A Chance Racist Taunt Strengthens the Resolve of a Soviet Spy
South Philadelphia was a tough neighborhood. Harry Gold thought the “fertile soil” of his “earnest desire” to work with the Soviet Union lay there, in his early experience of anti-Semitism: “When I was about twelve I made regular trips to the Public Library at Broad and Porter Streets, a distance of about two miles from my home. On returning from one such trip I was seized by a group of about 15 gentile boys at 12th and Shunk Streets and was badly beaten.” Gangs of Neckers, kids who lived in the marshy Neck section of South Philadelphia near the city …