abstract:Bruno Pontecorvo (, Bruno Maksimovich Pontekorvo; August 22, 1913 – September 24, 1993) was an Italian nuclear physicist, an early assistant of Enrico Fermi and then the author of numerous studies in high energy physics, especially on neutrinos. According to Oleg Gordievsky (the highest-ranking KGB officer ever to defect) and Pavel Sudoplatov (former deputy director of Foreign Intelligence for the Soviet Union), Pontecorvo was also a Soviet agent.