A Compassionate Spy (2022) Movie Script

1
[objects clatter]
Interviewer: Is
that in frame?
Cameraman: Well, it depends
where Joan is gonna sit.
Interviewer: Joan's
gonna be here.
[indistinct chatter]
Interviewer: Okay,
whenever you're ready.
Okay, this is a recording
for archive purposes.
And the idea is to document,
um, Ted Hall's activities
in 1944 and '45
and afterwards, in connection
with the Soviet government
and his work on
the atomic bomb.
I'm Joan Hall, um...
and I'll be asking questions
and it is the third of
June, 1998 in Cambridge.
Okay.
Well, the first question,
Ted, is what led you to go
into this activity
at the age of 19?
Well, uh, like...
virtually all of the
academic people,
at least at Los Alamos,
I was quite concerned
with the question
of what the world
would be like
when the Second
World War was finished?
Joan: Were you
scared about this step
that you were going to
take? Were you frightened?
I can't remember
being frightened.
No, I don't think so.
Joan: You didn't
think "If I do this,
I'm breaking the law and
they might execute me?"
No.
- No. [chuckles]
- Joan: [chuckles]
[somber music playing]
[explosion]
Joan: Did you have any sense
that you were doing something
that was disloyal
or morally dubious?
Ted: In my mind,
this was the question
of protecting
the Soviet people
as well as all people
from wanton attack.
Preventing an
overall holocaust,
which would affect
the entire world, really.
[somber music continues]
[somber music concludes]
Joan: I left high
school at 15
and went to the
University of Chicago,
which I've always recognized
as a pivotal moment
in my experience.
This whole
intellectual process,
for me, was a
wonderful discovery.
In my third
year in the place,
I met lots of men
because the war ended
and young men were coming
back in throngs for the G.I. Bill.
And, God, it was
great. [chuckles]
[clears throat] And
I made up my mind
that I wasn't going to
get married until I was 28
and I was then coming up to
18. I was going to give myself
a good ten years
of independence.
And then I met Ted.
And I thought, "What
a good-looking guy."
I felt that he was a
person I could talk with,
discussing politics or music
or anything that interested us.
And that meant that I
was friendly with Savy too
because Savy stuck to Ted.
Savy was a very
unusual person.
He liked poetry and
philosophy and politics in a way.
He had never been
molded into a conventional
American youth of his age.
I guess Ted was
intrigued by him.
[chuckles] There is
a picture of Teddy.
"Spring 1947."
"Grass was our
courting ground."
[grandiose music playing]
"In the Quadrangle
by Mandel Hall,
after hearing the
Communist Gerhart Eisler
denounce the government
that wouldn't let
him return to Europe
to build a new
socialist East Germany.
With Savy and other students,
we sprawled on the
grass in the sunshine..."
No, no, you're
never drawing again.
Young Joan: Why? [laughs]
"...and you suddenly pushed
me down and lay over me..."
[Young Joan laughing]
"...trying to push a
pinch of grass up my nose.
We laughed,
wrestled deliciously.
You lingered there for a few
more seconds, heavy and warm."
[indistinct
chatter, laughter]
[camera shutter clicks]
Joan: "Our bodies
first greeting."
I will not. [chuckles]
Young Ted: Get your hair
out of my face at least.
"And then that
balmy April evening,
when the three of
us lay on the grass,
my head on your arm and
Savy's head on my thigh.
Under the trees, the moon,
the fragrant spring air
throbbing with possibility,
our heads spinning.
I stood up, declared,
'I love you both dearly,
but how can I love
you both at once?'
You dryly remarked,
'That's certainly a problem.'"
Interviewer: When did
you realize that he...
[chuckles]
Interviewer: ...was
more interested in you
than just friendship?
Well, they both were.
This was a problem.
I would like to
propose a toast, huh?
A toast, to what?
Joan: We could never
get rid of Savy.[laughs]
To the revolution
in the streets
- of East Germany.
- [chuckles]
The people are rising up
against their
capitalist overlords...
Joan: [chuckles]
I'm sorry, but...
Savy: ...a new
day is dawning.
I just don't feel like telling
those stories in detail.
They're too private.
Interviewer: That's
fine. That's fine.
Can you tell me what your
first date with Ted was?
- I never had a date.
- Interviewer: No?
We just went around together.
[romantic music playing]
Joan: "Once a wunderkind,
now a brilliant young
scientist in love with physics.
A nonconformist,
that is to say
with his own precise rules,
keeping well clear of
anyone else's nonconformity.
He loved Mahler.
Irony was his mother tongue.
Did I forget to say
he was beautiful?"
He had this office at
the top of Eckhart Hall
where he had
an assistantship.
He had a portable record
player and a big box full of 78s.
There was one record
he had that we both liked
and that was a Mozart
piano and violin sonata.
And that became sort
of our song. [chuckles]
["Violin Sonata No. 24 - II.
Andante" by Mozart Plays]
Joan: We would
lie on the floor.
[indistinct chatter]
Joan: It was lovely. And...
I didn't then know
that there was a colony
of enormous cockroaches
living in that building.
But I don't recall
that they interfered
with our enjoyment of
lying on the floor. [chuckles]
Interviewer: So, how
did he pop the question?
[chuckles] He said,
"Joan, I love you,
will you marry me?"
And I said, "Yes."
All lying on the floor, yeah.
Because both of us were
Jewish and complete atheists,
we said we'd like a
non-religious ceremony.
[laughs]
And, uh...
suddenly, Ted
went all serious
and he said there's
something I have to tell you.
And so...
He said, "Well, you know,
about the work I was
doing at Los Alamos?"
"Yeah."
He said, "It was very secret,
we weren't allowed to
tell anybody about it."
And that it was
very dangerous
that the Americans had a
monopoly of this weapon.
Then I said, "Oh, so... So
you're gonna give information
to the Russians?"
And he said, "I did, yeah."
And, uh, I thought about that
and I said, "Why?
What good will that do?"
And he explained that
it would be a safeguard
against another war
if the Russians also
had this weapon.
And he said, "I wanted
to tell you about it now
before we get married because
you might want to drop out."
Well, I didn't
want to drop out.
And nothing he
could have told me...
He could have told me
he murdered somebody
in the street, I don't
know, but there was nothing
that could have changed
my mind at that point.
And, um, he said,
"You must be careful,
this is really secret,
you must not mention it
to anybody in any way."
I said, "Okay."
"Not to your mother."
I said, "God, no."
At which point, he relaxed
and we started cuddling
and we went back to
what we were there for.
["Violin Sonata No. 24 - II.
Andante" by Mozart Plays]
Interviewer: And
that was that.
That was that.
I... You know, I
gave up the idea
of my ten-year freedom
period without a backward look.
I just knew I couldn't...
I couldn't let him go.
I knew I'd never meet
anyone like that again.
I was right too.
Presenter: In the calm
of Harvard University,
there are many thinkers who,
pondering the pressure of
today's mechanized world,
are seriously concerned with
the effect of modern living
upon mankind.
Joan: Ted was recruited
to work at Los Alamos
three years before I met him,
when he was 18 at Harvard.
Ruth: I've never seen
these letters before.
I can't believe it.
Like teenage Ted.
Yeah, I haven't
read them for ages.
- So, I'm...
- Ruth: So aware of the world.
This is April '43,
so he was 17
and he is rating Harvard
as an educational institution.
Joan: But he spells
Harvard there
in a funny way, doesn't he?
- Ruth: Yeah. "Hah-vud."
- Joan: "Hah-vud."
Ruth: H-A-H-V-U-D.
- It's "Hah-vud."
- [all chuckle]
Ruth: "Dear Ed, as an
educational institution,
the spirit is all wrong..."
And then written out
big in his handwriting,
"There is no laughing
in the classes."
[Sara chuckles]
"What it boils down to is
that there's no appreciation
of the lusty beauty
of effective learning,
learning that is to be
applied to world building.
That is perhaps the
basis of education.
In this sense, the
process of education
depends as much, maybe more,
on the students as on the profs,
where one authority is
dumping his irrefutable facts
into the heads of good
students who will learn it all."
- [Sara chuckles]
- [chuckles]
Beautiful.
Joan:
[both laugh]
Joseph: A recruiter from
Washington came up
to try and find out the
most brilliant of the people
still at Harvard in the... in
the undergraduate program,
in the field of physics
and mathematics.
At this point, Ted was a senior
at Harvard at the age of 18.
His mission was to pick up
a few very junior physicists
to help in the research
work at Los Alamos.
Joseph: Ted and his
roommate Saville Sax
were quite left
in their politics
and admiring of
the Soviet Union.
Joan: Savy struck
people as being odd.
[book slams]
Joan: [chuckles]
He was funny.
[chair scraping
loudly on floor]
Joan: He had a
lovely sense of humor,
a completely off-the-wall
sense of humor.
[chair thuds on floor]
The letter arrived
yesterday, it's official.
They offered me the position,
they want me to
start immediately.
That's incredible, Ted.
I think it must have
been intense for Ted
and he was a close
friend with Savy.
So he wanted to
talk to somebody.
[whispers] But it's got to be
some sort of weapon, right?
I mean, it's a big deal.
And they don't want us
talking about it to anybody.
[whispers] So if this
is some super weapon,
you have to share
it with the Russians...
Shh.
Joan: Savy came
from a politically active
Jewish Russian family.
[whispers] Are you
crazy? She's right there.
Savy: [whispers] You
know it's true though.
Yeah, the Russians
are our allies now,
but you know that they...
Joan: Savy was
always having ideas.
Ted would go along with
them, they were pretty crazy.
[whispers] You're
nuts, you know that?
["Praise the Lord and
Pass the Ammunition" Plays]
Shouting Praise the Lord
We're on a mighty mission
All aboard We're
not a-goin' fishin'
Praise the Lord And
pass the ammunition
And we'll all
stay free...
Ted: And I went
out to the project
and, um, was told
on the first day
what the work would be.
It was rather awesome
and the reason for most
of us to be working on it
was the fear that the Germans
would develop the weapon first.
I was a, um, a young person.
I saw the world, uh, I
guess you might say,
through rather
pinkishly colored glasses.
I was very optimistic
about the post-war world.
Here it is, General
Groves, plutonium.
Well, that's, uh, the
first time I've seen it,
but if you don't mind, I
wish you'd hold that under it
because there's about 50
million dollars in that tube.
Joan: General Groves
couldn't stand the sight
of all these healthy
young scientists
walking around
in civilian clothes.
Oppenheimer, on the other hand,
did want very much a sidewalk.
It must have been
a pretty muddy
and primitive
place at that time.
And so he made a
bargain with Groves,
the youngest members of
the staff could be drafted...
if Groves would provide
them with a sidewalk.
This is the
Army, Mr. Jones
No private rooms
Or telephones
You had your
breakfast In bed before
But you won't Have
it there anymore...
Joan: Ted always said
that he was exchanged
for a sidewalk.
He had to move out of
his room into the barracks.
He hated the army.
[laughs] He never
learned to salute properly.
The bloody hat,
he hated the hat.
I was told he used to
take it into the forest,
throw it on the ground
and grind his heel into it.
This is the Army
Mr. Brown...
Joseph: Ted was put on
an important program.
He did very well in studying
the physical properties
of Uranium-235,
the fissile material of
the first atomic bomb.
He did so well at that,
that even at the
age of 18 or 19,
he's now put on an even
more important project
where he was, um, working
on the implosion bomb.
I mean, people right
through were aware
that something, uh, gruesome
and horrible was
being constructed.
And this was appreciated,
but there was, uh,
once one accepted the logic
of why you were doing this,
there was dedication and p...
[exhales] I guess
it was exhilarating.
[somber music playing]
Interviewer: Well, the
Soviets were our allies.
Ted: Yeah.
Interviewer: Why
aren't the Soviets
involved with this project?
Ted: Well, a lot
of people thought
that it was very important
that the Soviet Union
should share in the development
and in the information.
Well, during the war,
the attitude of the public
and the media, the government,
towards the Soviet Union
was one of admiration
and support.
Life magazine
had a whole spread
about life in the Soviet
Union which was just favorable.
That's just one example.
The American ambassador
to the Soviet Union
was Joseph Davies,
who wrote a book,
which I have on the
shelf there somewhere.
[patriotic music playing]
This book was
published during the war,
with an introduction
by President Roosevelt.
And it was... it sold
millions of copies.
When Germany attacked
Russia, the Soviet Union became
one of the nations
fighting Hitler.
And it was a desperate hour.
There was so much prejudice
and misunderstanding
for the Soviet Union,
in which I partly shared.
[grand majestic
music playing]
I assure you that my
purpose in coming here
is to see all things
with an open mind
and report them
faithfully to Washington.
That's what my President
wants, that's why he sent me.
A very great man,
your President,
with a deep
sympathy for mankind.
Presenter: In the great
Donbas, I saw for myself
the wealth of Russia's
coal resources.
I went down into the mine
and talked with the workers.
Much to my amazement,
I discovered that 30
percent of them are women.
Is it true that, in America,
the women are not
allowed to do work like this?
Well, there's no law against
it, but we don't like to put them
underground until we have to.
[chuckles]
In my early 20s,
I had to assume
the responsibility of
running my father's business.
An American woman
running a business? [chuckles]
We had the impression
that American women
were ornamental
and not useful.
And you thought that our women
were useful, but not ornamental.
[chuckles] I guess
we were both wrong.
I understand you have visited
many other sections
of the Soviet Union.
Davies: I've been greatly
impressed by what I've seen.
I believe, sir, that
history will record you
as a great builder for
the benefit of mankind.
We feel more friendly
toward the government
of the United States
than any other nation.
Russia will never stop
fighting its fascist foe.
They will defend
their cities,
they will fight
in their streets,
in their forests,
behind the German lines
and over them in the air.
[audience applaud]
How do we know that
we can trust Russia?
Sit down.
Joan: There were certainly
sectors of the population
that were very
strongly anti-Soviet,
but normal-life people
weren't really aware of that.
Were aware of the Russians
being heroic, and they were.
[majestic music playing]
They'd lost 20 million
people in the war.
Twenty million!
And they were
defending Europe,
they were... [chuckles]
...they were beating the Nazis
and they were saving
the world for civilization.
That's not...
not too extreme.
Ted: A number of scientists
raised the question,
"What kind of terms
are we going to be on
after the war if we
exclude the Russians?"
"What will be the
consequences if it isn't shared?"
In fact, some extremely
eminent scientists
were worried about
this question and said
that the knowledge
should be shared.
Niels Bohr was, I think,
most prominent and
he wasn't listened to.
These two sets of ideas
co-existed within my head.
One was, it's a lovely world,
we've seen the light,
we're getting through
with a Second World War
and things are
going to be good.
And then off in one corner,
there was this little question,
but suppose
it isn't like that.
What if, uh...
there's a disintegration
into disharmony
between the nations after
the Second World War?
And what if a capitalist system
generates another Nazi Germany?
Maybe even the United States
might turn into
something like that.
Interviewer: Ted,
I'm just trying to sail
close to the wind here.
I am trying to see the
point at which you convert,
as it were, thinking,
into some sort of action.
Did that seem like breaking
a taboo to you in any way?
It seemed to me that, uh...
Well, it would,
superficially,
would certainly
break some taboos
and it's not the kind of
thing one is told to do.
You... you're
supposed to know
the difference between
right and wrong and...
But there are situations
that aren't that simply, uh...
aren't that simply described.
Joseph: As they were
approaching success,
they gave him a...
a pass to go back
to New York for
his 19th birthday.
And there, he got in touch
with his friend Saville Sax,
and they had decided
they wanted to get in touch
with the Soviets.
Marcia: They decided the
only place they could talk
about this was in a rowboat.
Think you've
rowed far enough?
Well, I'm trying to get us
away from everybody else.
Marcia: And they went out
and talked about, "So
what are we gonna do now?"
And they said, "Well,
we can't just walk
into the Soviet
consulate, right?
And say, 'Here, we've got
this information for you.'"
It's too risky. So let me go.
You want to go and say what?
Well, I'll go under the pretense
that I'm trying to find out
information about my
grandparents in Vinnytsia.
Boria: I think they
were very close,
but on some level,
Savy wanted to be Ted.
Ted had this
reputation for brilliance.
You're doing something
incredibly brave here.
Marcia: They did actually
finally get someone
who would agree
to talk with them.
How were you
treated by the agents
of the Soviet government?
They were not
threatening in any way.
They didn't, in any way,
match the stereotype
of the heartless,
cruel, ruthless,
completely
unscrupulous automatons.
They even had senses of humor
and, uh, certainly
of compassion.
I'm sure that they
had capabilities
of being very indecent
towards some people.
Joan: "For the record,
could you give an account
of what technical information
did you actually transmit
to the Soviets?"
Well, I did transmit
a list of names
of some of the physicists
who were working.
Joseph: Igor Kurchatov,
the head of the Soviet
Atomic Research Program,
realized this was
really important stuff.
They had no idea who
was out there at Los Alamos.
So, he was already
doing something
which was illegal
and potentially could
have gotten him put in jail
for many years.
- At the age of 19.
- Yeah.
And he did agree to continue.
[mysterious music playing]
Marcia: Ted and
Savy worked up
this whole elaborate system
of using Walt Whitman's
Leaves of Grass,
certain pages, and
there were codes
that they could
tell to each other.
So he would send a letter
about page such and such,
what a wonderful poem this is
and somehow it translated
into, "Come and meet me."
Ted sort of described
it as almost a comedy.
In Albuquerque,
they just both walked
up to each other
and sort of met in
the middle of a street
and the agents, at
a later point, said,
"Oh, my gosh,
don't ever do that."
You know, "You can't both
come from different directions
and meet in the middle
of a street like that."
Joseph: But it was during that
time that Ted did pass along
the rough plans for
the implosion bomb.
Ted: I transmitted the
concept of the implosion,
in which you design the
explosive in such a way,
when the explosives
are exploded,
the fissionable material
is squeezed down.
And it will be a very
rapid energy release
and the exploding bomb.
It was one of the
major secrets of the war.
Ted had passed along
the first information
the Soviets received
that actually showed
the diagram of this bomb
that would blow up Nagasaki.
It corroborated the
information given by Fuchs.
Joseph: Stalin would
have been very dubious
about just getting the version
from one spy, Klaus Fuchs,
who was, after all, a German.
The fact that they
had identical versions
from two spies in
two different divisions
was very persuasive.
And so, they were able
to devote billions of rubles
at a time when the economy
could not have allowed them
to work on a
speculative project.
We feel this probably
speeded up the Soviet
development of the bomb
by about five years or so.
Ted: I was there.
The test was carried out in
an almost deserted region.
There were people
who lived there
and, uh, an emergency
might develop,
in which they would have
to be evacuated very rapidly.
So I was with a
bunch of the GIs
and we just whiled
away the time
talking about this,
that and the other.
I remember a lot of
the discussion, uh...
[chuckles]
...was about whether marriage
would endure as an institution
and whether it wasn't true
that as people's lifestyles change,
you could expect marriage to be
a sensible arrangement anymore.
So that's the subject
that we worked on
while we were waiting
for the explosion.
And then the time came.
[dramatic music playing]
Ted: And it was a
rather awesome sight.
And certainly
made people think,
"What the hell is this and
what are we getting into?"
[dramatic music concludes]
Ted: The mood was
generally one of celebration.
It was a... quite
a striking success.
["As Time Goes By"
by Rudy Valle Plays]
This day and
age We're living in
Gives cause For
apprehension...
Ted: I didn't go to
any of the parties.
People got noisemakers
and they lit little fires.
...We get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein's
theory
So we must get
down To earth at times
Relax Relieve
the tension...
I was peeved by the
reaction of my colleagues.
I didn't think that
this was quite the way
to react to such a
foreboding event.
[cheering in distance]
Ted: I went back
to a dormitory
where I played some music
in my crummy record player.
...Still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die...
Ted: I mean, it's as if I was
in a little isolation facility,
apart from everybody else.
[cheering in distance]
A large group of physicists
in the Manhattan Project
wrote a letter to Truman,
who was the
president at that time,
that they didn't sign up for
working on this to bomb Japan.
So they proposed
why don't we have
a demonstration blast
in the desert and invite
Japanese military officials?
Others said we should
just drop the project
because there were many
secret communications
that were intercepted
that suggested that Japan
was about to surrender.
They gave the letter
to Leslie Groves for
transmission to Truman.
Leslie Groves did not agree,
so Truman never
got that letter.
It's probably
unlikely that Truman
would have been convinced.
We know now from a memoir
that General
Eisenhower recalled
when Secretary of
War Stimson briefed him
on the forthcoming
use of the bomb.
I voiced to him my
belief that, quote,
"Japan was at that very moment
seeking some way to surrender
with a minimum loss of face
and that dropping the bomb
was completely unnecessary."
And I thought that...
"Our country should avoid
shocking the world opinion
by the use of a weapon
who employment was,
I thought, no
longer mandatory
as a measure to
save American lives."
The political target
of the bombing
was evidently
the Soviet Union.
If the Russians were
about to invade Japan,
the U.S. wanted to say,
"It was our atomic bomb
that made Japan collapse."
"It was not the Russians."
[dramatic music
in newsreel playing]
Presenter: Every
type of transportation
was completely wiped out.
All institutions
and organizations,
public and private,
were destroyed.
Over the radio from
the United States
came the announcement
that the deadly weapon
was the atomic bomb,
the first ever
used in the world.
As the situation
quieted down,
it became clear how
fearful the bomb was.
Fearful beyond ordinary
human imagination.
Reporter: This is
Major Tom Ferebee
of Marksville,
North Carolina,
bombardier of the
first atomic bomber.
Would you give us
some of your reactions
over the target of Hiroshima?
Uh, my navigator had me
perfectly lined
up with the target.
When I touched
down on my site,
I could clearly see the city of
Hiroshima within my bombsite.
After we felt the
explosion hit the airplane,
that is the concussion waves,
we turned around
to take a look at it.
The sight that
greeted our eyes
was quite beyond
what we had expected
because we saw this cloud
of boiling dust and debris.
Beneath that was
hidden the ruins
of the city of Hiroshima.
The world will note that
the first atomic bomb
was dropped on
Hiroshima, a military base.
That was because we
wished in this first attack
to avoid, in so
far as possible,
the killing of civilians.
Presenter: Hiroshima,
seen from the air,
after the atomic bomb blast
that virtually
erased this city
of 340,000 people
from the Earth.
As far as the eye can see,
stretched scenes of
desolation and ruin.
Four square miles
leveled by one bomb.
The product of allied science
and a climactic answer to
the terror and aggression
let loose upon the
world by Japan.
Daniel: The U.S. said,
we had to do the bombing
because otherwise, we
would have to invade Japan
and that would have cost
20,000 American troops
that they would
lose their lives.
Presenter: At the
end of two weeks,
which was the
critical period,
burns and cuts, which
appeared to be curing,
suddenly worsened.
Hemorrhages developed,
which could not be stopped.
Many died and the
number of deaths
kept mounting
from day-to-day.
Daniel: Since hundreds
of thousands of people died
in this atomic bombing,
that number of
American troops
continually got inflated.
A hundred thousand,
then it was a quarter million,
a half a million, until
finally, a few years later,
Truman would say,
"We saved a million lives
of American troops
because of the bombing."
Ted: Two hundred thousand
people had been incinerated
and nobody seemed
to care much.
Worse than just callousness
and I don't know
how to describe it,
except as maybe uncivilized.
I remember it was
a jukebox and, uh,
incessantly all day long,
people was playing
some damn record
that went something like,
"Nagasaki, Hiroshima,
blah, blah, blah, blah,"
in a tone of jubilation.
And, "Oh boy, ain't we great?
Look what we did, we
really smashed 'em."
Hiroshima, Nagasaki paid
A big price for their sins
When scorched
From the face of earth
Their battle
could not win
But on that day of judgment
When comes a greater power
We will not know the minute
And we'll not know the hour
Atomic power,
atomic power
Was given By the
mighty hand of God
Atomic power...
With this bomb,
we have now added
a new and revolutionary
increase in destruction.
We have spent more
than two billion dollars
on the greatest achievement
of organized science in history.
...It was given By the
mighty hand of God...
[song concludes]
I was afraid that a state
with such a monopoly
might spell...
might trigger very
catastrophic events.
The main enemy
was viewed to be Russia
after the war was over.
[ominous music playing]
Daniel: A series of
plans were drawn up,
these were all
secret, with names
like Pincher and
Broiler and Shakedown,
to figure out
how many atomic
bombs would be needed
to defeat the Soviet Union.
Joan: The generals,
since about 1945,
were actually making plans
to drop atom bombs
on Russian cities.
- [siren wailing in distance]
- [music continues]
They wanted to bomb
the Russians to shit.
Daniel: They figured
they really need
a lot of atomic bombs
dropped on the Soviet Union
to cripple it,
so it couldn't retaliate by
invading Western Europe,
which we could not combat.
On the side of
the United States,
we're looking at the
nuclear war planners,
being largely
from Wall Street.
A very large portion of them
were Wall Street
bankers and industrialists.
They had a view that the
bomb would be a monopoly
and allow the U.S.
to easily take over
the imperial role
around the world.
Bankers and industrialists
want economic domination.
Right after the war,
there was an agreement
between the four allies,
England, France,
U.S., and Russia,
to split the oil in Iran.
The U.S. decided
that the Soviet Union
should not share
any of that oil.
So, the Soviets were
very angry about that
and moved troops to
their border with Iran
to enforce what they said
would be an equal
share of the oil.
So, Truman made a threat
that if you don't
pull your troops back
from that border
within 48 hours,
we will bomb you.
And it was clear to the Soviets
we were talking atomic bombs.
The Soviets withdrew
their troops in 24 hours.
Man: [in Russian]
[clock ticking]
Man:
[explosion]
Joan: [in English] I
remember the day
when the announcement came
that the Soviets had
exploded a bomb.
[dramatic music
playing over radio]
News anchor: President
Truman's dramatic announcement
that Russia has created
an atomic explosion
sends reporters racing
for Flushing Meadow,
where Russia's
Vyshinsky arrives
to address the
United Nations.
Joan: We said
nothing, of course.
News anchor: ...about Russia's
atomic progress in his address.
He accuses the West
of planning atomic war...
Joan: But immediately
after lunch went for a walk.
And I felt so proud of him,
as if he had done it all
by himself. [chuckles]
It was after that, the
whole propaganda apparatus
was devoted to scaring the
hell out of the American public.
There's a Communist
Ambition now
To rule or wreck us all
With atomic ammunition
They would
like To see us fall
Peaceful men
of every nation
Would become
As common slaves
We'll prevent That
situation better
We shall fill
our graves...
Let's give Jerry a nightmare,
a real red nightmare.
[dramatic music
playing in film]
- Soldier: I'll be upstairs.
- Jerry: Hey!
What is this? Where do
you think you're going?
We have no time
for explanation.
I don't care who
sent you or why.
You're not gonna take another
step until I see a warrant.
It's true, Daddy. I did
volunteer for farm work.
But Linda, why?
The party convinced me
that I should free myself
of the lingering bourgeois
influence of family life.
It's your fault.
You should have spent
more time training us
to think along party lines.
It will be my
duty to report you.
...Here's a
question Mr. Stalin
And it's you
Who must decide
When atomic
bombs Start falling
Do you have
A place to hide?
[song concludes]
Boria: I don't think
you should overestimate
the historical or
political sophistication
of either my
father or Ted Hall,
but I do feel that what
they did was wrong.
The thing that makes it wrong
is the association with Stalin,
you know, a mass murderer.
They did look the other way
as far as the crimes of Stalin.
Joan: The terrible facts,
many of which were true
and some of which were not,
were all propounded by
the enemies of socialism,
and we were for socialism.
It was very difficult to know
exactly how to
relate to these things
and the Communist
Party, etcetera,
declared it all lies.
Most of the leadership
of the political apparatus
in the Soviet Union was
wiped out under Stalin.
And the military
also was decimated.
It still is a great enigma
and a very difficult question,
how to reconcile
the possibilities
of the coexistence
of these backward and
forward-looking features.
I felt a tremendous compassion
for the Russian people
and their suffering.
And certainly didn't feel
this tender feeling
towards the Russian state.
Joan: The fact is
that he did say,
in later years,
that had he then
known of all the horrors
perpetrated by the
Soviet government,
he wouldn't have had the
stomach to pass information to them.
That is very possibly
true, but it's also the case
that if he hadn't done it,
it would have been a misfortune
for the world. [chuckles]
We actually joined
the Communist Party
because they seemed to be
the most decisive opposition
of the American Right
and the Republicans and
people who were against unions.
And against strikes
and against Black
people very often.
I mean, this was
Trumpian, basically.
These were the people who were
wanting to make war on Russia
after the Second World War
had finished with all its horrors.
Ted was trying to
prevent a holocaust,
not to advantage
the Soviet Union,
not to disadvantage
the United States.
Interviewer: Do you have any
idea, Ted, what was at stake
if they had been able
to pin something on you?
Phew. Um...
Well, the obvious,
um, similar situation
was the Rosenberg case.
[dramatic music
playing in film]
Presenter: Someone had passed
America's atomic
bomb secrets to Russia.
This was an undisputed fact
that the whole world knew.
The federal government
had laid the crime
at the doorstep of
two native New Yorkers,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Their trial had excited
interest all over the world.
The two admitted Communist
Party members knew
that they faced
possible death sentences
in the event of
their conviction,
but to the end,
they both protested
their innocence of the theft.
And we followed the
case with grief and anxiety.
[crowd chanting]
Joan: I mean, a lot of
people were maintaining
that the Rosenbergs
hadn't done anything.
Ted, privately and
secretly, he told me
he did think they had
been involved in something.
He didn't know
anything about them.
He just speculated that
there was something behind it.
Joseph: Hoover
was very invested
in trying to win a conviction
and then the execution of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
who actually were
guilty of, if anything,
passing along a much
less important piece
of a secret about Los Alamos.
The Rosenbergs
were, uh, small fish
compared to Ted Hall.
[tense music playing]
Joan: February 1951,
was when he was
arrested by the FBI.
Ted: The FBI called me in.
Their agents came
around one day
and asked me please to
come and accompany them
to the Chicago office.
Marcia: The FBI
had been apprised
of these Venona documents,
which were translations of
secret cables that were sent
from the Moscow Intelligence
Center in New York,
back home to Moscow,
saying Teodor Kholl
was one of the now
assets of the Soviet Union.
And it looked a lot
like Theodore Hall.
And so, that was when
the hunt resumed.
We would like to ask
you some questions
about your time working
at Los Alamos as a physicist.
I'm happy to answer
a couple of questions.
Marcia: The lead
investigator on this
was Robert McQueen.
This interview will
consist of questions
about espionage
at Los Alamos.
Do you know this
man, Julius Rosenberg?
His wife, Ethel?
I've seen it in
the newspapers.
McQueen: Do you know them?
I don't know them personally.
Ted: They dumped
a picture on the table
and said, "Do you
recognize this person?"
"Do you know who this is
and do you know who that is?"
Young Ted: And I don't
recognize the name
of the other gentleman
you mentioned either.
They were very
careful to not let Ted
and those agents
of the Soviet Union
know that the
Americans had broken
the World War
II Venona codes.
Sometimes they...
they turned pretty nasty.
McQueen: We have evidence
that you furnished
classified information,
provided it to a
Russian operative...
Joan: But he was very aware
that they were trying
to intimidate him
and one thing they were doing
was keeping the...
the office overheated.
McQueen: Kornikov
approached you
about furnishing
classified information.
Joan: So that he
would feel all sweaty.
He... he figured that
was what was going on.
McQueen: ...and you and
Saville Sax began to do so.
Young Ted: It's not
true. I've never shared
any classified information.
Joan: But he was just
sitting there calmly.
He had an ability to
just to sit, not moving.
McQueen: Aren't you and Sax a
member of the Communist Party?
Com... Absolutely not.
Ted: At one point,
they both just left me
in the room for a while.
We'll be right back.
Savy, who, as
a matter of fact,
was also detained
at the same time
and interviewed in the room
next to the room where Ted was.
Ted and Savy had
discussed this prospect
and they had made a plan.
What were they
going to tell them
and how are
they going to act?
And Sax, who had an
interesting background
in drama and
all sorts of things,
just put on a big act of,
"Gee, I don't have a
very good memory."
"I can't remember this."
"I don't know
about these things."
His eccentricity
protected him.
How could this really
eccentric guy be a spy?
It doesn't even make sense.
I think he seemed
less threatening.
And then I heard
the most awful
sounds of anguish
and grief coming...
coming through the partition,
and from the next room.
McQueen: You came up with a
plan about how you'd become spies,
you eventually
provided them with...
Ted: In which they
were threatening him
with imprisonment.
Savy: I can't remember,
I have a bad memory
and can't recall
what we talked about.
McQueen: Do you know what
the penalty is for espionage?
Joan: And Savy was
much more vulnerable,
and they were
trying to play Ted
and Savy off
against each other.
McQueen: We could help
you avoid the electric chair.
Savy: Please,
I have a family.
Joan: Savy, mixed up as
he was, unstable as he was,
rose to the occasion.
McQueen: You want
to see your family again,
you better start
cooperating with us.
He knew but he didn't talk.
He cried but he didn't talk.
Ted: And then these two
guys came back to question me
further and I think they
were just trying to scare me
or get me in a more
susceptible mood.
Mr. Hall, do you consent to a
search of your work and home?
Do you have a search warrant?
FBI Agent: Do you
have something to hide?
Marcia: Ted was a little bit
more aggressive with them.
They did ask him, "Did
you provide information
about the bomb to
the Soviet Union?"
I know the kinds of
fishing expeditions
that occur in small
rooms like these.
Marcia: He said, "So, you guys,
you use really bad methods."
"I've read about some of
the things that you've done."
"Why are you doing this
and why did you bring me in?"
Ted was a person
who did not lie.
He never lied to me.
I never lied to him.
It was quite
extraordinary... [chuckles]
...I think, in
matrimonial relations.
[chuckles] But that was
the big lie that Ted told
and that was the only lie
of his life as far as I know.
And it was one
that had to be done.
[dramatic music playing]
[birds chirping]
[Young Joan
speaking indistinctly]
Hey...
Joan: He came home
and told me briefly
that they had
interrogated him.
We have to get
rid of everything.
- Young Joan: Everything?
- Anything progressive,
anything
incendiary, all of it.
- Okay.
- Young Ted: All of it.
Joan: And what we had
to do now was to collect
all the left wing
literature in the house.
[dramatic music continues]
[Ruthie crying]
[Young Joan
speaking indistinctly]
It's okay, sweetheart.
Let's go.
Joan: As we got into the car,
Ted pointed out to me a
guy standing on the corner.
He said he was one of them,
one of the FBI guys.
[car engine revs]
Joan: We drove to the
home of some friends
who were active with
us in our political work,
and we handed them
the membership files
because I was
membership secretary
of the Progressive
Party in that time,
and... and we told them we
had to drop out of all activity.
They were bewildered, "Why?"
We couldn't explain.
And then we drove to a spot
where the Chicago drainage
canal passes under a bridge,
got out, leaving
Ruthie in the back seat.
[footsteps receding]
[dramatic music playing]
Joan: And then we drove
home and we went to bed.
I am at a loss to explain
how we managed to...
retain our cool.
It looked as if there
were storm clouds
that were threatening to
destroy us at any moment,
but we didn't know what
was going to happen.
So we just practiced
this nice easy tactic of...
[scoffs] ...ignoring things
as much as possible,
ignoring danger signals.
Over the weekend,
we went out with
Ted and Savy, and
Savy's wife Sue,
and two push chairs, two
strollers, with babies in.
And we strolled around
through the freezing
cold of Chicago,
trying to figure out the
situation and what to do.
Young Ted: We need to get
our handler some message.
[Ruthie cooing]
Joan: We both realized
that the risk was horrible.
I quail inside even
now when I think how...
my parents would
have reacted,
supposing that
we were arrested
and taken away from Ruthie.
My mother would
have confiscated her.
Uh, I mean, it was
just unbearable.
Young Ted: We'll take
it one day at a time,
but admit nothing.
Joan: We dropped out
of the Communist Party
and the Progressive Party,
which I was
particularly active in.
And... and that meant a lot
to me, and I was very upset.
I was so upset.
I was being a mummy at home,
and this political activity
meant a lot to me.
Not only from the
conscientious political
point of view, I
wasn't selfless,
I was having a good time.
And I was having a lot
of contact with people,
and I felt that I was doing
something worthwhile.
And, uh...
and I wanted to
be part of that.
[somber music playing]
Joan: On Monday morning,
he went in, he kept
his appointment.
FBI Agent: Good
morning, Mr. Hall.
Young Ted: Good morning.
Joan: And they were all prepared
to resume questioning him.
I would like to pick up
exactly where we
left off on Friday.
You were doing some
important work on implosion,
which is precisely
what the Soviets
needed intelligence on.
Have anything to say?
Young Ted: I've...
[smack lips] I've thought
about this quite a bit.
I've spoken to my
wife about it, and...
Joan: He said that
he had decided
not to converse
with them anymore.
And I've decided that...
I don't have anything
else to say on this subject,
and I would like to
end this interview.
FBI Agent: Mr. Hall,
I don't think that's in
your own best interest.
And, uh, he stood up,
preparing to go, and they
started threatening him.
Mr. Hall, do you know
what espionage is?
Sit back down!
Joan: They said you'd
better talk with us
or we're gonna lock
you up right now!
This was a bastard
called McQueen,
who was leading
the investigation.
And Ted sort of shrugged.
I said that I didn't want
to continue any further.
It was getting
nowhere, and I left.
Joan: They followed him,
and he walked
to the elevators.
A whole bunch of guys stood
around and watched him do this.
[elevator bell dings]
They didn't follow him.
[dramatic music playing]
Joan: It took him
to the ground floor,
and he walked out...
into the ice cold, fresh air.
And he practically ran to
catch a taxi and get home.
Marcia: And FBI agent
McQueen was very frustrated
because he had
gotten nothing.
In the '90s, after
McQueen left the FBI
and he was a judge,
he said, "You know,
I really question whether
those Venona documents
would have been
admissible in court."
[doorbell rings]
[ominous music playing]
Joan: One day,
this guy comes up,
and he said he was from
the telephone company
and there was a fault
that he had to correct.
He went into the house,
and he took the phone apart.
We had a knock at the door,
and outside the door was Ed,
Ted's brother, who
joined the Air Force.
Ed! [chuckles]
What a surprise!
I have this brother who
is 11 years older than me
and somewhat of an
engineering genius.
For better or for worse
with regard to the
future of his soul,
he's the person who invented
and was the real architect
of intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
Man: [over radio]
...two, one, zero.
[dramatic music playing]
Joan: We were
delighted to see him.
And then Ed and Ted
went for a long walk,
during which Ed said,
"What sort of a mess
have you got yourself into?"
Young Ted: Oh, my God,
Ed, of course, you know,
I... I didn't mean to get
you in any sort of trouble.
Joan: Ted explained
what he had done
and what the FBI were doing.
I just need to know
what I'm dealing with.
Ed didn't criticize
him in any way.
The repairman
finished his repairs,
and then Ed and Ted came back
and Ed went over
to the telephone...
[ominous music playing]
Joan: ...listened,
went... [blows air]
[chuckles]
...made gestures
indicating that we
won't talk about this...
that yes, it was bugged.
Joseph: In the decade after
Ted had been instrumental
in making the atomic bomb,
his brother Ed was
instrumental in making America
be able to build
intercontinental rockets.
Interviewer: That
could hold those bombs?
[chuckles]
Theoretically, yeah,
that could theoretically
hold those bombs.
And, uh, and it
might... [chuckles]
It might have been very
awkward for the powers-that-be,
if they aimed a punch at me
and they ended up... [chuckles]
...hitting him by mistake.
It would have been a
deep disgrace for them,
if it were found out that
their chief rocket expert
was the brother of
their atom spy. [laughs]
It's a beautiful
picture. [laughs]
He would never have, um...
chastised me or, um,
attacked me in any way anyhow.
I said to Ed, "You
know, we really...
we really appreciate the
way you reacted to this thing,"
and he said, "How else
could I have reacted?"
And he really... he
really had no idea.
This was his brother, what
on earth could he have...
could he have thought?
Whatever his
brother does is okay.
That's the way it is.
and he said, "Well, well, well,
sure, go ahead." [chuckles]
"Withdraw my clearance,
you've seen the end of me."
[chuckles]
Well, that's one fact that
most people don't know about
when they raise the
question of why I...
wasn't locked up.
[dramatic music playing]
Joan: We did a lot
of driving around
in our little old car.
The FBI started following us,
and I would sit beside Ted,
and when he
noticed in the mirror
that there was a car behind,
he would go like that,
indicating that we had a tail.
They tailed us
all over the place
for no absolute purpose
from their point of view,
because we didn't go anyplace
that they were interested in.
I think it was
just harassment.
But we took that as well
with complete
composure, both of us.
And from then on, I
had this secret with him,
which we never spoke
about because he was...
he was afraid of microphones.
The FBI continued
questioning all sorts of
people who were in the circle
of friends and
family members,
and, you know, it caused
quite a bit of discomfort.
Supposing that
we were arrested,
both of us, like
the Rosenbergs...
Oh, God, I mean, the disgrace
among all our acquaintances,
and family and friends, phew.
Didn't bear thinking about.
We both felt things
may go very, very wrong.
[inhales] The
danger was extreme.
Must have been sometime
during the spring,
Ted, he had actually
going for a walk
with his Russian guy,
who came to Chicago.
The only way out of
it, apart from the FBI
changing their minds
and leaving us alone,
was to be taken
off to the Soviet Union
and be evacuated.
Secretly, I rather relished
the idea of going to Russia
and learning Russian.
[chuckles] Like a fool.
This Russian guy,
he indicated that if
we were in New York,
they could help us more.
And as it happened, Ted
had just finished his PhD.
So he applied for a job
at the Sloan
Kettering Institute
for Cancer Research
in New York City.
They hired him
for the princely sum of I
think 6000 dollars a year.
To my mother's
hysterical displeasure,
we left Chicago and
moved to New York.
[soft music playing]
Joan: We bought a nice
little house in Connecticut.
Debbie was born
in 1954 in May...
and we began
living a suburban life,
in which my role was
to keep the house going
and look after the kids.
And I was really...
fairly successful in
my role as a mother,
but when it came to
keeping house, I was rotten,
and it was a source
of great conflict
between me and
Ted. [chuckles]
Because I did not really like
accepting that my destiny
was to keep the
house clean, and...
And I had nobody to talk to.
There was nobody
that I could speak to
about things that
really concerned me.
I was friendly with some
of the women around there,
but all that one can
really speak about was
babies and labor
pains, and...
cooking and stuff.
[chuckles] And, well, that...
that... that interested me to
some degree, there's a limit.
Interviewer:
But, politics, no.
Joan: Absolutely not.
[soft music concludes]
[dramatic music playing]
Presenter: One of the
greatest peacetime spy dramas
in the nation's history
reaches its climax
as Julius Rosenberg and
Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg,
who, with her
husband, was convicted
of actually transmitting
the secrets to Russia
through Soviet
diplomatic channels,
enter the Federal Building in
New York to hear their doom.
It is a stern jurist they face
in Judge Irving Kaufman.
He sentenced both Rosenbergs
to death in the electric chair.
It is the first
time in peacetime
that such a death penalty
has been handed down,
and while appeals to the
highest courts are planned,
it certainly appears
that the spies
are headed along
a one-way street.
When the verdict came
down, and they were
sentenced to be executed...
we didn't know what
was going to happen.
Knowing Ted, he felt
kind of responsible in a...
funny kind of way.
He was doing it,
and he was getting off
at the moment scot-free.
And he told me beforehand
that he was going to offer
to confess his role in the
hope of saving their lives.
I told him absolutely don't
be silly, it wouldn't save them,
and it would destroy us.
And he accepted
my view of things.
So he gave up the quixotic
idea of sacrificing his life,
and my life,
and Ruthie's life
for the salvation
of the Rosenbergs,
which probably wouldn't
have happened anyway.
The night of the execution,
we were invited to a party.
It was an invitation from
my department head
and something that
would be very, very,
very strange to refuse.
[scoffs] I put on my
most decent dress,
and we got into the
car and drove out.
[Mahler playing over radio]
Joan: We had the radio on,
it was playing a
Mahler Symphony,
which, for Ted, had always
had a very profound...
link with him somehow,
and later with me,
when he played it for me.
It was the last movement
of the Ninth Symphony,
which is a farewell.
As it happens, our
route from our house
to their house took
us right past Sing Sing.
It was pretty close.
Joan: The execution
was planned.
It had to be before sunset
to comply with some
kind of Jewish law.
And the combination
of this music,
and what we knew was going on
a few miles away from
us, was, uh, an experience.
It was excruciating,
it was excruciating.
We both sat there,
like, I don't know what,
looking into space and
hanging onto ourselves.
We didn't speak.
And we got up to the party,
and we went in and there
were all these people laughing
and drinking and...
hanging around in
garden chairs and so on.
And, at the earliest
possible, decent moment,
we made an escape
and drove home.
But we didn't talk about
it. There was nothing to say.
Ted: And it certainly, uh,
brought home the fact that
there were flames
consuming people,
and that we were pretty
close to being consumed.
[somber music playing]
Ted: It could
easily be imagined.
Joan: One of the
traumatic things about it
was the jubilation
expressed by large swathes
of the American
population, and of course,
the morbid...
fascination of the media with
the details of these deaths.
[somber music continues]
Joan: It was hideous, it
was really, really awful.
You think the United
States is an ugly place now,
it was worse then.
But after that, we felt that
getting out of the United States
into a foreign country would
be less menacing for us,
but it wasn't the
one deciding factor.
Ruthie finished
elementary school,
and she would have
been absolutely wrong for
junior high school, it
would've been wrong for her.
She was a...[chuckles]
...very intellectual child,
and she didn't go
for all the girly stuff
that people went for.
The whole lipstick
and high heels
and that kind of crap
just didn't appeal to her.
I was fascinated with
the idea of going abroad.
I was always
fascinated with Europe.
He went to a
conference in New York,
and which was
attended by Dr. Cosslett,
who was head of the
electron microscope section
at the Cavendish
Lab in Cambridge.
And they discussed whether
Ted could come to Cambridge
on a one-year contract,
and create an instrument
with localizing elements
within organic tissue.
The idea of going
to Cambridge,
the idea of doing that
particular research,
all caught the
imagination of both of us,
and we decided to come.
Interviewer: You were 12 when
you moved here, was that hard?
- It was wonderful.
- [Sara chuckles]
Ruth: It was a big
adventure. We didn't fly here.
We came over on
the Queen Mary.
Sara: Mm-hmm.
I mean, here was this new world
where you could be an atheist
and say so.
[chuckles] You know.
And communist, even,
wasn't a dirty word.
When we moved
here, it was different.
She took up her life again.
You know, she wasn't at home,
but thank goodness for her,
you know, she went
back to do a degree,
and then ended up teaching,
but yeah, Italian
Russian literature.
All my grandparents
were Russian.
They spoke Russian
between themselves,
and I felt that I had been
cheated out of it somehow,
and I wanted to recover it.
And so I studied
the Russian language
and Russian literature
with great enjoyment.
Since you have to do two
languages at Cambridge,
Italian was my
second language.
I taught Italian
for 20 years.
Interviewer: So
you enjoyed it?
Joan: Oh, very much.
[chuckles]
This was, uh, what he sent
to the Harvard University
Alumni Association.
"Dear Report Chairman,
my wife and I
have three children.
She teaches Italian language
and literature in a college
and I am doing technical work
in biology and physics
in the university here.
I do not believe
there is anything worth
noting in our personal histories."
One of the people we
interviewed was a retired CIA agent
named Cleveland Cram.
Cram said the FBI
put up the Brits
to come and interview Ted.
They came and said,
"Well, we're not the FBI."
"You can talk to us freely."
Joan: And they told him,
"We know what you've done,
now why don't you
just come clean?
Think how much
better you'll feel."
And Ted was very
much tempted.
Because he
didn't like to lie,
but he wisely told the guy
he'd have to think about it.
He came home,
and we were walking
along Grantchester Street,
I remember, and he told me
he was sort of
tempted to do that,
and I stopped in my tracks,
and I said, "You will
tell them nothing!"
And he says, "Do you think
so?" I said, "Absolutely."
"You stick to your story.
You had nothing to do with it."
And he said, "All right,
if that's what you think,
that's what I'll do."
I mean, they were
hand-in-glove with the FBI,
and it would have
been a disaster.
Joseph: What his career,
what his achievements
might have been like,
had he not been a
Soviet spy at Los Alamos.
He spent ten years
at Sloan Kettering
trying to cure cancer.
He was one of the pioneers of
science of electron microscopy.
Ted Hall was a man
with a remarkable mind.
Sarah: My father
explained everything to me
when I was 12 or 13.
What he had done,
and what his motive was.
So, I listened
and I respected it,
but I didn't sit around
thinking about it a lot.
I mean, I was 12.[chuckles]
Sarah: I had other
things on my mind.
- Interviewer: Was he proud?
- I think so.
I think he was, and
I think he also, like,
had some self-doubt
that he didn't express,
and some concern
about what he had done,
like whether it was the right
thing or the wrong thing,
but he never
admitted to that.
Boria: My parents constantly
had FBI agents, um,
posted outside their house,
and people going
through their garbage,
and their phones tapped,
and, well, uh... a lot
of the paranoia, and...
Interviewer: So, when he
told you about the spying,
did you believe him?
No. [laughs] No, I didn't.
I just mostly just banished
the idea from my mind,
until a Washington
Post reporter called me
and told me that
he'd found that out.
Well, uh, he... he'd
been dead for a while.
And um... I, uh...
I felt... completely
exhausted,
totally drained,
utterly devastated.
Crowd: [chanting] Free
our sisters! Free ourselves!
Free our sisters!
Free ourselves!
- Woman: What do we want?
- Crowd: Equal pay!
- Woman: What do we want?
- Crowd: Liberation!
Joan: It was just towards
the end of the '60s
when the feminist
movement came along,
and I was totally
committed to that.
I joined the first feminist
group I could find.
Crowd: [chanting]
They had started a
Marxist study group,
in which we were
reading Capital,
page by page, out
loud and discussing it.
Wow, was that valuable.
And that gave me a much
better idea than I had before
of what Marx was all about.
We were Marxist and
communist in our thinking.
But we did become
aware of the fact
that the Russians didn't
seem to give much support
to revolutionary tendencies
in other countries.
Reporter: In the Czech
capital, thousands rejoiced
in their newfound
free way of life.
But the Red Army was back.
Joan: And the tanks
rolled into Czechoslovakia.
Reporter: The hammer
and sickle had returned
to a pound and cut
the Czechs' hopes
of a liberal self-governing
communist way of life.
Joan: They seemed to be running
their own communist empire.
I mean, these things
were really traumatic.
Interviewer: As the arms
race between the Soviet Union
and the United States escalated
to outrageous proportions,
did that feed any regrets
or concerns about
what he'd done?
It certainly confirmed
Ted's view about the dangers
inherent in the way the
United States was being run,
the American military... the
military industrial complex,
as Eisenhower sweetly put it.
We have been
compelled to create
a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions,
the acquisition of
unwarranted influence
by the military
industrial complex.
[ominous music playing]
Joan: The arms race
was a complete farce
at the expense of
the American people.
The American military
perpetrated this notion
of parity, that we had to
keep up with the Russians,
we had to outstrip them,
we had to make more bombs
than they did. But the fact is,
if the United States
had 100 atomic bombs,
and the Soviets had
110 atomic bombs,
the deterrent effect
would still hold.
One bomb was enough to
cause a world catastrophe.
Reporter: With
atomic warheads,
guided missiles traveling
at 3,000 miles an hour
will bring still another
dimension to global warfare.
Daniel: The U.S. was
always considerably ahead.
The goal of the U.S. was
to try to be so far ahead
that it could carry
out a first strike
against the Soviet Union,
and not suffer too
much of a response.
That's why both sides
have so many different
types of nuclear weapons
mounted on so many
different delivery systems.
[reporter speaking Russian]
Man: [translating in
English] Objectives deep
in enemy territory
will be destroyed
by intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
All situations on land and
in the air are being met.
It would be better now to
restrict the term Cold War
to refer to the war
which is being waged
by militarism, against
the population of the earth.
I think I judge him
much more charitably
now than I did initially.
Through my younger years,
I was very angry at Savy.
Part of the reason why I
wrote my book, Stealing Fire,
was to lay that anger aside.
Ted had the sort
of accomplishments
that Savy aspired to,
but it was very difficult
for him to match.
For Savy, this was his
big accomplishment,
and I think, he felt that
Ted had sort of stolen
even that from him.
Ted had taken his glory,
Ted had taken his girl,
and Ted had so
much else besides.
Sarah: Okay,
this is a sculpture
that I did of
my father, um...
Also, like when,
when people die,
I start painting and drawing
and sculpting them. [chuckles]
It's kind of my... part
of my grieving process.
I made it on a
papier-mch core,
and I felt that the
crumbling kind of also showed
his depression and
some lack of fulfillment
in certain regards.
We've had to
move around a lot.
My grandfather bought
this property in the '30s.
Savy used to love this river
that runs through
this property here.
And his ashes were
scattered in the river.
And I made this portrait
of like, him in the water.
More than him being a
spy, he was my father.
And I feel that he
deserves my loyalty.
Ruth: I remember
the Cuban Missile Crisis,
and there was a
demonstration going past
of loads of people,
like, "Don't bomb."
And I was there tugging
at Ted's arm, saying,
"Come on, come on." You
know, "What are you waiting for?"
- You know, "Come!"
- Sara: Yeah.
I remember him standing
there just standing stock still,
just standing, then he
said, "What the hell?"
And he took me by the arm,
and we went and we
joined the demonstration.
Mmm.
And I couldn't understand.
Sara: That's the thing,
the way that I looked
at Joanie and Teddy.
Growing up, I had known them
to be utterly through
and through...
um, desiring a
better world...
and believing that a
revolution was necessary...
but not acting,
- not actually being activists.
- Ruth: Yeah.
And so growing
up as a teenager,
I was a bit scornful.
- Ruth: Scornful?
- A little bit.
You know, all the talk, and...
but what are they doing?
- Ruth: Right.
- Sara: When I was about 20,
listening to the
radio one day,
I heard a program, by chance,
about the Manhattan Project.
And, um, I listened to it
and then I phoned
up and I asked Teddy,
I said, "I've just heard
this radio program."
[chuckles] "Were you there?"
Ruth: [laughs] God!
So, he said, "Yes."
- Pause.
- Ruth: Pause. [chuckles]
And he said, "Yes,"
and he explained to me
that he had...
um...
The motivation was to develop
the bomb before the Germans.
That was how he
justified doing it.
Ruth: Well, that was
the reason he did it.
Yes, that's right,
and he told me
about how he'd felt
when they tested it...
Ruth: Right.
...and how he... People
had been celebrating
and he felt really awful
and he had just
gone back to his room.
Ruth: Yeah.
I just thought, "Shit,
he's human." [chuckles]
You know, he's been involved
in designing and making
the most horrendous
thing on earth,
and not something
to be proud of.
I didn't know that
he'd mitigated it,
by making sure that it
was shared information.
Ruth: Right.
- And it never occurred to me.
- Ruth: Yeah.
And then when they told me,
the penny dropped.
Everything...
[clicks tongue]
- Oh.
- Ruth: [chuckles]
Hmm.
So it made sense of...
It made sense of
their life, of our life, of...
[Sara sobs]
Joan: There are elements
of the best parts of Ted
in all of my three kids.
And the things I loved
about him, I love in them.
Sara, being
excessively modest
and didn't like being
compared to her sisters,
and still doesn't,
tended to reject all things
that would make her
look as if she was shining.
Debbie became a young Maoist,
early in the game when
China was the good guys.
She did a lot of anti-Vietnam
War campaigning.
She circulated petitions,
she went on marches,
anything anybody
was doing, she did it.
And studied the violin,
and played years...
years beyond her age.
[violin music playing]
Joan: She was... she
was a phenomenon.
Interviewer: Did you tend
to look at Debbie in particular
as sort of becoming
the activist
that you had maybe
hoped you could have been?
I could never have
been like her. [laughs]
She was a ball of fire.
I never could have been
like her, but yeah, she was...
Part of me wanted her to...
just concentrate on
her wonderful abilities.
Interviewer:
Hmm.
Sara: Just before Debbie
died, Joanie was painting...
- Right.
- ...but she stopped dead...
[chuckles]
...completely stopped.
Ruth: You know, I
think losing a child,
anybody who has a child,
and many people
who don't, can imagine.
Joan: Ted wrote in the
50th Anniversary Report
of the Harvard class of 1944.
[clears throat]
"I'm afflicted with
Parkinson's disease,
and an inoperable cancer,
and I recently
experienced the death
of a dearly loved daughter.
Some of the
horrors in the world,
in the world scene
are incomprehensible,
but life still seems
amazing and beautiful."
Yes, I think that's
amazing and beautiful.
Marcia: At the time,
I think he thought
that he was not going to
live to see this book written,
and I think that he looked
at this as a way to explain
what he had done,
who he was, and why.
[somber music playing]
Joan: So that was the
first blast of publicity,
and there were
cameras outside,
and I tried to
send them packing.
The "wunderkind spy,"
I called it. [chuckles]
And yeah, they
were all excited
about this young, young guy.
Well, he was young.
I mean, the
tabloids were worse.
The other papers reported it
in the usual objective style
that the newspapers claim
to have, which they don't.
I've got a great big stash
of clippings upstairs, which...
Interviewer: I would
like to see them...
By all means, you
can have them
and throw them down
your loo when you're finished.
It didn't cause us
to weep, I'll tell you.
We were disgusted, but...
it didn't hit us
where we lived, no.
Interviewer: And why is that?
We knew they were
bastards, you know.
Interviewer: What should
have been done with Ted Hall?
Shot.
He was a military man.
He was a soldier in
the United States Army.
And that son of a bitch
should have been retrieved,
once we found out
what he had done...
called back into the army,
court-martialed, and
summarily executed.
Interviewer: How
do you personally feel
about what you did?
I have to think, I know that
my body is, uh,
disintegrating
rather slowly and
gracefully, I hope,
but I have to think in
terms of its finiteness...
And then I... I have to
think that, well, that...
that's my history and
that's it, it doesn't...
It would be nice to be proud,
but I'm not... I'm... I'm
not... I'm not a proud person.
Interviewer: What
made you do it?
[scoffs, laughs]
I guess a major factor
would be compassion.
It's a stab at a
description anyway.
[pensive music playing]
Joan: He had been in and
out of hospital a few times.
As things got worse,
they offered this treatment,
that treatment and so on.
At one point, I went home,
to get some dinner
and get some sleep.
Around 7:30, the
telephone rang
and the nurse told me that
about 15 minutes before,
he had passed away.
[sighs]
I went right away...
and came into the
room, talking to him...
about how much I loved him,
and continued
smothering my...
my dead Ted with love
and... sweet nothings.
"What if I had died instead
and left you here
behind, alone in your 80s?
How would you have lived?
Would you have
solved the riddle
of quantum mechanics?
How would you have
remembered me?
Anyway, you'd surely
have married again,
one of those women who
loved you and envied me.
And for long years
of Indian summer,
you would drive
along together
and talk in the
car and in bed,
while my gray ashes
melted silently
into the earth
under the tall
tree in the park.
Ah, now I'm jealous. I want
to be your second wife."
Joan: In my walking days,
when I used to walk to town,
passing by this tree,
people used to
look at me funny
because I would
stop and talk to it.
[chuckles]
And I did explain to one of
them that my husband's ashes
- were buried under there.
- [chuckles]
It's lovely how
the trunk goes up
in the center of that.
This tree is quite exceptional.
It's huge, but very graceful.
Ruth: Yeah, it's amazing.
Joan: It really is a tree
that reminds me of Teddy
because its sturdiness
with grace is sort of him.
Yeah, and he loved it.
And he loved it. He
absolutely loved this tree.
Interviewer: Is there
anything specific
you want to say to
the next generation?
Oh, wow. [chuckles]
I think the next
generation, um...
should realize,
should have to realize
that the world has
come extremely close
to real... actual... Sorry.
[sobs]
I didn't expect that.
[sighs]
The world has
come extremely close
to real actual
total disaster.
Catastrophe.
And that, um...
And that people,
not the government,
but people must...
be concerned
about these things,
and be prepared
to insist, to demand,
to compel
government policies,
which don't put the
world at risk again.
Interviewer: Thank
you very much.
["Violin Sonata No. 24 - II.
Andante" by Mozart Plays]
[music concludes]