"The following is a complete, unedited, unverified interview, portions
of which were utilized in the Red Files PBS broadcast. Statements therein are the sole opinion of the interviewee, and do not reflect the views of PBS, DDE or Series and Web Site producer Abamedia, which are not Responsible for the interview content."

Interview with David Major
FBI Counter-Intelligence

Interviewer: Why were there so many so-called ideological spies and foreign travellers in the 1930s and 1940s?

Major: Well, you really have to understand what the Russian Intelligence Services were doing during that period. They were grasping hold of those issues in America that we in our isolated policies were ignoring. I mean, if you remember the Great Depression starts in October 1929, after FDR is elected in 1932, he takes office in 1933, and the whole focus is American. Foreign policy and effort is all directed towards America. We did not want to get involved at all in European problems. So, other people that were concerned about world events looked around and said "What's happening in America?" They did not find us -- they did not find America interested in Nazism and Fascism. We were very isolated. The result was that the Communist Party really grabbed that as an issue. The back had been broken of the Communist Party in the United States as a result of the Palmer Red Raids, that had taken place in 1919-1920. The FBI stopped doing counter intelligence in 1924 in the United States. The Army stopped doing it in 1920, and so it was during that time frame that the Komintern built an intelligence capability, would really get started in 1919. In the Red Army in which GRU was very active during that period, so they were able to be involved in trying to collect intelligence.

We were doing no counter intelligence during that period, and so the Communist Party was trying to legitimatize itself. It was taking on varying causes, one of them was the Fascist movement in America. So there was a large amount of ideological reasons to be members of the Communist Party. It's difficult for people today to remember that to be a member in the 1930s was O.K. It didn't continue to be that way. So that led to the growth of the Communist Party and causes, but they were the tool of the Soviet Intelligence Services, to the common term in the GRU.

Interviewer: But these sympathizers, idealists, were a real asset to Soviet Intelligence weren't they?

Major: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, interestingly, the argument is that although there weren't many Communists in America. I mean the numbers were a hundred thousand at best, but the numbers didn't make a difference. It was the fact that it was the hunting ground for their Intelligence Services. Almost all of the people that became Russian agents, during the late 1930s and then through the war years, were in fact Communist. They found it a good mechanism to find the people who would help them, and that's the one thing that almost all had in common. If we look at Venona and look at the some 200 to 250 Americans who were spies for the Russians during that period, almost all of them are in fact Communists. So they were really used effectively by Soviet Intelligence. In fact Harvey Clare in one of his new books in 1998 talks about how the American Communist Party was not an independent political movement. Even though we have a lot of political scientists who wanted to believe that, they were not. And even the Komintern records now prove that the American Communist Party was totally controlled by the Soviet Union, and through their Intelligence Services also.

Interviewer: Place yourself for a moment inside the head of someone like Lona or Morris Cohen, or, for that matter, from a completely different class and completely different culture than Kim Philby or Maclean. What's going on inside their heads, what do they want to do this for?

Major: Well, I do think if to understand both of those people, you have to go back and look at the mid 1930s. I mean you can't answer the questions by looking from the 1940 perspective, because this is the Depression, everything about the West was put in question, everything. From our values, to our economy, people were looking for answers, answers to problems that they couldn't solve. As a matter of fact the American whole economic system changed forever as a result of the Depression. Even today, the way we govern ourselves has been changed as a result of this. So it was during that period that these people were looking for a change. Both of them, interestingly, were affected by the Spanish Civil War. Sometimes this is forgotten. I should also add that so was American OSS affected dramatically by the Spanish Civil War, as many of the veterans who eventually were recruited into the OSS, who turned out to be Russian agents and spies inside OSS, and there were almost 20 of them there, in the operational side they were people who were in the Spanish Civil War. That's where Morris Cohen had gone. Also you know that's where Kim Philby had gone. He was, by that time, already an agent for himself. It was in this period, struggling for what the world is going to be, there was a real attraction to be a Communist, and then to do something special, to work for the Komintern or for the Army GRU.

Interviewer: What do you think was the dream in their head? They were going to help humanity or what? They risked their lives they gave up large parts of their private lives, family life, all kinds of things to do this, why?

Major: You know, you go back and there is so much literature written about these people, and even at the end they are struggling to justify their existence. They made these commitments at young ages, you know. Interestingly, some of them were looking for the answer in religion and found Communism. An interesting character is that of George Blake. George Blake wanted to be a priest, decided that wasn't the answer, so he finds another answer in Communism. Some "ism" that will answer the questions. I mean there is so much written about the apostles, what they were doing in England. When you really look at how they got recruited under these ideological grounds, it was because they were going to be the van driver about Fascism, and then they saw their own society as the route of evil. I think that made it an attraction in the 1930s, not for a lot of people, but clearly for these people. What always struck me is that when we look at the individuals who identified and were noted to be American spies is that all -- many of them continued to be spies after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Now you could have been a supporter of Stalin up till August of 1939, but after that, you really had to rationalize, because here was the ultimate anti-Fascist now in league with Hitler. For these people to remain spies, they had to be really blind to what was happening, and what they were supporting. But no people want to get beat mentally, and no one wants to believe they are on the wrong side, and I think that that's a factor. If you look at them, the noted spies, the 135 that we know in America, which always struck me is they continued to do it after that event, and that really says a lot about their commitment.

Interviewer: So now basic story telling, who were Morris and Lona Cohen, where did they come from, what kind of people were they in the early 1930s, early mid 1930s before the Spanish Civil War?

Major: Lona Cohen and Morris Cohen got married in the 1930s, they lived in the New York area. He was Jewish; she was not. I think she was Episcopal but I'm not positive of that. They became members of the Communist Party during that period. They were committed to the Communist Party, having got married and looking for causes. Morris became involved in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He went, Spain, he fought against Franco, as many of the members did of the Abraham Lincoln brigade and these other international brigades that were sent by the Komintern. Indications are that this is when he really gets recruited as an agent for the Russians, as a number of people did during that same period. When they return, they become a very active espionage couple operating in America, and then subsequently overseas. They are interesting, because there's very few people in the entire Twentieth Century who have done or were involved in so many significant cases, as they were. We have, you know, other people, but very few that operated in two parts of the world, like they did, and from that stand point, they are a unique couple, a unique group of agents who end up supporting an illegal network in London.

Interviewer: But you are running ahead of us. So after the Spanish Civil War Morris Cohen comes back to New York area, and what's he doing now? When he's working for Amtorg?

Major: Oh, that's right. Let's make a comment about Amtorg. The Soviets were always looking for a base of operation in the United States. Before they had diplomatic relations that were established in 1933, by FDR, they had Amtorg in the United States, and that was a platform for running intelligence operations. The Russians during that period, had no diplomatic protection for the individuals working for Amtorg. So what we find in the 1930s is this effort to recruit members from the Communist Party to not just give information, but act as couriers for Russian intelligence. They looked at people that they had contact with as potential individuals that they could recruit, and then become source handlers for them. When Cohen goes to work for Amtorg he gives them an opportunity to do that.

Interviewer: Now can you describe in your own words what exactly Lona Cohen did as part of the operation that penetrates the atomic, the Manhattan project?

Major: The Manhattan Project?

Interviewer: What was her job?

Major: Lona Cohen came into stealing the atomic bomb material from the Manhattan Project, espionage, late into the operation. To really understand her role, you need to understand what the KGB was doing in trying to steal the Manhattan Project. Or the Enormous Project -- that was their code-name for it. Clearly they knew that from the time the project got started, that the United States was involved with it through Fuchs. There was a secret pact between England and the United States to build the bomb together. England had the uranium that had come out of Belgium. They figured that there was no sanctuary to build an atomic bomb in England because of the war. So they jointly agreed to build it in the United States, but with full participation from England. Even to the point that there was an unvalidated treaty that they would not use the atomic bomb without both countries agreeing to it. Most people don't know that part of history, that it wasn't just Truman who made the decision, that they did it along with the British, who had agree to this part of the treaty. So the Russians knew that they had an atomic bomb program going. When Fuchs came over to the United States in 1953, he was actually operating in England as early as 1942. They sent over an intelligence officer, one of his jobs, was specifically to target the atomic bomb program. Now Feklisov was not involved with targeting the atomic bomb program; he was an NKVD officer in New York, whose job was to steal high technology. So you had these delivered to Feklisov. They had a pretty good sense of the development of the atomic bomb.

In 1944 Fuchs is sent down to Los Alamos. Harry Gold who was his handler, who was also an American citizen, who was a KGB and NKVD in fact, didn't know where he'd gone. It appears that they didn't have any connection to the Los Alamos project all during 1944, that's why when we find that there is this man David Greenlass, who's Rosenberg's brother, is assigned down to this secret base at Los Alamos. They recruit Ruth Greenglass, who was the wife of David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg, to go down, and recruit her husband to be a spy. That takes place in September of 1944, and they still don't appear to have a source in the project. That's important because it is in October of 1944, when a young nineteen-year-old physics student, who's at Harvard University, Ted Hall, is assigned to Los Alamos to help build the atomic bomb. I mean, think about that. Here's this kid who's a senior in Harvard, and he decides for a senior project he's going to go down and build the atomic bomb. I mean, you know, what did you do on your senior sabbatical? He goes down there, at nineteen-years-old, and my God, his job is to be involved with building the implosion device. What is remarkable about Ted Hall, at nineteen years old, he decides that the United States, if they win the war, will become Fascist. So to prevent that, he decides that he's going to give the atomic bomb to Russia, to stop the United States becoming fascist. I wonder who he asked? I mean, what gave him the tremendous insight? He conspires with this man Saville Sachs -- he's a kind of a loser -- at Harvard also, a Harvard student, who has a lot of problems, physical problems, not a very good student. They conspire during their Thanksgiving vacation, that they are going to give away this big secret, and what's interesting about that, and this is what's almost valid today, they walk in five different times trying to make contact with the Russians. They go to a journalist, and they keep trying to figure out how to do this. It's almost like a Keystone Cops operation, until eventually one of them walks into the Soviet Consulate, and who does he meet? He meets the man who says "This guy looks like he might be interesting." Now this is Saville Sachs who's probably the one doing it. It's interesting we see in Venona something that's unprecedented. There's this emergency messages. This man's made contact, he's handling Ted Hall, he wants to be the cut out, and we've got to recruit him right away. Now that's unprecedented in foreign intelligence service, to meet someone and accept them right away, and say "We're already going to handle him." They had this other Russian, who is the individual who's also been contacted. He's, of course, a Russian national, but he's also a co-opted agent to the KGB. So they decide immediately we don't have anybody in the program, so we have to recruit this kid. But, the deal was that they had to have Saville Sachs act as the cut-out for them. Well, from an opposite stand point this is not a good operation, and so they agree to that originally, that Saville Sachs will be the choice.

Now Ted Hall goes back to Los Alamos in November. Also in November, we now have David Greenglass who's come back to New York. He's meeting with Julius, and he's giving them information, and so all of a sudden the window that had closed for the Soviets concerning the atomic bomb programs, opens up. They've got this volunteer Ted Hall; they've got this engineer David Greenglass, and they've got the lost source Klaus Fuchs. They don't know where he is, so they have two people who have -- beginning to give them information as we go into Christmas time of 1944. It is after Christmas that eventually David Greenglass is able to remake contact with Klaus Fuchs, in early the winter of 1945, when Fuchs visits his sister in Boston. Now they've reconstituted their three sources again, but we're getting very close to the building of the atomic bomb.

It is interesting that in May of 1945, we have the Soviets selecting Lona Cohen to go down there and make contact with a source. For along time, we knew she had done that, we didn't know whom she had been handling. We didn't know who was the person, and it wasn't David Greenglass, and it wasn't Klaus Fuchs. She was down there handling Ted Hall. Now what's interesting about that is that they have surfaced this woman, that they really seemed to trust, to handle this brand new spy, and they are trying to get Saville Sachs out of the operation. So they turn to her, to be the handler. It's a wonderful story about her going down there, and the fact you know, the techniques she uses to get through the various security. And she actually takes some of the documents and gives it to one of the guards who's checking her. I mean it's just a wonderful story about how she manages to beat people mentally there. But it is really interesting that it is Lona that they surface in the -- in that spring of 1945, when this is all found out. The Russians, these three sources are all very important, too, because it is the first information from Ted Hall about how the implosion device should be built, because he actually is testing it. Then you have an amazing little piece of history where you have Harry Gold in an emergency going down to contact Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass. It is the very first time, and only time, that he ever has any contact with David Greenglass. His real contact was Klaus Fuchs, and they meet him, I think it was, you know, June 2^nd or June 3^rd of 1945, but because there was such concern they also have him meet David Greenglass. So he meets two people, and now they have confirming intelligence from three people. Ted Hall's information brought back by Lona Cohen, and then information brought back by Harry Gold about the other two people.

Interviewer: How many times did Lona Cohen meet Ted Hall?

Major: I think it was twice, because I know there's an August meeting, and I know there's a May meeting.

Interviewer: Can you just tell me what we think he gave her? What did she put in the Kleenex box?

Major: When Lona Cohen went down to Los Alamos, what she was getting was the actual specific information on how to build this implosion device from Ted Hall. David Greenglass also gave her some of the sketches.

Interviewer: So basically the same question of Colonel Abel: how did he fit in the picture?

Major: Colonel Abel was a colonel in the NKVD eventually, and then KGB, that had come to the United States in 1948. One of his missions was try to reconstitute the atomic bomb espionage network. It was my understanding they met the Cohens in 1948, soon after he arrived here. They worked together, and tried to reactivate Ted Hall.

Interviewer: Did Abel succeed in -- in reactivating the atomic spy ring?

Major: The interesting story about Abel is that he did make contact with Ted Hall again. Ted Hall was no longer an access, but he agreed to continue to be reactivated and worked again for Russian Intelligence. Now he did not have access to classified material at that time, but he was a nuclear engineer working on some projects.

Interviewer: But did Abel have any other agents, I mean, did he?

Major: I don't know.

Interviewer: OK. Tell me the story of Abel's arrest.

Major: Rudolph Abel was arrested in 1957. He'd come here; he was a -- an illegal. The FBI is just learning in the 1950s about how the KGB operates, and from that standpoint, Abel is a very significant case. When Abel was arrested he said "You are a professional, and I am a professional, and respect me, because I'm not going to talk," And that was the only thing he ever said that came close to a confession. After that, he held tight, he never said anything, and he went to jail, and eventually was exchanged. But his only confession was "I'm a professional, and you're a professional."

Interviewer: Who was Gordon Lonsdale, and what his cover?

Major: Gordon Lonsdale was a Soviet KGB illegal in London who had been operating under Canadian cover in London.

Interviewer: Do you remember what his job was?

Major: His job was in jukeboxes, and he was quite an interesting character. He was also quite a womanizer.

Interviewer: Now the FBI, MI5 got onto that spy ring, but the FBI played a role. How did the FBI, FBI help to identify the Cohens?

Major: The FBI were trying to identify the Cohens for a long time as an illegal couple. When this couple is arrested in England in 1961, they resisted getting fingerprinted. Eventually the Court ordered them to get fingerprinted and their fingerprints match the FBI's fingerprints for the Cohens. They realise that they had this remarkable spy couple that had operated in both countries.

Interviewer: Why were the FBI involved in the case at all?

Major: Well, first of all, the FBI was looking for the Cohens, because by that time they had realised through Venona that these people were agents. They had disappeared in 1950 when the Soviets had alerted them to the fact that they needed to leave the United States. So once the FBI got onto looking for them, because they were important, they were gone. So actually for eleven years, there was a fugitive investigation trying to locate them.

Interviewer: What happened did the MI5, approach the FBI, or is there an automatic liaison?

Major: Automatic. There's automatic liaison in counter intelligence cases between the FBI and MI5, and as they were working these various cases, they suspected they might know it. They sent the fingerprints here, and they matched them up. I would say it's a fairly routine thing.

Interviewer: Jumping back to Los Alamos, how good was the security at Los Alamos?

Major: How was the security at Los Alamos? It depends. If you do a really in depth study, it grows, and groups were doing an awful lot with the concern about the Japanese and the Germans that were trying to steal the atomic bomb. There's a lot of effort there, but the remarkable side of this story, which is not well known, is that there were two groups of Russians agents that were identified in 1943 and 44. Steve Nelson for example, an American Communist. He was also the target of an FBI investigation, and he ends up handling a ring of five. When that's uncovered by the FBI in April of 1943, the five people turnout to be spies for the Russians. What do we do with them, you know? We fire three, and we put two in the Army. We find the same thing happens again in 1944, when we uncover, another five people up in Chicago, and once again we keep one on, we fire two, and we put two in the Army. So even though we have very tight security, physical security of the people there, they didn't seem to be interested enough when we found the Russians in 1943 and 1944 stealing information. So it's probably a mixed bag at how good the security was.

Interviewer: Can you tell me briefly what was Venona?

Major: Venona was the most important counter intelligence source of the Twentieth Century, because Venona was able to open up the window to the West, and what the Russians had done during the war. Venona was a code name used by Army security to cover their ability to eventually partially read some of the KGB traffic, and the GRU traffic around the world, and specifically in the United States. Venona has changed history twice, because Venona opened up the world force starting in 1946 and 1947, and recognised that the truth, of Soviet espionage was far grander than we ever had imagined. It changed history a second time in 1995 when they declassified it. All of a sudden all the historians in the world were having to re-evaluate what they thought about Russian intelligence in the Communist Party, and a lot of the things that we said were just Red baiting turned out to be true.

Interviewer: How did Venona change academic perceptions in the mid 1990s?

Major: Venona is changing the academic perception of what the Russians had done to the West during the war, because they have hard evidence about how extensive Russian espionage was, a lot of the material that had been discounted is now turning out to be true.

Interviewer: Tell us who Kim Philby was? What access did he have to Venona?

Major: Kim Philby had come to the United States in October of 1949, specifically to help exploit the intelligence we were getting through Venona. He was an MI6 officer who had been recruited in England, and I think he was thirty-four. He was becoming a very senior officer in MI6, and his job starting in October of 1949 until June of 1954, was to exploit Venona. He was able to tell the Russians, from at least that date on, how successful we were in breaking the codes, and knowing what people we were identifying.

Interviewer: Now how could the Russians use that information?

Major: Extensively. They could use it because they had the ability to alert their networks that the FBI, and MI5 and 6, had or had not identified some of their people. They were faced with the terrible dilemma, once they began to realise as early as 1946 that their codes had been compromised. There actually were three people that compromised them, one in 1945, one in 1946, but the real one was Kim Philby. They didn't know how successful we were, but Kim Philby was in the position to get all the debriefs. So he knows who's compromised and whom they don't have to worry about, and therefore who can continue to operate or whom they have to infiltrate or to break contact with.

Interviewer: Just describe where Philby used to read the Venona, in your own words.

Major: Kim Philby was provided an office in the FBI part of the Department of Justice, which was downtown in Washington DC, and that's where FBI Headquarters was. He was given an office there to look at the Venona material. They weren't going to release that material to go up to the British Embassy, so he worked inside the FBI segment of the Department of Justice building.

Interviewer: Now based on the information Philby was giving them, what kind of dilemma were the Russian spymasters in now? What did they do for their agents?

Major: Well it was the best of all worlds, and the worst of all worlds. If they have this intelligence, if they now know what we know about their operations, they have to decide which of their agents do they exfiltrate(?), which one do they break contact with. How do they allow the Americans to be somewhat successful, because if we had stopped being successful in identifying people, then we would probably say "I wonder if we have a leak or a problem that a bug in Venona?" Let me tell you this, Venona was one of the deepest secrets inside the FBI. I was in the FBI; I worked on the Venona project, and I thought it would never become public. It was a real secret, and the reason was we didn't want the KGB to know what we knew about their operations. So the Russians have the same exact dilemma, and it appears as if they were very late in alerting the Rosenbergs to the fact that we had information about their operations. What they did do is made sure they got the Cohens out of New York. Now that's interesting, they were late in alerting their agents through the Rosenberg network, but they very quickly got the Cohens out. That's the dilemma they were faced with, and it's interesting that the Cohens left.

Interviewer: What's your assessment? What did you read into that?

Major: I think that the reason that they took this tact is that they had Cohens a long-term use for them. By the time the 1950s had come, the Rosenberg network was out of access. They were not operational anymore. He was no longer had a security clearance. People forget that Julius Rosenberg had a security clearance and was operating and networking eight agents, but he also was passing classified material, as was his entire network. By 1950 they weren't in a position to hurt the United States, or to provide the kind of intelligence that the Russians would want. They saw the Cohens as a potential, so they got them out. Now they did alert the Rosenbergs, but Julius would not leave until he got his entire network out. One of them, David Greenglass wouldn't leave, that's why they were arrested.

Interviewer: Let me ask you quickly, what was meant by the term "an illegal?" Why did the Russians place so much emphasis on them?

Major: Every intelligence service has to face where do they use their operational platforms. There are people they can use who are diplomats with diplomatic protection. It's easy for an intelligence service to figure out where those intelligence options are, so the operations security has to be very high on those officers. A much better way to operate but has a tremendous risk is an illegal. Now that doesn't mean there in the country illegally. It means the legal establishment does not operate them. An illegal doesn't have contact with the diplomatic presence. So an illegal is an intelligence officer who is in country operating, in essence, on his own with no diplomatic protection. That kind of an officer is very difficult to uncover from a counter intelligence standpoint, because that person could be in the sea of everybody else. So there it's a very good operational security methodology, however, a tremendous risk. Lonsdale was arrested he was uncovered as an illegal, as was Abel.

Interviewer: The Russians were rather unique in the way that they trained people to almost pass for a native, learn the language and so on.

Major: It's a long answer to the Soviet's view of illegals. Very quickly it's important to understand that the 1930s was the era of the great illegals. They didn't have large diplomatic presence, so they used an awful lot of third country nationals that they recruited to be professional intelligence officers and illegals. So that was very common. Many of them were killed by Stalin during the purges, many of the illegal networks of the Red Army. They continued to use the methodology of illegals, and they came in and out of use. An illegal is also available, because if you ever break diplomatic relations, or your war ensues, the diplomatic presence has gone, so they retain an espionage network by having illegals in place. So the Soviets have always wanted to use some illegals, because of that factor. They can stay behind at a military, at a war setting situation. They also can handle some of your best sources. But there's a tremendous risk in running them. In the later years, the 1970s and 1980s, there was less use of third country nationals as illegals, and there always was tremendous debates within the KGB of 'how many illegals we need and what we want them to do." So there's a lot more cycles of illegals in the KGB.

Interviewer: And is it fair to say the KGB's has a special emphasis on human intelligence?

Major: The Soviets have always from their doctrine had almost a philosophical commitment to human espionage. They're very good at the technical means; they have their imagery and they have signals intelligence. They've made a major commitment with resources to espionage as it has been so successful. That's because the Soviet Union was born with the concept of deception and disinformation. That's how the Bolshevicks took over through human sources: espionage and deception. So it's natural that it became such an important element of what the KGB do.

Interviewer: Now, this is incredibly complicated, but it would be great if you can do it briefly. In what way, could it be argued that George Blake ultimately led to the unravelling of Penkovsky?

Major: George Blake did lead to the unravelling of Penkovsky. George Blake is identified by MI5 as a penetration of MI6, because of the CIA recruiting a Polish intelligence officer.

Interviewer: How important was Penkovsky? What exactly did he do for the West?

Major: Well, the book written by Penkovsky, the man who saved the world, is probably true. Penkovsky was without doubt one of the most significant agents for the West in the entire Twentieth Century. It was in 1961 that he was able to give the operational manuals for the rocket systems being developed in ballistic missiles, which were eventually deployed to Cuba in 1962. The reason he's really important is that when we found the missiles in Cuba, it was the information from Penkovsky, known as Iron Bar (it's the code name here in the United States) that told us to tell Kennedy how long he had to negotiate. That was crucial information, because he was in a position to say, "these missiles are going to be operational in so many days, and this is the configuration," and it was only the manuals that Penkovsky had given to the CIA that allowed them to know that. Without that they never would have known, and I might add that one of the things, the reason that was important is we came very, very close to invading Cuba, or to have military strikes to take out the missiles. If we had not known how long we had, we probably would have done that. They had tactical nuclear weapons, lunars, and they were prepared to use those nuclear weapons to attack the American force. If they had they would have nuked them.

Interviewer: How big a part did espionage play in the Bolshevik seizure of power?

Major: The Bolsheviks' understanding of subversion and espionage was the key on how they gained power. They had been the target of the Ohrana and they penetrated the Ohrana. It was how they took power.

Interviewer: What was the Ohrana?

Major: Ohrana was the secret police of the Tsar, and they had targeted the Bolsheviks, and they had targeted back against each other. They had a whole culture of human intelligence and espionage, so it was born in the fire of espionage, and has continued up until today. That's the Russians' almost psyche of doing it, and it clearly was very important, the Soviets' psyche.

Interviewer: Did Lenin himself place great emphasis on the importance of espionage?

Major: Absolutely. Remember Lenin placed such importance in espionage? Lenin was an agent of the Germans, and it was the Germans who secretly infiltrated him back into the Soviet Union in an effort to try to get the Soviet Union to stop their being in the war. It's often forgotten that he was a Nazi agent, or a Russian, or a German agent. What's also interesting is that he then turned on the Germans. He got us out. He got them out of the war, and continued to be an agent.

Interviewer: Are you familiar with the quote from Lenin which is "I think every good Communist is a secret policeman at heart?"

Major: As Lenin says "every good policeman is a good Communist is a spy at heart."

Interviewer: How did the Bolsheviks actually use spy mania to consolidate their power, their grip on power?

Major: The Soviets use intelligence and espionage in two ways. First of all, they use it to manipulate against the West through deception operations and the trust operation. They then turned it around, and in the 1930s, when they were involved in the purges, they were able to create the concept of the false foreign threat. Everybody was an agent or a fifth columnist for some place, somebody in the West, and that was the excuse for the purges. It was accepted by a number of people, and when it was going on, they thought that Stalin was really ridding himself of spies. It was just an excuse, not an uncommon methodology for a totalitarian states.

Interviewer: In fact that starts earlier I think, in putting up "Beware of Foreign Spies" in 1918-1919.

Major: The use of the false spy starts right after the Revolution. In fact, the Cheka was formed as a counter intelligence organization. It is very important to understand that the KGB, from its inception, was a counter intelligence organization, worrying about false spies, and people in their own society they couldn't trust. They didn't even have a foreign intelligence arm for two years after the Bolshevik Revolution, and they always spend more money on counter intelligence than on intelligence. That's where the KGB had 10,000 people in their first chief directorate, which did foreign espionage, and their counter intelligence size was almost half a million people.

Interviewer: Half a million people basically spying on Russians?

Major: Half a million people in the KGB were primarily spying on Russians. If you put together the border guards and the regular second chief directorate, and the fifth directorate, and the surveillance directorate, and the wire tap directorate, the numbers reach half a million people; only 10,000 were on their foreign espionage network.

Interviewer: Now we know that the key figures in this atomic spyring had been either caught or identified. Are there any people who spied for the Russians in Los Alamos, who have not been caught?

Major: Absolutely. We know that there are people we never identified, who worked on the atomic bomb program, because we know through Venona. There were code name people, who have never been identified.

Interviewers: Are there people suspected?

Major: When you work a counter intelligence case there are always people who are suspected. I mean that's how you do the case, but that doesn't mean that they were the right people.

Interviewers: Is it possible that some of these people are still alive?

Major: Certainly, I mean, if we go back in and say how long ago was this period? Are we talking fifty years, and people that were 20 like Ted Hall, could be in their seventies. We're not at the age yet that people that were Russian agents during the war are no longer with us. A number of the people could still be alive.