In September 1941, a Soviet rezident in London known as ‘Vadim’ (now known to be Anatoly Gorsky) sent an enciphered Top Secret cable to his NKVD colleagues in Moscow regarding details of a recent meeting of the “uranium committee” (presumed to be a reference to the MAUD Committee) and England’s continued efforts at pursuing the development of a nuclear bomb.
The cable was drafted on 25 September 1941, encrypted and sent at 00:17 on 27 September, and decoded that same day at 18:30.
The cable is presented here for the first time in English.
This is the first in a short series of declassified Russian-language documents reporting on the race to be the first country to possess a nuclear bomb.
Translating History 