New Mexico was the birthplace of the atom bomb. In 1942, in the throes of World War II, a team of engineers and physicists gathered in Los Alamos, New Mexico (just north of Santa Fe) to design a nuclear weapon. Their research program, known as the “Manhattan Project,” resulted in the Trinity Test, the world’s first detonation of an atom bomb on July 16, 1945, in the desert northwest of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Less than a month later, the United States dropped two atom bombs over Japan, “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” helping to end the war.
The Manhattan Project’s stakes were high. The information and technology developed in Los Alamos was coveted by many players in World War II, and security around the project was tight. Despite the top-secret measures, one of the biggest acts of espionage committed in U.S. history happened in an unassuming residential neighborhood in Albuquerque.
“The Spy House,” as it is known today, was built around 1912 near downtown Albuquerque. In 1944, it was purchased by W.B. Freeman and his wife, Margaret, with their extra rooms used as boarding rooms. The Freemans were approached with a rental offer of one of the upstairs suites by Ruth Greenglass, wife of David Greenglass, an engineer who was in New Mexico to work on the atomic bomb in Los Alamos. On June 2, 1945, David disclosed drawings of the atomic bomb to Soviet spy Harry Gold in exchange for $500 in that humble home.
The Spy House in Albuquerque today. …