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. The same year, he said, they spotted the potential of Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, the assistant Soviet military attache in Ankara, Turkey. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. On October 29 of that year, just hours after the Soviets stood down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Wynne went to Soviet-occupied Budapest with a traveling exhibition of British industrial goods, against the advice of his MI6 handlers. 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. Athens, May 21, 1985: After the Tuesday-morning staff meeting at the Soviet Embassy, Col. Sergei Ivanovich Bokhan stayed behind to talk to his boss, the local rezident of the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency. Privacy Statement Advertising Notice As the film alludes, life never returned to normal for Wynne, who battled depression and the psychological after-effects of his incarceration. Strange" to Sherlock Holmes. [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. They have two children, and he works as an independent research analyst for business and government contractors in Northern Virginia. He Had a Big Enemy", : , "Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence: X. 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. Wynne was a British businessman who, from 1960 and 1962, smuggled thousands of pieces of intel out of Russia before he was captured, imprisoned, and tortured for two years by the KGB. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. Make way for his amateur,everyman spy Greville Wynne in "The Courier," now on premium VOD6. During a trip to London in April 1961, the Soviet colonel held a series of . Between April 1961 and October 1962, Penkovsky inflicted enormous damage on the Soviet Union. Advertising Notice In August 1960, a Soviet colonel called Oleg Penkovsky tried to make contact with the West. Cookie Settings, FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, John Hallisey / FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12, 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. It was the KGBs way of saying my father worked for the CIA, Andrei said. [4], Greville Wynne, a British salesman of industrial equipment to countries behind the Iron Curtain, was recruited by MI6 to communicate with Penkovksy. 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. Wynne was arrested and jailed as a spy The moonlighting spy was arrested on a business trip to Budapest in November 1962 and taken to the Soviet Union. He was free. Oleg Gordievsky. The case of Oleg Penkovsky, a CIA and MI6 agent deep inside Soviet military intelligence, provided le Carr inspiration for The Russia House (1989). 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. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. Greville Wynne, a British spy who told in his celebrated memoirs how he pried loose some of Moscow's best-kept secrets and who served 18 months in a Soviet prison for His MI6 handlers assured him theyd picked up no sign anything was wrong. Just the day before, Moscow had announced that a Soviet defense researcher named Adolf G. Tolkachev had been arrested as a CIA spy. 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. Penkovsky was portrayed by Christopher Rozycki in the 1985 BBC Television serial Wynne and Penkovsky. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. Oleg Gordievsky is a Russian-born former British secret agent. Penkovsky was portrayed by Merab Ninidze in the 2020 British film The Courier, in which Benedict Cumberbatch played Greville Wynne. They flew to New York and, with help from the CIA and the FBI, were reunited with Sergei at a motel near John F. Kennedy International Airport. In fact, his contribution to U.S. intelligence and policymaking is exaggerated, distorted, and in several instances falsified. When Wynne visited Moscow in July 1962, his hotel room and luggage were searched, and he was tailed during his travels. The timeline just didnt work to explain Gordievskys recall to Moscow, FBI Special Agent Leslie Wiser, who ran the Ames case, told me. Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, (born April 23, 1919, Vladikavkaz, Russiadied May 1963?, U.S.S.R.), senior Soviet military intelligence officer who was convicted of spying for the United Kingdom and the United States. 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 After some months, she was released. 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 . This information allowed the West to identify the missile sites from the low-resolution pictures provided by US U-2 spy planes. "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. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. Posted on . He has a net worth estimated to be over $500,000. 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. In June 1986, Leonid was tried and, predictably, convicted. 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. I went into the bathroom, locked the door and stared at myself in the mirror.. Despite having no previous experience in intelligence work, Wynne was being recruited to serve as an MI6 agent. 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. Penkovsky never knew his father, who was killed fighting as an officer in the White Army in the Russian Civil War when he was a baby. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). (1) BBC Broadcast (11th May, 1963) A British businessman accused of spying for the West has been sentenced to eight years' detention by a Moscow tribunal. But the CIA and FBI debriefers soon recognized a glaring anomaly in Ames account: It was clear that those three agents had fallen under suspicion in May 1985before Ames insists he handed over the documents. The following article hopes to help you make more suitable choices and . The agency cautioned that it would be too risky for him to bring that much cash through the airport and told him the money would be in Moscow, stashed inside a fake rock. [3] When the US Embassy in Moscow refused to cooperate, fearing an international incident, the CIA contacted MI6 for assistance. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. Both he and the Soviet leader. What neither the CIA nor Poleshchuk knew was that the apartment was a KGB operation. Here's what to know about Wynne's real history. They married in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he worked for an independent newspaper in Moscow for a time. 445 & 35. Penkovsky was ultimately undone by a mole within the British government. When the driver turned off the engine, Gordievsky could hear dogs close byAlsatians, he later learned. Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. British intelligence officer and Soviet spy. After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. Russia was building missile bases in Cuba, armed with nuclear . But Wynne paid a heavy price for his heroism. It's athank you from the West for what he sacrificed.". Hed been back at headquarters only four months earlier, and all seemed well. After Ames was arrested and charged with espionage, his attorney, Plato Cacheris, negotiated a plea bargain with prosecutors: Ames wife, Rosario, an accomplice in his spying, would be spared a long prison sentence if he cooperated fully with the authorities. Oleg Penkovsky and Greville Wynne are directly responsible for its positive outcome. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. When he began spying for the Russians almost a decade earlier, Ames was chief of the CIAs Soviet counterintelligence branch, entrusted with secrets that would be of incalculable value to the KGB. His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . The emaciated Wynne's returntohis middle-class Londonhomewherehis wife and child waited made for a jarring scene in newsreels at the time. What happened to wife of Oleg Penkovsky? I dont want to live in a tent, she said. President John Kennedy read it and understood. Subsequently, a trade was exchanged after the British had a Russian government agent, Konon Molody, under his tutelage. Your Privacy Rights The films screenwriter, Tom OConnor, found Wynnes story of a nobody suddenly becoming a somebody compelling. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. One of them finally answered: For espionage.. Menu. Dont call us, well call you in a couple years. When Greville got out of prison, he was not prepared, as people obviously are not in those circumstances, to be ignored.. Bokhan froze. He just couldnt tell the truth. 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. It shortened her life, he said. That the KGB ran a fourth mole is undeniable, Victor Cherkashin, a wily KGB counterintelligence officer, has written. You have the wrong number, he was told. During the 1960s, a corrosive mole hunt led by James J. Angleton, the CIAs counterintelligence chief, led to institutional paranoia, paralyzed operations aimed at the Soviet Union, and disrupted the lives of many innocent CIA officers who were fired or sidetracked in their careers. Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) and Greville Wynne (Benjamin Cumberbatch) in The Courier. Penkovsky felt stunted in his career with GRU and expected that by helping the West for a year or two, he and his family could be relocated and build a better life, and that he would personally be showered with recognition and honor. "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. In the late 1960s, after he had been imprisoned for his spycraft and could no longer assist MI6 nor the CIA, the amateur spy authored a pair of books: The Man From Moscow: The Story of Wynne and Penkovsky and The Man From Odessa, that were riddled with falsehoods. In July 1994, Leslie Wiser, the FBI agent who unmasked Ames, flew to London to interview Gordievsky. Joe had become very close to my father and worried that some action by him, some error, had led to his betrayal.. When Bokhan escaped from Athens, the KGB hustled his wife back to Moscow, searched her apartment and began a series of interrogations. In the history of U.S. intelligence, only three major molesmen whose betrayals had lethal resultshave been identified. Murder by Cremation. Three other officers were also disciplined. In all, Penkovsky had provided Western intelligence with about 140 hours of interviews and 111 exposed rolls of film, contributing to some 10,000 pages of intelligence reports. Penkovsky was put on trial for treason in May 1963 and was found guilty and sentenced to death. Then he kissed his wife and daughter goodbye. It was scary.. Penkovsky's espionage about Soviet missiles . His work . what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and child. 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. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He played a role in both the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. 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 . It led to him and a Soviet double agent, Oleg Penkovsky, becoming firm friends, involved in . 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. [19] Greville Wynne, in his book The Man from Odessa, claimed that Penkovsky killed himself. He always hoped Leila would join him in England. 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. Cookie Policy He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. Though a former colonel of the 'KGB' by designation, who was appointed "resident-designate" at the . He asked it be given to Joe, with a message, Here is something from Leo. By the time Joe learned of the gift, Andrei said, his father had been arrested. While its standard for Hollywood films to take liberties with the facts, insert composite characters, devise imagined conversations, and smooth-out timelines to ensure a brisk pace, its less common for a based-on-a-true-story movie to have to be more truthful than the source material. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oleg-Vladimirovich-Penkovsky, Public Broadcasting Service - Biography of Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Oleg Penkovsky. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. In 1945, Penkovsky married the teenage daughter of Lieutenant-General Dmitri Gapanovich, thus acquiring another high-ranking patron. Like Popov, Penkovsky volunteered his services and Kissevalter was called in to handle the spy, in league with two counterparts from the British Secret . And yet to an intelligence agency, ignoring the possibility of a mole isnt really an option, either. A KGB general told him he had confessed. We never drank too much, but we had to relax a little bit after one of our tiring meetings. Penkovsky's reporting of thirty years ago demonstrates that political and Economic failures were already eroding the foundations of the Soviet empire. 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. Thus began their fruitful relationship, one that involved Wynne hosting Penkovsky in London, who was visiting under the pretense of cultivate new opportunities in the West. Penkovsky provided plans and descriptions of the nuclear rocket launch sites in Cuba to the West. The stories of Oleg Gordievsky, Sergei Bokhan and Leonid Poleshchukreported here in extensive new detail and based on interviews with Gordievsky, Bokhan and Andrei Poleshchuk, as well as former FBI and CIA officialssuggest the damage a mole can do. The KGB men searched the apartment all night. [14] That information might have reduced the pressure on Kennedy to launch an invasion of the island, which could have risked Soviet use of 9K52 Luna-M-class tactical nuclear weapons against U.S. Through the windows of the ground-floor apartment he shared with his parents, he could see strangers moving about. The daughter of a Russian mother . Between April 1961 and August 1962 Penkovsky passed more than 5,000 photographs of classified military, political, and economic documents to British and U.S. intelligence forces. 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. These things have to be run to ground.. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. Battled mystery flu, fake crew cut facing Jodie Foster in 'The Mauritanian', Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Penkovsky was referred to in four of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan espionage novels: The Hunt for Red October (1984), The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988), The Bear and the Dragon (2000) and Red Rabbit (2002). He was the real deal. 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. 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. The year 1985 was a catastrophe for U.S. and British intelligence agencies. 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. Janie and Reiser was waiting in a car at the other end. Would she ever live in the West? Morbi eu nulla vehicula, sagittis tortor id, fermentum nunc. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. 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. In one of his biggest whoppers, Wynne explains that he and Penkovsky took a trip together in a private military jet from the U.K. to Washington, D.C. Had the Russians examined the car, they would have seen the hump on the floor where the driveshaft would normally be. [18] In a 2010 interview, Suvorov denied that the man in the film[clarification needed] was Penkovsky and said that he had been shot. | READ MORE. 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. After months of negotiations, the British government was eventually able to arrange a trade of Wynne for the Soviet spy Gordon Lonsdale, whod been arrested the year before and was serving a 25-year sentence in England. "He started as a nave amateur. His father, an avowed communist, served in the NKVD, Joseph Stalin's secret police, a forerunner of the KGB. Wynne died of throat cancer in 1990 at a London hospital. Benedict Cumberbatch is known for bringing outlandish, extraordinary characters, from Marvel's "Dr. A somewhat baroque means of murder, the killer shuts their victim in a coffin (knocking them out first is optional) and feeds the coffin into a crematorium oven. They know.. "He did make a life for himself, but Greville Wynne did pay a big price for his service. I talked to some old MI6 friends, and they say they are sure there is. He did so, but nothing happened. He was detained at Lubyanka prison. Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky born 23 April 1919 died 16 May 1963, USSR codenamed HERO, was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence (GRU) during the late . Seeking ways to parlay the notoriety he received, he became what Duns calls a rent-a-spokesperson for all kinds of espionage stuff, making appearances in the media about anything related to spycraft, whether or not it was anything he had experience with. Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. For months, Andrei had been hoping his father would find him an apartment. Kennedy was deprived of information from a potentially important intelligence agent, such as reporting that Khrushchev was already looking for ways to defuse the situation, which might have lessened the tension during the ensuing 13-day stand-off. answer the question what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and daughter, which will help you get the most accurate answer. Gordievsky was served sandwiches and Armenian brandy. 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. Wise is the author or co-author of 14 books, including The Politics of Lying, Spy Who Got Away and Tiger Trap. Minutes passed. The Cuban Missile Crisis was high-stakes brinkmanship played out between US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, bringing Washington and Moscow to the precipice of nuclear war in October 1962. His escape plan was bound under the flyleaf of a novel; he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions. You, in your own mind, have developed this sense of self-importance, says West. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. I was 18 years old. He sees that episode differently now. Yet the secrets that the Soviet colonel passed on to the West helped keep the Cuban Missile Crisis from becoming the Cuban Missile War . Theres a fair amount of source material from all different kinds of authors, so by reading everybodynot just Wynnes books, but other historians, and the official history put out by the American side and the Soviet side I was able to try and work out what made the most sense and what seemed liked disinformation, says OConnor. Meticulously documenting the wealth of information that Penkovsky provided, Schecter and Deriabin conclusively refute one of the enduring myths of the Cold War - that Oleg Penkovsky was a KGB plant. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. 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. That happened several times.. Gordievsky's Wife was not with him live 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. Peter Wright, a former British MI5 officer known for his scathing condemnation of the leadership of British intelligence during most of the Cold War, believed that Penkovsky was a fake defection. He attended the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 194548. Although Gordievsky has written that he climbed into the trunk of one of the cars, a former CIA officer says he actually crawled into a space in a specially modified Land Rover. In a letter to me from the federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where he is serving a life sentence, Ames wrote: Im quite sure of my recollection that I gave the KGB no names of any other than the two or three double agents/dangles I provided in April 85, until June 13th.. Oleg Penkovsky was arrested in October 1962. 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. When it came to writing the screenplay, OConnor laments that the true story of Wynnes experiences may never be known. David Wise is a journalist and author, best known for his expertise in espionage and intelligence. Moscow, August 3, 1985: It was 2 a.m. when Andrei Poleshchuk got home. Some days passed before his boss, Viktor Grushko, drove him to a KGB dacha, saying some people wanted to talk to him. In addition to Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk, more than a dozen other sources were exposed. After dark they left for a small airport, where Bokhan boarded a CIA plane. 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. Soon after his arrest she collapsed psychologically. To top it off, it would have been physically impossible at the time. Greville Wynnefitthe bill simply assomebody who was taking business into Eastern Europe.". 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.'. The documents provided by Penkovsky showed that the Soviet Union was not prepared for war in the area, which emboldened Kennedy to risk the operation in Cuba. (Howard, Russian authorities reported in 2002, died of a fall in his KGB dacha near Moscow. Never formally acknowledged by the British government, Wynnewrote about his experiences in two self-aggrandizingbooks, "The Man From Moscow" (1967) and "The Man From Odessa" (1981).