Traitor

Re A Spy's Path: Iowa to A-Bomb to Kremlin Honor by William J. Broad in today's NY Times:

A few observations about this story about George Koval. No where in the article was the word "traitor" or "treason" used. No where did the reporter explicitly state that Koval was Jewish, but this was implied.

The article did point out that the traitor was ethnically Russian and born in the United States. He grew up in Iowa and may have done more damage to the United States than the famous Jewish traitors Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (who were executed for their perfidies in 1953).

Quote from the article:

On Nov. 2, the Kremlin startled Western scholars by announcing that President Vladimir V. Putin had posthumously given the highest Russian award to a Soviet agent who penetrated the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb.

The announcement hailed Dr. Koval as “the only Soviet intelligence officer” to infiltrate the project’s secret plants, saying his work “helped speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own.”
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Posthumously, Dr. Koval was made a Hero of the Russian Federation, the highest honorary title that can be bestowed on a Russian citizen.

End quote.

None of the Americans quoted in the article seemed to care that Koval was a traitor. The entire tone of the article was that Koval was brilliant, well-liked, athletic, and charming. It never said anything about his apparent dark side. Too bad we didn't catch this bastard while he was still in the US, and execute him along with his comrades, the Rosenbergs.