Missing Fissionist

Scholarly Dr. Bruno Pontecorvo, 37, was well-liked by his fellow nuclear physicists at Britain's Harwell atomic research plant. The Italian-born Briton was jolly and fun-loving, a good dancer, an enthusiastic tennis player. His pretty Swedish wife Helena Marianne was just as gay, had a flair for flamboyant clothes, including red slacks.

A Rome University Ph.D., a pupil of famed Enrico Fermi, Physicist Pontecorvo fled Italy in the 1930s to escape Mussolini's Hitler-inspired antiSemitism. He spent some time in France and the U.S., finally settled in Canada, where he became a British subject and an important researcher at the Chalk River atomic project. Eventually he made his way to Harwell, where he rose to the post of chief scientific officer. Like many a colleague, he was an associate (in Canada) of Dr. Allan Nunn May, later convicted of passing atomic information to Russian agents; and an associate (in Britain) of Dr. Klaus Fuchs, also convicted of atomic spying for Russia.

But Pontecorvo stayed above suspicion. Last July he resigned from Harwell to take a post at the University of Liverpool, which has one of Britain's finest atomic research departments. He was doing work on tritium, key element for the hydrogen bomb; he was also keenly interested in cosmic ray research. Before going to Liverpool, Pontecorvo planned a holiday.

"Is That Russia?" With his wife & three children, the physicist went to visit his parents in Milan. A friend who met him there asked if they were going straight back to England. "No," said Pontecorvo. "I'm going to Austria, where petrol is cheaper." But he never showed up in Austria.

Later, it was reported, he had met a Czech and an Italian (both unidentified) near Lake Como. "I dare not go back," he said to his wife. "I should be sent to prison if I did." Without telling his parents, he and his family went to Rome. He put up his grey Vanguard at a garage, ordered a full tank of petrol, said he'd be back next day to start a long trip. But he never came back.

Instead, the Pontecorvos bought tickets via Scandinavian Airlines to Stockholm. From Stockholm, without calling Mrs. Pontecorvo's mother, who lives in a suburb of the Swedish capital, they quickly flew on to Helsinki. During the trip, one of their little sons prattled to a fellow passenger, "We're going to Russia." When the youngster saw land below after crossing the Baltic, he asked, "Is that Russia?"

At Helsinki's Malmi Airport, Mrs. Pontecorvo looked haggard and distraught. Her husband seemed quite normal. But his passport was not in order; he had no Finnish visa, so the authorities politely told him he must surrender it for correction. He could pick it up in three days at the Ministry of Interior's Bureau for Foreigners.

All this delayed the airline bus into the Finnish capital. Finally the five Pontecorvos piled in, along with half a dozen large suitcases. As the bus entered the city, the Pontecorvo boy asked again, "Are we now in Russia?" Just outside the Finnish Airways office in the Esplanade, the bus stopped. The Pontecorvos picked up a taxicab and sped off. After that, no trace.

No Forwarding Address. They did not register at any hotel, pension or private home. They did not catch the Beloostrov, a Russian passenger boat, which was leaving that day for Leningrad. Pontecorvo did not show up to claim his passport from the Interior Ministry. No border station had any record of his crossing.

Perhaps the physicist and his family were hiding in the Russian legation. Or from Helsinki they could have been driven into Porkkala, the Russian-held naval base 19 miles from Helsinki; the Finns have no control over Russian trains from Porkkala to Leningrad.

The disappearance of the Pontecorvos was first broken by sensational headlines in the Rome press. By last week the hue & cry over the scientist led to embarrassing questions in the House of Commons. Alarmed U.S., British and French security agents launched a continental search.

If Bruno Pontecorvo was still merely vacationing, he had been careless not to leave a forwarding address. If he had entered Russia, willingly or unwillingly, the Kremlin had one of the world's top physicists in its domain.

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