Oscar Seborer, codenamed Godsend, was an atomic spy for the Soviet Union who worked at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and the Los Alamos Laboratory, New Mexico.
15 Facts About Oscar Seborer
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Oscar Seborer was born in New York City on June 4,1921, youngest child of Jewish Polish immigrants Abraham Seborer, a clerk, and Jennie Chanover.
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Oscar Seborer had four older siblings: three brothers, Max, Noah and Stuart, and a sister, Rose.
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Abraham and Jennie lived in what was then called Palestine from 1934 to 1938, and Oscar apparently lived there with them.
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Oscar Seborer's sister Rose worked for the CPUSA in New York in administrative positions.
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Oscar Seborer attended CCNY but then enrolled at Ohio State University, where he studied electrical engineering.
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Oscar Seborer was drafted into the Army in 1942, but due to his special training he was assigned to the Special Engineer Detachment, a program that identified enlisted personnel with special technical or scientific skills, and put them to work on the Manhattan Project, the effort to build an atomic bomb.
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Oscar Seborer was assigned to the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and then to the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico.
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Oscar Seborer was present at the Trinity nuclear test on July 16,1945, with a group measuring the seismological effect of the explosion.
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Oscar Seborer wrote a report on economic progress in Bizone, Germany in 1949, and one on the Army's education program the following year.
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Oscar Seborer applied for a civilian position at Los Alamos in 1947, but withdrew his application.
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Oscar Seborer was transferred to the Electronic Shore Division of the Bureau of Ships, where he was involved in the installation of electronic equipment in American and European harbors.
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Oscar Seborer was the only man working in the unit who did not hold a security clearance.
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Stuart and Oscar Seborer were employed there by the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
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Oscar Seborer later worked as a medical technician at the United Nations until 1974.