<story><title>Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/science/manhattan-project-atomic-spy.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stuff4ben</author><text>As fascinating as I find &amp;quot;how&amp;quot; the spies did it, I&amp;#x27;m more interested in &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; they did it? Was it dissatisfaction with something in their lives? For the money (boring)? Because they didn&amp;#x27;t want to see the US so far ahead of the USSR?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mannykannot</author><text>The linked article on Ted Hall has him explaining why he did it. All such justifications must be taken with a grain of salt, of course, but he claims to have feared that if a post-war depression ensued, the USA could turn totalitarian and fascist, in which case it would be better if the USA did not have a monopoly in nuclear weapons.&lt;p&gt;He also recounts the extent that his views were shaped by his slightly older roommates at Harvard, whom he was obviously in awe of.&lt;p&gt;Rather more self-servingly, he claims that he probably would not have spied if he had known how despotic the Soviet Union was.&lt;p&gt;Money was apparently not involved.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1997&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;14&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;the-boy-who-gave-away-the-bomb.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1997&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;14&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;the-boy-who-gave...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/science/manhattan-project-atomic-spy.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stuff4ben</author><text>As fascinating as I find &amp;quot;how&amp;quot; the spies did it, I&amp;#x27;m more interested in &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; they did it? Was it dissatisfaction with something in their lives? For the money (boring)? Because they didn&amp;#x27;t want to see the US so far ahead of the USSR?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>everybodyknows</author><text>Money, Ideology, Compromise+Extortion, Ego.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Motives_for_spying&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Motives_for_spying&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the case of the early Los Alamos scientists: Ideology</text></comment>