Espionage: I Gave Them All

Despite his near-genius IQ of 142, gangling, bespectacled George John Gessner, 28, had never managed to leave much of a mark anywhere. Last week he finally succeeded, but the mark turned out to be black. In a Kansas City, Kans., federal district court, Gessner was found guilty of selling information on U.S. nuclear weapons to the Russians, thus became the first person convicted under the espionage provisions of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act.

Princely Payoff. Gessner had worked for nearly seven years as a nuclear weapons technician, had ample opportunity to gather information...

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