British spy Melita Norwood helped speed up USSR's atomic bomb programme
Melita Norwood, the "granny spy" who passed Britain's nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, helped speed up Stalin's atomic bomb programme by five years, according to a controversial new biography.
Norwood, a committed Communist who began spying for Moscow in the 1930s, handed over technical information which provided Russian scientists with a crucial breakthrough.
Her contribution allowed them to overcome problems, which blocked the development of their nuclear reactors and led directly to the USSR exploding its bomb in 1949 - years earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
The claims are made in a new book - The Spy Who Came in From the Co-op - written by David Burke, a friend of Norwood's who interviewed her extensively in the years leading up to her death in 2005.
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Norwood, a committed Communist who began spying for Moscow in the 1930s, handed over technical information which provided Russian scientists with a crucial breakthrough.
Her contribution allowed them to overcome problems, which blocked the development of their nuclear reactors and led directly to the USSR exploding its bomb in 1949 - years earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
The claims are made in a new book - The Spy Who Came in From the Co-op - written by David Burke, a friend of Norwood's who interviewed her extensively in the years leading up to her death in 2005.