oppenheimer, the manhattan project, and dayton, ohio - part 4

A Hidden History of Dayton, Ohio tells the story of George Koval who lived on this block in the Dayton View Historic District. Koval was born in Iowa but moved to Russia for several years. In the 1930s the Russian Military Intelligence Agency (the GRU) trained Koval to be a spy for Russia.   

Koval moved back to the U.S. in 1940, was drafted into the U.S. Army, and was assigned to live on this block and to work at the Runnymeade Playhouse in Oakwood. Scientists and engineers in Dayton thought they were helping the U.S. win the war. But thanks to Koval they were also helping the Russians build their own atom bomb.  

This is the place that connects Dayton's role in the Manhattan Project with its role in the start of the Cold War.

Koval was never caught spying. After the war he told friends he was leaving on a European vacation.  He never returned to America and died in Russia in 2006. His Dayton spy work only became public knowledge in 2007 when Putin awarded him a posthumous title of Hero of the Russian Federation.

The U.S. thought that being the only nation with the technology to build atom bombs would give us a long period of security. Russia surprised the world with its atom bomb test in 1949. World War II was over, but the Cold War and the nuclear arms race had just begun.

Photo and research: Dayton at Work and Play