Oleg Penkovsky, a colonel of the USSR Central Intelligence Agency, a distinguished officer in the Second World War, who has a close relationship with many high-ranking military personnel, is also USA and Great Britain was a spy working for the intelligence agency. [1] After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. He was arrested by the Soviets in 1962 and executed the next. They risk their lives. THE GLOBALDOMAINSNEWS - THE GLOBAL DOMAINS NEWS, As the USSR came with the relatives of traitors to the Motherland, What is the most unusual trophy brought the Red Army from Germany, Why are the soldiers in the squad Lermontov was like a gang of outlaws, 7 Popular Casino Games You Can Play in Vegas, A Brief Explanation on Different Types of Glocks. According to Wynne, British intelligence noticed Penkovskys odd (for a Soviet official) behaviour frequently slipping away alone for long strolls round the city or drinking wine at a pavement cafe where he would have a faraway expression. Macintyre writes in the book. Although the crisis finally appeared to be over, Soviet missiles were still on Cuba and US forces remained at DEFCON-3, while British V-bombers were at Alert Condition 3. But President Vladimir Putin KGBs former chief in East Berlin, who was burning secret files even as the Wall fell still likes the old ways. His bosses disliked his sloppiness, and fondness for alcohol. It was ideal cover for spying or approaching a recruit for MI6. Here he would remain for 18 nightmarish months, after being tried and convicted along with Penkovsky who had been arrested before Wynne and had their relationship beaten out of him. He worked as a double agent for the British secret service during the Cold War, between 1974 and 1985. Penkovsky was wounded in action in 1944, at about the same time as Varentsov, who appointed him his Liaison Officer. He had just finished a successful day pouring booze down the throats of Hungarian trade fair delegates as he showed off the best of UK engineering in his job as a foreign trade negotiator. The CIA has declassified thousands of pages about the Penkovsky operation but MI6, which is much more reticent about its accomplishments, hasnt declassified a single related document related. Britain's MI5 has complained about the activities of Russian spies in the UK, saying the numbers are close to Cold War levels - although many will be looking at the large number of Russian exiles. Ms Peterson was the first female agent sent to work in Moscow, performing dead drops with Alexander Dmitrievich Ogorodnik. He couldnt help flaunting his new wealth, buying a mansion and driving a Jaguar. The defection of Gordievsky was one of the UK's greatest security coups, delivering a stream of high-grade information. Penkovsky delivered crucial information, including about the Soviet Unions new Cuban missiles. Officials are agnostic but pessimistic about the chance of success. Penkovsky was surrounded not only by drinking buddies and airheads, but also by shrewd, perceptive types. How do you find the interior angle of a decagon? Thankfully for him, it was only to last 18 months as, in early 1964, the Soviet Union agreed to swap him for their spy Konon Molody, who as Canadian businessman Gordon Lonsdale had been the architect of the Portland Spy Ring that had gathered British naval secrets until his arrest in 1961. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in federal prison. 23:56 GMT 01 Jul 2021. He revealed the identities of hundreds of Soviet agents in the West, and some of his intel about the Kremlins plans landed directly on the desk of President John F. Kennedy. In October 1962, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were on the brink of nuclear war after Soviet nuclear missiles were spotted in Cuba. Greville Wynne was sentenced after a short trial in Moscow in 1963, Col Gordievsky had to be smuggled out Russia in an MI6 officer's car, The "spy rock" scandal severely strained British-Russian relations, Rescuers search wreckage of deadly Greece train crash. She turned over the details of a wide-ranging Russian conspiracy. His father, an avowed communist, served in the NKVD, Joseph Stalin's secret police, a forerunner of the KGB. The Chisholms went on to work in Singapore and twice in South Africa until Ruari's retirement. During a trip to London in April 1961, the Soviet colonel held a series of meetings with his new handlers and received special equipment, including a Minox portable camera. Penkovsky and Greville smuggled more than 5000 top-secret military documents out of the USSR. At other meetings, he would hand over film inside cigarette packets, signalling that he had something to report by phoning the British embassys naval attache but hanging up after a few rings. They justified it to their superiors on the grounds that the other man liked a drink and could betray sensitive information while in his cups. Later Greville was released from a Russian prison in exchange for the soviet spy Konon Molody. During the early days of the Cold War, one of the hardest workers was the chief of CIA operations in Berlin, a man later dubbed the American James Bond.. Can you put soda crystals in your washing machine? The transcript of his conversations with MI6 and the CIA ran to 1,200 pages of typewritten text. The Courier tells the "true story of the British businessman who helped MI6 penetrate the Soviet nuclear programme during the Cold War. see also: editors choice, Russian Seventhieves in law on the eve of the Olympics-80 struggled with prestupnostyu snipers at the end of the great Patriotic was not wearing a distinctive Black snakepower devil in Khakassia: the most mysterious place in Sibirica special in men who are born only sinovialnaya article also Listen to the podcast the Russian Seven. Would hydrogen chloride be a gas at room temperature? However, he was a broken man who would become estranged from his family and descend into alcoholism. Penkovsky was wounded in action in 1944, at about the same time as Varentsov, who appointed him his Liaison Officer. A feared Varangian grand prince of Kiev, he earned his nickname "the Prophet" after taking the city of Constantinople. Besides, she knew too much. Sir Gerry Warner, a former deputy chief of MI6, recalled the incident in a 2012 interview with the BBC: He did nothingwhich was exactly the right thing to do. They were warned, and that the aircraft had entered Cuban airspace. And another CIA officer was later sent to clear a "drop" in an apartment block where a message was supposed to have been left by Penkovsky. Sceptics, however, dismissed his Nazi agent story as most unlikely not only because the Germans were supposedly not using secret agents at the time for fear of provoking Britain, but also because broadcasting from a cellar would have been nigh impossible. Felicity Stuart watched the telephone with mounting unease. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. In fact, Penkovsky, who despised the repressive Soviet leadership and feared it would take the world to nuclear oblivion, had already approached the Americans and the Canadians about helping them. Dracula is supposed to be from Transylvania which is in Romania, but the famous accent was portrayed by Bela Lugosi who was Hungarian. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. Making money is one possible motive. Wynne also took his Soviet friend to the best nightclubs in London and Paris just to show him the advantages of the West, of course where the Russian reportedly picked up a habit of drinking wine from the shoes of his mistresses. Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. Among the men he gave up was Gordievsky. As important as Popov was to the United States and the West, it was Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, another Soviet GRU officer, who has earned the sobriquet, the "spy who saved the world.'. When Oleg Penkovsky offered Soviet military secrets to MI6, she became the go-between. The Courier is a new feature film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Wynne. Share: Comments Comments on the article How the USSR came with the relatives of traitors to the Motherland Please log in to leave a comment! As an intelligence officer Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lore and popular culture tout Col. Oleg Penkovsky as "the spy who saved the world" during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises. However, the Soviets already knew about the Chisholms from their own turncoat MI6 traitor George Blake and the KGB eventually obtained a photo of Penkovsky with Mrs Chisholm and arrested him, followed by Wynne. But he was also driven by revenge: he had been stymied in his career, and was furious he had never been made a general. And make no mistake, it will do this time as well. Oleg Gordievsky and Leila Alieva met in Copenhagen: she was a typist for the World Health Organization; he was an unhappily married KGB officer, and a spy for MI6. Penkovsky had been trying to offer his services to the west for some years, blatantly buttonholing diplomats and businessmen at receptions and approaching tourists in the street. There was no imminent nuclear strikeit had simply been a trap. He didnt tell his ambassador, he didnt tell London, he didnt tell anybody, because he was morally certain that Penkovsky was captured so this was meaningless. Balding and jowly, William Harvey didnt look like any of the screen Bonds. Their note added that it was recognised that this would be hard for Hetman to accept. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. 2023 BBC. Wynnes ordeal ended only when he was swapped at a tense Berlin border checkpoint exchange for a Russian agent, Gordon Lonsdale. His bosses, though, had been right: Ames was sloppy. And when the team consulted these, they came across a manual for the Soviets R-12 MRBM, designated the SS-4 by NATO forces, that Penkovsky had provided. Stieglitz, photographer. He even approached them surreptitiously in the street, a desperate tactic that encouraged them to think he was an agent provocateur and reject his advances. United States Air Force Central Intelligence Agency (historical) NASA Republic of China Air Force (historical). In 1945. Fifty years ago - nearly to the day - a British businessman stood in a stiflingly hot Moscow court room. Because his father opposed the Communist revolution, Penkovsky was routinely denied promotions. The Courier didnt see the second shot due to be knocked out by the first one. Both men were heavy drinkers who liked a party and even persuaded their respective paymasters to stump up 500 each for the construction of a bar at Wynnes home. the Property Arkady Shevchenko in Moscow apartment, more like a Museum of Antiques, confiscated. One was received by the CIAs deputy chief in Moscow, Hugh Montgomery, and the other by MI6s head of station, Gervase Cowell, who had recently replaced Ruari Chisholm. In the 90s, Natalia Tolkachev was released (her husband was shot). Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. It would be naive to think this was a one-way street, and that the US (and Britain) did not still try and spy on Russia. Video footage and photographs have emerged of the man's alleged detention, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports. In 2006, the defector Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned after meeting two Russians in London. In this case, its probably not hyperbole. Like Popov, Penkovsky volunteered his services and Kissevalter was called in to handle the spy, in league with two counterparts from the British Secret . Penkovsky ostensibly wanted to trade Soviet military secrets for a new life in the West with his wife and daughter. Former Colonel of the First Central Board of the KGB of the USSR, recruited in the mid-80s the CIA and worked for British intelligence, abroad called the largest Soviet mole after Penkovsky. He had identified a safe spot to leave messagesa dead drop in spy jargonbehind a radiator in the foyer of a block of apartments in Pushkinskaya Street, but tradecraft dictated that this could only ever be checked once. Their relationship did not last their enforced separation. Dmitri Polyakov. He was immediately arrested and killed by firing squad. Yeltsin enjoyed embarrassing the KGB, the former KGB man said. What is Scalable Vector Graphics used for? But had he told anybody else, he might have started the most enormous panic.. But why would he decide to embellish a story that was dramatic enough anyway? (Associated Press), Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. And the Russians, of course, want information on British and American politics, defence assets and wider industry (especially high-tech) as well as its spies. The British decided to take a chance on him and were richly rewarded. Quizzed by reporters back in the UK, Wynne could still manage a joke about his shaven head being the Lubyankas interpretation of a haircut. [1] Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. A December 1962 article in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia unwittingly pointed to what probably happened. This was one of several letters drafted by the GRU colonel in the summer of 1960 for the eyes of the CIA and MI6, along with Soviet military secrets. How many secrets has this man taken to his grave? said a Labour Party spokesman. When Oleg Penkovsky offered Soviet military secrets to MI6, she became the go-between. Are Bruno Mars and Jessica Caban together? She would meet Penkovsky in a local park and he would offer what appeared to be sweets, but were actually disguised documents containing military secrets about the Soviet nuclear weapons arsenal. In a Moscow park, Penkovsky also passed packets of sweets (with camera film hidden inside) to the wife of a British MI6 officer while she was pushing her children in a pram. Jeremy Duns is a British novelist and journalist. He was immediately. Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. There is an element of theatrics in the way it is portrayed: the way an agent kicked the rock to check it was working or the display of the wig the alleged CIA man was wearing. He, along with Montgomery and others, was expelled. Although American politicians exploited the resulting paranoia, Bentley proved there were Russian spies among us. For years, he watched his friends grab all the plum jobs. Why do many consider Colonel Penkovsky, a member of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces, to be the Wests most important mole inside the Soviet Union in the entire history of the Cold War? Penkovsky continued to feed MI6 and the CIA intelligence, and it was so valuable that he has been called the spy who saved the world. In Moscow, Wynne introduced Penkovsky to another intermediary Janet Chisholm, wife of MI6s local head of station. For several years, they'd noticed Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, a war hero and high-ranking official in the Soviet intelligence services, making overtures to Western diplomats and even tourists; the. Wynnes interpreter was making a quick exit when the Englishman called to him for help. She was officially the assistant to the British embassys visa officer, Ruari Chisholm, but this was just a cover role: Chisholm was the head of MI6 in the city, and she was his cipher clerk. Lt. Col. Oleg Penkovsky, born the same year as Wynne in 1919, was the man on the inside, the GRU spy who smuggled out military documents, photos, and human intelligence - including gossip he'd pick up at parties - which he passed to Wynne during business meetings. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. On learning of the CIAs discovery, John F. Kennedy immediately set up a group of advisors to deal with the situation, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). They concluded he was ripe for recruitment even after he was transferred back to Moscow. Seething, he finally agreed to spy for the Americans. Back in October 1961, MI6 and the CIA had set up a system of telephone signals for Penkovsky. He became a foreign negotiator for UK trade. Gennady was fired from the foreign Ministry, was forced to change his surname, name and patronymic and the place of work. How do you find the perimeter of a half circle shape? DeSantis won't say he's running. His MI6 handler directed him to make contact with an organisation dedicated to advancing Soviet scientific research. Usually, Penkovsky communicated with his handlers via notes he passed to Janet Chisholm with his other material, but they needed another method in case he couldnt meet her. American and British intelligence agencies believed the safest . Several times he reached out to the West: through U.S. tourists in Moscow and British businessman Greville Wynne, who had links with British intelligence. However, Gordievsky soon separated from his wife. Perhaps Wynne was simply trying to do what spies are surely supposed to do, dissembling and dec-eiving until the last. On November 2, 1962, two such calls came. They just wanted the cash. Spies, by Marc Favreau (Hachette Book Group). Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Janet_Chisholm&oldid=1119755453, Articles needing additional references from May 2021, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 3 November 2022, at 07:01. Penkovsky and Wynne had some fun while their collaboration lasted. Some did it for money, others did it for love. Click here to find out more. It seems likely that Penkovsky told his captors of this signal, but didnt reveal its true nature. Cold War Budapest in 1962 was not the most welcoming place for a British businessman, but Greville Wynne was feeling rather pleased with himself. Naturally, that drew unnecessary attention. They gave him cash. Wynne and Penkovsky engage in bland business banter while Wynne's wife (Jessie Buckley) assumes his new secretiveness is to cover up an affair. Both men were sceptical of the signal, but reacted differently. Britain had never done such a transaction and prime minister Alec Douglas-Home feared the Soviets might give Wynne a slow-acting poison that would kill him as soon as they had Molody back. Three short breaths into the mouthpiece, and the line went dead. The British ambassador in Moscow sent a strongly worded telegram opposing further efforts being made to secure Hetmans family. His wife & 2 little girls were left behind. Referring to the atomic disaster that Wynne and Penkovsky contributed to averting, the actor added: I think we forget how close we came to not existing any more.. But he dared to think outside the box. What's he waiting for? Family Shevchenko and Minister of foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrei Gromyko friends. Fifty years ago Greville Wynne was put on trial. She and his daughters returned to Russia, using her maiden name. Oleg Penkovsky married (wife played by Maria Mironova, actress and here's a brunette), he has a daughter. 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