Espionage and Enchiladas: The Santa Fe Spy Ring

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Strange History Podcast, where we peel

0:03 Speaker 1: back the curtain on the past, shine a flashlight into

0:06 Speaker 1: the shadows, and ask wait, spies in Santa Fe. I'm

0:11 Speaker 1: your host, Amy, and Yes, today we're diving into an

0:14 Speaker 1: explosive tale of nuclear secrets, southwestern scenery, and Soviet subterfuge.

0:21 Speaker 1: Today we welcome back Dan. He was easily bribed with

0:24 Speaker 1: a few enchiladas. Don't let him tell you otherwise.

0:28 Speaker 2: Just don't tell my wife.

0:30 Speaker 1: It's the nineteen forties. America's building a weapon so powerful

0:34 Speaker 1: it could end the war or the world. And in

0:37 Speaker 1: the unassuming little art town of Santa Fe, spies are

0:40 Speaker 1: trading atomic secrets over cups of coffee. Just another day

0:44 Speaker 1: in Santa Fe. This is the Santa Fe Spy Ring

0:48 Speaker 1: and it's going to get weird.

0:50 Speaker 2: The Manhattan Project. Let's build an apocalypse in the desert.

0:54 Speaker 1: First, let's set the atomic stage. The Manhattan Project was

0:59 Speaker 1: the code name for the US effort to develop an

1:01 Speaker 1: atomic bomb during World War II. It officially began in

1:05 Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine after Albert Einstein and physicist Leo Sillard

1:10 Speaker 1: wrote a now famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

1:14 Speaker 1: warning that Nazi Germany might be working on nuclear weapons.

1:18 Speaker 1: FDR responded with yikes, I'm paraphrasing. By nineteen forty two,

1:24 Speaker 1: the project went full steam ahead, but you couldn't exactly

1:27 Speaker 1: build a super secret doomsday device in downtown Chicago, though

1:32 Speaker 1: they did start there with the first nuclear reactor Chicago

1:35 Speaker 1: Pile I, constructed under the bleachers at the University of Chicago.

1:40 Speaker 1: Totally safe, right. Eventually the military needed a more isolated,

1:44 Speaker 1: secure location, somewhere away from prying eyes, paparazzi, or overly

1:50 Speaker 1: curious cows. Enter Los Alamos, New Mexico. Oppenheimer, the scientific

1:57 Speaker 1: director of the project and part time dramatic Fewhilosopher, loved

2:01 Speaker 1: the area. As a young man, he'd ridden horses in

2:05 Speaker 1: the New Mexico desert and said it was where he

2:07 Speaker 1: felt most alive, which is oddly poetic considering he helped

2:11 Speaker 1: invent a death ray. So the government seized a private

2:15 Speaker 1: boys' school on a mesa and turned it into the

2:18 Speaker 1: Los Alamos Laboratory. Or simply cite why the staff lived

2:23 Speaker 1: on campus. Their mail was sent to a fake address

2:26 Speaker 1: PO Box one six six' Three Santa, Fe New. Mexico

2:31 Speaker 1: even birth certificates for babies born there listed that. Address

2:36 Speaker 1: that's how secret it.

2:37 Speaker 2: Was Santa fe and security should not.

2:41 Speaker 1: Rhyme the plan was to Isolate Los alamos from the,

2:45 Speaker 1: world but you tried telling a few thousand brilliant physicists

2:50 Speaker 1: and engineers that they can't leave the compound for two.

2:53 Speaker 1: Years despite strict, rules workers regularly traveled Into Santa fe for, food, entertainment,

3:01 Speaker 1: mail and the occasional. Date that's When soviet intelligence realized

3:06 Speaker 1: the secrets weren't locked Inside Los. Salamos they were walking

3:10 Speaker 1: around In Santa fe casually sipping horchata and debating, thermodynamics

3:16 Speaker 1: and that's when the spies came to. Town meet the spy,

3:19 Speaker 1: Squad Gold fuchs and the ghosts Of East Palace. Avenue

3:23 Speaker 1: let's talk About Klaus, fuchs a mild Mannered german physicist

3:27 Speaker 1: with the ability to calculate nuclear chain reactions and betray entire.

3:31 Speaker 1: Governments fuchs had Fled Nazi, germany joined The british scientific,

3:36 Speaker 1: community and was eventually sent to work on The Manhattan

3:39 Speaker 1: project as a top level. Researcher what THE us didn't

3:43 Speaker 1: know was That fuchs was also a committed communist who

3:46 Speaker 1: believed nuclear weapons should be, shared especially With. Stalin. Now

3:51 Speaker 1: he didn't wear a trench coat or hide in the.

3:53 Speaker 1: Shadows he wore, glasses worked, hard and passed The soviets, everything, calculations,

4:00 Speaker 1: designs even with details About Fat man And Little. Boy

4:05 Speaker 1: the bombs eventually dropped On nagasaki And. Hiroshima he slipped

4:09 Speaker 1: this info To Harry, gold a courier From philadelphia who

4:13 Speaker 1: looked like he taught chemistry during the day and chain

4:16 Speaker 1: smoked out of guilt at. Night gold traveled hundreds of

4:19 Speaker 1: miles to Meet fuchs In Santa fe in nineteen forty.

4:22 Speaker 1: Five they met at places like The Lafonda, Hotel East Palace,

4:27 Speaker 1: avenue and even side streets near the train. Station their

4:31 Speaker 1: code phrases were stuff like my name Is, RAYMOND i

4:35 Speaker 1: come From. JULIUS i bring you, greetings which is basically

4:39 Speaker 1: spy talk for, Hey i'm your. Ride fuchs would hand

4:43 Speaker 1: over handwritten, notes, sketches even memory based reconstructions of the.

4:48 Speaker 1: Bomb gold would pass these to another handler who'd eventually

4:52 Speaker 1: deliver them to The, soviets all under the noses OF us.

4:55 Speaker 2: Intelligence The, rosenberghs a family Affair now.

5:00 Speaker 1: Let's head east To New York, city where the heart

5:03 Speaker 1: of The soviet spy network beats in rhythm With communist

5:06 Speaker 1: party meetings and family. Dinners Julius rosenberg was an electrical

5:11 Speaker 1: engineer and Devout communist who had worked with The Army Signal.

5:15 Speaker 1: Corps he was fired in nineteen forty five for his political,

5:19 Speaker 1: leanings but not before making connections that helped him recruit

5:22 Speaker 1: young men with access to military. Secrets his greatest Get David,

5:27 Speaker 1: greenglass his brother in, law a machinist At Los. Alamos

5:32 Speaker 1: Green glass Sent julius handwritten notes and drawings of bomb,

5:35 Speaker 1: components including a crude diagram of the implosion. Mechanism julius

5:41 Speaker 1: passed this to His soviet, contacts and Allegedly Ethel rosenberg

5:46 Speaker 1: typed up his notes and facilitated some. Meetings Green glass

5:50 Speaker 1: later testified That ethel was deeply, involved but years later

5:54 Speaker 1: he admitted he lied to protect his wife because nothing

5:58 Speaker 1: says family loyalty like rowing your sister under a radioactive.

6:02 Speaker 1: Bus the fall of the. Network so what brought this

6:06 Speaker 1: spy ring? Down one? Word. Venona The Venona project was

6:10 Speaker 1: a top SECRET us program to Decrypt soviet intelligence. Cables

6:15 Speaker 1: in the late nineteen, Forties american cryptanalysts cracked parts Of soviet,

6:20 Speaker 1: communications and slowly the names began to. Emerge raymond Was Harry,

6:27 Speaker 1: Gold rest Was Klaus, fuchs And, Liberal, yes that Was Julius.

6:32 Speaker 1: Rosenberg gold was arrested in nineteen Fifty under, questioning he

6:36 Speaker 1: folded like a wet tortilla and gave Up. Fuchs fuchs

6:40 Speaker 1: gave Up. Julius julius was. Arrested ethel. Followed soon. After

6:45 Speaker 1: David greenglass cut a deal and the dominoes fell hard and.

6:49 Speaker 1: Fast in nineteen fifty, One julius And Ethel rosenberg were

6:54 Speaker 1: tried for conspiracy to commit. Espionage the trial was A

6:58 Speaker 1: cold war media. Circus the prosecution had one job proved

7:03 Speaker 1: that they passed nuclear secrets to The. Soviets the evidence was.

7:07 Speaker 1: Circumstantial Green glass's testimony carried the. Weight the country was on.

7:12 Speaker 1: Edge joseph McCarthy was waiving fake lists of communists in The.

7:16 Speaker 1: Senate fear was. King The rosenbergs were convicted and sentenced to.

7:22 Speaker 1: Death many called it, justice others called it a witch.

7:26 Speaker 1: Hunt even, today historians are. Divided most now Agreed julius's past,

7:31 Speaker 1: secrets But ethel possibly. Innocent but history isn't always, fair

7:37 Speaker 1: and neither are. Courts in A Cold war, Panic On june,

7:41 Speaker 1: nineteenth nineteen fifty, three both were executed at Sing Singh.

7:45 Speaker 1: Prison their, Sons michael And, robert were, orphaned later adopted

7:51 Speaker 1: by a poet and leftist activist. Couple they spent their

7:54 Speaker 1: lives trying to clear their parents', names.

7:57 Speaker 2: Legacy and, fallout and by fallout we do not mean the.

8:01 Speaker 1: Game back In Santa, fe the secrets faded into. History,

8:06 Speaker 1: today you can walk past one hundred and Nine East Palace,

8:10 Speaker 1: avenue the gate through which thousands Of Manhattan project employees

8:15 Speaker 1: passed on their way To Los. Alamos there's even a,

8:17 Speaker 1: plaque but for years no one talked about. It locals

8:22 Speaker 1: whispered about the box on the. Hill families didn't know

8:25 Speaker 1: where their relatives, worked just that they came home quiet and.

8:29 Speaker 1: Tense The, soviets of, course successfully tested their own atomic

8:34 Speaker 1: bomb in nineteen forty, nine years earlier than, expected thanks

8:38 Speaker 1: in no small part To Santa, Fe Klaus, Fuchs Harry,

8:41 Speaker 1: gold and The. Rosenbergs so the next time you're enjoying

8:45 Speaker 1: a quiet afternoon In Santa, fe sipping a margarita and

8:49 Speaker 1: admiring the. Architecture, remember this town was once a covert

8:53 Speaker 1: hub of nuclear. Espionage spies walked these, streets secrets changed,

8:59 Speaker 1: hands and someone may or may not have passed uranium

9:03 Speaker 1: data in a hollowed out To. Malay that's all for

9:06 Speaker 1: this episode of The Strange History. Podcast I'm, amy and

9:11 Speaker 1: remember sometimes the strangest events happen in the quietest. Places rate,

9:17 Speaker 1: us review, us share with your nerdiest, friend and if

9:21 Speaker 1: you happen to be From Santa, fe drop us a

9:24 Speaker 1: line and tell us if your grandma ever mentioned Passing

9:27 Speaker 1: einstein on the. Plaza until next, time stay, safe stay,

9:31 Speaker 1: curious and stay.

9:32 Speaker 2: Strange