Intellectually he knew that external alpha irradiation is not harmful because alpha particles are completely absorbed by a very thin layer of dead skin, as well as by a few centimeters of air. But on a gut-level he was scared shitless about what he was planning on doing. He had split the available supply into two separate containers. One was destined for the Oak Ridge facility and the other for Dayton.
His Soviet handlers taught him how to attach the detonator to the explosives and to set the timers. He had provided them with the best locations for the explosions in each facility. Each location was chosen to infect the maximum number of critical personnel, and the timers were to be set to a time when the maximum number would be gathered in the same place.
The explosions would be small, just enough to destroy the containers and disperse the polonium. They would cause a momentary concern and investigation, but the buildings would continue to be used well after infecting most of his colleagues. Within weeks, they would be dead.
Polonium is virtually undetectable outside of the body of the victim, and even then you must be looking for it. The small damage by the explosive would be fixed in an afternoon, and the both operations would be back up, and running again within hours. Even if they did suspect something it would be too late for those in the facility at the time. The facilities would be useless for generations. The polonium would continue to be there and would continue to kill.
He regretted this on the one hand, but on the other, their work had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and countless tales of sickness and deformities for generations to come. It was easy for his Soviet handlers to convince him of what had to be done.
After seeing what happened in Japan, he might have done it anyway.
Ironic how polonium was discovered by Madame Curie and her husband and it probably killed them. It was named after her beloved country of Poland.
Polonium… the Holy Grail, and the key to causing a nuclear chain reaction in a Mark III atomic bomb. Polonium… the most sought after substance in the world, and the most deadly.
The Soviet spy codenamed ‘Delmar,’ was about to change the course of history forever. George Koval almost forgot to replace the real containers with their fake replacements. He had actually closed the storage vault before he remembered. This fact filled him with doubts about his abilities to carry out his plan.[26]
Full-scale production of atomic bombs was about to resume. The new assembly teams had been trained and had been practicing for weeks. Just the right combination of individuals has been found and recruited. The U.S. was down to three usable atomic bombs. His safely-hidden containers held the entire U.S. and for that matter, the world’s, supply of polonium.
He had forty-eight hours to place both dirty bombs. He had forty-eight hours to become the deadliest saboteur in modern history. Ironically he also had forty-eight hours to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen from the fate of nuclear horror. He had forty-eight hours to literally stop the American nuclear program for at least a year or two. Enough time for the Soviet atomic weapons program to produce its own deterrent.
This weighed heavily on Delmar. His heart was racing, and he was breathing hard. All the guards in both locations, were used to seeing him crawling around in restricted areas carrying his tools and instruments in his tool bag. He was the Health Physics Officer, and it was his job to crawl around testing for radiation just as he had been doing for over a year. He had ‘Top Secret’ clearance. It should be no problem at all for him to both smuggle the containers in, and place them, where they needed to be set.
The explosives had been brought in bit by bit in hidden in his tools, hollow coins, and so on, during the last few months. The small detonators were hidden in his Geiger counter. The timers were two exact copies of his old and familiar watch. In fact, that had almost gotten him caught.
One of the new guards had commented on his new watch. If one of the old guards had noticed the same thing, there might have been trouble. He had to figure out how to make his new watches look old. It’s surprisingly hard to do convincingly but he had accomplished the task just last week.
The explosives, timers and detonators were waiting. All that was missing was the polonium and the hands that would put them all together.
Main Facility Commissary,
Oak Ridge Atomic Research Center
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
July 17th, 1946
“What’s for lunch today Pete?”
“Just some same old stuff. They got… ah SOS.”
“Oh? Do you mean chipped beef, on toast?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“Let’s sit over here. Man, the place is packed today. I’m glad we got here before the crowd certainly got big.”
“What’s going on anyway?”
“I dunno, some big conference on a new gadget. All the bigwigs and brainiacs are here. Can’t believe they’re going to eat in here with us. Kinda puts the cramp on our noon card game.”
“Ha! Don’t you think they want to join?”
“Not with a cheater like you playing. Your reputation is well-known. I still don’t understand why I keep playing with you. Man, there’s barely room to sit in here. How about over there with Schmitt? He’s got some room at his table.”
“Hey Schmitty, how’s it going? You got some… Jesus! What was that?”
“Fuck! Something exploded by the kitchen! Can’t see much through the dust… Hey Bill, can you see what’s going on?”
“You know as much as I do Pete. Wasn’t that big of an explosion… maybe one of the cooks let the gas build up in one of the stoves or something. Wait… I can see where it happened.”
“It’s overhead in the air ducts. See by the wall, there?”
“Oh yeah, nice little hole there. What the hell could have done that? HEY DAVE! ARE WE SUPPOSED TO EVACUATE OR WHAT?”
“CAN’T HEAR YA! I’LL COME OVER THERE!”
“I said aren’t we supposed to evacuate, or something?”
“Well no alarms are sounding yet. Kind of a small explosion. Maybe a little gas got up in the air ducts, somehow.”
“LISTEN UP EVERYBODY! THERE’S NO REASON TO PANIC, BUT LET’S EVACUATE THE AREA UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT WHAT CAUSED THE EXPLOSION. NO ONE WAS HURT. TAKE YOUR LUNCHES WITH YOU IF YOU WANT, AND EAT IN THE AUDITORIUM.”
“Damn straight I’m taking my lunch! I paid 10 cents for this feast, and I’m not wasting a mouthful! Let’s go before they change their minds.”
“Lucky that gas leak, or whatever it was, didn’t do more damage. Sounded like a big firecracker. Who in the hell would do something so stupid?”
“Maybe it was one of the circulation fans… no, I don’t think that’s it. They’re still working see how that dust is blowing around. No it wasn’t a fan.”
In the Head of Security’s office
“It appears to have been a very small explosion set off by a cheap wrist watch as a timer. We just heard that a similar thing happened in Dayton in the middle of their big conference. It happened in their auditorium just before they broke up for lunch. Same type of thing: a small explosion that sent a dust cloud circulating throughout the air ducts. The funny thing about both explosions was that there wasn’t that much dust in any of the other air ducts. These are all pretty new buildings and it was strange.”
26
George Kovaclass="underline" Atomic Spy Unmasked — Iowa-born and army-trained, how did George Koval manage to steal a critical U.S. atom bomb secret for the Soviets? By Michael Walsh, Smithsonian Magazine May 2009