‘I have had a fair trial, and I wish to thank you and my counsel and my solicitors. I also wish to thank the Governor and his staff at Brixton Prison for the considerate treatment they have given me.’
This was still the pride of one who insists-on being his own judge, and being answerable to his own laws.
Then, while Fuchs stood there in the dock, Lord Goddard summed up his crime and passed sentence.
‘In 1933, fleeing from political persecution in Germany, you took advantage of the right and privilege of asylum which has always been the boast of this country to extend to people persecuted in their own country for political opinions.
‘You have betrayed the hospitality and protection given to you with the grossest treachery. In 1942, in return for your offer to put at the service of this country the great gifts providence has bestowed upon you in scientific matters, you were granted British nationality.
‘From that moment, regardless of your oath, you started to betray secrets of vital import for the purpose of furthering a political creed held in abhorrence by the vast majority of this country, your object being to strengthen that creed, which was then known to be inimical to all freedom-loving countries. There are four matters which seem to me the gravest aspect of your crime.
‘First, by your conduct you have imperilled the right of asylum which this country has hitherto extended. Dare we now give shelter to political refugees who may be followers of this pernicious creed, and who may well disguise themselves to bite the hand that feeds them?
‘Secondly, you have betrayed not only the projects and inventions of your own brain, for which this country was paying you and enabling you to live in comfort in return for your promise of secrecy, but you have also betrayed the secrets of other workers in this field of science, not only in this country but in the United States, and thereby might have caused the gravest suspicion to fall on those you falsely treated as friends and who were misled into trusting you.
‘Thirdly, you might have imperilled the good relations between this country and the great American republic with whom His Majesty is allied.
‘Fourthly, you have done irreparable and incalculable harm both to this land and to the United States, and you did it, as your statement shows, merely for the purpose of furthering your political creed.
‘I am willing to assume that you have not done it for gain. Your statement shows the depth of self-deception into which people like yourself can fall. Your crime is only thinly differentiated from high treason. But in this country we observe rigidly the rule of law, and as, technically, it is not high treason, you are not tried for that offence.
‘I have now to assess the penalty which it is right that I should impose. It is not so much for punishment that I impose it, for punishment to a man of your mentality means nothing. My duty is to safeguard this country. How can I be sure that a man of your mentality, as shown in the statement you have made, may not at any other minute allow some curious working in your mind to lead you further to betray secrets of the greatest possible value and importance to this land?
‘The maximum sentence Parliament has ordained is fourteen years. That is the sentence I pass upon you.’
Fuchs stood still, expressionless, throughout. He remained still for some moments after Goddard had finished, until the uniformed prison officer behind him tapped him on the shoulder. Then he turned to go, but, remembering something, turned back, picked up some papers from the chair, patted them into a neat pile, put them in his jacket pocket, and walked downstairs to the cells below.
He was taken from there to WormWood Scrubs prison in West London where many long-term prisoners serve the first part of their sentence, before being assigned to the prison best suited to them.
The next day the official Soviet news agency Tass published a statement, pro forma, that the Soviet Government had no knowledge of Fuchs and none of its officials had been in contact with him.
Naturally, British newspapers commented on the regrettable crime, and people were dismayed; this was disloyalty, and by someone to whom Britain had given asylum. However, there was no wave of accusations of being soft on Communist subversion, no demand for the heads of those responsible. For one thing, as Prime Minister Attlee was to remind Parliament, the leaks dated back to the time when the Conservatives, now in opposition, headed the wartime coalition government, so if ministers were to take the blame it would have to be shared between the parties. But in any case, although this was the most intense period of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet bloc, and in a few months’ time it would turn into a shooting war in Korea and British troops would be fighting alongside Americans, the British people as a whole did not feel as intensely engaged in the Cold War as the American people, and Russia was not seen quite so vividly as the enemy. This was partly a national disinclination to intensity and also, at this time, a disinclination to follow an American lead. But also, while most people disliked thoroughly the idea of a Communist dictatorship, anti-Communism was tempered by a residue of sentiment from the wartime alliance with Russia, and sympathy for Russia’s suffering in a common cause. Many people on the Left still could not shed entirely a benign image of the Soviet Union, as a country that practised a kind of Socialism; Russia’s support for anti-fascism in the Spanish Civil War shaded over into its leading role in the war against Nazi Germany (the interlude of the Nazi-Soviet Pact being buried out of sight of the memory).
A right-wing Conservative Member of Parliament, Sir Waldron Smithers, suggested in the light of the Fuchs case that the Communist Party should be outlawed, but this kind of suggestion was expected only from the fringe Right, and it was not taken seriously. A few other Members of Parliament questioned the number and role of Soviet diplomatic personnel in Britain.
Prime Minister Attlee made a statement on the Fuchs case in the House of Commons four days after the trial. It was on the first day of the first session of the new Parliament.
‘It is a most deplorable and unfortunate incident,’ Attlee said. ‘Here we had a refugee from Nazi tyranny, hospitably entertained, who was secretly working against the safety of this country. I say “secretly” because there is a great deal of loose talk in the Press suggesting inefficiency on the part of the security services. I entirely deny that.
‘Not long after this man came into this country — that was in 1933 — it was said that he was a Communist. The source of that information was the Gestapo. At that time the Gestapo accused everybody of being a Communist. When the matter was looked into there was no support for this whatever. And from that time on there was no support. A proper watch was kept at intervals.’
He summarized Fuchs’s career in Britain and the United States, and went on: ‘In the autumn of last year, information came from the United States suggesting that there had been some leakage while the British mission, of which Fuchs was a member, was in the United States. This information did not point to any individual. The security services got to work and were, as the House knows, successful… I take full responsibility for the efficiency of the security services, and I am satisfied that unless we had here the kind of secret police they have in totalitarian countries, and employed their methods, which are reprobated rightly by everyone in this country, there was no means by which we could have found out about this man.’
He said the security services had acted ‘promptly and effectively’, and went on: ‘I say that because it is very easy when a thing like that occurs — it was an appalling thing to have happened — to make assertions. I do not think any blame for what occurred attaches either to the Government of the right honourable gentleman opposite or to this Government or any of the officials. I think we had here a quite exceptional case.’ Linking his own government with that of Sir Winston Churchill, ‘the right honourable gentleman opposite’ (Churchill since his election defeat in 1945 had been leader of the opposition), was a shrewd move to deflect criticism.