Final answer:
Lou Epstein's past involves connection to historical espionage events during the Cold War era, including the arrest of the Rosenbergs and the discovery of the "pumpkin papers", which implicated State Department official Alger Hiss.
Step-by-step explanation:
Alfred learns that Lou Epstein's past is intertwined with a broader historical context involving espionage and the Cold War era. In 1950,
British physicist Klaus Fuchs confessed to passing America's atomic bomb secrets to the Soviets, which led to a series of arrests.
Fuchs first named Harry Gold as his liaison, who subsequently implicated David Greenglass, a colleague from the Manhattan Project.
Greenglass then accused his sister-in-law Ethel Rosenberg and her husband Julius Rosenberg, who were both arrested in New York City by the summer of 1950.
In a related instance, Americans discovered Soviet espionage activities when a spy outed Alger Hiss from the State Department in 1948.
The spy led to the discovery of what's known as the "pumpkin papers"—microfilmed documents hidden in a pumpkin on a farm, implicating Hiss. These occurrences reflect the tense atmosphere and the high stakes of international espionage during the period.