His character's execution was the opening scene for the movie. U.S. counterintelligence agents have established that neither Howard nor Hanssen had access to the identities of all the American intelligence sources who were betrayed in 1985. Though nobody knows how the leak was traced back to Penkovsky, he was arrested by the Soviets on October 22, 1962. Posted on . 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 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.. Oleg Penkovsky Born: April 23, 1919 Birthplace: Vladikavkaz, Russia Death: May 16, 1963, Moscow, USSR (executed by Soviet Union) Jessie Buckley Born: December 28, 1989 Birthplace: Killarney, Ireland Sheila Wynne Keir Hills Andrew Wynne Angus Wright Born: November 11, 1964 Birthplace: Washington, D.C., USA Sir Arthur Temple 'Dickie' Franks Son And Daughter Now Greville Wynne And Oleg Penkovsky were both arrested by the Soviets in 1962. Gordievsky never took a penny from MI6 until after he had defected to the U.K. His actions were motivated by a hatred of the tyranny of the Soviet system, and the degraded condition in which it. Russian Spy Played Key Role in Cuban Missile Crisis Ameeting between theRussian prisoners, in which Wynne tellsPenkovsky of the import of his information, asdepicted in the film, is drama. During their visits, Penkovsky and Wynne would get out on the town, visiting restaurants, nightclubs and shops under the cover of talking business, with each man proudly showing the other around his home country. He was probably the West's most valuable double agent during the Cold War. 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. At Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland he looked out the window and saw several black cars and people on the tarmac. Penkovsky's father might have fled to the West rather than have died of typhus as Penkovsky had previously reported, the KGB prohibited Penkovsky from assuming his post in New Delhi but permitted him to remain in the GRU after his mother submitted a statement detailing her family's ignorance of her husband's fate.28 Terms of Use In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' Minutes passed. When I found a job, the KGB called and they fired me. 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. Penkovsky approached American students on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow in July 1960 and gave them a package in which he offered to spy for the United States. Kent. The Courier: Directed by Dominic Cooke. Wynne died of throat cancer in 1990 at a London hospital. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). A large man let him in and flashed a badge. Thus, Gordievsky was born, as it were, "into the KGB," in 1938 in Moscow. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. In Wright's view, the failure of British intelligence leaders to listen to him caused them to become paralysed when such agents defected to the Soviet Union; in his book, Spycatcher, he suggests that his hypothesis had to be true, and that the Soviets were aware of this paralysis and planted Penkovsky. In May 1963, after his trial, Izvestya reported that Varentsov, who had since achieved the rank of Chief Marshal of Artillery and Commander in Chief of Rocket Forces and candidate member of the Central Committee had been demoted to the rank of Major General. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. The burden of that is hard to imagine.. Advertising Notice On the front door of his apartment, someone had locked a third lock he never used because he had lost the key; he had to break in. 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 is perhaps the best known of Soviet double agents. 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. Penkovsky, the Spy Who Tried to Destroy the World Sentenced toeight years in a labor camp, Wynne spent 18 months in Moscow'sLubyanka Prison, where he was subjected to beatings and torture. [10], The Soviet leadership began the deployment of nuclear missiles, in the belief that Washington would not detect the Cuban missile sites until it was too late to do anything about them. Reiser was waiting in a car at the other end. From a Moscow railroad station, he made his way by train, bus and taxi to a point near the Finnish-Soviet border, where he hid in some grass by the roadside until two cars stopped. The unlikely British spy was freed in 1964 in exchange forSoviet spy Konon Molody. 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. As the USSR came with the relatives of traitors to the Motherland His dining companion, Dickie Franks, revealed himself to be an officer of the. Penkovsky's American contacts received a letter from him notifying them that a Moscow dead drop had been loaded. MI6's agent, however, eventually fell under suspicion, and was ordered back. Oleg Penkovski - eng.az24saat.org 276 to 280, "A Spy Story: Sergei Skripal Was a LIttle Fish. The Courier vs. the True Story of British Spy Greville Wynne There were embraces, and everyone cried. Russia was building missile bases in Cuba, armed with nuclear . The Penkovsky Papers by Oleg Penkovskiy - Goodreads | Meet your next In August 1960, a Soviet colonel called Oleg Penkovsky tried to make contact with the West. And their actions were directly responsible for the hotline that now exists between the White House and the Kremlin to prevent nuclear war between Russia and the U.S. He was arrested by the Soviets in 1962 and executed the next. The "cremated alive" hypothesis appears in several Clancy novels, though Clancy never identified Penkovsky as the executed spy. Either one of ours or theirs., When the FBI Spent Decades Hunting for a Soviet Spy on Its Staff, Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America, David Wise Occasionally the killer will opt to dispense with the coffin . 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. troops.[15]. | READ MORE. Col. Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky was considered the wunderkind of the Soviet intelligence services. World War 3: How CIA received imminent nuclear strike warning They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Wynne had worked as both Penkovsky's contact and courier; both men were arrested by the Soviets in October 1962. Picture of the Day - Caveman Circus "He started as a nave amateur. Who in reality was the Soviet traitor in the new Cumberbatch spy It was apparent that Soviet counterintelligence agents did not yet have enough evidence to arrest him. Leonids original case officer blamed himself for years for letting my father down. Only a few days earlier he had called his brother-in-law in Kiev, where Alex was studying, and been assured his son was doing well. After his father was executed, Andrei kept working for Novosti. [7], Former KGB major-general Oleg Kalugin does not mention Penkovsky in his comprehensive memoir about his career in intelligence against the West. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. In 1944, he was assigned to the headquarters of Colonel-General Sergei Varentsov, commander of artillery on the 1st Ukrainian front, who became his patron. "Greville Wynne was anordinary mandoing an extraordinary thing," Cumberbatch says. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. That day was June 13, 1985, by Ames account. In spying for Moscow on and off over 22 years, Hanssen revealed dozens of secrets, including the eavesdropping tunnel the FBI had dug under the Soviet Embassy in Washington and the identities of two FBI sources within the embassy, who were also executed. When I came to Moscow, she left, he says, taking the children with her on a vacation. The programme featured original covert KGB footage showing Penkovsky photographing classified information and meeting up with Janet Chisholm, a British MI6 agent stationed in Moscow. Wynne, despite claiming ignorance of what materials he was smuggling to the West, was sentenced to eight years in prison. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oleg-Vladimirovich-Penkovsky, Public Broadcasting Service - Biography of Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Oleg Penkovsky. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. But as he began researching Wynnes story, he learned that this ordinary man could also tell some extraordinary lies. Greville Wynne - Wikipedia After stops in Madrid and Frankfurt, a military jet flew him across the Atlantic. After many years, I understood him. Penkovsky was the highest-ranking Soviet official to provide intelligence for the West up until that time, and is one of several individuals credited with altering the course of the Cold War. It's the early 1960s and Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a salesman who represents Western manufacturers in foreign countries. If it should turn out that the mole is no longer alive, the intelligence agencies would still run a damage assessment to try to reconstruct what and whom he might have betrayed. I could not believe what was happening. The FBI declined to comment on whether the search Wiser began is continuing. I always thought there was another one, he told me. British intelligence officer and Soviet spy. Her eyes were empty. Dunlap was just another source they had to protect. On this trip, Penkovsky submitted to hours of interviews with British and American intelligence officials about the Soviet Unions military and political developments. Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. Wynne was a middle-classBritish businessman whose frequenttravelto Eastern Europe attracted recruitmentby MI-6 to serve as a liaison to high-ranking Soviet official Penkovsky. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. There is no statute of limitations for espionage. Penkovsky's espionage about Soviet missiles . No, he was told, theyre here for you.. The Cuban Missile Crisis. 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. Oleg Penkovsky married (wife played by Maria Mironova, actress and here's a brunette), he has a daughter. According to an official Soviet announcement, he was executed on May 16, 1963, though other reports have him committing suicide while in a Soviet camp. Their caution in this matter may have led to the missiles being discovered earlier than the Soviets would have preferred. [16] The noted Soviet sculptor Ernst Neizvestny said that he had been told by the director of the Donskoye Cemetery crematorium "how Penkovsky [had been] executed by 'fire'". This is the scenario described in The mail, and that generally accepted by . He was reputedly on friendly terms with Penkovsky,[21] which is very likely to have been a cause of his fall. Joe said to his people, Keep the watch, I want to give it to his son. At a reception after the church ceremony, Joe gave Andrei the watch. (Howard, Russian authorities reported in 2002, died of a fall in his KGB dacha near Moscow.
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