Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying
In the case of the early Los Alamos scientists: Ideology
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Double-Cross-Story-D-Day-Spies/dp/030...
To be fair tough, Fuchs made important enough contributions that the Manhattan project might well have been too late to bomb japan before the war ended.
He also recounts the extent that his views were shaped by his slightly older roommates at Harvard, whom he was obviously in awe of.
Rather more self-servingly, he claims that he probably would not have spied if he had known how despotic the Soviet Union was.
Money was apparently not involved.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/14/magazine/the-boy-who-gave...
Plans were drawn up and advocates were seriously proposing to enact them: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-pentagon-estimated-204-a...
IIRC, in the 30s and 40s it was a lot more common and respectable to be a Communist due to the experience of the Great Depression an limited information about the failures of central planning.
When said governments are very clearly acting against their own people, is it no surprise that defectors may choose to side with an opposing ideology?
I wonder what kind of cost-benefit analysis and financial projections are done in considering the value of assets and espionage operations? Do you think they model for outcomes?
John Carlos Baez has rode a really interesting blog series on network operads and process calculus, is the basis for multi agent modeling for complex military tactical scenario modeling and contingency planning. I wonder what the models would look like for evaluating intelligence assets?
https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex-adap...
There was another motivation which was strongly advocated by Oppenheimer and others to officially share nuclear secrets and bring the USSR to the table and establish controls in order to prevent secret competition and escalation. There were others who along those lines were motivated to use back channels to supply that same information for similar goals.
Personally I use a good, ol' simple browser (QTweb) with javascript disabled to browse/read HN, then I try opening the linked articles with it.
If it works, it works, if it doesn't (not only because of paywalls or similar but often because the site has been overcomplicated/overengineered and/or uses some new features that QTweb doesn't support) I may try with a more "recent" browser.
Of course with javascript disabled a number of things (like dinamically loading images) won't work and you won't be experiencing the full design of the site, but as long as the article text is readable, that does it for me most of the times.
In Europe they have some interesting models in between that provide social security, health care and a lot of other great things for their citizens so even the people who don't have enough money to buy / invest in such services can enjoy a good life.
In the US there is people who do 3 jobs and don't have enough money to live a life I personally would consider a "good enough" one. Yes I know this also stems from my perspective and the standards I would label "poor" could be very high for an Asian child sewing clothes for us.
Now neoliberalism is trending there as well and we can observe how it "drags them down". Look at Germany for example - I don't think it's easy living there when you knew the 70ies and still be optimistic about the future if you don't happen to be a millionaire.
They had a good employment rate (now it's being faked as a friend told me) low poverty and a middle class with a high status of living and they were leaders in several disciplines. Now look how they lose all of that while some private companies take the money out of their public hand without even paying taxes. That's what neoliberalism brought them and I bet some of these Germans are very angry about it. I can understand them because who want's to lose the prospects of a good life?
In '94 for example they sold out their train infrastructure and now look at the development: ~16% of tracks where given up because it was not profitable for them. Now they would love to have it back because of the climate change etc.
There is a lot of examples and I could go on like this all day but I just wanted to contribute some facts about the EU to this discussion because I always thought they have some different but very interesting ideas.
You're actually speaking to a German living in France right here. And yes, I'd largely share your analysis. People are angry, and for good reason. To add insult to injury, many of these changes were made by the social democrats, which really cemented the idea in people's head that none of the mainstream parties see an alternative. "Alternativlos" (Merkel's german equivalent of Thatcher's "There is no alternative") is the mantra that has prevented any real changes from being made. The Market is seen as the beginning and end of all discussion, and if it has inherent flaws, well, you can curse them, but you cannot argue against it. It's like the weather.
There are similar examples in other countries of course.
Personally I'm seeing this here in Grenoble. France has a reputation for an overpaid and "too comfortable" public sector, but that has only really become a problem since the government has decided to drastically reduce spending. I live in Grenoble (a ~400K metropolitan area, so a small town for french standards) and the federal government has unilaterally decided to reduce the city's budget by ~30% over the last 3-4 years. The effects are things like public baths closing or reducing service (disproportionally affecting poorer people) and even blatant violations of unalienable rights of the poorest of poor. This is not a metaphor or something: there is no more money to provide emergency shelter to asylum seekers, which is, by law, guaranteed to everyone in any situation of need, no questions asked. Now they live in tents next to the train station. It's shameful.
On a less personal note: the NHS in the UK seems to be a good natural experiment. It is described in some detail in the book I mentioned in the GP. Since Scotland and other regions had some leeway in how to run their NHS, they didn't follow along with all the neoliberal policies of the 90s. The result is that the English NHS has longer waiting times, worse health outcomes, and a drastically increased administrational overhead (went from ~5% to ~14%!) while the Scottish NHS fares better in all of these aspects.
This all happens within a European framework of course. I like the idea of open borders and shared prosperity, I have personally been very lucky to profit from these (via Erasmus and the possibility to "just move to another country" twice) but the entire idea of the European Union, as I have come to realize over the last years, is not to unify people and build bridges across borders. The idea of the EU is to open markets, and let The Market figure out the "shared prosperity". It is a fundamentally neoliberal institution. And that is not even talking about many of its practical (transparency/electoral/etc) flaws. For any practical changes that affect the individual (roaming/open borders/shared currency) the liberalization for companies vastly outsizes that given to the individual. And then there are tons of examples where EU border-opening does nothing for the individual, and only liberalizes the markets to allow corporations more freedoms. An example is the liberalization of the railroad systems. After harmonizing the technical level, the EU liberalized access of e.g. companies to operate on other nations' railroad networks. But despite knowing that there is not enough market incentive for The Market to offer decent cross border offers, the EU governments declined to force their (largely politically controlled) railroad companies to do so. For the individual, crossing borders for vacation/work has become easier (because of the shared currency) but e.g. commuting across borders by train remains a financial and practical nightmare. Direct social/economic interaction would really have the potential to fuse European citizens into a real union, but that was never the idea.
So yeah, you're right, the EU and its nations had (and to a degree still have) some interesting middle ground ideas. And you're also right that they are being eroded away by a neoliberal project. We can see the effects in near realtime, and it's not heading in a good direction...
edited to add example.
Former Yugoslavia aside, this is no guarantee there won't be and with the rise of nationalism things are not looking good.
I'm German-French. I honestly believe I've never met anyone in my life in my age group (that I've talked to enough to say this) who would be willing to go fight a neighboring country.
Where would these people, and support for them, come from?
Just to give you one example: if a Trump type would gain the upper hand in any one of the larger European countries all of which have a strong representation of what I'd loosely term neo-nationalists the stage would be set for an 'us vs them' degrading of international relations. The UK is a prime candidate for this. If such an aggressor were to aim to go for retribution based on perceived sleights (for instance: the economy tanking because of 'them') then you just might have to defend yourself from that.
Which would not cause you to have to fight in a neighboring country, it might cause you to fight in your own.
Alternatives for this: the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Moldavia and Romania are all sitting on Putin's doorstep and splitting Europe could be the precursor to Russia crossing its borders. Especially the Baltic situation is very much analogue to the Ukraine one with Kaliningrad in the role of Eastern Ukraine and the ethnic Russian population in Latvia and Lithuania potentially mobilized in the same way they were in Ukraine.
Europe/NATO then has the choice to fall apart or come to the aid of their members; which more or less would set the stage for WWIII.
None of this is fun to contemplate but I think these risks are real.
Then with the loss of the SM, and no trading relations (probably for 7+ years), our economy will take a serious hit, and we'll likely suffer some form of recession. There are plenty of us who know that such an economic impact is simply a consequence of our own choices.
We're going to be too busy sorting out our own problems, with each domestic side blaming the others, and possibly successive governments from opposite sides of political spectrum. A return to the 70s.
So I rather doubt we'll be a threat to any other European state. We'll be navel gazing for some time.
Also our conventional forces are seriously eroded, we've wasted money on useless aircraft carriers, and other vanity kit.
The real worry should be if the UK becomes a failed state, and some nutter finds the nuclear trigger.
I don't rule that out. The amount of venom and irrationality injected into UK politics right now as well as the Scottish / Irish issues combined with a healthy bunch of scapegoating could just about do it. Best case the Union collapses, Scotland joins the EU (against the wishes of Spain this will be a hard thing to accomplish) and Ireland does not fall back into their old habits.
It's a serious problem and the number of people that will suffer because of these idiots that are trying hard to diminish the size of the pond so they will appear bigger is going to be in the 10's of millions at best, many more in the worst case.
> Which would not cause you to have to fight in a neighboring country, it might cause you to fight in your own.
I see what you're saying, but I didn't say "fight in a neighboring country", but "fight a neighboring country".
The idea that the world is a game of Civilization and that there is anything to be gained by invading some other country is largely seen as absurd here, as far as my personal experience goes. That's the point I was making. You would first need to raise a whole generation of people who see that differently, which frankly sounds about as realistic as raising a generation of people who will challenge their rival to a pistol duel because they slept with their girlfriend.
And I really can't see the scenario where it truly becomes a question of self defense, and some continental european country needs to defend itself against the pillaging and raping british. Is there any indication in the UK that anybody would be interest in that type of activity?
Regarding your point about the eastern border of the EU, and Russia's activities there - that one I'll grant you. But still, from there to intra-european strife still seems like a long way.
I don't see any obstacle to this in terms of the attitudes of the people involved. It'd be really, really easy to raise a generation of men who thought this was a reasonable thing to do.
It's not happening now because of external controls, not because so many people are shocked at the very idea.
But a life-or-death duel is something else. It's a ritualized way of obtaining satisfaction relative to some mortal insult to your honor. That custom existed in Europe in a world that was completely different from today's, amongst a narrow and very specific stratum of society.
As for raising a whole generation: all it would take is for the current civil unrest to go up a couple of notches before it will spill over. I've seen it before and the signs are all there, whether for good or for bad once there is a certain amount of energy in the system it tends to work its way out in a violent way, rarely in a non-violent way.
For that you need different people at the helm.
> Is there any indication in the UK that anybody would be interest in that type of activity?
Give it a few years post Brexit and economic hardship and you'll have them lining up in droves. Scapegoating is a tried and true pastime.
I could see that in theory, but what kind of economic hardship are we talking about? In the world that led to the World Wars, everyday life for poor people was closer in comfort to the life in the trenches of the front than to everyday life for your average western European of today. And lots of people were poor.
By contrast, even an unexpectedly sharp post-Brexit downturn would probably just mean slightly more unemployment, some missed promotions. It's hard to imagine the UK would fall back behind, say, eastern European countries like Poland where people on average aren't rich, but can live an alright life.
A massive influx of refugees from the Middle East in particular could have the effect of destabilizing any of the countries that accept them. It could also embolden and empower nationalists who in turn may make extreme choices that could lead to open hostility. If there's a resurgence in radical
Climate change may indeed be the cause of large refugee crises hitting Europe. Depending on how bad climate change related events are, it could degrade the ability of governments to maintain order and provide public services. Those are things that can lead to unpredictable and violent outcomes.
Then there's the specter of Putin's Russia using covert and direct military action to reclaim former Soviet territory, subvert European governments, spread nationalist propaganda, etc.
And there's always the Black swan event that no one had on their radar that could massively change the playing board.
We've already seen a big upheaval with Brexit, the Trump presidency, and the Syrua refugee crisis. More of that kind of stuff would be really bad news for Europe.
You can argue that I was naive kid but war came as a big surprise to large percentage of adults too. From memoirs of various politicians it's clear that they had much better grasp on reality but for general public things moved from bad to worse really, really fast.
I do believe, though, that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies that makes violent conflict unlikely, and there's quite some empirical evidence for that, too. See Steven Pinker and so on. The history of Yugoslavia may therefore not generalize to today's Europe.
Also, attitudes of people do matter, and they certainly do in a democracy. Many of the young men who went to fight in WW1 truly believed they were taking part in some great, noble, adventure of historic proportions. This world view just does not exist anymore, it seems about as close to my life as, say, the Spanish inquisition, and I'd wager that's true for most people in Europe today.
And thank you for the exchange.
Yeah, things are stable when economy is good (worked for Yugoslavia too) but what's going to happen in case of huge economic downturn like in the 30thies with millions out of work?
Attitudes of people change as a reaction to the changes in their environment (real or perceived). And you don't need a majority, you just need a critical mass of people to stray and start chain of events that effects everyone.
I certainly believe that market-oriented democracies are more stable than Yugoslavia, I'm just not sure how much more stable they are.
Maybe I'm just to pessimistic after everything that happened in the last 30 years here.
However is that really attributable to the existence of the EEC? Or was it the fact that the Cold War was ongoing, and that Germany was essentially disarmed and occupied?
I'd suggest that the latter was sufficient to prevent a war between Germany and France (the feared intra-european war). Hence we can not make any claims as to if the existence of the EEC/EU was necessary for that peace in the period prior to 1994.
The post 1994 period is more interesting (especially after 2008), and here the EU does provide forums for greater understanding between the nations of its member states.
So if we want to measure the EU's ability to create peace within its bounds, I'd suggest we only start counting from 10 years ago.
As to the neoliberal agenda, I'd suggest that started with the Single Market and its increased regulatory convergence, hence also from around 1994.
[1] https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/201...
Out of curiosity: was it a conscious decision for France and against Germany or did you get there by chance?
Yes, I've heard about "Alternativlos" and I think it's dangerous when people argue like this because there is always an alternative. Very interesting that you say it was the social democrats because in the US they are seen as very leftist (some even use the K-word) and in my opinion what they did is not very leftist.
To put markets on the same level as the weather is a pretty old idea which was spread by Adam Smith a lot but in the end it is made by men and therefor can't be a natural phenomenon and obviously it doesn't control itself in a way that the people profit from it (if we ignore the upper 1% of course).
To reduce public spendings seems to be a trend in Germany as well and I've heard about the goal to keep the "schwarze null" in this context a lot. I wonder how they (Germany, France etc.) will deal with 10x the number of refugees because that is one of the minimum estimates for the next few decades.
The book you talk about seems to be very interesting and I will definitely try to read it some time.
The EU is a really nice construct when looking at the originally postulated ideas behind it but I think it lacks a clear vision (instead of e.g. China) and I feel the same as you about them only opening up markets while forgetting the people. When the EU shattered Greece I couldn't believe my eyes because until then I thought that was exactly one of the situations they would tackle easily with all their resources etc.
While the economy could shake off some chains in the last decades in Europe the freedom of the individuals is more and more being restricted (many use terrorism and the fear of foreigners stealing jobs, money and their identity to achieve this).
Infrastructure like the railroad suffered as well and the Germans denationalized their "Deutsche Bahn" in the 90ies only to loose a huge amount of tracks and work even less efficiently.
There is a thought that really makes me sad about that besides the fact that they corrupted their own basically beautiful idea (achieve something together) and that is a whole generation of young people who really believed in this disney-like promise of the EU. They grew up with it and now have to witness how they've been lied to by their own governments starting at the very beginning.
At least there is still people like you who stay in the EU and maybe will have an impact on how things will develop in the near future. This gives me back some hope :)
That's a pretty low standard.
I remember 1970s Germany as a visitor, and it seems to me that the quality of living has improved considerably in several aspects — food, technology, acceptance of diverse life styles, transitioning away from a car centric society, reduction of working hours.
This, to me, was especially evident in Berlin, where I have family. What used to be the western part is considerably nicer than it used to be in the 1980s, and the eastern part is even more markedly improved. I first visited Dresden a few years ago (so have no comparison to DDR times), but was stunned at the quality of life there.
Now, granted, the rise of extremist parties, especially in the east, shows that not everybody there shares my rosy view. And I'm not acquainted with anybody who lives on Hartz IV. But my relatives, far from being millionaires, still seem to enjoy a decent living standard, including solid health care benefits and decent schools.
As I said they even fake some numbers to let it appear to be better now. Like e.g. unemployment rate - now everyone who is in a useless training that he doesn't need and that doesn't help to get back into real jobs is not included in the numbers anymore (I think it was when von-der-Leyen announced the numbers herself or round about that time when they changed their work- and unemployment model).
While in the 70ies many/most people had good jobs (one was enough to finance a hole family!) nowadays they have minimum wage jobs that don't pay enough for single individuals to really enjoy life.
You can be glad not to be bound to get Hartz 4 - this is a nightmare compared to their old social security system.
To discuss this further I think we'd have to define "decent standard of living" because I suppose we understand something differently there.
The schools are not getting enough money and have a lot of problems they don't want to talk publicly about. If you are interested you should ask some German teachers about that because they tend to have some funny stories about school, the money which is spent and the system itself.
I think so, too and while I enjoy to discuss my views in an pseudo anonymous way here there seem to be people who are even now afraid to join a fair discussion.
Maybe they hope to make me shut up but I am used to people who are afraid of my ideas (already stood in court because of this).
tell me, what part of "we elites eat caviar while the poor starve" is remotely communist?
common, commune. community. communion. the native-english-speaking-world could do with a bit less sanctimony and a bit more etymology.
The pseudo-Marxist imagery is just a wrapping. Politically, North Korea is a semi-industrialised feudal monarchy. Just as the USSR was an industrialised nationalistic proto-monarchy controlled by an emperor.
If you want millions of deaths, promote nationalism and imperialism. They always deliver.
Because it's wishful thinking. Frantic anti-nationalism in both words and actions was a cornerstone of life in the USSR, from Stalin's deportation of millions of "unreliable nationalities" to Brezhnev-era "friendship of peoples".
A "new Soviet man" (superhuman) was expected to emerge from that, with no nationality, no religion, no traditions, completely selfless, loyal only to the communist party, and devoted to work. This is as far from nationalism as one can get in practical terms.
This was not only ideological matter, but nationalism presented a fundamental threat to the Soviet Union, it enabled people in the USSR to self-organize and eventually break free. Nationalist movements that rallied people for self-government and democratic freedoms were a key factor in the collapse of the USSR.
It’s what communism is like in practice. You can’t say ‘that’s not true communism’ when that’s how every communist state ends up.
Do you have some counter examples?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21619122 and marked it off-topic.
That's not quite sane: you're (1) placing this as an alternative to a full out nuclear war, and (2) placing the US' and the USSR's influence at equal footing.
Why? I guess the Vietnamese communists would have surrendered to the US and the country would have lived under its influence instead of the Soviets', and that's assuming Ho Chi Min would have received enough support in the first place. There's no reason to assume the US would have nuked at someone's whim.
BTW, the French and the Brits also have their nuclear arsenal. There would not have been a "monopoly".
See here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay
> Towards this aim, LeMay delivered the first SAC Emergency War Plan in March 1949 which called for dropping 133 atomic bombs on 70 cities in the USSR within 30 days. [...] Air power strategists called this type of pre-emptive strike "killing a nation". However, the Harmon committee released their unanimous report two months later stating such an attack would not end a war with the Soviets and their industry would quickly recover. This committee had been specifically created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the effects of a massive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, within weeks, an ad hoc Joint Chiefs committee recommended tripling America's nuclear arsenal, and Chief of Staff Vandenberg called for enough bombs to attack 220 targets, up from the previous 70.
Note that March 1949 was 5 months before the USSR's first atomic bomb test.
It's not a leap to suggest that if the USSR didn't obtain nuclear weapons in 1949, the US would have shown much less restraint than they did. And "restraint" is already not the first word that comes to mind to describe American foreign policy in the 20th century. (As for France and the UK, I don't think the US president would have worried about the UK nuking Washington in retaliation for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USSR).
I think that the US-USSR opposition radicalized USA, fed its nationalism and its paranoia and led it to develop an empire, something that is simply not in its culture (when you compare to typical colonial empires)
USA is more interested in free trade than in military conquest. Something I dare say, that is totally unlike USSR. Being an "ally" of USSR meant something totally different than being an ally of USA.
Note that I don't blame them, any world power would do the same.
It's almost as if what the US really wants is an old-fashioned hegemonic empire that benefits its ruling class, and rhetoric about democracy and free markets is an expedient wrapper for that.
Example:
https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3012497/heres-why-h...
Excerpt:
When photos of Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei showing journalists around his office began to circulate this week, there was a book on his desk that caught the eye of the Chinese internet community. The tome, a Chinese translation of Le Piège Américain, or The American Trap, was written by Frenchman Frederic Pierucci, a former executive with French rail transport company Alstom, about his five-year-long tussle with the US Department of Justice.
The book has captured the imagination of Chinese readers because it mirrors in some ways what happened to Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in Vancouver on December 1 and is out on bail and facing extradition to the US on allegations of helping defraud banks to circumvent US sanctions on Iran.
Pierucci was arrested as he disembarked from a Cathay Pacific flight in New York in 2013. He pleaded guilty to charges of authorising bribes to Indonesian officials to win a boiler plant order, under an anti-corruption law that allowed the US to pursue cases overseas if the transaction was made in US dollars or email had passed through US servers.
Pierucci ended up serving two years in prison in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and was also put on parole for three years. He claims that the anti-corruption investigation was motivated by the US helping General Electric in its acquisition of Alstom’s energy business.
Last year, ZTE was brought close to ruin after the US initiated an export ban on the company for breaching the terms of a settlement. On the detention of Meng, Pierucci said the US was using “exactly the same tactic” by getting someone close to the company’s leadership, putting pressure on them to cooperate with the Department of Justice. He also accused the US of using its judicial system to weaken its competitors and gain profits for their own companies. When asked about having been in contact with Huawei, Pierucci said that he has never been contacted by Huawei or received any payment from the company.
By some measures the US isn't even in the top 10 on market freedom: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
As Wikipedia puts it: Overall, during the 1920s, Japan changed its direction toward a democratic system of government. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential.
Japan’s modernization, grappling with democratic and populist forces, and unfortunate collapse into fascism is some fascinating history to read about. “Japan in Crisis: Essays on Taisho Democracy“ is a good starting point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo
Yes the Last Samurai had a kernel of truth, but it was not about an American guy, it was a bunch of French officers who deserted to help the Shogun in exchange of him proclaiming a republic. It has all the elements of an epic movie, including a desperate boarding of an ironclad by a samurai-French force that was repelled by a gatling gun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Miyako_Bay
"United States control of the Philippines was never intended to be permanent. From the beginning, the colonial mission was seen as one of paternalistic "tutelage"—of preparing the nation for eventual independence—and aside from a few "retentionists", the question was generally not if, but when, independence would occur."
The U.S. fought a brutal war against Filipino independence from 1899-1902, but progress continued towards self-rule via the Jones Act of 1916, the The Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1935, and finally the 1946 Treat of Manila which relinquished all U.S. claims to sovereignty in the Philippines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)#Initia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(18... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(18...
That snippet sounds a little self-serving, "we're just a force of good and we want good for all". The situation is more complicated, and the more powerful countries -including the US- around the world at that time were all in pursuit of expanding their territory and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism
Regardless, they ultimately delivered on the promise of independence, and at the apex of American military and political power.
Standalone complexes like that flip around and start controlling the people who created them to control others and take on a life of their own nurtured and directed by people who want to use them to gain power – nurtured but no longer controlled.