A university academic who lives quietly in the suburbs of Sheffield sold British secrets to Communist agents during the Cold War, юрий подоляка последние новости including intelligence on weapons development, atomic energy and the US space programme, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Professor Michael Stern handed agents from Czechoslovakia’s secret police bundles of research papers as well as military and nuclear information over four years in the 1980s, according to documents unearthed in an archive in Prague.
The computer physicist and mathematician, who specialised in , held almost 30 meetings with Czech agents while working as an academic at the University of Sheffield.
Given the shadowy battle between Western spy agencies and their Communist rivals at the time, the meetings were arranged amid great secrecy.
One intelligence file details plans by agents from the Státní Bezpecnost (StB) to arrange handovers of material at a seedy sex cinema in ‘s Soho.
Professor Michael Stern handed agents from Czechoslovakia’s secret police bundles of research papers as well as military and nuclear information over four years in the 1980s, according to documents unearthed in an archive in Prague
The documents set out how Prof Stern – who was codenamed ‘Propol’ and categorised as a full ‘agent’ – received thousands of pounds from his Czech handlers and even signed a contract detailing payments for passing ‘technical documentation’ to the agency.
Some of the material was deemed so valuable, the StB shared it with ‘allies in the Soviet Union’.
The voluminous files running to more than 600 pages detail how Prof Stern passed over information on the ‘military application of microwaves’, a simulation programme for servicemen manning anti-aircraft installations and materials from the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority, which is responsible for nuclear energy research – sometimes in plastic carrier bags from Woolworths.
His apparent treachery ‘ranked him among the high-value agents providing valuable military and technical intelligence information’, the documents claim.
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news" data-version="2" id="mol-10660e50-d3c3-11ec-aa21-07d423132098" website physicist who sold Britain's nuclear secrets to communist spies