Robert Lamphere

FBI AgentWashington, DC

Manhattan, NY

Government Official

Listen to Robert Lamphere’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Robert Lamphere (1918-2002) supervised many investigations of Soviet spies during the Cold War. He served as the FBI’s liaison to the top-secret Venona Project, which worked to break Soviet codes and revealed the extent of Soviet espionage in the United States.

His early espionage cases focused on those who attempted to infiltrate the Manhattan Project. In 1950, his interrogation of Klaus Fuchs in London led to the identification and arrest of Harry Gold, David Greenglass, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Robert Lamphere’s Timeline

1918 Feb 14th Born in Wardner, Idaho.

1941 Sep Joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1947 Transferred to FBI headquarters as a Supervisory Special Agent and placed in charge of counterintelligence on satellite countries of the USSR.

1948 Began work on top-secret Venona project to decode Soviet intelligence cables.

1950 May Interrogated Klaus Fuchs in London.

1955 Left the FBI.

2002 Jan 7th Died of prostate cancer in Tucson, Arizona.

Related Profiles

Alice Kimball Smith

Los Alamos, NM

Alice Kimball Smith (1907-2001) was an American historian and educator. Kimball Smith and her husband Cyril Smith, a British metallurgist, moved to Los Alamos in 1943 after Cyril joined the Manhattan Project.

Leslie R. Groves

Washington, DC

Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (1896-1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer and director of the Manhattan Project.

Martin Mandelberg

Washington, DC

Martin Mandelberg is an engineer and mathematician. He is currently writing a biography about his mentor, Richard Hamming.

Henry DeWolf Smyth

Washington, DC

Henry DeWolf Smyth (1898-1986) was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. During World War II, Smyth was a member of the National Defense Research Committee’s Uranium Section.