Harry Gold was no James Bond in appearance, clearly incapable of causing women to swoon and men to gaze in admiration.
But he was possessed of strong convictions, dutifully completed all his assignments and was shrewd enough in his dealings that no one would have ever expected that this otherwise undistinguished little man was turning over the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
Born in a suburb of Bern, Switzerland, in 1910, Heinrich Golodnitsky was brought to America by his parents a few years later, and the Gold family eventually settled in the old Jewish area of South Philadelphia.
His father worked as a low-wage cabinetmaker at the RCA Victor plant in Camden, while his mother taught local children Hebrew and Yiddish. A timid, sickly child, Harry had few friends, but developed a love for books and a hefty intellectual appetite, tackling Dickens, Milton, Browning and Shakespeare years before other kids would be encouraged to do so by their teachers.
Known for his compassion and helpfulness, Gold often tutored other children and would provide similar services to school colleagues and workmates, without a fee, throughout his life. Chemistry became his passion, and he eventually honed his scientific skills at the Pennsylvania Sugar Refinery on the Delaware River.
He went to Penn and was a moderately successful student, but had to drop out to help his family survive economically during the depths of the Depression.
When he lost his job at the sugar company, as so many others did during the 1930s, the family, now including younger brother Joe, braced for eviction.
After weeks of fruitlessly searching for work, Gold was able to nail down a decent-paying job as head chemist at a North Jersey soap firm.
