when he writes about his own unit, subordinates and, probably, agents directly connected to it and their assignments." Overall, it is important as a rare, detailed, inside view of the Soviet intelligence agencies during their golden era and of the power struggles at the top of the Soviet system during and just after the death of Stalin. Atomic espionage controversy The principal source of controversy that it engendered was its statement that a number of Western scientists, including Niels Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi and others allegedly provided the Soviets with information regarding the Manhattan Project, which has been deeply disputed. While a number of Soviet atomic spies are attested to have stolen information from the American Manhattan Project, they were largely not the ones named by Sudoplatov. Sudoplatov also asserted the existence of an apocryphal "Department S" backed by direct order of Lavrentiy Beria that he described as possibly more powerful than it was, if it existed. At times Sudoplatov contradicts facts directly, such as when he claimed Leo Szilard and his secretary passed information to the Soviets, when Szilard did not have a secretary, and claiming that Szilard worked at Los Alamos when he was working at the University of Chicago helping build the first nuclear reactor in December 1942 with Enrico Fermi. At other times, the dispute is about potentially subtle points: there is no question, for instance, that Bohr met with a Soviet intelligence agent and discussed atomic questions with him in a nonsecret meeting, which was reported in a press release by Bohr's son Aage in April, 1994. The issue is whether anything he said was not merely a repetition of information that was already public and how much help (if any) Bohr's statements were to the Soviet atomic program. The fact that so many people were involved in creating the text may have subtly changed the meaning of Sudoplatov's statements, which would be a problem when treating such a diffuse topic. The "Atomic Spies" chapter of Special Tasks rehashed old historical controversies and claims, such as Oppenheimer being questioned in the 1950s for Communist leanings, on which to base its accusations. Historian Richard Rhodes described the book as Sudoplatov continuing his Cold War career except in the form of character assassination. According to Sudoplatov's claims that have been challenged, five spy rings for the Soviet Union were targeting the United States during World War