NASH

In their notebooks, which police found when they broke the Soviet spy ring in Canada in 1946, Soviet espionage agents were accustomed to make a brisk notation in Russian after the names of the traitorous scientists who furnished them information. The notation was NASH (he is ours).

As Dr. Klaus Fuchs entered tiny Bow Street magistrate's court in London last week for his preliminary hearing, he was greeted by Scotland Yard's Commander Leonard J. Burt, who had arrested Fuchs a week before as a Russian spy (TIME, Feb. 13). Burt took Fuchs smilingly by the shoulders and asked, "How do you feel? All right?"

"Yes, thank you," Fuchs replied, and smiled. They were the only words he uttered that day in court. He sat silently in the mahogany prisoner's box, only his pale, motionless face visible above the high red railing. But others were present to tell his story.

"The Very Finest Brains." The prosecutor, lanky, beak-nosed Christmas Humphreys, at first sounded almost like a defense counsel. He told how Fuchs had fled Nazi Germany, had been interned by Britain in the early part of the war. In 1942 Fuchs had been permitted to take the oath of British citizenship, Humphreys said, because "the very finest brains available were needed to assist in research, and such brains as Dr. Fuchs possessed were very rare indeed. He was known and proved to be one of the finest theoretical physicists living ... It is only fair to say that he always impressed his superiors as being a security-minded person."

But Humphreys' voice sharpened as he added: "It is now clear that such an oath of allegiance meant nothing to a man whose mind was irrevocably wedded to Communist principles."

Then he read parts of Fuchs's confession which, the Crown attested, Fuchs signed as "true" (other parts were withheld for reasons of security). It was a remarkable psychological document of Warped, brilliant intelligence and twisted morality.

After Prosecutor Humphreys finished reading the confession, he called witnesses. The most important was William Skardon, one of Britain's topflight military intelligence agents (he had grilled Lord Haw-Haw). By October 1949, British Military Intelligence and the FBI had narrowed their suspicions down to Fuchs, and Skardon was sent to Harwell, the British atomic energy project. On the witness stand, Skardon told the story of how he had gradually drawn out Fuchs.

"It's Rather Up to Me." By Dec. 21, Fuchs had admitted that "he regarded the oath of allegiance taken in 1942 as a serious matter but . . . should circumstances . . . comparable to those which existed in 1932 and 1933 in Germany arise, then he would feel free to act on the loyalty which he owed to humanity generally." Skardon then accused Fuchs point-blank of spying for the Russians. Fuchs smiled, said, "I don't think so ... I don't understand. Perhaps you will tell me what the evidence is."

Skardon left Fuchs alone with his conscience--and his obvious fear that clear proof might be produced against him at any moment. On Jan. 24 Fuchs sent word to Skardon to meet him at his home.

"You asked for me," said Skardon. "Well, here I am."

Fuchs replied: "Yes, it's rather up to me now."

He then told Skardon the story of his life--without admitting espionage. When Skardon asked him to "unburden his mind and clear his conscience" by telling the full story, Fuchs snapped, "I will never be persuaded by you to talk."

Skardon suggested lunch. Afterwards Fuchs said, "I have decided to answer your questions." Then Fuchs told Skardon how he had first met a Russian agent in 1942, had arranged recognition signals for future meetings with other agents (some Russian, some of "unknown nationality"), how he had methodically passed top-level atomic information to them for nearly seven years, in New York, Los Alamos and London.

"I Did Not Have the Courage." After the war Fuchs began to lose some of his faith in Stalin and Russia, eventually decided it would be wisest to get away from Harwell. His father, a 75-year-old ex-Protestant minister, and pacifist, furnished a convenient pretext: he was making plans to move from his home in West Germany to the Russian zone, where he had been offered a professorship at Leipzig University. Fuchs reported his father's Red taint to the authorities at Harwell. It is not clear why he did so. He may have hoped that he would be quietly dismissed. Said Fuchs: "I did not have the courage to fight it out for myself . . ." But his superiors were not much interested in his father, did not do Fuchs the favor of firing him. Instead the law of his adopted country (with U.S. assistance) began to close in on Klaus Fuchs.

Later Fuchs admitted to Intelligence Agent Skardon that he had accepted -L-100 from the Russians "as a symbolic payment signifying subservience to the cause." He still believed in Communism, "but not as practiced in Russia today."

After Skardon and other witnesses had given testimony, Chief Magistrate Sir Lawrence Dunne remanded Fuchs to stand trial for treason at the Feb. 28 Old Bailey criminal sessions. The hearing at Bow Street had taken just two hours. The proceedings over, Fuchs walked out of the courtroom, back to his cell, looking like a harmless, nondescript scientist whom one might see in any laboratory. Despite his harmless look, despite repentance of a sort, Dr. Klaus Fuchs still bore Communism's indelible brand--NASH.

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