454 • RIDEAL, SIR ERIC
caught carrying two suitcases packed with dynamite, and two other
conspirators, Elsa Johansson and Arno Behrisch, were taken into cus-
tody. All were convicted after a short trial, with Rickman sentenced
to eight years’ hard labor, Biggs five years, and the two Swedes three
and a half years. Rickman spent the remainder of the war in prison,
but Biggs was released in October 1941 and subsequently joinedF
SectionofSpecial Operations Executive.RIDEAL, SIR ERIC.Born in 1890 and educated at Oundle and Trinity
Hall, Cambridge, Eric Rideal was the son of Dr. Samuel Rideal, an
admired research chemist and a leading authority on drainage and
sanitation. During the World War I, Eric Rideal served in the Royal
Engineers and was gassed in France. Later he was known to be an
admirer of Conrad Noel, ‘‘the red vicar of Thaxted,’’ and was part of
the group of antiwar scientists that gathered around J. D. Bernal. As
professor of colloid science at Cambridge between 1930 and 1946,
he was closely associated with atomic research and was an expert on
heavy water.
Rideal became an espionage suspect and was identified as a Soviet
spy codenamederic, who was theNKVD’s first significant source
of information from inside the British atomic weapons project and
was run byVladimir Barkovskyof the Londonrezidentura. Bar-
kovsky had established contact with his valuable source in early 1943
and had reported toMoscow Centerin December 1942 that a Com-
munist sympathizer had passed a detailed report on atomic research
in Britain and America. The unnamed scientist intended to send the
material to theCommunist Party of Great Britain(CPGB) but it
had been relayed to the Soviets, which suggested that the scientist
was ideologically motivated.
Barkovsky’s colleagueAnatoli Gorskyhad asked the Center for
permission to establish direct contact with this scientist and when ap-
proval was given, Gorsky requested his contact to meet the scientist
again and ask him to agree to a meeting with a Soviet intelligence
officer. In a letter to the Center in March 1943 therezidenturare-
ported on the meeting witheric:
At first he hesitated, saying that he would have to think it over and that he
saw no need for meeting anybody since he had already written all he knew