In mid-July 1945, the heads of state of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union held the Potsdam Conference. Before the meeting began, Truman specially arranged a program to conduct atomic bomb tests in front of the leaders of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
Truman did this for only one purpose: to frighten the Soviet Union and ensure his dominance after the war.
Truman was very proud at that time. Who else would give such a powerful weapon to me? Unexpectedly, in just four years, the United States' nuclear monopoly was broken.
When he learned that the Soviet Union had also successfully exploded an atomic bomb, Truman was extremely angry: "No way, they can't make an atomic bomb so quickly. They must be stealing, they stole our atomic bomb."
Truman guessed well. , the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb technology was indeed stolen from the United States. So what price did the Soviet Union pay to obtain such important information?
1. The humble spy
One day in 1938, Melita Norwood came to the place agreed with her supervisor to hand over intelligence as usual.
As a spy, punctuality is the most basic quality, but this time Norwood waited for a long time and did not wait for her to come online.
"Did he miss something?" Norwood thought to herself, but soon, the thought came to her mind, "He was exposed."
After realizing this possibility, Norwood broke out in a cold sweat. If her upline was exposed, she would also face major dangers.
So Norwood quickly left the handover area and went home to wait for news.
As she expected, due to repeated leaks of secrets, MI5 launched a rigorous cleaning campaign throughout London and captured several Soviet spies.
Norwood spent several days in fear, but she never found any danger around her, and she finally felt relieved.
It turned out that the captured Soviet agent would rather die than betray a teammate, so Norwood was able to survive the crisis without any danger.
After getting rid of this crisis, Norwood continued to work and live normally as usual, and was still engaged in espionage activities.
From the beginning of her career, Norwood knew the dangers she might face, but none of this was enough to shake her persistence in her beliefs and ideals, which were her ambitions when she was very young.
Melita Norwood is not British. Their family was originally from Latvia, and Norwood's father was a well-known socialist in Latvia.
When Norwood was very young, she listened to her father talk about socialism and tell stories about Marx and Lenin.
Later, because his father's socialist ideas were too radical, the family was persecuted by the local government and had no choice but to flee to the UK.
In the 1930s, socialist ideas had spread widely in Britain, and many young British people wanted to join it. Coupled with his father's influence, Norwood joined the Communist Party of Britain in 1936.
At that time, the Soviet Union's KGB had developed many underground workers in the West. Many young people who grew up in the West but yearned for socialism joined it.
When Soviet spies approached Norwood and hoped that she could provide intelligence to the Soviet Union, Norwood agreed without much thought.
2. Supporter of communism
Over the past few years, Norwood has continuously provided a lot of intelligence to the Soviet Union. As a Communist, Norwood has never concealed her agreement with Marxism or her socialist tendencies.
But because of her ordinary appearance, gentle temperament, and simple life, people just treated her as casual remarks, and no one ever thought that she was capable of doing anything great. But in fact, the most easily overlooked is often the most important.
Shortly after Norwood married Hillary, a member of the British Communist Party who shared her beliefs, she was transferred to the British Nonferrous Metals Research Society. This department also became the core department for British research on nuclear weapons in the future.
Her position is not high, she is just an assistant to the president. She usually does some unskilled work such as running errands and copying, so no one pays much attention to her.
However, her humble job in the UK was very important to the Soviet Union.
At that time, the United States' nuclear weapons research was already at the forefront of the world. As an ally of the United States, Britain also received a lot of support from the United States in its nuclear weapons research.
Therefore, starting in 1945, the Soviet Union began to obtain information about British and American atomic bomb research from various public or "underground" channels.
When the Soviet agents informed Norwood of this mission, Norwood quickly agreed as usual.
Seeing Norwood agreeing so readily, the agent who contacted her thought that Norwood did not understand the danger and difficulty of this task.
But in fact, Norwood has long been aware of the danger of this matter, but as for the difficulty, it is not much of a challenge to her.
Although her work is inconspicuous and has no technical content, one of its biggest advantages is that she has a lot of opportunities to come into contact with a lot of confidential first-hand information.
So, when copying information, she would secretly print an extra copy; when no one was paying attention, she would take out the prepared mini camera and point it towards the secret safe; during a meeting, she would record one more copy. Contents of the meeting...
In this way, Norwood used the most common and primitive means to transmit the information she collected to Soviet KGB agents.
Thanks to her efforts, Stalin's understanding of the situation related to the manufacture of atomic bombs far exceeded that of the various ministers of the British government at the time.
However, Britain and the United States knew nothing about all this. It was not until the Soviet atomic bomb made a loud noise in the sky that Truman realized that they had been stolen!
After the news leaked, Britain and the United States immediately launched a comprehensive investigation into the relevant personnel. However, it has to be said that the working ability of the British intelligence agencies is really very average.
They conducted a comprehensive search, but still could not find the real leaker. They did not even suspect Norwood. The reason was simple: Norwood was a woman.
3. Identity exposed
Relying on her female identity and the inherent discrimination against women by the British at that time, Norwood escaped this disaster and continued her espionage work.
But in many cases, women are often the ones who understand women best.
Among the British intelligence agents, there was a woman named Mona Ende. In the environment at that time, it was very difficult for a woman to join the secret service organization. Even if she joined, she would often encounter gender discrimination at work.
Also as a woman, Mona Ende had long suspected that Norwood's communist tendencies were too obvious and that she might be a spy.
But after listening to Mona’s idea, her boss laughed. What can a woman do? Are the Soviets really stupid enough to find women as agents? Then they probably won't find anything.
Mona was accused of incompetence and was later fired by her boss.
However, it is an indisputable fact that Norwood and her husband are Communists. Therefore, the British intelligence service decided to call Norwood’s husband Hillary for interrogation. In the eyes of the intelligence community, Hillary is more suspicious.
However, they interrogated for a week and found nothing, so they had to release Hillary.
It was only after this incident that Hillary learned that her seemingly frail wife was actually a Soviet agent and had engaged in a number of dangerous intelligence jobs.
Although Hillary yearned for communism, she was more worried about her wife's safety, so she persuaded her not to do it.
Norwood was not only unconvinced, she also impressed her husband with her belief. After they talked deeply for a night, the husband decided to go all out to support his wife's activities.
In this way, Norwood delivered intelligence to the Soviet Union until 1972. For more than thirty years, it has never been exposed.
In 1979, Norwood and her husband went to Moscow in the name of vacation. In Moscow, they received a warm welcome, and the Soviet government also awarded Norwood a large bonus.
At that time, the Norwoods were not well off, and Norwood's monthly retirement salary was only US$35.
But Norwood believed she never did it for the money, so she turned down the money.
Norwood worked for the Soviet Union for so many years, but never asked for a penny from the Soviet Union. She used practical actions to tell the Soviet Union that you don't need to spend a penny because you are doing the right thing.
In the end, she only accepted a "Combat Red Banner Medal" representing honor.
It was not until that after the collapse of the Soviet Union that former KGB agent Mitrokhin defected to the UK and handed over a KGB file of more than a thousand pages and a large number of agent lists that the British discovered Norwood's true identity.
An old lady who usually lives in seclusion turned out to be a secret agent and was involved in leaking secrets about the atomic bomb plan, which caused a sensation.
Reporters swarmed to the door of Norwood’s courtyard. Facing countless flashing lights, Norwood said calmly that she would not deny everything she had done and did not regret her choices.
She said that she hoped that the Soviet Union would have the strength to compete with Britain and the United States. If given the opportunity, she would still contribute her own strength to socialism.
Norwood was 87 years old at the time. The death of her husband and the disintegration of the Soviet Union had dealt a big blow to her, and she was already exhausted mentally and physically.
In addition, the information submitted by Mitrokhin could not be used as evidence to prosecute Norwood. The British government finally decided to let Norwood spend his remaining years in peace.
On June 2, 2005, Melita Norwood passed away suddenly in a small house in the suburbs.
Some people say that Norwood betrayed the country and should be condemned. However, in Norwood's heart, her loyalty has never been to the interests of a government, but to what she believes to be the right beliefs.
She is loyal to socialism, not because socialism comes from the Soviet Union, but because the socialism represented by the Soviet Union allows most people to live a better life.
She supported the Soviet Union to check and balance Britain and the United States, hoping that because of the Soviet Union's strength, the United States, which was implementing hegemony , would be afraid.
The world can be peaceful and people can live a better life. This is what she thinks is right and it is also the belief that she will work hard for throughout her life.
