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. As Penkovskys position necessitated travel to Britain, the Russians initially didnt suspect him of espionage. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The papers show that. Boy and daughter now Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky were captured by the Soviets in 1962. 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. This both kills the victim and disposes of the body in one fell swoop. Afterward, we drove to a home in Virginia for a reception, where I met Joe, Andrei told me in a conversation over lunch at a restaurant tucked away on a side street in Washington. How Penkovsky and Wynne did it, how they were caught, and what happened to them next is the focus of The Courier. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Trong khi , mt ip vin ca GRU tn . Rookie Cops Episode 9 Release Date and Time, Countdown, When Is It Coming Out? Wynne had a notorious track record for fabrications, however. Whether your office needs a reliable exterminator or your home is under attack by a variety of rodents and insects, you dont need to fear anymore, because we are here to help you out. Without the senior Soviet military intelligence officer or his active role as a double agent during that time the Cold War could have gotten very hot. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [4], Greville Wynne, a British salesman of industrial equipment to countries behind the Iron Curtain, was recruited by MI6 to communicate with Penkovksy. This is a picture of Oleg Penkovsky in his uniform and all of his medals, which he earned during World War Two. The film sees him arrested on a plane leaving. harvp error: no target: CITEREFSchecterDeriabinPenkovskij1992 (. Now, his relationship is perfect. On the appointed day he startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off anyone who might be watching 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. Examining this moment in Cold War Era history, the film does a good job of remaining historically accurate with a . The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. JB: In the 1960s, TWA used to take a Polaroid pictures of some of its passengers and this one was taken actually while I was on my first trip to London in April 1961. They are in relation from previous few years of a strong relationship. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) and Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) are players in the lesser known true life spy story of "The Courier." Benedict Cumberbatch film opens in cinemas UPDATED. He stayed in safe houses in Virginia at first, then lived half a year in California to learn English, moved back East and consulted for the CIA and some U.S. companies. It was scary.. He was arrested for espionage in Budapest on Nov. 16, 1962. He sort of fought the Nazis off in Kiev, and was leading that and was decorated 13 times. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. Alexander Zagvozdin, chief KGB interrogator for the investigation, stated that Penkovsky had been "questioned perhaps a hundred times" and that he had been shot and cremated. The KGB men searched the apartment all night. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. That happened several times.. Thanks to Penkovskys Ironbark files, CIA analysts were able to accurately identify the Soviet missiles that had been photographed in Cuba and give President Kennedy precise reports on the range and strength of those weapons. What happened to their family? [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. Over the course of his espionage, he delivered rolls of film, classified documents, and over 5,000 photos. At least the timeline based on what Ames said when he was debriefed.If it wasnt Ames, then it was someone else, so we began to search for the source of the compromise, Wiser said. Soon after they arrived in the United States, there was a ceremony honoring his father at a Russian Orthodox church in Washington. 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. Their caution in this matter may have led to the missiles being discovered earlier than the Soviets would have preferred. [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. Arrested? As MacIntyre reminds us, the rumor has always been that MI6-CIA agent Oleg Penkovsky, betrayed by British-spy-turned-Soviet-agent George Blake, had been cremated alive in 1963 by the KGB after . Now a legitimate double agent, Oleg Penkovsky spent the next two years providing his Western contacts with stolen top-secret documents, war plans, military manuals and nuclear missile diagrams. (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. 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. After stops in Madrid and Frankfurt, a military jet flew him across the Atlantic. After 14 days of strained negotiations, on October 28 Khruschev agreed to withdraw Soviet weapons from Cuba and the world breathed a sigh of relief. Then the car started up again, and the radio, which had been playing pop music, suddenly boomed out SibeliusFinlandia. In simple terms, the GRU was Soviet army intelligence. I was 18 years old. He sees that episode differently now. Leonid never made it to the rock, his son said. Would she ever live in the West? More than a year before the crisis, they had recruited a civilian, British businessman Greville Wynne, to do so. Five days after Bokhan received the cable about his son, he took his wife, Alla, and their 10-year-old daughter, Maria, to the beach. How Soviet Spy Oleg Penkovsky Single-Handedly Prevented Nuclear War During The Cuban Missile Crisis. Penkovsky was portrayed by Eduard Bezrodniy in the 2014 Polish thriller Jack Strong, about Ryszard Kukliski, another Cold War spy. His spying career was the subject of episode 1 of the 2007 BBC Television docudrama Nuclear Secrets, titled "The Spy from Moscow" in which he was portrayed by Mark Bonnar. Poleshchuk was lured back to his fate. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. 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. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. On September 21, 1985, Howard eluded FBI surveillance and escaped into the New Mexico desert with the help of his wife, Mary, and a pop-up dummy in his cars passenger seat (a technique he had learned in CIA training). Oleg and Vera are both even-tempered and have mutual respect for each other. The CIA delayed in contacting him. between this and #ThePowerOfDog lately, he might as well be the best actor in the world right now. We know very well that youve been deceiving us for years, he said. 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. Over the course of his espionage, he delivered rolls of film, classified documents, and over 5,000 photos. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()). The women fed the dogs potato chips to distract them. He later worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research. His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . Continuing the family, Greville Wynne had a son named Andrew Wynne. 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. 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. Oleg Gordievsky is a Russian-born former British secret agent. Some believe Penkovsky was burned alive as Soviet punishment for his treasonous espionage. His work helped American intelligence confirm that Soviet nuclear capabilities were vastly inferior to Americas arsenal information that would prove vital in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. Some of the documents provided were originals, which Wright thought could not have been easily taken from their sources. Cold fear started to run down my back, he told me. Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. The reply came in Russian: "Bratskaya mogila" -- a common, unmarked grave. With the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, it seemed that the mole hunters had found their quarry. John Turner. 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. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. [12], Penkovsky's activities were revealed by Jack Dunlap, a National Security Agency (NSA) employee and Soviet spy working for the KGB. Oleg Penkovsky was born in a small town on the 23rd of April in 1919. [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. How the traitor Oleg Penkovsky was 7 7.The Courier vs. the True Story of British Spy Greville Wynne 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. Greville Wynnes cause of death: Where is his family? What happened to wife of Oleg Penkovsky? Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesBritish spy Greville Wynne was Penkovskys contact and intermediate to MI6. PG-13 I remember Oleg Penkovsky (a scintillating Merab Nididze) very well. Oleg Penkovsky was born in Russia in 1919. That day was June 13, 1985, by Ames account. 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. He decided to leave Athensbut not for Moscow. Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). 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. A large man let him in and flashed a badge. He was most popular as the messenger who could give highly confidential information about the Soviets. Bokhans son, Alex, also made it to the U.S., in 1995. We have no information about his girlfriend/boyfriend. It doesnt matter, he said, and quoted a Russian proverb: S milym rai i v shalashe. If you love somebody, you will have heaven even in a tent. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. Penkovsky (right) during his trial. Before Leonid Poleshchuk left Lagos, he had asked the CIA for $20,000 to buy the apartment that was supposedly waiting for him. Milton Bearden, who held several senior posts is his 30-year career at the CIA, is convinced there was a traitor, as yet undetected. A mini-documentary about Oleg Penkovsky and his efforts during the Cold War. After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. Son And Daughter Now Greville Wynne And Oleg Penkovsky were both arrested by the Soviets in 1962. 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. Confess again! the general roared. But unlike other famous characters, his personality, the role he played and what . 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