A Compassionate Spy
“The Rosenbergs were not even in the same league with Ted Hall.” Joseph Albright from Bombshell: The Secret Story of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy (1997)
Joseph Albright is correct. In terms of the evidence against them and as they relate to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed for espionage on June 19, 1953 and Ted Hall, an 18-year old prodigy physicist recruited into the Manhattan Project he’s absolutely right. In fact, Ted Hall gave much more important information to the Soviets than they did (he was never apprehended although interrogated by FBI agents and harassed and trailed for years).
The Rosenbergs were only famous because they got caught while working in a laboratory on their own time; however, after being released from prison he worked at Sloan Kettering doing significant research until retirement age where he “hid” for many decades before dying without ever being known publicly.
Accordingly this is when BBC journalist Steve James interviewed former spy now dying elderly man sickened by compassionately disallowed treasonous too black and white current events mean American history toward what “compassion” even means should our time be required thinking about why we did what we did because nothing can justify such actions except perhaps trying understand another person’s point of view when it comes to acts like these so let just say everything has its reason behind every cause effect relationship which exists throughout universe including this one but that does not mean there are no consequences either so if you want my opinion then I would have agree completely with James’ decision make movie based upon Hall’s claims alone being true or false could still serve as great starting point since everybody knows everything anyway although some people may take issue here due lack knowledge concerning certain things
The film is almost entirely interview-based, with Joan Hall Ted’s wife of five decades now ninety three years old sitting front center through most of it. Her daughters join her at times, sifting through letters their father wrote from prison and sharing memories of growing up. She’s a fantastic interview subject, the past so close for her: events that happened seventy years ago come up in conversation as if they occurred yesterday.
We also hear from authors who have written about the case and physicists who were involved in the Project but one person is missing: Ted Hall himself, who died just before these interviews took place
The Manhattan Project was massively secret; even scientists working on site didn’t know half what was going on next door. But within days of arriving at Los Alamos where he spent the war Hall realized “something grisly and horrible was being constructed” and assumed that his superiors had already looped Russia in. After all, it was an ally; he was a scientist; he believed in sharing information. He also felt certain America’s monopoly would be bad for everyone except Americans.
Steve James, a two-time Academy Award nominee, is an expert at providing background to World War II and the early years of the Cold War, the Red Scare’s propaganda and the American Left’s far from even trajectory. Among other things, he uses archival footage (watch for that chilling “blooper” when President Truman starts laughing in the middle of announcing we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) and sings propagandistic songs like “Atomic Power” that played up paranoia about what would happen to the “free world” after the war ended.
For many people though not, unfortunately, including all those “useful idiots,” some of whom worked at or for The New York Times (see: Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty) it was clear what Soviet communism really was and what Stalin had done. Russia’s cynical 1939 pact with Germany to carve up Poland sent shock waves; when Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, this treaty became null and void but many observers could never shake off their sense of betrayal.
The Halls felt betrayed much later than that: It happened when Teddy Kennedy’s pals rolled into Prague with tanks during the “Prague Spring.” But many saw it 30 years earlier see George Orwell, who tended to view everything through rose-tinted glasses (“pinkish,” he called it) but was clear-sighted enough to get the memo about what was happening in Spain from 1936-38.
James also shows us Ted and Joan’s life via re-enactments. They’re gently and respectfully done which means they’re unnecessary. When you have as strong a storyteller as Joan Hall is here (I kept wishing she’d been allowed to tell more of their story herself), who needs re-enactments? Her words do all our visualizing for us; no need for those re-enactments here or anywhere else.
“A Compassionate Spy” is at its best when it digs into the archives to give us a sense of what was happening (I’m guessing many people will watch who have no idea about this cultural history). The Cold War didn’t just happen. It was built by Wall Street and industrialists, among others (and this is something Ted Hall predicted during his time at Los Alamos). For the next 70 years, it would be unthinkable that American could ever have been pro-Russia; in the very recent past as we see here, “Mission to Moscow” indeed.
Yes, Michael Curtiz’s 1943 movie starring Walter Huston and Ann Harding features a flattering portrait of Soviet society as well as a damn near cuddly Stalin. (For more on Hollywood’s interpretation of Russia in the late ’30s/early ’40s, pre Cold War: check out Farran Smith Nehme’s deep-dish essay “Shadows of Russia: A History of the Soviet Union as Hollywood Saw It.”)
James’ documentaries always feature his specific and empathetic gaze (“Hoop Dreams,” “The Interrupters,” “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” “Life Itself”). His interview subjects always reveal themselves to him or is it through him? Regardless, to whom they are revealing themselves also seems to be to us another tribute to James’ skills not just as an interviewer but simply as a person.
This one covers so much ground; some nuance may get lost along the way; some skeptics might wish for more skepticism; some critics might grumble about not enough criticism. But there is enough ambiguity here particularly from Ted Hall himself that it should open up discussion on new ground.
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