fled to Pakistan in 1971 following defeat in the Indo-Pakistan War and Khan had become a fierce nationalist. Pakistani President Bhutto supports Khan and he builds a nuclear plant in the foothills of the Himalayas. Dutch enquiries in the 1980s finally reveal Khan’s but he gets off on a technicality. The U.S. overlooks Khan’s program in order to gain Pakistani support against the USSR in Afghanistan. Khan acquires missile technology from China
and extends his network into the Middle East.
UN Weapons Inspectors in Iraq
uncover documents implicating Khan in nuclear trading but the West fails to act. Khan continues his trade amassing a huge personal fortune and becomes a hero following the detonation of Pakistan’s first bomb. A joint CIA/MI6 task force uncovers Khan’s dealings with Libya but are unable to move as Pakistani support is again needed in the post-9/11 Invasion of Afghanistan. UN Weapons Inspectors in Iran uncover further evidence implicating Khan, which the Iranians confirm.
The task force targets Khan’s network with a double agent and intercept a shipment of centrifuges to Libya. Muammar al-Gaddafi
agrees to cooperate with UN Weapons Inspectors and the full extent of Khan’s capabilities are revealed. Khan’s deputy Tehir is arrested and interrogated in Malaysia and confesses. Pakistani authorities deny any knowledge of Khan’s network and he is arrested a forced to confess on live television. Khan remains under house arrest in Pakistan where his secrets are protected.
2007 in television
2007 in television may refer to:*2007 in American television*2007 in Australian television*2007 in British television*2007 in Canadian television*2007 in Japanese television...
BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
series which looks at the race for nuclear supremacy from the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
through to the Pakistani nuclear weapons.
Production
The series was produced by the BBC in co-production with National Geographic and NDRNorddeutscher Rundfunk
Norddeutscher Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR transmits for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein...
.
Episode one: The Spy From Moscow
In 1960 Soviet Military Intelligence Officer Oleg PenkovskyOleg Penkovsky
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed HERO ; April 23, 1919, Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Soviet Russia, – May 16, 1963, Soviet Union), was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence in the late 1950s and early 1960s who informed the United Kingdom and the United States about the Soviet Union...
passes a letter offering to share secrets with the U.S. Government to American students visiting Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, but Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
fails to respond.
Penkovsky later passes a letter to British Trade Delegation representative Greville Wynne
Greville Wynne
Greville Maynard Wynne was a British spy famous for his involvement with, and imprisonment as a result of, the espionage activities of Oleg Penkovsky.-Life:...
warning that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
was planning an all-out nuclear attack. Penkovsky meets with MI6 officer Harry Shergold and Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
agent Joe Bulik a short time later on a trip to London and warns that the Soviets have been arming Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. Penkovsky is instructed to gather info on missile strategy and is given British industrial secrets to help maintain his cover upon his return to Moscow.
Chief Marshall Sergei Varentsov tells Penkovsky of plans to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Penkovsky passes this along with other secrets that hardens U.S. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
’s stance against Khrushchev. KGB Lt-Gen Gribanov begins a surveillance sweep of Western embassy staff in Moscow including Penkovsky’s contact Janet Chisholm
Janet Chisholm
Janet Chisholm , born Janet Anne Deane, was a British MI6 agent during the Cold War.She was born in India and educated in Berkshire studying Russian and French. After school, she worked in London before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany...
. Wynne returns to Moscow to make contact and Penkovsky requests that he and his family are pulled out. CIA Chief John McCone
John McCone
John Alexander McCone was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence during the height of the Cold War.- Background :...
agrees but needs info on Cuba first.
Penkovsky learns of the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba but he is hospitalised before he can pass on the info. US surveillance photos reveal the build-up of missiles in Cuba that are identified from the materials previously supplied by Penkovsky. Penkovsky is arrested and confesses to Gribanov before signalling the Americans of an imminent Soviet attack in what Bulik suspects is an attempt to initiate a U.S. strike on Moscow. Penkovsky is convicted of spying and executed.
Cast
|
Lucy Liemann Lucy Liemann is a British actress. Liemann was born in Middlesex, UK. After graduation she was spotted at a supermarket by a voice scout who urged her to become a voice artist. Liemann then went on to study acting at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts... as Chisholm Janet Chisholm Janet Chisholm , born Janet Anne Deane, was a British MI6 agent during the Cold War.She was born in India and educated in Berkshire studying Russian and French. After school, she worked in London before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany... Vincent Marzello Vincent Marzello is an American actor.He is of Italian ancestry. He has been active on screen since 1976 in North America and Europe, his first role being in an episode of The Brothers... as McCone John McCone John Alexander McCone was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence during the height of the Cold War.- Background :... Bradley Lavelle Richard Bradley 'Ivan' Lavelle was an actor, television actor and voice actor.Born in Toronto, Canada, Lavelle appeared in Clive Barker's Hellbound: Hellraiser II horror film as Officer Kucich, Cormack in Nightbreed, Party Guest in The Dressmaker, Sergeant in Memphis Belle, and did the voice for... as Greybeal Vincent Riotta Vincent Riotta is an English-born stage and film actor of Italian descent. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He went on to perform in various stage plays, such as Shakespeare's Romeo, which was held at the Young Vic, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, held at the Leicester... as Brugioni |
Episode two: Superspy
In 1944 Prof. Rudolf PeierlsRudolf Peierls
Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, CBE was a German-born British physicist. Rudolf Peierls had a major role in Britain's nuclear program, but he also had a role in many modern sciences...
and his assistant Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II...
are summoned to Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
to work on the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
. Fuchs was a German refugee who had joined the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
in 1932 to oppose the rise of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and was now a Soviet spy.
Project mastermind Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Oppenheimer
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Enrico Fermi, he is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first...
only had enough uranium 235 for one bomb and Peierls and Fuchs were brought in to work on weaponising plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
. Cut off from his Soviet handlers Fuchs throws himself into his work until he is allowed to visit his sister, Kristel, in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
where he re-establishes contact. The Soviet head of atomic research Igor Kurchatov
Igor Kurchatov
Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov , was a Soviet nuclear physicist who is widely known as the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Along with Georgy Flyorov and Andrei Sakharov, Kurchatov is widely remembered and dubbed as the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" for his directorial role in the...
monitors the American progress through Fuchs. Following Nazi surrender Fuchs fears the weapon will be used against the USSR.
Fuchs passes the details of the plutonium bomb, Fatman
Fat Man
"Fat Man" is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare to date , and its detonation caused the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more...
, to his Soviet contact, Raymond. The project’s tests are successful and the uranium bomb, Little Boy
Little Boy
"Little Boy" was the codename of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon...
, is dropped on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
while Piles and Fuchs’s Fatman is dropped on Nagasaki. In the aftermath Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
orders Lavrentia Beria to construct a Soviet plutonium bomb based on the Fatman plans supplied by Fuchs. Recalled to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, his adopted home, Fuchs returns with the nuclear secrets the U.S. is no longer willing to share. Fuchs passes the American secrets to the British as well.
Fuchs begins to doubt Stalin’s actions and decides to stop spying for Soviets, but it is too late as the Soviet Union detonates Joe 1
Joe 1
The RDS-1 , also known as First Lightning , was the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. In the west, it was code-named Joe-1, in reference to Joseph Stalin. It was test-exploded on 29 August 1949, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR, after a top-secret R&D project...
. FBI agent Robert Lamphere identifies Fuchs from decoded Soviet signals and MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
commence surveillance. British security officer Henry Arnold coaxes a confession out of Fuchs who admits to having spied for the Soviets since 1941. Fuchs was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Cast
|
Harry Gold Harry Gold was a laboratory chemist who was convicted of being the “courier” for a number of Soviet spy rings during the Manhattan Project.-Early life:Gold was born in Switzerland to poor Russian Jewish immigrants... Igor Kurchatov Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov , was a Soviet nuclear physicist who is widely known as the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Along with Georgy Flyorov and Andrei Sakharov, Kurchatov is widely remembered and dubbed as the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" for his directorial role in the... Shannon Whirry Shannon Whirry is an American actress who was raised in Green Lake, Wisconsin.-Career:Shannon Whirry trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the 1980s, appearing onstage in Butterflies Are Free and Mrs Warren's Profession. However, she began to work primarily in erotic B movies in... as Kitty Oppenheimer |
Episode three: Superbomb
In 1950, Edward TellerEdward Teller
Edward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy , and surface physics...
briefs the team at Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
about plans to construct a hydrogen bomb but U.S. Presidential Advisor Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Oppenheimer
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Enrico Fermi, he is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first...
opposes him. Oppenheimer is summoned to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
to discuss whether Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II...
passed on info about the Super. Soviet Chairman Stalin instructs Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
to work under Beria on the Soviet hydrogen bomb project. U.S. Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss supports Teller and U.S. President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
commissions the project.
Kitty Oppenheimer fears her communist connections may compromise her husband and his moral objections to the project. Sakharov reviews Fuchs’ info on Teller’s Super but has his own plans for a simpler but less powerful bomb. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
agent Robert Lamphere gets Fuchs to confirm his contact was Harry Gold
Harry Gold
Harry Gold was a laboratory chemist who was convicted of being the “courier” for a number of Soviet spy rings during the Manhattan Project.-Early life:Gold was born in Switzerland to poor Russian Jewish immigrants...
and this leads to the arrest of the Rosenbergs. Teller and Stan Ulam find an ingenious solution to the problems with their design, which is successfully tested following Teller’s resignation from the project.
A power struggle in the USSR following the death of Stalin results in the downfall of Beria shortly before the testing of the Soviet H-bomb. Strauss orders the FBI to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance under suspicion of spying for the Soviets. When U.S. testing runs out of control the American public are alerted to the power of this new weapon. Teller testifies against Oppenheimer at a security hearing and Strauss’s objections are upheld. Sakharov becomes a leading dissident after civilians are killed in a Soviet bomb test.
Cast
|
Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years .... Harry Gold Harry Gold was a laboratory chemist who was convicted of being the “courier” for a number of Soviet spy rings during the Manhattan Project.-Early life:Gold was born in Switzerland to poor Russian Jewish immigrants... Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer... |
Episode four: Vanunu and the Bomb
February 1977 Nuclear Technician Mordechai VanunuMordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...
is assigned to work at the top secret Dimona
Dimona
Dimona is an Israeli city in the Negev desert, to the south of Beersheba and west of the Dead Sea above the Arava valley in the Southern District of Israel. Its population at the end of 2007 was 33,600.-History:...
facility. In 1986 he reveals to journalists Oscar Guerrero and Peter Hounam
Peter Hounam
Peter Hounam is a British journalist who has worked for Sunday Times, The Mirror, the London Evening Standard, and BBC Television, as well as having published several books:...
the presence of an underground plutonium plant there. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion can refer to the following persons:* Nicodemus ben Gurion, a Biblical figure, probably a rich Jewish member of the Sanhedrin that felt sympathetic to Jesus Christ...
had commissioned construction of the plant in 1958. Vanunu had made the discovery after 7-years at the plant and had photos to prove his story. Hounam takes Vanunu to The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
in London, where Nuclear Physicist Frank Barnaby
Frank Barnaby
Frank Charles Barnaby is Nuclear Issues Consultant to the Oxford Research Group, a freelance defence analyst, and a prolific author on military technology, based in the UK....
confirms the data, but Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
is tailing them.
Guerrero arrives in London and tries to sell the story to rival paper The Sunday Mirror. France, Britain and the U.S. had been complicit in the construction under a secret agreement between U.S. President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
. The lonely Vanunu befriends intern Wendy Robbins
Wendy Robbins
Wendy Robbins is a British radio and television presenter and producer. She presents The House I Grew Up In broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and reports for The One Show on BBC1.- Career :...
but she insists that they remain just friends. The discredited story in the Mirror causes the Times to delay their publication. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez forbids Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
from kidnapping Vanunu on British soil so they spring a honey trap to lure him to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
In Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Vanunu is abducted and shipped back to Israel but the Times decides to publish in the hopes of protecting his life. The Western powers that had professed a stance of non-nuclear proliferation while collaborating in the construction of Dimona were exposed as hypocrites and yet the press in those countries remained curiously silent on the subject. The Israelis confirm that they have Vanunu in detention but refuses to explain how. Convicted of treason Vanunu was sentenced to 18-years in prison.
Cast
|
Contributors
|
Episode five: The Terror Trader
Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan started working for URENCO in The Netherlands in 1972. Spying for the Pakistani security service Khan gained access to top-secret data due to lax security methods. Returning to Pakistani with his family in 1975 it would be years before the Dutch realised what Khan had stolen and why.Khan’s Muslim family had fled to Pakistan in 1971 following defeat in the Indo-Pakistan War and Khan had become a fierce nationalist. Pakistani President Bhutto supports Khan and he builds a nuclear plant in the foothills of the Himalayas. Dutch enquiries in the 1980s finally reveal Khan’s but he gets off on a technicality. The U.S. overlooks Khan’s program in order to gain Pakistani support against the USSR in Afghanistan. Khan acquires missile technology from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and extends his network into the Middle East.
UN Weapons Inspectors in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
uncover documents implicating Khan in nuclear trading but the West fails to act. Khan continues his trade amassing a huge personal fortune and becomes a hero following the detonation of Pakistan’s first bomb. A joint CIA/MI6 task force uncovers Khan’s dealings with Libya but are unable to move as Pakistani support is again needed in the post-9/11 Invasion of Afghanistan. UN Weapons Inspectors in Iran uncover further evidence implicating Khan, which the Iranians confirm.
The task force targets Khan’s network with a double agent and intercept a shipment of centrifuges to Libya. Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
agrees to cooperate with UN Weapons Inspectors and the full extent of Khan’s capabilities are revealed. Khan’s deputy Tehir is arrested and interrogated in Malaysia and confesses. Pakistani authorities deny any knowledge of Khan’s network and he is arrested a forced to confess on live television. Khan remains under house arrest in Pakistan where his secrets are protected.
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