The KGB men searched the apartment all night. This gave American officials a clearer picture of what the Soviets were doing in the region, bringing in medium-range ballistic missiles. But it was only a matter of time. Wynne, a British businessman, he offered his services to British intelligence. 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. what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and child Blog [6] This information was invaluable to President John F. Kennedy in negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev for the removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. 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. Penkovsky either was shot or killed himself in prisonthere are disputing accounts. Janet Chisholm | Russia | The Guardian He attended the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 194548. He had planned to write a memoir but died of malariabefore he could begin. After they drove home, he packed a gym bag and announced that he was going for a jog. 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. World War 3: How CIA received imminent nuclear strike warning what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and child The spy who saved the world : how a Soviet colonel changed the course The Penkovsky Papers by Oleg Penkovskiy - Goodreads | Meet your next 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. His dining companion, Dickie Franks, revealed himself to be an officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, and asked Wynne for his help. 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. If he refused the summons, he would destroy his career. 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. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. This photograph was taken in the hotel room at the Mount Royal in London in April 1961, after one of our meetings, where Oleg Penkovsky on the left and yours truly on the right enjoying a small glass of wine. "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 Soviets had arranged for the apparent good news to reach his wife through a friend and former co-worker in Moscow, who wrote to her in Lagos. Oleg Penkovsky - Wikipedia Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. A KGB general told him he had confessed. The President of the Court declared Greville Wynne, aged 44, would serve three years in prison and five in a labour camp. In fact, his contribution to U.S. intelligence and policymaking is exaggerated, distorted, and in several instances falsified. 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. In June 1986, Leonid was tried and, predictably, convicted. They were convicted of espionage. | READ MORE. Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). 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. Alex Palmer is a travel and culture writer who lives in Brooklyn. 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. Wynne and Penkovsky were both arrested by the KGB in November 1962, when some of the information their endeavours produced was of assistance to the West during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 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. 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. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. The domestic impact of foreign clandestine operations: the CIA and academic institutions, the media and religious institutions, Appendix B", The Capture and Execution of Colonel Penkovsky, 1963, "Nonfiction Book Review: The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War by Jerrold L. Schecter, Author, Peter S. Deriabin, With Scribner Book Company ISBN 978-0-684-19068-6", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oleg_Penkovsky&oldid=1136437646, Soviet people executed for spying for the United States, Russian people executed by the Soviet Union, Executed people from North OssetiaAlania, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Russian-language text, Articles having same image on Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2022, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. In 1955 Penkovsky was appointed military attach in Ankara. What Happened To Oleg Penkovsky Wife - Wakelet Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go. After his father was executed, Andrei kept working for Novosti. Because his father opposed the Communist revolution, Penkovsky was routinely denied promotions. JOE BULIK - 31.1.98 - George Washington University The KGB took her to a sanitarium, where she was drugged and interrogated further. Some of the documents provided were originals, which Wright thought could not have been easily taken from their sources. The Courier Review: Cold War Spy Drama Has a Great Cast But - MovieWeb Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. How Soviet Spy Oleg Penkovsky Saved The World - All That's Interesting Janie and 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. For a long time he resented the impact of his fathers CIA spying on his own life. "But you have a responsibility to honor the essence of what happened," says director Dominic Cooke. Would she ever live in the West? 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. A Picture from History: Oleg Penkovsky - Pew Pew Tactical He was probably the West's most valuable double agent during the Cold War. The films screenwriter, Tom OConnor, found Wynnes story of a nobody suddenly becoming a somebody compelling. The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. 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. Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. 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. Oleg Penkovsky and Greville Wynne are directly responsible for its positive outcome. An industrial sales consultant who regularly traveled through Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union representing British electrical and steel companies, Wynne was told it would be helpful if on his next trip, he could arrange for a meeting with a state committee in Moscow dedicated to developing opportunities with foreigners in science and technology, and report back on his conversations. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. Gordievsky was taken home, but Grushko confronted him at the KGB the next day. Was there a fourth mole in the U.S. intelligence system that blew these secret agents covers? Before his father left Lagos, Andrei said, he gave a gold watch to his CIA case officer at the time. [4], Greville Wynne, a British salesman of industrial equipment to countries behind the Iron Curtain, was recruited by MI6 to communicate with Penkovksy. In 1965 his journal, The Penkovskiy Papers, was published in the United States, though the books authenticity has been questioned by some. Here's what to know about Wynne's real history. 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. 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. Col. Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky was considered the wunderkind of the Soviet intelligence services. Why did Wynne make up so much, when the truths of his 18 months as a spy are already filled with astounding details? 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. Occasionally the killer will opt to dispense with the coffin . He was thin, pale and obviously sick. "(Chisholm)played a very important role in the story that we couldn't get into, because it's a whole other movie," Cooke says. 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. In April 1961, through Greville M. Wynne, a British businessman, he offered his services to British intelligence. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. 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 was portrayed by Eduard Bezrodniy in the 2014 Polish thriller Jack Strong, about Ryszard Kukliski, another Cold War spy. Then the car started up again, and the radio, which had been playing pop music, suddenly boomed out SibeliusFinlandia. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. Oleg and Vera are both even-tempered and have mutual respect for each other. In 1997, Andrei and Svetlana emigrated to the United States. In Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky. 3.80. Who was oleg penkovsky wife? - AskingForAnswer Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. Confess again! the general roared. The Courier movie review & film summary (2021) | Roger Ebert Dead Drop: TheTrue Story of Oleg Penkovsky and the Cold War's Most 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. The name of Oleg Penkovsky is not nearly as well known. The emaciated Wynne's returntohis middle-class Londonhomewherehis wife and child waited made for a jarring scene in newsreels at the time. Oleg Gordievsky. Thats when they showed me a piece of paper with the words, I met Joe, Andrei told me. 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. Omissions? 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. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. Top KGB officers had known for more than a year that Penkovsky was a British agent, but they protected their source, a highly placed mole in MI6. He is the author of The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York. Penkovsky provided plans and descriptions of the nuclear rocket launch sites in Cuba to the West. It's the early 1960s and Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a salesman who represents Western manufacturers in foreign countries. 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. Greville Wynne | Military Wiki | Fandom the imminent threat of nuclear war concealed by Soviet peace - JSTOR In the history of U.S. intelligence, only three major molesmen whose betrayals had lethal resultshave been identified. He was detained at Lubyanka prison. It was pathological with him.. 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 played a role in both the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. In addition to Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk, more than a dozen other sources were exposed. The Fascinating Story of the Russians Who Spied for the West on Moscow 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). If I was waiting for the elevator, they went down the stairs. And the intelligence culture is not going to let that go. Gordievsky believes they were waiting to catch him contacting British intelligence. Oleg Penkovsky married (wife played by Maria Mironova, actress and here's a brunette), he has a daughter. 'The Courier' fact check: Benedict Cumberbatch's spy Greville Wynne He decided to leave Athensbut not for Moscow. His dining companion, Dickie Franks, revealed himself to be an officer of the. An Extraordinary Bond: Dominic Cooke on The Courier. In his memoir Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987), written with journalist Paul Greengrass, Wright says: When I first wrote my Penkovsky analysis Maurice Oldfield (later Chief of MI6 in the 1970s), who played a key role in the Penkovsky case as Chief of Station in Washington, told me: 'You've got a long row to hoe with this one, Peter, there's a lot of K's [knighthoods] and Gongs [medals] riding high on the back of Penkovsky' he said, referring to the honours heaped on those involved in the Penkovsky operation. For his treason, Penkovsky was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad days after the trial ended (though Wynne would later claim he died of suicide). 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. As a top ranking Russian officer, he sinks into the depts and rises to the heights of international intrigue. Cookie Policy He did so, but nothing happened. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. He was free. Cuban Missile Crisis: The Untold Story of Russian Spy Oleg Penkovsky Dunlap was just another source they had to protect. During a trip to London in April 1961, the Soviet colonel held a series of . After dark they left for a small airport, where Bokhan boarded a CIA plane. "Thistrue story is a very interesting, skewed way to tellingaticking time-bomb, spy-thriller.". But the chummy interactions between the agents and Penkovskys prolific, even reckless, acquisition of materials grew increasingly perilousand finally caught the KGBs attention. But if he returned home, he could be shot. Tinker, tailor, soldier 'The Courier' - The Boston Globe They had a sumptuous lunchBokhan knew it might be his last meal with his familyand Maria bought a stuffed Greek doll called a patatuff. The Cuban Missile Crisis. They have two children, and he works as an independent research analyst for business and government contractors in Northern Virginia. As they walked on the beach that Saturday, he said his career was in trouble. Your Privacy Rights 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.