Thursday, July 31, 2014

'Nuke New York Not' Says FBI in 1951


Although fans of espionage have recently been encouraged by the resurgence of activities across the international scene, from Snowden to MH 17, to Gaza tunnels, some of them still pine for the glory days when America had manufacturing facilities, telephones had land lines, and the threat of nuclear destruction was firmly in the hands of the major powers.

In those halcyon days, Josef Stalin still plotted our destruction, Mao tse Tung had just taken control of the mainland of China, the Berlin airlift was just two years prior and the wall was not yet built, Venona had revealed to the predecessor of the NSA that the USSR had stolen nuclear secrets.  Stalinist USSR then shocked the world by exploding their own bomb years ahead of when we expected them to be able to in 1949.

And in those fear-filled days, when Czech politicians were being thrown out of windows, one of our spies, either in or traveling to Brasil of all places, told us that the USSR had smuggled a small nuclear bomb into NYC and was keeping it at one of the embassies or consulates either of the USSR or of one of their allies (e.g. Hungary, Poland, etc).   The reason of course was to be able to explode it, or threaten to, at a time of their choosing.

The whole matter was kept very secret in otder to avoid panic which might result in lowering real estate values or stock market prices.   The assets of the most wealthy in this country were threatened and so the FBI began an intense survey of all locations that were in the diplomatic control of the USSR or its allies. Over 50 different sites were investigated secretly, usually by using “reliable” assets who already had access to the site and who could report whether anything unusual had arrived, or any other preparation had been made at the site that might indicate the arrival of a nuclear weapon.

The report about the investigation which was declassified can be found at the link below and is well worth glancing at. Although it is many pages there is not that much to read. Perhaps the most interesting fact that I gleaned was that we had a reliable source inside every USSR or related embassy or consulate who could report on whether there was anything that might suggest arrival of a nuclear weapon.

I have included a few pages from the report here as well.

Report on FBI Investigation into NY Atom Bomb 1951 - 1964






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