His boyhood nickname, back on a collective farm in Ukraine, was Mole. Now a stocky, powerfully built man of 43, he had been working for the GRU for 16 yearsand feeding Soviet secrets to the CIA for 10. For months, Andrei had been hoping his father would find him an apartment. 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. But Wynne paid a heavy price for his heroism. [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. And yet to an intelligence agency, ignoring the possibility of a mole isnt really an option, either. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . The name of Oleg Penkovsky is not nearly as well known. Ten agents were executed and countless others imprisoned. what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and daughter, what happened to oleg penkovsky daughter, what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and child, what happened to oleg penkovsky family, what happened to oleg penkovsky . 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. This information allowed the West to identify the missile sites from the low-resolution pictures provided by US U-2 spy planes. 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. 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. Poleshchuk was lured back to his fate. 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. But, he adds, I would never, ever see her smile again. She died three years later, in 1988. British intelligence officer and Soviet spy. Macintyre writes in the book. The women fed the dogs potato chips to distract them. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. A skilled intelligence officer, he had been promoted a few months before to rezident, or chief, of the KGB station in the British capital. Bokhan froze. As they walked on the beach that Saturday, he said his career was in trouble. Oleg Penkovsky was a Soviet military intelligence colonel during the late Fifties and early Sixties responsible for informing the UK about the Kremlin's emplacement of missiles in Cuba. He always hoped Leila would join him in England. Here's what to know about Wynne's real history. Penkovsky was ultimately undone by a mole within the British government. These things have to be run to ground.. Minutes passed. Moscow seemed to have no clue hed been secretly working for MI6, the British secret intelligence service, for 11 years. Benedict Cumberbatch is known for bringing outlandish, extraordinary characters, from Marvel's "Dr. He asked if they were there to greet an important diplomat. 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. Though a former colonel of the 'KGB' by designation, who was appointed "resident-designate" at the . He succeeded in transferring to the West 111 Minox films with 5,500 top-secret military documents, totaling 7,650 pages, as well as revealing the identities of hundreds of Soviet agents in the West. His work . What happened to wife of Oleg Penkovsky? Oleg Penkovsky was born in Russia in 1919. The following article hopes to help you make more suitable choices and . 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. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. Penkovsky was executed but there are conflicting reports about the manner of his death. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. The career of Oleg Penkovsky reads like a story by John le Carre. [20] The head of the GRU, Ivan Serov was sacked during the same period. pictures of the galvin family; springfield, ma city council candidates; what happened to penkovsky wife The KGB men searched the apartment all night. But it was only a matter of time. It was the KGBs way of saying my father worked for the CIA, Andrei said. [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'". 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. The same year, he said, they spotted the potential of Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, the assistant Soviet military attache in Ankara, Turkey. 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. | READ MORE. 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 The "cremated alive" hypothesis appears in several Clancy novels, though Clancy never identified Penkovsky as the executed spy. The case of Oleg Penkovsky, a CIA and MI6 agent deep inside Soviet military intelligence, provided le Carr inspiration for The Russia House (1989). 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. Leonids original case officer blamed himself for years for letting my father down. "Greville Wynne was anordinary mandoing an extraordinary thing," Cumberbatch says. Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). He was like a walking dead man. In June 1986, Leonid was tried and, predictably, convicted. He was probably the West's most valuable double agent during the Cold War. what happened to penkovsky wifemostar bridge jump injuries. Wright was bitter towards British intelligence, reportedly believing that it should have adopted his proposed methods to identify British/Soviet double agents. 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. When I found a job, the KGB called and they fired me. Relying once again on Varentsov's patronage, he spent nine months studying rocket artillery at Dzerzhinsky Military Academy. This gave American officials a clearer picture of what the Soviets were doing in the region, bringing in medium-range ballistic missiles. Some of the documents provided were originals, which Wright thought could not have been easily taken from their sources. [3] When the US Embassy in Moscow refused to cooperate, fearing an international incident, the CIA contacted MI6 for assistance. 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. Inside were three British intelligence agentsthe candy-bar man and two women, one of whom was Gordievskys MI6 case officer in London. Thats when they showed me a piece of paper with the words, I met Joe, Andrei told me. And the intelligence culture is not going to let that go. His father, Leonid Poleshchuk, was a senior KGB counterintelligence officer, most recently the deputy rezident for counterintelligence in Lagos, Nigeria. The first meeting between Penkovsky and two American and two British intelligence officers occurred during a visit by Penkovsky to London in April 1961. Cookie Policy "He came from a very humble background, but was always trying to better himself," says Cumberbatch. 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. In April 1985, he has said, he told a Soviet contact in Washington the names of two or three double agents who had approached the CIA but who were actually working for the KGBdangles, in intelligence parlance. Upon servicing the dead drop, the American handler was arrested, signaling that Penkovsky had been apprehended by Soviet authorities. After they drove home, he packed a gym bag and announced that he was going for a jog. MI6 sees him and his international dealings as a perfect cover for. [7], Former KGB major-general Oleg Kalugin does not mention Penkovsky in his comprehensive memoir about his career in intelligence against the West. "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. 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. 3.80. The coded exchange triggered a meeting that night with his CIA case officer, Dick Reiser, who cabled headquarters in Langley that BLIZZARD was in trouble. Oleg Gordievsky. When Bokhan escaped from Athens, the KGB hustled his wife back to Moscow, searched her apartment and began a series of interrogations. A skilled intelligence officer, he had been promoted a few months before to rezident, or chief, of the KGB station in the. [18] In a 2010 interview, Suvorov denied that the man in the film[clarification needed] was Penkovsky and said that he had been shot. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. 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. You, in your own mind, have developed this sense of self-importance, says West. Among the explanations are a desire for money or fame, a ruinous case of alcoholism, or perhaps even psychological scars left by his time in Soviet prison or the shame he felt for publicly turning against British intelligence during the trial. 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. They married in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he worked for an independent newspaper in Moscow for a time. Sentenced toeight years in a labor camp, Wynne spent 18 months in Moscow'sLubyanka Prison, where he was subjected to beatings and torture. The FBI declined to comment on whether the search Wiser began is continuing. Terms of Use Businessman Greville Wynne is asked by a Russian source to try to help put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov. He tried again, following the fallback plan, and this time a man carrying a dark-green bag from Harrods, the upscale London department store, walked by eating a candy bar. They had a sumptuous lunchBokhan knew it might be his last meal with his familyand Maria bought a stuffed Greek doll called a patatuff. That fall, the KGB rolled up all of the CIAs assets in the Soviet Union in a lightning strike that sent the agency reeling. Never before had there been a Soviet spy like him.. He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. David Hefner was born in 1955 in Palo Alto, CA, as the son of Hugh Hefner, founder of "Playboy" magazine. "He did make a life for himself, but Greville Wynne did pay a big price for his service. Soon after they arrived in the United States, there was a ceremony honoring his father at a Russian Orthodox church in Washington. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. 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 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. Oleg Penkovsky and Greville Wynne are directly responsible for its positive outcome. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. 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. The burden of that is hard to imagine.. They know.. After his father was executed, Andrei kept working for Novosti. His father, an avowed communist, served in the NKVD, Joseph Stalin's secret police, a forerunner of the KGB. I was angry because I was dropped from military school and sent to the Army, far off, near Vladivostok, he said. 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. 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. 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. Penkovsky-wynne spy trial, May 1963, a Sanyo portable transistor radio . Some days passed before his boss, Viktor Grushko, drove him to a KGB dacha, saying some people wanted to talk to him. In the back seat were a jacket, hat and sunglasses. Why did Wynne make up so much, when the truths of his 18 months as a spy are already filled with astounding details? No products in the cart. If he refused the summons, he would destroy his career. Oleg Penkovskiy. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The information he provided on the Soviets relatively weak capability in long-range missiles proved invaluable to the United States before and during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. The daughter of a Russian mother . I was 18 years old. He sees that episode differently now. In the morning, they took usmy mother, my grandmother and meand put us in separate black Volgas, Andrei said. He was probably the Wests most valuable double agent during the Cold War. Impossible. He was free. Penkovsky papers, they do provide a fascinating glimpse into the strange and distorted world of Communism in the Soviet Union. With the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, it seemed that the mole hunters had found their quarry. 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. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Through the windows of the ground-floor apartment he shared with his parents, he could see strangers moving about. With Vladimir Chuprikov, Merab Ninidze, James Schofield, Fred Haig. 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. At first I couldnt even recognize him, Andrei said. Andrei Poleshchuk told me his fathers arrest was a disaster for his mother. Confess again! the general roared. A KGB general told him he had confessed. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. 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. Faced with these unexplained losses, the CIA in October 1986 set up a small, highly secret mole-hunting unit to uncover the cause of this disaster. This is the scenario described in The mail, and that generally accepted by . The Cuban Missile Crisis. Joe had become very close to my father and worried that some action by him, some error, had led to his betrayal.. [17] A similar description was later included in Ernest Volkman's popular history book about spies, Tom Clancy's novel Red Rabbit and in Viktor Suvorov's book Aquarium. When the driver turned off the engine, Gordievsky could hear dogs close byAlsatians, he later learned. He had graduated from school and found a good job, and he wanted to live on his own. What neither the CIA nor Poleshchuk knew was that the apartment was a KGB operation. He decided to leave Athensbut not for Moscow. After Penkovsky and Wynne were captured by the KGB, which happened very similar to how their capture is depicted in the film, the GRU lieutenant colonel been convicted of treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. Corrections? 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. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It is possible that Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk fell under KGB suspicion through some operational error or communications intercept. He divorced his first wife Sheila after his return before entering a second failed marriage. | READ MORE. But some highly experienced U.S. counterintelligence experts doubt it. Hanssen, who was convicted of espionage, is serving a life sentence in the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado. 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. Oleg Penkovsky, then a colonel in Russia's military intelligence service known as the GRU, had already passed along intelligence about the shoot-down of American satellite planes in Soviet territory and information on his own GRU graduating class. Oleg and Vera are both even-tempered and have mutual respect for each other.
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