Lev Vasilevsky, also known as Leonid A. Tarasov, was the KGB Mexico City Illegal Resident during much of the period of the Manhattan Project. In 1943, Moscow Center of KGB intelligence activities in North America, decided all contacts with J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos laboratory, would be through 'illegals' only. Vasilevsky operating from Mexico City was put in charge of running the illegal network after New York Resident Vasily Zarubin had been recalled to Moscow. Vasilevsky instructions were to control the network from the Mexico City Residentura. Bruno Pontecorvo was the conduit supplying the atomic secrets from Enrico Fermi. Vasilevsky provided Pontecorvo with an escape route through Finland which Pontecorvo used in 1950 after the ar