Alan Nunn May (sometimes Allan) (2 May 1911 – 12 January 2003) was a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
physicist and a confessed and convicted Soviet
spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
who supplied secrets of British and
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
atomic research to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Early life and education
Nunn May was the youngest of four children of Walter Frederick Nunn May, a
brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
founder, and Mary Annie, née Kendall. He was born in Bedruthan, Park Hill,
Moseley
Moseley is a suburb of south Birmingham, England, south of the city centre. The area is a popular cosmopolitan residential location and leisure destination, with a number of bars and restaurants. The area also has a number of boutiques and ot ...
,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, and educated at
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School (KES) is an independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Founded by Edward VI of England, King Edward VI in 1552, it ...
.
[Cathcart, Brian]
May, Alan Nunn (1911–2003)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
As a scholarship student at
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...
, he achieved a
first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
in physics, which led to
doctoral
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...
studies under
Charles Ellis and lectureship at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
.
Career
Early communist ties
Nunn May joined the
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
in the 1930s and was active in the
Association of Scientific Workers
The Association of Scientific Workers (AScW) was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It was founded as the National Union of Scientific Workers in 1918, changing its name to the Association of Scientific Workers in 1927.
The union largely rep ...
. The
Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for ...
spy ring member
Donald Duart Maclean
Donald Duart Maclean (; 25 May 1913 – 6 March 1983) was a British diplomat who conveyed government secrets to the Soviet Union.
As an undergraduate, Maclean openly proclaimed his left-wing views, and was recruited into the Soviet intelligenc ...
was also at Trinity Hall during an overlapping period.
World War II
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Nunn May initially worked on
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
in
Suffolk
Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...
and then with
Cecil Powell
Cecil Frank Powell, FRS (5 December 1903 – 9 August 1969) was a British physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for heading the team that developed the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of ...
in
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
on a project that attempted to use photographic methods to detect fast particles from
radioactive decay
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
.
James Chadwick
Sir James Chadwick, (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974) was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspi ...
recruited him to a
Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
team working on a possible
heavy water reactor. The team was part of the British
Tube Alloys
Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the Bri ...
directorate that was merged into the American
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, the successful effort to create a
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
. In January 1943, the Cambridge team, including Nunn May, was transferred to the
Montreal Laboratory
The Montreal Laboratory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was established by the National Research Council of Canada during World War II to undertake nuclear research in collaboration with the United Kingdom, and to absorb some of the scientists and ...
, which was building a reactor at
Chalk River
Chalk River (2016 population: 1029) is a small rural village, part of the Laurentian Hills municipality in Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Upper Ottawa Valley along Highway 17 (Trans-Canada Highway), inland (west) from ...
, near
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. Nunn May's Canadian position ended in September 1945, and he returned to his lecturing post in London.
Soviet espionage
He had let his membership of the Communist Party lapse by 1940, but at Cambridge, when he saw an American report mentioning that Germany might be able to build a
dirty bomb
A dirty bomb or radiological dispersal device is a radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. The purpose of the weapon is to contaminate the area around the dispersal agent/conventional explosion with ...
, he passed that on to a Soviet contact. In Canada, he was approached by Lieutenant Angelov of the
GRU
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
(Soviet
military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
) for information on atomic research. He continued his espionage by secretly supplying small samples of the isotopes
uranium-233
Uranium-233 (233U or U-233) is a fissile Isotopes of uranium, isotope of uranium that is bred from thorium-232 as part of the thorium fuel cycle. Uranium-233 was investigated for use in nuclear weapons and as a Nuclear fuel, reactor fuel. It ha ...
and
235
__NOTOC__
Year 235 ( CCXXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Quintianus (or, less frequently, year 988 '' ...
. The courier of the samples was not informed of the danger of radiation, developed painful lesions and needed lifelong regular blood transfusions for the rest of his life. Nunn May also borrowed library research documents on nuclear power, many from the US, for copying. The
Canadian Royal Commission later investigated and States that he was paid with two bottles of
whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden cask ...
and at least C$700. Nunn May said that he accepted the money under protest and promptly burnt it. Angelov gave him details for a rendezvous with the GRU next to the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, in London, after his return.
Convicted of espionage
A GRU cipher clerk in Canada,
Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (russian: Игорь Сергеевич Гузенко ; January 26, 1919 – June 25, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the GRU (Main Intelligence Direc ...
, defected to the West in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
in September 1945, around the time that Nunn May's Canadian assignment ended. Gouzenko passed along copies of GRU documents implicating Nunn May, including details of the proposed meeting in London. Nunn May did not go to the British Museum meeting, but he was arrested in March 1946 and confessed to espionage. On 1 May 1946, he was sentenced to ten years' hard labour. He was released in late 1952, after serving six-and-a-half years.
Nunn May refused to define his actions as treason and claimed in a statement after his release from prison that he believed that he had "acted rightly" as a spy because of being "wholeheartedly concerned with securing victory over Nazi Germany and Japan, and the furtherance of the development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy."
Blacklisted from universities in Britain, Nunn May worked for a scientific instruments company and in 1961 he went to work at the
University of Ghana
The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities.
The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the Br ...
, where he conducted research in
solid-state physics
Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state physics studies how the l ...
and created a science museum.
Personal life and death
In 1953, Nunn May married Hilde Broda, the ex-wife of
Engelbert Broda
Engelbert Broda (29 August 1910, in Vienna – 26 October 1983, in Hainburg an der Donau) was an Austrian chemist and physicist suspected by some to have been a KGB spy code-named ''Eric'', who could have been a main Soviet source of information o ...
. They had a son and a stepson from Hilde's previous marriage.
He returned to Cambridge in 1978 and died there in a hospital on 12 January 2003. Cause of death was
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...
and pulmonary disease.
A 2002 statement, released after his death, stated that he had no regrets about his spying activities. It was passed to ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper in 2003 and had been dictated to a relative in late 2002.
Legacy
Nunn May's arrest and sentence in 1946 first showed publicly that the Soviet Union had obtained atomic secrets by espionage. His clearance by
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...
also led to American distrust of Britain, and the
McMahon Act
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom and Canada. Most significantly, the Act ruled ...
. He passed on information on atomic reactors, but unlike
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly aft ...
(who was arrested in 1950) he knew little of weapon design.
Nunn May is a major character in the 2003 novel ''The Cloud Chamber'', by Clare George, a fictional account of Cambridge physicists in the 1930s which centres on the scientific excitement of the interwar years contrasted with the vexing moral questions faced by scientists during World War II. The main character is a fictional physicist and pacifist who studied and worked at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory with Nunn May before the war. George's acknowledged inspiration for the story was her grandfather, a real-life physicist whose true story follows several of the particulars of her character, Walter Dunnachie.
See also
*
Atomic spies
Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold ...
*
Cold War espionage
Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War ( 1947–1991) between the Western allies (primarily the US and Western Europe) and the Eastern Bloc (primarily the Soviet Union and allied countries of the Wa ...
*
Nuclear espionage
Nuclear espionage is the purposeful giving of state secrets regarding nuclear weapons to other states without authorization (espionage). There have been many cases of known nuclear espionage throughout the history of nuclear weapons and many case ...
*
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
Although the Soviet scientific community dis ...
*
Soviet espionage in the United States
As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals ( resident spies), as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the Unite ...
Notes
References
Further reading
*''The Traitors'' by
Alan Moorehead
Alan McCrae Moorehead, (22 July 1910 – 29 September 1983) was a war correspondent and author of popular histories, most notably two books on the nineteenth-century exploration of the Nile, ''The White Nile'' (1960) and ''The Blue Nile'' (196 ...
(1952)
*''The Meaning of Treason'' by
Rebecca West
Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books ...
(1949, 1952)
*''The Atom Bomb Spies'' by
H. Montgomery Hyde
Harford Montgomery Hyde (14 August 190710 August 1989), born in Belfast, Ireland, was a barrister, politician (Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast North), prolific author and biographer. He was deselected by his party in 1959, losing his seat in th ...
(1980, Hamish Hamilton London)
*''Scientist Spies'' by
Paul Broda
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
(2011)
External links
Files at National Archives, London (released 2007) ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', 24 January 2003
*
ttp://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4201883 Central Criminal Court depositions – CRIM 1/1774
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nunn May, Alan
Admitted Soviet spies
World War II spies for the Soviet Union
British people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union
British spies for the Soviet Union
English physicists
Experimental physicists
British metallurgists
British nuclear physicists
Semiconductor physicists
1911 births
2003 deaths
Manhattan Project people
Communist Party of Great Britain members
Nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union
People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham
Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Academics of King's College London
People from Kings Norton
People associated with the nuclear weapons programme of the United Kingdom
British expatriates in Ghana