Lev Petrovich Vasilevsky (1904-1979), also known as Leonid A. Tarasov, was the

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

Mexico City

Illegal Resident Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...

during much of the period of the

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 ...

. In 1943, the Moscow Center of KGB intelligence activities in North America, decided all contacts with

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

, scientific director of the Manhattan Project at

Los Alamos laboratory The Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was a secret laboratory established by the Manhattan Project and operated by the University of California during World War II. Its mission was to design and build the first atomic bombs. Ro ...

, would be through 'illegals' only. Vasilevsky, operating from Mexico City, was put in charge of running the illegal network after New York Resident

Vasily Zarubin Vasily Mikhailovich Zarubin (russian: Васи́лий Михáйлович Зарýбин) (4 February 1894 – 18 September 1972) was a Soviet intelligence officer. In the United States, he used the cover name Vasily Zubilin and served as th ...

had been recalled to Moscow. Vasilevsky's instructions were to control the network from the Mexico City Residentura.

Bruno Pontecorvo Bruno Pontecorvo (; russian: Бру́но Макси́мович Понтеко́рво, ''Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo''; 22 August 1913 – 24 September 1993) was an Italian and Soviet nuclear physicist, an early assistant of Enrico Fermi an ...

was the conduit supplying the atomic secrets from

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

. Vasilevsky provided Pontecorvo with an escape route through Finland which Pontecorvo used in 1950 after the arrest of

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 ...

Kitty Harris Kitty Harris (Unknown – 1966) was a Soviet Union, Soviet secret agent and "long-time special courier of the OGPU-NKVD foreign intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s." Harris was identified only in 2001 when her code name "Ada" or "Aida" was ...

went to Mexico City in early 1943 to be a courier for Vasilevsky. She was further detailed by Vasilevsky to the Santa Fe drugstore safe house where she coordinated the front's clandestine activities.Special Secrets, p.58-63 In 1945, for his work in handling the Fermi line in the United States, Vasilevsky was appointed deputy director of Department S. For a short period in 1947 he was the director of the department of scientific and technological intelligence in the Committee of Information (KI). In November 1945, when the

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 ...

was having difficulty starting its first nuclear reactor. Yakov Terletsky of the Soviet project and Vasilevsky travelled to Denmark to seek the advice of

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...

, another veteran of the

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 ...

Manhattan project.

References

*Pavel Sudoplatov, Anatoli Sudoplatov, Jerrold L. Schecter, Leona P. Schecter, ''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster'', Little Brown, Boston (1994). {{DEFAULTSORT:Vasilevsky, Lev NKVD officers KGB officers Soviet spies 1904 births 1979 deaths