They were alone in the world with this incredible burden except for the other man.. Arrested? It's athank you from the West for what he sacrificed.". British intelligence officer and Soviet spy. "The Courier" has compressed the real-life story and changed some facts. [8] The KGB defector Vladimir N. Sakharov suggests Penkovsky was genuine, saying: "I knew about the ongoing KGB reorganisation precipitated by Oleg Penkovsky's case and Yuri Nosenko's defection. A colonel in Soviet military intelligence, Oleg Penkovsky, was working for them as an agent-in-place, photographing thousands of top-secret documents with a miniature camera, and delivering the. He drove across the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. and entered Chadwicks, a popular Georgetown restaurant, where he handed the documents to a Soviet Embassy official named Sergei Chuvakhin. As soon as Gordievsky landed in Moscow, he picked up signs that he had gambled wrong. On this trip, Penkovsky submitted to hours of interviews with British and American intelligence officials about the Soviet Unions military and political developments. In the Jack Ryan universe, he is described as the agent who recruited Colonel Mikhail Filitov as a CIA agent (code-name CARDINAL) and had urged Filitov to betray him to solidify his position as the West's top spy in the Soviet hierarchy. It also helped Americans to understand how limited the Soviets capabilities actually were in the area, so as tensions grew during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy knew how much rope he could give [Soviet Premier Nikita] Khrushchev, as Duns puts it. Before Ames, there was Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who had been slated to go to Moscow but was fired instead for drug use and petty theft. He was an intermediary for the important Soviet spy Oleg Penkovsky, who was engaged in selling arms and weapons secrets to British intelligence. Son And Daughter Now Greville Wynne And Oleg Penkovsky were both arrested by the Soviets in 1962. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov. Never before had there been a Soviet spy like him.. Penkovsky's story is a tragic and revealing one, and it is regrettable that with it all he did not tell us more of what he could tell best, the story of his own life and of the lives of his close associates.-GEORGE A . On the appointed day he startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off anyone who might be watching him. After a meeting in Paris in September 1961, Penkovskys next trips were mysteriously cancelled at the last minute. In 1961, jet travel did not allow someone to fly from the U.K. to the U.S. and back again in 24 hours, says West. I always thought there was another one, he told me. He attended the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 194548. Leonid never made it to the rock, his son said. To top it off, it would have been physically impossible at the time. Col. Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky was considered the wunderkind of the Soviet intelligence services. Leonids original case officer blamed himself for years for letting my father down. West maintains that its the result of something all too typical in the intelligence communitywhat he calls post-usefulness syndrome., Imagine that I recruit you and I tell you that whatever you report to me, within an hour, it will be on the presidents desk. At 4PM on the afternoon of July 19, 1985, Oleg Gordievsky dressed in a thin green sweater, faded green corduroy trousers and old brown shoes clothes he'd selected from the back of the wardrobe. The KGB surveilled Janet and witnessed her meeting with Penkovsky. The same year, he said, they spotted the potential of Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, the assistant Soviet military attache in Ankara, Turkey. We never drank too much, but we had to relax a little bit after one of our tiring meetings. Assisting him in his role as "courier" is Oleg Penkovsky ( Merab Ninidze ), a far more experienced Russian agent. Penkovsky-wynne spy trial, May 1963, a Sanyo portable transistor radio . "But you have a responsibility to honor the essence of what happened," says director Dominic Cooke. Updates? But Wynne paid a heavy price for his heroism. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. Finally, in 1991, with the KGB in disarray after its chief led the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the authorities let Alla and her daughter leave. He always hoped Leila would join him in England. Dun s denouement is both startling and convincing a fitting climax to this irresistible real life thriller Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday 'This excellent book contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st century' --Oleg Gordievsky, Literary Review 'This excellent book contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st . Wynne also enthusiastically embraced his role, enjoying the part of a daring secret agent where he could apply his salesman skills to a higher-stakes game. During a trip to London in April 1961, the Soviet colonel held a series of . He just was an ordinary man who got thrust into this just extraordinary, life-altering situation that was going to define his existence forever, says OConnor. Oleg Penkovsky was a Soviet military intelligence colonel during the late Fifties and early Sixties responsible for informing the UK about the Soviet emplacement of missiles in Cuba, to help build . His fear mounted. In the morning, they took usmy mother, my grandmother and meand put us in separate black Volgas, Andrei said. That fall, the KGB rolled up all of the CIAs assets in the Soviet Union in a lightning strike that sent the agency reeling. 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. With Vladimir Chuprikov, Merab Ninidze, James Schofield, Fred Haig. The 23-year-old journalist had been working late for Novosti, the Soviet press agency. When it came to writing the screenplay, OConnor laments that the true story of Wynnes experiences may never be known. [9] While the weight of opinion seems to be that Penkovsky was genuine, the debate underscores the difficulty faced by all intelligence agencies of determining information offered from the enemy. Considerado como el doble agente ms valioso que tuvo Occidente durante la Guerra Fra, Penkovsky ofreci informacin que le dio al gobierno de Kennedy una ventaja clave durante la Crisis de . They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. Wynne agreed, and during his visit to Moscow the following month he wound up connecting with Oleg Penkovsky, a lieutenant colonel in the GRU (the Soviet Unions foreign-intelligence agency) who was eager to leak high-level military information to Western powers. One of them finally answered: For espionage.. As a top ranking Russian officer, he sinks into the depts and rises to the heights of international intrigue. Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. The agents he betrayed that day, he has said, included Oleg Gordievsky, whose CIA code name was GTTICKLE; Sergei Bokhan, or GTBLIZZARD; and Leonid Poleshchuk, or GTWEIGH. It was the signal to launch his escape. 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.'. Though a former colonel of the 'KGB' by designation, who was appointed "resident-designate" at the . But his leaked information on Soviet missile capabilities and played a key role in President Kennedy'sstrong, successful stance duringthe Cuban Missile Crisis. Oleg Penkovskiy. A member of the Communist Party, he took part in the invasion of Finland and by the end of the Second World War had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The resettled spy told Wiser he was convinced Ames had betrayed him, but he confirmed that he had been abruptly summoned back to Moscow on May 17, 1985almost four weeks before Ames said he named him to the KGB. An Extraordinary Bond: Dominic Cooke on The Courier. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. And yet to an intelligence agency, ignoring the possibility of a mole isnt really an option, either. Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, with Henry R. Schlesinger, 'Fatal Encounter' BBC TV documentary 3 May 1991, KGB, MI6 and CIA officers involved with the Penkovsky reveal their stories, This page was last edited on 30 January 2023, at 08:39. Oleg Penkovsky was born in Russia in 1919. From the day they talked, Wiser told me, we believed it was important for us to consider the strong possibility that Gordievsky was compromised by someone within the U.S. intelligence community., Wiser acknowledges that Ames may have lied or been mistaken about the dateAmes has conceded that he drank heavily before his meetings with the KGB. The first meeting between Penkovsky and two American and two British intelligence officers occurred during a visit by Penkovsky to London in April 1961. Privacy Statement After they drove home, he packed a gym bag and announced that he was going for a jog. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war. A few months after the U-2 disaster, they had a breakthrough when a Col. Oleg Penkovsky approached them. Penkovsky was executed but there are conflicting reports about the manner of his death. On that first day, Andrei pressed his questioners to explain why his father had been arrested. Penkovskys information, and Wynnes help in delivering it to British and American intelligence officers, would produce mountains of material, play a role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and land both men in prison. Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). His work . Your Privacy Rights By all appearances Oleg and Vera have a happy marriage and are loving parents to Nina. This explosive book records the secret life and adventures of the greatest spy of our time - Oleg Penkovskiy - and reads with the excitement of the greatest of suspense novels. Would she ever live in the West? He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. Was there a fourth mole in the U.S. intelligence system that blew these secret agents covers? The FBI declined to comment on whether the search Wiser began is continuing. Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. I could sense he had been tortured. Leonid was executed on July 30. Donec gravida mi a condimentum rutrum. In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, most importantly, the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. It shortened her life, he said. If there is a fourth mole, and he is still alive, the FBI would surely want to catch him and prosecute him. "Most experts agreethat what Penkovsky provided on the Soviet's capabilities was extremely useful during the Cuban Missile crisis," saysRobert English, director of Central European Studies at the University of Southern California. Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) and Greville Wynne (Benjamin Cumberbatch) in The Courier. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. "And Greville played a big part in that.". After stops in Madrid and Frankfurt, a military jet flew him across the Atlantic. Because I knew it was a death sentence.. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. In the midst of the Cold War, a top-ranking Soviet officer named Oleg Penkovsky feared that the risk of nuclear war was too great, and decided to share some of the most closely held secrets of the Soviet arsenal with the West. Penkovsky was in fact arrested by the Soviets on Oct. 22, 1962, at the height of that crisis, after they realized that highly classified information was leaking to the West. It said Bokhans son, Alex, 18, was having trouble in military school and suggested the deputy take his vacation now, three months early, and return to the Soviet Union to deal with him. Confess again! the general roared. The "cremated alive" hypothesis appears in several Clancy novels, though Clancy never identified Penkovsky as the executed spy. Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (Russian: ; 23 April 1919 16 May 1963), codenamed HERO,[1] was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In April 1961, through Greville M. Wynne, a British businessman, he offered his services to British intelligence. Three other officers were also disciplined. In 1955 Penkovsky was appointed military attach in Ankara, Turkey, but was recalled after he had reported his superior officer, and later other GRU personnel for a breach of regulations, which made him unpopular in the department. Inside the CIA, Howard was blamed for Tolkachevs unmasking and subsequent execution, although Ames, too, had betrayed the researchers identity. It was apparent that Soviet counterintelligence agents did not yet have enough evidence to arrest him. Why did Wynne make up so much, when the truths of his 18 months as a spy are already filled with astounding details? je voulais juste avoir de tes nouvelles what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and child. He was reputedly on friendly terms with Penkovsky,[21] which is very likely to have been a cause of his fall. The operation was the most productive classic clandestine operation ever conducted by the CIA or MI6 against the Soviet target, as Schecter and Deriabin put it, and key to its success was the mustachioed courier with no prior intelligence experience. He is known as one of the greatest spies in the world. That raised a possibility that remains, even today, a subject of deep concern among counterintelligence agents, a problem privately acknowledged but little discussed publicly: That the three agents may have been betrayed by a mole inside U.S. intelligence whose identity is still unknown. what happened to penkovsky wifemostar bridge jump injuries. After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. But over the course of their two-year friendship, Oleg Penkovsky and Greville Wynne clandestinely smuggled 5000 top-secret documents from Russia to England and the United States. Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go. Boy and daughter now Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky were captured by the Soviets in 1962. This was prior to President Kennedy's address to the US revealing that U-2 spy plane photographs had confirmed intelligence reports that the Soviets were installing medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, in what was known as Operation Anadyr. He was detained at Lubyanka prison. He was probably the Wests most valuable double agent during the Cold War. I will never forget the day when I got home and she was singing songs, melodies, no words, and looking insane. In 1988, he took a Moscow river cruise and met a blond, blue-eyed and very beautiful woman named Svetlana, who worked for an automotive magazine. 41 ratings1 review. The film sees him arrested on a plane leaving. Poleshchuk was lured back to his fate. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. The daughter of a Russian mother . Oleg Penkovsky married (wife played by Maria Mironova, actress and here's a brunette), he has a daughter. Oleg Gordievsky is a Russian-born former British secret agent. By Benjy P. October 15, 2022. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. | READ MORE. No products in the cart. A few days after Oleg Gordievsky was recalled to Moscow, the KGB flew his wife, Leila, and their two daughters there, and he broke the unwelcome news that they would not be posted back to London. You, in your own mind, have developed this sense of self-importance, says West. Even the official accounts put out by American and Russian authorities regarding the Penkovsky affair include disinformation and spin that he, or any historian, has to navigate through. Wynne had worked as both Penkovsky's contact and courier; both men were arrested by the Soviets in October 1962. The Soviet public was first told of Penkovsky's arrest more than seven weeks later, when Pravda named Wynne and Jacobs[clarification needed] as his contacts, without naming anyone else. Penkovsky provided plans and descriptions of the nuclear rocket launch sites in Cuba to the West. Greville Wynnefitthe bill simply assomebody who was taking business into Eastern Europe.". His MI6 handlers assured him theyd picked up no sign anything was wrong. The KGB told Andrei his fathers remains were cremated and there would be no grave. Thus, Gordievsky was born, as it were, "into the KGB," in 1938 in Moscow. He was flown to Moscow, imprisoned, and tried alongside Penkovsky, who it would later be learned had been arrested the week before Wynne entered Hungary. In the history of U.S. intelligence, only three major molesmen whose betrayals had lethal resultshave been identified. He was selected for the post of military attach in India, but the KGB had uncovered the story of his father's death, and he was suspended, investigated, and assigned in November 1960 to the State Committee for Science and Technology. You have the wrong number, he was told. David Wise is a journalist and author, best known for his expertise in espionage and intelligence. In 1955 Penkovsky was appointed military attach in Ankara. He had never told his wife that he was working for the CIAit would have put her in mortal dangerbut now he had to say something. This story is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine. Gordievsky believes they were waiting to catch him contacting British intelligence. Wynne died of throat cancer in 1990 at a London hospital. After months of interrogation at Lefortovo, Andrei Poleshchuk told his captors he wouldnt answer any more questions unless they told him who his father worked for. [11] Former GRU captain Viktor Suvorov, who defected to the UK in 1978, later wrote in his book on Soviet intelligence, "historians will remember with gratitude the name of the GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky. These guys were in the foxhole togetherthey each had a secret that only the other man knew, says OConnor. Sentenced toeight years in a labor camp, Wynne spent 18 months in Moscow'sLubyanka Prison, where he was subjected to beatings and torture. Janie and Even though Wynne wasnt exactly a reliable narrator for what he did during his time as a secret agent, the materials he smuggled from behind the Iron Curtain were the real thing. There were certain anomalies that took place that we just couldnt put our finger on., And Bearden says, I remain convinced there is a fourth man. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky. They expected I would do something stupid, he told me. A large man let him in and flashed a badge. For the following 18 months, Penkovsky supplied a tremendous amount of information to the CIAMI6 team of handlers, including documents demonstrating that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was much smaller than Nikita Khrushchev claimed or the CIA had thought and that the Soviets were not yet capable of producing a large number of ICBMs. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. Alex Palmer is a travel and culture writer who lives in Brooklyn. His character's execution was the opening scene for the movie. John F. Lewis Jr., a former FBI counterintelligence agent who was chief of the national security division, believes there is a fourth mole. Soon after they arrived in the United States, there was a ceremony honoring his father at a Russian Orthodox church in Washington. We had neighbors that were very close. Though nobody knows how the leak was traced back to Penkovsky, he was arrested by the Soviets on October 22, 1962. Her eyes were empty. Wynne, a British businessman, he offered his services to British intelligence. | They have two children, and he works as an independent research analyst for business and government contractors in Northern Virginia. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. They drove through several checkpoints with no trouble, but they had to stop at Soviet customs when they reached the border. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. For a long time he resented the impact of his fathers CIA spying on his own life. Oleg Gordievsky. In 1997, Andrei and Svetlana emigrated to the United States. MI6's agent, however, eventually fell under suspicion, and was ordered back. Since Oleg Penkovsky offered his services to both the Americans and the British, the CIA and MI6 developed him jointly. Director Cooke says Donovan is a composite character representing several real-life people, includingJanet Chisholmthewife of a Moscow-based British visa officer whoalso served as a conduit for information passed to the West by Penkovsky. Of course Cherkashin, who worked in the Soviet Embassy in Washington and handled Ames, may have been unable to resist a chance to taunt the FBI and the CIA. But this Land Rovers driveshaft had been rerouted through one of the vehicles doors, the former CIA officer says, so that Gordievsky could fold himself into the hump, in effect hiding in plain sight. Penkovsky was wounded in action in 1944, at about the same time as Varentsov, who appointed him his Liaison Officer. They married in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he worked for an independent newspaper in Moscow for a time. Like Popov, Penkovsky volunteered his services and Kissevalter was called in to handle the spy, in league with two counterparts from the British Secret . That Friday, Gordievsky received a cable ordering him to report to Moscow urgently to confirm his promotion and meet with the KGBs two highest officials. In fact, his contribution to U.S. intelligence and policymaking is exaggerated, distorted, and in several instances falsified. By 1960 he had become a colonel in the GRU and deputy chief of the foreign section of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research (196062), in which post his task was to collect scientific and technical intelligence on the United States, Britain, and other Western countries. Cookie Settings, Liam Daniel, Courtesy of Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions, The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars. Wynne went along, slightly concerned about whether Penkovsky was on the level and concerned about putting himself into a dangerous situation, kicking off what would be one of the most productive clandestine operations in Cold War history. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. Moscow, August 3, 1985: It was 2 a.m. when Andrei Poleshchuk got home. But over time, intelligence experts and those involved in the case, though reluctant to share sensitive information, cast doubt on much of what Wynne laid out in his books. David Hefner was born in 1955 in Palo Alto, CA, as the son of Hugh Hefner, founder of "Playboy" magazine. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. Not only was this account widely denied shortly after publication by members of the CIA and Kennedys staff, but it would have been against the way espionage is runkeeping heads of state a safe distance from the details of intelligence work. In the back seat were a jacket, hat and sunglasses. The mole reported that Janet Chisholm, the wife of a British intelligence officer working in Moscow, was also active in collection activities herself. There were embraces, and everyone cried. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. American and British intelligence agencies believed the safest . Murder by Cremation. Posted on . His escape plan was bound under the flyleaf of a novel; he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions. His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. Corrections? They had to go through a show trial, basically, so on the stand Wynne accused MI6 of using him as a dupehe may have just been saying whatever he could say because he worried they might execute him, says Jeremy Duns, an author of several spy novels set during the Cold War as well as the history book Codename: Hero: The True Story of Oleg Penkovsky and the Cold Wars Most Dangerous Operation. In extended CIA and FBI debriefings, he talked about his nine years of spying for Moscowincluding the day when he turned over, in his words, the identities of virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me.. I had no job. Penkovsky was executed the following year and Wynne was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. It said his parents had unexpectedly heard of an apartment they could buy for him; his father decided to take his vacation early and come home to close the deal. No child today is doing duck and cover drills or helping to build a fallout shelter. cole and rye leather swivel chair; north star cherry tree colorado Investors Helping Baby Boomer Business Owners. [4], Greville Wynne, a British salesman of industrial equipment to countries behind the Iron Curtain, was recruited by MI6 to communicate with Penkovksy. He was arrested by the Soviets in 1962 and executed the next. One theory is that Penkovsky wrote his message in broad brush strokes. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. As the film alludes, life never returned to normal for Wynne, who battled depression and the psychological after-effects of his incarceration. The next thing he knew, he woke up half-dressed in one of the dachas bedrooms. Wynne, despite claiming ignorance of what materials he was smuggling to the West, was sentenced to eight years in prison. Mr. Wint: Very moving. Ameeting between theRussian prisoners, in which Wynne tellsPenkovsky of the import of his information, asdepicted in the film, is drama. Terms of Use He worked as a double agent for the British secret service during the Cold War, between 1974 and 1985. He later worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research. It was in my fathers handwriting. Leonid Poleshchuk knew his first CIA case officer, who had recruited him in Nepal, as Joe. Advertising Notice 2023 Smithsonian Magazine "His clothes were sort of shrink-wrapped around this skeleton," says Cumberbatch, who spent three months losing weight and physically preparing to portray Wynne's final months of ordeal.