Perseus (spy)

**Perseus** was the code name of a hypothetical Soviet atomic spy that,  if real, would have allegedly breached United States national security by infiltrating Los Alamos National Laboratory during the development of the Manhattan Project, and consequently, would have been instrumental for the Soviets in the development of nuclear weapons.

Among researchers of the subject there is some consensus that Perseus never existed and was actually a creation of Soviet intelligence.

## Character and history 
A reference to the profile of a spy who can be identified with Perseus describes him as an American scientist of young age at the time of the Manhattan Project.

If they were real, Perseus would have supposedly participated in the Spanish Civil War.

In the early 1940s Perseus would have been in New York City visiting his sick parents. an American who joined the Communist Party during the Great Depression

The meeting with Cohen must have been between September 1941 and July 1942, before Cohen enlisted in the army and left for the Western Front in Europe. PERS or even used to confirm that Perseus never existed.

### 4th spy at Los Álamos 
From the early 1950s till 1995, three Soviet spies had been confirmed to have infiltrated Los Alamos: Klaus Fuchs (German physicist), David Greenglass (military man and brother-in-law of Julius Rosenberg) and Theodore Hall (American physicist).

Fuchs voluntarily confessed to British MI5 authorities in January 1950 and this subsequently lead to Greenglass in June of that same year. Finally, Hall's involvement was not identified until the release of documents from Venona in 1995, a few years before his death in 1999.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, publications like those by Chikov and Yatskov strengthened the theory of a possible fourth spy in Los Alamos, who would have been identified as Perseus (the PERS in the Venona files) or FOGEL.

### John Earl Haynes 
United States Cold War historian John Earl Haynes concluded that Perseus was an invention

# Show that the KGB was vital for the Soviet Union and, after 1991, for Russia.
# Prove that the KGB dominated the field (intelligence and espionage) better than the American and British agencies, since the latters were never able to catch the hypothetical Russian agent.
# Give more credit and prestige to Soviet intelligence agents for the development of nuclear weapons, even if this meant diminsh the contribution of Soviet scientists.
# Use Soviet spies of foreign origin living in Russia for propaganda, particularly the Cohens.
# Have some financial gain with the possible sell of the story.

## Alleged identities 
 was pointed out as Perseus possible real identity, the evidence for this was poor and the contradictions various.]]

### Philip Morrison 
In April 1999 American scientist, activist and, president of the Federation of American Scientists from 1970 to 2000; Jeremy Stone, published his memoirs under the title «*Every Man Should Try": Adventures of a Public Interest Activist*».), and explained why he believed that this "Scientist X" was the real Perseus. noting that:

* According to Chikov, Perseus participated in the Spanish Civil War, but during this (1936 - 1939) Morrison was studying or about to graduate from Berkeley. In addition to the fact that during his childhood Morrison contracted Polio, which affected his legs to the point that he required a cane to walk, making it unlikely that he could fight in a war.

Although Haynes and Klehr noted that the agent identified as Perseus (or sometimes as "Mlad") has attributes and characteristics that do not match Hall, they still concluded that Perseus must have actually been an invention, the result of a misinformation operation with the goal of protecting Hall, who was still alive in the early 1990s. Which could explain the presence of attributes that coincide between both at the same time of others that do not.

## In popular culture 
On August 19, 2020, Perseus was first referenced in the worldwide teaser trailer for *Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War*. He was later confirmed as the main antagonist in the game's campaign which is set in the 1980s and flashbacks of the Vietnam War.

## Related pages 
* Atomic Spies
* David Greenglass
* George Koval
* Manhattan Project
* Theodore Hall
* Rudolf Abel
* Venona project
* White Sands Missile Range

## Bibliography 
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## References 
## Other websites 
* Los Alamos National Laboratory History
* Los Alamos National Laboratory: «The Project Y Spies: An Historical Perspective on a Perennial Threat» by Alan B. Carr